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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April
+1863, 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: Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863
+       Devoted to Literature and National Policy
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: August 19, 2009 [EBook #29736]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTINENTAL MONTHLY, APRIL 1863 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by Cornell
+University Digital Collections)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE
+
+  CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:
+
+  DEVOTED TO
+
+  LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.
+
+
+  VOL. III.--APRIL, 1863.--No. IV.
+
+
+
+
+THE WONDERS OF WORDS.
+
+
+Every nation has its legend of a 'golden age'--when all was young and
+fresh and fair--'_comme les couleurs primitives de la nature_'--even
+before the existence of this gaunt shadow of Sorrow--_the shadow of
+ourselves_--that ever stalks in company with us;--an epoch of Saturnian
+rule, when gods held sweet converse with men, and man primeval bounded
+with all the elasticity of god-given juvenility:
+
+        ('Ah! remember,
+  This--all this--was in the olden
+  Time long ago.')
+
+And even now, in spite of our atheism and our apathism, amid all the
+overwhelming world-influences of this great 'living Present'--the ghost
+of the dead Past will come rushing back upon us with its solemn voices
+and its infinite wailings of pity: but soft and faint it comes; for the
+wild jarrings of the Now almost prevent us from hearing its still, small
+voices. It
+
+  'Is but a _dim-remembered_ story
+   Of the old time entombed.'
+
+Besides, what is History but the story of the bygone? The elegy, too,
+comes to us as the last lamenting, sadly solemn swan-song of that
+glorious golden time. And, indeed, are not all poesies but various notes
+of that mighty diapason of Thought and Feeling, that has, through the
+ages, been singing itself in jubilee and wail?
+
+So it is in the individual--(for is not the individual ever the
+rudimental, formula-like expression of that awful problem which nations
+and humanity itself are slowly and painfully working out?): in the
+'moonlight of memory' these sorrowful mementos revisit every one of us;
+and
+
+        ----'But I am not _now_
+  That which I _have been_'--
+
+and _vanitas vanitatum!_ are not only the satisfied croakings of _blasé_
+Childe Harolds, but our universal experience; while from childhood's
+gushing glee even unto manhood's sad satiety, we feel that all are
+nought but the phantasmagoria
+
+                    'of a creature
+  _Moving about in worlds not realized_.'
+
+Listen now to a snatch of melody:
+
+     'The rainbow comes and goes,
+      And lovely is the rose,
+      The moon doth with delight
+    Look round her when the heavens are bare;
+      Waters on a starry night
+      Are beautiful and fair;
+    The sunshine is a glorious birth;
+      But yet I know, wherever I go,
+  That there hath passed away a glory from the earth!'
+
+So saith the mild Braminical Wordsworth. Now it will be remembered that
+Wordsworth, in that glorious ode whence we extract the above, develops
+the Platonic idea (shall we call Platonic that which has been
+entertained by the wise and the _feeling_ of all times?) of a shadowy
+recollection of past and eternal existence in the profundities of the
+Divine Heart. 'It sounds forth here a mournful remembrance of a faded
+world of gods and heroes--as the echoing plaint for the loss of man's
+original, celestial state, and paradisiacal innocence.' And then we have
+those transcendent lines that come to us like aromatic breezes blowing
+from the Spice Islands:
+
+     'Hence in a season of calm weather,
+      Though inland far we be,
+  Our souls have sight of that immortal sea,
+      Which brought us hither,
+      Can in a moment travel thither,
+  And see the Children sport upon the shore,
+  And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.'
+
+But,
+
+                 'descending
+  From these imaginative heights that yield
+  Far-stretching views into eternity,'--
+
+what have the golden age and Platonic _dicta_ to do with our
+word-ramble? A good deal. For we will endeavor to show that words, being
+the very sign-manual of man's convictions, contain the elements of what
+may throw light on both. To essay this:
+
+Why is it that we generally speak of death as a 'return,' or a 'return
+home'? And how is it that this same idea has so remarkably interwoven
+itself with the very warp and woof of our language and poetry?--so that
+in our fervency, we can sing:
+
+  'Jerusalem, my glorious _home_,' etc.
+
+Does not the very idea (not to mention the composition of the word) of a
+'return' involve a previously having been in the place? And we can
+scarcely call that 'home' where we have never been before. So, that 'old
+Hebrew book' sublimely tells us that 'the spirit of the man _returneth_
+to God who gave it.'
+
+Is it possible that these can be obscure intimations of that bygone time
+when WE were rocked in the bosom of the Divine consciousness?
+Perhaps.... And now if the reader will pardon a piece of moralizing, we
+would say that these expressions teach us in the most emphatic way
+that--'_This is not our rest_.' So that when we have dived into every
+mine of knowledge and drunk from every fountain of pleasure; when, with
+Dante, we arrive at the painful conclusion that
+
+  'Tutto l'oro, ch'è sotto la luna,
+  E che già fu, di queste anime stanche
+  Non poterebbe farne posar una,'
+
+(since, indeed, the Finite can never gain entire satisfaction in
+itself)--we may not despair, but still the heart-throbbings, knowing
+that He who has--for a season--enveloped us in the mantle of this
+sleep-rounded life, and thrown around himself the drapery of the
+universe--spangling it with stars--will again take us back to his
+fatherly bosom.
+
+Somewhat analogous to these, and arguing the eternity of our existence,
+we have such words as 'decease,' which merely imports a _withdrawal_;
+'demise,' implying also a laying down, a _removal_. By the way, it is
+rather curious to observe the notions in the mind of mankind that have
+given rise to the words expressing 'death.' Thus we have the Latin word
+_mors_--allied, perhaps, to the Greek [Greek: moros] and [Greek:
+moira],[1] from [Greek: meiromai]--to _portion out_, to _assign_. Even
+this, however, there was a repulsion to using; and both the Greeks and
+Romans were wont to slip clear of the employment of their [Greek:
+thanatos], _mors_, etc., by such circumlocutions as _vitam suam mutare,
+transire e seculo_; [Greek: koimêsato chalkeon hypnon]--_he slept the
+brazen sleep_ (Homer's Iliad, [Greek: Lamda], 241); [Greek: ton de
+skotos oss' ekalypsen]--_and darkness covered his eyes_ (Iliad, [Greek:
+Zeta], 11); or _he completeth the destiny of life_, etc. This reminds us
+of the French aversion to uttering their _mort_. These expressions,
+again, are suggestive of our 'fate,' with an application similar to the
+Latin _fatum_, which, indeed, is none other than 'id quod _fatum est_ a
+deis'--a God's word. So that in this sense we may all be considered
+'fatalists,' and all things _fated_. Why not? However, in the following
+from _Festus_, it is the 'deil' that makes the assertion:
+
+  'FESTUS.         Forced on us.
+
+  LUCIFER.  _All things are of necessity._
+
+  FESTUS.       Then best.
+
+  But the good are never fatalists. The bad
+  Alone act by necessity, they say.
+
+  LUCIFER. It matters not what men assume to be;
+   Or good, or bad, they are but what they are.'
+
+In which we may agree that his majesty was not so very far wrong.
+
+Moreover, 'Why _should_ we mourn departed friends?'--since we know that
+they are but lying in the [Greek: moimêtêrion] (cemetery)--the _sleeping
+place_; or, as the vivid old Hebrew faith would have it, _the house of
+the living_ (Bethaim). Is not this testimony for the soul's immortality
+worth as much as all the rhapsody written thereon, from Plato to
+Addison?
+
+Some words are the very essence of poetry; redolent with all beauteous
+phantasies; odoriferous as flowers in spring, or discoursing an awful
+organ-melody, like to the re-bellowing of the hoarse-sounding sea. For
+instance, those two noble old Saxon words 'main' and 'deep,' that we
+apply to the ocean--what a music is there about them! The 'main' is the
+_maegen_--the strength, the _strong one_; the great 'deep' is precisely
+what the name imports. Our employment of 'deep' reminds of the Latin
+_altum_, which, properly signifying high or lofty, is, by a familiar
+species of metonymy, put for its opposite.
+
+By the way, how exceedingly timid are our poets and poetasters generally
+of the open sea--_la pleine mer_. They linger around the shores thereof,
+in a vain attempt to sit snugly there _à leur aise_, while they 'call
+spirits from the vasty deep'--that never did and never would come on
+such conditions, though they grew hoarse over it. We all remember how
+Sandy Smith labors with making abortive _grabs_ at its _amber tails_,
+_main_, etc. (rather slippery articles on the whole)--but he is not
+
+  'A shepherd in the Hebrid Isles,
+  _Placed far amid the melancholy main!_'
+
+Hail shade of Thomson! But hear how the exile sings it:
+
+  'La mer! partout la mer! des flots, des flots encor!
+  L'oiseau fatigue en vain son inégal essor.
+     Ici les flots, là-bas les ondes.
+  Toujours des flots sans fin par des flots repoussés;
+  L'oeil ne voit que des flots dans l'abime entassés
+     Rouler sous les vaques profondes.'[2]
+
+This we, for our part, would pronounce one of the very best open-sea
+sketches we have ever met with; and if the reader will take even our
+unequal rendering, he may think so too.
+
+  'The sea! all round, the sea! flood, flood o'er billow surges!
+   In vain the bird fatigued its faltering wing here urges.
+     Billows beneath, waves, waves around;
+  Ever the floods (no end!) by urging floods repulsed;
+  The eye sees but the waves, in an abyss engulphed,
+     Roll 'neath their lairs profound.'
+
+'Aurora' comes to us as a remnant of that beautiful Grecian mythology
+that deified and poetized everything; and even to us she is still the
+'rosy-fingered daughter of the morn.' The 'Levant,' 'Orient,' and
+'Occident' are all of them poetical, for they are all true translations
+from nature. The 'Levant' is where the sun is _levant_, raising himself
+up. 'Orient' will be recognized as the same figure from _orior_; while
+'occident' is, of course, the opposite in signification, namely, the
+declining, the 'setting' place.
+
+'Lethe' is another classic myth. It is [Greek: ho tês lêthês
+potamos]--the river of forgetfulness, 'the oblivious pool.' Perhaps is
+it that all of us, as well as the son of Thetis, had a dip therein.
+
+There exists not a more poetic expression than 'Hyperborean,' _i. e._
+[Greek: hyperboreos]--_beyond Boreas_; or, as a modern poet finely and
+faithfully expands it:
+
+               'Beyond those regions cold
+  Where dwells the Spirit of the North-Wind,
+     Boreas old.'
+
+Homer never manifested himself to be more of a poet than in the creation
+of this word. By the way, the Hyperboreans were regarded by the ancients
+as an extremely happy and pious people.
+
+How few of those who use that very vague, grandiloquent word 'Ambrosial'
+know that it has reference to the 'ambrosia' ([Greek: ambrotos],
+_immortal_), the food of the gods! It has, however, a secondary
+signification, namely, that of an unguent, or perfume, hence fragrant;
+and this is probably the prevailing idea in our 'ambrosial': instance
+Milton's 'ambrosial flowers.' It was, like the 'nectar' ([Greek:
+nektar], an _elixir vitæ_), considered a veritable elixir of
+immortality, and consequently denied to men.
+
+The Immortals, in their golden halls of 'many-topped Olympus,' seem to
+have led a merry-enough life of it over their nectar and ambrosia, their
+laughter and intrigues.
+
+But not half as jolly were they as were Odin and the Iotun--dead drunk
+in Valhalla over their mead and ale, from
+
+        'the ale-cellars of the Iotun,
+  Which is called Brimir.'
+
+The daisy (Saxon _Daeges ege_) has often been cited as fragrant with
+poesy. It is the _Day's Eye_: we remember Chaucer's affectionate lines:
+
+        'Of all the floures in the mede
+  Than love I most those floures of white and rede,
+  Such that men called _daisies_ in our toun,
+  To them I have so great affection.'
+
+Nor is he alone in his love for the
+
+  _'Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flouer.'_
+
+An odoriferous-enough (etymologic) bouquet could we cull from the names
+of Flora's children. What a beauty is there in the 'primrose,' which is
+just the _prime_-rose; in the 'Beauty of the Night' and the 'Morning
+Glory,' except when a pompous scientific terminology, would convert it
+into a _convolvulus_! So, too, the 'Anemone' ([Greek: anemos], the
+wind-flower), into which it is fabled Venus changed her Adonis. What a
+story of maiden's love does the 'Sweet William' tell; and how many
+charming associations cluster around the 'Forget-me-not!' Again, is
+there not poetry in calling a certain family of minute crustacea, whose
+two eyes meet and form a single round spot in the centre of the head,
+'Cyclops'--([Greek: kyklôps], circular-eyed)?
+
+And if any one thinketh that there cannot be poetry even in the dry
+technicalities of science, let him take such an expression as 'coral,'
+which, in the original Greek, [Greek: koralion], signifies a _sea
+damsel_; or the chemical 'cobalt,' 'which,' remarks Webster, 'is said to
+be the German _Kobold_, a goblin, the demon of the mines; so called by
+miners, because cobalt was troublesome to miners, and at first its value
+was not known.' Ah! but these terms were created before _Science_, in
+its rigidity, had taught us the _truth_ in regard to these matters. Yes!
+and fortunate is it for us that we still have words, and ideas
+clustering around these words, that have not yet been chilled and
+exanimated by the frigid touch of an empirical knowledge. For
+
+  'Still the heart doth need a language, still
+  Doth the old instinct bring back the old names.'
+
+And may benign heaven deliver us from those buckram individuals who
+imagine that Nature is as narrow and rigid as their own contracted
+selves, and who would seek to array her in their own exquisite
+bottle-green bifurcations and a _gilet à la mode_! These characters
+always put us in mind of the statues of Louis XIV, in which he is
+represented as Jupiter or Hercules, nude, with the exception of the
+lion's hide thrown round him--_and the long, flowing peruke_ of the
+times! O Jupiter _tonans_! let us have either the lion or the ass--only
+let it be _veracious_!
+
+To proceed: 'Auburn' is probably connected with _brennan_, and means
+_sun-burned_, analogous, indeed, to 'Ethiopian' ([Greek: Aithiops]),
+_one whom the sun has looked upon_.
+
+How seldom do we think, in uttering 'adieu,' that we verily say, I
+commend you _à Dieu_--to God; that the lightly-spoken _good-by_ means
+_God be wi' you_,[3] or that the (if possible) still more frequent and
+_unthinking_ 'thank you,' in reality assures the person addressed--_I
+will think often of you_.
+
+'Eld' is a word that has the poetic aroma about it, and is an example
+(of which we might adduce additional cases from the domain of 'poetic
+diction') of a word set aside from a prose use and devoted exclusively
+to poetry. It is, as we know, Saxon, signifying _old_ or _old age_, and
+was formerly in constant use in this sense; as, for instance, in
+Chaucer's translation of _Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiæ_, we find
+thus:
+
+     'At laste no drede ne might overcame tho muses, that thei ne weren
+     fellowes, and foloweden my waie, that is to saie, when I was
+     exiled, thei that weren of my youth whilom welfull and grene,
+     comforten now sorrowfull weirdes of me olde man: for _elde_ is
+     comen unwarely upon me, hasted by the harmes that I have, and
+     sorowe hath commaunded his age to be in me.'
+
+So in the _Knightes Tale_:
+
+  'As sooth in said _elde_ hath gret avantage;
+  In _elde_ is both wisdom and usage:
+  Men may the old out-renne but not out-rede.'
+
+Oh! what an overflowing fulness of truth and beauty is there wrapped up
+in the core of these articulations that we so heedlessly utter, would we
+but make use of the wizard's wand wherewith to evoke them! What an
+exhaustless wealth does there lie in even the humblest fruitage and
+flowerage of language, and what a fecundity have even dry 'roots'!
+
+'Thinkest thou there were no poets till Dan Chaucer?' asks our great
+Thomas; 'no heart burning with a thought, which it could not hold, and
+had no word for; and needed to shape and coin a word for--what thou
+callest a metaphor, trope, or the like? For every word we have, there
+was such a man and poet. The coldest word was once a glowing new
+metaphor, and bold questionable originality. 'Thy very ATTENTION, does
+it not mean an _attentio_, a STRETCHING-TO?' Fancy that act of the mind
+which all were conscious of, which none had yet named--when this new
+'poet' first felt bound and driven to name it! His questionable
+originality and new glowing metaphor was found adoptible, intelligible;
+and remains our name for it to this day.'[4]
+
+This seems to be a pet etymology of Carlyle, as he makes Professor
+Teufelsdröckh give it to us also.
+
+Nor less of a poet was that Grecian man who first named this beauteous
+world--with its boundless unity in variety--the [Greek: kosmos],[5] the
+_order_, the _adornment_. But
+
+  'Alas, for the rarity
+  Of Christian charity,'
+
+and
+
+  'Ah! the inanity
+  Of frail humanity,'
+
+that first induced some luckless mortal to give to certain mysterious
+compounds the appellation of _cosmetics_! But here is an atonement; for
+even in our unmythical, unbelieving days, the god 'Terminus' is made to
+stand guard over every railway station! Again, how finely did the Roman
+call his heroism his 'virtus'--his _vir_tue--his _manliness_. With the
+Italians, however, it became quite a different thing; for his 'virtu' is
+none other than his love of the fine arts (these being to him the only
+subject of _manly_ occupation), a mere _objet de vertu_; and his
+_virtuoso_ has no more virtuousness or manliness about him than what
+appertains to being skilled in these same fine arts. With us, our
+'virtue' is ... well, as soon as we can find out, we will tell you.
+
+By the way, in what a _bathos_ of mystery are most of our terms
+expressing the moral relations plunged! Some philosophers have declared
+that truth lies at the bottom of a well;--the well in which the truth in
+regard to these matters lies would seem to stretch far enough
+down--reaching, in fact, almost to the kingdom of the Inane. The
+beautiful simplicity of Bible truths has often become so perverted--so
+overloaded by the vain works (and _words_) of man's device--as barely to
+escape total extinction. Witness 'repentance'; in what a farrago of
+endless absurdities and palpable contradictions has this word (and, more
+unfortunately still, the thing itself along with it) been enveloped!
+According to the 'divines,' what does it not signify? Its composition,
+we very well know, gives us _poenitentia_, from _poenitere_, to _be
+sorry_, to _regret_--and such is its true and _only_ meaning. 'This
+design' (that of the analysis of language in its elementary forms), says
+Wilkins, 'will likewise contribute much to the clearing of some of our
+modern differences in religion; by unmasking many wild errors, that
+shelter themselves under the disguise of affected phrases; which being
+philosophically unfolded, and rendered according to the genuine and
+natural importance of words, will appear to be inconsistencies and
+absurdities.' Nor would he have gone very far astray had he put
+_philosophy_ and _politics_ under the same category. Strip the gaudy
+dress and trappings from an expression, and it will have a most marked
+result. Analysis is a terrible humiliation to your mysticism and your
+grandiloquence--and an awful bore to those who depend for effect on
+either. We have something to say hereafter on those astonishingly
+profound oracles whose only depth is in the terminology they employ. In
+the mean time, expect not too much of words. Never, in all our
+philologic researches, must we lose sight of the fact that _words are
+but the daughters of earth, while things are the sons of heaven_. This
+expecting too much of words has been the fruitful source of innumerable
+errors. To resume:
+
+Take a dozen words (to prove our generosity, we will let it be a baker's
+dozen) illustrative of this same principle of metaphor that governs the
+mechanism of language, and sheds a glory and a beauty around even our
+every-day fireside words; so that even those that seem hackneyed, worn
+out, and apparently tottering with the imbecility of old age--would we
+but get into the core of them--will shine forth with all the expressive
+meaning of their spring time--with the blush and bloom of poesy--
+
+  'All redolent with youth and flowers,'
+
+and prove their very abusers--poets.
+
+The 'halcyon' days! What a balmy serenity hovers around them--basking in
+the sunlight of undisturbed tranquillity. This we feel; but how we
+realize it after reading the little _family secret_ that it wraps up!
+The [Greek: Halkyôn] (halcyon)--_alcedo hispida_--was the name applied
+by the Greeks to the _kingfisher_ (a name commonly derived from [Greek:
+hals, kyô], i. e., _sea-conceiving_, from the fact of this bird's being
+said to lay her eggs in rocks near the sea); and the [Greek: halkyonides
+hêmerai]--_halcyon days_--were those fourteen 'during the calm weather
+about the winter solstice,' during which the bird was said to build her
+nest and lay her eggs; hence, by an easy transition, perfect quietude in
+general.
+
+Those who have felt the bitter, biting effect of 'sarcasm,' will hardly
+be disposed to consider it a metaphor even, should we trace it back to
+the Greek [Greek: sarkazô]--_to tear off the flesh_ ([Greek: sarx]),
+_literally_, to 'flay.' 'Satire,' again, has an arbitrary-enough origin;
+it is _satira_, from _satur_, _mixed_; and the application is as
+follows: each species of poetry had, among the Romans, its own special
+kind of versification; thus the hexameter was used in the epic, the
+iambic in the drama, etc. Ennius, however, the earliest Latin
+'satirist,' first disregarded these conventionalities, and introduced a
+_medley_ (satira) of all kinds of metres. It afterward, however, lost
+this idea of a _melange_, and acquired the notion of a poem 'directed
+against the vices and failings of men with a view to their correction.'
+
+Perhaps we owe to reviewing the metaphorical applications of such terms
+as 'caustic,' 'mordant,' 'piquant,' etc., in their _burning_, _biting_,
+and _pricking_ senses.
+
+But 'review,' itself, we are to regard as pure metaphor. Our friend
+'Snooks,' at least, found _that_ out; for, instead of _re_-viewing--_i.
+e._, viewing again and again his book, they pronounced it to be
+decidedly bad without any examination whatever. A 'critic' we all
+recognize in his character of _judge_ or _umpire_; but is it that he
+always possesses discrimination--has he always _insight_ (for these are
+the primary ideas attaching themselves to [Greek: krinô], whence [Greek:
+kritikos] comes)--does he divide between the merely arbitrary and
+incidental, and see into the absolute and eternal Art-Soul that vivifies
+a poem or a picture? If so, then is he a critic indeed.
+
+How perfectly do 'invidiousness' and 'envy'[6] express the _looking over
+against_ (_in-video_)--the _askance gaze_--the natural development of
+that painful mental state which poor humanity is so subject to! So with
+'obstinacy' (_ob-sto_), which, by the way, the phrenologists represent,
+literally enough, by an ass in a position which assuredly Webster had in
+his mind when he wrote his definition of this word; thus: ... '_in a
+fixedness in opinion or resolution that cannot be shaken at all, or
+without great difficulty_.'
+
+Speaking of this reminds us of those very capital 'Illustrations of
+Phrenology,' by Cruikshank, with which we all are familiar, and where,
+for example, '_veneration_ is exemplified by a stout old gentleman, with
+an ample paunch, gazing with admiring eyes and uplifted hands on the fat
+side of an ox fed by Mr. Heavyside, and exhibited at the stall of a
+butcher. In this way a Jew old-clothes man, holding his hand on his
+breast with the utmost earnestness, while in the other he offers a coin
+for a pair of slippers, two pairs of boots, three hats, and a large
+bundle of clothes, to an old woman, who, evidently astonished all over,
+exclaims, 'A shilling!' is an illustration of _conscientiousness_. A
+dialogue of two fishwomen at Billingsgate illustrates _language_, and a
+riot at Donnybrook Fair explains the phrenological doctrine of
+_combativeness_.'
+
+But peace to the 'bumps,' and pass we on. Could anything be more
+completely metaphorical than such expressions as 'egregious' and
+'fanatic?' 'Egregious' is chosen, _e-grex_--_out of the flock_, i. e.,
+the best sheep, etc., selected from the rest, and set aside for sacred
+purposes; hence, _distingué_. This word, though occupying at present
+comparatively neutral ground, seems fast merging toward its worst
+application. Can it be that an 'egregious' _rogue_ is an article of so
+much more frequent occurrence than an 'egregiously' _honest_ man, that
+incongruity seems to subsist between the latter? 'Fanatic,' again, is
+just the Roman '_fanaticus_,' one addicted to the _fana_,[7] the temples
+in which the 'fanatici' or fanatics were wont to spend an extraordinary
+portion of their time. But besides this, their religious fervor used to
+impel them to many extravagances, such as cutting themselves with
+knives, etc., and hence an 'ultraist' (one who goes _beyond_ (ultra) the
+notions of other people) in any sense. Whereupon it might be remarked
+that though
+
+  'Coelum, non animum, mutant qui trans mare currunt,'
+
+may, in certain applications, be true, it is surely not so in the case
+of a good many words. Thus this very instance, 'fanatic,' which, among
+the Romans, implied one who had an _extra share of devotion_, is, among
+us--the better informed on this head--by a very curious and very
+unfathomable figure (disfigure?) of speech or logic, applied to one who
+has a peculiar _penchant_ for human liberty!
+
+  'In the most high and _palmy_ state of Rome,
+  A little ere the mighty Julius fell,
+  The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
+  Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.'
+
+We do not quote this for the sake of the making-the-hair-to-stand-on-end
+tendencies of the last two lines, but through the voluptuous quiescence
+of the first,
+
+  'In the most high and palmy state of Rome,'
+
+to introduce the beautifully metaphorical expression, 'palmy.' It will,
+of course, be immediately recognized as being from the 'palm' tree; that
+is to say, _palm-abounding_. And what visions of orient splendor does it
+bear with it, wafting on its wings the very aroma of the isles of the
+blest--[Greek: makarôn nêsoi]--or
+
+  'Where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
+  Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold!'
+
+It bears us away with it, and we stand on that sun-kissed land
+
+  'Whose rivers wander over sands of gold,'
+
+with a houri lurking in every 'bosky bourne,' and the beauteous palm,
+waving its umbrageous head, at once food, shade, and shelter.
+
+The palm being to the Oriental of such passing price, we can easily
+imagine how he would so enhance its value as to make it the type of
+everything that is prosperous and glorious and 'palmy,' the _beau-ideal_
+of everything that is flourishing. Hear what Sir Walter Raleigh says on
+this subject: 'Nothing better proveth the excellency of this soil than
+the abundant growing of the _palm trees_ without labor of man. _This
+tree alone giveth unto man whatsoever his life beggeth at nature's
+hand._'
+
+'Paradise,' too, is oriental in all its associations. It is [Greek:
+paradeisos],[8] that is, a _park_ or _pleasure ground_, in which sense
+it is constantly employed by Xenophon, as every weary youth who has
+_parasanged_ it with him knows. By the LXX it was used in a metaphorical
+sense for the garden of Eden:
+
+          'The glories we have known,
+  And that imperial palace whence we came;'
+
+but a still loftier meaning did it acquire when the Christ employed it
+as descriptive of the splendors of the 'better land'--of the glories and
+beauties of the land Beulah.
+
+But, look out, fellow strollers, for we are off in a tangent!
+
+What a curiously humble origin has 'literature,' contrasted with the
+magnitude of its present import. It is just 'litteral'--_letters_ in
+their most primitive sense; and [Greek: grammata] is nought other. Nor
+can even all the pomposity of the 'belles-lettres' carry us any farther
+than the very fine 'letters' or _litteral_; while even Solomon So-so may
+take courage when he reflects (provided Solomon be ever guilty of
+reflecting) that the 'literati' have 'literally' nothing more profound
+about them than the knowledge of their 'letters.' The Latins were
+prolific in words of this kind; thus they had the _literatus_ and the
+_literator_--making some such discrimination between them as we do
+between 'philosopher' and 'philosophe.'
+
+'Unlettered,' to be sure, is one who is unacquainted even with his
+'letters;' but what is 'erudite?' It is merely E, _out of_, a RUDIS,
+_rude_, _chaotic_, _ignorant_ state of things; and thus in itself
+asserts nothing very tremendous, and makes no very prodigious
+pretensions. Surely these words had their origin at an epoch when
+'letters' stood higher in the scale of estimation than they do now; when
+he who knew them possessed a spell that rendered him a potent character
+among the 'unlettered.'
+
+A 'spell' did we say? Perhaps that is not altogether fanciful; for
+'spell' itself in the Saxon primarily imports a _word_; and we know that
+the runes or Runic letters were long employed in this way. For instance,
+Mr. Turner thus informs us ('History of the Anglo-Saxons,' vol. i, p.
+169): 'It was the invariable policy of the Roman ecclesiastics to
+discourage the use of the Runic characters, because they were of pagan
+origin, and had been much connected with idolatrous superstitions.' And
+if any one be incredulous, let him read this from Sir Thomas Brown:
+'Some have delivered the polity of spirits, that they stand in awe of
+charms, _spells_, and conjurations; _letters_, characters, notes, and
+dashes.' And have not the [Greek: Alpha] and [Greek: Ômega] something
+mystic and cabalistic about them even to us?
+
+While on this, let us note that 'spell' gives us the beautiful and
+cheering expression 'gospel,' which is precisely _God's-spell_--the
+'evangile,' the good God's-news!
+
+To resume:
+
+'Graphical' ([Greek: graphô]) is just what is well
+delineated--_literally_, 'well written,' or, as our common expression
+corroboratively has it, _like a book_!
+
+'Style' and 'stiletto' would, from their significations, appear to be
+radically very different words; and yet they are something more akin
+than even cousins-german. 'Style' is known to be from the [Greek:
+stylos], or _stylus_, which the Greeks and Romans employed in writing on
+their waxen tablets; and, as they were both sharp and strong, they
+became in the hands of scholars quite formidable instruments when used
+against their schoolmasters. Afterward they came to be employed in all
+the bloody relations and uses to which a 'bare bodkin' can be put, and
+hence our acceptation of 'stiletto.' Cæsar himself, it is supposed, got
+his 'quietus' by means of a 'stylus;' nor is he the first or last
+character whose 'style' has been his (_literary_, if not _literal_)
+damnation.
+
+'Volume,' too, how perfectly metaphorical is it in its present
+reception! It is originally just a _volumen_, that is, a 'roll' of
+parchment, papyrus, or whatever else the 'book' (i. e., the _bark_--the
+'liber') might be composed of. Nor can we regard as aught other such
+terms as 'leaf' or 'folio,' which is also 'leaf.' 'Stave,' too, is
+suggestive of the _staff_ on which the runes were wont to be cut.
+Indeed, old almanacs are sometimes to be met with consisting of these
+long sticks or 'staves,' on which the days and months are represented by
+the Runic letters.
+
+'Charm,' 'enchant,' and 'incantation' all owe their origin to the time
+when spells were in vogue. 'Charm' is just _carmen_, from the fact that
+'a kind of Runic rhyme' was employed in _diablerie_ of this sort; so
+'enchant' and 'incantation' are but a _singing to_--a true 'siren's
+song;' while 'fascination' took its rise when the mystic terrors of the
+_evil eye_ threw its withering blight over many a heart.
+
+We are all familiar with the old fable of _The Town Mouse and the
+Country Mouse_. We will vouch that the following read us as luminous a
+comment thereon as may be desired: 'Polite,' 'urbane,' 'civil,'
+'rustic,' 'villain,' 'savage,' 'pagan,' 'heathen.' Let us seek the
+moral:
+
+'Polite,' 'urbane,' and 'civil' we of course recognize as being
+respectively from [Greek: polis], _urbs_, and _civis_, each denoting the
+city or town--_la grande ville_. 'Polite' is _city-like_; while
+'urbanity' and 'civility' carry nothing deeper with them than the
+graces and the attentions that belong to the punctilious town. 'Rustic'
+we note as implying nothing more uncultivated than a 'peasant,' which is
+just _pays_-an, or, as we also say, a 'countryman.' 'Savage,' too, or,
+as we ought to write it, _salvage_,[9] is nothing more grim or terrible
+than one who dwells _in sylvis_, in the woods--a meaning we can
+appreciate from our still comparatively pure application of the
+adjective _sylvan_. A 'backwoodsman' is therefore the very best original
+type of a _savage_! 'Savage' seems to be hesitating between its civil
+and its ethical applications; 'villain,' 'pagan,' and 'heathen,'
+however, have become quite absorbed in their moral sense--and this by a
+contortion that would seem strange enough were we not constantly
+accustomed to such transgressions. For we need not to be informed that
+'villain' primarily and properly implies simply one who inhabits a ville
+or _village_. In Chaucer, for example, we see it without at least any
+moral signification attached thereto:
+
+  'But firste I praie you of your curtesie
+  That ye ne arette it not my _vilanie_.'
+
+  _Prologue to the Canterbury Tales._
+
+So a 'pagan,' or _paganus_, is but a dweller in a _pagus_, or village;
+precisely equivalent to the Greek [Greek: kômêtês], with no other idea
+whatever attached thereto; while 'heathen' imported those who lived on
+the _heaths_ or in the country, consequently far away from
+_civilization_ or _town-like-ness_.
+
+From all of which expressions we may learn the mere conventionality and
+the utter arbitrariness of even our most important ethical terms. How
+prodigiously _cheap_ is the application of any such epithets,
+considering the terrible abuse they have undergone! And how poor is that
+philosophy that can concentrate 'politeness' and 'civility' in the
+frippery and heartlessness of mere external city-forms; and convert the
+man who dwells in the woods or in the village into a _savage_ or a
+_villain_! How fearful a lack do these numerous words and their so
+prolific analogues manifest of acknowledgment of that glorious principle
+which Burns has with fire-words given utterance to--and to which, would
+we preserve the dignity of manhood, we must hold on--
+
+  'A man's a man for a' that!'
+
+Ah! it is veritably enough to make us atrabiliar! Here we see words in
+their weaknesses and their meannesses, as elsewhere in their glory and
+beauty. And not so much _their_ meanness and weakness, as that of those
+who have distorted these innocent servants of truth to become tools of
+falsehood and the abject instruments of the extinction of all honesty
+and nobleness.
+
+The word 'health' wraps up in it--for, indeed, it is hardly
+metaphorical--a whole world of thought and suggestion. It is that which
+_healeth_ or maketh one to be _whole_, or, as the Scotch say, _hale_;
+which _whole_ or _hale_ (for they are one word) may imply entireness or
+unity; that is to say, perfect 'health' is that state of the system in
+which there is no disorganization--no division of interest--but when it
+is recognized as a perfect _one_ or whole; or, in other words, not
+recognized at all. And this meaning is confirmed by our analogue
+_sanity_, which, from _sanus_, and allied to [Greek: saos], has
+underneath it a similar basis.
+
+Every student of Carlyle will remember the very telling use to which he
+puts the idea contained in this word--speaking of the manifold relations
+of physical, psychal, and social health. Reference is made to his
+employment of it in the 'Characteristics'--itself one of the most
+authentic and veracious pieces of philosophy that it has been our lot to
+meet with for a long time; yet wherein he proves the impossibility of
+any, and the uselessness of all philosophies. Listen while he
+discourses thereon: 'So long as the several elements of life, all fitly
+adjusted, can pour forth their movement like harmonious tuned strings,
+it is melody and unison: life, from its mysterious fountains, flows out
+as in celestial music and diapason--which, also, like that other music
+of the spheres, even because it is perennial and complete, without
+interruption and without imperfection, might be fabled to escape the
+ear. Thus, too, in some languages, is the state of health well denoted
+by a term expressing unity; when we feel ourselves as we wish to be, we
+say that we are _whole_.'
+
+But our psychal and social wholeness or health, as well as our physical,
+is yet, it would appear, in the future, in the good time _coming_--
+
+          'When man to man
+  Shall brothers be and a' that!'
+
+Even that, however, is encouraging--that it is _in prospectu_. For we
+know that _right before us_ lies this great promised land--this
+_Future_, teeming with all the donations of infinite time, and bursting
+with blessings. And for us, too, there are in waiting [Greek: makarôn
+nêsoi], or Islands of the Blest, where all heroic doers and all heroic
+sufferers shall enjoy rest forever!
+
+In conclusion, take the benediction of serene old Miguel de Cervantes
+Saavedra, in his preface to 'Don Quixote' (could we possibly have a
+better?): 'And so God give you _health_, not forgetting me. Farewell!'
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: This alliance may be fanciful (though we observe some of
+the best German lexicographers have it so); a better origin might,
+perhaps, be found in the Sanscrit _mri_, etc.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 'Les Orientals,' par VICTOR HUGO. _Le Feu du ciel._]
+
+[Footnote 3: The 'by' may, however, have the force of going or passing,
+equivalent to 'fare' in 'farewell,' or 'welfare,' _i. e._, may you have
+a good passage or journey.]
+
+[Footnote 4: 'Past and Present,' pp. 128, 129.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Compare with this the Latin _mundus_, which is exactly
+analogous in signification.]
+
+[Footnote 6: En-voir.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Perhaps nothing could better prove how profoundly
+_religious_ were the Latins than a word compounded of the above; namely
+'profane.' A 'fanatic' was one who devoted himself to the _fanum_ or
+temple--'profane' is an object devoted to _anything else
+'pro'_--_instead of_--the '_fanum_,' or fane.]
+
+[Footnote 8: The word is more properly oriental than Greek, _e. g._,
+Hebrew, _pardes_, and Sanscrit, _paradêsa_.]
+
+[Footnote 9: See the Italian _setvaggio_ and the Spanish _salvage_, in
+which a more approximate orthography has been retained.]
+
+
+
+
+THE CHECH.
+
+"Chcés li tajnou véc aneb pravdu vyzvédéti, blazen, dité, opily
+clovék o tom umeji povedeti."
+
+  "Wouldst thou know a truth or mystery,
+  A drunkard, fool, or child may tell it thee."
+
+  _Bohemian Proverb._
+
+
+  And now I'll wrap my blanket o'er me,
+    And on the tavern floor I'll lie;
+  A double spirit-flask before me,
+    And watch the pipe clouds melting die.
+
+  They melt and die--but ever darken,
+    As night comes on and hides the day;
+  Till all is black;--then, brothers, hearken!
+    And if ye can, write down my lay!
+
+  In yon black loaf my knife is gleaming,
+    Like one long sail above the boat;--
+  --As once at Pesth I saw it beaming,
+    Half through a curst Croatian throat.
+
+  Now faster, faster whirls the ceiling,
+    And wilder, wilder turns my brain;
+  And still I'll drink--till, past all feeling,
+    The soul leaps forth to light again.
+
+  Whence come these white girls wreathing round me?
+    Baruska!--long I thought thee dead!
+  Kacenka!--when these arms last bound thee,
+    Thou laidst by Rajhrad cold as lead!
+
+  Now faster, faster whirls the ceiling,
+    And wilder, wilder turns my brain;
+  And from afar a star comes stealing,
+    Straight at me o'er the death-black plain.
+
+  Alas!--I sink--my spirits miss me,
+    I swim, I shoot from sky to shore!
+  Klarà! thou golden sister--kiss me!
+    I rise--I'm safe--I'm strong once more.
+
+  And faster, faster whirls the ceiling,
+    And wilder, wilder turns my brain;
+  The star!--it strikes my soul, revealing
+    All life and light to me again.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Against the waves fresh waves are dashing,
+    Above the breeze fresh breezes blow;
+  Through seas of light new light is flashing,
+    And with them all I float and flow.
+
+  But round me rings of fire are gleaming:
+    Pale rings of fire--wild eyes of death!
+  Why haunt me thus awake or dreaming?
+    Methought I left ye with my breath.
+
+  Aye glare and stare with life increasing,
+    And leech-like eyebrows arching in;
+  Be, if ye must, my fate unceasing,
+    But never hope a fear to win.
+
+  He who knows all may haunt the haunting,
+    He who fears nought hath conquered fate;
+  Who bears in silence quells the daunting,
+    And sees his spoiler desolate.
+
+  Oh wondrous eyes of star-like lustre,
+    How ye have changed to guardian love!
+  Alas!--where stars in myriads cluster
+    Ye vanish in the heaven above.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  I hear two bells so softly singing:
+    How sweet their silver voices roll!
+  The one on yonder hill is ringing,
+    The other peals within my soul.
+
+  I hear two maidens gently talking,
+    Bohemian maidens fair to see;
+  The one on yonder hill is walking,
+    The other maiden--where is she?
+
+  Where is she?--when the moonlight glistens
+    O'er silent lake or murm'ring stream,
+  I hear her call my soul which listens:
+    'Oh! wake no more--come, love, and dream!'
+
+  She came to earth-earth's loveliest creature;
+    She died--and then was born once more;
+  Changed was her race, and changed each feature,
+    But oh! I loved her as before.
+
+  We live--but still, when night has bound us
+    In golden dreams too sweet to last,
+  A wondrous light-blue world around us,
+    She comes, the loved one of the Past.
+
+  I know not which I love the dearest,
+    For both my loves are still the same;
+  The living to my heart is nearest,
+    The dead love feeds the living flame.
+
+  And when the moon, its rose-wine quaffing
+    Which flows across the Eastern deep,
+  Awakes us, Klarà chides me laughing,
+    And says, 'We love too well in sleep!'
+
+  And though no more a Vojvod's daughter,
+    As when she lived on Earth before,
+  The love is still the same which sought her,
+    And she is true--what would you more?
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Bright moonbeams on the sea are playing,
+    And starlight shines o'er vale and hill;
+  I should be gone--yet still delaying,
+    By thy loved side I linger still!
+
+  My gold is gone--my hopes have perished,
+    And nought remains save love for thee!
+  E'en that must fade, though once so cherished:
+    Farewell!--and think no more of me!
+
+  'Though gold be gone and hope departed,
+    And nought remain save love for me,
+  Thou ne'er shalt leave me broken-hearted,
+    For I will share my life with thee!
+
+  'Thou deem'st me but a wanton maiden,
+    The plaything of thy idle hours;
+  But laughing streams with gold are laden,
+    And sweets are hidden 'neath the flowers.
+
+  'E'en outcasts may have heart and feeling,
+    E'en such as I be fond and true;
+  And love, like light, in dungeons stealing,
+    Though bars be there, will still burst through.'
+
+
+
+
+PICTURES FROM THE NORTH.
+
+
+It is worth while to live in the city, that we may learn to love the
+country; and it is not bad for many, that artificial life binds them
+with bonds of silk or lace or rags or cobwebs, since, when they are rent
+away, the Real gleams out in a beauty and with a zest which had not been
+save for contrast.
+
+Contrast is the salt of the beautiful. I wonder that the ancients, who
+came so near it in so many ways, never made a goddess of Contrast. They
+had something like it in ever-varying Future--something like it in
+double-faced Janus, who was their real 'Angel of the Odd.' Perhaps it is
+my ignorance which is at fault--if so, I pray you correct me. The subtle
+Neo-Platonists _must_ have apotheosized such a savor to all æsthetic
+bliss. Mostly do I feel its charm when there come before me pictures
+true to life of far lands and lives, of valley and river, sea and shore.
+Then I forget the narrow office and the shop-lined street, the rattling
+cars and hurried hotel-lodgment, and think what it would be if nature,
+in all her freshness and never-ending contrasts, could be my
+ever-present.
+
+I thought this yesterday, in glancing over an old manuscript in my
+drawer, containing translations, by some hand to me unknown, of sketches
+of Sweden by the fairy-story teller Hans Christian Andersen. Reader,
+will they strike you as pleasantly as they did me? I know not. Let us
+glance them over. They have at least the full flavor of the North, of
+the healthy land of frost and pines, of fragrant birch and of sweeter
+meadow-grass, and simpler, holier flowers than the rich South ever
+showed, even in her simplest moods.
+
+The first of these sketches sweeps us at once far away over the
+Northland:
+
+     'WE JOURNEY.
+
+     'It is spring, fragrant spring, the birds are singing. You do not
+     understand their song? Then hear it in free translation:
+
+     ''Seat thyself upon my back!' said the stork, the holy bird of our
+     green island. 'I will carry thee over the waves of the Sound.
+     Sweden also has its fresh, fragrant beechwoods, green meadows, and
+     fields of waving corn; in Schoonen, under the blooming apple trees
+     behind the peasant's house, thou wilt imagine thyself still in
+     Denmark!'
+
+     ''Fly with me,' said the swallow. 'I fly over Hal-land's mountain
+     ridges, where the beeches cease. I soar farther toward the north
+     than the stork. I will show you where the arable land retires
+     before rocky valleys. You shall see friendly towns, old churches,
+     solitary court yards, within which it is cosy and pleasant to
+     dwell, where the family stands in circle around the table with the
+     smoking platters, and asks a blessing through the mouth of the
+     youngest child, and morning and evening sings a holy song. I have
+     heard it, I have seen it, when I was yet small, from my nest under
+     the roof.'
+
+     ''Come! come!' cried the unsteady seagull, impatiently waiting, and
+     ever flying round in a circle. 'Follow me into the Scheeren, where
+     thousands of rocky islands, covered with pines and firs, lie along
+     the coasts like flower beds; where the fisherman draws full nets!'
+
+     ''Let yourself down between our outspread wings!' sing the wild
+     swans. 'We will bear you to the great seas, to the ever-roaring,
+     arrow-quick mountain streams, where the oak does not thrive and the
+     birches are stunted; let yourself down between our outspread
+     wings,--we soar high over Sulitelma, the eye of the island, as the
+     mountain is called; we fly from the spring-green valley, over the
+     snow waves, up to the summit of the mountain, whence you may catch
+     a glimpse of the North Sea, beyond Norway. We fly toward Jamtland,
+     with its high blue mountains, where the waterfalls roar, where the
+     signal fires flame up as signs from coast to coast that they are
+     waiting for the ferry boat--up to the deep, cold, hurrying floods,
+     which do not see the sun set in midsummer, where twilight is dawn!'
+
+     'So sing the birds! Shall we hearken to their song--follow them, at
+     least a short way? We do not seat ourselves upon the wings of the
+     swan, nor upon the back of the stork; we stride forward with steam
+     and horses, sometimes upon our own feet, and glance, at the same
+     time, now and then, from the actual, over the hedge into the
+     kingdom of fancy, that is always our near neighborland, and pluck
+     flowers or leaves, which shall be placed together in the memorandum
+     book--they bud indeed on the flight of the journey. We fly, and we
+     sing: Sweden, thou glorious land! Sweden, whither holy gods came in
+     remote antiquity from the mountains of Asia; thou land that art yet
+     illumined by their glitter! It streams out of the flowers, with the
+     name of Linnæus; it beams before thy knightly people from the
+     banner of Charles the Twelfth, it sounds out of the memorial stone
+     erected upon the field at Lutzen. Sweden! thou land of deep
+     feeling, of inward songs, home of the clear streams, where wild
+     swans sing in the northern light's glimmer! thou land, upon whose
+     deep, still seas the fairies of the North build their colonnades
+     and lead their struggling spirit-hosts over the ice mirror.
+     Glorious Sweden, with the perfume-breathing Linea, with Jenny's
+     soulful songs! To thee will we fly with the stork and the swallow,
+     with the unsteady seagull and the wild swan. Thy birchwood throws
+     out its perfume so refreshing and animating, under its hanging,
+     earnest boughs--on its white trunk shall the harp hang. Let the
+     summer wind of the North glide murmuring over its strings.'
+
+There is true fatherland's love there. I doubt if there was ever yet
+_real_ patriotism in a hot climate--the North is the only home of
+unselfish and great union. Italy owes it to the cool breezes of her
+Apennines that she cherishes unity; had it not been for her northern
+mountains in a southern clime, she would have long ago forgotten to
+think of _one_ country. But while the Alps are her backbone, she will
+always be at least a vertebrate among nations, and one of the higher
+order. Without the Alps she would soon be eaten up by the cancer of
+states' rights. It is the North, too, which will supply the great
+uniting power of America, and keep alive a love for the great national
+name.
+
+Very different is the rest--and yet it has too the domestic home-tone of
+the North. In Sweden, in Germany, in America, in England, the family tie
+is somewhat other than in the East or in any warm country. With us, old
+age is not so ever-neglected and little honored as in softer climes.
+Thank the fireside for that. The hearth, and the stove, and the long,
+cold months which keep the grandsire and granddame in the easy chair by
+the warm corner, make a home centre, where the children linger as long
+as they may for stories, and where love lingers, kept alive by many a
+cheerful, not to be easily told tie. And it lives--this love--lives in
+the heart of the man after he has gone forth to business or to battle:
+he will not tell you of it, but he remembers grandmother and
+grandfather, as he saw them a boy--the centre of the group, which will
+never form again save in heaven.
+
+Let us turn to
+
+     'THE GRANDMOTHER.
+
+     'Grandmother is very old, has many wrinkles, and perfectly white
+     hair; but her eyes gleam like two stars, yes, much more beautiful;
+     they are so mild, it does one good to look into them! And then she
+     knows how to relate the most beautiful stories. And she has a dress
+     embroidered with great, great flowers; it is such a heavy silk
+     stuff that it rattles. Grandmother knows a great deal, because she
+     has lived much longer than father and mother; that is certain!
+     Grandmother has a hymn book with strong silver clasps, and she
+     reads very often in the book. In the midst of it lies a rose,
+     pressed and dry; it is not so beautiful as the rose which stands in
+     the glass, but yet she smiles upon it in the most friendly way;
+     indeed, it brings the tears to her eyes! Why does grandmother look
+     so at the faded flower in the old book? Do you know? Every time
+     that grandmother's tears fall upon the flower, the colors become
+     fresh again, the rose swells up and fills the whole room with its
+     fragrance, the walls disappear, as if they were only mist, and
+     round about her is the green, glorious wood, where the sun beams
+     through the leaves of the trees; and grandmother is young again; a
+     charming maiden, with full red cheeks, beautiful and innocent--no
+     rose is fresher; but the eyes, the mild, blessing eyes, still
+     belong to grandmother. At her side sits a young man, large and
+     powerful: he reaches her the rose, and she smiles--grandmother does
+     not smile so now! oh yes, look now!----But he has vanished: many
+     thoughts, many forms sweep past--the beautiful young man is gone,
+     the rose lies in the hymn book, and grandmother sits there again as
+     an old woman, and looks upon the faded rose which lies in the book.
+
+     'Now grandmother is dead. She sat in the armchair and related a
+     long, beautiful story; she said, 'Now the story is finished, and I
+     am tired;' and she leaned her head back, in order to sleep a
+     little. We could hear her breathing--she slept; but it became
+     stiller and stiller, her face was full of happiness and peace, it
+     was as if a sunbeam illumined her features; she smiled again, and
+     then the people said, 'She is dead.' She was placed in a black box;
+     there she lay covered with white linen; she was very beautiful, and
+     yet her eyes were closed, but every wrinkle had vanished; she lay
+     there with a smile about her mouth; her hair was silver white,
+     venerable, but it did not frighten one to look upon the corpse, for
+     it was indeed the dear, kind-hearted grandmother. The hymn book was
+     placed under her head--this she had herself desired; the rose lay
+     in the old book; and then they buried grandmother.
+
+     Upon the grave, close by the church wall, a rose tree was planted;
+     it was full of roses, and the nightingale flew singing over the
+     flowers and the grave. Within the church, there resounded from the
+     organ the most beautiful hymns, which were in the old book under
+     the head of the dead one. The moon shone down upon the grave, but
+     the dead was not there; each child could go there quietly by night
+     and pluck a rose from the peaceful courtyard wall. The dead know
+     more than all of us living ones; they are better than we. The earth
+     is heaped up over the coffin, even within the coffin there is
+     earth; the leaves of the hymn book are dust, and the rose, with all
+     its memories. But above bloom fresh roses; above, the nightingale
+     sings, and the organ tones forth; above, the memory of the old
+     grandmother lives, with her mild, ever young eyes. Eyes can never
+     die. Ours will one day see the grandmother again, young and
+     blooming as when she for the first time kissed the fresh red rose,
+     which is now dust in the grave.'
+
+     'THE CELL PRISON.
+
+     'By separation from other men, by loneliness, in continual silence
+     shall the criminal be punished and benefited; on this account cell
+     prisons are built. In Sweden there are many such, and new ones are
+     building. I visited for the first time one in Marienstadt. The
+     building lies in a beautiful landscape, close by the town, on a
+     small stream of water, like a great villa, white and smiling, with
+     window upon window. But one soon discovers that the stillness of
+     the grave rests over the place; it seems as if no one dwelt here,
+     or as if it were a dwelling forsaken during the plague. The gates
+     of these walls are locked; but one opened and the jailor received
+     us, with his bundle of keys in his hand. The court is empty and
+     clean; even the grass between the paving stones is weeded out. We
+     entered the 'reception room,' to which the prisoner is first taken;
+     then the bath room, whither he is carried next. We ascend a flight
+     of stairs, and find ourselves in a large hall, built the whole
+     length and height of the building. Several galleries, one over
+     another in the different stories, extend round the whole hall, and
+     in the midst of the hall is the chancel, from which, on Sundays,
+     the preacher delivers his sermon before an invisible audience. All
+     the doors of the cells, which lead upon the galleries, are half
+     opened, the prisoners hear the preacher, but they cannot see him,
+     nor he them. The whole is a well-built machine for a pressure of
+     the spirit. In the door of each cell there is a glass of the size
+     of an eye; a valve covers it on the outside, and through this may
+     the warden, unnoticed by the prisoners, observe all which is going
+     on within; but he must move with soft step, noiselessly, for the
+     hearing of the prisoner is wonderfully sharpened by solitude. I
+     removed the valve from the glass very softly, and looked into the
+     closed room--for a moment the glance of the prisoner met my eye. It
+     is airy, pure, and clean within, but the window is so high that it
+     is impossible to look out. The whole furniture consists of a high
+     bench, made fast to a kind of table, a berth, which can be fastened
+     with hooks to the ceiling, and around which there is a curtain.
+     Several cells were opened to us. In one there was a young, very
+     pretty maiden; she had lain down in her berth, but sprang out when
+     the door was opened, and her first movement disturbed the berth,
+     which it unclasped and rolled together. Upon the little table stood
+     the water cask, and near it lay the remains of hard black bread,
+     farther off the Bible, and a few spiritual songs. In another cell
+     sat an infanticide; I saw her only through the small glass of the
+     door, she had heard our steps, and our talking, but she sat still,
+     cowered together in the corner by the door, as if she wished to
+     conceal herself as much as she could; her back was bent, her head
+     sunk almost into her lap, and over it her hands were folded. The
+     unhappy one is very young, said they. In two different cells sat
+     two brothers; they were paying the penalty of horse-stealing; one
+     was yet a boy. In one cell sat a poor servant girl; they said she
+     had no relations, and was poor, and they placed her here. I thought
+     that I had misunderstood, repeated my question, Why is the maiden
+     here? and received the same answer. Yet still I prefer to believe
+     that I have misunderstood the remark. Without, in the clear, free
+     sunlight, is the busy rush of day; here within the stillness of
+     midnight always reigns. The spider, which spins along the wall, the
+     swallow, which rarely flies near the vaulted window there above,
+     even the tread of the stranger in the gallery, close by the door,
+     is an occurrence in this mute, solitary life, where the mind of the
+     prisoner revolves ever upon himself. One should read of the martyr
+     cells of the holy inquisition, of the unfortunates of the Bagnio
+     chained to each other, of the hot leaden chambers, and the dark wet
+     abyss of the pit of Venice, and shudder over those pictures, in
+     order to wander through the galleries of the cell prison with a
+     calmer heart; here is light, here is air, here it is more human.
+     Here, where the sunbeam throws in upon the prisoner its mild light,
+     here will an illuminating beam from God Himself sink into the
+     heart.'
+
+Last we have
+
+     'SALA.
+
+     'Sweden's great king, Germany's deliverer, Gustavus Adolphus,
+     caused Sala to be built. The small enclosed wood in the vicinity of
+     the little town relates to us yet traditions of the youthful love
+     of the hero king, of his rendezvous with Ebba Brahe. The silver
+     shafts at Sala are the largest, the deepest and oldest in Sweden;
+     they reach down a hundred and seventy fathoms, almost as deep as
+     the Baltic. This is sufficient to awaken an interest in the little
+     town; how does it look now? 'Sala,' says the guide book, 'lies in a
+     valley, in a flat, and not very agreeable region.' And so it is
+     truly; in that direction was nothing beautiful, and the highway led
+     directly into the town, which has no character. It consists of a
+     single long street with a knot and a pair of ends: the knot is the
+     market; at the ends are two lanes which are attached to it. The
+     long street--it may be called long in such a short town--was
+     entirely empty. No one came out of the doors, no one looked out of
+     the windows. It was with no small joy that I saw a man, at last, in
+     a shop, in whose window hung a paper of pins, a red handkerchief,
+     and two tea cans, a solitary, sedate apprentice, who leaned over
+     the counter and looked out through the open house door. He
+     certainly wrote that evening in his journal, if he kept one;
+     'To-day a traveller went through the town; the dear God may know
+     him, I do not!' The apprentice's face appeared to me to say all
+     that, and he had an honest face.
+
+     'In the tavern in which I entered, the same deathlike stillness
+     reigned as upon the street. The door was indeed closed, but in the
+     interior of the house all the doors stood wide open; the house cock
+     stood in the midst of the sitting room, and crowed in order to give
+     information that there was some one in the house. As to the rest,
+     the house was entirely picturesque; it had an open balcony looking
+     out upon the court--upon the street would have been too lively. The
+     old sign hung over the door and creaked in the wind; it sounded as
+     if it were alive. I saw it from my window; I saw also how the grass
+     had overgrown the pavement of the street. The sun shone clear, but
+     as it shines in the sitting room of the solitary old bachelor and
+     upon the balsam in the pot of the old maid, it was still as on a
+     Scottish Sunday, and it was Tuesday! I felt myself drawn to study
+     Young's 'Night Thoughts.'
+
+     'I looked down from the balcony into the neighbor's court; no
+     living being was to be seen, but children had played there; they
+     had built a little garden out of perfectly dry twigs; these had
+     been stuck into the soft earth and watered; the potsherd, which
+     served as watering pot, lay there still; the twigs represented
+     roses and geranium. It had been a splendid garden--ah yes! We
+     great, grown-up men play just so, build us a garden with love's
+     roses and friendship's geranium, we water it with our tears and our
+     heart's blood--and yet they are and remain dry twigs without roots.
+     That was a gloomy thought--I felt it, and in order to transform the
+     dry twigs into a blossoming Aaron's-staff, I went out. I went out
+     into the ends and into the long thread, that is to say, into the
+     little lanes and into the great street, and here was more life, as
+     I might have expected; a herd of cows met me, who were coming home,
+     or going away, I know not--they had no leader. The apprentice was
+     still standing behind the counter; he bowed over it and greeted;
+     the stranger took off his hat in return; these were the events of
+     this day in Sala. Pardon me, thou still town, which Gustavus
+     Adolphus built, where his young heart glowed in its first love, and
+     where the silver rests in the deep shafts without the town, in a
+     flat and not very pleasant country. I knew no one in this town, no
+     one conducted me about, and so I went with the cows, and reached
+     the graveyard; the cows went on, I climbed over the fence, and
+     found myself between the graves, where the green grass grew, and
+     nearly all the tombstones lay with inscriptions blotted out; only
+     here and there, 'Anno' was still legible--what further? And who
+     rests here? Everything on the stone was effaced, as the earth life
+     of the one who was now earth within the earth. What drama have ye
+     dead ones played here in the still Sala? The setting sun threw its
+     beams over the graves, no leaf stirred on the tree; all was still,
+     deathly still, in the town of the silver mines, which for the
+     remembrance of the traveller is only a frame about the apprentice,
+     who bowed greeting over the counter.'
+
+Silence, stillness, quiet, solitude, loneliness, far-away-ness; hushed,
+calm, remote, out of the world, un-newspapered, operaless,
+un-gossipped--was there ever a sketch which carried one so far from the
+world as this of 'Sala'? That _one_ shopboy--those going or coming
+cows--the tombs, with wornout dates, every point of time vanishing--a
+living grave!
+
+Contrast again, dear reader. Verily she is a goddess--and I adore her.
+Lo! she brings me back again in Sala to the busy streets of this city,
+and the office, and the 'exchanges,' and the rustling, bustling world,
+and the hotel dinner--to be in time for which I am even now writing
+against time--and I am thankful for it all. Sala has cured me. That
+picture drives away longings. Verily, he who lives in America, and in
+its great roaring current of events, needs but a glance at Sala to feel
+that _here_ he is on a darting stream ever hurrying more gloriously into
+the world and away from the dull inanity--which the merest sibilant of
+aggravation will change to insanity.
+
+Reader, our Andersen is an artist--as most children know. But I am glad
+that he seldom gives us anything which is so _very_ much of a monochrome
+as Sala.
+
+I wonder if Sala was the native and surnaming town of that _other_ Sala
+whose initials are G. A. S., and whose nature is 'ditto'? Did its
+dulness drive him to liveliness, even as an 'orthodox' training is said
+to drive youth to dissipation? It may be so. The one hath a deep mine of
+silver--the other contains inexhaustible mines of brass--and the name of
+the one as of the other, when read in Hebrew-wise gives us 'alas!'
+
+But I am wandering from the Northern pictures and fresh nature, and must
+close.
+
+
+
+
+THE NEW RASSELAS.
+
+
+... And Joseph, opening the drawing room, told me the postchaise was
+ready. My mother and my sister threw themselves into my arms.
+
+'It is still time,' said they, 'to abandon this scheme. Stay with us.'
+
+'Mother, I am of noble birth, I am now twenty, I must have a name, I
+must be talked about in the country, I must be getting a position in the
+army or at court.'
+
+'Oh! but, Bernard, when you have gone, what will become of me?'
+
+'You will be happy and proud when you hear of your son's success.'
+
+'But if you are killed in some battle?'
+
+'What of that! What's life? Who thinks about being killed? When one is
+twenty, and of noble lineage, he thinks of nothing but glory. And,
+mother, in a few years you shall see me return to your side a colonel,
+or a general, or with some rich office at Versailles.'
+
+'Well, and what then?'
+
+'Why, then I shall be respected and considered about here.'
+
+'And then?'
+
+'Why, everybody will take off their hat to me.'
+
+'And then?'
+
+'I'll marry Cousin Henrietta, and I'll marry off my young sisters, and
+we'll all live together with you, tranquil and happy, on my estate in
+Brittany.'
+
+'Now, why can't you commence this tranquil and happy life to-day? Has
+not your father left us the largest fortune of all the province? Is
+there anywhere near us a richer estate or a finer chateau than that of
+La Roche Bernard? Are you not considered by all your vassals? Doesn't
+everybody take off their hat when they meet you? No, don't quit us, my
+dear child; remain with your friends, with your sisters, with your old
+mother, whom, at your return, perhaps you may not find alive; do not
+expend in vain glory, nor abridge by cares and annoyances of every kind,
+days which at the best pass away too rapidly: life is a pleasant thing,
+my son, and Brittany's sun is genial!'
+
+As she said this, she showed me from the drawing-room windows the
+beautiful avenues of my park, the old horse-chestnuts in bloom, the
+lilacs, the honeysuckles, whose fragrance filled the air, and whose
+verdure glistened in the sun. In the antechamber was the gardener and
+all his family, who, sad and silent, seemed also to say to me, 'Don't
+go, young master, don't go.' Hortense, my eldest sister, pressed me in
+her arms, and Amélie, my little sister, who was in a corner of the
+drawing room looking at the pictures in a volume of La Fontaine, came up
+to me, holding out the book:
+
+'Read, read, brother,' said she, weeping....
+
+She pointed to the fable of the Two Pigeons!... I suddenly got up, and
+repelled them all. 'I am now twenty, I am of noble blood, I want glory
+and honor.... Let me go.' And I ran toward the courtyard. I was about
+getting into the postchaise, when a woman appeared on the staircase.
+It was Henrietta! She did not weep ... she did not say a word ... but,
+pale and trembling, it was with the utmost difficulty that she kept from
+falling. She waved the white handkerchief she held in her hand, as a
+last good-by, and she fell senseless on the floor. I ran and took her
+up, I pressed her in my arms, I pledged my love to her for life; and as
+she recovered consciousness, leaving her in the hands of my mother and
+sister, I ran to my postchaise without stopping, and without turning my
+head.
+
+If I had looked at Henrietta, I should not have gone.
+
+In a few moments afterward the postchaise was rattling along the
+highway. For a long time my mind was completely absorbed by thoughts of
+my sisters, of Henrietta, of my mother, and of all the happiness I left
+behind me; but these ideas gradually quitted me as I lost sight of the
+turrets of La Roche Bernard, and dreams of ambition and of glory took
+the entire possession of my mind. What schemes! What castles in the air!
+What noble actions I performed in my postchaise!! I denied myself
+nothing: wealth, honors, dignities, success of every kind, I merited and
+I awarded myself all; at the last, raising myself from grade to grade as
+I advanced on my journey, by the time I reached my inn at night, I was
+duke and peer, governor of a province, and marshal of France. The voice
+of my servant, who called me modestly Monsieur le Chevalier, alone
+forced me to remember who I was, and to abdicate all my dignities. The
+next day, and the following days, I indulged in the same dreams, and
+enjoyed the same intoxication, for my journey was long. I was going to a
+chateau near Sedan the chateau of the Duke de C----, an old friend of my
+father, and protector of my family. It was understood that he was to
+carry me to Paris with him, where he was expected about the end of the
+month; he promised to present me at Versailles, and to give me a company
+of dragoons through the credit of his sister, the Marchioness de F----,
+a charming young lady, designated by public opinion as Madame de
+Pompadour's successor, whose title she claimed with the greater justice
+as she had long filled its honorable functions. I reached Sedan at
+night, and at too late an hour to go to the chateau of my protector. I
+therefore postponed my visit until the nest day, and lay at the
+'France's Arms,' the best hotel of the town, and the ordinary rendezvous
+of all the officers; for Sedan is a garrison town, and is well
+fortified; the streets have a warlike air, and even the shopkeepers have
+a martial look, which seems to say to strangers, 'We are fellow
+countrymen of the great Turenne!' I supped at the general table, and I
+asked what road I should take in the morning to go to the chateau of the
+Duke de C----, which is situated some three leagues out of the town.
+'Anybody will show you,' I was told, 'for it is well known hereabouts:
+Marshal Fabert, a great warrior and a celebrated man, died there.'
+Thereupon the conversation turned about Marshal Fabert. Between young
+soldiers, this was very natural; his battles, his exploits, his modesty,
+which made him refuse the letters patent of nobility and the collar of
+his orders offered him by Louis XIV, were all talked about; they dwelt
+especially on the inconceivable fortune which had raised him from the
+rank of a simple soldier to the rank of a marshal of France--him, who
+was nothing at all, the son of a mere printer: it was the only example
+of such a piece of fortune which could then be instanced, and which,
+even during Fabert's life, had appeared so extraordinary, the vulgar
+never feared to ascribe his elevation to supernatural causes. It was
+said that from his youth he had busied himself with magic and sorcery,
+and that he had made a league with the devil. Mine host, who, to the
+stupidity inherent in all the natives of the province of Champagne,
+added the credulity of our Brittany peasants, assured us with a great
+deal of sangfroid, that when Fabert died in the chateau of the Duke de
+C----, a black man, whom nobody knew, was seen to enter into the dead
+man's room, and disappear, taking with him the marshal's soul, which he
+had bought, and which belonged to him; and that even now, every May,
+about the period of the death of Fabert, the people of the chateau saw
+the black man about the house, bearing a small light. This story made
+our dessert merry, and we drank a bottle of champagne to the demon of
+Fabert, craving it to be good enough to take us also under its
+protection, and enable us to win some battles like those of Collioure
+and La Marfee.
+
+I rose early the next morning, and went to the chateau of the Duke de
+C----, an immense gothic manor-house, which perhaps at any other moment
+I would not have noticed, but which I regarded, I acknowledge, with
+curiosity mixed with emotion, as I recollected the story told us on the
+preceding evening by the host of the 'France's Arms.' The servant to
+whom I spoke, told me he did not know whether his master could receive
+company, and whether he could receive me. I gave him my name, and he
+went out, leaving me alone in a sort of armory, decorated with the
+attributes of the chase and family portraits.
+
+I waited some time, and no one came. 'The career of glory and of honor I
+have dreamed commences by the antechamber,' said I to myself, and
+impatience soon possessed the discontented solicitor. I had counted over
+the family portraits and all the rafters of the ceiling some two or
+three times, when I heard a slight noise in the wooden wainscoting. It
+was caused by an ill-closed door the wind had forced open. I looked in,
+and I perceived a very handsome boudoir, lighted by two large windows
+and a glazed door opening on a magnificent park. I walked into this
+room, and after I had gone a short distance, I was stopped by a scene
+which I had not at first perceived. A man was lying on a sofa, with his
+back turned to the door by which I came in. He got up, and without
+perceiving me, ran abruptly to the window. Tears streamed down his
+cheeks, and a profound despair was marked on his every feature. He
+remained motionless for some time, keeping his face buried in his hands;
+then he began striding rapidly about the room. I was then near him; he
+perceived me, and trembled; I, too, was annoyed and confounded at my
+indiscretion; I sought to retire, muttering some words of excuse.
+
+'Who are you? What do you want?' he said to me in a loud voice, taking
+hold of me by my arms.
+
+'I am the Chevalier Bernard de la Roche Bernard, and I come from
+Brittany.'...
+
+'I know, I know,' said he; and he threw himself into my arms, made me
+take a seat by his side, spoke to me warmly about my father and all my
+family, whom he knew so well that I was persuaded I was talking with the
+master of the chateau.
+
+'You are Monsieur de C----?' I asked him.
+
+He got up, looked at me wildly, and replied, 'I was he, I am he no
+longer, I am nothing;' and seeing my astonishment, he exclaimed, 'Not a
+word more, young man, don't question me!'
+
+'I must, Monsieur; I have been the involuntary witness of your chagrin
+and your grief, and if my attachment and my friendship may to some
+degree alleviate'----
+
+'You are right, you are right,' said he; 'you cannot change my fate, but
+at the least you may receive my last wishes and my last injunctions ...
+it is the only favor I ask of you.'
+
+He shut the door, and again took his seat by my side; I was touched, and
+tremblingly expected what he was going to say: he spoke with a grave and
+solemn manner. His physiognomy had an expression I had never seen before
+on any face. His forehead, which I attentively examined, seemed marked
+by fatality; his face was pale; his black eyes sparkled, and
+occasionally his features, although changed by pain, would contract in
+an ironical and infernal smile. 'What I am going to tell you,' said he,
+'will surprise you.' You will doubt me ... you will not believe me ...
+even. I doubt it sometimes ... at the least, I would like to doubt it;
+but I have got the proofs of it; and there is in everything around us,
+in our very organization, a great many other mysteries which we are
+obliged to undergo, without being able to understand.' He remained
+silent for a moment, as if to collect his ideas, brushed his forehead
+with his hand, and then proceeded:
+
+'I was born in this chateau. I had two elder brothers, to whom the
+honors and the estates of our house were to descend. I could hope
+nothing above the cassock of an abbé, and yet dreams of ambition and of
+glory fermented in my head, and quickened the beatings of my heart.
+Discontented with my obscurity, eager for fame, I thought of nothing but
+the means of acquiring it, and this idea made me insensible to all the
+pleasures and all the joys of life. The present was nothing to me; I
+existed only in the future; and that future lay before me robed in the
+most sombre colors. I was nearly thirty years old, and had done nothing.
+Then literary reputations arose from every side in Paris, and their
+brilliancy was reflected even to our distant province. 'Ah!' I often
+said to myself, 'if I could at the least command a name in the world of
+letters! that at least would be fame, and fame is happiness.' The
+confidant of my sorrow was an old servant, an aged negro, who had lived
+in the chateau for years before I was born; he was the oldest person
+about the house, for no one remembered when he came to live there; and
+some of the country people said that he knew the Marshal Fabert, and had
+been present at his death'--
+
+My host saw me express the greatest surprise; he interrupted his
+narrative to ask me what was the matter.
+
+'Nothing,' said I; but I could not help thinking of the black man the
+innkeeper had mentioned the evening before.
+
+Monsieur de C---- went on with his story: 'One day, before Juba (such
+was the negro's name), I loudly expressed my despair at my obscurity and
+the uselessness of my life, and I exclaimed: '_I would give ten years of
+my life_ to be placed in the first rank of our authors.' 'Ten years,' he
+coldly replied to me, 'are a great deal; it's paying dearly for a
+trifle; but that's nothing, I accept your ten years. I take them now;
+remember your promises: I shall keep mine!' I cannot depict to you my
+surprise at hearing him speak in this way. I thought years had weakened
+his reason; I smiled, and he shrugged his shoulders, and in a few days
+afterward I quitted the chateau to pay a visit to Paris. There I was
+thrown a great deal in literary society. Their example encouraged me,
+and I published several works, whose success I shall not weary you by
+describing. All Paris applauded me; the newspapers proclaimed my
+praises; the new name I had assumed became celebrated, and no later than
+yesterday, you, yourself, my young friend, admired me.'
+
+A new gesture of surprise again interrupted his narrative: 'What! you
+are not the Duke de C----?' I exclaimed.
+
+'No,' said he very coldly.
+
+'And,' I said to myself, 'a celebrated literary man! Is it Marmontel? or
+D'Alembert? or Voltaire?'
+
+He sighed; a smile of regret and of contempt flitted over his lips, and
+he resumed his story: 'This literary reputation I had desired soon
+became insufficient for a soul as ardent as my own. I longed for nobler
+success, and I said to Juba, who had followed me to Paris, and who now
+remained with me: 'There is no real glory, no true fame, but that
+acquired in the profession of arms. What is a literary man? A poet?
+Nothing. But a great captain, a leader of an army! Ah! that's the
+destiny I desire; and for a great military reputation, I would give
+another ten years of my life.' 'I accept them,' Juba replied; 'I take
+them now; don't forget it.''
+
+At this part of his story he stopped again, and, observing the trouble
+and hesitation visible in my every feature, he said:
+
+'I warned you beforehand, young man, that you could not believe me; this
+seems a dream, a chimera to you!... and to me, too!... and yet the
+grades and the honors I obtained were no illusions; those soldiers I led
+to the cannon's mouth, those redoubts stormed, those flags won, those
+victories with which all France has rung ... all that was my work ...
+all that glory was mine.'...
+
+While he strode up and down the room, and spoke with this warmth and
+enthusiasm, surprise chilled my blood, and I said to myself, 'Who can
+this gentleman be?... Is he Coligny?... Richelieu?... the Marshal
+Saxe?'...
+
+From this state of excitement he had fallen into great depression, and
+coming close to me, he said to me, with a sombre air:
+
+'Juba spoke truly; and after a short time had passed away, disgusted
+with this vain bubble of military glory, I longed for the only thing
+real and satisfactory and permanent in this world; and when, at the cost
+of five or six years of life, I desired gold and wealth, Juba gave them
+too.... Yes, my young friend, yes, I have seen fortune surpass all my
+desires; I became the lord of estates, of forests, of chateaux. Up to
+this morning they were all mine; if you don't believe me, if you don't
+believe Juba ... wait ... wait ... he is coming ... and you will see for
+yourself, with your own eyes, that what confounds your reason and mine,
+is unhappily but too real.'
+
+He then walked toward the mantlepiece, looked at the clock, exhibited
+great alarm, and said to me in a whisper:
+
+'This morning at daybreak I felt so depressed and weak I could scarcely
+get up. I rang for my servant. Juba came. 'What is the matter with me
+this morning?' I asked him. 'Master, nothing more than natural. The hour
+approaches, the moment draws near!' 'What hour? What moment?' 'Don't you
+remember? Heaven allotted sixty years as the term of your existence. You
+were thirty when I began to obey you!' 'Juba,' said I, seriously
+alarmed, 'are you in earnest?' 'Yes, master; in five years you have
+dissipated in glory twenty-five years of life. You gave them to me, they
+belong to me; and those years you bartered away shall now be added to
+the days I have to live.' 'What, was that the price of your services?'
+'Others have paid more dearly for them. You have heard of Fabert: I
+protected him.' 'Silence! silence!' I said to him; 'you lie! you lie!'
+'As you please; but get ready, you have only half an hour to live.' 'You
+are mocking me; you deceive me.' 'Not at all; make the calculation
+yourself. You have really lived thirty-five years; you have lost
+twenty-five years: total, sixty years.' He started to go out.... I felt
+my strength diminishing; I felt my life waning away. 'Juba! Juba!' said
+I, 'give me a few hours, only a few hours,' I screamed; 'oh! give me a
+few hours longer!' 'No, no,' said he, 'that would be to diminish my own
+life, and I know better than you the value of life. There is no treasure
+in this world worth two hours' existence!' I could scarcely speak; my
+eyes became obscured by a thick veil, the icy hand of death began to
+freeze my veins. 'Oh!' said I, making an effort to speak, 'take back
+those estates for which I have sacrificed everything. Give me four hours
+longer, and I make you master of all my gold, of all my wealth, of all
+that opulence of fortune I have so earnestly desired.' 'Agreed: you have
+been a good master, and I am willing to do something for you; I consent
+to your prayer.' I felt my strength return; and I exclaimed: 'Four hours
+are so little ... oh! Juba! ... Juba ... oh! Juba! give me yet four
+hours, and I renounce all my literary glory, all my works, everything
+that has placed me so high in the opinion of the world.' 'Four hours of
+life for that!' exclaimed the negro with contempt.... 'That's a great
+deal; but never mind; you shan't say I refused your last dying request.'
+'Oh! no! no! Juba, don't say my last dying request.... Juba! Juba! I beg
+of you, give me until this evening, give me twelve hours, the whole day,
+and may my exploits, my victories, my military fame, my whole career be
+forever effaced from the memory of men!... may nothing whatever remain
+of them!... if you will give me this day, only to-day, Juba; and I shall
+be too well satisfied.' 'You abuse my generosity,' said he, 'and I am
+making a fool's bargain. But never mind, I give you until sundown. After
+that, ask me for nothing more. Don't forget, after sundown I shall come
+for you!'
+
+'He went away,' added my companion, with a tone of despair I can never
+forget, 'and this is the last day of my life.' He then walked to the
+glazed door looking out on the park (it was open), and he exclaimed:
+
+'Oh God! I shall see no more this beautiful sky, these green lawns,
+these sparkling waters; I shall never again breathe the balmy air of the
+spring! Madman that I was! I might have enjoyed for twenty-five years to
+come these blessings God has showered on all, blessings whose worth I
+knew not, and of which I am beginning to know the value. I have worn out
+my days, I have sacrificed my life for a vain chimera, for a sterile
+glory, which has not made me happy, and which died before me.... See!
+see there!' said he, pointing to some peasants plodding their weary way
+homeward; 'what would I not give to share their labors and their
+poverty!... But I have nothing to give, nothing to hope here below ...
+nothing ... not even misfortune!'... At this moment a sunbeam, a May
+sunbeam, lighted up his pale, haggard features; he took me by the arm
+with a sort of delirium, and said to me:
+
+'See! oh see! how splendid is the sun!... Oh! and I must leave all
+this!... Oh! at the least let me enjoy it now.... Let me taste to the
+full this pure and beautiful day ... whose morrow I shall never see!'
+
+He leaped into the park, and, before I could well comprehend what he was
+doing, he had disappeared down an alley. But, to speak truly, I could
+not have restrained him, even if I would.... I had not now the strength;
+I fell back on the sofa, confounded, stunned, bewildered by all I had
+seen and heard. At length I arose and walked about the room to convince
+myself that I was awake, that I was not dreaming, that....
+
+At this moment the door of the boudoir opened, and a servant announced:
+
+'My master, Monsieur le Duc de C----.'
+
+A gentleman some sixty years old and of a very aristocratic appearance
+came forward, and, taking me by the hand, begged my pardon for having
+kept me so long waiting.
+
+'I was not at the chateau,' said he. 'I have just come from the town,
+where I have been to consult with the physicians about the health of the
+Count de C----, my younger brother.'
+
+'Is he dangerously ill?'
+
+'No, monsieur, thank Heaven, he is not; but in his youth visions of
+glory and of ambition had excited his imagination, and a grave fever,
+from which he has just recovered, and which came near proving fatal, has
+left his head in a state of delirium and insanity, which persuades him
+that he has only one day longer to live. That's his madness.'
+
+Everything was explained to me now!
+
+'Come, my young friend, now let us talk over your business; tell me what
+I can do for your advancement. We will go together to Versailles about
+the end of this month. I will present you at court.'
+
+'I know how kind you are to me, duke, and I have come here to thank you
+for it.'
+
+'What! have you renounced going to court, and to the advantages you may
+reckon on having there?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'But recollect, that aided by me, you will make a rapid progress, and
+that with a little assiduity and patience ... say in ten years.'
+
+'They would be ten years lost!'
+
+'What!' exclaimed the duke with astonishment, 'is that purchasing too
+dearly glory, fortune, and fame?... Silence, my young friend, we will go
+together to Versailles.'
+
+'No, duke, I return to Brittany, and I beg you to accept my thanks and
+those of my family for your kindness.'
+
+'You are mad!' said the duke.
+
+But thinking over what I had heard and seen, I said to myself: 'You are
+the same!'
+
+The next morning I turned my face homeward. With what pleasure I saw
+again my fine chateau de la Roche Bernard, the old trees of my park, and
+the beautiful sun of Brittany! I found again my vassals, my sisters, my
+mother, and happiness, which has never quitted me since, for eight days
+afterward I married Henrietta.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHAINED RIVER.
+
+
+  Home I love, I now must leave thee! Home I love, I now must go
+  Far away, although it grieve me, through the valley, through the snow.
+
+  By the night and through the valley, though the hail against us flies,
+  Till we reach the frozen river--on its bank the foeman lies.
+
+  Frozen river, mighty river!--wilt thou e'er again be free
+  From the fountain through the mountain, from the mountain to the sea.
+
+  Yes; though Freedom's glorious river for a time be frozen fast,
+  Still it cannot hold forever--Winter's reign will soon be past.
+
+  Still it runs, although 'tis frozen--on beneath the icy plain,
+  From the mountain to the ocean--free as thought, though held in chain.
+
+  From the mountain to the ocean, from the ocean to the sky,
+  Then in rainy drops returning--lo the ice-chains burst and fly!
+
+  And the ice makes great the river. Breast the spring-flood if you dare!
+  Rivers run though ice be o'er them--GOD and Freedom everywhere!
+
+
+
+
+HOW THE WAR AFFECTS AMERICANS.
+
+
+At the outbreak of the present terrible civil war, the condition of the
+American people was apparently enviable beyond that of any other nation.
+We say apparently, because the seeds of the rebellion had long been
+germinating; and, to a philosophic eye, the great change destined to
+follow the rebellion was inevitable, though it was then impossible for
+human foresight to predict the steps by which that change would come.
+Unconscious of impending calamity, we were proud of our position and
+character as American citizens. We were free from oppressive taxation,
+and enjoyed unbounded liberty of speech and action. Revelling in the
+fertility of a virgin continent, unexampled in modern times for the
+facilities of cultivation and the richness of its return to human labor,
+it was a national characteristic to felicitate ourselves upon the
+general prosperity, and boastingly to compare our growing resources and
+our unlimited and almost spontaneous abundance, with the hard-earned and
+dearly purchased productions of other and more exhausted countries. Our
+population, swollen by streams of immigration from the crowded
+continents of the old world, has spread over the boundless plains of
+this, with amazing rapidity; and the physical improvements which have
+followed our wonderful expansion have been truly magical in their
+results, as shown by the decennial exhibits of the census, or presented
+in still more palpable form to the eye of the thoughtful and observant
+traveller. Since the fall of the Roman empire, no single government has
+possessed so magnificent a domain in the temperate regions of the globe;
+and certainly, no other people so numerous, intelligent, and powerful,
+has ever in any age of the world enjoyed the same unrestricted freedom
+in the pursuit of happiness: accordingly, none has ever exhibited the
+same extraordinary activity in enterprise, or equal success in the
+creation and accumulation of wealth. It was unfortunately true that our
+mighty energies were mostly employed in the production of physical
+results; and although our youthful, vigorous, and unrestricted efforts
+made these results truly marvellous, yet the moral and intellectual
+basis on which we built was not sufficiently broad and stable to sustain
+the vast superstructure of our prosperity. The foundations having been
+seriously disturbed, it becomes indispensable to look to their permanent
+security, whatever may be the temporary inconvenience arising from the
+necessary destruction of portions of the old fabric.
+
+When the war began, the South was supplying the world with cotton--a
+staple which in modern times has become intimately connected with the
+physical well-being of the whole civilized world. At the same time, the
+Northwest was furnishing to all nations immense quantities of grain and
+animal food, her teeming fields presenting a sure resource against the
+uncertainty of seasons in those regions of the earth in which capital
+must supply the fertility which is still inexhaustible here. While such
+were the occupations of the South and the West, the North and East were
+advancing in the path of mechanical and commercial improvement, with a
+rapidity beyond all former example. Agricultural and manufacturing
+inventions were springing up, full grown, out of the teeming brain of
+the Yankees, and were fast altering the face of the world. New
+combinations of natural forces were appearing as the agents of the human
+will, and were multiplying the physical capacity of man in a ratio that
+seemed to know no bounds. Commercial enterprise kept pace with these
+magnificent creations, and never failed, with liberal and enlightened
+spirit, to avail itself of all the resources which industry produced or
+genius invented. Our tonnage surpassed that of the greatest nations; the
+skill of our shipbuilders was unsurpassed; and the courage, industry,
+and perseverance of our seamen were renowned all over the world. On
+every ocean and in every important harbor of the earth were daily
+visible the emblems of our national power and the evidences of our
+individual prosperity. But in one fatal moment, from a cause which was
+inherent in our moral and political condition, all this prodigious
+activity of thought and work was brought to a complete stand. Such a
+shock was never before experienced, because such a social and material
+momentum had never before been acquired by any nation, and then been
+arrested by so gigantic a calamity. It was as if the earth had been
+suddenly stopped on its axis, and all things on its surface had felt the
+destructive impulse of the centrifugal force.
+
+War itself is, unhappily, no uncommon condition of mankind. Wars on a
+gigantic scale have often heretofore raged among the great nations, or
+even between sundered parts of the same people. It is not the magnitude
+of the present contest which constitutes its greatest peculiarity. It is
+rather the magnitude and importance of the interests it involves and the
+relations it sunders, which give it the tremendous significance it bears
+in the eyes of the world. Never has any war found the contending parties
+engaged in works of such world-wide and absorbing interest, as those
+which occupied both sections of our people at the commencement of this
+rebellion. No two people, connected by so many ties, enjoying such
+unlimited freedom of intercourse, so mutually dependent each upon the
+other, and occupying a country so utterly incapable of natural
+divisions, have ever been known to struggle with each other in so
+sanguinary a conflict. All the circumstances of the case have been
+unexampled in history. Accordingly the influence of the contest upon
+affairs on this continent, and indeed upon human affairs generally, has
+been great and disastrous in proportion to the magnitude of the peaceful
+works which have been suspended by it, and to the closeness of those
+brotherly relations which have heretofore existed between the contending
+parties, now violently broken, and perhaps forever destroyed.
+
+Almost the entire industry and commerce of the United States have been
+diverted into new and unaccustomed channels. The most active and
+enterprising people in the world, in the midst of their varied
+occupations, suddenly find all the accustomed channels of business
+blocked up and the stream of their productions flowing back upon them in
+a disastrous flood, and stagnating in their workshops and storehouses.
+They are compelled to find new issues for their enterprise and to make a
+complete change in their habits and works. It is not merely in the
+cessation of all intercourse between the two vast sections, North and
+South, that this mighty transformation has taken place; but an equal
+alteration has been suddenly effected in the character of the business
+and the nature of the occupations which the people have heretofore
+pursued in the loyal States of the Union. Great branches of business,
+employing millions of capital, have been utterly annihilated or
+indefinitely suspended. Vast amounts of capital have been sunk and
+utterly lost in the deep gulf of separation which temporarily divides
+the States; or if they are ever to be recovered, it will be only after
+the storm shall have completely subsided, when some portions of the
+wrecks, which have been scattered in the fearful commotion, may be
+thrown safely on to the shores of reunion. It was anticipated,
+especially by the rebels themselves, that these incalculable losses,
+these tremendous shocks and sudden changes, would utterly overwhelm the
+North with ruin and tear her to pieces with faction and disorder. But
+this anticipation of accumulated disasters, in which the wish was father
+to the thought, has not been realized to any appreciable extent. The
+pecuniary losses have been in a great measure compensated by the immense
+demands of the war; and when faction has attempted to raise its head, it
+has been compelled to retire before the patriotic rebuke of the people.
+And although the vast expenditures of the war give present relief; by
+drawing largely on the resources of the future, yet the strength we
+acquire is none the less real or less effectual in overthrowing the
+rebellion.
+
+But this sudden and grand emergency, with all its appalling concomitants
+of lives sacrificed, property destroyed, commercial disaster, and social
+derangement, has given a rare opportunity for the testing of our
+national character, and of our ability to meet and overcome the most
+tremendous difficulties and dangers. Perhaps the versatility of American
+genius and its ready adaptation to the new circumstances, are even more
+wonderful than any other exhibition made by our people in this great
+national crisis. There has never been any good reason to doubt the
+capacity of any portion of American citizens for warlike occupations,
+nor their possession of the moral qualities necessary to make them good
+soldiers. The long period of peace which has blessed our country, with
+the industrial, educational, and moral improvement produced by it, has
+rendered war justly distasteful to the Free States of the Union. They
+were slow to recognize the necessity for it; and nothing but the most
+solemn convictions of duty would have aroused them to the stern and
+unanimous determination with which they have entered on the present
+struggle. Swift would have been our degeneration, if the spirit of our
+fathers had already died out among us. But our history of less than a
+century since the Revolutionary war has fully maintained the
+self-reliant character of Americans and demonstrated their military
+abilities; and if the commercial and manufacturing populations of
+particular sections were supposed to have become somewhat enervated by
+long exemption from the labors and perils of war, it was certain that
+our large agricultural regions and especially our frontier settlements
+were peopled with men inured to toil and familiar with danger,
+constituting the best material for armies to be found in any country.
+Nor was it in fact true that any considerable portion of our people,
+even those drawn from the stores and workshops of the cities, had become
+so far deteriorated in vigor of body, or demoralized in spirit, as to be
+unfit for military service. The Southern leaders looked with scorn upon
+our volunteer army only until they encountered it in battle. They were
+then compelled to alter their preconceived opinions of the Yankee
+character, and to change their contempt, real or pretended, into
+respect, if not admiration. Even when superior numbers or better
+strategy enabled them to beat us, they have seldom failed to bear
+honorable testimony to the unflinching courage and endurance of our
+troops. Nor do we need the admissions of the enemy to establish this
+character for us; our own triumphs, on many glorious fields, are the
+best evidences of our ability in war, and of themselves sufficiently
+attest the valor and energy of our noble volunteers. In this aspect of
+the matter, we must not forget the peculiar character and constitution
+of our vast army. It is indeed worthy to be called the wonder of the
+world. It is virtually a voluntary association of the people for the
+purpose of putting down a gigantic rebellion and saving their own
+government from destruction. This is a social phenomenon never before
+known in history on a scale approaching the magnitude of our
+combinations--a phenomenon which could only take place in a popular
+government, where the unrestricted freedom of individual action promotes
+the virtues of personal independence, self-respect, and manly courage.
+Even the Southern people, fighting on their own soil, in a war which,
+though actually commenced by them, they now affect to consider wholly
+defensive--even they, with all their boasted unanimity, and with the
+fierce passions engendered by slavery, have been compelled to maintain
+their armies by a conscription of the most unexampled severity; while
+the loyal States, fighting solely for union and nationality--interests
+of the most general nature, and offering little of mere personal
+inducement--have so far escaped that necessity, and are now just
+preparing to resort to it. After all, it must be acknowledged by every
+just and generous mind, whether that of friend or foe, that there is a
+substratum of noble sentiment and manly impulses at the foundation of
+the Yankee character. The vast movements of the Northern people plainly
+show it. Their contributions for the support of soldiers' families and
+for the relief of the wounded and disabled, are upon a gigantic scale.
+They raise immense sums for the payment of bounties to volunteers, and
+thus, in every way, the burdens of the war are voluntarily assumed by
+the people, and to some extent distributed among them, so that every one
+may participate in the patriotic work. Nor is this large-hearted
+liberality confined solely to our own country. The sufferers in other
+lands, who have felt the disastrous effects of our great civil war, have
+not been forgotten. In the midst of a life-and-death struggle among
+ourselves, we have found time and means to assist in relieving their
+wants--an exhibition of liberality peculiar, and truly American in
+character.
+
+Nor are these the only interesting features in the bearing of the
+American people at the present crisis. Perhaps a still more remarkable
+one is the entire devotion of the national energies--of intellect not
+less than of heart, of skill, not less than of capital--to the great
+purposes of the war. This was the necessary result of our free
+institutions; of our untrammelled pursuits; the mobility of our means
+and agencies of production; and the plastic character of all our
+creations. The amount of thought expended on this subject has been
+prodigious and incalculable. It would be difficult, if not impossible,
+to enumerate the ten thousand inventions and devices of all kinds which
+have been presented for the purpose of increasing the efficiency of
+weapons and of all the appliances of war, as well as for adding to the
+comfort and securing the health of the soldier. Every imaginable
+instrument of usefulness in any of the operations of the camp, or the
+march, or the field of battle, has been the subject of tentative
+ingenuity, such as none but Yankees could display. The musket, the
+carbine, the pistol, have been constructed upon numberless plans,
+apparently with every possible modification. The cartridge has been
+covered with copper, impervious to water, instead of paper, and has its
+own fulminate attached in various modes. Cannon shot and shells have
+been made in many new forms; and cannons themselves have been increased
+in calibre to an extraordinary size with proportionate efficiency, and
+have been constructed in various modes and forms never before conceived.
+The tent, the cot, the chest, the chair, the knife and fork, the stove
+and bakeoven, each and every one of them, have been touched by the
+transforming hand of homely genius, and have assumed a thousand
+unimaginable forms of usefulness and convenience. India rubber and every
+other available material have been made to perform new and appropriate
+parts in the general work. The result of all this unexampled activity
+and ingenuity has not yet been fully eliminated. It would require years
+of experience in war in order to bring American genius, as at present
+developed, to bear with all its extraordinary force on the mechanical
+details of the military art. Beyond doubt, numberless devices, among
+those presented, will prove to be utterly worthless; but many of them
+will certainly stand the test of experience, will be ultimately approved
+and adopted, and will remain as monuments of the enterprise and
+ingenuity aroused by the necessities of the country in this hour of its
+sad calamity.
+
+It would be a curious and interesting employment to estimate the number
+and character of these inventions, due wholly to the existing civil
+strife. Only then should we be able to form some adequate conception of
+the immense stimulus which has been applied to the national intellect,
+and which has caused it to embrace within the boundless range of its
+investigations, the highest moral and political problems, alike with the
+minutest questions of mechanical and economical convenience. But we
+should be greatly disappointed in not finding this phenomenon even
+partially comprehended by the powers that be. It is truly a melancholy
+thing to meet in the highest quarters so little sympathy with the
+noblest efforts of the popular mind, and to witness the cold neglect and
+even disdainful suspicion with which the most useful and valuable
+devices are often received, or rather, we should say, haughtily
+disregarded and rejected. Seldom or never do we find these inventions
+appreciated according to their merits. The Government is proverbially
+slow to adopt improvements of any kind; and the army and navy, like all
+similar professional bodies, are averse to every important change, and
+wedded to the instruments and processes in the use of which they have
+been educated and trained. This peculiar indisposition to progressive
+movements, in all the established institutions and organizations of
+society, has frequently been the subject of remark and of regret. It is,
+however, only an exaggeration of the conservative principle, which, when
+confined within proper limits, is wise and beneficial. Indeed, the
+actual progress of society in any period, is neither more nor less than
+the result of the conflict between the opposite tendencies, of
+retrogradation and advancement--a disposition to adhere to the old,
+which has been tried and approved, and a tendency toward the new, which,
+however promising and alluring, may yet disappoint and mislead. In the
+long run, however, the latter prevails, and the progressive movement,
+more or less rapid, goes on continually. Improvements gradually force
+themselves upon the attention of the most prejudiced minds, and
+eventually conquer opposition in spite of professional immobility and
+aversion to change. Observation has shown that the most important steps
+of progress usually originate outside of the professions, and are only
+adopted when they can no longer be resisted with safety to the
+conservative body. To the volunteer officer and soldier, or to those
+educated soldiers who have long been in civil life, will probably be due
+the greater part of that accessibility to new ideas which will result in
+important advances in the art of war. This assertion may seem to be
+paradoxical; but all experience proves that ignorance of old processes
+is most favorable to the introduction of new ones. And though in a
+thousand instances such ignorance may be disastrous, occasionally it
+finds the unprejudiced intellect illuminated by flashes of original
+genius, and open to the entrance of valuable ideas which would have been
+utterly excluded by all the old and established rules.
+
+But the actual work of the unexampled mental activity of the present
+day, will not be fully known and estimated until after the close of the
+war. Until then there will be neither time nor opportunity to weigh and
+test the creations of the national ingenuity. In the midst of campaigns
+and battles, with the absorbing interest of the great struggle, the
+instruments of warfare cannot be easily changed, however important may
+be the improvement presented. The emergency which arouses genius and
+brings forth valuable inventions, is by no means favorable to their
+adoption and general use. On the contrary, by a sort of fatality which
+seems to be a law of their existence, they are doomed to struggle with
+adversity and fierce opposition, and they are left by the occasion which
+gave them birth as its repudiated offspring--a legacy to the future
+emergency which will cherish and perfect them, make them available, and
+enjoy the full benefit to be derived from them.
+
+The navy has always justly been the pride of our country; and it was to
+be expected that it would first feel the impulse of inventive genius.
+Confident in our strength and resources, we had long remained
+comparatively sluggish, and regardless of those interesting experiments
+which other great maritime powers had been carefully making with a view
+to render ships invulnerable. We looked on quietly, observed the
+results, and waited for the occasion when we should be required to put
+forth our strength in this direction. When the war commenced, we had not
+a single iron-clad vessel of any description. It became necessary that
+the immense Southern coast of our country should be subjected to the
+strictest blockade. This was a work of vast magnitude, and a very large
+and sudden increase of the navy was demanded by the extraordinary
+emergency. Cities were to be taken, and strong fortresses to be
+attacked. The rebels had managed to save some of the vessels intended to
+be destroyed at Norfolk, and had converted the Merrimack into a
+formidable monster, which in due time displayed her destructive powers
+upon our unfortunate fleet in Hampton Roads, in that ever-memorable
+contest in which the Monitor first made her timely appearance. The chief
+result of the vast effort demanded by the perilous situation of our
+country, was the class of vessels of which the partially successful but
+ill-fated Monitor was the type. These structures are certainly very far
+from being perfect as ships of war; nevertheless, they constitute an
+interesting and valuable experiment, and mark an advance in naval
+warfare of the very first importance. They establish the form in which
+defensive armor may perhaps be most effectively disposed for the
+protection of men on board ships; but at the same time, it must be
+conceded that they utterly fail in all the other requisites for
+men-of-war and sea-going vessels. They are deficient in buoyancy and
+speed. In truth they are nothing more than floating batteries, useful in
+the defence of harbors or the attack of forts. The melancholy end of the
+Monitor shows too plainly that vessels of her character cannot be safely
+trusted to the fury of the open sea. They may do well in favorable
+weather, or may escape on a single expedition; but a repetition of long
+voyages will be almost certain to result in their loss.
+
+We want lighter and swifter vessels to be equally formidable in
+ordnance, and alike invulnerable to the attacks of any adversary. To
+combine all these requisites is not beyond the ingenuity of American
+constructors. Most assuredly such vessels will soon make their
+appearance on the ocean. Some new arrangement of the propelling
+apparatus, and lighter and more powerful machinery, will accomplish this
+important end. And then, too, with greatly increased speed, and with a
+construction suitable to the new function, the principle of the ram will
+be perfected; so that the projectile thrown by the most powerful
+ordnance now existing or even conceived will be insignificant compared
+with the momentum of a large steamer, going at the rate of thirty or
+forty miles an hour, and herself becoming the direct instrument of
+destruction to her adversary. Ordnance may possibly be devised which
+will throw shot or shell weighing each a thousand pounds; but by the new
+principle, which is evidently growing in practicability and favor, the
+weight of thousands of tons will be precipitated against vessels of war,
+and naval combats will become a conflict of gigantic forces, in
+comparison with which the discharge of guns and the momentum of cannon
+balls will be little more than the bursting of bubbles.
+
+The exploits of the rebel steamer Alabama, so destructive to our
+commerce and so humiliating to our pride as a great naval power,
+sufficiently attest the vital importance of the element of speed in
+ships of war. Her capacity under steam is beyond that of our best
+vessels, and she therefore becomes, at her pleasure, utterly
+inaccessible to anything we may send to pursue her. We have built our
+steamers strong and heavy; but proportionately slow and clumsy. The
+Alabama could not safely encounter any one of them entitled to the name
+of a regular cruiser; but she does not intend to risk such a contest,
+and, most unfortunately for us, she cannot be compelled to meet it. Of
+what real use are all the costly structures of our navy with the
+tremendous ordnance which they carry, if this comparatively
+insignificant craft can go and come when and where she will, and sail
+through and around our fleets without the possibility of being
+interrupted? They are perfectly well suited to remain stationary and aid
+us in blockading the Southern ports; but the frequent escape of fast
+steamers running the blockade, serves still further to demonstrate the
+great and palpable deficiency in the speed of our ships of war. We may
+start a hundred of our best steamers on the track of the Alabama, and,
+without an accident, they can never overtake her. The only alternative
+is to accept the lesson which her example teaches, and to surpass her in
+those qualities which constitute her efficiency and make her formidable
+as a foe. This we must do, or we must quietly surrender our commerce to
+her infamous depredations, and acknowledge ourselves beaten on the seas
+by the rebel confederacy without an open port, and without anything
+worthy to be called a navy. The ability of our naval heroes, and their
+skill and valor, so nobly illustrated on several occasions during the
+present war, will be utterly unavailing against superior celerity of
+motion. Their just pride must be humbled, and their patriotic hearts
+must chafe with vexation, so long as the terrible rebel rover continues
+to command the seas, as she will not fail to do so long as we are unable
+to cope with her in activity and speed. Nor is it certain we have yet
+known the worst. Ominous appearances abroad, and thick-coming rumors
+brought by every arrival, indicate the construction in England of
+numerous other ships like the Alabama, destined to run the blockade and
+afterward to join that renowned cruiser in her work of destruction.
+Stores of cotton held in Southern ports offer a temptation to the
+cupidity of foreign adventurers which will command capital to any
+amount, and the best skill of English engineers and builders will be
+enlisted to make the enterprise successful--a skill not embarrassed by
+bureaucratic inertia and stolidity.
+
+Let the genius of American constructors and engineers be brought to bear
+on the subject, and the important problem will be solved in sixty days.
+Indeed, there are plans in existence, at this very hour, by which the
+desired end could be at once accomplished. But the inertia of official
+authority, and especially of the bureaus in the Navy Department, is such
+that any novel idea, however demonstrably good and valuable, is usually
+doomed to battle for years against opposition of all kinds before it can
+hope to secure an introduction. In all probability, the war will have
+been ended before anything of great importance ever can be accomplished
+through those channels. The adoption of the Monitor principle was not
+due to the skill and intelligence found in official quarters; it was
+forced upon the Navy Department from the outside. And like the boa
+constrictor, after having swallowed its prey, the Department must
+sluggishly repose until that meal is digested before another can be
+taken. One idea, of the magnitude of this, is enough for the present
+crisis. We shall not have another, if the stubborn resistance and fixity
+of ideas in the bureaus can prevent it. The invulnerability of the
+Monitors, and the peculiar arrangement by which this important end is
+obtained, are but one of the items necessary to make up the complete
+efficiency of war steamers. They are only one half what is required.
+They accomplish one of the great desiderata in armaments afloat; but
+they leave another equally important demand utterly unsatisfied. There
+is a counterpart to this achievement--its complement, equally
+indispensable to the efficiency of the navy, and waiting to be placed by
+the side of the recent improvement. It must and will be brought forth,
+whether the naval authorities assist or oppose. American genius, only
+give it fair play, is equal to all emergencies.
+
+The immense activity of thought and ingenuity elicited by the war, and
+extending to all the departments of enterprise appropriate to the great
+crisis, is a phenomenon peculiar to the American people. It could be
+exhibited nowhere else, to the same extent, among civilized nations,
+because nowhere else is the same stimulus applied with equal directness
+to the popular masses. The operation of this peculiar cause is
+conspicuously plain. The Government of the United States is the people's
+Government; the war is emphatically the people's war. Every man feels
+that he has a personal interest in it. He understands, more or less
+clearly, the whole question involved, and has fixed opinions, and
+perhaps strong feelings, in regard to it. His friends and neighbors and
+brothers are in the army, and they have gone thither voluntarily,
+perhaps impelled by enlightened and conscientious convictions of duty.
+His sympathies follow them; he ardently prays for their success; and he
+is stimulated to provide, as well as he can, for their comfort. All
+other business being greatly interrupted, if not wholly suspended, he
+thinks continuously of the mighty operations of the war. He dwells on
+them night and day, and in the laboratory of his active mind, excited by
+the mighty stimulus of personal and patriotic feeling natural to the
+occasion, he produces those extraordinary combinations which distinguish
+the present era.
+
+In addition to these impulses which operate so generally, there is the
+still more universal and all-pervading love of gain which stimulates his
+inventive faculties, and causes them to operate in the direction in
+which his hopes and sympathies are turned. Aroused by motives of all
+kinds, the whole mind and heart of the country is absorbed in the great
+contest, and all its energies are applied in every conceivable way to
+the work of war. The man who carries the gun and uses it on the battle
+field is not more earnestly engaged in this work than he who racks his
+brain and sifts his teeming ideas for the purpose of making the
+instrument more destructive. Even the victims who fall in the deadly
+strife and give their mangled bodies to their country, are not more
+truly martyrs to a glorious cause than the inventors who sometimes
+sacrifice themselves in the course of their perilous experiments, or by
+the slower process of mental and physical exhaustion during the long
+years of 'hope deferred,' while vainly seeking to make known the value
+of their devices. A great power is at work, operating on the character
+and capacity of each individual, and affecting each according to the
+infinite diversity which prevails among men. A common enthusiasm, or,
+at least, a common excitement pervades the whole community to its
+profoundest depths, and arouses all its energy and all its intellect,
+whatever that energy and intellect may be capable of doing. It carries
+multitudes into the army full of patriotic ardor; it inspires others
+with grand ideas, which they seek to embody in combinations of power,
+useful and effective in the great work which is the task of the nation,
+and for the accomplishment of which all noble hearts are laboring
+earnestly and incessantly.
+
+But in this tempestuous hour, as in more peaceful times, good and bad
+ideas, valuable and worthless devices, noble and generous as well as
+sinister and mercenary purposes are mingled in the vast multitude of
+projects which are presented for acceptance and adoption. The power of
+the nation is magnified by the impulse which arouses it; but in its
+exaltation it still retains its errors and defects. It is the same
+people, with all their characteristic faults and virtues, stimulated to
+mighty exertions in a sacred cause, who have been so often engaged in
+petty partisan contests, swayed by dishonest leaders, and carried astray
+by the base intrigues of ambition and selfishness. Yet, as the masses,
+at all times, have had no interest but that of the nation which they
+chiefly constitute, and have sought nothing but what they at least
+considered to be the public good, so even now, in these mad and perilous
+times, the predominating sentiment and purpose of the people, in
+whatever sphere they move, are, on the whole, good and worthy of
+approval. Every one must at least pretend to be controlled by honest and
+patriotic motives; and in such an emergency hypocrisy cannot possibly be
+universal or even predominant. Although men may seek chiefly their own
+interest and profit, they must do so through some effort of public
+usefulness. They must commend themselves, their works, and ideas, as of
+superior importance to the cause of the country; and in this universal
+struggle and competition--this mighty effervescence of popular thought
+and action, it would be strange and unexampled, if some great, new
+conceptions should not dawn upon us. The very condition, physical,
+social, and moral, of our twenty millions of people in the loyal States
+is unlike all that has ever preceded it. Their general intelligence, the
+result of universal education, makes available their unlimited freedom,
+and establishes their capacity for great achievements. The present
+momentous occasion makes an imperative demand upon all their highest
+faculties, and they cannot fail to respond in a manner which will
+satisfy every just expectation.
+
+What the Government has undertaken in this crisis is worthy of a great
+people and springs from the large ideas habitual to Americans. The
+blockade of the whole Southern coast, with its vast shore line, and its
+intricate network of inlets, harbors, and rivers; the controlling of the
+mighty Mississippi from Cairo to the gulf; the campaigns in Virginia,
+Tennessee, and Arkansas; and the pending attacks on Charleston and
+Savannah--these gigantic and tremendous operations have something of
+that grandeur which is familiar to our thoughts--which, indeed,
+constitutes the staple of the ordinary American speech, apparently
+having all the characteristics of exaggerated jesting and idle boast. We
+frequently hear our enthusiastic countrymen talk of anchoring Great
+Britain in one of our northern lakes. They speak contemptuously of the
+petty jurisdictions of European powers contrasted with the magnificent
+domain of our States, and they sneer at the rivers of the old continent
+as mere rills by the side of the mighty 'father of waters.' The men
+whose very jests are on a scale of such magnitude, do not seem to find
+the extensive military operations too large for their serious thoughts.
+No American considers them beyond our power, or for one moment hesitates
+to admit their ultimate success. No difficulties discourage us, no
+disasters appal. We move on with indomitable will and determination,
+looking through all the obstacles to the grand result as already
+accomplished. Does slavery stand in the way, and cotton seek to usurp
+the throne of universal empire, dictating terms to twenty millions of
+freemen, and demanding the acquiescence of the world? The first is
+annihilated by a word proclaiming universal liberation; the second is
+blockaded in his ports, surrounded by a wall of fire, suffocated and
+strangled, and dragged helpless and insensible from his imaginary
+throne. A proud and desperate aristocracy, rich and powerful, and
+correspondingly confident, undertake to measure strength with the
+democratic millions whom they despise. These Northern people, scorned
+and detested, have ideas--grand and magnificent as well as practical
+ideas, nurtured by universal education and unlimited freedom of thought
+and act. The fierce and relentless aristocracy rave in their very
+madness, and defy the people whom they seek to destroy; but these bear
+down upon the haughty enemy, slowly and deliberately--awkwardly and
+blunderingly, it may be, at first, but learning by experience, and
+moving on, through all vicissitudes, with the certainty and solemnity of
+destiny to the hour of final and complete success. The confidence in
+this grand result dominates every other thought. All ideas and all
+purposes revolve around it as a centre. It is the internal fire which
+warms the patriotism, strengthens the purpose, stimulates the invention,
+sustains the courage, and feeds the undying confidence of the nation, in
+this, the hour of its desperate struggle for existence.
+
+
+
+
+PROMOTED!
+
+
+  '_You_ will not bid me stay!' he said,
+    'She calls for me--my native land!
+  And _stay_? ah, better to be dead!
+    A _coward_ dare not ask your hand!
+
+  'My crimson sash you'll tie for me,
+    My belted sword you'll fasten, love!
+  I swear to both I'll faithful be,
+    To these below! to God above!
+
+  'And if, perchance, my sword shall win
+    A laurel wreath to crown _your_ name,
+  He will not count it as my sin,
+    That I for _you_ have prayed for fame!'
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  His name rings thro' his native land,
+    His sword has won the hero's prize;
+  Why comes he not to ask her hand?
+    Dead on the battle field he lies.
+
+
+
+
+HENRIETTA AND VULCAN.
+
+
+Time, O well beloved, floweth by like a river; sweepeth on by turreted
+castles and dainty boat-houses, great old forests and ruined cities.
+Tender, cool-eyed lilies fringe its rippling shores, straggling arms of
+longing seaweeds are unceasingly wooing and losing its flying waves; and
+on its purple bosom by night, linger merrily hosts of dancing stars.
+Bright under its limpid waters gleam the towers of many a 'sunken city.'
+Strong and clear through the night-silence of eager listening, ring the
+chimes of their far-off bells, the echoes of joyous laughter: and to
+waiting, yearning ones come, ever and anon, deep glances from gleaming
+eyes, warm graspings from outstretched hands. And well windeth the river
+into grim old caves, and even the merriest boat that King Cole ever
+launched flitteth by the dark doors, intent only on the brilliant
+_chateaux_, that shimmer above in the gorgeous sunlight of a brave
+_Espagne_. But laughing imps, with flying feet, venture singly into
+these realms of the Unknown. Bright streameth the light there from
+carbuncles and glowing rubies; but of the melodies that there bewilder
+them, no returning voice ever speaketh, for are they not Eleusinian
+mysteries? But when thou meetest, O brother, sailing down the stream
+under gay flags and rounding sails, some Hogarth or some Sterne, who
+playeth _rouge et noir_ with keen old Pharaohs, and battledore with
+Charlie Buff; who singeth brave _Libiamos_, and despiseth not the
+Christmas plums of Johnny Horner; who payeth graceful court to the great
+and learned, and warmeth the pale hearts of the shivering poor with his
+kind cheer and gentle words; who sitteth with Socrates and Pericles at
+the feet of an ever-lovely Aspasia, and whispereth _capricios_ to Anna
+Maria at the opera; know then, O beloved, if thou hast ever trodden the
+mystic halls, that this man is the brother of thy soul! Selah!
+
+But the bravest stream that ever was born on a mountain side has its
+shoals and quicksands, and far out in the sounding sea rise slowly coral
+reefs. Now, if on every green, growing isle newly rising to the
+sunlight, the glorious jealousy of some Jove should toss a Vulcan, how
+would our Venuses be suddenly charmed by the beauties of a South Sea
+Scheme! how would their tiny shallops dot the curling waves, and what
+new flowers would spring upon the smiling shores to greet their rosy
+feet!
+
+'And why a Vulcan?' says the elegant Narcissus Hare, with a shiver; 'a
+great, grim, solemn, limping monster, that Brummel would have spurned in
+disgust! And he to win our ladies with their delicate loveliness! Faugh,
+sir! are you a Cyclops yourself?'
+
+Alas! my Tinkler, do you remember that Salmasius began his vituperations
+of Milton with gratuitous speculations upon his supposed ugliness, and
+that great was his grief when he was assured that he contended with an
+ideal of beauty. Have you forgotten that the Antinöus won the
+distinguished favor of his merry, courteous queen Christina, and that
+the satirist and man of 'taste' died of obscurity in a year? Beware, my
+little Narcissus, lest the next autumn flowers bloom above your grave in
+Greenwood, and your fair Luline be accepting bouquets and _bonbons_ from
+me.
+
+You, Roland, are pale from the very contemplation of such a catastrophe,
+such an unprecedented _hægira_ of dames! It is as if from every gay
+watering place, some softly tinkling bell should summon the fair
+mermaids. Beplaided and betrowsered, with their little gypsy hats, would
+they float out beyond the breakers, waving aside with farewell, airy
+kisses, the patent life boats and the magical preservers, and pressing
+on, like Gebers, with their rosy faces and great, hopeful eyes ever
+laughingly, merrily turned to the golden east--their _Morgen Land_!
+
+Ah! but--have we no Vulcans among us? 'Fair Bertha, Beatrice, Alys,'
+come out of the Christmas ecstatics of the dear old year that has just
+streamed out like a meteor among the stars;--_you_ know, fair ones, that
+the stars are only years, and the planets grave old centuries; lock away
+the jewels and the lace sets--charming, I know--the glove boxes and the
+statuettes, the cream-leaved books, and the fragile, graceful
+_babioles_; pull up the cushions, and group your bright selves around
+the register--it's very cold to-day, you roses--and let us settle the
+question--have we a Vulcan among us?
+
+Magnificent essayists, O dearly beloved, have handled 'Our Husbands,'
+'Our Wives,' 'Our Sons' and 'Our Daughters' in a masterly style. Very
+praiseworthy, no doubt, but so unromantic! Why, there's not a green leaf
+in the whole collection! The style is decidedly Egyptian, solid and
+expressive, but dreadfully compact. No arabesques, those offshoots of
+lazy, dreamy hours and pleasantly disconnected thoughts, disgrace the
+solemnly even tenor of these fathers of 'Ephemeral Literature,' as some
+'rude Iconoclast' has irreverently styled the butterfly journeyings of
+our magazine age. But we, O merry souls and brave, are still young and
+frivolous: we still look at pictures with as much zest as before our
+dimly remembered teens; and we belong to that happy branch of the
+Scribbleri family, that prefer the sympathy of bright eyes and gay
+laughter, to the approving shake of any D'Orsay's 'ambrosial curls,' or
+the most unqualified smile from the grimmest old champion who even now
+votes in his secret heart against the New Tariff, or charges with
+unparalleled bravery imaginary or windmill giants on the floor of a
+Platform or of a Legislature.
+
+But this, our paper, purporteth to be, in some wise, a disquisition on
+Beaux, and, by our faith, we had well-nigh forgotten it. _Retournons à
+nos moutons_, as the ancient lawyers used to say (and many a tyro, in
+the interim, hath said the same) when they grew so entangled in the
+mazes of Jack Shepherd cases that they lost sight of their original
+designs. And lest I should grow wearisomely prosaic, and see the yawn
+behind your white hand, _belle_ Beatrice, let me make my disquisition a
+half story, and point my moral, not as fairies do, with a pinch, but
+with the shadow of a tale.
+
+And here, _signorina_, though in courage I am a Cæsar, here I shrink.
+The birdseye view I would take of a few leaves of beau-dom, should be
+from the standing point of your own unquiet, peering eyes; and if even
+Cupid is blindfold, how may I, to whom you are all tormentingly
+delicious enigmas, hope in my own unaided strength to enter the charmed
+citadel of your experiences? Oh, no! But happy is the man, who, with an
+inquiring mind, has also a sister! Thrice happy he whose sisters have
+just now flitted down the staircase, from their own inner sanctuaries,
+into the little library, bearing with them in noisy triumph the Harry of
+all Goodfellows, the truant Henrietta Ruyter! Ah! she is the key that
+will unlock for me those treasures of thought and observation that I
+will shortly lay before you, O readers!
+
+And now to you, O much-traduced star, that presided at my _début_ into
+this vale of tears, may the most glorious rocket ascend that Jackson
+ever said or sung, one that shall break out in pæans of brilliant
+stars!--_for_, when I entered the charmed presence, the very ball that I
+had been wishing to roll was upon the carpet. But of this I was
+unconscious as I admired Fanny's new dress, the mysterious earrings of
+our stately Bertha, and ventured upon a slight compliment to Henrietta,
+who lounged upon the divan. With admirable dexterity, the young lady
+caught the _fleurette_ upon her crochet needle, reviewed it carelessly,
+and finally decided to accept it; an event that I had undoubtedly
+foreseen, for the compliment was a graceful and artistic one. But
+brothers, as you, Gustav, my boy, have long since discovered, are not
+events, and I was presently consigned to the 'elephant chair' in the
+corner, with a portfolio of sketches that Henrietta had brought from
+over the sea--and the dames continued, in charming obliviousness of my
+presence.
+
+'Girls,' said Henrietta, having deposited my compliment snugly in her
+little workbasket, whence it may issue to the delectation of some future
+young lady group, 'how are you going to entertain me? Such a Wandering
+Jew as I am! A perfect Ahasuerus! _What_ a novelty it will be that will
+interest _me_!' and with a most laughingly wearied air, the pretty
+eyebrows were raised, and waves of weariness floated over the golden
+hair in its scarlet net.
+
+Fanny looked concerned. 'We may have a week of opera.'
+
+'I've been--in--Milan,' returned Henrietta, with a well-counterfeited
+air of the disdain with which Mrs. De Lancy Stevens views all republican
+institutions since her year in Europe. Bertha laughed.
+
+'You have grown literary, astronomical perhaps, with your star gazing,
+and Len has become such a Mitchellite of late, that two shelves of his
+bookcase are filled with works on the heavenly bodies. What a rapture
+you will be in at the sight!'
+
+'Quite an Aquinas,' said Henrietta, with gravity.
+
+'How so, Harry,' asked Fanny, after a pause, during which she had been
+deciding that her friend meant--Galileo!
+
+'Oh, he wrote about angels, you know; said these heavenly bodies were
+made of thick clouds, and some other nonsense, of which I remember
+nothing.'
+
+I, in my corner, was devoutly thankful that angels now assume more
+tangible shapes, which chivalric sentiment, finding expression only in
+my eyes, was recognized but by Henrietta, who rewarded me with a
+lightning smile.
+
+'Bertha, my queen,' continued she, as that lady's serene countenance
+beamed upon her in apparently immovable calmness, '_does_ anything ever
+arouse you? Have you forgotten, my impenetrable spirit, the sad days of
+yore, when we sobbed out grand _arias_ to the wretched accompaniment of
+Professor Tirili, blistered our young fingers on guitar strings, waded
+unprofitably in oceans of Locke and Bacon, and were oftener at the apex
+of a triangle than its comfortable base? And you always as calm as
+though 'sailing over summer seas!' Come--I am absolutely blue;' and the
+half-fretful belle, who had really exhausted her strength and amiability
+by a grand pedestrian tour in the Central Park that morning, stretched
+out demurely her gaiter boots, and drew with an invisible pencil on
+imaginary paper, the outline of her boldly arched instep.
+
+'If Landon would only come,' sighed Fanny, musingly, counting the beads
+for the eye of the Polyphemus she was embroidering on a cushion for that
+gentleman's sofa meditations, 'he would entertain you, as well as
+the--one--two--three--witches in Macbeth.'
+
+'No doubt of it,' said Henrietta.
+
+'Five blues and two blacks,' said Fanny, not heeding the reply. 'See,
+girls,' and she held up the glittering orb, 'what a lovely eye!'
+
+The enthusiasm of her audience was delirious but subdued. I caught an
+occasional '_Such_ a love!' 'How sweet--how fierce!'
+
+'Now,' said Henrietta, decidedly, 'if Medusa had but one eye, and this
+dear creature two, I should die as miserably as the lady who loved the
+Apollo Belvidere. I have had _oceans_ of knights errant--but _such_! I
+think of writing a natural history like--Cuvier.'
+
+'Yes,' said Bertha, quietly, 'or Peter Parley.'
+
+'Suppose I read you the advance sheets some morning?'
+
+'Charming,' said Fanny, with a little shrug of approaching delight.
+
+'Mr. Landon Snowe, Miss Fanny,' said a crusty voice, and from under a
+tower of white turban, Sibyl's face looked out--at the door.
+
+'We will see him here, Sibyl,' said Fanny, brightly; 'and oh, Sibyl, ask
+Mott to make a macaroon custard for dinner, for Miss Ruyter.'
+
+'Excellent,' said that lady, again with the De Lancy Stevens air, 'I
+ate--those--in--Paris. They actually flavor them there with _Haut
+Brion!_ and they are delicious!' and Henrietta's lips fairly quivered at
+the remembrance, that was by no means a recollection of the long-ago
+enjoyed dainties.
+
+'Such extravagance!' said Fanny, opening her eyes, and arranging sundry
+little points in her attitude that were intended to be very piercing
+indeed to the gentleman, whose step was now heard in the hall. 'Such
+extravagance, Harry! Your father, I suppose. You'll get nothing better
+than Port here. Good morning, Mr. Snowe.'
+
+'Talking of ports, ladies,' said that gentleman, airily, after he had
+prostrated himself, figuratively as well as disfiguratively, before Miss
+Henrietta, bowed over Bertha's hand, and drew his chair to Fanny's
+sewing stand, for the triple purpose of confusing her zephyrs, flirting
+at a side table, and ascertaining whether Henrietta had fulfilled the
+luxuriant promise of her earlier youth. Snowe was, womanly speaking, as
+you will see, 'a perfect love of a man.' 'Newport, for example, and
+charming drives? Williamsport and the Susquehanna, Miss Fanny?'
+
+Very statesmanly, O Landon G. Snowe, Esq., both the glance beneath which
+my poor little sister's eyes fell, and the allusions twain to the scenes
+of many a pleasure past. But Fanny, though not mistress of her blushes,
+can, at least, control her words.
+
+'You are not a very good Oedipus, Mr. Snowe; we were discussing
+imports.'
+
+'Such as laces and silks?'--
+
+'And punch,' suggested Henrietta.
+
+Mr. Snowe's eyeglass was here freshly adjusted, and his attention
+bestowed upon the young lady who talked of punch, a thing unheard of in
+society! The prospect was refreshing. Henrietta was stylish, piquant,
+and pretty. Fanny was uncertain, indifferent, but, for the moment,
+divine. He magnanimously sacrificed himself to the impulse of the
+moment, and the courtesies of hospitality, and walked courageously over
+to Henrietta, under cover of a huge book.
+
+'They were views from the White Mountains, he believed. Had Miss Ruyter
+seen them? Allow him;' and he wheeled her sofa nearer the table, and
+unfurled the book. Henrietta was charmed.
+
+'The Schwartz Mountains? She had not understood. These are glaciers? How
+they glisten! And these little flowers below are violets? Such pretty,
+modest, ladylike flowers. Had Mr. Snowe a favorite among flowers?'
+
+Mr. Snowe was prepared. He had answered the question exactly five
+hundred and ten times. To Cecilia Lanner, who was almost a _religieuse_,
+and who wore her diamond cross from principle, he was the very poet of a
+passion flower, such holy mysteries as its opening petals disclosed to
+him! To Lucy Grey, who wore pensive curls, and had a sweet voice, he
+presented constantly fragrant little sprays of mignonette, cunning moss
+baskets with a suspicion of heliotrope peeping out, and crushed myrtle
+blossoms between the leaves of her most exquisitely bound books. To Katy
+Lessing, who rowed a small green boat somewhere up the Hudson in the
+summer, he confided the fact that water lilies were his admiration: he
+loved the limpid water; its restless waves were like heart throbbings
+(this nearly overwhelmed poor Katy). All great and noble souls loved the
+water;--he forgot the sacred fakirs, and the noble lord who preferred
+Malmsey wine! He had repeatedly assured Regina Ward that the camelia was
+_his_ flower, so proudly beautiful! His soul was 'permeated with
+loveliness,' and asked no fragrance. Regina is a great white creature,
+lovely to behold, and, perfectly conscious of her perfection, no more
+actively charming than the Ino of Foley. He won Milly White's favor by
+applauding her love for wild flowers, declaring that a field of
+buttercups reminded him of the 'spangled heavens,' and that on summer
+days he was constantly envying the cool little Jacks in their green
+pulpits.
+
+A pretended Lavater--and there have been such--would have convicted
+Snowe at once of the most artful penetration, could he have seen the
+lowering curve of his brows as he watched the nervous fluttering of
+Henrietta's hands over the pictures, and the decided but softly pleasant
+rounding of her white chin. But it was the general unconsciously
+powerful indifference of manner, that advised him to prefer, in reply to
+her question:
+
+'The snapdragon, yes, beyond the shadow of a doubt. I have an odd
+fashion (very odd, Gustav!), Miss Ruyter, of associating ladies with
+flowers, and that gorgeous three-bird snapdragon always looks to me like
+some brilliant belle, who holds her glittering sceptre and wields it,
+capriciously perhaps, but always charmingly.'
+
+'A sort of Helen,' observed Henrietta, calmly.
+
+'A witching, arbitrary, lovely Helen,' promptly returned Snowe, who had
+a vague idea of Greek helmets and golden apples, wooden horses, a great
+war, and 'all for love.'
+
+Henrietta heard the magnificent vagueness, and became so intently
+interested in a view, that Snowe came softly over to my window, and
+looked into the garden. Lilly Brennan coming in just then, the
+conversation became general, and presently Snowe accompanied her down
+the street.
+
+'Fanny,' said Henrietta, with an inquisitorial air, after the girls had
+decided that the slides on the bows of Lilly's dress were too small, and
+that her 'Bird of Paradise' was lovely enough to fly away with them all,
+'Fanny, are you the 'bright, particular star' of that man?'
+
+'I believe so,' said Fanny, with a stare.
+
+'Do you intend to beam on him for any length of time?' persisted
+Henrietta.
+
+'I haven't decided,' said Fan, honestly. 'I love beauty, and Landon
+Snowe is magnificent.'
+
+'So is the Venus de Medicis,' said Henrietta, fiercely; 'but look at her
+spine! What sort of a brain do you think _could_ flourish at the top of
+such a spine? Not that I suppose that man to have the least fragment of
+one; don't suspect such a thing! Don't you observe his weak, disjointed
+way of carrying his head, and the Pisan appearance of his sentences? I
+should dread an earthquake for such a man as Mr. Snowe--you'd have
+nothing but remnants to remember him by, Fanny.'
+
+'But earthquakes _are_ phenomena,' said Fanny, stoutly, 'and I'm not in
+the least like one. As long as Landon never fails except spiritually, I
+am contented--and even in that light _I_ never knew him to trip,' and
+the child was as indignant as her indolent nature would permit.
+
+'Trip! of course not,' echoed Henrietta, 'when he's buried like a
+delicate Sphinx up to his shoulders in the sands of your good opinion,
+and the mummy cloths of his own conceit; but just remove these, and
+you'll see a downfall. My dear FRANCESCA, this man is your CECCO, and
+he'd far better retire into a monastery than hope to win you. Why, I'd
+rather marry you myself, FRANCESCA! Such charms!' and Henrietta, with
+her own delicate perception and enjoyment of the beautiful, kissed my
+sister's deprecatingly extended hand, and, as the dinner bell rang,
+waltzed her out of the room.
+
+'It's perfectly bewildering the interest some people take in music,' she
+resumed later, building a little tent on the side of her plate with the
+_débris_ of fish. 'There's Bartlett Browning, telling me the other
+evening a melancholy story of some melodious fishes, off the coast
+of--_Weiss nicht wo_; oysters, I suppose; conceive of it! the most
+phlegmatic of creatures. I suppose some poor fisherman heard a merlady
+singing in her green halls, and fancied it the death song of some of his
+shells. But that's nothing to some of Bartlett Browning's musical tales.
+The man's a perfect B flat himself!'
+
+'Well,' said Nelly, Phil's little girl, who had come around to show her
+new velvet basque, 'but shells _do_ sing, for I've often listened to
+mamma's, and Bessy gives it to me at night to put me to sleep. _You_
+know, Aunt Bertie, for you once made me learn what it said:
+
+  'Oh, sweet and far, from cliff and scar,
+    The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!'
+
+'Fish-land, my beauty,' said Henrietta, playfully; 'let us hear _your_
+song, fishlet,' and she held a little gleaming shrimp by his tail, and
+looked expectantly at his silent mouth. And here I remember, with a
+smile of amusement and some astonishment, that Herman Melville, in
+nervous fear of ridicule, apologized, most gracefully, of course, for
+his beauteous Fayaway's primitive mode of carving a fish; but I fancy I
+hear myself, or you either, sir, begging the community to shut its dear
+eyes, while Harry's little victim, all unconscious of his fate,
+disappeared behind the walls, coral and white, of her lips and teeth.
+
+Oh, isn't it perfectly delicious to meet a real, frank, merry, wise sort
+of a girl, who doesn't wear spectacles or blue stockings, nor disdain
+the Lancers or a new frock with nineteen flounces? Just fancy it,
+Gustav, my dear fellow, chatting with the Venus of Milo, in a New York
+dining room, and she all done up in blue poplin, with cords and tassels
+and all that, with that lovely hair tumbling about in a scarlet net, and
+such a splendid enjoyment of her own great grace, and royal claiming of
+homage! Eating mashed potatoes too, and celery, and roast beef, to keep
+up that magnificent physique of hers! Oh, it's rare!
+
+But Henrietta couldn't forget Snowe, any more than Snowe could forget
+himself; so, after she had gazed with delight at the red veins of wine
+that threaded the jelly-like custard, with its imprisoned macaroons,
+looking like gold fish asleep in a globe of sun-dyed water, she went on,
+as if the conversation had not been interrupted:
+
+'Do you know, Fan, that he reminds me constantly of champagne. If
+there's anything on earth or in a cellar that I do detest, its
+champagne; such smiling, brilliant-looking impudence, that comes out
+fizz--bang! and that's the end of it; there's not so much as the quaver
+of an echo. You drink it, and instead of seeing cool vineyards and
+purple waters and cataracts of icicles in your glass, you find a pale,
+gaunt spectre, or a poor, half-drowned Bacchus, staring at you. It's
+just so with your Landon Snowe. You, and other people, too, have a
+_habit_ of admiring him, a great creature with eyes of milky blue, who
+goes about disbursing his small coin like some old Aladdin! Why, my dear
+children, the man, I don't doubt, is this moment congratulating himself,
+in his solitude at Delmonico's, upon his great penetration. Didn't you
+see him studying me with a great flourish of deference, and throwing
+his old, three-birded snapdragons into my White Mountains? If he had
+been as ugly as a Scarron, now, and had known what he said, I could have
+loved him for that, for, of all things, I do delight in dragons! Such
+sieges as I have had at zoological gardens and menageries, from Dan to
+Beersheba, just to see one; and ugly old lizards have been pointed out
+to me, and scorpions, and every imaginable object but a dragon. But one
+day I dug a splendid old manuscript--a perfect fossil--out of some old
+library in Spezia, and opening it, by the merest chance came upon a most
+lovely, illuminated, full-grown dragon, the very one, I suppose, that
+Confucius couldn't find! I gazed in raptures, my dearest; he perfectly
+sparkled with emeralds; his eyes were the most luminous opals. Dear,
+happy old Indians, who had their dragons at the four corners of the
+earth, and could go and look over at the lordly creatures whenever they
+felt melancholy. And besides, I have a little private system of
+dragonology of my own, that approaches the equator more nearly. I've
+always worn opals since that day on every possible occasion; I mean to
+be married in them.'
+
+Hurra! _belle Henriette!_ thou hast a weakness. At the end of a long
+aisle, shrouded in sumptuously colored perfumed light, stands an altar,
+and white surplices gleam through the effulgence.--Thou queen! and that
+thy crowning!
+
+'Len,' said Fanny the next morning, as I sat, after breakfast, over the
+paper, 'don't you think Harry is a little, just a little, satirical,
+and--well--not _perfectly_ ladylike and kind, to talk so dreadfully of
+one's friends?'
+
+'Satirical!? Bless your little, tender heart, not the least mite in the
+world; she's quite too straightforward for that. Unladylike! Why, my
+dear Fanny, don't you know 'the wounds of a friend'? Did you never
+think, little sister, that some girls are sent into the world to perform
+the office of crumb-scrapers for your serene highnesses, and themselves
+as well?'
+
+'Like a lady, who gives a dinner party, jumping up and brushing off her
+own table,' said Fanny with an amused laugh.
+
+'Just so, dear; and as they go wandering about, not a fragment can be
+omitted. Now, a little dwarf of a thing like you couldn't do that with
+any grace; but Harry _could_, you know, and make everybody think it was
+charming. So, if fragments of poor Snowe fall under her unsparing hand,
+and she brushes them off carelessly, don't let anybody's tears go
+rolling after, don't let anybody's heart ache, for such a trifle; think
+of the dessert, Fanny, that is sure to follow.'
+
+'Then you too, Len, you _want_ me to give up Landon?'
+
+'Yes, my dear, let Landon--slide.'
+
+Fanny here boxed my ears with emphasis, and retreated, with an
+expression of great disgust on her pretty face.
+
+'Come back here, my child,' I said, pulling her down on my knee, 'and
+let me reason with you.'
+
+Such an oracle as I am with the girls! There's nothing like it, Gustav;
+for every fan or bracelet you give your sisters, you'll be amply
+rewarded by revelations and love; and it's something to have a dear,
+white, undulating wreath of a girl in your arms, and rosy lips on yours,
+even if it is your sister. Bless the sweet creatures!
+
+'What do you want to marry Snowe for?'
+
+'Well, you see, Len, it's so grand to have such a great beauty always at
+one's hand, and the girls are all dying for him; and, you know, Len, the
+truth is,' (very low,) 'he loves me, as you see, and--we girls are such
+silly creatures--and I suppose the compliment pleases me,' and the
+frank, darling face crimsoned, and tears stood in the blue eyes. I
+kissed them both, and laid her hands on my shoulders.
+
+'Pet,' I said, earnestly, 'you are worth a gross of Landon Snowes. He
+loves you, of course--he'd have been an icicle to have failed in so
+obvious a duty; but it's only a matter of pure admiration, scarcely of
+any complicated feelings. Besides, dear, these whitewashed, sinewless,
+variable fellows fade like the winter sun, without any twilight; their
+features go wandering off in search of becoming expressions, and they
+would want a wife like a chameleon to satiate their variety-loving
+natures. No, dear; give Landon to Henrietta, and when Napoleon comes
+back, I will enter no protest, even Harry will be silent, and'--
+
+'Oh, Len, what nonsense! couldn't you recommend me to the man in the
+moon, through a telescope?'
+
+Fanny laughed, and we went again into the library, where Harry, as
+usual, was tapping her rings with the carved handle of the crotchet
+needle, that was as ornamental, and about as useful, as Cleopatra's.
+
+'I am going to live in a new country,' said she, gravely, as we entered
+the room; 'I would go sailing off like a squirrel on a piece of bark. I
+begin to have intense yearnings after my double. _Where_ do you suppose
+I'm to find him, the gorgeous, tropical anomaly?'
+
+'In Pompeii, or the Cities of the Plain?' I suggested.
+
+'Fanny,' she continued, laughingly, 'is very grave about her vanishing
+Snowe-flakes; but for poor me, who have been persecuted by the most
+distressing men, she has no pity. Girls, I promised you an inventory of
+these treasures.'
+
+'Oh yes,' said Fan, gleefully; 'go out, Len, or you will never be able
+to endure Harry afterward, for your counterpart will be peeping out, and
+then woe to your pride!'
+
+'No danger,' said Henrietta, '_that's_ perfectly invulnerable. Lenox may
+remain; it will be a wholesome discipline for him--a warning, you know,
+my hero; although, girls, Lenox is tolerably faultless,
+
+  'Little _he_ loves but a Frau or a feast,
+   Little he fears but a protest or priest.'
+
+Praed altered. Sit down, disciple, at my feet if you will; I am in the
+oratorical mood to-day. Hypatia, if you please, _not_ Grace the Less.'
+
+There was a pretty picture of the _Immaculée Conception_ over the sofa,
+one of those lithographs that you see in every bookstore, that Bertha
+fancied because it was 'sweet.' The Virgin, a woman with a child-angel's
+face, and the mezzo-luna beneath her feet. That artist knew what he was
+about, sir. I'd give more for a picture with a good, deep idea, boldly
+launched forth, than for a thousand of your smiling, proper, natural
+'studies,' and Bridal Scenes, and Dramatic or Historical Snatches. If
+artists, now, were all poets and scholars, as they should be, it would
+be the work and delirious rapture of a life to go through a gallery as
+large as our Dusseldorf. Men would go there to write novels and
+histories, and women to learn to be good and beautiful--that is, to
+learn to think. Oh, what a school for great and small! But when is this
+new era of the real and the true in art to begin? You boy artists, who
+are just opening glad eyes to the glorious light, the great world looks
+to _you_ to inaugurate the new, to pour ancient lore and mystic symbols
+and grand old art into the waiting crucible, and melt the whole, with
+your burning, creative genius, into forms and conceptions before which,
+hearts shall be silent in very rapture. But the time is not yet. One
+here and there cannot change the Iron to a Golden Age, and it is to
+thoughts rather than their great embodiments that earnest
+art-worshippers now bow. And yet men fancy they are artists, dream of a
+fame glorious as that of Phidias! Why there's young Acajou, who
+chiselled a very respectable hound out of a stray lump of marble,
+stealthily, by a candle, or more probably a spirit lamp, in his father's
+cellar--was discovered and straightway heroized. I don't say the boy
+hasn't talent, genius if you will; but it isn't the genius that will
+overflow his soul and etherealize his whole nature. Yet already he
+'progresses like a giantess,' has attracted some attention in the
+Academy, and will directly be sent to Rome. But the idea! I know him too
+well! The other night I heard him criticizing Michael Angelo! and when I
+gave him an engraving of that delicious Psyche of Theed's to admire, the
+creature talked as if she were a manikin or a robed skeleton! Is there
+nothing due to the idea, Acajou? 'The idea!' dear me, why he didn't
+exactly know what the _idea_ was! So he'll go trolling about the Louvre
+and the Luxembourg gallery, the Pitti palace and all Rome, and his mind
+will be as full of elbows and collar bones as the catacombs; he'll talk
+to you of the Grecian line of beauty and of 'pose,' and sketch you such
+a glorious arm or ankle that you, fair lady, wouldn't know it from your
+own! But do you see a single softened line in his own face? Has he ever
+drunk deep draughts from old fountains of poesy? Has he ever thought of
+the Vatican library--even though to long is all he may do? Oh no! He
+says mythology is a wornout dream, and insulting to a Christian age;
+that it's all well enough to know Jupiter and Bacchus (Silenus too?) and
+Venus and the head men back there, but this century wants originality,
+progress! Oh, pshaw!
+
+Oh, but I was saying that Our Lady stood over the half moon, and
+Henrietta sat below it, with that soft cashmere morning dress, fighting
+all around her to see which fold should cling most lovingly to her
+graceful form. It was all a delicious poem to me, and if I were Horace,
+you would have had a splendid ode. Oh, well!
+
+'Why, what a Joseph he is!' said Henrietta, waking me out of this
+reverie.
+
+'Oh,' said I, starting, 'how did you know that?'
+
+'Only conjecture, my dear friend; but when we see a man with his eyes
+fixed in that ghostly way, and his mustaches and all in perfect repose,
+we reasonably imagine that he's seeing visions; and I suppose you'll
+come flaming out presently with some dreams that shall have, for remote
+consequences, a throne in some Eastern paradise, and a princess,
+perhaps--who knows?'
+
+'Who knows?' echoed I; 'but go on, Hypatia.'
+
+'Oh yes! where shall I begin? Oh! there is Penhurst Lane, girls, you
+remember?'
+
+'The raven?' said Bertha.
+
+'No,' said Fanny, 'that is Mr. Rawdon. Penhurst Lane is an idealist.'
+
+'A _very_ idealist, just so,' returned Harry. 'Well, the way I've been a
+martyr to that man's caprice is perfectly heart-rending. He came of some
+gorgeous family in the middle of Pennsylvania, where all the tribes,
+like leaning towers, incline toward Germany. To be sure, you'd never
+dream it from his looks, for he is a perfect Mark Antony in that
+respect. You needn't laugh. Didn't he have _bonnes fortunes_ as well as
+Alcibiades? Not that Penhurst had _bonnes fortunes_, or ever dreamed of
+such things; but he always had such a proclivity toward any one who
+would listen to his harangues; and I must say, just _inter nos_ (the
+only bit of Latin I know, Lenox, I got it from the English 'Don
+Giovanni'), that I have quite a talent for listening well. But I'd as
+lief encounter a West India hurricane or a simoom. I used to feel him
+coming an hour beforehand. Then I would read a little in Blair, take a
+peep at Sir Charles Grandison, swallow half a page of Cowper's 'Task,'
+and look over the Grecian and Roman heroes; then I was fortified. 'Why
+didn't I take Shelley?' Oh my! why, he couldn't endure Shelley, said he
+was a poor, weak creature, _all gone to imagination_! Then I would
+assume a Sontag and thick boots, if the weather was cold, to appear
+sensible, you know, and await his coming; that is, if I didn't become
+exasperated before that stage, and rush in to see Lil Brennan to avoid
+him. And his opinions, such an unfolding! You never caught him looking
+with admiration, oh no! I might have laid a wilderness of charms on the
+floor, at his very feet, and he would have brushed them all away with
+indifference. His mind revolved around a weightier theme than any 'lady
+of fashion;' like a newly discovered moon, he flew around the earth, and
+with miraculous speed. He stopped in China to say 'Confucius;' in India,
+to say 'Brahma;' in Persia, to say 'Ormuzd;' and so on around. My dear
+Lenox, if you had asked him whether Ormuzd was at peace with all the
+world, he would have retired into himself, for he hadn't the faintest
+idea. As for music, or any fine art, he never approached it but once,
+when he led me to the piano, begging for some native American melody,
+and not a German romance. Well, I played him 'God save the Queen,' with
+extravagant variations, which he took for 'Yankee Doodle.' No matter! I
+made a mistake when I spoke of his opinions; he hadn't any. He was what
+some call 'well read,' that is, he had a distant desire to 'improve his
+mind,' but his magnificent self so filled his little vision, that his
+great desire was obscured and distorted. Like my beloved Jean Paul, he
+had once said to himself, _Ich bin ein Ich_ (I am a ME), and the noble
+consciousness overwhelmed him, and excluded all after thoughts on any
+minor subject. He never heard Grisi, never saw Rachel; they were
+triflers, 'life was too grave, too short;' but he escorted me
+occasionally to lectures and orations. I remember two or three of these.
+A lecture on the 'Fossils of Humanity and Primeval Formations,' which
+was unintelligible, consequently to him 'sublime;' one on 'the Exalted,'
+that soared out of sight and beyond the empire of gravity, and one on
+'Architecture,' by Dr. Vinton, a splendid production, the fruit and
+evidence of years of study and rare talent, that sent me home with
+longings and unaccustomed reverence for the Great in every form, and
+with grief that my own ignorance rendered it only a half-enjoyed
+pleasure to me; while Penhurst talked as if it were only the echo of his
+own thoughts; pretended to say it was very 'sensible!' But you've had
+enough of Mr. Lane, who was never known to laugh except at his own wit,
+who patronized me because I was a 'solid' young lady, and not given to
+flights. You may readily imagine that our interviews were generally
+_tête-à-têtes_, for general society was to him a thing 'stale, flat, and
+unprofitable.' Of course you know I only endured his visits because
+among the girls it was considered a compliment to receive them, and they
+were all dying of envy. Besides and principally, it is neither politic
+nor pleasant to offend any one, and I could not have denied myself to
+him, without doing this; so'--
+
+'But, Harry, he is married now.'
+
+'Ah me! yes. He saw me in a cap and bells once with you, Lenox, and not
+many weeks afterward married a damsel who reveres him as a Solon, this
+man, who said:
+
+         ----'The wanderings
+  Of this most intricate Universe
+  Teach me the nothingness of things.
+  Yet could not all creation pierce
+  Beyond the bottom of his eye.'
+
+'_Are_ you done, Harry?'
+
+'Yes, Lenox.'
+
+'Then sing us Béranger's _Grace à la fêve, je suis roi_.'
+
+She has such a delicious voice.
+
+'And while I am on tiresome people, who think only of themselves, let me
+recall P. George Rawdon; the Raven, Bertha; I always believed his first
+name was Pluto, because of the shades around him. They say every one has
+a text book; his was neither the Bible, the Prayer Book, Thomas à
+Kempis, _La Nouvelle Héloise_, or 'Queechy,' but Mrs. Crowe's 'Night
+Side of Nature.' Talk of having a skeleton in the house! the most
+distressing ones that ever preceded Douglas and Sherwood's were nothing
+to him! he reminded one constantly of an Egyptian feast. He looked
+sadly at children, and gave little Henry Parsons, his godchild, a
+miniature dagger with a jewelled handle, with which the child nearly
+destroyed his right hand. When poor Mary was married, he walked
+mournfully up to the altar, and stared during the ceremony unmistakably
+at an imaginary coffin, hanging, like Mohammed's, midway between the
+ceiling and the floor. Poor man, it's really curious, but he contrives
+to be always in mourning, and everybody knows that he goes only to see
+tragedies, and has the dyspepsia, like Regina and her diamond cross,
+from principle. He composes epitaphs for all the ladies of his
+acquaintance, and presents them, like newspaper-carrier addresses, on
+New Year's days. I have one in my writing desk in a very secret drawer;
+a _soul_-cheering effusion, but not particularly agreeable to the
+physical humanity. This I intend to bequeath to the British museum,
+where it will be in future ages as great a treat to the antiquary as the
+Elgin marbles. What a doleful subject--pass him by!'
+
+'Don't forget Leon Channing,' suggested Fanny, who was listening with
+great interest, and from a natural dread of ghosts and vampires was glad
+to see that Mr. Rawdon had come to a crisis.
+
+'Dear me, no!' said Henrietta, cheerily, 'it's quite refreshing to come
+to an individual who creates a smile. I never was born for tears and
+lamentations, Bertha, any more than a lily was made to be merry; and if
+it were not for Len Channing, I don't suppose I should ever have been
+sharpened to such a dangerous degree; it's this constant friction, you
+know; well, as some darling of a cosmopolite has said, 'We must allow
+for friction in the most perfect machinery--yes, be glad to find it--for
+a certain degree of resistance is essential to strength. I like Leon
+very well. No one is more safe in a parlor engagement, always in the
+right place at the right tune, never embarrassed, never _de trop_; but
+then the queer consciousness, when he's giving you a meringué or an ice,
+that if you were a 'real pretty,' graceful, conversible fawn or dove he
+would be doing it with the same interest! _Why?_ Oh, because he says
+women belong to a lower order in the animal creation! Yes, veil your
+face, Mr. Lenox Raleigh, and be mournful that you are a man! 'A lower
+order of humanity!' Well, of course, I'm always quarrelling with him. To
+be sure he's a shallow kind of a philosopher, one of your rationalists;
+thinks Boston is the linchpin of the whole universe; has autograph
+letters from Emerson and Longfellow, and all that sort of thing. Now, I
+dare say it's very fine for a Schelling or a Hegel once in a while to
+beam over the earth, but it always seems inharmonious to me to see
+little jets of philosophers popping up in your face and then down again,
+all the time, thinking themselves great things. That's the way with
+Leon. Let me tell you what happened when I saw him last; and that was in
+Cologne, more than a year ago. I was sitting in our room with a great
+folio of Retzsch's engravings before me, and father writing horrible
+notes in his journal at the table, and wishing the eleven thousand
+virgins and all Cologne in the bottom of the Rhine, when I looked up,
+and somehow there was Leon. Of course we were rejoiced to see him, it's
+always so pleasant to meet friends abroad. After some talk, father went
+out to take another look at the cathedral, and indulge in speculations
+and legends, and left Leon and me in the window. It's as queer and
+horrible an old town, girls, as you ever dreamed of, and, as there was
+nothing external very fascinating, Leon soon turned his gaze inward,
+and, after twanging several minor strings, began to harp on his endless
+'inferiority of woman.' I plied him, you may know; I gave him Zenobias
+and Didos and de Staels and de Medicis--in an emergency Pope Joan, and
+finally the Boston Margaret Fuller. Leon only stroked his beard and
+smiled.
+
+''Miss Henrietta,' said he, at last, when I stopped in exultation, 'do
+you grant the Africans the vigor or variety of intellect of the
+Europeans?'
+
+''No,' said I.
+
+''Yet you concede that there may be instances among them, where
+education and culture have developed great results.'
+
+''Yes,' I thought, 'there might be.'
+
+''Just as I, bewildered by Miss Henrietta's keen shafts and graceful
+manoeuvres, yield that a woman is, once in a century, gifted with a
+man's depth of thought and her sex's loveliness.' The comparison was
+odious. What did I do? Oh, I (the swarthy Ethiop) only rose from my
+faded arm chair, saluted Mr. Channing (the lordly European) as if I were
+his partner in a quadrille, and brought out my cameos and mosaics to
+show him. In about half an hour the beauty of his reasoning and
+comparison reached his brain, but mine was impenetrable to his most
+honeyed apologies; as I very sweetly assured him, 'I couldn't
+understand, didn't see the drift, couldn't connect the links.' Leon says
+ancient history is a fable, and Herodotus a myth, and all because a
+_woman_ sat upon the tripod at Delphi, and because a _woman_ wore the
+helmet and carried the shield of wisdom.'
+
+'What's the matter, Harry?' asked Fanny, compassionately, as her small
+fingers were stretched like infant grid-irons before her eyes, and a
+silence ensued.
+
+'My new bonnet, Fanny dear, I am wondering what it shall be; we must go
+down this very morning and decide.'
+
+Did you ever think, Narcissus, and you, Gustav, and all of you boys,
+when you are engaged in your small diplomacies and _coups de main_, and
+feeling like giants in intellect beside the dear little girls who play
+polkas for you of evenings and sing sweet ballads, that _pour bien juger
+les grands, il faut les approcher_? I thought so that morning, as I
+heard the animated discussion that succeeded Henrietta's monologue; a
+discussion into which all sorts of delicate conceits of lace and flowers
+entered largely, and which savored about as much of the preceding
+elements as last night's Charlotte Russe of this morning's coffee.
+
+Since Henrietta's oration, I am more than ever afraid of a Vulcan. It is
+very plain that our most fashionably cut suits and most delicately
+perfumed billets are not all powerful,--that the dear creatures are
+either waking or we have been asleep. _Reveillons!_
+
+'_Aux armes, citoyens!_'
+
+Now, while I was writing that last word, a heavy hand was laid on my
+shoulder, and looking up, I saw--Nap. I love Nap. I have a girlish
+weakness (let some lady arraign me for this hereafter) for him; so I
+shouted out and grasped his hands.
+
+'How are the boys?'
+
+'Flourishing. Come to stay?
+
+'Yes, old fellow.'
+
+'Stocks up?'
+
+'To the sky.'
+
+'The governor?'
+
+'All right.'
+
+_I_ haven't any governor. Nap has; and one that saw fit to persecute him
+from twenty to thirty, because he declined to take 'orders.' _Per
+Bacco!_ Never mind, a fit of paralysis has shaken the opposition out of
+the old gentleman at last, and Nap is in sunshine in consequence, and
+rushes around Wall street like a veteran.
+
+But I didn't promise to tell you about Nap, or the girls either; it was
+only a few rays of light I had to dash over 'our beaux;' so where is
+your mother, belle Beatrice? I must make my adieux.
+
+What say you, little one? You like Henrietta; you want to see her again?
+You pull me back with your wee white hands; I will talk to you for an
+hour longer, if I may hold the little kittens in my own. I may? And kiss
+each finger afterward? Ah! you dear child! Well, then--
+
+'Are you going to Van Wyck's to-night, Lenox?' asked Bertha of me, as we
+rose from dinner, a month afterward.
+
+'Yes, after the opera. And you? I fancy--yes--from your eyes.'
+
+Bertha did not answer, and I strolled up stairs into the little back
+drawing room. From the library above I could hear Fanny's merry voice
+and the ring of Nap's cheery replies. Such a comfort as it was to me to
+see those two so fond of each other. You see I am, in a way, Fanny's
+father, and took no very great credit to myself when she half laid her
+hand in the extended one of Snowe. How curiously that witch Harry
+managed the thing, though! Dear little Fan; she stood in more than one
+twilight by the garden window, and whispered over: '_Addio_, FRANCESCA!
+_addio_, CECCO!' and Snowe faded in the returning spring of her heart,
+and into the blooming vista of their separation, hopefully walked Nap,
+and was welcomed with many smiles.
+
+This afternoon, I walked over to the garden window, and there was Harry,
+scrawling an old, bearded hermit on the glass with her diamond ring. We
+both looked out--nothing much to see--a New York garden, thirty feet
+square, with the usual gorgeousness of our winter flowers!
+
+'You are thinking of Shiraz, Harry.'
+
+'Yes,' said she, dreamily, 'I am thinking of Shiraz!'
+
+She didn't say it, but don't you suppose I knew just as well that she
+was wishing for her Vulcan and a great rose garden? I began to sing the
+'Last Man,' but didn't succeed admirably; then I lighted my pipe--Harry
+didn't mind, you know, indeed she only looked at it wishfully.
+
+'In my rose garden,' said she, with a laugh, 'I shall smoke to kill the
+rosebugs.'
+
+'Don't wait,' said I, taking down a dainty _écume de mer_ (the back
+drawing room was my peculiar 'study,' and the repository of several
+gentlemanly 'improprieties'), and I adjusted the amber mouth piece to
+the cherry stem, 'Don't wait for Persia, make your rose garden here.'
+
+Harry shook her head: 'You know, Len,' she said, 'that my roses would
+grow like so many witches in a Puritan soil. I always thought that story
+of the Norwegians' taking rosebuds for bulbs of fire, and being
+terrified, was a very delicate and poetical satire upon _all_
+superstition.'
+
+'Are you going to wash away _all_ superstition?' I asked hastily.
+
+'No,' said she, with a smile at my fierceness; 'no, I like to see the
+sun shine on the dew drops that the webs catch and swing between the
+tops of the grasses.'
+
+I looked at her as she laid her head back against the curtains. My
+nonchalance was as striking as hers, and--as genuine! We were no
+children to be awkward in any event. I took her hand; it was a glowing
+pulse--and mine? She wore one of those curious little cabal rings; there
+were the Hebrew characters for Faith, traced as with a gold pen dipped
+in melted pearls on black enamel. My seal was an emerald, Faith also,
+impaled. I snatched it up and laid it by the ring on her hand. She
+smiled--such a smile! intensest sympathy, deepest! Could it be? to love
+the same old symbols, the same weird music? I caught her close, and bent
+over her lips. The gold hair waved over my shoulder; the great,
+glittering eyes foamed into mine, then melted and swam into deep,
+quivering seas of dreams. I whispered, '_Zoe mou!_' Oh, the quick,
+golden whisper, the flash of genial heartiness, the daring--oh, _how_
+tender! '_Sas agapo._' I held her off, radiant, glowing, fragrant, and
+Bertha's dress rustled up the stairs.
+
+Henrietta stooped to pick up the seal, which had fallen; she balanced it
+on the tip of her finger--the nervy Titan queen! and drew Bertha down by
+her side on the sofa. It was growing dark.
+
+'I must be off, girls, and get your camelias. What will you have,
+Bertha? a red or a white, you've a moment to decide?'
+
+'Neither, Len; I do not go.'
+
+'Why, Bertha? Oh! I remember, it is your anniversary,' and I kissed her.
+
+'And you, princess!' I turned to Henrietta.
+
+'Only roses, good my liege.'
+
+What was the opera that night? Pshaw! what a rhetorical affectation this
+question! as if I could ever forget! _Die Zauberflöte_, and it rang pure
+and clear through my thrilled heart. It followed me around to Van
+Wyck's, where I found Henrietta and Fanny. A compliment to madame, a
+German with mademoiselle, and home again. A great light streamed out of
+the drawing room. I pushed the door open. With a cry of joy, Fan rushed
+into the arms of the grave, fair man who put Bertha off his knee to
+welcome her. Nap, who had followed us in, for a moment stood transfixed,
+and Henrietta, more quiet, stood by their side, saying: 'Here is Harry,
+Fred, when you choose to see her.' And he did choose, her own brother,
+whom she had not seen for three years!
+
+'Come in, Nap,' I said. 'Fred Ruyter.'
+
+'Nap and Fanny,' I whispered; Fred smiled invisibly.
+
+And Bertha? Oh, you know, of course, that she's Bertha Ruyter, and that
+Fred is her husband, just home from six months in Rio, and exactly a
+year from his wedding night! Oh, Lionardo! what mellow, transparent,
+flowing shades drowned us all that night!
+
+'Harry,' I said, the next morning, before I went down town, as I lounged
+over her sofa, 'you have my emerald?'
+
+'Yes!' and her bright face turned up to mine.
+
+'You will keep it, and take me also, dear?'
+
+'_Ma foi! oui_,' was the sweet, smiling reply.
+
+'I'm not quite ugly enough for a Vulcan, I know; but after a while, if
+you are patient, who knows? What sayest thou, Venus?'
+
+'I will try you, _bon camarade_.'
+
+'Your hand upon it, Harry.'
+
+She gave it; I kissed the gold hair that waved against my lips. Fanny
+rushed impetuously upon us, with half-opened eyes, and stifled us with
+caresses.
+
+'Such a proposal,' said she musingly, after she had returned to her
+wools and beads, '14° above zero!'
+
+'And the Polyphemus, Fanny?'
+
+'Is for Nap,' and Fanny blushed and laughed. She was wondering if that
+great event, an 'engagement,' always came about in so prosaic a way. But
+looking at Bertha, I caught the bright, long, gravely humorous gleam
+from her dark eyes, and walked upon it all the way down to Exchange
+Place.
+
+Adieu, little Beatrice; my story hath at last an ending. Keep the little
+hands and little heart warm for somebody brave by and by. Go shining
+about and dancing, and smiling, Hummingbird; may sweetest flowers always
+bloom around you; may you dwell in a fragrant rose garden of your own,
+_mignonne_! Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+ETHEL.
+
+FITZ FASHION'S WIFE.
+
+
+  Take the diamonds from my forehead--their chill weight but frets my brow!
+  How they glitter! radiant, faultless--but they give no pleasure now.
+
+  Once they might have saved a Poet, o'er whose bed the violet waves:
+  Now their lustre chills my spirit, like the light from new-made graves.
+
+  Quick! unbind the braided tresses of my coroneted hair!
+  Let it fall in single ringlets such as I was wont to wear.
+
+  Take that wreath of dewy violets, twine it round their golden flow;
+  Let the perfumed purple blossoms fall upon my brow of snow!
+
+  Simple flowers, ye gently lead me back into the sunny years,
+  Ere I wore proud chains of diamonds, forged of bitter, frozen tears!
+
+  Bring the silver mirror to me! I am changed since those bright days,
+  When I lived with my sweet mother, and a Poet sang my praise.
+
+  My blue eyes are larger, dimmer; thicker lashes veil their light;
+  Upon my cheek the crimson rose fast is fading to the white.
+
+  I am taller, statelier, slighter, than I was in days of yore:--
+  If his eyes in heaven behold me, does he praise me as before?
+
+  Proudly swells the silken rustle--all around is wealth and state,--
+  Dearer far the early roses twining round the wicker gate,
+
+  Where my mother came at evening with the saint-like forehead pale,
+  And the Poet sat beside her, conning o'er his rhythmed tale.
+
+  As he read the linked lines over, she would sanction, disapprove:
+  Soft and musical the pages, but he never sang of love.
+
+  I had lived through sixteen summers, he was only twenty-one,
+  And we three still sat together at the hour of setting sun.
+
+  Lowly was the forest cottage, but the sweetbrier wreathed it well;
+  'Mid its violets and roses, bees and robins loved to dwell.
+
+  Wilder forms of larch and hemlock climbed the mountain at its side;
+  Fairy-like a rill came leaping where the quivering harebells sighed.
+
+  Glittering, bounding, singing, dancing, ferns and mosses loved its track;
+  Lower in it dipped the willows, as to kiss the cloudland's rack.
+
+  Soon there came a stately lover,--praised my beauty, softly smiled:
+  'He would make my mother happy,'--I was but a silly child!
+
+  Came a dream of sudden power--fairest visions o'er me glide--
+  Wider spheres would open for me;--dazzled, I became a bride:
+
+  Fondly deemed my lonely mother would be freed from sordid care;
+  Splendor I might pour around her, every joy with her might share.
+
+  Then the Poet, who had never breathed one word of love to me,--
+  We might shape his life-course for him, give him culture wide and free.
+
+  How I longed to turn the pages, with a husband's hand as guide,
+  Of the long-past golden ages, art and science at my side!
+
+  To my simple fancy seemed it almost everything he knew--
+  Ah! he might have won affection, faithful, fervent, trusting, true!
+
+  I was happy, never dreaming wealth congeals the human soul,
+  Freezing all its generous impulse--I but saw its wide control.
+
+  Years have passed--a larger culture poured strange knowledge through
+    my mind--
+  I have learned to read man's nature: better I were ever blind!
+
+  How can I take upon me what I look upon with scorn,
+  Or learn to brook my own contempt, or trample the forlorn?
+
+  I cannot live by rote and rule; I was not born a slave
+  To narrow fancies; I must feel, although a husband rave!
+
+  I cannot choose my friends because I know them rich, or great;
+  My heart elects the noble,--what cares love for wealth or state?
+
+  Very lovely are my pictures, saints and angels throng my hall--
+  But with shame my cheek is flushing, and my quivering lashes fall:
+
+  Can I gaze on pictured actions, daring deeds, and emprise high,
+  And not feel my degradation while these fetters round me lie?
+
+  Once the Poet came to see me, but it gave me nought but pain;
+  I was glad to see the Gifted go, ne'er to return again.
+
+  For my husband scorning told me: 'True, his lines were very sweet,
+  But his clothes, so worn and seedy--scarce for me acquaintance meet!
+
+  Artists, poets, men of genius, truly should be better paid,
+  But not holding our position, cannot be our friends,' he said.
+
+  'As gentlemen to meet them were a very curious thing;
+  They were happier in their garrets--there let them sigh or sing.
+
+  There were Travers and De Courcy--could he ask them home to dine,
+  At the risk of meeting truly such strange fellows o'er their wine?'
+
+  Then he said, 'My cheeks were peachy, lips were coral, curls were gold,
+  But he liked them braided crown-like, and with pearls and diamonds
+    rolled.
+
+  I was once a little peasant; now I stood a jewelled queen--
+  Fitter that a calmer presence in his stately wife were seen!'
+
+  Then he gave a gorgeous card-case; set with rubies, Roman gold,
+  Handed me a paper with it, strands of pearls around it rolled;
+
+  Names of all his wife should visit I would find upon the roll:--
+  Found I none I loved within it--not one friend upon the scroll!
+
+  And my mother, God forgive me! I was glad to see her go,
+  Ere the current of her loving heart had turned like mine to snow.
+
+  Must I still seem fair and stately, choking down my bosom's strife,
+  Because 'all deep emotions were unseemly in his wife'?
+
+  Must I gasp 'neath diamonds' glitter--walk in lustrous silken sheen--
+  Leaving those I love in anguish while I play some haughty scene?
+
+  I am choking! closer round me crowds convention's stifling vault--
+  Every meanness's called a virtue--every virtue deemed a fault!
+
+  Every generous thought is scandal; every noble deed is crime;
+  Every feeling's wrapped in fiction, and truth only lives in rhyme!
+
+  No;--I am not fashion's minion,--I am not convention's slave!
+  If 'obedience is for woman,' still she has a soul to save.
+
+  Must I share their haughty falsehood, take my part in social guile,
+  Cut my dearest friends, and stab them with a false, deceitful smile?
+
+  Creeping like a serpent through me, faint, I feel a deadly chill,
+  Freezing all the good within me, icy fetters chain my will.
+
+  Do I grow like those around me? will I learn to bear my part
+  In this glittering world of fashion, taming down a woman's heart?
+
+  Must I lower to my husband? is it duty to abate
+  All the higher instincts in me, till I grow his fitting mate?
+
+  Shall I muse on noble pictures, turn the poet's stirring page,
+  And grow base and mean in action, petty with a petty age?
+
+  I am heart-sick, weary, weary! tell me not that this life,
+  Where all that's truly living must be pruned by fashion's knife!--
+
+  I can make my own existence--spurn his gifts, and use my hands,
+  Though the senseless world of fashion for the deed my memory brands.
+
+  Quick! unbraid the heavy tresses of my coroneted hair--
+  Let its gold fall in _free_ ringlets such as I was wont to wear.
+
+  I am going back to nature. I no more will school my heart
+  To stifle its best feelings, play an idle puppet's part.
+
+  I will seek my banished mother, nestle closely on her breast;
+  Noble, faithful, kind, and loving, there the tortured one may rest.
+
+  We will turn the Poets' pages, learn the noblest deeds to act,
+  Till the fictions in their beauty shall be lived as simple fact.
+
+  I will mould a living statue, make it generous, strong, and high,
+  Humble, meek, self-abnegating, formed to meet the Master's eye.
+
+  Oh, the glow of earnest culture! Oh, the joy of sacrifice!
+  The delight to help another! o'er all selfish thoughts to rise!
+
+  Farewell, cold and haughty splendor--how you chilled me when a bride!
+  Hollow all your mental efforts; meanness all your dazzling pride!
+
+  Put the diamonds in their caskets! pearls and rubies, place them there!
+  I shall never sigh to wear them with the violets in my hair.
+
+  Freedom! with no eye upon me freezing all my fiery soul;
+  Free to follow nature's dictates; free from all save God's control.
+
+  I am going to the cottage, with its windows small and low,
+  Where the sweetbrier twines its roses and the Guelder rose its snow.
+
+  I will climb the thymy mountains where the pines in sturdy might
+  Follow nature's holy bidding, growing ever to the light;
+
+  Tracking down the leaping streamlet till the willows on it rise,
+  Watch its broad and faithful bosom strive to mirror back the skies.
+
+  Through the wicker gate at evening with my mother I will come,
+  With a little book, the Poet's, to read low at set of sun.
+
+  'Tis a gloomy, broken record of a love poured forth in death,
+  Generous, holy, and devoted, sung with panting, dying breath.
+
+  By the grassy mound we'll read it where he calmly sleeps in God,--
+  My gushing tears may stream above--they cannot pierce the sod!
+
+  Hand in hand we'll sit together by the lowly mossy grave--
+  Oh, God! I blazed with jewels, but the noble dared not save!
+
+  I am going to the cottage, there to sculpture my own soul,
+  Till it fill the high ideal of the Poet's glowing roll.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Stay, lovely dream! I waken! hear the clanking of my chain!
+  Feel a hopeless vow is on me--I can ne'er be free again!
+
+  His wife! I've sworn it truly! I must bear his freezing eye,
+  Feel his blighting breath upon me while all nobler instincts die!
+
+  Feel the Evil gain upon me as the weary moments glide,
+  Till I hiss, a jewelled serpent, fit companion, at his side.
+
+  Vain is struggle--vain is writhing--vain are sobs and stifled gasps--
+  I must wear my brilliant fetters though my life-blood stain their clasps!
+
+  Hark! he calls! tear out the violets! quick! the diamonds in my hair!
+  There's a ball to-night at Travers'--'tis his will I should be there.
+
+  Splendid victim in his pageant, though my tortured head should ache,
+  Yet I must be brilliant, joyous, if my throbbing heart should break!
+
+  I shudder! quick! my dress of rose, my tunic of point lace--
+  If fine enough, he will not read the anguish in my face!
+
+  I know one place he dare not look--it is so still and deep--
+  He dare not lift the winding sheet that veils my last, long sleep!
+
+  He dreads the dead! the coffin lid will shield me from his breath--
+  His eye no more will torture----Joy! I shall be free in death!
+
+  Free to rest beside the Poet. He will shun the lowly grave:
+  There my mother soon will join us, and the violets o'er us wave.
+
+
+
+
+THE SKEPTICS OF THE WAVERLEY NOVELS.
+
+
+It is remarkable that while, in a republic, which is the mildest form of
+government, respect for law and order are most highly developed, there
+is in an aristocracy (which is always the most deeply based form of
+tyranny) a constant revolt against all law. Puritanism in England,
+Pietism in Germany, and Huguenotism in France, were all directly and
+strongly republican and law-abiding in their social relations; while for
+an example of the contrary we need only glance at our own South.
+Aristocracy--a regularly ordered system of society into ranks--is the
+dream of the slaveholder, and experience is showing us how extremely
+difficult it is to uproot the power of a very few wicked men who have
+fairly mudsilled the majority; and yet, despite this strength, there was
+never yet a country claiming to be civilized, in which the wild caprices
+and armed outrages of the individual were regarded with such toleration.
+
+_Republicanism is Christian._ When will the world see this tremendous
+truth as it should, and realize that as there is a present and a future,
+so did the Saviour lay down one law whereby man might progress in this
+life, and another for the attainment of happiness in the next, and that
+the two are mutually sustaining? There was no real republicanism before
+the Gospels, and there has been no real addition to the doctrine since.
+The instant that religion or any great law of truth falls into the hands
+of a high caste, and puts on its livery, it becomes--ridiculous. What
+think you of a shepherd's crook of gold blazing with diamonds?
+
+It is interesting to trace an excellent illustration of the natural
+affinity between the fondness for feudalism and the love of law-breaking
+in Sir WALTER SCOTT. Whatever his head and his natural common sense
+dictated (and as he was a canny Scot and a shrewd observer, they
+dictated many wise truths), his heart was always with the men of bow and
+brand; with dashing robbers, moss troopers, duellists, wild-eagle
+barons, wild-wolf borderers, and the whole farrago of autocratic
+scoundrelism. With his soul devoted to dreams of feudalism, his fond
+love of its romance was principally based on the constant infractions of
+law and order to which a state of society must always be subject in
+which certain men acquire power out of proportion to their integrity.
+The result of this always is a lurking sympathy with rascality, a secret
+relish for bold selfishness, which is in every community the deadliest
+poison of the rights of the poor, and all the disinherited by fortune.
+
+It is very remarkable that Walter Scott, a Tory to the soul, should, by
+his apparently contradictory yet still most consistent love of the
+_outré_, have had a keen amateur sympathy for outlaws. It is much more
+remarkable, however, that, still retaining his faith in king and nobles,
+Church and State, he should have pushed his appreciation of such men to
+the degree of marvellously comprehending--nay, enjoying--certain types
+of skepticism which sprang up in fiercest opposition to authority; urged
+into existence by its abuses, as germs of plants have been thought to be
+electrified into life by sharp blows. And it is most remarkable of all,
+that he did this at a time when none among his English readers seem to
+have had any comprehension whatever of these characters, or to have
+surmised the fact that to merely understand and depict them, the writer
+must have ventured into fearful depths of reflection and of study. In
+treating these characters, Walter Scott seems to become positively
+_subjective_--and I will venture to say that it is the only instance of
+the slightest approach to anything of the kind to be found in all his
+writings. Unlike Byron, who was painfully conscious, not of the nature
+of his want in this respect, but of _something_ wanting, Scott nowhere
+else betrays the slightest consciousness of his continual life under
+limitations, when, _plump!_ we find him making a headlong leap right
+into the very centre of that terrible pool whose waters feed the
+forbidden-fruit tree of good and of evil.
+
+The characters to which I particularly refer in Sir Walter Scott's
+novels are those of the Templar, Brian de Bois Guilbert, in 'Ivanhoe;'
+of the gypsy Hayraddin Maugrabin in 'Quentin Durward;' of Dryfesdale,
+the steward, in 'The Abbot;' and of the 'leech' Henbane Dwining, in 'The
+Fair Maid of Perth.' There are several others which more or less
+resemble these, as, for instance, Ranald Mac Eagh, the Child of the
+Mist, in 'Montrose,' and Rashleigh, in 'Rob Roy;' but the latter,
+considered by themselves, are only partly developed. In fact, if Scott
+had given to the world only _one_ of these outlaws of faith, there would
+have been but little ground for inferring that his mind had ever taken
+so daring a range as I venture to claim for him. It is in his constant,
+wistful return, in one form or the other, to that terrible type of
+humanity--the man who, as a matter of intensely sincere faith, has freed
+himself from all adherence to the laws of man or GOD--that we find the
+clue to the _real_ nature of the author's extraordinary sympathy for the
+most daring, yet most subtle example of the law-breaker. In comparing
+these characters carefully, we find that each by contrast appears far
+more perfect than when separate--as the bone, which, however excellent
+its state of preservation may be, never seems to the eye of the
+physiologist so complete as when in its place in the complete skeleton.
+And through this contrast we learn that Scott, having by sympathy and
+historical-romantic study, comprehended the lost secret of all
+_illuminée_ mysteries--that of human dependence on nought save the laws
+of a mysterious and terrible Nature--could not refrain from ever and
+anon whispering the royal secret, though it were only to the rustling
+reeds and rushes of fashionable novels. Having learned, though in an
+illegitimate way, that the friend of PAN, the great king of the golden
+touch, had ass's ears, he _must_ tell it again, though in murmurs and
+whispers:
+
+             'Qui cum ne prodere visum
+  Dedecus auderet, cupiens efferre sub auras,
+  Nec posset reticere tamen, secedit, humumque
+  Effodit: et domini quales aspexerit aures,
+  Vox refert parva; terræque immurmurat haustæ.'[10]
+
+It is to be remarked, in studying collectively these outlaws as set
+forth by Scott, that while the same characteristic lies at the basis of
+each, there is very great variety in its development, and that the
+author seems to have striven to present it in as many widely differing
+phases as he was capable of doing. When we reflect that Scott himself
+could not be fairly said to be perfectly _at home_ in more than half a
+dozen departments of history, and yet that he has taken pains to set
+forth as many historical varieties of minds absolutely emancipated from
+all faith, and finally, when we recall that at the time when he wrote,
+the great proportion of the characteristics of these _dramatis personæ_
+were utterly unappreciated, and that by even the learned they were
+simply reviewed as 'infidels,' we cannot but smile at the care with
+which (like the sculptor in the old story) he carved his images, and
+buried them to be dug up at a future day by men who, as he possibly
+hoped, would appreciate more fully than did his contemporaries his own
+degree of forbidden knowledge. I certainly do not exaggerate the
+importance of these characters when speaking in this manner. They could
+not have been conceived without a very great expenditure of study and of
+reflection. They are, as I said, subjective, and such portraits of
+humanity always involve a vastly greater amount of penetrative and
+long-continued thought, than do the mere historical and social
+photographs which constitute the bulk of Scott's, as of all novels, and
+form the favorites of the mass of readers for entertainment.
+
+First among these characters, and most important as indicating direct
+historical familiarity with the obscure subject of the Oriental heresies
+of the Middle Ages in Europe, I would place that of the Templar, Brian
+de Bois Guilbert, who is generally regarded by readers as simply 'a
+horrid creature,' who chased 'that darling Rebecca' out of the window to
+the verge of the parapet; or at best as a knightly ruffian, who, like
+most ruffianly sinners, quieted conscience by stifling it with doubt.
+Very different, however, did the Templar appear to Scott himself, who,
+notwithstanding the poetic justice meted to the knight, evidently
+sympathized in secret more warmly with him than with any other character
+in the gorgeous company of 'Ivanhoe.' Among them all he is the only one
+who fully and fairly appreciates the intellect of Rebecca, and, seen
+from the stand-point of rigid historical probability which Scott would
+not violate, _all allowance being made for what the Templar was_, he
+appears by far the noblest and most intelligent of all the knightly
+throng. I say that though a favorite, Scott would not to favor him,
+violate historical probability. Why should he? It formed no part of his
+plan to give the public of his day lessons in _illuminée_-ism. Had he
+done so he would have failed like 'George Sand' in 'Consuelo;' but a
+very small proportion indeed of whose readers retain a recollection of
+the doctrines which it is the main object of the book to set forth. I
+trust there is no slander in the remark, but I _must_ believe it to be
+true until I see that the majority of the readers of that work have also
+taken to zealously investigating the sources of that most forbidden
+lore, which has most certainly this peculiarity, that no one can
+_comprehend_ it ever so little without experiencing an insatiable,
+never-resting desire to exhaust it, like everything which is prohibited.
+There is no such thing as knowing it a little. As one of its sages said
+of old, its knowledge rushes forth into infinite lands.
+
+It was, I believe, some time before 'Ivanhoe' appeared, that Baron von
+Hammer Purgstall had published his theory that the Knights Templars
+were, although most unjustly treated, still guilty, in a certain sense,
+of the extraordinary charges brought against them. It seems at least to
+be tolerably certain that during their long residence in the East they
+had acquired the Oriental secrets of initiation into societies which
+taught the old serpent-lore of _eritis sicut Deus_, and positive
+knowledge; the ultimate secret, being the absolute nothingness of all
+faith, creeds, laws, ties, or rules to him who is capable of rising
+above them and of drawing from Nature by an 'enlightened' study of her
+laws the principles of action, of harmony with fellow men, and of
+unlimited earthly enjoyment. Such had been for ages the last lessons of
+all the 'mysteries' of the East--mysteries which it was the peculiar
+destiny of the Hebrew race to resist through ages of struggle. It was
+through the teaching of such mysteries of pantheistic naturalism that,
+as the unflinching Jewish deists and anthropomorphists believed, man
+fell, and their belief was set forth in their very first religious
+tradition--the history of the apple, the serpent, and the Fall. And it
+is to the very extraordinary nature of the Hebrew race, by which they
+presented for the first time in history the spectacle of a people
+resisting nature-worship, that they owe their claim to be a peculiar
+people.
+
+The Templars, under the glowing skies of the East, among its thousand
+temptations, those of superior knowledge not being the least; in an age
+when the absurdities of the Roman church were, to an enlightened mind,
+at their absurdest pitch, fell readily into 'illumination.' Whether they
+literally _worshipped_ the Oriental Baphomet, a figure with two heads,
+male and female, girt with a serpent, typifying the completest
+abnegation of all moral relations, and the rights of knowledge, no one
+can say now--it is, however, significant that this symbol, which they
+undoubtedly used, actually found its way under the freemasons into the
+Christian churches of the West, as a type of 'prudence' among the
+representations of Christian virtues. When we remember that the Gnostics
+taught that _prudence_ alone was virtue,[11] we have here a coincidence
+which sufficiently explains the meaning of this emblem of 'the baptism
+of mind.'
+
+Nothing is more likely than that a portion of the Knights Templars were
+initiated in the mysteries of such Oriental sects as those of the _House
+of Wisdom_ of Al Hakem, the seventh and last degree of which at first
+'inculcated the vanity of all religion, and the indifference of actions
+which are neither visited with recompense nor chastisement here or
+hereafter.' At a later age, when the doctrines of this society had
+permeated all Islam, it seems to have labored very zealously to teach
+both women and men gratuitously all learning, and give them the freest
+use of books. At this time it was in the ninth degree that the initiate
+'learnt the grand secret of atheism, and a code of morals, which may be
+summed up in a few words, as believing nothing and daring
+everything.'[12]
+
+Bearing this in mind, Walter Scott may be presumed to have studied with
+shrewd appreciation the character of the Templars, and to have
+conjectured with strange wisdom their great ambition, when we find Brian
+de Bois Guilbert declaring to Rebecca that his Order threatened the
+thrones of Europe, and hinting at tremendous changes in society--'hopes
+more extended than can be viewed from the throne of a monarch.' For it
+was indeed the hope--it _must_ have been--for the proud and powerful
+brotherhood of the Temple to extend their secret doctrines over Europe,
+regenerate society, and overthrow all existing powers, substituting for
+them its own crude and impossible socialism, and for Christianity the
+lore of the serpent. How plainly is this expressed in the speech of Bois
+Guilbert to Rebecca:
+
+     'Such a swelling flood is that powerful league. Of this mighty
+     Order I am no mean member, but already one of the Chief Commanders,
+     and may well aspire one day to hold the baton of Grand Master. The
+     poor soldiers of the Temple will not alone place their foot upon
+     the necks of Kings--a hemp-sandall'd monk can do that. Our mailed
+     step shall ascend their throne--our gauntlet shall wrench the
+     sceptre from their gripe. Not the reign of your vainly expected
+     Messiah offers such power to your dispersed tribes as my ambition
+     may aim at. I have sought but a kindred spirit to share it, and I
+     have found such in thee.'
+
+     'Sayest thou this to one of my people?' answered Rebecca. 'Bethink
+     thee'--
+
+     'Answer me not,' said the Templar, 'by urging the difference of our
+     creeds; within our secret conclaves we hold these nursery tales in
+     derision. Think not we long remain blind to the idiotic folly of
+     our founders, who forswore every delight of life for the pleasures
+     of dying martyrs by hunger, by thirst, and by pestilence, and by
+     the swords of savages, while they vainly strove to defend a barren
+     desert, valuable only in the eyes of superstition. Our Order soon
+     adopted bolder and wider views, and found out a better
+     indemnification for our sacrifices. Our immense possessions in
+     every kingdom of Europe, our high military fame, which brings
+     within our circle the flower of chivalry from every Christian
+     clime--these are dedicated to ends of which our pious founders
+     little dreamed, and which are equally concealed from such weak
+     spirits as embrace our Order on the ancient principles, and whose
+     superstition makes them our passive tools. But I will not further
+     withdraw the veil of our mysteries.'
+
+We may well pause for an instant to wonder what would have been the
+present state of the now civilized world had this order with its
+Oriental illuminéeism actually succeeded in undermining feudal society
+and in overthrowing thrones. That it was jointly dreaded by Church and
+State appears from the excessive, implacable zeal with which it was
+broken up by Philip the Fair and Pope Clement the Fifth--a zeal quite
+inexplicable from the motives of avarice usually attributed to them by
+the modern freemasonic defenders of the Knights of the Temple. I may
+well say modern, since in a freemasonic document bearing date 1766,
+reprinted in a rare work,[13] we find the most earnest protest and
+denial that freemasonry had anything in common with the Templars. But
+the Order did not die unavenged. It is by no means improbable that the
+secret heresies which, bearing unmistakable marks of Eastern origin,
+continually sprang up in Europe, and finally led the way to Huss and the
+Reformation, were in their origin encouraged by the Templars.
+
+Certain it is that the character of Bois Guilbert as drawn by Scott--his
+habitual oath 'by earth and sea and sky!' his scorn of 'the doting
+scruples which fetter our free-born reason,' and his atheistic faith
+that to die is to be 'dispersed to the elements of which our strange
+forms are so mystically composed,' are all wonderful indications of
+insight into a type of mind differing inconceivably from the mere
+infidel villain of modern novels, and which could never have been
+attributed to a knight of the superstitious Middle Ages without a strong
+basis of historical research. Very striking indeed is his fierce love
+for Rebecca--his intense appreciation of her great courage and firmness,
+which he at once recognizes as congenial to his own daring, and believes
+will form for him in her a fit mate. There is a spirit of reality in
+this which transcends ordinary conceptions of what is called genius. To
+deem a woman requisite aid in such intellectual labor--for so we may
+well call the system of the Templars--would at that era have been
+incomprehensibly absurd to any save the worshippers of the bi-sexed
+Baphomet and the disciples of the House of Wisdom, with whom the equal
+culture of the sexes was a leading aim. The extraordinary tact with
+which Scott has contrived to make Bois Guilbert repulsive to the mass of
+readers, while at the same time he really--for himself--makes him
+undergo every sacrifice of which the Templar's nature is _consistently_
+capable, is perhaps the most elaborately artistic effort in his works.
+To have made Bois Guilbert sensible to the laws of love and of chivalry,
+which in his mystical freedom he despised, to rescue her simply from
+death, which in his view had no terrors beyond short-lived pain, would
+not have agreed with his character as Scott very truly understood it.
+Himself a sacrifice to fate, he was willing that she, whom he regarded
+as a second self, should also perish. This reserving the true
+comprehension of a certain character to one's self by a writer is not, I
+believe, an uncommon thing in romance writing. 'Blifil' was the favorite
+child of his literary parent, and was (it is to be hoped) seen by him
+from a stand-point undreamed of by nearly all readers.
+
+Closely allied in the one main point of character to Bois Guilbert, and
+to a certain degree having his Oriental origin, yet differing in every
+other detail, we have Hayraddin Maugrabin, the gypsy, in 'Quentin
+Durward.'
+
+When Walter Scott drew the outlines of this singular subordinate actor
+in one of the world's greatest mediæval romances, so little was known of
+the real condition of the 'Rommany,' that the author was supposed to
+have introduced an exaggerated and most improbable character among
+historical portraits which were true to life. The more recent researches
+of George Borrow and others have shown that, judged by the gypsy of the
+present day, Hayraddin is extremely well drawn in certain particulars,
+but improbable in other respects. He has, amid all his villany, a
+certain firmness or greatness which is peculiar to men who can sustain
+positions of rank--a marked Oriental 'leadership,' which Scott might be
+presumed to have guessed at. Yet all of this corresponds closely to the
+historical account of the first of these wanderers, who in 1427 came to
+Europe, 'well mounted,' and claiming to be men of the highest rank, and
+to the condition and character of certain men among them in the
+Slavonian countries of the present day. If we study carefully all that
+is accessible both of the present and the past relative to this singular
+race, we shall find that Scott, partly from knowledge and partly by
+poetic intuition, has in this gypsy produced one of his most marvellous
+and deeply interesting studies.
+
+Like Bois Guilbert, Hayraddin is a man without a God, and the
+peculiarity of his character lies in a constant realization of the fact
+that he is absolutely _free_ from every form or principle of faith,
+every conventional tie, every duty founded on aught save the most
+natural instincts. He revels in this freedom; it is to him like magic
+armor, making him invulnerable to shafts which reach all around
+him--nay, which render him supremely indifferent to death itself.
+Whether this extreme of philosophical skepticism and stoicism could be
+consistently and correctly attributed to a gypsy of the fifteenth
+century, will be presently considered. Let me first quote those passages
+in which the character is best set forth. The first is that in which
+Hayraddin, in reply to the queries of Quentin Durward, asserts that he
+has no country, is not a Christian, and is altogether lawless:
+
+     'You are then,' said the wondering querist, 'destitute of all that
+     other men are combined by--you have no law, no leader, no settled
+     means of subsistence, no house or home. You have, may Heaven
+     compassionate you, no country--and, may Heaven enlighten and
+     forgive you, you have no God! What is it that remains to you,
+     deprived of government, domestic happiness, and religion?'
+
+     'I have liberty,' said the Bohemian--'I crouch to no one--obey no
+     one--respect no one.--I go where I will--live as I can--and die
+     when my day comes.'
+
+     'But you are subject to instant execution at the pleasure of the
+     Judge?'
+
+     'Be it so,' returned the Bohemian; 'I can but die so much the
+     sooner.'
+
+     'And to imprisonment also,' said the Scot; 'and where then is your
+     boasted freedom?'
+
+     'In my thoughts,' said the Bohemian, 'which no chains can bind;
+     while yours, even when your limbs are free, remain fettered by your
+     laws and your superstitions, your dreams of local attachment, and
+     your fantastic visions of civil policy. Such as I are free in
+     spirit when our limbs are chained. You are imprisoned in mind, even
+     when your limbs are most at freedom.'
+
+     [14]'Yet the freedom of your thoughts,' said the Scot, 'relieves
+     not the pressure of the gyves on your limbs.'
+
+     'For a brief time that may be endured,' answered the vagrant, 'and
+     if within that period I cannot extricate myself, and fail of relief
+     from my comrades, I can always die, and death is the most perfect
+     freedom of all.'
+
+Again, when asked in his last hour what are his hopes for the future,
+the gypsy, after denying the existence of the soul, declares that his
+anticipations are:
+
+     'To be resolved into the elements. * * * My hope and trust and
+     expectation is, that the mysterious frame of humanity shall melt
+     into the general mass of nature, to be recompounded in the other
+     forms with which she daily supplies those which daily disappear,
+     and return under different forms,--the watery particles to streams
+     and showers, the earthy parts to enrich their mother earth, the
+     airy portions to wanton in the breeze, and those of fire to supply
+     the blaze of Aldebaran and his brethren. In this faith I have
+     lived, and will die in it. Hence! begone!--disturb me no further! I
+     have spoken the last word that mortal ears shall listen to!'
+
+That such a strain as this would be absurd from 'Mr. Petulengro,' or any
+other of the race as portrayed by Borrow, is evident enough. Whether it
+is inappropriate, however, in the mouth of one of the first corners of
+the people in Europe, of direct Hindustanee blood, is another question.
+Let us examine it.
+
+In his notes to 'Quentin Durward,' Scott declares his belief that there
+can be little doubt that the first gypsies consisted originally of
+Hindus, who left their native land when it was invaded by Timur or
+Tamerlane, and that their language is a dialect of Hindustanee. That the
+gypsies were Hindus, and outcast Hindus or Pariahs at that, could be no
+secret to Scott. That he should have made Hayraddin in his doctrines
+marvellously true to the very life to certain of this class, indicates a
+degree either of knowledge or of intuition (it may have been either)
+which is at least remarkable.
+
+The reader has probably learned to consider the Hindu Pariah as a merely
+wretched outcast, ignorant, vulgar, and oppressed. Such is not, however,
+exactly their _status_. Whatever their social rank may be, the
+Pariahs--the undoubted ancestors of the gypsies--are the authors in
+India of a great mass of philosophy and literature, embracing nearly all
+that land has ever produced which is tinctured with independence or wit.
+In confirmation of which I beg leave to cite the following passages from
+that extremely entertaining, well-edited, and elegantly published little
+work, the 'Strange Surprising Adventures of the Venerable Goroo Simple
+and his Five Disciples':
+
+     'The literature of the Hindoos owes but little to the hereditary
+     claimants to the sole possession of divine light and knowledge. On
+     the contrary, with the many things which the Brahmins are forbidden
+     to touch, all science, if left to them alone, would soon stagnate,
+     and clever men, whose genius cannot be held in trammels, therefore
+     soon become outcasts and swell the number of _Pariars_ in
+     consequence of their very pursuit of knowledge. * * * To the
+     writings of the _Poorrachchameiyans_, a sect of _Pariars_ odious in
+     the eyes of a Brahman, the Tamuls owe the greater part of works on
+     science. * * * To the _Vallooran_ sect of Pariars, particularly
+     shunned by the Brahmans, Hindoo literature is indebted almost
+     exclusively for the many moral poems and books of aphorisms which
+     are its chief pride.
+
+     'This class of literature' (satiric humor and fables) 'emanated
+     chiefly from those despised outcasts, the Pariars, the very men who
+     (using keener spectacles than Dr. Robertson, our historian of
+     Ancient India, did, who singularly became the panegyrist of Gentoo
+     subdivisions) saw that to bind human intellect and human energy
+     within the wire fences of Hindoo castes is as impossible as to shut
+     up the winds of heaven in a temple built by man's hand, and boldly
+     thought for themselves.'
+
+Of the literary _Vallooran_ Pariah outcasts and scientific
+Poorrachchameiyans, we know from the best authority--Father Beschi--that
+they form society of six degrees or sects, the fifth of which, when five
+Fridays occur in a month, celebrate it _avec de grandes abominations_,
+while the sixth 'admits the real existence of nothing--except,
+_perhaps_, GOD.' This last is a mere guess on the part of the good
+father. It is beyond conjecture that we have here another of those
+strange Oriental sects, 'atheistic' in its highest school and identical
+in its nature with that of the House of Wisdom of Cairo, and with the
+Templars; and if Scott's gypsy Hayraddin Maugrabin is to be supposed one
+of that type of Hindu outcasts, which were of all others most hateful to
+the orthodox Moslem invader, we cannot sufficiently admire the
+appropriateness with which doctrines which were actually held by the
+most deeply initiated among the Pariahs were put into his mouth. To have
+made a merely vulgar, nothing-believing, and as little reflecting gypsy,
+as philosophical as the wanderer in 'Quentin Durward,' would have been
+absurd. There is a vigor, an earnestness in his creed, which betrays
+culture and thought, and which is marvellously appropriate if we regard
+him as a wandering scion of the outcast Pariah illuminati of India.
+
+Did our author owe this insight to erudition or to poetic intuition? In
+either case we discover a depth which few would have surmised. It was
+once said of Scott, that he was a millionaire of genius whose wealth was
+all in small change--that his scenes and characters were all massed from
+a vast collection of little details. This would be equivalent to
+declaring that he was a great novelist without a great idea. Perhaps
+this is true, but the clairvoyance of genius which _seems_ to manifest
+itself in the two characters which I have already examined, and the
+cautious manner in which he has treated them, would appear to prove that
+he possessed a rarer gift than that of 'great ideas'--the power of
+controlling them. Such ideas may make reformers, critics, politicians,
+essayists--but they generally ruin a novelist--and Scott knew it.
+
+A third character belonging to the class under consideration, is Henbane
+Dwining, the 'pottingar,' apothecary or 'leech,' in the novel of 'The
+Fair Maid of Perth.'
+
+This man is rather developed by his deeds than his words, and these are
+prompted by two motives, terrible vindictiveness and the pride of
+superior knowledge. He is vile from the former, and yet almost heroic
+from the latter, for it is briefly impossible to make any man intensely
+self-reliant, and base this self-reliance on great learning in men and
+books, without displaying in him some elements of superiority. He is so
+radically bad that by contrast one of the greatest villains in Scottish
+history, Sir John Ramorney, appears rather gray than black; and yet we
+dislike him less than the knight, possibly because we know that men of
+the Dwining stamp, when they have had the control of nations, often do
+good simply from the dictates of superior wisdom--the wisdom of the
+serpent--which, no Ramorney ever did. The skill with which the crawling,
+paltry leech controls his fierce lord; the contempt for his power and
+pride shown in Dwining's adroit sneers, and above all, the ease with
+which the latter casts into the shade Ramorney's fancied superiority in
+wickedness, is well set forth--and such a character could only have been
+conceived by deep study of the motives and agencies which formed it. To
+do so, Scott had recourse to the same Oriental source--the same fearful
+school of atheism which in another and higher form gave birth to the
+Templar and the gypsy. 'I have studied,' says Dwining, 'among the sages
+of Granada, where the fiery-souled Moor lifts high his deadly dagger as
+it drops with his enemy's blood, and avows the doctrine which the pallid
+Christian practises, though, coward-like, he dare not name it.' His
+sneers at the existence of a devil, at all 'prejudices,' at religion,
+above all, at brute strength and every power save that of intellect, are
+perfectly Oriental--not however of the Oriental Sufi, or of the
+initiated in the House of Wisdom, whose pantheistic Idealism went hand
+in hand with a faith in benefiting mankind, and which taught
+forgiveness, equality, and love, but rather that corrupted Asiatic
+vanity of wisdom which abounded among the disciples of Aristotle and of
+Averroes in Spain, and which was entirely material. I err, strictly
+speaking, therefore, when I speak of this as the _same_ Oriental school,
+though in a certain sense it had a common origin--that of believing in
+the infinite power of human wisdom. Both are embraced indeed in the
+beguiling _eritis sicut Deus_, 'ye shall be as GOD,' uttered by the
+serpent to Eve.
+
+Quite subordinate as regards its position among the actors of the novel,
+yet extremely interesting in a historical point of view, is the
+character of Jasper Dryfesdale the steward of the Douglas family, in
+'The Abbot.' In this man Scott has happily combined the sentiment of
+absolute feudal devotion to his superiors with a gloomy fatalism learned
+'among the fierce sectaries of Lower Germany.' If carefully studied,
+Dryfesdale will be found to be, on the whole, the most morally
+instructive character in the entire range of Scott's writings. In the
+first place, he illustrates the fact, so little noted by the advocates
+of loyalty, aristocracy, 'devoted retainers,' and 'faithful vassals,'
+that all such fidelity carried beyond the balance of a harmony of
+interests, results in an insensibility to moral accountability. Thus in
+the Southern States, masters often refer with pride to the fact that a
+certain negro, who will freely pillage in other quarters, will 'never
+steal at home.' History shows that the man who surrenders himself
+entirely to the will of another begins at once to cast on his superior
+all responsibility for his own acts. Such dependence and evasion is of
+itself far worse than the bold unbelief which is to the last degree
+self-reliant; which seeks no substitute, dreads no labor, scorns all
+mastery, and aims at the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
+truth. Such unbelief may possibly end in finding religious truth after
+its devious errors, but what shall be said of those who would have men
+sin as _slaves_?
+
+Singularly and appropriately allied to a resignation of moral
+accountability from feudal attachment, is the contemptible and cowardly
+doctrine of fatalism, which Dryfesdale also professes. It is not with
+him the philosophic doctrine of the concurring impulses of circumstance,
+or of natural laws, but rather the stupendously nonsensical notion of
+the Arabian _kismet_, that from the beginning of time every event was
+fore-arranged as in a fairy tale, and that all which _is_, is simply the
+acting out of a libretto written before the play began--a belief revived
+in the last century by readers of Leibnitz, who were truer than the
+great German himself to the consequences of his doctrine, which he
+simply evaded.[15] In coupling this humiliating and superstitious means
+of evading moral accountability with the same principle as derived from
+feudal devotion, Scott, consciously or unconsciously, displayed genius,
+and at the same time indirectly attacked that system of society to which
+he was specially devoted. So true is it that genius instinctively tends
+to set forth the _truth_, be the predilections of its possessor what
+they may. And indeed, as Scott nowhere shows in any way that _he_, for
+his part, regarded the blind fidelity of the steward as other than
+admirable, it may be that he was guided rather by instinct than will, in
+thus pointing out the great evil resulting from a formally aristocratic
+state of society. Such as it is, it is well worth studying in these
+times, when the principles of republicanism and aristocracy are brought
+face to face at war among us, firstly in the contest between the South
+and the North, and secondly in the rapidly growing division between the
+friends of the Union, and the treasonable 'Copperheads,' who consist of
+men of selfish, aristocratic tendencies, and their natural allies, the
+refuse of the population.
+
+It is very unfortunate that the term 'Anabaptists' should have ever been
+applied to the ferocious fanatics led by John of Leyden, Knipperdolling,
+and Rothmann, since it has brought discredit on a large sect bearing the
+same name with which it had in reality even less in common than the
+historians of the latter imagine. It is not a difficult matter for the
+mind familiar with the undoubted Oriental origin of the 'heresies' of
+the middle ages, to trace in the origin at least of the fierce and
+licentious socialists of Münster the same secret influence which,
+flowing from Gnostic, Manichæan, or Templar sources, founded the
+Waldense and Albigense sects, and was afterward perceptible in a branch
+of the Hussites. At the time of the Reformation their ancient doctrines
+had subsided into Biblical fanaticism; but the old leaven of revolt
+against the church, and against all compulsion--keenly sharpened by
+their experiences, in the recent Peasant's War--was as hot as ever among
+them. They had no great or high philosophy, but were in all respects
+chaotic, contradictory, and stormy. Unable to rise to the cultivated and
+philanthropic feelings which accompanied the skepticism of their remote
+founders, they based their denial of moral accountability--as narrow and
+vulgar minds naturally do--on a predestination, which is as insulting to
+GOD as to man, since it is consistently comprehensible only by supposing
+HIM a slave to destiny. Among such vassals to a worse than earthly
+tyranny, the man who as 'a Scottish servant regarded not his own life or
+that of any other save his master,' would find doctrines congenial
+enough to his grovelling nature. So he was willing to believe that 'that
+which was written of me a million years before I saw the light must be
+executed by me.' 'I am well taught, and strong in belief,' he says,
+'that man does nought for himself; he is but the foam on the billow,
+which rises, bubbles, and bursts, not by its own effort, but by the
+mightier impulse of fate which urges him.' And the combination of his
+two wretched doctrines is well set forth in the passage wherein he tells
+his mistress that she had no choice as regarded accepting his criminal
+services. 'You might not choose, lady,' answered the steward. 'Long ere
+this castle was builded--ay, long ere the islet which sustains it reared
+its head above the blue water--I was destined to be your faithful slave,
+and you to be my ungrateful mistress.'
+
+Freethinkers, infidels, and atheists abound in novels, but it is to the
+credit of Sir Walter Scott that wherever he has introduced a _sincere_
+character of this description, he has gone to the very origin for his
+facts, and then given us the result without pedantry. The four which I
+have examined are each a curious subject for study, and indicate,
+collectively and compared, a train of thought which I believe that few
+have suspected in Scott, notwithstanding his well-known great love for
+the curious and occult in literature. That he perfectly understood that
+absurd and vain character, the so-called 'infidel,' whose philosophy is
+limited to abusing Christianity, and whose real object is to be odd and
+peculiar, and astonish humble individuals with his wickedness, is most
+amusingly shown in 'Bletson,' one of the three Commissioners of Cromwell
+introduced into 'Woodstock.' Scott has drawn this very subordinate
+character in remarkable detail, having devoted nearly seven pages to its
+description,[16] evidently being for once carried away by the desire of
+rendering the personality as clearly as possible, or of gratifying his
+own fancy. And while no effort is ever made to cast even a shadow of
+ridicule on the Knight Templar, on Dryfesdale, on the gypsy, or even on
+the crawling Dwining, he manifestly takes great pains to render as
+contemptible and laughably absurd as possible this type of the very
+great majority of modern infidels, who disavow religion because they
+fear it, and ridicule Christianity from sheer, shallow ignorance. Our
+own country at present abounds in 'Bletsons,' in conceited, ignorant
+'infidel' scribblers of many descriptions, in of all whom we can still
+trace the cant and drawl of the old-fashioned fanaticism to which they
+are in reality nearly allied, while they appear to oppose it. For the
+truth is, that popular infidelity--to borrow Mr. Caudle's simile of
+tyrants--is only Puritanism turned inside out. We see this, even when it
+is masked in French flippancy and the Shibboleth of the current
+accomplishments of literature--it betrays itself by its vindictiveness
+and conceit, by its cruelty, sarcasms, and meanness--with the infidel as
+with the bigot. The sincere seeker for truth, whether he wander through
+the paths of unbelief or of faith, never forgets to love, never courts
+notoriety, and is neither a satirical court-fool nor a would-be
+Mephistopheles.
+
+In reflecting on these characters, I am irresistibly reminded of an
+anecdote illustrating their nature. A friend of mine who had employed a
+rather ignorant fellow to guide him through some ruins in England, was
+astonished, as he entered a gloomy dungeon, at the sudden remark, in the
+hollow voice of one imparting a dire confidence, of: 'I doan't believe
+in hany GOD!' 'Don't you, indeed?' was the placid reply. 'Noa,' answered
+the guide; '_H'I'm a_ HINFIDEL!' 'Well, I hope you feel easy after it,'
+quoth my friend.
+
+There is yet another skeptic set forth by Scott, whose peculiarities may
+be deemed worthy of examination. I refer to Agelastes, the treacherous
+and hypocritical sage of 'Count Robert of Paris.' In this man we have,
+however, rather the refined sensualist and elegant scholar who amuses
+himself with the subtleties of the old Greek philosophy, than a sincere
+seeker for truth, or even a sincere doubter. His views are fully given
+in a short lecture of the countess:
+
+     'Daughter,' said Agelastes, approaching nearer to the lady, 'it is
+     with pain I see you bewildered in errors which a little calm
+     reflection might remove. We may flatter ourselves, and human vanity
+     usually does so, that beings infinitely more powerful than those
+     belonging to mere humanity are employed daily in measuring out the
+     good and evil of this world, the termination of combats or the fate
+     of empires, according to their own ideas of what is right or wrong,
+     or more properly, according to what we ourselves conceive to be
+     such. The Greek heathens, renowned for their wisdom, and glorious
+     for their actions, explained to men of ordinary minds the supposed
+     existence of Jupiter and his Pantheon, where various deities
+     presided over various virtues and vices, and regulated the temporal
+     fortune and future happiness of such as practised them. The more
+     learned and wise of the ancients rejected such the vulgar
+     interpretation, and wisely, although affecting a deference to the
+     public faith, denied before their disciples in private, the gross
+     fallacies of Tartarus and Olympus, the vain doctrines concerning
+     the gods themselves, and the extravagant expectations which the
+     vulgar entertained of an immortality supposed to be possessed by
+     creatures who were in every respect mortal, both in the
+     conformation of their bodies, and in the internal belief of their
+     souls. Of these wise and good men some granted the existence of the
+     supposed deities, but denied that they cared about the actions of
+     mankind any more than those of the inferior animals. A merry,
+     jovial, careless life, such as the followers of Epicurus would
+     choose for themselves, was what they assigned for those gods whose
+     being they admitted. Others, more bold or more consistent, entirely
+     denied the existence of deities who apparently had no proper object
+     or purpose, and believed that such of them, whose being and
+     attributes were proved to us by no supernatural appearances, had in
+     reality no existence whatever.'
+
+In all this, and indeed in all the character of Agelastes, there is
+nothing more than shallow scholarship, such as may be found in many of
+'the learned' in all ages, whose learning is worn as a fine garment,
+perhaps as one of comfort, but _not_ as the armor in which to earnestly
+do battle for life. A contempt for the vulgar, or at best a selfish
+rendering of life agreeable to themselves, is all that is gathered from
+such systems of doubt--and this was in all ages the reproach of all
+Greek philosophy. It was not meant for the multitude nor for the
+barbarian. It embraced no hope of benefiting all mankind, no scheme for
+even freeing them from superstition. Such ideas were only cherished by
+the Orientals, and (though mingled with errors) subsequently and _fully_
+by the early Christians. It was in the East that the glorious doctrine
+of love for _all_ beings, not only for enemies, but for the very fiends
+themselves, was first proclaimed as essential to perfect the soul--as
+shown in the beautiful Hindu poem of 'The Buddha's Victory,'[17] in
+which the demon Wassywart, that horror of horrors, whose eyes are clots
+of blood, whose voice outroars the thunder, who plucks up the sun from
+its socket the sky, defies the great saint-god to battle:
+
+  'The unarmed Buddha mildly gazed at him,
+  And said in peace: 'Poor fiend, _even thee I love_.'
+  Before great Wassywart the world grew dim;
+  His bulk enormous dwindled to a dove. * * *
+  --Celestial beauty sat on Buddhas face,
+  While sweetly sang the metamorphosed dove:
+  'Swords, rocks, lies, fiends, must yield to moveless love,
+  And nothing can withstand the Buddha's grace.'
+
+And again, in 'The Secret of Piety'--the secret 'of all the lore which
+angelic bosoms swell'--we have the same pure faith:
+
+  'Whoso would careless tread one worm that crawls the sod,
+  That cruel man is darkly alienate from God;
+  But he that lives embracing all that is in _love_,
+  To dwell with him God bursts all bounds, below, above.'
+
+The Greek philosophy knew nothing of all this, and the result is that
+even in the atheism which sprang from the East, and in its harshest and
+lowest 'tinctures,' we find a something nobler and less selfish than is
+to be found in the school of Plato himself. And however this may be, the
+reader will admit, in examining the six skeptics set forth by Scott,
+that each is a character firmly based in historical truth; that all,
+with the exception of 'Bletson,' are sketched with remarkable brevity;
+and that a careful comparative analysis of the whole gives us a deeper
+insight into the secret tendencies of the author's mind, and at the same
+time into the springs of his genius, than the world has been wont to
+take. And the study of the subject is finally interesting, since we may
+learn from it that even in the works of one who is a standard poetic
+authority among those who would, if possible, subject all men to
+feudalism, we may learn lessons of that highest social
+truth--republicanism.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 10: OVID. _Metamorphoseon_, lib. xi. v. 183.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Hæc autem erat Gnosticorum doctrina ethica, quod omnem
+virtutem in prudentia sitim esse credebant, quam Ophitæ per _Metem_
+(Sophiam) et Serpentem exprimebant, desumpto iterum ex Evangelii
+præcepto; _estote prudentes ut serpentes_,--ob innatem hujus animalis
+astutiam?--VON HAMMER, _Fundgruben des Orients_, tom. vi. p. 85.]
+
+[Footnote 12: _New Curiosities of Literature._ By GEO. SOANE, London,
+1849.]
+
+[Footnote 13: _Developpement des Abus introduits dans la Franc
+Maçonnerie._ Ecossois de Saint ANDRÉ d'Écosse, &c., &c. Paris, 1780.]
+
+[Footnote 14: London. Trübner &. Co., No. 60 Paternoster Row. 1861.]
+
+[Footnote 15: 'Tota hæc humanæ vitæ fabula, quæ universitatem naturæ et
+generis humani historiam constituit tota prius in intellectu divino
+præconcepta fuit cum infinitis aliis.'--LEIBNITZ, _Theodicæa_, part 11,
+p. 149.]
+
+[Footnote 16: Tickner and Fields' edition of Waverley Novels, Boston,
+1858.]
+
+[Footnote 17: _The Poetry of the East._ By WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER.
+Boston. Whittemore, Niles & Hall, 1856.]
+
+
+
+
+A CHORD OF WOOD.
+
+
+  Well, New York, you've made your pile
+  Of Wood, and, if you like, may smile:
+  Laugh, if you will, to split your sides,
+  But in that Wood pile a nigger hides,
+  With a double face beneath his hood:
+  Don't hurra till you're out of your Wood.
+
+
+
+
+A MERCHANT'S STORY.
+
+  'All of which I saw, and part of which I was.'
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+The moon and the stars were out, and the tall, dark pines cast long,
+gloomy shadows over the little rows of negro houses which formed the
+rearguard to Preston's mansion. They were nearly deserted. Not a
+solitary fire slumbered on the bare clay hearths, and not a single darky
+stood sentry over the loose pork and neglected hoecakes, or kept at bay
+the army of huge rats and prowling opossums which beleaguered the
+quarters. Silence--death's music--was over and around them. The noisy
+revelry of the dancers had died away in the distance, and even the
+hoarse song of the great trees had sunk to a low moan as they stood,
+motionless and abashed, in the presence of the grim giant who knocks
+alike at the palace and the cottage gate.
+
+A stray light glimmered through the logs of a low hut, far off in the
+woods, and, making our way to it, we entered. A bright fire lit up the
+interior, and on a rude cot, in one corner, lay the old preacher. His
+eyes were closed; a cold, clammy sweat was on his forehead--he was
+dying. One of his skeleton hands rested on the tattered coverlet, and
+his weazened face was half buried in a dilapidated pillow, whose ragged
+casing and protruding plumage bespoke it a relic of some departed white
+sleeper.
+
+An old negress, with gray hair and haggard visage, sat at the foot of
+the bed, wailing piteously; and Joe and half a dozen aged saints stood
+around, singing a hymn, doleful enough to have made even a sinner weep.
+
+Not heeding our entrance, Joe took the dying man by the hand, and, in a
+slow, solemn voice, said:
+
+'Brudder Jack, you'm dyin'; you'm gwine ter dat lan' whence no trabeller
+returns; you'm settin' out fur dat country which'm lit by de smile ob de
+Lord; whar dar ain't no sickness, no pain, no sorrer, no dyin'; fur dat
+kingdom whar de Lord reigns; whar trufh flows on like a riber; whar
+righteousness springs up like de grass, an' lub draps down like de dew,
+an' cobers de face ob de groun'; whar you woan't gwo 'bout wid no
+crutch; whar you woan't lib in no ole cabin like dis, an' eat hoecake
+an' salt pork in sorrer an' heabiness ob soul; but whar you'll run an'
+not be weary, an' walk an' not be faint; whar you'll hab a hous'n
+builded ob de Lord, an' sit at His table--you' meat an' drink de bread
+an' de water ob life!
+
+'I knows you's a sinner, Jack; I knows you's lub'd de hot water too
+much, an' dat it make you forgit you' duty sometime, an' set a bad
+'zample ter dem as looked up ter you fur better tings; but dar am mercy
+wid de Lord, Jack; dar am forgibness wid Him; an' I hopes you'm ready
+an' willin' ter gwo.'
+
+Old Jack opened his eyes, and, in a low, peevish tone, said:
+
+'Joe, none ob you' nonsense ter me! I'se h'ard you talk dis way afore.
+_You_ can't preach--you neber could. You jess knows I ain't fit ter
+trabble, an' I ain't willin' ter gwo, nowhar.'
+
+Joe mildly rebuked him, and again commenced expatiating on the 'upper
+kingdom,' and on the glories of 'the house not made with hands, eternal
+in the heavens;' but the old darky cut him short, with--
+
+'Shet up, Joe! no more ob dat. I doan't want no oder hous'n but dis--dis
+ole cabin am good 'nuff fur me.'
+
+Joe was about to reply, when Preston stepped to the bedside, and, taking
+the aged preacher's hand, said:
+
+'My good Jack, master Robert has come to see you.'
+
+The dying man turned his eyes toward his master, and, in a weak,
+tremulous voice, exclaimed:
+
+'Oh! massa Robert, has _you_ come? has you come ter see ole Jack? Bress
+you, massa Robert, bress you! Jack know'd you'd neber leab him yere ter
+die alone.'
+
+'No, my good Jack; I would save you if I could.'
+
+'But you can't sabe me, massa Robert; I'se b'yond dat. I'se dyin', massa
+Robert. I'se gwine ter de good missus. She tell'd me ter get ready ter
+foller har, an' I is. I'se gwine ter har now, massa Robert!'
+
+'I know you are, Jack. I feel _sure_ you are.'
+
+'Tank you, massa Robert--tank you fur sayin' dat. An' woan't you pray
+fur me, massa Robert--jess a little pray? De good man's prayer am h'ard,
+you knows, massa Robert.'
+
+All kneeling down on the rough floor, Preston prayed--a short, simple,
+fervent prayer. At its close, he rose, and, bending over the old negro,
+said:
+
+'The Lord is good, Jack; His mercy is everlasting.'
+
+'I knows dat; I feels dat,' gasped the dying man. 'I lubs you, massa
+Robert; I allers lub'd you; but I'se gwine ter leab you now. Bress you!
+de Lord bress you, massa Robert' I'll tell de good missus'--
+
+He clutched convulsively at his master's hand; a wild light came out of
+his eyes; a sudden spasm passed over his face, and--he was 'gone whar de
+good darkies go.'
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+On the following day Frank and I were to resume our journey; and, in the
+morning, I suggested that we should visit Colonel Dawsey, with whom,
+though he had for many years been a correspondent of the house in which
+I was a partner, I had no personal acquaintance.
+
+His plantation adjoined Preston's, and his house was only a short half
+mile from my friend's. After breakfast, we set out for it through the
+woods. The day was cold for the season, with a sharp, nipping air, and
+our overcoats were not at all uncomfortable.
+
+As we walked along I said to Preston:
+
+'Dawsey's 'account' is a good one. He never draws against shipments, but
+holds on, and sells sight drafts, thus making the exchange.'
+
+'Yes, I know; he's a close calculator.'
+
+'Does he continue to manage his negroes as formerly?'
+
+'In much the same way, I reckon.'
+
+'Then he can't stand remarkably well with his neighbors.'
+
+'Oh! people round here don't mind such things. Many of them do as badly
+as he. Besides, Dawsey is a gentleman of good family. He inherited his
+plantation and two hundred hands.'
+
+'Indeed! How, then, did he become reduced to his present number?'
+
+'He was a wild young fellow, and, before he was twenty-five, had
+squandered and gambled away everything but his land and some thirty
+negroes. Then he turned square round, and, from being prodigal and
+careless, became mean and cruel. He has a hundred now, and more ready
+money than any planter in the district.'
+
+A half hour's walk took us to Dawsey's negro quarters--a collection of
+about thirty low huts in the rear of his house. They were not so poor as
+some I had seen on cotton and rice plantations, but they seemed unfit
+for the habitation of any animal but the hog. Their floors were the bare
+ground, hardened by being moistened with water and pounded with mauls;
+and worn, as they were, several inches lower in the centre than at the
+sides, they must have formed, in rainy weather, the beds of small lakes.
+So much water would have been objectionable to white tenants; but
+negroes, like their friends the alligators, are amphibious animals; and
+Dawsey's were never known to make complaint. The chimneys were often
+merely vent-holes in the roof, though a few were tumble-down structures
+of sticks and clay; and not a window, nor an opening which courtesy
+could have christened a window, was to be seen in the entire collection.
+And, for that matter, windows were useless, for the wide crevices in the
+logs, which let in the air and rain, at the same time might admit the
+light. Two or three low beds at one end, a small pine bench, which held
+half a dozen wooden plates and spoons, and a large iron pot, resting on
+four stones, over a low fire, and serving for both washtub and
+cook-kettle, composed the furniture of each interior.
+
+No one of the cabins was over sixteen feet square, but each was 'home'
+and 'shelter' for three or four human beings. Walking on a short
+distance, we came to a larger hovel, in front of which about a dozen
+young chattels were playing. Seven or eight more, too young to walk,
+were crawling about on the ground inside. They had only one garment
+apiece--a long shirt of coarse linsey--and their heads and feet were
+bare. An old negress was seated in the doorway, knitting. Approaching
+her, I said:
+
+'Aunty, are not these children cold?'
+
+'Oh! no, massa; dey'm use' ter de wedder.'
+
+'Do you take care of all of them?'
+
+'In de daytime I does, massa. In de night dar mudders takes de small
+'uns.'
+
+'But some of them are white. Those two are as white as I am!'
+
+'No, massa; dey'm brack. Ef you looks at dar eyes an' dar finger nails,
+you'll see dat.'
+
+'They're black, to be sure they are,' said young Preston, laughing; 'but
+they're about as white as Dawsey, and look wonderfully like him--eh,
+aunty Sue?'
+
+'I reckons, massa Joe!' replied the woman, running her hand through her
+wool, and grinning widely.
+
+'What does he ask for _them_, aunty?'
+
+'Doan't know, massa, but 'spect dey'm pooty high. Dem kine am hard ter
+raise.'
+
+'Yes,' said Joe; 'white blood--even Dawsey's--don't take naturally to
+mud.'
+
+'I reckons not, massa Joe!' said the old negress, with another grin.
+
+Joe gave her a half-dollar piece, and, amid an avalanche of blessings,
+we passed on to Dawsey's 'mansion'--if mansion it could be called--a
+story-and-a-half shanty, about thirty feet square, covered with rough,
+unpainted boards, and lit by two small, dingy windows. It was approached
+by a sandy walk, and the ground around its front entrance was littered
+with apple peelings, potato parings, and the refuse of the culinary
+department.
+
+Joe rapped at the door, and, in a moment, it opened, and a middle-aged
+mulatto woman appeared. As soon as she perceived Preston, she grasped
+his two hands, and exclaimed:
+
+'Oh! massa Robert, _do_ buy har! Massa'll kill har, ef you doan't.'
+
+'But I can't, Dinah. Your master refuses my note, and I haven't the
+money now.'
+
+'Oh! oh! He'll kill har; he say he will. She woan't gib in ter him, an'
+he'll kill har, _shore_. Oh! oh!' cried the woman, wringing her hands,
+and bursting into tears.
+
+'Is it 'Spasia?' asked Joe.
+
+'Yas, massa Joe; it'm 'Spasia. Massa hab sole yaller Tom 'way from har,
+an' he swar he'll kill har 'case she woan't gib in ter him. Oh! oh!'
+
+'Where is your master?'
+
+'He'm 'way wid har an' Black Cale. I reckon dey'm down ter de branch. I
+reckon dey'm whippin' on har _now_!'
+
+'Come, Frank,' cried Joe, starting off at a rapid pace; 'let's see that
+performance.'
+
+'Hold on, Joe; wait for us. You'll get into trouble!' shouted his
+father, hurrying after him. The rest of us caught up with them in a few
+moments, and then all walked rapidly on in the direction of the small
+run which borders the two plantations.
+
+Before we had gone far, we heard loud screams, mingled with oaths and
+the heavy blows of a whip. Quickening our pace, we soon reached the bank
+of the little stream, which there was lined with thick underbrush. We
+could see no one, and the sounds had subsided. In a moment, however, a
+rough voice called out from behind the bushes:
+
+'Have you had enough? Will you give up?'
+
+'Oh! no, good massa; I can't do dat!' was the half-sobbing, half-moaning
+reply.
+
+'Give it to her again, Cale!' cried the first voice; and again the whip
+descended, and again the piercing cries: 'O Lord!' 'Oh, pray doan't!' 'O
+Lord, hab mercy!' 'Oh! good massa, hab mercy!' mingled with the falling
+blows.
+
+'This way!' shouted Joe, pressing through the bushes, and bounding down
+the bank toward the actors in this nineteenth-century tournament,
+wherein an armed knight and a doughty squire were set against a weak,
+defenceless woman.
+
+Leaning against a pine at a few feet from the edge of the run, was a
+tall, bony man of about fifty. His hair was coarse and black, and his
+skin the color of tobacco-juice. He wore the ordinary homespun of the
+district; and long, deep lines about his mouth and under his eyes told
+the story of a dissipated life. His entire appearance was anything but
+prepossessing.
+
+At the distance of three or four rods, and bound to the charred trunk of
+an old tree, was a woman, several shades lighter than the man. Her feet
+were secured by stout cords, and her arms were clasped around the
+blackened stump, and tied in that position. Her back was bare to the
+loins, and, as she hung there, moaning with agony, and shivering with
+cold, it seemed one mass of streaming gore.
+
+The brawny black, whom Boss Joe had so eccentrically addressed at the
+negro meeting, years before, was in the act of whipping the woman; but
+with one bound, young Preston was on him. Wrenching the whip from his
+hand, he turned on his master, crying out:
+
+'Untie her, you white-livered devil, or I'll plough your back as you've
+ploughed hers!'
+
+'Don't interfere here, you d--d whelp!' shouted Dawsey, livid with rage,
+and drawing his revolver.
+
+'I'll give you enough of that, you cowardly hound!' cried Joe, taking a
+small Derringer from his pocket, and coolly advancing upon Dawsey.
+
+The latter levelled his pistol, but, before he could fire, by a
+dexterous movement of my cane, I struck it from his hand. Drawing
+instantly a large knife, he rushed on me. The knife was descending--in
+another instant I should have 'tasted Southern steel,' had not Frank
+caught his arm, wrenched the weapon from his grasp, and with the fury of
+an aroused tiger, sprung on him and borne him to the ground. Planting
+his knee firmly on Dawsey's breast, and twisting his neckcloth tightly
+about his throat, Frank yelled out:
+
+'Stand back. Let _me_ deal with him!'
+
+'But you will kill him.'
+
+'Well, he would have killed _you_!' he cried, tightening his hold on
+Dawsey's throat.
+
+'Let him up, Frank. Let the devil have fair play,' said Joe; 'I'll give
+him a chance at ten paces.'
+
+'Yes, let him up, my son; he is unarmed.'
+
+Frank slowly and reluctantly released his hold, and the woman-whipper
+rose. Looking at us for a moment--a mingled look of rage and
+defiance--he turned, without speaking, and took some rapid strides up
+the bank.
+
+'Hold on, Colonel Dawsey!' cried Joe, elevating his Derringer; 'take
+another step, and I'll let daylight through you. You've just got to
+promise you won't whip this woman, or take your chance at ten paces.'
+
+[I afterward learned that Joe was deadly sure with the pistol.]
+
+Dawsey turned slowly round, and, in a sullen tone, asked:
+
+'Who are you, _gentlemen_, that interfere with my private affairs?'
+
+'_My_ name, sir, is Kirke, of New York; and this young man is my son.'
+
+'Not Mr. Kirke, my factor?'
+
+'The same, sir.'
+
+'Well, Mr. Kirke, I'm sorry to say you're just now in d--d pore
+business.'
+
+'I _have_ been, sir. I've done yours for some years, and I'm heartily
+ashamed of it. I'll try to mend in that particular, however.'
+
+'Well, no more words, Colonel Dawsey,' said Joe. 'Here's a Derringer, if
+you'd like a pop at me.'
+
+'Tain't an even chance,' replied Dawsey; 'you know it.'
+
+'Take it, or promise not to whip the woman. I won't waste more time on
+such a sneaking coward as you are.'
+
+Dawsey hesitated, but finally, in a dogged way, made the required
+promise, and took himself off.
+
+While this conversation was going on, Preston and the negro man had
+untied the woman. Her back was bleeding profusely, and she was unable to
+stand. Lifting her in their arms, the two conveyed her to the top of the
+bank, and then, making a bed of their coats, laid her on the ground. We
+remained there until the negro returned from the house with a turpentine
+wagon, and conveyed the woman 'home.' We then returned to the
+plantation, and that afternoon, accompanied by Frank and Joe, I resumed
+my journey.
+
+By way of episode, I will mention that the slave woman, after being
+confined to her bed several weeks, recovered. Then Dawsey renewed his
+attack upon her, and, from the effects of a second whipping, she died.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+Returning from the South a few weeks after the events narrated in the
+previous chapter, Frank and I were met at Goldsboro by Preston and
+Selma, when the latter accompanied us to the North, and once more
+resumed her place in David's family.
+
+On the first of February following, Frank, then not quite twenty-one,
+was admitted a partner in the house of Russell, Rollins, & Co., and, in
+the succeeding summer, was sent to Europe on business of the firm.
+Shortly after his return, in the following spring, he came on from
+Boston with a proposal from Cragin that I should embark with them and
+young Preston in an extensive speculation. Deeming any business in which
+Cragin was willing to engage worthy of careful consideration, I listened
+to Frank's exposition of the plan of operations. He had originated the
+project, and in it he displayed the comprehensive business mind and rare
+blending of caution and boldness which characterized his father. As the
+result of this transaction had an important influence on the future of
+some of the actors in my story, I will detail its programme.
+
+It was during the Crimean war. The Russian ports were closed, and Great
+Britain and the Continent of Europe were dependent entirely on the
+Southern States for their supply of resinous articles. The rivers at the
+South were low, and it was not supposed they would rise sufficiently to
+float produce to market before the occurrence of the spring freshets, in
+the following April or May. Only forty thousand barrels of common rosin
+were held in Wilmington--the largest naval-store port in the world; and
+it was estimated that not more than two hundred thousand were on hand in
+the other ports of Savannah, Ga., Georgetown, S. C., Newbern and
+Washington, N. C., and in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Very
+little was for sale in London, Liverpool, or Glasgow, the largest
+foreign markets for the article; and Frank thought that a hundred and
+fifty thousand barrels could be purchased. That quantity, taken at once
+out of market, would probably so much enhance the value of the article,
+that the operation would realize a large profit before the new crop came
+forward. The purchases were to be made simultaneously in the various
+markets, and about two hundred thousand dollars were required to carry
+through the transaction. One hundred thousand of this was to be
+furnished in equal proportions by the parties interested; the other
+hundred thousand would be realized by Joseph Preston's negotiating 'long
+exchange' on Russell, Rollins & Co.
+
+I declined to embark in the speculation, but the others carried it out
+as laid down in the programme; the only deviation being that, at Frank's
+suggestion, Mr. Robert Preston was apprised of the intended movement,
+and allowed to purchase, on his own account, as much produce as could be
+secured in Newbern. He bought about seven thousand barrels, paid for
+them by drawing at ninety days on Russell, Rollins, & Co., and held them
+for sale at Newbern, agreeing to satisfy his drafts with the proceeds.
+These drafts amounted to a trifle over eighty-two hundred dollars.
+
+About a month after this transaction was entered into, our firm received
+the following letter from Preston:
+
+     'GENTLEMEN: An unfortunate difference with my son prevents my
+     longer using him as my indorser. I have not, as yet, been able to
+     secure another; and, our banks requiring two home names on time
+     drafts, I have to beg you to honor a small bill at one day's sight.
+     I have drawn for one thousand dollars. Please honor.'
+
+To this I at once replied:
+
+     'DEAR SIR: We have advice of your draft for one thousand dollars.
+     To protect your credit, we shall pay it; but we beg you will draw
+     no more, till you forward bills of lading.
+
+     'You are now overdrawn some five thousand dollars, which, by the
+     maturing of your drafts, has become a _cash_ advance. The death of
+     our senior, Mr. Randall, and the consequent withdrawal of his
+     capital, has left us with an extended business and limited means.
+     Money, also, is very tight, and we therefore earnestly beg you to
+     put us in funds at the earliest possible moment.'
+
+No reply was received to this letter; but, about ten days after its
+transmission, Preston himself walked into my private office. His clothes
+were travel stained, and he appeared haggard and careworn. I had never
+seen him look so miserably.
+
+He met me cordially, and soon referred to the state of his affairs. His
+wife, the winter before, had agreed to reside permanently at Newbern,
+and content herself with an allowance of three thousand dollars
+annually; but at the close of the year he found that she had contracted
+debts to the extent of several thousand more. He was pressed for these
+debts; his interest was in arrears, and he could raise no money for lack
+of another indorser. Ruin stared him in the face, unless I again put my
+shoulder to the wheel, and pried him out of the mire. The turpentine
+business was not paying as well as formerly, but the new plantation was
+encumbered with only the original mortgage--less than six thousand
+dollars--and was then worth, owing to an advance in the value of land,
+fully twenty thousand. He would secure me by a mortgage on that
+property, but I _must_ allow the present indebtedness to stand, and let
+him increase it four or five thousand dollars. That amount would
+extricate him from present difficulties; and, to avoid future
+embarrassments, he would take measures for a legal separation from his
+wife.
+
+I heard him through, and then said:
+
+'I cannot help you, my friend. I am very sorry; but my own affairs are
+in a most critical state. I owe over a hundred thousand dollars,
+maturing within twenty days, and my present available resources are not
+more than fifty thousand. I have three hundred thousand worth of produce
+on hand, but the market is so depressed that I cannot realize a dollar
+upon it. The banks have shut down, and money is two per cent. a month in
+the street. What you owe us would aid me wonderfully; but I can rub
+through without it. That much I can bear, but not a dollar more.'
+
+He walked the room for a time, and was silent; then, turning to me, he
+said--each separate word seeming a groan:
+
+'I have cursed every one I ever loved, and now I am bringing
+trouble--perhaps disaster--upon _you_, the only real friend I have
+left.'
+
+'Pshaw! my good fellow, don't talk in that way. What you owe us is only
+a drop in the bucket. We have made twice that amount out of you; so give
+yourself no uneasiness, if you _never_ pay it.'
+
+'But I must pay it--I _shall_ pay it;' and, continuing to pace the room
+silently for a few moments, he added, giving me his hand: 'Good-by; I'm
+going back to-night.'
+
+'Back to-night!--without seeing Selly, or my wife? You are mad!'
+
+'I _must_ go.'
+
+'You must _not_ go. You are letting affairs trouble you too much. Come,
+go home with me, and see Kate. A few words from her will make a new man
+of you.'
+
+'No, no; I must go back at once. I must raise this money somehow.'
+
+'Send money to the dogs! Come with me, and have a good night's rest.
+You'll think better of this in the morning. And now it occurs to me that
+Kate has about seven thousand belonging to Frank. He means to settle it
+on Selly when they are married, and she might as well have it first as
+last. Perhaps you can get it now.'
+
+'But I might be robbing my own child.'
+
+'You can give the farm as security; it's worth twice the amount.'
+
+'Well, I'll stay. Let us see your wife at once.'
+
+While we were seated in the parlor, after supper, I broached the subject
+of Preston's wants to Kate. She heard me through attentively, and then
+quietly said:
+
+'Frank is of age--he can do as he pleases; but _I_ would not advise him
+to make the loan. I once heard my father scout at the idea of taking
+security on property a thousand miles away. I would not wound Mr.
+Preston's feelings, but--his wife's extravagance has led him into this
+difficulty, and her property should extricate him from it. Her town
+house, horses, and carriages should be sold. She ought to be made to
+feel some of the mortification she has brought upon him.'
+
+Preston's face brightened; a new idea seemed to strike him. 'You are
+right. I will sell everything.' His face clouded again, as he continued:
+'But I cannot realize soon enough. Your husband needs money at once.'
+
+'Never mind me; I can take care of myself. But what is this trouble with
+Joe? Tell me, I will arrange it. Everything can go on smoothly again.'
+
+'It cannot be arranged. There can be no reconciliation between us.'
+
+'What prevents? Who is at fault--you, or he?'
+
+'I am. He will never forgive me!'
+
+'Forgive you! I can't imagine what you have done, that admits of no
+forgiveness.'
+
+He rose, and walked the room for a while in gloomy silence, then said:
+
+'I will tell you. It is right you should know. You _both_ should know
+the sort of man you have esteemed and befriended for so many years;'
+and, resuming his seat, he related the following occurrences:
+
+'Everything went on as usual at the plantation, till some months after
+Rosey's marriage to Ally. Then a child was born to them. It was white.
+Rosey refused to reveal its father, but it was evidently not her
+husband. Ally, being a proud, high-spirited fellow, took the thing
+terribly to heart. He refused to live with his wife, or even to see her.
+I tried to reconcile them, but without success. Old Dinah, who had
+previously doted on Rosey, turned about, and began to beat and abuse her
+cruelly. To keep the child out of the old woman's way, I took her into
+the house, and she remained there till about two months ago. Then, one
+day, Larkin, the trader, of whom you bought Phylly and the children,
+came to me, wanting a woman house-servant. I was pressed for money, and
+I offered him--a thing I never did before--two or three of my family
+slaves. They did not suit, but he said Rosey would, and proposed to buy
+her and the child. I refused. He offered me fifteen hundred dollars for
+them, but I still refused. Then he told me that he had spoken to the
+girl, and she wished him to buy her. I doubted it, and said so; but he
+called Rosey to us, and she confirmed it, and, in an excited way, told
+me she would run away, or drown herself, if I did not sell her. She said
+she could live no longer on the same plantation with Ally. I told her I
+would send Ally away; but she replied: 'No; I am tired of this place. I
+have suffered so much here, I want to get away. I _shall_ go; whether
+alive or dead, is for _you_ to say.' I saw she was in earnest; I was
+hard pressed for money; Larkin promised to get her a kind master, and--I
+sold her.'
+
+'Sold her! My God! Preston, she was your own child!'
+
+'I know it,' he replied, burying his face in his hands. 'The curse of
+GOD was on it; it has been on me for years.' After a few moments, he
+added: 'But hear the rest, and _you_ will curse me, too.'
+
+Overcome with emotion, he groaned audibly. I said nothing, and a pause
+of some minutes ensued. Then, in a choked, broken voice, he continued:
+
+'The rosin transaction had been gone into. I had used up what blank
+indorsements I had. Needing more, and wanting to consult with Joe about
+selling the rosin, I went to Mobile. It was five weeks ago. I arrived
+there about dark, and put up at the Battle House. Joe had boarded there.
+I was told he had left, and gone to housekeeping. A negro conducted me
+to a small house in the outskirts of the town. He said Joe lived there.
+Wishing to surprise him, I went in without knocking. The house had two
+parlors, separated by folding doors. In the back one a young woman was
+clearing away the tea things; in the front one, Joe was seated by the
+fire, with a young child on his knee. I put my hand on his shoulder, and
+said: 'Joe, whose child have you here?' He looked up, and laughingly
+said: 'Why, father, you ought to know; you've seen it before!' I looked
+closely at it--it was Rosey's! I said so. 'Yes, father,' he replied;
+'and there's Rosey herself. Larkin promised she should have a kind
+master, and--he kept his word.' The truth flashed upon me--the child was
+his! My only son had seduced his _own sister_! I staggered back in
+horror. I told him who Rosey was, and then'--no words can express the
+intense agony depicted on his face as he said this--'then he cursed me!
+O my God! HE CURSED ME!'
+
+I pitied him, I could but pity him; and I said:
+
+'Do not be so cast down, my friend. I once heard you say: 'The Lord is
+good. His mercy is everlasting!''
+
+'But he cannot have mercy on some!' he cried. '_My_ sins have been too
+great; they cannot be blotted out. I embittered the life of my wife; I
+have driven my daughter from her home; sold my own child; made my
+generous, noble-hearted boy do a horrible crime--a crime that will
+haunt him forever. Oh! the curse of God is on me. My misery is greater
+than I can bear.'
+
+'No, my friend; God curses none of his creatures. You have reaped what
+you have sown, that is all; but you have suffered enough. Better things,
+believe me, are in store for you.'
+
+'No, no; everything is gone--wife, children, all! I am alone--the past,
+nothing but remorse; the future, ruin and dishonor!'
+
+'But Selly is left you. _She_ will always love you.'
+
+'No, no! Even Selly would curse me, if she knew _all_!'
+
+No one spoke for a full half hour, and he continued pacing up and down
+the room. When, at last, he seated himself, more composed, I asked:
+
+'What became of Rosey and the child?'
+
+'I do not know. I was shut in my room for several days. When I got out,
+I was told Joe had freed her, and she had disappeared, no one knew
+whither. I tried every means to trace her, but could not. At the end of
+a week, I went home, what you see me--a broken-hearted man.'
+
+The next morning, despite our urgent entreaties, he returned to the
+South.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The twenty days were expiring. By hard struggling I had met my
+liabilities, but the last day--the crisis--was approaching. Thirty
+thousand dollars of our acceptances had accumulated together, and were
+maturing on that day. When I went home, on the preceding night, we had
+only nineteen thousand in bank. I had exhausted all our receivables.
+Where the eleven thousand was to come from, I did not know. Only one
+resource seemed left me--the hypothecation of produce; and a resort to
+that, at that time, before warehouse receipts became legitimate
+securities, would be ruinous to our credit. My position was a terrible
+one. No one not a merchant can appreciate or realize it. With thousands
+upon thousands of assets, the accumulations of years, my standing among
+merchants, and, what I valued more than all, my untarnished credit, were
+in jeopardy for the want of a paltry sum.
+
+I went home that night with a heavy heart; but Kate's hopeful words
+encouraged me. With her and the children left to me, I need not care for
+the rest; all might go, and I could commence again at the bottom of the
+hill. The next morning I walked down town with a firm spirit, ready to
+meet disaster like a man. The letters by the early mail were on my desk.
+I opened them one after another, hurriedly, eagerly. There were no
+remittances! I had expected at least five thousand dollars. For a moment
+my courage failed me. I rose, and paced the room, and thoughts like
+these passed through my mind: 'The last alternative has come. Pride must
+give way to duty. I must hypothecate produce, and protect my
+correspondents. I must sacrifice myself to save my friends!
+
+'But here are two letters I have thrown aside. They are addressed to me
+personally. Mere letters of friendship! What is friendship, at a time
+like this?--friendship without money! Pshaw! I wouldn't give a fig for
+all the friends in the world!'
+
+Mechanically I opened one of them. An enclosure dropped to the floor.
+Without pausing to pick it up, I read:
+
+     'DEAR FATHER: Mother writes me you are hard pressed. Sell my U. S.
+     stock--it will realize over seven thousand. It is yours. Enclosed
+     is Cragin's certified check for ten thousand. If you need more,
+     draw on _him_, at sight, for any amount. He says he will stand by
+     you to the death.
+
+                                   'Love to mother.
+                                              FRANK.'
+
+     'P. S.--Fire away, old fellow! Hallet is ugly, but I'll go my pile
+     on you, spite of the devil.
+                                             CRAGIN.'
+
+
+'SAVED! saved by my wife and child!' I leaned my head on my desk. When I
+rose, there were tears upon it.
+
+It wanted some minutes of ten, but I was nervously impatient to blot out
+those terrible acceptances. I should then be safe; I should then breathe
+freely. As I passed out of my private office, I opened the other letter.
+It was from Preston. Pausing a moment, I read it:
+
+     'MY VERY DEAR FRIEND: I enclose you sight check of Branch Bank of
+     Cape Fear on Bank of Republic, for $10,820. Apply what is needed to
+     pay my account; the rest hold subject to my drafts.
+
+     'I have sold my town house, furniture, horses, etc., and the
+     proceeds will pay my home debts. I shall therefore not need to draw
+     the balance for, say, sixty days. God bless you!'
+
+'Well, the age of miracles is _not_ passed! How _did_ he raise the
+money?'
+
+Stepping back into the private office, I called my partner:
+
+'Draw checks for all the acceptances due to-day; get them certified, and
+take up the bills at once. Don't let the grass grow under your feet. I
+shall be away the rest of the day, and I want to see them before I go.
+Here is a draft from Preston; it will make our account good.'
+
+He looked at it, and, laughing, said:
+
+'Yes, and leave about fifty dollars in bank.'
+
+'Well, never mind; we are out of the woods.'
+
+When he had gone, I sat down, and wrote the following letter:
+
+     'MY DEAR FRANK: I return Cragin's check, with many thanks. I have
+     not sold your stock. My legitimate resources have carried me
+     through.
+
+     'I need not say, my boy, that I feel what you would have done for
+     me. Words are not needed between _us_.
+
+     'Tell Cragin that I consider him a trump--the very ace of hearts.
+
+     'Your mother and I will see you in a few days.'
+
+In half an hour, with the two letters in my pocket, I was on my way
+home. Handing them to Kate, I took her in my arms; and, as I brushed the
+still bright, golden hair from her broad forehead, I felt I was the
+richest man living.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Within the same week I went to Boston. I arrived just after dark; and
+then occurred the events narrated in the first chapter.
+
+
+
+
+WAR.
+
+[J. G. PERCIVAL.]
+
+
+  For war is now upon their shores,
+    And we must meet the foe,
+  Must go where battle's thunder roars,
+    And brave men slumber low;
+  Go, where the sleep of death comes on
+    The proudest hearts, who dare
+  To grasp the wreath by valor won,
+    And glory's banquet share.
+
+
+
+
+A CHAPTER ON WONDERS.
+
+  'Obstupui! steteruntque comæ, et vox faucibus hæsit.'
+
+
+There is a certain portion of mankind ever on the alert to see or hear
+some wonderful thing; whose minds are attuned to a marvellous key, and
+vibrate with extreme sensitiveness to the slightest touch; whose vital
+fluid is the air of romance, and whose algebraic symbol is a mark of
+exclamation! This sentiment, existing in some persons to a greater
+degree than in others, is often fostered by education and association,
+so as to become the all-engrossing passion. Children, of course, begin
+to wonder as soon as their eyes are opened upon the strange scenes of
+their future operations. The first thing usually done to develop their
+dawning intellect, is to display before them such objects as are best
+calculated to arrest their attention, and keep them in a continual state
+of excitement. This course is succeeded by a supply of all sorts of
+_toys_, to gratify the passion of novelty. These are followed by
+wonderful stories, and books of every variety of absurd
+impossibilities;--which system of development is, it would seem,
+entirely based upon the presumption, that the faculty of admiration must
+be expanded, in order that the young idea may best learn how to _shoot_.
+It is therefore quite natural, that--the predisposition granted--a
+faculty of the mind so auspiciously nurtured under the influence of
+exaggeration should mature in a corresponding degree.
+
+Thus we have in our midst a class, into whose mental economy the faculty
+of _wonder_ is so thoroughly infused, that it has inoculated the entire
+system, and forms an inherent, inexplicable, and almost elementary part
+of it. These persons sail about in their pleasure yachts, on roving
+expeditions, under a pretended '_right of search_,' armed to the teeth,
+and boarding all sorts of crafts to obtain plunder for their favorite
+gratification. They are most uneasy and uncomfortable companions, having
+no ear for commonplace subjects of conversation, and no eye for ordinary
+objects of sight.
+
+When such persons approach each other, they are mutually attracted, like
+two bodies charged with different kinds of electricity--an interchange
+of commodities takes place, repulsion follows, and thus reënforced, they
+separate to diffuse the supply of wonders collected.
+
+By this centripetal and centrifugal process, the social atmosphere is
+subjected to a continual state of agitation. _Language_ is altogether
+too tame to give full effect to their meaning, and all the varieties of
+_dumb show_, of _gesticulation_, _shrugs_, and wise shakes of the head,
+are called into requisition, to effectually and unmistakably express
+their ideas. The usages of good society are regarded by them as a great
+restraint upon their besetting propensity to expatiate in phrases of
+grandiloquence, and to magnify objects of trivial importance. They are
+always sure to initiate topics which will afford scope for admiration;
+they delight to enlarge upon the unprecedented growth of cities,
+villages, and towns; upon the comparative prices of 'corner lots' at
+different periods; and to calculate how rich they _might_ have been, had
+they only known as much _then_ as _now_.
+
+They experience a gratification when a rich man dies, that the wonder
+will now be solved as to the amount of his property; and when a man
+fails in business, that it is _now_ made clear--what has so long
+perplexed them--'_how he managed to live so extravagantly_!' See them
+at an agricultural fair, and they will be found examining the 'mammoth
+squashes' and various products of prodigious growth--or they will
+install themselves as self-appointed exhibiter of the 'Fat Baby,' to
+inform the incredulous how much it weighs! See them at a conflagration,
+and they wonder what was the _cause_ of the fire, and _how far_ it will
+extend?
+
+They long to travel, that they may visit 'mammoth caves' and 'Giant's
+Causeways.' We talk of the 'Seven Wonders of the World,' while to them
+there is a successive series for every day in the year--putting to the
+blush our meagre stock of monstrosities--making 'Ossa like a wart.'
+Nothing gratifies them more than the issuing from the press of an
+anonymous work, that they may exert their ingenuity in endeavoring to
+discover the author; and, when called on for information on the subject,
+prove conclusively to every one but themselves, that they know nothing
+whatever about the matter.
+
+The ocean is to them only wonderful as the abode of 'Leviathans,' and
+'Sea Serpents,' 'Krakens,' and 'Mermaids'--abounding in 'Mäelstroms' and
+_sunken_ islands, and traversed by 'Phantom Ships' and 'Flying Dutchmen'
+in perpetual search for some 'lost Atlantis;'--all well-attested
+incredibilities, certified to by the 'affidavits of respectable
+eye-witnesses,' and, we might add, by 'intelligent contrabands,'--and
+all in strict conformity with the convenient aphorism '_Credo quia
+impossibile est_.' They are ever ready to bestow their amazement upon a
+fresh miracle as soon as the present has had its day--like the man who,
+being landed at some distance by the explosion of a juggler's
+pyrotechnics, rubbed his eyes open, and exclaimed, '_I wonder what the
+fellow will do next!_'
+
+If a steamboat explodes her boiler, or the walls of a factory fall,
+burying hundreds in the ruins, their hearts--rendered callous by the
+constant stream of cold air pouring in through their _ever-open
+mouths_--are not shocked at the calamity, but they wonder if it was
+_insured_!
+
+The increase of population in this country affords a most prolific and
+inexhaustible fund for statistical astonishment, as an interlude to the
+entertainment, while something more appalling is being prepared.
+
+The portentous omens so often relied on by the credulous believers in
+signs, have so frequently proved 'dead failures,' that one would suppose
+these votaries would at length become disheartened. But this seems not
+to be the case--like a quack doctor when his patient dies, their
+audacity is equal to any emergency, and, with the elasticity of india
+rubber, they come out of a 'tight squeeze' with undiminished rotundity.
+With _stupid_ amazement, hair all erect, and ears likewise, they pass
+through life as through a museum, ready to exclaim with Dominie Sampson
+at all _they_ cannot understand, 'Pro--di--gi--ous!'
+
+It matters little, perhaps, in what form this principle is exhibited,
+while it exists and flourishes in undiminished exuberance. Thus says
+Glendower:
+
+                      'At my nativity
+  The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
+  Of burning cressets; and, at my birth,
+  The frame and huge foundation of the earth
+  Shak'd like a coward.
+
+  _Hotspur._ Why so it would have done
+  At the same season, if your mother's cat had
+  But kittened, though yourself had ne'er been born.'
+
+Glendower naturally enough flouts this rather impertinent comment, and
+'repeats the story of his birth' with still greater improvements, till
+Hotspur gives him a piece of advice which will do for his whole race of
+the present day, viz., 'tell the truth, and shame the devil.'
+
+The English people of this generation are rather more phlegmatic than
+their explosive neighbors across the channel, and neither the injustice
+of black slavery abroad, nor the starvation of _white_ slaves at home,
+can shake them from their lop-sided neutrality, _so long as money goes
+into their pocket_. The excitable French, on the contrary, require an
+occasional _coup d'état_ to arouse their conjectures as to the next
+imperial experiment in the art of international diplomacy.
+
+The press of the day teems with all sorts of provisions to satisfy the
+cravings of a depraved imagination, and even the most sedate of our
+daily papers are not above employing 'double-leaded Sensations,' and
+'display Heads' as a part of their ordinary stock in trade; while from
+the hebdomadals, 'Thrilling Tales,' 'Awful Disclosures,' and 'Startling
+Discoveries,' succeed each other with truly fearful rapidity. Thus he
+who wastes the midnight kerosene, and spoils his weary eyes in poring
+over the pages of trashy productions, so well designed to murder sleep,
+may truly say with Macbeth, 'I have supp'd full with horrors.'
+
+It is certainly remarkable (as an indication of the pleasure the
+multitude take in voluntarily perplexing themselves), how eagerly they
+enter into all sorts of contrivances which conduce to bewilderment and
+doubt. In 'Hampton Court' there is a famous enclosure called the
+'_Maze_,' so arranged with hedged alleys as to form a perfect labyrinth.
+To this place throngs of persons are constantly repairing, to enjoy the
+luxury of losing themselves, and of seeing others in the same
+predicament.
+
+Some persons become so impatient of the constant demand upon their
+admiration, that they resist whatever seems to lead in that direction.
+Washington Irving said he 'never liked to walk with his host over the
+latter's ground'--a feeling which many will at once acknowledge having
+experienced. A celebrated English traveller was so annoyed by the urgent
+invitations of the Philadelphians to visit the Fairmount Water Works,
+that he resolved _not_ to visit them, so that he might have the
+characteristic satisfaction of recording the ill-natured fact.
+
+'Swift mentions a gentleman who made it a rule in reading, to skip over
+all sentences where he spied a note of admiration at the end.'
+
+The instances here quoted are, to be sure, carrying out the '_Nil
+admirari_' principle rather to extremes, and are not recommended for
+general observance. The most remarkable and prominent wonders in the
+natural world seldom meet the expectation of the beholder, because he
+looks to experience a new sensation, and is disappointed; and so with
+works of art, as St. Peter's at Rome--
+
+    ----'its grandeur overwhelms thee not,
+  And why? it is not lessen'd; but thy mind,
+  Expanded by the genius of the spot,
+  Has grown colossal.'
+
+_Wonder_ is defined as 'the effect of novelty upon ignorance.' Most
+objects which excite wonder are magnified by the distance or the point
+of view, and their proportions diminish and shrink as we approach them.
+It is a saying as old as Horace, 'ignotum pro magnifico est': we cease
+to wonder at what we understand. Seneca says that those whose habits are
+temperate are satisfied with fountain water, which is cold enough for
+them; while those who have lived high and luxuriously, require the use
+of _ice_. Thus a well-disciplined mind adjusts itself to whatever events
+may occur, and not being likely to lose its equanimity upon ordinary
+occasions, is equally well prepared for more serious results.
+
+'Let us never wonder,' again saith Seneca, 'at anything we are born to;
+for no man has reason to complain where we are all in the same
+condition.' But notwithstanding all the precepts of philosophers, the
+advice of all men of sense, and the best examples for our guides, we go
+on, with eyes dilated and minds wide open, to see, hear, and receive
+impressions through distorted mediums, leading to wrong conclusions and
+endless mistakes.
+
+'Wonders will never cease!' Of course they will not, so long as there
+are so many persons engaged in providing the aliment for their
+sustenance; so long as the demand exceeds the supply; so long as mankind
+are more disposed to listen to exaggeration rather than to simple
+truths, and so long as they shall tolerate the race of _wonder-mongers_,
+giving them 'aid and comfort,' regardless of their being enemies of our
+peace, and the pests of our social community.
+
+
+
+
+THE RETURN.
+
+
+  July,--what is the news they tell?
+    A battle won: our eyes are dim,
+  And sad forbodings press the heart
+    Anxious, awaiting news from him.
+  Hour drags on hour: fond heart, be still,
+    Shall evil tidings break the spell?
+  A word at last!--they found him dead;
+    He fought in the advance, and fell.
+
+  Oh aloes of affliction poured
+    Into the wine cup of the soul!
+  Oh bitterness of anguish stored
+    To fill our grief beyond control!
+  At last he comes, awaited long,
+    Not to home welcomes warm and loud,
+  Not to the voice of mirth and song,
+    Pale featured, cold, beneath a shroud.
+
+  Oh from the morrow of our lives
+    A glowing hope has stolen away,
+  A something from the sun has fled,
+    That dims the glory of the day.
+  More earnestly we look beyond
+    The present life to that to be;
+  Another influence draws the soul
+    To long for that futurity.
+
+  Pardon if anguished souls refrain
+    Too little, grieving for the lost,
+  From thinking dearly bought the gain
+    Of victory at such fearful cost.
+  Teach us as dearest gain to prize
+    The glory crown he early won;
+  Forever shall his requiem rise:
+    Rest thee in peace, thy duty done.
+
+
+
+
+THE UNION.
+
+VI.
+
+VIRGINIA AND PENNSYLVANIA COMPARED.
+
+
+Virginia was a considerable colony, when Pennsylvania was occupied only
+by Indian tribes. In 1790, Virginia was first in rank of all the States,
+her number of inhabitants being 748,308. (Census Rep., 120,121.)
+Pennsylvania then ranked the second, numbering 434,373 persons. (Ib.) In
+1860 the population of Virginia was 1,596,318, ranking the fifth;
+Pennsylvania still remaining the second, and numbering 2,905,115. (Ib.)
+In 1790 the population of Virginia exceeded that of Pennsylvania
+313,925; in 1860 the excess in favor of Pennsylvania was 1,308,797. The
+ratio of increase of population of Virginia from 1790 to 1860 was 113.32
+per cent., and of Pennsylvania in the same period, 569.03. At the same
+relative ratio of increase for the next seventy years, Virginia would
+contain a population of 3,405,265 in 1930; and Pennsylvania 19,443,934,
+exceeding that of England. Such has been and would continue to be the
+effect of slavery in retarding the progress of Virginia, and such the
+influence of freedom in the rapid advance of Pennsylvania. Indeed, with
+the maintenance and perpetuity of the Union in all its integrity, the
+destiny of Pennsylvania will surpass the most sanguine expectations.
+
+The population of Virginia per square mile in 1790 was 12.19, and in
+1860, 26.02; whilst that of Pennsylvania in 1790 was 9.44, and in 1860,
+63.18. (Ib.) The absolute increase of the population of Virginia per
+square mile, from 1790 to 1860, was 13.83, and from 1850 to 1860, 2.85;
+whilst that of Pennsylvania from 1790 to 1860, was 53.74, and from 1850
+to 1860, 12.93. (Ib.)
+
+AREA.--The area of Virginia is 61,352 square miles, and of Pennsylvania,
+46,000, the difference being 15,352 square miles, which is greater, by
+758 square miles, than the aggregate area of Massachusetts, Connecticut,
+and Delaware, containing in 1860 a population of 1,803,429. (Ib.)
+Retaining their respective ratios of increase per square mile from 1790
+to 1860, and reversing their areas, that of Virginia in 1860 would have
+been 1,196,920, and of Pennsylvania 3,876,119. Reversing the numbers of
+each State in 1790, the ratio of increase in each remaining the same,
+the population of Pennsylvania in 1860 would have been 5,408,424, and
+that of Virginia, 926,603. Reversing both the areas and numbers in 1790,
+and the population of Pennsylvania would have exceeded that of Virginia
+in 1860 more than six millions.
+
+SHORE LINE.--By the Tables of the Coast Survey, the shore line of
+Virginia is 1,571 miles, and of Pennsylvania only 60 miles. This vastly
+superior coast line of Virginia, with better, deeper, more capacious,
+and much more numerous harbors, unobstructed by ice, and with easy
+access for so many hundred miles by navigable bays and tide-water rivers
+leading so far into the interior, give to Virginia great advantages over
+Pennsylvania in commerce and every branch of industry. Indeed, in this
+respect, Virginia stands unrivalled in the Union. The hydraulic power of
+Virginia greatly exceeds that of Pennsylvania.
+
+MINES.--Pennsylvania excels every other State in mineral wealth, but
+Virginia comes next.
+
+SOIL.--In natural fertility of soil, the two States are about equal;
+but the seasons in Virginia are more favorable, both for crops and
+stock, than in Pennsylvania. Virginia has all the agricultural products
+of Pennsylvania, with cotton in addition. The area, however, of Virginia
+(39,265,280 acres) being greater by 9,825,280 acres than that of
+Pennsylvania (29,440,000 acres), gives to Virginia vast advantages.
+
+In her greater area, her far superior coast line, harbors, rivers, and
+hydraulic power, her longer and better seasons for crops and stock, and
+greater variety of products, Virginia has vast natural advantages, and
+with nearly double the population of Pennsylvania in 1790. And yet,
+where has slavery placed Virginia? Pennsylvania exceeds her now in
+numbers 1,308,797, and increased in population, from 1790 to 1860, in a
+ratio more than five to one. Such is the terrible contrast between free
+and slave institutions!
+
+PROGRESS OF WEALTH.--By Census Tables (1860) 33 and 36, it appears
+(omitting commerce) that the products of industry, as given, viz., of
+agriculture, manufactures, mines, and fisheries, were that year in
+Pennsylvania, of the value of $398,600,000, or $137 per capita; and in
+Virginia, $120,000,000 or $75 per capita. This shows a total value of
+product in Pennsylvania much more than three times that of Virginia,
+and, per capita, nearly two to one. That is, the average value of the
+product of the labor of each person in Pennsylvania, is nearly double
+that of each person, including slaves, in Virginia. Thus is proved the
+vast superiority of free over slave labor, and the immense national loss
+occasioned by the substitution of the latter for the former.
+
+As to the rate of increase; the value of the products of Virginia in
+1850 was $84,480,428 (Table 9), and in Pennsylvania, $229,567,131,
+showing an increase in Virginia, from 1850 to 1860, of $35,519,572,
+being 41 per cent.; and in Pennsylvania, $169,032,869, being 50 per
+cent.; exhibiting a difference of 9 per cent. in favor of Pennsylvania.
+By the Census Table of 1860, No. 35, p. 195, the true value then of the
+real and personal property was, in Pennsylvania, $1,416,501,818, and of
+Virginia, $793,249,681. Now, we have seen, the value of the products in
+Pennsylvania in 1860 was $398,600,000, and in Virginia, $120,000,000.
+Thus, as a question of the annual yield of capital, that of Pennsylvania
+was 28.13 per cent., and of Virginia, 15.13 per cent. By Census Table
+35, the total value of the real and personal property of Pennsylvania
+was $722,486,120 in 1850, and $1,416,501,818 in 1860, showing an
+increase, in that decade, of $694,015,698, being 96.05 per cent.; and in
+Virginia, $430,701,082 in 1850, and $793,249,681 in 1860, showing an
+increase of $362,548,599, or 84.17 per cent.
+
+By Table 36, p. 196, Census of 1860, the _cash_ value of the farms of
+Virginia was $371,092,211, being $11.91 per acre; and of Pennsylvania,
+$662,050,707, being $38.91 per acre. Now, by this table, the number of
+acres embraced in these farms of Pennsylvania was 17,012,153 acres, and
+in Virginia, 31,014,950; the difference of value per acre being $27, or
+largely more than three to one in favor of Pennsylvania, Now, if we
+multiply the farm lands of Virginia by the Pennsylvania value per acre,
+it would make the total value of the farm lands of Virginia
+$1,204,791,804; and the _additional_ value, caused by emancipation,
+$835,699,593, which is more, by $688,440,093, than the value of all the
+slaves of Virginia. But the whole area of Virginia is 39,265,280 acres,
+deducting from which the farm lands, there remain unoccupied 8,250,330
+acres. Now, if (as would be in the absence of slavery,) the population
+per square mile of Virginia equalled that of Pennsylvania, three fifths
+of these lands would have been occupied as farms, viz., 4,950,198,
+which, at the Pennsylvania value per acre, would have been worth
+$188,207,524. Deduct from this their present average value of $2 per
+acre, $9,800,396, and the remainder, $178,407,128, is the sum by which
+the unoccupied lands of Virginia, converted into farms, would have been
+increased in value by emancipation. Add this to the enhanced value of
+their present farms, and the result is $1,014,106,721 as the gain, on
+this basis, of Virginia in the value of her lands, by emancipation. To
+these we should add the increased value of town and city lots and
+improvements, and of personal property, and, with emancipation, Virginia
+would now have an augmented wealth of at least one billion and a half of
+dollars.
+
+The earnings of commerce are not given in the Census Tables, which would
+vastly increase the difference in the value of their annual products in
+favor of Pennsylvania as compared with Virginia. These earnings include
+all not embraced under the heads of agriculture, manufactures, the
+mines, and fisheries. Let us examine some of these statistics.
+
+RAILROADS.--The number of miles of railroads in operation in
+Pennsylvania in 1860, including city roads, was 2,690.49 miles, costing
+$147,283,410; and in Virginia, 1,771 miles, costing $64,958,807. (Census
+Table of 1860, No. 38, pp. 230, 232.) The annual value of the freight
+carried on these roads is estimated at $200,000,000 more in Pennsylvania
+than in Virginia, and the passenger account would still more increase
+the disparity.
+
+CANALS.--The number of miles of canals in Pennsylvania in 1860 was
+1,259, and their cost, $42,015,000. In Virginia the number of miles was
+178, and the cost, $7,817,000. (Census Table 39, p. 238.) The estimated
+value of the freight on the Pennsylvania canals is ten times that of the
+freight on the Virginia canals.
+
+TONNAGE.--The tonnage of vessels built in Pennsylvania in 1860 was
+21,615 tons, and in Virginia, 4,372. (Census, p. 107.)
+
+BANKS.--The number of banks in Pennsylvania in 1860 was 90; capital,
+$25,565,582; loans, $50,327,127; specie, $8,378,474; circulation,
+13,132,892; deposits, $26,167,143:--and in Virginia the number was 65;
+capital, $16,005,156; loans, $24,975,792; specie, $2,943,652;
+circulation, $9,812,197; deposits, $7,729,652. (Census Table 35, p.
+193.)
+
+EXPORTS AND IMPORTS, ETC.--Our exports abroad from Pennsylvania, for the
+fiscal year ending 30th June, 1860, and foreign imports, were of the
+value of $20,262,608. The clearances, same year, from Pennsylvania, and
+entries were 336,848 tons. In Virginia the exports the same year, and
+foreign imports were of the value of $7,184,273; clearances and entries,
+178,143 tons, (Table 14, Register of U.S. Treasury.) Revenue from
+customs, same year, in Pennsylvania, $2,552,924, and in Virginia,
+$189,816; or more than twelve to one in favor of Pennsylvania. (Tables
+U.S. Commissioner of Customs.) No returns are given for the coastwise
+and internal trade of either State; but the railway and canal
+transportation of both States shows a difference of ten to one in favor
+of Pennsylvania. And yet, Virginia, as we have seen, had much greater
+natural advantages than Pennsylvania for commerce, foreign and internal,
+her shore line up to head of tide-water being 1,571 miles, and
+Pennsylvania only 60 miles.
+
+We have seen that, exclusive of commerce, the products of Pennsylvania
+in 1860 were of the value of $398,600,000, or $137 per capita; and in
+Virginia, $120,000,000, or $75 per capita. But, if we add the earnings
+of commerce, the products of Pennsylvania must have exceeded those of
+Virginia much more than four to one, and have reached, per capita,
+nearly three to one. What but slavery could have produced such amazing
+results? Indeed, when we see the same effects in _all_ the Free States
+as compared with _all_ the Slave States, and in _any_ of the Slave
+States, as compared with _any_ of the Free States, the uniformity of
+results establishes the law beyond all controversy, that slavery
+retards immensely the progress of wealth and population.
+
+That the Tariff has produced none of these results, is shown by the fact
+that the agriculture and commerce of Pennsylvania vastly exceed those of
+Virginia, and yet these are the interests supposed to be most
+injuriously affected by high tariffs. But there is still more conclusive
+proof. The year 1824 was the commencement of the era of high tariffs,
+and yet, from 1790 to 1820, as proved by the Census, the percentage of
+increase of Pennsylvania over Virginia was greater than from 1820 to
+1860. Thus, by Table 1 of the Census, p. 124, the increase of population
+in Virginia was as follows:
+
+  From 1790 to 1800  17.63 per cent.
+    "  1800 "  1810  10.73    "
+    "  1810 "  1820   9.31    "
+    "  1820 "  1830  13.71    "
+    "  1830 "  1840   2.34    "
+    "  1840 "  1850  14.60    "
+    "  1850 "  1860  12.29    "
+
+The increase of population in Pennsylvania was:
+
+  From 1790 to 1800  38.67 per cent.
+    "  1800 "  1810  34.49    "
+    "  1810 "  1820  29.55    "
+    "  1820 "  1830  28.47    "
+    "  1830 "  1840  27.87    "
+    "  1840 "  1850  34.09    "
+    "  1850 "  1860  25.71    "
+
+In 1790 the population of Virginia was 748,318; in 1820, 1,065,129, and
+in 1860, 1,596,318. In 1790 the population of Pennsylvania was 434,373;
+in 1820, 1,348,233, and in 1860, 2,906,115. Thus, from 1790 to 1820,
+before the inauguration of the protective policy, the relative increase
+of the population of Pennsylvania, as compared with Virginia, was very
+far greater than from 1820 to 1860. It is quite clear, then, that the
+tariff had no influence in depressing the progress of Virginia as
+compared with Pennsylvania.
+
+Having shown how much the material progress of Virginia has been
+retarded by slavery, let us now consider its effect upon her moral and
+intellectual development.
+
+NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS.--The number of newspapers and periodicals in
+Pennsylvania in 1860 was 367, of which 277 were political, 43 religious,
+25 literary, 22 miscellaneous; and the total number of copies circulated
+in 1860 was 116,094,480. (Census Tables, Nos. 15, 37.) The number in
+Virginia was 139, of which 117 were political, 13 religious, 3 literary,
+6 miscellaneous; and the number of copies circulated in 1860 was
+26,772,568, being much less than one fourth that of Pennsylvania. The
+number of copies of monthly periodicals circulated in Pennsylvania in
+1860 was 464,684; and in Virginia, 43,900; or much more than ten to one
+in favor of Pennsylvania.
+
+As regards schools, colleges, academies, libraries, and churches, I must
+take the Census of 1850, those tables for 1860 not being yet arranged or
+printed. The number of public schools in Pennsylvania in 1850 was 9,061;
+teachers, 10,024; pupils, 413,706; colleges, academies, &c., pupils,
+26,142; attending school during the year, as returned by families,
+504,610; native adults of the State who cannot read or write, 51,283;
+public libraries, 393; volumes, 363,400; value of churches, $11,853,291;
+percentage of native free, population (adults) who cannot read or write,
+4.56. (Comp. Census of 1850.)
+
+The number of public schools in Virginia in 1850 was 2,937; teachers,
+3,005; pupils, 67,438; colleges, academies, &c., pupils, 10,326;
+attending school, as returned by families, 109,775; native white adults
+of the State who cannot read or write, 75,868; public libraries, 54;
+volumes, 88,462; value of churches, $2,902,220; percentage of native
+free adults of Virginia who cannot read or write, 19.90. (Comp. Census
+of 1850.) Thus, the church and educational statistics of Pennsylvania,
+and especially of free adults who cannot read or write, is as five to
+one nearly in favor of Pennsylvania. When we recollect that nearly one
+third of the population of Pennsylvania are of the great German race,
+and speak the noble German language, to which they are greatly attached,
+and hence the difficulty of introducing common _English_ public schools
+in the State, the advantage, in this respect, of Pennsylvania over
+Virginia is most extraordinary.
+
+These official statistics enable me, then, again to say that slavery is
+hostile to the progress of _wealth_ and _education_, to _science_ and
+_literature_, to _schools_, _colleges_, and _universities_, to _books_
+and _libraries_, to _churches_ and _religion_, to the PRESS, and
+therefore to FREE GOVERNMENT; hostile to the _poor_, keeping them in
+_want_ and _ignorance_; hostile to LABOR, reducing it to _servitude_ and
+decreasing _two thirds_ the value of its products; hostile to _morals_,
+repudiating among slaves the _marital_ and _parental_ condition,
+classifying them by law as CHATTELS, _darkening_ the _immortal soul_,
+and making it a _crime_ to teach millions of _human beings_ to _read_ or
+_write_.
+
+And yet, there are desperate leaders of the Peace party of Pennsylvania,
+desecrating the name of _Democrats_, but, in fact, Tories and traitors,
+who would separate that glorious old commonwealth from the North, and
+bid her sue in abject humiliation for admission as one of the Slave
+States of the rebel confederacy. Shades of Penn and Franklin, and of the
+thousands of martyred patriots of Pennsylvania who have fallen in
+defence of the Union from 1776 to 1863, forbid the terrible degradation.
+
+
+
+
+DOWN IN TENNESSEE.
+
+
+Sultry and wearisome the day had been in that Tennessee valley, and
+after drill, we had laid around under the trees--tall, noble trees they
+were--and the fresh grass was green and soft under them as on the old
+'Campus,' and we had been smoking and talking over a wide, wide range of
+subjects, from deep Carlyleism--of which Carlyle doubtless never
+heard--to the significance of the day's orders. It was not an
+inharmonious picture--Camp Alabama, so we had named it--for it was with
+a 'here we rest' feeling that a dozen days before we had marched in at
+noon. The ground sloped to the eastward--a single winding road of yellow
+sand crept over the slope into the horizon, a mile or more away; north,
+a hill rose with some abruptness; south and west, a grove of wonderful
+beauty skirted the valley. A single building--an old but large log
+farmhouse--stood near the tent, whose fluttering banner indicated
+headquarters. This old house was well filled with commissary stores,
+and, following that incomprehensible Tennessee policy, four companies of
+our regiment, the twenty-third, had been detached to guard them under
+Major Fanning--'a noble soldier he, but all untried.' We had never yet
+seen active service, and our tents were still white and unstained. The
+ground had been once the lawn of the deserted house--in the long ago
+probably the home of a planter of some pretension; and, as we lay there
+under the trees watching the boys over the fires, kindled for their
+evening meal, the blue smoke curling up among the trees, it made, as I
+have said, a most harmonious picture.
+
+That fair June evening! I can never forget it, and I wish I were an
+artist that I could show you the sloping valley, the white tents,
+flushing like a girl's cheek to the good-night kisses of the sun, the
+curling smoke wreaths, and far, far above the amethystine heaven, from
+which floated over all a dim purple tint. I was the youngest
+commissioned officer in the regiment, having been promoted to a vacancy
+a week or two before through Major Fanning's influence.
+
+We were all invited that evening to supper with our commanding officer
+and his wife--who had been with him for a few days. A fresh breeze
+stirred the trees at sunset, and, after slight attention to our
+toilette, we dropped by twos and threes into the neighborhood of the
+major's tent. A little back from the rows of other tents, a few fine
+oaks made a temple in front, worthy even of its presiding genius, Grace
+Fanning--but I am _not_ going to rhapsodize. She was a fair, modest,
+young thing, with the girl rose yet fresh on her wife's cheek. I had
+known her from childhood; very nearly of the same age, and the children
+of neighbors, we had been inseparable; of course in my first college
+vacation, finding her grown tall and womanly, I had entertained for her
+a devoted boyish passion, and had gone from her presence, one August
+night, mad with rejection, and wild with what I called despair. But
+_that_ passed, and we had been good friends ever since--she the
+confidential one, to whom I related my varied college love affairs,
+listening ever with a tender, genial sympathy. I had no sister, and
+Grace Jones (I am sorry, but her name _was_ Jones) was dear to me as
+one. Two years of professional study had kept me away from my village
+home, and a few words came once in a long while, in my mother's letters
+'to assure me of Grace's remembrance and regard.' A little of the elder
+sister's advising tone amused my one and twenty years and my incipient
+moustache amazingly; and I resolved, when I saw her, to convince her of
+my dignity--to patronize her. But the notes that called me home were too
+clarion-like for a relapse into puppyism. My country spoke my name, and
+I arose a man, and 'put away childish things.' I came home to say
+farewell. A regiment was forming there, I enlisted, and a few days
+before our departure, I stood in the village church, looking and
+listening while Grace promised eternal fidelity to Harry Fanning. I was
+a stranger to him. He had come to Danville after my departure, winning
+from all golden opinions, and from Grace a woman's priceless heart. She
+gave him freely to his country, and denied not her hand to his parting
+prayer. I had had time only to say farewell to her, and the old footing
+had not been restored, but I _think_ she spoke to the major of me, for
+he soon sought me, giving me genial friendship and sympathy, and
+procuring for me, as I have related, my commission. I had seen her but
+once since she came to Camp Alabama, and she gave me warm and kindly
+welcome as I came in, the last of the group, having found in my tent
+some unexpected employment. Being a soldier, I shall not shock my fair
+readers if I confess that it was--buttons. Ah! me, I am frivolous. But I
+linger in the spirit of that happy hour. Grace's chair was shaded by a
+gracefully draped flag; the major stood near her, his love for her as
+visible in his eye as his cordial kindness for us. To me, in honor of my
+'juniority,' as Mrs. Fanning said, was assigned a place near her. The
+others had choice between campstools and blankets on the grass. And the
+oddest but most respectable of contrabands served us soon with our
+supper, so homelike that we suspected 'Mrs. Major's' fair hands of
+interference.
+
+It was a happy evening. Merry laughter at our camp stories rang silverly
+from her fair lips. Or we listened eagerly to her as she told us of the
+homes we had left, and the bonny maidens there, sobered since our
+departure into patriotic industry. Stories of touching self-denial, with
+a wholesome pathos, and sometimes from her dainty musical talk she
+dropped, pebble-like, a name, as 'Fanny,' 'Carry,' 'Maggie,' and
+responsive blushes rippled up over sunburned, honest faces, and a soft
+mist brightened for a second resolute eyes. Presently the band--a part
+only of the regiment's--began to play soft, well-known tunes. Through a
+few marches and national airs, I looked and listened as a year before,
+in the village church at home. And as the 'Star-Spangled Banner' rose
+inspiringly, I felt the coincidence strangely, and could scarcely say
+which scene was real: the church aisle and the bridal party, in white
+robes and favors, with mellow organ-tones rising in patriotic strains
+concerning the 'dear old flag,' or the group under the oaks; the young
+wife in her gray travelling dress, and the uniformed figures gathered
+around her; the moon-rise over the hill, lighting softly the drooping
+flag, the major's dark hair, and Mrs. Fanning's sunny braids, the wild
+notes of the same beloved melody overswelling all. But voices near
+aroused me, and we joined in the chorus, and in the following tune,
+'Sweet Home,' the usual finale of our evening programme. Then, as the
+tones died, Grace lifted her voice and sang with sweet, pure soprano
+tones, an old-time ballad of love and parting and reunion.
+
+We had a wild little battle song in 'Our Mess,' written by Charlie
+Marsh, our fair-haired boy-poet soldier, speaking of home, and the
+country's need, and victory, and possible deaths in ringing notes. We
+sang it there in the light of the slowly rising moon. The chorus was
+like this:
+
+  'Our country's foe before us,
+  Our country's banner o'er us,
+  Our country to deplore us,
+    These are a soldier's needs.'
+
+As we closed, Grace caught the strain, and with soft, birdlike notes
+sang:
+
+  'Your country's flag above you,
+  Your country's true hearts love you--
+  So let your country move you
+    To brave, undying deeds.'
+
+More songs followed, and happy words of cheer in distress, of
+self-consecration, of past and future victory; but Major Fanning was
+unusually silent. Hardly sad, for he flung into our conversation
+occasional cheerful words; but gravely quiet, his dark eye following
+every motion of his fair young wife. Finally we called on Captain
+Carter, our 'oldest man,' a grave bachelor of forty-five, and to our
+surprise, who knew him harsh and sometimes profane, he sang, with a
+voice not faultless, but soft and expressive, that exquisite health of
+Campbell's:
+
+  'Drink ye to her that each loves best,
+    And if you nurse a flame
+  That's told but to her mutual breast,
+    We will not ask her name.
+
+  'And far, far hence be jest or boast,
+    From hallowed thoughts so dear;
+  But drink to her that each loves most,
+    As she would love to hear.'
+
+Then silence for a little space; and the moonlight full and fair in
+soldiers' faces, young and old, but all firm and true, and fair and full
+on Grace Fanning's fresh, young brow. Then 'good-nights,' mingled with
+expressions of enjoyment, and plans for the morrow. I left them last.
+
+'I am glad you are here, Robert,' said the major; 'Grace would not be
+all alone, even if I'--
+
+Her white hand flashed to his lips, where a kiss met it, and laughingly
+we parted. A few rods away, I paused and turned. They stood there under
+the flag. Her bright head on his bosom, his arms about her, and the
+silver moonlight over all. Fair Grace Fanning! Have I named my story
+wrongly, pretty reader? I called it 'Camp Sketch,' and it reads too like
+a love story. 'Ah! gentle girl, seeking adventure in fiction, but
+shrinking really from even a cut finger, there is enough of battle even
+in my little story, though you slept peacefully and happily that fair
+June night, or waltzed yourself weary to the sound of the sea at the
+'Ocean House.'
+
+A few 'good nights' commendatory of our hostess and our evening greeted
+me as I sought my tent and made ready for sleep. I was very happy, no
+memory of our talk was sullied by coarse or unlovely thought; pure as
+herself had been our enjoyment of Mrs. Fanning's society, and I slept
+sweetly.
+
+The long roll! None but those who have heard it when it means instant
+danger and possible death, can conceive the thrill with which I sprang
+from deep slumber, and made hasty preparation for action. Quick as I
+was, others had been before me, and I found the half-dressed men drawn
+up in battle line before the encampment. I took my place.
+
+Behind us lay the camp, a wide, street-like space, fringed with a double
+row of tents--at its foot the old log mansion; near that, a little in
+front, but at one side, the flag of headquarters--this behind. Before us
+the major--the western wood, and the flashing sabres of a band of
+hostile cavalry. They came on heedless of the fast-emptying saddles, on,
+_on_, and more following from the wood, the moon in the mid heaven,
+clear like day.
+
+A gallant charge--a firm repulse. Major Fanning's clear voice on the
+night air, rallying the men to attack the furious foe. They sweep their
+horses around to left, but calmly the major wheels his battalion, still
+unflanked; again those fierce steeds try the first point of attack;
+again we front them undaunted. In our turn, with lifted level bayonets
+we charge; the enemy falls back--a shout threads along our lines,
+changing suddenly into a wail, for, calling us on, our leader falls.
+Pitiless to his noble valor, a well-aimed carbine-shot lays him low.
+They lift him, some brave soldiers near; and, his young face bathed in
+blood, they bear him to his waiting bride; he opens his eyes, as he
+passes.
+
+'Courage! victory! my boys!' he calls; then, seeing me: 'Go! tell her,
+Robert.'
+
+I call my orderly to my place, and before they have pierced our lines
+with their beloved burden, I am at the tent door. She stands there
+waiting, a little pistol in her hand--a light wrapper about her, and her
+fair hair streaming over her shoulders. I look at her mutely; she knows
+there is something terrible for her, and while I seek words, her eye
+goes on, resting where down the moonlit trees they are bringing him. A
+moment, she is by his side, and tearless and white, her hand on his
+unanswering heart, she moves beside him. The soldiers lay their leader
+on the ground under his flag, and her imperious gesture sends them back
+to their places in the battle. And then she, sinking beside him, cries
+out:
+
+'Oh, Robert! will he never speak to me again? Help him!'
+
+My two years at lectures had not been passed in vain, and surgery had
+been my hobby. I knelt and strove to aid him. It was a cruel wound. I
+asked for bandages. She tore them from her garments wildly. I stilled
+the trickling crimson stream, and going into the tent, found some
+restoratives. I poured the wine down his throat, and, soon opening his
+eyes, he spoke:
+
+'Grace!'
+
+I stepped away--near enough for call, not near enough for intrusion.
+Looking at the lines of dark forms topped by the light glimmer of stray
+bayonets, I saw with dismay that our men were retreating before those
+heavy charges; in thick, dense masses they moved back, nearing us. I
+thought of our soldier chief, crushed under those wild hoofs; I thought
+of Grace, unprotected in her youth and widowed, desolate beauty, and
+sprang to her side, ready with my life for her.
+
+The major saw it all, and, faint as he was, rose on his elbow, watching.
+Charge after charge, wild and impetuous, break the slowly retreating
+battalions. In vain I heard Carter's stern oaths (may the angel of tears
+forgive him!), and Charlie Marsh's boyish calls. The men are facing us.
+The enemy, cheering, and in the background huge torches flaming with
+pitch, are ready for incendiarism.
+
+'Grace! Grace! I _must_ rally them, let me go!' and I see Major Fanning
+straggling in her arms. I clasp him also.
+
+'It is certain death,' I say to her, mad with fright and misery.
+
+'And this is worse, worse, Grace; you might better kill me!' his voice
+was harsh--cruel even.
+
+Suddenly she was gone, and I held him alone; catching his sword, she
+sprang like a flash of lightning into the open space before the log
+house, and, lifting the bare blade with naked, slender arm, its loose
+sleeve floating from her shoulder like a wing, she faced those
+panic-stricken men.
+
+'For shame!' she cried; but her weak voice was lost; then, stern as the
+angel of death, she stepped forward.
+
+'The first man that passes me shall die!' and she swung the flashing
+blade up, ready to fall. A moment's halt, and then, she spoke to them
+with wonderful strange words. I cannot recall them; with inspired
+eloquence she spoke, a slight, white-robed figure in the clear
+moonlight, and the rout was stayed, and they turned bravely to meet the
+foe. Then she came faint and weak to her husband's side again. He looked
+up with glad, eager eyes.
+
+'Darling!'
+
+Infinite love, soul-recognition, shone on both faces, and then blank
+unconsciousness crept over his. Firmly our boys met the charging steeds
+now. That moment had restored to them their courage. Emptied saddles
+were frequent, but still fresh forces dashed from the wood. Is there no
+hope for us? Must we be overpowered? Is all this valor vain? Grace from
+her husband's side looks mutely up to heaven. I find my place among the
+men. Little hope remains. Some one calls 'retreat.' 'Just once more,'
+cries Charlie, and falls before us. But listen; above the battle din
+comes a new, an approaching sound from the eastward.
+
+Along the yellow road pours swiftly a force of cavalry, behind the
+rumble of cannon almost flying over the ground, and high in air, reeling
+from the swift motion of its bearer's steed, the banner of the free. We
+are saved! A wild shout rings along our lines. Among the enemy,
+frightened consultation followed by flight; another second, and our
+friends are with us and beyond us in hot pursuit.
+
+Brief question and answer told us of the friendly warning in the distant
+camp, the hasty march to aid us. The rest we saw. Then, 'A surgeon for
+Major Fanning.' The man of the green sash had not grown callous. There
+were tears in his eyes as he rose from his vain endeavors, saying only:
+
+'I can do nothing here; I am needed elsewhere.'
+
+Our young hero was dead!
+
+They composed his limbs, laying him on a blanket under the trees, and
+Grace sat down beside him, tearless still, but pale as her dress, or the
+white hand lying cold over the soldier's pulseless heart.
+
+'Robert, send them away,' she said to me, as sympathizing strangers
+pressed round; and they left us alone with the dead. I spoke at last the
+commonplaces of consolation, suggested and modified by the hour and my
+soldier feelings.
+
+'Yes, Robert,' she answered, 'I gave him long ago. GOD will comfort me
+for my hero--in time. Do not speak to me just yet. Do not let any one
+come.'
+
+The tears came now, and she wept bitterly, silently, under the starry
+banner, beside the dead. I heard the hum of many voices, and now and
+then a cry of pain, and knew they were all helping the sufferers. Then I
+turned to her again. Her streaming hair swept the ground, golden in the
+light. Her fair face was hidden on the cold dead face. And I dared not
+speak to her. Oh, that picture! Poor Grace Fanning! and the silver,
+silver moonlight over all.
+
+
+
+
+POETRY AND POETICAL SELECTIONS.
+
+  'Oh, deem not in this world of strife,
+    An idle art the Poet brings;
+      Let high Philosophy control,
+  And sages calm the stream of life;
+    'Tis he refines its fountain springs,
+      The nobler passions of the soul.'
+
+
+In the annals of literature, Poetry antedates Prose. Creation precedes
+Providence, not merely in the order of sequence, but what is usually
+called intellectual and physical grandeur. So in genius and taste,
+Poetry transcends prose. In the work of Creation the Almighty broke the
+awful stillness of Eternity, by His first creative fiat, and angels were
+the first-born of God. They took their thrones in the galleries of the
+universe, and in silent contemplation sat. They spoke not; for words, as
+signs of thought or will or emotion, were not then conceived, and,
+consequently, then unborn. They gazed in rapture on one another, and in
+solemn silence thought. Their emotions bodied forth the Anthem of
+Creation.
+
+Human words being created breath, and breath being air in motion, prior
+to these language was impossible. And as the deaf are always dumb,
+language, like faith, comes by hearing. But hearing itself is a
+pensioner, waiting upon a speaker; consequently, it must ever be
+contingent on a cause alike antecedent and extrinsic of itself. It is,
+therefore, equally an oracle of reason and of faith that, however God
+may have communicated to angels, to _man_ He spoke in articulate sounds,
+before man articulated a thought, a feeling, or an emotion of his soul.
+And as an emotional soul is but a harp of many strings, a hand there
+must have been to play upon its chords, before melody and harmony,
+twins-born of Heaven, had either a local habitation or a name.
+
+But, it may be asked--Is there not in the regions of Poetry an æolian
+harp, found in the cave of Æolus, on which the winds of heaven played
+many a celestial symphony, without the skill or touch of human hand?
+Grant all that the Poetic Muse assumes, and then we ask--Who made the
+harp? And whence directed came the musing sylvan Zephyrus and his choir?
+Came they not from a land of images and dreams?
+
+But we are inquiring for originals. Images and originals are the poles
+apart. An original without an image is possible; but an image without an
+original is alike impossible and inconceivable. Hence, alike
+philosophically and logically, we conclude that _neither man nor angel
+addressed each other until they themselves had been addressed by their
+Creator_. Then they intercommunicated thought, sentiment, and emotion
+with one another as God had communicated to them.
+
+The mystery of language and Poetry is insoluble but on the admission of
+a revelation or communication of some sort, unconceived by the human
+mind, unexecuted by the human hand. If invention and creation be the
+grand characteristics of the Poet, Moses, if uninspired, was a greater
+Poet than Homer, or Milton, or Shakspeare, on the hypothesis that he
+invented the drama which he wrote. The first chapter of Genesis is the
+greatest and most splendid Poem ever conceived by human imagination, or
+written by human hand.
+
+All Poets, ancient and modern, are mere plagiarists, if Moses was
+uninspired. We prove his Divine Legation by the intrinsic and
+transcendent merits of the Poem which he wrote. Imagination originates
+nothing absolutely new. It merely imitates and combines. It is regarded
+as the creative faculty of man; but its material is already furnished.
+The portrait of an unreal Adam is as conceivable as a child without a
+father, or an effect without a cause.
+
+Thus we are obliged, by an inseparable necessity, to admit the
+credibility of the Poem which he wrote. And what does Moses say? Nothing
+more than that _God spoke, and the universe was!_ This is the sublime of
+true Poetry. This is more than the logic of the proposition, _God was,
+therefore we are!_ It is more than the philosophy, _ex nihilo, nihil
+fit!_ or than, that _nothing_ cannot be the parent of _something_.
+
+But we must place our foot on a higher round of the ladder, before we
+can stand on such an eminence as to see, in all its fair proportions,
+the column on which the Muses perch themselves.
+
+Job, and not Moses, shall be our guide, and the oracle alike of our
+reason and our imagination. But who is Job? There is not much poetry in
+the name, Job. But Rome and its vulgate vulgarized this hallowed name,
+and Britain followed Rome. His name in Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic, is
+Jobab. There is more poetry in this. There is no metre, no poetry in a
+monotone or monosyllable. Born among rocks and mountains, the proper
+theatre of a heaven-inspired Muse--not in Arabia the Happy, but in
+Arabia the Rocky--he was a heart-touching, a soul-stirring, emotional
+Bard. In such a case the clouds that overshadow the era of the man only
+enhance the genius and inspiration of the Poet.
+
+In internal and external evidence, according to our calendar of the
+Muses, he is the first-born of the Poets that yet survive the wasteful
+ravages of hoary Time. He sings not, indeed, of Chaos and Eternal Night.
+But as one inspired by a heaven-born Muse, he echoes the chorus of the
+Angelic Song, when on the utterance of the first _fiat_ the Morning
+Stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Hence we
+argue, that Poetry is not only prior to prose, but that language, its
+intellectual and emotional embodiment, is heaven-conceived, and
+heaven-born.
+
+But in a short essay it would be out of place and in bad taste to
+attempt a discourse upon the broad field of ancient or modern Poetry. We
+merely attempt to suggest one idea on this rich and lofty theme. Our
+radical conception of the essential and differential attribute of
+Poetry, as contradistinguished from prose, however chaste, pure,
+beautiful, and philosophic, is not mere art, nor science, but
+_creation_.
+
+The universe itself is a grand Heroic Poem. Hence its instrument is that
+power usually called Imagination. But _human_ imagination is not first,
+second, or third in rank on the scale of the universe. God Himself
+imagined the universe before He created it. His imagination is infinite.
+The Cherubim and Seraphim have wings that elevate them above our zenith.
+And angels, too, excel us in this creative faculty, and therefore veil
+their faces before the Majesty of heaven and earth. Still, man has an
+humble portion of it, and can turn it to a good account.
+
+But there is another idea essential to the character of Poetry, as good
+or evil in its spirit and adornings. We need scarcely say, for we are
+anticipated by every reflecting mind, that this is the _spirit_ of the
+Poem. Poetry, in the abstract, is not necessarily good or evil. It may
+be Christian, Jewish, Pagan, or Infidel in its spirit and tendencies. It
+may corrupt or purify the heart. It may save or ruin the reader in
+fortune or in fame. Hence, as Poetry is powerful to elevate or degrade,
+to purify or to corrupt a people, much depends on the spirit of the
+Poetry which they may put into the hands of the youth of a country; as
+well observed by an eminent moralist: 'Let me write the poems or
+ballads of a people, and I care but little who enacts their laws.'
+
+The genius of a Poet is a rare genius. And most happily it is so; for
+elevated taste and high-toned morality are not, by any means, the common
+heritage of man. Anacreon and Burns were genuine Poets. They uttered, in
+fine style, many truths; and were not merely fluent in their respective
+languages, but affluent. But, perhaps, like some other men of mighty
+parts and grand proportions, better for mankind they had never been
+born. A Cowper and a Byron, in their whole career of song, will exert a
+very different influence, not only on earth, but in eternity, on the
+destiny of their amateurs. We need not argue this position as though,
+among a Christian people, it were a doubtful or debatable position. If
+the evil spirit, or the melancholy demon, that fitfully possessed the
+first king of Israel, was expelled by the skilful hand of his successor,
+even when his youthful fingers awoke the melodies of the lyre, how much
+more puissant the exquisite Odes of the sweet Psalmist, inspired as they
+were with sentiments and views alike honorable to God and man, to
+elevate the conceptions, purify the heart, ennoble the aspirations, and
+adorn the life of man!
+
+As the cask long retains the odor of the wine put into it, so the moral
+and religious fragrance of many a fine poetic effusion, securely lodged
+in the recesses of memory, may yield, and often does yield, a rich
+repast of pleasurable associations and emotions which, beside their
+opportune recurrence in some trying or tempting hour or season of
+adversity, do often energize our souls with a moral heroism to deeds of
+nobler daring, which result in enterprises full of blessings to
+ourselves, and not unfrequently to our associates in the walks of life,
+and radiate through them salutary light for generations to come.
+
+Imagination, like every other faculty, is to be cultivated. But here we
+are interrogated--'What is Imagination?'
+
+No distinction has given critics more trouble, in the way of definition,
+than that between Imagination and Fancy. Fancy, it is held, is given to
+beguile and quicken the temporal part of our nature; Imagination to
+incite and support the eternal.
+
+It would be vain to enumerate the various definitions of this term, or
+to attempt to give even an abstract of the diversity of views
+entertained by philosophers respecting the nature and extent of its
+operations. It is regarded by some writers as that power or faculty of
+the mind by which it conceives and forms ideas of things communicated to
+it by the organs of sense. So defines our encyclopædias. Bacon defined
+it to be the 'representation of an individual thought.' But Dugald
+Stewart more philosophically defines it as the 'power of modifying our
+conceptions, by combining the parts of different ones so as to form new
+wholes of our own creation.' The Edinburgh Encyclopædia, not satisfied
+with this, says Webster defines it to be the _will working on the
+materials of memory, selecting parts of different conceptions, or
+objects of memory, to form some new whole_.
+
+This has long been our cherished view of Imagination. It creates only as
+a mechanic creates a chest of drawers, a sideboard, a clock, or a watch.
+It originates not a single material of thought, volition, or action.
+But, mechanic-like, it works by plumb and rule on all the materials
+found in the warehouse of memory; and manufactures, out of the same
+plank of pine, or bar of iron, or wedge of gold, or precious stone, some
+new utensil, ornament, or adornment never found in Nature. In its
+present form it is the offspring of the art and contrivance of man.
+Hence our invulnerable position against Atheism or Deism. _No one could
+have created the idea of a God or of a Christ, without a special
+inspiration, any more than he could create a gold watch without the
+metal called gold._
+
+The deaf are necessarily dumb. The blind cannot conceive of color. A
+Poet cannot work without language, any more than the nightingale could
+sing without air. Language and prototypes precede and necessarily
+antedate writing and prose. Hence the idea of Poetry is preceded by the
+idea of Prose, as speaking by the idea of hearing. There was reason, and
+an age of reason, without, and antecedent to, rhyme; and therefore we
+sometimes find rhyme without reason, as well as reason without rhyme.
+
+Rhyme, however, facilitates memory and recollection. Memory, indeed, is
+but a printed tablet, and recollection the art and mystery of reading
+it. Poetry, therefore, is both useful and pleasing. It aids
+recollection, and soothes and excites and animates the soul of man. It
+makes deeper, more pungent, more stimulating, more exciting, and more
+enduring impressions on the mind than prose; and, therefore, greatly
+facilitates both the acquisition and retention of ideas and impressions.
+Of it Horace says ('Ars Poetica'):
+
+  'Ut pictura, poesis; erit, quæ, si propius stes,
+  Te capiet magis, et quædam, si longius abstes.
+  Hæc amat obscurum; volet hæc sub luce videri,
+  Judicis argutum quæ non formidat acumen:
+  Hæc placuit semel, hæc decies repetita placebit.'
+
+No one ever attained to what is usually called _good taste_ who has not
+devoted a portion of his time and study to the whole science and art of
+Poetry. We do not mean good taste in relation to any one manifestation
+of it.
+
+There is a general as well as a special good taste, but they are
+distinguishable only as genus and species. There is, it may be alleged,
+a _native_ as well as an _acquired_ taste. This may also be conceded.
+There is in some persons a greater innate susceptibility of deriving
+pleasure from the works of Nature and of Art than is discoverable in
+others. Still we cannot imagine any one gifted with reason and
+sensibility to be entirely destitute of it. It is an element of reason
+and of sense peculiar to man. As a fabulist once represented a cock in
+quest of barleycorns, scraping for his breakfast, saying to himself, on
+discovering a precious and brilliant gem: 'If a lapidary were in my
+place he would now have made his fortune; but as for myself, I prefer
+one grain of barley to all the precious stones in the world.'
+
+But what man, so feeling and thinking, would not 'blush and hang his
+head to think himself a man'? Apart from the value of the gem, every man
+of reason or of thought has pleasure in the contemplation of the
+beautiful diamond, whether on his own person or on that of another.
+Taste seems to be as inseparable from reason as Poetry is from
+imagination. It is not wholly the gift of Nature, nor wholly the gift of
+Art. It is an innate element of the human constitution, designed to
+beautify and beatify man. To cultivate and improve it is an essential
+part of education. The highest civilization known in Christendom is but
+the result or product of good taste. Even religion and morality, in
+their highest excellence, are but, so far as society is concerned,
+developments and demonstrations of cultivated taste. There may, indeed,
+be a fictitious or chimerical taste without Poetry or Religion; but a
+genuine good taste, in our judgment, without these handmaids, is
+unattainable.
+
+But as no interesting landscape--no mountain, hill, or valley, no river,
+lake or sea--affords us all that charms, excites or elevates our
+imagination viewed from any one point of vision, so the poetic faculty
+itself can neither be conceived of nor appreciated, contemplated out of
+its own family register.
+
+There is in all the 'Fine Arts' a common paternity, and hence a family
+lineage and a family likeness. To appreciate any one of them we must
+form an acquaintance with the whole sisterhood--Poetry, Music, Painting,
+and Sculpture.
+
+And are not all these the genuine offspring of Imagination? Hence they
+are of one paternity, though not of one maternity. The eye, the ear, and
+the hand, has each its own peculiar sympathetic nerve. For, as all God's
+works are perfect, when and where He gives an eye to see or an ear to
+hear, He gives a hand to execute. This is the law; and as all God's laws
+are universal as perfect, there is no exception save from accident, or
+from something poetically styled a _lusus naturæ_--a mere caprice or
+sport of Nature.
+
+But the philosophy of Poetry is not necessary to its existence any more
+than the astronomy of the heavens is to the brilliancy of the sun or to
+the splendors of a comet. A Poet is a creator, and his most perfect
+creature is a portraiture of any work of God or man; of any attribute of
+God or man in perfect keeping with Nature or with the original
+prototype, be it in fact or in fiction, in repose or in operation.
+
+Imitation is sometimes regarded as the test of poetic excellence. But
+what is imitation but the creation of an image! Alexander Pope so well
+imitates Homer, that, as an English critic once said, in speaking of his
+translation of that Prince of Grecian Poets--'a time might come, should
+the annals of Greece and England be confounded in some convulsion of
+Nature, when it might be a grave question of debate whether Pope
+translated Homer, or Homer Pope.'
+
+For our own part, we have never been able to decide to our own entire
+satisfaction, which excels in the true Heroic style. Pope, in his
+translation of the exordium of Homer, we think more than equals Homer
+himself:
+
+  'Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring
+  Of woes unnumbered, heavenly goddess, sing!
+  That wrath which hurled to Pluto's dark domain
+  The souls of mighty chiefs in battle slain;
+  Whose limbs, unburied on the fatal shore,
+  Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore;
+  Since great Achilles and Atrides strove,
+  Such was the sovereign doom and such the will of Jove.'[18]
+
+We opine that Pope, being trammelled with a copy, and consequently his
+imagination cramped, displays every attribute of poetic genius fully
+equal, if not superior, to that of the beau ideal of the Grecian Muse.
+
+But Alexander Pope, of England, is not the Pope of English Poetry, a
+brother Poet being judge, for Dryden says:
+
+  'Three Poets, in three distant ages born,
+  Greece, Italy, and England did adorn;
+  The first in majesty of thought surpassed,
+  The next in melody--in both the last:
+  The force of Nature could no further go,
+  To make the third she joined the other two.'
+
+And who awards not to Milton the richest medal in the Temple of the
+Muses! Not, perhaps, for the elegant diction and sublime imagery of his
+PARADISE LOST, but for his grand conceptions of Divinity in all its
+attributes, and of humanity in all its conditions, past, present, and
+future.
+
+We Americans have a peculiar respect for Lyric Poetry. We have not time
+for the Epic. If anything with us is good, it is superlatively good for
+being brief. Short sermons, short prayers, short hymns, and short metre
+are peculiarly interesting. We are, too, a miscellaneous people, and we
+are peculiarly fond of miscellanies. The age of folios and quartos is
+forever past with Young America. Octavos are waning, and more in need of
+brushing than of burnishing. But still we must have Poetry--_good_
+Poetry; for we Americans prefer to live rather in the style of good
+lyric than in that of grave, elongated hexameter. Variety, too, is with
+us the spice of life. We are not satisfied with grand prairies, rivers,
+and cataracts, and even cascades and _jet d'eaus_!
+
+Collections of miscellaneous Poetry seem alike due to the Poetic Muse
+and to the American people. We love variety. It is, as we have remarked,
+the spice of American life; and our country will ever cherish it as
+being most in harmony with itself. It is, moreover, more in unison with
+the conditions of human nature and human existence. There is, too, as
+the wisest of men and the greatest of kings has said, 'a time for every
+purpose and for every work.' No volume of Poetry or of Prose can,
+therefore, be popular or interesting to such a nation as we are, that
+does not adapt itself to the versatile genius of our people, and to the
+ever-varying conditions of their lives and fortunes.
+
+There is, therefore, a propriety in getting up good selections, because
+a greater advantage is to be derived from well selected specimens of the
+Poetic Muse than from the labors of any one of the great masters of the
+Lyre! Who would not rather visit a rich and extensive museum of the
+products and arts of civilized life--some well assorted repository of
+its scientific or artistic developments, than to traverse a whole state
+or kingdom in pursuit of such knowledge of the wisdom, talents, and
+contrivances of its population?
+
+Of all kinds of composition, Poetry is that which gives to the lovers of
+it the greatest and most enduring pleasure. Almost every one of them can
+heartily respond to the beautiful words of one who was not only a great
+Poet, but a profound philosopher--Coleridge--who, speaking of the
+delight he had experienced in writing his Poems, says: 'Poetry has been
+to me its own exceeding great reward. It has soothed my afflictions; it
+has multiplied and refined my enjoyments; it has endeared solitude; and
+it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the Good and the
+Beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me.'
+
+In no way can the imagination be more effectually or safely exercised
+and improved than by the constant perusal and study of our best Poets.
+Poetry appeals to the universal sympathies of mankind. With the
+contemplative writers, we can indulge our pensive and thoughtful tastes.
+With the describers of natural scenery, we can delight in the beauties
+and glories of the external universe. With the great dramatists, we are
+able to study all the phases of the human mind, and to take their
+fictitious personages as models or beacons for ourselves. With the great
+creative Poets, we can go outside of all these, and find ourselves in a
+region of pure Imagination, which may be as true to our higher
+instincts--perhaps more so--than the shows which surround us.
+
+If it be as truthfully as it has been happily expressed by the prince of
+dramatic Poets, that
+
+  'He who has no music in his soul
+  Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils,'
+
+it should be a paramount duty with every one who loves his species, and
+cultivates a generous philanthropy, to patronize every effort to diffuse
+widely through society, Poetry of genuine character, and to cultivate a
+taste for it as an element of a literary, religious, and moral
+education. We commend, as a standard of appreciation of the true
+character of the gifts of the Poetic Muse, the following critique from
+Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham:
+
+  ''Tis not a flash of fancy, which sometimes,
+  Dazzling our minds, sets off the slightest rhymes,
+  Bright as a blaze, but in a moment done;
+  True wit is everlasting, like the sun,
+  Which, though sometimes behind a cloud retired,
+  Breaks out again, and is by all admired.
+  Number and rhyme, and that harmonious sound
+  Which not the nicest ear with harshness wound,
+  Are necessary, yet but vulgar arts;
+  And all in rain these superficial parts
+  Contribute to the structure of the whole,
+  Without a genius too--for that's the soul;
+  A spirit which inspires the work throughout,
+  As that of Nature moves the world about;
+  A flame that glows amidst conceptions fit;
+  E'en something of divine, and more than wit;
+  Itself unseen, yet all things by it shown,
+  Describing all men, but described by none.'
+
+We neither intend nor desire to institute any invidious comparisons
+between Old Britain and Young America. We are one people--one in blood,
+one literature, one faith, one religion, in fact or in profession. Our
+language girdles the whole earth. Our science and our religion more or
+less enlighten every land, as our sails whiten every sea, and our
+commerce, in some degree, enriches every people. There is a magnanimity,
+a benevolence, a philanthropy, in English Poetry, whether the Muse be
+English, Scotch, Irish, or American, that thrills the social nerve and
+warms the kindred hearts of all who think, or speak, or dream in our
+vernacular. The pen of the gifted Bard is more puissant than the
+cannon's thundering roar or the warrior's glittering sword; and the
+soft, sweet melodies of English Poetry, gushing from a Christian Muse,
+are Heaven's sovereign specifics for a wounded spirit and an aching
+heart!
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 18:
+
+  [Greek: Mênin aeide, thea, Pêlêiadeô, Achilêos,
+  Oulomenên, hê myri' Achaiois alge' ethêken,
+  Pollas d' iphthimous psychas Aidi proiapsen
+  Hêrôôn, autous de helôria teuche kynessin
+
+  K.T.L.]]
+
+
+
+
+PATRIA SPES ULTIMA MUNDI.
+
+FLAG OF OUR UNION.
+
+National Song.
+
+BY HON. ROBERT J. WALKER
+
+_Dedicated to the Union Army and Navy._
+
+
+  The day our nation's life began,
+  Dawned on the sovereignty of man,
+  His charter then our Fathers signed,
+  Proclaiming Freedom for mankind.
+  May Heaven still guard her glorious sway,
+  Till time with endless years grows gray.
+
+        Flag of our Union! float unfurled,
+        Thy stars shall light a ransomed world.
+
+  Americans, your mighty name,
+  With glory floods the peaks of fame;
+  Ye whom our Washington has led,
+  Men who with Warren nobly bled,
+  Who never quailed on land or sea,
+  Your watchword, _Death or Liberty_!
+
+        Flag of our Union! float unfurled,
+        Thy stars shall light a ransomed world.
+
+  It was the Union made us free,
+  Its loss, man's second fall would be.
+  States linked in kindred glory save,
+  Till the last despot finds a grave;
+  And angels hasten here to see
+  Man break his chains, the whole earth free!
+
+        Flag of our Union! float unfurled,
+        Thy stars shall light a ransomed world.
+
+  Ye struggling brothers o'er the sea,
+  Who spurn the chain of tyranny,
+  Like brave Columbus westward steer,
+  Our stars of hope will guide you here,
+  Where States still rising bless our land,
+  And freedom strengthens labor's hand.
+
+        Flag of our Union! float unfurled,
+        Thy stars shall light a ransomed world.
+
+  Ye toiling millions, free and brave,
+  Whose shores two mighty oceans lave:
+  Your cultured fields, your marts of trade,
+  Keels by the hand of genius laid,
+  The shuttle's hum, the anvil's ring
+  Echo your voice that God is King.
+
+        Flag of our Union! float unfurled,
+        Thy stars shall light a ransomed world.
+
+  Hail! Union Army, true and brave,
+  And dauntless Navy on the wave.
+  Holy the cause where Freedom leads,
+  Sacred the field where patriot bleeds;
+  Victory shall crown your spotless fame,
+  Nations and ages bless your name.
+
+        Flag of our Union! float unfurled,
+        Thy stars shall light a ransomed world.
+
+
+
+
+A FANCY SKETCH.
+
+
+I am a banker, and I need hardly say I am in comfortable circumstances.
+Some of my friends, of whom I have a good many, are pleased to call me
+rich, and I shall not take it upon myself to dispute their word. Until I
+was twenty-five, I travelled, waltzed, and saw the best foreign society;
+from twenty-five to thirty I devoted myself to literature and the art of
+dining; I am now entered upon the serious business of life, which
+consists in increasing one's estate. At forty I shall marry, and as this
+epoch is nine years distant, I trust none of the fair readers of this
+journal will trouble themselves to address me notes which I really
+cannot answer, and which it would give me pain to throw in the fire.
+
+Some persons think it beneath a gentleman to write for the magazines or
+papers. This is a low and vulgar idea. The great wits of the world have
+found their best friends in the journals; there were some who never
+learned to write,--who ever hears of them now? I write anonymously of
+course, and I amuse myself by listening to the remarks that society
+makes upon my productions. Society talks about them a great deal, and I
+divide attention with the last novelist, whether an unknown young lady
+of the South, or a drumhead writer of romances. People say, 'That was a
+brilliant article of so and so's in the last ----, wasn't it?' You will
+often hear this remark. I am that gentleman--I wrote that article--it
+was brilliant, and, though I say it, I am capable of producing others
+fully equal to it.
+
+Many persons imagine that business disqualifies from the exercise of the
+imagination. This is a mistake. Alexander was a business man of the
+highest order; so was Cæsar; so was Bonaparte; so was Burr; so am I. To
+be sure, none of these distinguished characters wrote poetry; but I take
+it, poetry is a low species of writing, quite inferior to prose, and
+unworthy one's attention. Look at the splendid qualities of these great
+men, particularly in the line in which the imaginative faculties tend.
+See how they fascinated the ladies, who it is well known adore a fine
+imagination. How well they talked love, the noblest of all subjects--for
+a man's idle hours. Then observe the schemes they projected. Conquests,
+consolidations, empires, dominion, and to include my own project, a
+bullion bank with a ten-acre vault. It appears that a lack of capital
+was at the bottom of all their plans. Alexander confessed that he was
+bankrupt for lack of more worlds, and is reputed to have shed tears over
+his failure, which might have been expected from a modern dry-goods
+jobber, but not from Alexander. Cæsar and Bonaparte failed for the want
+of men: they do not seem to have been aware of the existence of Rhode
+Island. I think Burr failed for the lack of impudence--he had more than
+all the rest of the world together, but he needed much more than that to
+push his projects ahead of his times. As for myself, when I have doubled
+my capital, I shall found my bullion bank in the face of all opposition.
+The ten-acre lot at the corner of Broadway and Wall street is already
+selected and paid for, and I shall excavate as soon as the present crop
+is off.
+
+There is no question that the occupation of banking conduces to literary
+pursuits. When I take interest out of my fellow beings, I naturally take
+interest in them, and so fall to writing about them. I have in my
+portfolio sketches of all the leading merchants of the age, romantically
+wrought, and full of details of their private lives, hopes, fears, and
+pleasures. These men that go up town every day have had, and still have,
+little fanciful excursions that are quite amusing when an observer of my
+talent notes them down. I know all about old Boscobello, the Spanish
+merchant, of the house of Boscobello, Bolaso & Co. My romance of his
+life from twenty to forty fills three volumes, and is as exciting as the
+diaries of those amusing French people whom Bossuet preached to with
+such small effect. Boscobello has sobered since forty, and begs for
+loans as an old business man ought to. I think he sees the error of his
+ways, and is anxious to repair his fortunes to the old point, but it is
+easier to spend a million than to make it. My cashier reports his
+account overdrawn the other day, and not made good till late next
+afternoon. This is a sign of failing circumstances, and must be attended
+to.
+
+When Boscobello comes in about half past two of an afternoon for the
+usual loan of a hundred dollars to enable him to go on, I amuse myself
+by talking to him while I look over his securities. He has two or three
+loans to pay up before three o'clock, in different parts of the town,
+and we cannot blame him for being in a hurry, but this is no concern of
+mine. If he _will_ get into a tight place, one may surely take one's
+time at helping him out: and really it does require some little time to
+investigate the class of securities he brings, and which are
+astonishingly varied. For instance, he brought me to-day as collateral
+to an accommodation, a deed to a South Brooklyn block, title clouded; a
+Mackerelville second mortgage; ten shares of coal-oil stock; an
+undivided quarter right in a guano island, and the note of a President
+of the Unterrified Insurance Company. 'How much was the cartage, Bos?'
+said I, for you see my great mind descends to the smallest particulars,
+and I was benevolent enough to wish to deduct his expenses from the
+bonus I was about to charge him for the loan. 'Never mind the cartage,'
+said he, 'that's a very strong list, and will command the money any day
+in Wall street, but I have a particular reason for getting it of you.'
+'The particular reason being,' said I, 'that you can't get it anywhere
+else. Jennings,' I continued to my cashier, 'give Mr. Boscobello
+ninety-five dollars Norfolk or Richmond due-bills, and take his check
+payable in current funds next Saturday for a hundred.'
+
+Poor old Boscobello! A man at forty ought not to look old, but Bos had
+often seen the sun rise before he went to bed, and he _had_ been gay, so
+all my aunts said. Some stories Bos has told me himself, o' nights at my
+house, after having in vain endeavored to induce me to take shares in
+the guano island, or 'go into' South Brooklyn water lots. 'I'm too old
+for that sort of a thing, Bos,' I say; 'it's quite natural for you to
+ask me, and I don't blame you for trying it on, but you must find some
+younger man. Tell me about that little affair with the mysterious Cuban
+lady; when you only weighed a hundred and forty pounds, and never went
+out without a thousand dollars in your pocket--in the blooming days of
+youth, Bos, when you went plucking purple pansies along the shore.'
+
+Boscobello weighs over two hundred now, and would have a rush of blood
+to the head if he were to stoop to pluck pansies. Mysterious Cuban
+ladies, in fact ladies of any description, would pass him by as a
+middle-aged person of a somewhat distressed appearance, and the dreams
+of his youth are quite dreamed out. Nevertheless, when he warms with my
+white Hermitage, the colors of his old life come richly out into sight,
+and the romantic adventures of wealth and high spirits overpower, though
+in the tame measures of recital, all the adverse influences of the
+present hour. But as the evening wanes, the colors fade again; his
+voice assumes a dreary tone; and I once more feel that I am with a man
+who has outlived himself, and who, having never learned where the late
+roses blow, is now too old to learn.
+
+The reader will perceive I am sorry for Boscobello. If I am remarkable
+for anything, it is for my humanity, consideration, and sympathy.
+
+These qualities of my constitution lead me to enter into the affairs of
+my clients with feeling and sincerity, but I fear I am sometimes
+misunderstood. Not long ago I issued an order to my junior partners to
+exercise more compassion for those unfortunate men with whom we decline
+business, and not to tumble them down the front steps so roughly. Let
+six of the porters attend with trestles, I said, and carry them out
+carefully, and dump them with discretion in some quiet corner, where, as
+soon as they recover their faculties, they may get up and walk away. I
+put it to the reader if this was not a very humane idea, and yet there
+are those who have stigmatized it as heartless.
+
+I wish I was better acquainted with the way in which common people live.
+I can see how I have made mistakes in consequence of not understanding
+the restricted means and the exigencies of these people, who are styled
+respectable merchants. Thus when Boscobello has made some more than
+ordinarily piteous application, I have said, 'Boscobello, dismiss about
+fifty of your servants;' or, 'Boscobello, sell a railroad and put the
+money back again into your business;' or, 'Boscobello, my good friend,
+limit your table, say, to turtle soup, champagne, and truffles; live
+more plainly, and don't take above ten quarts of strawberries a day
+during the winter,--the lower servants don't really need them;' or,
+'Boscobello, if you are really short, send around a hundred or so of
+your fast trotters to my stables, and I'll pay you a long figure for
+them, if they are warranted under two minutes.' Boscobello has never
+made any very definite replies to such advice, and I have attributed his
+silence to his nervousness; but I begin to suspect he has'nt quite
+understood me on such occasions. Then again, when Twigsmith declared he
+was a ruined man, in consequence of my refusal of further advances, and
+that he should be unable to provide for his family, I said: 'Why,
+Twigsmith, retire to one of your country seats, and live on the interest
+of some canal or other, or discount bonds and mortgages for the country
+banks.' Actually, I heard Twigsmith mutter as he went out, that it
+wasn't right to insult a man's poverty. Now I hadn't the remotest idea
+of injuring Twigsmith's feelings, for he was a very clever fellow, and
+we made a good thing out of him in his time, but it seems that my advice
+might not have been properly grounded.
+
+It begins to occur to me that there _may_ be such a case as that a man
+may want something, and not be able to get it; and again, that at such a
+time a weak mind may complain, and grow discouraged, and make itself
+disagreeable to others.
+
+There is a set of old fellows who call themselves family men, and apply
+for discounts as if they had a right to them, by reason of their having
+families to provide for. I have never yet been able to see the logical
+sequence of their conclusions, and so I tell them. What right does it
+give anybody to my money that he has a wife, six children, and lives in
+a large house with three nursery-maids, a cook, and a boy to clean the
+knives? 'Limit your expenses,' I say to these respectable gentlemen, 'do
+as I do. When Jennings comes to me on Monday morning, and reports that
+the receipts of the week will be eighty millions, exclusive of the
+Labrador coupons, which, if paid, will be eighty millions more, I say,
+'Jennings, discount seventy, and don't encroach upon the reserves; you
+may however let Boscobello have ten on call.' This is true philosophy;
+adapt your outlay to your income, and you will never be in trouble, or
+go begging for loans. If the Bank of England had always managed in this
+way, they wouldn't have been obliged to call on our house for assistance
+during the Irish famine.'
+
+These family men invite me to their wives' parties, constantly,
+unremittingly. The billets sometimes reach my desk, although I have
+given orders to put them all into the waste basket unopened. I went to
+one of these parties, only one, I give you my honor as a gentleman, and
+after Twigsmith and his horrid wife had almost wrung my hand off, I was
+presented to a young female, to whom Nature had been tolerably kind, but
+who was most shamefully dressed. In fact her dress couldn't have cost
+over a thousand dollars--one of my chambermaids going to a Teutonia ball
+is better got up. This young person asked me 'how I liked the Germania?'
+Taking it for granted that such a badly dressed young woman must be a
+school teacher, with perhaps classical tastes, I replied that it was one
+of the most pleasing compositions of Tacitus, and that I occasionally
+read it of a morning. 'Oh, it's not very taciturn,' she replied; 'I mean
+the band.' 'Very true,' said I, 'he says _agmen_, which you translate
+band very happily, though I might possibly say 'body' in a familiar
+reading.' 'Oh dear,' she replied, blushing, 'I'm sure I don't know what
+kind of men they are, nor anything about their bodies, but they
+certainly seem very respectable, and they play elegantly; oh, don't you
+think so?' 'I am glad you are pleased so easily,' I answered; 'Tacitus
+describes their performances as indeed fearful, and calculated to strike
+horror into the hearts of their enemies. But,' continued I, endeavoring
+to make my retreat, for I began to think I was in company with an inmate
+of a private lunatic hospital, 'they were devoted to the ladies.'
+'Indeed they are,' said she,'and the harpist is _so_ gallant, and gets
+so many nice bouquets.' It then flashed across my mind that she meant
+the Germania musicians. 'They might do passably well, madame,' said I,
+'for a quadrille party at a country inn, but for a dress ball or a
+dinner you would need three of them rolled into one.' 'Oh, you gentlemen
+are so hard to please,' she replied; and catching sight of the
+Koh-i-noor on my little finger, she began to smile so sweetly that I
+fled at once.
+
+It was at that party that I perspired. I had heard doctors talk about
+perspiration, and I had seen waiters at a dinner with little drops on
+their faces, but I supposed it was the effect of a spatter, or that some
+champagne had flown into their eyes, or something of that sort. But at
+this party I happened to pass a mirror, and did it the honor to look
+into it. I saw there the best dressed man in America, but his face was
+flushed, and there were drops on it. This is fearful, thought I; I took
+my _mouchoir_ and gently removed them. They dampened the delicate
+fabric, and I shook with agitation. The large doors were open, and after
+a struggle of an hour and three quarters, I reached them, and promising
+the hostess to send my _valet_ in the morning to make my respects, which
+the present exigency would not allow me to stay to accomplish, I was
+rapidly whirled homeward. I can hardly pen the details, but on the
+removal of my linen, it was found--can I go on?--tumbled, and here and
+there the snowy lawn confessed a small damp spot, or fleck of moisture.
+Remorse and terror seized me. Medical attendance was called, and I
+passed the night in a bath of attar of roses delicately medicated with
+_aqua pura_. Of course, I have never again appeared at a party.
+
+People haven't right ideas of entertainment. What entertainment is it to
+stand all the evening in a set of sixteen-by-twenty parlors, jammed in
+among all sorts of strange persons, and stranger perfumes, deafened with
+a hubbub of senseless talk, and finally be led down to feed at a long
+table where the sherry is hot, and the partridges are cold? Very
+probably some boy or other across the table lets off a champagne cork
+into your eyes, and the fattest men in the room _will_ tread on your
+toes. One might describe such scenes of torture at length, but the
+recital of human follies and miseries is not agreeable to my
+sensibilities.
+
+I dare say the reader might find himself gratified at one of my little
+fètes. The editors of this journal attend them regularly, and have done
+me the honor to approve of them. You enter on Twelfth avenue; a modest
+door just off Nine-and-a-half street opens quietly, and you are ushered
+by a polite gentleman--one of our city bank presidents, who takes this
+means to increase his income--into an attiring room. Here you are
+dressed by the most accomplished Schneider of the age, in your own
+selections from an unequalled _repertoire_ of sartorial _chef d'ouvres_,
+and your old clothes are sent home in an omnibus.
+
+I might delight you with a description of the ball room, but the editors
+have requested me to the contrary. Some secrets of gorgeous splendor
+there are which are wisely concealed from the general gaze. But a floor
+three hundred feet square, and walls as high as the mast of an East
+Boston clipper, confer ample room for motion; and the unequalled
+atmosphere of the saloon is perhaps unnecessarily refreshed by fountains
+of rarest distilled waters. This is also my picture gallery, where all
+mythology is exhausted by the great painters of the antique; and modern
+art is thoroughly illustrated by the famous landscapes of both
+hemispheres. The luxuriant fancy of my favorite artist has suggested
+unique collocations of aquaria and mossy grottoes in the angles of the
+apartment, where the vegetable wealth of the tropics rises in perfect
+bounty and lawless exuberance, and fishes of every hue and shape flash
+to and fro among the tangled roots, in the light of a thousand lamps. In
+the centre, I have caused the seats of the orchestra to be hidden at the
+summit of a picturesque group of rocks, profusely hung with vegetation,
+and gemmed with a hundred tiny fountains that trickle in bright beads
+and diamonds into the reservoir at the base. From this eminence, the
+melody of sixty unequalled performers pervades the saloon, justly
+diffused, and on all sides the same; unlike the crude arrangements of
+most modern orchestras, where at one end of the room you are deluged
+with music, and at the other extremity you distinguish the notes with
+pain or difficulty. The ceiling, by a rare combination of mechanical
+ingenuity and artistic inspiration, displays, so as to quite deceive the
+senses, the heavens with all their stars moving in just and harmonious
+order. Here on summer nights you see Lyra and Altair triumphantly
+blazing in the middle sky as they sweep their mighty arch through the
+ample zenith; and low in the south, the Scorpion crawls along the verge
+with the red Antares at his heart, and the bright arrows of the Archer
+forever pursuing him. Here in winter, gazing up through the warm and
+perfumed air, you behold those bright orbs that immemorially suggest the
+icy blasts of January: Aldebaran; the mighty suns of Orion; diamond-like
+Capella; and the clear eyes of the Gemini. Under such influences, with
+the breath of the tropics in your nostrils, and your heart stirred by
+the rich melodies of the invisible orchestra, waltzing becomes a sublime
+passion, in which all your faculties dilate to utmost expansion, and you
+float out into happy forgetfulness of time and destiny.
+
+Rarely at these fêtes do we dance to other measures than those of the
+waltz, though at times we find a relief from the luxuriance of that
+divine rhythm in the cooler cadences of the Schottish. By universal
+consent and instinct, we banish the quadrille, stiff and artificial; the
+polka, inelegant and essentially vulgar; and the various hybrid
+measures with which the low ingenuity of professors has filled society.
+But we move like gods and goddesses to the sadly joyful strains of
+Strauss and Weber and Beethoven and Mozart, and the mighty art of these
+great masters fills and re-creates all our existence.
+
+Sometimes in these divine hours, thrilled by the touch of a companion
+whose heart beats against and consonantly with mine, I catch glimpses of
+the possibilities of a free life of the spirit when it shall be released
+from earth and gravitation, and I conjecture the breadth of a future
+existence. This will only seem irrational to such as have squeezed out
+their souls flat between the hard edges of dollars, or have buried them
+among theologic texts which they are too self-wise to understand.
+History and the experience of the young are with me.
+
+From twelve to four you sup, when, and as, and where, you will. A
+succession of little rooms lie open around an atrium, all different as
+to size and ornament, yet none too large for a single couple, and none
+too small for the reunion of six. What charming accidents of company and
+conversation sometimes occur in these Lucullian boudoirs! You pass and
+repass, come and go, at your own pleasure. Waltzing, and Burgundy, and
+Love, and Woodcock are here combined into a dramatic poem, in which we
+are all star performers, and sure of applause. These hours cannot last
+forever, and the first daybeams that tell of morning, are accompanied by
+those vague feelings of languor that hint to us that we are mortal. Then
+we pause, and separate before these faint hints of our imperfection
+deepen into distasteful monitions, and before our fulness of enjoyment
+degenerates into satiety. Antiquity has conferred an immortal blessing
+upon us in bequeathing to us that golden legend, NE QUID NIMIS;[19] a
+legend better than all the teachings of Galen, or than all the dialogues
+of Socrates. For in these brief words are compressed the experiences of
+the best lives, and Alcibiades and Zeno might equally profit by them.
+They contain the priceless secret of happiness; and do you, reader,
+wisely digest them till we meet again.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 19: 'Not too much.']
+
+
+
+
+THE SOLDIER.
+
+[BURNS.]
+
+
+  For gold the merchant ploughs the main,
+    The farmer ploughs the manor;
+  But glory is the soldier's pride,
+    The soldier's wealth is honor.
+  The brave, poor soldier ne'er despise,
+    Nor count him as a stranger;
+  Remember he's his country's stay
+    In day and hour of danger!
+
+
+
+
+OUR PRESENT POSITION: ITS DANGERS AND ITS DUTIES.
+
+ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE OF ALL POLITICAL PARTIES.
+
+
+When Daniel Webster replied to Senator Hayne, of South Carolina, during
+the exciting debate on the right of secession, he commenced his
+ever-memorable speech with these words:
+
+     'When the mariner has been tossed for many days in thick weather
+     and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first
+     pause in the storm--the earliest glance of the sun--to take his
+     latitude, and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from
+     his true course. Let us imitate this prudence before we float
+     farther, that we may at least be able to conjecture where we now
+     are.'
+
+No words are fitter for our ears at this tumultuous period than are
+these, when the passions of our countrymen, North and South, are excited
+with the bitterest animosity, and when the discordant cries of party
+faction at the North are threatening a desolation worse than that of
+contending armies. In considering, then, our condition, it behooves us
+first, to 'take our latitude, and ascertain where we now are,'--not as a
+section or a party, but as a nation and a people. Let us avail ourselves
+of that distant and dim glimmer in the heavens which even now is looked
+upon by the sanguine as the promise of peace, and in its light survey
+our dangers and nerve ourselves to our duties. We behold, then, a
+people, bound together by the ties of a common interest, namely,
+national prosperity and renown, and in possession of a land more favored
+by natural elements of advantage than any other on the face of the
+globe. We see them standing up in the ranks of hostile resistance each
+to each, the one great and glorious army fighting for the restoration of
+a nation once the envy of the world; the other great and glorious army
+equally ardent and valorous in behalf of a separation of that territory
+in which they are taught to believe we cannot hold together in peace and
+amity. Both armies and people are evincing in their very warfare the
+elements of character which heretofore distinguished us as a nation, and
+are employing the very means for each other's destruction which were of
+late the principles of action which rendered us in the highest degree a
+nation worthy of respect at home and admiration abroad. It is not the
+purpose of this paper to go back to causes or to relate the subsequent
+events which have placed us where we are. These causes and events are
+well known to us and to the world. But here we now stand, with this
+fratricidal war increased to the most alarming proportions, and with,
+results but partially developed. Here we of the North stand, with a
+still invincible army, loyal to the cause nearest to the heart of every
+patriot, and confident in the ability to withstand and overcome the
+machinations of the enemy. Here, too, we--ay, _we_ of the South stand,
+bound together in a common aim, an ardent hope, and a proclaimed and
+omnipotent impulse to action. _This is the only proper view to take of
+the case_--to regard our opponents as we regard ourselves, and to give
+due credit where credit is due for valor, for motives, and for
+principles of action. The North believes itself to be engaged in a
+strife forced upon it by blinded prejudice and evil passion, and fights
+for that which, if not worthy of fighting, ay, and dying for, is unfit
+to live for, namely, national integrity. The South claims, little as we
+can understand it, the same ground for rising against the land they had
+sworn to protect, and whose fathers died with our fathers to create. We
+at the North would have been pusillanimous and weak indeed had we
+silently submitted to that which is in our view against every principle
+of national right and renown. To have acted otherwise would have been to
+bring down upon our heads the scorn and contempt of our enemies and of
+every foreign power, from the strongest oligarchy to the most benevolent
+form of monarchical government. Hence it is that while certain foreign
+powers have not failed to improve the opportunity of our weakness, as a
+divided nation, to insult and sneer, to preach peace with dishonor, and
+advocate separation, which they know to be but another word for
+humiliation, yet have they not failed to see and been forced to confess
+that, divided as we are, we have shown inherent greatness and power,
+_which, united, would be a degree of national superiority which might
+well defy the world_. Nothing is more striking at this moment than this
+great fact, and no topic is more worthy of the serious consideration of
+our countrymen, North and South, than this. No time is fitter than now
+to suggest the subject, and to see in it matter which is pregnant with
+hopes for our future. If nothing but this great truth had been developed
+by the war--this truth, bold, naked, defiant as it is, _is worth the
+war_--worth all its cost of noble lives, of sacred blood, of yet
+uncounted treasure. We stand before the world this day divided by the
+fearful conflict, with malignant hate lighting the fires of either camp,
+and with hands reeking in fraternal blood--with both sections of our
+land more or less afflicted--with credit impaired, with the scoff and
+jeers of nations ringing in our ears--we stand losers of almost every
+thing but our individual self-respect, which has inspired both foes with
+the ardor and courage born within us as Americans. This it is that
+leaves us unshorn of our strength; this it is that enables us in this
+very day of trial and adversity to present to the world the undeniable
+fact that we have within us--not as Northerners, not as Southerners,
+_but as Americans_--the elements of innate will and physical power,
+which makes the scale of valor hang almost with an even beam, and
+foretells us, with words which we cannot but hear--and which would to
+God we might heed!--that, united, we can rear up on this beautiful and
+bountiful land a temple of political, social, and commercial prosperity,
+more glorious than that which entered into the dreams and aspirations of
+the fathers who founded it.
+
+Alas! that the contemplation of so worthy a theme is marred by the 'ifs'
+and 'buts' of controversial strife. Alas! that we cannot depress the
+sectional opposing interests which are but secondary to a condition of
+political consolidation, and elevate above these distracting and
+isolated evils, the great and eternal principle, Strength as it alone
+exists in Unity. Alas! that with the beam of suicidal measures we blind
+the eye political, because, forsooth, the motes of individual or local
+injuries afflict, as they afflict _all_ human forms of government.
+
+The great evil, North and South, before the war, during the war, and
+now, is the want of political charity--that charity which, like its
+moral prototype, 'suffereth long and is kind.' We the people, North and
+South, have been and are unwilling to grant to the other people and
+States the right to think, speak, and urge their own opinions--the very
+right which each insists upon claiming for itself. It has been held
+'dangerous' to discuss questions which, though in one sense pertaining
+only to particular States, nevertheless bear upon the whole country. It
+has been considered 'heresy' to urge with rhetoric and declamation, even
+in our halls of Congress, certain principles for and against Slavery,
+for example, lest mischief result from the agitation of those topics.
+But in such remonstrance we have forgotten that the very principle of
+democratic institutions involves the right of all men to think and act,
+under the law, as each pleases. We have also forgotten that any subject
+which will not bear discussion and political consideration must be
+dangerous _in itself_, and pregnant with weakness, if not evil. There is
+no harm in discussing questions upon which hang vital principles; for if
+there exists on the one side strength and justice, all arguments on the
+other side can do it no injury. With regard to Slavery, one of the
+'causes' or 'occasions' of this unhappy war, it may be said that the
+North owes much to the South which it has never paid, in a true and
+kindly appreciation of the difficulties which have ever surrounded the
+institutions of the latter. But let us not forget that one reason why
+this debt has not been paid is because the South owes the North its
+value received, by not being willing to admit in the other's behalf the
+motives which underlay the efforts which have been made by the earnest,
+or so-called 'radical' men, who have opposed the institution of slavery.
+Pure misunderstanding of motive, pure lack of political as well as moral
+charity, has been wanting between the men of the North who opposed, and
+the men of the South who maintained the extension of slavery. Had each
+understood the other better, it is probable that the character of each
+would have assumed the following proportions: The slaveholder of the
+South, inheriting from generations back a system of servitude which even
+ancient history supported and defended, and which he in his inmost heart
+believes to be beneficial to the slave not less than the master, regards
+himself as violating no law of God or man in receiving from this
+inferior race or grade of men the labor of their hands, and the right to
+their control, while they draw from him the necessary physical support
+and protection which it is in his belief his bounden duty to give. The
+planter, a gentleman educated and a Christian, with the fear of God
+before his eyes, believes this--the belief was born in him and dies in
+him, and he is conscientiously faithful in carrying out the principles
+of his faith. I speak now of no exceptional, but of general cases,
+instancing only the representative of the highest class of Southern men.
+Is it to be wondered at that such a man, looking from _his_ point of
+vision, should regard with suspicion and distrust the efforts of those
+who sought to abolish even by gradual means the apparent sources of his
+prosperity? Is it remarkable that he should regard as his enemy the man
+who preaches against and denounces as criminal the very system in which
+he trusts his social and political safety? He will not regard that
+apparent enemy what at heart and soul he really is, namely, a man as
+pure and devout, as well meaning and conscientious as himself. The man
+whom he scoffs at as a 'radical,' an 'abolitionist,' and a 'fanatic,' by
+education and intuition believes in his very soul that the holding of
+men in bondage, forcing from them involuntary labor, and the
+consequences thereof, are pregnant with moral and political ruin and
+decay. The system, not the men, is offensive to his eyes. Is he to blame
+for this opinion, provided it be well founded in his mind? Admit it
+eroneous in logic, still, if he believes it, is he to be condemned for
+holding the belief, and would he not be contemptible in his own eyes if
+he feared to express the moral convictions of his soul? The error of
+both has been that both are uncharitable--both unwilling to allow the
+right of opinion and freedom of debate on what both, as American
+citizens, hold to be vital principles, dependent upon constitutional
+provisions; the one claiming Slavery as the 'corner stone of political
+freedom,' the other as the stumbling block in the way of its
+advancement. This unwillingness to appreciate the motives of opposing
+minds led at last one section of our beloved country to an unwillingness
+to recognize the right of election, and, worse than all, an
+unwillingness to abide by the results of that election. When that
+principle--submission to the will of the majority--was overthrown, then,
+indeed, did the pillars of our national temple tremble, and the seat of
+our national power rock in its foundation.
+
+And now a word in connection with this same principle of submission, as
+applicable to the people of the North in our present emergency. In
+accordance with the plan adopted by the founders of our Government, and
+practically illustrated in the election of George Washington and his
+successors, the people by a plurality of votes elected to office and
+placed at the head of our political system as its highest authority and
+ruler, the present Chief Magistrate. From the day of his acknowledged
+election, party politics settled into the calm of acquiescence, and all
+loyal and true States and men bowed to the arbitrament of the ballot
+box. That man, Abraham Lincoln, instantly became invested with the
+potential right of rule under the Constitution, and the great principle
+of constitutional liberty in his election and elevation stood justified.
+It mattered not then, nor matters it now, to us, what may be individual
+opinion of his merits or demerits, his ability or his disability. There
+he is, not as a private citizen, but as the head of our Government: his
+individuality is lost in his official embodiment. This principle being
+acknowledged, and party opinion being buried, in theory at least, at the
+foot of the altar of the Government _de facto_, whence is it that at
+this time creeps into our council chambers, our political cliques, our
+social haunts, our market places, ay, our most sacred tabernacles--a
+spirit adverse to the principles for which we are fighting, laboring
+for, and dying for? Let us--a people anxious for peace on honorable
+grounds, anxious for a Union which no rash hand shall ever again attempt
+to destroy--look, with a moment's calm reflection, at this alarming
+evil.
+
+It is very evident to most men that, in spite of temporary defeats and
+an unexpected prolongation of the war, the loyal States hold
+unquestionably the preponderance of power. Nothing but armed
+intervention from abroad can now affect even temporarily this
+preponderance. As events and purposes are seen more clearly through the
+smoke of the battle fields by the ever-watchful eyes of Europe, armed
+intervention becomes less and less a matter of probability. The hopes of
+an honorable peace, therefore, hang upon the increase and continuance of
+this military preponderance. With the spirit of determination evinced by
+both combatants, the unflinching valor of both armies, and with the
+unquestioned resources and ability to hold out of the North, it appears
+evident that the strife for mastery will in time terminate in favor of
+the loyal States. There is but one undermining influence which can
+defeat this end, and still further prolong the war, or, what is worse,
+plunge the North into the irretrievable disaster of internal
+conflict--and that undermining influence is _dissension among
+ourselves_. Such a consummation would bring joy to the hearts of our
+enemies and lend them the first ray of real hope that ultimate
+separation will be their purchased peace. We will not here draw a
+picture of that fallacious peace, that suicidal gap, whose festering
+political sore would breed misery and ruin, not only for ourselves, but
+for our posterity, for ages to come. But let us be warned in time. Even
+now the insidious movement of dissension is hailed with satisfaction and
+delight in the council meetings at Richmond, and no effort will be
+spared to aid its devastating progress. False rumors will be raised on
+the slightest and most insignificant grounds. Trivial mistakes and
+blunders in the cabinet and the field will be magnified; facts
+distorted, and the flame be blown by corrupting influences abroad and
+at home, in the hopes--let them be vain hopes--that we the people will
+be diverted from the great cause we have most at heart into side issues
+and sectional distrust. And why? Because more powerful than serried
+hosts and open warfare is the poison of sedition and conspiracy that is
+thrown into the cup of domestic peace and confidence--more fatal than
+the ravages of the battle field is that of the worm that creeps slowly
+and surely--weakening, as it works, the foundations of the edifice in
+which we dwell unsuspicious of evil. Is it astonishing that they, the
+enemies of our common weal, should rejoice in these signs of incipient
+weakness, or fail to resort to any expedient whereby our strength as a
+united and loyal people can be made less? Have they not shown themselves
+capable and ready to avail themselves of every weakness in our counsels
+and in the field? Would not we do the same did we perceive distrust and
+dissatisfaction presenting through the mailed armor of our opponents a
+vulnerable point for attack? Then blame them not with muttered
+imprecations, but look--ay, look to ourselves. The shape of this
+undermining influence is political dissension at a period when the name
+of 'party' ought to be obliterated from the people's creed. Let opinion
+on measures and men have full and unrestricted sway, so far as these
+opinions may silently work under the banner of the one great cause of
+self-preservation; but let them not interfere with the prosecution of
+the efforts of the Government, whether State or national, to prosecute
+this holy and patriotic war in defence of the principles which created
+and are to keep us a united nation. Let us not tempt the strength of the
+ice that covers the waters of political and partisan problems, while we
+have enough to do to protect and cover the solid ground already in our
+possession. The President of the United States, be he who or what he
+may--think he how or what he will, enact he what he chooses--is, let us
+remember, the corner stone of our political liberty. The Constitution is
+a piece of parchment--sacred and to be revered--but it is, in its
+outward presentment, material and inactive. The _spirit_ of the
+Constitution is intangible and ideal, its interpretation alone is its
+vitality. We the people--through equally material morsels of paper
+entitled votes--raise the spirit of the Constitution by placing in the
+halls of Congress the interpreters of that Constitution, over whom and
+above all sits the Chief Magistrate, who, once endowed by us with power,
+retains and sways it until another, by the same process, carries out at
+our will the same eventualities. Our part as electors and adjudicators
+is done, and it ill becomes us to weaken or hold up to the ridicule of
+the world the power therein invested, by questions as to the President's
+'right' or 'power' or 'ability' to enact this measure or that.
+
+Away then with the unseemly cry of 'the Constitution as it is,' 'the
+Union at it was,' the 'expediency' or 'non-expediency' of employing the
+war power, the interference or the non-interference of the man and the
+men established by us to represent us with the military leaders, the
+finances, or the thousand and one implements of administration, _which
+they are bound to employ_, not as we, but as they, holding our powers of
+attorney for a specified and legalized period, in their human wisdom
+deem best for the common good of the land. Let us have faith in the
+motives and intentions of our political administration, or if we have
+lost our faith, let us submit--patiently and with accord. Above all, at
+a period like this, when the minds of the best men and the truest are
+oppressed with a sense of the injustice with which a portion of our
+countrymen regard us, it most behooves us to keep our social and
+political ranks closed and in order, subject to the will of that
+commander, disobedience to which is infamy and ruin. No matter with
+what diversity of tongues and opinions we pursue our individual
+avocations and aims, we are all pilgrims pressing forward like the
+followers of Mohammed to the Kêbla stone of _our_ faith--Peace founded
+on Union.
+
+What if a party clique utters sentiments adverse to our own on the never
+ceasing topic of political policy? Is it not the expression of a mind or
+a hundred minds forming a portion of the great body politic, of which we
+ourselves are a part, and are they not entitled to their opinion and
+modes of expressing it, providing it be done with decorum and with a
+proper respect for the opinions of their adversaries? Why then do we or
+they employ, through the press and in rhetorical bombast, opprobrious
+epithets, fit only for the pot-house or the shambles? Shall we men and
+citizens, each of us a pillar upholding the crowning dome of our
+nationality, be taught, like vexed and querulous children, the impotence
+of personal abuse? Why seek to lay upon the head of this Cabinet officer
+or that, this Senator or that, the responsibility of temporary military
+defeats, when we are no more able to command and prevent reverses than
+are they? Or if in our superior wisdom we deem ourselves to be the
+better able to direct and administer, why do we forget that others among
+us, inspired by the same love of country, and equally ardent for its
+safety and advancement, hold exactly contrary opinions? It is not a
+matter of opinion--it is not a matter for interference, it is simply and
+only a matter for untiring unflinching confidence and support. We have
+done our duty as a people, and elected our Administration--let us, in
+the name of all that is sublime and fundamental in republican
+principles, support and not perplex them in the hard and complex problem
+which they are appointed to solve. These are principles, which, however
+trite, need to be kept before us and practically sustained at a period
+when, as is often the case in long and tedious wars, the dispiriting
+influence of delays and occasional defeats work erroneous conclusions in
+the minds of the people, leading to unjust accusations against the men
+in power, and an unwillingness to frankly acknowledge that the evil too
+often originated where the result most immediately occurred. In other
+words, our armies have often suffered simply and for no other reason
+than that they were outgeneralled on the field of battle, or overpowered
+by military causes for which no one is to blame--least of all, the
+President or his advisers.
+
+And here let one word be said against the arguments of those
+well-meaning and patriotic men who attempt to prove that certain acts of
+the Government have been injudicious and unwise--such, for example, as
+the suspension of the habeas corpus, the alleged illegal arrests, and
+the emancipation policy. It is not the purpose of this paper to enter
+into additional argument to sustain this opinion or to disprove it. But
+in justice to the Government--simply because it is a Government--let it
+not be forgotten that when events heretofore unforeseen and unprepared
+for are throwing our vast nation into incalculable confusion, and when
+it becomes absolutely imperative that the head of the Government must
+act decisively and according to the promptness of his honest judgment,
+and when we know equally well that that judgment, be it what it may,
+cannot accord with the various and diverse opinions of _all_ men, then
+it behooves his countrymen, if not to acquiesce in, to support whatever
+that honest judgment may decide to be best for the emergency. No doubt,
+errors have been made, but they are errors inconceivably less in their
+results than would be the unpardonable sin of the people, should they,
+because differing in opinion, weaken the hands and confuse the purposes
+of the powers that be. With secret and treacherous foes in our very
+midst, hidden behind the masks of a painted loyalty, the President,
+after deep and earnest consultation and reflection, deemed it his duty
+to authorize arrests under circumstances which he solemnly believed were
+the best adapted to arrest the evil, though, by so doing, many good and
+innocent men might temporarily suffer with the bad. So too with regard
+to the proclamation of freedom--be the step wise or unwise, and there is
+by no means a unity of sentiment on this head--the President conceived
+it to be the duty of his office--a duty which never entered into his
+plans or intentions until the war had increased to gigantic and
+threatening proportions--to level a blow at what he and millions of his
+countrymen believe to be the stronghold of the enemy, viz., that system
+of human servitude which nourished the body politic and social now
+standing in armed and fearful resistance to the Constitution and the
+laws. It matters not, so far as opinion goes, whether the step was wise
+or foolish, if the executive head deemed it wise. Nor was it a hasty or
+spasmodic movement on his part. Months were devoted to its
+consideration, and every argument was patiently and candidly listened to
+from all the representatives of political theory for and against. Even
+then no hasty step was taken; but, on the contrary, our deluded
+countrymen in arms against us were forewarned, and earnestly,
+respectfully advised and entreated to take that step in behalf of Union
+and peace, which would leave their institution as it had existed. Nay,
+more: terms whereby no personal inconvenience or pecuniary loss to them
+would be involved if they would but be simply loyal to the Government,
+were liberally offered them, with three months for their consideration.
+Let those of us who, notwithstanding these ameliorating circumstances,
+doubt the good policy of the act, remember that they of the South, our
+open foes, invited the measures. Their leaders acknowledged and their
+press boasted that the Southern army never could be overcome--if for no
+other reason, for this reason, that while the army of the North was
+composed of the bone and muscle of the great working classes, drawn away
+from the fields of labor and enterprise, which must necessarily, in
+their opinion, languish from this absence, the Confederate army was
+composed of 'citizens' and property owners (to wit, slaveholders), whose
+absence from their plantations in no way interfered with the growth of
+their cotton, sugar, corn, and rice, from which sources of wealth and
+nourishment they could continue to draw the sinews of war. They went
+farther than this, and acted upon their declaration by employing their
+surplus slave labor in the work of intrenching their fortifications,
+serving their army, and finally fighting in their army.
+
+Upon this basis of slave labor they asserted their omnipotence in war
+and ability to continue the struggle without limit of time. The
+subsidized press of England supported this theory, and declared that
+with such advantages it was idle for the Federal Government to maintain
+a struggle in the face of such belligerent advantages! Then, and not
+till then, were the eyes of the President open to a fact which none but
+the political blind man could fail to observe, and then it was that not
+only the President, but a very large proportion of our countrymen,
+heretofore strictly conservative men, felt that the time had come when
+further forbearance would be suicidal. Although many doubted and still
+doubt if slavery was the cause of the rebellion, very many were forced
+to the conclusion that what our enemies themselves admitted to be the
+strength of the rebellion was indeed such, and that the time had arrived
+to avail themselves of that military necessity which authorizes the
+Government to adopt such measures as may be deemed the most fitting for
+crushing rebellion and restoring our constitutional liberty. Let us
+think, then, as we please upon the judiciousness of the
+proclamation--that it was uttered with forethought, calmness, and with a
+full sense of the responsibility of the President to his God and his
+country, none of us can deny. With this we should be satisfied. We have
+but one duty before us, then, as a government and a people--and that is,
+an earnest, devoted prosecution of this war for the integrity of our
+common country. In the untrammelled hands of that Government let us
+leave its prosecution. We have but one duty before us as individuals,
+and that is to support the existing Government with our individual
+might. Let the cry be loud and long, as, thank Heaven, it still is, 'On
+with the war,' not for war's sake, but for the sake of that peace, which
+only war, humanely and vigorously conducted, can achieve.
+
+Fling personal ambition and individual aggrandizement to the winds. Let
+political preferment and partisan proclivities bide their time, and as a
+united and one-minded people, devote heart and mind, strength and money,
+to the prosecution of the campaign, without considering what may be its
+duration, and without fear of circumstance or expenditure. If it be
+necessary, let the public debt be increased until it reaches and exceeds
+the public liabilities of the most indebted Government of Europe. We and
+our descendants will cheerfully pay the interest on that expenditure
+which purchased so great a blessing as national endurability. Meanwhile,
+with unity, forbearance, perseverance, and the silent administration of
+the ballot box, we will, as a people, maintain, notwithstanding that a
+portion of the land we hold dear stands severed from us by hatred and
+prejudice, the prosperity which we still claim, and the renown which was
+once accorded to us. By so doing, and by so doing only, shall our former
+grandeur come back to us--though its garments be stained with blood. A
+grandeur which, without hyperbole, it may be said, will outstrip the
+glory which, as a young and sanguine people, we have ever claimed for
+our country. The reason for so believing is the simple and undeniable
+fact that out of the saddening humiliation and devastation of this civil
+war has arisen the better knowledge of the wonderful resources,
+abilities, and determined spirit of the American people. We see--both
+combatants--that we are giants fighting, and not quarrelling pigmies, as
+the foreign enemies of us both have vainly attempted to prove. We see,
+both combatants, how vast and important to each is the territory we are
+struggling for, how inseparable to our united interests are the sources
+of wealth imbedded in our rocks, underlying our soil, and growing in its
+beneficent bosom. We see, both combatants, how strong is the commerce of
+the East to supply, like a diligent handmaiden, the wants of every
+section; how bountiful are the plantations of the South and the
+granaries of the West to keep the world united to us in the strong bonds
+of commercial and friendly intercourse; how absolutely necessary to the
+prosperity of both are the deep and wide-flowing rivers which run, like
+silver bands of peace, through the length and breadth of a land whose
+vast privileges we have been too blind to appreciate, and in that
+blindness would destroy. Above all, we are _beginning_ to see that like
+two mighty champions fighting for the belt of superiority, we can
+neither of us achieve that individual advantage which can utterly and
+forever place the other beyond the ability of again accepting the
+gauntlet of defiance, and that our true and lasting glory can alone
+proceed from a determination to shake hands in peace, and, as united
+champions, defying no longer each other, defy the world. Nor would the
+South in consenting to a reunion _now_ find humiliation or dishonor. She
+has proved herself a noble foe--quick in expedient, firm in
+determination, valorous in war. We know each other the better for the
+contest; we shall, when peace returns, respect each other the more; and
+although the cost of that peace, whenever it comes, will be the
+sacrifice of many local prejudices and sectional privileges, what, oh,
+what are such sacrifices to the inestimable blessings of national
+salvation?
+
+
+
+
+THE COMPLAINING BORE.
+
+
+About the most disagreeable people one meets with in life are those who
+make a business of complaining. They ask for sympathy when they merit
+censure. There is no excuse for man or woman making known their private
+griefs except to intimate friends or those who stand in the nearest
+relation to them. I have no patience with the man who wishes to catch
+the public ear with the sound of his repining. Be it that he complain of
+the world generally, or specify the particular occasion of his
+dumpishness, he is in either aspect equally contemptible. What a
+serio-comic spectacle a man presents who imagines that everybody is in a
+leagued conspiracy against him to disappoint his hopes and thwart his
+plans for success! He thinks he is kept from rising by some untoward
+fate that is bent on crushing him into the ground, feels that he is the
+victim of persecution, the sport of angry gods. Not having the spirit of
+a martyr, he frets and fumes about his condition, and finds a selfish
+relief in counting over his grievances in the presence of all who are
+good-natured enough to listen. Such a fellow is a social nuisance--away
+with him! The fact usually is that the world has more reason to complain
+of him than he of the world. For instance, I know a man who has become
+misanthropic, but who should hate himself instead of the whole race.
+
+Mr. Jordan Algrieve has become disgusted with life, and confesses than
+his experiment with existence has thus far proved a failure. He has
+combated with the world, and the world has proved too much for him, and
+he acknowledges the defeat. Mr. Algrieve is on the shady side of fifty,
+and his hair getting to be of an iron gray. His features are prominent,
+with a face wrinkled and shrivelled by discontent and acidity of temper.
+His tall figure is bent, not so much by cares and weight of years, as in
+a kind of typical submission to the stern decree of an evil destiny.
+
+Strange to say, he is well educated, and graduated with honor at one of
+our Eastern colleges. With a knowledge of this fact, it is pitiable to
+see him standing at the corner of the street in his busy town in a suit
+of seedy black and a shockingly bad hat, chafing his hands together and
+pretending to wait for somebody who never comes.
+
+Poor Algrieve, he is a man under the table, and he knows it. He has
+tried to be somebody in his way, but has failed sadly in all his
+efforts. It is said that Algrieve always had a constitutional aversion
+to legitimate and continued labor, but has a passion for making strikes
+and securing positions that afford liberal pay for little work.
+
+Thinking a profession too monotonous and plodding, he never took the
+trouble to acquire one. As to honest manual toil, that was an expedient
+he never so much as dreamed of. In early life he was so unfortunate as
+to secure an appointment to a clerkship in the Assembly, and after that
+he haunted the State Legislature for five or six winters in hot pursuit
+of another place, but his claims failing to be recognized, he relapsed
+into the natural belief that his party was in league to proscribe him.
+After making a large number of political ventures of a more ambitious
+order, and with the same mortifying results, he abandoned that field and
+took to speculation in patent rights. He vended a wonderful churn-dash,
+circulated a marvellous flatiron, and expatiated through the country on
+the latest improvement in the line of a washing machine. But these
+operations somehow afforded him but transient relief, and left him
+always involved still more largely in debt. At different times in his
+life he had also been a horse dealer, a dry-goods merchant, a saloon
+keeper, the proprietor of a tenpin alley, and managed to grow poorer in
+all these various occupations. The last I saw of him he was reduced to
+peddling books in a small way, carrying his whole stock in a new market
+basket. He was very importunate in his appeals to customers to purchase,
+putting it upon the ground that he had been unfortunate and had a claim
+to their charity. I happened to see him in the office of the popular
+hotel in Podgeville, when he was more than usually clamorous for
+patronage. He accosted nearly every man in the room with a dull,
+uninteresting volume in his hand, and for which he asked a respectable
+price. At last he set down his basket, and commenced a kind of
+snivelling harangue to his little audience. Mr. Algrieve opened by
+saying:
+
+     'Gentlemen, you'll pardon me for thrusting myself upon your
+     attention; but it is hard to have the world turned against ye, and
+     to work like a slave all your life to get something to fall back on
+     in old age, and then have to die poor at last! I hope none of you
+     have ever known what it is to be born unlucky; to never undertake
+     anything but turned out a failure, and to meet disappointment where
+     you deserved success. I am such a man!'
+
+Here Mr. Algrieve produced a fragmentary pocket handkerchief for the
+ostensible purpose of absorbing an expected tear, but really to give his
+remark a tragic effect. He continued:
+
+     'Behold an individual who has been doomed to penury and
+     destitution, but who has not met his fate without a struggle. You
+     who have known me, gentlemen, for the last thirty years, know that
+     Jordan Algrieve has battled with life manfully.' At this point he
+     put out his clenched fist in defiance of his fancied enemy.' But I
+     have been compelled to yield to the force of circumstances--not,
+     however, till I had taken my chance in nearly every department of
+     honorary endeavor, and experienced the most wretched success. The
+     world has pronounced its ban upon me, and I must bow submissively
+     to its cruel imposition. I tried to serve my country in the
+     capacity of a public official, but my services and talents were
+     repeatedly rejected--the majority of voters always so necessary to
+     an honest election was forever on the side of my lucky opponent.
+     When I withdrew from the political field, impoverished by my
+     efforts to advance the prosperity of my party, I embarked in a
+     small commercial enterprise; but owing to the tightness of the
+     times, and my want of capital, I was soon obliged to give up and
+     throw myself upon the mercy of my creditors. I have tried popular
+     amusements, and lost money--that is, I failed to make it. I even
+     branched out into fancy speculations, but they only served to sink
+     me still deeper in the yawning depths of insolvency!'
+
+Mr. Algrieve here paused, and seemed to look down into the frightful
+gulf with a shuddering expression, as if he were not quite accustomed to
+the descent yet.
+
+     'In short, gentlemen, I am completely prostrated--I am floored! And
+     is the world willing to help me up? By no means! On the contrary,
+     when I commenced falling and slipping on the stairs of human
+     endeavor the world was ready to kick me down, down, till I reached
+     the--in short, gentlemen, till I became what I now am. Now, what
+     have I done, let me ask, that I should fare thus? Have I not made
+     an effort? I appeal to you, gentlemen, to say. [A voice from the
+     crowd here chimed in: 'Yes, Algrieve, your efforts to live without
+     work have been immense!'] But here I am, poor and persecuted; my
+     family are in want of some of the common necessaries of life; and
+     now, gentlemen, I beg some of you will buy that book (holding out a
+     copy of the 'Pilgrim's Progress'), and do something to avert for a
+     while, at least, the pauper's fate!'
+
+Some benevolent gentleman, either from a charitable motive, or to put an
+end to his lachrymose oration, bought the volume for $1.25. Mr. Algrieve
+received the money with many expressions of gratitude, and, gathering up
+his stock, moped off into the drinking room, and invested a dime in a
+gin cocktail, and five cents in a cigar, with which he sought to solace
+himself for all the inflictions of the inexorable world.
+
+Thus Jordan Algrieve goes about telling of his reverses and misfortunes,
+exhibiting them to the public eye like a beggar his sores, without shame
+or remorse; seeking to levy contributions on his fellow men, as one who
+has been robbed of his estate. Reader, will you say that you have never
+met with Jordan Algrieve?
+
+Another common species of the complaining bore are those who are
+continually parading their bodily infirmities. For example, a man will
+call on you, apparently for the express purpose of illustrating a most
+interesting case of neuralgia. He comes into your office, perhaps, with
+his head tied up in a handkerchief, and an expression of face as if he
+had some time winked one eye very close, and had never since been able
+to open it. Thinking himself an object worthy of study, he shows how the
+darting pains vacillate between his eyes, invade his teeth, hold general
+muster in his cheeks, take refuge in the back of his neck; and
+demonstrates these points to you by applying his hands to the parts
+designated, and uttering cries of feigned anguish to give effect to his
+description. He informs you, as a piece of refreshing intelligence, that
+it is devilish hard to bear, and enough to make a saint indulge in
+profanity. When he has proceeded thus far, he may be taken with one of
+his capricious pains, ducks his head between his knees, squeezes it with
+his hands, and bawls out: 'O-h! Je-ru-sa-lem!' with a duration of sound
+only limited by the capacity of his wind. He feels that he has a witness
+to his sufferings, and wishes to make the most of it. When he gets
+sufficiently easy, he tells you his experience with various remedies,
+enumerates all the lotions, liniments, ointments, and other applications
+he has used, with his opinion on the merits of each.
+
+Another person will accost you on a bright day with a most saturnine and
+wo-begone visage, informing you that he is in a terrible way, that his
+food distresses him, and he can't any longer take comfort in eating. He
+places his hand in the region of his stomach, remarks that he feels a
+great load there, and makes the usual complaints of a dyspeptic. He is
+pathetic over the fact that his physician has denied him fried oysters
+and mince pie for evening lunch, and closes his observations by
+exclaiming in a moralizing vein that 'such is life!'
+
+A third individual has a throat disease, and, forgetful of his bad
+breath, desires you to take a minute survey of his glottis, and inform
+him of its appearance. Accordingly he opens his mouth and throws back
+his head as if he were inviting you to an entertaining show.
+
+These are but a tithe of the examples of people who exhibit in public
+and at social gatherings their ills and ailments, accompanied with
+dreary complainings of their bodily inflictions. It implies no
+indifference or lack of sympathy for physical pain and hardships to say
+that its victims have no right to mar the enjoyment of others by the
+unnecessary display of their infirmities or present sufferings. If a man
+will make a travelling show of his disorders, he should be obliged to
+carry a hand organ to give variety to his stupid entertainment. Were
+these fellows all compelled to furnish this accompaniment, what a
+musical bedlam our streets would become! Of course, there is no law
+against complaining and repining--it may not be immoral--but it is a
+very poor method of making those around us happy, which is a duty that
+none but selfish natures can forget. A man who goes through life with a
+smiling face and cheerful temper, despite the grievances common to us
+all, is a public benefactor in his way, as much as one who founds a
+library or establishes an asylum.
+
+Misanthropy is a sublime egotism that mistakes its own distemper for a
+disease of the universe. With all the mishaps to which our life is
+subject, a glance over a wide range of human experience proves that God
+helps those who help themselves, and whatever be the tenor of our
+fortune, levity is more seemly than moodiness, and under any
+circumstances there is more virtue in being a clown than a cynic. But in
+adversity, a subdued cheerfulness and quiet humor are, next to Christian
+fortitude, the golden mean of feeling that makes the loss of worldly
+things rest lightly on the heart, and spreads out before the hopeful eye
+the vision of better days!
+
+
+
+
+DEATH OF THE BRAVE.
+
+
+  'How sleep the brave who sink to rest
+  By all their country's wishes blest!
+  When spring with dewy fingers cold
+  Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
+  She then shall dress a sweeter sod
+  Than fancy's feet have ever trod.'
+
+
+
+
+LITERARY NOTICES
+
+
+     THE ICE MAIDEN, AND OTHER TALES. By HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.
+     Translated by FANNY FULLER. Philadelphia: F. Leypoldt. New York: C.
+     T. EVANS. 1863.
+
+Probably no writer of stories for the young ever equalled Hans Christian
+Andersen; certainly none ever succeeded as he has done in reproducing
+the nameless charm of the real fairy tale which springs up without an
+author among the people,--the best specimens of which are the stories
+collected by the Brothers Grimm in Germany. But this exquisite
+fascination of an inner life in animals and in inanimate objects, which
+every child's mind produces from dolls and other puppets, and which
+makes fairies of flowers, is by Andersen adroitly turned very often to
+good moral and instructive purpose, without losing the original sweet
+and simple charm which blends the real and the imaginary. Here he
+surpasses all other tale writers, nearly all of whom, in their efforts
+at simplicity in such narratives, generally become supremely silly.
+
+The present volume contains four stories--'The Ice Maiden,' 'The
+Butterfly,' 'The Psyche,' and 'The Snail and the Rose Tree,'--all in
+Andersen's usual happy and successful vein; for he is preëminently an
+_equal_ writer, and never falls behind himself. Perhaps the highest
+compliment which can be paid them is the truthful assertion that any
+person may read them with keen interest, and never reflect that they
+were written for young people. Poetry and prose meet in them on equal
+grounds, and any of them in verse would be charming. The main reason for
+this is that such stories to charm must set forth natural objects with
+Irving-like fidelity; nay, the writer must, with a few words, bring
+before us scenes and things as in a mirror. In this 'The Ice Maiden'
+excels; Swiss life is depicted as though we were listening to _yodle_
+songs on the mountains, and felt the superstitions of the icy winter
+nights taking hold of our souls.
+
+'The Psyche' is an art-story. Most writers would have made it a legend
+of 'high' art, but it is far sweeter and more impressive from the sad
+simplicity and gentleness with which it is here told. 'The Butterfly,'
+on the contrary, is a delightful little burlesque on flirtations and
+fops; and 'The Snail and the Rose Tree' is much like it. Both are really
+fables of the highest order, or shrewd prose epigrams.
+
+The volume before us is well translated; very well, notwithstanding one
+or two trifling inadvertencies, which, however, really testify to the
+fact that the best of all pens for such version--a lady's--was employed
+in the work. A _Skytte_, for instance, in Danish, or _Schutz_ in German,
+is generally termed among the fraternity of sportsmen a 'shot,' and not
+a 'shooter.' But the spirit of the original is charmingly preserved, and
+Miss Fuller has the rare gift of using short and simple words, which are
+the best in the world when one knows how to use them as she does. We
+trust that we shall see many more stories of this kind, translated by
+her.
+
+We must, in conclusion, say a word for the dainty binding (Pawson &
+Nicholson), the exquisite paper and typography, and, finally, for the
+pretty photograph vignette with which this volume is adorned. Mr.
+Leypoldt has benefited Philadelphia in many ways,--by his foreign and
+American circulating library, his lecture room, and by his republication
+in photograph of first-class engravings,--and we now welcome him to the
+society of publishers. His first step in this direction is a most
+promising one.
+
+
+     NOTES, CRITICISMS, AND CORRESPONDENCE UPON SHAKSPEARE'S PLAYS AND
+     ACTORS. By JAMES HENRY HACKETT. New York: Carleton, 413 Broadway.
+     1863.
+
+This work will be one of great interest, firstly to all those who visit
+the theatre, secondly to readers of Shakspeare, and thirdly to all who
+relish originality and naïvete of character, such as Mr. Hackett
+displays abundantly, from the rising of the curtain even to the going
+down of the same, in his book. There are no men who live so much within
+their profession as actors, or are so earnest in their faith in it; and
+this devotion is reflected unconsciously, but very entertainingly,
+through the whole volume. Shakspeare tells us that all the world is a
+stage--to the actor the stage is all his world, the only one in which he
+truly lives.
+
+We thank Mr. Hackett for giving us in this volume, firstly, very minute
+and excellent descriptions of all the eminent actors of Shakespeare
+within his memory--not a brief one, he having been himself a really
+excellent and eminent actor since 1828. It is to be regretted that there
+are not more such judicious descriptions as these. The author has, as we
+gather from his book, been in the habit of recording his daily
+experiences, and consequently writes from better data than those
+afforded by mere memory. The reader will also thank him for many
+agreeable minor reminiscences of celebrities, and for giving to the
+public his extremely interesting correspondence on Shaksperean subjects
+with John Quincy Adams and others. The views of the venerable statesman
+on _Hamlet_, and on 'Misconceptions of Shakspeare on the Stage,'
+indicate a very great degree of study of the great poet, and of
+reflection on the manner in which he is over or under acted. Nor are Mr.
+Hackett's own letters and criticisms by any means devoid of
+merit--witness the following:
+
+     'Mr. Forrest recites the text (of King Lear) as though it were all
+     prose, and not occasionally written in poetic measure; whereas,
+     blank verse can, and always should, be distinguishable from prose
+     by proper modulations of the voice, which a listener with a nice
+     ear and a cultivated taste could not mistake, nor, if confounded,
+     detect in their respective recitals: else Milton as well as
+     Shakspeare has toiled to little purpose in the best-proportioned
+     numbers.'
+
+The criticism on Forrest is throughout judicious, and, though frequently
+severe, is still very kindly written when we consider the 'capacities'
+of the subject.
+
+As regards Mr. Hackett's views of readings, we detect in them a little
+of that tendency to excessive accentuation, and that disposition to
+'make a hit' or a sensation in every sentence which renders most, or
+all, Shaksperean or tragic acting so harsh and strained, and which has
+made the word 'theatrical' in ordinary conversation synonymous with
+'unnatural.' Something of this is reflected in the enormous amount of
+needless italicizing with which the typography of the book is afflicted,
+and which we trust will be amended in future editions. We cheerfully
+pardon Mr. Hackett for sounding his own praises--sometimes rather loudly
+and frequently, as in the republication of a sketch of himself--since,
+after all, we thereby gain a more accurate idea of a favorite actor, who
+has for thirty-six years pleased the public, and gained in that long
+time the character of a conscientious artist who has always striven to
+improve himself.
+
+To one thing, however, we decidedly object--the questionable taste
+displayed by the author in answering in type criticisms of his acting,
+and in republishing them in his work. We can well imagine the temptation
+to be great, but to yield to it is not creditable to a good artist. With
+this little exception, we cordially commend the work to all readers.
+
+
+     DEVOTIONAL POEMS. By R. T. CONRAD. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott &
+     Co. 1862.
+
+The late Judge Conrad left a number of religious poems, which
+fortunately fell into the hands of those who appreciated their merit,
+and we now have them in volume, with an introductory poem to the widow
+of the deceased and a preface by George H. Boker, to whom the editing of
+the present volume was committed. These lyrics, as we infer, were
+written in the spirit of private devotion, and are therefore gifted with
+the greatest merit which can possibly inspire religious writing--we mean
+deep sincerity. But apart from the _spirit_,--the _sine qua non_,--the
+beauty of the form of these works will always give them a high value to
+the impartial critic. They are far above the mediocrity into which most
+religious writers always at first _appear_ to be lost, owing to the vast
+amount of thoughts and expressions which they are compelled to share in
+common with others. And as there has been awakened within a few years a
+spirit of collecting and studying such poetry, we cordially commend this
+work to all who share it.
+
+As regards form, one of the more marked poems in this collection is
+'The Stricken;' we have room only for the beginning:
+
+    Heavy! Heavy! Oh, my heart
+      Seems a cavern deep and drear,
+    From whose dark recesses start,
+        Flatteringly like birds of night,
+      Throes of passion, thoughts of fear,
+        Screaming in their flight.
+      Wildly o'er the gloom they sweep,
+  Spreading a horror dim,--a woe that cannot weep!
+
+    Weary! Weary! What is life
+      But a spectre-crowded tomb?
+    Startled with unearthly strife,
+      Spirits fierce in conflict met,
+    In the lightning and the gloom,
+      The agony and sweat;
+    Passions wild and powers insane,
+  And thoughts with vulture beak, and quick Promethean pain.
+
+We select this single specimen from its remarkable resemblance to
+Anglo-Saxon religious poetry,--by far the sincerest, and, so far as it
+was ripened, the soundest, in our language. With the exception of the
+Promethean allusion, every line in these verses is singularly Saxon--the
+night birds, screaming in gloom--as in the '_Sea Farer_,' where, instead
+of joyous mirth,
+
+  'Storms beat the stone cliffs,
+  Where them the starling answered,
+  Icy of wing.'
+
+The divisions of this work are 'Sinai,' which is in great measure a
+commentary on virtues and vices, 'Sonnets on the Lord's Prayer,' and
+'Bible Breathings.' Of these we would commend the Sonnets, as forming
+collectively a highly finished and beautiful poem, complete in each
+detail. The little poem, 'A Thought,' is as perfect as a mere simile in
+verse could be.
+
+Robert T. Conrad, who was born in Philadelphia in 1810, and died there
+in 1858, first became known to the public by a drama entitled _Conrad of
+Naples_, a subject which has been extensively treated by German writers,
+Uhland himself having written a tragedy on it. After being admitted to
+the bar, Conrad connected himself with the press, but resumed the
+practice of law in 1834 with success, being appointed judge of the
+criminal sessions in 1838, and of the general sessions in 1840. He was
+subsequently president of a well-known railroad company, and mayor of
+his native city. During the intervals of his business he was at one time
+editor of _Graham's Magazine_, and acquired a literary reputation by his
+articles in the _North American_, and by the well-known tragedy of
+_Aylmere_, in which Mr. Forrest, the actor, has frequently appeared as
+'Jack Cade.' In addition to these, Mr. Conrad published, in 1852, a
+volume entitled 'Aylmere and other poems,' which was very extensively
+reviewed. In it the 'Sonnets on the Lord's Prayer' first appeared.
+
+The volume before us is very well edited in every respect, and makes its
+appearance in very beautiful 'externals.' The paper, binding, and
+typography are, in French phrase, as applied to such matters,
+'luxurious.'
+
+
+     SKETCHES OF THE WAR: A Series of Letters to the North Moore Street
+     School of New York. By CHARLES C. NOTT, Captain in the Fifth Iowa
+     Cavalry. New York: Charles T. Evans, 448 Broadway. 1863.
+
+Were this little work ten times its present length, we should have read
+it to the end with the same interest which its perusal inspired, and
+arrived, with the same regret that there was not more of it, at its last
+page. It is simple and unpretending, but as life-like and spirited as
+any collection of descriptive sketches which we can recall. We realize
+in it all the vexations of mud, all the horrors of blood, and all the
+joys of occasional chickens and a good night's rest, which render the
+soldier's life at once so great and yet so much a matter of petty joys
+and sorrows. The love of the rider for the good horse--for his pet
+Gypsy--her caprices and coquetries, are set forth, for instance, very
+freely, without, however, a shadow of affectation, while in all his
+interviews with men and women, the characters come before us 'like
+life,' and give us a singularly accurate conception of the social
+effects of the war in the West. The appearance of the country is
+unconsciously detailed as accurately as in a photograph, and the events
+and sensations of battle are presented with great ability; in fact, we
+have as yet seen no sketches from the war which in these particulars are
+equal to them. They are free from 'fine writing,' and are given in
+simple, intelligible language which cannot fail to make them generally
+popular. The occasional flashes of humorous description are extremely
+well given--so well that we only wish there had been more of them, as
+the author has evidently a talent in that direction, which we trust will
+be more fully developed in other works.
+
+
+
+
+EDITOR'S TABLE
+
+
+With all the outcry that has been raised at the slow progress of the
+war, it is difficult for a comprehensive mind to conceive how, on the
+whole, the struggle with the South could have advanced more favorably to
+the _general interests_ and future prosperity of the whole country, than
+it has thus far done. 'Had the Administration been possessed of
+sufficient energy, it could have crushed the rebellion in the first
+month,' say the grumblers. Very possibly--to break out again! No amount
+of prompt action could have calmed the first fire and fury of the South.
+It required _blood_; it was starving for war; it was running over with
+hatred for the North.
+
+The war went on, and, as it progressed, it became evident that, while
+thousands deprecated agitation of the slave question as untimely, the
+war could never end until that question was disposed of. And it also
+became every day more plain that the 'little arrangement' so frequently
+insisted on, and expressed in the words, 'Conquer the enemy _first_, and
+_then_ free the slaves,' was a little absurdity. It was 'all very
+pretty,' but with the whole North and South at swords-points over this
+as the alleged cause of war--with all Europe declaring that the North
+had no intention of removing the cause of the war--with the slave
+constantly interfering in all our military movements--and, finally, with
+a party of domestic traitors springing up everywhere, at home and in the
+army itself, it became high time to adopt a fixed policy. It _was_
+adopted, and President LINCOLN, to his lasting honor, and despite
+tremendous opposition, issued the Proclamation of January First--the
+noblest document in history.
+
+It is difficult to see how, when, or in what manner slavery would have
+disappeared from a single State, had the war been sooner ended; and
+nothing is more certain than that any early victory or temporary
+compromise would have simply postponed the struggle, to be settled with
+compound interest. But another benefit has resulted and is resulting
+from the experience of the past two years. Our own Free States have
+abounded with men who are at heart traitors; men who have, by their
+ignorance of the great principles of national welfare involved in this
+war, acted as a continual drawback on our progress. This body of men,
+incapable of comprehending the great principles of republicanism as laid
+down in the Constitution, and as urged by Washington, would be after all
+only partially vanquished should we subdue the rebels. They are around
+us here in our own homes; their treason rings from the halls of national
+legislation; they are busy night and day in their 'copperhead' councils
+in giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and in poisoning the minds of
+the ignorant, by hissing slanders at the President and his advisers as
+being devoid of energy and ability.
+
+It would avail us little could we conclude a peace to-morrow, if these
+aiders and abetters of treason--these foes of all enlightened
+measures--these worse than open rebels--were to remain among us to
+destroy by their selfishness and malignity those great measures by which
+this country is destined to become great. The war is doing us the
+glorious service of bringing the 'copperheads' before the people in
+their true light--the light of foes to equality, to the rights of the
+many, and as perverse friends of all that is anti-American. Who and
+_what_, indeed, are their leaders! Review them all, from FERNANDO WOOD
+down to the wretched SAULSBURY, including W. B. REED, in whose veins
+hereditary traitorous blood seems, with every descent, to have acquired
+a fresh taint--consider the character which has for years attached to
+most of them--and then reflect on what a party must be with such
+leaders!
+
+These men have no desire to be brought distinctly before the public;
+they would by far prefer to burrow in silence. But the war and
+emancipation have proved an Ithuriel's spear to touch the toad and make
+him spring up in his full and naturally fiendish form. The sooner and
+the more distinctly he is seen, the better will it be for the country.
+We must dispose of rebels abroad and copperheads at home ere we can have
+peace, and the sooner the country knows its foes, the better will it be
+for it. We have come at last to either carrying out the great
+centralizing system of an Union, superior to all States Rights, as
+commended by Washington, or to division into a thousand petty
+principalities, each ruled by its WOOD, or other demagogue, who can
+succeed in securing a majority-mob of adherents!
+
+It is with such men and their measures that Gen. GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN,
+the frequently proposed candidate for the next presidency, is becoming
+firmly connected in the minds of the people! Fortunately the war has
+developed the objects of the traitors, and the Union Leagues which are
+springing up by hundreds over the country are doing good service in
+making them thoroughly known. Until treason is fairly rooted out at home
+and abroad, and until _Union at the centre for the people everywhere_ is
+fully enforced, this war can only be concluded now, to be renewed
+in tenfold horror to-morrow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is a complication of interests at present springing up in Europe,
+which is difficult to fathom. Just now it seems as if the Polish
+insurrection were being fomented by Austria, at French instigation, in
+order that the hands of Russia may be tied, so that in case of war with
+America, we may be deprived of the aid of our great European friend.
+England sees it in this light, and angrily protests against Prussian
+interference in the matter. Should a general war result, who would gain
+by it? Would France avail herself of the opportunity to array her forces
+against Prussia, and seize the Rhine, and perhaps Belgium? Or would the
+Emperor avail himself of circumstances to embroil England in a war, and
+then withdraw to a position of profitable neutrality? Let it be borne in
+mind, meantime, that it required all the strength of France, England,
+and Austria, combined, to beat Russia in the Crimea, and that a short
+prolongation of the war would have witnessed the arrival of vast bodies
+of Russian troops--many of whom had been nearly a year on the march.
+Those troops are now far more accessible in case of war.
+
+A war between England and the United States, however it might injure us,
+would be utter ruin to our adversary. With our commerce destroyed, we
+should still have a vast territory left; but nine tenths of England's
+prosperity lies within her wooden walls, which would be swept from the
+ocean. With her exportation destroyed, England would be ruined. We
+should suffer, unquestionably, but we could hold our own, and would
+undoubtedly progress as regards manufacturing. But what would become of
+the British workshops, and how would the British people endure such
+suffering as never yet befell them? Even with our Southern Rebellion on
+our hands, and English men-of-war on our coast, we could still, with our
+merchant marine, bring John Bull to his face. And John Bull knows it.
+
+England is now building, in the cause of slavery and for the South, a
+great fleet of iron-clad pirate vessels, which are intended to prey on
+our commerce. How long will it be before retaliation on England begins,
+and, _when_ it begins, how will it end? Ay--_how_ will it end? It is not
+to be supposed that we can long be blinded by such a flimsy humbug as a
+transfer to Southern possession of these vessels 'for the Chinese
+trade!' Are the English mad, demented, or besotted, that they suppose we
+intend to endure such deliberate aid of our enemies? When those vessels
+'for the Chinese' are afloat, and our merchants begin to suffer, let
+England beware! We are not a people to stop and reason nicely on legal
+points, when they are enforced in the form of fire and death. Better for
+England that she weighed the iron of that fleet pound for pound with
+gold, and cast it into the sea, than that she suffered it to be
+launched. _Qui facit per alium, facit per se._ England is the _real_
+criminal in this business, for her Government could have _prevented_ it;
+and to her we shall look for the responsibility. All through America a
+spirit of fierce indignation has been awakened at hearing of this
+'Chinese' fleet, which will burst out ere long in a storm. We are very
+far from being afraid of war--we are in it; we know what it is like--and
+those who openly, brazenly, infamously, aid our enemies and make war for
+them, shall also learn, let it cost what it may.
+
+England hopes to cover the world's oceans with pirates, with murder,
+rapine, and robbery--to exaggerate still more the horrors of war--and
+yet deems that her commerce will escape! This is a different matter from
+the affair of the Trent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Don't grumble! Don't be incessantly croaking from morning to night at
+the war and the administration and the generals, and everything else!
+Things have gone better on the whole than you imagine, and your endless
+growling is just what the traitors like. Were there no croakers there
+would be no traitors.
+
+It was growling and croaking which caused the reverses of the army of
+the Potomac--sheer grumbling. Now the truth is coming out, and we are
+beginning to see the disadvantages of eternal fault-finding. The truth
+is that the war in the Crimea was much worse conducted than this of ours
+has been--even as regards swindling by contracts--and it was so with
+every other war. We have no monopoly of faults.
+
+Now that the war is being reorganized, we would modestly suggest that a
+little severity--say an occasional halter--would not be out of place as
+regards deserters. There has been altogether too much of this amusement
+in vogue, which a few capital punishments in the beginning would have
+entirely obviated. Pennsylvania, we are told, is full of hulking runaway
+young farmers, and our cities abound in ex-rowdies, who, after securing
+their bounties, have deserted, and who are now aiding treason, and
+spreading 'verdigrease' in every direction by their falsehoods. Let
+every exertion be made to arrest and return these scamps--cost what it
+may; and let their punishment be exemplary. And let there be a new
+policy inaugurated with the new levy, which shall effectually prevent
+all further escaping.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Reader--wherever you are, either join a Union League, or get one up. If
+there be none in your town, gather a few friends together--and mind that
+they be good, loyal Unionists, without a suspicion of verdigrease or
+copperhead poison about them--and at once put yourselves in connection
+with the central Leagues of the great cities. Those of Philadelphia, New
+York and Boston are all conducted by honorable men of the highest
+character--and we may remark, by the way, that in this respect the
+contrast between the leaders of the League and of the Verdigrease Clubs
+is indeed remarkable. When you have formed your League, see that
+addresses are delivered there frequently, that patriotic documents and
+newspapers are collected there, and finally that it does good service in
+every way in forwarding the war, and in promoting the determination to
+preserve the Union.
+
+The copperheads aim not only at letting the South go--they hope to break
+the North to fragments, and trust that in the general crash each of them
+may secure his share. When the war first broke out, FERNANDO WOOD
+publicly recommended the secession of New York as a free city--and a
+very free city it would have been under the rule of Fernando the First!
+And this object of 'dissolution and of division' is still cherished in
+secret among the true leaders of the traitors.
+
+The time has come when every true American should go to work in earnest
+to strengthen the Union and destroy treason, whether in the field or at
+home. A foe to liberty and to human rights is a foe, whether he be a
+fellow countryman or not, and against such foes it is the duty of every
+good citizen to declare himself openly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It will be seen by the annexed that our Art correspondent, a gentleman
+of wide experiences, has gone into the battle. We trust that his
+experiences will amuse the reader. As for the _facts_--never mind!
+
+                                                    CAMP O'BELLOW,
+                                            _Army of the Potomac_.
+
+MY PATRIOTIC FRIEND AND EDITOR:
+
+I have changed my base.
+
+When I last wrote you, it was from the field of art--this time it is
+from the floor of my tent--at least it will be, as soon as my fellows
+pitch it. N. B.--For special information I would add that this is not
+done, as I have seen a Kalmouk do it, with a bucket of pitch and a rag
+on a stick. One way, however, of pitching tents is to pitch 'em down
+when the enemy is coming, and run like the juice. Ha, ha!
+
+But I must not laugh too loudly, as yon small soldier may hear me.
+Little pitchers have long ears.
+
+Now for my sufferings.
+
+The first is my stove.
+
+My stove is made of a camp kettle.
+
+It has such a vile draught that I think of giving it a lesson in
+drawing. _Joke._ Perhaps you remember it of old in the jolly old Studio
+Building in Tenth Street. By the way how is WHITTREDGE?--I believe _he_
+imported that joke from Rome where he learned it of JULES DE MONTALANT
+who acquired it of CHAPMAN who got it from GIBSON, who learned it of
+THORWALDSEN who picked it up from DAVID who stole it from the elder
+VERNET to whom it had come down from MICHAEL ANGELO who cribbed it from
+ALBERT DÜRER who sucked it somehow from GIOTTO.
+
+I wish you could see that stove. I cook in it and on it and all around
+the sides and underneath it. I wash my clothes in it, make punch in it,
+write on it, when cold sit on it, play poker on it, and occasionally use
+it for a trunk. It also gives music, for though it don't draw, it can
+sing.
+
+My second friend is my Iron Bride--the sword. She is a useful creeter.
+Little did I think, when you, my beloved friends, presented me with that
+deadly brand, how useful she would prove in getting at the brandy, when
+I should have occasion to 'decap' a bottle. She kills pigs, cuts cheese,
+toasts pork, slices lemons, stirs coffee, licks the horses, scares
+Secesh, and cuts lead pencils. In a word, if I wished to give useful
+advice to a cavalry officer, it would be not to go to war without a
+sword.
+
+A revolver is also extremely utilitarious. A _large_ revolver, mind you,
+with _six corks_. Mine contains red and black pepper, salt, vinegar,
+oil, and ketchup--when I'm in a hurry. A curious circumstance once
+'transpired,' as the missionaries say, in relation to this article of
+the _quizzeen_. All the barrels were loaded--which I had forgotten--and
+so proceeded to give it an extra charge of groceries. * * *
+
+It was a deadly fray. _Rang tang bang, paoufff!_ We fought as if it had
+been a Sixth Ward election. Suddingly I found myself amid a swarm of my
+country's foes. Sabres slashed at me, and in my rage I determined to
+exterminate something. Looking around from mere force of habit to see
+that there were no police about, I drew my revolver and aimed at JIM
+MARRYGOLD of Charleston, whom I had last seen owling it in New Orleans,
+four years ago. He and DICK MIDDLETONGUE of Natchez (who carved the
+Butcher's Daughter at Florence, and who is now a Secesh major), came
+down with their cheese knives, evidently intending to carve _me_. Such
+language you never heard, such a diluvium of profanity, such
+double-shotted d--ns! I drew my pistol _at once_, and gave Dick a
+blizzard. The ball went through his ear--the red pepper took his eyes,
+while Jim received the shot in his hat, and with it the sweet oil. In
+this sweet state of affairs, CHARLEY RUFFEM of Savannah was descending
+on me with his sabre. (He was the man who said my browns were all put in
+with guano.) I put him out of the way of criticism with a _third_
+barrel--killed him _dead_, and _salted_ him.
+
+The best of this war is, it enables me to exterminate so many _bad
+artists_.
+
+The worst of it is that Charley owed me five dollars.
+
+A fifth Secesh now made his appearance. We went it on the sword, and
+fought--for further particulars see Ivanhoe, volume second. My foe was
+RAWLEY CHIVERS, of Tuscumbia, Ala., and as the mischief would have it,
+he knew all my guards and cuts. We used to fence together, and had had
+more than one trial at _'fertig-los!'_ on the old _Pauk-boden_ in
+Heidelberg.
+
+'POP!' said he on the seventeenth round, 'are we going to chop all day?'
+
+'CHIV,' said I, as I drew my castor, '_are you ready_?'
+
+'Ready,' quoth he, effecting the same manoeuvre--'_one_, _two_,
+_three_.'
+
+I scratched his cheek, but the mustard settled him.
+Sputter--p'l'z'z'z--how he swore! I went at him with both hands.
+
+'_Priz?_' I cried.
+
+'Priz it is,' he answered.
+
+So I took him off as a priz. He was very glad to go too, for he hadn't
+had a dinner for six weeks, and would have made a fine study for a
+Murillo beggar so ar as rags went.
+
+I punish my men whenever I catch them foraging. Punish them by
+confiscation. Mild as I am by nature, I never allow them to keep stolen
+provisions--when I am hungry.
+
+Yesterday evening I detected a vast German private with a colossal
+bull-turkey.
+
+'Lay it down _there_, sir!' I exclaimed fiercely--indicating the floor
+of my tent as the bank of deposit.
+
+'But den when I leafs it you eats de toorky up!' he exclaimed in
+sorrowful remonstrance.
+
+'Yes,' I replied, like a Roman. 'Yes--I may _eat_ it--but,' I added in
+tones of high moral conscientiousness, 'remember that I didn't STEAL
+it!'
+
+He went forth abashed.
+
+No more till it is eaten, from
+
+  Yours truly,
+
+  POPPY OYLE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+We are indebted to a Philadelphia correspondent for the following:
+
+  Alas! that noble thoughts so oft
+  Are born to live but for an hour,
+  Then sleep in slumber of the soul
+  As droops at night the passion flower,
+  Their morn is like a summer sun
+  With splendor dawning on the day--
+  Their eve beholds that glory gone,
+  And light with splendor fled away.
+
+  J. W. L.
+
+True indeed. The difference between the great mind and the small is
+after all that the former can _retain_ its 'noble thoughts,' while with
+the latter they are evanescent. And it is the glory of Art that it
+revives such feelings, and keeps early impressions alive.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FROM THE GERMAN OF HEINE.
+
+
+  My love, in our light boat riding,
+    We sat at the close of day;
+  And still through the night went gliding,
+    Afar on our watery way.
+
+  The Spirit Isle, soft glowing,
+    Lay dimmering 'neath moon and star;
+  There music was softly flowing,
+    And cloud dances waved afar:
+
+  And ever more sweetly pealing,
+    And waving more winningly;
+  But past it our boat went stealing,
+    All sad on the wide, wide sea.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Here is an
+
+ADVENTURE WITH A GRIZZLY BEAR,
+
+from a Philadelphia correspondent:
+
+     'We had gone out one morning, while camping upon the river San
+     Joaquin, to indulge in the sport of fowling. There were three of
+     us, and we possessed two skiffs, but an accident had reduced our
+     sculls to a single pair, which my companion used to propel one of
+     the boats down the stream, after securing the other, with me as its
+     occupant, in the midst of a thicket of tule, where I awaited in
+     ambush the flying flocks. As geese and ducks abounded, and nearly
+     all of my shots told, in a few hours I had killed plenty of game;
+     but becoming weary, as the intervals lengthened between the flights
+     of the birds, I sat down, and had already begun to nod dozingly,
+     when a startling splash, near the river bank, instantly aroused me.
+     Grasping my gun and springing upright, I looked in the direction
+     whence the sound had come; but, owing to the intervening mass of
+     tule, could not see what kind of animal--for such I at once
+     conjectured it must be--had occasioned my sudden surprise. Having
+     hitherto seen no domestic stock hereabouts, I therefore felt fully
+     satisfied that it could not belong to a tame species. Judging from
+     the noise of its still continued movements, it was of no small
+     bulk; and, if its ferocity were correspondent with its apparent
+     size, this was indeed a beast to be dreaded.
+
+     'The thought at once occurred to me that, as I possessed neither
+     oars nor other means of propulsion, it would be difficult to move
+     the boat from its mooring if chance or acuteness of scent should
+     lead the creature to my place of concealment. In short, this, with
+     various suggestions of fancy, some of them ludicrously exaggerated,
+     speedily made me apprehensive of imminent danger. Nor was my
+     suspicion unfounded, for a crisis was at hand.
+
+     'There was a space of clear water between the river bank and the
+     margin of the tule, in which the brute seemed to disport a few
+     moments; and then the rustling of the reeds indicated that it was
+     about to advance. With heavy footfalls it came toward me; as it
+     approached my nervousness increased; I could not mistake that
+     significant tread; undoubtedly it was a grizzly bear. But how could
+     I escape? Bruin, though his progress was not unimpeded, was surely
+     drawing near. Following my first impulse in this pressing
+     emergency, I placed myself forward in the boat, and, seizing a
+     handful of green blades on either side of it, endeavored, by
+     violently pulling upon them, to force the craft through the thick
+     growth which surrounded it. The headway of the skiff was slow, but
+     my efforts were not silent. In fact, the commotion occasioned by my
+     own panic became, to my hearing, so confounded with the sound made
+     by my floundering pursuer that my excited imagination multiplied
+     the single supposed bear, and the water seemed to be dashed about
+     by several formidable 'grizzlies.'
+
+     'You smile, gentlemen, but really I was so impressed with this and
+     like extravagant creations of fear that my better judgment was
+     temporarily suspended. This deception, however, was only of
+     momentary duration.
+
+     'Suddenly the skiff encountered some obstacle and remained
+     immovable. Quickly clutching my gun and firing it aimlessly, I
+     sprang overboard, and, with extraordinary energy, made for the
+     other side of the river and safety.
+
+     'My remembrance of that hazardous crossing even now fills me with a
+     sympathetic thrill. The river, near where I had leaped in, varied
+     in depth from my middle to my neck, and the snaky stalks of tule
+     clung to me, retarding my retreat like faithful allies of the
+     enemy. An area of this plant extended to the channel, a distance of
+     some fifty yards, where a clear current rendered swimming feasible;
+     and this I essayed to reach, urged onward by terror, and regardless
+     of ordinary obstructions. So vigorous was my action that,
+     notwithstanding the frequent reversals of my head and 'head's
+     antipodes' as I tripped over reeds and roots, perhaps I should have
+     reached the 'point proposed' with only a loss equivalent to the
+     proverbial 'year's growth,' had not a hidden snag unluckily lain in
+     the way, which 'by hook or by crook' fastened itself in the part of
+     my trowsers exactly corresponding, when dry, with that 'broad disk
+     of drab' finally seen, after much anxiety, by the curious Geoffrey
+     Crayon between the parted coat-skirts of a certain mysterious
+     'Stout Gentleman,' and inextricably held me in check despite my
+     frantic struggles.
+
+     'Imagine my feelings while thus entangled by a bond of enduring
+     material, a bait for a fierce brute which eagerly pressed forward
+     to snap at me. Believe me, boys, this was _not_ the happiest moment
+     of my life. I knew no reason why I should resignedly submit to so
+     undistinguished a fate. My knife, however, was in the boat, so that
+     my release could only be attained by extreme exertion. Accordingly
+     I writhed and jerked with my 'best violence,' all the time
+     denouncing the whole race of bears, from 'Noah's pets' down; and
+     you may be sure, emphatically expressing not a very exalted opinion
+     of snags.
+
+     'Ah! how that brief period of horrible _suspense_ appeared to
+     stretch out almost to the crack of doom. I roared lustily for help,
+     but no aid came. The bear continued its course through the thicket;
+     in another instant I might be seized.
+
+     'Rather than suffer such a 'taking off' as this, which now seemed
+     inevitable, I should have welcomed as an easy death any method of
+     exit from life that I might hitherto have deprecated. Incited then
+     by the proximity of the beast, which so intensified the horror of
+     my situation, to a last desperate effort to avert this much dreaded
+     fate; and, concentrating nearly a superhuman strength upon one
+     impetuous bound, the _stubborn fabric burst_, and--joy possessed my
+     soul!
+
+     'Even greater than my recent misery was the ecstasy which succeeded
+     my liberation. The happy sense of relief imparted to me such a
+     feeling of buoyancy that I was enabled to extricate myself from
+     this 'slough of despond,' and I soon reached the swift current,
+     when a few strokes landed me in security on a jutting bar.
+
+     'Without unnecessary delay I sought out my comrades, to whom I told
+     the story of my escape. Their response was a hearty laugh, and
+     certain equivocal words which might imply doubt--not as to my
+     fright, for that was too plain--but concerning the identity of the
+     'grizzly.' I observed, however, that, as they rowed nearer to the
+     scene of my disaster, their display of levity lessened; and as we
+     came within sight of the suspicious locality, there was not the
+     'ghost of a joke' on board; but, on the contrary, thay both charged
+     me to 'keep a bright look out,' as well as to 'see that the arms
+     were all right,' thus showing a remarkable diminution of their
+     previous incredulity.
+
+     'While cautiously exploring the vicinity of my memorable flight, we
+     saw the bear in the distance, upon a piece of rising ground. It
+     moved off with a lumbering shuffle and probably a contented
+     stomach, for, on searching for my scattered game, we found but
+     little of it left besides sundry fragments and many feathers.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the old times people received queer names, and plenty of them. On
+Long Island a Mr. Crabb named a child
+'Through-much-tribulation-we-enter-into-the-kingdom-of-heaven Crabb.'
+The child went by the name of _Tribby_. Scores of such names could be
+cited. The practice of giving long and curious names is not yet out of
+date. In Saybrook, Conn., is a family by the name of Beman, whose
+children are successively named as follows:
+
+1. Jonathan Hubbard Lubbard Lambard Hunk Dan Dunk Peter Jacobus Lackany
+Christian Beman.
+
+2. Prince Frederick Henry Jacob Zacheus Christian Beman.
+
+3. Queen Caroline Sarah Rogers Ruhamah Christian Beman.
+
+4. Charity Freelove Ruth Grace Mercy Truth Faith and Hope and Peace
+pursue I'll have no more to do for that will go clear through Christian
+Beman.
+
+Some of the older American names were not unmusical. In a Genealogical
+Register open before us we frequently find Dulcena, Eusena, Sabra, and
+Norman; 'Czarina' also occurs. Rather peculiar at the present day are
+Puah and Azoa (girls), Albion, Ardelia, Philomelia, Serepta, Persis,
+Electa, Typhenia, Lois, Selim, Damarias, Thankful, Sephemia, Zena,
+Experience, Hilpa, Penninnah, Juduthum, Freelove, Luthena, Meriba (this
+lady married 'Oney Anness' at Providence, R.I., in 1785), Paris,
+Francena, Vienna, Florantina, Phedora, Azuba, Achsah, Alma, Arad,
+Asenah, Braman, Cairo, Candace, China (this was a Miss Ware--China
+Ware--who married Moses Bullen at Sherburne, Mass., in 1805), Curatia,
+Deliverance, Diadema, Electus, Hopestill, Izanna, Loannis, Loravia,
+Lovice, Orilla, Orison, Osro, Ozoro, Permelia, Philinda, Roavea,
+Rozilla, Royal, Salmon, Saloma, Samantha, Silence, Siley, Alamena, Eda,
+Aseneth, Bloomy, Syrell, Geneora, Burlin, Idella, Hadasseh, Patrora
+(Martainly), Allethina, Philura, and Zebina.
+
+Some of these names are still extant--most have become obsolete. It
+would be a commendable idea should some scholar publish a work
+containing the Names of all Nations!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Doubtless the reader has heard much of the Wandering Jew and of his
+trials, but we venture to say that he has probably not encountered a
+more affecting state of the case than is set forth in the following
+lyric, translated from the German, in which language it is entitled
+'Ahasver,' and beginneth as follows:
+
+THE EVERLASTING OLD JEW.
+
+  'Ich bin der alte
+     Ahasver,
+   Ich wand're hin,
+     Ich wand're her.
+   Mein Ruh ist hin,
+     Mein Herz ist schwer,
+   Ich finde sie nimmer,
+     Und nimmermehr.'
+
+  I am the old
+    Ahasuér;
+  I wander here,
+    I wander there.
+  My rest is gone,
+    My heart is sair;
+  I find it never,
+    And nevermair.
+
+  Loud roars the storm,
+    The milldams tear;
+  I cannot perish,
+    O _malheur!_
+  My heart is void,
+    My head is bare;
+  I am the old
+    Ahasuér.
+
+  Belloweth ox
+    And danceth bear,
+  I find them never,
+    Never mair.
+  I'm the old Hebrew
+    On a tare;
+  I order arms:
+    My heart is sair.
+
+  I'm goaded round,
+    I know not where:
+  I wander here,
+    I wander there.
+  I'd like to sleep,
+    But must forbear:
+  I am the old
+    Ahasuér.
+
+  I meet folks alway
+    Unaware:
+  My rest is gone,
+    I'm in despair.
+  I cross all lands,
+    The sea I dare:
+  I travel here,
+    I wander there.
+
+  I feel each pain,
+    I sometimes swear:
+  I am the old
+    Ahasuér.
+  Criss-cross I wander
+    Anywhere;
+  I find it never,
+    Never mair.
+
+  Against the wale
+    I lean my spear;
+  I find no quiet,
+    I declare.
+  My peace is lost,
+    My heart is sair:
+  I swing like pendulum in air.
+
+  I'm hard of hearing,
+    You're aware?
+  Curaçoa is
+    A fine _liquéur_.
+  I 'listed once
+    _En militaire_:
+  I find no comfort
+    Anywhere.
+
+  But what's to stop it?
+    Pray declare!
+  My peace is gone.
+    My heart is sair:
+  I am the old
+    Ahasuér.
+  Now I know nothing,
+    Nothing mair.
+
+Truly a hard case, and one far surpassing the paltry picturing of Eugène
+Sue. There is a vagueness of mind and a senile bewilderment manifested
+in this poem, which is indeed remarkable.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One fine day, some time ago, SAVIN and PIDGEON were walking down Fifth
+avenue to their offices.
+
+A funeral was starting from No. --. On the door plate was the word
+IRVING.
+
+'Such is life,' said Savin. 'All that is mortal of the great essayist is
+being borne to the grave: in fact, the cold and silent tomb.'
+
+A tear came to Pidgeon's eye. Pidgeon has an enthusiastic veneration for
+genius. He adores literary talent.
+
+'Savin,' said he, 'there is a seat vacant in this carriage. I will enter
+it, and pay my last tribute of respect to the illustrious departed. But
+I thought he had a place up the river.'
+
+'This was his town house,' said Savin. 'How I should like to join with
+you in your thoughtful remembrance, and in your somewhat unceleritous
+journey to the churchyard! But, no, the case of Blackbridge _vs._
+Bridgeblack will be called at twelve, and I have no time to lose.'
+
+Pidgeon entered the carriage. There was a large man on the seat, but
+Pigeon found room beside him. The carriage slowly moved off. Pidgeon put
+his handkerchief to his eyes; the large man coughed and took a chew of
+tobacco.
+
+Presently said Pidgeon:
+
+'We are following to the grave the remains of a splendid writer.'
+
+'Uncommon,' said the large man. 'Sech a man with a pen _I_ never
+see--ekalled by few, and excelled by none; copperplate wasn't nowhere.'
+
+'Indeed,' replied Pidgeon, 'I wasn't aware his chirography was so
+unusually elegant; but his books were magnificent, weren't they? So
+equable, too, and without that bold speculation that we too often meet
+with, nowadays.'
+
+'Ah, you may well say so,' returned the large man. 'He always kept them
+himself; had 'em sent up to his house whenever he was sick, likeways;
+but he wasn't without his bold speculations neither. Look at that there
+operation of his into figs, last year.'
+
+'Figs!'
+
+'Figs, yes; and there was dates into the same cargo.'
+
+'Dates! figs! My good friend, do you mean to say that the great
+Washington Irving speculated in groceries?'
+
+'Lord, no, not that _I_ know of. This here is Josh Irving, whose
+remains'--
+
+Pidgeon opened the carriage door, and, being agile, got out without
+stopping the procession. Arriving at his office, where the boy was
+diligently occupied in sticking red wafers over the velvet of his desk
+lid, he took down 'Sugden on Vendors,' to ascertain if there was any
+legal remedy for the manner in which he had been sold, and at the latest
+dates had unsuccessfully travelled nearly half through that very
+entertaining volume.
+
+THERE is no time to be lost. Either the Union is to be made stronger, or
+it is to perish; and the sooner every man's position is defined, the
+better. If you are opposed to the war, say so, and step over to
+Secession, but do not falter and equivocate, croak and grumble, and play
+the bat of the fable. The manly, good, old-fashioned Democrats, at
+least, are above this, and are rapidly dividing from the copperheads.
+The Philadelphia _Evening Bulletin_, a staunch patriotic journal, says:
+
+'The sooner that the fact is made clear that the mass of the Democrats,
+as well as of all other parties, are loyal and opposed to the infamous
+teachings of Vallandigham, Biddle, Reed, Ingersoll, Wood, and their
+compeers, the sooner will the war be brought to an end and the Union be
+restored.'
+
+Show your colors. Let us know at once who and what everybody is, in this
+great struggle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LOVE-LIFE.
+
+  In a forest lone, 'neath a mossy stone,
+    Pale flowrets grew:
+  No sunlight fell in the sombre dell,
+    Raindrop nor dew.
+
+  Bring them to light, where all is bright,
+    See if they grow?
+  Yes, stem and leaf are green,
+  While, hid in crimson sheen,
+    The petals glow.
+
+  Girl blossoms, too, love the sun and dew,
+    And the soft air:
+  Hidden from love's eye they fade and die,
+  In city low or cloister high,
+    Yes, everywhere.
+
+  Give them but love, the fire from above,
+    And they will grow,
+  The once cold children of the gloom,
+  Rich in their bloom, shedding perfume
+    On high and low.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We beg leave to remind our readers that Mr. LELAND'S new book, _Sunshine
+in Thought_, retail price $1, is given as a premium to all who subscribe
+$3 in advance to the CONTINENTAL MONTHLY. Will the reader permit us to
+call attention to the following notice of the work from the Philadelphia
+_Evening Bulletin_:
+
+     'A beautiful volume, entitled _Sunshine in Thought_, by Charles
+     Godfrey Leland, has just been published by Charles T. Evans. No
+     work from Mr. Leland's pen has afforded us so much pleasure, and we
+     recommend it to all who want and relish bright, refreshing,
+     cheering reading. It consists of a number of essays, the main idea
+     of which is to inculcate joyousness in thought and feeling, in
+     opposition to the sickly, sentimental seriousness which is so much
+     affected in literature and in society. That a volume based on this
+     one idea should be filled with reading that is never tiresome, is a
+     proof of great cleverness. But Mr. Leland's varied learning, and
+     his extensive acquaintance with foreign as well as English
+     literature, combine with his native talent to qualify him for such
+     a work. He has done nothing so well, not even his admirable
+     translation of Heine's _Reisebilder_. He is thoroughly imbued with
+     the spirit of his motto, '_Hilariter_,' and in expressing his
+     bright thoughts, he has been peculiarly felicitous in style.
+     Nothing of his that we have read shows so much elegance and polish.
+     Every chapter in the book is delightful, but we especially enjoyed
+     that on 'Tannhæuser,' with the fine translation and subsequent
+     elucidation of the famous legend.' But the boldest and most
+     original chapter is the concluding one, with its strange
+     speculations on 'The Musical After-Life of the Soul,' and the
+     after-death experience of 'Dione' and 'Bel-er-oph-on,' which the
+     author characterizes in the conclusion as 'an idle, fantastic,
+     foolish dream.' So it may be, but it is as vividly told as any
+     dream of the Opium-Eater or the Hasheesh-Eater. Mr. Leland is to be
+     congratulated on his _Sunshine in Thought_. It is a book that will
+     be enjoyed by every reader of culture, and its effect will be good
+     wherever it is read.'
+
+The aim proposed in this work is one of great interest at the present
+time, or, as the Philadelphia _North American_ declares, 'is a great and
+noble one'--'to aid in fully developing the glorious problem of freeing
+labor from every drawback, and of constantly raising it and intellect in
+the social scale.' 'Mr. LELAND believes that one of the most powerful
+levers for raising labor to its true position in the estimation of the
+world, is the encouragement of cheerfulness and joyousness in every
+phase of literature and of practical life.' 'The work is one long,
+glowing sermon, the text of which is the example of Jesus Christ.'
+
+  E. K.
+
+
+BUST-HEAD WHISKEY.
+
+For two days the quiet of the Rising Sun Tavern, in the quaint little
+town of Shearsville, Ohio, was disturbed by a drunken Democratic member
+of the Pennsylvania Legislature, who visited the town in order to
+address what he hoped would turn out to be the assembled multitude of
+copperheads, but which proved after all no great snakes!
+
+For two days this worthless vagabond insulted travellers stopping at the
+tavern, until at last the landlord's wife, a woman of some intelligence,
+determined to have her revenge, since no man on the premises had pluck
+enough to give the sot the thrashing he so well merited.
+
+On the third day, after a very severe night's carouse on bust-head
+whiskey, the Pennsylvanian appeared at the breakfast table, looking
+sadly the worse for wear, and having an awful headache. The landlady
+having previously removed the only looking glass in the tavern--one
+hanging in the barroom--said to the beast as he sat down to table:
+
+'Poor man! oh, what _is_ the matter with your face? It is terribly
+swollen, and your whole head too. Can't I do something for you? send for
+the doctor, or'--
+
+The legislator, who was in a state of half-besottedness, listened with
+sharp ears to this remark, but believing the landlady was only making
+fun of him, interrupted her with--
+
+'There ain't nothin' the matter with my head. I'm all right; only a
+little headache what don't 'mount to nothing.'
+
+But a man who sat opposite to him at table, and who had his clue from
+the landlady, said with an alarmed look--
+
+'I say, mister, I don't know it's any of my business, but I'll be hanged
+for a horse thief, if your head ain't swelled up twicet its nat'ral
+size. You'd better do something for it, I'm thinking.'
+
+The drunken legislator! (Legislator, _n._ One who makes laws for a
+state: vide dictionary) believing at last that his face must in fact be
+swollen, since several other travellers, who were in the plot, also
+spoke to him of his shocking appearance, got up from the table and went
+out to the barroom to consult the looking glass, such luxuries not being
+placed in the chambers. But there was no glass there. After some time he
+found the landlady, and she told him that the barroom glass was broken,
+but she could lend him a small one; which she at once gave him.
+
+The poor sot, with trembling hand, held it in front of his face, and
+looked in.
+
+'Well,' said he, 'if that ain't a swelled head I hope I may never be a
+senator! or sell my vote again at Harrisburg.'
+
+'Poor man!' exclaimed the bystanders.
+
+'Fellers,' said the legislator, 'wot d'ye think I'd better do?' Here he
+gave another hard look in the glass. 'I ought to be back in Harrisburg
+right off, but I cant go with a head like that onto me. Nobody'd give me
+ten cents to vote for 'em with such a head as that. It's a'--
+
+'Big thing,' interrupted a bystander.
+
+'Fellers,' said the blackguard, 'I'll kill a feller any day of the week,
+with old rye, if he'll only tell er feller how to cure this head of
+mine.'
+
+'Have it shaved, sir, by all means,' spoke the landlady: 'shaved at
+once, and then a mild fly blister will draw out the inflammation, and
+the swelling will go down. Don't you think so, doctor?'
+
+The doctor thus addressed was a cow doctor, but, accustomed to attending
+brutes, his advice was worth something in the present case; so he also
+recommended shaving and blistering.
+
+'I'll go git the barber right off the reel, sha'n't I?' asked the
+doctor, to which the legislator assenting, it chanced that in fifteen
+minutes his head was as bald as a billiard ball, and in a few more was
+covered with a good-sized fly blister.
+
+'Ouch--good woman--how it hurts!' he cried. But that was only the
+beginning of it.
+
+'Ee-ea-ah!' he roared, as it grew hotter and hotter. One might have
+heard him a mile. The neighbors did hear it, and rushed in. The joke was
+'contaminated' round among them, and they enjoyed it. He had disgusted
+them all.
+
+'Golly! what a big head!' cried a bystander.
+
+The legislator took another look at the glass. They held it about a yard
+from him.
+
+'It's gittin' smaller, ain't it?' he groaned.
+
+'Yes, it's wiltin',' said the landlady. 'Now go to bed.'
+
+He went, and on rising departed. Whether he ever became an honest man is
+not known, but the legend says he has from that day avoided 'bust-head
+whiskey.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Don't you _see_ it, reader? The landlady had shown him his face in a
+convex mirror--one of those old-fashioned things, which may occasionally
+be found in country taverns.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WAR-WAIFS.
+
+The chronicles of war in all ages show us that this internecine strife
+into which we of the North have been driven by those who will eventually
+rue the necessity, is by no manner of means the first in which brother
+has literally been pitted against brother in the deadly 'tug of war.'
+The fiercest conflict of the kind, however, which we can at present call
+up from the memory of past readings, was one in which THEODEBERT, king
+of Austria, took the field against his own brother, THIERRI, king of
+Burgundy. Historians tell us that, so close was the hand-to-hand
+fighting in this battle, slain soldiers did not fall until the _mélée_
+was over, but were borne to and fro in an upright position amid the
+serried ranks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Although many and many of England's greatest battles have been won for
+her by her Irish soldiers, it is not always that the latter can be
+depended upon by her. With the Celt, above all men, 'blood is thicker
+than water;' and, although he is very handy at breaking the head of
+another Celt with a blackthorn 'alpeen,' in a free faction fight, he
+objects to making assaults upon his fellow countrymen with the 'pomp and
+circumstance of war.' A striking instance of this occurred during the
+Irish rebellion of 1798. The 5th Royal Irish Light Dragoons refused to
+charge upon a body of the rebels when the word was given. Not a man or
+horse stirred from the ranks. Here was a difficult card to play, now,
+for the authorities, because it would have been inconvenient to try the
+whole regiment by court martial, and the soldiers were quite too
+valuable to be mowed down _en masse_. The only course left was to
+disband the regiment, which was done. The disaffected men were
+distributed into regiments serving in India and other remote colonies,
+and the officers, none of whom, we believe, were involved in the mutiny,
+were provided for in various quarters. The circumstance was commemorated
+in a curious way. It was ordered that the 5th Royal Irish Light Dragoons
+should be erased from the records of the army list, in which a blank
+between the 4th and 6th Dragoons should remain forever, as a memorial of
+disgrace. For upward of half a century this gap remained in the army
+list, as anybody may see by referring to any number of that publication
+of half-a-dozen years back. The regiment was revived during, or just
+after, the Crimean war, and the numbers in the army list are once more
+complete.
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+CONTINENTAL MONTHLY.
+
+
+The readers of the CONTINENTAL are aware of the important position it
+has assumed, of the influence which it exerts, and of the brilliant
+array of political and literary talent of the highest order which
+supports it. No publication of the kind has, in this country, so
+successfully combined the energy and freedom of the daily newspaper with
+the higher literary tone of the first-class monthly; and it is very
+certain that no magazine has given wider range to its contributors, or
+preserved itself so completely from the narrow influences of party or of
+faction. In times like the present, such a journal is either a power in
+the land or it is nothing. That the CONTINENTAL is not the latter is
+abundantly evidenced _by what it has done_--by the reflection of its
+counsels in many important public events, and in the character and power
+of those who are its staunchest supporters.
+
+Though but little more than a year has elapsed since the CONTINENTAL was
+first established, it has during that time acquired a strength and a
+political significance elevating it to a position far above that
+previously occupied by any publication of the kind in America. In proof
+of which assertion we call attention, to the following facts:
+
+1. Of its POLITICAL articles republished in pamphlet form, a single one
+has had, thus far, a circulation of _one hundred and six thousand_
+copies.
+
+2. From its LITERARY department, a single serial novel, "Among the
+Pines," has, within a very few months, sold nearly _thirty-five
+thousand_ copies. Two other series of its literary articles have also
+been republished in book form, while the first portion of a third is
+already in press.
+
+No more conclusive facts need be alleged to prove the excellence of the
+contributions to the CONTINENTAL, or their _extraordinary popularity_;
+and its conductors are determined that it shall not fall behind.
+Preserving all "the boldness, vigor, and ability" which a thousand
+journals have attributed to it, it will greatly enlarge its circle of
+action, and discuss, fearlessly and frankly, every principle involved in
+the great questions of the day. The first minds of the country,
+embracing the men most familiar with its diplomacy and most
+distinguished for ability, are among its contributors; and it is no mere
+"flattering promise of a prospectus" to say that this "magazine for the
+times" will employ the first intellect in America, under auspices which
+no publication ever enjoyed before in this country.
+
+While the CONTINENTAL will express decided opinions on the great
+questions of the day, it will not be a mere political journal: much the
+larger portion of its columns will be enlivened, as heretofore, by
+tales, poetry, and humor. In a word, the CONTINENTAL will be found,
+under its new staff of Editors, occupying, a position and presenting
+attractions never before found in a magazine.
+
+
+
+
+TERMS TO CLUBS.
+
+  Two copies for one year,         Five dollars.
+
+  Three copies for one year,       Six dollars.
+
+  Six copies for one year,         Eleven dollars.
+
+  Eleven copies for one year,      Twenty dollars.
+
+  Twenty copies for one year,      Thirty-six dollars.
+
+  PAID IN ADVANCE.
+
+  _Postage, Thirty-six cents a year_, TO BE PAID BY THE SUBSCRIBER.
+
+  SINGLE COPIES.
+
+  Three dollars a year, IN ADVANCE. _Postage paid by the Publisher._
+
+
+  JOHN F. TROW, 50 Greene St, N.Y.,
+
+  PUBLISHER FOR THE PROPRIETORS.
+
+
+[Symbol: Hand] As an inducement to new subscribers, the Publisher
+offers the following liberal premiums:
+
+[Symbol: Hand] Any person remitting $3, in advance, will receive the
+magazine from July, 1862, to January, 1864, thus securing the whole of
+Mr. KIMBALL's and Mr. KIRKE's new serials, which are alone worth the
+price of subscription. Or, if preferred, a subscriber can take the
+magazine for 1863 and a copy of "Among the Pines," or of "Undercurrents
+of Wall Street," by R. B. KIMBALL, bound in cloth, or of "Sunshine in
+Thought," by CHARLES GODFREY LELAND (retail price, $1.25.) The book to
+be sent postage paid.
+
+[Symbol: Hand] Any person remitting $4.50, will receive the magazine
+from its commencement, January, 1862, to January, 1864, thus securing
+Mr. KIMBALL's "Was He Successful?" and Mr. KIRKE's "Among the Pines,"
+and "Merchant's Story," and nearly 3,000 octavo pages of the best
+literature in the world. Premium subscribers to pay their own postage.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE FINEST FARMING LANDS
+
+_WHEAT CORN COTTON FRUITS & VEGETABLES_]
+
+EQUAL TO ANY IN THE WORLD!!!
+
+MAY BE PROCURED
+
+At FROM $8 to $12 PER ACRE,
+
+Near Markets, Schools, Railroads, Churches, and all the blessings of
+Civilization.
+
+1,200,000 Acres, in Farms of 40, 80, 120, 160 Acres and upwards, in
+ILLINOIS, the Garden State of America.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The Illinois Central Railroad Company offer, ON LONG CREDIT, the
+    beautiful and fertile PRAIRIE LANDS lying along the whole line of
+    their Railroad, 700 MILES IN LENGTH, upon the most Favorable Terms
+    for enabling Farmers, Manufacturers, Mechanics and Workingmen to
+    make for themselves and their families a competency, and a HOME they
+    can call THEIR OWN, as will appear from the following statements:
+
+
+ILLINOIS.
+
+Is about equal in extent to England, with a population of 1,722,666 and
+a soil capable of supporting 20,000,000. No State in the Valley of the
+Mississippi offers so great an inducement to the settler as the State of
+Illinois. There is no part of the world where all the conditions of
+climate and soil so admirably combine to produce those two great
+staples, CORN and WHEAT.
+
+
+CLIMATE.
+
+Nowhere can the industrious farmer secure such immediate results from
+his labor as on these deep, rich, loamy soils, cultivated with so much
+ease. The climate from the extreme southern part of the State to the
+Terre Haute, Alton and St. Louis Railroad, a distance of nearly 200
+miles, is well adapted to Winter.
+
+
+WHEAT, CORN, COTTON, TOBACCO.
+
+Peaches, Pears, Tomatoes, and every variety of fruit and vegetables is
+grown in great abundance, from which Chicago and other Northern markets
+are furnished from four to six weeks earlier than their immediate
+vicinity. Between the Terre Haute, Alton & St. Louis Railway and the
+Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, (it distance of 115 miles on the Branch,
+and 136 miles on the Main Trunk,) lies the great Corn and Stock raising
+portion of the State.
+
+
+THE ORDINARY YIELD
+
+of Corn is from 50 to 80 bushels per acre. Cattle, Horses, Mules, Sheep
+and Hogs are raised here at a small cost, and yield large profits. It is
+believed that no section of country presents greater inducements for
+Dairy Farming than the Prairies of Illinois, a branch of farming to
+which but little attention has been paid, and which must yield sure
+profitable results. Between the Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, and
+Chicago and Dunleith, (a distance of 56 miles on the Branch and 147
+miles by the Main Trunk,) Timothy Hay, Spring Wheat, Corn, &c., are
+produced in great abundance.
+
+
+AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS.
+
+The Agricultural products of Illinois are greater than those of any
+other State. The Wheat crop of 1861 was estimated at 85,000,000 bushels,
+while the Corn crop yields not less than 140,000,000 bushels besides the
+crop of Oats, Barley, Rye, Buckwheat, Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes,
+Pumpkins, Squashes, Flax, Hemp, Peas, Clover, Cabbage, Beets, Tobacco,
+Sorghum, Grapes, Peaches, Apples. &c., which go to swell the vast
+aggregate of production in this fertile region. Over Four Million tons
+of produce were sent out the State of Illinois during the past year.
+
+
+STOCK RAISING.
+
+In Central and Southern Illinois uncommon advantages are presented for
+the extension of Stock raising. All kinds of Cattle, Horses, Mules,
+Sheep, Hogs, &c., of the best breeds, yield handsome profits; large
+fortunes have already been made, and the field is open for others to
+enter with the fairest prospects of like results. DAIRY FARMING also
+presents its inducements to many.
+
+
+CULTIVATION OF COTTON.
+
+_The experiments in Cotton culture are of very great promise. Commencing
+in latitude 39 deg. 30 min. (see Mattoon on the Branch, and Assumption
+the Main Line), the Company owns thousands of acres well adapted to the
+perfection of this fibre. A settler having a family of young children,
+can turn their youthful labor to a most profitable account in the growth
+and perfection of this plant._
+
+
+THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD
+
+Traverses the whole length of the State, from the banks of the
+Mississippi and Lake Michigan to the Ohio, As its name imports, the
+Railroad runs through the centre of the State, and on either side of the
+road along its whole length lie the lands offered for sale.
+
+
+CITIES, TOWNS, MARKETS DEPOTS.
+
+There are Ninety-eight Depots on the Company's Railway, giving about one
+every seven miles. Cities, Towns and Villages are situated at convenient
+distances throughout the whole route, where every desirable commodity
+may be found as readily as in the oldest cities of the Union and where
+buyers are to be met for all kinds of farm produce.
+
+
+EDUCATION.
+
+Mechanics and working-men will find the free school system encouraged by
+the State, and endowed with a large revenue for the support of the
+schools. Children can live in sight of the school, the college, the
+church, and grow up with the prosperity of the leading State in the
+Great Western Empire.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+PRICES AND TERMS OF PAYMENT--ON LONG CREDIT.
+
+80 acres at $10 per acre with interest at 6 per ct. annually on the
+following terms:
+
+  Cash payment               $48.00
+  Payment in one year         48.00
+     "    in two years        48.00
+     "    in three years      48.00
+     "    in four years      236.00
+     "    in five years      224.00
+     "    in six years       212.00
+     "    in seven years     200.00
+
+  40 acres, at $10.00 per acre:
+
+  Cash payment               $24.00
+  Payment in one year         24.00
+     "     in two years       24.00
+     "     in three years     24.00
+     "     in four years     118.00
+     "     in five years     112.00
+     "     in six years      106.00
+     "     in seven years    100.00
+
+
+
+
+Number 17.
+
+25 Cents.
+
+THE
+
+CONTINENTAL
+
+MONTHLY.
+
+DEVOTED TO
+
+Literature and National Policy.
+
+MAY, 1863.
+
+  NEW YORK:
+  JOHN F. TROW 50 GREENE STREET
+  (FOR THE PROPRIETORS).
+
+  HENRY DEXTER AND SINCLAIR TOUSEY.
+  WASHINGTON, D.C.: FRANCK TAYLOR.
+
+
+CONTENTS.--No. XVII.
+
+  The Great Prairie State. By Mrs. C. M. Kirkland,                   513
+
+  A Winter in Camp. By E. G. Hammond,                                519
+
+  In Memoriam. By Richard Wolcott,                                   527
+
+  A Merchant's Story. By Edmund Kirke,                               528
+
+  Shylock _vs._ Antonio. By Carlton Edwards                          539
+
+  A Heroine of To-Day,                                               543
+
+  National Ode,                                                      554
+
+  The Surrender of Forts Jackson and St. Philip,
+    on the Mississippi. By F. H. Gerdes. Assistant
+    U. S. Coast Survey,                                              557
+
+  Reason, Rhyme, and Rhythm. By Mrs. Martha Cook,                    562
+
+  The Value of the Union. By William H. Muller,                      571
+
+  War Song--Earth's Last Battle. By Mrs. Martha Cook,                586
+
+  Miriam's Testimony. By M. A. Edwards,                              589
+
+  The Destiny of the African Race in the United States.
+    By Rev. J. M. Sturtevant, D.D.,                                  600
+
+  Was He Successful? By Richard B. Kimball,                          611
+
+  The Union. By Hon. Robert J. Walker,                               615
+
+  The Causes and Results of the War. By Lieut. Egbert
+    Phelps, U.S.A                                                    617
+
+  Great Heart,                                                       629
+
+  Literary Notices                                                   630
+
+
+The June No. of the Continental will contain an article on 'The
+Confederation and the Nation,' by Edward Carey.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by JAMES R.
+GILMORE, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United
+States for the Southern District of New York.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV,
+April 1863, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTINENTAL MONTHLY, APRIL 1863 ***
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+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April
+1863, 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: Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863
+       Devoted to Literature and National Policy
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: August 19, 2009 [EBook #29736]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTINENTAL MONTHLY, APRIL 1863 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by Cornell
+University Digital Collections)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h2>THE</h2>
+
+<h1>CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:</h1>
+
+<h4>DEVOTED TO</h4>
+
+<h2>Literature and National Policy.</h2>
+
+
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">Vol. III.</span>&mdash;APRIL, 1863.&mdash;No. IV.</h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+
+<div class='centered'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" width="65%" cellspacing="0" summary="CONTENTS">
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_WONDERS_OF_WORDS">THE WONDERS OF WORDS.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_CHECH">THE CHECH.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#PICTURES_FROM_THE_NORTH">PICTURES FROM THE NORTH.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_NEW_RASSELAS">THE NEW RASSELAS.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_CHAINED_RIVER">THE CHAINED RIVER.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#HOW_THE_WAR_AFFECTS_AMERICANS">HOW THE WAR AFFECTS AMERICANS.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#PROMOTED">PROMOTED!</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#HENRIETTA_AND_VULCAN">HENRIETTA AND VULCAN.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ETHEL">ETHEL.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_SKEPTICS_OF_THE_WAVERLEY_NOVELS">THE SKEPTICS OF THE WAVERLEY NOVELS.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#A_CHORD_OF_WOOD">A CHORD OF WOOD.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#A_MERCHANTS_STORY">A MERCHANT'S STORY.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#WAR">WAR.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#A_CHAPTER_ON_WONDERS">A CHAPTER ON WONDERS.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_RETURN">THE RETURN.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_UNION">THE UNION.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#DOWN_IN_TENNESSEE">DOWN IN TENNESSEE.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#POETRY_AND_POETICAL_SELECTIONS">POETRY AND POETICAL SELECTIONS.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#PATRIA_SPES_ULTIMA_MUNDI">PATRIA SPES ULTIMA MUNDI.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#A_FANCY_SKETCH">A FANCY SKETCH.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_SOLDIER">THE SOLDIER.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#OUR_PRESENT_POSITION_ITS_DANGERS_AND_ITS_DUTIES">OUR PRESENT POSITION: ITS DANGERS AND ITS DUTIES.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_COMPLAINING_BORE">THE COMPLAINING BORE.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#DEATH_OF_THE_BRAVE">DEATH OF THE BRAVE.</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#LITERARY_NOTICES">LITERARY NOTICES</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#EDITORS_TABLE">EDITOR'S TABLE</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CONTENTS_No_XVII">CONTENTS.&mdash;No. XVII.</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_WONDERS_OF_WORDS" id="THE_WONDERS_OF_WORDS"></a>THE WONDERS OF WORDS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Every nation has its legend of a 'golden age'&mdash;when all was young and
+fresh and fair&mdash;'<i>comme les couleurs primitives de la nature</i>'&mdash;even
+before the existence of this gaunt shadow of Sorrow&mdash;<i>the shadow of
+ourselves</i>&mdash;that ever stalks in company with us;&mdash;an epoch of Saturnian
+rule, when gods held sweet converse with men, and man primeval bounded
+with all the elasticity of god-given juvenility:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">('Ah! remember,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">This&mdash;all this&mdash;was in the olden</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Time long ago.')</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>And even now, in spite of our atheism and our apathism, amid all the
+overwhelming world-influences of this great 'living Present'&mdash;the ghost
+of the dead Past will come rushing back upon us with its solemn voices
+and its infinite wailings of pity: but soft and faint it comes; for the
+wild jarrings of the Now almost prevent us from hearing its still, small
+voices. It</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Is but a <i>dim-remembered</i> story</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Of the old time entombed.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Besides, what is History but the story of the bygone? The elegy, too,
+comes to us as the last lamenting, sadly solemn swan-song of that
+glorious golden time. And, indeed, are not all poesies but various notes
+of that mighty diapason of Thought and Feeling, that has, through the
+ages, been singing itself in jubilee and wail?</p>
+
+<p>So it is in the individual&mdash;(for is not the individual ever the
+rudimental, formula-like expression of that awful problem which nations
+and humanity itself are slowly and painfully working out?): in the
+'moonlight of memory' these sorrowful mementos revisit every one of us;
+and</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">&mdash;&mdash;'But I am not <i>now</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That which I <i>have been</i>'&mdash;</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>and <i>vanitas vanitatum!</i> are not only the satisfied croakings of <i>blas&eacute;</i>
+Childe Harolds, but our universal experience; while from childhood's
+gushing glee even unto manhood's sad satiety, we feel that all are
+nought but the phantasmagoria</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;">'of a creature</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Moving about in worlds not realized</i>.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Listen now to a snatch of melody:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">'The rainbow comes and goes,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And lovely is the rose,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The moon doth with delight</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Look round her when the heavens are bare;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Waters on a starry night</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Are beautiful and fair;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The sunshine is a glorious birth;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But yet I know, wherever I go,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That there hath passed away a glory from the earth!'</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So saith the mild Braminical Wordsworth. Now it will be remembered that
+Wordsworth, in that glorious ode whence we extract the above, develops
+the Platonic idea (shall we call Platonic that which has been
+entertained by the wise and the <i>feeling</i> of all times?) of a shadowy
+recollection of past and eternal existence in the profundities of the
+Divine Heart. 'It sounds forth here a mournful remembrance of a faded
+world of gods and heroes&mdash;as the echoing plaint for the loss of man's
+original, celestial state, and paradisiacal innocence.' And then we have
+those transcendent lines that come to us like aromatic breezes blowing
+from the Spice Islands:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">'Hence in a season of calm weather,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Though inland far we be,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Our souls have sight of that immortal sea,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Which brought us hither,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Can in a moment travel thither,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And see the Children sport upon the shore,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>But,</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 8.5em;">'descending</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From these imaginative heights that yield</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Far-stretching views into eternity,'&mdash;</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>what have the golden age and Platonic <i>dicta</i> to do with our
+word-ramble? A good deal. For we will endeavor to show that words, being
+the very sign-manual of man's convictions, contain the elements of what
+may throw light on both. To essay this:</p>
+
+<p>Why is it that we generally speak of death as a 'return,' or a 'return
+home'? And how is it that this same idea has so remarkably interwoven
+itself with the very warp and woof of our language and poetry?&mdash;so that
+in our fervency, we can sing:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Jerusalem, my glorious <i>home</i>,' etc.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Does not the very idea (not to mention the composition of the word) of a
+'return' involve a previously having been in the place? And we can
+scarcely call that 'home' where we have never been before. So, that 'old
+Hebrew book' sublimely tells us that 'the spirit of the man <i>returneth</i>
+to God who gave it.'</p>
+
+<p>Is it possible that these can be obscure intimations of that bygone time
+when <span class="smcap">WE</span> were rocked in the bosom of the Divine consciousness?
+Perhaps.... And now if the reader will pardon a piece of moralizing, we
+would say that these expressions teach us in the most emphatic way
+that&mdash;'<i>This is not our rest</i>.' So that when we have dived into every
+mine of knowledge and drunk from every fountain of pleasure; when, with
+Dante, we arrive at the painful conclusion that</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Tutto l'oro, ch'&egrave; sotto la luna,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E che gi&agrave; fu, di queste anime stanche</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Non poterebbe farne posar una,'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>(since, indeed, the Finite can never gain entire satisfaction in
+itself)&mdash;we may not despair, but still the heart-throbbings, knowing
+that He who has&mdash;for a season&mdash;enveloped us in the mantle of this
+sleep-rounded life, and thrown around himself the drapery of the
+universe&mdash;spangling it with stars&mdash;will again take us back to his
+fatherly bosom.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhat analogous to these, and arguing the eternity of our existence,
+we have such words as 'decease,' which merely imports a <i>withdrawal</i>;
+'demise,' implying also a laying down, a <i>removal</i>. By the way, it is
+rather curious to observe the notions in the mind of mankind that have
+given rise to the words expressing 'death.' Thus we have the Latin word
+<i>mors</i>&mdash;allied, perhaps, to the Greek &#956;&#8001;&#953;&#961;&#945; and
+&#956;&#959;&#7985;&#961;&#945;,<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> from &#956;&#949;&#7985;&#961;&#959;&#956;&#945;&#953;&mdash;to <i>portion out</i>, to <i>assign</i>. Even
+this, however, there was a repulsion to using; and both the Greeks and
+Romans were wont to slip clear of the employment of their
+&#952;&#7937;&#957;&#945;&#964;&#959;&#962;, <i>mors</i>, etc., by such circumlocutions as <i>vitam suam mutare,
+transire e seculo</i>; &#954;&#959;&#953;&#956;&#7969;&#963;&#945;&#964;&#959; chalkeon hypnon]&mdash;<i>he slept the
+brazen sleep</i> (Homer's Iliad, &#955;, 241); &#948;&#7953; &#963;&#954;&#8001;&#964;&#959;&#962; &#959;&#963;&#963; &#949;&#954;&#7937;&#955;&#965;&#968;&#949;&#957;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span>&mdash;<i>and darkness covered his eyes</i> (Iliad,
+&#918;, 11); or <i>he completeth the destiny of life</i>, etc. This reminds us
+of the French aversion to uttering their <i>mort</i>. These expressions,
+again, are suggestive of our 'fate,' with an application similar to the
+Latin <i>fatum</i>, which, indeed, is none other than 'id quod <i>fatum est</i> a
+deis'&mdash;a God's word. So that in this sense we may all be considered
+'fatalists,' and all things <i>fated</i>. Why not? However, in the following
+from <i>Festus</i>, it is the 'deil' that makes the assertion:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'<span class="smcap">Festus.</span>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  Forced on us.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class="smcap">Lucifer.</span>&nbsp; <i>All things are of necessity.</i></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class="smcap">Festus.</span>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;  Then best.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">But the good are never fatalists. The bad</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Alone act by necessity, they say.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class="smcap">Lucifer.</span> It matters not what men assume to be;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Or good, or bad, they are but what they are.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>In which we may agree that his majesty was not so very far wrong.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, 'Why <i>should</i> we mourn departed friends?'&mdash;since we know that
+they are but lying in the &#956;&#959;&#953;&#956;&#951;&#964;&#7969;&#961;&#953;&#959;&#957; (cemetery)&mdash;the <i>sleeping
+place</i>; or, as the vivid old Hebrew faith would have it, <i>the house of
+the living</i> (Bethaim). Is not this testimony for the soul's immortality
+worth as much as all the rhapsody written thereon, from Plato to
+Addison?</p>
+
+<p>Some words are the very essence of poetry; redolent with all beauteous
+phantasies; odoriferous as flowers in spring, or discoursing an awful
+organ-melody, like to the re-bellowing of the hoarse-sounding sea. For
+instance, those two noble old Saxon words 'main' and 'deep,' that we
+apply to the ocean&mdash;what a music is there about them! The 'main' is the
+<i>maegen</i>&mdash;the strength, the <i>strong one</i>; the great 'deep' is precisely
+what the name imports. Our employment of 'deep' reminds of the Latin
+<i>altum</i>, which, properly signifying high or lofty, is, by a familiar
+species of metonymy, put for its opposite.</p>
+
+<p>By the way, how exceedingly timid are our poets and poetasters generally
+of the open sea&mdash;<i>la pleine mer</i>. They linger around the shores thereof,
+in a vain attempt to sit snugly there <i>&agrave; leur aise</i>, while they 'call
+spirits from the vasty deep'&mdash;that never did and never would come on
+such conditions, though they grew hoarse over it. We all remember how
+Sandy Smith labors with making abortive <i>grabs</i> at its <i>amber tails</i>,
+<i>main</i>, etc. (rather slippery articles on the whole)&mdash;but he is not</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'A shepherd in the Hebrid Isles,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Placed far amid the melancholy main!</i>'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Hail shade of Thomson! But hear how the exile sings it:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'La mer! partout la mer! des flots, des flots encor!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">L'oiseau fatigue en vain son in&eacute;gal essor.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Ici les flots, l&agrave;-bas les ondes.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Toujours des flots sans fin par des flots repouss&eacute;s;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">L'&oelig;il ne voit que des flots dans l'abime entass&eacute;s</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Rouler sous les vaques profondes.'<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>This we, for our part, would pronounce one of the very best open-sea
+sketches we have ever met with; and if the reader will take even our
+unequal rendering, he may think so too.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'The sea! all round, the sea! flood, flood o'er billow surges!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">In vain the bird fatigued its faltering wing here urges.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Billows beneath, waves, waves around;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ever the floods (no end!) by urging floods repulsed;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The eye sees but the waves, in an abyss engulphed,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Roll 'neath their lairs profound.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>'Aurora' comes to us as a remnant of that beautiful Grecian mythology
+that deified and poetized everything; and even to us she is still the
+'rosy-fingered daughter of the morn.' The 'Levant,' 'Orient,' and
+'Occident' are all of them poetical, for they are all true translations
+from nature. The 'Levant' is where the sun is <i>levant</i>, raising himself
+up. 'Orient' will be recognized as the same figure from <i>orior</i>; while
+'occident' is, of course,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> the opposite in signification, namely, the
+declining, the 'setting' place.</p>
+
+<p>'Lethe' is another classic myth. It is &#8001; &#964;&#7969;&#962; &#955;&#7969;&#952;&#951;&#962; &#961;&#959;&#964;&#945;&#956;&#8001;&#962;&mdash;the river of forgetfulness, 'the oblivious pool.' Perhaps is
+it that all of us, as well as the son of Thetis, had a dip therein.</p>
+
+<p>There exists not a more poetic expression than 'Hyperborean,' <i>i. e.</i>
+&#965;&#960;&#949;&#961;&#946;&#8001;&#961;&#949;&#959;&#962;&mdash;<i>beyond Boreas</i>; or, as a modern poet finely and
+faithfully expands it:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">'Beyond those regions cold</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where dwells the Spirit of the North-Wind,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Boreas old.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Homer never manifested himself to be more of a poet than in the creation
+of this word. By the way, the Hyperboreans were regarded by the ancients
+as an extremely happy and pious people.</p>
+
+<p>How few of those who use that very vague, grandiloquent word 'Ambrosial'
+know that it has reference to the 'ambrosia' (&#7937;&#956;&#946;&#961;&#959;&#964;&#959;&#962;,
+<i>immortal</i>), the food of the gods! It has, however, a secondary
+signification, namely, that of an unguent, or perfume, hence fragrant;
+and this is probably the prevailing idea in our 'ambrosial': instance
+Milton's 'ambrosial flowers.' It was, like the 'nectar' (&#957;&#7953;&#954;&#964;&#945;&#961;, an <i>elixir vit&aelig;</i>), considered a veritable elixir of
+immortality, and consequently denied to men.</p>
+
+<p>The Immortals, in their golden halls of 'many-topped Olympus,' seem to
+have led a merry-enough life of it over their nectar and ambrosia, their
+laughter and intrigues.</p>
+
+<p>But not half as jolly were they as were Odin and the Iotun&mdash;dead drunk
+in Valhalla over their mead and ale, from</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">'the ale-cellars of the Iotun,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which is called Brimir.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The daisy (Saxon <i>Daeges ege</i>) has often been cited as fragrant with
+poesy. It is the <i>Day's Eye</i>: we remember Chaucer's affectionate lines:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">'Of all the floures in the mede</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Than love I most those floures of white and rede,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Such that men called <i>daisies</i> in our toun,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To them I have so great affection.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Nor is he alone in his love for the</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>'Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flouer.'</i></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>An odoriferous-enough (etymologic) bouquet could we cull from the names
+of Flora's children. What a beauty is there in the 'primrose,' which is
+just the <i>prime</i>-rose; in the 'Beauty of the Night' and the 'Morning
+Glory,' except when a pompous scientific terminology, would convert it
+into a <i>convolvulus</i>! So, too, the 'Anemone' (&#7937;&#957;&#949;&#956;&#959;&#962;, the
+wind-flower), into which it is fabled Venus changed her Adonis. What a
+story of maiden's love does the 'Sweet William' tell; and how many
+charming associations cluster around the 'Forget-me-not!' Again, is
+there not poetry in calling a certain family of minute crustacea, whose
+two eyes meet and form a single round spot in the centre of the head,
+'Cyclops'&mdash;(&#954;&#8017;&#954;&#955;&#959;&#968;, circular-eyed)?</p>
+
+<p>And if any one thinketh that there cannot be poetry even in the dry
+technicalities of science, let him take such an expression as 'coral,'
+which, in the original Greek, &#954;&#959;&#961;&#7937;&#955;&#953;&#959;&#957;, signifies a <i>sea
+damsel</i>; or the chemical 'cobalt,' 'which,' remarks Webster, 'is said to
+be the German <i>Kobold</i>, a goblin, the demon of the mines; so called by
+miners, because cobalt was troublesome to miners, and at first its value
+was not known.' Ah! but these terms were created before <i>Science</i>, in
+its rigidity, had taught us the <i>truth</i> in regard to these matters. Yes!
+and fortunate is it for us that we still have words, and ideas
+clustering around these words, that have not yet been chilled and
+exanimated by the frigid touch of an empirical knowledge. For</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Still the heart doth need a language, still</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Doth the old instinct bring back the old names.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>And may benign heaven deliver us from those buckram individuals who
+imagine that Nature is as narrow and rigid as their own contracted
+selves, and who would seek to array her in their own exquisite
+bottle-green bifur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span>cations and a <i>gilet &agrave; la mode</i>! These characters
+always put us in mind of the statues of Louis XIV, in which he is
+represented as Jupiter or Hercules, nude, with the exception of the
+lion's hide thrown round him&mdash;<i>and the long, flowing peruke</i> of the
+times! O Jupiter <i>tonans</i>! let us have either the lion or the ass&mdash;only
+let it be <i>veracious</i>!</p>
+
+<p>To proceed: 'Auburn' is probably connected with <i>brennan</i>, and means
+<i>sun-burned</i>, analogous, indeed, to 'Ethiopian' (&#7945;&#952;&#7985;&#959;&#968;),
+<i>one whom the sun has looked upon</i>.</p>
+
+<p>How seldom do we think, in uttering 'adieu,' that we verily say, I
+commend you <i>&agrave; Dieu</i>&mdash;to God; that the lightly-spoken <i>good-by</i> means
+<i>God be wi' you</i>,<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> or that the (if possible) still more frequent and
+<i>unthinking</i> 'thank you,' in reality assures the person addressed&mdash;<i>I
+will think often of you</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'Eld' is a word that has the poetic aroma about it, and is an example
+(of which we might adduce additional cases from the domain of 'poetic
+diction') of a word set aside from a prose use and devoted exclusively
+to poetry. It is, as we know, Saxon, signifying <i>old</i> or <i>old age</i>, and
+was formerly in constant use in this sense; as, for instance, in
+Chaucer's translation of <i>Boethius de Consolatione Philosophi&aelig;</i>, we find
+thus:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>'At laste no drede ne might overcame tho muses, that thei ne weren
+fellowes, and foloweden my waie, that is to saie, when I was
+exiled, thei that weren of my youth whilom welfull and grene,
+comforten now sorrowfull weirdes of me olde man: for <i>elde</i> is
+comen unwarely upon me, hasted by the harmes that I have, and
+sorowe hath commaunded his age to be in me.'</p></div>
+
+<p>So in the <i>Knightes Tale</i>:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'As sooth in said <i>elde</i> hath gret avantage;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In <i>elde</i> is both wisdom and usage:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Men may the old out-renne but not out-rede.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Oh! what an overflowing fulness of truth and beauty is there wrapped up
+in the core of these articulations that we so heedlessly utter, would we
+but make use of the wizard's wand wherewith to evoke them! What an
+exhaustless wealth does there lie in even the humblest fruitage and
+flowerage of language, and what a fecundity have even dry 'roots'!</p>
+
+<p>'Thinkest thou there were no poets till Dan Chaucer?' asks our great
+Thomas; 'no heart burning with a thought, which it could not hold, and
+had no word for; and needed to shape and coin a word for&mdash;what thou
+callest a metaphor, trope, or the like? For every word we have, there
+was such a man and poet. The coldest word was once a glowing new
+metaphor, and bold questionable originality. 'Thy very <span class="smcap">ATTENTION</span>, does
+it not mean an <i>attentio</i>, a <span class="smcap">STRETCHING-TO</span>?' Fancy that act of the mind
+which all were conscious of, which none had yet named&mdash;when this new
+'poet' first felt bound and driven to name it! His questionable
+originality and new glowing metaphor was found adoptible, intelligible;
+and remains our name for it to this day.'<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
+
+<p>This seems to be a pet etymology of Carlyle, as he makes Professor
+Teufelsdr&ouml;ckh give it to us also.</p>
+
+<p>Nor less of a poet was that Grecian man who first named this beauteous
+world&mdash;with its boundless unity in variety&mdash;the &#954;&#8001;&#963;&#956;&#959;&#962;,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> the
+<i>order</i>, the <i>adornment</i>. But</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Alas, for the rarity</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of Christian charity,'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>and</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Ah! the inanity</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of frail humanity,'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>that first induced some luckless mortal to give to certain mysterious
+compounds the appellation of <i>cosmetics</i>! But here is an atonement; for
+even in our unmythical, unbelieving days, the god 'Terminus' is made to
+stand guard over every railway station! Again, how finely did the Roman
+call his hero<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span>ism his 'virtus'&mdash;his <i>vir</i>tue&mdash;his <i>manliness</i>. With the
+Italians, however, it became quite a different thing; for his 'virtu' is
+none other than his love of the fine arts (these being to him the only
+subject of <i>manly</i> occupation), a mere <i>objet de vertu</i>; and his
+<i>virtuoso</i> has no more virtuousness or manliness about him than what
+appertains to being skilled in these same fine arts. With us, our
+'virtue' is ... well, as soon as we can find out, we will tell you.</p>
+
+<p>By the way, in what a <i>bathos</i> of mystery are most of our terms
+expressing the moral relations plunged! Some philosophers have declared
+that truth lies at the bottom of a well;&mdash;the well in which the truth in
+regard to these matters lies would seem to stretch far enough
+down&mdash;reaching, in fact, almost to the kingdom of the Inane. The
+beautiful simplicity of Bible truths has often become so perverted&mdash;so
+overloaded by the vain works (and <i>words</i>) of man's device&mdash;as barely to
+escape total extinction. Witness 'repentance'; in what a farrago of
+endless absurdities and palpable contradictions has this word (and, more
+unfortunately still, the thing itself along with it) been enveloped!
+According to the 'divines,' what does it not signify? Its composition,
+we very well know, gives us <i>p&oelig;nitentia</i>, from <i>p&oelig;nitere</i>, to <i>be
+sorry</i>, to <i>regret</i>&mdash;and such is its true and <i>only</i> meaning. 'This
+design' (that of the analysis of language in its elementary forms), says
+Wilkins, 'will likewise contribute much to the clearing of some of our
+modern differences in religion; by unmasking many wild errors, that
+shelter themselves under the disguise of affected phrases; which being
+philosophically unfolded, and rendered according to the genuine and
+natural importance of words, will appear to be inconsistencies and
+absurdities.' Nor would he have gone very far astray had he put
+<i>philosophy</i> and <i>politics</i> under the same category. Strip the gaudy
+dress and trappings from an expression, and it will have a most marked
+result. Analysis is a terrible humiliation to your mysticism and your
+grandiloquence&mdash;and an awful bore to those who depend for effect on
+either. We have something to say hereafter on those astonishingly
+profound oracles whose only depth is in the terminology they employ. In
+the mean time, expect not too much of words. Never, in all our
+philologic researches, must we lose sight of the fact that <i>words are
+but the daughters of earth, while things are the sons of heaven</i>. This
+expecting too much of words has been the fruitful source of innumerable
+errors. To resume:</p>
+
+<p>Take a dozen words (to prove our generosity, we will let it be a baker's
+dozen) illustrative of this same principle of metaphor that governs the
+mechanism of language, and sheds a glory and a beauty around even our
+every-day fireside words; so that even those that seem hackneyed, worn
+out, and apparently tottering with the imbecility of old age&mdash;would we
+but get into the core of them&mdash;will shine forth with all the expressive
+meaning of their spring time&mdash;with the blush and bloom of poesy&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'All redolent with youth and flowers,'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>and prove their very abusers&mdash;poets.</p>
+
+<p>The 'halcyon' days! What a balmy serenity hovers around them&mdash;basking in
+the sunlight of undisturbed tranquillity. This we feel; but how we
+realize it after reading the little <i>family secret</i> that it wraps up!
+The &#7945;&#955;&#954;&#965;&#8033;&#957; (halcyon)&mdash;<i>alcedo hispida</i>&mdash;was the name applied
+by the Greeks to the <i>kingfisher</i> (a name commonly derived from
+&#7945;&#955;&#962;, &#954;&#965;&#955;, i. e., <i>sea-conceiving</i>, from the fact of this bird's being
+said to lay her eggs in rocks near the sea); and the &#7937;&#955;&#954;&#954;&#965;&#959;&#957;&#7985;&#948;&#949;&#962; &#7969;&#956;&#7953;&#961;&#945;&#953;&mdash;<i>halcyon days</i>&mdash;were those fourteen 'during the calm weather
+about the winter solstice,' during which the bird was said to build her
+nest and lay her eggs; hence, by an easy transition, perfect quietude in
+general.</p>
+
+<p>Those who have felt the bitter, biting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> effect of 'sarcasm,' will hardly
+be disposed to consider it a metaphor even, should we trace it back to
+the Greek &#963;&#945;&#961;&#954;&#7937;&#950;&#969;&mdash;<i>to tear off the flesh</i> (&#963;&#945;&#961;&#958;),
+<i>literally</i>, to 'flay.' 'Satire,' again, has an arbitrary-enough origin;
+it is <i>satira</i>, from <i>satur</i>, <i>mixed</i>; and the application is as
+follows: each species of poetry had, among the Romans, its own special
+kind of versification; thus the hexameter was used in the epic, the
+iambic in the drama, etc. Ennius, however, the earliest Latin
+'satirist,' first disregarded these conventionalities, and introduced a
+<i>medley</i> (satira) of all kinds of metres. It afterward, however, lost
+this idea of a <i>melange</i>, and acquired the notion of a poem 'directed
+against the vices and failings of men with a view to their correction.'</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps we owe to reviewing the metaphorical applications of such terms
+as 'caustic,' 'mordant,' 'piquant,' etc., in their <i>burning</i>, <i>biting</i>,
+and <i>pricking</i> senses.</p>
+
+<p>But 'review,' itself, we are to regard as pure metaphor. Our friend
+'Snooks,' at least, found <i>that</i> out; for, instead of <i>re</i>-viewing&mdash;<i>i.
+e.</i>, viewing again and again his book, they pronounced it to be
+decidedly bad without any examination whatever. A 'critic' we all
+recognize in his character of <i>judge</i> or <i>umpire</i>; but is it that he
+always possesses discrimination&mdash;has he always <i>insight</i> (for these are
+the primary ideas attaching themselves to &#954;&#961;&#7985;&#957;&#969;, whence &#954;&#961;&#953;&#964;&#953;&#954;&#8001;&#962;
+ comes)&mdash;does he divide between the merely arbitrary and
+incidental, and see into the absolute and eternal Art-Soul that vivifies
+a poem or a picture? If so, then is he a critic indeed.</p>
+
+<p>How perfectly do 'invidiousness' and 'envy'<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> express the <i>looking over
+against</i> (<i>in-video</i>)&mdash;the <i>askance gaze</i>&mdash;the natural development of
+that painful mental state which poor humanity is so subject to! So with
+'obstinacy' (<i>ob-sto</i>), which, by the way, the phrenologists represent,
+literally enough, by an ass in a position which assuredly Webster had in
+his mind when he wrote his definition of this word; thus: ... '<i>in a
+fixedness in opinion or resolution that cannot be shaken at all, or
+without great difficulty</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>Speaking of this reminds us of those very capital 'Illustrations of
+Phrenology,' by Cruikshank, with which we all are familiar, and where,
+for example, '<i>veneration</i> is exemplified by a stout old gentleman, with
+an ample paunch, gazing with admiring eyes and uplifted hands on the fat
+side of an ox fed by Mr. Heavyside, and exhibited at the stall of a
+butcher. In this way a Jew old-clothes man, holding his hand on his
+breast with the utmost earnestness, while in the other he offers a coin
+for a pair of slippers, two pairs of boots, three hats, and a large
+bundle of clothes, to an old woman, who, evidently astonished all over,
+exclaims, 'A shilling!' is an illustration of <i>conscientiousness</i>. A
+dialogue of two fishwomen at Billingsgate illustrates <i>language</i>, and a
+riot at Donnybrook Fair explains the phrenological doctrine of
+<i>combativeness</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>But peace to the 'bumps,' and pass we on. Could anything be more
+completely metaphorical than such expressions as 'egregious' and
+'fanatic?' 'Egregious' is chosen, <i>e-grex</i>&mdash;<i>out of the flock</i>, i. e.,
+the best sheep, etc., selected from the rest, and set aside for sacred
+purposes; hence, <i>distingu&eacute;</i>. This word, though occupying at present
+comparatively neutral ground, seems fast merging toward its worst
+application. Can it be that an 'egregious' <i>rogue</i> is an article of so
+much more frequent occurrence than an 'egregiously' <i>honest</i> man, that
+incongruity seems to subsist between the latter? 'Fanatic,' again, is
+just the Roman '<i>fanaticus</i>,' one addicted to the <i>fana</i>,<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> the temples
+in which the 'fanatici' or fanatics were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> wont to spend an extraordinary
+portion of their time. But besides this, their religious fervor used to
+impel them to many extravagances, such as cutting themselves with
+knives, etc., and hence an 'ultraist' (one who goes <i>beyond</i> (ultra) the
+notions of other people) in any sense. Whereupon it might be remarked
+that though</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'C&oelig;lum, non animum, mutant qui trans mare currunt,'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>may, in certain applications, be true, it is surely not so in the case
+of a good many words. Thus this very instance, 'fanatic,' which, among
+the Romans, implied one who had an <i>extra share of devotion</i>, is, among
+us&mdash;the better informed on this head&mdash;by a very curious and very
+unfathomable figure (disfigure?) of speech or logic, applied to one who
+has a peculiar <i>penchant</i> for human liberty!</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'In the most high and <i>palmy</i> state of Rome,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A little ere the mighty Julius fell,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>We do not quote this for the sake of the making-the-hair-to-stand-on-end
+tendencies of the last two lines, but through the voluptuous quiescence
+of the first,</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'In the most high and palmy state of Rome,'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>to introduce the beautifully metaphorical expression, 'palmy.' It will,
+of course, be immediately recognized as being from the 'palm' tree; that
+is to say, <i>palm-abounding</i>. And what visions of orient splendor does it
+bear with it, wafting on its wings the very aroma of the isles of the
+blest&mdash;&#956;&#7937;&#954;&#945;&#961;&#969;&#957; &#957;&#7969;&#963;&#959;&#953;&mdash;or</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold!'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>It bears us away with it, and we stand on that sun-kissed land</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Whose rivers wander over sands of gold,'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>with a houri lurking in every 'bosky bourne,' and the beauteous palm,
+waving its umbrageous head, at once food, shade, and shelter.</p>
+
+<p>The palm being to the Oriental of such passing price, we can easily
+imagine how he would so enhance its value as to make it the type of
+everything that is prosperous and glorious and 'palmy,' the <i>beau-ideal</i>
+of everything that is flourishing. Hear what Sir Walter Raleigh says on
+this subject: 'Nothing better proveth the excellency of this soil than
+the abundant growing of the <i>palm trees</i> without labor of man. <i>This
+tree alone giveth unto man whatsoever his life beggeth at nature's
+hand.</i>'</p>
+
+<p>'Paradise,' too, is oriental in all its associations. It is &#960;&#945;&#961;&#7937;&#948;&#949;&#953;&#963;&#959;&#962;,<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> that is, a <i>park</i> or <i>pleasure ground</i>, in which sense
+it is constantly employed by Xenophon, as every weary youth who has
+<i>parasanged</i> it with him knows. By the LXX it was used in a metaphorical
+sense for the garden of Eden:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">'The glories we have known,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And that imperial palace whence we came;'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>but a still loftier meaning did it acquire when the Christ employed it
+as descriptive of the splendors of the 'better land'&mdash;of the glories and
+beauties of the land Beulah.</p>
+
+<p>But, look out, fellow strollers, for we are off in a tangent!</p>
+
+<p>What a curiously humble origin has 'literature,' contrasted with the
+magnitude of its present import. It is just 'litteral'&mdash;<i>letters</i> in
+their most primitive sense; and &#947;&#961;&#945;&#956;&#956;&#945;&#964;&#945; is nought other. Nor
+can even all the pomposity of the 'belles-lettres' carry us any farther
+than the very fine 'letters' or <i>litteral</i>; while even Solomon So-so may
+take courage when he reflects (provided Solomon be ever guilty of
+reflecting) that the 'literati' have 'literally' nothing more profound
+about them than the knowledge of their 'letters.' The Latins were
+prolific in words of this kind; thus they had the <i>literatus</i> and the
+<i>literator</i>&mdash;making some such discrimination between them as we do
+between 'philosopher' and 'philosophe.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'Unlettered,' to be sure, is one who is unacquainted even with his
+'letters;' but what is 'erudite?' It is merely <span class="smcap">E</span>, <i>out of</i>, a <span class="smcap">RUDIS</span>,
+<i>rude</i>, <i>chaotic</i>, <i>ignorant</i> state of things; and thus in itself
+asserts nothing very tremendous, and makes no very prodigious
+pretensions. Surely these words had their origin at an epoch when
+'letters' stood higher in the scale of estimation than they do now; when
+he who knew them possessed a spell that rendered him a potent character
+among the 'unlettered.'</p>
+
+<p>A 'spell' did we say? Perhaps that is not altogether fanciful; for
+'spell' itself in the Saxon primarily imports a <i>word</i>; and we know that
+the runes or Runic letters were long employed in this way. For instance,
+Mr. Turner thus informs us ('History of the Anglo-Saxons,' vol. i, p.
+169): 'It was the invariable policy of the Roman ecclesiastics to
+discourage the use of the Runic characters, because they were of pagan
+origin, and had been much connected with idolatrous superstitions.' And
+if any one be incredulous, let him read this from Sir Thomas Brown:
+'Some have delivered the polity of spirits, that they stand in awe of
+charms, <i>spells</i>, and conjurations; <i>letters</i>, characters, notes, and
+dashes.' And have not the &#913; and &#937; something
+mystic and cabalistic about them even to us?</p>
+
+<p>While on this, let us note that 'spell' gives us the beautiful and
+cheering expression 'gospel,' which is precisely <i>God's-spell</i>&mdash;the
+'evangile,' the good God's-news!</p>
+
+<p>To resume:</p>
+
+<p>'Graphical' (&#947;&#961;&#7937;&#966;&#969;) is just what is well
+delineated&mdash;<i>literally</i>, 'well written,' or, as our common expression
+corroboratively has it, <i>like a book</i>!</p>
+
+<p>'Style' and 'stiletto' would, from their significations, appear to be
+radically very different words; and yet they are something more akin
+than even cousins-german. 'Style' is known to be from the &#963;&#964;&#8017;&#955;&#959;&#962;, or <i>stylus</i>, which the Greeks and Romans employed in writing on
+their waxen tablets; and, as they were both sharp and strong, they
+became in the hands of scholars quite formidable instruments when used
+against their schoolmasters. Afterward they came to be employed in all
+the bloody relations and uses to which a 'bare bodkin' can be put, and
+hence our acceptation of 'stiletto.' C&aelig;sar himself, it is supposed, got
+his 'quietus' by means of a 'stylus;' nor is he the first or last
+character whose 'style' has been his (<i>literary</i>, if not <i>literal</i>)
+damnation.</p>
+
+<p>'Volume,' too, how perfectly metaphorical is it in its present
+reception! It is originally just a <i>volumen</i>, that is, a 'roll' of
+parchment, papyrus, or whatever else the 'book' (i. e., the <i>bark</i>&mdash;the
+'liber') might be composed of. Nor can we regard as aught other such
+terms as 'leaf' or 'folio,' which is also 'leaf.' 'Stave,' too, is
+suggestive of the <i>staff</i> on which the runes were wont to be cut.
+Indeed, old almanacs are sometimes to be met with consisting of these
+long sticks or 'staves,' on which the days and months are represented by
+the Runic letters.</p>
+
+<p>'Charm,' 'enchant,' and 'incantation' all owe their origin to the time
+when spells were in vogue. 'Charm' is just <i>carmen</i>, from the fact that
+'a kind of Runic rhyme' was employed in <i>diablerie</i> of this sort; so
+'enchant' and 'incantation' are but a <i>singing to</i>&mdash;a true 'siren's
+song;' while 'fascination' took its rise when the mystic terrors of the
+<i>evil eye</i> threw its withering blight over many a heart.</p>
+
+<p>We are all familiar with the old fable of <i>The Town Mouse and the
+Country Mouse</i>. We will vouch that the following read us as luminous a
+comment thereon as may be desired: 'Polite,' 'urbane,' 'civil,'
+'rustic,' 'villain,' 'savage,' 'pagan,' 'heathen.' Let us seek the
+moral:</p>
+
+<p>'Polite,' 'urbane,' and 'civil' we of course recognize as being
+respectively from &#960;&#8001;&#955;&#953;&#962;, <i>urbs</i>, and <i>civis</i>, each denoting the
+city or town&mdash;<i>la grande ville</i>. 'Polite' is <i>city-like</i>; while
+'urbanity' and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span> 'civility' carry nothing deeper with them than the
+graces and the attentions that belong to the punctilious town. 'Rustic'
+we note as implying nothing more uncultivated than a 'peasant,' which is
+just <i>pays</i>-an, or, as we also say, a 'countryman.' 'Savage,' too, or,
+as we ought to write it, <i>salvage</i>,<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> is nothing more grim or terrible
+than one who dwells <i>in sylvis</i>, in the woods&mdash;a meaning we can
+appreciate from our still comparatively pure application of the
+adjective <i>sylvan</i>. A 'backwoodsman' is therefore the very best original
+type of a <i>savage</i>! 'Savage' seems to be hesitating between its civil
+and its ethical applications; 'villain,' 'pagan,' and 'heathen,'
+however, have become quite absorbed in their moral sense&mdash;and this by a
+contortion that would seem strange enough were we not constantly
+accustomed to such transgressions. For we need not to be informed that
+'villain' primarily and properly implies simply one who inhabits a ville
+or <i>village</i>. In Chaucer, for example, we see it without at least any
+moral signification attached thereto:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'But firste I praie you of your curtesie</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That ye ne arette it not my <i>vilanie</i>.'</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;"><i>Prologue to the Canterbury Tales.</i></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>So a 'pagan,' or <i>paganus</i>, is but a dweller in a <i>pagus</i>, or village;
+precisely equivalent to the Greek &#954;&#969;&#956;&#7969;&#964;&#951;&#962;, with no other idea
+whatever attached thereto; while 'heathen' imported those who lived on
+the <i>heaths</i> or in the country, consequently far away from
+<i>civilization</i> or <i>town-like-ness</i>.</p>
+
+<p>From all of which expressions we may learn the mere conventionality and
+the utter arbitrariness of even our most important ethical terms. How
+prodigiously <i>cheap</i> is the application of any such epithets,
+considering the terrible abuse they have undergone! And how poor is that
+philosophy that can concentrate 'politeness' and 'civility' in the
+frippery and heartlessness of mere external city-forms; and convert the
+man who dwells in the woods or in the village into a <i>savage</i> or a
+<i>villain</i>! How fearful a lack do these numerous words and their so
+prolific analogues manifest of acknowledgment of that glorious principle
+which Burns has with fire-words given utterance to&mdash;and to which, would
+we preserve the dignity of manhood, we must hold on&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'A man's a man for a' that!'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Ah! it is veritably enough to make us atrabiliar! Here we see words in
+their weaknesses and their meannesses, as elsewhere in their glory and
+beauty. And not so much <i>their</i> meanness and weakness, as that of those
+who have distorted these innocent servants of truth to become tools of
+falsehood and the abject instruments of the extinction of all honesty
+and nobleness.</p>
+
+<p>The word 'health' wraps up in it&mdash;for, indeed, it is hardly
+metaphorical&mdash;a whole world of thought and suggestion. It is that which
+<i>healeth</i> or maketh one to be <i>whole</i>, or, as the Scotch say, <i>hale</i>;
+which <i>whole</i> or <i>hale</i> (for they are one word) may imply entireness or
+unity; that is to say, perfect 'health' is that state of the system in
+which there is no disorganization&mdash;no division of interest&mdash;but when it
+is recognized as a perfect <i>one</i> or whole; or, in other words, not
+recognized at all. And this meaning is confirmed by our analogue
+<i>sanity</i>, which, from <i>sanus</i>, and allied to &#963;&#7937;&#959;&#962;, has
+underneath it a similar basis.</p>
+
+<p>Every student of Carlyle will remember the very telling use to which he
+puts the idea contained in this word&mdash;speaking of the manifold relations
+of physical, psychal, and social health. Reference is made to his
+employment of it in the 'Characteristics'&mdash;itself one of the most
+authentic and veracious pieces of philosophy that it has been our lot to
+meet with for a long time; yet wherein he proves the impossibility of
+any, and the uselessness of all philosophies. Listen while he
+discourses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> thereon: 'So long as the several elements of life, all fitly
+adjusted, can pour forth their movement like harmonious tuned strings,
+it is melody and unison: life, from its mysterious fountains, flows out
+as in celestial music and diapason&mdash;which, also, like that other music
+of the spheres, even because it is perennial and complete, without
+interruption and without imperfection, might be fabled to escape the
+ear. Thus, too, in some languages, is the state of health well denoted
+by a term expressing unity; when we feel ourselves as we wish to be, we
+say that we are <i>whole</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>But our psychal and social wholeness or health, as well as our physical,
+is yet, it would appear, in the future, in the good time <i>coming</i>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">'When man to man</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shall brothers be and a' that!'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Even that, however, is encouraging&mdash;that it is <i>in prospectu</i>. For we
+know that <i>right before us</i> lies this great promised land&mdash;this
+<i>Future</i>, teeming with all the donations of infinite time, and bursting
+with blessings. And for us, too, there are in waiting &#956;&#945;&#954;&#7937;&#961;&#969;&#957; &#957;&#7969;&#963;&#959;&#953;, or Islands of the Blest, where all heroic doers and all heroic
+sufferers shall enjoy rest forever!</p>
+
+<p>In conclusion, take the benediction of serene old Miguel de Cervantes
+Saavedra, in his preface to 'Don Quixote' (could we possibly have a
+better?): 'And so God give you <i>health</i>, not forgetting me. Farewell!'</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_CHECH" id="THE_CHECH"></a>THE CHECH.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">"Chc&eacute;s li tajnou v&eacute;c aneb pravdu vyzv&eacute;d&eacute;ti, blazen, dit&eacute;, opily
+&#263;lov&eacute;k o tom umeji povedeti."</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">"Wouldst thou know a truth or mystery,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 6em;">A drunkard, fool, or child may tell it thee."</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 16em;"><i>Bohemian Proverb.</i></span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And now I'll wrap my blanket o'er me,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And on the tavern floor I'll lie;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A double spirit-flask before me,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And watch the pipe clouds melting die.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They melt and die&mdash;but ever darken,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As night comes on and hides the day;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Till all is black;&mdash;then, brothers, hearken!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And if ye can, write down my lay!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In yon black loaf my knife is gleaming,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Like one long sail above the boat;&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;As once at Pesth I saw it beaming,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Half through a curst Croatian throat.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now faster, faster whirls the ceiling,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And wilder, wilder turns my brain;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And still I'll drink&mdash;till, past all feeling,</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The soul leaps forth to light again.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whence come these white girls wreathing round me?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Baruska!&mdash;long I thought thee dead!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Kacenka!&mdash;when these arms last bound thee,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thou laidst by Rajhrad cold as lead!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now faster, faster whirls the ceiling,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And wilder, wilder turns my brain;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And from afar a star comes stealing,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Straight at me o'er the death-black plain.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alas!&mdash;I sink&mdash;my spirits miss me,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I swim, I shoot from sky to shore!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Klar&agrave;! thou golden sister&mdash;kiss me!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I rise&mdash;I'm safe&mdash;I'm strong once more.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And faster, faster whirls the ceiling,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And wilder, wilder turns my brain;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The star!&mdash;it strikes my soul, revealing</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">All life and light to me again.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 20%; Margin-left: 2em; Margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;" />
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Against the waves fresh waves are dashing,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Above the breeze fresh breezes blow;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Through seas of light new light is flashing,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And with them all I float and flow.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But round me rings of fire are gleaming:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pale rings of fire&mdash;wild eyes of death!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Why haunt me thus awake or dreaming?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Methought I left ye with my breath.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Aye glare and stare with life increasing,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And leech-like eyebrows arching in;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Be, if ye must, my fate unceasing,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But never hope a fear to win.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He who knows all may haunt the haunting,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He who fears nought hath conquered fate;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who bears in silence quells the daunting,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And sees his spoiler desolate.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oh wondrous eyes of star-like lustre,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How ye have changed to guardian love!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alas!&mdash;where stars in myriads cluster</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ye vanish in the heaven above.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 20%; Margin-left: 2em; Margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;" />
+
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I hear two bells so softly singing:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">How sweet their silver voices roll!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The one on yonder hill is ringing,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The other peals within my soul.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I hear two maidens gently talking,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Bohemian maidens fair to see;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The one on yonder hill is walking,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The other maiden&mdash;where is she?</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where is she?&mdash;when the moonlight glistens</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">O'er silent lake or murm'ring stream,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I hear her call my soul which listens:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Oh! wake no more&mdash;come, love, and dream!'</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She came to earth-earth's loveliest creature;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She died&mdash;and then was born once more;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Changed was her race, and changed each feature,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But oh! I loved her as before.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We live&mdash;but still, when night has bound us</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In golden dreams too sweet to last,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A wondrous light-blue world around us,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">She comes, the loved one of the Past.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I know not which I love the dearest,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For both my loves are still the same;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The living to my heart is nearest,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The dead love feeds the living flame.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And when the moon, its rose-wine quaffing</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which flows across the Eastern deep,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Awakes us, Klar&agrave; chides me laughing,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And says, 'We love too well in sleep!'</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And though no more a Vojvod's daughter,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As when she lived on Earth before,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The love is still the same which sought her,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And she is true&mdash;what would you more?</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 20%; Margin-left: 2em; Margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;" />
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bright moonbeams on the sea are playing,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And starlight shines o'er vale and hill;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I should be gone&mdash;yet still delaying,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">By thy loved side I linger still!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My gold is gone&mdash;my hopes have perished,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And nought remains save love for thee!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E'en that must fade, though once so cherished:</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">Farewell!&mdash;and think no more of me!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Though gold be gone and hope departed,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And nought remain save love for me,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thou ne'er shalt leave me broken-hearted,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For I will share my life with thee!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Thou deem'st me but a wanton maiden,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The plaything of thy idle hours;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But laughing streams with gold are laden,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And sweets are hidden 'neath the flowers.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'E'en outcasts may have heart and feeling,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">E'en such as I be fond and true;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And love, like light, in dungeons stealing,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Though bars be there, will still burst through.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PICTURES_FROM_THE_NORTH" id="PICTURES_FROM_THE_NORTH"></a>PICTURES FROM THE NORTH.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It is worth while to live in the city, that we may learn to love the
+country; and it is not bad for many, that artificial life binds them
+with bonds of silk or lace or rags or cobwebs, since, when they are rent
+away, the Real gleams out in a beauty and with a zest which had not been
+save for contrast.</p>
+
+<p>Contrast is the salt of the beautiful. I wonder that the ancients, who
+came so near it in so many ways, never made a goddess of Contrast. They
+had something like it in ever-varying Future&mdash;something like it in
+double-faced Janus, who was their real 'Angel of the Odd.' Perhaps it is
+my ignorance which is at fault&mdash;if so, I pray you correct me. The subtle
+Neo-Platonists <i>must</i> have apotheosized such a savor to all &aelig;sthetic
+bliss. Mostly do I feel its charm when there come before me pictures
+true to life of far lands and lives, of valley and river, sea and shore.
+Then I forget the narrow office and the shop-lined street, the rattling
+cars and hurried hotel-lodgment, and think what it would be if nature,
+in all her freshness and never-ending contrasts, could be my
+ever-present.</p>
+
+<p>I thought this yesterday, in glancing over an old manuscript in my
+drawer, containing translations, by some hand to me unknown, of sketches
+of Sweden by the fairy-story teller Hans Christian Andersen. Reader,
+will they strike you as pleasantly as they did me? I know not. Let us
+glance them over. They have at least the full flavor of the North, of
+the healthy land of frost and pines, of fragrant birch and of sweeter
+meadow-grass, and simpler, holier flowers than the rich South ever
+showed, even in her simplest moods.</p>
+
+<p>The first of these sketches sweeps us at once far away over the
+Northland:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><h4>'WE JOURNEY.</h4>
+
+<p>'It is spring, fragrant spring, the birds are singing. You do not
+understand their song? Then hear it in free translation:</p>
+
+<p>''Seat thyself upon my back!' said the stork, the holy bird of our
+green island. 'I will carry thee over the waves of the Sound.
+Sweden also has its fresh, fragrant beechwoods, green meadows, and
+fields of waving corn; in Schoonen, under the blooming apple<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> trees
+behind the peasant's house, thou wilt imagine thyself still in
+Denmark!'</p>
+
+<p>''Fly with me,' said the swallow. 'I fly over Hal-land's mountain
+ridges, where the beeches cease. I soar farther toward the north
+than the stork. I will show you where the arable land retires
+before rocky valleys. You shall see friendly towns, old churches,
+solitary court yards, within which it is cosy and pleasant to
+dwell, where the family stands in circle around the table with the
+smoking platters, and asks a blessing through the mouth of the
+youngest child, and morning and evening sings a holy song. I have
+heard it, I have seen it, when I was yet small, from my nest under
+the roof.'</p>
+
+<p>''Come! come!' cried the unsteady seagull, impatiently waiting, and
+ever flying round in a circle. 'Follow me into the Scheeren, where
+thousands of rocky islands, covered with pines and firs, lie along
+the coasts like flower beds; where the fisherman draws full nets!'</p>
+
+<p>''Let yourself down between our outspread wings!' sing the wild
+swans. 'We will bear you to the great seas, to the ever-roaring,
+arrow-quick mountain streams, where the oak does not thrive and the
+birches are stunted; let yourself down between our outspread
+wings,&mdash;we soar high over Sulitelma, the eye of the island, as the
+mountain is called; we fly from the spring-green valley, over the
+snow waves, up to the summit of the mountain, whence you may catch
+a glimpse of the North Sea, beyond Norway. We fly toward Jamtland,
+with its high blue mountains, where the waterfalls roar, where the
+signal fires flame up as signs from coast to coast that they are
+waiting for the ferry boat&mdash;up to the deep, cold, hurrying floods,
+which do not see the sun set in midsummer, where twilight is dawn!'</p>
+
+<p>'So sing the birds! Shall we hearken to their song&mdash;follow them, at
+least a short way? We do not seat ourselves upon the wings of the
+swan, nor upon the back of the stork; we stride forward with steam
+and horses, sometimes upon our own feet, and glance, at the same
+time, now and then, from the actual, over the hedge into the
+kingdom of fancy, that is always our near neighborland, and pluck
+flowers or leaves, which shall be placed together in the memorandum
+book&mdash;they bud indeed on the flight of the journey. We fly, and we
+sing: Sweden, thou glorious land! Sweden, whither holy gods came in
+remote antiquity from the mountains of Asia; thou land that art yet
+illumined by their glitter! It streams out of the flowers, with the
+name of Linn&aelig;us; it beams before thy knightly people from the
+banner of Charles the Twelfth, it sounds out of the memorial stone
+erected upon the field at Lutzen. Sweden! thou land of deep
+feeling, of inward songs, home of the clear streams, where wild
+swans sing in the northern light's glimmer! thou land, upon whose
+deep, still seas the fairies of the North build their colonnades
+and lead their struggling spirit-hosts over the ice mirror.
+Glorious Sweden, with the perfume-breathing Linea, with Jenny's
+soulful songs! To thee will we fly with the stork and the swallow,
+with the unsteady seagull and the wild swan. Thy birchwood throws
+out its perfume so refreshing and animating, under its hanging,
+earnest boughs&mdash;on its white trunk shall the harp hang. Let the
+summer wind of the North glide murmuring over its strings.'</p></div>
+
+<p>There is true fatherland's love there. I doubt if there was ever yet
+<i>real</i> patriotism in a hot climate&mdash;the North is the only home of
+unselfish and great union. Italy owes it to the cool breezes of her
+Apennines that she cherishes unity; had it not been for her northern
+mountains in a southern clime, she would have long ago forgotten to
+think of <i>one</i> country. But while the Alps are her backbone, she will
+always be at least a vertebrate among nations, and one of the higher
+order. Without the Alps she would soon be eaten up by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> cancer of
+states' rights. It is the North, too, which will supply the great
+uniting power of America, and keep alive a love for the great national
+name.</p>
+
+<p>Very different is the rest&mdash;and yet it has too the domestic home-tone of
+the North. In Sweden, in Germany, in America, in England, the family tie
+is somewhat other than in the East or in any warm country. With us, old
+age is not so ever-neglected and little honored as in softer climes.
+Thank the fireside for that. The hearth, and the stove, and the long,
+cold months which keep the grandsire and granddame in the easy chair by
+the warm corner, make a home centre, where the children linger as long
+as they may for stories, and where love lingers, kept alive by many a
+cheerful, not to be easily told tie. And it lives&mdash;this love&mdash;lives in
+the heart of the man after he has gone forth to business or to battle:
+he will not tell you of it, but he remembers grandmother and
+grandfather, as he saw them a boy&mdash;the centre of the group, which will
+never form again save in heaven.</p>
+
+<p>Let us turn to</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><h4>'THE GRANDMOTHER.</h4>
+
+<p>'Grandmother is very old, has many wrinkles, and perfectly white
+hair; but her eyes gleam like two stars, yes, much more beautiful;
+they are so mild, it does one good to look into them! And then she
+knows how to relate the most beautiful stories. And she has a dress
+embroidered with great, great flowers; it is such a heavy silk
+stuff that it rattles. Grandmother knows a great deal, because she
+has lived much longer than father and mother; that is certain!
+Grandmother has a hymn book with strong silver clasps, and she
+reads very often in the book. In the midst of it lies a rose,
+pressed and dry; it is not so beautiful as the rose which stands in
+the glass, but yet she smiles upon it in the most friendly way;
+indeed, it brings the tears to her eyes! Why does grandmother look
+so at the faded flower in the old book? Do you know? Every time
+that grandmother's tears fall upon the flower, the colors become
+fresh again, the rose swells up and fills the whole room with its
+fragrance, the walls disappear, as if they were only mist, and
+round about her is the green, glorious wood, where the sun beams
+through the leaves of the trees; and grandmother is young again; a
+charming maiden, with full red cheeks, beautiful and innocent&mdash;no
+rose is fresher; but the eyes, the mild, blessing eyes, still
+belong to grandmother. At her side sits a young man, large and
+powerful: he reaches her the rose, and she smiles&mdash;grandmother does
+not smile so now! oh yes, look now!&mdash;--But he has vanished: many
+thoughts, many forms sweep past&mdash;the beautiful young man is gone,
+the rose lies in the hymn book, and grandmother sits there again as
+an old woman, and looks upon the faded rose which lies in the book.</p>
+
+<p>'Now grandmother is dead. She sat in the armchair and related a
+long, beautiful story; she said, 'Now the story is finished, and I
+am tired;' and she leaned her head back, in order to sleep a
+little. We could hear her breathing&mdash;she slept; but it became
+stiller and stiller, her face was full of happiness and peace, it
+was as if a sunbeam illumined her features; she smiled again, and
+then the people said, 'She is dead.' She was placed in a black box;
+there she lay covered with white linen; she was very beautiful, and
+yet her eyes were closed, but every wrinkle had vanished; she lay
+there with a smile about her mouth; her hair was silver white,
+venerable, but it did not frighten one to look upon the corpse, for
+it was indeed the dear, kind-hearted grandmother. The hymn book was
+placed under her head&mdash;this she had herself desired; the rose lay
+in the old book; and then they buried grandmother.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the grave, close by the church wall, a rose tree was planted;
+it was full of roses, and the nightingale flew singing over the
+flowers and the grave.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span> Within the church, there resounded from the
+organ the most beautiful hymns, which were in the old book under
+the head of the dead one. The moon shone down upon the grave, but
+the dead was not there; each child could go there quietly by night
+and pluck a rose from the peaceful courtyard wall. The dead know
+more than all of us living ones; they are better than we. The earth
+is heaped up over the coffin, even within the coffin there is
+earth; the leaves of the hymn book are dust, and the rose, with all
+its memories. But above bloom fresh roses; above, the nightingale
+sings, and the organ tones forth; above, the memory of the old
+grandmother lives, with her mild, ever young eyes. Eyes can never
+die. Ours will one day see the grandmother again, young and
+blooming as when she for the first time kissed the fresh red rose,
+which is now dust in the grave.'</p></div>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><h4>'THE CELL PRISON.</h4>
+
+<p>'By separation from other men, by loneliness, in continual silence
+shall the criminal be punished and benefited; on this account cell
+prisons are built. In Sweden there are many such, and new ones are
+building. I visited for the first time one in Marienstadt. The
+building lies in a beautiful landscape, close by the town, on a
+small stream of water, like a great villa, white and smiling, with
+window upon window. But one soon discovers that the stillness of
+the grave rests over the place; it seems as if no one dwelt here,
+or as if it were a dwelling forsaken during the plague. The gates
+of these walls are locked; but one opened and the jailor received
+us, with his bundle of keys in his hand. The court is empty and
+clean; even the grass between the paving stones is weeded out. We
+entered the 'reception room,' to which the prisoner is first taken;
+then the bath room, whither he is carried next. We ascend a flight
+of stairs, and find ourselves in a large hall, built the whole
+length and height of the building. Several galleries, one over
+another in the different stories, extend round the whole hall, and
+in the midst of the hall is the chancel, from which, on Sundays,
+the preacher delivers his sermon before an invisible audience. All
+the doors of the cells, which lead upon the galleries, are half
+opened, the prisoners hear the preacher, but they cannot see him,
+nor he them. The whole is a well-built machine for a pressure of
+the spirit. In the door of each cell there is a glass of the size
+of an eye; a valve covers it on the outside, and through this may
+the warden, unnoticed by the prisoners, observe all which is going
+on within; but he must move with soft step, noiselessly, for the
+hearing of the prisoner is wonderfully sharpened by solitude. I
+removed the valve from the glass very softly, and looked into the
+closed room&mdash;for a moment the glance of the prisoner met my eye. It
+is airy, pure, and clean within, but the window is so high that it
+is impossible to look out. The whole furniture consists of a high
+bench, made fast to a kind of table, a berth, which can be fastened
+with hooks to the ceiling, and around which there is a curtain.
+Several cells were opened to us. In one there was a young, very
+pretty maiden; she had lain down in her berth, but sprang out when
+the door was opened, and her first movement disturbed the berth,
+which it unclasped and rolled together. Upon the little table stood
+the water cask, and near it lay the remains of hard black bread,
+farther off the Bible, and a few spiritual songs. In another cell
+sat an infanticide; I saw her only through the small glass of the
+door, she had heard our steps, and our talking, but she sat still,
+cowered together in the corner by the door, as if she wished to
+conceal herself as much as she could; her back was bent, her head
+sunk almost into her lap, and over it her hands were folded. The
+unhappy one is very young, said they. In two different cells sat
+two brothers;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span> they were paying the penalty of horse-stealing; one
+was yet a boy. In one cell sat a poor servant girl; they said she
+had no relations, and was poor, and they placed her here. I thought
+that I had misunderstood, repeated my question, Why is the maiden
+here? and received the same answer. Yet still I prefer to believe
+that I have misunderstood the remark. Without, in the clear, free
+sunlight, is the busy rush of day; here within the stillness of
+midnight always reigns. The spider, which spins along the wall, the
+swallow, which rarely flies near the vaulted window there above,
+even the tread of the stranger in the gallery, close by the door,
+is an occurrence in this mute, solitary life, where the mind of the
+prisoner revolves ever upon himself. One should read of the martyr
+cells of the holy inquisition, of the unfortunates of the Bagnio
+chained to each other, of the hot leaden chambers, and the dark wet
+abyss of the pit of Venice, and shudder over those pictures, in
+order to wander through the galleries of the cell prison with a
+calmer heart; here is light, here is air, here it is more human.
+Here, where the sunbeam throws in upon the prisoner its mild light,
+here will an illuminating beam from God Himself sink into the
+heart.'</p></div>
+
+<p>Last we have</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><h4>'SALA.</h4>
+
+<p>'Sweden's great king, Germany's deliverer, Gustavus Adolphus,
+caused Sala to be built. The small enclosed wood in the vicinity of
+the little town relates to us yet traditions of the youthful love
+of the hero king, of his rendezvous with Ebba Brahe. The silver
+shafts at Sala are the largest, the deepest and oldest in Sweden;
+they reach down a hundred and seventy fathoms, almost as deep as
+the Baltic. This is sufficient to awaken an interest in the little
+town; how does it look now? 'Sala,' says the guide book, 'lies in a
+valley, in a flat, and not very agreeable region.' And so it is
+truly; in that direction was nothing beautiful, and the highway led
+directly into the town, which has no character. It consists of a
+single long street with a knot and a pair of ends: the knot is the
+market; at the ends are two lanes which are attached to it. The
+long street&mdash;it may be called long in such a short town&mdash;was
+entirely empty. No one came out of the doors, no one looked out of
+the windows. It was with no small joy that I saw a man, at last, in
+a shop, in whose window hung a paper of pins, a red handkerchief,
+and two tea cans, a solitary, sedate apprentice, who leaned over
+the counter and looked out through the open house door. He
+certainly wrote that evening in his journal, if he kept one;
+'To-day a traveller went through the town; the dear God may know
+him, I do not!' The apprentice's face appeared to me to say all
+that, and he had an honest face.</p>
+
+<p>'In the tavern in which I entered, the same deathlike stillness
+reigned as upon the street. The door was indeed closed, but in the
+interior of the house all the doors stood wide open; the house cock
+stood in the midst of the sitting room, and crowed in order to give
+information that there was some one in the house. As to the rest,
+the house was entirely picturesque; it had an open balcony looking
+out upon the court&mdash;upon the street would have been too lively. The
+old sign hung over the door and creaked in the wind; it sounded as
+if it were alive. I saw it from my window; I saw also how the grass
+had overgrown the pavement of the street. The sun shone clear, but
+as it shines in the sitting room of the solitary old bachelor and
+upon the balsam in the pot of the old maid, it was still as on a
+Scottish Sunday, and it was Tuesday! I felt myself drawn to study
+Young's 'Night Thoughts.'</p>
+
+<p>'I looked down from the balcony into the neighbor's court; no
+living being was to be seen, but children had played there; they
+had built a little garden out of perfectly dry twigs; these had
+been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span> stuck into the soft earth and watered; the potsherd, which
+served as watering pot, lay there still; the twigs represented
+roses and geranium. It had been a splendid garden&mdash;ah yes! We
+great, grown-up men play just so, build us a garden with love's
+roses and friendship's geranium, we water it with our tears and our
+heart's blood&mdash;and yet they are and remain dry twigs without roots.
+That was a gloomy thought&mdash;I felt it, and in order to transform the
+dry twigs into a blossoming Aaron's-staff, I went out. I went out
+into the ends and into the long thread, that is to say, into the
+little lanes and into the great street, and here was more life, as
+I might have expected; a herd of cows met me, who were coming home,
+or going away, I know not&mdash;they had no leader. The apprentice was
+still standing behind the counter; he bowed over it and greeted;
+the stranger took off his hat in return; these were the events of
+this day in Sala. Pardon me, thou still town, which Gustavus
+Adolphus built, where his young heart glowed in its first love, and
+where the silver rests in the deep shafts without the town, in a
+flat and not very pleasant country. I knew no one in this town, no
+one conducted me about, and so I went with the cows, and reached
+the graveyard; the cows went on, I climbed over the fence, and
+found myself between the graves, where the green grass grew, and
+nearly all the tombstones lay with inscriptions blotted out; only
+here and there, 'Anno' was still legible&mdash;what further? And who
+rests here? Everything on the stone was effaced, as the earth life
+of the one who was now earth within the earth. What drama have ye
+dead ones played here in the still Sala? The setting sun threw its
+beams over the graves, no leaf stirred on the tree; all was still,
+deathly still, in the town of the silver mines, which for the
+remembrance of the traveller is only a frame about the apprentice,
+who bowed greeting over the counter.'</p></div>
+
+<p>Silence, stillness, quiet, solitude, loneliness, far-away-ness; hushed,
+calm, remote, out of the world, un-newspapered, operaless,
+un-gossipped&mdash;was there ever a sketch which carried one so far from the
+world as this of 'Sala'? That <i>one</i> shopboy&mdash;those going or coming
+cows&mdash;the tombs, with wornout dates, every point of time vanishing&mdash;a
+living grave!</p>
+
+<p>Contrast again, dear reader. Verily she is a goddess&mdash;and I adore her.
+Lo! she brings me back again in Sala to the busy streets of this city,
+and the office, and the 'exchanges,' and the rustling, bustling world,
+and the hotel dinner&mdash;to be in time for which I am even now writing
+against time&mdash;and I am thankful for it all. Sala has cured me. That
+picture drives away longings. Verily, he who lives in America, and in
+its great roaring current of events, needs but a glance at Sala to feel
+that <i>here</i> he is on a darting stream ever hurrying more gloriously into
+the world and away from the dull inanity&mdash;which the merest sibilant of
+aggravation will change to insanity.</p>
+
+<p>Reader, our Andersen is an artist&mdash;as most children know. But I am glad
+that he seldom gives us anything which is so <i>very</i> much of a monochrome
+as Sala.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder if Sala was the native and surnaming town of that <i>other</i> Sala
+whose initials are G. A. S., and whose nature is 'ditto'? Did its
+dulness drive him to liveliness, even as an 'orthodox' training is said
+to drive youth to dissipation? It may be so. The one hath a deep mine of
+silver&mdash;the other contains inexhaustible mines of brass&mdash;and the name of
+the one as of the other, when read in Hebrew-wise gives us 'alas!'</p>
+
+<p>But I am wandering from the Northern pictures and fresh nature, and must
+close.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_NEW_RASSELAS" id="THE_NEW_RASSELAS"></a>THE NEW RASSELAS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>... And Joseph, opening the drawing room, told me the postchaise was
+ready. My mother and my sister threw themselves into my arms.</p>
+
+<p>'It is still time,' said they, 'to abandon this scheme. Stay with us.'</p>
+
+<p>'Mother, I am of noble birth, I am now twenty, I must have a name, I
+must be talked about in the country, I must be getting a position in the
+army or at court.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! but, Bernard, when you have gone, what will become of me?'</p>
+
+<p>'You will be happy and proud when you hear of your son's success.'</p>
+
+<p>'But if you are killed in some battle?'</p>
+
+<p>'What of that! What's life? Who thinks about being killed? When one is
+twenty, and of noble lineage, he thinks of nothing but glory. And,
+mother, in a few years you shall see me return to your side a colonel,
+or a general, or with some rich office at Versailles.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, and what then?'</p>
+
+<p>'Why, then I shall be respected and considered about here.'</p>
+
+<p>'And then?'</p>
+
+<p>'Why, everybody will take off their hat to me.'</p>
+
+<p>'And then?'</p>
+
+<p>'I'll marry Cousin Henrietta, and I'll marry off my young sisters, and
+we'll all live together with you, tranquil and happy, on my estate in
+Brittany.'</p>
+
+<p>'Now, why can't you commence this tranquil and happy life to-day? Has
+not your father left us the largest fortune of all the province? Is
+there anywhere near us a richer estate or a finer chateau than that of
+La Roche Bernard? Are you not considered by all your vassals? Doesn't
+everybody take off their hat when they meet you? No, don't quit us, my
+dear child; remain with your friends, with your sisters, with your old
+mother, whom, at your return, perhaps you may not find alive; do not
+expend in vain glory, nor abridge by cares and annoyances of every kind,
+days which at the best pass away too rapidly: life is a pleasant thing,
+my son, and Brittany's sun is genial!'</p>
+
+<p>As she said this, she showed me from the drawing-room windows the
+beautiful avenues of my park, the old horse-chestnuts in bloom, the
+lilacs, the honeysuckles, whose fragrance filled the air, and whose
+verdure glistened in the sun. In the antechamber was the gardener and
+all his family, who, sad and silent, seemed also to say to me, 'Don't
+go, young master, don't go.' Hortense, my eldest sister, pressed me in
+her arms, and Am&eacute;lie, my little sister, who was in a corner of the
+drawing room looking at the pictures in a volume of La Fontaine, came up
+to me, holding out the book:</p>
+
+<p>'Read, read, brother,' said she, weeping....</p>
+
+<p>She pointed to the fable of the Two Pigeons!... I suddenly got up, and
+repelled them all. 'I am now twenty, I am of noble blood, I want glory
+and honor.... Let me go.' And I ran toward the courtyard. I was about
+getting into the postchaise, when a woman appeared on the staircase.
+It was Henrietta! She did not weep ... she did not say a word ... but,
+pale and trembling, it was with the utmost difficulty that she kept from
+falling. She waved the white handkerchief she held in her hand, as a
+last good-by, and she fell senseless on the floor. I ran and took her
+up, I pressed her in my arms, I pledged my love to her for life; and as
+she recovered consciousness, leaving her in the hands of my mother and
+sister, I ran to my postchaise without stopping, and without turning my
+head.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>If I had looked at Henrietta, I should not have gone.</p>
+
+<p>In a few moments afterward the postchaise was rattling along the
+highway. For a long time my mind was completely absorbed by thoughts of
+my sisters, of Henrietta, of my mother, and of all the happiness I left
+behind me; but these ideas gradually quitted me as I lost sight of the
+turrets of La Roche Bernard, and dreams of ambition and of glory took
+the entire possession of my mind. What schemes! What castles in the air!
+What noble actions I performed in my postchaise!! I denied myself
+nothing: wealth, honors, dignities, success of every kind, I merited and
+I awarded myself all; at the last, raising myself from grade to grade as
+I advanced on my journey, by the time I reached my inn at night, I was
+duke and peer, governor of a province, and marshal of France. The voice
+of my servant, who called me modestly Monsieur le Chevalier, alone
+forced me to remember who I was, and to abdicate all my dignities. The
+next day, and the following days, I indulged in the same dreams, and
+enjoyed the same intoxication, for my journey was long. I was going to a
+chateau near Sedan the chateau of the Duke de C&mdash;&mdash;, an old friend of my
+father, and protector of my family. It was understood that he was to
+carry me to Paris with him, where he was expected about the end of the
+month; he promised to present me at Versailles, and to give me a company
+of dragoons through the credit of his sister, the Marchioness de F&mdash;&mdash;,
+a charming young lady, designated by public opinion as Madame de
+Pompadour's successor, whose title she claimed with the greater justice
+as she had long filled its honorable functions. I reached Sedan at
+night, and at too late an hour to go to the chateau of my protector. I
+therefore postponed my visit until the nest day, and lay at the
+'France's Arms,' the best hotel of the town, and the ordinary rendezvous
+of all the officers; for Sedan is a garrison town, and is well
+fortified; the streets have a warlike air, and even the shopkeepers have
+a martial look, which seems to say to strangers, 'We are fellow
+countrymen of the great Turenne!' I supped at the general table, and I
+asked what road I should take in the morning to go to the chateau of the
+Duke de C&mdash;&mdash;, which is situated some three leagues out of the town.
+'Anybody will show you,' I was told, 'for it is well known hereabouts:
+Marshal Fabert, a great warrior and a celebrated man, died there.'
+Thereupon the conversation turned about Marshal Fabert. Between young
+soldiers, this was very natural; his battles, his exploits, his modesty,
+which made him refuse the letters patent of nobility and the collar of
+his orders offered him by Louis XIV, were all talked about; they dwelt
+especially on the inconceivable fortune which had raised him from the
+rank of a simple soldier to the rank of a marshal of France&mdash;him, who
+was nothing at all, the son of a mere printer: it was the only example
+of such a piece of fortune which could then be instanced, and which,
+even during Fabert's life, had appeared so extraordinary, the vulgar
+never feared to ascribe his elevation to supernatural causes. It was
+said that from his youth he had busied himself with magic and sorcery,
+and that he had made a league with the devil. Mine host, who, to the
+stupidity inherent in all the natives of the province of Champagne,
+added the credulity of our Brittany peasants, assured us with a great
+deal of sangfroid, that when Fabert died in the chateau of the Duke de
+C&mdash;&mdash;, a black man, whom nobody knew, was seen to enter into the dead
+man's room, and disappear, taking with him the marshal's soul, which he
+had bought, and which belonged to him; and that even now, every May,
+about the period of the death of Fabert, the people of the chateau saw
+the black man about the house, bearing a small light. This story made
+our dessert merry, and we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> drank a bottle of champagne to the demon of
+Fabert, craving it to be good enough to take us also under its
+protection, and enable us to win some battles like those of Collioure
+and La Marfee.</p>
+
+<p>I rose early the next morning, and went to the chateau of the Duke de
+C&mdash;&mdash;, an immense gothic manor-house, which perhaps at any other moment
+I would not have noticed, but which I regarded, I acknowledge, with
+curiosity mixed with emotion, as I recollected the story told us on the
+preceding evening by the host of the 'France's Arms.' The servant to
+whom I spoke, told me he did not know whether his master could receive
+company, and whether he could receive me. I gave him my name, and he
+went out, leaving me alone in a sort of armory, decorated with the
+attributes of the chase and family portraits.</p>
+
+<p>I waited some time, and no one came. 'The career of glory and of honor I
+have dreamed commences by the antechamber,' said I to myself, and
+impatience soon possessed the discontented solicitor. I had counted over
+the family portraits and all the rafters of the ceiling some two or
+three times, when I heard a slight noise in the wooden wainscoting. It
+was caused by an ill-closed door the wind had forced open. I looked in,
+and I perceived a very handsome boudoir, lighted by two large windows
+and a glazed door opening on a magnificent park. I walked into this
+room, and after I had gone a short distance, I was stopped by a scene
+which I had not at first perceived. A man was lying on a sofa, with his
+back turned to the door by which I came in. He got up, and without
+perceiving me, ran abruptly to the window. Tears streamed down his
+cheeks, and a profound despair was marked on his every feature. He
+remained motionless for some time, keeping his face buried in his hands;
+then he began striding rapidly about the room. I was then near him; he
+perceived me, and trembled; I, too, was annoyed and confounded at my
+indiscretion; I sought to retire, muttering some words of excuse.</p>
+
+<p>'Who are you? What do you want?' he said to me in a loud voice, taking
+hold of me by my arms.</p>
+
+<p>'I am the Chevalier Bernard de la Roche Bernard, and I come from
+Brittany.'...</p>
+
+<p>'I know, I know,' said he; and he threw himself into my arms, made me
+take a seat by his side, spoke to me warmly about my father and all my
+family, whom he knew so well that I was persuaded I was talking with the
+master of the chateau.</p>
+
+<p>'You are Monsieur de C&mdash;&mdash;?' I asked him.</p>
+
+<p>He got up, looked at me wildly, and replied, 'I was he, I am he no
+longer, I am nothing;' and seeing my astonishment, he exclaimed, 'Not a
+word more, young man, don't question me!'</p>
+
+<p>'I must, Monsieur; I have been the involuntary witness of your chagrin
+and your grief, and if my attachment and my friendship may to some
+degree alleviate'&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'You are right, you are right,' said he; 'you cannot change my fate, but
+at the least you may receive my last wishes and my last injunctions ...
+it is the only favor I ask of you.'</p>
+
+<p>He shut the door, and again took his seat by my side; I was touched, and
+tremblingly expected what he was going to say: he spoke with a grave and
+solemn manner. His physiognomy had an expression I had never seen before
+on any face. His forehead, which I attentively examined, seemed marked
+by fatality; his face was pale; his black eyes sparkled, and
+occasionally his features, although changed by pain, would contract in
+an ironical and infernal smile. 'What I am going to tell you,' said he,
+'will surprise you.' You will doubt me ... you will not believe me ...
+even. I doubt it sometimes ... at the least, I would like to doubt it;
+but I have got the proofs of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> it; and there is in everything around us,
+in our very organization, a great many other mysteries which we are
+obliged to undergo, without being able to understand.' He remained
+silent for a moment, as if to collect his ideas, brushed his forehead
+with his hand, and then proceeded:</p>
+
+<p>'I was born in this chateau. I had two elder brothers, to whom the
+honors and the estates of our house were to descend. I could hope
+nothing above the cassock of an abb&eacute;, and yet dreams of ambition and of
+glory fermented in my head, and quickened the beatings of my heart.
+Discontented with my obscurity, eager for fame, I thought of nothing but
+the means of acquiring it, and this idea made me insensible to all the
+pleasures and all the joys of life. The present was nothing to me; I
+existed only in the future; and that future lay before me robed in the
+most sombre colors. I was nearly thirty years old, and had done nothing.
+Then literary reputations arose from every side in Paris, and their
+brilliancy was reflected even to our distant province. 'Ah!' I often
+said to myself, 'if I could at the least command a name in the world of
+letters! that at least would be fame, and fame is happiness.' The
+confidant of my sorrow was an old servant, an aged negro, who had lived
+in the chateau for years before I was born; he was the oldest person
+about the house, for no one remembered when he came to live there; and
+some of the country people said that he knew the Marshal Fabert, and had
+been present at his death'&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>My host saw me express the greatest surprise; he interrupted his
+narrative to ask me what was the matter.</p>
+
+<p>'Nothing,' said I; but I could not help thinking of the black man the
+innkeeper had mentioned the evening before.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur de C&mdash;&mdash; went on with his story: 'One day, before Juba (such
+was the negro's name), I loudly expressed my despair at my obscurity and
+the uselessness of my life, and I exclaimed: '<i>I would give ten years of
+my life</i> to be placed in the first rank of our authors.' 'Ten years,' he
+coldly replied to me, 'are a great deal; it's paying dearly for a
+trifle; but that's nothing, I accept your ten years. I take them now;
+remember your promises: I shall keep mine!' I cannot depict to you my
+surprise at hearing him speak in this way. I thought years had weakened
+his reason; I smiled, and he shrugged his shoulders, and in a few days
+afterward I quitted the chateau to pay a visit to Paris. There I was
+thrown a great deal in literary society. Their example encouraged me,
+and I published several works, whose success I shall not weary you by
+describing. All Paris applauded me; the newspapers proclaimed my
+praises; the new name I had assumed became celebrated, and no later than
+yesterday, you, yourself, my young friend, admired me.'</p>
+
+<p>A new gesture of surprise again interrupted his narrative: 'What! you
+are not the Duke de C&mdash;&mdash;?' I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>'No,' said he very coldly.</p>
+
+<p>'And,' I said to myself, 'a celebrated literary man! Is it Marmontel? or
+D'Alembert? or Voltaire?'</p>
+
+<p>He sighed; a smile of regret and of contempt flitted over his lips, and
+he resumed his story: 'This literary reputation I had desired soon
+became insufficient for a soul as ardent as my own. I longed for nobler
+success, and I said to Juba, who had followed me to Paris, and who now
+remained with me: 'There is no real glory, no true fame, but that
+acquired in the profession of arms. What is a literary man? A poet?
+Nothing. But a great captain, a leader of an army! Ah! that's the
+destiny I desire; and for a great military reputation, I would give
+another ten years of my life.' 'I accept them,' Juba replied; 'I take
+them now; don't forget it.''</p>
+
+<p>At this part of his story he stopped again, and, observing the trouble
+and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> hesitation visible in my every feature, he said:</p>
+
+<p>'I warned you beforehand, young man, that you could not believe me; this
+seems a dream, a chimera to you!... and to me, too!... and yet the
+grades and the honors I obtained were no illusions; those soldiers I led
+to the cannon's mouth, those redoubts stormed, those flags won, those
+victories with which all France has rung ... all that was my work ...
+all that glory was mine.'...</p>
+
+<p>While he strode up and down the room, and spoke with this warmth and
+enthusiasm, surprise chilled my blood, and I said to myself, 'Who can
+this gentleman be?... Is he Coligny?... Richelieu?... the Marshal
+Saxe?'...</p>
+
+<p>From this state of excitement he had fallen into great depression, and
+coming close to me, he said to me, with a sombre air:</p>
+
+<p>'Juba spoke truly; and after a short time had passed away, disgusted
+with this vain bubble of military glory, I longed for the only thing
+real and satisfactory and permanent in this world; and when, at the cost
+of five or six years of life, I desired gold and wealth, Juba gave them
+too.... Yes, my young friend, yes, I have seen fortune surpass all my
+desires; I became the lord of estates, of forests, of chateaux. Up to
+this morning they were all mine; if you don't believe me, if you don't
+believe Juba ... wait ... wait ... he is coming ... and you will see for
+yourself, with your own eyes, that what confounds your reason and mine,
+is unhappily but too real.'</p>
+
+<p>He then walked toward the mantlepiece, looked at the clock, exhibited
+great alarm, and said to me in a whisper:</p>
+
+<p>'This morning at daybreak I felt so depressed and weak I could scarcely
+get up. I rang for my servant. Juba came. 'What is the matter with me
+this morning?' I asked him. 'Master, nothing more than natural. The hour
+approaches, the moment draws near!' 'What hour? What moment?' 'Don't you
+remember? Heaven allotted sixty years as the term of your existence. You
+were thirty when I began to obey you!' 'Juba,' said I, seriously
+alarmed, 'are you in earnest?' 'Yes, master; in five years you have
+dissipated in glory twenty-five years of life. You gave them to me, they
+belong to me; and those years you bartered away shall now be added to
+the days I have to live.' 'What, was that the price of your services?'
+'Others have paid more dearly for them. You have heard of Fabert: I
+protected him.' 'Silence! silence!' I said to him; 'you lie! you lie!'
+'As you please; but get ready, you have only half an hour to live.' 'You
+are mocking me; you deceive me.' 'Not at all; make the calculation
+yourself. You have really lived thirty-five years; you have lost
+twenty-five years: total, sixty years.' He started to go out.... I felt
+my strength diminishing; I felt my life waning away. 'Juba! Juba!' said
+I, 'give me a few hours, only a few hours,' I screamed; 'oh! give me a
+few hours longer!' 'No, no,' said he, 'that would be to diminish my own
+life, and I know better than you the value of life. There is no treasure
+in this world worth two hours' existence!' I could scarcely speak; my
+eyes became obscured by a thick veil, the icy hand of death began to
+freeze my veins. 'Oh!' said I, making an effort to speak, 'take back
+those estates for which I have sacrificed everything. Give me four hours
+longer, and I make you master of all my gold, of all my wealth, of all
+that opulence of fortune I have so earnestly desired.' 'Agreed: you have
+been a good master, and I am willing to do something for you; I consent
+to your prayer.' I felt my strength return; and I exclaimed: 'Four hours
+are so little ... oh! Juba! ... Juba ... oh! Juba! give me yet four
+hours, and I renounce all my literary glory, all my works, everything
+that has placed me so high<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> in the opinion of the world.' 'Four hours of
+life for that!' exclaimed the negro with contempt.... 'That's a great
+deal; but never mind; you shan't say I refused your last dying request.'
+'Oh! no! no! Juba, don't say my last dying request.... Juba! Juba! I beg
+of you, give me until this evening, give me twelve hours, the whole day,
+and may my exploits, my victories, my military fame, my whole career be
+forever effaced from the memory of men!... may nothing whatever remain
+of them!... if you will give me this day, only to-day, Juba; and I shall
+be too well satisfied.' 'You abuse my generosity,' said he, 'and I am
+making a fool's bargain. But never mind, I give you until sundown. After
+that, ask me for nothing more. Don't forget, after sundown I shall come
+for you!'</p>
+
+<p>'He went away,' added my companion, with a tone of despair I can never
+forget, 'and this is the last day of my life.' He then walked to the
+glazed door looking out on the park (it was open), and he exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>'Oh God! I shall see no more this beautiful sky, these green lawns,
+these sparkling waters; I shall never again breathe the balmy air of the
+spring! Madman that I was! I might have enjoyed for twenty-five years to
+come these blessings God has showered on all, blessings whose worth I
+knew not, and of which I am beginning to know the value. I have worn out
+my days, I have sacrificed my life for a vain chimera, for a sterile
+glory, which has not made me happy, and which died before me.... See!
+see there!' said he, pointing to some peasants plodding their weary way
+homeward; 'what would I not give to share their labors and their
+poverty!... But I have nothing to give, nothing to hope here below ...
+nothing ... not even misfortune!'... At this moment a sunbeam, a May
+sunbeam, lighted up his pale, haggard features; he took me by the arm
+with a sort of delirium, and said to me:</p>
+
+<p>'See! oh see! how splendid is the sun!... Oh! and I must leave all
+this!... Oh! at the least let me enjoy it now.... Let me taste to the
+full this pure and beautiful day ... whose morrow I shall never see!'</p>
+
+<p>He leaped into the park, and, before I could well comprehend what he was
+doing, he had disappeared down an alley. But, to speak truly, I could
+not have restrained him, even if I would.... I had not now the strength;
+I fell back on the sofa, confounded, stunned, bewildered by all I had
+seen and heard. At length I arose and walked about the room to convince
+myself that I was awake, that I was not dreaming, that....</p>
+
+<p>At this moment the door of the boudoir opened, and a servant announced:</p>
+
+<p>'My master, Monsieur le Duc de C&mdash;&mdash;.'</p>
+
+<p>A gentleman some sixty years old and of a very aristocratic appearance
+came forward, and, taking me by the hand, begged my pardon for having
+kept me so long waiting.</p>
+
+<p>'I was not at the chateau,' said he. 'I have just come from the town,
+where I have been to consult with the physicians about the health of the
+Count de C&mdash;&mdash;, my younger brother.'</p>
+
+<p>'Is he dangerously ill?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, monsieur, thank Heaven, he is not; but in his youth visions of
+glory and of ambition had excited his imagination, and a grave fever,
+from which he has just recovered, and which came near proving fatal, has
+left his head in a state of delirium and insanity, which persuades him
+that he has only one day longer to live. That's his madness.'</p>
+
+<p>Everything was explained to me now!</p>
+
+<p>'Come, my young friend, now let us talk over your business; tell me what
+I can do for your advancement. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> will go together to Versailles about
+the end of this month. I will present you at court.'</p>
+
+<p>'I know how kind you are to me, duke, and I have come here to thank you
+for it.'</p>
+
+<p>'What! have you renounced going to court, and to the advantages you may
+reckon on having there?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p>'But recollect, that aided by me, you will make a rapid progress, and
+that with a little assiduity and patience ... say in ten years.'</p>
+
+<p>'They would be ten years lost!'</p>
+
+<p>'What!' exclaimed the duke with astonishment, 'is that purchasing too
+dearly glory, fortune, and fame?... Silence, my young friend, we will go
+together to Versailles.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, duke, I return to Brittany, and I beg you to accept my thanks and
+those of my family for your kindness.'</p>
+
+<p>'You are mad!' said the duke.</p>
+
+<p>But thinking over what I had heard and seen, I said to myself: 'You are
+the same!'</p>
+
+<p>The next morning I turned my face homeward. With what pleasure I saw
+again my fine chateau de la Roche Bernard, the old trees of my park, and
+the beautiful sun of Brittany! I found again my vassals, my sisters, my
+mother, and happiness, which has never quitted me since, for eight days
+afterward I married Henrietta.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_CHAINED_RIVER" id="THE_CHAINED_RIVER"></a>THE CHAINED RIVER.</h2>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Home I love, I now must leave thee! Home I love, I now must go</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Far away, although it grieve me, through the valley, through the snow.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By the night and through the valley, though the hail against us flies,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Till we reach the frozen river&mdash;on its bank the foeman lies.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Frozen river, mighty river!&mdash;wilt thou e'er again be free</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From the fountain through the mountain, from the mountain to the sea.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yes; though Freedom's glorious river for a time be frozen fast,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Still it cannot hold forever&mdash;Winter's reign will soon be past.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Still it runs, although 'tis frozen&mdash;on beneath the icy plain,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From the mountain to the ocean&mdash;free as thought, though held in chain.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From the mountain to the ocean, from the ocean to the sky,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then in rainy drops returning&mdash;lo the ice-chains burst and fly!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the ice makes great the river. Breast the spring-flood if you dare!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rivers run though ice be o'er them&mdash;<span class="smcap">God</span> and Freedom everywhere!</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="HOW_THE_WAR_AFFECTS_AMERICANS" id="HOW_THE_WAR_AFFECTS_AMERICANS"></a>HOW THE WAR AFFECTS AMERICANS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>At the outbreak of the present terrible civil war, the condition of the
+American people was apparently enviable beyond that of any other nation.
+We say apparently, because the seeds of the rebellion had long been
+germinating; and, to a philosophic eye, the great change destined to
+follow the rebellion was inevitable, though it was then impossible for
+human foresight to predict the steps by which that change would come.
+Unconscious of impending calamity, we were proud of our position and
+character as American citizens. We were free from oppressive taxation,
+and enjoyed unbounded liberty of speech and action. Revelling in the
+fertility of a virgin continent, unexampled in modern times for the
+facilities of cultivation and the richness of its return to human labor,
+it was a national characteristic to felicitate ourselves upon the
+general prosperity, and boastingly to compare our growing resources and
+our unlimited and almost spontaneous abundance, with the hard-earned and
+dearly purchased productions of other and more exhausted countries. Our
+population, swollen by streams of immigration from the crowded
+continents of the old world, has spread over the boundless plains of
+this, with amazing rapidity; and the physical improvements which have
+followed our wonderful expansion have been truly magical in their
+results, as shown by the decennial exhibits of the census, or presented
+in still more palpable form to the eye of the thoughtful and observant
+traveller. Since the fall of the Roman empire, no single government has
+possessed so magnificent a domain in the temperate regions of the globe;
+and certainly, no other people so numerous, intelligent, and powerful,
+has ever in any age of the world enjoyed the same unrestricted freedom
+in the pursuit of happiness: accordingly, none has ever exhibited the
+same extraordinary activity in enterprise, or equal success in the
+creation and accumulation of wealth. It was unfortunately true that our
+mighty energies were mostly employed in the production of physical
+results; and although our youthful, vigorous, and unrestricted efforts
+made these results truly marvellous, yet the moral and intellectual
+basis on which we built was not sufficiently broad and stable to sustain
+the vast superstructure of our prosperity. The foundations having been
+seriously disturbed, it becomes indispensable to look to their permanent
+security, whatever may be the temporary inconvenience arising from the
+necessary destruction of portions of the old fabric.</p>
+
+<p>When the war began, the South was supplying the world with cotton&mdash;a
+staple which in modern times has become intimately connected with the
+physical well-being of the whole civilized world. At the same time, the
+Northwest was furnishing to all nations immense quantities of grain and
+animal food, her teeming fields presenting a sure resource against the
+uncertainty of seasons in those regions of the earth in which capital
+must supply the fertility which is still inexhaustible here. While such
+were the occupations of the South and the West, the North and East were
+advancing in the path of mechanical and commercial improvement, with a
+rapidity beyond all former example. Agricultural and manufacturing
+inventions were springing up, full grown, out of the teeming brain of
+the Yankees, and were fast altering the face of the world. New
+combinations of natural forces were appearing as the agents of the human
+will, and were multiplying the physical capacity of man in a ratio that
+seemed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> know no bounds. Commercial enterprise kept pace with these
+magnificent creations, and never failed, with liberal and enlightened
+spirit, to avail itself of all the resources which industry produced or
+genius invented. Our tonnage surpassed that of the greatest nations; the
+skill of our shipbuilders was unsurpassed; and the courage, industry,
+and perseverance of our seamen were renowned all over the world. On
+every ocean and in every important harbor of the earth were daily
+visible the emblems of our national power and the evidences of our
+individual prosperity. But in one fatal moment, from a cause which was
+inherent in our moral and political condition, all this prodigious
+activity of thought and work was brought to a complete stand. Such a
+shock was never before experienced, because such a social and material
+momentum had never before been acquired by any nation, and then been
+arrested by so gigantic a calamity. It was as if the earth had been
+suddenly stopped on its axis, and all things on its surface had felt the
+destructive impulse of the centrifugal force.</p>
+
+<p>War itself is, unhappily, no uncommon condition of mankind. Wars on a
+gigantic scale have often heretofore raged among the great nations, or
+even between sundered parts of the same people. It is not the magnitude
+of the present contest which constitutes its greatest peculiarity. It is
+rather the magnitude and importance of the interests it involves and the
+relations it sunders, which give it the tremendous significance it bears
+in the eyes of the world. Never has any war found the contending parties
+engaged in works of such world-wide and absorbing interest, as those
+which occupied both sections of our people at the commencement of this
+rebellion. No two people, connected by so many ties, enjoying such
+unlimited freedom of intercourse, so mutually dependent each upon the
+other, and occupying a country so utterly incapable of natural
+divisions, have ever been known to struggle with each other in so
+sanguinary a conflict. All the circumstances of the case have been
+unexampled in history. Accordingly the influence of the contest upon
+affairs on this continent, and indeed upon human affairs generally, has
+been great and disastrous in proportion to the magnitude of the peaceful
+works which have been suspended by it, and to the closeness of those
+brotherly relations which have heretofore existed between the contending
+parties, now violently broken, and perhaps forever destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>Almost the entire industry and commerce of the United States have been
+diverted into new and unaccustomed channels. The most active and
+enterprising people in the world, in the midst of their varied
+occupations, suddenly find all the accustomed channels of business
+blocked up and the stream of their productions flowing back upon them in
+a disastrous flood, and stagnating in their workshops and storehouses.
+They are compelled to find new issues for their enterprise and to make a
+complete change in their habits and works. It is not merely in the
+cessation of all intercourse between the two vast sections, North and
+South, that this mighty transformation has taken place; but an equal
+alteration has been suddenly effected in the character of the business
+and the nature of the occupations which the people have heretofore
+pursued in the loyal States of the Union. Great branches of business,
+employing millions of capital, have been utterly annihilated or
+indefinitely suspended. Vast amounts of capital have been sunk and
+utterly lost in the deep gulf of separation which temporarily divides
+the States; or if they are ever to be recovered, it will be only after
+the storm shall have completely subsided, when some portions of the
+wrecks, which have been scattered in the fearful commotion, may be
+thrown safely on to the shores of reunion. It was anticipated,
+especially<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span> by the rebels themselves, that these incalculable losses,
+these tremendous shocks and sudden changes, would utterly overwhelm the
+North with ruin and tear her to pieces with faction and disorder. But
+this anticipation of accumulated disasters, in which the wish was father
+to the thought, has not been realized to any appreciable extent. The
+pecuniary losses have been in a great measure compensated by the immense
+demands of the war; and when faction has attempted to raise its head, it
+has been compelled to retire before the patriotic rebuke of the people.
+And although the vast expenditures of the war give present relief; by
+drawing largely on the resources of the future, yet the strength we
+acquire is none the less real or less effectual in overthrowing the
+rebellion.</p>
+
+<p>But this sudden and grand emergency, with all its appalling concomitants
+of lives sacrificed, property destroyed, commercial disaster, and social
+derangement, has given a rare opportunity for the testing of our
+national character, and of our ability to meet and overcome the most
+tremendous difficulties and dangers. Perhaps the versatility of American
+genius and its ready adaptation to the new circumstances, are even more
+wonderful than any other exhibition made by our people in this great
+national crisis. There has never been any good reason to doubt the
+capacity of any portion of American citizens for warlike occupations,
+nor their possession of the moral qualities necessary to make them good
+soldiers. The long period of peace which has blessed our country, with
+the industrial, educational, and moral improvement produced by it, has
+rendered war justly distasteful to the Free States of the Union. They
+were slow to recognize the necessity for it; and nothing but the most
+solemn convictions of duty would have aroused them to the stern and
+unanimous determination with which they have entered on the present
+struggle. Swift would have been our degeneration, if the spirit of our
+fathers had already died out among us. But our history of less than a
+century since the Revolutionary war has fully maintained the
+self-reliant character of Americans and demonstrated their military
+abilities; and if the commercial and manufacturing populations of
+particular sections were supposed to have become somewhat enervated by
+long exemption from the labors and perils of war, it was certain that
+our large agricultural regions and especially our frontier settlements
+were peopled with men inured to toil and familiar with danger,
+constituting the best material for armies to be found in any country.
+Nor was it in fact true that any considerable portion of our people,
+even those drawn from the stores and workshops of the cities, had become
+so far deteriorated in vigor of body, or demoralized in spirit, as to be
+unfit for military service. The Southern leaders looked with scorn upon
+our volunteer army only until they encountered it in battle. They were
+then compelled to alter their preconceived opinions of the Yankee
+character, and to change their contempt, real or pretended, into
+respect, if not admiration. Even when superior numbers or better
+strategy enabled them to beat us, they have seldom failed to bear
+honorable testimony to the unflinching courage and endurance of our
+troops. Nor do we need the admissions of the enemy to establish this
+character for us; our own triumphs, on many glorious fields, are the
+best evidences of our ability in war, and of themselves sufficiently
+attest the valor and energy of our noble volunteers. In this aspect of
+the matter, we must not forget the peculiar character and constitution
+of our vast army. It is indeed worthy to be called the wonder of the
+world. It is virtually a voluntary association of the people for the
+purpose of putting down a gigantic rebellion and saving their own
+government from destruction. This is a social phenomenon never before
+known in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span> history on a scale approaching the magnitude of our
+combinations&mdash;a phenomenon which could only take place in a popular
+government, where the unrestricted freedom of individual action promotes
+the virtues of personal independence, self-respect, and manly courage.
+Even the Southern people, fighting on their own soil, in a war which,
+though actually commenced by them, they now affect to consider wholly
+defensive&mdash;even they, with all their boasted unanimity, and with the
+fierce passions engendered by slavery, have been compelled to maintain
+their armies by a conscription of the most unexampled severity; while
+the loyal States, fighting solely for union and nationality&mdash;interests
+of the most general nature, and offering little of mere personal
+inducement&mdash;have so far escaped that necessity, and are now just
+preparing to resort to it. After all, it must be acknowledged by every
+just and generous mind, whether that of friend or foe, that there is a
+substratum of noble sentiment and manly impulses at the foundation of
+the Yankee character. The vast movements of the Northern people plainly
+show it. Their contributions for the support of soldiers' families and
+for the relief of the wounded and disabled, are upon a gigantic scale.
+They raise immense sums for the payment of bounties to volunteers, and
+thus, in every way, the burdens of the war are voluntarily assumed by
+the people, and to some extent distributed among them, so that every one
+may participate in the patriotic work. Nor is this large-hearted
+liberality confined solely to our own country. The sufferers in other
+lands, who have felt the disastrous effects of our great civil war, have
+not been forgotten. In the midst of a life-and-death struggle among
+ourselves, we have found time and means to assist in relieving their
+wants&mdash;an exhibition of liberality peculiar, and truly American in
+character.</p>
+
+<p>Nor are these the only interesting features in the bearing of the
+American people at the present crisis. Perhaps a still more remarkable
+one is the entire devotion of the national energies&mdash;of intellect not
+less than of heart, of skill, not less than of capital&mdash;to the great
+purposes of the war. This was the necessary result of our free
+institutions; of our untrammelled pursuits; the mobility of our means
+and agencies of production; and the plastic character of all our
+creations. The amount of thought expended on this subject has been
+prodigious and incalculable. It would be difficult, if not impossible,
+to enumerate the ten thousand inventions and devices of all kinds which
+have been presented for the purpose of increasing the efficiency of
+weapons and of all the appliances of war, as well as for adding to the
+comfort and securing the health of the soldier. Every imaginable
+instrument of usefulness in any of the operations of the camp, or the
+march, or the field of battle, has been the subject of tentative
+ingenuity, such as none but Yankees could display. The musket, the
+carbine, the pistol, have been constructed upon numberless plans,
+apparently with every possible modification. The cartridge has been
+covered with copper, impervious to water, instead of paper, and has its
+own fulminate attached in various modes. Cannon shot and shells have
+been made in many new forms; and cannons themselves have been increased
+in calibre to an extraordinary size with proportionate efficiency, and
+have been constructed in various modes and forms never before conceived.
+The tent, the cot, the chest, the chair, the knife and fork, the stove
+and bakeoven, each and every one of them, have been touched by the
+transforming hand of homely genius, and have assumed a thousand
+unimaginable forms of usefulness and convenience. India rubber and every
+other available material have been made to perform new and appropriate
+parts in the general work. The result of all this unexampled activity
+and ingenuity has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span> not yet been fully eliminated. It would require years
+of experience in war in order to bring American genius, as at present
+developed, to bear with all its extraordinary force on the mechanical
+details of the military art. Beyond doubt, numberless devices, among
+those presented, will prove to be utterly worthless; but many of them
+will certainly stand the test of experience, will be ultimately approved
+and adopted, and will remain as monuments of the enterprise and
+ingenuity aroused by the necessities of the country in this hour of its
+sad calamity.</p>
+
+<p>It would be a curious and interesting employment to estimate the number
+and character of these inventions, due wholly to the existing civil
+strife. Only then should we be able to form some adequate conception of
+the immense stimulus which has been applied to the national intellect,
+and which has caused it to embrace within the boundless range of its
+investigations, the highest moral and political problems, alike with the
+minutest questions of mechanical and economical convenience. But we
+should be greatly disappointed in not finding this phenomenon even
+partially comprehended by the powers that be. It is truly a melancholy
+thing to meet in the highest quarters so little sympathy with the
+noblest efforts of the popular mind, and to witness the cold neglect and
+even disdainful suspicion with which the most useful and valuable
+devices are often received, or rather, we should say, haughtily
+disregarded and rejected. Seldom or never do we find these inventions
+appreciated according to their merits. The Government is proverbially
+slow to adopt improvements of any kind; and the army and navy, like all
+similar professional bodies, are averse to every important change, and
+wedded to the instruments and processes in the use of which they have
+been educated and trained. This peculiar indisposition to progressive
+movements, in all the established institutions and organizations of
+society, has frequently been the subject of remark and of regret. It is,
+however, only an exaggeration of the conservative principle, which, when
+confined within proper limits, is wise and beneficial. Indeed, the
+actual progress of society in any period, is neither more nor less than
+the result of the conflict between the opposite tendencies, of
+retrogradation and advancement&mdash;a disposition to adhere to the old,
+which has been tried and approved, and a tendency toward the new, which,
+however promising and alluring, may yet disappoint and mislead. In the
+long run, however, the latter prevails, and the progressive movement,
+more or less rapid, goes on continually. Improvements gradually force
+themselves upon the attention of the most prejudiced minds, and
+eventually conquer opposition in spite of professional immobility and
+aversion to change. Observation has shown that the most important steps
+of progress usually originate outside of the professions, and are only
+adopted when they can no longer be resisted with safety to the
+conservative body. To the volunteer officer and soldier, or to those
+educated soldiers who have long been in civil life, will probably be due
+the greater part of that accessibility to new ideas which will result in
+important advances in the art of war. This assertion may seem to be
+paradoxical; but all experience proves that ignorance of old processes
+is most favorable to the introduction of new ones. And though in a
+thousand instances such ignorance may be disastrous, occasionally it
+finds the unprejudiced intellect illuminated by flashes of original
+genius, and open to the entrance of valuable ideas which would have been
+utterly excluded by all the old and established rules.</p>
+
+<p>But the actual work of the unexampled mental activity of the present
+day, will not be fully known and estimated until after the close of the
+war. Until then there will be neither time nor opportunity to weigh and
+test the crea<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span>tions of the national ingenuity. In the midst of campaigns
+and battles, with the absorbing interest of the great struggle, the
+instruments of warfare cannot be easily changed, however important may
+be the improvement presented. The emergency which arouses genius and
+brings forth valuable inventions, is by no means favorable to their
+adoption and general use. On the contrary, by a sort of fatality which
+seems to be a law of their existence, they are doomed to struggle with
+adversity and fierce opposition, and they are left by the occasion which
+gave them birth as its repudiated offspring&mdash;a legacy to the future
+emergency which will cherish and perfect them, make them available, and
+enjoy the full benefit to be derived from them.</p>
+
+<p>The navy has always justly been the pride of our country; and it was to
+be expected that it would first feel the impulse of inventive genius.
+Confident in our strength and resources, we had long remained
+comparatively sluggish, and regardless of those interesting experiments
+which other great maritime powers had been carefully making with a view
+to render ships invulnerable. We looked on quietly, observed the
+results, and waited for the occasion when we should be required to put
+forth our strength in this direction. When the war commenced, we had not
+a single iron-clad vessel of any description. It became necessary that
+the immense Southern coast of our country should be subjected to the
+strictest blockade. This was a work of vast magnitude, and a very large
+and sudden increase of the navy was demanded by the extraordinary
+emergency. Cities were to be taken, and strong fortresses to be
+attacked. The rebels had managed to save some of the vessels intended to
+be destroyed at Norfolk, and had converted the Merrimack into a
+formidable monster, which in due time displayed her destructive powers
+upon our unfortunate fleet in Hampton Roads, in that ever-memorable
+contest in which the Monitor first made her timely appearance. The chief
+result of the vast effort demanded by the perilous situation of our
+country, was the class of vessels of which the partially successful but
+ill-fated Monitor was the type. These structures are certainly very far
+from being perfect as ships of war; nevertheless, they constitute an
+interesting and valuable experiment, and mark an advance in naval
+warfare of the very first importance. They establish the form in which
+defensive armor may perhaps be most effectively disposed for the
+protection of men on board ships; but at the same time, it must be
+conceded that they utterly fail in all the other requisites for
+men-of-war and sea-going vessels. They are deficient in buoyancy and
+speed. In truth they are nothing more than floating batteries, useful in
+the defence of harbors or the attack of forts. The melancholy end of the
+Monitor shows too plainly that vessels of her character cannot be safely
+trusted to the fury of the open sea. They may do well in favorable
+weather, or may escape on a single expedition; but a repetition of long
+voyages will be almost certain to result in their loss.</p>
+
+<p>We want lighter and swifter vessels to be equally formidable in
+ordnance, and alike invulnerable to the attacks of any adversary. To
+combine all these requisites is not beyond the ingenuity of American
+constructors. Most assuredly such vessels will soon make their
+appearance on the ocean. Some new arrangement of the propelling
+apparatus, and lighter and more powerful machinery, will accomplish this
+important end. And then, too, with greatly increased speed, and with a
+construction suitable to the new function, the principle of the ram will
+be perfected; so that the projectile thrown by the most powerful
+ordnance now existing or even conceived will be insignificant compared
+with the momentum of a large steamer, going at the rate of thirty or
+forty miles an hour, and herself becom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span>ing the direct instrument of
+destruction to her adversary. Ordnance may possibly be devised which
+will throw shot or shell weighing each a thousand pounds; but by the new
+principle, which is evidently growing in practicability and favor, the
+weight of thousands of tons will be precipitated against vessels of war,
+and naval combats will become a conflict of gigantic forces, in
+comparison with which the discharge of guns and the momentum of cannon
+balls will be little more than the bursting of bubbles.</p>
+
+<p>The exploits of the rebel steamer Alabama, so destructive to our
+commerce and so humiliating to our pride as a great naval power,
+sufficiently attest the vital importance of the element of speed in
+ships of war. Her capacity under steam is beyond that of our best
+vessels, and she therefore becomes, at her pleasure, utterly
+inaccessible to anything we may send to pursue her. We have built our
+steamers strong and heavy; but proportionately slow and clumsy. The
+Alabama could not safely encounter any one of them entitled to the name
+of a regular cruiser; but she does not intend to risk such a contest,
+and, most unfortunately for us, she cannot be compelled to meet it. Of
+what real use are all the costly structures of our navy with the
+tremendous ordnance which they carry, if this comparatively
+insignificant craft can go and come when and where she will, and sail
+through and around our fleets without the possibility of being
+interrupted? They are perfectly well suited to remain stationary and aid
+us in blockading the Southern ports; but the frequent escape of fast
+steamers running the blockade, serves still further to demonstrate the
+great and palpable deficiency in the speed of our ships of war. We may
+start a hundred of our best steamers on the track of the Alabama, and,
+without an accident, they can never overtake her. The only alternative
+is to accept the lesson which her example teaches, and to surpass her in
+those qualities which constitute her efficiency and make her formidable
+as a foe. This we must do, or we must quietly surrender our commerce to
+her infamous depredations, and acknowledge ourselves beaten on the seas
+by the rebel confederacy without an open port, and without anything
+worthy to be called a navy. The ability of our naval heroes, and their
+skill and valor, so nobly illustrated on several occasions during the
+present war, will be utterly unavailing against superior celerity of
+motion. Their just pride must be humbled, and their patriotic hearts
+must chafe with vexation, so long as the terrible rebel rover continues
+to command the seas, as she will not fail to do so long as we are unable
+to cope with her in activity and speed. Nor is it certain we have yet
+known the worst. Ominous appearances abroad, and thick-coming rumors
+brought by every arrival, indicate the construction in England of
+numerous other ships like the Alabama, destined to run the blockade and
+afterward to join that renowned cruiser in her work of destruction.
+Stores of cotton held in Southern ports offer a temptation to the
+cupidity of foreign adventurers which will command capital to any
+amount, and the best skill of English engineers and builders will be
+enlisted to make the enterprise successful&mdash;a skill not embarrassed by
+bureaucratic inertia and stolidity.</p>
+
+<p>Let the genius of American constructors and engineers be brought to bear
+on the subject, and the important problem will be solved in sixty days.
+Indeed, there are plans in existence, at this very hour, by which the
+desired end could be at once accomplished. But the inertia of official
+authority, and especially of the bureaus in the Navy Department, is such
+that any novel idea, however demonstrably good and valuable, is usually
+doomed to battle for years against opposition of all kinds before it can
+hope to secure an introduction. In all probability, the war will have
+been ended before anything<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span> of great importance ever can be accomplished
+through those channels. The adoption of the Monitor principle was not
+due to the skill and intelligence found in official quarters; it was
+forced upon the Navy Department from the outside. And like the boa
+constrictor, after having swallowed its prey, the Department must
+sluggishly repose until that meal is digested before another can be
+taken. One idea, of the magnitude of this, is enough for the present
+crisis. We shall not have another, if the stubborn resistance and fixity
+of ideas in the bureaus can prevent it. The invulnerability of the
+Monitors, and the peculiar arrangement by which this important end is
+obtained, are but one of the items necessary to make up the complete
+efficiency of war steamers. They are only one half what is required.
+They accomplish one of the great desiderata in armaments afloat; but
+they leave another equally important demand utterly unsatisfied. There
+is a counterpart to this achievement&mdash;its complement, equally
+indispensable to the efficiency of the navy, and waiting to be placed by
+the side of the recent improvement. It must and will be brought forth,
+whether the naval authorities assist or oppose. American genius, only
+give it fair play, is equal to all emergencies.</p>
+
+<p>The immense activity of thought and ingenuity elicited by the war, and
+extending to all the departments of enterprise appropriate to the great
+crisis, is a phenomenon peculiar to the American people. It could be
+exhibited nowhere else, to the same extent, among civilized nations,
+because nowhere else is the same stimulus applied with equal directness
+to the popular masses. The operation of this peculiar cause is
+conspicuously plain. The Government of the United States is the people's
+Government; the war is emphatically the people's war. Every man feels
+that he has a personal interest in it. He understands, more or less
+clearly, the whole question involved, and has fixed opinions, and
+perhaps strong feelings, in regard to it. His friends and neighbors and
+brothers are in the army, and they have gone thither voluntarily,
+perhaps impelled by enlightened and conscientious convictions of duty.
+His sympathies follow them; he ardently prays for their success; and he
+is stimulated to provide, as well as he can, for their comfort. All
+other business being greatly interrupted, if not wholly suspended, he
+thinks continuously of the mighty operations of the war. He dwells on
+them night and day, and in the laboratory of his active mind, excited by
+the mighty stimulus of personal and patriotic feeling natural to the
+occasion, he produces those extraordinary combinations which distinguish
+the present era.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to these impulses which operate so generally, there is the
+still more universal and all-pervading love of gain which stimulates his
+inventive faculties, and causes them to operate in the direction in
+which his hopes and sympathies are turned. Aroused by motives of all
+kinds, the whole mind and heart of the country is absorbed in the great
+contest, and all its energies are applied in every conceivable way to
+the work of war. The man who carries the gun and uses it on the battle
+field is not more earnestly engaged in this work than he who racks his
+brain and sifts his teeming ideas for the purpose of making the
+instrument more destructive. Even the victims who fall in the deadly
+strife and give their mangled bodies to their country, are not more
+truly martyrs to a glorious cause than the inventors who sometimes
+sacrifice themselves in the course of their perilous experiments, or by
+the slower process of mental and physical exhaustion during the long
+years of 'hope deferred,' while vainly seeking to make known the value
+of their devices. A great power is at work, operating on the character
+and capacity of each individual, and affecting each according to the
+infinite diversity which prevails among men. A common en<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span>thusiasm, or,
+at least, a common excitement pervades the whole community to its
+profoundest depths, and arouses all its energy and all its intellect,
+whatever that energy and intellect may be capable of doing. It carries
+multitudes into the army full of patriotic ardor; it inspires others
+with grand ideas, which they seek to embody in combinations of power,
+useful and effective in the great work which is the task of the nation,
+and for the accomplishment of which all noble hearts are laboring
+earnestly and incessantly.</p>
+
+<p>But in this tempestuous hour, as in more peaceful times, good and bad
+ideas, valuable and worthless devices, noble and generous as well as
+sinister and mercenary purposes are mingled in the vast multitude of
+projects which are presented for acceptance and adoption. The power of
+the nation is magnified by the impulse which arouses it; but in its
+exaltation it still retains its errors and defects. It is the same
+people, with all their characteristic faults and virtues, stimulated to
+mighty exertions in a sacred cause, who have been so often engaged in
+petty partisan contests, swayed by dishonest leaders, and carried astray
+by the base intrigues of ambition and selfishness. Yet, as the masses,
+at all times, have had no interest but that of the nation which they
+chiefly constitute, and have sought nothing but what they at least
+considered to be the public good, so even now, in these mad and perilous
+times, the predominating sentiment and purpose of the people, in
+whatever sphere they move, are, on the whole, good and worthy of
+approval. Every one must at least pretend to be controlled by honest and
+patriotic motives; and in such an emergency hypocrisy cannot possibly be
+universal or even predominant. Although men may seek chiefly their own
+interest and profit, they must do so through some effort of public
+usefulness. They must commend themselves, their works, and ideas, as of
+superior importance to the cause of the country; and in this universal
+struggle and competition&mdash;this mighty effervescence of popular thought
+and action, it would be strange and unexampled, if some great, new
+conceptions should not dawn upon us. The very condition, physical,
+social, and moral, of our twenty millions of people in the loyal States
+is unlike all that has ever preceded it. Their general intelligence, the
+result of universal education, makes available their unlimited freedom,
+and establishes their capacity for great achievements. The present
+momentous occasion makes an imperative demand upon all their highest
+faculties, and they cannot fail to respond in a manner which will
+satisfy every just expectation.</p>
+
+<p>What the Government has undertaken in this crisis is worthy of a great
+people and springs from the large ideas habitual to Americans. The
+blockade of the whole Southern coast, with its vast shore line, and its
+intricate network of inlets, harbors, and rivers; the controlling of the
+mighty Mississippi from Cairo to the gulf; the campaigns in Virginia,
+Tennessee, and Arkansas; and the pending attacks on Charleston and
+Savannah&mdash;these gigantic and tremendous operations have something of
+that grandeur which is familiar to our thoughts&mdash;which, indeed,
+constitutes the staple of the ordinary American speech, apparently
+having all the characteristics of exaggerated jesting and idle boast. We
+frequently hear our enthusiastic countrymen talk of anchoring Great
+Britain in one of our northern lakes. They speak contemptuously of the
+petty jurisdictions of European powers contrasted with the magnificent
+domain of our States, and they sneer at the rivers of the old continent
+as mere rills by the side of the mighty 'father of waters.' The men
+whose very jests are on a scale of such magnitude, do not seem to find
+the extensive military operations too large for their serious thoughts.
+No American considers them beyond our power, or for one moment hesitates
+to admit their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span> ultimate success. No difficulties discourage us, no
+disasters appal. We move on with indomitable will and determination,
+looking through all the obstacles to the grand result as already
+accomplished. Does slavery stand in the way, and cotton seek to usurp
+the throne of universal empire, dictating terms to twenty millions of
+freemen, and demanding the acquiescence of the world? The first is
+annihilated by a word proclaiming universal liberation; the second is
+blockaded in his ports, surrounded by a wall of fire, suffocated and
+strangled, and dragged helpless and insensible from his imaginary
+throne. A proud and desperate aristocracy, rich and powerful, and
+correspondingly confident, undertake to measure strength with the
+democratic millions whom they despise. These Northern people, scorned
+and detested, have ideas&mdash;grand and magnificent as well as practical
+ideas, nurtured by universal education and unlimited freedom of thought
+and act. The fierce and relentless aristocracy rave in their very
+madness, and defy the people whom they seek to destroy; but these bear
+down upon the haughty enemy, slowly and deliberately&mdash;awkwardly and
+blunderingly, it may be, at first, but learning by experience, and
+moving on, through all vicissitudes, with the certainty and solemnity of
+destiny to the hour of final and complete success. The confidence in
+this grand result dominates every other thought. All ideas and all
+purposes revolve around it as a centre. It is the internal fire which
+warms the patriotism, strengthens the purpose, stimulates the invention,
+sustains the courage, and feeds the undying confidence of the nation, in
+this, the hour of its desperate struggle for existence.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PROMOTED" id="PROMOTED"></a>PROMOTED!</h2>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'<i>You</i> will not bid me stay!' he said,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'She calls for me&mdash;my native land!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And <i>stay</i>? ah, better to be dead!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A <i>coward</i> dare not ask your hand!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'My crimson sash you'll tie for me,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My belted sword you'll fasten, love!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I swear to both I'll faithful be,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To these below! to God above!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'And if, perchance, my sword shall win</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A laurel wreath to crown <i>your</i> name,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He will not count it as my sin,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That I for <i>you</i> have prayed for fame!'</span><br />
+</p>
+<hr style="width: 20%; Margin-left: 2em; Margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;" />
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His name rings thro' his native land,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">His sword has won the hero's prize;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Why comes he not to ask her hand?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dead on the battle field he lies.</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="HENRIETTA_AND_VULCAN" id="HENRIETTA_AND_VULCAN"></a>HENRIETTA AND VULCAN.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Time, O well beloved, floweth by like a river; sweepeth on by turreted
+castles and dainty boat-houses, great old forests and ruined cities.
+Tender, cool-eyed lilies fringe its rippling shores, straggling arms of
+longing seaweeds are unceasingly wooing and losing its flying waves; and
+on its purple bosom by night, linger merrily hosts of dancing stars.
+Bright under its limpid waters gleam the towers of many a 'sunken city.'
+Strong and clear through the night-silence of eager listening, ring the
+chimes of their far-off bells, the echoes of joyous laughter: and to
+waiting, yearning ones come, ever and anon, deep glances from gleaming
+eyes, warm graspings from outstretched hands. And well windeth the river
+into grim old caves, and even the merriest boat that King Cole ever
+launched flitteth by the dark doors, intent only on the brilliant
+<i>chateaux</i>, that shimmer above in the gorgeous sunlight of a brave
+<i>Espagne</i>. But laughing imps, with flying feet, venture singly into
+these realms of the Unknown. Bright streameth the light there from
+carbuncles and glowing rubies; but of the melodies that there bewilder
+them, no returning voice ever speaketh, for are they not Eleusinian
+mysteries? But when thou meetest, O brother, sailing down the stream
+under gay flags and rounding sails, some Hogarth or some Sterne, who
+playeth <i>rouge et noir</i> with keen old Pharaohs, and battledore with
+Charlie Buff; who singeth brave <i>Libiamos</i>, and despiseth not the
+Christmas plums of Johnny Horner; who payeth graceful court to the great
+and learned, and warmeth the pale hearts of the shivering poor with his
+kind cheer and gentle words; who sitteth with Socrates and Pericles at
+the feet of an ever-lovely Aspasia, and whispereth <i>capricios</i> to Anna
+Maria at the opera; know then, O beloved, if thou hast ever trodden the
+mystic halls, that this man is the brother of thy soul! Selah!</p>
+
+<p>But the bravest stream that ever was born on a mountain side has its
+shoals and quicksands, and far out in the sounding sea rise slowly coral
+reefs. Now, if on every green, growing isle newly rising to the
+sunlight, the glorious jealousy of some Jove should toss a Vulcan, how
+would our Venuses be suddenly charmed by the beauties of a South Sea
+Scheme! how would their tiny shallops dot the curling waves, and what
+new flowers would spring upon the smiling shores to greet their rosy
+feet!</p>
+
+<p>'And why a Vulcan?' says the elegant Narcissus Hare, with a shiver; 'a
+great, grim, solemn, limping monster, that Brummel would have spurned in
+disgust! And he to win our ladies with their delicate loveliness! Faugh,
+sir! are you a Cyclops yourself?'</p>
+
+<p>Alas! my Tinkler, do you remember that Salmasius began his vituperations
+of Milton with gratuitous speculations upon his supposed ugliness, and
+that great was his grief when he was assured that he contended with an
+ideal of beauty. Have you forgotten that the Antin&ouml;us won the
+distinguished favor of his merry, courteous queen Christina, and that
+the satirist and man of 'taste' died of obscurity in a year? Beware, my
+little Narcissus, lest the next autumn flowers bloom above your grave in
+Greenwood, and your fair Luline be accepting bouquets and <i>bonbons</i> from
+me.</p>
+
+<p>You, Roland, are pale from the very contemplation of such a catastrophe,
+such an unprecedented <i>h&aelig;gira</i> of dames! It is as if from every gay
+watering place, some softly tinkling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span> bell should summon the fair
+mermaids. Beplaided and betrowsered, with their little gypsy hats, would
+they float out beyond the breakers, waving aside with farewell, airy
+kisses, the patent life boats and the magical preservers, and pressing
+on, like Gebers, with their rosy faces and great, hopeful eyes ever
+laughingly, merrily turned to the golden east&mdash;their <i>Morgen Land</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Ah! but&mdash;have we no Vulcans among us? 'Fair Bertha, Beatrice, Alys,'
+come out of the Christmas ecstatics of the dear old year that has just
+streamed out like a meteor among the stars;&mdash;<i>you</i> know, fair ones, that
+the stars are only years, and the planets grave old centuries; lock away
+the jewels and the lace sets&mdash;charming, I know&mdash;the glove boxes and the
+statuettes, the cream-leaved books, and the fragile, graceful
+<i>babioles</i>; pull up the cushions, and group your bright selves around
+the register&mdash;it's very cold to-day, you roses&mdash;and let us settle the
+question&mdash;have we a Vulcan among us?</p>
+
+<p>Magnificent essayists, O dearly beloved, have handled 'Our Husbands,'
+'Our Wives,' 'Our Sons' and 'Our Daughters' in a masterly style. Very
+praiseworthy, no doubt, but so unromantic! Why, there's not a green leaf
+in the whole collection! The style is decidedly Egyptian, solid and
+expressive, but dreadfully compact. No arabesques, those offshoots of
+lazy, dreamy hours and pleasantly disconnected thoughts, disgrace the
+solemnly even tenor of these fathers of 'Ephemeral Literature,' as some
+'rude Iconoclast' has irreverently styled the butterfly journeyings of
+our magazine age. But we, O merry souls and brave, are still young and
+frivolous: we still look at pictures with as much zest as before our
+dimly remembered teens; and we belong to that happy branch of the
+Scribbleri family, that prefer the sympathy of bright eyes and gay
+laughter, to the approving shake of any D'Orsay's 'ambrosial curls,' or
+the most unqualified smile from the grimmest old champion who even now
+votes in his secret heart against the New Tariff, or charges with
+unparalleled bravery imaginary or windmill giants on the floor of a
+Platform or of a Legislature.</p>
+
+<p>But this, our paper, purporteth to be, in some wise, a disquisition on
+Beaux, and, by our faith, we had well-nigh forgotten it. <i>Retournons &agrave;
+nos moutons</i>, as the ancient lawyers used to say (and many a tyro, in
+the interim, hath said the same) when they grew so entangled in the
+mazes of Jack Shepherd cases that they lost sight of their original
+designs. And lest I should grow wearisomely prosaic, and see the yawn
+behind your white hand, <i>belle</i> Beatrice, let me make my disquisition a
+half story, and point my moral, not as fairies do, with a pinch, but
+with the shadow of a tale.</p>
+
+<p>And here, <i>signorina</i>, though in courage I am a C&aelig;sar, here I shrink.
+The birdseye view I would take of a few leaves of beau-dom, should be
+from the standing point of your own unquiet, peering eyes; and if even
+Cupid is blindfold, how may I, to whom you are all tormentingly
+delicious enigmas, hope in my own unaided strength to enter the charmed
+citadel of your experiences? Oh, no! But happy is the man, who, with an
+inquiring mind, has also a sister! Thrice happy he whose sisters have
+just now flitted down the staircase, from their own inner sanctuaries,
+into the little library, bearing with them in noisy triumph the Harry of
+all Goodfellows, the truant Henrietta Ruyter! Ah! she is the key that
+will unlock for me those treasures of thought and observation that I
+will shortly lay before you, O readers!</p>
+
+<p>And now to you, O much-traduced star, that presided at my <i>d&eacute;but</i> into
+this vale of tears, may the most glorious rocket ascend that Jackson
+ever said or sung, one that shall break out in p&aelig;ans of brilliant
+stars!&mdash;<i>for</i>, when I entered the charmed presence, the very ball that I
+had been wishing to roll was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span> upon the carpet. But of this I was
+unconscious as I admired Fanny's new dress, the mysterious earrings of
+our stately Bertha, and ventured upon a slight compliment to Henrietta,
+who lounged upon the divan. With admirable dexterity, the young lady
+caught the <i>fleurette</i> upon her crochet needle, reviewed it carelessly,
+and finally decided to accept it; an event that I had undoubtedly
+foreseen, for the compliment was a graceful and artistic one. But
+brothers, as you, Gustav, my boy, have long since discovered, are not
+events, and I was presently consigned to the 'elephant chair' in the
+corner, with a portfolio of sketches that Henrietta had brought from
+over the sea&mdash;and the dames continued, in charming obliviousness of my
+presence.</p>
+
+<p>'Girls,' said Henrietta, having deposited my compliment snugly in her
+little workbasket, whence it may issue to the delectation of some future
+young lady group, 'how are you going to entertain me? Such a Wandering
+Jew as I am! A perfect Ahasuerus! <i>What</i> a novelty it will be that will
+interest <i>me</i>!' and with a most laughingly wearied air, the pretty
+eyebrows were raised, and waves of weariness floated over the golden
+hair in its scarlet net.</p>
+
+<p>Fanny looked concerned. 'We may have a week of opera.'</p>
+
+<p>'I've been&mdash;in&mdash;Milan,' returned Henrietta, with a well-counterfeited
+air of the disdain with which Mrs. De Lancy Stevens views all republican
+institutions since her year in Europe. Bertha laughed.</p>
+
+<p>'You have grown literary, astronomical perhaps, with your star gazing,
+and Len has become such a Mitchellite of late, that two shelves of his
+bookcase are filled with works on the heavenly bodies. What a rapture
+you will be in at the sight!'</p>
+
+<p>'Quite an Aquinas,' said Henrietta, with gravity.</p>
+
+<p>'How so, Harry,' asked Fanny, after a pause, during which she had been
+deciding that her friend meant&mdash;Galileo!</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, he wrote about angels, you know; said these heavenly bodies were
+made of thick clouds, and some other nonsense, of which I remember
+nothing.'</p>
+
+<p>I, in my corner, was devoutly thankful that angels now assume more
+tangible shapes, which chivalric sentiment, finding expression only in
+my eyes, was recognized but by Henrietta, who rewarded me with a
+lightning smile.</p>
+
+<p>'Bertha, my queen,' continued she, as that lady's serene countenance
+beamed upon her in apparently immovable calmness, '<i>does</i> anything ever
+arouse you? Have you forgotten, my impenetrable spirit, the sad days of
+yore, when we sobbed out grand <i>arias</i> to the wretched accompaniment of
+Professor Tirili, blistered our young fingers on guitar strings, waded
+unprofitably in oceans of Locke and Bacon, and were oftener at the apex
+of a triangle than its comfortable base? And you always as calm as
+though 'sailing over summer seas!' Come&mdash;I am absolutely blue;' and the
+half-fretful belle, who had really exhausted her strength and amiability
+by a grand pedestrian tour in the Central Park that morning, stretched
+out demurely her gaiter boots, and drew with an invisible pencil on
+imaginary paper, the outline of her boldly arched instep.</p>
+
+<p>'If Landon would only come,' sighed Fanny, musingly, counting the beads
+for the eye of the Polyphemus she was embroidering on a cushion for that
+gentleman's sofa meditations, 'he would entertain you, as well as
+the&mdash;one&mdash;two&mdash;three&mdash;witches in Macbeth.'</p>
+
+<p>'No doubt of it,' said Henrietta.</p>
+
+<p>'Five blues and two blacks,' said Fanny, not heeding the reply. 'See,
+girls,' and she held up the glittering orb, 'what a lovely eye!'</p>
+
+<p>The enthusiasm of her audience was delirious but subdued. I caught an
+occasional '<i>Such</i> a love!' 'How sweet&mdash;how fierce!'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'Now,' said Henrietta, decidedly, 'if Medusa had but one eye, and this
+dear creature two, I should die as miserably as the lady who loved the
+Apollo Belvidere. I have had <i>oceans</i> of knights errant&mdash;but <i>such</i>! I
+think of writing a natural history like&mdash;Cuvier.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' said Bertha, quietly, 'or Peter Parley.'</p>
+
+<p>'Suppose I read you the advance sheets some morning?'</p>
+
+<p>'Charming,' said Fanny, with a little shrug of approaching delight.</p>
+
+<p>'Mr. Landon Snowe, Miss Fanny,' said a crusty voice, and from under a
+tower of white turban, Sibyl's face looked out&mdash;at the door.</p>
+
+<p>'We will see him here, Sibyl,' said Fanny, brightly; 'and oh, Sibyl, ask
+Mott to make a macaroon custard for dinner, for Miss Ruyter.'</p>
+
+<p>'Excellent,' said that lady, again with the De Lancy Stevens air, 'I
+ate&mdash;those&mdash;in&mdash;Paris. They actually flavor them there with <i>Haut
+Brion!</i> and they are delicious!' and Henrietta's lips fairly quivered at
+the remembrance, that was by no means a recollection of the long-ago
+enjoyed dainties.</p>
+
+<p>'Such extravagance!' said Fanny, opening her eyes, and arranging sundry
+little points in her attitude that were intended to be very piercing
+indeed to the gentleman, whose step was now heard in the hall. 'Such
+extravagance, Harry! Your father, I suppose. You'll get nothing better
+than Port here. Good morning, Mr. Snowe.'</p>
+
+<p>'Talking of ports, ladies,' said that gentleman, airily, after he had
+prostrated himself, figuratively as well as disfiguratively, before Miss
+Henrietta, bowed over Bertha's hand, and drew his chair to Fanny's
+sewing stand, for the triple purpose of confusing her zephyrs, flirting
+at a side table, and ascertaining whether Henrietta had fulfilled the
+luxuriant promise of her earlier youth. Snowe was, womanly speaking, as
+you will see, 'a perfect love of a man.' 'Newport, for example, and
+charming drives? Williamsport and the Susquehanna, Miss Fanny?'</p>
+
+<p>Very statesmanly, O Landon G. Snowe, Esq., both the glance beneath which
+my poor little sister's eyes fell, and the allusions twain to the scenes
+of many a pleasure past. But Fanny, though not mistress of her blushes,
+can, at least, control her words.</p>
+
+<p>'You are not a very good &OElig;dipus, Mr. Snowe; we were discussing
+imports.'</p>
+
+<p>'Such as laces and silks?'&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'And punch,' suggested Henrietta.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Snowe's eyeglass was here freshly adjusted, and his attention
+bestowed upon the young lady who talked of punch, a thing unheard of in
+society! The prospect was refreshing. Henrietta was stylish, piquant,
+and pretty. Fanny was uncertain, indifferent, but, for the moment,
+divine. He magnanimously sacrificed himself to the impulse of the
+moment, and the courtesies of hospitality, and walked courageously over
+to Henrietta, under cover of a huge book.</p>
+
+<p>'They were views from the White Mountains, he believed. Had Miss Ruyter
+seen them? Allow him;' and he wheeled her sofa nearer the table, and
+unfurled the book. Henrietta was charmed.</p>
+
+<p>'The Schwartz Mountains? She had not understood. These are glaciers? How
+they glisten! And these little flowers below are violets? Such pretty,
+modest, ladylike flowers. Had Mr. Snowe a favorite among flowers?'</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Snowe was prepared. He had answered the question exactly five
+hundred and ten times. To Cecilia Lanner, who was almost a <i>religieuse</i>,
+and who wore her diamond cross from principle, he was the very poet of a
+passion flower, such holy mysteries as its opening petals disclosed to
+him! To Lucy Grey, who wore pensive curls, and had a sweet voice, he
+presented constantly fragrant little sprays of mignonette, cunning moss
+baskets with a suspicion of heliotrope peeping out,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span> and crushed myrtle
+blossoms between the leaves of her most exquisitely bound books. To Katy
+Lessing, who rowed a small green boat somewhere up the Hudson in the
+summer, he confided the fact that water lilies were his admiration: he
+loved the limpid water; its restless waves were like heart throbbings
+(this nearly overwhelmed poor Katy). All great and noble souls loved the
+water;&mdash;he forgot the sacred fakirs, and the noble lord who preferred
+Malmsey wine! He had repeatedly assured Regina Ward that the camelia was
+<i>his</i> flower, so proudly beautiful! His soul was 'permeated with
+loveliness,' and asked no fragrance. Regina is a great white creature,
+lovely to behold, and, perfectly conscious of her perfection, no more
+actively charming than the Ino of Foley. He won Milly White's favor by
+applauding her love for wild flowers, declaring that a field of
+buttercups reminded him of the 'spangled heavens,' and that on summer
+days he was constantly envying the cool little Jacks in their green
+pulpits.</p>
+
+<p>A pretended Lavater&mdash;and there have been such&mdash;would have convicted
+Snowe at once of the most artful penetration, could he have seen the
+lowering curve of his brows as he watched the nervous fluttering of
+Henrietta's hands over the pictures, and the decided but softly pleasant
+rounding of her white chin. But it was the general unconsciously
+powerful indifference of manner, that advised him to prefer, in reply to
+her question:</p>
+
+<p>'The snapdragon, yes, beyond the shadow of a doubt. I have an odd
+fashion (very odd, Gustav!), Miss Ruyter, of associating ladies with
+flowers, and that gorgeous three-bird snapdragon always looks to me like
+some brilliant belle, who holds her glittering sceptre and wields it,
+capriciously perhaps, but always charmingly.'</p>
+
+<p>'A sort of Helen,' observed Henrietta, calmly.</p>
+
+<p>'A witching, arbitrary, lovely Helen,' promptly returned Snowe, who had
+a vague idea of Greek helmets and golden apples, wooden horses, a great
+war, and 'all for love.'</p>
+
+<p>Henrietta heard the magnificent vagueness, and became so intently
+interested in a view, that Snowe came softly over to my window, and
+looked into the garden. Lilly Brennan coming in just then, the
+conversation became general, and presently Snowe accompanied her down
+the street.</p>
+
+<p>'Fanny,' said Henrietta, with an inquisitorial air, after the girls had
+decided that the slides on the bows of Lilly's dress were too small, and
+that her 'Bird of Paradise' was lovely enough to fly away with them all,
+'Fanny, are you the 'bright, particular star' of that man?'</p>
+
+<p>'I believe so,' said Fanny, with a stare.</p>
+
+<p>'Do you intend to beam on him for any length of time?' persisted
+Henrietta.</p>
+
+<p>'I haven't decided,' said Fan, honestly. 'I love beauty, and Landon
+Snowe is magnificent.'</p>
+
+<p>'So is the Venus de Medicis,' said Henrietta, fiercely; 'but look at her
+spine! What sort of a brain do you think <i>could</i> flourish at the top of
+such a spine? Not that I suppose that man to have the least fragment of
+one; don't suspect such a thing! Don't you observe his weak, disjointed
+way of carrying his head, and the Pisan appearance of his sentences? I
+should dread an earthquake for such a man as Mr. Snowe&mdash;you'd have
+nothing but remnants to remember him by, Fanny.'</p>
+
+<p>'But earthquakes <i>are</i> phenomena,' said Fanny, stoutly, 'and I'm not in
+the least like one. As long as Landon never fails except spiritually, I
+am contented&mdash;and even in that light <i>I</i> never knew him to trip,' and
+the child was as indignant as her indolent nature would permit.</p>
+
+<p>'Trip! of course not,' echoed Henrietta, 'when he's buried like a
+delicate Sphinx up to his shoulders in the sands<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span> of your good opinion,
+and the mummy cloths of his own conceit; but just remove these, and
+you'll see a downfall. My dear <span class="smcap">Francesca</span>, this man is your <span class="smcap">Cecco</span>, and
+he'd far better retire into a monastery than hope to win you. Why, I'd
+rather marry you myself, <span class="smcap">Francesca</span>! Such charms!' and Henrietta, with
+her own delicate perception and enjoyment of the beautiful, kissed my
+sister's deprecatingly extended hand, and, as the dinner bell rang,
+waltzed her out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>'It's perfectly bewildering the interest some people take in music,' she
+resumed later, building a little tent on the side of her plate with the
+<i>d&eacute;bris</i> of fish. 'There's Bartlett Browning, telling me the other
+evening a melancholy story of some melodious fishes, off the coast
+of&mdash;<i>Weiss nicht wo</i>; oysters, I suppose; conceive of it! the most
+phlegmatic of creatures. I suppose some poor fisherman heard a merlady
+singing in her green halls, and fancied it the death song of some of his
+shells. But that's nothing to some of Bartlett Browning's musical tales.
+The man's a perfect B flat himself!'</p>
+
+<p>'Well,' said Nelly, Phil's little girl, who had come around to show her
+new velvet basque, 'but shells <i>do</i> sing, for I've often listened to
+mamma's, and Bessy gives it to me at night to put me to sleep. <i>You</i>
+know, Aunt Bertie, for you once made me learn what it said:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Oh, sweet and far, from cliff and scar,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>'Fish-land, my beauty,' said Henrietta, playfully; 'let us hear <i>your</i>
+song, fishlet,' and she held a little gleaming shrimp by his tail, and
+looked expectantly at his silent mouth. And here I remember, with a
+smile of amusement and some astonishment, that Herman Melville, in
+nervous fear of ridicule, apologized, most gracefully, of course, for
+his beauteous Fayaway's primitive mode of carving a fish; but I fancy I
+hear myself, or you either, sir, begging the community to shut its dear
+eyes, while Harry's little victim, all unconscious of his fate,
+disappeared behind the walls, coral and white, of her lips and teeth.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, isn't it perfectly delicious to meet a real, frank, merry, wise sort
+of a girl, who doesn't wear spectacles or blue stockings, nor disdain
+the Lancers or a new frock with nineteen flounces? Just fancy it,
+Gustav, my dear fellow, chatting with the Venus of Milo, in a New York
+dining room, and she all done up in blue poplin, with cords and tassels
+and all that, with that lovely hair tumbling about in a scarlet net, and
+such a splendid enjoyment of her own great grace, and royal claiming of
+homage! Eating mashed potatoes too, and celery, and roast beef, to keep
+up that magnificent physique of hers! Oh, it's rare!</p>
+
+<p>But Henrietta couldn't forget Snowe, any more than Snowe could forget
+himself; so, after she had gazed with delight at the red veins of wine
+that threaded the jelly-like custard, with its imprisoned macaroons,
+looking like gold fish asleep in a globe of sun-dyed water, she went on,
+as if the conversation had not been interrupted:</p>
+
+<p>'Do you know, Fan, that he reminds me constantly of champagne. If
+there's anything on earth or in a cellar that I do detest, its
+champagne; such smiling, brilliant-looking impudence, that comes out
+fizz&mdash;bang! and that's the end of it; there's not so much as the quaver
+of an echo. You drink it, and instead of seeing cool vineyards and
+purple waters and cataracts of icicles in your glass, you find a pale,
+gaunt spectre, or a poor, half-drowned Bacchus, staring at you. It's
+just so with your Landon Snowe. You, and other people, too, have a
+<i>habit</i> of admiring him, a great creature with eyes of milky blue, who
+goes about disbursing his small coin like some old Aladdin! Why, my dear
+children, the man, I don't doubt, is this moment congratulating himself,
+in his solitude at Delmonico's, upon his great penetration. Didn't you
+see him studying me with a great flourish of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span> deference, and throwing
+his old, three-birded snapdragons into my White Mountains? If he had
+been as ugly as a Scarron, now, and had known what he said, I could have
+loved him for that, for, of all things, I do delight in dragons! Such
+sieges as I have had at zoological gardens and menageries, from Dan to
+Beersheba, just to see one; and ugly old lizards have been pointed out
+to me, and scorpions, and every imaginable object but a dragon. But one
+day I dug a splendid old manuscript&mdash;a perfect fossil&mdash;out of some old
+library in Spezia, and opening it, by the merest chance came upon a most
+lovely, illuminated, full-grown dragon, the very one, I suppose, that
+Confucius couldn't find! I gazed in raptures, my dearest; he perfectly
+sparkled with emeralds; his eyes were the most luminous opals. Dear,
+happy old Indians, who had their dragons at the four corners of the
+earth, and could go and look over at the lordly creatures whenever they
+felt melancholy. And besides, I have a little private system of
+dragonology of my own, that approaches the equator more nearly. I've
+always worn opals since that day on every possible occasion; I mean to
+be married in them.'</p>
+
+<p>Hurra! <i>belle Henriette!</i> thou hast a weakness. At the end of a long
+aisle, shrouded in sumptuously colored perfumed light, stands an altar,
+and white surplices gleam through the effulgence.&mdash;Thou queen! and that
+thy crowning!</p>
+
+<p>'Len,' said Fanny the next morning, as I sat, after breakfast, over the
+paper, 'don't you think Harry is a little, just a little, satirical,
+and&mdash;well&mdash;not <i>perfectly</i> ladylike and kind, to talk so dreadfully of
+one's friends?'</p>
+
+<p>'Satirical!? Bless your little, tender heart, not the least mite in the
+world; she's quite too straightforward for that. Unladylike! Why, my
+dear Fanny, don't you know 'the wounds of a friend'? Did you never
+think, little sister, that some girls are sent into the world to perform
+the office of crumb-scrapers for your serene highnesses, and themselves
+as well?'</p>
+
+<p>'Like a lady, who gives a dinner party, jumping up and brushing off her
+own table,' said Fanny with an amused laugh.</p>
+
+<p>'Just so, dear; and as they go wandering about, not a fragment can be
+omitted. Now, a little dwarf of a thing like you couldn't do that with
+any grace; but Harry <i>could</i>, you know, and make everybody think it was
+charming. So, if fragments of poor Snowe fall under her unsparing hand,
+and she brushes them off carelessly, don't let anybody's tears go
+rolling after, don't let anybody's heart ache, for such a trifle; think
+of the dessert, Fanny, that is sure to follow.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then you too, Len, you <i>want</i> me to give up Landon?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, my dear, let Landon&mdash;slide.'</p>
+
+<p>Fanny here boxed my ears with emphasis, and retreated, with an
+expression of great disgust on her pretty face.</p>
+
+<p>'Come back here, my child,' I said, pulling her down on my knee, 'and
+let me reason with you.'</p>
+
+<p>Such an oracle as I am with the girls! There's nothing like it, Gustav;
+for every fan or bracelet you give your sisters, you'll be amply
+rewarded by revelations and love; and it's something to have a dear,
+white, undulating wreath of a girl in your arms, and rosy lips on yours,
+even if it is your sister. Bless the sweet creatures!</p>
+
+<p>'What do you want to marry Snowe for?'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, you see, Len, it's so grand to have such a great beauty always at
+one's hand, and the girls are all dying for him; and, you know, Len, the
+truth is,' (very low,) 'he loves me, as you see, and&mdash;we girls are such
+silly creatures&mdash;and I suppose the compliment pleases me,' and the
+frank, darling face crimsoned, and tears stood in the blue eyes. I
+kissed them both, and laid her hands on my shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>'Pet,' I said, earnestly, 'you are worth a gross of Landon Snowes. He
+loves you, of course&mdash;he'd have been an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span> icicle to have failed in so
+obvious a duty; but it's only a matter of pure admiration, scarcely of
+any complicated feelings. Besides, dear, these whitewashed, sinewless,
+variable fellows fade like the winter sun, without any twilight; their
+features go wandering off in search of becoming expressions, and they
+would want a wife like a chameleon to satiate their variety-loving
+natures. No, dear; give Landon to Henrietta, and when Napoleon comes
+back, I will enter no protest, even Harry will be silent, and'&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Len, what nonsense! couldn't you recommend me to the man in the
+moon, through a telescope?'</p>
+
+<p>Fanny laughed, and we went again into the library, where Harry, as
+usual, was tapping her rings with the carved handle of the crotchet
+needle, that was as ornamental, and about as useful, as Cleopatra's.</p>
+
+<p>'I am going to live in a new country,' said she, gravely, as we entered
+the room; 'I would go sailing off like a squirrel on a piece of bark. I
+begin to have intense yearnings after my double. <i>Where</i> do you suppose
+I'm to find him, the gorgeous, tropical anomaly?'</p>
+
+<p>'In Pompeii, or the Cities of the Plain?' I suggested.</p>
+
+<p>'Fanny,' she continued, laughingly, 'is very grave about her vanishing
+Snowe-flakes; but for poor me, who have been persecuted by the most
+distressing men, she has no pity. Girls, I promised you an inventory of
+these treasures.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh yes,' said Fan, gleefully; 'go out, Len, or you will never be able
+to endure Harry afterward, for your counterpart will be peeping out, and
+then woe to your pride!'</p>
+
+<p>'No danger,' said Henrietta, '<i>that's</i> perfectly invulnerable. Lenox may
+remain; it will be a wholesome discipline for him&mdash;a warning, you know,
+my hero; although, girls, Lenox is tolerably faultless,</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Little <i>he</i> loves but a Frau or a feast,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Little he fears but a protest or priest.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Praed altered. Sit down, disciple, at my feet if you will; I am in the
+oratorical mood to-day. Hypatia, if you please, <i>not</i> Grace the Less.'</p>
+
+<p>There was a pretty picture of the <i>Immacul&eacute;e Conception</i> over the sofa,
+one of those lithographs that you see in every bookstore, that Bertha
+fancied because it was 'sweet.' The Virgin, a woman with a child-angel's
+face, and the mezzo-luna beneath her feet. That artist knew what he was
+about, sir. I'd give more for a picture with a good, deep idea, boldly
+launched forth, than for a thousand of your smiling, proper, natural
+'studies,' and Bridal Scenes, and Dramatic or Historical Snatches. If
+artists, now, were all poets and scholars, as they should be, it would
+be the work and delirious rapture of a life to go through a gallery as
+large as our Dusseldorf. Men would go there to write novels and
+histories, and women to learn to be good and beautiful&mdash;that is, to
+learn to think. Oh, what a school for great and small! But when is this
+new era of the real and the true in art to begin? You boy artists, who
+are just opening glad eyes to the glorious light, the great world looks
+to <i>you</i> to inaugurate the new, to pour ancient lore and mystic symbols
+and grand old art into the waiting crucible, and melt the whole, with
+your burning, creative genius, into forms and conceptions before which,
+hearts shall be silent in very rapture. But the time is not yet. One
+here and there cannot change the Iron to a Golden Age, and it is to
+thoughts rather than their great embodiments that earnest
+art-worshippers now bow. And yet men fancy they are artists, dream of a
+fame glorious as that of Phidias! Why there's young Acajou, who
+chiselled a very respectable hound out of a stray lump of marble,
+stealthily, by a candle, or more probably a spirit lamp, in his father's
+cellar&mdash;was discovered and straightway heroized. I don't say the boy
+hasn't talent, genius if you will; but it isn't the genius that will
+overflow his soul and etherealize<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span> his whole nature. Yet already he
+'progresses like a giantess,' has attracted some attention in the
+Academy, and will directly be sent to Rome. But the idea! I know him too
+well! The other night I heard him criticizing Michael Angelo! and when I
+gave him an engraving of that delicious Psyche of Theed's to admire, the
+creature talked as if she were a manikin or a robed skeleton! Is there
+nothing due to the idea, Acajou? 'The idea!' dear me, why he didn't
+exactly know what the <i>idea</i> was! So he'll go trolling about the Louvre
+and the Luxembourg gallery, the Pitti palace and all Rome, and his mind
+will be as full of elbows and collar bones as the catacombs; he'll talk
+to you of the Grecian line of beauty and of 'pose,' and sketch you such
+a glorious arm or ankle that you, fair lady, wouldn't know it from your
+own! But do you see a single softened line in his own face? Has he ever
+drunk deep draughts from old fountains of poesy? Has he ever thought of
+the Vatican library&mdash;even though to long is all he may do? Oh no! He
+says mythology is a wornout dream, and insulting to a Christian age;
+that it's all well enough to know Jupiter and Bacchus (Silenus too?) and
+Venus and the head men back there, but this century wants originality,
+progress! Oh, pshaw!</p>
+
+<p>Oh, but I was saying that Our Lady stood over the half moon, and
+Henrietta sat below it, with that soft cashmere morning dress, fighting
+all around her to see which fold should cling most lovingly to her
+graceful form. It was all a delicious poem to me, and if I were Horace,
+you would have had a splendid ode. Oh, well!</p>
+
+<p>'Why, what a Joseph he is!' said Henrietta, waking me out of this
+reverie.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh,' said I, starting, 'how did you know that?'</p>
+
+<p>'Only conjecture, my dear friend; but when we see a man with his eyes
+fixed in that ghostly way, and his mustaches and all in perfect repose,
+we reasonably imagine that he's seeing visions; and I suppose you'll
+come flaming out presently with some dreams that shall have, for remote
+consequences, a throne in some Eastern paradise, and a princess,
+perhaps&mdash;who knows?'</p>
+
+<p>'Who knows?' echoed I; 'but go on, Hypatia.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh yes! where shall I begin? Oh! there is Penhurst Lane, girls, you
+remember?'</p>
+
+<p>'The raven?' said Bertha.</p>
+
+<p>'No,' said Fanny, 'that is Mr. Rawdon. Penhurst Lane is an idealist.'</p>
+
+<p>'A <i>very</i> idealist, just so,' returned Harry. 'Well, the way I've been a
+martyr to that man's caprice is perfectly heart-rending. He came of some
+gorgeous family in the middle of Pennsylvania, where all the tribes,
+like leaning towers, incline toward Germany. To be sure, you'd never
+dream it from his looks, for he is a perfect Mark Antony in that
+respect. You needn't laugh. Didn't he have <i>bonnes fortunes</i> as well as
+Alcibiades? Not that Penhurst had <i>bonnes fortunes</i>, or ever dreamed of
+such things; but he always had such a proclivity toward any one who
+would listen to his harangues; and I must say, just <i>inter nos</i> (the
+only bit of Latin I know, Lenox, I got it from the English 'Don
+Giovanni'), that I have quite a talent for listening well. But I'd as
+lief encounter a West India hurricane or a simoom. I used to feel him
+coming an hour beforehand. Then I would read a little in Blair, take a
+peep at Sir Charles Grandison, swallow half a page of Cowper's 'Task,'
+and look over the Grecian and Roman heroes; then I was fortified. 'Why
+didn't I take Shelley?' Oh my! why, he couldn't endure Shelley, said he
+was a poor, weak creature, <i>all gone to imagination</i>! Then I would
+assume a Sontag and thick boots, if the weather was cold, to appear
+sensible, you know, and await his coming; that is, if I didn't become
+exasperated before that stage, and rush in to see Lil Brennan to avoid
+him. And his opinions, such an unfolding! You never caught<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span> him looking
+with admiration, oh no! I might have laid a wilderness of charms on the
+floor, at his very feet, and he would have brushed them all away with
+indifference. His mind revolved around a weightier theme than any 'lady
+of fashion;' like a newly discovered moon, he flew around the earth, and
+with miraculous speed. He stopped in China to say 'Confucius;' in India,
+to say 'Brahma;' in Persia, to say 'Ormuzd;' and so on around. My dear
+Lenox, if you had asked him whether Ormuzd was at peace with all the
+world, he would have retired into himself, for he hadn't the faintest
+idea. As for music, or any fine art, he never approached it but once,
+when he led me to the piano, begging for some native American melody,
+and not a German romance. Well, I played him 'God save the Queen,' with
+extravagant variations, which he took for 'Yankee Doodle.' No matter! I
+made a mistake when I spoke of his opinions; he hadn't any. He was what
+some call 'well read,' that is, he had a distant desire to 'improve his
+mind,' but his magnificent self so filled his little vision, that his
+great desire was obscured and distorted. Like my beloved Jean Paul, he
+had once said to himself, <i>Ich bin ein Ich</i> (I am a <span class="smcap">ME</span>), and the noble
+consciousness overwhelmed him, and excluded all after thoughts on any
+minor subject. He never heard Grisi, never saw Rachel; they were
+triflers, 'life was too grave, too short;' but he escorted me
+occasionally to lectures and orations. I remember two or three of these.
+A lecture on the 'Fossils of Humanity and Primeval Formations,' which
+was unintelligible, consequently to him 'sublime;' one on 'the Exalted,'
+that soared out of sight and beyond the empire of gravity, and one on
+'Architecture,' by Dr. Vinton, a splendid production, the fruit and
+evidence of years of study and rare talent, that sent me home with
+longings and unaccustomed reverence for the Great in every form, and
+with grief that my own ignorance rendered it only a half-enjoyed
+pleasure to me; while Penhurst talked as if it were only the echo of his
+own thoughts; pretended to say it was very 'sensible!' But you've had
+enough of Mr. Lane, who was never known to laugh except at his own wit,
+who patronized me because I was a 'solid' young lady, and not given to
+flights. You may readily imagine that our interviews were generally
+<i>t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;tes</i>, for general society was to him a thing 'stale, flat, and
+unprofitable.' Of course you know I only endured his visits because
+among the girls it was considered a compliment to receive them, and they
+were all dying of envy. Besides and principally, it is neither politic
+nor pleasant to offend any one, and I could not have denied myself to
+him, without doing this; so'&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'But, Harry, he is married now.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah me! yes. He saw me in a cap and bells once with you, Lenox, and not
+many weeks afterward married a damsel who reveres him as a Solon, this
+man, who said:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">&mdash;&mdash;'The wanderings</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of this most intricate Universe</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Teach me the nothingness of things.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet could not all creation pierce</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beyond the bottom of his eye.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Are</i> you done, Harry?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, Lenox.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then sing us B&eacute;ranger's <i>Grace &agrave; la f&ecirc;ve, je suis roi</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>She has such a delicious voice.</p>
+
+<p>'And while I am on tiresome people, who think only of themselves, let me
+recall P. George Rawdon; the Raven, Bertha; I always believed his first
+name was Pluto, because of the shades around him. They say every one has
+a text book; his was neither the Bible, the Prayer Book, Thomas &agrave;
+Kempis, <i>La Nouvelle H&eacute;loise</i>, or 'Queechy,' but Mrs. Crowe's 'Night
+Side of Nature.' Talk of having a skeleton in the house! the most
+distressing ones that ever preceded Douglas and Sherwood's were nothing
+to him! he reminded one constantly of an Egyptian feast. He looked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span>
+sadly at children, and gave little Henry Parsons, his godchild, a
+miniature dagger with a jewelled handle, with which the child nearly
+destroyed his right hand. When poor Mary was married, he walked
+mournfully up to the altar, and stared during the ceremony unmistakably
+at an imaginary coffin, hanging, like Mohammed's, midway between the
+ceiling and the floor. Poor man, it's really curious, but he contrives
+to be always in mourning, and everybody knows that he goes only to see
+tragedies, and has the dyspepsia, like Regina and her diamond cross,
+from principle. He composes epitaphs for all the ladies of his
+acquaintance, and presents them, like newspaper-carrier addresses, on
+New Year's days. I have one in my writing desk in a very secret drawer;
+a <i>soul</i>-cheering effusion, but not particularly agreeable to the
+physical humanity. This I intend to bequeath to the British museum,
+where it will be in future ages as great a treat to the antiquary as the
+Elgin marbles. What a doleful subject&mdash;pass him by!'</p>
+
+<p>'Don't forget Leon Channing,' suggested Fanny, who was listening with
+great interest, and from a natural dread of ghosts and vampires was glad
+to see that Mr. Rawdon had come to a crisis.</p>
+
+<p>'Dear me, no!' said Henrietta, cheerily, 'it's quite refreshing to come
+to an individual who creates a smile. I never was born for tears and
+lamentations, Bertha, any more than a lily was made to be merry; and if
+it were not for Len Channing, I don't suppose I should ever have been
+sharpened to such a dangerous degree; it's this constant friction, you
+know; well, as some darling of a cosmopolite has said, 'We must allow
+for friction in the most perfect machinery&mdash;yes, be glad to find it&mdash;for
+a certain degree of resistance is essential to strength. I like Leon
+very well. No one is more safe in a parlor engagement, always in the
+right place at the right tune, never embarrassed, never <i>de trop</i>; but
+then the queer consciousness, when he's giving you a meringu&eacute; or an ice,
+that if you were a 'real pretty,' graceful, conversible fawn or dove he
+would be doing it with the same interest! <i>Why?</i> Oh, because he says
+women belong to a lower order in the animal creation! Yes, veil your
+face, Mr. Lenox Raleigh, and be mournful that you are a man! 'A lower
+order of humanity!' Well, of course, I'm always quarrelling with him. To
+be sure he's a shallow kind of a philosopher, one of your rationalists;
+thinks Boston is the linchpin of the whole universe; has autograph
+letters from Emerson and Longfellow, and all that sort of thing. Now, I
+dare say it's very fine for a Schelling or a Hegel once in a while to
+beam over the earth, but it always seems inharmonious to me to see
+little jets of philosophers popping up in your face and then down again,
+all the time, thinking themselves great things. That's the way with
+Leon. Let me tell you what happened when I saw him last; and that was in
+Cologne, more than a year ago. I was sitting in our room with a great
+folio of Retzsch's engravings before me, and father writing horrible
+notes in his journal at the table, and wishing the eleven thousand
+virgins and all Cologne in the bottom of the Rhine, when I looked up,
+and somehow there was Leon. Of course we were rejoiced to see him, it's
+always so pleasant to meet friends abroad. After some talk, father went
+out to take another look at the cathedral, and indulge in speculations
+and legends, and left Leon and me in the window. It's as queer and
+horrible an old town, girls, as you ever dreamed of, and, as there was
+nothing external very fascinating, Leon soon turned his gaze inward,
+and, after twanging several minor strings, began to harp on his endless
+'inferiority of woman.' I plied him, you may know; I gave him Zenobias
+and Didos and de Staels and de Medicis&mdash;in an emergency Pope Joan, and
+finally the Boston Margaret Fuller. Leon only stroked his beard and
+smiled.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>''Miss Henrietta,' said he, at last, when I stopped in exultation, 'do
+you grant the Africans the vigor or variety of intellect of the
+Europeans?'</p>
+
+<p>''No,' said I.</p>
+
+<p>''Yet you concede that there may be instances among them, where
+education and culture have developed great results.'</p>
+
+<p>''Yes,' I thought, 'there might be.'</p>
+
+<p>''Just as I, bewildered by Miss Henrietta's keen shafts and graceful
+man&oelig;uvres, yield that a woman is, once in a century, gifted with a
+man's depth of thought and her sex's loveliness.' The comparison was
+odious. What did I do? Oh, I (the swarthy Ethiop) only rose from my
+faded arm chair, saluted Mr. Channing (the lordly European) as if I were
+his partner in a quadrille, and brought out my cameos and mosaics to
+show him. In about half an hour the beauty of his reasoning and
+comparison reached his brain, but mine was impenetrable to his most
+honeyed apologies; as I very sweetly assured him, 'I couldn't
+understand, didn't see the drift, couldn't connect the links.' Leon says
+ancient history is a fable, and Herodotus a myth, and all because a
+<i>woman</i> sat upon the tripod at Delphi, and because a <i>woman</i> wore the
+helmet and carried the shield of wisdom.'</p>
+
+<p>'What's the matter, Harry?' asked Fanny, compassionately, as her small
+fingers were stretched like infant grid-irons before her eyes, and a
+silence ensued.</p>
+
+<p>'My new bonnet, Fanny dear, I am wondering what it shall be; we must go
+down this very morning and decide.'</p>
+
+<p>Did you ever think, Narcissus, and you, Gustav, and all of you boys,
+when you are engaged in your small diplomacies and <i>coups de main</i>, and
+feeling like giants in intellect beside the dear little girls who play
+polkas for you of evenings and sing sweet ballads, that <i>pour bien juger
+les grands, il faut les approcher</i>? I thought so that morning, as I
+heard the animated discussion that succeeded Henrietta's monologue; a
+discussion into which all sorts of delicate conceits of lace and flowers
+entered largely, and which savored about as much of the preceding
+elements as last night's Charlotte Russe of this morning's coffee.</p>
+
+<p>Since Henrietta's oration, I am more than ever afraid of a Vulcan. It is
+very plain that our most fashionably cut suits and most delicately
+perfumed billets are not all powerful,&mdash;that the dear creatures are
+either waking or we have been asleep. <i>Reveillons!</i></p>
+
+<p>'<i>Aux armes, citoyens!</i>'</p>
+
+<p>Now, while I was writing that last word, a heavy hand was laid on my
+shoulder, and looking up, I saw&mdash;Nap. I love Nap. I have a girlish
+weakness (let some lady arraign me for this hereafter) for him; so I
+shouted out and grasped his hands.</p>
+
+<p>'How are the boys?'</p>
+
+<p>'Flourishing. Come to stay?</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, old fellow.'</p>
+
+<p>'Stocks up?'</p>
+
+<p>'To the sky.'</p>
+
+<p>'The governor?'</p>
+
+<p>'All right.'</p>
+
+<p><i>I</i> haven't any governor. Nap has; and one that saw fit to persecute him
+from twenty to thirty, because he declined to take 'orders.' <i>Per
+Bacco!</i> Never mind, a fit of paralysis has shaken the opposition out of
+the old gentleman at last, and Nap is in sunshine in consequence, and
+rushes around Wall street like a veteran.</p>
+
+<p>But I didn't promise to tell you about Nap, or the girls either; it was
+only a few rays of light I had to dash over 'our beaux;' so where is
+your mother, belle Beatrice? I must make my adieux.</p>
+
+<p>What say you, little one? You like Henrietta; you want to see her again?
+You pull me back with your wee white hands; I will talk to you for an
+hour longer, if I may hold the little kittens in my own. I may? And kiss
+each finger afterward? Ah! you dear child! Well, then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Are you going to Van Wyck's to-night, Lenox?' asked Bertha of me, as we
+rose from dinner, a month afterward.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, after the opera. And you? I fancy&mdash;yes&mdash;from your eyes.'</p>
+
+<p>Bertha did not answer, and I strolled up stairs into the little back
+drawing room. From the library above I could hear Fanny's merry voice
+and the ring of Nap's cheery replies. Such a comfort as it was to me to
+see those two so fond of each other. You see I am, in a way, Fanny's
+father, and took no very great credit to myself when she half laid her
+hand in the extended one of Snowe. How curiously that witch Harry
+managed the thing, though! Dear little Fan; she stood in more than one
+twilight by the garden window, and whispered over: '<i>Addio</i>, <span class="smcap">Francesca</span>!
+<i>addio</i>, <span class="smcap">Cecco</span>!' and Snowe faded in the returning spring of her heart,
+and into the blooming vista of their separation, hopefully walked Nap,
+and was welcomed with many smiles.</p>
+
+<p>This afternoon, I walked over to the garden window, and there was Harry,
+scrawling an old, bearded hermit on the glass with her diamond ring. We
+both looked out&mdash;nothing much to see&mdash;a New York garden, thirty feet
+square, with the usual gorgeousness of our winter flowers!</p>
+
+<p>'You are thinking of Shiraz, Harry.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' said she, dreamily, 'I am thinking of Shiraz!'</p>
+
+<p>She didn't say it, but don't you suppose I knew just as well that she
+was wishing for her Vulcan and a great rose garden? I began to sing the
+'Last Man,' but didn't succeed admirably; then I lighted my pipe&mdash;Harry
+didn't mind, you know, indeed she only looked at it wishfully.</p>
+
+<p>'In my rose garden,' said she, with a laugh, 'I shall smoke to kill the
+rosebugs.'</p>
+
+<p>'Don't wait,' said I, taking down a dainty <i>&eacute;cume de mer</i> (the back
+drawing room was my peculiar 'study,' and the repository of several
+gentlemanly 'improprieties'), and I adjusted the amber mouth piece to
+the cherry stem, 'Don't wait for Persia, make your rose garden here.'</p>
+
+<p>Harry shook her head: 'You know, Len,' she said, 'that my roses would
+grow like so many witches in a Puritan soil. I always thought that story
+of the Norwegians' taking rosebuds for bulbs of fire, and being
+terrified, was a very delicate and poetical satire upon <i>all</i>
+superstition.'</p>
+
+<p>'Are you going to wash away <i>all</i> superstition?' I asked hastily.</p>
+
+<p>'No,' said she, with a smile at my fierceness; 'no, I like to see the
+sun shine on the dew drops that the webs catch and swing between the
+tops of the grasses.'</p>
+
+<p>I looked at her as she laid her head back against the curtains. My
+nonchalance was as striking as hers, and&mdash;as genuine! We were no
+children to be awkward in any event. I took her hand; it was a glowing
+pulse&mdash;and mine? She wore one of those curious little cabal rings; there
+were the Hebrew characters for Faith, traced as with a gold pen dipped
+in melted pearls on black enamel. My seal was an emerald, Faith also,
+impaled. I snatched it up and laid it by the ring on her hand. She
+smiled&mdash;such a smile! intensest sympathy, deepest! Could it be? to love
+the same old symbols, the same weird music? I caught her close, and bent
+over her lips. The gold hair waved over my shoulder; the great,
+glittering eyes foamed into mine, then melted and swam into deep,
+quivering seas of dreams. I whispered, '<i>Zoe mou!</i>' Oh, the quick,
+golden whisper, the flash of genial heartiness, the daring&mdash;oh, <i>how</i>
+tender! '<i>Sas agapo.</i>' I held her off, radiant, glowing, fragrant, and
+Bertha's dress rustled up the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>Henrietta stooped to pick up the seal, which had fallen; she balanced it
+on the tip of her finger&mdash;the nervy Titan queen! and drew Bertha down by
+her side on the sofa. It was growing dark.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'I must be off, girls, and get your camelias. What will you have,
+Bertha? a red or a white, you've a moment to decide?'</p>
+
+<p>'Neither, Len; I do not go.'</p>
+
+<p>'Why, Bertha? Oh! I remember, it is your anniversary,' and I kissed her.</p>
+
+<p>'And you, princess!' I turned to Henrietta.</p>
+
+<p>'Only roses, good my liege.'</p>
+
+<p>What was the opera that night? Pshaw! what a rhetorical affectation this
+question! as if I could ever forget! <i>Die Zauberfl&ouml;te</i>, and it rang pure
+and clear through my thrilled heart. It followed me around to Van
+Wyck's, where I found Henrietta and Fanny. A compliment to madame, a
+German with mademoiselle, and home again. A great light streamed out of
+the drawing room. I pushed the door open. With a cry of joy, Fan rushed
+into the arms of the grave, fair man who put Bertha off his knee to
+welcome her. Nap, who had followed us in, for a moment stood transfixed,
+and Henrietta, more quiet, stood by their side, saying: 'Here is Harry,
+Fred, when you choose to see her.' And he did choose, her own brother,
+whom she had not seen for three years!</p>
+
+<p>'Come in, Nap,' I said. 'Fred Ruyter.'</p>
+
+<p>'Nap and Fanny,' I whispered; Fred smiled invisibly.</p>
+
+<p>And Bertha? Oh, you know, of course, that she's Bertha Ruyter, and that
+Fred is her husband, just home from six months in Rio, and exactly a
+year from his wedding night! Oh, Lionardo! what mellow, transparent,
+flowing shades drowned us all that night!</p>
+
+<p>'Harry,' I said, the next morning, before I went down town, as I lounged
+over her sofa, 'you have my emerald?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes!' and her bright face turned up to mine.</p>
+
+<p>'You will keep it, and take me also, dear?'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Ma foi! oui</i>,' was the sweet, smiling reply.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm not quite ugly enough for a Vulcan, I know; but after a while, if
+you are patient, who knows? What sayest thou, Venus?'</p>
+
+<p>'I will try you, <i>bon camarade</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>'Your hand upon it, Harry.'</p>
+
+<p>She gave it; I kissed the gold hair that waved against my lips. Fanny
+rushed impetuously upon us, with half-opened eyes, and stifled us with
+caresses.</p>
+
+<p>'Such a proposal,' said she musingly, after she had returned to her
+wools and beads, '14&deg; above zero!'</p>
+
+<p>'And the Polyphemus, Fanny?'</p>
+
+<p>'Is for Nap,' and Fanny blushed and laughed. She was wondering if that
+great event, an 'engagement,' always came about in so prosaic a way. But
+looking at Bertha, I caught the bright, long, gravely humorous gleam
+from her dark eyes, and walked upon it all the way down to Exchange
+Place.</p>
+
+<p>Adieu, little Beatrice; my story hath at last an ending. Keep the little
+hands and little heart warm for somebody brave by and by. Go shining
+about and dancing, and smiling, Hummingbird; may sweetest flowers always
+bloom around you; may you dwell in a fragrant rose garden of your own,
+<i>mignonne</i>! Adieu.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="ETHEL" id="ETHEL"></a>ETHEL.</h2>
+
+<h4>FITZ FASHION'S WIFE.</h4>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Take the diamonds from my forehead&mdash;their chill weight but frets my brow!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How they glitter! radiant, faultless&mdash;but they give no pleasure now.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Once they might have saved a Poet, o'er whose bed the violet waves:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now their lustre chills my spirit, like the light from new-made graves.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Quick! unbind the braided tresses of my coroneted hair!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let it fall in single ringlets such as I was wont to wear.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Take that wreath of dewy violets, twine it round their golden flow;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let the perfumed purple blossoms fall upon my brow of snow!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Simple flowers, ye gently lead me back into the sunny years,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ere I wore proud chains of diamonds, forged of bitter, frozen tears!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bring the silver mirror to me! I am changed since those bright days,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I lived with my sweet mother, and a Poet sang my praise.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My blue eyes are larger, dimmer; thicker lashes veil their light;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Upon my cheek the crimson rose fast is fading to the white.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I am taller, statelier, slighter, than I was in days of yore:&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If his eyes in heaven behold me, does he praise me as before?</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Proudly swells the silken rustle&mdash;all around is wealth and state,&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dearer far the early roses twining round the wicker gate,</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where my mother came at evening with the saint-like forehead pale,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the Poet sat beside her, conning o'er his rhythmed tale.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As he read the linked lines over, she would sanction, disapprove:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Soft and musical the pages, but he never sang of love.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I had lived through sixteen summers, he was only twenty-one,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And we three still sat together at the hour of setting sun.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lowly was the forest cottage, but the sweetbrier wreathed it well;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Mid its violets and roses, bees and robins loved to dwell.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wilder forms of larch and hemlock climbed the mountain at its side;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fairy-like a rill came leaping where the quivering harebells sighed.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Glittering, bounding, singing, dancing, ferns and mosses loved its track;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lower in it dipped the willows, as to kiss the cloudland's rack.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Soon there came a stately lover,&mdash;praised my beauty, softly smiled:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'He would make my mother happy,'&mdash;I was but a silly child!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Came a dream of sudden power&mdash;fairest visions o'er me glide&mdash;</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Wider spheres would open for me;&mdash;dazzled, I became a bride:</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fondly deemed my lonely mother would be freed from sordid care;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Splendor I might pour around her, every joy with her might share.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then the Poet, who had never breathed one word of love to me,&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We might shape his life-course for him, give him culture wide and free.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How I longed to turn the pages, with a husband's hand as guide,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of the long-past golden ages, art and science at my side!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To my simple fancy seemed it almost everything he knew&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ah! he might have won affection, faithful, fervent, trusting, true!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I was happy, never dreaming wealth congeals the human soul,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Freezing all its generous impulse&mdash;I but saw its wide control.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Years have passed&mdash;a larger culture poured strange knowledge through my mind&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I have learned to read man's nature: better I were ever blind!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How can I take upon me what I look upon with scorn,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Or learn to brook my own contempt, or trample the forlorn?</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I cannot live by rote and rule; I was not born a slave</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To narrow fancies; I must feel, although a husband rave!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I cannot choose my friends because I know them rich, or great;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My heart elects the noble,&mdash;what cares love for wealth or state?</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Very lovely are my pictures, saints and angels throng my hall&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But with shame my cheek is flushing, and my quivering lashes fall:</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Can I gaze on pictured actions, daring deeds, and emprise high,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And not feel my degradation while these fetters round me lie?</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Once the Poet came to see me, but it gave me nought but pain;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I was glad to see the Gifted go, ne'er to return again.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For my husband scorning told me: 'True, his lines were very sweet,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But his clothes, so worn and seedy&mdash;scarce for me acquaintance meet!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Artists, poets, men of genius, truly should be better paid,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But not holding our position, cannot be our friends,' he said.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'As gentlemen to meet them were a very curious thing;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They were happier in their garrets&mdash;there let them sigh or sing.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">There were Travers and De Courcy&mdash;could he ask them home to dine,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At the risk of meeting truly such strange fellows o'er their wine?'</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then he said, 'My cheeks were peachy, lips were coral, curls were gold,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But he liked them braided crown-like, and with pearls and diamonds rolled.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I was once a little peasant; now I stood a jewelled queen&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fitter that a calmer presence in his stately wife were seen!'</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then he gave a gorgeous card-case; set with rubies, Roman gold,</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Handed me a paper with it, strands of pearls around it rolled;</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Names of all his wife should visit I would find upon the roll:&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Found I none I loved within it&mdash;not one friend upon the scroll!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And my mother, God forgive me! I was glad to see her go,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ere the current of her loving heart had turned like mine to snow.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Must I still seem fair and stately, choking down my bosom's strife,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Because 'all deep emotions were unseemly in his wife'?</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Must I gasp 'neath diamonds' glitter&mdash;walk in lustrous silken sheen&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Leaving those I love in anguish while I play some haughty scene?</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I am choking! closer round me crowds convention's stifling vault&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Every meanness's called a virtue&mdash;every virtue deemed a fault!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Every generous thought is scandal; every noble deed is crime;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Every feeling's wrapped in fiction, and truth only lives in rhyme!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No;&mdash;I am not fashion's minion,&mdash;I am not convention's slave!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If 'obedience is for woman,' still she has a soul to save.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Must I share their haughty falsehood, take my part in social guile,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cut my dearest friends, and stab them with a false, deceitful smile?</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Creeping like a serpent through me, faint, I feel a deadly chill,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Freezing all the good within me, icy fetters chain my will.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Do I grow like those around me? will I learn to bear my part</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In this glittering world of fashion, taming down a woman's heart?</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Must I lower to my husband? is it duty to abate</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All the higher instincts in me, till I grow his fitting mate?</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shall I muse on noble pictures, turn the poet's stirring page,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And grow base and mean in action, petty with a petty age?</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I am heart-sick, weary, weary! tell me not that this life,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where all that's truly living must be pruned by fashion's knife!&mdash;</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I can make my own existence&mdash;spurn his gifts, and use my hands,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Though the senseless world of fashion for the deed my memory brands.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Quick! unbraid the heavy tresses of my coroneted hair&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let its gold fall in <i>free</i> ringlets such as I was wont to wear.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I am going back to nature. I no more will school my heart</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To stifle its best feelings, play an idle puppet's part.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I will seek my banished mother, nestle closely on her breast;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Noble, faithful, kind, and loving, there the tortured one may rest.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">We will turn the Poets' pages, learn the noblest deeds to act,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Till the fictions in their beauty shall be lived as simple fact.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I will mould a living statue, make it generous, strong, and high,</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Humble, meek, self-abnegating, formed to meet the Master's eye.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oh, the glow of earnest culture! Oh, the joy of sacrifice!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The delight to help another! o'er all selfish thoughts to rise!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Farewell, cold and haughty splendor&mdash;how you chilled me when a bride!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hollow all your mental efforts; meanness all your dazzling pride!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Put the diamonds in their caskets! pearls and rubies, place them there!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I shall never sigh to wear them with the violets in my hair.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Freedom! with no eye upon me freezing all my fiery soul;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Free to follow nature's dictates; free from all save God's control.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I am going to the cottage, with its windows small and low,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where the sweetbrier twines its roses and the Guelder rose its snow.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I will climb the thymy mountains where the pines in sturdy might</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Follow nature's holy bidding, growing ever to the light;</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tracking down the leaping streamlet till the willows on it rise,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Watch its broad and faithful bosom strive to mirror back the skies.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Through the wicker gate at evening with my mother I will come,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With a little book, the Poet's, to read low at set of sun.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Tis a gloomy, broken record of a love poured forth in death,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Generous, holy, and devoted, sung with panting, dying breath.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By the grassy mound we'll read it where he calmly sleeps in God,&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My gushing tears may stream above&mdash;they cannot pierce the sod!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hand in hand we'll sit together by the lowly mossy grave&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oh, God! I blazed with jewels, but the noble dared not save!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I am going to the cottage, there to sculpture my own soul,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Till it fill the high ideal of the Poet's glowing roll.</span><br />
+</p>
+<hr style="width: 20%; Margin-left: 2em; Margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;" />
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Stay, lovely dream! I waken! hear the clanking of my chain!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Feel a hopeless vow is on me&mdash;I can ne'er be free again!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His wife! I've sworn it truly! I must bear his freezing eye,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Feel his blighting breath upon me while all nobler instincts die!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Feel the Evil gain upon me as the weary moments glide,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Till I hiss, a jewelled serpent, fit companion, at his side.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Vain is struggle&mdash;vain is writhing&mdash;vain are sobs and stifled gasps&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I must wear my brilliant fetters though my life-blood stain their clasps!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hark! he calls! tear out the violets! quick! the diamonds in my hair!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">There's a ball to-night at Travers'&mdash;'tis his will I should be there.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Splendid victim in his pageant, though my tortured head should ache,</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet I must be brilliant, joyous, if my throbbing heart should break!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I shudder! quick! my dress of rose, my tunic of point lace&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If fine enough, he will not read the anguish in my face!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I know one place he dare not look&mdash;it is so still and deep&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He dare not lift the winding sheet that veils my last, long sleep!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He dreads the dead! the coffin lid will shield me from his breath&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His eye no more will torture&mdash;&mdash;Joy! I shall be free in death!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Free to rest beside the Poet. He will shun the lowly grave:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">There my mother soon will join us, and the violets o'er us wave.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_SKEPTICS_OF_THE_WAVERLEY_NOVELS" id="THE_SKEPTICS_OF_THE_WAVERLEY_NOVELS"></a>THE SKEPTICS OF THE WAVERLEY NOVELS.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It is remarkable that while, in a republic, which is the mildest form of
+government, respect for law and order are most highly developed, there
+is in an aristocracy (which is always the most deeply based form of
+tyranny) a constant revolt against all law. Puritanism in England,
+Pietism in Germany, and Huguenotism in France, were all directly and
+strongly republican and law-abiding in their social relations; while for
+an example of the contrary we need only glance at our own South.
+Aristocracy&mdash;a regularly ordered system of society into ranks&mdash;is the
+dream of the slaveholder, and experience is showing us how extremely
+difficult it is to uproot the power of a very few wicked men who have
+fairly mudsilled the majority; and yet, despite this strength, there was
+never yet a country claiming to be civilized, in which the wild caprices
+and armed outrages of the individual were regarded with such toleration.</p>
+
+<p><i>Republicanism is Christian.</i> When will the world see this tremendous
+truth as it should, and realize that as there is a present and a future,
+so did the Saviour lay down one law whereby man might progress in this
+life, and another for the attainment of happiness in the next, and that
+the two are mutually sustaining? There was no real republicanism before
+the Gospels, and there has been no real addition to the doctrine since.
+The instant that religion or any great law of truth falls into the hands
+of a high caste, and puts on its livery, it becomes&mdash;ridiculous. What
+think you of a shepherd's crook of gold blazing with diamonds?</p>
+
+<p>It is interesting to trace an excellent illustration of the natural
+affinity between the fondness for feudalism and the love of law-breaking
+in Sir <span class="smcap">Walter Scott</span>. Whatever his head and his natural common sense
+dictated (and as he was a canny Scot and a shrewd observer, they
+dictated many wise truths), his heart was always with the men of bow and
+brand; with dashing robbers, moss troopers, duellists, wild-eagle
+barons, wild-wolf borderers, and the whole farrago of autocratic
+scoundrelism. With his soul devoted to dreams of feudalism, his fond
+love of its romance was principally based on the constant infractions of
+law and order to which a state of society must always be subject in
+which certain men acquire power out of proportion to their integrity.
+The result of this always is a lurking sympathy with rascality, a secret
+relish for bold selfishness, which is in every community the deadliest
+poison<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span> of the rights of the poor, and all the disinherited by fortune.</p>
+
+<p>It is very remarkable that Walter Scott, a Tory to the soul, should, by
+his apparently contradictory yet still most consistent love of the
+<i>outr&eacute;</i>, have had a keen amateur sympathy for outlaws. It is much more
+remarkable, however, that, still retaining his faith in king and nobles,
+Church and State, he should have pushed his appreciation of such men to
+the degree of marvellously comprehending&mdash;nay, enjoying&mdash;certain types
+of skepticism which sprang up in fiercest opposition to authority; urged
+into existence by its abuses, as germs of plants have been thought to be
+electrified into life by sharp blows. And it is most remarkable of all,
+that he did this at a time when none among his English readers seem to
+have had any comprehension whatever of these characters, or to have
+surmised the fact that to merely understand and depict them, the writer
+must have ventured into fearful depths of reflection and of study. In
+treating these characters, Walter Scott seems to become positively
+<i>subjective</i>&mdash;and I will venture to say that it is the only instance of
+the slightest approach to anything of the kind to be found in all his
+writings. Unlike Byron, who was painfully conscious, not of the nature
+of his want in this respect, but of <i>something</i> wanting, Scott nowhere
+else betrays the slightest consciousness of his continual life under
+limitations, when, <i>plump!</i> we find him making a headlong leap right
+into the very centre of that terrible pool whose waters feed the
+forbidden-fruit tree of good and of evil.</p>
+
+<p>The characters to which I particularly refer in Sir Walter Scott's
+novels are those of the Templar, Brian de Bois Guilbert, in 'Ivanhoe;'
+of the gypsy Hayraddin Maugrabin in 'Quentin Durward;' of Dryfesdale,
+the steward, in 'The Abbot;' and of the 'leech' Henbane Dwining, in 'The
+Fair Maid of Perth.' There are several others which more or less
+resemble these, as, for instance, Ranald Mac Eagh, the Child of the
+Mist, in 'Montrose,' and Rashleigh, in 'Rob Roy;' but the latter,
+considered by themselves, are only partly developed. In fact, if Scott
+had given to the world only <i>one</i> of these outlaws of faith, there would
+have been but little ground for inferring that his mind had ever taken
+so daring a range as I venture to claim for him. It is in his constant,
+wistful return, in one form or the other, to that terrible type of
+humanity&mdash;the man who, as a matter of intensely sincere faith, has freed
+himself from all adherence to the laws of man or <span class="smcap">God</span>&mdash;that we find the
+clue to the <i>real</i> nature of the author's extraordinary sympathy for the
+most daring, yet most subtle example of the law-breaker. In comparing
+these characters carefully, we find that each by contrast appears far
+more perfect than when separate&mdash;as the bone, which, however excellent
+its state of preservation may be, never seems to the eye of the
+physiologist so complete as when in its place in the complete skeleton.
+And through this contrast we learn that Scott, having by sympathy and
+historical-romantic study, comprehended the lost secret of all
+<i>illumin&eacute;e</i> mysteries&mdash;that of human dependence on nought save the laws
+of a mysterious and terrible Nature&mdash;could not refrain from ever and
+anon whispering the royal secret, though it were only to the rustling
+reeds and rushes of fashionable novels. Having learned, though in an
+illegitimate way, that the friend of <span class="smcap">Pan</span>, the great king of the golden
+touch, had ass's ears, he <i>must</i> tell it again, though in murmurs and
+whispers:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 6.5em;">'Qui cum ne prodere visum</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dedecus auderet, cupiens efferre sub auras,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nec posset reticere tamen, secedit, humumque</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Effodit: et domini quales aspexerit aures,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Vox refert parva; terr&aelig;que immurmurat haust&aelig;.'<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>It is to be remarked, in studying collectively these outlaws as set
+forth by Scott, that while the same characteristic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span> lies at the basis of
+each, there is very great variety in its development, and that the
+author seems to have striven to present it in as many widely differing
+phases as he was capable of doing. When we reflect that Scott himself
+could not be fairly said to be perfectly <i>at home</i> in more than half a
+dozen departments of history, and yet that he has taken pains to set
+forth as many historical varieties of minds absolutely emancipated from
+all faith, and finally, when we recall that at the time when he wrote,
+the great proportion of the characteristics of these <i>dramatis person&aelig;</i>
+were utterly unappreciated, and that by even the learned they were
+simply reviewed as 'infidels,' we cannot but smile at the care with
+which (like the sculptor in the old story) he carved his images, and
+buried them to be dug up at a future day by men who, as he possibly
+hoped, would appreciate more fully than did his contemporaries his own
+degree of forbidden knowledge. I certainly do not exaggerate the
+importance of these characters when speaking in this manner. They could
+not have been conceived without a very great expenditure of study and of
+reflection. They are, as I said, subjective, and such portraits of
+humanity always involve a vastly greater amount of penetrative and
+long-continued thought, than do the mere historical and social
+photographs which constitute the bulk of Scott's, as of all novels, and
+form the favorites of the mass of readers for entertainment.</p>
+
+<p>First among these characters, and most important as indicating direct
+historical familiarity with the obscure subject of the Oriental heresies
+of the Middle Ages in Europe, I would place that of the Templar, Brian
+de Bois Guilbert, who is generally regarded by readers as simply 'a
+horrid creature,' who chased 'that darling Rebecca' out of the window to
+the verge of the parapet; or at best as a knightly ruffian, who, like
+most ruffianly sinners, quieted conscience by stifling it with doubt.
+Very different, however, did the Templar appear to Scott himself, who,
+notwithstanding the poetic justice meted to the knight, evidently
+sympathized in secret more warmly with him than with any other character
+in the gorgeous company of 'Ivanhoe.' Among them all he is the only one
+who fully and fairly appreciates the intellect of Rebecca, and, seen
+from the stand-point of rigid historical probability which Scott would
+not violate, <i>all allowance being made for what the Templar was</i>, he
+appears by far the noblest and most intelligent of all the knightly
+throng. I say that though a favorite, Scott would not to favor him,
+violate historical probability. Why should he? It formed no part of his
+plan to give the public of his day lessons in <i>illumin&eacute;e</i>-ism. Had he
+done so he would have failed like 'George Sand' in 'Consuelo;' but a
+very small proportion indeed of whose readers retain a recollection of
+the doctrines which it is the main object of the book to set forth. I
+trust there is no slander in the remark, but I <i>must</i> believe it to be
+true until I see that the majority of the readers of that work have also
+taken to zealously investigating the sources of that most forbidden
+lore, which has most certainly this peculiarity, that no one can
+<i>comprehend</i> it ever so little without experiencing an insatiable,
+never-resting desire to exhaust it, like everything which is prohibited.
+There is no such thing as knowing it a little. As one of its sages said
+of old, its knowledge rushes forth into infinite lands.</p>
+
+<p>It was, I believe, some time before 'Ivanhoe' appeared, that Baron von
+Hammer Purgstall had published his theory that the Knights Templars
+were, although most unjustly treated, still guilty, in a certain sense,
+of the extraordinary charges brought against them. It seems at least to
+be tolerably certain that during their long residence in the East they
+had acquired the Oriental secrets of initiation into societies which
+taught the old serpent-lore of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span> <i>eritis sicut Deus</i>, and positive
+knowledge; the ultimate secret, being the absolute nothingness of all
+faith, creeds, laws, ties, or rules to him who is capable of rising
+above them and of drawing from Nature by an 'enlightened' study of her
+laws the principles of action, of harmony with fellow men, and of
+unlimited earthly enjoyment. Such had been for ages the last lessons of
+all the 'mysteries' of the East&mdash;mysteries which it was the peculiar
+destiny of the Hebrew race to resist through ages of struggle. It was
+through the teaching of such mysteries of pantheistic naturalism that,
+as the unflinching Jewish deists and anthropomorphists believed, man
+fell, and their belief was set forth in their very first religious
+tradition&mdash;the history of the apple, the serpent, and the Fall. And it
+is to the very extraordinary nature of the Hebrew race, by which they
+presented for the first time in history the spectacle of a people
+resisting nature-worship, that they owe their claim to be a peculiar
+people.</p>
+
+<p>The Templars, under the glowing skies of the East, among its thousand
+temptations, those of superior knowledge not being the least; in an age
+when the absurdities of the Roman church were, to an enlightened mind,
+at their absurdest pitch, fell readily into 'illumination.' Whether they
+literally <i>worshipped</i> the Oriental Baphomet, a figure with two heads,
+male and female, girt with a serpent, typifying the completest
+abnegation of all moral relations, and the rights of knowledge, no one
+can say now&mdash;it is, however, significant that this symbol, which they
+undoubtedly used, actually found its way under the freemasons into the
+Christian churches of the West, as a type of 'prudence' among the
+representations of Christian virtues. When we remember that the Gnostics
+taught that <i>prudence</i> alone was virtue,<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> we have here a coincidence
+which sufficiently explains the meaning of this emblem of 'the baptism
+of mind.'</p>
+
+<p>Nothing is more likely than that a portion of the Knights Templars were
+initiated in the mysteries of such Oriental sects as those of the <i>House
+of Wisdom</i> of Al Hakem, the seventh and last degree of which at first
+'inculcated the vanity of all religion, and the indifference of actions
+which are neither visited with recompense nor chastisement here or
+hereafter.' At a later age, when the doctrines of this society had
+permeated all Islam, it seems to have labored very zealously to teach
+both women and men gratuitously all learning, and give them the freest
+use of books. At this time it was in the ninth degree that the initiate
+'learnt the grand secret of atheism, and a code of morals, which may be
+summed up in a few words, as believing nothing and daring
+everything.'<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a></p>
+
+<p>Bearing this in mind, Walter Scott may be presumed to have studied with
+shrewd appreciation the character of the Templars, and to have
+conjectured with strange wisdom their great ambition, when we find Brian
+de Bois Guilbert declaring to Rebecca that his Order threatened the
+thrones of Europe, and hinting at tremendous changes in society&mdash;'hopes
+more extended than can be viewed from the throne of a monarch.' For it
+was indeed the hope&mdash;it <i>must</i> have been&mdash;for the proud and powerful
+brotherhood of the Temple to extend their secret doctrines over Europe,
+regenerate society, and overthrow all existing powers, substituting for
+them its own crude and impossible socialism, and for Christianity the
+lore of the serpent. How plainly is this expressed in the speech of Bois
+Guilbert to Rebecca:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>'Such a swelling flood is that powerful league. Of this mighty
+Order I am no mean member, but already one of the Chief Commanders,
+and may well aspire one day to hold<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span> the baton of Grand Master. The
+poor soldiers of the Temple will not alone place their foot upon
+the necks of Kings&mdash;a hemp-sandall'd monk can do that. Our mailed
+step shall ascend their throne&mdash;our gauntlet shall wrench the
+sceptre from their gripe. Not the reign of your vainly expected
+Messiah offers such power to your dispersed tribes as my ambition
+may aim at. I have sought but a kindred spirit to share it, and I
+have found such in thee.'</p>
+
+<p>'Sayest thou this to one of my people?' answered Rebecca. 'Bethink
+thee'&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Answer me not,' said the Templar, 'by urging the difference of our
+creeds; within our secret conclaves we hold these nursery tales in
+derision. Think not we long remain blind to the idiotic folly of
+our founders, who forswore every delight of life for the pleasures
+of dying martyrs by hunger, by thirst, and by pestilence, and by
+the swords of savages, while they vainly strove to defend a barren
+desert, valuable only in the eyes of superstition. Our Order soon
+adopted bolder and wider views, and found out a better
+indemnification for our sacrifices. Our immense possessions in
+every kingdom of Europe, our high military fame, which brings
+within our circle the flower of chivalry from every Christian
+clime&mdash;these are dedicated to ends of which our pious founders
+little dreamed, and which are equally concealed from such weak
+spirits as embrace our Order on the ancient principles, and whose
+superstition makes them our passive tools. But I will not further
+withdraw the veil of our mysteries.'</p></div>
+
+<p>We may well pause for an instant to wonder what would have been the
+present state of the now civilized world had this order with its
+Oriental illumin&eacute;eism actually succeeded in undermining feudal society
+and in overthrowing thrones. That it was jointly dreaded by Church and
+State appears from the excessive, implacable zeal with which it was
+broken up by Philip the Fair and Pope Clement the Fifth&mdash;a zeal quite
+inexplicable from the motives of avarice usually attributed to them by
+the modern freemasonic defenders of the Knights of the Temple. I may
+well say modern, since in a freemasonic document bearing date 1766,
+reprinted in a rare work,<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> we find the most earnest protest and
+denial that freemasonry had anything in common with the Templars. But
+the Order did not die unavenged. It is by no means improbable that the
+secret heresies which, bearing unmistakable marks of Eastern origin,
+continually sprang up in Europe, and finally led the way to Huss and the
+Reformation, were in their origin encouraged by the Templars.</p>
+
+<p>Certain it is that the character of Bois Guilbert as drawn by Scott&mdash;his
+habitual oath 'by earth and sea and sky!' his scorn of 'the doting
+scruples which fetter our free-born reason,' and his atheistic faith
+that to die is to be 'dispersed to the elements of which our strange
+forms are so mystically composed,' are all wonderful indications of
+insight into a type of mind differing inconceivably from the mere
+infidel villain of modern novels, and which could never have been
+attributed to a knight of the superstitious Middle Ages without a strong
+basis of historical research. Very striking indeed is his fierce love
+for Rebecca&mdash;his intense appreciation of her great courage and firmness,
+which he at once recognizes as congenial to his own daring, and believes
+will form for him in her a fit mate. There is a spirit of reality in
+this which transcends ordinary conceptions of what is called genius. To
+deem a woman requisite aid in such intellectual labor&mdash;for so we may
+well call the system of the Templars&mdash;would at that era have been
+incomprehensibly absurd to any save the worshippers of the bi-sexed
+Baphomet and the disciples of the House of Wisdom, with whom the equal
+culture of the sexes was a leading aim. The extraordinary tact with
+which Scott has contrived to make Bois Guilbert repulsive to the mass of
+readers, while at the same time he really&mdash;for himself&mdash;makes him
+undergo every sacrifice of which the Templar's nature is <i>consistently</i>
+capable, is perhaps the most elaborately artistic effort in his works.
+To have made Bois Guilbert sensible to the laws of love and of chivalry,
+which in his mystical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span> freedom he despised, to rescue her simply from
+death, which in his view had no terrors beyond short-lived pain, would
+not have agreed with his character as Scott very truly understood it.
+Himself a sacrifice to fate, he was willing that she, whom he regarded
+as a second self, should also perish. This reserving the true
+comprehension of a certain character to one's self by a writer is not, I
+believe, an uncommon thing in romance writing. 'Blifil' was the favorite
+child of his literary parent, and was (it is to be hoped) seen by him
+from a stand-point undreamed of by nearly all readers.</p>
+
+<p>Closely allied in the one main point of character to Bois Guilbert, and
+to a certain degree having his Oriental origin, yet differing in every
+other detail, we have Hayraddin Maugrabin, the gypsy, in 'Quentin
+Durward.'</p>
+
+<p>When Walter Scott drew the outlines of this singular subordinate actor
+in one of the world's greatest medi&aelig;val romances, so little was known of
+the real condition of the 'Rommany,' that the author was supposed to
+have introduced an exaggerated and most improbable character among
+historical portraits which were true to life. The more recent researches
+of George Borrow and others have shown that, judged by the gypsy of the
+present day, Hayraddin is extremely well drawn in certain particulars,
+but improbable in other respects. He has, amid all his villany, a
+certain firmness or greatness which is peculiar to men who can sustain
+positions of rank&mdash;a marked Oriental 'leadership,' which Scott might be
+presumed to have guessed at. Yet all of this corresponds closely to the
+historical account of the first of these wanderers, who in 1427 came to
+Europe, 'well mounted,' and claiming to be men of the highest rank, and
+to the condition and character of certain men among them in the
+Slavonian countries of the present day. If we study carefully all that
+is accessible both of the present and the past relative to this singular
+race, we shall find that Scott, partly from knowledge and partly by
+poetic intuition, has in this gypsy produced one of his most marvellous
+and deeply interesting studies.</p>
+
+<p>Like Bois Guilbert, Hayraddin is a man without a God, and the
+peculiarity of his character lies in a constant realization of the fact
+that he is absolutely <i>free</i> from every form or principle of faith,
+every conventional tie, every duty founded on aught save the most
+natural instincts. He revels in this freedom; it is to him like magic
+armor, making him invulnerable to shafts which reach all around
+him&mdash;nay, which render him supremely indifferent to death itself.
+Whether this extreme of philosophical skepticism and stoicism could be
+consistently and correctly attributed to a gypsy of the fifteenth
+century, will be presently considered. Let me first quote those passages
+in which the character is best set forth. The first is that in which
+Hayraddin, in reply to the queries of Quentin Durward, asserts that he
+has no country, is not a Christian, and is altogether lawless:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>'You are then,' said the wondering querist, 'destitute of all that
+other men are combined by&mdash;you have no law, no leader, no settled
+means of subsistence, no house or home. You have, may Heaven
+compassionate you, no country&mdash;and, may Heaven enlighten and
+forgive you, you have no God! What is it that remains to you,
+deprived of government, domestic happiness, and religion?'</p>
+
+<p>'I have liberty,' said the Bohemian&mdash;'I crouch to no one&mdash;obey no
+one&mdash;respect no one.&mdash;I go where I will&mdash;live as I can&mdash;and die
+when my day comes.'</p>
+
+<p>'But you are subject to instant execution at the pleasure of the
+Judge?'</p>
+
+<p>'Be it so,' returned the Bohemian; 'I can but die so much the
+sooner.'</p>
+
+<p>'And to imprisonment also,' said the Scot; 'and where then is your
+boasted freedom?'</p>
+
+<p>'In my thoughts,' said the Bohemian, 'which no chains can bind;
+while yours, even when your limbs are free, remain fettered by your
+laws and your superstitions, your dreams of local attachment, and
+your fantastic visions of civil policy. Such as I are free in
+spirit when our limbs are chained. You are imprisoned in mind, even
+when your limbs are most at freedom.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p> Transcriber's note:<br />No anchor for this footnote could be found on this page.
+<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a>
+
+
+</p>
+</blockquote>
+<p>'Yet the freedom of your thoughts,' said the Scot, 'relieves
+not the pressure of the gyves on your limbs.'</p>
+
+<p>'For a brief time that may be endured,' answered the vagrant, 'and
+if within that period I cannot extricate myself, and fail of relief
+from my comrades, I can always die, and death is the most perfect
+freedom of all.'</p></div>
+
+<p>Again, when asked in his last hour what are his hopes for the future,
+the gypsy, after denying the existence of the soul, declares that his
+anticipations are:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>'To be resolved into the elements. * * * My hope and trust and
+expectation is, that the mysterious frame of humanity shall melt
+into the general mass of nature, to be recompounded in the other
+forms with which she daily supplies those which daily disappear,
+and return under different forms,&mdash;the watery particles to streams
+and showers, the earthy parts to enrich their mother earth, the
+airy portions to wanton in the breeze, and those of fire to supply
+the blaze of Aldebaran and his brethren. In this faith I have
+lived, and will die in it. Hence! begone!&mdash;disturb me no further! I
+have spoken the last word that mortal ears shall listen to!'</p></div>
+
+<p>That such a strain as this would be absurd from 'Mr. Petulengro,' or any
+other of the race as portrayed by Borrow, is evident enough. Whether it
+is inappropriate, however, in the mouth of one of the first corners of
+the people in Europe, of direct Hindustanee blood, is another question.
+Let us examine it.</p>
+
+<p>In his notes to 'Quentin Durward,' Scott declares his belief that there
+can be little doubt that the first gypsies consisted originally of
+Hindus, who left their native land when it was invaded by Timur or
+Tamerlane, and that their language is a dialect of Hindustanee. That the
+gypsies were Hindus, and outcast Hindus or Pariahs at that, could be no
+secret to Scott. That he should have made Hayraddin in his doctrines
+marvellously true to the very life to certain of this class, indicates a
+degree either of knowledge or of intuition (it may have been either)
+which is at least remarkable.</p>
+
+<p>The reader has probably learned to consider the Hindu Pariah as a merely
+wretched outcast, ignorant, vulgar, and oppressed. Such is not, however,
+exactly their <i>status</i>. Whatever their social rank may be, the
+Pariahs&mdash;the undoubted ancestors of the gypsies&mdash;are the authors in
+India of a great mass of philosophy and literature, embracing nearly all
+that land has ever produced which is tinctured with independence or wit.
+In confirmation of which I beg leave to cite the following passages from
+that extremely entertaining, well-edited, and elegantly published little
+work, the 'Strange Surprising Adventures of the Venerable Goroo Simple
+and his Five Disciples':</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>'The literature of the Hindoos owes but little to the hereditary
+claimants to the sole possession of divine light and knowledge. On
+the contrary, with the many things which the Brahmins are forbidden
+to touch, all science, if left to them alone, would soon stagnate,
+and clever men, whose genius cannot be held in trammels, therefore
+soon become outcasts and swell the number of <i>Pariars</i> in
+consequence of their very pursuit of knowledge. * * * To the
+writings of the <i>Poorrachchameiyans</i>, a sect of <i>Pariars</i> odious in
+the eyes of a Brahman, the Tamuls owe the greater part of works on
+science. * * * To the <i>Vallooran</i> sect of Pariars, particularly
+shunned by the Brahmans, Hindoo literature is indebted almost
+exclusively for the many moral poems and books of aphorisms which
+are its chief pride.</p>
+
+<p>'This class of literature' (satiric humor and fables) 'emanated
+chiefly from those despised outcasts, the Pariars, the very men who
+(using keener spectacles than Dr. Robertson, our historian of
+Ancient India, did, who singularly became the panegyrist of Gentoo
+subdivisions) saw that to bind human intellect and human energy
+within the wire fences of Hindoo castes is as impossible as to shut
+up the winds of heaven in a temple built by man's hand, and boldly
+thought for themselves.'</p></div>
+
+<p>Of the literary <i>Vallooran</i> Pariah outcasts and scientific
+Poorrachchameiyans, we know from the best authority&mdash;Father Beschi&mdash;that
+they form society of six degrees or sects, the fifth of which, when five
+Fridays occur in a month, celebrate it <i>avec de grandes abominations</i>,
+while the sixth 'admits the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span> real existence of nothing&mdash;except,
+<i>perhaps</i>, <span class="smcap">God</span>.' This last is a mere guess on the part of the good
+father. It is beyond conjecture that we have here another of those
+strange Oriental sects, 'atheistic' in its highest school and identical
+in its nature with that of the House of Wisdom of Cairo, and with the
+Templars; and if Scott's gypsy Hayraddin Maugrabin is to be supposed one
+of that type of Hindu outcasts, which were of all others most hateful to
+the orthodox Moslem invader, we cannot sufficiently admire the
+appropriateness with which doctrines which were actually held by the
+most deeply initiated among the Pariahs were put into his mouth. To have
+made a merely vulgar, nothing-believing, and as little reflecting gypsy,
+as philosophical as the wanderer in 'Quentin Durward,' would have been
+absurd. There is a vigor, an earnestness in his creed, which betrays
+culture and thought, and which is marvellously appropriate if we regard
+him as a wandering scion of the outcast Pariah illuminati of India.</p>
+
+<p>Did our author owe this insight to erudition or to poetic intuition? In
+either case we discover a depth which few would have surmised. It was
+once said of Scott, that he was a millionaire of genius whose wealth was
+all in small change&mdash;that his scenes and characters were all massed from
+a vast collection of little details. This would be equivalent to
+declaring that he was a great novelist without a great idea. Perhaps
+this is true, but the clairvoyance of genius which <i>seems</i> to manifest
+itself in the two characters which I have already examined, and the
+cautious manner in which he has treated them, would appear to prove that
+he possessed a rarer gift than that of 'great ideas'&mdash;the power of
+controlling them. Such ideas may make reformers, critics, politicians,
+essayists&mdash;but they generally ruin a novelist&mdash;and Scott knew it.</p>
+
+<p>A third character belonging to the class under consideration, is Henbane
+Dwining, the 'pottingar,' apothecary or 'leech,' in the novel of 'The
+Fair Maid of Perth.'</p>
+
+<p>This man is rather developed by his deeds than his words, and these are
+prompted by two motives, terrible vindictiveness and the pride of
+superior knowledge. He is vile from the former, and yet almost heroic
+from the latter, for it is briefly impossible to make any man intensely
+self-reliant, and base this self-reliance on great learning in men and
+books, without displaying in him some elements of superiority. He is so
+radically bad that by contrast one of the greatest villains in Scottish
+history, Sir John Ramorney, appears rather gray than black; and yet we
+dislike him less than the knight, possibly because we know that men of
+the Dwining stamp, when they have had the control of nations, often do
+good simply from the dictates of superior wisdom&mdash;the wisdom of the
+serpent&mdash;which, no Ramorney ever did. The skill with which the crawling,
+paltry leech controls his fierce lord; the contempt for his power and
+pride shown in Dwining's adroit sneers, and above all, the ease with
+which the latter casts into the shade Ramorney's fancied superiority in
+wickedness, is well set forth&mdash;and such a character could only have been
+conceived by deep study of the motives and agencies which formed it. To
+do so, Scott had recourse to the same Oriental source&mdash;the same fearful
+school of atheism which in another and higher form gave birth to the
+Templar and the gypsy. 'I have studied,' says Dwining, 'among the sages
+of Granada, where the fiery-souled Moor lifts high his deadly dagger as
+it drops with his enemy's blood, and avows the doctrine which the pallid
+Christian practises, though, coward-like, he dare not name it.' His
+sneers at the existence of a devil, at all 'prejudices,' at religion,
+above all, at brute strength and every power save that of intellect, are
+perfectly Oriental&mdash;not however of the Oriental Sufi, or of the
+initiated in the House of Wisdom, whose pantheistic Idealism<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span> went hand
+in hand with a faith in benefiting mankind, and which taught
+forgiveness, equality, and love, but rather that corrupted Asiatic
+vanity of wisdom which abounded among the disciples of Aristotle and of
+Averroes in Spain, and which was entirely material. I err, strictly
+speaking, therefore, when I speak of this as the <i>same</i> Oriental school,
+though in a certain sense it had a common origin&mdash;that of believing in
+the infinite power of human wisdom. Both are embraced indeed in the
+beguiling <i>eritis sicut Deus</i>, 'ye shall be as <span class="smcap">God</span>,' uttered by the
+serpent to Eve.</p>
+
+<p>Quite subordinate as regards its position among the actors of the novel,
+yet extremely interesting in a historical point of view, is the
+character of Jasper Dryfesdale the steward of the Douglas family, in
+'The Abbot.' In this man Scott has happily combined the sentiment of
+absolute feudal devotion to his superiors with a gloomy fatalism learned
+'among the fierce sectaries of Lower Germany.' If carefully studied,
+Dryfesdale will be found to be, on the whole, the most morally
+instructive character in the entire range of Scott's writings. In the
+first place, he illustrates the fact, so little noted by the advocates
+of loyalty, aristocracy, 'devoted retainers,' and 'faithful vassals,'
+that all such fidelity carried beyond the balance of a harmony of
+interests, results in an insensibility to moral accountability. Thus in
+the Southern States, masters often refer with pride to the fact that a
+certain negro, who will freely pillage in other quarters, will 'never
+steal at home.' History shows that the man who surrenders himself
+entirely to the will of another begins at once to cast on his superior
+all responsibility for his own acts. Such dependence and evasion is of
+itself far worse than the bold unbelief which is to the last degree
+self-reliant; which seeks no substitute, dreads no labor, scorns all
+mastery, and aims at the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
+truth. Such unbelief may possibly end in finding religious truth after
+its devious errors, but what shall be said of those who would have men
+sin as <i>slaves</i>?</p>
+
+<p>Singularly and appropriately allied to a resignation of moral
+accountability from feudal attachment, is the contemptible and cowardly
+doctrine of fatalism, which Dryfesdale also professes. It is not with
+him the philosophic doctrine of the concurring impulses of circumstance,
+or of natural laws, but rather the stupendously nonsensical notion of
+the Arabian <i>kismet</i>, that from the beginning of time every event was
+fore-arranged as in a fairy tale, and that all which <i>is</i>, is simply the
+acting out of a libretto written before the play began&mdash;a belief revived
+in the last century by readers of Leibnitz, who were truer than the
+great German himself to the consequences of his doctrine, which he
+simply evaded.<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> In coupling this humiliating and superstitious means
+of evading moral accountability with the same principle as derived from
+feudal devotion, Scott, consciously or unconsciously, displayed genius,
+and at the same time indirectly attacked that system of society to which
+he was specially devoted. So true is it that genius instinctively tends
+to set forth the <i>truth</i>, be the predilections of its possessor what
+they may. And indeed, as Scott nowhere shows in any way that <i>he</i>, for
+his part, regarded the blind fidelity of the steward as other than
+admirable, it may be that he was guided rather by instinct than will, in
+thus pointing out the great evil resulting from a formally aristocratic
+state of society. Such as it is, it is well worth studying in these
+times, when the principles of republicanism and aristocracy are brought
+face to face at war among us, firstly in the contest between the South
+and the North, and secondly in the rapidly growing division between the
+friends of the Union, and the trea<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span>sonable 'Copperheads,' who consist of
+men of selfish, aristocratic tendencies, and their natural allies, the
+refuse of the population.</p>
+
+<p>It is very unfortunate that the term 'Anabaptists' should have ever been
+applied to the ferocious fanatics led by John of Leyden, Knipperdolling,
+and Rothmann, since it has brought discredit on a large sect bearing the
+same name with which it had in reality even less in common than the
+historians of the latter imagine. It is not a difficult matter for the
+mind familiar with the undoubted Oriental origin of the 'heresies' of
+the middle ages, to trace in the origin at least of the fierce and
+licentious socialists of M&uuml;nster the same secret influence which,
+flowing from Gnostic, Manich&aelig;an, or Templar sources, founded the
+Waldense and Albigense sects, and was afterward perceptible in a branch
+of the Hussites. At the time of the Reformation their ancient doctrines
+had subsided into Biblical fanaticism; but the old leaven of revolt
+against the church, and against all compulsion&mdash;keenly sharpened by
+their experiences, in the recent Peasant's War&mdash;was as hot as ever among
+them. They had no great or high philosophy, but were in all respects
+chaotic, contradictory, and stormy. Unable to rise to the cultivated and
+philanthropic feelings which accompanied the skepticism of their remote
+founders, they based their denial of moral accountability&mdash;as narrow and
+vulgar minds naturally do&mdash;on a predestination, which is as insulting to
+<span class="smcap">God</span> as to man, since it is consistently comprehensible only by supposing
+<span class="smcap">Him</span> a slave to destiny. Among such vassals to a worse than earthly
+tyranny, the man who as 'a Scottish servant regarded not his own life or
+that of any other save his master,' would find doctrines congenial
+enough to his grovelling nature. So he was willing to believe that 'that
+which was written of me a million years before I saw the light must be
+executed by me.' 'I am well taught, and strong in belief,' he says,
+'that man does nought for himself; he is but the foam on the billow,
+which rises, bubbles, and bursts, not by its own effort, but by the
+mightier impulse of fate which urges him.' And the combination of his
+two wretched doctrines is well set forth in the passage wherein he tells
+his mistress that she had no choice as regarded accepting his criminal
+services. 'You might not choose, lady,' answered the steward. 'Long ere
+this castle was builded&mdash;ay, long ere the islet which sustains it reared
+its head above the blue water&mdash;I was destined to be your faithful slave,
+and you to be my ungrateful mistress.'</p>
+
+<p>Freethinkers, infidels, and atheists abound in novels, but it is to the
+credit of Sir Walter Scott that wherever he has introduced a <i>sincere</i>
+character of this description, he has gone to the very origin for his
+facts, and then given us the result without pedantry. The four which I
+have examined are each a curious subject for study, and indicate,
+collectively and compared, a train of thought which I believe that few
+have suspected in Scott, notwithstanding his well-known great love for
+the curious and occult in literature. That he perfectly understood that
+absurd and vain character, the so-called 'infidel,' whose philosophy is
+limited to abusing Christianity, and whose real object is to be odd and
+peculiar, and astonish humble individuals with his wickedness, is most
+amusingly shown in 'Bletson,' one of the three Commissioners of Cromwell
+introduced into 'Woodstock.' Scott has drawn this very subordinate
+character in remarkable detail, having devoted nearly seven pages to its
+description,<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> evidently being for once carried away by the desire of
+rendering the personality as clearly as possible, or of gratifying his
+own fancy. And while no effort is ever made to cast even a shadow of
+ridicule on the Knight Templar, on Dryfesdale, on the gypsy, or even on
+the crawling Dwining, he manifestly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span> takes great pains to render as
+contemptible and laughably absurd as possible this type of the very
+great majority of modern infidels, who disavow religion because they
+fear it, and ridicule Christianity from sheer, shallow ignorance. Our
+own country at present abounds in 'Bletsons,' in conceited, ignorant
+'infidel' scribblers of many descriptions, in of all whom we can still
+trace the cant and drawl of the old-fashioned fanaticism to which they
+are in reality nearly allied, while they appear to oppose it. For the
+truth is, that popular infidelity&mdash;to borrow Mr. Caudle's simile of
+tyrants&mdash;is only Puritanism turned inside out. We see this, even when it
+is masked in French flippancy and the Shibboleth of the current
+accomplishments of literature&mdash;it betrays itself by its vindictiveness
+and conceit, by its cruelty, sarcasms, and meanness&mdash;with the infidel as
+with the bigot. The sincere seeker for truth, whether he wander through
+the paths of unbelief or of faith, never forgets to love, never courts
+notoriety, and is neither a satirical court-fool nor a would-be
+Mephistopheles.</p>
+
+<p>In reflecting on these characters, I am irresistibly reminded of an
+anecdote illustrating their nature. A friend of mine who had employed a
+rather ignorant fellow to guide him through some ruins in England, was
+astonished, as he entered a gloomy dungeon, at the sudden remark, in the
+hollow voice of one imparting a dire confidence, of: 'I doan't believe
+in hany <span class="smcap">God</span>!' 'Don't you, indeed?' was the placid reply. 'Noa,' answered
+the guide; '<i>H'I'm a</i> <span class="smcap">HINFIDEL</span>!' 'Well, I hope you feel easy after it,'
+quoth my friend.</p>
+
+<p>There is yet another skeptic set forth by Scott, whose peculiarities may
+be deemed worthy of examination. I refer to Agelastes, the treacherous
+and hypocritical sage of 'Count Robert of Paris.' In this man we have,
+however, rather the refined sensualist and elegant scholar who amuses
+himself with the subtleties of the old Greek philosophy, than a sincere
+seeker for truth, or even a sincere doubter. His views are fully given
+in a short lecture of the countess:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>'Daughter,' said Agelastes, approaching nearer to the lady, 'it is
+with pain I see you bewildered in errors which a little calm
+reflection might remove. We may flatter ourselves, and human vanity
+usually does so, that beings infinitely more powerful than those
+belonging to mere humanity are employed daily in measuring out the
+good and evil of this world, the termination of combats or the fate
+of empires, according to their own ideas of what is right or wrong,
+or more properly, according to what we ourselves conceive to be
+such. The Greek heathens, renowned for their wisdom, and glorious
+for their actions, explained to men of ordinary minds the supposed
+existence of Jupiter and his Pantheon, where various deities
+presided over various virtues and vices, and regulated the temporal
+fortune and future happiness of such as practised them. The more
+learned and wise of the ancients rejected such the vulgar
+interpretation, and wisely, although affecting a deference to the
+public faith, denied before their disciples in private, the gross
+fallacies of Tartarus and Olympus, the vain doctrines concerning
+the gods themselves, and the extravagant expectations which the
+vulgar entertained of an immortality supposed to be possessed by
+creatures who were in every respect mortal, both in the
+conformation of their bodies, and in the internal belief of their
+souls. Of these wise and good men some granted the existence of the
+supposed deities, but denied that they cared about the actions of
+mankind any more than those of the inferior animals. A merry,
+jovial, careless life, such as the followers of Epicurus would
+choose for themselves, was what they assigned for those gods whose
+being they admitted. Others, more bold or more consistent, entirely
+denied the existence of deities who apparently had no proper object
+or purpose, and believed that such of them, whose being and
+attributes were proved to us by no supernatural appearances, had in
+reality no existence whatever.'</p></div>
+
+<p>In all this, and indeed in all the character of Agelastes, there is
+nothing more than shallow scholarship, such as may be found in many of
+'the learned' in all ages, whose learning is worn as a fine garment,
+perhaps as one of comfort, but <i>not</i> as the armor in which to earnestly
+do battle for life. A contempt for the vulgar, or at best a selfish
+rendering of life agreeable to themselves, is all that is gathered from
+such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span> systems of doubt&mdash;and this was in all ages the reproach of all
+Greek philosophy. It was not meant for the multitude nor for the
+barbarian. It embraced no hope of benefiting all mankind, no scheme for
+even freeing them from superstition. Such ideas were only cherished by
+the Orientals, and (though mingled with errors) subsequently and <i>fully</i>
+by the early Christians. It was in the East that the glorious doctrine
+of love for <i>all</i> beings, not only for enemies, but for the very fiends
+themselves, was first proclaimed as essential to perfect the soul&mdash;as
+shown in the beautiful Hindu poem of 'The Buddha's Victory,'<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> in
+which the demon Wassywart, that horror of horrors, whose eyes are clots
+of blood, whose voice outroars the thunder, who plucks up the sun from
+its socket the sky, defies the great saint-god to battle:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'The unarmed Buddha mildly gazed at him,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And said in peace: 'Poor fiend, <i>even thee I love</i>.'</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Before great Wassywart the world grew dim;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His bulk enormous dwindled to a dove. * * *</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&mdash;Celestial beauty sat on Buddhas face,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">While sweetly sang the metamorphosed dove:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Swords, rocks, lies, fiends, must yield to moveless love,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And nothing can withstand the Buddha's grace.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>And again, in 'The Secret of Piety'&mdash;the secret 'of all the lore which
+angelic bosoms swell'&mdash;we have the same pure faith:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Whoso would careless tread one worm that crawls the sod,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That cruel man is darkly alienate from God;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But he that lives embracing all that is in <i>love</i>,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To dwell with him God bursts all bounds, below, above.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The Greek philosophy knew nothing of all this, and the result is that
+even in the atheism which sprang from the East, and in its harshest and
+lowest 'tinctures,' we find a something nobler and less selfish than is
+to be found in the school of Plato himself. And however this may be, the
+reader will admit, in examining the six skeptics set forth by Scott,
+that each is a character firmly based in historical truth; that all,
+with the exception of 'Bletson,' are sketched with remarkable brevity;
+and that a careful comparative analysis of the whole gives us a deeper
+insight into the secret tendencies of the author's mind, and at the same
+time into the springs of his genius, than the world has been wont to
+take. And the study of the subject is finally interesting, since we may
+learn from it that even in the works of one who is a standard poetic
+authority among those who would, if possible, subject all men to
+feudalism, we may learn lessons of that highest social
+truth&mdash;republicanism.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="A_CHORD_OF_WOOD" id="A_CHORD_OF_WOOD"></a>A CHORD OF WOOD.</h2>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Well, New York, you've made your pile</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of Wood, and, if you like, may smile:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Laugh, if you will, to split your sides,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But in that Wood pile a nigger hides,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With a double face beneath his hood:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Don't hurra till you're out of your Wood.</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="A_MERCHANTS_STORY" id="A_MERCHANTS_STORY"></a>A MERCHANT'S STORY.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'All of which I saw, and part of which I was.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<h4>CHAPTER XIX.</h4>
+
+<p>The moon and the stars were out, and the tall, dark pines cast long,
+gloomy shadows over the little rows of negro houses which formed the
+rearguard to Preston's mansion. They were nearly deserted. Not a
+solitary fire slumbered on the bare clay hearths, and not a single darky
+stood sentry over the loose pork and neglected hoecakes, or kept at bay
+the army of huge rats and prowling opossums which beleaguered the
+quarters. Silence&mdash;death's music&mdash;was over and around them. The noisy
+revelry of the dancers had died away in the distance, and even the
+hoarse song of the great trees had sunk to a low moan as they stood,
+motionless and abashed, in the presence of the grim giant who knocks
+alike at the palace and the cottage gate.</p>
+
+<p>A stray light glimmered through the logs of a low hut, far off in the
+woods, and, making our way to it, we entered. A bright fire lit up the
+interior, and on a rude cot, in one corner, lay the old preacher. His
+eyes were closed; a cold, clammy sweat was on his forehead&mdash;he was
+dying. One of his skeleton hands rested on the tattered coverlet, and
+his weazened face was half buried in a dilapidated pillow, whose ragged
+casing and protruding plumage bespoke it a relic of some departed white
+sleeper.</p>
+
+<p>An old negress, with gray hair and haggard visage, sat at the foot of
+the bed, wailing piteously; and Joe and half a dozen aged saints stood
+around, singing a hymn, doleful enough to have made even a sinner weep.</p>
+
+<p>Not heeding our entrance, Joe took the dying man by the hand, and, in a
+slow, solemn voice, said:</p>
+
+<p>'Brudder Jack, you'm dyin'; you'm gwine ter dat lan' whence no trabeller
+returns; you'm settin' out fur dat country which'm lit by de smile ob de
+Lord; whar dar ain't no sickness, no pain, no sorrer, no dyin'; fur dat
+kingdom whar de Lord reigns; whar trufh flows on like a riber; whar
+righteousness springs up like de grass, an' lub draps down like de dew,
+an' cobers de face ob de groun'; whar you woan't gwo 'bout wid no
+crutch; whar you woan't lib in no ole cabin like dis, an' eat hoecake
+an' salt pork in sorrer an' heabiness ob soul; but whar you'll run an'
+not be weary, an' walk an' not be faint; whar you'll hab a hous'n
+builded ob de Lord, an' sit at His table&mdash;you' meat an' drink de bread
+an' de water ob life!</p>
+
+<p>'I knows you's a sinner, Jack; I knows you's lub'd de hot water too
+much, an' dat it make you forgit you' duty sometime, an' set a bad
+'zample ter dem as looked up ter you fur better tings; but dar am mercy
+wid de Lord, Jack; dar am forgibness wid Him; an' I hopes you'm ready
+an' willin' ter gwo.'</p>
+
+<p>Old Jack opened his eyes, and, in a low, peevish tone, said:</p>
+
+<p>'Joe, none ob you' nonsense ter me! I'se h'ard you talk dis way afore.
+<i>You</i> can't preach&mdash;you neber could. You jess knows I ain't fit ter
+trabble, an' I ain't willin' ter gwo, nowhar.'</p>
+
+<p>Joe mildly rebuked him, and again commenced expatiating on the 'upper
+kingdom,' and on the glories of 'the house not made with hands, eternal
+in the heavens;' but the old darky cut him short, with&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Shet up, Joe! no more ob dat. I doan't want no oder hous'n but dis&mdash;dis
+ole cabin am good 'nuff fur me.'</p>
+
+<p>Joe was about to reply, when Preston stepped to the bedside, and, taking
+the aged preacher's hand, said:</p>
+
+<p>'My good Jack, master Robert has come to see you.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The dying man turned his eyes toward his master, and, in a weak,
+tremulous voice, exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! massa Robert, has <i>you</i> come? has you come ter see ole Jack? Bress
+you, massa Robert, bress you! Jack know'd you'd neber leab him yere ter
+die alone.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, my good Jack; I would save you if I could.'</p>
+
+<p>'But you can't sabe me, massa Robert; I'se b'yond dat. I'se dyin', massa
+Robert. I'se gwine ter de good missus. She tell'd me ter get ready ter
+foller har, an' I is. I'se gwine ter har now, massa Robert!'</p>
+
+<p>'I know you are, Jack. I feel <i>sure</i> you are.'</p>
+
+<p>'Tank you, massa Robert&mdash;tank you fur sayin' dat. An' woan't you pray
+fur me, massa Robert&mdash;jess a little pray? De good man's prayer am h'ard,
+you knows, massa Robert.'</p>
+
+<p>All kneeling down on the rough floor, Preston prayed&mdash;a short, simple,
+fervent prayer. At its close, he rose, and, bending over the old negro,
+said:</p>
+
+<p>'The Lord is good, Jack; His mercy is everlasting.'</p>
+
+<p>'I knows dat; I feels dat,' gasped the dying man. 'I lubs you, massa
+Robert; I allers lub'd you; but I'se gwine ter leab you now. Bress you!
+de Lord bress you, massa Robert' I'll tell de good missus'&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>He clutched convulsively at his master's hand; a wild light came out of
+his eyes; a sudden spasm passed over his face, and&mdash;he was 'gone whar de
+good darkies go.'</p>
+
+
+<h4>CHAPTER XX.</h4>
+
+<p>On the following day Frank and I were to resume our journey; and, in the
+morning, I suggested that we should visit Colonel Dawsey, with whom,
+though he had for many years been a correspondent of the house in which
+I was a partner, I had no personal acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>His plantation adjoined Preston's, and his house was only a short half
+mile from my friend's. After breakfast, we set out for it through the
+woods. The day was cold for the season, with a sharp, nipping air, and
+our overcoats were not at all uncomfortable.</p>
+
+<p>As we walked along I said to Preston:</p>
+
+<p>'Dawsey's 'account' is a good one. He never draws against shipments, but
+holds on, and sells sight drafts, thus making the exchange.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, I know; he's a close calculator.'</p>
+
+<p>'Does he continue to manage his negroes as formerly?'</p>
+
+<p>'In much the same way, I reckon.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then he can't stand remarkably well with his neighbors.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! people round here don't mind such things. Many of them do as badly
+as he. Besides, Dawsey is a gentleman of good family. He inherited his
+plantation and two hundred hands.'</p>
+
+<p>'Indeed! How, then, did he become reduced to his present number?'</p>
+
+<p>'He was a wild young fellow, and, before he was twenty-five, had
+squandered and gambled away everything but his land and some thirty
+negroes. Then he turned square round, and, from being prodigal and
+careless, became mean and cruel. He has a hundred now, and more ready
+money than any planter in the district.'</p>
+
+<p>A half hour's walk took us to Dawsey's negro quarters&mdash;a collection of
+about thirty low huts in the rear of his house. They were not so poor as
+some I had seen on cotton and rice plantations, but they seemed unfit
+for the habitation of any animal but the hog. Their floors were the bare
+ground, hardened by being moistened with water and pounded with mauls;
+and worn, as they were, several inches lower in the centre than at the
+sides, they must have formed, in rainy weather, the beds of small lakes.
+So much water would have been objectionable to white tenants; but
+negroes, like their friends the alligators, are amphibious animals;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span> and
+Dawsey's were never known to make complaint. The chimneys were often
+merely vent-holes in the roof, though a few were tumble-down structures
+of sticks and clay; and not a window, nor an opening which courtesy
+could have christened a window, was to be seen in the entire collection.
+And, for that matter, windows were useless, for the wide crevices in the
+logs, which let in the air and rain, at the same time might admit the
+light. Two or three low beds at one end, a small pine bench, which held
+half a dozen wooden plates and spoons, and a large iron pot, resting on
+four stones, over a low fire, and serving for both washtub and
+cook-kettle, composed the furniture of each interior.</p>
+
+<p>No one of the cabins was over sixteen feet square, but each was 'home'
+and 'shelter' for three or four human beings. Walking on a short
+distance, we came to a larger hovel, in front of which about a dozen
+young chattels were playing. Seven or eight more, too young to walk,
+were crawling about on the ground inside. They had only one garment
+apiece&mdash;a long shirt of coarse linsey&mdash;and their heads and feet were
+bare. An old negress was seated in the doorway, knitting. Approaching
+her, I said:</p>
+
+<p>'Aunty, are not these children cold?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! no, massa; dey'm use' ter de wedder.'</p>
+
+<p>'Do you take care of all of them?'</p>
+
+<p>'In de daytime I does, massa. In de night dar mudders takes de small
+'uns.'</p>
+
+<p>'But some of them are white. Those two are as white as I am!'</p>
+
+<p>'No, massa; dey'm brack. Ef you looks at dar eyes an' dar finger nails,
+you'll see dat.'</p>
+
+<p>'They're black, to be sure they are,' said young Preston, laughing; 'but
+they're about as white as Dawsey, and look wonderfully like him&mdash;eh,
+aunty Sue?'</p>
+
+<p>'I reckons, massa Joe!' replied the woman, running her hand through her
+wool, and grinning widely.</p>
+
+<p>'What does he ask for <i>them</i>, aunty?'</p>
+
+<p>'Doan't know, massa, but 'spect dey'm pooty high. Dem kine am hard ter
+raise.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' said Joe; 'white blood&mdash;even Dawsey's&mdash;don't take naturally to
+mud.'</p>
+
+<p>'I reckons not, massa Joe!' said the old negress, with another grin.</p>
+
+<p>Joe gave her a half-dollar piece, and, amid an avalanche of blessings,
+we passed on to Dawsey's 'mansion'&mdash;if mansion it could be called&mdash;a
+story-and-a-half shanty, about thirty feet square, covered with rough,
+unpainted boards, and lit by two small, dingy windows. It was approached
+by a sandy walk, and the ground around its front entrance was littered
+with apple peelings, potato parings, and the refuse of the culinary
+department.</p>
+
+<p>Joe rapped at the door, and, in a moment, it opened, and a middle-aged
+mulatto woman appeared. As soon as she perceived Preston, she grasped
+his two hands, and exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! massa Robert, <i>do</i> buy har! Massa'll kill har, ef you doan't.'</p>
+
+<p>'But I can't, Dinah. Your master refuses my note, and I haven't the
+money now.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! oh! He'll kill har; he say he will. She woan't gib in ter him, an'
+he'll kill har, <i>shore</i>. Oh! oh!' cried the woman, wringing her hands,
+and bursting into tears.</p>
+
+<p>'Is it 'Spasia?' asked Joe.</p>
+
+<p>'Yas, massa Joe; it'm 'Spasia. Massa hab sole yaller Tom 'way from har,
+an' he swar he'll kill har 'case she woan't gib in ter him. Oh! oh!'</p>
+
+<p>'Where is your master?'</p>
+
+<p>'He'm 'way wid har an' Black Cale. I reckon dey'm down ter de branch. I
+reckon dey'm whippin' on har <i>now</i>!'</p>
+
+<p>'Come, Frank,' cried Joe, starting off at a rapid pace; 'let's see that
+performance.'</p>
+
+<p>'Hold on, Joe; wait for us. You'll get into trouble!' shouted his
+father, hurrying after him. The rest of us caught up with them in a few
+mo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span>ments, and then all walked rapidly on in the direction of the small
+run which borders the two plantations.</p>
+
+<p>Before we had gone far, we heard loud screams, mingled with oaths and
+the heavy blows of a whip. Quickening our pace, we soon reached the bank
+of the little stream, which there was lined with thick underbrush. We
+could see no one, and the sounds had subsided. In a moment, however, a
+rough voice called out from behind the bushes:</p>
+
+<p>'Have you had enough? Will you give up?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh! no, good massa; I can't do dat!' was the half-sobbing, half-moaning
+reply.</p>
+
+<p>'Give it to her again, Cale!' cried the first voice; and again the whip
+descended, and again the piercing cries: 'O Lord!' 'Oh, pray doan't!' 'O
+Lord, hab mercy!' 'Oh! good massa, hab mercy!' mingled with the falling
+blows.</p>
+
+<p>'This way!' shouted Joe, pressing through the bushes, and bounding down
+the bank toward the actors in this nineteenth-century tournament,
+wherein an armed knight and a doughty squire were set against a weak,
+defenceless woman.</p>
+
+<p>Leaning against a pine at a few feet from the edge of the run, was a
+tall, bony man of about fifty. His hair was coarse and black, and his
+skin the color of tobacco-juice. He wore the ordinary homespun of the
+district; and long, deep lines about his mouth and under his eyes told
+the story of a dissipated life. His entire appearance was anything but
+prepossessing.</p>
+
+<p>At the distance of three or four rods, and bound to the charred trunk of
+an old tree, was a woman, several shades lighter than the man. Her feet
+were secured by stout cords, and her arms were clasped around the
+blackened stump, and tied in that position. Her back was bare to the
+loins, and, as she hung there, moaning with agony, and shivering with
+cold, it seemed one mass of streaming gore.</p>
+
+<p>The brawny black, whom Boss Joe had so eccentrically addressed at the
+negro meeting, years before, was in the act of whipping the woman; but
+with one bound, young Preston was on him. Wrenching the whip from his
+hand, he turned on his master, crying out:</p>
+
+<p>'Untie her, you white-livered devil, or I'll plough your back as you've
+ploughed hers!'</p>
+
+<p>'Don't interfere here, you d&mdash;d whelp!' shouted Dawsey, livid with rage,
+and drawing his revolver.</p>
+
+<p>'I'll give you enough of that, you cowardly hound!' cried Joe, taking a
+small Derringer from his pocket, and coolly advancing upon Dawsey.</p>
+
+<p>The latter levelled his pistol, but, before he could fire, by a
+dexterous movement of my cane, I struck it from his hand. Drawing
+instantly a large knife, he rushed on me. The knife was descending&mdash;in
+another instant I should have 'tasted Southern steel,' had not Frank
+caught his arm, wrenched the weapon from his grasp, and with the fury of
+an aroused tiger, sprung on him and borne him to the ground. Planting
+his knee firmly on Dawsey's breast, and twisting his neckcloth tightly
+about his throat, Frank yelled out:</p>
+
+<p>'Stand back. Let <i>me</i> deal with him!'</p>
+
+<p>'But you will kill him.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, he would have killed <i>you</i>!' he cried, tightening his hold on
+Dawsey's throat.</p>
+
+<p>'Let him up, Frank. Let the devil have fair play,' said Joe; 'I'll give
+him a chance at ten paces.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, let him up, my son; he is unarmed.'</p>
+
+<p>Frank slowly and reluctantly released his hold, and the woman-whipper
+rose. Looking at us for a moment&mdash;a mingled look of rage and
+defiance&mdash;he turned, without speaking, and took some rapid strides up
+the bank.</p>
+
+<p>'Hold on, Colonel Dawsey!' cried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span> Joe, elevating his Derringer; 'take
+another step, and I'll let daylight through you. You've just got to
+promise you won't whip this woman, or take your chance at ten paces.'</p>
+
+<p>[I afterward learned that Joe was deadly sure with the pistol.]</p>
+
+<p>Dawsey turned slowly round, and, in a sullen tone, asked:</p>
+
+<p>'Who are you, <i>gentlemen</i>, that interfere with my private affairs?'</p>
+
+<p>'<i>My</i> name, sir, is Kirke, of New York; and this young man is my son.'</p>
+
+<p>'Not Mr. Kirke, my factor?'</p>
+
+<p>'The same, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, Mr. Kirke, I'm sorry to say you're just now in d&mdash;d pore
+business.'</p>
+
+<p>'I <i>have</i> been, sir. I've done yours for some years, and I'm heartily
+ashamed of it. I'll try to mend in that particular, however.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, no more words, Colonel Dawsey,' said Joe. 'Here's a Derringer, if
+you'd like a pop at me.'</p>
+
+<p>'Tain't an even chance,' replied Dawsey; 'you know it.'</p>
+
+<p>'Take it, or promise not to whip the woman. I won't waste more time on
+such a sneaking coward as you are.'</p>
+
+<p>Dawsey hesitated, but finally, in a dogged way, made the required
+promise, and took himself off.</p>
+
+<p>While this conversation was going on, Preston and the negro man had
+untied the woman. Her back was bleeding profusely, and she was unable to
+stand. Lifting her in their arms, the two conveyed her to the top of the
+bank, and then, making a bed of their coats, laid her on the ground. We
+remained there until the negro returned from the house with a turpentine
+wagon, and conveyed the woman 'home.' We then returned to the
+plantation, and that afternoon, accompanied by Frank and Joe, I resumed
+my journey.</p>
+
+<p>By way of episode, I will mention that the slave woman, after being
+confined to her bed several weeks, recovered. Then Dawsey renewed his
+attack upon her, and, from the effects of a second whipping, she died.</p>
+
+
+<h4>CHAPTER XXI.</h4>
+
+<p>Returning from the South a few weeks after the events narrated in the
+previous chapter, Frank and I were met at Goldsboro by Preston and
+Selma, when the latter accompanied us to the North, and once more
+resumed her place in David's family.</p>
+
+<p>On the first of February following, Frank, then not quite twenty-one,
+was admitted a partner in the house of Russell, Rollins, &amp; Co., and, in
+the succeeding summer, was sent to Europe on business of the firm.
+Shortly after his return, in the following spring, he came on from
+Boston with a proposal from Cragin that I should embark with them and
+young Preston in an extensive speculation. Deeming any business in which
+Cragin was willing to engage worthy of careful consideration, I listened
+to Frank's exposition of the plan of operations. He had originated the
+project, and in it he displayed the comprehensive business mind and rare
+blending of caution and boldness which characterized his father. As the
+result of this transaction had an important influence on the future of
+some of the actors in my story, I will detail its programme.</p>
+
+<p>It was during the Crimean war. The Russian ports were closed, and Great
+Britain and the Continent of Europe were dependent entirely on the
+Southern States for their supply of resinous articles. The rivers at the
+South were low, and it was not supposed they would rise sufficiently to
+float produce to market before the occurrence of the spring freshets, in
+the following April or May. Only forty thousand barrels of common rosin
+were held in Wilmington&mdash;the largest naval-store port in the world; and
+it was estimated that not more than two hundred thousand were on hand in
+the other ports of Savannah, Ga., Georgetown, S. C., Newbern and
+Washington, N. C., and in New York,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span> Boston, and Philadelphia. Very
+little was for sale in London, Liverpool, or Glasgow, the largest
+foreign markets for the article; and Frank thought that a hundred and
+fifty thousand barrels could be purchased. That quantity, taken at once
+out of market, would probably so much enhance the value of the article,
+that the operation would realize a large profit before the new crop came
+forward. The purchases were to be made simultaneously in the various
+markets, and about two hundred thousand dollars were required to carry
+through the transaction. One hundred thousand of this was to be
+furnished in equal proportions by the parties interested; the other
+hundred thousand would be realized by Joseph Preston's negotiating 'long
+exchange' on Russell, Rollins &amp; Co.</p>
+
+<p>I declined to embark in the speculation, but the others carried it out
+as laid down in the programme; the only deviation being that, at Frank's
+suggestion, Mr. Robert Preston was apprised of the intended movement,
+and allowed to purchase, on his own account, as much produce as could be
+secured in Newbern. He bought about seven thousand barrels, paid for
+them by drawing at ninety days on Russell, Rollins, &amp; Co., and held them
+for sale at Newbern, agreeing to satisfy his drafts with the proceeds.
+These drafts amounted to a trifle over eighty-two hundred dollars.</p>
+
+<p>About a month after this transaction was entered into, our firm received
+the following letter from Preston:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>'<span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span>: An unfortunate difference with my son prevents my
+longer using him as my indorser. I have not, as yet, been able to
+secure another; and, our banks requiring two home names on time
+drafts, I have to beg you to honor a small bill at one day's sight.
+I have drawn for one thousand dollars. Please honor.'</p></div>
+
+<p>To this I at once replied:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>'<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>: We have advice of your draft for one thousand dollars.
+To protect your credit, we shall pay it; but we beg you will draw
+no more, till you forward bills of lading.</p>
+
+<p>'You are now overdrawn some five thousand dollars, which, by the
+maturing of your drafts, has become a <i>cash</i> advance. The death of
+our senior, Mr. Randall, and the consequent withdrawal of his
+capital, has left us with an extended business and limited means.
+Money, also, is very tight, and we therefore earnestly beg you to
+put us in funds at the earliest possible moment.'</p></div>
+
+<p>No reply was received to this letter; but, about ten days after its
+transmission, Preston himself walked into my private office. His clothes
+were travel stained, and he appeared haggard and careworn. I had never
+seen him look so miserably.</p>
+
+<p>He met me cordially, and soon referred to the state of his affairs. His
+wife, the winter before, had agreed to reside permanently at Newbern,
+and content herself with an allowance of three thousand dollars
+annually; but at the close of the year he found that she had contracted
+debts to the extent of several thousand more. He was pressed for these
+debts; his interest was in arrears, and he could raise no money for lack
+of another indorser. Ruin stared him in the face, unless I again put my
+shoulder to the wheel, and pried him out of the mire. The turpentine
+business was not paying as well as formerly, but the new plantation was
+encumbered with only the original mortgage&mdash;less than six thousand
+dollars&mdash;and was then worth, owing to an advance in the value of land,
+fully twenty thousand. He would secure me by a mortgage on that
+property, but I <i>must</i> allow the present indebtedness to stand, and let
+him increase it four or five thousand dollars. That amount would
+extricate him from present difficulties; and, to avoid future
+embarrassments, he would take measures for a legal separation from his
+wife.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I heard him through, and then said:</p>
+
+<p>'I cannot help you, my friend. I am very sorry; but my own affairs are
+in a most critical state. I owe over a hundred thousand dollars,
+maturing within twenty days, and my present available resources are not
+more than fifty thousand. I have three hundred thousand worth of produce
+on hand, but the market is so depressed that I cannot realize a dollar
+upon it. The banks have shut down, and money is two per cent. a month in
+the street. What you owe us would aid me wonderfully; but I can rub
+through without it. That much I can bear, but not a dollar more.'</p>
+
+<p>He walked the room for a time, and was silent; then, turning to me, he
+said&mdash;each separate word seeming a groan:</p>
+
+<p>'I have cursed every one I ever loved, and now I am bringing
+trouble&mdash;perhaps disaster&mdash;upon <i>you</i>, the only real friend I have
+left.'</p>
+
+<p>'Pshaw! my good fellow, don't talk in that way. What you owe us is only
+a drop in the bucket. We have made twice that amount out of you; so give
+yourself no uneasiness, if you <i>never</i> pay it.'</p>
+
+<p>'But I must pay it&mdash;I <i>shall</i> pay it;' and, continuing to pace the room
+silently for a few moments, he added, giving me his hand: 'Good-by; I'm
+going back to-night.'</p>
+
+<p>'Back to-night!&mdash;without seeing Selly, or my wife? You are mad!'</p>
+
+<p>'I <i>must</i> go.'</p>
+
+<p>'You must <i>not</i> go. You are letting affairs trouble you too much. Come,
+go home with me, and see Kate. A few words from her will make a new man
+of you.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, no; I must go back at once. I must raise this money somehow.'</p>
+
+<p>'Send money to the dogs! Come with me, and have a good night's rest.
+You'll think better of this in the morning. And now it occurs to me that
+Kate has about seven thousand belonging to Frank. He means to settle it
+on Selly when they are married, and she might as well have it first as
+last. Perhaps you can get it now.'</p>
+
+<p>'But I might be robbing my own child.'</p>
+
+<p>'You can give the farm as security; it's worth twice the amount.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, I'll stay. Let us see your wife at once.'</p>
+
+<p>While we were seated in the parlor, after supper, I broached the subject
+of Preston's wants to Kate. She heard me through attentively, and then
+quietly said:</p>
+
+<p>'Frank is of age&mdash;he can do as he pleases; but <i>I</i> would not advise him
+to make the loan. I once heard my father scout at the idea of taking
+security on property a thousand miles away. I would not wound Mr.
+Preston's feelings, but&mdash;his wife's extravagance has led him into this
+difficulty, and her property should extricate him from it. Her town
+house, horses, and carriages should be sold. She ought to be made to
+feel some of the mortification she has brought upon him.'</p>
+
+<p>Preston's face brightened; a new idea seemed to strike him. 'You are
+right. I will sell everything.' His face clouded again, as he continued:
+'But I cannot realize soon enough. Your husband needs money at once.'</p>
+
+<p>'Never mind me; I can take care of myself. But what is this trouble with
+Joe? Tell me, I will arrange it. Everything can go on smoothly again.'</p>
+
+<p>'It cannot be arranged. There can be no reconciliation between us.'</p>
+
+<p>'What prevents? Who is at fault&mdash;you, or he?'</p>
+
+<p>'I am. He will never forgive me!'</p>
+
+<p>'Forgive you! I can't imagine what you have done, that admits of no
+forgiveness.'</p>
+
+<p>He rose, and walked the room for a while in gloomy silence, then said:</p>
+
+<p>'I will tell you. It is right you should know. You <i>both</i> should know
+the sort of man you have esteemed and befriended for so many years;'
+and, resuming his seat, he related the following occurrences:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>'Everything went on as usual at the plantation, till some months after
+Rosey's marriage to Ally. Then a child was born to them. It was white.
+Rosey refused to reveal its father, but it was evidently not her
+husband. Ally, being a proud, high-spirited fellow, took the thing
+terribly to heart. He refused to live with his wife, or even to see her.
+I tried to reconcile them, but without success. Old Dinah, who had
+previously doted on Rosey, turned about, and began to beat and abuse her
+cruelly. To keep the child out of the old woman's way, I took her into
+the house, and she remained there till about two months ago. Then, one
+day, Larkin, the trader, of whom you bought Phylly and the children,
+came to me, wanting a woman house-servant. I was pressed for money, and
+I offered him&mdash;a thing I never did before&mdash;two or three of my family
+slaves. They did not suit, but he said Rosey would, and proposed to buy
+her and the child. I refused. He offered me fifteen hundred dollars for
+them, but I still refused. Then he told me that he had spoken to the
+girl, and she wished him to buy her. I doubted it, and said so; but he
+called Rosey to us, and she confirmed it, and, in an excited way, told
+me she would run away, or drown herself, if I did not sell her. She said
+she could live no longer on the same plantation with Ally. I told her I
+would send Ally away; but she replied: 'No; I am tired of this place. I
+have suffered so much here, I want to get away. I <i>shall</i> go; whether
+alive or dead, is for <i>you</i> to say.' I saw she was in earnest; I was
+hard pressed for money; Larkin promised to get her a kind master, and&mdash;I
+sold her.'</p>
+
+<p>'Sold her! My God! Preston, she was your own child!'</p>
+
+<p>'I know it,' he replied, burying his face in his hands. 'The curse of
+<span class="smcap">God</span> was on it; it has been on me for years.' After a few moments, he
+added: 'But hear the rest, and <i>you</i> will curse me, too.'</p>
+
+<p>Overcome with emotion, he groaned audibly. I said nothing, and a pause
+of some minutes ensued. Then, in a choked, broken voice, he continued:</p>
+
+<p>'The rosin transaction had been gone into. I had used up what blank
+indorsements I had. Needing more, and wanting to consult with Joe about
+selling the rosin, I went to Mobile. It was five weeks ago. I arrived
+there about dark, and put up at the Battle House. Joe had boarded there.
+I was told he had left, and gone to housekeeping. A negro conducted me
+to a small house in the outskirts of the town. He said Joe lived there.
+Wishing to surprise him, I went in without knocking. The house had two
+parlors, separated by folding doors. In the back one a young woman was
+clearing away the tea things; in the front one, Joe was seated by the
+fire, with a young child on his knee. I put my hand on his shoulder, and
+said: 'Joe, whose child have you here?' He looked up, and laughingly
+said: 'Why, father, you ought to know; you've seen it before!' I looked
+closely at it&mdash;it was Rosey's! I said so. 'Yes, father,' he replied;
+'and there's Rosey herself. Larkin promised she should have a kind
+master, and&mdash;he kept his word.' The truth flashed upon me&mdash;the child was
+his! My only son had seduced his <i>own sister</i>! I staggered back in
+horror. I told him who Rosey was, and then'&mdash;no words can express the
+intense agony depicted on his face as he said this&mdash;'then he cursed me!
+O my God! <span class="smcap">HE CURSED ME</span>!'</p>
+
+<p>I pitied him, I could but pity him; and I said:</p>
+
+<p>'Do not be so cast down, my friend. I once heard you say: 'The Lord is
+good. His mercy is everlasting!''</p>
+
+<p>'But he cannot have mercy on some!' he cried. '<i>My</i> sins have been too
+great; they cannot be blotted out. I embittered the life of my wife; I
+have driven my daughter from her home; sold my own child; made my
+generous, noble-hearted boy do a horrible crime<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span>&mdash;a crime that will
+haunt him forever. Oh! the curse of God is on me. My misery is greater
+than I can bear.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, my friend; God curses none of his creatures. You have reaped what
+you have sown, that is all; but you have suffered enough. Better things,
+believe me, are in store for you.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, no; everything is gone&mdash;wife, children, all! I am alone&mdash;the past,
+nothing but remorse; the future, ruin and dishonor!'</p>
+
+<p>'But Selly is left you. <i>She</i> will always love you.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, no! Even Selly would curse me, if she knew <i>all</i>!'</p>
+
+<p>No one spoke for a full half hour, and he continued pacing up and down
+the room. When, at last, he seated himself, more composed, I asked:</p>
+
+<p>'What became of Rosey and the child?'</p>
+
+<p>'I do not know. I was shut in my room for several days. When I got out,
+I was told Joe had freed her, and she had disappeared, no one knew
+whither. I tried every means to trace her, but could not. At the end of
+a week, I went home, what you see me&mdash;a broken-hearted man.'</p>
+
+<p>The next morning, despite our urgent entreaties, he returned to the
+South.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>The twenty days were expiring. By hard struggling I had met my
+liabilities, but the last day&mdash;the crisis&mdash;was approaching. Thirty
+thousand dollars of our acceptances had accumulated together, and were
+maturing on that day. When I went home, on the preceding night, we had
+only nineteen thousand in bank. I had exhausted all our receivables.
+Where the eleven thousand was to come from, I did not know. Only one
+resource seemed left me&mdash;the hypothecation of produce; and a resort to
+that, at that time, before warehouse receipts became legitimate
+securities, would be ruinous to our credit. My position was a terrible
+one. No one not a merchant can appreciate or realize it. With thousands
+upon thousands of assets, the accumulations of years, my standing among
+merchants, and, what I valued more than all, my untarnished credit, were
+in jeopardy for the want of a paltry sum.</p>
+
+<p>I went home that night with a heavy heart; but Kate's hopeful words
+encouraged me. With her and the children left to me, I need not care for
+the rest; all might go, and I could commence again at the bottom of the
+hill. The next morning I walked down town with a firm spirit, ready to
+meet disaster like a man. The letters by the early mail were on my desk.
+I opened them one after another, hurriedly, eagerly. There were no
+remittances! I had expected at least five thousand dollars. For a moment
+my courage failed me. I rose, and paced the room, and thoughts like
+these passed through my mind: 'The last alternative has come. Pride must
+give way to duty. I must hypothecate produce, and protect my
+correspondents. I must sacrifice myself to save my friends!</p>
+
+<p>'But here are two letters I have thrown aside. They are addressed to me
+personally. Mere letters of friendship! What is friendship, at a time
+like this?&mdash;friendship without money! Pshaw! I wouldn't give a fig for
+all the friends in the world!'</p>
+
+<p>Mechanically I opened one of them. An enclosure dropped to the floor.
+Without pausing to pick it up, I read:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>'<span class="smcap">Dear Father</span>: Mother writes me you are hard pressed. Sell my U. S.
+stock&mdash;it will realize over seven thousand. It is yours. Enclosed
+is Cragin's certified check for ten thousand. If you need more,
+draw on <i>him</i>, at sight, for any amount. He says he will stand by
+you to the death.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Love to mother.</span></p>
+
+<p class="author"><span class="smcap">Frank</span>.'
+</p>
+
+<p class="center">'P. S.&mdash;Fire away, old fellow! Hallet is ugly, but I'll go my pile
+on you, spite of the devil.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+<span class="smcap">Cragin</span>.'
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>'<span class="smcap">Saved</span>! saved by my wife and child!' I leaned my head on my desk. When I
+rose, there were tears upon it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It wanted some minutes of ten, but I was nervously impatient to blot out
+those terrible acceptances. I should then be safe; I should then breathe
+freely. As I passed out of my private office, I opened the other letter.
+It was from Preston. Pausing a moment, I read it:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>'<span class="smcap">My very dear Friend</span>: I enclose you sight check of Branch Bank of
+Cape Fear on Bank of Republic, for $10,820. Apply what is needed to
+pay my account; the rest hold subject to my drafts.</p>
+
+<p>'I have sold my town house, furniture, horses, etc., and the
+proceeds will pay my home debts. I shall therefore not need to draw
+the balance for, say, sixty days. God bless you!'</p></div>
+
+<p>'Well, the age of miracles is <i>not</i> passed! How <i>did</i> he raise the
+money?'</p>
+
+<p>Stepping back into the private office, I called my partner:</p>
+
+<p>'Draw checks for all the acceptances due to-day; get them certified, and
+take up the bills at once. Don't let the grass grow under your feet. I
+shall be away the rest of the day, and I want to see them before I go.
+Here is a draft from Preston; it will make our account good.'</p>
+
+<p>He looked at it, and, laughing, said:</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, and leave about fifty dollars in bank.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, never mind; we are out of the woods.'</p>
+
+<p>When he had gone, I sat down, and wrote the following letter:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>'<span class="smcap">My dear Frank</span>: I return Cragin's check, with many thanks. I have
+not sold your stock. My legitimate resources have carried me
+through.</p>
+
+<p>'I need not say, my boy, that I feel what you would have done for
+me. Words are not needed between <i>us</i>.</p>
+
+<p>'Tell Cragin that I consider him a trump&mdash;the very ace of hearts.</p>
+
+<p>'Your mother and I will see you in a few days.'</p></div>
+
+<p>In half an hour, with the two letters in my pocket, I was on my way
+home. Handing them to Kate, I took her in my arms; and, as I brushed the
+still bright, golden hair from her broad forehead, I felt I was the
+richest man living.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Within the same week I went to Boston. I arrived just after dark; and
+then occurred the events narrated in the first chapter.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="WAR" id="WAR"></a>WAR.</h2>
+
+<h4>[J. G. PERCIVAL.]</h4>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For war is now upon their shores,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And we must meet the foe,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Must go where battle's thunder roars,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And brave men slumber low;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Go, where the sleep of death comes on</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The proudest hearts, who dare</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To grasp the wreath by valor won,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And glory's banquet share.</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="A_CHAPTER_ON_WONDERS" id="A_CHAPTER_ON_WONDERS"></a>A CHAPTER ON WONDERS.</h2>
+
+<p class="center">
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Obstupui! steteruntque com&aelig;, et vox faucibus h&aelig;sit.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p>There is a certain portion of mankind ever on the alert to see or hear
+some wonderful thing; whose minds are attuned to a marvellous key, and
+vibrate with extreme sensitiveness to the slightest touch; whose vital
+fluid is the air of romance, and whose algebraic symbol is a mark of
+exclamation! This sentiment, existing in some persons to a greater
+degree than in others, is often fostered by education and association,
+so as to become the all-engrossing passion. Children, of course, begin
+to wonder as soon as their eyes are opened upon the strange scenes of
+their future operations. The first thing usually done to develop their
+dawning intellect, is to display before them such objects as are best
+calculated to arrest their attention, and keep them in a continual state
+of excitement. This course is succeeded by a supply of all sorts of
+<i>toys</i>, to gratify the passion of novelty. These are followed by
+wonderful stories, and books of every variety of absurd
+impossibilities;&mdash;which system of development is, it would seem,
+entirely based upon the presumption, that the faculty of admiration must
+be expanded, in order that the young idea may best learn how to <i>shoot</i>.
+It is therefore quite natural, that&mdash;the predisposition granted&mdash;a
+faculty of the mind so auspiciously nurtured under the influence of
+exaggeration should mature in a corresponding degree.</p>
+
+<p>Thus we have in our midst a class, into whose mental economy the faculty
+of <i>wonder</i> is so thoroughly infused, that it has inoculated the entire
+system, and forms an inherent, inexplicable, and almost elementary part
+of it. These persons sail about in their pleasure yachts, on roving
+expeditions, under a pretended '<i>right of search</i>,' armed to the teeth,
+and boarding all sorts of crafts to obtain plunder for their favorite
+gratification. They are most uneasy and uncomfortable companions, having
+no ear for commonplace subjects of conversation, and no eye for ordinary
+objects of sight.</p>
+
+<p>When such persons approach each other, they are mutually attracted, like
+two bodies charged with different kinds of electricity&mdash;an interchange
+of commodities takes place, repulsion follows, and thus re&euml;nforced, they
+separate to diffuse the supply of wonders collected.</p>
+
+<p>By this centripetal and centrifugal process, the social atmosphere is
+subjected to a continual state of agitation. <i>Language</i> is altogether
+too tame to give full effect to their meaning, and all the varieties of
+<i>dumb show</i>, of <i>gesticulation</i>, <i>shrugs</i>, and wise shakes of the head,
+are called into requisition, to effectually and unmistakably express
+their ideas. The usages of good society are regarded by them as a great
+restraint upon their besetting propensity to expatiate in phrases of
+grandiloquence, and to magnify objects of trivial importance. They are
+always sure to initiate topics which will afford scope for admiration;
+they delight to enlarge upon the unprecedented growth of cities,
+villages, and towns; upon the comparative prices of 'corner lots' at
+different periods; and to calculate how rich they <i>might</i> have been, had
+they only known as much <i>then</i> as <i>now</i>.</p>
+
+<p>They experience a gratification when a rich man dies, that the wonder
+will now be solved as to the amount of his property; and when a man
+fails in business, that it is <i>now</i> made clear&mdash;what has so long
+perplexed them&mdash;'<i>how he managed to live so extravagantly</i>!' See<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span> them
+at an agricultural fair, and they will be found examining the 'mammoth
+squashes' and various products of prodigious growth&mdash;or they will
+install themselves as self-appointed exhibiter of the 'Fat Baby,' to
+inform the incredulous how much it weighs! See them at a conflagration,
+and they wonder what was the <i>cause</i> of the fire, and <i>how far</i> it will
+extend?</p>
+
+<p>They long to travel, that they may visit 'mammoth caves' and 'Giant's
+Causeways.' We talk of the 'Seven Wonders of the World,' while to them
+there is a successive series for every day in the year&mdash;putting to the
+blush our meagre stock of monstrosities&mdash;making 'Ossa like a wart.'
+Nothing gratifies them more than the issuing from the press of an
+anonymous work, that they may exert their ingenuity in endeavoring to
+discover the author; and, when called on for information on the subject,
+prove conclusively to every one but themselves, that they know nothing
+whatever about the matter.</p>
+
+<p>The ocean is to them only wonderful as the abode of 'Leviathans,' and
+'Sea Serpents,' 'Krakens,' and 'Mermaids'&mdash;abounding in 'M&auml;elstroms' and
+<i>sunken</i> islands, and traversed by 'Phantom Ships' and 'Flying Dutchmen'
+in perpetual search for some 'lost Atlantis;'&mdash;all well-attested
+incredibilities, certified to by the 'affidavits of respectable
+eye-witnesses,' and, we might add, by 'intelligent contrabands,'&mdash;and
+all in strict conformity with the convenient aphorism '<i>Credo quia
+impossibile est</i>.' They are ever ready to bestow their amazement upon a
+fresh miracle as soon as the present has had its day&mdash;like the man who,
+being landed at some distance by the explosion of a juggler's
+pyrotechnics, rubbed his eyes open, and exclaimed, '<i>I wonder what the
+fellow will do next!</i>'</p>
+
+<p>If a steamboat explodes her boiler, or the walls of a factory fall,
+burying hundreds in the ruins, their hearts&mdash;rendered callous by the
+constant stream of cold air pouring in through their <i>ever-open
+mouths</i>&mdash;are not shocked at the calamity, but they wonder if it was
+<i>insured</i>!</p>
+
+<p>The increase of population in this country affords a most prolific and
+inexhaustible fund for statistical astonishment, as an interlude to the
+entertainment, while something more appalling is being prepared.</p>
+
+<p>The portentous omens so often relied on by the credulous believers in
+signs, have so frequently proved 'dead failures,' that one would suppose
+these votaries would at length become disheartened. But this seems not
+to be the case&mdash;like a quack doctor when his patient dies, their
+audacity is equal to any emergency, and, with the elasticity of india
+rubber, they come out of a 'tight squeeze' with undiminished rotundity.
+With <i>stupid</i> amazement, hair all erect, and ears likewise, they pass
+through life as through a museum, ready to exclaim with Dominie Sampson
+at all <i>they</i> cannot understand, 'Pro&mdash;di&mdash;gi&mdash;ous!'</p>
+
+<p>It matters little, perhaps, in what form this principle is exhibited,
+while it exists and flourishes in undiminished exuberance. Thus says
+Glendower:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">'At my nativity</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of burning cressets; and, at my birth,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The frame and huge foundation of the earth</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Shak'd like a coward.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Hotspur.</i> Why so it would have done</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At the same season, if your mother's cat had</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But kittened, though yourself had ne'er been born.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Glendower naturally enough flouts this rather impertinent comment, and
+'repeats the story of his birth' with still greater improvements, till
+Hotspur gives him a piece of advice which will do for his whole race of
+the present day, viz., 'tell the truth, and shame the devil.'</p>
+
+<p>The English people of this generation are rather more phlegmatic than
+their explosive neighbors across the channel, and neither the injustice
+of black slavery abroad, nor the starvation of <i>white</i> slaves at home,
+can shake them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span> from their lop-sided neutrality, <i>so long as money goes
+into their pocket</i>. The excitable French, on the contrary, require an
+occasional <i>coup d'&eacute;tat</i> to arouse their conjectures as to the next
+imperial experiment in the art of international diplomacy.</p>
+
+<p>The press of the day teems with all sorts of provisions to satisfy the
+cravings of a depraved imagination, and even the most sedate of our
+daily papers are not above employing 'double-leaded Sensations,' and
+'display Heads' as a part of their ordinary stock in trade; while from
+the hebdomadals, 'Thrilling Tales,' 'Awful Disclosures,' and 'Startling
+Discoveries,' succeed each other with truly fearful rapidity. Thus he
+who wastes the midnight kerosene, and spoils his weary eyes in poring
+over the pages of trashy productions, so well designed to murder sleep,
+may truly say with Macbeth, 'I have supp'd full with horrors.'</p>
+
+<p>It is certainly remarkable (as an indication of the pleasure the
+multitude take in voluntarily perplexing themselves), how eagerly they
+enter into all sorts of contrivances which conduce to bewilderment and
+doubt. In 'Hampton Court' there is a famous enclosure called the
+'<i>Maze</i>,' so arranged with hedged alleys as to form a perfect labyrinth.
+To this place throngs of persons are constantly repairing, to enjoy the
+luxury of losing themselves, and of seeing others in the same
+predicament.</p>
+
+<p>Some persons become so impatient of the constant demand upon their
+admiration, that they resist whatever seems to lead in that direction.
+Washington Irving said he 'never liked to walk with his host over the
+latter's ground'&mdash;a feeling which many will at once acknowledge having
+experienced. A celebrated English traveller was so annoyed by the urgent
+invitations of the Philadelphians to visit the Fairmount Water Works,
+that he resolved <i>not</i> to visit them, so that he might have the
+characteristic satisfaction of recording the ill-natured fact.</p>
+
+<p>'Swift mentions a gentleman who made it a rule in reading, to skip over
+all sentences where he spied a note of admiration at the end.'</p>
+
+<p>The instances here quoted are, to be sure, carrying out the '<i>Nil
+admirari</i>' principle rather to extremes, and are not recommended for
+general observance. The most remarkable and prominent wonders in the
+natural world seldom meet the expectation of the beholder, because he
+looks to experience a new sensation, and is disappointed; and so with
+works of art, as St. Peter's at Rome&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&mdash;&mdash;'its grandeur overwhelms thee not,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And why? it is not lessen'd; but thy mind,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Expanded by the genius of the spot,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Has grown colossal.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p><i>Wonder</i> is defined as 'the effect of novelty upon ignorance.' Most
+objects which excite wonder are magnified by the distance or the point
+of view, and their proportions diminish and shrink as we approach them.
+It is a saying as old as Horace, 'ignotum pro magnifico est': we cease
+to wonder at what we understand. Seneca says that those whose habits are
+temperate are satisfied with fountain water, which is cold enough for
+them; while those who have lived high and luxuriously, require the use
+of <i>ice</i>. Thus a well-disciplined mind adjusts itself to whatever events
+may occur, and not being likely to lose its equanimity upon ordinary
+occasions, is equally well prepared for more serious results.</p>
+
+<p>'Let us never wonder,' again saith Seneca, 'at anything we are born to;
+for no man has reason to complain where we are all in the same
+condition.' But notwithstanding all the precepts of philosophers, the
+advice of all men of sense, and the best examples for our guides, we go
+on, with eyes dilated and minds wide open, to see, hear, and receive
+impressions through distorted mediums, leading to wrong conclusions and
+endless mistakes.</p>
+
+<p>'Wonders will never cease!' Of course they will not, so long as there
+are so many<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span> persons engaged in providing the aliment for their
+sustenance; so long as the demand exceeds the supply; so long as mankind
+are more disposed to listen to exaggeration rather than to simple
+truths, and so long as they shall tolerate the race of <i>wonder-mongers</i>,
+giving them 'aid and comfort,' regardless of their being enemies of our
+peace, and the pests of our social community.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_RETURN" id="THE_RETURN"></a>THE RETURN.</h2>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">July,&mdash;what is the news they tell?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A battle won: our eyes are dim,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And sad forbodings press the heart</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Anxious, awaiting news from him.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hour drags on hour: fond heart, be still,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Shall evil tidings break the spell?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A word at last!&mdash;they found him dead;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He fought in the advance, and fell.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oh aloes of affliction poured</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Into the wine cup of the soul!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oh bitterness of anguish stored</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To fill our grief beyond control!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">At last he comes, awaited long,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Not to home welcomes warm and loud,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Not to the voice of mirth and song,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pale featured, cold, beneath a shroud.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Oh from the morrow of our lives</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A glowing hope has stolen away,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A something from the sun has fled,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That dims the glory of the day.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">More earnestly we look beyond</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The present life to that to be;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Another influence draws the soul</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To long for that futurity.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pardon if anguished souls refrain</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Too little, grieving for the lost,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From thinking dearly bought the gain</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of victory at such fearful cost.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Teach us as dearest gain to prize</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The glory crown he early won;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Forever shall his requiem rise:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Rest thee in peace, thy duty done.</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_UNION" id="THE_UNION"></a>THE UNION.</h2>
+
+<h3>VI.</h3>
+
+<h4>VIRGINIA AND PENNSYLVANIA COMPARED.</h4>
+
+
+<p>Virginia was a considerable colony, when Pennsylvania was occupied only
+by Indian tribes. In 1790, Virginia was first in rank of all the States,
+her number of inhabitants being 748,308. (Census Rep., 120,121.)
+Pennsylvania then ranked the second, numbering 434,373 persons. (Ib.) In
+1860 the population of Virginia was 1,596,318, ranking the fifth;
+Pennsylvania still remaining the second, and numbering 2,905,115. (Ib.)
+In 1790 the population of Virginia exceeded that of Pennsylvania
+313,925; in 1860 the excess in favor of Pennsylvania was 1,308,797. The
+ratio of increase of population of Virginia from 1790 to 1860 was 113.32
+per cent., and of Pennsylvania in the same period, 569.03. At the same
+relative ratio of increase for the next seventy years, Virginia would
+contain a population of 3,405,265 in 1930; and Pennsylvania 19,443,934,
+exceeding that of England. Such has been and would continue to be the
+effect of slavery in retarding the progress of Virginia, and such the
+influence of freedom in the rapid advance of Pennsylvania. Indeed, with
+the maintenance and perpetuity of the Union in all its integrity, the
+destiny of Pennsylvania will surpass the most sanguine expectations.</p>
+
+<p>The population of Virginia per square mile in 1790 was 12.19, and in
+1860, 26.02; whilst that of Pennsylvania in 1790 was 9.44, and in 1860,
+63.18. (Ib.) The absolute increase of the population of Virginia per
+square mile, from 1790 to 1860, was 13.83, and from 1850 to 1860, 2.85;
+whilst that of Pennsylvania from 1790 to 1860, was 53.74, and from 1850
+to 1860, 12.93. (Ib.)</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Area</span>.&mdash;The area of Virginia is 61,352 square miles, and of Pennsylvania,
+46,000, the difference being 15,352 square miles, which is greater, by
+758 square miles, than the aggregate area of Massachusetts, Connecticut,
+and Delaware, containing in 1860 a population of 1,803,429. (Ib.)
+Retaining their respective ratios of increase per square mile from 1790
+to 1860, and reversing their areas, that of Virginia in 1860 would have
+been 1,196,920, and of Pennsylvania 3,876,119. Reversing the numbers of
+each State in 1790, the ratio of increase in each remaining the same,
+the population of Pennsylvania in 1860 would have been 5,408,424, and
+that of Virginia, 926,603. Reversing both the areas and numbers in 1790,
+and the population of Pennsylvania would have exceeded that of Virginia
+in 1860 more than six millions.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Shore Line</span>.&mdash;By the Tables of the Coast Survey, the shore line of
+Virginia is 1,571 miles, and of Pennsylvania only 60 miles. This vastly
+superior coast line of Virginia, with better, deeper, more capacious,
+and much more numerous harbors, unobstructed by ice, and with easy
+access for so many hundred miles by navigable bays and tide-water rivers
+leading so far into the interior, give to Virginia great advantages over
+Pennsylvania in commerce and every branch of industry. Indeed, in this
+respect, Virginia stands unrivalled in the Union. The hydraulic power of
+Virginia greatly exceeds that of Pennsylvania.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mines</span>.&mdash;Pennsylvania excels every other State in mineral wealth, but
+Virginia comes next.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Soil</span>.&mdash;In natural fertility of soil, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span> two States are about equal;
+but the seasons in Virginia are more favorable, both for crops and
+stock, than in Pennsylvania. Virginia has all the agricultural products
+of Pennsylvania, with cotton in addition. The area, however, of Virginia
+(39,265,280 acres) being greater by 9,825,280 acres than that of
+Pennsylvania (29,440,000 acres), gives to Virginia vast advantages.</p>
+
+<p>In her greater area, her far superior coast line, harbors, rivers, and
+hydraulic power, her longer and better seasons for crops and stock, and
+greater variety of products, Virginia has vast natural advantages, and
+with nearly double the population of Pennsylvania in 1790. And yet,
+where has slavery placed Virginia? Pennsylvania exceeds her now in
+numbers 1,308,797, and increased in population, from 1790 to 1860, in a
+ratio more than five to one. Such is the terrible contrast between free
+and slave institutions!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Progress of Wealth</span>.&mdash;By Census Tables (1860) 33 and 36, it appears
+(omitting commerce) that the products of industry, as given, viz., of
+agriculture, manufactures, mines, and fisheries, were that year in
+Pennsylvania, of the value of $398,600,000, or $137 per capita; and in
+Virginia, $120,000,000 or $75 per capita. This shows a total value of
+product in Pennsylvania much more than three times that of Virginia,
+and, per capita, nearly two to one. That is, the average value of the
+product of the labor of each person in Pennsylvania, is nearly double
+that of each person, including slaves, in Virginia. Thus is proved the
+vast superiority of free over slave labor, and the immense national loss
+occasioned by the substitution of the latter for the former.</p>
+
+<p>As to the rate of increase; the value of the products of Virginia in
+1850 was $84,480,428 (Table 9), and in Pennsylvania, $229,567,131,
+showing an increase in Virginia, from 1850 to 1860, of $35,519,572,
+being 41 per cent.; and in Pennsylvania, $169,032,869, being 50 per
+cent.; exhibiting a difference of 9 per cent. in favor of Pennsylvania.
+By the Census Table of 1860, No. 35, p. 195, the true value then of the
+real and personal property was, in Pennsylvania, $1,416,501,818, and of
+Virginia, $793,249,681. Now, we have seen, the value of the products in
+Pennsylvania in 1860 was $398,600,000, and in Virginia, $120,000,000.
+Thus, as a question of the annual yield of capital, that of Pennsylvania
+was 28.13 per cent., and of Virginia, 15.13 per cent. By Census Table
+35, the total value of the real and personal property of Pennsylvania
+was $722,486,120 in 1850, and $1,416,501,818 in 1860, showing an
+increase, in that decade, of $694,015,698, being 96.05 per cent.; and in
+Virginia, $430,701,082 in 1850, and $793,249,681 in 1860, showing an
+increase of $362,548,599, or 84.17 per cent.</p>
+
+<p>By Table 36, p. 196, Census of 1860, the <i>cash</i> value of the farms of
+Virginia was $371,092,211, being $11.91 per acre; and of Pennsylvania,
+$662,050,707, being $38.91 per acre. Now, by this table, the number of
+acres embraced in these farms of Pennsylvania was 17,012,153 acres, and
+in Virginia, 31,014,950; the difference of value per acre being $27, or
+largely more than three to one in favor of Pennsylvania, Now, if we
+multiply the farm lands of Virginia by the Pennsylvania value per acre,
+it would make the total value of the farm lands of Virginia
+$1,204,791,804; and the <i>additional</i> value, caused by emancipation,
+$835,699,593, which is more, by $688,440,093, than the value of all the
+slaves of Virginia. But the whole area of Virginia is 39,265,280 acres,
+deducting from which the farm lands, there remain unoccupied 8,250,330
+acres. Now, if (as would be in the absence of slavery,) the population
+per square mile of Virginia equalled that of Pennsylvania, three fifths
+of these lands would have been occupied as farms, viz., 4,950,198,
+which, at the Pennsylvania value per acre, would have been worth
+$188,207,524. Deduct from this their present average value<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span> of $2 per
+acre, $9,800,396, and the remainder, $178,407,128, is the sum by which
+the unoccupied lands of Virginia, converted into farms, would have been
+increased in value by emancipation. Add this to the enhanced value of
+their present farms, and the result is $1,014,106,721 as the gain, on
+this basis, of Virginia in the value of her lands, by emancipation. To
+these we should add the increased value of town and city lots and
+improvements, and of personal property, and, with emancipation, Virginia
+would now have an augmented wealth of at least one billion and a half of
+dollars.</p>
+
+<p>The earnings of commerce are not given in the Census Tables, which would
+vastly increase the difference in the value of their annual products in
+favor of Pennsylvania as compared with Virginia. These earnings include
+all not embraced under the heads of agriculture, manufactures, the
+mines, and fisheries. Let us examine some of these statistics.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Railroads</span>.&mdash;The number of miles of railroads in operation in
+Pennsylvania in 1860, including city roads, was 2,690.49 miles, costing
+$147,283,410; and in Virginia, 1,771 miles, costing $64,958,807. (Census
+Table of 1860, No. 38, pp. 230, 232.) The annual value of the freight
+carried on these roads is estimated at $200,000,000 more in Pennsylvania
+than in Virginia, and the passenger account would still more increase
+the disparity.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Canals</span>.&mdash;The number of miles of canals in Pennsylvania in 1860 was
+1,259, and their cost, $42,015,000. In Virginia the number of miles was
+178, and the cost, $7,817,000. (Census Table 39, p. 238.) The estimated
+value of the freight on the Pennsylvania canals is ten times that of the
+freight on the Virginia canals.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Tonnage</span>.&mdash;The tonnage of vessels built in Pennsylvania in 1860 was
+21,615 tons, and in Virginia, 4,372. (Census, p. 107.)</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Banks</span>.&mdash;The number of banks in Pennsylvania in 1860 was 90; capital,
+$25,565,582; loans, $50,327,127; specie, $8,378,474; circulation,
+13,132,892; deposits, $26,167,143:&mdash;and in Virginia the number was 65;
+capital, $16,005,156; loans, $24,975,792; specie, $2,943,652;
+circulation, $9,812,197; deposits, $7,729,652. (Census Table 35, p.
+193.)</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Exports and Imports, etc.</span>&mdash;Our exports abroad from Pennsylvania, for the
+fiscal year ending 30th June, 1860, and foreign imports, were of the
+value of $20,262,608. The clearances, same year, from Pennsylvania, and
+entries were 336,848 tons. In Virginia the exports the same year, and
+foreign imports were of the value of $7,184,273; clearances and entries,
+178,143 tons, (Table 14, Register of U.S. Treasury.) Revenue from
+customs, same year, in Pennsylvania, $2,552,924, and in Virginia,
+$189,816; or more than twelve to one in favor of Pennsylvania. (Tables
+U.S. Commissioner of Customs.) No returns are given for the coastwise
+and internal trade of either State; but the railway and canal
+transportation of both States shows a difference of ten to one in favor
+of Pennsylvania. And yet, Virginia, as we have seen, had much greater
+natural advantages than Pennsylvania for commerce, foreign and internal,
+her shore line up to head of tide-water being 1,571 miles, and
+Pennsylvania only 60 miles.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen that, exclusive of commerce, the products of Pennsylvania
+in 1860 were of the value of $398,600,000, or $137 per capita; and in
+Virginia, $120,000,000, or $75 per capita. But, if we add the earnings
+of commerce, the products of Pennsylvania must have exceeded those of
+Virginia much more than four to one, and have reached, per capita,
+nearly three to one. What but slavery could have produced such amazing
+results? Indeed, when we see the same effects in <i>all</i> the Free States
+as compared with <i>all</i> the Slave States, and in <i>any</i> of the Slave
+States, as compared with <i>any</i> of the Free States, the uniformity of
+results estab<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span>lishes the law beyond all controversy, that slavery
+retards immensely the progress of wealth and population.</p>
+
+<p>That the Tariff has produced none of these results, is shown by the fact
+that the agriculture and commerce of Pennsylvania vastly exceed those of
+Virginia, and yet these are the interests supposed to be most
+injuriously affected by high tariffs. But there is still more conclusive
+proof. The year 1824 was the commencement of the era of high tariffs,
+and yet, from 1790 to 1820, as proved by the Census, the percentage of
+increase of Pennsylvania over Virginia was greater than from 1820 to
+1860. Thus, by Table 1 of the Census, p. 124, the increase of population
+in Virginia was as follows:</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='centered'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="40%" summary="increase of population
+in Virginia">
+<tr><td align='center'>From</td><td align='left'>1790</td><td align='center'>to</td><td align='left'>1800</td><td align='right'>7.63</td><td align='center'>per cent.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1800</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1810</td><td align='right'>10.73</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1810</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1820</td><td align='right'>9.31</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1820</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1830</td><td align='right'>13.71</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1830</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1840</td><td align='right'>2.34</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1840</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1850</td><td align='right'>14.60</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1850</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1860</td><td align='right'>12.29</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>The increase of population in Pennsylvania was:</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='centered'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="40%" summary="increase of population in Pennsylvania">
+<tr><td align='center'>From</td><td align='left'>1790</td><td align='center'>to</td><td align='left'>1800</td><td align='right'>38.67</td><td align='center'>per cent.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1800</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1810</td><td align='right'>4.49</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1810</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1820</td><td align='right'>29.55</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1820</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1830</td><td align='right'>28.47</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1830</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1840</td><td align='right'>27.87</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1840</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1850</td><td align='right'>34.09</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1850</td><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>1860</td><td align='right'>25.71</td><td align='center'>"</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p>In 1790 the population of Virginia was 748,318; in 1820, 1,065,129, and
+in 1860, 1,596,318. In 1790 the population of Pennsylvania was 434,373;
+in 1820, 1,348,233, and in 1860, 2,906,115. Thus, from 1790 to 1820,
+before the inauguration of the protective policy, the relative increase
+of the population of Pennsylvania, as compared with Virginia, was very
+far greater than from 1820 to 1860. It is quite clear, then, that the
+tariff had no influence in depressing the progress of Virginia as
+compared with Pennsylvania.</p>
+
+<p>Having shown how much the material progress of Virginia has been
+retarded by slavery, let us now consider its effect upon her moral and
+intellectual development.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Newspapers and Periodicals</span>.&mdash;The number of newspapers and periodicals in
+Pennsylvania in 1860 was 367, of which 277 were political, 43 religious,
+25 literary, 22 miscellaneous; and the total number of copies circulated
+in 1860 was 116,094,480. (Census Tables, Nos. 15, 37.) The number in
+Virginia was 139, of which 117 were political, 13 religious, 3 literary,
+6 miscellaneous; and the number of copies circulated in 1860 was
+26,772,568, being much less than one fourth that of Pennsylvania. The
+number of copies of monthly periodicals circulated in Pennsylvania in
+1860 was 464,684; and in Virginia, 43,900; or much more than ten to one
+in favor of Pennsylvania.</p>
+
+<p>As regards schools, colleges, academies, libraries, and churches, I must
+take the Census of 1850, those tables for 1860 not being yet arranged or
+printed. The number of public schools in Pennsylvania in 1850 was 9,061;
+teachers, 10,024; pupils, 413,706; colleges, academies, &amp;c., pupils,
+26,142; attending school during the year, as returned by families,
+504,610; native adults of the State who cannot read or write, 51,283;
+public libraries, 393; volumes, 363,400; value of churches, $11,853,291;
+percentage of native free, population (adults) who cannot read or write,
+4.56. (Comp. Census of 1850.)</p>
+
+<p>The number of public schools in Virginia in 1850 was 2,937; teachers,
+3,005; pupils, 67,438; colleges, academies, &amp;c., pupils, 10,326;
+attending school, as returned by families, 109,775; native white adults
+of the State who cannot read or write, 75,868; public libraries, 54;
+volumes, 88,462; value of churches, $2,902,220; percentage of native
+free adults of Virginia who cannot read or write, 19.90. (Comp. Census
+of 1850.) Thus, the church and educational statistics of Pennsylvania,
+and especially of free adults who cannot read or write, is as five to
+one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span> nearly in favor of Pennsylvania. When we recollect that nearly one
+third of the population of Pennsylvania are of the great German race,
+and speak the noble German language, to which they are greatly attached,
+and hence the difficulty of introducing common <i>English</i> public schools
+in the State, the advantage, in this respect, of Pennsylvania over
+Virginia is most extraordinary.</p>
+
+<p>These official statistics enable me, then, again to say that slavery is
+hostile to the progress of <i>wealth</i> and <i>education</i>, to <i>science</i> and
+<i>literature</i>, to <i>schools</i>, <i>colleges</i>, and <i>universities</i>, to <i>books</i>
+and <i>libraries</i>, to <i>churches</i> and <i>religion</i>, to the <span class="smcap">PRESS</span>, and
+therefore to <span class="smcap">FREE GOVERNMENT</span>; hostile to the <i>poor</i>, keeping them in
+<i>want</i> and <i>ignorance</i>; hostile to <span class="smcap">LABOR</span>, reducing it to <i>servitude</i> and
+decreasing <i>two thirds</i> the value of its products; hostile to <i>morals</i>,
+repudiating among slaves the <i>marital</i> and <i>parental</i> condition,
+classifying them by law as <span class="smcap">CHATTELS</span>, <i>darkening</i> the <i>immortal soul</i>,
+and making it a <i>crime</i> to teach millions of <i>human beings</i> to <i>read</i> or
+<i>write</i>.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, there are desperate leaders of the Peace party of Pennsylvania,
+desecrating the name of <i>Democrats</i>, but, in fact, Tories and traitors,
+who would separate that glorious old commonwealth from the North, and
+bid her sue in abject humiliation for admission as one of the Slave
+States of the rebel confederacy. Shades of Penn and Franklin, and of the
+thousands of martyred patriots of Pennsylvania who have fallen in
+defence of the Union from 1776 to 1863, forbid the terrible degradation.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="DOWN_IN_TENNESSEE" id="DOWN_IN_TENNESSEE"></a>DOWN IN TENNESSEE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Sultry and wearisome the day had been in that Tennessee valley, and
+after drill, we had laid around under the trees&mdash;tall, noble trees they
+were&mdash;and the fresh grass was green and soft under them as on the old
+'Campus,' and we had been smoking and talking over a wide, wide range of
+subjects, from deep Carlyleism&mdash;of which Carlyle doubtless never
+heard&mdash;to the significance of the day's orders. It was not an
+inharmonious picture&mdash;Camp Alabama, so we had named it&mdash;for it was with
+a 'here we rest' feeling that a dozen days before we had marched in at
+noon. The ground sloped to the eastward&mdash;a single winding road of yellow
+sand crept over the slope into the horizon, a mile or more away; north,
+a hill rose with some abruptness; south and west, a grove of wonderful
+beauty skirted the valley. A single building&mdash;an old but large log
+farmhouse&mdash;stood near the tent, whose fluttering banner indicated
+headquarters. This old house was well filled with commissary stores,
+and, following that incomprehensible Tennessee policy, four companies of
+our regiment, the twenty-third, had been detached to guard them under
+Major Fanning&mdash;'a noble soldier he, but all untried.' We had never yet
+seen active service, and our tents were still white and unstained. The
+ground had been once the lawn of the deserted house&mdash;in the long ago
+probably the home of a planter of some pretension; and, as we lay there
+under the trees watching the boys over the fires, kindled for their
+evening meal, the blue smoke curling up among the trees, it made, as I
+have said, a most harmonious picture.</p>
+
+<p>That fair June evening! I can never forget it, and I wish I were an
+artist that I could show you the sloping valley, the white tents,
+flushing like a girl's cheek to the good-night kisses of the sun, the
+curling smoke wreaths,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</a></span> and far, far above the amethystine heaven, from
+which floated over all a dim purple tint. I was the youngest
+commissioned officer in the regiment, having been promoted to a vacancy
+a week or two before through Major Fanning's influence.</p>
+
+<p>We were all invited that evening to supper with our commanding officer
+and his wife&mdash;who had been with him for a few days. A fresh breeze
+stirred the trees at sunset, and, after slight attention to our
+toilette, we dropped by twos and threes into the neighborhood of the
+major's tent. A little back from the rows of other tents, a few fine
+oaks made a temple in front, worthy even of its presiding genius, Grace
+Fanning&mdash;but I am <i>not</i> going to rhapsodize. She was a fair, modest,
+young thing, with the girl rose yet fresh on her wife's cheek. I had
+known her from childhood; very nearly of the same age, and the children
+of neighbors, we had been inseparable; of course in my first college
+vacation, finding her grown tall and womanly, I had entertained for her
+a devoted boyish passion, and had gone from her presence, one August
+night, mad with rejection, and wild with what I called despair. But
+<i>that</i> passed, and we had been good friends ever since&mdash;she the
+confidential one, to whom I related my varied college love affairs,
+listening ever with a tender, genial sympathy. I had no sister, and
+Grace Jones (I am sorry, but her name <i>was</i> Jones) was dear to me as
+one. Two years of professional study had kept me away from my village
+home, and a few words came once in a long while, in my mother's letters
+'to assure me of Grace's remembrance and regard.' A little of the elder
+sister's advising tone amused my one and twenty years and my incipient
+moustache amazingly; and I resolved, when I saw her, to convince her of
+my dignity&mdash;to patronize her. But the notes that called me home were too
+clarion-like for a relapse into puppyism. My country spoke my name, and
+I arose a man, and 'put away childish things.' I came home to say
+farewell. A regiment was forming there, I enlisted, and a few days
+before our departure, I stood in the village church, looking and
+listening while Grace promised eternal fidelity to Harry Fanning. I was
+a stranger to him. He had come to Danville after my departure, winning
+from all golden opinions, and from Grace a woman's priceless heart. She
+gave him freely to his country, and denied not her hand to his parting
+prayer. I had had time only to say farewell to her, and the old footing
+had not been restored, but I <i>think</i> she spoke to the major of me, for
+he soon sought me, giving me genial friendship and sympathy, and
+procuring for me, as I have related, my commission. I had seen her but
+once since she came to Camp Alabama, and she gave me warm and kindly
+welcome as I came in, the last of the group, having found in my tent
+some unexpected employment. Being a soldier, I shall not shock my fair
+readers if I confess that it was&mdash;buttons. Ah! me, I am frivolous. But I
+linger in the spirit of that happy hour. Grace's chair was shaded by a
+gracefully draped flag; the major stood near her, his love for her as
+visible in his eye as his cordial kindness for us. To me, in honor of my
+'juniority,' as Mrs. Fanning said, was assigned a place near her. The
+others had choice between campstools and blankets on the grass. And the
+oddest but most respectable of contrabands served us soon with our
+supper, so homelike that we suspected 'Mrs. Major's' fair hands of
+interference.</p>
+
+<p>It was a happy evening. Merry laughter at our camp stories rang silverly
+from her fair lips. Or we listened eagerly to her as she told us of the
+homes we had left, and the bonny maidens there, sobered since our
+departure into patriotic industry. Stories of touching self-denial, with
+a wholesome pathos, and sometimes from her dainty musical talk she
+dropped, pebble-like, a name, as 'Fanny,' 'Carry,'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span> 'Maggie,' and
+responsive blushes rippled up over sunburned, honest faces, and a soft
+mist brightened for a second resolute eyes. Presently the band&mdash;a part
+only of the regiment's&mdash;began to play soft, well-known tunes. Through a
+few marches and national airs, I looked and listened as a year before,
+in the village church at home. And as the 'Star-Spangled Banner' rose
+inspiringly, I felt the coincidence strangely, and could scarcely say
+which scene was real: the church aisle and the bridal party, in white
+robes and favors, with mellow organ-tones rising in patriotic strains
+concerning the 'dear old flag,' or the group under the oaks; the young
+wife in her gray travelling dress, and the uniformed figures gathered
+around her; the moon-rise over the hill, lighting softly the drooping
+flag, the major's dark hair, and Mrs. Fanning's sunny braids, the wild
+notes of the same beloved melody overswelling all. But voices near
+aroused me, and we joined in the chorus, and in the following tune,
+'Sweet Home,' the usual finale of our evening programme. Then, as the
+tones died, Grace lifted her voice and sang with sweet, pure soprano
+tones, an old-time ballad of love and parting and reunion.</p>
+
+<p>We had a wild little battle song in 'Our Mess,' written by Charlie
+Marsh, our fair-haired boy-poet soldier, speaking of home, and the
+country's need, and victory, and possible deaths in ringing notes. We
+sang it there in the light of the slowly rising moon. The chorus was
+like this:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Our country's foe before us,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Our country's banner o'er us,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Our country to deplore us,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">These are a soldier's needs.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>As we closed, Grace caught the strain, and with soft, birdlike notes
+sang:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Your country's flag above you,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your country's true hearts love you&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So let your country move you</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To brave, undying deeds.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>More songs followed, and happy words of cheer in distress, of
+self-consecration, of past and future victory; but Major Fanning was
+unusually silent. Hardly sad, for he flung into our conversation
+occasional cheerful words; but gravely quiet, his dark eye following
+every motion of his fair young wife. Finally we called on Captain
+Carter, our 'oldest man,' a grave bachelor of forty-five, and to our
+surprise, who knew him harsh and sometimes profane, he sang, with a
+voice not faultless, but soft and expressive, that exquisite health of
+Campbell's:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Drink ye to her that each loves best,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And if you nurse a flame</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That's told but to her mutual breast,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">We will not ask her name.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'And far, far hence be jest or boast,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From hallowed thoughts so dear;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But drink to her that each loves most,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As she would love to hear.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Then silence for a little space; and the moonlight full and fair in
+soldiers' faces, young and old, but all firm and true, and fair and full
+on Grace Fanning's fresh, young brow. Then 'good-nights,' mingled with
+expressions of enjoyment, and plans for the morrow. I left them last.</p>
+
+<p>'I am glad you are here, Robert,' said the major; 'Grace would not be
+all alone, even if I'&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Her white hand flashed to his lips, where a kiss met it, and laughingly
+we parted. A few rods away, I paused and turned. They stood there under
+the flag. Her bright head on his bosom, his arms about her, and the
+silver moonlight over all. Fair Grace Fanning! Have I named my story
+wrongly, pretty reader? I called it 'Camp Sketch,' and it reads too like
+a love story. 'Ah! gentle girl, seeking adventure in fiction, but
+shrinking really from even a cut finger, there is enough of battle even
+in my little story, though you slept peacefully and happily that fair
+June night, or waltzed yourself weary to the sound of the sea at the
+'Ocean House.'</p>
+
+<p>A few 'good nights' commendatory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span> of our hostess and our evening greeted
+me as I sought my tent and made ready for sleep. I was very happy, no
+memory of our talk was sullied by coarse or unlovely thought; pure as
+herself had been our enjoyment of Mrs. Fanning's society, and I slept
+sweetly.</p>
+
+<p>The long roll! None but those who have heard it when it means instant
+danger and possible death, can conceive the thrill with which I sprang
+from deep slumber, and made hasty preparation for action. Quick as I
+was, others had been before me, and I found the half-dressed men drawn
+up in battle line before the encampment. I took my place.</p>
+
+<p>Behind us lay the camp, a wide, street-like space, fringed with a double
+row of tents&mdash;at its foot the old log mansion; near that, a little in
+front, but at one side, the flag of headquarters&mdash;this behind. Before us
+the major&mdash;the western wood, and the flashing sabres of a band of
+hostile cavalry. They came on heedless of the fast-emptying saddles, on,
+<i>on</i>, and more following from the wood, the moon in the mid heaven,
+clear like day.</p>
+
+<p>A gallant charge&mdash;a firm repulse. Major Fanning's clear voice on the
+night air, rallying the men to attack the furious foe. They sweep their
+horses around to left, but calmly the major wheels his battalion, still
+unflanked; again those fierce steeds try the first point of attack;
+again we front them undaunted. In our turn, with lifted level bayonets
+we charge; the enemy falls back&mdash;a shout threads along our lines,
+changing suddenly into a wail, for, calling us on, our leader falls.
+Pitiless to his noble valor, a well-aimed carbine-shot lays him low.
+They lift him, some brave soldiers near; and, his young face bathed in
+blood, they bear him to his waiting bride; he opens his eyes, as he
+passes.</p>
+
+<p>'Courage! victory! my boys!' he calls; then, seeing me: 'Go! tell her,
+Robert.'</p>
+
+<p>I call my orderly to my place, and before they have pierced our lines
+with their beloved burden, I am at the tent door. She stands there
+waiting, a little pistol in her hand&mdash;a light wrapper about her, and her
+fair hair streaming over her shoulders. I look at her mutely; she knows
+there is something terrible for her, and while I seek words, her eye
+goes on, resting where down the moonlit trees they are bringing him. A
+moment, she is by his side, and tearless and white, her hand on his
+unanswering heart, she moves beside him. The soldiers lay their leader
+on the ground under his flag, and her imperious gesture sends them back
+to their places in the battle. And then she, sinking beside him, cries
+out:</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, Robert! will he never speak to me again? Help him!'</p>
+
+<p>My two years at lectures had not been passed in vain, and surgery had
+been my hobby. I knelt and strove to aid him. It was a cruel wound. I
+asked for bandages. She tore them from her garments wildly. I stilled
+the trickling crimson stream, and going into the tent, found some
+restoratives. I poured the wine down his throat, and, soon opening his
+eyes, he spoke:</p>
+
+<p>'Grace!'</p>
+
+<p>I stepped away&mdash;near enough for call, not near enough for intrusion.
+Looking at the lines of dark forms topped by the light glimmer of stray
+bayonets, I saw with dismay that our men were retreating before those
+heavy charges; in thick, dense masses they moved back, nearing us. I
+thought of our soldier chief, crushed under those wild hoofs; I thought
+of Grace, unprotected in her youth and widowed, desolate beauty, and
+sprang to her side, ready with my life for her.</p>
+
+<p>The major saw it all, and, faint as he was, rose on his elbow, watching.
+Charge after charge, wild and impetuous, break the slowly retreating
+battalions. In vain I heard Carter's stern oaths (may the angel of tears
+forgive him!), and Charlie Marsh's boyish calls. The men are facing us.
+The enemy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span> cheering, and in the background huge torches flaming with
+pitch, are ready for incendiarism.</p>
+
+<p>'Grace! Grace! I <i>must</i> rally them, let me go!' and I see Major Fanning
+straggling in her arms. I clasp him also.</p>
+
+<p>'It is certain death,' I say to her, mad with fright and misery.</p>
+
+<p>'And this is worse, worse, Grace; you might better kill me!' his voice
+was harsh&mdash;cruel even.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she was gone, and I held him alone; catching his sword, she
+sprang like a flash of lightning into the open space before the log
+house, and, lifting the bare blade with naked, slender arm, its loose
+sleeve floating from her shoulder like a wing, she faced those
+panic-stricken men.</p>
+
+<p>'For shame!' she cried; but her weak voice was lost; then, stern as the
+angel of death, she stepped forward.</p>
+
+<p>'The first man that passes me shall die!' and she swung the flashing
+blade up, ready to fall. A moment's halt, and then, she spoke to them
+with wonderful strange words. I cannot recall them; with inspired
+eloquence she spoke, a slight, white-robed figure in the clear
+moonlight, and the rout was stayed, and they turned bravely to meet the
+foe. Then she came faint and weak to her husband's side again. He looked
+up with glad, eager eyes.</p>
+
+<p>'Darling!'</p>
+
+<p>Infinite love, soul-recognition, shone on both faces, and then blank
+unconsciousness crept over his. Firmly our boys met the charging steeds
+now. That moment had restored to them their courage. Emptied saddles
+were frequent, but still fresh forces dashed from the wood. Is there no
+hope for us? Must we be overpowered? Is all this valor vain? Grace from
+her husband's side looks mutely up to heaven. I find my place among the
+men. Little hope remains. Some one calls 'retreat.' 'Just once more,'
+cries Charlie, and falls before us. But listen; above the battle din
+comes a new, an approaching sound from the eastward.</p>
+
+<p>Along the yellow road pours swiftly a force of cavalry, behind the
+rumble of cannon almost flying over the ground, and high in air, reeling
+from the swift motion of its bearer's steed, the banner of the free. We
+are saved! A wild shout rings along our lines. Among the enemy,
+frightened consultation followed by flight; another second, and our
+friends are with us and beyond us in hot pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>Brief question and answer told us of the friendly warning in the distant
+camp, the hasty march to aid us. The rest we saw. Then, 'A surgeon for
+Major Fanning.' The man of the green sash had not grown callous. There
+were tears in his eyes as he rose from his vain endeavors, saying only:</p>
+
+<p>'I can do nothing here; I am needed elsewhere.'</p>
+
+<p>Our young hero was dead!</p>
+
+<p>They composed his limbs, laying him on a blanket under the trees, and
+Grace sat down beside him, tearless still, but pale as her dress, or the
+white hand lying cold over the soldier's pulseless heart.</p>
+
+<p>'Robert, send them away,' she said to me, as sympathizing strangers
+pressed round; and they left us alone with the dead. I spoke at last the
+commonplaces of consolation, suggested and modified by the hour and my
+soldier feelings.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, Robert,' she answered, 'I gave him long ago. <span class="smcap">God</span> will comfort me
+for my hero&mdash;in time. Do not speak to me just yet. Do not let any one
+come.'</p>
+
+<p>The tears came now, and she wept bitterly, silently, under the starry
+banner, beside the dead. I heard the hum of many voices, and now and
+then a cry of pain, and knew they were all helping the sufferers. Then I
+turned to her again. Her streaming hair swept the ground, golden in the
+light. Her fair face was hidden on the cold dead face. And I dared not
+speak to her. Oh, that picture! Poor Grace Fanning! and the silver,
+silver moonlight over all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="POETRY_AND_POETICAL_SELECTIONS" id="POETRY_AND_POETICAL_SELECTIONS"></a>POETRY AND POETICAL SELECTIONS.</h2>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Oh, deem not in this world of strife,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">An idle art the Poet brings;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Let high Philosophy control,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And sages calm the stream of life;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Tis he refines its fountain springs,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The nobler passions of the soul.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<p>In the annals of literature, Poetry antedates Prose. Creation precedes
+Providence, not merely in the order of sequence, but what is usually
+called intellectual and physical grandeur. So in genius and taste,
+Poetry transcends prose. In the work of Creation the Almighty broke the
+awful stillness of Eternity, by His first creative fiat, and angels were
+the first-born of God. They took their thrones in the galleries of the
+universe, and in silent contemplation sat. They spoke not; for words, as
+signs of thought or will or emotion, were not then conceived, and,
+consequently, then unborn. They gazed in rapture on one another, and in
+solemn silence thought. Their emotions bodied forth the Anthem of
+Creation.</p>
+
+<p>Human words being created breath, and breath being air in motion, prior
+to these language was impossible. And as the deaf are always dumb,
+language, like faith, comes by hearing. But hearing itself is a
+pensioner, waiting upon a speaker; consequently, it must ever be
+contingent on a cause alike antecedent and extrinsic of itself. It is,
+therefore, equally an oracle of reason and of faith that, however God
+may have communicated to angels, to <i>man</i> He spoke in articulate sounds,
+before man articulated a thought, a feeling, or an emotion of his soul.
+And as an emotional soul is but a harp of many strings, a hand there
+must have been to play upon its chords, before melody and harmony,
+twins-born of Heaven, had either a local habitation or a name.</p>
+
+<p>But, it may be asked&mdash;Is there not in the regions of Poetry an &aelig;olian
+harp, found in the cave of &AElig;olus, on which the winds of heaven played
+many a celestial symphony, without the skill or touch of human hand?
+Grant all that the Poetic Muse assumes, and then we ask&mdash;Who made the
+harp? And whence directed came the musing sylvan Zephyrus and his choir?
+Came they not from a land of images and dreams?</p>
+
+<p>But we are inquiring for originals. Images and originals are the poles
+apart. An original without an image is possible; but an image without an
+original is alike impossible and inconceivable. Hence, alike
+philosophically and logically, we conclude that <i>neither man nor angel
+addressed each other until they themselves had been addressed by their
+Creator</i>. Then they intercommunicated thought, sentiment, and emotion
+with one another as God had communicated to them.</p>
+
+<p>The mystery of language and Poetry is insoluble but on the admission of
+a revelation or communication of some sort, unconceived by the human
+mind, unexecuted by the human hand. If invention and creation be the
+grand characteristics of the Poet, Moses, if uninspired, was a greater
+Poet than Homer, or Milton, or Shakspeare, on the hypothesis that he
+invented the drama which he wrote. The first chapter of Genesis is the
+greatest and most splendid Poem ever conceived by human imagination, or
+written by human hand.</p>
+
+<p>All Poets, ancient and modern, are mere plagiarists, if Moses was
+uninspired. We prove his Divine Legation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</a></span> by the intrinsic and
+transcendent merits of the Poem which he wrote. Imagination originates
+nothing absolutely new. It merely imitates and combines. It is regarded
+as the creative faculty of man; but its material is already furnished.
+The portrait of an unreal Adam is as conceivable as a child without a
+father, or an effect without a cause.</p>
+
+<p>Thus we are obliged, by an inseparable necessity, to admit the
+credibility of the Poem which he wrote. And what does Moses say? Nothing
+more than that <i>God spoke, and the universe was!</i> This is the sublime of
+true Poetry. This is more than the logic of the proposition, <i>God was,
+therefore we are!</i> It is more than the philosophy, <i>ex nihilo, nihil
+fit!</i> or than, that <i>nothing</i> cannot be the parent of <i>something</i>.</p>
+
+<p>But we must place our foot on a higher round of the ladder, before we
+can stand on such an eminence as to see, in all its fair proportions,
+the column on which the Muses perch themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Job, and not Moses, shall be our guide, and the oracle alike of our
+reason and our imagination. But who is Job? There is not much poetry in
+the name, Job. But Rome and its vulgate vulgarized this hallowed name,
+and Britain followed Rome. His name in Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic, is
+Jobab. There is more poetry in this. There is no metre, no poetry in a
+monotone or monosyllable. Born among rocks and mountains, the proper
+theatre of a heaven-inspired Muse&mdash;not in Arabia the Happy, but in
+Arabia the Rocky&mdash;he was a heart-touching, a soul-stirring, emotional
+Bard. In such a case the clouds that overshadow the era of the man only
+enhance the genius and inspiration of the Poet.</p>
+
+<p>In internal and external evidence, according to our calendar of the
+Muses, he is the first-born of the Poets that yet survive the wasteful
+ravages of hoary Time. He sings not, indeed, of Chaos and Eternal Night.
+But as one inspired by a heaven-born Muse, he echoes the chorus of the
+Angelic Song, when on the utterance of the first <i>fiat</i> the Morning
+Stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Hence we
+argue, that Poetry is not only prior to prose, but that language, its
+intellectual and emotional embodiment, is heaven-conceived, and
+heaven-born.</p>
+
+<p>But in a short essay it would be out of place and in bad taste to
+attempt a discourse upon the broad field of ancient or modern Poetry. We
+merely attempt to suggest one idea on this rich and lofty theme. Our
+radical conception of the essential and differential attribute of
+Poetry, as contradistinguished from prose, however chaste, pure,
+beautiful, and philosophic, is not mere art, nor science, but
+<i>creation</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The universe itself is a grand Heroic Poem. Hence its instrument is that
+power usually called Imagination. But <i>human</i> imagination is not first,
+second, or third in rank on the scale of the universe. God Himself
+imagined the universe before He created it. His imagination is infinite.
+The Cherubim and Seraphim have wings that elevate them above our zenith.
+And angels, too, excel us in this creative faculty, and therefore veil
+their faces before the Majesty of heaven and earth. Still, man has an
+humble portion of it, and can turn it to a good account.</p>
+
+<p>But there is another idea essential to the character of Poetry, as good
+or evil in its spirit and adornings. We need scarcely say, for we are
+anticipated by every reflecting mind, that this is the <i>spirit</i> of the
+Poem. Poetry, in the abstract, is not necessarily good or evil. It may
+be Christian, Jewish, Pagan, or Infidel in its spirit and tendencies. It
+may corrupt or purify the heart. It may save or ruin the reader in
+fortune or in fame. Hence, as Poetry is powerful to elevate or degrade,
+to purify or to corrupt a people, much depends on the spirit of the
+Poetry which they may put into the hands of the youth of a country; as
+well observed by an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</a></span> eminent moralist: 'Let me write the poems or
+ballads of a people, and I care but little who enacts their laws.'</p>
+
+<p>The genius of a Poet is a rare genius. And most happily it is so; for
+elevated taste and high-toned morality are not, by any means, the common
+heritage of man. Anacreon and Burns were genuine Poets. They uttered, in
+fine style, many truths; and were not merely fluent in their respective
+languages, but affluent. But, perhaps, like some other men of mighty
+parts and grand proportions, better for mankind they had never been
+born. A Cowper and a Byron, in their whole career of song, will exert a
+very different influence, not only on earth, but in eternity, on the
+destiny of their amateurs. We need not argue this position as though,
+among a Christian people, it were a doubtful or debatable position. If
+the evil spirit, or the melancholy demon, that fitfully possessed the
+first king of Israel, was expelled by the skilful hand of his successor,
+even when his youthful fingers awoke the melodies of the lyre, how much
+more puissant the exquisite Odes of the sweet Psalmist, inspired as they
+were with sentiments and views alike honorable to God and man, to
+elevate the conceptions, purify the heart, ennoble the aspirations, and
+adorn the life of man!</p>
+
+<p>As the cask long retains the odor of the wine put into it, so the moral
+and religious fragrance of many a fine poetic effusion, securely lodged
+in the recesses of memory, may yield, and often does yield, a rich
+repast of pleasurable associations and emotions which, beside their
+opportune recurrence in some trying or tempting hour or season of
+adversity, do often energize our souls with a moral heroism to deeds of
+nobler daring, which result in enterprises full of blessings to
+ourselves, and not unfrequently to our associates in the walks of life,
+and radiate through them salutary light for generations to come.</p>
+
+<p>Imagination, like every other faculty, is to be cultivated. But here we
+are interrogated&mdash;'What is Imagination?'</p>
+
+<p>No distinction has given critics more trouble, in the way of definition,
+than that between Imagination and Fancy. Fancy, it is held, is given to
+beguile and quicken the temporal part of our nature; Imagination to
+incite and support the eternal.</p>
+
+<p>It would be vain to enumerate the various definitions of this term, or
+to attempt to give even an abstract of the diversity of views
+entertained by philosophers respecting the nature and extent of its
+operations. It is regarded by some writers as that power or faculty of
+the mind by which it conceives and forms ideas of things communicated to
+it by the organs of sense. So defines our encyclop&aelig;dias. Bacon defined
+it to be the 'representation of an individual thought.' But Dugald
+Stewart more philosophically defines it as the 'power of modifying our
+conceptions, by combining the parts of different ones so as to form new
+wholes of our own creation.' The Edinburgh Encyclop&aelig;dia, not satisfied
+with this, says Webster defines it to be the <i>will working on the
+materials of memory, selecting parts of different conceptions, or
+objects of memory, to form some new whole</i>.</p>
+
+<p>This has long been our cherished view of Imagination. It creates only as
+a mechanic creates a chest of drawers, a sideboard, a clock, or a watch.
+It originates not a single material of thought, volition, or action.
+But, mechanic-like, it works by plumb and rule on all the materials
+found in the warehouse of memory; and manufactures, out of the same
+plank of pine, or bar of iron, or wedge of gold, or precious stone, some
+new utensil, ornament, or adornment never found in Nature. In its
+present form it is the offspring of the art and contrivance of man.
+Hence our invulnerable position against Atheism or Deism. <i>No one could
+have created the idea of a God or of a Christ, without</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</a></span><i> a special
+inspiration, any more than he could create a gold watch without the
+metal called gold.</i></p>
+
+<p>The deaf are necessarily dumb. The blind cannot conceive of color. A
+Poet cannot work without language, any more than the nightingale could
+sing without air. Language and prototypes precede and necessarily
+antedate writing and prose. Hence the idea of Poetry is preceded by the
+idea of Prose, as speaking by the idea of hearing. There was reason, and
+an age of reason, without, and antecedent to, rhyme; and therefore we
+sometimes find rhyme without reason, as well as reason without rhyme.</p>
+
+<p>Rhyme, however, facilitates memory and recollection. Memory, indeed, is
+but a printed tablet, and recollection the art and mystery of reading
+it. Poetry, therefore, is both useful and pleasing. It aids
+recollection, and soothes and excites and animates the soul of man. It
+makes deeper, more pungent, more stimulating, more exciting, and more
+enduring impressions on the mind than prose; and, therefore, greatly
+facilitates both the acquisition and retention of ideas and impressions.
+Of it Horace says ('Ars Poetica'):</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Ut pictura, poesis; erit, qu&aelig;, si propius stes,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Te capiet magis, et qu&aelig;dam, si longius abstes.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H&aelig;c amat obscurum; volet h&aelig;c sub luce videri,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Judicis argutum qu&aelig; non formidat acumen:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">H&aelig;c placuit semel, h&aelig;c decies repetita placebit.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>No one ever attained to what is usually called <i>good taste</i> who has not
+devoted a portion of his time and study to the whole science and art of
+Poetry. We do not mean good taste in relation to any one manifestation
+of it.</p>
+
+<p>There is a general as well as a special good taste, but they are
+distinguishable only as genus and species. There is, it may be alleged,
+a <i>native</i> as well as an <i>acquired</i> taste. This may also be conceded.
+There is in some persons a greater innate susceptibility of deriving
+pleasure from the works of Nature and of Art than is discoverable in
+others. Still we cannot imagine any one gifted with reason and
+sensibility to be entirely destitute of it. It is an element of reason
+and of sense peculiar to man. As a fabulist once represented a cock in
+quest of barleycorns, scraping for his breakfast, saying to himself, on
+discovering a precious and brilliant gem: 'If a lapidary were in my
+place he would now have made his fortune; but as for myself, I prefer
+one grain of barley to all the precious stones in the world.'</p>
+
+<p>But what man, so feeling and thinking, would not 'blush and hang his
+head to think himself a man'? Apart from the value of the gem, every man
+of reason or of thought has pleasure in the contemplation of the
+beautiful diamond, whether on his own person or on that of another.
+Taste seems to be as inseparable from reason as Poetry is from
+imagination. It is not wholly the gift of Nature, nor wholly the gift of
+Art. It is an innate element of the human constitution, designed to
+beautify and beatify man. To cultivate and improve it is an essential
+part of education. The highest civilization known in Christendom is but
+the result or product of good taste. Even religion and morality, in
+their highest excellence, are but, so far as society is concerned,
+developments and demonstrations of cultivated taste. There may, indeed,
+be a fictitious or chimerical taste without Poetry or Religion; but a
+genuine good taste, in our judgment, without these handmaids, is
+unattainable.</p>
+
+<p>But as no interesting landscape&mdash;no mountain, hill, or valley, no river,
+lake or sea&mdash;affords us all that charms, excites or elevates our
+imagination viewed from any one point of vision, so the poetic faculty
+itself can neither be conceived of nor appreciated, contemplated out of
+its own family register.</p>
+
+<p>There is in all the 'Fine Arts' a common paternity, and hence a family
+lineage and a family likeness. To appre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</a></span>ciate any one of them we must
+form an acquaintance with the whole sisterhood&mdash;Poetry, Music, Painting,
+and Sculpture.</p>
+
+<p>And are not all these the genuine offspring of Imagination? Hence they
+are of one paternity, though not of one maternity. The eye, the ear, and
+the hand, has each its own peculiar sympathetic nerve. For, as all God's
+works are perfect, when and where He gives an eye to see or an ear to
+hear, He gives a hand to execute. This is the law; and as all God's laws
+are universal as perfect, there is no exception save from accident, or
+from something poetically styled a <i>lusus natur&aelig;</i>&mdash;a mere caprice or
+sport of Nature.</p>
+
+<p>But the philosophy of Poetry is not necessary to its existence any more
+than the astronomy of the heavens is to the brilliancy of the sun or to
+the splendors of a comet. A Poet is a creator, and his most perfect
+creature is a portraiture of any work of God or man; of any attribute of
+God or man in perfect keeping with Nature or with the original
+prototype, be it in fact or in fiction, in repose or in operation.</p>
+
+<p>Imitation is sometimes regarded as the test of poetic excellence. But
+what is imitation but the creation of an image! Alexander Pope so well
+imitates Homer, that, as an English critic once said, in speaking of his
+translation of that Prince of Grecian Poets&mdash;'a time might come, should
+the annals of Greece and England be confounded in some convulsion of
+Nature, when it might be a grave question of debate whether Pope
+translated Homer, or Homer Pope.'</p>
+
+<p>For our own part, we have never been able to decide to our own entire
+satisfaction, which excels in the true Heroic style. Pope, in his
+translation of the exordium of Homer, we think more than equals Homer
+himself:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of woes unnumbered, heavenly goddess, sing!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That wrath which hurled to Pluto's dark domain</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The souls of mighty chiefs in battle slain;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whose limbs, unburied on the fatal shore,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Since great Achilles and Atrides strove,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Such was the sovereign doom and such the will of Jove.'<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>We opine that Pope, being trammelled with a copy, and consequently his
+imagination cramped, displays every attribute of poetic genius fully
+equal, if not superior, to that of the beau ideal of the Grecian Muse.</p>
+
+<p>But Alexander Pope, of England, is not the Pope of English Poetry, a
+brother Poet being judge, for Dryden says:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Three Poets, in three distant ages born,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Greece, Italy, and England did adorn;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The first in majesty of thought surpassed,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The next in melody&mdash;in both the last:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The force of Nature could no further go,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To make the third she joined the other two.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>And who awards not to Milton the richest medal in the Temple of the
+Muses! Not, perhaps, for the elegant diction and sublime imagery of his
+<span class="smcap">Paradise Lost</span>, but for his grand conceptions of Divinity in all its
+attributes, and of humanity in all its conditions, past, present, and
+future.</p>
+
+<p>We Americans have a peculiar respect for Lyric Poetry. We have not time
+for the Epic. If anything with us is good, it is superlatively good for
+being brief. Short sermons, short prayers, short hymns, and short metre
+are peculiarly interesting. We are, too, a miscellaneous people, and we
+are peculiarly fond of miscellanies. The age of folios and quartos is
+forever past with Young America. Octavos are waning, and more in need of
+brushing than of burnishing. But still we must have Poetry&mdash;<i>good</i>
+Poetry; for we Americans prefer to live rather in the style of good
+lyric than in that of grave,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</a></span> elongated hexameter. Variety, too, is with
+us the spice of life. We are not satisfied with grand prairies, rivers,
+and cataracts, and even cascades and <i>jet d'eaus</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Collections of miscellaneous Poetry seem alike due to the Poetic Muse
+and to the American people. We love variety. It is, as we have remarked,
+the spice of American life; and our country will ever cherish it as
+being most in harmony with itself. It is, moreover, more in unison with
+the conditions of human nature and human existence. There is, too, as
+the wisest of men and the greatest of kings has said, 'a time for every
+purpose and for every work.' No volume of Poetry or of Prose can,
+therefore, be popular or interesting to such a nation as we are, that
+does not adapt itself to the versatile genius of our people, and to the
+ever-varying conditions of their lives and fortunes.</p>
+
+<p>There is, therefore, a propriety in getting up good selections, because
+a greater advantage is to be derived from well selected specimens of the
+Poetic Muse than from the labors of any one of the great masters of the
+Lyre! Who would not rather visit a rich and extensive museum of the
+products and arts of civilized life&mdash;some well assorted repository of
+its scientific or artistic developments, than to traverse a whole state
+or kingdom in pursuit of such knowledge of the wisdom, talents, and
+contrivances of its population?</p>
+
+<p>Of all kinds of composition, Poetry is that which gives to the lovers of
+it the greatest and most enduring pleasure. Almost every one of them can
+heartily respond to the beautiful words of one who was not only a great
+Poet, but a profound philosopher&mdash;Coleridge&mdash;who, speaking of the
+delight he had experienced in writing his Poems, says: 'Poetry has been
+to me its own exceeding great reward. It has soothed my afflictions; it
+has multiplied and refined my enjoyments; it has endeared solitude; and
+it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the Good and the
+Beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me.'</p>
+
+<p>In no way can the imagination be more effectually or safely exercised
+and improved than by the constant perusal and study of our best Poets.
+Poetry appeals to the universal sympathies of mankind. With the
+contemplative writers, we can indulge our pensive and thoughtful tastes.
+With the describers of natural scenery, we can delight in the beauties
+and glories of the external universe. With the great dramatists, we are
+able to study all the phases of the human mind, and to take their
+fictitious personages as models or beacons for ourselves. With the great
+creative Poets, we can go outside of all these, and find ourselves in a
+region of pure Imagination, which may be as true to our higher
+instincts&mdash;perhaps more so&mdash;than the shows which surround us.</p>
+
+<p>If it be as truthfully as it has been happily expressed by the prince of
+dramatic Poets, that</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'He who has no music in his soul</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils,'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>it should be a paramount duty with every one who loves his species, and
+cultivates a generous philanthropy, to patronize every effort to diffuse
+widely through society, Poetry of genuine character, and to cultivate a
+taste for it as an element of a literary, religious, and moral
+education. We commend, as a standard of appreciation of the true
+character of the gifts of the Poetic Muse, the following critique from
+Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">''Tis not a flash of fancy, which sometimes,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dazzling our minds, sets off the slightest rhymes,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bright as a blaze, but in a moment done;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">True wit is everlasting, like the sun,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which, though sometimes behind a cloud retired,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Breaks out again, and is by all admired.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Number and rhyme, and that harmonious sound</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Which not the nicest ear with harshness wound,</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Are necessary, yet but vulgar arts;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And all in rain these superficial parts</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Contribute to the structure of the whole,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Without a genius too&mdash;for that's the soul;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A spirit which inspires the work throughout,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As that of Nature moves the world about;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A flame that glows amidst conceptions fit;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E'en something of divine, and more than wit;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Itself unseen, yet all things by it shown,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Describing all men, but described by none.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>We neither intend nor desire to institute any invidious comparisons
+between Old Britain and Young America. We are one people&mdash;one in blood,
+one literature, one faith, one religion, in fact or in profession. Our
+language girdles the whole earth. Our science and our religion more or
+less enlighten every land, as our sails whiten every sea, and our
+commerce, in some degree, enriches every people. There is a magnanimity,
+a benevolence, a philanthropy, in English Poetry, whether the Muse be
+English, Scotch, Irish, or American, that thrills the social nerve and
+warms the kindred hearts of all who think, or speak, or dream in our
+vernacular. The pen of the gifted Bard is more puissant than the
+cannon's thundering roar or the warrior's glittering sword; and the
+soft, sweet melodies of English Poetry, gushing from a Christian Muse,
+are Heaven's sovereign specifics for a wounded spirit and an aching
+heart!</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="PATRIA_SPES_ULTIMA_MUNDI" id="PATRIA_SPES_ULTIMA_MUNDI"></a>PATRIA SPES ULTIMA MUNDI.</h2>
+
+<h3>FLAG OF OUR UNION.</h3>
+
+<h4>National Song.</h4>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By Hon. Robert J. Walker</span></p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>Dedicated to the Union Army and Navy.</i></p>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The day our nation's life began,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Dawned on the sovereignty of man,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His charter then our Fathers signed,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Proclaiming Freedom for mankind.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">May Heaven still guard her glorious sway,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Till time with endless years grows gray.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Flag of our Union! float unfurled,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thy stars shall light a ransomed world.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Americans, your mighty name,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With glory floods the peaks of fame;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ye whom our Washington has led,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Men who with Warren nobly bled,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who never quailed on land or sea,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your watchword, <i>Death or Liberty</i>!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Flag of our Union! float unfurled,</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thy stars shall light a ransomed world.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">It was the Union made us free,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Its loss, man's second fall would be.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">States linked in kindred glory save,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Till the last despot finds a grave;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And angels hasten here to see</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Man break his chains, the whole earth free!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Flag of our Union! float unfurled,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thy stars shall light a ransomed world.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ye struggling brothers o'er the sea,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who spurn the chain of tyranny,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like brave Columbus westward steer,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Our stars of hope will guide you here,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where States still rising bless our land,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And freedom strengthens labor's hand.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Flag of our Union! float unfurled,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thy stars shall light a ransomed world.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ye toiling millions, free and brave,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whose shores two mighty oceans lave:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your cultured fields, your marts of trade,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Keels by the hand of genius laid,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The shuttle's hum, the anvil's ring</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Echo your voice that God is King.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Flag of our Union! float unfurled,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thy stars shall light a ransomed world.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hail! Union Army, true and brave,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And dauntless Navy on the wave.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Holy the cause where Freedom leads,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sacred the field where patriot bleeds;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Victory shall crown your spotless fame,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nations and ages bless your name.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Flag of our Union! float unfurled,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thy stars shall light a ransomed world.</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="A_FANCY_SKETCH" id="A_FANCY_SKETCH"></a>A FANCY SKETCH.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I am a banker, and I need hardly say I am in comfortable circumstances.
+Some of my friends, of whom I have a good many, are pleased to call me
+rich, and I shall not take it upon myself to dispute their word. Until I
+was twenty-five, I travelled, waltzed, and saw the best foreign society;
+from twenty-five to thirty I devoted myself to literature and the art of
+dining; I am now entered upon the serious business of life, which
+consists in increasing one's estate. At forty I shall marry, and as this
+epoch is nine years distant, I trust none of the fair readers of this
+journal will trouble themselves to address me notes which I really
+cannot answer, and which it would give me pain to throw in the fire.</p>
+
+<p>Some persons think it beneath a gentleman to write for the magazines or
+papers. This is a low and vulgar idea. The great wits of the world have
+found their best friends in the journals; there were some who never
+learned to write,&mdash;who ever hears of them now? I write anonymously of
+course, and I amuse myself by listening to the remarks that society
+makes upon my productions. Society talks about them a great deal, and I
+divide attention with the last novelist, whether an unknown young lady
+of the South, or a drumhead writer of romances. People say, 'That was a
+brilliant article of so and so's in the last &mdash;&mdash;, wasn't it?' You will
+often hear this remark. I am that gentleman&mdash;I wrote that article&mdash;it
+was brilliant, and, though I say it, I am capable of producing others
+fully equal to it.</p>
+
+<p>Many persons imagine that business disqualifies from the exercise of the
+imagination. This is a mistake. Alexander was a business man of the
+highest order; so was C&aelig;sar; so was Bonaparte; so was Burr; so am I. To
+be sure, none of these distinguished characters wrote poetry; but I take
+it, poetry is a low species of writing, quite inferior to prose, and
+unworthy one's attention. Look at the splendid qualities of these great
+men, particularly in the line in which the imaginative faculties tend.
+See how they fascinated the ladies, who it is well known adore a fine
+imagination. How well they talked love, the noblest of all subjects&mdash;for
+a man's idle hours. Then observe the schemes they projected. Conquests,
+consolidations, empires, dominion, and to include my own project, a
+bullion bank with a ten-acre vault. It appears that a lack of capital
+was at the bottom of all their plans. Alexander confessed that he was
+bankrupt for lack of more worlds, and is reputed to have shed tears over
+his failure, which might have been expected from a modern dry-goods
+jobber, but not from Alexander. C&aelig;sar and Bonaparte failed for the want
+of men: they do not seem to have been aware of the existence of Rhode
+Island. I think Burr failed for the lack of impudence&mdash;he had more than
+all the rest of the world together, but he needed much more than that to
+push his projects ahead of his times. As for myself, when I have doubled
+my capital, I shall found my bullion bank in the face of all opposition.
+The ten-acre lot at the corner of Broadway and Wall street is already
+selected and paid for, and I shall excavate as soon as the present crop
+is off.</p>
+
+<p>There is no question that the occupation of banking conduces to literary
+pursuits. When I take interest out of my fellow beings, I naturally take
+interest in them, and so fall to writing about them. I have in my
+portfolio sketches of all the leading merchants of the age, romantically
+wrought, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</a></span> full of details of their private lives, hopes, fears, and
+pleasures. These men that go up town every day have had, and still have,
+little fanciful excursions that are quite amusing when an observer of my
+talent notes them down. I know all about old Boscobello, the Spanish
+merchant, of the house of Boscobello, Bolaso &amp; Co. My romance of his
+life from twenty to forty fills three volumes, and is as exciting as the
+diaries of those amusing French people whom Bossuet preached to with
+such small effect. Boscobello has sobered since forty, and begs for
+loans as an old business man ought to. I think he sees the error of his
+ways, and is anxious to repair his fortunes to the old point, but it is
+easier to spend a million than to make it. My cashier reports his
+account overdrawn the other day, and not made good till late next
+afternoon. This is a sign of failing circumstances, and must be attended
+to.</p>
+
+<p>When Boscobello comes in about half past two of an afternoon for the
+usual loan of a hundred dollars to enable him to go on, I amuse myself
+by talking to him while I look over his securities. He has two or three
+loans to pay up before three o'clock, in different parts of the town,
+and we cannot blame him for being in a hurry, but this is no concern of
+mine. If he <i>will</i> get into a tight place, one may surely take one's
+time at helping him out: and really it does require some little time to
+investigate the class of securities he brings, and which are
+astonishingly varied. For instance, he brought me to-day as collateral
+to an accommodation, a deed to a South Brooklyn block, title clouded; a
+Mackerelville second mortgage; ten shares of coal-oil stock; an
+undivided quarter right in a guano island, and the note of a President
+of the Unterrified Insurance Company. 'How much was the cartage, Bos?'
+said I, for you see my great mind descends to the smallest particulars,
+and I was benevolent enough to wish to deduct his expenses from the
+bonus I was about to charge him for the loan. 'Never mind the cartage,'
+said he, 'that's a very strong list, and will command the money any day
+in Wall street, but I have a particular reason for getting it of you.'
+'The particular reason being,' said I, 'that you can't get it anywhere
+else. Jennings,' I continued to my cashier, 'give Mr. Boscobello
+ninety-five dollars Norfolk or Richmond due-bills, and take his check
+payable in current funds next Saturday for a hundred.'</p>
+
+<p>Poor old Boscobello! A man at forty ought not to look old, but Bos had
+often seen the sun rise before he went to bed, and he <i>had</i> been gay, so
+all my aunts said. Some stories Bos has told me himself, o' nights at my
+house, after having in vain endeavored to induce me to take shares in
+the guano island, or 'go into' South Brooklyn water lots. 'I'm too old
+for that sort of a thing, Bos,' I say; 'it's quite natural for you to
+ask me, and I don't blame you for trying it on, but you must find some
+younger man. Tell me about that little affair with the mysterious Cuban
+lady; when you only weighed a hundred and forty pounds, and never went
+out without a thousand dollars in your pocket&mdash;in the blooming days of
+youth, Bos, when you went plucking purple pansies along the shore.'</p>
+
+<p>Boscobello weighs over two hundred now, and would have a rush of blood
+to the head if he were to stoop to pluck pansies. Mysterious Cuban
+ladies, in fact ladies of any description, would pass him by as a
+middle-aged person of a somewhat distressed appearance, and the dreams
+of his youth are quite dreamed out. Nevertheless, when he warms with my
+white Hermitage, the colors of his old life come richly out into sight,
+and the romantic adventures of wealth and high spirits overpower, though
+in the tame measures of recital, all the adverse influences of the
+present hour. But as the evening wanes, the colors fade<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</a></span> again; his
+voice assumes a dreary tone; and I once more feel that I am with a man
+who has outlived himself, and who, having never learned where the late
+roses blow, is now too old to learn.</p>
+
+<p>The reader will perceive I am sorry for Boscobello. If I am remarkable
+for anything, it is for my humanity, consideration, and sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>These qualities of my constitution lead me to enter into the affairs of
+my clients with feeling and sincerity, but I fear I am sometimes
+misunderstood. Not long ago I issued an order to my junior partners to
+exercise more compassion for those unfortunate men with whom we decline
+business, and not to tumble them down the front steps so roughly. Let
+six of the porters attend with trestles, I said, and carry them out
+carefully, and dump them with discretion in some quiet corner, where, as
+soon as they recover their faculties, they may get up and walk away. I
+put it to the reader if this was not a very humane idea, and yet there
+are those who have stigmatized it as heartless.</p>
+
+<p>I wish I was better acquainted with the way in which common people live.
+I can see how I have made mistakes in consequence of not understanding
+the restricted means and the exigencies of these people, who are styled
+respectable merchants. Thus when Boscobello has made some more than
+ordinarily piteous application, I have said, 'Boscobello, dismiss about
+fifty of your servants;' or, 'Boscobello, sell a railroad and put the
+money back again into your business;' or, 'Boscobello, my good friend,
+limit your table, say, to turtle soup, champagne, and truffles; live
+more plainly, and don't take above ten quarts of strawberries a day
+during the winter,&mdash;the lower servants don't really need them;' or,
+'Boscobello, if you are really short, send around a hundred or so of
+your fast trotters to my stables, and I'll pay you a long figure for
+them, if they are warranted under two minutes.' Boscobello has never
+made any very definite replies to such advice, and I have attributed his
+silence to his nervousness; but I begin to suspect he has'nt quite
+understood me on such occasions. Then again, when Twigsmith declared he
+was a ruined man, in consequence of my refusal of further advances, and
+that he should be unable to provide for his family, I said: 'Why,
+Twigsmith, retire to one of your country seats, and live on the interest
+of some canal or other, or discount bonds and mortgages for the country
+banks.' Actually, I heard Twigsmith mutter as he went out, that it
+wasn't right to insult a man's poverty. Now I hadn't the remotest idea
+of injuring Twigsmith's feelings, for he was a very clever fellow, and
+we made a good thing out of him in his time, but it seems that my advice
+might not have been properly grounded.</p>
+
+<p>It begins to occur to me that there <i>may</i> be such a case as that a man
+may want something, and not be able to get it; and again, that at such a
+time a weak mind may complain, and grow discouraged, and make itself
+disagreeable to others.</p>
+
+<p>There is a set of old fellows who call themselves family men, and apply
+for discounts as if they had a right to them, by reason of their having
+families to provide for. I have never yet been able to see the logical
+sequence of their conclusions, and so I tell them. What right does it
+give anybody to my money that he has a wife, six children, and lives in
+a large house with three nursery-maids, a cook, and a boy to clean the
+knives? 'Limit your expenses,' I say to these respectable gentlemen, 'do
+as I do. When Jennings comes to me on Monday morning, and reports that
+the receipts of the week will be eighty millions, exclusive of the
+Labrador coupons, which, if paid, will be eighty millions more, I say,
+'Jennings, discount seventy, and don't encroach upon the reserves; you
+may however let Boscobello have ten on call.' This is true philosophy;
+adapt your outlay to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</a></span> your income, and you will never be in trouble, or
+go begging for loans. If the Bank of England had always managed in this
+way, they wouldn't have been obliged to call on our house for assistance
+during the Irish famine.'</p>
+
+<p>These family men invite me to their wives' parties, constantly,
+unremittingly. The billets sometimes reach my desk, although I have
+given orders to put them all into the waste basket unopened. I went to
+one of these parties, only one, I give you my honor as a gentleman, and
+after Twigsmith and his horrid wife had almost wrung my hand off, I was
+presented to a young female, to whom Nature had been tolerably kind, but
+who was most shamefully dressed. In fact her dress couldn't have cost
+over a thousand dollars&mdash;one of my chambermaids going to a Teutonia ball
+is better got up. This young person asked me 'how I liked the Germania?'
+Taking it for granted that such a badly dressed young woman must be a
+school teacher, with perhaps classical tastes, I replied that it was one
+of the most pleasing compositions of Tacitus, and that I occasionally
+read it of a morning. 'Oh, it's not very taciturn,' she replied; 'I mean
+the band.' 'Very true,' said I, 'he says <i>agmen</i>, which you translate
+band very happily, though I might possibly say 'body' in a familiar
+reading.' 'Oh dear,' she replied, blushing, 'I'm sure I don't know what
+kind of men they are, nor anything about their bodies, but they
+certainly seem very respectable, and they play elegantly; oh, don't you
+think so?' 'I am glad you are pleased so easily,' I answered; 'Tacitus
+describes their performances as indeed fearful, and calculated to strike
+horror into the hearts of their enemies. But,' continued I, endeavoring
+to make my retreat, for I began to think I was in company with an inmate
+of a private lunatic hospital, 'they were devoted to the ladies.'
+'Indeed they are,' said she,'and the harpist is <i>so</i> gallant, and gets
+so many nice bouquets.' It then flashed across my mind that she meant
+the Germania musicians. 'They might do passably well, madame,' said I,
+'for a quadrille party at a country inn, but for a dress ball or a
+dinner you would need three of them rolled into one.' 'Oh, you gentlemen
+are so hard to please,' she replied; and catching sight of the
+Koh-i-noor on my little finger, she began to smile so sweetly that I
+fled at once.</p>
+
+<p>It was at that party that I perspired. I had heard doctors talk about
+perspiration, and I had seen waiters at a dinner with little drops on
+their faces, but I supposed it was the effect of a spatter, or that some
+champagne had flown into their eyes, or something of that sort. But at
+this party I happened to pass a mirror, and did it the honor to look
+into it. I saw there the best dressed man in America, but his face was
+flushed, and there were drops on it. This is fearful, thought I; I took
+my <i>mouchoir</i> and gently removed them. They dampened the delicate
+fabric, and I shook with agitation. The large doors were open, and after
+a struggle of an hour and three quarters, I reached them, and promising
+the hostess to send my <i>valet</i> in the morning to make my respects, which
+the present exigency would not allow me to stay to accomplish, I was
+rapidly whirled homeward. I can hardly pen the details, but on the
+removal of my linen, it was found&mdash;can I go on?&mdash;tumbled, and here and
+there the snowy lawn confessed a small damp spot, or fleck of moisture.
+Remorse and terror seized me. Medical attendance was called, and I
+passed the night in a bath of attar of roses delicately medicated with
+<i>aqua pura</i>. Of course, I have never again appeared at a party.</p>
+
+<p>People haven't right ideas of entertainment. What entertainment is it to
+stand all the evening in a set of sixteen-by-twenty parlors, jammed in
+among all sorts of strange persons, and stranger perfumes, deafened with
+a hubbub of senseless talk, and finally be led down to feed at a long
+table where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</a></span> the sherry is hot, and the partridges are cold? Very
+probably some boy or other across the table lets off a champagne cork
+into your eyes, and the fattest men in the room <i>will</i> tread on your
+toes. One might describe such scenes of torture at length, but the
+recital of human follies and miseries is not agreeable to my
+sensibilities.</p>
+
+<p>I dare say the reader might find himself gratified at one of my little
+f&egrave;tes. The editors of this journal attend them regularly, and have done
+me the honor to approve of them. You enter on Twelfth avenue; a modest
+door just off Nine-and-a-half street opens quietly, and you are ushered
+by a polite gentleman&mdash;one of our city bank presidents, who takes this
+means to increase his income&mdash;into an attiring room. Here you are
+dressed by the most accomplished Schneider of the age, in your own
+selections from an unequalled <i>repertoire</i> of sartorial <i>chef d'ouvres</i>,
+and your old clothes are sent home in an omnibus.</p>
+
+<p>I might delight you with a description of the ball room, but the editors
+have requested me to the contrary. Some secrets of gorgeous splendor
+there are which are wisely concealed from the general gaze. But a floor
+three hundred feet square, and walls as high as the mast of an East
+Boston clipper, confer ample room for motion; and the unequalled
+atmosphere of the saloon is perhaps unnecessarily refreshed by fountains
+of rarest distilled waters. This is also my picture gallery, where all
+mythology is exhausted by the great painters of the antique; and modern
+art is thoroughly illustrated by the famous landscapes of both
+hemispheres. The luxuriant fancy of my favorite artist has suggested
+unique collocations of aquaria and mossy grottoes in the angles of the
+apartment, where the vegetable wealth of the tropics rises in perfect
+bounty and lawless exuberance, and fishes of every hue and shape flash
+to and fro among the tangled roots, in the light of a thousand lamps. In
+the centre, I have caused the seats of the orchestra to be hidden at the
+summit of a picturesque group of rocks, profusely hung with vegetation,
+and gemmed with a hundred tiny fountains that trickle in bright beads
+and diamonds into the reservoir at the base. From this eminence, the
+melody of sixty unequalled performers pervades the saloon, justly
+diffused, and on all sides the same; unlike the crude arrangements of
+most modern orchestras, where at one end of the room you are deluged
+with music, and at the other extremity you distinguish the notes with
+pain or difficulty. The ceiling, by a rare combination of mechanical
+ingenuity and artistic inspiration, displays, so as to quite deceive the
+senses, the heavens with all their stars moving in just and harmonious
+order. Here on summer nights you see Lyra and Altair triumphantly
+blazing in the middle sky as they sweep their mighty arch through the
+ample zenith; and low in the south, the Scorpion crawls along the verge
+with the red Antares at his heart, and the bright arrows of the Archer
+forever pursuing him. Here in winter, gazing up through the warm and
+perfumed air, you behold those bright orbs that immemorially suggest the
+icy blasts of January: Aldebaran; the mighty suns of Orion; diamond-like
+Capella; and the clear eyes of the Gemini. Under such influences, with
+the breath of the tropics in your nostrils, and your heart stirred by
+the rich melodies of the invisible orchestra, waltzing becomes a sublime
+passion, in which all your faculties dilate to utmost expansion, and you
+float out into happy forgetfulness of time and destiny.</p>
+
+<p>Rarely at these f&ecirc;tes do we dance to other measures than those of the
+waltz, though at times we find a relief from the luxuriance of that
+divine rhythm in the cooler cadences of the Schottish. By universal
+consent and instinct, we banish the quadrille, stiff and artificial; the
+polka, inelegant and essentially vulgar; and the various hybrid
+measures<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</a></span> with which the low ingenuity of professors has filled society.
+But we move like gods and goddesses to the sadly joyful strains of
+Strauss and Weber and Beethoven and Mozart, and the mighty art of these
+great masters fills and re-creates all our existence.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes in these divine hours, thrilled by the touch of a companion
+whose heart beats against and consonantly with mine, I catch glimpses of
+the possibilities of a free life of the spirit when it shall be released
+from earth and gravitation, and I conjecture the breadth of a future
+existence. This will only seem irrational to such as have squeezed out
+their souls flat between the hard edges of dollars, or have buried them
+among theologic texts which they are too self-wise to understand.
+History and the experience of the young are with me.</p>
+
+<p>From twelve to four you sup, when, and as, and where, you will. A
+succession of little rooms lie open around an atrium, all different as
+to size and ornament, yet none too large for a single couple, and none
+too small for the reunion of six. What charming accidents of company and
+conversation sometimes occur in these Lucullian boudoirs! You pass and
+repass, come and go, at your own pleasure. Waltzing, and Burgundy, and
+Love, and Woodcock are here combined into a dramatic poem, in which we
+are all star performers, and sure of applause. These hours cannot last
+forever, and the first daybeams that tell of morning, are accompanied by
+those vague feelings of languor that hint to us that we are mortal. Then
+we pause, and separate before these faint hints of our imperfection
+deepen into distasteful monitions, and before our fulness of enjoyment
+degenerates into satiety. Antiquity has conferred an immortal blessing
+upon us in bequeathing to us that golden legend, <span class="smcap">Ne quid nimis</span>;<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> a
+legend better than all the teachings of Galen, or than all the dialogues
+of Socrates. For in these brief words are compressed the experiences of
+the best lives, and Alcibiades and Zeno might equally profit by them.
+They contain the priceless secret of happiness; and do you, reader,
+wisely digest them till we meet again.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_SOLDIER" id="THE_SOLDIER"></a>THE SOLDIER.</h2>
+
+<h4>[BURNS.]</h4>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For gold the merchant ploughs the main,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The farmer ploughs the manor;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But glory is the soldier's pride,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The soldier's wealth is honor.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The brave, poor soldier ne'er despise,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nor count him as a stranger;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Remember he's his country's stay</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In day and hour of danger!</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="OUR_PRESENT_POSITION_ITS_DANGERS_AND_ITS_DUTIES" id="OUR_PRESENT_POSITION_ITS_DANGERS_AND_ITS_DUTIES"></a>OUR PRESENT POSITION: ITS DANGERS AND ITS DUTIES.</h2>
+
+<h4>ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE OF ALL POLITICAL PARTIES.</h4>
+
+
+<p>When Daniel Webster replied to Senator Hayne, of South Carolina, during
+the exciting debate on the right of secession, he commenced his
+ever-memorable speech with these words:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>'When the mariner has been tossed for many days in thick weather
+and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first
+pause in the storm&mdash;the earliest glance of the sun&mdash;to take his
+latitude, and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from
+his true course. Let us imitate this prudence before we float
+farther, that we may at least be able to conjecture where we now
+are.'</p></div>
+
+<p>No words are fitter for our ears at this tumultuous period than are
+these, when the passions of our countrymen, North and South, are excited
+with the bitterest animosity, and when the discordant cries of party
+faction at the North are threatening a desolation worse than that of
+contending armies. In considering, then, our condition, it behooves us
+first, to 'take our latitude, and ascertain where we now are,'&mdash;not as a
+section or a party, but as a nation and a people. Let us avail ourselves
+of that distant and dim glimmer in the heavens which even now is looked
+upon by the sanguine as the promise of peace, and in its light survey
+our dangers and nerve ourselves to our duties. We behold, then, a
+people, bound together by the ties of a common interest, namely,
+national prosperity and renown, and in possession of a land more favored
+by natural elements of advantage than any other on the face of the
+globe. We see them standing up in the ranks of hostile resistance each
+to each, the one great and glorious army fighting for the restoration of
+a nation once the envy of the world; the other great and glorious army
+equally ardent and valorous in behalf of a separation of that territory
+in which they are taught to believe we cannot hold together in peace and
+amity. Both armies and people are evincing in their very warfare the
+elements of character which heretofore distinguished us as a nation, and
+are employing the very means for each other's destruction which were of
+late the principles of action which rendered us in the highest degree a
+nation worthy of respect at home and admiration abroad. It is not the
+purpose of this paper to go back to causes or to relate the subsequent
+events which have placed us where we are. These causes and events are
+well known to us and to the world. But here we now stand, with this
+fratricidal war increased to the most alarming proportions, and with,
+results but partially developed. Here we of the North stand, with a
+still invincible army, loyal to the cause nearest to the heart of every
+patriot, and confident in the ability to withstand and overcome the
+machinations of the enemy. Here, too, we&mdash;ay, <i>we</i> of the South stand,
+bound together in a common aim, an ardent hope, and a proclaimed and
+omnipotent impulse to action. <i>This is the only proper view to take of
+the case</i>&mdash;to regard our opponents as we regard ourselves, and to give
+due credit where credit is due for valor, for motives, and for
+principles of action. The North believes itself to be engaged in a
+strife forced upon it by blinded prejudice and evil passion, and fights
+for that which, if not worthy of fighting, ay, and dying for, is unfit
+to live for, namely, national integrity. The South claims, little as we
+can understand it, the same ground for rising against the land they had
+sworn to protect, and whose fathers died with our fathers to create. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</a></span>
+at the North would have been pusillanimous and weak indeed had we
+silently submitted to that which is in our view against every principle
+of national right and renown. To have acted otherwise would have been to
+bring down upon our heads the scorn and contempt of our enemies and of
+every foreign power, from the strongest oligarchy to the most benevolent
+form of monarchical government. Hence it is that while certain foreign
+powers have not failed to improve the opportunity of our weakness, as a
+divided nation, to insult and sneer, to preach peace with dishonor, and
+advocate separation, which they know to be but another word for
+humiliation, yet have they not failed to see and been forced to confess
+that, divided as we are, we have shown inherent greatness and power,
+<i>which, united, would be a degree of national superiority which might
+well defy the world</i>. Nothing is more striking at this moment than this
+great fact, and no topic is more worthy of the serious consideration of
+our countrymen, North and South, than this. No time is fitter than now
+to suggest the subject, and to see in it matter which is pregnant with
+hopes for our future. If nothing but this great truth had been developed
+by the war&mdash;this truth, bold, naked, defiant as it is, <i>is worth the
+war</i>&mdash;worth all its cost of noble lives, of sacred blood, of yet
+uncounted treasure. We stand before the world this day divided by the
+fearful conflict, with malignant hate lighting the fires of either camp,
+and with hands reeking in fraternal blood&mdash;with both sections of our
+land more or less afflicted&mdash;with credit impaired, with the scoff and
+jeers of nations ringing in our ears&mdash;we stand losers of almost every
+thing but our individual self-respect, which has inspired both foes with
+the ardor and courage born within us as Americans. This it is that
+leaves us unshorn of our strength; this it is that enables us in this
+very day of trial and adversity to present to the world the undeniable
+fact that we have within us&mdash;not as Northerners, not as Southerners,
+<i>but as Americans</i>&mdash;the elements of innate will and physical power,
+which makes the scale of valor hang almost with an even beam, and
+foretells us, with words which we cannot but hear&mdash;and which would to
+God we might heed!&mdash;that, united, we can rear up on this beautiful and
+bountiful land a temple of political, social, and commercial prosperity,
+more glorious than that which entered into the dreams and aspirations of
+the fathers who founded it.</p>
+
+<p>Alas! that the contemplation of so worthy a theme is marred by the 'ifs'
+and 'buts' of controversial strife. Alas! that we cannot depress the
+sectional opposing interests which are but secondary to a condition of
+political consolidation, and elevate above these distracting and
+isolated evils, the great and eternal principle, Strength as it alone
+exists in Unity. Alas! that with the beam of suicidal measures we blind
+the eye political, because, forsooth, the motes of individual or local
+injuries afflict, as they afflict <i>all</i> human forms of government.</p>
+
+<p>The great evil, North and South, before the war, during the war, and
+now, is the want of political charity&mdash;that charity which, like its
+moral prototype, 'suffereth long and is kind.' We the people, North and
+South, have been and are unwilling to grant to the other people and
+States the right to think, speak, and urge their own opinions&mdash;the very
+right which each insists upon claiming for itself. It has been held
+'dangerous' to discuss questions which, though in one sense pertaining
+only to particular States, nevertheless bear upon the whole country. It
+has been considered 'heresy' to urge with rhetoric and declamation, even
+in our halls of Congress, certain principles for and against Slavery,
+for example, lest mischief result from the agitation of those topics.
+But in such remonstrance we have forgotten that the very principle of
+democratic institutions involves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</a></span> the right of all men to think and act,
+under the law, as each pleases. We have also forgotten that any subject
+which will not bear discussion and political consideration must be
+dangerous <i>in itself</i>, and pregnant with weakness, if not evil. There is
+no harm in discussing questions upon which hang vital principles; for if
+there exists on the one side strength and justice, all arguments on the
+other side can do it no injury. With regard to Slavery, one of the
+'causes' or 'occasions' of this unhappy war, it may be said that the
+North owes much to the South which it has never paid, in a true and
+kindly appreciation of the difficulties which have ever surrounded the
+institutions of the latter. But let us not forget that one reason why
+this debt has not been paid is because the South owes the North its
+value received, by not being willing to admit in the other's behalf the
+motives which underlay the efforts which have been made by the earnest,
+or so-called 'radical' men, who have opposed the institution of slavery.
+Pure misunderstanding of motive, pure lack of political as well as moral
+charity, has been wanting between the men of the North who opposed, and
+the men of the South who maintained the extension of slavery. Had each
+understood the other better, it is probable that the character of each
+would have assumed the following proportions: The slaveholder of the
+South, inheriting from generations back a system of servitude which even
+ancient history supported and defended, and which he in his inmost heart
+believes to be beneficial to the slave not less than the master, regards
+himself as violating no law of God or man in receiving from this
+inferior race or grade of men the labor of their hands, and the right to
+their control, while they draw from him the necessary physical support
+and protection which it is in his belief his bounden duty to give. The
+planter, a gentleman educated and a Christian, with the fear of God
+before his eyes, believes this&mdash;the belief was born in him and dies in
+him, and he is conscientiously faithful in carrying out the principles
+of his faith. I speak now of no exceptional, but of general cases,
+instancing only the representative of the highest class of Southern men.
+Is it to be wondered at that such a man, looking from <i>his</i> point of
+vision, should regard with suspicion and distrust the efforts of those
+who sought to abolish even by gradual means the apparent sources of his
+prosperity? Is it remarkable that he should regard as his enemy the man
+who preaches against and denounces as criminal the very system in which
+he trusts his social and political safety? He will not regard that
+apparent enemy what at heart and soul he really is, namely, a man as
+pure and devout, as well meaning and conscientious as himself. The man
+whom he scoffs at as a 'radical,' an 'abolitionist,' and a 'fanatic,' by
+education and intuition believes in his very soul that the holding of
+men in bondage, forcing from them involuntary labor, and the
+consequences thereof, are pregnant with moral and political ruin and
+decay. The system, not the men, is offensive to his eyes. Is he to blame
+for this opinion, provided it be well founded in his mind? Admit it
+eroneous in logic, still, if he believes it, is he to be condemned for
+holding the belief, and would he not be contemptible in his own eyes if
+he feared to express the moral convictions of his soul? The error of
+both has been that both are uncharitable&mdash;both unwilling to allow the
+right of opinion and freedom of debate on what both, as American
+citizens, hold to be vital principles, dependent upon constitutional
+provisions; the one claiming Slavery as the 'corner stone of political
+freedom,' the other as the stumbling block in the way of its
+advancement. This unwillingness to appreciate the motives of opposing
+minds led at last one section of our beloved country to an unwillingness
+to recognize the right of election, and,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</a></span> worse than all, an
+unwillingness to abide by the results of that election. When that
+principle&mdash;submission to the will of the majority&mdash;was overthrown, then,
+indeed, did the pillars of our national temple tremble, and the seat of
+our national power rock in its foundation.</p>
+
+<p>And now a word in connection with this same principle of submission, as
+applicable to the people of the North in our present emergency. In
+accordance with the plan adopted by the founders of our Government, and
+practically illustrated in the election of George Washington and his
+successors, the people by a plurality of votes elected to office and
+placed at the head of our political system as its highest authority and
+ruler, the present Chief Magistrate. From the day of his acknowledged
+election, party politics settled into the calm of acquiescence, and all
+loyal and true States and men bowed to the arbitrament of the ballot
+box. That man, Abraham Lincoln, instantly became invested with the
+potential right of rule under the Constitution, and the great principle
+of constitutional liberty in his election and elevation stood justified.
+It mattered not then, nor matters it now, to us, what may be individual
+opinion of his merits or demerits, his ability or his disability. There
+he is, not as a private citizen, but as the head of our Government: his
+individuality is lost in his official embodiment. This principle being
+acknowledged, and party opinion being buried, in theory at least, at the
+foot of the altar of the Government <i>de facto</i>, whence is it that at
+this time creeps into our council chambers, our political cliques, our
+social haunts, our market places, ay, our most sacred tabernacles&mdash;a
+spirit adverse to the principles for which we are fighting, laboring
+for, and dying for? Let us&mdash;a people anxious for peace on honorable
+grounds, anxious for a Union which no rash hand shall ever again attempt
+to destroy&mdash;look, with a moment's calm reflection, at this alarming
+evil.</p>
+
+<p>It is very evident to most men that, in spite of temporary defeats and
+an unexpected prolongation of the war, the loyal States hold
+unquestionably the preponderance of power. Nothing but armed
+intervention from abroad can now affect even temporarily this
+preponderance. As events and purposes are seen more clearly through the
+smoke of the battle fields by the ever-watchful eyes of Europe, armed
+intervention becomes less and less a matter of probability. The hopes of
+an honorable peace, therefore, hang upon the increase and continuance of
+this military preponderance. With the spirit of determination evinced by
+both combatants, the unflinching valor of both armies, and with the
+unquestioned resources and ability to hold out of the North, it appears
+evident that the strife for mastery will in time terminate in favor of
+the loyal States. There is but one undermining influence which can
+defeat this end, and still further prolong the war, or, what is worse,
+plunge the North into the irretrievable disaster of internal
+conflict&mdash;and that undermining influence is <i>dissension among
+ourselves</i>. Such a consummation would bring joy to the hearts of our
+enemies and lend them the first ray of real hope that ultimate
+separation will be their purchased peace. We will not here draw a
+picture of that fallacious peace, that suicidal gap, whose festering
+political sore would breed misery and ruin, not only for ourselves, but
+for our posterity, for ages to come. But let us be warned in time. Even
+now the insidious movement of dissension is hailed with satisfaction and
+delight in the council meetings at Richmond, and no effort will be
+spared to aid its devastating progress. False rumors will be raised on
+the slightest and most insignificant grounds. Trivial mistakes and
+blunders in the cabinet and the field will be magnified; facts
+distorted, and the flame be blown<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</a></span> by corrupting influences abroad and
+at home, in the hopes&mdash;let them be vain hopes&mdash;that we the people will
+be diverted from the great cause we have most at heart into side issues
+and sectional distrust. And why? Because more powerful than serried
+hosts and open warfare is the poison of sedition and conspiracy that is
+thrown into the cup of domestic peace and confidence&mdash;more fatal than
+the ravages of the battle field is that of the worm that creeps slowly
+and surely&mdash;weakening, as it works, the foundations of the edifice in
+which we dwell unsuspicious of evil. Is it astonishing that they, the
+enemies of our common weal, should rejoice in these signs of incipient
+weakness, or fail to resort to any expedient whereby our strength as a
+united and loyal people can be made less? Have they not shown themselves
+capable and ready to avail themselves of every weakness in our counsels
+and in the field? Would not we do the same did we perceive distrust and
+dissatisfaction presenting through the mailed armor of our opponents a
+vulnerable point for attack? Then blame them not with muttered
+imprecations, but look&mdash;ay, look to ourselves. The shape of this
+undermining influence is political dissension at a period when the name
+of 'party' ought to be obliterated from the people's creed. Let opinion
+on measures and men have full and unrestricted sway, so far as these
+opinions may silently work under the banner of the one great cause of
+self-preservation; but let them not interfere with the prosecution of
+the efforts of the Government, whether State or national, to prosecute
+this holy and patriotic war in defence of the principles which created
+and are to keep us a united nation. Let us not tempt the strength of the
+ice that covers the waters of political and partisan problems, while we
+have enough to do to protect and cover the solid ground already in our
+possession. The President of the United States, be he who or what he
+may&mdash;think he how or what he will, enact he what he chooses&mdash;is, let us
+remember, the corner stone of our political liberty. The Constitution is
+a piece of parchment&mdash;sacred and to be revered&mdash;but it is, in its
+outward presentment, material and inactive. The <i>spirit</i> of the
+Constitution is intangible and ideal, its interpretation alone is its
+vitality. We the people&mdash;through equally material morsels of paper
+entitled votes&mdash;raise the spirit of the Constitution by placing in the
+halls of Congress the interpreters of that Constitution, over whom and
+above all sits the Chief Magistrate, who, once endowed by us with power,
+retains and sways it until another, by the same process, carries out at
+our will the same eventualities. Our part as electors and adjudicators
+is done, and it ill becomes us to weaken or hold up to the ridicule of
+the world the power therein invested, by questions as to the President's
+'right' or 'power' or 'ability' to enact this measure or that.</p>
+
+<p>Away then with the unseemly cry of 'the Constitution as it is,' 'the
+Union at it was,' the 'expediency' or 'non-expediency' of employing the
+war power, the interference or the non-interference of the man and the
+men established by us to represent us with the military leaders, the
+finances, or the thousand and one implements of administration, <i>which
+they are bound to employ</i>, not as we, but as they, holding our powers of
+attorney for a specified and legalized period, in their human wisdom
+deem best for the common good of the land. Let us have faith in the
+motives and intentions of our political administration, or if we have
+lost our faith, let us submit&mdash;patiently and with accord. Above all, at
+a period like this, when the minds of the best men and the truest are
+oppressed with a sense of the injustice with which a portion of our
+countrymen regard us, it most behooves us to keep our social and
+political ranks closed and in order, subject to the will of that
+commander, disobedience to which is infamy and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</a></span> ruin. No matter with
+what diversity of tongues and opinions we pursue our individual
+avocations and aims, we are all pilgrims pressing forward like the
+followers of Mohammed to the K&ecirc;bla stone of <i>our</i> faith&mdash;Peace founded
+on Union.</p>
+
+<p>What if a party clique utters sentiments adverse to our own on the never
+ceasing topic of political policy? Is it not the expression of a mind or
+a hundred minds forming a portion of the great body politic, of which we
+ourselves are a part, and are they not entitled to their opinion and
+modes of expressing it, providing it be done with decorum and with a
+proper respect for the opinions of their adversaries? Why then do we or
+they employ, through the press and in rhetorical bombast, opprobrious
+epithets, fit only for the pot-house or the shambles? Shall we men and
+citizens, each of us a pillar upholding the crowning dome of our
+nationality, be taught, like vexed and querulous children, the impotence
+of personal abuse? Why seek to lay upon the head of this Cabinet officer
+or that, this Senator or that, the responsibility of temporary military
+defeats, when we are no more able to command and prevent reverses than
+are they? Or if in our superior wisdom we deem ourselves to be the
+better able to direct and administer, why do we forget that others among
+us, inspired by the same love of country, and equally ardent for its
+safety and advancement, hold exactly contrary opinions? It is not a
+matter of opinion&mdash;it is not a matter for interference, it is simply and
+only a matter for untiring unflinching confidence and support. We have
+done our duty as a people, and elected our Administration&mdash;let us, in
+the name of all that is sublime and fundamental in republican
+principles, support and not perplex them in the hard and complex problem
+which they are appointed to solve. These are principles, which, however
+trite, need to be kept before us and practically sustained at a period
+when, as is often the case in long and tedious wars, the dispiriting
+influence of delays and occasional defeats work erroneous conclusions in
+the minds of the people, leading to unjust accusations against the men
+in power, and an unwillingness to frankly acknowledge that the evil too
+often originated where the result most immediately occurred. In other
+words, our armies have often suffered simply and for no other reason
+than that they were outgeneralled on the field of battle, or overpowered
+by military causes for which no one is to blame&mdash;least of all, the
+President or his advisers.</p>
+
+<p>And here let one word be said against the arguments of those
+well-meaning and patriotic men who attempt to prove that certain acts of
+the Government have been injudicious and unwise&mdash;such, for example, as
+the suspension of the habeas corpus, the alleged illegal arrests, and
+the emancipation policy. It is not the purpose of this paper to enter
+into additional argument to sustain this opinion or to disprove it. But
+in justice to the Government&mdash;simply because it is a Government&mdash;let it
+not be forgotten that when events heretofore unforeseen and unprepared
+for are throwing our vast nation into incalculable confusion, and when
+it becomes absolutely imperative that the head of the Government must
+act decisively and according to the promptness of his honest judgment,
+and when we know equally well that that judgment, be it what it may,
+cannot accord with the various and diverse opinions of <i>all</i> men, then
+it behooves his countrymen, if not to acquiesce in, to support whatever
+that honest judgment may decide to be best for the emergency. No doubt,
+errors have been made, but they are errors inconceivably less in their
+results than would be the unpardonable sin of the people, should they,
+because differing in opinion, weaken the hands and confuse the purposes
+of the powers that be. With secret and treacherous foes in our very
+midst, hidden behind the masks of a painted loyalty, the Presi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</a></span>dent,
+after deep and earnest consultation and reflection, deemed it his duty
+to authorize arrests under circumstances which he solemnly believed were
+the best adapted to arrest the evil, though, by so doing, many good and
+innocent men might temporarily suffer with the bad. So too with regard
+to the proclamation of freedom&mdash;be the step wise or unwise, and there is
+by no means a unity of sentiment on this head&mdash;the President conceived
+it to be the duty of his office&mdash;a duty which never entered into his
+plans or intentions until the war had increased to gigantic and
+threatening proportions&mdash;to level a blow at what he and millions of his
+countrymen believe to be the stronghold of the enemy, viz., that system
+of human servitude which nourished the body politic and social now
+standing in armed and fearful resistance to the Constitution and the
+laws. It matters not, so far as opinion goes, whether the step was wise
+or foolish, if the executive head deemed it wise. Nor was it a hasty or
+spasmodic movement on his part. Months were devoted to its
+consideration, and every argument was patiently and candidly listened to
+from all the representatives of political theory for and against. Even
+then no hasty step was taken; but, on the contrary, our deluded
+countrymen in arms against us were forewarned, and earnestly,
+respectfully advised and entreated to take that step in behalf of Union
+and peace, which would leave their institution as it had existed. Nay,
+more: terms whereby no personal inconvenience or pecuniary loss to them
+would be involved if they would but be simply loyal to the Government,
+were liberally offered them, with three months for their consideration.
+Let those of us who, notwithstanding these ameliorating circumstances,
+doubt the good policy of the act, remember that they of the South, our
+open foes, invited the measures. Their leaders acknowledged and their
+press boasted that the Southern army never could be overcome&mdash;if for no
+other reason, for this reason, that while the army of the North was
+composed of the bone and muscle of the great working classes, drawn away
+from the fields of labor and enterprise, which must necessarily, in
+their opinion, languish from this absence, the Confederate army was
+composed of 'citizens' and property owners (to wit, slaveholders), whose
+absence from their plantations in no way interfered with the growth of
+their cotton, sugar, corn, and rice, from which sources of wealth and
+nourishment they could continue to draw the sinews of war. They went
+farther than this, and acted upon their declaration by employing their
+surplus slave labor in the work of intrenching their fortifications,
+serving their army, and finally fighting in their army.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this basis of slave labor they asserted their omnipotence in war
+and ability to continue the struggle without limit of time. The
+subsidized press of England supported this theory, and declared that
+with such advantages it was idle for the Federal Government to maintain
+a struggle in the face of such belligerent advantages! Then, and not
+till then, were the eyes of the President open to a fact which none but
+the political blind man could fail to observe, and then it was that not
+only the President, but a very large proportion of our countrymen,
+heretofore strictly conservative men, felt that the time had come when
+further forbearance would be suicidal. Although many doubted and still
+doubt if slavery was the cause of the rebellion, very many were forced
+to the conclusion that what our enemies themselves admitted to be the
+strength of the rebellion was indeed such, and that the time had arrived
+to avail themselves of that military necessity which authorizes the
+Government to adopt such measures as may be deemed the most fitting for
+crushing rebellion and restoring our constitutional liberty. Let us
+think, then, as we please upon the judicious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</a></span>ness of the
+proclamation&mdash;that it was uttered with forethought, calmness, and with a
+full sense of the responsibility of the President to his God and his
+country, none of us can deny. With this we should be satisfied. We have
+but one duty before us, then, as a government and a people&mdash;and that is,
+an earnest, devoted prosecution of this war for the integrity of our
+common country. In the untrammelled hands of that Government let us
+leave its prosecution. We have but one duty before us as individuals,
+and that is to support the existing Government with our individual
+might. Let the cry be loud and long, as, thank Heaven, it still is, 'On
+with the war,' not for war's sake, but for the sake of that peace, which
+only war, humanely and vigorously conducted, can achieve.</p>
+
+<p>Fling personal ambition and individual aggrandizement to the winds. Let
+political preferment and partisan proclivities bide their time, and as a
+united and one-minded people, devote heart and mind, strength and money,
+to the prosecution of the campaign, without considering what may be its
+duration, and without fear of circumstance or expenditure. If it be
+necessary, let the public debt be increased until it reaches and exceeds
+the public liabilities of the most indebted Government of Europe. We and
+our descendants will cheerfully pay the interest on that expenditure
+which purchased so great a blessing as national endurability. Meanwhile,
+with unity, forbearance, perseverance, and the silent administration of
+the ballot box, we will, as a people, maintain, notwithstanding that a
+portion of the land we hold dear stands severed from us by hatred and
+prejudice, the prosperity which we still claim, and the renown which was
+once accorded to us. By so doing, and by so doing only, shall our former
+grandeur come back to us&mdash;though its garments be stained with blood. A
+grandeur which, without hyperbole, it may be said, will outstrip the
+glory which, as a young and sanguine people, we have ever claimed for
+our country. The reason for so believing is the simple and undeniable
+fact that out of the saddening humiliation and devastation of this civil
+war has arisen the better knowledge of the wonderful resources,
+abilities, and determined spirit of the American people. We see&mdash;both
+combatants&mdash;that we are giants fighting, and not quarrelling pigmies, as
+the foreign enemies of us both have vainly attempted to prove. We see,
+both combatants, how vast and important to each is the territory we are
+struggling for, how inseparable to our united interests are the sources
+of wealth imbedded in our rocks, underlying our soil, and growing in its
+beneficent bosom. We see, both combatants, how strong is the commerce of
+the East to supply, like a diligent handmaiden, the wants of every
+section; how bountiful are the plantations of the South and the
+granaries of the West to keep the world united to us in the strong bonds
+of commercial and friendly intercourse; how absolutely necessary to the
+prosperity of both are the deep and wide-flowing rivers which run, like
+silver bands of peace, through the length and breadth of a land whose
+vast privileges we have been too blind to appreciate, and in that
+blindness would destroy. Above all, we are <i>beginning</i> to see that like
+two mighty champions fighting for the belt of superiority, we can
+neither of us achieve that individual advantage which can utterly and
+forever place the other beyond the ability of again accepting the
+gauntlet of defiance, and that our true and lasting glory can alone
+proceed from a determination to shake hands in peace, and, as united
+champions, defying no longer each other, defy the world. Nor would the
+South in consenting to a reunion <i>now</i> find humiliation or dishonor. She
+has proved herself a noble foe&mdash;quick in expedient, firm in
+determination, valorous in war. We know each other the better for the
+contest; we shall, when peace returns, respect each other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</a></span> the more; and
+although the cost of that peace, whenever it comes, will be the
+sacrifice of many local prejudices and sectional privileges, what, oh,
+what are such sacrifices to the inestimable blessings of national
+salvation?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_COMPLAINING_BORE" id="THE_COMPLAINING_BORE"></a>THE COMPLAINING BORE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>About the most disagreeable people one meets with in life are those who
+make a business of complaining. They ask for sympathy when they merit
+censure. There is no excuse for man or woman making known their private
+griefs except to intimate friends or those who stand in the nearest
+relation to them. I have no patience with the man who wishes to catch
+the public ear with the sound of his repining. Be it that he complain of
+the world generally, or specify the particular occasion of his
+dumpishness, he is in either aspect equally contemptible. What a
+serio-comic spectacle a man presents who imagines that everybody is in a
+leagued conspiracy against him to disappoint his hopes and thwart his
+plans for success! He thinks he is kept from rising by some untoward
+fate that is bent on crushing him into the ground, feels that he is the
+victim of persecution, the sport of angry gods. Not having the spirit of
+a martyr, he frets and fumes about his condition, and finds a selfish
+relief in counting over his grievances in the presence of all who are
+good-natured enough to listen. Such a fellow is a social nuisance&mdash;away
+with him! The fact usually is that the world has more reason to complain
+of him than he of the world. For instance, I know a man who has become
+misanthropic, but who should hate himself instead of the whole race.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Jordan Algrieve has become disgusted with life, and confesses than
+his experiment with existence has thus far proved a failure. He has
+combated with the world, and the world has proved too much for him, and
+he acknowledges the defeat. Mr. Algrieve is on the shady side of fifty,
+and his hair getting to be of an iron gray. His features are prominent,
+with a face wrinkled and shrivelled by discontent and acidity of temper.
+His tall figure is bent, not so much by cares and weight of years, as in
+a kind of typical submission to the stern decree of an evil destiny.</p>
+
+<p>Strange to say, he is well educated, and graduated with honor at one of
+our Eastern colleges. With a knowledge of this fact, it is pitiable to
+see him standing at the corner of the street in his busy town in a suit
+of seedy black and a shockingly bad hat, chafing his hands together and
+pretending to wait for somebody who never comes.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Algrieve, he is a man under the table, and he knows it. He has
+tried to be somebody in his way, but has failed sadly in all his
+efforts. It is said that Algrieve always had a constitutional aversion
+to legitimate and continued labor, but has a passion for making strikes
+and securing positions that afford liberal pay for little work.</p>
+
+<p>Thinking a profession too monotonous and plodding, he never took the
+trouble to acquire one. As to honest manual toil, that was an expedient
+he never so much as dreamed of. In early life he was so unfortunate as
+to secure an appointment to a clerkship in the Assembly, and after that
+he haunted the State Legislature for five or six winters in hot pursuit
+of another place, but his claims<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</a></span> failing to be recognized, he relapsed
+into the natural belief that his party was in league to proscribe him.
+After making a large number of political ventures of a more ambitious
+order, and with the same mortifying results, he abandoned that field and
+took to speculation in patent rights. He vended a wonderful churn-dash,
+circulated a marvellous flatiron, and expatiated through the country on
+the latest improvement in the line of a washing machine. But these
+operations somehow afforded him but transient relief, and left him
+always involved still more largely in debt. At different times in his
+life he had also been a horse dealer, a dry-goods merchant, a saloon
+keeper, the proprietor of a tenpin alley, and managed to grow poorer in
+all these various occupations. The last I saw of him he was reduced to
+peddling books in a small way, carrying his whole stock in a new market
+basket. He was very importunate in his appeals to customers to purchase,
+putting it upon the ground that he had been unfortunate and had a claim
+to their charity. I happened to see him in the office of the popular
+hotel in Podgeville, when he was more than usually clamorous for
+patronage. He accosted nearly every man in the room with a dull,
+uninteresting volume in his hand, and for which he asked a respectable
+price. At last he set down his basket, and commenced a kind of
+snivelling harangue to his little audience. Mr. Algrieve opened by
+saying:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>'Gentlemen, you'll pardon me for thrusting myself upon your
+attention; but it is hard to have the world turned against ye, and
+to work like a slave all your life to get something to fall back on
+in old age, and then have to die poor at last! I hope none of you
+have ever known what it is to be born unlucky; to never undertake
+anything but turned out a failure, and to meet disappointment where
+you deserved success. I am such a man!'</p></div>
+
+<p>Here Mr. Algrieve produced a fragmentary pocket handkerchief for the
+ostensible purpose of absorbing an expected tear, but really to give his
+remark a tragic effect. He continued:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>'Behold an individual who has been doomed to penury and
+destitution, but who has not met his fate without a struggle. You
+who have known me, gentlemen, for the last thirty years, know that
+Jordan Algrieve has battled with life manfully.' At this point he
+put out his clenched fist in defiance of his fancied enemy.' But I
+have been compelled to yield to the force of circumstances&mdash;not,
+however, till I had taken my chance in nearly every department of
+honorary endeavor, and experienced the most wretched success. The
+world has pronounced its ban upon me, and I must bow submissively
+to its cruel imposition. I tried to serve my country in the
+capacity of a public official, but my services and talents were
+repeatedly rejected&mdash;the majority of voters always so necessary to
+an honest election was forever on the side of my lucky opponent.
+When I withdrew from the political field, impoverished by my
+efforts to advance the prosperity of my party, I embarked in a
+small commercial enterprise; but owing to the tightness of the
+times, and my want of capital, I was soon obliged to give up and
+throw myself upon the mercy of my creditors. I have tried popular
+amusements, and lost money&mdash;that is, I failed to make it. I even
+branched out into fancy speculations, but they only served to sink
+me still deeper in the yawning depths of insolvency!'</p></div>
+
+<p>Mr. Algrieve here paused, and seemed to look down into the frightful
+gulf with a shuddering expression, as if he were not quite accustomed to
+the descent yet.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>'In short, gentlemen, I am completely prostrated&mdash;I am floored! And
+is the world willing to help me up? By no means! On the contrary,
+when I commenced falling and slipping on the stairs of human
+endeavor the world<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</a></span> was ready to kick me down, down, till I reached
+the&mdash;in short, gentlemen, till I became what I now am. Now, what
+have I done, let me ask, that I should fare thus? Have I not made
+an effort? I appeal to you, gentlemen, to say. [A voice from the
+crowd here chimed in: 'Yes, Algrieve, your efforts to live without
+work have been immense!'] But here I am, poor and persecuted; my
+family are in want of some of the common necessaries of life; and
+now, gentlemen, I beg some of you will buy that book (holding out a
+copy of the 'Pilgrim's Progress'), and do something to avert for a
+while, at least, the pauper's fate!'</p></div>
+
+<p>Some benevolent gentleman, either from a charitable motive, or to put an
+end to his lachrymose oration, bought the volume for $1.25. Mr. Algrieve
+received the money with many expressions of gratitude, and, gathering up
+his stock, moped off into the drinking room, and invested a dime in a
+gin cocktail, and five cents in a cigar, with which he sought to solace
+himself for all the inflictions of the inexorable world.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Jordan Algrieve goes about telling of his reverses and misfortunes,
+exhibiting them to the public eye like a beggar his sores, without shame
+or remorse; seeking to levy contributions on his fellow men, as one who
+has been robbed of his estate. Reader, will you say that you have never
+met with Jordan Algrieve?</p>
+
+<p>Another common species of the complaining bore are those who are
+continually parading their bodily infirmities. For example, a man will
+call on you, apparently for the express purpose of illustrating a most
+interesting case of neuralgia. He comes into your office, perhaps, with
+his head tied up in a handkerchief, and an expression of face as if he
+had some time winked one eye very close, and had never since been able
+to open it. Thinking himself an object worthy of study, he shows how the
+darting pains vacillate between his eyes, invade his teeth, hold general
+muster in his cheeks, take refuge in the back of his neck; and
+demonstrates these points to you by applying his hands to the parts
+designated, and uttering cries of feigned anguish to give effect to his
+description. He informs you, as a piece of refreshing intelligence, that
+it is devilish hard to bear, and enough to make a saint indulge in
+profanity. When he has proceeded thus far, he may be taken with one of
+his capricious pains, ducks his head between his knees, squeezes it with
+his hands, and bawls out: 'O-h! Je-ru-sa-lem!' with a duration of sound
+only limited by the capacity of his wind. He feels that he has a witness
+to his sufferings, and wishes to make the most of it. When he gets
+sufficiently easy, he tells you his experience with various remedies,
+enumerates all the lotions, liniments, ointments, and other applications
+he has used, with his opinion on the merits of each.</p>
+
+<p>Another person will accost you on a bright day with a most saturnine and
+wo-begone visage, informing you that he is in a terrible way, that his
+food distresses him, and he can't any longer take comfort in eating. He
+places his hand in the region of his stomach, remarks that he feels a
+great load there, and makes the usual complaints of a dyspeptic. He is
+pathetic over the fact that his physician has denied him fried oysters
+and mince pie for evening lunch, and closes his observations by
+exclaiming in a moralizing vein that 'such is life!'</p>
+
+<p>A third individual has a throat disease, and, forgetful of his bad
+breath, desires you to take a minute survey of his glottis, and inform
+him of its appearance. Accordingly he opens his mouth and throws back
+his head as if he were inviting you to an entertaining show.</p>
+
+<p>These are but a tithe of the examples of people who exhibit in public
+and at social gatherings their ills and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[Pg 499]</a></span> ailments, accompanied with
+dreary complainings of their bodily inflictions. It implies no
+indifference or lack of sympathy for physical pain and hardships to say
+that its victims have no right to mar the enjoyment of others by the
+unnecessary display of their infirmities or present sufferings. If a man
+will make a travelling show of his disorders, he should be obliged to
+carry a hand organ to give variety to his stupid entertainment. Were
+these fellows all compelled to furnish this accompaniment, what a
+musical bedlam our streets would become! Of course, there is no law
+against complaining and repining&mdash;it may not be immoral&mdash;but it is a
+very poor method of making those around us happy, which is a duty that
+none but selfish natures can forget. A man who goes through life with a
+smiling face and cheerful temper, despite the grievances common to us
+all, is a public benefactor in his way, as much as one who founds a
+library or establishes an asylum.</p>
+
+<p>Misanthropy is a sublime egotism that mistakes its own distemper for a
+disease of the universe. With all the mishaps to which our life is
+subject, a glance over a wide range of human experience proves that God
+helps those who help themselves, and whatever be the tenor of our
+fortune, levity is more seemly than moodiness, and under any
+circumstances there is more virtue in being a clown than a cynic. But in
+adversity, a subdued cheerfulness and quiet humor are, next to Christian
+fortitude, the golden mean of feeling that makes the loss of worldly
+things rest lightly on the heart, and spreads out before the hopeful eye
+the vision of better days!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="DEATH_OF_THE_BRAVE" id="DEATH_OF_THE_BRAVE"></a>DEATH OF THE BRAVE.</h2>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'How sleep the brave who sink to rest</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By all their country's wishes blest!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When spring with dewy fingers cold</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Returns to deck their hallowed mould,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">She then shall dress a sweeter sod</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Than fancy's feet have ever trod.'</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[Pg 500]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="LITERARY_NOTICES" id="LITERARY_NOTICES"></a>LITERARY NOTICES</h2>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">The Ice Maiden, and Other Tales.</span> By <span class="smcap">Hans Christian Andersen.</span>
+Translated by <span class="smcap">Fanny Fuller.</span> Philadelphia: F. Leypoldt. New York: <span class="smcap">C.
+T. Evans</span>. 1863.</p></div>
+
+<p>Probably no writer of stories for the young ever equalled Hans Christian
+Andersen; certainly none ever succeeded as he has done in reproducing
+the nameless charm of the real fairy tale which springs up without an
+author among the people,&mdash;the best specimens of which are the stories
+collected by the Brothers Grimm in Germany. But this exquisite
+fascination of an inner life in animals and in inanimate objects, which
+every child's mind produces from dolls and other puppets, and which
+makes fairies of flowers, is by Andersen adroitly turned very often to
+good moral and instructive purpose, without losing the original sweet
+and simple charm which blends the real and the imaginary. Here he
+surpasses all other tale writers, nearly all of whom, in their efforts
+at simplicity in such narratives, generally become supremely silly.</p>
+
+<p>The present volume contains four stories&mdash;'The Ice Maiden,' 'The
+Butterfly,' 'The Psyche,' and 'The Snail and the Rose Tree,'&mdash;all in
+Andersen's usual happy and successful vein; for he is pre&euml;minently an
+<i>equal</i> writer, and never falls behind himself. Perhaps the highest
+compliment which can be paid them is the truthful assertion that any
+person may read them with keen interest, and never reflect that they
+were written for young people. Poetry and prose meet in them on equal
+grounds, and any of them in verse would be charming. The main reason for
+this is that such stories to charm must set forth natural objects with
+Irving-like fidelity; nay, the writer must, with a few words, bring
+before us scenes and things as in a mirror. In this 'The Ice Maiden'
+excels; Swiss life is depicted as though we were listening to <i>yodle</i>
+songs on the mountains, and felt the superstitions of the icy winter
+nights taking hold of our souls.</p>
+
+<p>'The Psyche' is an art-story. Most writers would have made it a legend
+of 'high' art, but it is far sweeter and more impressive from the sad
+simplicity and gentleness with which it is here told. 'The Butterfly,'
+on the contrary, is a delightful little burlesque on flirtations and
+fops; and 'The Snail and the Rose Tree' is much like it. Both are really
+fables of the highest order, or shrewd prose epigrams.</p>
+
+<p>The volume before us is well translated; very well, notwithstanding one
+or two trifling inadvertencies, which, however, really testify to the
+fact that the best of all pens for such version&mdash;a lady's&mdash;was employed
+in the work. A <i>Skytte</i>, for instance, in Danish, or <i>Schutz</i> in German,
+is generally termed among the fraternity of sportsmen a 'shot,' and not
+a 'shooter.' But the spirit of the original is charmingly preserved, and
+Miss Fuller has the rare gift of using short and simple words, which are
+the best in the world when one knows how to use them as she does. We
+trust that we shall see many more stories of this kind, translated by
+her.</p>
+
+<p>We must, in conclusion, say a word for the dainty binding (Pawson &amp;
+Nicholson), the exquisite paper and typography, and, finally, for the
+pretty photograph vignette with which this volume is adorned. Mr.
+Leypoldt has benefited Philadelphia in many ways,&mdash;by his foreign and
+American circulating library, his lecture room, and by his republication
+in photograph of first-class engravings,&mdash;and we now welcome him to the
+society of publishers. His first step in this direction is a most
+promising one.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Notes, Criticisms, and Correspondence Upon Shakspeare's Plays and
+Actors.</span> By <span class="smcap">James Henry Hackett.</span> New York: Carleton, 413 Broadway.
+1863.</p></div>
+
+<p>This work will be one of great interest, firstly to all those who visit
+the theatre, secondly to readers of Shakspeare, and thirdly to all who
+relish originality and na&iuml;vete of character, such as Mr. Hackett
+displays abundantly, from the rising of the curtain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[Pg 501]</a></span> even to the going
+down of the same, in his book. There are no men who live so much within
+their profession as actors, or are so earnest in their faith in it; and
+this devotion is reflected unconsciously, but very entertainingly,
+through the whole volume. Shakspeare tells us that all the world is a
+stage&mdash;to the actor the stage is all his world, the only one in which he
+truly lives.</p>
+
+<p>We thank Mr. Hackett for giving us in this volume, firstly, very minute
+and excellent descriptions of all the eminent actors of Shakespeare
+within his memory&mdash;not a brief one, he having been himself a really
+excellent and eminent actor since 1828. It is to be regretted that there
+are not more such judicious descriptions as these. The author has, as we
+gather from his book, been in the habit of recording his daily
+experiences, and consequently writes from better data than those
+afforded by mere memory. The reader will also thank him for many
+agreeable minor reminiscences of celebrities, and for giving to the
+public his extremely interesting correspondence on Shaksperean subjects
+with John Quincy Adams and others. The views of the venerable statesman
+on <i>Hamlet</i>, and on 'Misconceptions of Shakspeare on the Stage,'
+indicate a very great degree of study of the great poet, and of
+reflection on the manner in which he is over or under acted. Nor are Mr.
+Hackett's own letters and criticisms by any means devoid of
+merit&mdash;witness the following:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>'Mr. Forrest recites the text (of King Lear) as though it were all
+prose, and not occasionally written in poetic measure; whereas,
+blank verse can, and always should, be distinguishable from prose
+by proper modulations of the voice, which a listener with a nice
+ear and a cultivated taste could not mistake, nor, if confounded,
+detect in their respective recitals: else Milton as well as
+Shakspeare has toiled to little purpose in the best-proportioned
+numbers.'</p></div>
+
+<p>The criticism on Forrest is throughout judicious, and, though frequently
+severe, is still very kindly written when we consider the 'capacities'
+of the subject.</p>
+
+<p>As regards Mr. Hackett's views of readings, we detect in them a little
+of that tendency to excessive accentuation, and that disposition to
+'make a hit' or a sensation in every sentence which renders most, or
+all, Shaksperean or tragic acting so harsh and strained, and which has
+made the word 'theatrical' in ordinary conversation synonymous with
+'unnatural.' Something of this is reflected in the enormous amount of
+needless italicizing with which the typography of the book is afflicted,
+and which we trust will be amended in future editions. We cheerfully
+pardon Mr. Hackett for sounding his own praises&mdash;sometimes rather loudly
+and frequently, as in the republication of a sketch of himself&mdash;since,
+after all, we thereby gain a more accurate idea of a favorite actor, who
+has for thirty-six years pleased the public, and gained in that long
+time the character of a conscientious artist who has always striven to
+improve himself.</p>
+
+<p>To one thing, however, we decidedly object&mdash;the questionable taste
+displayed by the author in answering in type criticisms of his acting,
+and in republishing them in his work. We can well imagine the temptation
+to be great, but to yield to it is not creditable to a good artist. With
+this little exception, we cordially commend the work to all readers.</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Devotional Poems.</span> By <span class="smcap">R. T. Conrad.</span> Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott &amp;
+Co. 1862.</p></div>
+
+<p>The late Judge Conrad left a number of religious poems, which
+fortunately fell into the hands of those who appreciated their merit,
+and we now have them in volume, with an introductory poem to the widow
+of the deceased and a preface by George H. Boker, to whom the editing of
+the present volume was committed. These lyrics, as we infer, were
+written in the spirit of private devotion, and are therefore gifted with
+the greatest merit which can possibly inspire religious writing&mdash;we mean
+deep sincerity. But apart from the <i>spirit</i>,&mdash;the <i>sine qua non</i>,&mdash;the
+beauty of the form of these works will always give them a high value to
+the impartial critic. They are far above the mediocrity into which most
+religious writers always at first <i>appear</i> to be lost, owing to the vast
+amount of thoughts and expressions which they are compelled to share in
+common with others. And as there has been awakened within a few years a
+spirit of collecting and studying such poetry, we cordially commend this
+work to all who share it.</p>
+
+<p>As regards form, one of the more marked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[Pg 502]</a></span> poems in this collection is
+'The Stricken;' we have room only for the beginning:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Heavy! Heavy! Oh, my heart</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Seems a cavern deep and drear,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">From whose dark recesses start,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Flatteringly like birds of night,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Throes of passion, thoughts of fear,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Screaming in their flight.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Wildly o'er the gloom they sweep,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Spreading a horror dim,&mdash;a woe that cannot weep!</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Weary! Weary! What is life</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But a spectre-crowded tomb?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Startled with unearthly strife,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Spirits fierce in conflict met,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In the lightning and the gloom,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The agony and sweat;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Passions wild and powers insane,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And thoughts with vulture beak, and quick Promethean pain.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>We select this single specimen from its remarkable resemblance to
+Anglo-Saxon religious poetry,&mdash;by far the sincerest, and, so far as it
+was ripened, the soundest, in our language. With the exception of the
+Promethean allusion, every line in these verses is singularly Saxon&mdash;the
+night birds, screaming in gloom&mdash;as in the '<i>Sea Farer</i>,' where, instead
+of joyous mirth,</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Storms beat the stone cliffs,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where them the starling answered,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Icy of wing.'</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>The divisions of this work are 'Sinai,' which is in great measure a
+commentary on virtues and vices, 'Sonnets on the Lord's Prayer,' and
+'Bible Breathings.' Of these we would commend the Sonnets, as forming
+collectively a highly finished and beautiful poem, complete in each
+detail. The little poem, 'A Thought,' is as perfect as a mere simile in
+verse could be.</p>
+
+<p>Robert T. Conrad, who was born in Philadelphia in 1810, and died there
+in 1858, first became known to the public by a drama entitled <i>Conrad of
+Naples</i>, a subject which has been extensively treated by German writers,
+Uhland himself having written a tragedy on it. After being admitted to
+the bar, Conrad connected himself with the press, but resumed the
+practice of law in 1834 with success, being appointed judge of the
+criminal sessions in 1838, and of the general sessions in 1840. He was
+subsequently president of a well-known railroad company, and mayor of
+his native city. During the intervals of his business he was at one time
+editor of <i>Graham's Magazine</i>, and acquired a literary reputation by his
+articles in the <i>North American</i>, and by the well-known tragedy of
+<i>Aylmere</i>, in which Mr. Forrest, the actor, has frequently appeared as
+'Jack Cade.' In addition to these, Mr. Conrad published, in 1852, a
+volume entitled 'Aylmere and other poems,' which was very extensively
+reviewed. In it the 'Sonnets on the Lord's Prayer' first appeared.</p>
+
+<p>The volume before us is very well edited in every respect, and makes its
+appearance in very beautiful 'externals.' The paper, binding, and
+typography are, in French phrase, as applied to such matters,
+'luxurious.'</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><span class="smcap">Sketches of the War</span>: A Series of Letters to the North Moore Street
+School of New York. By <span class="smcap">Charles C. Nott</span>, Captain in the Fifth Iowa
+Cavalry. New York: Charles T. Evans, 448 Broadway. 1863.</p></div>
+
+<p>Were this little work ten times its present length, we should have read
+it to the end with the same interest which its perusal inspired, and
+arrived, with the same regret that there was not more of it, at its last
+page. It is simple and unpretending, but as life-like and spirited as
+any collection of descriptive sketches which we can recall. We realize
+in it all the vexations of mud, all the horrors of blood, and all the
+joys of occasional chickens and a good night's rest, which render the
+soldier's life at once so great and yet so much a matter of petty joys
+and sorrows. The love of the rider for the good horse&mdash;for his pet
+Gypsy&mdash;her caprices and coquetries, are set forth, for instance, very
+freely, without, however, a shadow of affectation, while in all his
+interviews with men and women, the characters come before us 'like
+life,' and give us a singularly accurate conception of the social
+effects of the war in the West. The appearance of the country is
+unconsciously detailed as accurately as in a photograph, and the events
+and sensations of battle are presented with great ability; in fact, we
+have as yet seen no sketches from the war which in these particulars are
+equal to them. They are free from 'fine writing,' and are given in
+simple, intelligible language which cannot fail to make them generally
+popular. The occasional flashes of humorous description are extremely
+well given&mdash;so well that we only wish there had been more of them, as
+the author has evidently a talent in that direction, which we trust will
+be more fully developed in other works.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[Pg 503]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="EDITORS_TABLE" id="EDITORS_TABLE"></a>EDITOR'S TABLE</h2>
+
+
+<p>With all the outcry that has been raised at the slow progress of the
+war, it is difficult for a comprehensive mind to conceive how, on the
+whole, the struggle with the South could have advanced more favorably to
+the <i>general interests</i> and future prosperity of the whole country, than
+it has thus far done. 'Had the Administration been possessed of
+sufficient energy, it could have crushed the rebellion in the first
+month,' say the grumblers. Very possibly&mdash;to break out again! No amount
+of prompt action could have calmed the first fire and fury of the South.
+It required <i>blood</i>; it was starving for war; it was running over with
+hatred for the North.</p>
+
+<p>The war went on, and, as it progressed, it became evident that, while
+thousands deprecated agitation of the slave question as untimely, the
+war could never end until that question was disposed of. And it also
+became every day more plain that the 'little arrangement' so frequently
+insisted on, and expressed in the words, 'Conquer the enemy <i>first</i>, and
+<i>then</i> free the slaves,' was a little absurdity. It was 'all very
+pretty,' but with the whole North and South at swords-points over this
+as the alleged cause of war&mdash;with all Europe declaring that the North
+had no intention of removing the cause of the war&mdash;with the slave
+constantly interfering in all our military movements&mdash;and, finally, with
+a party of domestic traitors springing up everywhere, at home and in the
+army itself, it became high time to adopt a fixed policy. It <i>was</i>
+adopted, and President <span class="smcap">Lincoln</span>, to his lasting honor, and despite
+tremendous opposition, issued the Proclamation of January First&mdash;the
+noblest document in history.</p>
+
+<p>It is difficult to see how, when, or in what manner slavery would have
+disappeared from a single State, had the war been sooner ended; and
+nothing is more certain than that any early victory or temporary
+compromise would have simply postponed the struggle, to be settled with
+compound interest. But another benefit has resulted and is resulting
+from the experience of the past two years. Our own Free States have
+abounded with men who are at heart traitors; men who have, by their
+ignorance of the great principles of national welfare involved in this
+war, acted as a continual drawback on our progress. This body of men,
+incapable of comprehending the great principles of republicanism as laid
+down in the Constitution, and as urged by Washington, would be after all
+only partially vanquished should we subdue the rebels. They are around
+us here in our own homes; their treason rings from the halls of national
+legislation; they are busy night and day in their 'copperhead' councils
+in giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and in poisoning the minds of
+the ignorant, by hissing slanders at the President and his advisers as
+being devoid of energy and ability.</p>
+
+<p>It would avail us little could we conclude a peace to-morrow, if these
+aiders and abetters of treason&mdash;these foes of all enlightened
+measures&mdash;these worse than open rebels&mdash;were to remain among us to
+destroy by their selfishness and malignity those great measures by which
+this country is destined to become great. The war is doing us the
+glorious service of bringing the 'copperheads' before the people in
+their true light&mdash;the light of foes to equality, to the rights of the
+many, and as perverse friends of all that is anti-American. Who and
+<i>what</i>, indeed, are their leaders! Review them all, from <span class="smcap">Fernando Wood</span>
+down to the wretched <span class="smcap">Saulsbury</span>, including <span class="smcap">W. B. Reed</span>, in whose veins
+hereditary traitorous blood seems, with every descent, to have acquired
+a fresh taint&mdash;consider the character which has for years attached to
+most of them&mdash;and then reflect on what a party must be with such
+leaders!</p>
+
+<p>These men have no desire to be brought distinctly before the public;
+they would by far prefer to burrow in silence. But the war and
+emancipation have proved an Ithuriel's spear to touch the toad and make
+him spring up in his full and naturally fiendish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[Pg 504]</a></span> form. The sooner and
+the more distinctly he is seen, the better will it be for the country.
+We must dispose of rebels abroad and copperheads at home ere we can have
+peace, and the sooner the country knows its foes, the better will it be
+for it. We have come at last to either carrying out the great
+centralizing system of an Union, superior to all States Rights, as
+commended by Washington, or to division into a thousand petty
+principalities, each ruled by its WOOD, or other demagogue, who can
+succeed in securing a majority-mob of adherents!</p>
+
+<p>It is with such men and their measures that Gen. <span class="smcap">George B. McClellan</span>,
+the frequently proposed candidate for the next presidency, is becoming
+firmly connected in the minds of the people! Fortunately the war has
+developed the objects of the traitors, and the Union Leagues which are
+springing up by hundreds over the country are doing good service in
+making them thoroughly known. Until treason is fairly rooted out at home
+and abroad, and until <i>Union at the centre for the people everywhere</i> is
+fully enforced, this war can only be concluded now, to be renewed
+in tenfold horror to-morrow.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>There is a complication of interests at present springing up in Europe,
+which is difficult to fathom. Just now it seems as if the Polish
+insurrection were being fomented by Austria, at French instigation, in
+order that the hands of Russia may be tied, so that in case of war with
+America, we may be deprived of the aid of our great European friend.
+England sees it in this light, and angrily protests against Prussian
+interference in the matter. Should a general war result, who would gain
+by it? Would France avail herself of the opportunity to array her forces
+against Prussia, and seize the Rhine, and perhaps Belgium? Or would the
+Emperor avail himself of circumstances to embroil England in a war, and
+then withdraw to a position of profitable neutrality? Let it be borne in
+mind, meantime, that it required all the strength of France, England,
+and Austria, combined, to beat Russia in the Crimea, and that a short
+prolongation of the war would have witnessed the arrival of vast bodies
+of Russian troops&mdash;many of whom had been nearly a year on the march.
+Those troops are now far more accessible in case of war.</p>
+
+<p>A war between England and the United States, however it might injure us,
+would be utter ruin to our adversary. With our commerce destroyed, we
+should still have a vast territory left; but nine tenths of England's
+prosperity lies within her wooden walls, which would be swept from the
+ocean. With her exportation destroyed, England would be ruined. We
+should suffer, unquestionably, but we could hold our own, and would
+undoubtedly progress as regards manufacturing. But what would become of
+the British workshops, and how would the British people endure such
+suffering as never yet befell them? Even with our Southern Rebellion on
+our hands, and English men-of-war on our coast, we could still, with our
+merchant marine, bring John Bull to his face. And John Bull knows it.</p>
+
+<p>England is now building, in the cause of slavery and for the South, a
+great fleet of iron-clad pirate vessels, which are intended to prey on
+our commerce. How long will it be before retaliation on England begins,
+and, <i>when</i> it begins, how will it end? Ay&mdash;<i>how</i> will it end? It is not
+to be supposed that we can long be blinded by such a flimsy humbug as a
+transfer to Southern possession of these vessels 'for the Chinese
+trade!' Are the English mad, demented, or besotted, that they suppose we
+intend to endure such deliberate aid of our enemies? When those vessels
+'for the Chinese' are afloat, and our merchants begin to suffer, let
+England beware! We are not a people to stop and reason nicely on legal
+points, when they are enforced in the form of fire and death. Better for
+England that she weighed the iron of that fleet pound for pound with
+gold, and cast it into the sea, than that she suffered it to be
+launched. <i>Qui facit per alium, facit per se.</i> England is the <i>real</i>
+criminal in this business, for her Government could have <i>prevented</i> it;
+and to her we shall look for the responsibility. All through America a
+spirit of fierce indignation has been awakened at hearing of this
+'Chinese' fleet, which will burst out ere long in a storm. We are very
+far from being afraid of war&mdash;we are in it; we know what it is like&mdash;and
+those who openly, brazenly, infamously, aid our enemies and make war for
+them, shall also learn, let it cost what it may.</p>
+
+<p>England hopes to cover the world's oceans with pirates, with murder,
+rapine, and rob<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[Pg 505]</a></span>bery&mdash;to exaggerate still more the horrors of war&mdash;and
+yet deems that her commerce will escape! This is a different matter from
+the affair of the Trent.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Don't grumble! Don't be incessantly croaking from morning to night at
+the war and the administration and the generals, and everything else!
+Things have gone better on the whole than you imagine, and your endless
+growling is just what the traitors like. Were there no croakers there
+would be no traitors.</p>
+
+<p>It was growling and croaking which caused the reverses of the army of
+the Potomac&mdash;sheer grumbling. Now the truth is coming out, and we are
+beginning to see the disadvantages of eternal fault-finding. The truth
+is that the war in the Crimea was much worse conducted than this of ours
+has been&mdash;even as regards swindling by contracts&mdash;and it was so with
+every other war. We have no monopoly of faults.</p>
+
+<p>Now that the war is being reorganized, we would modestly suggest that a
+little severity&mdash;say an occasional halter&mdash;would not be out of place as
+regards deserters. There has been altogether too much of this amusement
+in vogue, which a few capital punishments in the beginning would have
+entirely obviated. Pennsylvania, we are told, is full of hulking runaway
+young farmers, and our cities abound in ex-rowdies, who, after securing
+their bounties, have deserted, and who are now aiding treason, and
+spreading 'verdigrease' in every direction by their falsehoods. Let
+every exertion be made to arrest and return these scamps&mdash;cost what it
+may; and let their punishment be exemplary. And let there be a new
+policy inaugurated with the new levy, which shall effectually prevent
+all further escaping.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Reader&mdash;wherever you are, either join a Union League, or get one up. If
+there be none in your town, gather a few friends together&mdash;and mind that
+they be good, loyal Unionists, without a suspicion of verdigrease or
+copperhead poison about them&mdash;and at once put yourselves in connection
+with the central Leagues of the great cities. Those of Philadelphia, New
+York and Boston are all conducted by honorable men of the highest
+character&mdash;and we may remark, by the way, that in this respect the
+contrast between the leaders of the League and of the Verdigrease Clubs
+is indeed remarkable. When you have formed your League, see that
+addresses are delivered there frequently, that patriotic documents and
+newspapers are collected there, and finally that it does good service in
+every way in forwarding the war, and in promoting the determination to
+preserve the Union.</p>
+
+<p>The copperheads aim not only at letting the South go&mdash;they hope to break
+the North to fragments, and trust that in the general crash each of them
+may secure his share. When the war first broke out, <span class="smcap">Fernando Wood</span>
+publicly recommended the secession of New York as a free city&mdash;and a
+very free city it would have been under the rule of Fernando the First!
+And this object of 'dissolution and of division' is still cherished in
+secret among the true leaders of the traitors.</p>
+
+<p>The time has come when every true American should go to work in earnest
+to strengthen the Union and destroy treason, whether in the field or at
+home. A foe to liberty and to human rights is a foe, whether he be a
+fellow countryman or not, and against such foes it is the duty of every
+good citizen to declare himself openly.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>It will be seen by the annexed that our Art correspondent, a gentleman
+of wide experiences, has gone into the battle. We trust that his
+experiences will amuse the reader. As for the <i>facts</i>&mdash;never mind!</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+<span class="smcap">Camp O'Bellow</span>,&nbsp; &nbsp;<br />
+<i>Army of the Potomac</i>.
+</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap"  style="margin-left: 2em;">My Patriotic Friend and Editor</span>:</p>
+
+<p>I have changed my base.</p>
+
+<p>When I last wrote you, it was from the field of art&mdash;this time it is
+from the floor of my tent&mdash;at least it will be, as soon as my fellows
+pitch it. N. B.&mdash;For special information I would add that this is not
+done, as I have seen a Kalmouk do it, with a bucket of pitch and a rag
+on a stick. One way, however, of pitching tents is to pitch 'em down
+when the enemy is coming, and run like the juice. Ha, ha!</p>
+
+<p>But I must not laugh too loudly, as yon small soldier may hear me.
+Little pitchers have long ears.</p>
+
+<p>Now for my sufferings.</p>
+
+<p>The first is my stove.</p>
+
+<p>My stove is made of a camp kettle.</p>
+
+<p>It has such a vile draught that I think of giving it a lesson in
+drawing. <i>Joke.</i> Per<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[Pg 506]</a></span>haps you remember it of old in the jolly old Studio
+Building in Tenth Street. By the way how is <span class="smcap">Whittredge</span>?&mdash;I believe <i>he</i>
+imported that joke from Rome where he learned it of <span class="smcap">Jules de Montalant</span>
+who acquired it of <span class="smcap">Chapman</span> who got it from <span class="smcap">Gibson</span>, who learned it of
+<span class="smcap">Thorwaldsen</span> who picked it up from <span class="smcap">David</span> who stole it from the elder
+<span class="smcap">Vernet</span> to whom it had come down from <span class="smcap">Michael Angelo</span> who cribbed it from
+<span class="smcap">Albert D&uuml;rer</span> who sucked it somehow from <span class="smcap">Giotto</span>.</p>
+
+<p>I wish you could see that stove. I cook in it and on it and all around
+the sides and underneath it. I wash my clothes in it, make punch in it,
+write on it, when cold sit on it, play poker on it, and occasionally use
+it for a trunk. It also gives music, for though it don't draw, it can
+sing.</p>
+
+<p>My second friend is my Iron Bride&mdash;the sword. She is a useful creeter.
+Little did I think, when you, my beloved friends, presented me with that
+deadly brand, how useful she would prove in getting at the brandy, when
+I should have occasion to 'decap' a bottle. She kills pigs, cuts cheese,
+toasts pork, slices lemons, stirs coffee, licks the horses, scares
+Secesh, and cuts lead pencils. In a word, if I wished to give useful
+advice to a cavalry officer, it would be not to go to war without a
+sword.</p>
+
+<p>A revolver is also extremely utilitarious. A <i>large</i> revolver, mind you,
+with <i>six corks</i>. Mine contains red and black pepper, salt, vinegar,
+oil, and ketchup&mdash;when I'm in a hurry. A curious circumstance once
+'transpired,' as the missionaries say, in relation to this article of
+the <i>quizzeen</i>. All the barrels were loaded&mdash;which I had forgotten&mdash;and
+so proceeded to give it an extra charge of groceries. * * *</p>
+
+<p>It was a deadly fray. <i>Rang tang bang, paoufff!</i> We fought as if it had
+been a Sixth Ward election. Suddingly I found myself amid a swarm of my
+country's foes. Sabres slashed at me, and in my rage I determined to
+exterminate something. Looking around from mere force of habit to see
+that there were no police about, I drew my revolver and aimed at <span class="smcap">Jim
+Marrygold</span> of Charleston, whom I had last seen owling it in New Orleans,
+four years ago. He and <span class="smcap">Dick Middletongue</span> of Natchez (who carved the
+Butcher's Daughter at Florence, and who is now a Secesh major), came
+down with their cheese knives, evidently intending to carve <i>me</i>. Such
+language you never heard, such a diluvium of profanity, such
+double-shotted d&mdash;ns! I drew my pistol <i>at once</i>, and gave Dick a
+blizzard. The ball went through his ear&mdash;the red pepper took his eyes,
+while Jim received the shot in his hat, and with it the sweet oil. In
+this sweet state of affairs, <span class="smcap">Charley Ruffem</span> of Savannah was descending
+on me with his sabre. (He was the man who said my browns were all put in
+with guano.) I put him out of the way of criticism with a <i>third</i>
+barrel&mdash;killed him <i>dead</i>, and <i>salted</i> him.</p>
+
+<p>The best of this war is, it enables me to exterminate so many <i>bad
+artists</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The worst of it is that Charley owed me five dollars.</p>
+
+<p>A fifth Secesh now made his appearance. We went it on the sword, and
+fought&mdash;for further particulars see Ivanhoe, volume second. My foe was
+<span class="smcap">Rawley Chivers</span>, of Tuscumbia, Ala., and as the mischief would have it,
+he knew all my guards and cuts. We used to fence together, and had had
+more than one trial at <i>'fertig-los!'</i> on the old <i>Pauk-boden</i> in
+Heidelberg.</p>
+
+<p>'<span class="smcap">Pop</span>!' said he on the seventeenth round, 'are we going to chop all day?'</p>
+
+<p>'<span class="smcap">Chiv</span>,' said I, as I drew my castor, '<i>are you ready</i>?'</p>
+
+<p>'Ready,' quoth he, effecting the same man&oelig;uvre&mdash;'<i>one</i>, <i>two</i>,
+<i>three</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>I scratched his cheek, but the mustard settled him.
+Sputter&mdash;p'l'z'z'z&mdash;how he swore! I went at him with both hands.</p>
+
+<p>'<i>Priz?</i>' I cried.</p>
+
+<p>'Priz it is,' he answered.</p>
+
+<p>So I took him off as a priz. He was very glad to go too, for he hadn't
+had a dinner for six weeks, and would have made a fine study for a
+Murillo beggar so ar as rags went.</p>
+
+<p>I punish my men whenever I catch them foraging. Punish them by
+confiscation. Mild as I am by nature, I never allow them to keep stolen
+provisions&mdash;when I am hungry.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday evening I detected a vast German private with a colossal
+bull-turkey.</p>
+
+<p>'Lay it down <i>there</i>, sir!' I exclaimed fiercely&mdash;indicating the floor
+of my tent as the bank of deposit.</p>
+
+<p>'But den when I leafs it you eats de toorky up!' he exclaimed in
+sorrowful remonstrance.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' I replied, like a Roman. 'Yes&mdash;I may <i>eat</i> it&mdash;but,' I added in
+tones of high moral conscientiousness, 'remember that I didn't <span class="smcap">STEAL</span>
+it!'</p>
+
+<p>He went forth abashed.</p>
+
+<p>No more till it is eaten, from</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+Yours truly,<br />
+
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">POPPY OYLE.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+
+<p>We are indebted to a Philadelphia correspondent for the following:</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Alas! that noble thoughts so oft</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Are born to live but for an hour,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then sleep in slumber of the soul</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[Pg 507]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">As droops at night the passion flower,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their morn is like a summer sun</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">With splendor dawning on the day&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Their eve beholds that glory gone,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And light with splendor fled away.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 11em;">J. W. L.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>True indeed. The difference between the great mind and the small is
+after all that the former can <i>retain</i> its 'noble thoughts,' while with
+the latter they are evanescent. And it is the glory of Art that it
+revives such feelings, and keeps early impressions alive.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h4>FROM THE GERMAN OF HEINE.</h4>
+
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My love, in our light boat riding,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">We sat at the close of day;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And still through the night went gliding,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Afar on our watery way.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Spirit Isle, soft glowing,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lay dimmering 'neath moon and star;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">There music was softly flowing,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And cloud dances waved afar:</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And ever more sweetly pealing,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And waving more winningly;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But past it our boat went stealing,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">All sad on the wide, wide sea.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Here is an</p>
+
+<p><b>ADVENTURE WITH A GRIZZLY BEAR</b>,</p>
+
+<p>from a Philadelphia correspondent:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>'We had gone out one morning, while camping upon the river San
+Joaquin, to indulge in the sport of fowling. There were three of
+us, and we possessed two skiffs, but an accident had reduced our
+sculls to a single pair, which my companion used to propel one of
+the boats down the stream, after securing the other, with me as its
+occupant, in the midst of a thicket of tule, where I awaited in
+ambush the flying flocks. As geese and ducks abounded, and nearly
+all of my shots told, in a few hours I had killed plenty of game;
+but becoming weary, as the intervals lengthened between the flights
+of the birds, I sat down, and had already begun to nod dozingly,
+when a startling splash, near the river bank, instantly aroused me.
+Grasping my gun and springing upright, I looked in the direction
+whence the sound had come; but, owing to the intervening mass of
+tule, could not see what kind of animal&mdash;for such I at once
+conjectured it must be&mdash;had occasioned my sudden surprise. Having
+hitherto seen no domestic stock hereabouts, I therefore felt fully
+satisfied that it could not belong to a tame species. Judging from
+the noise of its still continued movements, it was of no small
+bulk; and, if its ferocity were correspondent with its apparent
+size, this was indeed a beast to be dreaded.</p>
+
+<p>'The thought at once occurred to me that, as I possessed neither
+oars nor other means of propulsion, it would be difficult to move
+the boat from its mooring if chance or acuteness of scent should
+lead the creature to my place of concealment. In short, this, with
+various suggestions of fancy, some of them ludicrously exaggerated,
+speedily made me apprehensive of imminent danger. Nor was my
+suspicion unfounded, for a crisis was at hand.</p>
+
+<p>'There was a space of clear water between the river bank and the
+margin of the tule, in which the brute seemed to disport a few
+moments; and then the rustling of the reeds indicated that it was
+about to advance. With heavy footfalls it came toward me; as it
+approached my nervousness increased; I could not mistake that
+significant tread; undoubtedly it was a grizzly bear. But how could
+I escape? Bruin, though his progress was not unimpeded, was surely
+drawing near. Following my first impulse in this pressing
+emergency, I placed myself forward in the boat, and, seizing a
+handful of green blades on either side of it, endeavored, by
+violently pulling upon them, to force the craft through the thick
+growth which surrounded it. The headway of the skiff was slow, but
+my efforts were not silent. In fact, the commotion occasioned by my
+own panic became, to my hearing, so confounded with the sound made
+by my floundering pursuer that my excited imagination multiplied
+the single supposed bear, and the water seemed to be dashed about
+by several formidable 'grizzlies.'</p>
+
+<p>'You smile, gentlemen, but really I was so impressed with this and
+like extravagant creations of fear that my better judgment was
+temporarily suspended. This deception, however, was only of
+momentary duration.</p>
+
+<p>'Suddenly the skiff encountered some obstacle and remained
+immovable. Quickly clutching my gun and firing it aimlessly, I
+sprang overboard, and, with extraordinary energy, made for the
+other side of the river and safety.</p>
+
+<p>'My remembrance of that hazardous crossing even now fills me with a
+sympathetic thrill. The river, near where I had leaped in, varied
+in depth from my middle to my neck, and the snaky stalks of tule
+clung to me, retarding my retreat like faithful allies of the
+enemy. An area of this plant extended to the channel, a distance of
+some fifty yards, where a clear current rendered swimming feasible;
+and this I essayed to reach, urged onward by terror, and regardless
+of ordinary obstructions. So vigorous was my action that,
+notwithstanding the frequent reversals of my head and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[Pg 508]</a></span> 'head's
+antipodes' as I tripped over reeds and roots, perhaps I should have
+reached the 'point proposed' with only a loss equivalent to the
+proverbial 'year's growth,' had not a hidden snag unluckily lain in
+the way, which 'by hook or by crook' fastened itself in the part of
+my trowsers exactly corresponding, when dry, with that 'broad disk
+of drab' finally seen, after much anxiety, by the curious Geoffrey
+Crayon between the parted coat-skirts of a certain mysterious
+'Stout Gentleman,' and inextricably held me in check despite my
+frantic struggles.</p>
+
+<p>'Imagine my feelings while thus entangled by a bond of enduring
+material, a bait for a fierce brute which eagerly pressed forward
+to snap at me. Believe me, boys, this was <i>not</i> the happiest moment
+of my life. I knew no reason why I should resignedly submit to so
+undistinguished a fate. My knife, however, was in the boat, so that
+my release could only be attained by extreme exertion. Accordingly
+I writhed and jerked with my 'best violence,' all the time
+denouncing the whole race of bears, from 'Noah's pets' down; and
+you may be sure, emphatically expressing not a very exalted opinion
+of snags.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah! how that brief period of horrible <i>suspense</i> appeared to
+stretch out almost to the crack of doom. I roared lustily for help,
+but no aid came. The bear continued its course through the thicket;
+in another instant I might be seized.</p>
+
+<p>'Rather than suffer such a 'taking off' as this, which now seemed
+inevitable, I should have welcomed as an easy death any method of
+exit from life that I might hitherto have deprecated. Incited then
+by the proximity of the beast, which so intensified the horror of
+my situation, to a last desperate effort to avert this much dreaded
+fate; and, concentrating nearly a superhuman strength upon one
+impetuous bound, the <i>stubborn fabric burst</i>, and&mdash;joy possessed my
+soul!</p>
+
+<p>'Even greater than my recent misery was the ecstasy which succeeded
+my liberation. The happy sense of relief imparted to me such a
+feeling of buoyancy that I was enabled to extricate myself from
+this 'slough of despond,' and I soon reached the swift current,
+when a few strokes landed me in security on a jutting bar.</p>
+
+<p>'Without unnecessary delay I sought out my comrades, to whom I told
+the story of my escape. Their response was a hearty laugh, and
+certain equivocal words which might imply doubt&mdash;not as to my
+fright, for that was too plain&mdash;but concerning the identity of the
+'grizzly.' I observed, however, that, as they rowed nearer to the
+scene of my disaster, their display of levity lessened; and as we
+came within sight of the suspicious locality, there was not the
+'ghost of a joke' on board; but, on the contrary, thay both charged
+me to 'keep a bright look out,' as well as to 'see that the arms
+were all right,' thus showing a remarkable diminution of their
+previous incredulity.</p>
+
+<p>'While cautiously exploring the vicinity of my memorable flight, we
+saw the bear in the distance, upon a piece of rising ground. It
+moved off with a lumbering shuffle and probably a contented
+stomach, for, on searching for my scattered game, we found but
+little of it left besides sundry fragments and many feathers.'</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>In the old times people received queer names, and plenty of them. On
+Long Island a Mr. Crabb named a child
+'Through-much-tribulation-we-enter-into-the-kingdom-of-heaven Crabb.'
+The child went by the name of <i>Tribby</i>. Scores of such names could be
+cited. The practice of giving long and curious names is not yet out of
+date. In Saybrook, Conn., is a family by the name of Beman, whose
+children are successively named as follows:</p>
+
+<p>1. Jonathan Hubbard Lubbard Lambard Hunk Dan Dunk Peter Jacobus Lackany
+Christian Beman.</p>
+
+<p>2. Prince Frederick Henry Jacob Zacheus Christian Beman.</p>
+
+<p>3. Queen Caroline Sarah Rogers Ruhamah Christian Beman.</p>
+
+<p>4. Charity Freelove Ruth Grace Mercy Truth Faith and Hope and Peace
+pursue I'll have no more to do for that will go clear through Christian
+Beman.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the older American names were not unmusical. In a Genealogical
+Register open before us we frequently find Dulcena, Eusena, Sabra, and
+Norman; 'Czarina' also occurs. Rather peculiar at the present day are
+Puah and Azoa (girls), Albion, Ardelia, Philomelia, Serepta, Persis,
+Electa, Typhenia, Lois, Selim, Damarias, Thankful, Sephemia, Zena,
+Experience, Hilpa, Penninnah, Juduthum, Freelove, Luthena, Meriba (this
+lady married 'Oney Anness' at Providence, R.I., in 1785), Paris,
+Francena, Vienna, Florantina, Phedora, Azuba, Achsah, Alma, Arad,
+Asenah, Braman, Cairo, Candace, China (this was a Miss Ware&mdash;China
+Ware&mdash;who married Moses Bullen at Sherburne, Mass., in 1805), Curatia,
+Deliverance, Diadema, Electus, Hopestill, Izanna,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[Pg 509]</a></span> Loannis, Loravia,
+Lovice, Orilla, Orison, Osro, Ozoro, Permelia, Philinda, Roavea,
+Rozilla, Royal, Salmon, Saloma, Samantha, Silence, Siley, Alamena, Eda,
+Aseneth, Bloomy, Syrell, Geneora, Burlin, Idella, Hadasseh, Patrora
+(Martainly), Allethina, Philura, and Zebina.</p>
+
+<p>Some of these names are still extant&mdash;most have become obsolete. It
+would be a commendable idea should some scholar publish a work
+containing the Names of all Nations!</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Doubtless the reader has heard much of the Wandering Jew and of his
+trials, but we venture to say that he has probably not encountered a
+more affecting state of the case than is set forth in the following
+lyric, translated from the German, in which language it is entitled
+'Ahasver,' and beginneth as follows:</p>
+
+<h4>THE EVERLASTING OLD JEW.</h4>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">'Ich bin der alte</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Ahasver,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Ich wand're hin,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Ich wand're her.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Mein Ruh ist hin,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Mein Herz ist schwer,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1.5em;">Ich finde sie nimmer,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">Und nimmermehr.'</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I am the old</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ahasu&eacute;r;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I wander here,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I wander there.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My rest is gone,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My heart is sair;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I find it never,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And nevermair.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Loud roars the storm,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The milldams tear;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I cannot perish,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">O <i>malheur!</i></span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My heart is void,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My head is bare;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I am the old</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ahasu&eacute;r.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Belloweth ox</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And danceth bear,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I find them never,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Never mair.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'm the old Hebrew</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">On a tare;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I order arms:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My heart is sair.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'm goaded round,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I know not where:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I wander here,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I wander there.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'd like to sleep,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But must forbear:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I am the old</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ahasu&eacute;r.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I meet folks alway</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Unaware:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My rest is gone,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I'm in despair.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I cross all lands,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The sea I dare:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I travel here,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I wander there.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I feel each pain,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I sometimes swear:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I am the old</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ahasu&eacute;r.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Criss-cross I wander</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Anywhere;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I find it never,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Never mair.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Against the wale</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I lean my spear;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I find no quiet,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I declare.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My peace is lost,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My heart is sair:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I swing like pendulum in air.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I'm hard of hearing,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">You're aware?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cura&ccedil;oa is</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A fine <i>liqu&eacute;ur</i>.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I 'listed once</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>En militaire</i>:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I find no comfort</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Anywhere.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But what's to stop it?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pray declare!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My peace is gone.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">My heart is sair:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I am the old</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ahasu&eacute;r.</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Now I know nothing,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nothing mair.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Truly a hard case, and one far surpassing the paltry picturing of Eug&egrave;ne
+Sue. There is a vagueness of mind and a senile bewilderment manifested
+in this poem, which is indeed remarkable.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>One fine day, some time ago, <span class="smcap">Savin</span> and <span class="smcap">Pidgeon</span> were walking down Fifth
+avenue to their offices.</p>
+
+<p>A funeral was starting from No. &mdash;. On the door plate was the word
+<span class="smcap">Irving</span>.</p>
+
+<p>'Such is life,' said Savin. 'All that is mortal of the great essayist is
+being borne to the grave: in fact, the cold and silent tomb.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[Pg 510]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A tear came to Pidgeon's eye. Pidgeon has an enthusiastic veneration for
+genius. He adores literary talent.</p>
+
+<p>'Savin,' said he, 'there is a seat vacant in this carriage. I will enter
+it, and pay my last tribute of respect to the illustrious departed. But
+I thought he had a place up the river.'</p>
+
+<p>'This was his town house,' said Savin. 'How I should like to join with
+you in your thoughtful remembrance, and in your somewhat unceleritous
+journey to the churchyard! But, no, the case of Blackbridge <i>vs.</i>
+Bridgeblack will be called at twelve, and I have no time to lose.'</p>
+
+<p>Pidgeon entered the carriage. There was a large man on the seat, but
+Pigeon found room beside him. The carriage slowly moved off. Pidgeon put
+his handkerchief to his eyes; the large man coughed and took a chew of
+tobacco.</p>
+
+<p>Presently said Pidgeon:</p>
+
+<p>'We are following to the grave the remains of a splendid writer.'</p>
+
+<p>'Uncommon,' said the large man. 'Sech a man with a pen <i>I</i> never
+see&mdash;ekalled by few, and excelled by none; copperplate wasn't nowhere.'</p>
+
+<p>'Indeed,' replied Pidgeon, 'I wasn't aware his chirography was so
+unusually elegant; but his books were magnificent, weren't they? So
+equable, too, and without that bold speculation that we too often meet
+with, nowadays.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, you may well say so,' returned the large man. 'He always kept them
+himself; had 'em sent up to his house whenever he was sick, likeways;
+but he wasn't without his bold speculations neither. Look at that there
+operation of his into figs, last year.'</p>
+
+<p>'Figs!'</p>
+
+<p>'Figs, yes; and there was dates into the same cargo.'</p>
+
+<p>'Dates! figs! My good friend, do you mean to say that the great
+Washington Irving speculated in groceries?'</p>
+
+<p>'Lord, no, not that <i>I</i> know of. This here is Josh Irving, whose
+remains'&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Pidgeon opened the carriage door, and, being agile, got out without
+stopping the procession. Arriving at his office, where the boy was
+diligently occupied in sticking red wafers over the velvet of his desk
+lid, he took down 'Sugden on Vendors,' to ascertain if there was any
+legal remedy for the manner in which he had been sold, and at the latest
+dates had unsuccessfully travelled nearly half through that very
+entertaining volume.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> is no time to be lost. Either the Union is to be made stronger, or
+it is to perish; and the sooner every man's position is defined, the
+better. If you are opposed to the war, say so, and step over to
+Secession, but do not falter and equivocate, croak and grumble, and play
+the bat of the fable. The manly, good, old-fashioned Democrats, at
+least, are above this, and are rapidly dividing from the copperheads.
+The Philadelphia <i>Evening Bulletin</i>, a staunch patriotic journal, says:</p>
+
+<p>'The sooner that the fact is made clear that the mass of the Democrats,
+as well as of all other parties, are loyal and opposed to the infamous
+teachings of Vallandigham, Biddle, Reed, Ingersoll, Wood, and their
+compeers, the sooner will the war be brought to an end and the Union be
+restored.'</p>
+
+<p>Show your colors. Let us know at once who and what everybody is, in this
+great struggle.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h4>LOVE-LIFE.</h4>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In a forest lone, 'neath a mossy stone,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Pale flowrets grew:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">No sunlight fell in the sombre dell,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Raindrop nor dew.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bring them to light, where all is bright,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">See if they grow?</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yes, stem and leaf are green,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">While, hid in crimson sheen,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The petals glow.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Girl blossoms, too, love the sun and dew,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And the soft air:</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hidden from love's eye they fade and die,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In city low or cloister high,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yes, everywhere.</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Give them but love, the fire from above,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And they will grow,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The once cold children of the gloom,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rich in their bloom, shedding perfume</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">On high and low.</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>We beg leave to remind our readers that Mr. <span class="smcap">Leland's</span> new book, <i>Sunshine
+in Thought</i>, retail price $1, is given as a premium to all who subscribe
+$3 in advance to the <span class="smcap">Continental Monthly</span>. Will the reader permit us to
+call attention to the following notice of the work from the Philadelphia
+<i>Evening Bulletin</i>:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>'A beautiful volume, entitled <i>Sunshine in Thought</i>, by Charles
+Godfrey Leland, has just been published by Charles T. Evans. No
+work from Mr. Leland's pen has afforded us so much pleasure, and we
+recommend it to all who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[Pg 511]</a></span> want and relish bright, refreshing,
+cheering reading. It consists of a number of essays, the main idea
+of which is to inculcate joyousness in thought and feeling, in
+opposition to the sickly, sentimental seriousness which is so much
+affected in literature and in society. That a volume based on this
+one idea should be filled with reading that is never tiresome, is a
+proof of great cleverness. But Mr. Leland's varied learning, and
+his extensive acquaintance with foreign as well as English
+literature, combine with his native talent to qualify him for such
+a work. He has done nothing so well, not even his admirable
+translation of Heine's <i>Reisebilder</i>. He is thoroughly imbued with
+the spirit of his motto, '<i>Hilariter</i>,' and in expressing his
+bright thoughts, he has been peculiarly felicitous in style.
+Nothing of his that we have read shows so much elegance and polish.
+Every chapter in the book is delightful, but we especially enjoyed
+that on 'Tannh&aelig;user,' with the fine translation and subsequent
+elucidation of the famous legend.' But the boldest and most
+original chapter is the concluding one, with its strange
+speculations on 'The Musical After-Life of the Soul,' and the
+after-death experience of 'Dione' and 'Bel-er-oph-on,' which the
+author characterizes in the conclusion as 'an idle, fantastic,
+foolish dream.' So it may be, but it is as vividly told as any
+dream of the Opium-Eater or the Hasheesh-Eater. Mr. Leland is to be
+congratulated on his <i>Sunshine in Thought</i>. It is a book that will
+be enjoyed by every reader of culture, and its effect will be good
+wherever it is read.'</p></div>
+
+<p>The aim proposed in this work is one of great interest at the present
+time, or, as the Philadelphia <i>North American</i> declares, 'is a great and
+noble one'&mdash;'to aid in fully developing the glorious problem of freeing
+labor from every drawback, and of constantly raising it and intellect in
+the social scale.' 'Mr. <span class="smcap">Leland</span> believes that one of the most powerful
+levers for raising labor to its true position in the estimation of the
+world, is the encouragement of cheerfulness and joyousness in every
+phase of literature and of practical life.' 'The work is one long,
+glowing sermon, the text of which is the example of Jesus Christ.'</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+E. K.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+<h4><a name="BUST-HEAD_WHISKEY" id="BUST-HEAD_WHISKEY"></a>BUST-HEAD WHISKEY.</h4>
+
+
+<p>For two days the quiet of the Rising Sun Tavern, in the quaint little
+town of Shearsville, Ohio, was disturbed by a drunken Democratic member
+of the Pennsylvania Legislature, who visited the town in order to
+address what he hoped would turn out to be the assembled multitude of
+copperheads, but which proved after all no great snakes!</p>
+
+<p>For two days this worthless vagabond insulted travellers stopping at the
+tavern, until at last the landlord's wife, a woman of some intelligence,
+determined to have her revenge, since no man on the premises had pluck
+enough to give the sot the thrashing he so well merited.</p>
+
+<p>On the third day, after a very severe night's carouse on bust-head
+whiskey, the Pennsylvanian appeared at the breakfast table, looking
+sadly the worse for wear, and having an awful headache. The landlady
+having previously removed the only looking glass in the tavern&mdash;one
+hanging in the barroom&mdash;said to the beast as he sat down to table:</p>
+
+<p>'Poor man! oh, what <i>is</i> the matter with your face? It is terribly
+swollen, and your whole head too. Can't I do something for you? send for
+the doctor, or'&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The legislator, who was in a state of half-besottedness, listened with
+sharp ears to this remark, but believing the landlady was only making
+fun of him, interrupted her with&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'There ain't nothin' the matter with my head. I'm all right; only a
+little headache what don't 'mount to nothing.'</p>
+
+<p>But a man who sat opposite to him at table, and who had his clue from
+the landlady, said with an alarmed look&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I say, mister, I don't know it's any of my business, but I'll be hanged
+for a horse thief, if your head ain't swelled up twicet its nat'ral
+size. You'd better do something for it, I'm thinking.'</p>
+
+<p>The drunken legislator! (Legislator, <i>n.</i> One who makes laws for a
+state: vide dictionary) believing at last that his face must in fact be
+swollen, since several other travellers, who were in the plot, also
+spoke to him of his shocking appearance, got up from the table and went
+out to the barroom to consult the looking glass, such luxuries not being
+placed in the chambers. But there was no glass there. After some time he
+found the landlady, and she told him that the barroom glass was broken,
+but she could lend him a small one; which she at once gave him.</p>
+
+<p>The poor sot, with trembling hand, held it in front of his face, and
+looked in.</p>
+
+<p>'Well,' said he, 'if that ain't a swelled head I hope I may never be a
+senator! or sell my vote again at Harrisburg.'</p>
+
+<p>'Poor man!' exclaimed the bystanders.</p>
+
+<p>'Fellers,' said the legislator, 'wot d'ye think I'd better do?' Here he
+gave another hard look in the glass. 'I ought to be back in Harrisburg
+right off, but I cant go with a head like that onto me. Nobody'd give me
+ten cents to vote for 'em with such a head as that. It's a'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[Pg 512]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'Big thing,' interrupted a bystander.</p>
+
+<p>'Fellers,' said the blackguard, 'I'll kill a feller any day of the week,
+with old rye, if he'll only tell er feller how to cure this head of
+mine.'</p>
+
+<p>'Have it shaved, sir, by all means,' spoke the landlady: 'shaved at
+once, and then a mild fly blister will draw out the inflammation, and
+the swelling will go down. Don't you think so, doctor?'</p>
+
+<p>The doctor thus addressed was a cow doctor, but, accustomed to attending
+brutes, his advice was worth something in the present case; so he also
+recommended shaving and blistering.</p>
+
+<p>'I'll go git the barber right off the reel, sha'n't I?' asked the
+doctor, to which the legislator assenting, it chanced that in fifteen
+minutes his head was as bald as a billiard ball, and in a few more was
+covered with a good-sized fly blister.</p>
+
+<p>'Ouch&mdash;good woman&mdash;how it hurts!' he cried. But that was only the
+beginning of it.</p>
+
+<p>'Ee-ea-ah!' he roared, as it grew hotter and hotter. One might have
+heard him a mile. The neighbors did hear it, and rushed in. The joke was
+'contaminated' round among them, and they enjoyed it. He had disgusted
+them all.</p>
+
+<p>'Golly! what a big head!' cried a bystander.</p>
+
+<p>The legislator took another look at the glass. They held it about a yard
+from him.</p>
+
+<p>'It's gittin' smaller, ain't it?' he groaned.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, it's wiltin',' said the landlady. 'Now go to bed.'</p>
+
+<p>He went, and on rising departed. Whether he ever became an honest man is
+not known, but the legend says he has from that day avoided 'bust-head
+whiskey.'</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Don't you <i>see</i> it, reader? The landlady had shown him his face in a
+convex mirror&mdash;one of those old-fashioned things, which may occasionally
+be found in country taverns.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<h4>WAR-WAIFS.</h4>
+
+<p>The chronicles of war in all ages show us that this internecine strife
+into which we of the North have been driven by those who will eventually
+rue the necessity, is by no manner of means the first in which brother
+has literally been pitted against brother in the deadly 'tug of war.'
+The fiercest conflict of the kind, however, which we can at present call
+up from the memory of past readings, was one in which <span class="smcap">Theodebert</span>, king
+of Austria, took the field against his own brother, <span class="smcap">Thierri</span>, king of
+Burgundy. Historians tell us that, so close was the hand-to-hand
+fighting in this battle, slain soldiers did not fall until the <i>m&eacute;l&eacute;e</i>
+was over, but were borne to and fro in an upright position amid the
+serried ranks.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>Although many and many of England's greatest battles have been won for
+her by her Irish soldiers, it is not always that the latter can be
+depended upon by her. With the Celt, above all men, 'blood is thicker
+than water;' and, although he is very handy at breaking the head of
+another Celt with a blackthorn 'alpeen,' in a free faction fight, he
+objects to making assaults upon his fellow countrymen with the 'pomp and
+circumstance of war.' A striking instance of this occurred during the
+Irish rebellion of 1798. The 5th Royal Irish Light Dragoons refused to
+charge upon a body of the rebels when the word was given. Not a man or
+horse stirred from the ranks. Here was a difficult card to play, now,
+for the authorities, because it would have been inconvenient to try the
+whole regiment by court martial, and the soldiers were quite too
+valuable to be mowed down <i>en masse</i>. The only course left was to
+disband the regiment, which was done. The disaffected men were
+distributed into regiments serving in India and other remote colonies,
+and the officers, none of whom, we believe, were involved in the mutiny,
+were provided for in various quarters. The circumstance was commemorated
+in a curious way. It was ordered that the 5th Royal Irish Light Dragoons
+should be erased from the records of the army list, in which a blank
+between the 4th and 6th Dragoons should remain forever, as a memorial of
+disgrace. For upward of half a century this gap remained in the army
+list, as anybody may see by referring to any number of that publication
+of half-a-dozen years back. The regiment was revived during, or just
+after, the Crimean war, and the numbers in the army list are once more
+complete.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE" id="THE"></a>THE</h2>
+
+<h2>CONTINENTAL MONTHLY.</h2>
+
+
+
+<p>The readers of the <span class="smcap">Continental</span> are aware of the important position it
+has assumed, of the influence which it exerts, and of the brilliant
+array of political and literary talent of the highest order which
+supports it. No publication of the kind has, in this country, so
+successfully combined the energy and freedom of the daily newspaper with
+the higher literary tone of the first-class monthly; and it is very
+certain that no magazine has given wider range to its contributors, or
+preserved itself so completely from the narrow influences of party or of
+faction. In times like the present, such a journal is either a power in
+the land or it is nothing. That the <span class="smcap">Continental</span> is not the latter is
+abundantly evidenced <i>by what it has done</i>&mdash;by the reflection of its
+counsels in many important public events, and in the character and power
+of those who are its staunchest supporters.</p>
+
+<p>Though but little more than a year has elapsed since the <span class="smcap">Continental</span> was
+first established, it has during that time acquired a strength and a
+political significance elevating it to a position far above that
+previously occupied by any publication of the kind in America. In proof
+of which assertion we call attention, to the following facts:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>1. Of its <span class="smcap">POLITICAL</span> articles republished in pamphlet form, a single one
+has had, thus far, a circulation of <i>one hundred and six thousand</i>
+copies.</p>
+
+<p>2. From its <span class="smcap">LITERARY</span> department, a single serial novel, "Among the
+Pines," has, within a very few months, sold nearly <i>thirty-five
+thousand</i> copies. Two other series of its literary articles have also
+been republished in book form, while the first portion of a third is
+already in press.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>No more conclusive facts need be alleged to prove the excellence of the
+contributions to the <span class="smcap">Continental</span>, or their <i>extraordinary popularity</i>;
+and its conductors are determined that it shall not fall behind.
+Preserving all "the boldness, vigor, and ability" which a thousand
+journals have attributed to it, it will greatly enlarge its circle of
+action, and discuss, fearlessly and frankly, every principle involved in
+the great questions of the day. The first minds of the country,
+embracing the men most familiar with its diplomacy and most
+distinguished for ability, are among its contributors; and it is no mere
+"flattering promise of a prospectus" to say that this "magazine for the
+times" will employ the first intellect in America, under auspices which
+no publication ever enjoyed before in this country.</p>
+
+<p>While the <span class="smcap">Continental</span> will express decided opinions on the great
+questions of the day, it will not be a mere political journal: much the
+larger portion of its columns will be enlivened, as heretofore, by
+tales, poetry, and humor. In a word, the <span class="smcap">Continental</span> will be found,
+under its new staff of Editors, occupying, a position and presenting
+attractions never before found in a magazine.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="TERMS_TO_CLUBS" id="TERMS_TO_CLUBS"></a>TERMS TO CLUBS.</h2>
+
+
+<div class='centered'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="50%"  summary="TERMS TO CLUBS">
+<tr><td align='left'>Two copies for one year,</td><td align='right'>Five dollars.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Three copies for one year,</td><td align='right'>Six dollars.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Six copies for one year,</td><td align='right'>Eleven dollars.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Eleven copies for one year,</td><td align='right'>Twenty dollars.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Twenty copies for one year,</td><td align='right'>Thirty-six dollars.</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p class="center">
+PAID IN ADVANCE.<br />
+<br />
+<i>Postage, Thirty-six cents a year</i>, <span class="smcap">to be paid by the Subscriber</span>.<br />
+<br />
+SINGLE COPIES.<br />
+<br />
+Three dollars a year, <span class="smcap">IN ADVANCE</span>. <i>Postage paid by the Publisher.</i>><br />
+<br />
+<br />
+JOHN F. TROW, 50 Greene St, N.Y.,<br />
+<br />
+PUBLISHER FOR THE PROPRIETORS.
+</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 40px;">
+<img src="images/imgfinger.jpg" width="40" height="25" style="margin-top: -2em;" alt="" title="pointing finger" />
+</div>
+<p>As an inducement to new subscribers, the Publisher
+offers the following liberal premiums:</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 40px;">
+<img src="images/imgfinger.jpg" width="40" height="25" style="margin-top: -3em;" alt="" title="pointing finger" />
+</div>
+<p>Any person remitting $3, in advance, will receive the
+magazine from July, 1862, to January, 1864, thus securing the whole of
+Mr. <span class="smcap">Kimball</span>'s and Mr. <span class="smcap">Kirke</span>'s new serials, which are alone worth the
+price of subscription. Or, if preferred, a subscriber can take the
+magazine for 1863 and a copy of "Among the Pines," or of "Undercurrents
+of Wall Street," by <span class="smcap">R. B. Kimball</span>, bound in cloth, or of "Sunshine in
+Thought," by <span class="smcap">Charles Godfrey Leland</span> (retail price, $1.25.) The book to
+be sent postage paid.</p>
+
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 40px;">
+<img src="images/imgfinger.jpg" width="40" height="25" style="margin-top: -3em;" alt="" title="pointing finger" />
+</div>
+<p>Any person remitting $4.50, will receive the magazine
+from its commencement, January, 1862, to January, 1864, thus securing
+Mr. <span class="smcap">Kimball</span>'s "Was He Successful?" and Mr. <span class="smcap">Kirke</span>'s "Among the Pines,"
+and "Merchant's Story," and nearly 3,000 octavo pages of the best
+literature in the world. Premium subscribers to pay their own postage.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/imgffl.jpg" alt="Finest Farming Lands" title="Finest Farming Lands" /></div>
+
+
+<h3><b>EQUAL TO ANY IN THE WORLD!!!</b></h3>
+
+<h3>MAY BE PROCURED</h3>
+
+<h4><b>At FROM $8 to $12 PER ACRE,</b></h4>
+
+<p class="center">Near Markets, Schools, Railroads, Churches, and all the blessings of
+Civilization.</p>
+
+<p class="center">1,200,000 Acres, in Farms of 40, 80, 120, 160 Acres and upwards, in
+ILLINOIS, the Garden State of America.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="center">The Illinois Central Railroad Company offer, ON LONG CREDIT, the
+beautiful and fertile PRAIRIE LANDS lying along the whole line of their
+Railroad. 700 MILES IN LENGTH, upon the most Favorable Terms for
+enabling Farmers, Manufacturers, Mechanics and Workingmen to make for
+themselves and their families a competency, and a HOME they can call
+THEIR OWN, as will appear from the following statements:</p>
+
+<p>ILLINOIS.</p>
+
+<p>Is about equal in extent to England, with a population of 1,722,666, and
+a soil capable of supporting 20,000,000. No State in the Valley of the
+Mississippi offers so great an inducement to the settler as the State of
+Illinois. There is no part of the world where all the conditions of
+climate and soil so admirably combine to produce those two great
+staples, <span class="smcap">Corn</span> and <span class="smcap">Wheat</span>.</p>
+
+<p>CLIMATE.</p>
+
+<p>Nowhere can the Industrious farmer secure such immediate results from
+his labor as on these deep, rich, loamy soils, cultivated with so much
+ease. The climate from the extreme southern part of the State to the
+Terre Haute, Alton and St. Louis Railroad, a distance of nearly 200
+miles, is well adapted to Winter.</p>
+
+<p>WHEAT, CORN, COTTON, TOBACCO.</p>
+
+<p>Peaches, Pears, Tomatoes, and every variety of fruit and vegetables is
+grown in great abundance, from which Chicago and other Northern markets
+are furnished from four to six weeks earlier than their immediate
+vicinity. Between the Terre Haute, Alton &amp; St. Louis Railway and the
+Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, (a distance of 115 miles on the Branch,
+and 136 miles on the Main Trunk,) lies the great Corn and Stock raising
+portion of the State.</p>
+
+<p>THE ORDINARY YIELD</p>
+
+<p>of Corn is from 60 to 80 bushels per acre. Cattle, Horses, Mules, Sheep
+and Hogs are raised here at a small cost, and yield large profits. It is
+believed that no section of country presents greater inducements for
+Dairy Farming than the Prairies of Illinois, a branch of farming to
+which but little attention has been paid, and which must yield sure
+profitable results. Between the Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, and
+Chicago and Dunleith, (a distance of 56 miles on the Branch and 147
+miles by the Main Trunk,) Timothy Hay, Spring Wheat, Corn, &amp;c., are
+produced in great abundance.</p>
+
+<p>AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS.</p>
+
+<p>The Agricultural products of Illinois are greater than those of any
+other State. The Wheat crop of 1861 was estimated at 35,000,000 bushels,
+while the Corn crop yields not less than 140,000,000 bushels besides the
+crop of Oats, Barley, Rye, Buckwheat, Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes,
+Pumpkins, Squashes, Flax, Hemp, Peas, Clover, Cabbage, Beets, Tobacco,
+Sorgheim, Grapes, Peaches, Apples, &amp;c., which go to swell the vast
+aggregate of production in this fertile region. Over Four Million tons
+of produce were sent out the State of Illinois during the past year.</p>
+
+<p>STOCK RAISING.</p>
+
+<p>In Central and Southern Illinois uncommon advantages are presented for
+the extension of Stock raising. All kinds of Cattle, Horses, Mules,
+Sheep, Hogs, &amp;c., of the best breeds, yield handsome profits; large
+fortunes have already been made, and the field is open for others to
+enter with the fairest prospects of like results. Dairy Farming also
+presents its inducements to many.</p>
+
+<p>CULTIVATION OF COTTON.</p>
+
+<p>The experiments in Cotton culture are of very great promise. Commencing
+in latitude 39 deg. 30 min. (see Mattoon on the Branch, and Assumption
+on the Main Line), the Company owns thousands of acres well adapted to
+the perfection of this fibre. A settler having a family of young
+children, can turn their youthful labor to a most profitable account in
+the growth and perfection of this plant.</p>
+
+<p>THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD</p>
+
+<p>Traverses the whole length of the State, from the banks of the
+Mississippi and Lake Michigan to the Ohio. As its name imports, the
+Railroad runs through the centre of the State, and on either side of the
+road along its whole length lie the lands offered for sale.</p>
+
+<p>CITIES, TOWNS, MARKETS, DEPOTS.</p>
+
+<p>There are Ninety-eight Depots on the Company's Railway, giving about one
+every seven miles. Cities, Towns and Villages are situated at convenient
+distances throughout the whole route, where every desirable commodity
+may be found as readily as in the oldest cities of the Union, and where
+buyers are to be met for all kinds of farm produce.</p>
+
+<p>EDUCATION.</p>
+
+<p>Mechanics and working-men will find the free school system encouraged by
+the State, and endowed with a large revenue for the support of the
+schools. Children can live in sight of the school, the college, the
+church, and grow up with the prosperity of the leading State in the
+Great Western Empire.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h4>PRICES AND TERMS OF PAYMENT&mdash;ON LONG CREDIT.</h4>
+
+<p class='center'>
+80 acres at $10 per acre, with interest at 6 per ct. annually
+on the following terms:</p>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" width="65%" cellspacing="0" summary="Cost of Land">
+<tr><td align='center'>Cash payment</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>$48 00</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>Payment</td><td align='left'>in one year</td><td align='right'>48 00</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>in two years</td><td align='right'>48 00</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>in three years</td><td align='right'>48 00</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>in four years</td><td align='right'>236 00</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>in five years</td><td align='right'>224 00</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>in six years</td><td align='right'>212 00</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p class='center'>40 acres, at $10 00 per acre:</p>
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" width="65%" cellspacing="0" summary="Cost of Land">
+<tr><td align='center'>Cash payment</td><td align='left'>&nbsp;</td><td align='right'>$24 00</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='center'>Payment</td><td align='left'>in one year</td><td align='right'>24 00</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>in two years</td><td align='right'>24 00</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>in three years</td><td align='right'>24 00</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>in four years</td><td align='right'>118 00</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>in five years</td><td align='right'>112 00</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='center'>"</td><td align='left'>in six years</td><td align='right'>106 00</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+</blockquote>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="left">Number 17.</span><span class="right">25 Cents.</span><br /></p>
+</blockquote>
+<h2>THE<br />
+
+CONTINENTAL<br />
+
+MONTHLY.</h2>
+
+<h3>DEVOTED TO</h3>
+
+<h4>Literature and National Policy.</h4>
+
+
+<h4>MAY, 1863.</h4>
+
+
+<p class="center">
+  NEW YORK:<br />
+  JOHN F. TROW 50 GREENE STREET<br />
+  (FOR THE PROPRIETORS).<br /><br />
+
+  HENRY DEXTER AND SINCLAIR TOUSEY.<br />
+  WASHINGTON, D.C.: FRANCK TAYLOR.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS_No_XVII" id="CONTENTS_No_XVII"></a>CONTENTS.&mdash;No. XVII.</h2>
+
+
+<div class='centered'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="80%" summary="CONTENTS.&mdash;No. XVII.">
+<tr><td align='left'>The Great Prairie State. By Mrs. C. M. Kirkland,</td><td align='right'>513</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>A Winter in Camp. By E. G. Hammond,</td><td align='right'>519</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>In Memoriam. By Richard Wolcott,</td><td align='right'>527</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>A Merchant's Story. By Edmund Kirke,</td><td align='right'>528</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Shylock <i>vs.</i> Antonio. By Carlton Edwards</td><td align='right'>539</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>A Heroine of To-Day,</td><td align='right'>543</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>National Ode,</td><td align='right'>554</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>The Surrender of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, on the Mississippi. By F. H. Gerdes. Assistant U. S. Coast Survey,</td><td align='right'>557</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Reason, Rhyme, and Rhythm. By Mrs. Martha Cook,</td><td align='right'>562</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>The Value of the Union. By William H. Muller,</td><td align='right'>571</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>War Song&mdash;Earth's Last Battle. By Mrs. Martha Cook,</td><td align='right'>586</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Miriam's Testimony. By M. A. Edwards,</td><td align='right'>589</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>The Destiny of the African Race in the United States. By Rev. J. M. Sturtevant, D.D.,</td><td align='right'>600</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Was He Successful? By Richard B. Kimball,</td><td align='right'>611</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>The Union. By Hon. Robert J. Walker,</td><td align='right'>615</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>The Causes and Results of the War. By Lieut. Egbert Phelps, U.S.A</td><td align='right'>617</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Great Heart,</td><td align='right'>629</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Literary Notices</td><td align='right'>630</td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p class="center">The June No. of the Continental will contain an article on 'The
+Confederation and the Nation,' by Edward Carey.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Entered</span>, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by <span class="smcap">James R.
+Gilmore</span>, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United
+States for the Southern District of New York.</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">John F. Trow, Printer.</span></p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> This alliance may be fanciful (though we observe some of
+the best German lexicographers have it so); a better origin might,
+perhaps, be found in the Sanscrit <i>mri</i>, etc.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> 'Les Orientals,' par <span class="smcap">Victor Hugo</span>. <i>Le Feu du ciel.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> The 'by' may, however, have the force of going or passing,
+equivalent to 'fare' in 'farewell,' or 'welfare,' <i>i. e.</i>, may you have
+a good passage or journey.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> 'Past and Present,' pp. 128, 129.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Compare with this the Latin <i>mundus</i>, which is exactly
+analogous in signification.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> En-voir.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Perhaps nothing could better prove how profoundly
+<i>religious</i> were the Latins than a word compounded of the above; namely
+'profane.' A 'fanatic' was one who devoted himself to the <i>fanum</i> or
+temple&mdash;'profane' is an object devoted to <i>anything else
+'pro'</i>&mdash;<i>instead of</i>&mdash;the '<i>fanum</i>,' or fane.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> The word is more properly oriental than Greek, <i>e. g.</i>,
+Hebrew, <i>pardes</i>, and Sanscrit, <i>parad&ecirc;sa</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> See the Italian <i>setvaggio</i> and the Spanish <i>salvage</i>, in
+which a more approximate orthography has been retained.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> <span class="smcap">Ovid</span>. <i>Metamorphoseon</i>, lib. xi. v. 183.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> H&aelig;c autem erat Gnosticorum doctrina ethica, quod omnem
+virtutem in prudentia sitim esse credebant, quam Ophit&aelig; per <i>Metem</i>
+(Sophiam) et Serpentem exprimebant, desumpto iterum ex Evangelii
+pr&aelig;cepto; <i>estote prudentes ut serpentes</i>,&mdash;ob innatem hujus animalis
+astutiam?&mdash;<span class="smcap">Von Hammer</span>, <i>Fundgruben des Orients</i>, tom. vi. p. 85.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> <i>New Curiosities of Literature.</i> By <span class="smcap">Geo. Soane</span>, London,
+1849.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> <i>Developpement des Abus introduits dans la Franc
+Ma&ccedil;onnerie.</i> Ecossois de Saint <span class="smcap">Andr&eacute;</span> d'&Eacute;cosse, &amp;c., &amp;c. Paris, 1780.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> London. Tr&uuml;bner &amp;. Co., No. 60 Paternoster Row. 1861.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> 'Tota h&aelig;c human&aelig; vit&aelig; fabula, qu&aelig; universitatem natur&aelig; et
+generis humani historiam constituit tota prius in intellectu divino
+pr&aelig;concepta fuit cum infinitis aliis.'&mdash;<span class="smcap">Leibnitz</span>, <i>Theodic&aelig;a</i>, part 11,
+p. 149.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Tickner and Fields' edition of Waverley Novels, Boston,
+1858.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> <i>The Poetry of the East.</i> By <span class="smcap">William Rounseville Alger</span>.
+Boston. Whittemore, Niles &amp; Hall, 1856.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a>
+</p><p><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#924;&#7969;&#957;&#953;&#957; &#945;&#949;&#953;&#948;&#949; &#952;&#949;&#7937;, &#928;&#951;&#955;&#953;&#7937;&#948;&#949;&#969;, &#7945;&#967;&#953;&#955;&#7969;&#959;&#962;,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#927;&#965;&#955;&#959;&#956;&#7953;&#957;&#951;&#957;, &#7969; &#956;&#965;&#961;&#7985; &#7945;&#967;&#945;&#953;&#959;&#7985;&#962; &#945;&#955;&#947;&#949; &#7953;&#952;&#951;&#954;&#949;&#957;,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#928;&#959;&#955;&#955;&#7937;&#962; &#948;' &#953;&#966;&#952;&#7985;&#956;&#959;&#965;&#962; &#968;&#965;&#967;&#7937;&#962; &#7945;&#7985;&#948;&#953; &#960;&#961;&#959;&#964;&#945;&#968;&#949;&#957;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#7977;&#961;&#8033;&#969;&#957;, &#945;&#965;&#964;&#959;&#8017;&#962; &#948;&#7953; &#949;&#955;&#8033;&#961;&#953;&#945; &#964;&#949;&#8017;&#967;&#949; &#954;&#8017;&#949;&#963;&#963;&#953;&#957;</span><br />
+</p><p>
+<span style="margin-left: 14em;">&#922;. &#932;. &#923;.</span><br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> 'Not too much.'</p></div>
+
+
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV,
+April 1863, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTINENTAL MONTHLY, APRIL 1863 ***
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+</pre>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April
+1863, 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: Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863
+       Devoted to Literature and National Policy
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: August 19, 2009 [EBook #29736]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTINENTAL MONTHLY, APRIL 1863 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Joshua Hutchinson and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by Cornell
+University Digital Collections)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE
+
+  CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:
+
+  DEVOTED TO
+
+  LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.
+
+
+  VOL. III.--APRIL, 1863.--No. IV.
+
+
+
+
+THE WONDERS OF WORDS.
+
+
+Every nation has its legend of a 'golden age'--when all was young and
+fresh and fair--'_comme les couleurs primitives de la nature_'--even
+before the existence of this gaunt shadow of Sorrow--_the shadow of
+ourselves_--that ever stalks in company with us;--an epoch of Saturnian
+rule, when gods held sweet converse with men, and man primeval bounded
+with all the elasticity of god-given juvenility:
+
+        ('Ah! remember,
+  This--all this--was in the olden
+  Time long ago.')
+
+And even now, in spite of our atheism and our apathism, amid all the
+overwhelming world-influences of this great 'living Present'--the ghost
+of the dead Past will come rushing back upon us with its solemn voices
+and its infinite wailings of pity: but soft and faint it comes; for the
+wild jarrings of the Now almost prevent us from hearing its still, small
+voices. It
+
+  'Is but a _dim-remembered_ story
+   Of the old time entombed.'
+
+Besides, what is History but the story of the bygone? The elegy, too,
+comes to us as the last lamenting, sadly solemn swan-song of that
+glorious golden time. And, indeed, are not all poesies but various notes
+of that mighty diapason of Thought and Feeling, that has, through the
+ages, been singing itself in jubilee and wail?
+
+So it is in the individual--(for is not the individual ever the
+rudimental, formula-like expression of that awful problem which nations
+and humanity itself are slowly and painfully working out?): in the
+'moonlight of memory' these sorrowful mementos revisit every one of us;
+and
+
+        ----'But I am not _now_
+  That which I _have been_'--
+
+and _vanitas vanitatum!_ are not only the satisfied croakings of _blase_
+Childe Harolds, but our universal experience; while from childhood's
+gushing glee even unto manhood's sad satiety, we feel that all are
+nought but the phantasmagoria
+
+                    'of a creature
+  _Moving about in worlds not realized_.'
+
+Listen now to a snatch of melody:
+
+     'The rainbow comes and goes,
+      And lovely is the rose,
+      The moon doth with delight
+    Look round her when the heavens are bare;
+      Waters on a starry night
+      Are beautiful and fair;
+    The sunshine is a glorious birth;
+      But yet I know, wherever I go,
+  That there hath passed away a glory from the earth!'
+
+So saith the mild Braminical Wordsworth. Now it will be remembered that
+Wordsworth, in that glorious ode whence we extract the above, develops
+the Platonic idea (shall we call Platonic that which has been
+entertained by the wise and the _feeling_ of all times?) of a shadowy
+recollection of past and eternal existence in the profundities of the
+Divine Heart. 'It sounds forth here a mournful remembrance of a faded
+world of gods and heroes--as the echoing plaint for the loss of man's
+original, celestial state, and paradisiacal innocence.' And then we have
+those transcendent lines that come to us like aromatic breezes blowing
+from the Spice Islands:
+
+     'Hence in a season of calm weather,
+      Though inland far we be,
+  Our souls have sight of that immortal sea,
+      Which brought us hither,
+      Can in a moment travel thither,
+  And see the Children sport upon the shore,
+  And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.'
+
+But,
+
+                 'descending
+  From these imaginative heights that yield
+  Far-stretching views into eternity,'--
+
+what have the golden age and Platonic _dicta_ to do with our
+word-ramble? A good deal. For we will endeavor to show that words, being
+the very sign-manual of man's convictions, contain the elements of what
+may throw light on both. To essay this:
+
+Why is it that we generally speak of death as a 'return,' or a 'return
+home'? And how is it that this same idea has so remarkably interwoven
+itself with the very warp and woof of our language and poetry?--so that
+in our fervency, we can sing:
+
+  'Jerusalem, my glorious _home_,' etc.
+
+Does not the very idea (not to mention the composition of the word) of a
+'return' involve a previously having been in the place? And we can
+scarcely call that 'home' where we have never been before. So, that 'old
+Hebrew book' sublimely tells us that 'the spirit of the man _returneth_
+to God who gave it.'
+
+Is it possible that these can be obscure intimations of that bygone time
+when WE were rocked in the bosom of the Divine consciousness?
+Perhaps.... And now if the reader will pardon a piece of moralizing, we
+would say that these expressions teach us in the most emphatic way
+that--'_This is not our rest_.' So that when we have dived into every
+mine of knowledge and drunk from every fountain of pleasure; when, with
+Dante, we arrive at the painful conclusion that
+
+  'Tutto l'oro, ch'e sotto la luna,
+  E che gia fu, di queste anime stanche
+  Non poterebbe farne posar una,'
+
+(since, indeed, the Finite can never gain entire satisfaction in
+itself)--we may not despair, but still the heart-throbbings, knowing
+that He who has--for a season--enveloped us in the mantle of this
+sleep-rounded life, and thrown around himself the drapery of the
+universe--spangling it with stars--will again take us back to his
+fatherly bosom.
+
+Somewhat analogous to these, and arguing the eternity of our existence,
+we have such words as 'decease,' which merely imports a _withdrawal_;
+'demise,' implying also a laying down, a _removal_. By the way, it is
+rather curious to observe the notions in the mind of mankind that have
+given rise to the words expressing 'death.' Thus we have the Latin word
+_mors_--allied, perhaps, to the Greek [Greek: moros] and [Greek:
+moira],[1] from [Greek: meiromai]--to _portion out_, to _assign_. Even
+this, however, there was a repulsion to using; and both the Greeks and
+Romans were wont to slip clear of the employment of their [Greek:
+thanatos], _mors_, etc., by such circumlocutions as _vitam suam mutare,
+transire e seculo_; [Greek: koimesato chalkeon hypnon]--_he slept the
+brazen sleep_ (Homer's Iliad, [Greek: Lamda], 241); [Greek: ton de
+skotos oss' ekalypsen]--_and darkness covered his eyes_ (Iliad, [Greek:
+Zeta], 11); or _he completeth the destiny of life_, etc. This reminds us
+of the French aversion to uttering their _mort_. These expressions,
+again, are suggestive of our 'fate,' with an application similar to the
+Latin _fatum_, which, indeed, is none other than 'id quod _fatum est_ a
+deis'--a God's word. So that in this sense we may all be considered
+'fatalists,' and all things _fated_. Why not? However, in the following
+from _Festus_, it is the 'deil' that makes the assertion:
+
+  'FESTUS.         Forced on us.
+
+  LUCIFER.  _All things are of necessity._
+
+  FESTUS.       Then best.
+
+  But the good are never fatalists. The bad
+  Alone act by necessity, they say.
+
+  LUCIFER. It matters not what men assume to be;
+   Or good, or bad, they are but what they are.'
+
+In which we may agree that his majesty was not so very far wrong.
+
+Moreover, 'Why _should_ we mourn departed friends?'--since we know that
+they are but lying in the [Greek: moimeterion] (cemetery)--the _sleeping
+place_; or, as the vivid old Hebrew faith would have it, _the house of
+the living_ (Bethaim). Is not this testimony for the soul's immortality
+worth as much as all the rhapsody written thereon, from Plato to
+Addison?
+
+Some words are the very essence of poetry; redolent with all beauteous
+phantasies; odoriferous as flowers in spring, or discoursing an awful
+organ-melody, like to the re-bellowing of the hoarse-sounding sea. For
+instance, those two noble old Saxon words 'main' and 'deep,' that we
+apply to the ocean--what a music is there about them! The 'main' is the
+_maegen_--the strength, the _strong one_; the great 'deep' is precisely
+what the name imports. Our employment of 'deep' reminds of the Latin
+_altum_, which, properly signifying high or lofty, is, by a familiar
+species of metonymy, put for its opposite.
+
+By the way, how exceedingly timid are our poets and poetasters generally
+of the open sea--_la pleine mer_. They linger around the shores thereof,
+in a vain attempt to sit snugly there _a leur aise_, while they 'call
+spirits from the vasty deep'--that never did and never would come on
+such conditions, though they grew hoarse over it. We all remember how
+Sandy Smith labors with making abortive _grabs_ at its _amber tails_,
+_main_, etc. (rather slippery articles on the whole)--but he is not
+
+  'A shepherd in the Hebrid Isles,
+  _Placed far amid the melancholy main!_'
+
+Hail shade of Thomson! But hear how the exile sings it:
+
+  'La mer! partout la mer! des flots, des flots encor!
+  L'oiseau fatigue en vain son inegal essor.
+     Ici les flots, la-bas les ondes.
+  Toujours des flots sans fin par des flots repousses;
+  L'oeil ne voit que des flots dans l'abime entasses
+     Rouler sous les vaques profondes.'[2]
+
+This we, for our part, would pronounce one of the very best open-sea
+sketches we have ever met with; and if the reader will take even our
+unequal rendering, he may think so too.
+
+  'The sea! all round, the sea! flood, flood o'er billow surges!
+   In vain the bird fatigued its faltering wing here urges.
+     Billows beneath, waves, waves around;
+  Ever the floods (no end!) by urging floods repulsed;
+  The eye sees but the waves, in an abyss engulphed,
+     Roll 'neath their lairs profound.'
+
+'Aurora' comes to us as a remnant of that beautiful Grecian mythology
+that deified and poetized everything; and even to us she is still the
+'rosy-fingered daughter of the morn.' The 'Levant,' 'Orient,' and
+'Occident' are all of them poetical, for they are all true translations
+from nature. The 'Levant' is where the sun is _levant_, raising himself
+up. 'Orient' will be recognized as the same figure from _orior_; while
+'occident' is, of course, the opposite in signification, namely, the
+declining, the 'setting' place.
+
+'Lethe' is another classic myth. It is [Greek: ho tes lethes
+potamos]--the river of forgetfulness, 'the oblivious pool.' Perhaps is
+it that all of us, as well as the son of Thetis, had a dip therein.
+
+There exists not a more poetic expression than 'Hyperborean,' _i. e._
+[Greek: hyperboreos]--_beyond Boreas_; or, as a modern poet finely and
+faithfully expands it:
+
+               'Beyond those regions cold
+  Where dwells the Spirit of the North-Wind,
+     Boreas old.'
+
+Homer never manifested himself to be more of a poet than in the creation
+of this word. By the way, the Hyperboreans were regarded by the ancients
+as an extremely happy and pious people.
+
+How few of those who use that very vague, grandiloquent word 'Ambrosial'
+know that it has reference to the 'ambrosia' ([Greek: ambrotos],
+_immortal_), the food of the gods! It has, however, a secondary
+signification, namely, that of an unguent, or perfume, hence fragrant;
+and this is probably the prevailing idea in our 'ambrosial': instance
+Milton's 'ambrosial flowers.' It was, like the 'nectar' ([Greek:
+nektar], an _elixir vitae_), considered a veritable elixir of
+immortality, and consequently denied to men.
+
+The Immortals, in their golden halls of 'many-topped Olympus,' seem to
+have led a merry-enough life of it over their nectar and ambrosia, their
+laughter and intrigues.
+
+But not half as jolly were they as were Odin and the Iotun--dead drunk
+in Valhalla over their mead and ale, from
+
+        'the ale-cellars of the Iotun,
+  Which is called Brimir.'
+
+The daisy (Saxon _Daeges ege_) has often been cited as fragrant with
+poesy. It is the _Day's Eye_: we remember Chaucer's affectionate lines:
+
+        'Of all the floures in the mede
+  Than love I most those floures of white and rede,
+  Such that men called _daisies_ in our toun,
+  To them I have so great affection.'
+
+Nor is he alone in his love for the
+
+  _'Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flouer.'_
+
+An odoriferous-enough (etymologic) bouquet could we cull from the names
+of Flora's children. What a beauty is there in the 'primrose,' which is
+just the _prime_-rose; in the 'Beauty of the Night' and the 'Morning
+Glory,' except when a pompous scientific terminology, would convert it
+into a _convolvulus_! So, too, the 'Anemone' ([Greek: anemos], the
+wind-flower), into which it is fabled Venus changed her Adonis. What a
+story of maiden's love does the 'Sweet William' tell; and how many
+charming associations cluster around the 'Forget-me-not!' Again, is
+there not poetry in calling a certain family of minute crustacea, whose
+two eyes meet and form a single round spot in the centre of the head,
+'Cyclops'--([Greek: kyklops], circular-eyed)?
+
+And if any one thinketh that there cannot be poetry even in the dry
+technicalities of science, let him take such an expression as 'coral,'
+which, in the original Greek, [Greek: koralion], signifies a _sea
+damsel_; or the chemical 'cobalt,' 'which,' remarks Webster, 'is said to
+be the German _Kobold_, a goblin, the demon of the mines; so called by
+miners, because cobalt was troublesome to miners, and at first its value
+was not known.' Ah! but these terms were created before _Science_, in
+its rigidity, had taught us the _truth_ in regard to these matters. Yes!
+and fortunate is it for us that we still have words, and ideas
+clustering around these words, that have not yet been chilled and
+exanimated by the frigid touch of an empirical knowledge. For
+
+  'Still the heart doth need a language, still
+  Doth the old instinct bring back the old names.'
+
+And may benign heaven deliver us from those buckram individuals who
+imagine that Nature is as narrow and rigid as their own contracted
+selves, and who would seek to array her in their own exquisite
+bottle-green bifurcations and a _gilet a la mode_! These characters
+always put us in mind of the statues of Louis XIV, in which he is
+represented as Jupiter or Hercules, nude, with the exception of the
+lion's hide thrown round him--_and the long, flowing peruke_ of the
+times! O Jupiter _tonans_! let us have either the lion or the ass--only
+let it be _veracious_!
+
+To proceed: 'Auburn' is probably connected with _brennan_, and means
+_sun-burned_, analogous, indeed, to 'Ethiopian' ([Greek: Aithiops]),
+_one whom the sun has looked upon_.
+
+How seldom do we think, in uttering 'adieu,' that we verily say, I
+commend you _a Dieu_--to God; that the lightly-spoken _good-by_ means
+_God be wi' you_,[3] or that the (if possible) still more frequent and
+_unthinking_ 'thank you,' in reality assures the person addressed--_I
+will think often of you_.
+
+'Eld' is a word that has the poetic aroma about it, and is an example
+(of which we might adduce additional cases from the domain of 'poetic
+diction') of a word set aside from a prose use and devoted exclusively
+to poetry. It is, as we know, Saxon, signifying _old_ or _old age_, and
+was formerly in constant use in this sense; as, for instance, in
+Chaucer's translation of _Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiae_, we find
+thus:
+
+     'At laste no drede ne might overcame tho muses, that thei ne weren
+     fellowes, and foloweden my waie, that is to saie, when I was
+     exiled, thei that weren of my youth whilom welfull and grene,
+     comforten now sorrowfull weirdes of me olde man: for _elde_ is
+     comen unwarely upon me, hasted by the harmes that I have, and
+     sorowe hath commaunded his age to be in me.'
+
+So in the _Knightes Tale_:
+
+  'As sooth in said _elde_ hath gret avantage;
+  In _elde_ is both wisdom and usage:
+  Men may the old out-renne but not out-rede.'
+
+Oh! what an overflowing fulness of truth and beauty is there wrapped up
+in the core of these articulations that we so heedlessly utter, would we
+but make use of the wizard's wand wherewith to evoke them! What an
+exhaustless wealth does there lie in even the humblest fruitage and
+flowerage of language, and what a fecundity have even dry 'roots'!
+
+'Thinkest thou there were no poets till Dan Chaucer?' asks our great
+Thomas; 'no heart burning with a thought, which it could not hold, and
+had no word for; and needed to shape and coin a word for--what thou
+callest a metaphor, trope, or the like? For every word we have, there
+was such a man and poet. The coldest word was once a glowing new
+metaphor, and bold questionable originality. 'Thy very ATTENTION, does
+it not mean an _attentio_, a STRETCHING-TO?' Fancy that act of the mind
+which all were conscious of, which none had yet named--when this new
+'poet' first felt bound and driven to name it! His questionable
+originality and new glowing metaphor was found adoptible, intelligible;
+and remains our name for it to this day.'[4]
+
+This seems to be a pet etymology of Carlyle, as he makes Professor
+Teufelsdroeckh give it to us also.
+
+Nor less of a poet was that Grecian man who first named this beauteous
+world--with its boundless unity in variety--the [Greek: kosmos],[5] the
+_order_, the _adornment_. But
+
+  'Alas, for the rarity
+  Of Christian charity,'
+
+and
+
+  'Ah! the inanity
+  Of frail humanity,'
+
+that first induced some luckless mortal to give to certain mysterious
+compounds the appellation of _cosmetics_! But here is an atonement; for
+even in our unmythical, unbelieving days, the god 'Terminus' is made to
+stand guard over every railway station! Again, how finely did the Roman
+call his heroism his 'virtus'--his _vir_tue--his _manliness_. With the
+Italians, however, it became quite a different thing; for his 'virtu' is
+none other than his love of the fine arts (these being to him the only
+subject of _manly_ occupation), a mere _objet de vertu_; and his
+_virtuoso_ has no more virtuousness or manliness about him than what
+appertains to being skilled in these same fine arts. With us, our
+'virtue' is ... well, as soon as we can find out, we will tell you.
+
+By the way, in what a _bathos_ of mystery are most of our terms
+expressing the moral relations plunged! Some philosophers have declared
+that truth lies at the bottom of a well;--the well in which the truth in
+regard to these matters lies would seem to stretch far enough
+down--reaching, in fact, almost to the kingdom of the Inane. The
+beautiful simplicity of Bible truths has often become so perverted--so
+overloaded by the vain works (and _words_) of man's device--as barely to
+escape total extinction. Witness 'repentance'; in what a farrago of
+endless absurdities and palpable contradictions has this word (and, more
+unfortunately still, the thing itself along with it) been enveloped!
+According to the 'divines,' what does it not signify? Its composition,
+we very well know, gives us _poenitentia_, from _poenitere_, to _be
+sorry_, to _regret_--and such is its true and _only_ meaning. 'This
+design' (that of the analysis of language in its elementary forms), says
+Wilkins, 'will likewise contribute much to the clearing of some of our
+modern differences in religion; by unmasking many wild errors, that
+shelter themselves under the disguise of affected phrases; which being
+philosophically unfolded, and rendered according to the genuine and
+natural importance of words, will appear to be inconsistencies and
+absurdities.' Nor would he have gone very far astray had he put
+_philosophy_ and _politics_ under the same category. Strip the gaudy
+dress and trappings from an expression, and it will have a most marked
+result. Analysis is a terrible humiliation to your mysticism and your
+grandiloquence--and an awful bore to those who depend for effect on
+either. We have something to say hereafter on those astonishingly
+profound oracles whose only depth is in the terminology they employ. In
+the mean time, expect not too much of words. Never, in all our
+philologic researches, must we lose sight of the fact that _words are
+but the daughters of earth, while things are the sons of heaven_. This
+expecting too much of words has been the fruitful source of innumerable
+errors. To resume:
+
+Take a dozen words (to prove our generosity, we will let it be a baker's
+dozen) illustrative of this same principle of metaphor that governs the
+mechanism of language, and sheds a glory and a beauty around even our
+every-day fireside words; so that even those that seem hackneyed, worn
+out, and apparently tottering with the imbecility of old age--would we
+but get into the core of them--will shine forth with all the expressive
+meaning of their spring time--with the blush and bloom of poesy--
+
+  'All redolent with youth and flowers,'
+
+and prove their very abusers--poets.
+
+The 'halcyon' days! What a balmy serenity hovers around them--basking in
+the sunlight of undisturbed tranquillity. This we feel; but how we
+realize it after reading the little _family secret_ that it wraps up!
+The [Greek: Halkyon] (halcyon)--_alcedo hispida_--was the name applied
+by the Greeks to the _kingfisher_ (a name commonly derived from [Greek:
+hals, kyo], i. e., _sea-conceiving_, from the fact of this bird's being
+said to lay her eggs in rocks near the sea); and the [Greek: halkyonides
+hemerai]--_halcyon days_--were those fourteen 'during the calm weather
+about the winter solstice,' during which the bird was said to build her
+nest and lay her eggs; hence, by an easy transition, perfect quietude in
+general.
+
+Those who have felt the bitter, biting effect of 'sarcasm,' will hardly
+be disposed to consider it a metaphor even, should we trace it back to
+the Greek [Greek: sarkazo]--_to tear off the flesh_ ([Greek: sarx]),
+_literally_, to 'flay.' 'Satire,' again, has an arbitrary-enough origin;
+it is _satira_, from _satur_, _mixed_; and the application is as
+follows: each species of poetry had, among the Romans, its own special
+kind of versification; thus the hexameter was used in the epic, the
+iambic in the drama, etc. Ennius, however, the earliest Latin
+'satirist,' first disregarded these conventionalities, and introduced a
+_medley_ (satira) of all kinds of metres. It afterward, however, lost
+this idea of a _melange_, and acquired the notion of a poem 'directed
+against the vices and failings of men with a view to their correction.'
+
+Perhaps we owe to reviewing the metaphorical applications of such terms
+as 'caustic,' 'mordant,' 'piquant,' etc., in their _burning_, _biting_,
+and _pricking_ senses.
+
+But 'review,' itself, we are to regard as pure metaphor. Our friend
+'Snooks,' at least, found _that_ out; for, instead of _re_-viewing--_i.
+e._, viewing again and again his book, they pronounced it to be
+decidedly bad without any examination whatever. A 'critic' we all
+recognize in his character of _judge_ or _umpire_; but is it that he
+always possesses discrimination--has he always _insight_ (for these are
+the primary ideas attaching themselves to [Greek: krino], whence [Greek:
+kritikos] comes)--does he divide between the merely arbitrary and
+incidental, and see into the absolute and eternal Art-Soul that vivifies
+a poem or a picture? If so, then is he a critic indeed.
+
+How perfectly do 'invidiousness' and 'envy'[6] express the _looking over
+against_ (_in-video_)--the _askance gaze_--the natural development of
+that painful mental state which poor humanity is so subject to! So with
+'obstinacy' (_ob-sto_), which, by the way, the phrenologists represent,
+literally enough, by an ass in a position which assuredly Webster had in
+his mind when he wrote his definition of this word; thus: ... '_in a
+fixedness in opinion or resolution that cannot be shaken at all, or
+without great difficulty_.'
+
+Speaking of this reminds us of those very capital 'Illustrations of
+Phrenology,' by Cruikshank, with which we all are familiar, and where,
+for example, '_veneration_ is exemplified by a stout old gentleman, with
+an ample paunch, gazing with admiring eyes and uplifted hands on the fat
+side of an ox fed by Mr. Heavyside, and exhibited at the stall of a
+butcher. In this way a Jew old-clothes man, holding his hand on his
+breast with the utmost earnestness, while in the other he offers a coin
+for a pair of slippers, two pairs of boots, three hats, and a large
+bundle of clothes, to an old woman, who, evidently astonished all over,
+exclaims, 'A shilling!' is an illustration of _conscientiousness_. A
+dialogue of two fishwomen at Billingsgate illustrates _language_, and a
+riot at Donnybrook Fair explains the phrenological doctrine of
+_combativeness_.'
+
+But peace to the 'bumps,' and pass we on. Could anything be more
+completely metaphorical than such expressions as 'egregious' and
+'fanatic?' 'Egregious' is chosen, _e-grex_--_out of the flock_, i. e.,
+the best sheep, etc., selected from the rest, and set aside for sacred
+purposes; hence, _distingue_. This word, though occupying at present
+comparatively neutral ground, seems fast merging toward its worst
+application. Can it be that an 'egregious' _rogue_ is an article of so
+much more frequent occurrence than an 'egregiously' _honest_ man, that
+incongruity seems to subsist between the latter? 'Fanatic,' again, is
+just the Roman '_fanaticus_,' one addicted to the _fana_,[7] the temples
+in which the 'fanatici' or fanatics were wont to spend an extraordinary
+portion of their time. But besides this, their religious fervor used to
+impel them to many extravagances, such as cutting themselves with
+knives, etc., and hence an 'ultraist' (one who goes _beyond_ (ultra) the
+notions of other people) in any sense. Whereupon it might be remarked
+that though
+
+  'Coelum, non animum, mutant qui trans mare currunt,'
+
+may, in certain applications, be true, it is surely not so in the case
+of a good many words. Thus this very instance, 'fanatic,' which, among
+the Romans, implied one who had an _extra share of devotion_, is, among
+us--the better informed on this head--by a very curious and very
+unfathomable figure (disfigure?) of speech or logic, applied to one who
+has a peculiar _penchant_ for human liberty!
+
+  'In the most high and _palmy_ state of Rome,
+  A little ere the mighty Julius fell,
+  The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
+  Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.'
+
+We do not quote this for the sake of the making-the-hair-to-stand-on-end
+tendencies of the last two lines, but through the voluptuous quiescence
+of the first,
+
+  'In the most high and palmy state of Rome,'
+
+to introduce the beautifully metaphorical expression, 'palmy.' It will,
+of course, be immediately recognized as being from the 'palm' tree; that
+is to say, _palm-abounding_. And what visions of orient splendor does it
+bear with it, wafting on its wings the very aroma of the isles of the
+blest--[Greek: makaron nesoi]--or
+
+  'Where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
+  Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold!'
+
+It bears us away with it, and we stand on that sun-kissed land
+
+  'Whose rivers wander over sands of gold,'
+
+with a houri lurking in every 'bosky bourne,' and the beauteous palm,
+waving its umbrageous head, at once food, shade, and shelter.
+
+The palm being to the Oriental of such passing price, we can easily
+imagine how he would so enhance its value as to make it the type of
+everything that is prosperous and glorious and 'palmy,' the _beau-ideal_
+of everything that is flourishing. Hear what Sir Walter Raleigh says on
+this subject: 'Nothing better proveth the excellency of this soil than
+the abundant growing of the _palm trees_ without labor of man. _This
+tree alone giveth unto man whatsoever his life beggeth at nature's
+hand._'
+
+'Paradise,' too, is oriental in all its associations. It is [Greek:
+paradeisos],[8] that is, a _park_ or _pleasure ground_, in which sense
+it is constantly employed by Xenophon, as every weary youth who has
+_parasanged_ it with him knows. By the LXX it was used in a metaphorical
+sense for the garden of Eden:
+
+          'The glories we have known,
+  And that imperial palace whence we came;'
+
+but a still loftier meaning did it acquire when the Christ employed it
+as descriptive of the splendors of the 'better land'--of the glories and
+beauties of the land Beulah.
+
+But, look out, fellow strollers, for we are off in a tangent!
+
+What a curiously humble origin has 'literature,' contrasted with the
+magnitude of its present import. It is just 'litteral'--_letters_ in
+their most primitive sense; and [Greek: grammata] is nought other. Nor
+can even all the pomposity of the 'belles-lettres' carry us any farther
+than the very fine 'letters' or _litteral_; while even Solomon So-so may
+take courage when he reflects (provided Solomon be ever guilty of
+reflecting) that the 'literati' have 'literally' nothing more profound
+about them than the knowledge of their 'letters.' The Latins were
+prolific in words of this kind; thus they had the _literatus_ and the
+_literator_--making some such discrimination between them as we do
+between 'philosopher' and 'philosophe.'
+
+'Unlettered,' to be sure, is one who is unacquainted even with his
+'letters;' but what is 'erudite?' It is merely E, _out of_, a RUDIS,
+_rude_, _chaotic_, _ignorant_ state of things; and thus in itself
+asserts nothing very tremendous, and makes no very prodigious
+pretensions. Surely these words had their origin at an epoch when
+'letters' stood higher in the scale of estimation than they do now; when
+he who knew them possessed a spell that rendered him a potent character
+among the 'unlettered.'
+
+A 'spell' did we say? Perhaps that is not altogether fanciful; for
+'spell' itself in the Saxon primarily imports a _word_; and we know that
+the runes or Runic letters were long employed in this way. For instance,
+Mr. Turner thus informs us ('History of the Anglo-Saxons,' vol. i, p.
+169): 'It was the invariable policy of the Roman ecclesiastics to
+discourage the use of the Runic characters, because they were of pagan
+origin, and had been much connected with idolatrous superstitions.' And
+if any one be incredulous, let him read this from Sir Thomas Brown:
+'Some have delivered the polity of spirits, that they stand in awe of
+charms, _spells_, and conjurations; _letters_, characters, notes, and
+dashes.' And have not the [Greek: Alpha] and [Greek: Omega] something
+mystic and cabalistic about them even to us?
+
+While on this, let us note that 'spell' gives us the beautiful and
+cheering expression 'gospel,' which is precisely _God's-spell_--the
+'evangile,' the good God's-news!
+
+To resume:
+
+'Graphical' ([Greek: grapho]) is just what is well
+delineated--_literally_, 'well written,' or, as our common expression
+corroboratively has it, _like a book_!
+
+'Style' and 'stiletto' would, from their significations, appear to be
+radically very different words; and yet they are something more akin
+than even cousins-german. 'Style' is known to be from the [Greek:
+stylos], or _stylus_, which the Greeks and Romans employed in writing on
+their waxen tablets; and, as they were both sharp and strong, they
+became in the hands of scholars quite formidable instruments when used
+against their schoolmasters. Afterward they came to be employed in all
+the bloody relations and uses to which a 'bare bodkin' can be put, and
+hence our acceptation of 'stiletto.' Caesar himself, it is supposed, got
+his 'quietus' by means of a 'stylus;' nor is he the first or last
+character whose 'style' has been his (_literary_, if not _literal_)
+damnation.
+
+'Volume,' too, how perfectly metaphorical is it in its present
+reception! It is originally just a _volumen_, that is, a 'roll' of
+parchment, papyrus, or whatever else the 'book' (i. e., the _bark_--the
+'liber') might be composed of. Nor can we regard as aught other such
+terms as 'leaf' or 'folio,' which is also 'leaf.' 'Stave,' too, is
+suggestive of the _staff_ on which the runes were wont to be cut.
+Indeed, old almanacs are sometimes to be met with consisting of these
+long sticks or 'staves,' on which the days and months are represented by
+the Runic letters.
+
+'Charm,' 'enchant,' and 'incantation' all owe their origin to the time
+when spells were in vogue. 'Charm' is just _carmen_, from the fact that
+'a kind of Runic rhyme' was employed in _diablerie_ of this sort; so
+'enchant' and 'incantation' are but a _singing to_--a true 'siren's
+song;' while 'fascination' took its rise when the mystic terrors of the
+_evil eye_ threw its withering blight over many a heart.
+
+We are all familiar with the old fable of _The Town Mouse and the
+Country Mouse_. We will vouch that the following read us as luminous a
+comment thereon as may be desired: 'Polite,' 'urbane,' 'civil,'
+'rustic,' 'villain,' 'savage,' 'pagan,' 'heathen.' Let us seek the
+moral:
+
+'Polite,' 'urbane,' and 'civil' we of course recognize as being
+respectively from [Greek: polis], _urbs_, and _civis_, each denoting the
+city or town--_la grande ville_. 'Polite' is _city-like_; while
+'urbanity' and 'civility' carry nothing deeper with them than the
+graces and the attentions that belong to the punctilious town. 'Rustic'
+we note as implying nothing more uncultivated than a 'peasant,' which is
+just _pays_-an, or, as we also say, a 'countryman.' 'Savage,' too, or,
+as we ought to write it, _salvage_,[9] is nothing more grim or terrible
+than one who dwells _in sylvis_, in the woods--a meaning we can
+appreciate from our still comparatively pure application of the
+adjective _sylvan_. A 'backwoodsman' is therefore the very best original
+type of a _savage_! 'Savage' seems to be hesitating between its civil
+and its ethical applications; 'villain,' 'pagan,' and 'heathen,'
+however, have become quite absorbed in their moral sense--and this by a
+contortion that would seem strange enough were we not constantly
+accustomed to such transgressions. For we need not to be informed that
+'villain' primarily and properly implies simply one who inhabits a ville
+or _village_. In Chaucer, for example, we see it without at least any
+moral signification attached thereto:
+
+  'But firste I praie you of your curtesie
+  That ye ne arette it not my _vilanie_.'
+
+  _Prologue to the Canterbury Tales._
+
+So a 'pagan,' or _paganus_, is but a dweller in a _pagus_, or village;
+precisely equivalent to the Greek [Greek: kometes], with no other idea
+whatever attached thereto; while 'heathen' imported those who lived on
+the _heaths_ or in the country, consequently far away from
+_civilization_ or _town-like-ness_.
+
+From all of which expressions we may learn the mere conventionality and
+the utter arbitrariness of even our most important ethical terms. How
+prodigiously _cheap_ is the application of any such epithets,
+considering the terrible abuse they have undergone! And how poor is that
+philosophy that can concentrate 'politeness' and 'civility' in the
+frippery and heartlessness of mere external city-forms; and convert the
+man who dwells in the woods or in the village into a _savage_ or a
+_villain_! How fearful a lack do these numerous words and their so
+prolific analogues manifest of acknowledgment of that glorious principle
+which Burns has with fire-words given utterance to--and to which, would
+we preserve the dignity of manhood, we must hold on--
+
+  'A man's a man for a' that!'
+
+Ah! it is veritably enough to make us atrabiliar! Here we see words in
+their weaknesses and their meannesses, as elsewhere in their glory and
+beauty. And not so much _their_ meanness and weakness, as that of those
+who have distorted these innocent servants of truth to become tools of
+falsehood and the abject instruments of the extinction of all honesty
+and nobleness.
+
+The word 'health' wraps up in it--for, indeed, it is hardly
+metaphorical--a whole world of thought and suggestion. It is that which
+_healeth_ or maketh one to be _whole_, or, as the Scotch say, _hale_;
+which _whole_ or _hale_ (for they are one word) may imply entireness or
+unity; that is to say, perfect 'health' is that state of the system in
+which there is no disorganization--no division of interest--but when it
+is recognized as a perfect _one_ or whole; or, in other words, not
+recognized at all. And this meaning is confirmed by our analogue
+_sanity_, which, from _sanus_, and allied to [Greek: saos], has
+underneath it a similar basis.
+
+Every student of Carlyle will remember the very telling use to which he
+puts the idea contained in this word--speaking of the manifold relations
+of physical, psychal, and social health. Reference is made to his
+employment of it in the 'Characteristics'--itself one of the most
+authentic and veracious pieces of philosophy that it has been our lot to
+meet with for a long time; yet wherein he proves the impossibility of
+any, and the uselessness of all philosophies. Listen while he
+discourses thereon: 'So long as the several elements of life, all fitly
+adjusted, can pour forth their movement like harmonious tuned strings,
+it is melody and unison: life, from its mysterious fountains, flows out
+as in celestial music and diapason--which, also, like that other music
+of the spheres, even because it is perennial and complete, without
+interruption and without imperfection, might be fabled to escape the
+ear. Thus, too, in some languages, is the state of health well denoted
+by a term expressing unity; when we feel ourselves as we wish to be, we
+say that we are _whole_.'
+
+But our psychal and social wholeness or health, as well as our physical,
+is yet, it would appear, in the future, in the good time _coming_--
+
+          'When man to man
+  Shall brothers be and a' that!'
+
+Even that, however, is encouraging--that it is _in prospectu_. For we
+know that _right before us_ lies this great promised land--this
+_Future_, teeming with all the donations of infinite time, and bursting
+with blessings. And for us, too, there are in waiting [Greek: makaron
+nesoi], or Islands of the Blest, where all heroic doers and all heroic
+sufferers shall enjoy rest forever!
+
+In conclusion, take the benediction of serene old Miguel de Cervantes
+Saavedra, in his preface to 'Don Quixote' (could we possibly have a
+better?): 'And so God give you _health_, not forgetting me. Farewell!'
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 1: This alliance may be fanciful (though we observe some of
+the best German lexicographers have it so); a better origin might,
+perhaps, be found in the Sanscrit _mri_, etc.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 'Les Orientals,' par VICTOR HUGO. _Le Feu du ciel._]
+
+[Footnote 3: The 'by' may, however, have the force of going or passing,
+equivalent to 'fare' in 'farewell,' or 'welfare,' _i. e._, may you have
+a good passage or journey.]
+
+[Footnote 4: 'Past and Present,' pp. 128, 129.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Compare with this the Latin _mundus_, which is exactly
+analogous in signification.]
+
+[Footnote 6: En-voir.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Perhaps nothing could better prove how profoundly
+_religious_ were the Latins than a word compounded of the above; namely
+'profane.' A 'fanatic' was one who devoted himself to the _fanum_ or
+temple--'profane' is an object devoted to _anything else
+'pro'_--_instead of_--the '_fanum_,' or fane.]
+
+[Footnote 8: The word is more properly oriental than Greek, _e. g._,
+Hebrew, _pardes_, and Sanscrit, _paradesa_.]
+
+[Footnote 9: See the Italian _setvaggio_ and the Spanish _salvage_, in
+which a more approximate orthography has been retained.]
+
+
+
+
+THE CHECH.
+
+"Chces li tajnou vec aneb pravdu vyzvedeti, blazen, dite, opily
+clovek o tom umeji povedeti."
+
+  "Wouldst thou know a truth or mystery,
+  A drunkard, fool, or child may tell it thee."
+
+  _Bohemian Proverb._
+
+
+  And now I'll wrap my blanket o'er me,
+    And on the tavern floor I'll lie;
+  A double spirit-flask before me,
+    And watch the pipe clouds melting die.
+
+  They melt and die--but ever darken,
+    As night comes on and hides the day;
+  Till all is black;--then, brothers, hearken!
+    And if ye can, write down my lay!
+
+  In yon black loaf my knife is gleaming,
+    Like one long sail above the boat;--
+  --As once at Pesth I saw it beaming,
+    Half through a curst Croatian throat.
+
+  Now faster, faster whirls the ceiling,
+    And wilder, wilder turns my brain;
+  And still I'll drink--till, past all feeling,
+    The soul leaps forth to light again.
+
+  Whence come these white girls wreathing round me?
+    Baruska!--long I thought thee dead!
+  Kacenka!--when these arms last bound thee,
+    Thou laidst by Rajhrad cold as lead!
+
+  Now faster, faster whirls the ceiling,
+    And wilder, wilder turns my brain;
+  And from afar a star comes stealing,
+    Straight at me o'er the death-black plain.
+
+  Alas!--I sink--my spirits miss me,
+    I swim, I shoot from sky to shore!
+  Klara! thou golden sister--kiss me!
+    I rise--I'm safe--I'm strong once more.
+
+  And faster, faster whirls the ceiling,
+    And wilder, wilder turns my brain;
+  The star!--it strikes my soul, revealing
+    All life and light to me again.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Against the waves fresh waves are dashing,
+    Above the breeze fresh breezes blow;
+  Through seas of light new light is flashing,
+    And with them all I float and flow.
+
+  But round me rings of fire are gleaming:
+    Pale rings of fire--wild eyes of death!
+  Why haunt me thus awake or dreaming?
+    Methought I left ye with my breath.
+
+  Aye glare and stare with life increasing,
+    And leech-like eyebrows arching in;
+  Be, if ye must, my fate unceasing,
+    But never hope a fear to win.
+
+  He who knows all may haunt the haunting,
+    He who fears nought hath conquered fate;
+  Who bears in silence quells the daunting,
+    And sees his spoiler desolate.
+
+  Oh wondrous eyes of star-like lustre,
+    How ye have changed to guardian love!
+  Alas!--where stars in myriads cluster
+    Ye vanish in the heaven above.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  I hear two bells so softly singing:
+    How sweet their silver voices roll!
+  The one on yonder hill is ringing,
+    The other peals within my soul.
+
+  I hear two maidens gently talking,
+    Bohemian maidens fair to see;
+  The one on yonder hill is walking,
+    The other maiden--where is she?
+
+  Where is she?--when the moonlight glistens
+    O'er silent lake or murm'ring stream,
+  I hear her call my soul which listens:
+    'Oh! wake no more--come, love, and dream!'
+
+  She came to earth-earth's loveliest creature;
+    She died--and then was born once more;
+  Changed was her race, and changed each feature,
+    But oh! I loved her as before.
+
+  We live--but still, when night has bound us
+    In golden dreams too sweet to last,
+  A wondrous light-blue world around us,
+    She comes, the loved one of the Past.
+
+  I know not which I love the dearest,
+    For both my loves are still the same;
+  The living to my heart is nearest,
+    The dead love feeds the living flame.
+
+  And when the moon, its rose-wine quaffing
+    Which flows across the Eastern deep,
+  Awakes us, Klara chides me laughing,
+    And says, 'We love too well in sleep!'
+
+  And though no more a Vojvod's daughter,
+    As when she lived on Earth before,
+  The love is still the same which sought her,
+    And she is true--what would you more?
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Bright moonbeams on the sea are playing,
+    And starlight shines o'er vale and hill;
+  I should be gone--yet still delaying,
+    By thy loved side I linger still!
+
+  My gold is gone--my hopes have perished,
+    And nought remains save love for thee!
+  E'en that must fade, though once so cherished:
+    Farewell!--and think no more of me!
+
+  'Though gold be gone and hope departed,
+    And nought remain save love for me,
+  Thou ne'er shalt leave me broken-hearted,
+    For I will share my life with thee!
+
+  'Thou deem'st me but a wanton maiden,
+    The plaything of thy idle hours;
+  But laughing streams with gold are laden,
+    And sweets are hidden 'neath the flowers.
+
+  'E'en outcasts may have heart and feeling,
+    E'en such as I be fond and true;
+  And love, like light, in dungeons stealing,
+    Though bars be there, will still burst through.'
+
+
+
+
+PICTURES FROM THE NORTH.
+
+
+It is worth while to live in the city, that we may learn to love the
+country; and it is not bad for many, that artificial life binds them
+with bonds of silk or lace or rags or cobwebs, since, when they are rent
+away, the Real gleams out in a beauty and with a zest which had not been
+save for contrast.
+
+Contrast is the salt of the beautiful. I wonder that the ancients, who
+came so near it in so many ways, never made a goddess of Contrast. They
+had something like it in ever-varying Future--something like it in
+double-faced Janus, who was their real 'Angel of the Odd.' Perhaps it is
+my ignorance which is at fault--if so, I pray you correct me. The subtle
+Neo-Platonists _must_ have apotheosized such a savor to all aesthetic
+bliss. Mostly do I feel its charm when there come before me pictures
+true to life of far lands and lives, of valley and river, sea and shore.
+Then I forget the narrow office and the shop-lined street, the rattling
+cars and hurried hotel-lodgment, and think what it would be if nature,
+in all her freshness and never-ending contrasts, could be my
+ever-present.
+
+I thought this yesterday, in glancing over an old manuscript in my
+drawer, containing translations, by some hand to me unknown, of sketches
+of Sweden by the fairy-story teller Hans Christian Andersen. Reader,
+will they strike you as pleasantly as they did me? I know not. Let us
+glance them over. They have at least the full flavor of the North, of
+the healthy land of frost and pines, of fragrant birch and of sweeter
+meadow-grass, and simpler, holier flowers than the rich South ever
+showed, even in her simplest moods.
+
+The first of these sketches sweeps us at once far away over the
+Northland:
+
+     'WE JOURNEY.
+
+     'It is spring, fragrant spring, the birds are singing. You do not
+     understand their song? Then hear it in free translation:
+
+     ''Seat thyself upon my back!' said the stork, the holy bird of our
+     green island. 'I will carry thee over the waves of the Sound.
+     Sweden also has its fresh, fragrant beechwoods, green meadows, and
+     fields of waving corn; in Schoonen, under the blooming apple trees
+     behind the peasant's house, thou wilt imagine thyself still in
+     Denmark!'
+
+     ''Fly with me,' said the swallow. 'I fly over Hal-land's mountain
+     ridges, where the beeches cease. I soar farther toward the north
+     than the stork. I will show you where the arable land retires
+     before rocky valleys. You shall see friendly towns, old churches,
+     solitary court yards, within which it is cosy and pleasant to
+     dwell, where the family stands in circle around the table with the
+     smoking platters, and asks a blessing through the mouth of the
+     youngest child, and morning and evening sings a holy song. I have
+     heard it, I have seen it, when I was yet small, from my nest under
+     the roof.'
+
+     ''Come! come!' cried the unsteady seagull, impatiently waiting, and
+     ever flying round in a circle. 'Follow me into the Scheeren, where
+     thousands of rocky islands, covered with pines and firs, lie along
+     the coasts like flower beds; where the fisherman draws full nets!'
+
+     ''Let yourself down between our outspread wings!' sing the wild
+     swans. 'We will bear you to the great seas, to the ever-roaring,
+     arrow-quick mountain streams, where the oak does not thrive and the
+     birches are stunted; let yourself down between our outspread
+     wings,--we soar high over Sulitelma, the eye of the island, as the
+     mountain is called; we fly from the spring-green valley, over the
+     snow waves, up to the summit of the mountain, whence you may catch
+     a glimpse of the North Sea, beyond Norway. We fly toward Jamtland,
+     with its high blue mountains, where the waterfalls roar, where the
+     signal fires flame up as signs from coast to coast that they are
+     waiting for the ferry boat--up to the deep, cold, hurrying floods,
+     which do not see the sun set in midsummer, where twilight is dawn!'
+
+     'So sing the birds! Shall we hearken to their song--follow them, at
+     least a short way? We do not seat ourselves upon the wings of the
+     swan, nor upon the back of the stork; we stride forward with steam
+     and horses, sometimes upon our own feet, and glance, at the same
+     time, now and then, from the actual, over the hedge into the
+     kingdom of fancy, that is always our near neighborland, and pluck
+     flowers or leaves, which shall be placed together in the memorandum
+     book--they bud indeed on the flight of the journey. We fly, and we
+     sing: Sweden, thou glorious land! Sweden, whither holy gods came in
+     remote antiquity from the mountains of Asia; thou land that art yet
+     illumined by their glitter! It streams out of the flowers, with the
+     name of Linnaeus; it beams before thy knightly people from the
+     banner of Charles the Twelfth, it sounds out of the memorial stone
+     erected upon the field at Lutzen. Sweden! thou land of deep
+     feeling, of inward songs, home of the clear streams, where wild
+     swans sing in the northern light's glimmer! thou land, upon whose
+     deep, still seas the fairies of the North build their colonnades
+     and lead their struggling spirit-hosts over the ice mirror.
+     Glorious Sweden, with the perfume-breathing Linea, with Jenny's
+     soulful songs! To thee will we fly with the stork and the swallow,
+     with the unsteady seagull and the wild swan. Thy birchwood throws
+     out its perfume so refreshing and animating, under its hanging,
+     earnest boughs--on its white trunk shall the harp hang. Let the
+     summer wind of the North glide murmuring over its strings.'
+
+There is true fatherland's love there. I doubt if there was ever yet
+_real_ patriotism in a hot climate--the North is the only home of
+unselfish and great union. Italy owes it to the cool breezes of her
+Apennines that she cherishes unity; had it not been for her northern
+mountains in a southern clime, she would have long ago forgotten to
+think of _one_ country. But while the Alps are her backbone, she will
+always be at least a vertebrate among nations, and one of the higher
+order. Without the Alps she would soon be eaten up by the cancer of
+states' rights. It is the North, too, which will supply the great
+uniting power of America, and keep alive a love for the great national
+name.
+
+Very different is the rest--and yet it has too the domestic home-tone of
+the North. In Sweden, in Germany, in America, in England, the family tie
+is somewhat other than in the East or in any warm country. With us, old
+age is not so ever-neglected and little honored as in softer climes.
+Thank the fireside for that. The hearth, and the stove, and the long,
+cold months which keep the grandsire and granddame in the easy chair by
+the warm corner, make a home centre, where the children linger as long
+as they may for stories, and where love lingers, kept alive by many a
+cheerful, not to be easily told tie. And it lives--this love--lives in
+the heart of the man after he has gone forth to business or to battle:
+he will not tell you of it, but he remembers grandmother and
+grandfather, as he saw them a boy--the centre of the group, which will
+never form again save in heaven.
+
+Let us turn to
+
+     'THE GRANDMOTHER.
+
+     'Grandmother is very old, has many wrinkles, and perfectly white
+     hair; but her eyes gleam like two stars, yes, much more beautiful;
+     they are so mild, it does one good to look into them! And then she
+     knows how to relate the most beautiful stories. And she has a dress
+     embroidered with great, great flowers; it is such a heavy silk
+     stuff that it rattles. Grandmother knows a great deal, because she
+     has lived much longer than father and mother; that is certain!
+     Grandmother has a hymn book with strong silver clasps, and she
+     reads very often in the book. In the midst of it lies a rose,
+     pressed and dry; it is not so beautiful as the rose which stands in
+     the glass, but yet she smiles upon it in the most friendly way;
+     indeed, it brings the tears to her eyes! Why does grandmother look
+     so at the faded flower in the old book? Do you know? Every time
+     that grandmother's tears fall upon the flower, the colors become
+     fresh again, the rose swells up and fills the whole room with its
+     fragrance, the walls disappear, as if they were only mist, and
+     round about her is the green, glorious wood, where the sun beams
+     through the leaves of the trees; and grandmother is young again; a
+     charming maiden, with full red cheeks, beautiful and innocent--no
+     rose is fresher; but the eyes, the mild, blessing eyes, still
+     belong to grandmother. At her side sits a young man, large and
+     powerful: he reaches her the rose, and she smiles--grandmother does
+     not smile so now! oh yes, look now!----But he has vanished: many
+     thoughts, many forms sweep past--the beautiful young man is gone,
+     the rose lies in the hymn book, and grandmother sits there again as
+     an old woman, and looks upon the faded rose which lies in the book.
+
+     'Now grandmother is dead. She sat in the armchair and related a
+     long, beautiful story; she said, 'Now the story is finished, and I
+     am tired;' and she leaned her head back, in order to sleep a
+     little. We could hear her breathing--she slept; but it became
+     stiller and stiller, her face was full of happiness and peace, it
+     was as if a sunbeam illumined her features; she smiled again, and
+     then the people said, 'She is dead.' She was placed in a black box;
+     there she lay covered with white linen; she was very beautiful, and
+     yet her eyes were closed, but every wrinkle had vanished; she lay
+     there with a smile about her mouth; her hair was silver white,
+     venerable, but it did not frighten one to look upon the corpse, for
+     it was indeed the dear, kind-hearted grandmother. The hymn book was
+     placed under her head--this she had herself desired; the rose lay
+     in the old book; and then they buried grandmother.
+
+     Upon the grave, close by the church wall, a rose tree was planted;
+     it was full of roses, and the nightingale flew singing over the
+     flowers and the grave. Within the church, there resounded from the
+     organ the most beautiful hymns, which were in the old book under
+     the head of the dead one. The moon shone down upon the grave, but
+     the dead was not there; each child could go there quietly by night
+     and pluck a rose from the peaceful courtyard wall. The dead know
+     more than all of us living ones; they are better than we. The earth
+     is heaped up over the coffin, even within the coffin there is
+     earth; the leaves of the hymn book are dust, and the rose, with all
+     its memories. But above bloom fresh roses; above, the nightingale
+     sings, and the organ tones forth; above, the memory of the old
+     grandmother lives, with her mild, ever young eyes. Eyes can never
+     die. Ours will one day see the grandmother again, young and
+     blooming as when she for the first time kissed the fresh red rose,
+     which is now dust in the grave.'
+
+     'THE CELL PRISON.
+
+     'By separation from other men, by loneliness, in continual silence
+     shall the criminal be punished and benefited; on this account cell
+     prisons are built. In Sweden there are many such, and new ones are
+     building. I visited for the first time one in Marienstadt. The
+     building lies in a beautiful landscape, close by the town, on a
+     small stream of water, like a great villa, white and smiling, with
+     window upon window. But one soon discovers that the stillness of
+     the grave rests over the place; it seems as if no one dwelt here,
+     or as if it were a dwelling forsaken during the plague. The gates
+     of these walls are locked; but one opened and the jailor received
+     us, with his bundle of keys in his hand. The court is empty and
+     clean; even the grass between the paving stones is weeded out. We
+     entered the 'reception room,' to which the prisoner is first taken;
+     then the bath room, whither he is carried next. We ascend a flight
+     of stairs, and find ourselves in a large hall, built the whole
+     length and height of the building. Several galleries, one over
+     another in the different stories, extend round the whole hall, and
+     in the midst of the hall is the chancel, from which, on Sundays,
+     the preacher delivers his sermon before an invisible audience. All
+     the doors of the cells, which lead upon the galleries, are half
+     opened, the prisoners hear the preacher, but they cannot see him,
+     nor he them. The whole is a well-built machine for a pressure of
+     the spirit. In the door of each cell there is a glass of the size
+     of an eye; a valve covers it on the outside, and through this may
+     the warden, unnoticed by the prisoners, observe all which is going
+     on within; but he must move with soft step, noiselessly, for the
+     hearing of the prisoner is wonderfully sharpened by solitude. I
+     removed the valve from the glass very softly, and looked into the
+     closed room--for a moment the glance of the prisoner met my eye. It
+     is airy, pure, and clean within, but the window is so high that it
+     is impossible to look out. The whole furniture consists of a high
+     bench, made fast to a kind of table, a berth, which can be fastened
+     with hooks to the ceiling, and around which there is a curtain.
+     Several cells were opened to us. In one there was a young, very
+     pretty maiden; she had lain down in her berth, but sprang out when
+     the door was opened, and her first movement disturbed the berth,
+     which it unclasped and rolled together. Upon the little table stood
+     the water cask, and near it lay the remains of hard black bread,
+     farther off the Bible, and a few spiritual songs. In another cell
+     sat an infanticide; I saw her only through the small glass of the
+     door, she had heard our steps, and our talking, but she sat still,
+     cowered together in the corner by the door, as if she wished to
+     conceal herself as much as she could; her back was bent, her head
+     sunk almost into her lap, and over it her hands were folded. The
+     unhappy one is very young, said they. In two different cells sat
+     two brothers; they were paying the penalty of horse-stealing; one
+     was yet a boy. In one cell sat a poor servant girl; they said she
+     had no relations, and was poor, and they placed her here. I thought
+     that I had misunderstood, repeated my question, Why is the maiden
+     here? and received the same answer. Yet still I prefer to believe
+     that I have misunderstood the remark. Without, in the clear, free
+     sunlight, is the busy rush of day; here within the stillness of
+     midnight always reigns. The spider, which spins along the wall, the
+     swallow, which rarely flies near the vaulted window there above,
+     even the tread of the stranger in the gallery, close by the door,
+     is an occurrence in this mute, solitary life, where the mind of the
+     prisoner revolves ever upon himself. One should read of the martyr
+     cells of the holy inquisition, of the unfortunates of the Bagnio
+     chained to each other, of the hot leaden chambers, and the dark wet
+     abyss of the pit of Venice, and shudder over those pictures, in
+     order to wander through the galleries of the cell prison with a
+     calmer heart; here is light, here is air, here it is more human.
+     Here, where the sunbeam throws in upon the prisoner its mild light,
+     here will an illuminating beam from God Himself sink into the
+     heart.'
+
+Last we have
+
+     'SALA.
+
+     'Sweden's great king, Germany's deliverer, Gustavus Adolphus,
+     caused Sala to be built. The small enclosed wood in the vicinity of
+     the little town relates to us yet traditions of the youthful love
+     of the hero king, of his rendezvous with Ebba Brahe. The silver
+     shafts at Sala are the largest, the deepest and oldest in Sweden;
+     they reach down a hundred and seventy fathoms, almost as deep as
+     the Baltic. This is sufficient to awaken an interest in the little
+     town; how does it look now? 'Sala,' says the guide book, 'lies in a
+     valley, in a flat, and not very agreeable region.' And so it is
+     truly; in that direction was nothing beautiful, and the highway led
+     directly into the town, which has no character. It consists of a
+     single long street with a knot and a pair of ends: the knot is the
+     market; at the ends are two lanes which are attached to it. The
+     long street--it may be called long in such a short town--was
+     entirely empty. No one came out of the doors, no one looked out of
+     the windows. It was with no small joy that I saw a man, at last, in
+     a shop, in whose window hung a paper of pins, a red handkerchief,
+     and two tea cans, a solitary, sedate apprentice, who leaned over
+     the counter and looked out through the open house door. He
+     certainly wrote that evening in his journal, if he kept one;
+     'To-day a traveller went through the town; the dear God may know
+     him, I do not!' The apprentice's face appeared to me to say all
+     that, and he had an honest face.
+
+     'In the tavern in which I entered, the same deathlike stillness
+     reigned as upon the street. The door was indeed closed, but in the
+     interior of the house all the doors stood wide open; the house cock
+     stood in the midst of the sitting room, and crowed in order to give
+     information that there was some one in the house. As to the rest,
+     the house was entirely picturesque; it had an open balcony looking
+     out upon the court--upon the street would have been too lively. The
+     old sign hung over the door and creaked in the wind; it sounded as
+     if it were alive. I saw it from my window; I saw also how the grass
+     had overgrown the pavement of the street. The sun shone clear, but
+     as it shines in the sitting room of the solitary old bachelor and
+     upon the balsam in the pot of the old maid, it was still as on a
+     Scottish Sunday, and it was Tuesday! I felt myself drawn to study
+     Young's 'Night Thoughts.'
+
+     'I looked down from the balcony into the neighbor's court; no
+     living being was to be seen, but children had played there; they
+     had built a little garden out of perfectly dry twigs; these had
+     been stuck into the soft earth and watered; the potsherd, which
+     served as watering pot, lay there still; the twigs represented
+     roses and geranium. It had been a splendid garden--ah yes! We
+     great, grown-up men play just so, build us a garden with love's
+     roses and friendship's geranium, we water it with our tears and our
+     heart's blood--and yet they are and remain dry twigs without roots.
+     That was a gloomy thought--I felt it, and in order to transform the
+     dry twigs into a blossoming Aaron's-staff, I went out. I went out
+     into the ends and into the long thread, that is to say, into the
+     little lanes and into the great street, and here was more life, as
+     I might have expected; a herd of cows met me, who were coming home,
+     or going away, I know not--they had no leader. The apprentice was
+     still standing behind the counter; he bowed over it and greeted;
+     the stranger took off his hat in return; these were the events of
+     this day in Sala. Pardon me, thou still town, which Gustavus
+     Adolphus built, where his young heart glowed in its first love, and
+     where the silver rests in the deep shafts without the town, in a
+     flat and not very pleasant country. I knew no one in this town, no
+     one conducted me about, and so I went with the cows, and reached
+     the graveyard; the cows went on, I climbed over the fence, and
+     found myself between the graves, where the green grass grew, and
+     nearly all the tombstones lay with inscriptions blotted out; only
+     here and there, 'Anno' was still legible--what further? And who
+     rests here? Everything on the stone was effaced, as the earth life
+     of the one who was now earth within the earth. What drama have ye
+     dead ones played here in the still Sala? The setting sun threw its
+     beams over the graves, no leaf stirred on the tree; all was still,
+     deathly still, in the town of the silver mines, which for the
+     remembrance of the traveller is only a frame about the apprentice,
+     who bowed greeting over the counter.'
+
+Silence, stillness, quiet, solitude, loneliness, far-away-ness; hushed,
+calm, remote, out of the world, un-newspapered, operaless,
+un-gossipped--was there ever a sketch which carried one so far from the
+world as this of 'Sala'? That _one_ shopboy--those going or coming
+cows--the tombs, with wornout dates, every point of time vanishing--a
+living grave!
+
+Contrast again, dear reader. Verily she is a goddess--and I adore her.
+Lo! she brings me back again in Sala to the busy streets of this city,
+and the office, and the 'exchanges,' and the rustling, bustling world,
+and the hotel dinner--to be in time for which I am even now writing
+against time--and I am thankful for it all. Sala has cured me. That
+picture drives away longings. Verily, he who lives in America, and in
+its great roaring current of events, needs but a glance at Sala to feel
+that _here_ he is on a darting stream ever hurrying more gloriously into
+the world and away from the dull inanity--which the merest sibilant of
+aggravation will change to insanity.
+
+Reader, our Andersen is an artist--as most children know. But I am glad
+that he seldom gives us anything which is so _very_ much of a monochrome
+as Sala.
+
+I wonder if Sala was the native and surnaming town of that _other_ Sala
+whose initials are G. A. S., and whose nature is 'ditto'? Did its
+dulness drive him to liveliness, even as an 'orthodox' training is said
+to drive youth to dissipation? It may be so. The one hath a deep mine of
+silver--the other contains inexhaustible mines of brass--and the name of
+the one as of the other, when read in Hebrew-wise gives us 'alas!'
+
+But I am wandering from the Northern pictures and fresh nature, and must
+close.
+
+
+
+
+THE NEW RASSELAS.
+
+
+... And Joseph, opening the drawing room, told me the postchaise was
+ready. My mother and my sister threw themselves into my arms.
+
+'It is still time,' said they, 'to abandon this scheme. Stay with us.'
+
+'Mother, I am of noble birth, I am now twenty, I must have a name, I
+must be talked about in the country, I must be getting a position in the
+army or at court.'
+
+'Oh! but, Bernard, when you have gone, what will become of me?'
+
+'You will be happy and proud when you hear of your son's success.'
+
+'But if you are killed in some battle?'
+
+'What of that! What's life? Who thinks about being killed? When one is
+twenty, and of noble lineage, he thinks of nothing but glory. And,
+mother, in a few years you shall see me return to your side a colonel,
+or a general, or with some rich office at Versailles.'
+
+'Well, and what then?'
+
+'Why, then I shall be respected and considered about here.'
+
+'And then?'
+
+'Why, everybody will take off their hat to me.'
+
+'And then?'
+
+'I'll marry Cousin Henrietta, and I'll marry off my young sisters, and
+we'll all live together with you, tranquil and happy, on my estate in
+Brittany.'
+
+'Now, why can't you commence this tranquil and happy life to-day? Has
+not your father left us the largest fortune of all the province? Is
+there anywhere near us a richer estate or a finer chateau than that of
+La Roche Bernard? Are you not considered by all your vassals? Doesn't
+everybody take off their hat when they meet you? No, don't quit us, my
+dear child; remain with your friends, with your sisters, with your old
+mother, whom, at your return, perhaps you may not find alive; do not
+expend in vain glory, nor abridge by cares and annoyances of every kind,
+days which at the best pass away too rapidly: life is a pleasant thing,
+my son, and Brittany's sun is genial!'
+
+As she said this, she showed me from the drawing-room windows the
+beautiful avenues of my park, the old horse-chestnuts in bloom, the
+lilacs, the honeysuckles, whose fragrance filled the air, and whose
+verdure glistened in the sun. In the antechamber was the gardener and
+all his family, who, sad and silent, seemed also to say to me, 'Don't
+go, young master, don't go.' Hortense, my eldest sister, pressed me in
+her arms, and Amelie, my little sister, who was in a corner of the
+drawing room looking at the pictures in a volume of La Fontaine, came up
+to me, holding out the book:
+
+'Read, read, brother,' said she, weeping....
+
+She pointed to the fable of the Two Pigeons!... I suddenly got up, and
+repelled them all. 'I am now twenty, I am of noble blood, I want glory
+and honor.... Let me go.' And I ran toward the courtyard. I was about
+getting into the postchaise, when a woman appeared on the staircase.
+It was Henrietta! She did not weep ... she did not say a word ... but,
+pale and trembling, it was with the utmost difficulty that she kept from
+falling. She waved the white handkerchief she held in her hand, as a
+last good-by, and she fell senseless on the floor. I ran and took her
+up, I pressed her in my arms, I pledged my love to her for life; and as
+she recovered consciousness, leaving her in the hands of my mother and
+sister, I ran to my postchaise without stopping, and without turning my
+head.
+
+If I had looked at Henrietta, I should not have gone.
+
+In a few moments afterward the postchaise was rattling along the
+highway. For a long time my mind was completely absorbed by thoughts of
+my sisters, of Henrietta, of my mother, and of all the happiness I left
+behind me; but these ideas gradually quitted me as I lost sight of the
+turrets of La Roche Bernard, and dreams of ambition and of glory took
+the entire possession of my mind. What schemes! What castles in the air!
+What noble actions I performed in my postchaise!! I denied myself
+nothing: wealth, honors, dignities, success of every kind, I merited and
+I awarded myself all; at the last, raising myself from grade to grade as
+I advanced on my journey, by the time I reached my inn at night, I was
+duke and peer, governor of a province, and marshal of France. The voice
+of my servant, who called me modestly Monsieur le Chevalier, alone
+forced me to remember who I was, and to abdicate all my dignities. The
+next day, and the following days, I indulged in the same dreams, and
+enjoyed the same intoxication, for my journey was long. I was going to a
+chateau near Sedan the chateau of the Duke de C----, an old friend of my
+father, and protector of my family. It was understood that he was to
+carry me to Paris with him, where he was expected about the end of the
+month; he promised to present me at Versailles, and to give me a company
+of dragoons through the credit of his sister, the Marchioness de F----,
+a charming young lady, designated by public opinion as Madame de
+Pompadour's successor, whose title she claimed with the greater justice
+as she had long filled its honorable functions. I reached Sedan at
+night, and at too late an hour to go to the chateau of my protector. I
+therefore postponed my visit until the nest day, and lay at the
+'France's Arms,' the best hotel of the town, and the ordinary rendezvous
+of all the officers; for Sedan is a garrison town, and is well
+fortified; the streets have a warlike air, and even the shopkeepers have
+a martial look, which seems to say to strangers, 'We are fellow
+countrymen of the great Turenne!' I supped at the general table, and I
+asked what road I should take in the morning to go to the chateau of the
+Duke de C----, which is situated some three leagues out of the town.
+'Anybody will show you,' I was told, 'for it is well known hereabouts:
+Marshal Fabert, a great warrior and a celebrated man, died there.'
+Thereupon the conversation turned about Marshal Fabert. Between young
+soldiers, this was very natural; his battles, his exploits, his modesty,
+which made him refuse the letters patent of nobility and the collar of
+his orders offered him by Louis XIV, were all talked about; they dwelt
+especially on the inconceivable fortune which had raised him from the
+rank of a simple soldier to the rank of a marshal of France--him, who
+was nothing at all, the son of a mere printer: it was the only example
+of such a piece of fortune which could then be instanced, and which,
+even during Fabert's life, had appeared so extraordinary, the vulgar
+never feared to ascribe his elevation to supernatural causes. It was
+said that from his youth he had busied himself with magic and sorcery,
+and that he had made a league with the devil. Mine host, who, to the
+stupidity inherent in all the natives of the province of Champagne,
+added the credulity of our Brittany peasants, assured us with a great
+deal of sangfroid, that when Fabert died in the chateau of the Duke de
+C----, a black man, whom nobody knew, was seen to enter into the dead
+man's room, and disappear, taking with him the marshal's soul, which he
+had bought, and which belonged to him; and that even now, every May,
+about the period of the death of Fabert, the people of the chateau saw
+the black man about the house, bearing a small light. This story made
+our dessert merry, and we drank a bottle of champagne to the demon of
+Fabert, craving it to be good enough to take us also under its
+protection, and enable us to win some battles like those of Collioure
+and La Marfee.
+
+I rose early the next morning, and went to the chateau of the Duke de
+C----, an immense gothic manor-house, which perhaps at any other moment
+I would not have noticed, but which I regarded, I acknowledge, with
+curiosity mixed with emotion, as I recollected the story told us on the
+preceding evening by the host of the 'France's Arms.' The servant to
+whom I spoke, told me he did not know whether his master could receive
+company, and whether he could receive me. I gave him my name, and he
+went out, leaving me alone in a sort of armory, decorated with the
+attributes of the chase and family portraits.
+
+I waited some time, and no one came. 'The career of glory and of honor I
+have dreamed commences by the antechamber,' said I to myself, and
+impatience soon possessed the discontented solicitor. I had counted over
+the family portraits and all the rafters of the ceiling some two or
+three times, when I heard a slight noise in the wooden wainscoting. It
+was caused by an ill-closed door the wind had forced open. I looked in,
+and I perceived a very handsome boudoir, lighted by two large windows
+and a glazed door opening on a magnificent park. I walked into this
+room, and after I had gone a short distance, I was stopped by a scene
+which I had not at first perceived. A man was lying on a sofa, with his
+back turned to the door by which I came in. He got up, and without
+perceiving me, ran abruptly to the window. Tears streamed down his
+cheeks, and a profound despair was marked on his every feature. He
+remained motionless for some time, keeping his face buried in his hands;
+then he began striding rapidly about the room. I was then near him; he
+perceived me, and trembled; I, too, was annoyed and confounded at my
+indiscretion; I sought to retire, muttering some words of excuse.
+
+'Who are you? What do you want?' he said to me in a loud voice, taking
+hold of me by my arms.
+
+'I am the Chevalier Bernard de la Roche Bernard, and I come from
+Brittany.'...
+
+'I know, I know,' said he; and he threw himself into my arms, made me
+take a seat by his side, spoke to me warmly about my father and all my
+family, whom he knew so well that I was persuaded I was talking with the
+master of the chateau.
+
+'You are Monsieur de C----?' I asked him.
+
+He got up, looked at me wildly, and replied, 'I was he, I am he no
+longer, I am nothing;' and seeing my astonishment, he exclaimed, 'Not a
+word more, young man, don't question me!'
+
+'I must, Monsieur; I have been the involuntary witness of your chagrin
+and your grief, and if my attachment and my friendship may to some
+degree alleviate'----
+
+'You are right, you are right,' said he; 'you cannot change my fate, but
+at the least you may receive my last wishes and my last injunctions ...
+it is the only favor I ask of you.'
+
+He shut the door, and again took his seat by my side; I was touched, and
+tremblingly expected what he was going to say: he spoke with a grave and
+solemn manner. His physiognomy had an expression I had never seen before
+on any face. His forehead, which I attentively examined, seemed marked
+by fatality; his face was pale; his black eyes sparkled, and
+occasionally his features, although changed by pain, would contract in
+an ironical and infernal smile. 'What I am going to tell you,' said he,
+'will surprise you.' You will doubt me ... you will not believe me ...
+even. I doubt it sometimes ... at the least, I would like to doubt it;
+but I have got the proofs of it; and there is in everything around us,
+in our very organization, a great many other mysteries which we are
+obliged to undergo, without being able to understand.' He remained
+silent for a moment, as if to collect his ideas, brushed his forehead
+with his hand, and then proceeded:
+
+'I was born in this chateau. I had two elder brothers, to whom the
+honors and the estates of our house were to descend. I could hope
+nothing above the cassock of an abbe, and yet dreams of ambition and of
+glory fermented in my head, and quickened the beatings of my heart.
+Discontented with my obscurity, eager for fame, I thought of nothing but
+the means of acquiring it, and this idea made me insensible to all the
+pleasures and all the joys of life. The present was nothing to me; I
+existed only in the future; and that future lay before me robed in the
+most sombre colors. I was nearly thirty years old, and had done nothing.
+Then literary reputations arose from every side in Paris, and their
+brilliancy was reflected even to our distant province. 'Ah!' I often
+said to myself, 'if I could at the least command a name in the world of
+letters! that at least would be fame, and fame is happiness.' The
+confidant of my sorrow was an old servant, an aged negro, who had lived
+in the chateau for years before I was born; he was the oldest person
+about the house, for no one remembered when he came to live there; and
+some of the country people said that he knew the Marshal Fabert, and had
+been present at his death'--
+
+My host saw me express the greatest surprise; he interrupted his
+narrative to ask me what was the matter.
+
+'Nothing,' said I; but I could not help thinking of the black man the
+innkeeper had mentioned the evening before.
+
+Monsieur de C---- went on with his story: 'One day, before Juba (such
+was the negro's name), I loudly expressed my despair at my obscurity and
+the uselessness of my life, and I exclaimed: '_I would give ten years of
+my life_ to be placed in the first rank of our authors.' 'Ten years,' he
+coldly replied to me, 'are a great deal; it's paying dearly for a
+trifle; but that's nothing, I accept your ten years. I take them now;
+remember your promises: I shall keep mine!' I cannot depict to you my
+surprise at hearing him speak in this way. I thought years had weakened
+his reason; I smiled, and he shrugged his shoulders, and in a few days
+afterward I quitted the chateau to pay a visit to Paris. There I was
+thrown a great deal in literary society. Their example encouraged me,
+and I published several works, whose success I shall not weary you by
+describing. All Paris applauded me; the newspapers proclaimed my
+praises; the new name I had assumed became celebrated, and no later than
+yesterday, you, yourself, my young friend, admired me.'
+
+A new gesture of surprise again interrupted his narrative: 'What! you
+are not the Duke de C----?' I exclaimed.
+
+'No,' said he very coldly.
+
+'And,' I said to myself, 'a celebrated literary man! Is it Marmontel? or
+D'Alembert? or Voltaire?'
+
+He sighed; a smile of regret and of contempt flitted over his lips, and
+he resumed his story: 'This literary reputation I had desired soon
+became insufficient for a soul as ardent as my own. I longed for nobler
+success, and I said to Juba, who had followed me to Paris, and who now
+remained with me: 'There is no real glory, no true fame, but that
+acquired in the profession of arms. What is a literary man? A poet?
+Nothing. But a great captain, a leader of an army! Ah! that's the
+destiny I desire; and for a great military reputation, I would give
+another ten years of my life.' 'I accept them,' Juba replied; 'I take
+them now; don't forget it.''
+
+At this part of his story he stopped again, and, observing the trouble
+and hesitation visible in my every feature, he said:
+
+'I warned you beforehand, young man, that you could not believe me; this
+seems a dream, a chimera to you!... and to me, too!... and yet the
+grades and the honors I obtained were no illusions; those soldiers I led
+to the cannon's mouth, those redoubts stormed, those flags won, those
+victories with which all France has rung ... all that was my work ...
+all that glory was mine.'...
+
+While he strode up and down the room, and spoke with this warmth and
+enthusiasm, surprise chilled my blood, and I said to myself, 'Who can
+this gentleman be?... Is he Coligny?... Richelieu?... the Marshal
+Saxe?'...
+
+From this state of excitement he had fallen into great depression, and
+coming close to me, he said to me, with a sombre air:
+
+'Juba spoke truly; and after a short time had passed away, disgusted
+with this vain bubble of military glory, I longed for the only thing
+real and satisfactory and permanent in this world; and when, at the cost
+of five or six years of life, I desired gold and wealth, Juba gave them
+too.... Yes, my young friend, yes, I have seen fortune surpass all my
+desires; I became the lord of estates, of forests, of chateaux. Up to
+this morning they were all mine; if you don't believe me, if you don't
+believe Juba ... wait ... wait ... he is coming ... and you will see for
+yourself, with your own eyes, that what confounds your reason and mine,
+is unhappily but too real.'
+
+He then walked toward the mantlepiece, looked at the clock, exhibited
+great alarm, and said to me in a whisper:
+
+'This morning at daybreak I felt so depressed and weak I could scarcely
+get up. I rang for my servant. Juba came. 'What is the matter with me
+this morning?' I asked him. 'Master, nothing more than natural. The hour
+approaches, the moment draws near!' 'What hour? What moment?' 'Don't you
+remember? Heaven allotted sixty years as the term of your existence. You
+were thirty when I began to obey you!' 'Juba,' said I, seriously
+alarmed, 'are you in earnest?' 'Yes, master; in five years you have
+dissipated in glory twenty-five years of life. You gave them to me, they
+belong to me; and those years you bartered away shall now be added to
+the days I have to live.' 'What, was that the price of your services?'
+'Others have paid more dearly for them. You have heard of Fabert: I
+protected him.' 'Silence! silence!' I said to him; 'you lie! you lie!'
+'As you please; but get ready, you have only half an hour to live.' 'You
+are mocking me; you deceive me.' 'Not at all; make the calculation
+yourself. You have really lived thirty-five years; you have lost
+twenty-five years: total, sixty years.' He started to go out.... I felt
+my strength diminishing; I felt my life waning away. 'Juba! Juba!' said
+I, 'give me a few hours, only a few hours,' I screamed; 'oh! give me a
+few hours longer!' 'No, no,' said he, 'that would be to diminish my own
+life, and I know better than you the value of life. There is no treasure
+in this world worth two hours' existence!' I could scarcely speak; my
+eyes became obscured by a thick veil, the icy hand of death began to
+freeze my veins. 'Oh!' said I, making an effort to speak, 'take back
+those estates for which I have sacrificed everything. Give me four hours
+longer, and I make you master of all my gold, of all my wealth, of all
+that opulence of fortune I have so earnestly desired.' 'Agreed: you have
+been a good master, and I am willing to do something for you; I consent
+to your prayer.' I felt my strength return; and I exclaimed: 'Four hours
+are so little ... oh! Juba! ... Juba ... oh! Juba! give me yet four
+hours, and I renounce all my literary glory, all my works, everything
+that has placed me so high in the opinion of the world.' 'Four hours of
+life for that!' exclaimed the negro with contempt.... 'That's a great
+deal; but never mind; you shan't say I refused your last dying request.'
+'Oh! no! no! Juba, don't say my last dying request.... Juba! Juba! I beg
+of you, give me until this evening, give me twelve hours, the whole day,
+and may my exploits, my victories, my military fame, my whole career be
+forever effaced from the memory of men!... may nothing whatever remain
+of them!... if you will give me this day, only to-day, Juba; and I shall
+be too well satisfied.' 'You abuse my generosity,' said he, 'and I am
+making a fool's bargain. But never mind, I give you until sundown. After
+that, ask me for nothing more. Don't forget, after sundown I shall come
+for you!'
+
+'He went away,' added my companion, with a tone of despair I can never
+forget, 'and this is the last day of my life.' He then walked to the
+glazed door looking out on the park (it was open), and he exclaimed:
+
+'Oh God! I shall see no more this beautiful sky, these green lawns,
+these sparkling waters; I shall never again breathe the balmy air of the
+spring! Madman that I was! I might have enjoyed for twenty-five years to
+come these blessings God has showered on all, blessings whose worth I
+knew not, and of which I am beginning to know the value. I have worn out
+my days, I have sacrificed my life for a vain chimera, for a sterile
+glory, which has not made me happy, and which died before me.... See!
+see there!' said he, pointing to some peasants plodding their weary way
+homeward; 'what would I not give to share their labors and their
+poverty!... But I have nothing to give, nothing to hope here below ...
+nothing ... not even misfortune!'... At this moment a sunbeam, a May
+sunbeam, lighted up his pale, haggard features; he took me by the arm
+with a sort of delirium, and said to me:
+
+'See! oh see! how splendid is the sun!... Oh! and I must leave all
+this!... Oh! at the least let me enjoy it now.... Let me taste to the
+full this pure and beautiful day ... whose morrow I shall never see!'
+
+He leaped into the park, and, before I could well comprehend what he was
+doing, he had disappeared down an alley. But, to speak truly, I could
+not have restrained him, even if I would.... I had not now the strength;
+I fell back on the sofa, confounded, stunned, bewildered by all I had
+seen and heard. At length I arose and walked about the room to convince
+myself that I was awake, that I was not dreaming, that....
+
+At this moment the door of the boudoir opened, and a servant announced:
+
+'My master, Monsieur le Duc de C----.'
+
+A gentleman some sixty years old and of a very aristocratic appearance
+came forward, and, taking me by the hand, begged my pardon for having
+kept me so long waiting.
+
+'I was not at the chateau,' said he. 'I have just come from the town,
+where I have been to consult with the physicians about the health of the
+Count de C----, my younger brother.'
+
+'Is he dangerously ill?'
+
+'No, monsieur, thank Heaven, he is not; but in his youth visions of
+glory and of ambition had excited his imagination, and a grave fever,
+from which he has just recovered, and which came near proving fatal, has
+left his head in a state of delirium and insanity, which persuades him
+that he has only one day longer to live. That's his madness.'
+
+Everything was explained to me now!
+
+'Come, my young friend, now let us talk over your business; tell me what
+I can do for your advancement. We will go together to Versailles about
+the end of this month. I will present you at court.'
+
+'I know how kind you are to me, duke, and I have come here to thank you
+for it.'
+
+'What! have you renounced going to court, and to the advantages you may
+reckon on having there?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'But recollect, that aided by me, you will make a rapid progress, and
+that with a little assiduity and patience ... say in ten years.'
+
+'They would be ten years lost!'
+
+'What!' exclaimed the duke with astonishment, 'is that purchasing too
+dearly glory, fortune, and fame?... Silence, my young friend, we will go
+together to Versailles.'
+
+'No, duke, I return to Brittany, and I beg you to accept my thanks and
+those of my family for your kindness.'
+
+'You are mad!' said the duke.
+
+But thinking over what I had heard and seen, I said to myself: 'You are
+the same!'
+
+The next morning I turned my face homeward. With what pleasure I saw
+again my fine chateau de la Roche Bernard, the old trees of my park, and
+the beautiful sun of Brittany! I found again my vassals, my sisters, my
+mother, and happiness, which has never quitted me since, for eight days
+afterward I married Henrietta.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHAINED RIVER.
+
+
+  Home I love, I now must leave thee! Home I love, I now must go
+  Far away, although it grieve me, through the valley, through the snow.
+
+  By the night and through the valley, though the hail against us flies,
+  Till we reach the frozen river--on its bank the foeman lies.
+
+  Frozen river, mighty river!--wilt thou e'er again be free
+  From the fountain through the mountain, from the mountain to the sea.
+
+  Yes; though Freedom's glorious river for a time be frozen fast,
+  Still it cannot hold forever--Winter's reign will soon be past.
+
+  Still it runs, although 'tis frozen--on beneath the icy plain,
+  From the mountain to the ocean--free as thought, though held in chain.
+
+  From the mountain to the ocean, from the ocean to the sky,
+  Then in rainy drops returning--lo the ice-chains burst and fly!
+
+  And the ice makes great the river. Breast the spring-flood if you dare!
+  Rivers run though ice be o'er them--GOD and Freedom everywhere!
+
+
+
+
+HOW THE WAR AFFECTS AMERICANS.
+
+
+At the outbreak of the present terrible civil war, the condition of the
+American people was apparently enviable beyond that of any other nation.
+We say apparently, because the seeds of the rebellion had long been
+germinating; and, to a philosophic eye, the great change destined to
+follow the rebellion was inevitable, though it was then impossible for
+human foresight to predict the steps by which that change would come.
+Unconscious of impending calamity, we were proud of our position and
+character as American citizens. We were free from oppressive taxation,
+and enjoyed unbounded liberty of speech and action. Revelling in the
+fertility of a virgin continent, unexampled in modern times for the
+facilities of cultivation and the richness of its return to human labor,
+it was a national characteristic to felicitate ourselves upon the
+general prosperity, and boastingly to compare our growing resources and
+our unlimited and almost spontaneous abundance, with the hard-earned and
+dearly purchased productions of other and more exhausted countries. Our
+population, swollen by streams of immigration from the crowded
+continents of the old world, has spread over the boundless plains of
+this, with amazing rapidity; and the physical improvements which have
+followed our wonderful expansion have been truly magical in their
+results, as shown by the decennial exhibits of the census, or presented
+in still more palpable form to the eye of the thoughtful and observant
+traveller. Since the fall of the Roman empire, no single government has
+possessed so magnificent a domain in the temperate regions of the globe;
+and certainly, no other people so numerous, intelligent, and powerful,
+has ever in any age of the world enjoyed the same unrestricted freedom
+in the pursuit of happiness: accordingly, none has ever exhibited the
+same extraordinary activity in enterprise, or equal success in the
+creation and accumulation of wealth. It was unfortunately true that our
+mighty energies were mostly employed in the production of physical
+results; and although our youthful, vigorous, and unrestricted efforts
+made these results truly marvellous, yet the moral and intellectual
+basis on which we built was not sufficiently broad and stable to sustain
+the vast superstructure of our prosperity. The foundations having been
+seriously disturbed, it becomes indispensable to look to their permanent
+security, whatever may be the temporary inconvenience arising from the
+necessary destruction of portions of the old fabric.
+
+When the war began, the South was supplying the world with cotton--a
+staple which in modern times has become intimately connected with the
+physical well-being of the whole civilized world. At the same time, the
+Northwest was furnishing to all nations immense quantities of grain and
+animal food, her teeming fields presenting a sure resource against the
+uncertainty of seasons in those regions of the earth in which capital
+must supply the fertility which is still inexhaustible here. While such
+were the occupations of the South and the West, the North and East were
+advancing in the path of mechanical and commercial improvement, with a
+rapidity beyond all former example. Agricultural and manufacturing
+inventions were springing up, full grown, out of the teeming brain of
+the Yankees, and were fast altering the face of the world. New
+combinations of natural forces were appearing as the agents of the human
+will, and were multiplying the physical capacity of man in a ratio that
+seemed to know no bounds. Commercial enterprise kept pace with these
+magnificent creations, and never failed, with liberal and enlightened
+spirit, to avail itself of all the resources which industry produced or
+genius invented. Our tonnage surpassed that of the greatest nations; the
+skill of our shipbuilders was unsurpassed; and the courage, industry,
+and perseverance of our seamen were renowned all over the world. On
+every ocean and in every important harbor of the earth were daily
+visible the emblems of our national power and the evidences of our
+individual prosperity. But in one fatal moment, from a cause which was
+inherent in our moral and political condition, all this prodigious
+activity of thought and work was brought to a complete stand. Such a
+shock was never before experienced, because such a social and material
+momentum had never before been acquired by any nation, and then been
+arrested by so gigantic a calamity. It was as if the earth had been
+suddenly stopped on its axis, and all things on its surface had felt the
+destructive impulse of the centrifugal force.
+
+War itself is, unhappily, no uncommon condition of mankind. Wars on a
+gigantic scale have often heretofore raged among the great nations, or
+even between sundered parts of the same people. It is not the magnitude
+of the present contest which constitutes its greatest peculiarity. It is
+rather the magnitude and importance of the interests it involves and the
+relations it sunders, which give it the tremendous significance it bears
+in the eyes of the world. Never has any war found the contending parties
+engaged in works of such world-wide and absorbing interest, as those
+which occupied both sections of our people at the commencement of this
+rebellion. No two people, connected by so many ties, enjoying such
+unlimited freedom of intercourse, so mutually dependent each upon the
+other, and occupying a country so utterly incapable of natural
+divisions, have ever been known to struggle with each other in so
+sanguinary a conflict. All the circumstances of the case have been
+unexampled in history. Accordingly the influence of the contest upon
+affairs on this continent, and indeed upon human affairs generally, has
+been great and disastrous in proportion to the magnitude of the peaceful
+works which have been suspended by it, and to the closeness of those
+brotherly relations which have heretofore existed between the contending
+parties, now violently broken, and perhaps forever destroyed.
+
+Almost the entire industry and commerce of the United States have been
+diverted into new and unaccustomed channels. The most active and
+enterprising people in the world, in the midst of their varied
+occupations, suddenly find all the accustomed channels of business
+blocked up and the stream of their productions flowing back upon them in
+a disastrous flood, and stagnating in their workshops and storehouses.
+They are compelled to find new issues for their enterprise and to make a
+complete change in their habits and works. It is not merely in the
+cessation of all intercourse between the two vast sections, North and
+South, that this mighty transformation has taken place; but an equal
+alteration has been suddenly effected in the character of the business
+and the nature of the occupations which the people have heretofore
+pursued in the loyal States of the Union. Great branches of business,
+employing millions of capital, have been utterly annihilated or
+indefinitely suspended. Vast amounts of capital have been sunk and
+utterly lost in the deep gulf of separation which temporarily divides
+the States; or if they are ever to be recovered, it will be only after
+the storm shall have completely subsided, when some portions of the
+wrecks, which have been scattered in the fearful commotion, may be
+thrown safely on to the shores of reunion. It was anticipated,
+especially by the rebels themselves, that these incalculable losses,
+these tremendous shocks and sudden changes, would utterly overwhelm the
+North with ruin and tear her to pieces with faction and disorder. But
+this anticipation of accumulated disasters, in which the wish was father
+to the thought, has not been realized to any appreciable extent. The
+pecuniary losses have been in a great measure compensated by the immense
+demands of the war; and when faction has attempted to raise its head, it
+has been compelled to retire before the patriotic rebuke of the people.
+And although the vast expenditures of the war give present relief; by
+drawing largely on the resources of the future, yet the strength we
+acquire is none the less real or less effectual in overthrowing the
+rebellion.
+
+But this sudden and grand emergency, with all its appalling concomitants
+of lives sacrificed, property destroyed, commercial disaster, and social
+derangement, has given a rare opportunity for the testing of our
+national character, and of our ability to meet and overcome the most
+tremendous difficulties and dangers. Perhaps the versatility of American
+genius and its ready adaptation to the new circumstances, are even more
+wonderful than any other exhibition made by our people in this great
+national crisis. There has never been any good reason to doubt the
+capacity of any portion of American citizens for warlike occupations,
+nor their possession of the moral qualities necessary to make them good
+soldiers. The long period of peace which has blessed our country, with
+the industrial, educational, and moral improvement produced by it, has
+rendered war justly distasteful to the Free States of the Union. They
+were slow to recognize the necessity for it; and nothing but the most
+solemn convictions of duty would have aroused them to the stern and
+unanimous determination with which they have entered on the present
+struggle. Swift would have been our degeneration, if the spirit of our
+fathers had already died out among us. But our history of less than a
+century since the Revolutionary war has fully maintained the
+self-reliant character of Americans and demonstrated their military
+abilities; and if the commercial and manufacturing populations of
+particular sections were supposed to have become somewhat enervated by
+long exemption from the labors and perils of war, it was certain that
+our large agricultural regions and especially our frontier settlements
+were peopled with men inured to toil and familiar with danger,
+constituting the best material for armies to be found in any country.
+Nor was it in fact true that any considerable portion of our people,
+even those drawn from the stores and workshops of the cities, had become
+so far deteriorated in vigor of body, or demoralized in spirit, as to be
+unfit for military service. The Southern leaders looked with scorn upon
+our volunteer army only until they encountered it in battle. They were
+then compelled to alter their preconceived opinions of the Yankee
+character, and to change their contempt, real or pretended, into
+respect, if not admiration. Even when superior numbers or better
+strategy enabled them to beat us, they have seldom failed to bear
+honorable testimony to the unflinching courage and endurance of our
+troops. Nor do we need the admissions of the enemy to establish this
+character for us; our own triumphs, on many glorious fields, are the
+best evidences of our ability in war, and of themselves sufficiently
+attest the valor and energy of our noble volunteers. In this aspect of
+the matter, we must not forget the peculiar character and constitution
+of our vast army. It is indeed worthy to be called the wonder of the
+world. It is virtually a voluntary association of the people for the
+purpose of putting down a gigantic rebellion and saving their own
+government from destruction. This is a social phenomenon never before
+known in history on a scale approaching the magnitude of our
+combinations--a phenomenon which could only take place in a popular
+government, where the unrestricted freedom of individual action promotes
+the virtues of personal independence, self-respect, and manly courage.
+Even the Southern people, fighting on their own soil, in a war which,
+though actually commenced by them, they now affect to consider wholly
+defensive--even they, with all their boasted unanimity, and with the
+fierce passions engendered by slavery, have been compelled to maintain
+their armies by a conscription of the most unexampled severity; while
+the loyal States, fighting solely for union and nationality--interests
+of the most general nature, and offering little of mere personal
+inducement--have so far escaped that necessity, and are now just
+preparing to resort to it. After all, it must be acknowledged by every
+just and generous mind, whether that of friend or foe, that there is a
+substratum of noble sentiment and manly impulses at the foundation of
+the Yankee character. The vast movements of the Northern people plainly
+show it. Their contributions for the support of soldiers' families and
+for the relief of the wounded and disabled, are upon a gigantic scale.
+They raise immense sums for the payment of bounties to volunteers, and
+thus, in every way, the burdens of the war are voluntarily assumed by
+the people, and to some extent distributed among them, so that every one
+may participate in the patriotic work. Nor is this large-hearted
+liberality confined solely to our own country. The sufferers in other
+lands, who have felt the disastrous effects of our great civil war, have
+not been forgotten. In the midst of a life-and-death struggle among
+ourselves, we have found time and means to assist in relieving their
+wants--an exhibition of liberality peculiar, and truly American in
+character.
+
+Nor are these the only interesting features in the bearing of the
+American people at the present crisis. Perhaps a still more remarkable
+one is the entire devotion of the national energies--of intellect not
+less than of heart, of skill, not less than of capital--to the great
+purposes of the war. This was the necessary result of our free
+institutions; of our untrammelled pursuits; the mobility of our means
+and agencies of production; and the plastic character of all our
+creations. The amount of thought expended on this subject has been
+prodigious and incalculable. It would be difficult, if not impossible,
+to enumerate the ten thousand inventions and devices of all kinds which
+have been presented for the purpose of increasing the efficiency of
+weapons and of all the appliances of war, as well as for adding to the
+comfort and securing the health of the soldier. Every imaginable
+instrument of usefulness in any of the operations of the camp, or the
+march, or the field of battle, has been the subject of tentative
+ingenuity, such as none but Yankees could display. The musket, the
+carbine, the pistol, have been constructed upon numberless plans,
+apparently with every possible modification. The cartridge has been
+covered with copper, impervious to water, instead of paper, and has its
+own fulminate attached in various modes. Cannon shot and shells have
+been made in many new forms; and cannons themselves have been increased
+in calibre to an extraordinary size with proportionate efficiency, and
+have been constructed in various modes and forms never before conceived.
+The tent, the cot, the chest, the chair, the knife and fork, the stove
+and bakeoven, each and every one of them, have been touched by the
+transforming hand of homely genius, and have assumed a thousand
+unimaginable forms of usefulness and convenience. India rubber and every
+other available material have been made to perform new and appropriate
+parts in the general work. The result of all this unexampled activity
+and ingenuity has not yet been fully eliminated. It would require years
+of experience in war in order to bring American genius, as at present
+developed, to bear with all its extraordinary force on the mechanical
+details of the military art. Beyond doubt, numberless devices, among
+those presented, will prove to be utterly worthless; but many of them
+will certainly stand the test of experience, will be ultimately approved
+and adopted, and will remain as monuments of the enterprise and
+ingenuity aroused by the necessities of the country in this hour of its
+sad calamity.
+
+It would be a curious and interesting employment to estimate the number
+and character of these inventions, due wholly to the existing civil
+strife. Only then should we be able to form some adequate conception of
+the immense stimulus which has been applied to the national intellect,
+and which has caused it to embrace within the boundless range of its
+investigations, the highest moral and political problems, alike with the
+minutest questions of mechanical and economical convenience. But we
+should be greatly disappointed in not finding this phenomenon even
+partially comprehended by the powers that be. It is truly a melancholy
+thing to meet in the highest quarters so little sympathy with the
+noblest efforts of the popular mind, and to witness the cold neglect and
+even disdainful suspicion with which the most useful and valuable
+devices are often received, or rather, we should say, haughtily
+disregarded and rejected. Seldom or never do we find these inventions
+appreciated according to their merits. The Government is proverbially
+slow to adopt improvements of any kind; and the army and navy, like all
+similar professional bodies, are averse to every important change, and
+wedded to the instruments and processes in the use of which they have
+been educated and trained. This peculiar indisposition to progressive
+movements, in all the established institutions and organizations of
+society, has frequently been the subject of remark and of regret. It is,
+however, only an exaggeration of the conservative principle, which, when
+confined within proper limits, is wise and beneficial. Indeed, the
+actual progress of society in any period, is neither more nor less than
+the result of the conflict between the opposite tendencies, of
+retrogradation and advancement--a disposition to adhere to the old,
+which has been tried and approved, and a tendency toward the new, which,
+however promising and alluring, may yet disappoint and mislead. In the
+long run, however, the latter prevails, and the progressive movement,
+more or less rapid, goes on continually. Improvements gradually force
+themselves upon the attention of the most prejudiced minds, and
+eventually conquer opposition in spite of professional immobility and
+aversion to change. Observation has shown that the most important steps
+of progress usually originate outside of the professions, and are only
+adopted when they can no longer be resisted with safety to the
+conservative body. To the volunteer officer and soldier, or to those
+educated soldiers who have long been in civil life, will probably be due
+the greater part of that accessibility to new ideas which will result in
+important advances in the art of war. This assertion may seem to be
+paradoxical; but all experience proves that ignorance of old processes
+is most favorable to the introduction of new ones. And though in a
+thousand instances such ignorance may be disastrous, occasionally it
+finds the unprejudiced intellect illuminated by flashes of original
+genius, and open to the entrance of valuable ideas which would have been
+utterly excluded by all the old and established rules.
+
+But the actual work of the unexampled mental activity of the present
+day, will not be fully known and estimated until after the close of the
+war. Until then there will be neither time nor opportunity to weigh and
+test the creations of the national ingenuity. In the midst of campaigns
+and battles, with the absorbing interest of the great struggle, the
+instruments of warfare cannot be easily changed, however important may
+be the improvement presented. The emergency which arouses genius and
+brings forth valuable inventions, is by no means favorable to their
+adoption and general use. On the contrary, by a sort of fatality which
+seems to be a law of their existence, they are doomed to struggle with
+adversity and fierce opposition, and they are left by the occasion which
+gave them birth as its repudiated offspring--a legacy to the future
+emergency which will cherish and perfect them, make them available, and
+enjoy the full benefit to be derived from them.
+
+The navy has always justly been the pride of our country; and it was to
+be expected that it would first feel the impulse of inventive genius.
+Confident in our strength and resources, we had long remained
+comparatively sluggish, and regardless of those interesting experiments
+which other great maritime powers had been carefully making with a view
+to render ships invulnerable. We looked on quietly, observed the
+results, and waited for the occasion when we should be required to put
+forth our strength in this direction. When the war commenced, we had not
+a single iron-clad vessel of any description. It became necessary that
+the immense Southern coast of our country should be subjected to the
+strictest blockade. This was a work of vast magnitude, and a very large
+and sudden increase of the navy was demanded by the extraordinary
+emergency. Cities were to be taken, and strong fortresses to be
+attacked. The rebels had managed to save some of the vessels intended to
+be destroyed at Norfolk, and had converted the Merrimack into a
+formidable monster, which in due time displayed her destructive powers
+upon our unfortunate fleet in Hampton Roads, in that ever-memorable
+contest in which the Monitor first made her timely appearance. The chief
+result of the vast effort demanded by the perilous situation of our
+country, was the class of vessels of which the partially successful but
+ill-fated Monitor was the type. These structures are certainly very far
+from being perfect as ships of war; nevertheless, they constitute an
+interesting and valuable experiment, and mark an advance in naval
+warfare of the very first importance. They establish the form in which
+defensive armor may perhaps be most effectively disposed for the
+protection of men on board ships; but at the same time, it must be
+conceded that they utterly fail in all the other requisites for
+men-of-war and sea-going vessels. They are deficient in buoyancy and
+speed. In truth they are nothing more than floating batteries, useful in
+the defence of harbors or the attack of forts. The melancholy end of the
+Monitor shows too plainly that vessels of her character cannot be safely
+trusted to the fury of the open sea. They may do well in favorable
+weather, or may escape on a single expedition; but a repetition of long
+voyages will be almost certain to result in their loss.
+
+We want lighter and swifter vessels to be equally formidable in
+ordnance, and alike invulnerable to the attacks of any adversary. To
+combine all these requisites is not beyond the ingenuity of American
+constructors. Most assuredly such vessels will soon make their
+appearance on the ocean. Some new arrangement of the propelling
+apparatus, and lighter and more powerful machinery, will accomplish this
+important end. And then, too, with greatly increased speed, and with a
+construction suitable to the new function, the principle of the ram will
+be perfected; so that the projectile thrown by the most powerful
+ordnance now existing or even conceived will be insignificant compared
+with the momentum of a large steamer, going at the rate of thirty or
+forty miles an hour, and herself becoming the direct instrument of
+destruction to her adversary. Ordnance may possibly be devised which
+will throw shot or shell weighing each a thousand pounds; but by the new
+principle, which is evidently growing in practicability and favor, the
+weight of thousands of tons will be precipitated against vessels of war,
+and naval combats will become a conflict of gigantic forces, in
+comparison with which the discharge of guns and the momentum of cannon
+balls will be little more than the bursting of bubbles.
+
+The exploits of the rebel steamer Alabama, so destructive to our
+commerce and so humiliating to our pride as a great naval power,
+sufficiently attest the vital importance of the element of speed in
+ships of war. Her capacity under steam is beyond that of our best
+vessels, and she therefore becomes, at her pleasure, utterly
+inaccessible to anything we may send to pursue her. We have built our
+steamers strong and heavy; but proportionately slow and clumsy. The
+Alabama could not safely encounter any one of them entitled to the name
+of a regular cruiser; but she does not intend to risk such a contest,
+and, most unfortunately for us, she cannot be compelled to meet it. Of
+what real use are all the costly structures of our navy with the
+tremendous ordnance which they carry, if this comparatively
+insignificant craft can go and come when and where she will, and sail
+through and around our fleets without the possibility of being
+interrupted? They are perfectly well suited to remain stationary and aid
+us in blockading the Southern ports; but the frequent escape of fast
+steamers running the blockade, serves still further to demonstrate the
+great and palpable deficiency in the speed of our ships of war. We may
+start a hundred of our best steamers on the track of the Alabama, and,
+without an accident, they can never overtake her. The only alternative
+is to accept the lesson which her example teaches, and to surpass her in
+those qualities which constitute her efficiency and make her formidable
+as a foe. This we must do, or we must quietly surrender our commerce to
+her infamous depredations, and acknowledge ourselves beaten on the seas
+by the rebel confederacy without an open port, and without anything
+worthy to be called a navy. The ability of our naval heroes, and their
+skill and valor, so nobly illustrated on several occasions during the
+present war, will be utterly unavailing against superior celerity of
+motion. Their just pride must be humbled, and their patriotic hearts
+must chafe with vexation, so long as the terrible rebel rover continues
+to command the seas, as she will not fail to do so long as we are unable
+to cope with her in activity and speed. Nor is it certain we have yet
+known the worst. Ominous appearances abroad, and thick-coming rumors
+brought by every arrival, indicate the construction in England of
+numerous other ships like the Alabama, destined to run the blockade and
+afterward to join that renowned cruiser in her work of destruction.
+Stores of cotton held in Southern ports offer a temptation to the
+cupidity of foreign adventurers which will command capital to any
+amount, and the best skill of English engineers and builders will be
+enlisted to make the enterprise successful--a skill not embarrassed by
+bureaucratic inertia and stolidity.
+
+Let the genius of American constructors and engineers be brought to bear
+on the subject, and the important problem will be solved in sixty days.
+Indeed, there are plans in existence, at this very hour, by which the
+desired end could be at once accomplished. But the inertia of official
+authority, and especially of the bureaus in the Navy Department, is such
+that any novel idea, however demonstrably good and valuable, is usually
+doomed to battle for years against opposition of all kinds before it can
+hope to secure an introduction. In all probability, the war will have
+been ended before anything of great importance ever can be accomplished
+through those channels. The adoption of the Monitor principle was not
+due to the skill and intelligence found in official quarters; it was
+forced upon the Navy Department from the outside. And like the boa
+constrictor, after having swallowed its prey, the Department must
+sluggishly repose until that meal is digested before another can be
+taken. One idea, of the magnitude of this, is enough for the present
+crisis. We shall not have another, if the stubborn resistance and fixity
+of ideas in the bureaus can prevent it. The invulnerability of the
+Monitors, and the peculiar arrangement by which this important end is
+obtained, are but one of the items necessary to make up the complete
+efficiency of war steamers. They are only one half what is required.
+They accomplish one of the great desiderata in armaments afloat; but
+they leave another equally important demand utterly unsatisfied. There
+is a counterpart to this achievement--its complement, equally
+indispensable to the efficiency of the navy, and waiting to be placed by
+the side of the recent improvement. It must and will be brought forth,
+whether the naval authorities assist or oppose. American genius, only
+give it fair play, is equal to all emergencies.
+
+The immense activity of thought and ingenuity elicited by the war, and
+extending to all the departments of enterprise appropriate to the great
+crisis, is a phenomenon peculiar to the American people. It could be
+exhibited nowhere else, to the same extent, among civilized nations,
+because nowhere else is the same stimulus applied with equal directness
+to the popular masses. The operation of this peculiar cause is
+conspicuously plain. The Government of the United States is the people's
+Government; the war is emphatically the people's war. Every man feels
+that he has a personal interest in it. He understands, more or less
+clearly, the whole question involved, and has fixed opinions, and
+perhaps strong feelings, in regard to it. His friends and neighbors and
+brothers are in the army, and they have gone thither voluntarily,
+perhaps impelled by enlightened and conscientious convictions of duty.
+His sympathies follow them; he ardently prays for their success; and he
+is stimulated to provide, as well as he can, for their comfort. All
+other business being greatly interrupted, if not wholly suspended, he
+thinks continuously of the mighty operations of the war. He dwells on
+them night and day, and in the laboratory of his active mind, excited by
+the mighty stimulus of personal and patriotic feeling natural to the
+occasion, he produces those extraordinary combinations which distinguish
+the present era.
+
+In addition to these impulses which operate so generally, there is the
+still more universal and all-pervading love of gain which stimulates his
+inventive faculties, and causes them to operate in the direction in
+which his hopes and sympathies are turned. Aroused by motives of all
+kinds, the whole mind and heart of the country is absorbed in the great
+contest, and all its energies are applied in every conceivable way to
+the work of war. The man who carries the gun and uses it on the battle
+field is not more earnestly engaged in this work than he who racks his
+brain and sifts his teeming ideas for the purpose of making the
+instrument more destructive. Even the victims who fall in the deadly
+strife and give their mangled bodies to their country, are not more
+truly martyrs to a glorious cause than the inventors who sometimes
+sacrifice themselves in the course of their perilous experiments, or by
+the slower process of mental and physical exhaustion during the long
+years of 'hope deferred,' while vainly seeking to make known the value
+of their devices. A great power is at work, operating on the character
+and capacity of each individual, and affecting each according to the
+infinite diversity which prevails among men. A common enthusiasm, or,
+at least, a common excitement pervades the whole community to its
+profoundest depths, and arouses all its energy and all its intellect,
+whatever that energy and intellect may be capable of doing. It carries
+multitudes into the army full of patriotic ardor; it inspires others
+with grand ideas, which they seek to embody in combinations of power,
+useful and effective in the great work which is the task of the nation,
+and for the accomplishment of which all noble hearts are laboring
+earnestly and incessantly.
+
+But in this tempestuous hour, as in more peaceful times, good and bad
+ideas, valuable and worthless devices, noble and generous as well as
+sinister and mercenary purposes are mingled in the vast multitude of
+projects which are presented for acceptance and adoption. The power of
+the nation is magnified by the impulse which arouses it; but in its
+exaltation it still retains its errors and defects. It is the same
+people, with all their characteristic faults and virtues, stimulated to
+mighty exertions in a sacred cause, who have been so often engaged in
+petty partisan contests, swayed by dishonest leaders, and carried astray
+by the base intrigues of ambition and selfishness. Yet, as the masses,
+at all times, have had no interest but that of the nation which they
+chiefly constitute, and have sought nothing but what they at least
+considered to be the public good, so even now, in these mad and perilous
+times, the predominating sentiment and purpose of the people, in
+whatever sphere they move, are, on the whole, good and worthy of
+approval. Every one must at least pretend to be controlled by honest and
+patriotic motives; and in such an emergency hypocrisy cannot possibly be
+universal or even predominant. Although men may seek chiefly their own
+interest and profit, they must do so through some effort of public
+usefulness. They must commend themselves, their works, and ideas, as of
+superior importance to the cause of the country; and in this universal
+struggle and competition--this mighty effervescence of popular thought
+and action, it would be strange and unexampled, if some great, new
+conceptions should not dawn upon us. The very condition, physical,
+social, and moral, of our twenty millions of people in the loyal States
+is unlike all that has ever preceded it. Their general intelligence, the
+result of universal education, makes available their unlimited freedom,
+and establishes their capacity for great achievements. The present
+momentous occasion makes an imperative demand upon all their highest
+faculties, and they cannot fail to respond in a manner which will
+satisfy every just expectation.
+
+What the Government has undertaken in this crisis is worthy of a great
+people and springs from the large ideas habitual to Americans. The
+blockade of the whole Southern coast, with its vast shore line, and its
+intricate network of inlets, harbors, and rivers; the controlling of the
+mighty Mississippi from Cairo to the gulf; the campaigns in Virginia,
+Tennessee, and Arkansas; and the pending attacks on Charleston and
+Savannah--these gigantic and tremendous operations have something of
+that grandeur which is familiar to our thoughts--which, indeed,
+constitutes the staple of the ordinary American speech, apparently
+having all the characteristics of exaggerated jesting and idle boast. We
+frequently hear our enthusiastic countrymen talk of anchoring Great
+Britain in one of our northern lakes. They speak contemptuously of the
+petty jurisdictions of European powers contrasted with the magnificent
+domain of our States, and they sneer at the rivers of the old continent
+as mere rills by the side of the mighty 'father of waters.' The men
+whose very jests are on a scale of such magnitude, do not seem to find
+the extensive military operations too large for their serious thoughts.
+No American considers them beyond our power, or for one moment hesitates
+to admit their ultimate success. No difficulties discourage us, no
+disasters appal. We move on with indomitable will and determination,
+looking through all the obstacles to the grand result as already
+accomplished. Does slavery stand in the way, and cotton seek to usurp
+the throne of universal empire, dictating terms to twenty millions of
+freemen, and demanding the acquiescence of the world? The first is
+annihilated by a word proclaiming universal liberation; the second is
+blockaded in his ports, surrounded by a wall of fire, suffocated and
+strangled, and dragged helpless and insensible from his imaginary
+throne. A proud and desperate aristocracy, rich and powerful, and
+correspondingly confident, undertake to measure strength with the
+democratic millions whom they despise. These Northern people, scorned
+and detested, have ideas--grand and magnificent as well as practical
+ideas, nurtured by universal education and unlimited freedom of thought
+and act. The fierce and relentless aristocracy rave in their very
+madness, and defy the people whom they seek to destroy; but these bear
+down upon the haughty enemy, slowly and deliberately--awkwardly and
+blunderingly, it may be, at first, but learning by experience, and
+moving on, through all vicissitudes, with the certainty and solemnity of
+destiny to the hour of final and complete success. The confidence in
+this grand result dominates every other thought. All ideas and all
+purposes revolve around it as a centre. It is the internal fire which
+warms the patriotism, strengthens the purpose, stimulates the invention,
+sustains the courage, and feeds the undying confidence of the nation, in
+this, the hour of its desperate struggle for existence.
+
+
+
+
+PROMOTED!
+
+
+  '_You_ will not bid me stay!' he said,
+    'She calls for me--my native land!
+  And _stay_? ah, better to be dead!
+    A _coward_ dare not ask your hand!
+
+  'My crimson sash you'll tie for me,
+    My belted sword you'll fasten, love!
+  I swear to both I'll faithful be,
+    To these below! to God above!
+
+  'And if, perchance, my sword shall win
+    A laurel wreath to crown _your_ name,
+  He will not count it as my sin,
+    That I for _you_ have prayed for fame!'
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  His name rings thro' his native land,
+    His sword has won the hero's prize;
+  Why comes he not to ask her hand?
+    Dead on the battle field he lies.
+
+
+
+
+HENRIETTA AND VULCAN.
+
+
+Time, O well beloved, floweth by like a river; sweepeth on by turreted
+castles and dainty boat-houses, great old forests and ruined cities.
+Tender, cool-eyed lilies fringe its rippling shores, straggling arms of
+longing seaweeds are unceasingly wooing and losing its flying waves; and
+on its purple bosom by night, linger merrily hosts of dancing stars.
+Bright under its limpid waters gleam the towers of many a 'sunken city.'
+Strong and clear through the night-silence of eager listening, ring the
+chimes of their far-off bells, the echoes of joyous laughter: and to
+waiting, yearning ones come, ever and anon, deep glances from gleaming
+eyes, warm graspings from outstretched hands. And well windeth the river
+into grim old caves, and even the merriest boat that King Cole ever
+launched flitteth by the dark doors, intent only on the brilliant
+_chateaux_, that shimmer above in the gorgeous sunlight of a brave
+_Espagne_. But laughing imps, with flying feet, venture singly into
+these realms of the Unknown. Bright streameth the light there from
+carbuncles and glowing rubies; but of the melodies that there bewilder
+them, no returning voice ever speaketh, for are they not Eleusinian
+mysteries? But when thou meetest, O brother, sailing down the stream
+under gay flags and rounding sails, some Hogarth or some Sterne, who
+playeth _rouge et noir_ with keen old Pharaohs, and battledore with
+Charlie Buff; who singeth brave _Libiamos_, and despiseth not the
+Christmas plums of Johnny Horner; who payeth graceful court to the great
+and learned, and warmeth the pale hearts of the shivering poor with his
+kind cheer and gentle words; who sitteth with Socrates and Pericles at
+the feet of an ever-lovely Aspasia, and whispereth _capricios_ to Anna
+Maria at the opera; know then, O beloved, if thou hast ever trodden the
+mystic halls, that this man is the brother of thy soul! Selah!
+
+But the bravest stream that ever was born on a mountain side has its
+shoals and quicksands, and far out in the sounding sea rise slowly coral
+reefs. Now, if on every green, growing isle newly rising to the
+sunlight, the glorious jealousy of some Jove should toss a Vulcan, how
+would our Venuses be suddenly charmed by the beauties of a South Sea
+Scheme! how would their tiny shallops dot the curling waves, and what
+new flowers would spring upon the smiling shores to greet their rosy
+feet!
+
+'And why a Vulcan?' says the elegant Narcissus Hare, with a shiver; 'a
+great, grim, solemn, limping monster, that Brummel would have spurned in
+disgust! And he to win our ladies with their delicate loveliness! Faugh,
+sir! are you a Cyclops yourself?'
+
+Alas! my Tinkler, do you remember that Salmasius began his vituperations
+of Milton with gratuitous speculations upon his supposed ugliness, and
+that great was his grief when he was assured that he contended with an
+ideal of beauty. Have you forgotten that the Antinoeus won the
+distinguished favor of his merry, courteous queen Christina, and that
+the satirist and man of 'taste' died of obscurity in a year? Beware, my
+little Narcissus, lest the next autumn flowers bloom above your grave in
+Greenwood, and your fair Luline be accepting bouquets and _bonbons_ from
+me.
+
+You, Roland, are pale from the very contemplation of such a catastrophe,
+such an unprecedented _haegira_ of dames! It is as if from every gay
+watering place, some softly tinkling bell should summon the fair
+mermaids. Beplaided and betrowsered, with their little gypsy hats, would
+they float out beyond the breakers, waving aside with farewell, airy
+kisses, the patent life boats and the magical preservers, and pressing
+on, like Gebers, with their rosy faces and great, hopeful eyes ever
+laughingly, merrily turned to the golden east--their _Morgen Land_!
+
+Ah! but--have we no Vulcans among us? 'Fair Bertha, Beatrice, Alys,'
+come out of the Christmas ecstatics of the dear old year that has just
+streamed out like a meteor among the stars;--_you_ know, fair ones, that
+the stars are only years, and the planets grave old centuries; lock away
+the jewels and the lace sets--charming, I know--the glove boxes and the
+statuettes, the cream-leaved books, and the fragile, graceful
+_babioles_; pull up the cushions, and group your bright selves around
+the register--it's very cold to-day, you roses--and let us settle the
+question--have we a Vulcan among us?
+
+Magnificent essayists, O dearly beloved, have handled 'Our Husbands,'
+'Our Wives,' 'Our Sons' and 'Our Daughters' in a masterly style. Very
+praiseworthy, no doubt, but so unromantic! Why, there's not a green leaf
+in the whole collection! The style is decidedly Egyptian, solid and
+expressive, but dreadfully compact. No arabesques, those offshoots of
+lazy, dreamy hours and pleasantly disconnected thoughts, disgrace the
+solemnly even tenor of these fathers of 'Ephemeral Literature,' as some
+'rude Iconoclast' has irreverently styled the butterfly journeyings of
+our magazine age. But we, O merry souls and brave, are still young and
+frivolous: we still look at pictures with as much zest as before our
+dimly remembered teens; and we belong to that happy branch of the
+Scribbleri family, that prefer the sympathy of bright eyes and gay
+laughter, to the approving shake of any D'Orsay's 'ambrosial curls,' or
+the most unqualified smile from the grimmest old champion who even now
+votes in his secret heart against the New Tariff, or charges with
+unparalleled bravery imaginary or windmill giants on the floor of a
+Platform or of a Legislature.
+
+But this, our paper, purporteth to be, in some wise, a disquisition on
+Beaux, and, by our faith, we had well-nigh forgotten it. _Retournons a
+nos moutons_, as the ancient lawyers used to say (and many a tyro, in
+the interim, hath said the same) when they grew so entangled in the
+mazes of Jack Shepherd cases that they lost sight of their original
+designs. And lest I should grow wearisomely prosaic, and see the yawn
+behind your white hand, _belle_ Beatrice, let me make my disquisition a
+half story, and point my moral, not as fairies do, with a pinch, but
+with the shadow of a tale.
+
+And here, _signorina_, though in courage I am a Caesar, here I shrink.
+The birdseye view I would take of a few leaves of beau-dom, should be
+from the standing point of your own unquiet, peering eyes; and if even
+Cupid is blindfold, how may I, to whom you are all tormentingly
+delicious enigmas, hope in my own unaided strength to enter the charmed
+citadel of your experiences? Oh, no! But happy is the man, who, with an
+inquiring mind, has also a sister! Thrice happy he whose sisters have
+just now flitted down the staircase, from their own inner sanctuaries,
+into the little library, bearing with them in noisy triumph the Harry of
+all Goodfellows, the truant Henrietta Ruyter! Ah! she is the key that
+will unlock for me those treasures of thought and observation that I
+will shortly lay before you, O readers!
+
+And now to you, O much-traduced star, that presided at my _debut_ into
+this vale of tears, may the most glorious rocket ascend that Jackson
+ever said or sung, one that shall break out in paeans of brilliant
+stars!--_for_, when I entered the charmed presence, the very ball that I
+had been wishing to roll was upon the carpet. But of this I was
+unconscious as I admired Fanny's new dress, the mysterious earrings of
+our stately Bertha, and ventured upon a slight compliment to Henrietta,
+who lounged upon the divan. With admirable dexterity, the young lady
+caught the _fleurette_ upon her crochet needle, reviewed it carelessly,
+and finally decided to accept it; an event that I had undoubtedly
+foreseen, for the compliment was a graceful and artistic one. But
+brothers, as you, Gustav, my boy, have long since discovered, are not
+events, and I was presently consigned to the 'elephant chair' in the
+corner, with a portfolio of sketches that Henrietta had brought from
+over the sea--and the dames continued, in charming obliviousness of my
+presence.
+
+'Girls,' said Henrietta, having deposited my compliment snugly in her
+little workbasket, whence it may issue to the delectation of some future
+young lady group, 'how are you going to entertain me? Such a Wandering
+Jew as I am! A perfect Ahasuerus! _What_ a novelty it will be that will
+interest _me_!' and with a most laughingly wearied air, the pretty
+eyebrows were raised, and waves of weariness floated over the golden
+hair in its scarlet net.
+
+Fanny looked concerned. 'We may have a week of opera.'
+
+'I've been--in--Milan,' returned Henrietta, with a well-counterfeited
+air of the disdain with which Mrs. De Lancy Stevens views all republican
+institutions since her year in Europe. Bertha laughed.
+
+'You have grown literary, astronomical perhaps, with your star gazing,
+and Len has become such a Mitchellite of late, that two shelves of his
+bookcase are filled with works on the heavenly bodies. What a rapture
+you will be in at the sight!'
+
+'Quite an Aquinas,' said Henrietta, with gravity.
+
+'How so, Harry,' asked Fanny, after a pause, during which she had been
+deciding that her friend meant--Galileo!
+
+'Oh, he wrote about angels, you know; said these heavenly bodies were
+made of thick clouds, and some other nonsense, of which I remember
+nothing.'
+
+I, in my corner, was devoutly thankful that angels now assume more
+tangible shapes, which chivalric sentiment, finding expression only in
+my eyes, was recognized but by Henrietta, who rewarded me with a
+lightning smile.
+
+'Bertha, my queen,' continued she, as that lady's serene countenance
+beamed upon her in apparently immovable calmness, '_does_ anything ever
+arouse you? Have you forgotten, my impenetrable spirit, the sad days of
+yore, when we sobbed out grand _arias_ to the wretched accompaniment of
+Professor Tirili, blistered our young fingers on guitar strings, waded
+unprofitably in oceans of Locke and Bacon, and were oftener at the apex
+of a triangle than its comfortable base? And you always as calm as
+though 'sailing over summer seas!' Come--I am absolutely blue;' and the
+half-fretful belle, who had really exhausted her strength and amiability
+by a grand pedestrian tour in the Central Park that morning, stretched
+out demurely her gaiter boots, and drew with an invisible pencil on
+imaginary paper, the outline of her boldly arched instep.
+
+'If Landon would only come,' sighed Fanny, musingly, counting the beads
+for the eye of the Polyphemus she was embroidering on a cushion for that
+gentleman's sofa meditations, 'he would entertain you, as well as
+the--one--two--three--witches in Macbeth.'
+
+'No doubt of it,' said Henrietta.
+
+'Five blues and two blacks,' said Fanny, not heeding the reply. 'See,
+girls,' and she held up the glittering orb, 'what a lovely eye!'
+
+The enthusiasm of her audience was delirious but subdued. I caught an
+occasional '_Such_ a love!' 'How sweet--how fierce!'
+
+'Now,' said Henrietta, decidedly, 'if Medusa had but one eye, and this
+dear creature two, I should die as miserably as the lady who loved the
+Apollo Belvidere. I have had _oceans_ of knights errant--but _such_! I
+think of writing a natural history like--Cuvier.'
+
+'Yes,' said Bertha, quietly, 'or Peter Parley.'
+
+'Suppose I read you the advance sheets some morning?'
+
+'Charming,' said Fanny, with a little shrug of approaching delight.
+
+'Mr. Landon Snowe, Miss Fanny,' said a crusty voice, and from under a
+tower of white turban, Sibyl's face looked out--at the door.
+
+'We will see him here, Sibyl,' said Fanny, brightly; 'and oh, Sibyl, ask
+Mott to make a macaroon custard for dinner, for Miss Ruyter.'
+
+'Excellent,' said that lady, again with the De Lancy Stevens air, 'I
+ate--those--in--Paris. They actually flavor them there with _Haut
+Brion!_ and they are delicious!' and Henrietta's lips fairly quivered at
+the remembrance, that was by no means a recollection of the long-ago
+enjoyed dainties.
+
+'Such extravagance!' said Fanny, opening her eyes, and arranging sundry
+little points in her attitude that were intended to be very piercing
+indeed to the gentleman, whose step was now heard in the hall. 'Such
+extravagance, Harry! Your father, I suppose. You'll get nothing better
+than Port here. Good morning, Mr. Snowe.'
+
+'Talking of ports, ladies,' said that gentleman, airily, after he had
+prostrated himself, figuratively as well as disfiguratively, before Miss
+Henrietta, bowed over Bertha's hand, and drew his chair to Fanny's
+sewing stand, for the triple purpose of confusing her zephyrs, flirting
+at a side table, and ascertaining whether Henrietta had fulfilled the
+luxuriant promise of her earlier youth. Snowe was, womanly speaking, as
+you will see, 'a perfect love of a man.' 'Newport, for example, and
+charming drives? Williamsport and the Susquehanna, Miss Fanny?'
+
+Very statesmanly, O Landon G. Snowe, Esq., both the glance beneath which
+my poor little sister's eyes fell, and the allusions twain to the scenes
+of many a pleasure past. But Fanny, though not mistress of her blushes,
+can, at least, control her words.
+
+'You are not a very good Oedipus, Mr. Snowe; we were discussing
+imports.'
+
+'Such as laces and silks?'--
+
+'And punch,' suggested Henrietta.
+
+Mr. Snowe's eyeglass was here freshly adjusted, and his attention
+bestowed upon the young lady who talked of punch, a thing unheard of in
+society! The prospect was refreshing. Henrietta was stylish, piquant,
+and pretty. Fanny was uncertain, indifferent, but, for the moment,
+divine. He magnanimously sacrificed himself to the impulse of the
+moment, and the courtesies of hospitality, and walked courageously over
+to Henrietta, under cover of a huge book.
+
+'They were views from the White Mountains, he believed. Had Miss Ruyter
+seen them? Allow him;' and he wheeled her sofa nearer the table, and
+unfurled the book. Henrietta was charmed.
+
+'The Schwartz Mountains? She had not understood. These are glaciers? How
+they glisten! And these little flowers below are violets? Such pretty,
+modest, ladylike flowers. Had Mr. Snowe a favorite among flowers?'
+
+Mr. Snowe was prepared. He had answered the question exactly five
+hundred and ten times. To Cecilia Lanner, who was almost a _religieuse_,
+and who wore her diamond cross from principle, he was the very poet of a
+passion flower, such holy mysteries as its opening petals disclosed to
+him! To Lucy Grey, who wore pensive curls, and had a sweet voice, he
+presented constantly fragrant little sprays of mignonette, cunning moss
+baskets with a suspicion of heliotrope peeping out, and crushed myrtle
+blossoms between the leaves of her most exquisitely bound books. To Katy
+Lessing, who rowed a small green boat somewhere up the Hudson in the
+summer, he confided the fact that water lilies were his admiration: he
+loved the limpid water; its restless waves were like heart throbbings
+(this nearly overwhelmed poor Katy). All great and noble souls loved the
+water;--he forgot the sacred fakirs, and the noble lord who preferred
+Malmsey wine! He had repeatedly assured Regina Ward that the camelia was
+_his_ flower, so proudly beautiful! His soul was 'permeated with
+loveliness,' and asked no fragrance. Regina is a great white creature,
+lovely to behold, and, perfectly conscious of her perfection, no more
+actively charming than the Ino of Foley. He won Milly White's favor by
+applauding her love for wild flowers, declaring that a field of
+buttercups reminded him of the 'spangled heavens,' and that on summer
+days he was constantly envying the cool little Jacks in their green
+pulpits.
+
+A pretended Lavater--and there have been such--would have convicted
+Snowe at once of the most artful penetration, could he have seen the
+lowering curve of his brows as he watched the nervous fluttering of
+Henrietta's hands over the pictures, and the decided but softly pleasant
+rounding of her white chin. But it was the general unconsciously
+powerful indifference of manner, that advised him to prefer, in reply to
+her question:
+
+'The snapdragon, yes, beyond the shadow of a doubt. I have an odd
+fashion (very odd, Gustav!), Miss Ruyter, of associating ladies with
+flowers, and that gorgeous three-bird snapdragon always looks to me like
+some brilliant belle, who holds her glittering sceptre and wields it,
+capriciously perhaps, but always charmingly.'
+
+'A sort of Helen,' observed Henrietta, calmly.
+
+'A witching, arbitrary, lovely Helen,' promptly returned Snowe, who had
+a vague idea of Greek helmets and golden apples, wooden horses, a great
+war, and 'all for love.'
+
+Henrietta heard the magnificent vagueness, and became so intently
+interested in a view, that Snowe came softly over to my window, and
+looked into the garden. Lilly Brennan coming in just then, the
+conversation became general, and presently Snowe accompanied her down
+the street.
+
+'Fanny,' said Henrietta, with an inquisitorial air, after the girls had
+decided that the slides on the bows of Lilly's dress were too small, and
+that her 'Bird of Paradise' was lovely enough to fly away with them all,
+'Fanny, are you the 'bright, particular star' of that man?'
+
+'I believe so,' said Fanny, with a stare.
+
+'Do you intend to beam on him for any length of time?' persisted
+Henrietta.
+
+'I haven't decided,' said Fan, honestly. 'I love beauty, and Landon
+Snowe is magnificent.'
+
+'So is the Venus de Medicis,' said Henrietta, fiercely; 'but look at her
+spine! What sort of a brain do you think _could_ flourish at the top of
+such a spine? Not that I suppose that man to have the least fragment of
+one; don't suspect such a thing! Don't you observe his weak, disjointed
+way of carrying his head, and the Pisan appearance of his sentences? I
+should dread an earthquake for such a man as Mr. Snowe--you'd have
+nothing but remnants to remember him by, Fanny.'
+
+'But earthquakes _are_ phenomena,' said Fanny, stoutly, 'and I'm not in
+the least like one. As long as Landon never fails except spiritually, I
+am contented--and even in that light _I_ never knew him to trip,' and
+the child was as indignant as her indolent nature would permit.
+
+'Trip! of course not,' echoed Henrietta, 'when he's buried like a
+delicate Sphinx up to his shoulders in the sands of your good opinion,
+and the mummy cloths of his own conceit; but just remove these, and
+you'll see a downfall. My dear FRANCESCA, this man is your CECCO, and
+he'd far better retire into a monastery than hope to win you. Why, I'd
+rather marry you myself, FRANCESCA! Such charms!' and Henrietta, with
+her own delicate perception and enjoyment of the beautiful, kissed my
+sister's deprecatingly extended hand, and, as the dinner bell rang,
+waltzed her out of the room.
+
+'It's perfectly bewildering the interest some people take in music,' she
+resumed later, building a little tent on the side of her plate with the
+_debris_ of fish. 'There's Bartlett Browning, telling me the other
+evening a melancholy story of some melodious fishes, off the coast
+of--_Weiss nicht wo_; oysters, I suppose; conceive of it! the most
+phlegmatic of creatures. I suppose some poor fisherman heard a merlady
+singing in her green halls, and fancied it the death song of some of his
+shells. But that's nothing to some of Bartlett Browning's musical tales.
+The man's a perfect B flat himself!'
+
+'Well,' said Nelly, Phil's little girl, who had come around to show her
+new velvet basque, 'but shells _do_ sing, for I've often listened to
+mamma's, and Bessy gives it to me at night to put me to sleep. _You_
+know, Aunt Bertie, for you once made me learn what it said:
+
+  'Oh, sweet and far, from cliff and scar,
+    The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!'
+
+'Fish-land, my beauty,' said Henrietta, playfully; 'let us hear _your_
+song, fishlet,' and she held a little gleaming shrimp by his tail, and
+looked expectantly at his silent mouth. And here I remember, with a
+smile of amusement and some astonishment, that Herman Melville, in
+nervous fear of ridicule, apologized, most gracefully, of course, for
+his beauteous Fayaway's primitive mode of carving a fish; but I fancy I
+hear myself, or you either, sir, begging the community to shut its dear
+eyes, while Harry's little victim, all unconscious of his fate,
+disappeared behind the walls, coral and white, of her lips and teeth.
+
+Oh, isn't it perfectly delicious to meet a real, frank, merry, wise sort
+of a girl, who doesn't wear spectacles or blue stockings, nor disdain
+the Lancers or a new frock with nineteen flounces? Just fancy it,
+Gustav, my dear fellow, chatting with the Venus of Milo, in a New York
+dining room, and she all done up in blue poplin, with cords and tassels
+and all that, with that lovely hair tumbling about in a scarlet net, and
+such a splendid enjoyment of her own great grace, and royal claiming of
+homage! Eating mashed potatoes too, and celery, and roast beef, to keep
+up that magnificent physique of hers! Oh, it's rare!
+
+But Henrietta couldn't forget Snowe, any more than Snowe could forget
+himself; so, after she had gazed with delight at the red veins of wine
+that threaded the jelly-like custard, with its imprisoned macaroons,
+looking like gold fish asleep in a globe of sun-dyed water, she went on,
+as if the conversation had not been interrupted:
+
+'Do you know, Fan, that he reminds me constantly of champagne. If
+there's anything on earth or in a cellar that I do detest, its
+champagne; such smiling, brilliant-looking impudence, that comes out
+fizz--bang! and that's the end of it; there's not so much as the quaver
+of an echo. You drink it, and instead of seeing cool vineyards and
+purple waters and cataracts of icicles in your glass, you find a pale,
+gaunt spectre, or a poor, half-drowned Bacchus, staring at you. It's
+just so with your Landon Snowe. You, and other people, too, have a
+_habit_ of admiring him, a great creature with eyes of milky blue, who
+goes about disbursing his small coin like some old Aladdin! Why, my dear
+children, the man, I don't doubt, is this moment congratulating himself,
+in his solitude at Delmonico's, upon his great penetration. Didn't you
+see him studying me with a great flourish of deference, and throwing
+his old, three-birded snapdragons into my White Mountains? If he had
+been as ugly as a Scarron, now, and had known what he said, I could have
+loved him for that, for, of all things, I do delight in dragons! Such
+sieges as I have had at zoological gardens and menageries, from Dan to
+Beersheba, just to see one; and ugly old lizards have been pointed out
+to me, and scorpions, and every imaginable object but a dragon. But one
+day I dug a splendid old manuscript--a perfect fossil--out of some old
+library in Spezia, and opening it, by the merest chance came upon a most
+lovely, illuminated, full-grown dragon, the very one, I suppose, that
+Confucius couldn't find! I gazed in raptures, my dearest; he perfectly
+sparkled with emeralds; his eyes were the most luminous opals. Dear,
+happy old Indians, who had their dragons at the four corners of the
+earth, and could go and look over at the lordly creatures whenever they
+felt melancholy. And besides, I have a little private system of
+dragonology of my own, that approaches the equator more nearly. I've
+always worn opals since that day on every possible occasion; I mean to
+be married in them.'
+
+Hurra! _belle Henriette!_ thou hast a weakness. At the end of a long
+aisle, shrouded in sumptuously colored perfumed light, stands an altar,
+and white surplices gleam through the effulgence.--Thou queen! and that
+thy crowning!
+
+'Len,' said Fanny the next morning, as I sat, after breakfast, over the
+paper, 'don't you think Harry is a little, just a little, satirical,
+and--well--not _perfectly_ ladylike and kind, to talk so dreadfully of
+one's friends?'
+
+'Satirical!? Bless your little, tender heart, not the least mite in the
+world; she's quite too straightforward for that. Unladylike! Why, my
+dear Fanny, don't you know 'the wounds of a friend'? Did you never
+think, little sister, that some girls are sent into the world to perform
+the office of crumb-scrapers for your serene highnesses, and themselves
+as well?'
+
+'Like a lady, who gives a dinner party, jumping up and brushing off her
+own table,' said Fanny with an amused laugh.
+
+'Just so, dear; and as they go wandering about, not a fragment can be
+omitted. Now, a little dwarf of a thing like you couldn't do that with
+any grace; but Harry _could_, you know, and make everybody think it was
+charming. So, if fragments of poor Snowe fall under her unsparing hand,
+and she brushes them off carelessly, don't let anybody's tears go
+rolling after, don't let anybody's heart ache, for such a trifle; think
+of the dessert, Fanny, that is sure to follow.'
+
+'Then you too, Len, you _want_ me to give up Landon?'
+
+'Yes, my dear, let Landon--slide.'
+
+Fanny here boxed my ears with emphasis, and retreated, with an
+expression of great disgust on her pretty face.
+
+'Come back here, my child,' I said, pulling her down on my knee, 'and
+let me reason with you.'
+
+Such an oracle as I am with the girls! There's nothing like it, Gustav;
+for every fan or bracelet you give your sisters, you'll be amply
+rewarded by revelations and love; and it's something to have a dear,
+white, undulating wreath of a girl in your arms, and rosy lips on yours,
+even if it is your sister. Bless the sweet creatures!
+
+'What do you want to marry Snowe for?'
+
+'Well, you see, Len, it's so grand to have such a great beauty always at
+one's hand, and the girls are all dying for him; and, you know, Len, the
+truth is,' (very low,) 'he loves me, as you see, and--we girls are such
+silly creatures--and I suppose the compliment pleases me,' and the
+frank, darling face crimsoned, and tears stood in the blue eyes. I
+kissed them both, and laid her hands on my shoulders.
+
+'Pet,' I said, earnestly, 'you are worth a gross of Landon Snowes. He
+loves you, of course--he'd have been an icicle to have failed in so
+obvious a duty; but it's only a matter of pure admiration, scarcely of
+any complicated feelings. Besides, dear, these whitewashed, sinewless,
+variable fellows fade like the winter sun, without any twilight; their
+features go wandering off in search of becoming expressions, and they
+would want a wife like a chameleon to satiate their variety-loving
+natures. No, dear; give Landon to Henrietta, and when Napoleon comes
+back, I will enter no protest, even Harry will be silent, and'--
+
+'Oh, Len, what nonsense! couldn't you recommend me to the man in the
+moon, through a telescope?'
+
+Fanny laughed, and we went again into the library, where Harry, as
+usual, was tapping her rings with the carved handle of the crotchet
+needle, that was as ornamental, and about as useful, as Cleopatra's.
+
+'I am going to live in a new country,' said she, gravely, as we entered
+the room; 'I would go sailing off like a squirrel on a piece of bark. I
+begin to have intense yearnings after my double. _Where_ do you suppose
+I'm to find him, the gorgeous, tropical anomaly?'
+
+'In Pompeii, or the Cities of the Plain?' I suggested.
+
+'Fanny,' she continued, laughingly, 'is very grave about her vanishing
+Snowe-flakes; but for poor me, who have been persecuted by the most
+distressing men, she has no pity. Girls, I promised you an inventory of
+these treasures.'
+
+'Oh yes,' said Fan, gleefully; 'go out, Len, or you will never be able
+to endure Harry afterward, for your counterpart will be peeping out, and
+then woe to your pride!'
+
+'No danger,' said Henrietta, '_that's_ perfectly invulnerable. Lenox may
+remain; it will be a wholesome discipline for him--a warning, you know,
+my hero; although, girls, Lenox is tolerably faultless,
+
+  'Little _he_ loves but a Frau or a feast,
+   Little he fears but a protest or priest.'
+
+Praed altered. Sit down, disciple, at my feet if you will; I am in the
+oratorical mood to-day. Hypatia, if you please, _not_ Grace the Less.'
+
+There was a pretty picture of the _Immaculee Conception_ over the sofa,
+one of those lithographs that you see in every bookstore, that Bertha
+fancied because it was 'sweet.' The Virgin, a woman with a child-angel's
+face, and the mezzo-luna beneath her feet. That artist knew what he was
+about, sir. I'd give more for a picture with a good, deep idea, boldly
+launched forth, than for a thousand of your smiling, proper, natural
+'studies,' and Bridal Scenes, and Dramatic or Historical Snatches. If
+artists, now, were all poets and scholars, as they should be, it would
+be the work and delirious rapture of a life to go through a gallery as
+large as our Dusseldorf. Men would go there to write novels and
+histories, and women to learn to be good and beautiful--that is, to
+learn to think. Oh, what a school for great and small! But when is this
+new era of the real and the true in art to begin? You boy artists, who
+are just opening glad eyes to the glorious light, the great world looks
+to _you_ to inaugurate the new, to pour ancient lore and mystic symbols
+and grand old art into the waiting crucible, and melt the whole, with
+your burning, creative genius, into forms and conceptions before which,
+hearts shall be silent in very rapture. But the time is not yet. One
+here and there cannot change the Iron to a Golden Age, and it is to
+thoughts rather than their great embodiments that earnest
+art-worshippers now bow. And yet men fancy they are artists, dream of a
+fame glorious as that of Phidias! Why there's young Acajou, who
+chiselled a very respectable hound out of a stray lump of marble,
+stealthily, by a candle, or more probably a spirit lamp, in his father's
+cellar--was discovered and straightway heroized. I don't say the boy
+hasn't talent, genius if you will; but it isn't the genius that will
+overflow his soul and etherealize his whole nature. Yet already he
+'progresses like a giantess,' has attracted some attention in the
+Academy, and will directly be sent to Rome. But the idea! I know him too
+well! The other night I heard him criticizing Michael Angelo! and when I
+gave him an engraving of that delicious Psyche of Theed's to admire, the
+creature talked as if she were a manikin or a robed skeleton! Is there
+nothing due to the idea, Acajou? 'The idea!' dear me, why he didn't
+exactly know what the _idea_ was! So he'll go trolling about the Louvre
+and the Luxembourg gallery, the Pitti palace and all Rome, and his mind
+will be as full of elbows and collar bones as the catacombs; he'll talk
+to you of the Grecian line of beauty and of 'pose,' and sketch you such
+a glorious arm or ankle that you, fair lady, wouldn't know it from your
+own! But do you see a single softened line in his own face? Has he ever
+drunk deep draughts from old fountains of poesy? Has he ever thought of
+the Vatican library--even though to long is all he may do? Oh no! He
+says mythology is a wornout dream, and insulting to a Christian age;
+that it's all well enough to know Jupiter and Bacchus (Silenus too?) and
+Venus and the head men back there, but this century wants originality,
+progress! Oh, pshaw!
+
+Oh, but I was saying that Our Lady stood over the half moon, and
+Henrietta sat below it, with that soft cashmere morning dress, fighting
+all around her to see which fold should cling most lovingly to her
+graceful form. It was all a delicious poem to me, and if I were Horace,
+you would have had a splendid ode. Oh, well!
+
+'Why, what a Joseph he is!' said Henrietta, waking me out of this
+reverie.
+
+'Oh,' said I, starting, 'how did you know that?'
+
+'Only conjecture, my dear friend; but when we see a man with his eyes
+fixed in that ghostly way, and his mustaches and all in perfect repose,
+we reasonably imagine that he's seeing visions; and I suppose you'll
+come flaming out presently with some dreams that shall have, for remote
+consequences, a throne in some Eastern paradise, and a princess,
+perhaps--who knows?'
+
+'Who knows?' echoed I; 'but go on, Hypatia.'
+
+'Oh yes! where shall I begin? Oh! there is Penhurst Lane, girls, you
+remember?'
+
+'The raven?' said Bertha.
+
+'No,' said Fanny, 'that is Mr. Rawdon. Penhurst Lane is an idealist.'
+
+'A _very_ idealist, just so,' returned Harry. 'Well, the way I've been a
+martyr to that man's caprice is perfectly heart-rending. He came of some
+gorgeous family in the middle of Pennsylvania, where all the tribes,
+like leaning towers, incline toward Germany. To be sure, you'd never
+dream it from his looks, for he is a perfect Mark Antony in that
+respect. You needn't laugh. Didn't he have _bonnes fortunes_ as well as
+Alcibiades? Not that Penhurst had _bonnes fortunes_, or ever dreamed of
+such things; but he always had such a proclivity toward any one who
+would listen to his harangues; and I must say, just _inter nos_ (the
+only bit of Latin I know, Lenox, I got it from the English 'Don
+Giovanni'), that I have quite a talent for listening well. But I'd as
+lief encounter a West India hurricane or a simoom. I used to feel him
+coming an hour beforehand. Then I would read a little in Blair, take a
+peep at Sir Charles Grandison, swallow half a page of Cowper's 'Task,'
+and look over the Grecian and Roman heroes; then I was fortified. 'Why
+didn't I take Shelley?' Oh my! why, he couldn't endure Shelley, said he
+was a poor, weak creature, _all gone to imagination_! Then I would
+assume a Sontag and thick boots, if the weather was cold, to appear
+sensible, you know, and await his coming; that is, if I didn't become
+exasperated before that stage, and rush in to see Lil Brennan to avoid
+him. And his opinions, such an unfolding! You never caught him looking
+with admiration, oh no! I might have laid a wilderness of charms on the
+floor, at his very feet, and he would have brushed them all away with
+indifference. His mind revolved around a weightier theme than any 'lady
+of fashion;' like a newly discovered moon, he flew around the earth, and
+with miraculous speed. He stopped in China to say 'Confucius;' in India,
+to say 'Brahma;' in Persia, to say 'Ormuzd;' and so on around. My dear
+Lenox, if you had asked him whether Ormuzd was at peace with all the
+world, he would have retired into himself, for he hadn't the faintest
+idea. As for music, or any fine art, he never approached it but once,
+when he led me to the piano, begging for some native American melody,
+and not a German romance. Well, I played him 'God save the Queen,' with
+extravagant variations, which he took for 'Yankee Doodle.' No matter! I
+made a mistake when I spoke of his opinions; he hadn't any. He was what
+some call 'well read,' that is, he had a distant desire to 'improve his
+mind,' but his magnificent self so filled his little vision, that his
+great desire was obscured and distorted. Like my beloved Jean Paul, he
+had once said to himself, _Ich bin ein Ich_ (I am a ME), and the noble
+consciousness overwhelmed him, and excluded all after thoughts on any
+minor subject. He never heard Grisi, never saw Rachel; they were
+triflers, 'life was too grave, too short;' but he escorted me
+occasionally to lectures and orations. I remember two or three of these.
+A lecture on the 'Fossils of Humanity and Primeval Formations,' which
+was unintelligible, consequently to him 'sublime;' one on 'the Exalted,'
+that soared out of sight and beyond the empire of gravity, and one on
+'Architecture,' by Dr. Vinton, a splendid production, the fruit and
+evidence of years of study and rare talent, that sent me home with
+longings and unaccustomed reverence for the Great in every form, and
+with grief that my own ignorance rendered it only a half-enjoyed
+pleasure to me; while Penhurst talked as if it were only the echo of his
+own thoughts; pretended to say it was very 'sensible!' But you've had
+enough of Mr. Lane, who was never known to laugh except at his own wit,
+who patronized me because I was a 'solid' young lady, and not given to
+flights. You may readily imagine that our interviews were generally
+_tete-a-tetes_, for general society was to him a thing 'stale, flat, and
+unprofitable.' Of course you know I only endured his visits because
+among the girls it was considered a compliment to receive them, and they
+were all dying of envy. Besides and principally, it is neither politic
+nor pleasant to offend any one, and I could not have denied myself to
+him, without doing this; so'--
+
+'But, Harry, he is married now.'
+
+'Ah me! yes. He saw me in a cap and bells once with you, Lenox, and not
+many weeks afterward married a damsel who reveres him as a Solon, this
+man, who said:
+
+         ----'The wanderings
+  Of this most intricate Universe
+  Teach me the nothingness of things.
+  Yet could not all creation pierce
+  Beyond the bottom of his eye.'
+
+'_Are_ you done, Harry?'
+
+'Yes, Lenox.'
+
+'Then sing us Beranger's _Grace a la feve, je suis roi_.'
+
+She has such a delicious voice.
+
+'And while I am on tiresome people, who think only of themselves, let me
+recall P. George Rawdon; the Raven, Bertha; I always believed his first
+name was Pluto, because of the shades around him. They say every one has
+a text book; his was neither the Bible, the Prayer Book, Thomas a
+Kempis, _La Nouvelle Heloise_, or 'Queechy,' but Mrs. Crowe's 'Night
+Side of Nature.' Talk of having a skeleton in the house! the most
+distressing ones that ever preceded Douglas and Sherwood's were nothing
+to him! he reminded one constantly of an Egyptian feast. He looked
+sadly at children, and gave little Henry Parsons, his godchild, a
+miniature dagger with a jewelled handle, with which the child nearly
+destroyed his right hand. When poor Mary was married, he walked
+mournfully up to the altar, and stared during the ceremony unmistakably
+at an imaginary coffin, hanging, like Mohammed's, midway between the
+ceiling and the floor. Poor man, it's really curious, but he contrives
+to be always in mourning, and everybody knows that he goes only to see
+tragedies, and has the dyspepsia, like Regina and her diamond cross,
+from principle. He composes epitaphs for all the ladies of his
+acquaintance, and presents them, like newspaper-carrier addresses, on
+New Year's days. I have one in my writing desk in a very secret drawer;
+a _soul_-cheering effusion, but not particularly agreeable to the
+physical humanity. This I intend to bequeath to the British museum,
+where it will be in future ages as great a treat to the antiquary as the
+Elgin marbles. What a doleful subject--pass him by!'
+
+'Don't forget Leon Channing,' suggested Fanny, who was listening with
+great interest, and from a natural dread of ghosts and vampires was glad
+to see that Mr. Rawdon had come to a crisis.
+
+'Dear me, no!' said Henrietta, cheerily, 'it's quite refreshing to come
+to an individual who creates a smile. I never was born for tears and
+lamentations, Bertha, any more than a lily was made to be merry; and if
+it were not for Len Channing, I don't suppose I should ever have been
+sharpened to such a dangerous degree; it's this constant friction, you
+know; well, as some darling of a cosmopolite has said, 'We must allow
+for friction in the most perfect machinery--yes, be glad to find it--for
+a certain degree of resistance is essential to strength. I like Leon
+very well. No one is more safe in a parlor engagement, always in the
+right place at the right tune, never embarrassed, never _de trop_; but
+then the queer consciousness, when he's giving you a meringue or an ice,
+that if you were a 'real pretty,' graceful, conversible fawn or dove he
+would be doing it with the same interest! _Why?_ Oh, because he says
+women belong to a lower order in the animal creation! Yes, veil your
+face, Mr. Lenox Raleigh, and be mournful that you are a man! 'A lower
+order of humanity!' Well, of course, I'm always quarrelling with him. To
+be sure he's a shallow kind of a philosopher, one of your rationalists;
+thinks Boston is the linchpin of the whole universe; has autograph
+letters from Emerson and Longfellow, and all that sort of thing. Now, I
+dare say it's very fine for a Schelling or a Hegel once in a while to
+beam over the earth, but it always seems inharmonious to me to see
+little jets of philosophers popping up in your face and then down again,
+all the time, thinking themselves great things. That's the way with
+Leon. Let me tell you what happened when I saw him last; and that was in
+Cologne, more than a year ago. I was sitting in our room with a great
+folio of Retzsch's engravings before me, and father writing horrible
+notes in his journal at the table, and wishing the eleven thousand
+virgins and all Cologne in the bottom of the Rhine, when I looked up,
+and somehow there was Leon. Of course we were rejoiced to see him, it's
+always so pleasant to meet friends abroad. After some talk, father went
+out to take another look at the cathedral, and indulge in speculations
+and legends, and left Leon and me in the window. It's as queer and
+horrible an old town, girls, as you ever dreamed of, and, as there was
+nothing external very fascinating, Leon soon turned his gaze inward,
+and, after twanging several minor strings, began to harp on his endless
+'inferiority of woman.' I plied him, you may know; I gave him Zenobias
+and Didos and de Staels and de Medicis--in an emergency Pope Joan, and
+finally the Boston Margaret Fuller. Leon only stroked his beard and
+smiled.
+
+''Miss Henrietta,' said he, at last, when I stopped in exultation, 'do
+you grant the Africans the vigor or variety of intellect of the
+Europeans?'
+
+''No,' said I.
+
+''Yet you concede that there may be instances among them, where
+education and culture have developed great results.'
+
+''Yes,' I thought, 'there might be.'
+
+''Just as I, bewildered by Miss Henrietta's keen shafts and graceful
+manoeuvres, yield that a woman is, once in a century, gifted with a
+man's depth of thought and her sex's loveliness.' The comparison was
+odious. What did I do? Oh, I (the swarthy Ethiop) only rose from my
+faded arm chair, saluted Mr. Channing (the lordly European) as if I were
+his partner in a quadrille, and brought out my cameos and mosaics to
+show him. In about half an hour the beauty of his reasoning and
+comparison reached his brain, but mine was impenetrable to his most
+honeyed apologies; as I very sweetly assured him, 'I couldn't
+understand, didn't see the drift, couldn't connect the links.' Leon says
+ancient history is a fable, and Herodotus a myth, and all because a
+_woman_ sat upon the tripod at Delphi, and because a _woman_ wore the
+helmet and carried the shield of wisdom.'
+
+'What's the matter, Harry?' asked Fanny, compassionately, as her small
+fingers were stretched like infant grid-irons before her eyes, and a
+silence ensued.
+
+'My new bonnet, Fanny dear, I am wondering what it shall be; we must go
+down this very morning and decide.'
+
+Did you ever think, Narcissus, and you, Gustav, and all of you boys,
+when you are engaged in your small diplomacies and _coups de main_, and
+feeling like giants in intellect beside the dear little girls who play
+polkas for you of evenings and sing sweet ballads, that _pour bien juger
+les grands, il faut les approcher_? I thought so that morning, as I
+heard the animated discussion that succeeded Henrietta's monologue; a
+discussion into which all sorts of delicate conceits of lace and flowers
+entered largely, and which savored about as much of the preceding
+elements as last night's Charlotte Russe of this morning's coffee.
+
+Since Henrietta's oration, I am more than ever afraid of a Vulcan. It is
+very plain that our most fashionably cut suits and most delicately
+perfumed billets are not all powerful,--that the dear creatures are
+either waking or we have been asleep. _Reveillons!_
+
+'_Aux armes, citoyens!_'
+
+Now, while I was writing that last word, a heavy hand was laid on my
+shoulder, and looking up, I saw--Nap. I love Nap. I have a girlish
+weakness (let some lady arraign me for this hereafter) for him; so I
+shouted out and grasped his hands.
+
+'How are the boys?'
+
+'Flourishing. Come to stay?
+
+'Yes, old fellow.'
+
+'Stocks up?'
+
+'To the sky.'
+
+'The governor?'
+
+'All right.'
+
+_I_ haven't any governor. Nap has; and one that saw fit to persecute him
+from twenty to thirty, because he declined to take 'orders.' _Per
+Bacco!_ Never mind, a fit of paralysis has shaken the opposition out of
+the old gentleman at last, and Nap is in sunshine in consequence, and
+rushes around Wall street like a veteran.
+
+But I didn't promise to tell you about Nap, or the girls either; it was
+only a few rays of light I had to dash over 'our beaux;' so where is
+your mother, belle Beatrice? I must make my adieux.
+
+What say you, little one? You like Henrietta; you want to see her again?
+You pull me back with your wee white hands; I will talk to you for an
+hour longer, if I may hold the little kittens in my own. I may? And kiss
+each finger afterward? Ah! you dear child! Well, then--
+
+'Are you going to Van Wyck's to-night, Lenox?' asked Bertha of me, as we
+rose from dinner, a month afterward.
+
+'Yes, after the opera. And you? I fancy--yes--from your eyes.'
+
+Bertha did not answer, and I strolled up stairs into the little back
+drawing room. From the library above I could hear Fanny's merry voice
+and the ring of Nap's cheery replies. Such a comfort as it was to me to
+see those two so fond of each other. You see I am, in a way, Fanny's
+father, and took no very great credit to myself when she half laid her
+hand in the extended one of Snowe. How curiously that witch Harry
+managed the thing, though! Dear little Fan; she stood in more than one
+twilight by the garden window, and whispered over: '_Addio_, FRANCESCA!
+_addio_, CECCO!' and Snowe faded in the returning spring of her heart,
+and into the blooming vista of their separation, hopefully walked Nap,
+and was welcomed with many smiles.
+
+This afternoon, I walked over to the garden window, and there was Harry,
+scrawling an old, bearded hermit on the glass with her diamond ring. We
+both looked out--nothing much to see--a New York garden, thirty feet
+square, with the usual gorgeousness of our winter flowers!
+
+'You are thinking of Shiraz, Harry.'
+
+'Yes,' said she, dreamily, 'I am thinking of Shiraz!'
+
+She didn't say it, but don't you suppose I knew just as well that she
+was wishing for her Vulcan and a great rose garden? I began to sing the
+'Last Man,' but didn't succeed admirably; then I lighted my pipe--Harry
+didn't mind, you know, indeed she only looked at it wishfully.
+
+'In my rose garden,' said she, with a laugh, 'I shall smoke to kill the
+rosebugs.'
+
+'Don't wait,' said I, taking down a dainty _ecume de mer_ (the back
+drawing room was my peculiar 'study,' and the repository of several
+gentlemanly 'improprieties'), and I adjusted the amber mouth piece to
+the cherry stem, 'Don't wait for Persia, make your rose garden here.'
+
+Harry shook her head: 'You know, Len,' she said, 'that my roses would
+grow like so many witches in a Puritan soil. I always thought that story
+of the Norwegians' taking rosebuds for bulbs of fire, and being
+terrified, was a very delicate and poetical satire upon _all_
+superstition.'
+
+'Are you going to wash away _all_ superstition?' I asked hastily.
+
+'No,' said she, with a smile at my fierceness; 'no, I like to see the
+sun shine on the dew drops that the webs catch and swing between the
+tops of the grasses.'
+
+I looked at her as she laid her head back against the curtains. My
+nonchalance was as striking as hers, and--as genuine! We were no
+children to be awkward in any event. I took her hand; it was a glowing
+pulse--and mine? She wore one of those curious little cabal rings; there
+were the Hebrew characters for Faith, traced as with a gold pen dipped
+in melted pearls on black enamel. My seal was an emerald, Faith also,
+impaled. I snatched it up and laid it by the ring on her hand. She
+smiled--such a smile! intensest sympathy, deepest! Could it be? to love
+the same old symbols, the same weird music? I caught her close, and bent
+over her lips. The gold hair waved over my shoulder; the great,
+glittering eyes foamed into mine, then melted and swam into deep,
+quivering seas of dreams. I whispered, '_Zoe mou!_' Oh, the quick,
+golden whisper, the flash of genial heartiness, the daring--oh, _how_
+tender! '_Sas agapo._' I held her off, radiant, glowing, fragrant, and
+Bertha's dress rustled up the stairs.
+
+Henrietta stooped to pick up the seal, which had fallen; she balanced it
+on the tip of her finger--the nervy Titan queen! and drew Bertha down by
+her side on the sofa. It was growing dark.
+
+'I must be off, girls, and get your camelias. What will you have,
+Bertha? a red or a white, you've a moment to decide?'
+
+'Neither, Len; I do not go.'
+
+'Why, Bertha? Oh! I remember, it is your anniversary,' and I kissed her.
+
+'And you, princess!' I turned to Henrietta.
+
+'Only roses, good my liege.'
+
+What was the opera that night? Pshaw! what a rhetorical affectation this
+question! as if I could ever forget! _Die Zauberfloete_, and it rang pure
+and clear through my thrilled heart. It followed me around to Van
+Wyck's, where I found Henrietta and Fanny. A compliment to madame, a
+German with mademoiselle, and home again. A great light streamed out of
+the drawing room. I pushed the door open. With a cry of joy, Fan rushed
+into the arms of the grave, fair man who put Bertha off his knee to
+welcome her. Nap, who had followed us in, for a moment stood transfixed,
+and Henrietta, more quiet, stood by their side, saying: 'Here is Harry,
+Fred, when you choose to see her.' And he did choose, her own brother,
+whom she had not seen for three years!
+
+'Come in, Nap,' I said. 'Fred Ruyter.'
+
+'Nap and Fanny,' I whispered; Fred smiled invisibly.
+
+And Bertha? Oh, you know, of course, that she's Bertha Ruyter, and that
+Fred is her husband, just home from six months in Rio, and exactly a
+year from his wedding night! Oh, Lionardo! what mellow, transparent,
+flowing shades drowned us all that night!
+
+'Harry,' I said, the next morning, before I went down town, as I lounged
+over her sofa, 'you have my emerald?'
+
+'Yes!' and her bright face turned up to mine.
+
+'You will keep it, and take me also, dear?'
+
+'_Ma foi! oui_,' was the sweet, smiling reply.
+
+'I'm not quite ugly enough for a Vulcan, I know; but after a while, if
+you are patient, who knows? What sayest thou, Venus?'
+
+'I will try you, _bon camarade_.'
+
+'Your hand upon it, Harry.'
+
+She gave it; I kissed the gold hair that waved against my lips. Fanny
+rushed impetuously upon us, with half-opened eyes, and stifled us with
+caresses.
+
+'Such a proposal,' said she musingly, after she had returned to her
+wools and beads, '14 deg. above zero!'
+
+'And the Polyphemus, Fanny?'
+
+'Is for Nap,' and Fanny blushed and laughed. She was wondering if that
+great event, an 'engagement,' always came about in so prosaic a way. But
+looking at Bertha, I caught the bright, long, gravely humorous gleam
+from her dark eyes, and walked upon it all the way down to Exchange
+Place.
+
+Adieu, little Beatrice; my story hath at last an ending. Keep the little
+hands and little heart warm for somebody brave by and by. Go shining
+about and dancing, and smiling, Hummingbird; may sweetest flowers always
+bloom around you; may you dwell in a fragrant rose garden of your own,
+_mignonne_! Adieu.
+
+
+
+
+ETHEL.
+
+FITZ FASHION'S WIFE.
+
+
+  Take the diamonds from my forehead--their chill weight but frets my brow!
+  How they glitter! radiant, faultless--but they give no pleasure now.
+
+  Once they might have saved a Poet, o'er whose bed the violet waves:
+  Now their lustre chills my spirit, like the light from new-made graves.
+
+  Quick! unbind the braided tresses of my coroneted hair!
+  Let it fall in single ringlets such as I was wont to wear.
+
+  Take that wreath of dewy violets, twine it round their golden flow;
+  Let the perfumed purple blossoms fall upon my brow of snow!
+
+  Simple flowers, ye gently lead me back into the sunny years,
+  Ere I wore proud chains of diamonds, forged of bitter, frozen tears!
+
+  Bring the silver mirror to me! I am changed since those bright days,
+  When I lived with my sweet mother, and a Poet sang my praise.
+
+  My blue eyes are larger, dimmer; thicker lashes veil their light;
+  Upon my cheek the crimson rose fast is fading to the white.
+
+  I am taller, statelier, slighter, than I was in days of yore:--
+  If his eyes in heaven behold me, does he praise me as before?
+
+  Proudly swells the silken rustle--all around is wealth and state,--
+  Dearer far the early roses twining round the wicker gate,
+
+  Where my mother came at evening with the saint-like forehead pale,
+  And the Poet sat beside her, conning o'er his rhythmed tale.
+
+  As he read the linked lines over, she would sanction, disapprove:
+  Soft and musical the pages, but he never sang of love.
+
+  I had lived through sixteen summers, he was only twenty-one,
+  And we three still sat together at the hour of setting sun.
+
+  Lowly was the forest cottage, but the sweetbrier wreathed it well;
+  'Mid its violets and roses, bees and robins loved to dwell.
+
+  Wilder forms of larch and hemlock climbed the mountain at its side;
+  Fairy-like a rill came leaping where the quivering harebells sighed.
+
+  Glittering, bounding, singing, dancing, ferns and mosses loved its track;
+  Lower in it dipped the willows, as to kiss the cloudland's rack.
+
+  Soon there came a stately lover,--praised my beauty, softly smiled:
+  'He would make my mother happy,'--I was but a silly child!
+
+  Came a dream of sudden power--fairest visions o'er me glide--
+  Wider spheres would open for me;--dazzled, I became a bride:
+
+  Fondly deemed my lonely mother would be freed from sordid care;
+  Splendor I might pour around her, every joy with her might share.
+
+  Then the Poet, who had never breathed one word of love to me,--
+  We might shape his life-course for him, give him culture wide and free.
+
+  How I longed to turn the pages, with a husband's hand as guide,
+  Of the long-past golden ages, art and science at my side!
+
+  To my simple fancy seemed it almost everything he knew--
+  Ah! he might have won affection, faithful, fervent, trusting, true!
+
+  I was happy, never dreaming wealth congeals the human soul,
+  Freezing all its generous impulse--I but saw its wide control.
+
+  Years have passed--a larger culture poured strange knowledge through
+    my mind--
+  I have learned to read man's nature: better I were ever blind!
+
+  How can I take upon me what I look upon with scorn,
+  Or learn to brook my own contempt, or trample the forlorn?
+
+  I cannot live by rote and rule; I was not born a slave
+  To narrow fancies; I must feel, although a husband rave!
+
+  I cannot choose my friends because I know them rich, or great;
+  My heart elects the noble,--what cares love for wealth or state?
+
+  Very lovely are my pictures, saints and angels throng my hall--
+  But with shame my cheek is flushing, and my quivering lashes fall:
+
+  Can I gaze on pictured actions, daring deeds, and emprise high,
+  And not feel my degradation while these fetters round me lie?
+
+  Once the Poet came to see me, but it gave me nought but pain;
+  I was glad to see the Gifted go, ne'er to return again.
+
+  For my husband scorning told me: 'True, his lines were very sweet,
+  But his clothes, so worn and seedy--scarce for me acquaintance meet!
+
+  Artists, poets, men of genius, truly should be better paid,
+  But not holding our position, cannot be our friends,' he said.
+
+  'As gentlemen to meet them were a very curious thing;
+  They were happier in their garrets--there let them sigh or sing.
+
+  There were Travers and De Courcy--could he ask them home to dine,
+  At the risk of meeting truly such strange fellows o'er their wine?'
+
+  Then he said, 'My cheeks were peachy, lips were coral, curls were gold,
+  But he liked them braided crown-like, and with pearls and diamonds
+    rolled.
+
+  I was once a little peasant; now I stood a jewelled queen--
+  Fitter that a calmer presence in his stately wife were seen!'
+
+  Then he gave a gorgeous card-case; set with rubies, Roman gold,
+  Handed me a paper with it, strands of pearls around it rolled;
+
+  Names of all his wife should visit I would find upon the roll:--
+  Found I none I loved within it--not one friend upon the scroll!
+
+  And my mother, God forgive me! I was glad to see her go,
+  Ere the current of her loving heart had turned like mine to snow.
+
+  Must I still seem fair and stately, choking down my bosom's strife,
+  Because 'all deep emotions were unseemly in his wife'?
+
+  Must I gasp 'neath diamonds' glitter--walk in lustrous silken sheen--
+  Leaving those I love in anguish while I play some haughty scene?
+
+  I am choking! closer round me crowds convention's stifling vault--
+  Every meanness's called a virtue--every virtue deemed a fault!
+
+  Every generous thought is scandal; every noble deed is crime;
+  Every feeling's wrapped in fiction, and truth only lives in rhyme!
+
+  No;--I am not fashion's minion,--I am not convention's slave!
+  If 'obedience is for woman,' still she has a soul to save.
+
+  Must I share their haughty falsehood, take my part in social guile,
+  Cut my dearest friends, and stab them with a false, deceitful smile?
+
+  Creeping like a serpent through me, faint, I feel a deadly chill,
+  Freezing all the good within me, icy fetters chain my will.
+
+  Do I grow like those around me? will I learn to bear my part
+  In this glittering world of fashion, taming down a woman's heart?
+
+  Must I lower to my husband? is it duty to abate
+  All the higher instincts in me, till I grow his fitting mate?
+
+  Shall I muse on noble pictures, turn the poet's stirring page,
+  And grow base and mean in action, petty with a petty age?
+
+  I am heart-sick, weary, weary! tell me not that this life,
+  Where all that's truly living must be pruned by fashion's knife!--
+
+  I can make my own existence--spurn his gifts, and use my hands,
+  Though the senseless world of fashion for the deed my memory brands.
+
+  Quick! unbraid the heavy tresses of my coroneted hair--
+  Let its gold fall in _free_ ringlets such as I was wont to wear.
+
+  I am going back to nature. I no more will school my heart
+  To stifle its best feelings, play an idle puppet's part.
+
+  I will seek my banished mother, nestle closely on her breast;
+  Noble, faithful, kind, and loving, there the tortured one may rest.
+
+  We will turn the Poets' pages, learn the noblest deeds to act,
+  Till the fictions in their beauty shall be lived as simple fact.
+
+  I will mould a living statue, make it generous, strong, and high,
+  Humble, meek, self-abnegating, formed to meet the Master's eye.
+
+  Oh, the glow of earnest culture! Oh, the joy of sacrifice!
+  The delight to help another! o'er all selfish thoughts to rise!
+
+  Farewell, cold and haughty splendor--how you chilled me when a bride!
+  Hollow all your mental efforts; meanness all your dazzling pride!
+
+  Put the diamonds in their caskets! pearls and rubies, place them there!
+  I shall never sigh to wear them with the violets in my hair.
+
+  Freedom! with no eye upon me freezing all my fiery soul;
+  Free to follow nature's dictates; free from all save God's control.
+
+  I am going to the cottage, with its windows small and low,
+  Where the sweetbrier twines its roses and the Guelder rose its snow.
+
+  I will climb the thymy mountains where the pines in sturdy might
+  Follow nature's holy bidding, growing ever to the light;
+
+  Tracking down the leaping streamlet till the willows on it rise,
+  Watch its broad and faithful bosom strive to mirror back the skies.
+
+  Through the wicker gate at evening with my mother I will come,
+  With a little book, the Poet's, to read low at set of sun.
+
+  'Tis a gloomy, broken record of a love poured forth in death,
+  Generous, holy, and devoted, sung with panting, dying breath.
+
+  By the grassy mound we'll read it where he calmly sleeps in God,--
+  My gushing tears may stream above--they cannot pierce the sod!
+
+  Hand in hand we'll sit together by the lowly mossy grave--
+  Oh, God! I blazed with jewels, but the noble dared not save!
+
+  I am going to the cottage, there to sculpture my own soul,
+  Till it fill the high ideal of the Poet's glowing roll.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Stay, lovely dream! I waken! hear the clanking of my chain!
+  Feel a hopeless vow is on me--I can ne'er be free again!
+
+  His wife! I've sworn it truly! I must bear his freezing eye,
+  Feel his blighting breath upon me while all nobler instincts die!
+
+  Feel the Evil gain upon me as the weary moments glide,
+  Till I hiss, a jewelled serpent, fit companion, at his side.
+
+  Vain is struggle--vain is writhing--vain are sobs and stifled gasps--
+  I must wear my brilliant fetters though my life-blood stain their clasps!
+
+  Hark! he calls! tear out the violets! quick! the diamonds in my hair!
+  There's a ball to-night at Travers'--'tis his will I should be there.
+
+  Splendid victim in his pageant, though my tortured head should ache,
+  Yet I must be brilliant, joyous, if my throbbing heart should break!
+
+  I shudder! quick! my dress of rose, my tunic of point lace--
+  If fine enough, he will not read the anguish in my face!
+
+  I know one place he dare not look--it is so still and deep--
+  He dare not lift the winding sheet that veils my last, long sleep!
+
+  He dreads the dead! the coffin lid will shield me from his breath--
+  His eye no more will torture----Joy! I shall be free in death!
+
+  Free to rest beside the Poet. He will shun the lowly grave:
+  There my mother soon will join us, and the violets o'er us wave.
+
+
+
+
+THE SKEPTICS OF THE WAVERLEY NOVELS.
+
+
+It is remarkable that while, in a republic, which is the mildest form of
+government, respect for law and order are most highly developed, there
+is in an aristocracy (which is always the most deeply based form of
+tyranny) a constant revolt against all law. Puritanism in England,
+Pietism in Germany, and Huguenotism in France, were all directly and
+strongly republican and law-abiding in their social relations; while for
+an example of the contrary we need only glance at our own South.
+Aristocracy--a regularly ordered system of society into ranks--is the
+dream of the slaveholder, and experience is showing us how extremely
+difficult it is to uproot the power of a very few wicked men who have
+fairly mudsilled the majority; and yet, despite this strength, there was
+never yet a country claiming to be civilized, in which the wild caprices
+and armed outrages of the individual were regarded with such toleration.
+
+_Republicanism is Christian._ When will the world see this tremendous
+truth as it should, and realize that as there is a present and a future,
+so did the Saviour lay down one law whereby man might progress in this
+life, and another for the attainment of happiness in the next, and that
+the two are mutually sustaining? There was no real republicanism before
+the Gospels, and there has been no real addition to the doctrine since.
+The instant that religion or any great law of truth falls into the hands
+of a high caste, and puts on its livery, it becomes--ridiculous. What
+think you of a shepherd's crook of gold blazing with diamonds?
+
+It is interesting to trace an excellent illustration of the natural
+affinity between the fondness for feudalism and the love of law-breaking
+in Sir WALTER SCOTT. Whatever his head and his natural common sense
+dictated (and as he was a canny Scot and a shrewd observer, they
+dictated many wise truths), his heart was always with the men of bow and
+brand; with dashing robbers, moss troopers, duellists, wild-eagle
+barons, wild-wolf borderers, and the whole farrago of autocratic
+scoundrelism. With his soul devoted to dreams of feudalism, his fond
+love of its romance was principally based on the constant infractions of
+law and order to which a state of society must always be subject in
+which certain men acquire power out of proportion to their integrity.
+The result of this always is a lurking sympathy with rascality, a secret
+relish for bold selfishness, which is in every community the deadliest
+poison of the rights of the poor, and all the disinherited by fortune.
+
+It is very remarkable that Walter Scott, a Tory to the soul, should, by
+his apparently contradictory yet still most consistent love of the
+_outre_, have had a keen amateur sympathy for outlaws. It is much more
+remarkable, however, that, still retaining his faith in king and nobles,
+Church and State, he should have pushed his appreciation of such men to
+the degree of marvellously comprehending--nay, enjoying--certain types
+of skepticism which sprang up in fiercest opposition to authority; urged
+into existence by its abuses, as germs of plants have been thought to be
+electrified into life by sharp blows. And it is most remarkable of all,
+that he did this at a time when none among his English readers seem to
+have had any comprehension whatever of these characters, or to have
+surmised the fact that to merely understand and depict them, the writer
+must have ventured into fearful depths of reflection and of study. In
+treating these characters, Walter Scott seems to become positively
+_subjective_--and I will venture to say that it is the only instance of
+the slightest approach to anything of the kind to be found in all his
+writings. Unlike Byron, who was painfully conscious, not of the nature
+of his want in this respect, but of _something_ wanting, Scott nowhere
+else betrays the slightest consciousness of his continual life under
+limitations, when, _plump!_ we find him making a headlong leap right
+into the very centre of that terrible pool whose waters feed the
+forbidden-fruit tree of good and of evil.
+
+The characters to which I particularly refer in Sir Walter Scott's
+novels are those of the Templar, Brian de Bois Guilbert, in 'Ivanhoe;'
+of the gypsy Hayraddin Maugrabin in 'Quentin Durward;' of Dryfesdale,
+the steward, in 'The Abbot;' and of the 'leech' Henbane Dwining, in 'The
+Fair Maid of Perth.' There are several others which more or less
+resemble these, as, for instance, Ranald Mac Eagh, the Child of the
+Mist, in 'Montrose,' and Rashleigh, in 'Rob Roy;' but the latter,
+considered by themselves, are only partly developed. In fact, if Scott
+had given to the world only _one_ of these outlaws of faith, there would
+have been but little ground for inferring that his mind had ever taken
+so daring a range as I venture to claim for him. It is in his constant,
+wistful return, in one form or the other, to that terrible type of
+humanity--the man who, as a matter of intensely sincere faith, has freed
+himself from all adherence to the laws of man or GOD--that we find the
+clue to the _real_ nature of the author's extraordinary sympathy for the
+most daring, yet most subtle example of the law-breaker. In comparing
+these characters carefully, we find that each by contrast appears far
+more perfect than when separate--as the bone, which, however excellent
+its state of preservation may be, never seems to the eye of the
+physiologist so complete as when in its place in the complete skeleton.
+And through this contrast we learn that Scott, having by sympathy and
+historical-romantic study, comprehended the lost secret of all
+_illuminee_ mysteries--that of human dependence on nought save the laws
+of a mysterious and terrible Nature--could not refrain from ever and
+anon whispering the royal secret, though it were only to the rustling
+reeds and rushes of fashionable novels. Having learned, though in an
+illegitimate way, that the friend of PAN, the great king of the golden
+touch, had ass's ears, he _must_ tell it again, though in murmurs and
+whispers:
+
+             'Qui cum ne prodere visum
+  Dedecus auderet, cupiens efferre sub auras,
+  Nec posset reticere tamen, secedit, humumque
+  Effodit: et domini quales aspexerit aures,
+  Vox refert parva; terraeque immurmurat haustae.'[10]
+
+It is to be remarked, in studying collectively these outlaws as set
+forth by Scott, that while the same characteristic lies at the basis of
+each, there is very great variety in its development, and that the
+author seems to have striven to present it in as many widely differing
+phases as he was capable of doing. When we reflect that Scott himself
+could not be fairly said to be perfectly _at home_ in more than half a
+dozen departments of history, and yet that he has taken pains to set
+forth as many historical varieties of minds absolutely emancipated from
+all faith, and finally, when we recall that at the time when he wrote,
+the great proportion of the characteristics of these _dramatis personae_
+were utterly unappreciated, and that by even the learned they were
+simply reviewed as 'infidels,' we cannot but smile at the care with
+which (like the sculptor in the old story) he carved his images, and
+buried them to be dug up at a future day by men who, as he possibly
+hoped, would appreciate more fully than did his contemporaries his own
+degree of forbidden knowledge. I certainly do not exaggerate the
+importance of these characters when speaking in this manner. They could
+not have been conceived without a very great expenditure of study and of
+reflection. They are, as I said, subjective, and such portraits of
+humanity always involve a vastly greater amount of penetrative and
+long-continued thought, than do the mere historical and social
+photographs which constitute the bulk of Scott's, as of all novels, and
+form the favorites of the mass of readers for entertainment.
+
+First among these characters, and most important as indicating direct
+historical familiarity with the obscure subject of the Oriental heresies
+of the Middle Ages in Europe, I would place that of the Templar, Brian
+de Bois Guilbert, who is generally regarded by readers as simply 'a
+horrid creature,' who chased 'that darling Rebecca' out of the window to
+the verge of the parapet; or at best as a knightly ruffian, who, like
+most ruffianly sinners, quieted conscience by stifling it with doubt.
+Very different, however, did the Templar appear to Scott himself, who,
+notwithstanding the poetic justice meted to the knight, evidently
+sympathized in secret more warmly with him than with any other character
+in the gorgeous company of 'Ivanhoe.' Among them all he is the only one
+who fully and fairly appreciates the intellect of Rebecca, and, seen
+from the stand-point of rigid historical probability which Scott would
+not violate, _all allowance being made for what the Templar was_, he
+appears by far the noblest and most intelligent of all the knightly
+throng. I say that though a favorite, Scott would not to favor him,
+violate historical probability. Why should he? It formed no part of his
+plan to give the public of his day lessons in _illuminee_-ism. Had he
+done so he would have failed like 'George Sand' in 'Consuelo;' but a
+very small proportion indeed of whose readers retain a recollection of
+the doctrines which it is the main object of the book to set forth. I
+trust there is no slander in the remark, but I _must_ believe it to be
+true until I see that the majority of the readers of that work have also
+taken to zealously investigating the sources of that most forbidden
+lore, which has most certainly this peculiarity, that no one can
+_comprehend_ it ever so little without experiencing an insatiable,
+never-resting desire to exhaust it, like everything which is prohibited.
+There is no such thing as knowing it a little. As one of its sages said
+of old, its knowledge rushes forth into infinite lands.
+
+It was, I believe, some time before 'Ivanhoe' appeared, that Baron von
+Hammer Purgstall had published his theory that the Knights Templars
+were, although most unjustly treated, still guilty, in a certain sense,
+of the extraordinary charges brought against them. It seems at least to
+be tolerably certain that during their long residence in the East they
+had acquired the Oriental secrets of initiation into societies which
+taught the old serpent-lore of _eritis sicut Deus_, and positive
+knowledge; the ultimate secret, being the absolute nothingness of all
+faith, creeds, laws, ties, or rules to him who is capable of rising
+above them and of drawing from Nature by an 'enlightened' study of her
+laws the principles of action, of harmony with fellow men, and of
+unlimited earthly enjoyment. Such had been for ages the last lessons of
+all the 'mysteries' of the East--mysteries which it was the peculiar
+destiny of the Hebrew race to resist through ages of struggle. It was
+through the teaching of such mysteries of pantheistic naturalism that,
+as the unflinching Jewish deists and anthropomorphists believed, man
+fell, and their belief was set forth in their very first religious
+tradition--the history of the apple, the serpent, and the Fall. And it
+is to the very extraordinary nature of the Hebrew race, by which they
+presented for the first time in history the spectacle of a people
+resisting nature-worship, that they owe their claim to be a peculiar
+people.
+
+The Templars, under the glowing skies of the East, among its thousand
+temptations, those of superior knowledge not being the least; in an age
+when the absurdities of the Roman church were, to an enlightened mind,
+at their absurdest pitch, fell readily into 'illumination.' Whether they
+literally _worshipped_ the Oriental Baphomet, a figure with two heads,
+male and female, girt with a serpent, typifying the completest
+abnegation of all moral relations, and the rights of knowledge, no one
+can say now--it is, however, significant that this symbol, which they
+undoubtedly used, actually found its way under the freemasons into the
+Christian churches of the West, as a type of 'prudence' among the
+representations of Christian virtues. When we remember that the Gnostics
+taught that _prudence_ alone was virtue,[11] we have here a coincidence
+which sufficiently explains the meaning of this emblem of 'the baptism
+of mind.'
+
+Nothing is more likely than that a portion of the Knights Templars were
+initiated in the mysteries of such Oriental sects as those of the _House
+of Wisdom_ of Al Hakem, the seventh and last degree of which at first
+'inculcated the vanity of all religion, and the indifference of actions
+which are neither visited with recompense nor chastisement here or
+hereafter.' At a later age, when the doctrines of this society had
+permeated all Islam, it seems to have labored very zealously to teach
+both women and men gratuitously all learning, and give them the freest
+use of books. At this time it was in the ninth degree that the initiate
+'learnt the grand secret of atheism, and a code of morals, which may be
+summed up in a few words, as believing nothing and daring
+everything.'[12]
+
+Bearing this in mind, Walter Scott may be presumed to have studied with
+shrewd appreciation the character of the Templars, and to have
+conjectured with strange wisdom their great ambition, when we find Brian
+de Bois Guilbert declaring to Rebecca that his Order threatened the
+thrones of Europe, and hinting at tremendous changes in society--'hopes
+more extended than can be viewed from the throne of a monarch.' For it
+was indeed the hope--it _must_ have been--for the proud and powerful
+brotherhood of the Temple to extend their secret doctrines over Europe,
+regenerate society, and overthrow all existing powers, substituting for
+them its own crude and impossible socialism, and for Christianity the
+lore of the serpent. How plainly is this expressed in the speech of Bois
+Guilbert to Rebecca:
+
+     'Such a swelling flood is that powerful league. Of this mighty
+     Order I am no mean member, but already one of the Chief Commanders,
+     and may well aspire one day to hold the baton of Grand Master. The
+     poor soldiers of the Temple will not alone place their foot upon
+     the necks of Kings--a hemp-sandall'd monk can do that. Our mailed
+     step shall ascend their throne--our gauntlet shall wrench the
+     sceptre from their gripe. Not the reign of your vainly expected
+     Messiah offers such power to your dispersed tribes as my ambition
+     may aim at. I have sought but a kindred spirit to share it, and I
+     have found such in thee.'
+
+     'Sayest thou this to one of my people?' answered Rebecca. 'Bethink
+     thee'--
+
+     'Answer me not,' said the Templar, 'by urging the difference of our
+     creeds; within our secret conclaves we hold these nursery tales in
+     derision. Think not we long remain blind to the idiotic folly of
+     our founders, who forswore every delight of life for the pleasures
+     of dying martyrs by hunger, by thirst, and by pestilence, and by
+     the swords of savages, while they vainly strove to defend a barren
+     desert, valuable only in the eyes of superstition. Our Order soon
+     adopted bolder and wider views, and found out a better
+     indemnification for our sacrifices. Our immense possessions in
+     every kingdom of Europe, our high military fame, which brings
+     within our circle the flower of chivalry from every Christian
+     clime--these are dedicated to ends of which our pious founders
+     little dreamed, and which are equally concealed from such weak
+     spirits as embrace our Order on the ancient principles, and whose
+     superstition makes them our passive tools. But I will not further
+     withdraw the veil of our mysteries.'
+
+We may well pause for an instant to wonder what would have been the
+present state of the now civilized world had this order with its
+Oriental illumineeism actually succeeded in undermining feudal society
+and in overthrowing thrones. That it was jointly dreaded by Church and
+State appears from the excessive, implacable zeal with which it was
+broken up by Philip the Fair and Pope Clement the Fifth--a zeal quite
+inexplicable from the motives of avarice usually attributed to them by
+the modern freemasonic defenders of the Knights of the Temple. I may
+well say modern, since in a freemasonic document bearing date 1766,
+reprinted in a rare work,[13] we find the most earnest protest and
+denial that freemasonry had anything in common with the Templars. But
+the Order did not die unavenged. It is by no means improbable that the
+secret heresies which, bearing unmistakable marks of Eastern origin,
+continually sprang up in Europe, and finally led the way to Huss and the
+Reformation, were in their origin encouraged by the Templars.
+
+Certain it is that the character of Bois Guilbert as drawn by Scott--his
+habitual oath 'by earth and sea and sky!' his scorn of 'the doting
+scruples which fetter our free-born reason,' and his atheistic faith
+that to die is to be 'dispersed to the elements of which our strange
+forms are so mystically composed,' are all wonderful indications of
+insight into a type of mind differing inconceivably from the mere
+infidel villain of modern novels, and which could never have been
+attributed to a knight of the superstitious Middle Ages without a strong
+basis of historical research. Very striking indeed is his fierce love
+for Rebecca--his intense appreciation of her great courage and firmness,
+which he at once recognizes as congenial to his own daring, and believes
+will form for him in her a fit mate. There is a spirit of reality in
+this which transcends ordinary conceptions of what is called genius. To
+deem a woman requisite aid in such intellectual labor--for so we may
+well call the system of the Templars--would at that era have been
+incomprehensibly absurd to any save the worshippers of the bi-sexed
+Baphomet and the disciples of the House of Wisdom, with whom the equal
+culture of the sexes was a leading aim. The extraordinary tact with
+which Scott has contrived to make Bois Guilbert repulsive to the mass of
+readers, while at the same time he really--for himself--makes him
+undergo every sacrifice of which the Templar's nature is _consistently_
+capable, is perhaps the most elaborately artistic effort in his works.
+To have made Bois Guilbert sensible to the laws of love and of chivalry,
+which in his mystical freedom he despised, to rescue her simply from
+death, which in his view had no terrors beyond short-lived pain, would
+not have agreed with his character as Scott very truly understood it.
+Himself a sacrifice to fate, he was willing that she, whom he regarded
+as a second self, should also perish. This reserving the true
+comprehension of a certain character to one's self by a writer is not, I
+believe, an uncommon thing in romance writing. 'Blifil' was the favorite
+child of his literary parent, and was (it is to be hoped) seen by him
+from a stand-point undreamed of by nearly all readers.
+
+Closely allied in the one main point of character to Bois Guilbert, and
+to a certain degree having his Oriental origin, yet differing in every
+other detail, we have Hayraddin Maugrabin, the gypsy, in 'Quentin
+Durward.'
+
+When Walter Scott drew the outlines of this singular subordinate actor
+in one of the world's greatest mediaeval romances, so little was known of
+the real condition of the 'Rommany,' that the author was supposed to
+have introduced an exaggerated and most improbable character among
+historical portraits which were true to life. The more recent researches
+of George Borrow and others have shown that, judged by the gypsy of the
+present day, Hayraddin is extremely well drawn in certain particulars,
+but improbable in other respects. He has, amid all his villany, a
+certain firmness or greatness which is peculiar to men who can sustain
+positions of rank--a marked Oriental 'leadership,' which Scott might be
+presumed to have guessed at. Yet all of this corresponds closely to the
+historical account of the first of these wanderers, who in 1427 came to
+Europe, 'well mounted,' and claiming to be men of the highest rank, and
+to the condition and character of certain men among them in the
+Slavonian countries of the present day. If we study carefully all that
+is accessible both of the present and the past relative to this singular
+race, we shall find that Scott, partly from knowledge and partly by
+poetic intuition, has in this gypsy produced one of his most marvellous
+and deeply interesting studies.
+
+Like Bois Guilbert, Hayraddin is a man without a God, and the
+peculiarity of his character lies in a constant realization of the fact
+that he is absolutely _free_ from every form or principle of faith,
+every conventional tie, every duty founded on aught save the most
+natural instincts. He revels in this freedom; it is to him like magic
+armor, making him invulnerable to shafts which reach all around
+him--nay, which render him supremely indifferent to death itself.
+Whether this extreme of philosophical skepticism and stoicism could be
+consistently and correctly attributed to a gypsy of the fifteenth
+century, will be presently considered. Let me first quote those passages
+in which the character is best set forth. The first is that in which
+Hayraddin, in reply to the queries of Quentin Durward, asserts that he
+has no country, is not a Christian, and is altogether lawless:
+
+     'You are then,' said the wondering querist, 'destitute of all that
+     other men are combined by--you have no law, no leader, no settled
+     means of subsistence, no house or home. You have, may Heaven
+     compassionate you, no country--and, may Heaven enlighten and
+     forgive you, you have no God! What is it that remains to you,
+     deprived of government, domestic happiness, and religion?'
+
+     'I have liberty,' said the Bohemian--'I crouch to no one--obey no
+     one--respect no one.--I go where I will--live as I can--and die
+     when my day comes.'
+
+     'But you are subject to instant execution at the pleasure of the
+     Judge?'
+
+     'Be it so,' returned the Bohemian; 'I can but die so much the
+     sooner.'
+
+     'And to imprisonment also,' said the Scot; 'and where then is your
+     boasted freedom?'
+
+     'In my thoughts,' said the Bohemian, 'which no chains can bind;
+     while yours, even when your limbs are free, remain fettered by your
+     laws and your superstitions, your dreams of local attachment, and
+     your fantastic visions of civil policy. Such as I are free in
+     spirit when our limbs are chained. You are imprisoned in mind, even
+     when your limbs are most at freedom.'
+
+     [14]'Yet the freedom of your thoughts,' said the Scot, 'relieves
+     not the pressure of the gyves on your limbs.'
+
+     'For a brief time that may be endured,' answered the vagrant, 'and
+     if within that period I cannot extricate myself, and fail of relief
+     from my comrades, I can always die, and death is the most perfect
+     freedom of all.'
+
+Again, when asked in his last hour what are his hopes for the future,
+the gypsy, after denying the existence of the soul, declares that his
+anticipations are:
+
+     'To be resolved into the elements. * * * My hope and trust and
+     expectation is, that the mysterious frame of humanity shall melt
+     into the general mass of nature, to be recompounded in the other
+     forms with which she daily supplies those which daily disappear,
+     and return under different forms,--the watery particles to streams
+     and showers, the earthy parts to enrich their mother earth, the
+     airy portions to wanton in the breeze, and those of fire to supply
+     the blaze of Aldebaran and his brethren. In this faith I have
+     lived, and will die in it. Hence! begone!--disturb me no further! I
+     have spoken the last word that mortal ears shall listen to!'
+
+That such a strain as this would be absurd from 'Mr. Petulengro,' or any
+other of the race as portrayed by Borrow, is evident enough. Whether it
+is inappropriate, however, in the mouth of one of the first corners of
+the people in Europe, of direct Hindustanee blood, is another question.
+Let us examine it.
+
+In his notes to 'Quentin Durward,' Scott declares his belief that there
+can be little doubt that the first gypsies consisted originally of
+Hindus, who left their native land when it was invaded by Timur or
+Tamerlane, and that their language is a dialect of Hindustanee. That the
+gypsies were Hindus, and outcast Hindus or Pariahs at that, could be no
+secret to Scott. That he should have made Hayraddin in his doctrines
+marvellously true to the very life to certain of this class, indicates a
+degree either of knowledge or of intuition (it may have been either)
+which is at least remarkable.
+
+The reader has probably learned to consider the Hindu Pariah as a merely
+wretched outcast, ignorant, vulgar, and oppressed. Such is not, however,
+exactly their _status_. Whatever their social rank may be, the
+Pariahs--the undoubted ancestors of the gypsies--are the authors in
+India of a great mass of philosophy and literature, embracing nearly all
+that land has ever produced which is tinctured with independence or wit.
+In confirmation of which I beg leave to cite the following passages from
+that extremely entertaining, well-edited, and elegantly published little
+work, the 'Strange Surprising Adventures of the Venerable Goroo Simple
+and his Five Disciples':
+
+     'The literature of the Hindoos owes but little to the hereditary
+     claimants to the sole possession of divine light and knowledge. On
+     the contrary, with the many things which the Brahmins are forbidden
+     to touch, all science, if left to them alone, would soon stagnate,
+     and clever men, whose genius cannot be held in trammels, therefore
+     soon become outcasts and swell the number of _Pariars_ in
+     consequence of their very pursuit of knowledge. * * * To the
+     writings of the _Poorrachchameiyans_, a sect of _Pariars_ odious in
+     the eyes of a Brahman, the Tamuls owe the greater part of works on
+     science. * * * To the _Vallooran_ sect of Pariars, particularly
+     shunned by the Brahmans, Hindoo literature is indebted almost
+     exclusively for the many moral poems and books of aphorisms which
+     are its chief pride.
+
+     'This class of literature' (satiric humor and fables) 'emanated
+     chiefly from those despised outcasts, the Pariars, the very men who
+     (using keener spectacles than Dr. Robertson, our historian of
+     Ancient India, did, who singularly became the panegyrist of Gentoo
+     subdivisions) saw that to bind human intellect and human energy
+     within the wire fences of Hindoo castes is as impossible as to shut
+     up the winds of heaven in a temple built by man's hand, and boldly
+     thought for themselves.'
+
+Of the literary _Vallooran_ Pariah outcasts and scientific
+Poorrachchameiyans, we know from the best authority--Father Beschi--that
+they form society of six degrees or sects, the fifth of which, when five
+Fridays occur in a month, celebrate it _avec de grandes abominations_,
+while the sixth 'admits the real existence of nothing--except,
+_perhaps_, GOD.' This last is a mere guess on the part of the good
+father. It is beyond conjecture that we have here another of those
+strange Oriental sects, 'atheistic' in its highest school and identical
+in its nature with that of the House of Wisdom of Cairo, and with the
+Templars; and if Scott's gypsy Hayraddin Maugrabin is to be supposed one
+of that type of Hindu outcasts, which were of all others most hateful to
+the orthodox Moslem invader, we cannot sufficiently admire the
+appropriateness with which doctrines which were actually held by the
+most deeply initiated among the Pariahs were put into his mouth. To have
+made a merely vulgar, nothing-believing, and as little reflecting gypsy,
+as philosophical as the wanderer in 'Quentin Durward,' would have been
+absurd. There is a vigor, an earnestness in his creed, which betrays
+culture and thought, and which is marvellously appropriate if we regard
+him as a wandering scion of the outcast Pariah illuminati of India.
+
+Did our author owe this insight to erudition or to poetic intuition? In
+either case we discover a depth which few would have surmised. It was
+once said of Scott, that he was a millionaire of genius whose wealth was
+all in small change--that his scenes and characters were all massed from
+a vast collection of little details. This would be equivalent to
+declaring that he was a great novelist without a great idea. Perhaps
+this is true, but the clairvoyance of genius which _seems_ to manifest
+itself in the two characters which I have already examined, and the
+cautious manner in which he has treated them, would appear to prove that
+he possessed a rarer gift than that of 'great ideas'--the power of
+controlling them. Such ideas may make reformers, critics, politicians,
+essayists--but they generally ruin a novelist--and Scott knew it.
+
+A third character belonging to the class under consideration, is Henbane
+Dwining, the 'pottingar,' apothecary or 'leech,' in the novel of 'The
+Fair Maid of Perth.'
+
+This man is rather developed by his deeds than his words, and these are
+prompted by two motives, terrible vindictiveness and the pride of
+superior knowledge. He is vile from the former, and yet almost heroic
+from the latter, for it is briefly impossible to make any man intensely
+self-reliant, and base this self-reliance on great learning in men and
+books, without displaying in him some elements of superiority. He is so
+radically bad that by contrast one of the greatest villains in Scottish
+history, Sir John Ramorney, appears rather gray than black; and yet we
+dislike him less than the knight, possibly because we know that men of
+the Dwining stamp, when they have had the control of nations, often do
+good simply from the dictates of superior wisdom--the wisdom of the
+serpent--which, no Ramorney ever did. The skill with which the crawling,
+paltry leech controls his fierce lord; the contempt for his power and
+pride shown in Dwining's adroit sneers, and above all, the ease with
+which the latter casts into the shade Ramorney's fancied superiority in
+wickedness, is well set forth--and such a character could only have been
+conceived by deep study of the motives and agencies which formed it. To
+do so, Scott had recourse to the same Oriental source--the same fearful
+school of atheism which in another and higher form gave birth to the
+Templar and the gypsy. 'I have studied,' says Dwining, 'among the sages
+of Granada, where the fiery-souled Moor lifts high his deadly dagger as
+it drops with his enemy's blood, and avows the doctrine which the pallid
+Christian practises, though, coward-like, he dare not name it.' His
+sneers at the existence of a devil, at all 'prejudices,' at religion,
+above all, at brute strength and every power save that of intellect, are
+perfectly Oriental--not however of the Oriental Sufi, or of the
+initiated in the House of Wisdom, whose pantheistic Idealism went hand
+in hand with a faith in benefiting mankind, and which taught
+forgiveness, equality, and love, but rather that corrupted Asiatic
+vanity of wisdom which abounded among the disciples of Aristotle and of
+Averroes in Spain, and which was entirely material. I err, strictly
+speaking, therefore, when I speak of this as the _same_ Oriental school,
+though in a certain sense it had a common origin--that of believing in
+the infinite power of human wisdom. Both are embraced indeed in the
+beguiling _eritis sicut Deus_, 'ye shall be as GOD,' uttered by the
+serpent to Eve.
+
+Quite subordinate as regards its position among the actors of the novel,
+yet extremely interesting in a historical point of view, is the
+character of Jasper Dryfesdale the steward of the Douglas family, in
+'The Abbot.' In this man Scott has happily combined the sentiment of
+absolute feudal devotion to his superiors with a gloomy fatalism learned
+'among the fierce sectaries of Lower Germany.' If carefully studied,
+Dryfesdale will be found to be, on the whole, the most morally
+instructive character in the entire range of Scott's writings. In the
+first place, he illustrates the fact, so little noted by the advocates
+of loyalty, aristocracy, 'devoted retainers,' and 'faithful vassals,'
+that all such fidelity carried beyond the balance of a harmony of
+interests, results in an insensibility to moral accountability. Thus in
+the Southern States, masters often refer with pride to the fact that a
+certain negro, who will freely pillage in other quarters, will 'never
+steal at home.' History shows that the man who surrenders himself
+entirely to the will of another begins at once to cast on his superior
+all responsibility for his own acts. Such dependence and evasion is of
+itself far worse than the bold unbelief which is to the last degree
+self-reliant; which seeks no substitute, dreads no labor, scorns all
+mastery, and aims at the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
+truth. Such unbelief may possibly end in finding religious truth after
+its devious errors, but what shall be said of those who would have men
+sin as _slaves_?
+
+Singularly and appropriately allied to a resignation of moral
+accountability from feudal attachment, is the contemptible and cowardly
+doctrine of fatalism, which Dryfesdale also professes. It is not with
+him the philosophic doctrine of the concurring impulses of circumstance,
+or of natural laws, but rather the stupendously nonsensical notion of
+the Arabian _kismet_, that from the beginning of time every event was
+fore-arranged as in a fairy tale, and that all which _is_, is simply the
+acting out of a libretto written before the play began--a belief revived
+in the last century by readers of Leibnitz, who were truer than the
+great German himself to the consequences of his doctrine, which he
+simply evaded.[15] In coupling this humiliating and superstitious means
+of evading moral accountability with the same principle as derived from
+feudal devotion, Scott, consciously or unconsciously, displayed genius,
+and at the same time indirectly attacked that system of society to which
+he was specially devoted. So true is it that genius instinctively tends
+to set forth the _truth_, be the predilections of its possessor what
+they may. And indeed, as Scott nowhere shows in any way that _he_, for
+his part, regarded the blind fidelity of the steward as other than
+admirable, it may be that he was guided rather by instinct than will, in
+thus pointing out the great evil resulting from a formally aristocratic
+state of society. Such as it is, it is well worth studying in these
+times, when the principles of republicanism and aristocracy are brought
+face to face at war among us, firstly in the contest between the South
+and the North, and secondly in the rapidly growing division between the
+friends of the Union, and the treasonable 'Copperheads,' who consist of
+men of selfish, aristocratic tendencies, and their natural allies, the
+refuse of the population.
+
+It is very unfortunate that the term 'Anabaptists' should have ever been
+applied to the ferocious fanatics led by John of Leyden, Knipperdolling,
+and Rothmann, since it has brought discredit on a large sect bearing the
+same name with which it had in reality even less in common than the
+historians of the latter imagine. It is not a difficult matter for the
+mind familiar with the undoubted Oriental origin of the 'heresies' of
+the middle ages, to trace in the origin at least of the fierce and
+licentious socialists of Muenster the same secret influence which,
+flowing from Gnostic, Manichaean, or Templar sources, founded the
+Waldense and Albigense sects, and was afterward perceptible in a branch
+of the Hussites. At the time of the Reformation their ancient doctrines
+had subsided into Biblical fanaticism; but the old leaven of revolt
+against the church, and against all compulsion--keenly sharpened by
+their experiences, in the recent Peasant's War--was as hot as ever among
+them. They had no great or high philosophy, but were in all respects
+chaotic, contradictory, and stormy. Unable to rise to the cultivated and
+philanthropic feelings which accompanied the skepticism of their remote
+founders, they based their denial of moral accountability--as narrow and
+vulgar minds naturally do--on a predestination, which is as insulting to
+GOD as to man, since it is consistently comprehensible only by supposing
+HIM a slave to destiny. Among such vassals to a worse than earthly
+tyranny, the man who as 'a Scottish servant regarded not his own life or
+that of any other save his master,' would find doctrines congenial
+enough to his grovelling nature. So he was willing to believe that 'that
+which was written of me a million years before I saw the light must be
+executed by me.' 'I am well taught, and strong in belief,' he says,
+'that man does nought for himself; he is but the foam on the billow,
+which rises, bubbles, and bursts, not by its own effort, but by the
+mightier impulse of fate which urges him.' And the combination of his
+two wretched doctrines is well set forth in the passage wherein he tells
+his mistress that she had no choice as regarded accepting his criminal
+services. 'You might not choose, lady,' answered the steward. 'Long ere
+this castle was builded--ay, long ere the islet which sustains it reared
+its head above the blue water--I was destined to be your faithful slave,
+and you to be my ungrateful mistress.'
+
+Freethinkers, infidels, and atheists abound in novels, but it is to the
+credit of Sir Walter Scott that wherever he has introduced a _sincere_
+character of this description, he has gone to the very origin for his
+facts, and then given us the result without pedantry. The four which I
+have examined are each a curious subject for study, and indicate,
+collectively and compared, a train of thought which I believe that few
+have suspected in Scott, notwithstanding his well-known great love for
+the curious and occult in literature. That he perfectly understood that
+absurd and vain character, the so-called 'infidel,' whose philosophy is
+limited to abusing Christianity, and whose real object is to be odd and
+peculiar, and astonish humble individuals with his wickedness, is most
+amusingly shown in 'Bletson,' one of the three Commissioners of Cromwell
+introduced into 'Woodstock.' Scott has drawn this very subordinate
+character in remarkable detail, having devoted nearly seven pages to its
+description,[16] evidently being for once carried away by the desire of
+rendering the personality as clearly as possible, or of gratifying his
+own fancy. And while no effort is ever made to cast even a shadow of
+ridicule on the Knight Templar, on Dryfesdale, on the gypsy, or even on
+the crawling Dwining, he manifestly takes great pains to render as
+contemptible and laughably absurd as possible this type of the very
+great majority of modern infidels, who disavow religion because they
+fear it, and ridicule Christianity from sheer, shallow ignorance. Our
+own country at present abounds in 'Bletsons,' in conceited, ignorant
+'infidel' scribblers of many descriptions, in of all whom we can still
+trace the cant and drawl of the old-fashioned fanaticism to which they
+are in reality nearly allied, while they appear to oppose it. For the
+truth is, that popular infidelity--to borrow Mr. Caudle's simile of
+tyrants--is only Puritanism turned inside out. We see this, even when it
+is masked in French flippancy and the Shibboleth of the current
+accomplishments of literature--it betrays itself by its vindictiveness
+and conceit, by its cruelty, sarcasms, and meanness--with the infidel as
+with the bigot. The sincere seeker for truth, whether he wander through
+the paths of unbelief or of faith, never forgets to love, never courts
+notoriety, and is neither a satirical court-fool nor a would-be
+Mephistopheles.
+
+In reflecting on these characters, I am irresistibly reminded of an
+anecdote illustrating their nature. A friend of mine who had employed a
+rather ignorant fellow to guide him through some ruins in England, was
+astonished, as he entered a gloomy dungeon, at the sudden remark, in the
+hollow voice of one imparting a dire confidence, of: 'I doan't believe
+in hany GOD!' 'Don't you, indeed?' was the placid reply. 'Noa,' answered
+the guide; '_H'I'm a_ HINFIDEL!' 'Well, I hope you feel easy after it,'
+quoth my friend.
+
+There is yet another skeptic set forth by Scott, whose peculiarities may
+be deemed worthy of examination. I refer to Agelastes, the treacherous
+and hypocritical sage of 'Count Robert of Paris.' In this man we have,
+however, rather the refined sensualist and elegant scholar who amuses
+himself with the subtleties of the old Greek philosophy, than a sincere
+seeker for truth, or even a sincere doubter. His views are fully given
+in a short lecture of the countess:
+
+     'Daughter,' said Agelastes, approaching nearer to the lady, 'it is
+     with pain I see you bewildered in errors which a little calm
+     reflection might remove. We may flatter ourselves, and human vanity
+     usually does so, that beings infinitely more powerful than those
+     belonging to mere humanity are employed daily in measuring out the
+     good and evil of this world, the termination of combats or the fate
+     of empires, according to their own ideas of what is right or wrong,
+     or more properly, according to what we ourselves conceive to be
+     such. The Greek heathens, renowned for their wisdom, and glorious
+     for their actions, explained to men of ordinary minds the supposed
+     existence of Jupiter and his Pantheon, where various deities
+     presided over various virtues and vices, and regulated the temporal
+     fortune and future happiness of such as practised them. The more
+     learned and wise of the ancients rejected such the vulgar
+     interpretation, and wisely, although affecting a deference to the
+     public faith, denied before their disciples in private, the gross
+     fallacies of Tartarus and Olympus, the vain doctrines concerning
+     the gods themselves, and the extravagant expectations which the
+     vulgar entertained of an immortality supposed to be possessed by
+     creatures who were in every respect mortal, both in the
+     conformation of their bodies, and in the internal belief of their
+     souls. Of these wise and good men some granted the existence of the
+     supposed deities, but denied that they cared about the actions of
+     mankind any more than those of the inferior animals. A merry,
+     jovial, careless life, such as the followers of Epicurus would
+     choose for themselves, was what they assigned for those gods whose
+     being they admitted. Others, more bold or more consistent, entirely
+     denied the existence of deities who apparently had no proper object
+     or purpose, and believed that such of them, whose being and
+     attributes were proved to us by no supernatural appearances, had in
+     reality no existence whatever.'
+
+In all this, and indeed in all the character of Agelastes, there is
+nothing more than shallow scholarship, such as may be found in many of
+'the learned' in all ages, whose learning is worn as a fine garment,
+perhaps as one of comfort, but _not_ as the armor in which to earnestly
+do battle for life. A contempt for the vulgar, or at best a selfish
+rendering of life agreeable to themselves, is all that is gathered from
+such systems of doubt--and this was in all ages the reproach of all
+Greek philosophy. It was not meant for the multitude nor for the
+barbarian. It embraced no hope of benefiting all mankind, no scheme for
+even freeing them from superstition. Such ideas were only cherished by
+the Orientals, and (though mingled with errors) subsequently and _fully_
+by the early Christians. It was in the East that the glorious doctrine
+of love for _all_ beings, not only for enemies, but for the very fiends
+themselves, was first proclaimed as essential to perfect the soul--as
+shown in the beautiful Hindu poem of 'The Buddha's Victory,'[17] in
+which the demon Wassywart, that horror of horrors, whose eyes are clots
+of blood, whose voice outroars the thunder, who plucks up the sun from
+its socket the sky, defies the great saint-god to battle:
+
+  'The unarmed Buddha mildly gazed at him,
+  And said in peace: 'Poor fiend, _even thee I love_.'
+  Before great Wassywart the world grew dim;
+  His bulk enormous dwindled to a dove. * * *
+  --Celestial beauty sat on Buddhas face,
+  While sweetly sang the metamorphosed dove:
+  'Swords, rocks, lies, fiends, must yield to moveless love,
+  And nothing can withstand the Buddha's grace.'
+
+And again, in 'The Secret of Piety'--the secret 'of all the lore which
+angelic bosoms swell'--we have the same pure faith:
+
+  'Whoso would careless tread one worm that crawls the sod,
+  That cruel man is darkly alienate from God;
+  But he that lives embracing all that is in _love_,
+  To dwell with him God bursts all bounds, below, above.'
+
+The Greek philosophy knew nothing of all this, and the result is that
+even in the atheism which sprang from the East, and in its harshest and
+lowest 'tinctures,' we find a something nobler and less selfish than is
+to be found in the school of Plato himself. And however this may be, the
+reader will admit, in examining the six skeptics set forth by Scott,
+that each is a character firmly based in historical truth; that all,
+with the exception of 'Bletson,' are sketched with remarkable brevity;
+and that a careful comparative analysis of the whole gives us a deeper
+insight into the secret tendencies of the author's mind, and at the same
+time into the springs of his genius, than the world has been wont to
+take. And the study of the subject is finally interesting, since we may
+learn from it that even in the works of one who is a standard poetic
+authority among those who would, if possible, subject all men to
+feudalism, we may learn lessons of that highest social
+truth--republicanism.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 10: OVID. _Metamorphoseon_, lib. xi. v. 183.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Haec autem erat Gnosticorum doctrina ethica, quod omnem
+virtutem in prudentia sitim esse credebant, quam Ophitae per _Metem_
+(Sophiam) et Serpentem exprimebant, desumpto iterum ex Evangelii
+praecepto; _estote prudentes ut serpentes_,--ob innatem hujus animalis
+astutiam?--VON HAMMER, _Fundgruben des Orients_, tom. vi. p. 85.]
+
+[Footnote 12: _New Curiosities of Literature._ By GEO. SOANE, London,
+1849.]
+
+[Footnote 13: _Developpement des Abus introduits dans la Franc
+Maconnerie._ Ecossois de Saint ANDRE d'Ecosse, &c., &c. Paris, 1780.]
+
+[Footnote 14: London. Truebner &. Co., No. 60 Paternoster Row. 1861.]
+
+[Footnote 15: 'Tota haec humanae vitae fabula, quae universitatem naturae et
+generis humani historiam constituit tota prius in intellectu divino
+praeconcepta fuit cum infinitis aliis.'--LEIBNITZ, _Theodicaea_, part 11,
+p. 149.]
+
+[Footnote 16: Tickner and Fields' edition of Waverley Novels, Boston,
+1858.]
+
+[Footnote 17: _The Poetry of the East._ By WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER.
+Boston. Whittemore, Niles & Hall, 1856.]
+
+
+
+
+A CHORD OF WOOD.
+
+
+  Well, New York, you've made your pile
+  Of Wood, and, if you like, may smile:
+  Laugh, if you will, to split your sides,
+  But in that Wood pile a nigger hides,
+  With a double face beneath his hood:
+  Don't hurra till you're out of your Wood.
+
+
+
+
+A MERCHANT'S STORY.
+
+  'All of which I saw, and part of which I was.'
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+The moon and the stars were out, and the tall, dark pines cast long,
+gloomy shadows over the little rows of negro houses which formed the
+rearguard to Preston's mansion. They were nearly deserted. Not a
+solitary fire slumbered on the bare clay hearths, and not a single darky
+stood sentry over the loose pork and neglected hoecakes, or kept at bay
+the army of huge rats and prowling opossums which beleaguered the
+quarters. Silence--death's music--was over and around them. The noisy
+revelry of the dancers had died away in the distance, and even the
+hoarse song of the great trees had sunk to a low moan as they stood,
+motionless and abashed, in the presence of the grim giant who knocks
+alike at the palace and the cottage gate.
+
+A stray light glimmered through the logs of a low hut, far off in the
+woods, and, making our way to it, we entered. A bright fire lit up the
+interior, and on a rude cot, in one corner, lay the old preacher. His
+eyes were closed; a cold, clammy sweat was on his forehead--he was
+dying. One of his skeleton hands rested on the tattered coverlet, and
+his weazened face was half buried in a dilapidated pillow, whose ragged
+casing and protruding plumage bespoke it a relic of some departed white
+sleeper.
+
+An old negress, with gray hair and haggard visage, sat at the foot of
+the bed, wailing piteously; and Joe and half a dozen aged saints stood
+around, singing a hymn, doleful enough to have made even a sinner weep.
+
+Not heeding our entrance, Joe took the dying man by the hand, and, in a
+slow, solemn voice, said:
+
+'Brudder Jack, you'm dyin'; you'm gwine ter dat lan' whence no trabeller
+returns; you'm settin' out fur dat country which'm lit by de smile ob de
+Lord; whar dar ain't no sickness, no pain, no sorrer, no dyin'; fur dat
+kingdom whar de Lord reigns; whar trufh flows on like a riber; whar
+righteousness springs up like de grass, an' lub draps down like de dew,
+an' cobers de face ob de groun'; whar you woan't gwo 'bout wid no
+crutch; whar you woan't lib in no ole cabin like dis, an' eat hoecake
+an' salt pork in sorrer an' heabiness ob soul; but whar you'll run an'
+not be weary, an' walk an' not be faint; whar you'll hab a hous'n
+builded ob de Lord, an' sit at His table--you' meat an' drink de bread
+an' de water ob life!
+
+'I knows you's a sinner, Jack; I knows you's lub'd de hot water too
+much, an' dat it make you forgit you' duty sometime, an' set a bad
+'zample ter dem as looked up ter you fur better tings; but dar am mercy
+wid de Lord, Jack; dar am forgibness wid Him; an' I hopes you'm ready
+an' willin' ter gwo.'
+
+Old Jack opened his eyes, and, in a low, peevish tone, said:
+
+'Joe, none ob you' nonsense ter me! I'se h'ard you talk dis way afore.
+_You_ can't preach--you neber could. You jess knows I ain't fit ter
+trabble, an' I ain't willin' ter gwo, nowhar.'
+
+Joe mildly rebuked him, and again commenced expatiating on the 'upper
+kingdom,' and on the glories of 'the house not made with hands, eternal
+in the heavens;' but the old darky cut him short, with--
+
+'Shet up, Joe! no more ob dat. I doan't want no oder hous'n but dis--dis
+ole cabin am good 'nuff fur me.'
+
+Joe was about to reply, when Preston stepped to the bedside, and, taking
+the aged preacher's hand, said:
+
+'My good Jack, master Robert has come to see you.'
+
+The dying man turned his eyes toward his master, and, in a weak,
+tremulous voice, exclaimed:
+
+'Oh! massa Robert, has _you_ come? has you come ter see ole Jack? Bress
+you, massa Robert, bress you! Jack know'd you'd neber leab him yere ter
+die alone.'
+
+'No, my good Jack; I would save you if I could.'
+
+'But you can't sabe me, massa Robert; I'se b'yond dat. I'se dyin', massa
+Robert. I'se gwine ter de good missus. She tell'd me ter get ready ter
+foller har, an' I is. I'se gwine ter har now, massa Robert!'
+
+'I know you are, Jack. I feel _sure_ you are.'
+
+'Tank you, massa Robert--tank you fur sayin' dat. An' woan't you pray
+fur me, massa Robert--jess a little pray? De good man's prayer am h'ard,
+you knows, massa Robert.'
+
+All kneeling down on the rough floor, Preston prayed--a short, simple,
+fervent prayer. At its close, he rose, and, bending over the old negro,
+said:
+
+'The Lord is good, Jack; His mercy is everlasting.'
+
+'I knows dat; I feels dat,' gasped the dying man. 'I lubs you, massa
+Robert; I allers lub'd you; but I'se gwine ter leab you now. Bress you!
+de Lord bress you, massa Robert' I'll tell de good missus'--
+
+He clutched convulsively at his master's hand; a wild light came out of
+his eyes; a sudden spasm passed over his face, and--he was 'gone whar de
+good darkies go.'
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+On the following day Frank and I were to resume our journey; and, in the
+morning, I suggested that we should visit Colonel Dawsey, with whom,
+though he had for many years been a correspondent of the house in which
+I was a partner, I had no personal acquaintance.
+
+His plantation adjoined Preston's, and his house was only a short half
+mile from my friend's. After breakfast, we set out for it through the
+woods. The day was cold for the season, with a sharp, nipping air, and
+our overcoats were not at all uncomfortable.
+
+As we walked along I said to Preston:
+
+'Dawsey's 'account' is a good one. He never draws against shipments, but
+holds on, and sells sight drafts, thus making the exchange.'
+
+'Yes, I know; he's a close calculator.'
+
+'Does he continue to manage his negroes as formerly?'
+
+'In much the same way, I reckon.'
+
+'Then he can't stand remarkably well with his neighbors.'
+
+'Oh! people round here don't mind such things. Many of them do as badly
+as he. Besides, Dawsey is a gentleman of good family. He inherited his
+plantation and two hundred hands.'
+
+'Indeed! How, then, did he become reduced to his present number?'
+
+'He was a wild young fellow, and, before he was twenty-five, had
+squandered and gambled away everything but his land and some thirty
+negroes. Then he turned square round, and, from being prodigal and
+careless, became mean and cruel. He has a hundred now, and more ready
+money than any planter in the district.'
+
+A half hour's walk took us to Dawsey's negro quarters--a collection of
+about thirty low huts in the rear of his house. They were not so poor as
+some I had seen on cotton and rice plantations, but they seemed unfit
+for the habitation of any animal but the hog. Their floors were the bare
+ground, hardened by being moistened with water and pounded with mauls;
+and worn, as they were, several inches lower in the centre than at the
+sides, they must have formed, in rainy weather, the beds of small lakes.
+So much water would have been objectionable to white tenants; but
+negroes, like their friends the alligators, are amphibious animals; and
+Dawsey's were never known to make complaint. The chimneys were often
+merely vent-holes in the roof, though a few were tumble-down structures
+of sticks and clay; and not a window, nor an opening which courtesy
+could have christened a window, was to be seen in the entire collection.
+And, for that matter, windows were useless, for the wide crevices in the
+logs, which let in the air and rain, at the same time might admit the
+light. Two or three low beds at one end, a small pine bench, which held
+half a dozen wooden plates and spoons, and a large iron pot, resting on
+four stones, over a low fire, and serving for both washtub and
+cook-kettle, composed the furniture of each interior.
+
+No one of the cabins was over sixteen feet square, but each was 'home'
+and 'shelter' for three or four human beings. Walking on a short
+distance, we came to a larger hovel, in front of which about a dozen
+young chattels were playing. Seven or eight more, too young to walk,
+were crawling about on the ground inside. They had only one garment
+apiece--a long shirt of coarse linsey--and their heads and feet were
+bare. An old negress was seated in the doorway, knitting. Approaching
+her, I said:
+
+'Aunty, are not these children cold?'
+
+'Oh! no, massa; dey'm use' ter de wedder.'
+
+'Do you take care of all of them?'
+
+'In de daytime I does, massa. In de night dar mudders takes de small
+'uns.'
+
+'But some of them are white. Those two are as white as I am!'
+
+'No, massa; dey'm brack. Ef you looks at dar eyes an' dar finger nails,
+you'll see dat.'
+
+'They're black, to be sure they are,' said young Preston, laughing; 'but
+they're about as white as Dawsey, and look wonderfully like him--eh,
+aunty Sue?'
+
+'I reckons, massa Joe!' replied the woman, running her hand through her
+wool, and grinning widely.
+
+'What does he ask for _them_, aunty?'
+
+'Doan't know, massa, but 'spect dey'm pooty high. Dem kine am hard ter
+raise.'
+
+'Yes,' said Joe; 'white blood--even Dawsey's--don't take naturally to
+mud.'
+
+'I reckons not, massa Joe!' said the old negress, with another grin.
+
+Joe gave her a half-dollar piece, and, amid an avalanche of blessings,
+we passed on to Dawsey's 'mansion'--if mansion it could be called--a
+story-and-a-half shanty, about thirty feet square, covered with rough,
+unpainted boards, and lit by two small, dingy windows. It was approached
+by a sandy walk, and the ground around its front entrance was littered
+with apple peelings, potato parings, and the refuse of the culinary
+department.
+
+Joe rapped at the door, and, in a moment, it opened, and a middle-aged
+mulatto woman appeared. As soon as she perceived Preston, she grasped
+his two hands, and exclaimed:
+
+'Oh! massa Robert, _do_ buy har! Massa'll kill har, ef you doan't.'
+
+'But I can't, Dinah. Your master refuses my note, and I haven't the
+money now.'
+
+'Oh! oh! He'll kill har; he say he will. She woan't gib in ter him, an'
+he'll kill har, _shore_. Oh! oh!' cried the woman, wringing her hands,
+and bursting into tears.
+
+'Is it 'Spasia?' asked Joe.
+
+'Yas, massa Joe; it'm 'Spasia. Massa hab sole yaller Tom 'way from har,
+an' he swar he'll kill har 'case she woan't gib in ter him. Oh! oh!'
+
+'Where is your master?'
+
+'He'm 'way wid har an' Black Cale. I reckon dey'm down ter de branch. I
+reckon dey'm whippin' on har _now_!'
+
+'Come, Frank,' cried Joe, starting off at a rapid pace; 'let's see that
+performance.'
+
+'Hold on, Joe; wait for us. You'll get into trouble!' shouted his
+father, hurrying after him. The rest of us caught up with them in a few
+moments, and then all walked rapidly on in the direction of the small
+run which borders the two plantations.
+
+Before we had gone far, we heard loud screams, mingled with oaths and
+the heavy blows of a whip. Quickening our pace, we soon reached the bank
+of the little stream, which there was lined with thick underbrush. We
+could see no one, and the sounds had subsided. In a moment, however, a
+rough voice called out from behind the bushes:
+
+'Have you had enough? Will you give up?'
+
+'Oh! no, good massa; I can't do dat!' was the half-sobbing, half-moaning
+reply.
+
+'Give it to her again, Cale!' cried the first voice; and again the whip
+descended, and again the piercing cries: 'O Lord!' 'Oh, pray doan't!' 'O
+Lord, hab mercy!' 'Oh! good massa, hab mercy!' mingled with the falling
+blows.
+
+'This way!' shouted Joe, pressing through the bushes, and bounding down
+the bank toward the actors in this nineteenth-century tournament,
+wherein an armed knight and a doughty squire were set against a weak,
+defenceless woman.
+
+Leaning against a pine at a few feet from the edge of the run, was a
+tall, bony man of about fifty. His hair was coarse and black, and his
+skin the color of tobacco-juice. He wore the ordinary homespun of the
+district; and long, deep lines about his mouth and under his eyes told
+the story of a dissipated life. His entire appearance was anything but
+prepossessing.
+
+At the distance of three or four rods, and bound to the charred trunk of
+an old tree, was a woman, several shades lighter than the man. Her feet
+were secured by stout cords, and her arms were clasped around the
+blackened stump, and tied in that position. Her back was bare to the
+loins, and, as she hung there, moaning with agony, and shivering with
+cold, it seemed one mass of streaming gore.
+
+The brawny black, whom Boss Joe had so eccentrically addressed at the
+negro meeting, years before, was in the act of whipping the woman; but
+with one bound, young Preston was on him. Wrenching the whip from his
+hand, he turned on his master, crying out:
+
+'Untie her, you white-livered devil, or I'll plough your back as you've
+ploughed hers!'
+
+'Don't interfere here, you d--d whelp!' shouted Dawsey, livid with rage,
+and drawing his revolver.
+
+'I'll give you enough of that, you cowardly hound!' cried Joe, taking a
+small Derringer from his pocket, and coolly advancing upon Dawsey.
+
+The latter levelled his pistol, but, before he could fire, by a
+dexterous movement of my cane, I struck it from his hand. Drawing
+instantly a large knife, he rushed on me. The knife was descending--in
+another instant I should have 'tasted Southern steel,' had not Frank
+caught his arm, wrenched the weapon from his grasp, and with the fury of
+an aroused tiger, sprung on him and borne him to the ground. Planting
+his knee firmly on Dawsey's breast, and twisting his neckcloth tightly
+about his throat, Frank yelled out:
+
+'Stand back. Let _me_ deal with him!'
+
+'But you will kill him.'
+
+'Well, he would have killed _you_!' he cried, tightening his hold on
+Dawsey's throat.
+
+'Let him up, Frank. Let the devil have fair play,' said Joe; 'I'll give
+him a chance at ten paces.'
+
+'Yes, let him up, my son; he is unarmed.'
+
+Frank slowly and reluctantly released his hold, and the woman-whipper
+rose. Looking at us for a moment--a mingled look of rage and
+defiance--he turned, without speaking, and took some rapid strides up
+the bank.
+
+'Hold on, Colonel Dawsey!' cried Joe, elevating his Derringer; 'take
+another step, and I'll let daylight through you. You've just got to
+promise you won't whip this woman, or take your chance at ten paces.'
+
+[I afterward learned that Joe was deadly sure with the pistol.]
+
+Dawsey turned slowly round, and, in a sullen tone, asked:
+
+'Who are you, _gentlemen_, that interfere with my private affairs?'
+
+'_My_ name, sir, is Kirke, of New York; and this young man is my son.'
+
+'Not Mr. Kirke, my factor?'
+
+'The same, sir.'
+
+'Well, Mr. Kirke, I'm sorry to say you're just now in d--d pore
+business.'
+
+'I _have_ been, sir. I've done yours for some years, and I'm heartily
+ashamed of it. I'll try to mend in that particular, however.'
+
+'Well, no more words, Colonel Dawsey,' said Joe. 'Here's a Derringer, if
+you'd like a pop at me.'
+
+'Tain't an even chance,' replied Dawsey; 'you know it.'
+
+'Take it, or promise not to whip the woman. I won't waste more time on
+such a sneaking coward as you are.'
+
+Dawsey hesitated, but finally, in a dogged way, made the required
+promise, and took himself off.
+
+While this conversation was going on, Preston and the negro man had
+untied the woman. Her back was bleeding profusely, and she was unable to
+stand. Lifting her in their arms, the two conveyed her to the top of the
+bank, and then, making a bed of their coats, laid her on the ground. We
+remained there until the negro returned from the house with a turpentine
+wagon, and conveyed the woman 'home.' We then returned to the
+plantation, and that afternoon, accompanied by Frank and Joe, I resumed
+my journey.
+
+By way of episode, I will mention that the slave woman, after being
+confined to her bed several weeks, recovered. Then Dawsey renewed his
+attack upon her, and, from the effects of a second whipping, she died.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+Returning from the South a few weeks after the events narrated in the
+previous chapter, Frank and I were met at Goldsboro by Preston and
+Selma, when the latter accompanied us to the North, and once more
+resumed her place in David's family.
+
+On the first of February following, Frank, then not quite twenty-one,
+was admitted a partner in the house of Russell, Rollins, & Co., and, in
+the succeeding summer, was sent to Europe on business of the firm.
+Shortly after his return, in the following spring, he came on from
+Boston with a proposal from Cragin that I should embark with them and
+young Preston in an extensive speculation. Deeming any business in which
+Cragin was willing to engage worthy of careful consideration, I listened
+to Frank's exposition of the plan of operations. He had originated the
+project, and in it he displayed the comprehensive business mind and rare
+blending of caution and boldness which characterized his father. As the
+result of this transaction had an important influence on the future of
+some of the actors in my story, I will detail its programme.
+
+It was during the Crimean war. The Russian ports were closed, and Great
+Britain and the Continent of Europe were dependent entirely on the
+Southern States for their supply of resinous articles. The rivers at the
+South were low, and it was not supposed they would rise sufficiently to
+float produce to market before the occurrence of the spring freshets, in
+the following April or May. Only forty thousand barrels of common rosin
+were held in Wilmington--the largest naval-store port in the world; and
+it was estimated that not more than two hundred thousand were on hand in
+the other ports of Savannah, Ga., Georgetown, S. C., Newbern and
+Washington, N. C., and in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Very
+little was for sale in London, Liverpool, or Glasgow, the largest
+foreign markets for the article; and Frank thought that a hundred and
+fifty thousand barrels could be purchased. That quantity, taken at once
+out of market, would probably so much enhance the value of the article,
+that the operation would realize a large profit before the new crop came
+forward. The purchases were to be made simultaneously in the various
+markets, and about two hundred thousand dollars were required to carry
+through the transaction. One hundred thousand of this was to be
+furnished in equal proportions by the parties interested; the other
+hundred thousand would be realized by Joseph Preston's negotiating 'long
+exchange' on Russell, Rollins & Co.
+
+I declined to embark in the speculation, but the others carried it out
+as laid down in the programme; the only deviation being that, at Frank's
+suggestion, Mr. Robert Preston was apprised of the intended movement,
+and allowed to purchase, on his own account, as much produce as could be
+secured in Newbern. He bought about seven thousand barrels, paid for
+them by drawing at ninety days on Russell, Rollins, & Co., and held them
+for sale at Newbern, agreeing to satisfy his drafts with the proceeds.
+These drafts amounted to a trifle over eighty-two hundred dollars.
+
+About a month after this transaction was entered into, our firm received
+the following letter from Preston:
+
+     'GENTLEMEN: An unfortunate difference with my son prevents my
+     longer using him as my indorser. I have not, as yet, been able to
+     secure another; and, our banks requiring two home names on time
+     drafts, I have to beg you to honor a small bill at one day's sight.
+     I have drawn for one thousand dollars. Please honor.'
+
+To this I at once replied:
+
+     'DEAR SIR: We have advice of your draft for one thousand dollars.
+     To protect your credit, we shall pay it; but we beg you will draw
+     no more, till you forward bills of lading.
+
+     'You are now overdrawn some five thousand dollars, which, by the
+     maturing of your drafts, has become a _cash_ advance. The death of
+     our senior, Mr. Randall, and the consequent withdrawal of his
+     capital, has left us with an extended business and limited means.
+     Money, also, is very tight, and we therefore earnestly beg you to
+     put us in funds at the earliest possible moment.'
+
+No reply was received to this letter; but, about ten days after its
+transmission, Preston himself walked into my private office. His clothes
+were travel stained, and he appeared haggard and careworn. I had never
+seen him look so miserably.
+
+He met me cordially, and soon referred to the state of his affairs. His
+wife, the winter before, had agreed to reside permanently at Newbern,
+and content herself with an allowance of three thousand dollars
+annually; but at the close of the year he found that she had contracted
+debts to the extent of several thousand more. He was pressed for these
+debts; his interest was in arrears, and he could raise no money for lack
+of another indorser. Ruin stared him in the face, unless I again put my
+shoulder to the wheel, and pried him out of the mire. The turpentine
+business was not paying as well as formerly, but the new plantation was
+encumbered with only the original mortgage--less than six thousand
+dollars--and was then worth, owing to an advance in the value of land,
+fully twenty thousand. He would secure me by a mortgage on that
+property, but I _must_ allow the present indebtedness to stand, and let
+him increase it four or five thousand dollars. That amount would
+extricate him from present difficulties; and, to avoid future
+embarrassments, he would take measures for a legal separation from his
+wife.
+
+I heard him through, and then said:
+
+'I cannot help you, my friend. I am very sorry; but my own affairs are
+in a most critical state. I owe over a hundred thousand dollars,
+maturing within twenty days, and my present available resources are not
+more than fifty thousand. I have three hundred thousand worth of produce
+on hand, but the market is so depressed that I cannot realize a dollar
+upon it. The banks have shut down, and money is two per cent. a month in
+the street. What you owe us would aid me wonderfully; but I can rub
+through without it. That much I can bear, but not a dollar more.'
+
+He walked the room for a time, and was silent; then, turning to me, he
+said--each separate word seeming a groan:
+
+'I have cursed every one I ever loved, and now I am bringing
+trouble--perhaps disaster--upon _you_, the only real friend I have
+left.'
+
+'Pshaw! my good fellow, don't talk in that way. What you owe us is only
+a drop in the bucket. We have made twice that amount out of you; so give
+yourself no uneasiness, if you _never_ pay it.'
+
+'But I must pay it--I _shall_ pay it;' and, continuing to pace the room
+silently for a few moments, he added, giving me his hand: 'Good-by; I'm
+going back to-night.'
+
+'Back to-night!--without seeing Selly, or my wife? You are mad!'
+
+'I _must_ go.'
+
+'You must _not_ go. You are letting affairs trouble you too much. Come,
+go home with me, and see Kate. A few words from her will make a new man
+of you.'
+
+'No, no; I must go back at once. I must raise this money somehow.'
+
+'Send money to the dogs! Come with me, and have a good night's rest.
+You'll think better of this in the morning. And now it occurs to me that
+Kate has about seven thousand belonging to Frank. He means to settle it
+on Selly when they are married, and she might as well have it first as
+last. Perhaps you can get it now.'
+
+'But I might be robbing my own child.'
+
+'You can give the farm as security; it's worth twice the amount.'
+
+'Well, I'll stay. Let us see your wife at once.'
+
+While we were seated in the parlor, after supper, I broached the subject
+of Preston's wants to Kate. She heard me through attentively, and then
+quietly said:
+
+'Frank is of age--he can do as he pleases; but _I_ would not advise him
+to make the loan. I once heard my father scout at the idea of taking
+security on property a thousand miles away. I would not wound Mr.
+Preston's feelings, but--his wife's extravagance has led him into this
+difficulty, and her property should extricate him from it. Her town
+house, horses, and carriages should be sold. She ought to be made to
+feel some of the mortification she has brought upon him.'
+
+Preston's face brightened; a new idea seemed to strike him. 'You are
+right. I will sell everything.' His face clouded again, as he continued:
+'But I cannot realize soon enough. Your husband needs money at once.'
+
+'Never mind me; I can take care of myself. But what is this trouble with
+Joe? Tell me, I will arrange it. Everything can go on smoothly again.'
+
+'It cannot be arranged. There can be no reconciliation between us.'
+
+'What prevents? Who is at fault--you, or he?'
+
+'I am. He will never forgive me!'
+
+'Forgive you! I can't imagine what you have done, that admits of no
+forgiveness.'
+
+He rose, and walked the room for a while in gloomy silence, then said:
+
+'I will tell you. It is right you should know. You _both_ should know
+the sort of man you have esteemed and befriended for so many years;'
+and, resuming his seat, he related the following occurrences:
+
+'Everything went on as usual at the plantation, till some months after
+Rosey's marriage to Ally. Then a child was born to them. It was white.
+Rosey refused to reveal its father, but it was evidently not her
+husband. Ally, being a proud, high-spirited fellow, took the thing
+terribly to heart. He refused to live with his wife, or even to see her.
+I tried to reconcile them, but without success. Old Dinah, who had
+previously doted on Rosey, turned about, and began to beat and abuse her
+cruelly. To keep the child out of the old woman's way, I took her into
+the house, and she remained there till about two months ago. Then, one
+day, Larkin, the trader, of whom you bought Phylly and the children,
+came to me, wanting a woman house-servant. I was pressed for money, and
+I offered him--a thing I never did before--two or three of my family
+slaves. They did not suit, but he said Rosey would, and proposed to buy
+her and the child. I refused. He offered me fifteen hundred dollars for
+them, but I still refused. Then he told me that he had spoken to the
+girl, and she wished him to buy her. I doubted it, and said so; but he
+called Rosey to us, and she confirmed it, and, in an excited way, told
+me she would run away, or drown herself, if I did not sell her. She said
+she could live no longer on the same plantation with Ally. I told her I
+would send Ally away; but she replied: 'No; I am tired of this place. I
+have suffered so much here, I want to get away. I _shall_ go; whether
+alive or dead, is for _you_ to say.' I saw she was in earnest; I was
+hard pressed for money; Larkin promised to get her a kind master, and--I
+sold her.'
+
+'Sold her! My God! Preston, she was your own child!'
+
+'I know it,' he replied, burying his face in his hands. 'The curse of
+GOD was on it; it has been on me for years.' After a few moments, he
+added: 'But hear the rest, and _you_ will curse me, too.'
+
+Overcome with emotion, he groaned audibly. I said nothing, and a pause
+of some minutes ensued. Then, in a choked, broken voice, he continued:
+
+'The rosin transaction had been gone into. I had used up what blank
+indorsements I had. Needing more, and wanting to consult with Joe about
+selling the rosin, I went to Mobile. It was five weeks ago. I arrived
+there about dark, and put up at the Battle House. Joe had boarded there.
+I was told he had left, and gone to housekeeping. A negro conducted me
+to a small house in the outskirts of the town. He said Joe lived there.
+Wishing to surprise him, I went in without knocking. The house had two
+parlors, separated by folding doors. In the back one a young woman was
+clearing away the tea things; in the front one, Joe was seated by the
+fire, with a young child on his knee. I put my hand on his shoulder, and
+said: 'Joe, whose child have you here?' He looked up, and laughingly
+said: 'Why, father, you ought to know; you've seen it before!' I looked
+closely at it--it was Rosey's! I said so. 'Yes, father,' he replied;
+'and there's Rosey herself. Larkin promised she should have a kind
+master, and--he kept his word.' The truth flashed upon me--the child was
+his! My only son had seduced his _own sister_! I staggered back in
+horror. I told him who Rosey was, and then'--no words can express the
+intense agony depicted on his face as he said this--'then he cursed me!
+O my God! HE CURSED ME!'
+
+I pitied him, I could but pity him; and I said:
+
+'Do not be so cast down, my friend. I once heard you say: 'The Lord is
+good. His mercy is everlasting!''
+
+'But he cannot have mercy on some!' he cried. '_My_ sins have been too
+great; they cannot be blotted out. I embittered the life of my wife; I
+have driven my daughter from her home; sold my own child; made my
+generous, noble-hearted boy do a horrible crime--a crime that will
+haunt him forever. Oh! the curse of God is on me. My misery is greater
+than I can bear.'
+
+'No, my friend; God curses none of his creatures. You have reaped what
+you have sown, that is all; but you have suffered enough. Better things,
+believe me, are in store for you.'
+
+'No, no; everything is gone--wife, children, all! I am alone--the past,
+nothing but remorse; the future, ruin and dishonor!'
+
+'But Selly is left you. _She_ will always love you.'
+
+'No, no! Even Selly would curse me, if she knew _all_!'
+
+No one spoke for a full half hour, and he continued pacing up and down
+the room. When, at last, he seated himself, more composed, I asked:
+
+'What became of Rosey and the child?'
+
+'I do not know. I was shut in my room for several days. When I got out,
+I was told Joe had freed her, and she had disappeared, no one knew
+whither. I tried every means to trace her, but could not. At the end of
+a week, I went home, what you see me--a broken-hearted man.'
+
+The next morning, despite our urgent entreaties, he returned to the
+South.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The twenty days were expiring. By hard struggling I had met my
+liabilities, but the last day--the crisis--was approaching. Thirty
+thousand dollars of our acceptances had accumulated together, and were
+maturing on that day. When I went home, on the preceding night, we had
+only nineteen thousand in bank. I had exhausted all our receivables.
+Where the eleven thousand was to come from, I did not know. Only one
+resource seemed left me--the hypothecation of produce; and a resort to
+that, at that time, before warehouse receipts became legitimate
+securities, would be ruinous to our credit. My position was a terrible
+one. No one not a merchant can appreciate or realize it. With thousands
+upon thousands of assets, the accumulations of years, my standing among
+merchants, and, what I valued more than all, my untarnished credit, were
+in jeopardy for the want of a paltry sum.
+
+I went home that night with a heavy heart; but Kate's hopeful words
+encouraged me. With her and the children left to me, I need not care for
+the rest; all might go, and I could commence again at the bottom of the
+hill. The next morning I walked down town with a firm spirit, ready to
+meet disaster like a man. The letters by the early mail were on my desk.
+I opened them one after another, hurriedly, eagerly. There were no
+remittances! I had expected at least five thousand dollars. For a moment
+my courage failed me. I rose, and paced the room, and thoughts like
+these passed through my mind: 'The last alternative has come. Pride must
+give way to duty. I must hypothecate produce, and protect my
+correspondents. I must sacrifice myself to save my friends!
+
+'But here are two letters I have thrown aside. They are addressed to me
+personally. Mere letters of friendship! What is friendship, at a time
+like this?--friendship without money! Pshaw! I wouldn't give a fig for
+all the friends in the world!'
+
+Mechanically I opened one of them. An enclosure dropped to the floor.
+Without pausing to pick it up, I read:
+
+     'DEAR FATHER: Mother writes me you are hard pressed. Sell my U. S.
+     stock--it will realize over seven thousand. It is yours. Enclosed
+     is Cragin's certified check for ten thousand. If you need more,
+     draw on _him_, at sight, for any amount. He says he will stand by
+     you to the death.
+
+                                   'Love to mother.
+                                              FRANK.'
+
+     'P. S.--Fire away, old fellow! Hallet is ugly, but I'll go my pile
+     on you, spite of the devil.
+                                             CRAGIN.'
+
+
+'SAVED! saved by my wife and child!' I leaned my head on my desk. When I
+rose, there were tears upon it.
+
+It wanted some minutes of ten, but I was nervously impatient to blot out
+those terrible acceptances. I should then be safe; I should then breathe
+freely. As I passed out of my private office, I opened the other letter.
+It was from Preston. Pausing a moment, I read it:
+
+     'MY VERY DEAR FRIEND: I enclose you sight check of Branch Bank of
+     Cape Fear on Bank of Republic, for $10,820. Apply what is needed to
+     pay my account; the rest hold subject to my drafts.
+
+     'I have sold my town house, furniture, horses, etc., and the
+     proceeds will pay my home debts. I shall therefore not need to draw
+     the balance for, say, sixty days. God bless you!'
+
+'Well, the age of miracles is _not_ passed! How _did_ he raise the
+money?'
+
+Stepping back into the private office, I called my partner:
+
+'Draw checks for all the acceptances due to-day; get them certified, and
+take up the bills at once. Don't let the grass grow under your feet. I
+shall be away the rest of the day, and I want to see them before I go.
+Here is a draft from Preston; it will make our account good.'
+
+He looked at it, and, laughing, said:
+
+'Yes, and leave about fifty dollars in bank.'
+
+'Well, never mind; we are out of the woods.'
+
+When he had gone, I sat down, and wrote the following letter:
+
+     'MY DEAR FRANK: I return Cragin's check, with many thanks. I have
+     not sold your stock. My legitimate resources have carried me
+     through.
+
+     'I need not say, my boy, that I feel what you would have done for
+     me. Words are not needed between _us_.
+
+     'Tell Cragin that I consider him a trump--the very ace of hearts.
+
+     'Your mother and I will see you in a few days.'
+
+In half an hour, with the two letters in my pocket, I was on my way
+home. Handing them to Kate, I took her in my arms; and, as I brushed the
+still bright, golden hair from her broad forehead, I felt I was the
+richest man living.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Within the same week I went to Boston. I arrived just after dark; and
+then occurred the events narrated in the first chapter.
+
+
+
+
+WAR.
+
+[J. G. PERCIVAL.]
+
+
+  For war is now upon their shores,
+    And we must meet the foe,
+  Must go where battle's thunder roars,
+    And brave men slumber low;
+  Go, where the sleep of death comes on
+    The proudest hearts, who dare
+  To grasp the wreath by valor won,
+    And glory's banquet share.
+
+
+
+
+A CHAPTER ON WONDERS.
+
+  'Obstupui! steteruntque comae, et vox faucibus haesit.'
+
+
+There is a certain portion of mankind ever on the alert to see or hear
+some wonderful thing; whose minds are attuned to a marvellous key, and
+vibrate with extreme sensitiveness to the slightest touch; whose vital
+fluid is the air of romance, and whose algebraic symbol is a mark of
+exclamation! This sentiment, existing in some persons to a greater
+degree than in others, is often fostered by education and association,
+so as to become the all-engrossing passion. Children, of course, begin
+to wonder as soon as their eyes are opened upon the strange scenes of
+their future operations. The first thing usually done to develop their
+dawning intellect, is to display before them such objects as are best
+calculated to arrest their attention, and keep them in a continual state
+of excitement. This course is succeeded by a supply of all sorts of
+_toys_, to gratify the passion of novelty. These are followed by
+wonderful stories, and books of every variety of absurd
+impossibilities;--which system of development is, it would seem,
+entirely based upon the presumption, that the faculty of admiration must
+be expanded, in order that the young idea may best learn how to _shoot_.
+It is therefore quite natural, that--the predisposition granted--a
+faculty of the mind so auspiciously nurtured under the influence of
+exaggeration should mature in a corresponding degree.
+
+Thus we have in our midst a class, into whose mental economy the faculty
+of _wonder_ is so thoroughly infused, that it has inoculated the entire
+system, and forms an inherent, inexplicable, and almost elementary part
+of it. These persons sail about in their pleasure yachts, on roving
+expeditions, under a pretended '_right of search_,' armed to the teeth,
+and boarding all sorts of crafts to obtain plunder for their favorite
+gratification. They are most uneasy and uncomfortable companions, having
+no ear for commonplace subjects of conversation, and no eye for ordinary
+objects of sight.
+
+When such persons approach each other, they are mutually attracted, like
+two bodies charged with different kinds of electricity--an interchange
+of commodities takes place, repulsion follows, and thus reenforced, they
+separate to diffuse the supply of wonders collected.
+
+By this centripetal and centrifugal process, the social atmosphere is
+subjected to a continual state of agitation. _Language_ is altogether
+too tame to give full effect to their meaning, and all the varieties of
+_dumb show_, of _gesticulation_, _shrugs_, and wise shakes of the head,
+are called into requisition, to effectually and unmistakably express
+their ideas. The usages of good society are regarded by them as a great
+restraint upon their besetting propensity to expatiate in phrases of
+grandiloquence, and to magnify objects of trivial importance. They are
+always sure to initiate topics which will afford scope for admiration;
+they delight to enlarge upon the unprecedented growth of cities,
+villages, and towns; upon the comparative prices of 'corner lots' at
+different periods; and to calculate how rich they _might_ have been, had
+they only known as much _then_ as _now_.
+
+They experience a gratification when a rich man dies, that the wonder
+will now be solved as to the amount of his property; and when a man
+fails in business, that it is _now_ made clear--what has so long
+perplexed them--'_how he managed to live so extravagantly_!' See them
+at an agricultural fair, and they will be found examining the 'mammoth
+squashes' and various products of prodigious growth--or they will
+install themselves as self-appointed exhibiter of the 'Fat Baby,' to
+inform the incredulous how much it weighs! See them at a conflagration,
+and they wonder what was the _cause_ of the fire, and _how far_ it will
+extend?
+
+They long to travel, that they may visit 'mammoth caves' and 'Giant's
+Causeways.' We talk of the 'Seven Wonders of the World,' while to them
+there is a successive series for every day in the year--putting to the
+blush our meagre stock of monstrosities--making 'Ossa like a wart.'
+Nothing gratifies them more than the issuing from the press of an
+anonymous work, that they may exert their ingenuity in endeavoring to
+discover the author; and, when called on for information on the subject,
+prove conclusively to every one but themselves, that they know nothing
+whatever about the matter.
+
+The ocean is to them only wonderful as the abode of 'Leviathans,' and
+'Sea Serpents,' 'Krakens,' and 'Mermaids'--abounding in 'Maeelstroms' and
+_sunken_ islands, and traversed by 'Phantom Ships' and 'Flying Dutchmen'
+in perpetual search for some 'lost Atlantis;'--all well-attested
+incredibilities, certified to by the 'affidavits of respectable
+eye-witnesses,' and, we might add, by 'intelligent contrabands,'--and
+all in strict conformity with the convenient aphorism '_Credo quia
+impossibile est_.' They are ever ready to bestow their amazement upon a
+fresh miracle as soon as the present has had its day--like the man who,
+being landed at some distance by the explosion of a juggler's
+pyrotechnics, rubbed his eyes open, and exclaimed, '_I wonder what the
+fellow will do next!_'
+
+If a steamboat explodes her boiler, or the walls of a factory fall,
+burying hundreds in the ruins, their hearts--rendered callous by the
+constant stream of cold air pouring in through their _ever-open
+mouths_--are not shocked at the calamity, but they wonder if it was
+_insured_!
+
+The increase of population in this country affords a most prolific and
+inexhaustible fund for statistical astonishment, as an interlude to the
+entertainment, while something more appalling is being prepared.
+
+The portentous omens so often relied on by the credulous believers in
+signs, have so frequently proved 'dead failures,' that one would suppose
+these votaries would at length become disheartened. But this seems not
+to be the case--like a quack doctor when his patient dies, their
+audacity is equal to any emergency, and, with the elasticity of india
+rubber, they come out of a 'tight squeeze' with undiminished rotundity.
+With _stupid_ amazement, hair all erect, and ears likewise, they pass
+through life as through a museum, ready to exclaim with Dominie Sampson
+at all _they_ cannot understand, 'Pro--di--gi--ous!'
+
+It matters little, perhaps, in what form this principle is exhibited,
+while it exists and flourishes in undiminished exuberance. Thus says
+Glendower:
+
+                      'At my nativity
+  The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
+  Of burning cressets; and, at my birth,
+  The frame and huge foundation of the earth
+  Shak'd like a coward.
+
+  _Hotspur._ Why so it would have done
+  At the same season, if your mother's cat had
+  But kittened, though yourself had ne'er been born.'
+
+Glendower naturally enough flouts this rather impertinent comment, and
+'repeats the story of his birth' with still greater improvements, till
+Hotspur gives him a piece of advice which will do for his whole race of
+the present day, viz., 'tell the truth, and shame the devil.'
+
+The English people of this generation are rather more phlegmatic than
+their explosive neighbors across the channel, and neither the injustice
+of black slavery abroad, nor the starvation of _white_ slaves at home,
+can shake them from their lop-sided neutrality, _so long as money goes
+into their pocket_. The excitable French, on the contrary, require an
+occasional _coup d'etat_ to arouse their conjectures as to the next
+imperial experiment in the art of international diplomacy.
+
+The press of the day teems with all sorts of provisions to satisfy the
+cravings of a depraved imagination, and even the most sedate of our
+daily papers are not above employing 'double-leaded Sensations,' and
+'display Heads' as a part of their ordinary stock in trade; while from
+the hebdomadals, 'Thrilling Tales,' 'Awful Disclosures,' and 'Startling
+Discoveries,' succeed each other with truly fearful rapidity. Thus he
+who wastes the midnight kerosene, and spoils his weary eyes in poring
+over the pages of trashy productions, so well designed to murder sleep,
+may truly say with Macbeth, 'I have supp'd full with horrors.'
+
+It is certainly remarkable (as an indication of the pleasure the
+multitude take in voluntarily perplexing themselves), how eagerly they
+enter into all sorts of contrivances which conduce to bewilderment and
+doubt. In 'Hampton Court' there is a famous enclosure called the
+'_Maze_,' so arranged with hedged alleys as to form a perfect labyrinth.
+To this place throngs of persons are constantly repairing, to enjoy the
+luxury of losing themselves, and of seeing others in the same
+predicament.
+
+Some persons become so impatient of the constant demand upon their
+admiration, that they resist whatever seems to lead in that direction.
+Washington Irving said he 'never liked to walk with his host over the
+latter's ground'--a feeling which many will at once acknowledge having
+experienced. A celebrated English traveller was so annoyed by the urgent
+invitations of the Philadelphians to visit the Fairmount Water Works,
+that he resolved _not_ to visit them, so that he might have the
+characteristic satisfaction of recording the ill-natured fact.
+
+'Swift mentions a gentleman who made it a rule in reading, to skip over
+all sentences where he spied a note of admiration at the end.'
+
+The instances here quoted are, to be sure, carrying out the '_Nil
+admirari_' principle rather to extremes, and are not recommended for
+general observance. The most remarkable and prominent wonders in the
+natural world seldom meet the expectation of the beholder, because he
+looks to experience a new sensation, and is disappointed; and so with
+works of art, as St. Peter's at Rome--
+
+    ----'its grandeur overwhelms thee not,
+  And why? it is not lessen'd; but thy mind,
+  Expanded by the genius of the spot,
+  Has grown colossal.'
+
+_Wonder_ is defined as 'the effect of novelty upon ignorance.' Most
+objects which excite wonder are magnified by the distance or the point
+of view, and their proportions diminish and shrink as we approach them.
+It is a saying as old as Horace, 'ignotum pro magnifico est': we cease
+to wonder at what we understand. Seneca says that those whose habits are
+temperate are satisfied with fountain water, which is cold enough for
+them; while those who have lived high and luxuriously, require the use
+of _ice_. Thus a well-disciplined mind adjusts itself to whatever events
+may occur, and not being likely to lose its equanimity upon ordinary
+occasions, is equally well prepared for more serious results.
+
+'Let us never wonder,' again saith Seneca, 'at anything we are born to;
+for no man has reason to complain where we are all in the same
+condition.' But notwithstanding all the precepts of philosophers, the
+advice of all men of sense, and the best examples for our guides, we go
+on, with eyes dilated and minds wide open, to see, hear, and receive
+impressions through distorted mediums, leading to wrong conclusions and
+endless mistakes.
+
+'Wonders will never cease!' Of course they will not, so long as there
+are so many persons engaged in providing the aliment for their
+sustenance; so long as the demand exceeds the supply; so long as mankind
+are more disposed to listen to exaggeration rather than to simple
+truths, and so long as they shall tolerate the race of _wonder-mongers_,
+giving them 'aid and comfort,' regardless of their being enemies of our
+peace, and the pests of our social community.
+
+
+
+
+THE RETURN.
+
+
+  July,--what is the news they tell?
+    A battle won: our eyes are dim,
+  And sad forbodings press the heart
+    Anxious, awaiting news from him.
+  Hour drags on hour: fond heart, be still,
+    Shall evil tidings break the spell?
+  A word at last!--they found him dead;
+    He fought in the advance, and fell.
+
+  Oh aloes of affliction poured
+    Into the wine cup of the soul!
+  Oh bitterness of anguish stored
+    To fill our grief beyond control!
+  At last he comes, awaited long,
+    Not to home welcomes warm and loud,
+  Not to the voice of mirth and song,
+    Pale featured, cold, beneath a shroud.
+
+  Oh from the morrow of our lives
+    A glowing hope has stolen away,
+  A something from the sun has fled,
+    That dims the glory of the day.
+  More earnestly we look beyond
+    The present life to that to be;
+  Another influence draws the soul
+    To long for that futurity.
+
+  Pardon if anguished souls refrain
+    Too little, grieving for the lost,
+  From thinking dearly bought the gain
+    Of victory at such fearful cost.
+  Teach us as dearest gain to prize
+    The glory crown he early won;
+  Forever shall his requiem rise:
+    Rest thee in peace, thy duty done.
+
+
+
+
+THE UNION.
+
+VI.
+
+VIRGINIA AND PENNSYLVANIA COMPARED.
+
+
+Virginia was a considerable colony, when Pennsylvania was occupied only
+by Indian tribes. In 1790, Virginia was first in rank of all the States,
+her number of inhabitants being 748,308. (Census Rep., 120,121.)
+Pennsylvania then ranked the second, numbering 434,373 persons. (Ib.) In
+1860 the population of Virginia was 1,596,318, ranking the fifth;
+Pennsylvania still remaining the second, and numbering 2,905,115. (Ib.)
+In 1790 the population of Virginia exceeded that of Pennsylvania
+313,925; in 1860 the excess in favor of Pennsylvania was 1,308,797. The
+ratio of increase of population of Virginia from 1790 to 1860 was 113.32
+per cent., and of Pennsylvania in the same period, 569.03. At the same
+relative ratio of increase for the next seventy years, Virginia would
+contain a population of 3,405,265 in 1930; and Pennsylvania 19,443,934,
+exceeding that of England. Such has been and would continue to be the
+effect of slavery in retarding the progress of Virginia, and such the
+influence of freedom in the rapid advance of Pennsylvania. Indeed, with
+the maintenance and perpetuity of the Union in all its integrity, the
+destiny of Pennsylvania will surpass the most sanguine expectations.
+
+The population of Virginia per square mile in 1790 was 12.19, and in
+1860, 26.02; whilst that of Pennsylvania in 1790 was 9.44, and in 1860,
+63.18. (Ib.) The absolute increase of the population of Virginia per
+square mile, from 1790 to 1860, was 13.83, and from 1850 to 1860, 2.85;
+whilst that of Pennsylvania from 1790 to 1860, was 53.74, and from 1850
+to 1860, 12.93. (Ib.)
+
+AREA.--The area of Virginia is 61,352 square miles, and of Pennsylvania,
+46,000, the difference being 15,352 square miles, which is greater, by
+758 square miles, than the aggregate area of Massachusetts, Connecticut,
+and Delaware, containing in 1860 a population of 1,803,429. (Ib.)
+Retaining their respective ratios of increase per square mile from 1790
+to 1860, and reversing their areas, that of Virginia in 1860 would have
+been 1,196,920, and of Pennsylvania 3,876,119. Reversing the numbers of
+each State in 1790, the ratio of increase in each remaining the same,
+the population of Pennsylvania in 1860 would have been 5,408,424, and
+that of Virginia, 926,603. Reversing both the areas and numbers in 1790,
+and the population of Pennsylvania would have exceeded that of Virginia
+in 1860 more than six millions.
+
+SHORE LINE.--By the Tables of the Coast Survey, the shore line of
+Virginia is 1,571 miles, and of Pennsylvania only 60 miles. This vastly
+superior coast line of Virginia, with better, deeper, more capacious,
+and much more numerous harbors, unobstructed by ice, and with easy
+access for so many hundred miles by navigable bays and tide-water rivers
+leading so far into the interior, give to Virginia great advantages over
+Pennsylvania in commerce and every branch of industry. Indeed, in this
+respect, Virginia stands unrivalled in the Union. The hydraulic power of
+Virginia greatly exceeds that of Pennsylvania.
+
+MINES.--Pennsylvania excels every other State in mineral wealth, but
+Virginia comes next.
+
+SOIL.--In natural fertility of soil, the two States are about equal;
+but the seasons in Virginia are more favorable, both for crops and
+stock, than in Pennsylvania. Virginia has all the agricultural products
+of Pennsylvania, with cotton in addition. The area, however, of Virginia
+(39,265,280 acres) being greater by 9,825,280 acres than that of
+Pennsylvania (29,440,000 acres), gives to Virginia vast advantages.
+
+In her greater area, her far superior coast line, harbors, rivers, and
+hydraulic power, her longer and better seasons for crops and stock, and
+greater variety of products, Virginia has vast natural advantages, and
+with nearly double the population of Pennsylvania in 1790. And yet,
+where has slavery placed Virginia? Pennsylvania exceeds her now in
+numbers 1,308,797, and increased in population, from 1790 to 1860, in a
+ratio more than five to one. Such is the terrible contrast between free
+and slave institutions!
+
+PROGRESS OF WEALTH.--By Census Tables (1860) 33 and 36, it appears
+(omitting commerce) that the products of industry, as given, viz., of
+agriculture, manufactures, mines, and fisheries, were that year in
+Pennsylvania, of the value of $398,600,000, or $137 per capita; and in
+Virginia, $120,000,000 or $75 per capita. This shows a total value of
+product in Pennsylvania much more than three times that of Virginia,
+and, per capita, nearly two to one. That is, the average value of the
+product of the labor of each person in Pennsylvania, is nearly double
+that of each person, including slaves, in Virginia. Thus is proved the
+vast superiority of free over slave labor, and the immense national loss
+occasioned by the substitution of the latter for the former.
+
+As to the rate of increase; the value of the products of Virginia in
+1850 was $84,480,428 (Table 9), and in Pennsylvania, $229,567,131,
+showing an increase in Virginia, from 1850 to 1860, of $35,519,572,
+being 41 per cent.; and in Pennsylvania, $169,032,869, being 50 per
+cent.; exhibiting a difference of 9 per cent. in favor of Pennsylvania.
+By the Census Table of 1860, No. 35, p. 195, the true value then of the
+real and personal property was, in Pennsylvania, $1,416,501,818, and of
+Virginia, $793,249,681. Now, we have seen, the value of the products in
+Pennsylvania in 1860 was $398,600,000, and in Virginia, $120,000,000.
+Thus, as a question of the annual yield of capital, that of Pennsylvania
+was 28.13 per cent., and of Virginia, 15.13 per cent. By Census Table
+35, the total value of the real and personal property of Pennsylvania
+was $722,486,120 in 1850, and $1,416,501,818 in 1860, showing an
+increase, in that decade, of $694,015,698, being 96.05 per cent.; and in
+Virginia, $430,701,082 in 1850, and $793,249,681 in 1860, showing an
+increase of $362,548,599, or 84.17 per cent.
+
+By Table 36, p. 196, Census of 1860, the _cash_ value of the farms of
+Virginia was $371,092,211, being $11.91 per acre; and of Pennsylvania,
+$662,050,707, being $38.91 per acre. Now, by this table, the number of
+acres embraced in these farms of Pennsylvania was 17,012,153 acres, and
+in Virginia, 31,014,950; the difference of value per acre being $27, or
+largely more than three to one in favor of Pennsylvania, Now, if we
+multiply the farm lands of Virginia by the Pennsylvania value per acre,
+it would make the total value of the farm lands of Virginia
+$1,204,791,804; and the _additional_ value, caused by emancipation,
+$835,699,593, which is more, by $688,440,093, than the value of all the
+slaves of Virginia. But the whole area of Virginia is 39,265,280 acres,
+deducting from which the farm lands, there remain unoccupied 8,250,330
+acres. Now, if (as would be in the absence of slavery,) the population
+per square mile of Virginia equalled that of Pennsylvania, three fifths
+of these lands would have been occupied as farms, viz., 4,950,198,
+which, at the Pennsylvania value per acre, would have been worth
+$188,207,524. Deduct from this their present average value of $2 per
+acre, $9,800,396, and the remainder, $178,407,128, is the sum by which
+the unoccupied lands of Virginia, converted into farms, would have been
+increased in value by emancipation. Add this to the enhanced value of
+their present farms, and the result is $1,014,106,721 as the gain, on
+this basis, of Virginia in the value of her lands, by emancipation. To
+these we should add the increased value of town and city lots and
+improvements, and of personal property, and, with emancipation, Virginia
+would now have an augmented wealth of at least one billion and a half of
+dollars.
+
+The earnings of commerce are not given in the Census Tables, which would
+vastly increase the difference in the value of their annual products in
+favor of Pennsylvania as compared with Virginia. These earnings include
+all not embraced under the heads of agriculture, manufactures, the
+mines, and fisheries. Let us examine some of these statistics.
+
+RAILROADS.--The number of miles of railroads in operation in
+Pennsylvania in 1860, including city roads, was 2,690.49 miles, costing
+$147,283,410; and in Virginia, 1,771 miles, costing $64,958,807. (Census
+Table of 1860, No. 38, pp. 230, 232.) The annual value of the freight
+carried on these roads is estimated at $200,000,000 more in Pennsylvania
+than in Virginia, and the passenger account would still more increase
+the disparity.
+
+CANALS.--The number of miles of canals in Pennsylvania in 1860 was
+1,259, and their cost, $42,015,000. In Virginia the number of miles was
+178, and the cost, $7,817,000. (Census Table 39, p. 238.) The estimated
+value of the freight on the Pennsylvania canals is ten times that of the
+freight on the Virginia canals.
+
+TONNAGE.--The tonnage of vessels built in Pennsylvania in 1860 was
+21,615 tons, and in Virginia, 4,372. (Census, p. 107.)
+
+BANKS.--The number of banks in Pennsylvania in 1860 was 90; capital,
+$25,565,582; loans, $50,327,127; specie, $8,378,474; circulation,
+13,132,892; deposits, $26,167,143:--and in Virginia the number was 65;
+capital, $16,005,156; loans, $24,975,792; specie, $2,943,652;
+circulation, $9,812,197; deposits, $7,729,652. (Census Table 35, p.
+193.)
+
+EXPORTS AND IMPORTS, ETC.--Our exports abroad from Pennsylvania, for the
+fiscal year ending 30th June, 1860, and foreign imports, were of the
+value of $20,262,608. The clearances, same year, from Pennsylvania, and
+entries were 336,848 tons. In Virginia the exports the same year, and
+foreign imports were of the value of $7,184,273; clearances and entries,
+178,143 tons, (Table 14, Register of U.S. Treasury.) Revenue from
+customs, same year, in Pennsylvania, $2,552,924, and in Virginia,
+$189,816; or more than twelve to one in favor of Pennsylvania. (Tables
+U.S. Commissioner of Customs.) No returns are given for the coastwise
+and internal trade of either State; but the railway and canal
+transportation of both States shows a difference of ten to one in favor
+of Pennsylvania. And yet, Virginia, as we have seen, had much greater
+natural advantages than Pennsylvania for commerce, foreign and internal,
+her shore line up to head of tide-water being 1,571 miles, and
+Pennsylvania only 60 miles.
+
+We have seen that, exclusive of commerce, the products of Pennsylvania
+in 1860 were of the value of $398,600,000, or $137 per capita; and in
+Virginia, $120,000,000, or $75 per capita. But, if we add the earnings
+of commerce, the products of Pennsylvania must have exceeded those of
+Virginia much more than four to one, and have reached, per capita,
+nearly three to one. What but slavery could have produced such amazing
+results? Indeed, when we see the same effects in _all_ the Free States
+as compared with _all_ the Slave States, and in _any_ of the Slave
+States, as compared with _any_ of the Free States, the uniformity of
+results establishes the law beyond all controversy, that slavery
+retards immensely the progress of wealth and population.
+
+That the Tariff has produced none of these results, is shown by the fact
+that the agriculture and commerce of Pennsylvania vastly exceed those of
+Virginia, and yet these are the interests supposed to be most
+injuriously affected by high tariffs. But there is still more conclusive
+proof. The year 1824 was the commencement of the era of high tariffs,
+and yet, from 1790 to 1820, as proved by the Census, the percentage of
+increase of Pennsylvania over Virginia was greater than from 1820 to
+1860. Thus, by Table 1 of the Census, p. 124, the increase of population
+in Virginia was as follows:
+
+  From 1790 to 1800  17.63 per cent.
+    "  1800 "  1810  10.73    "
+    "  1810 "  1820   9.31    "
+    "  1820 "  1830  13.71    "
+    "  1830 "  1840   2.34    "
+    "  1840 "  1850  14.60    "
+    "  1850 "  1860  12.29    "
+
+The increase of population in Pennsylvania was:
+
+  From 1790 to 1800  38.67 per cent.
+    "  1800 "  1810  34.49    "
+    "  1810 "  1820  29.55    "
+    "  1820 "  1830  28.47    "
+    "  1830 "  1840  27.87    "
+    "  1840 "  1850  34.09    "
+    "  1850 "  1860  25.71    "
+
+In 1790 the population of Virginia was 748,318; in 1820, 1,065,129, and
+in 1860, 1,596,318. In 1790 the population of Pennsylvania was 434,373;
+in 1820, 1,348,233, and in 1860, 2,906,115. Thus, from 1790 to 1820,
+before the inauguration of the protective policy, the relative increase
+of the population of Pennsylvania, as compared with Virginia, was very
+far greater than from 1820 to 1860. It is quite clear, then, that the
+tariff had no influence in depressing the progress of Virginia as
+compared with Pennsylvania.
+
+Having shown how much the material progress of Virginia has been
+retarded by slavery, let us now consider its effect upon her moral and
+intellectual development.
+
+NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS.--The number of newspapers and periodicals in
+Pennsylvania in 1860 was 367, of which 277 were political, 43 religious,
+25 literary, 22 miscellaneous; and the total number of copies circulated
+in 1860 was 116,094,480. (Census Tables, Nos. 15, 37.) The number in
+Virginia was 139, of which 117 were political, 13 religious, 3 literary,
+6 miscellaneous; and the number of copies circulated in 1860 was
+26,772,568, being much less than one fourth that of Pennsylvania. The
+number of copies of monthly periodicals circulated in Pennsylvania in
+1860 was 464,684; and in Virginia, 43,900; or much more than ten to one
+in favor of Pennsylvania.
+
+As regards schools, colleges, academies, libraries, and churches, I must
+take the Census of 1850, those tables for 1860 not being yet arranged or
+printed. The number of public schools in Pennsylvania in 1850 was 9,061;
+teachers, 10,024; pupils, 413,706; colleges, academies, &c., pupils,
+26,142; attending school during the year, as returned by families,
+504,610; native adults of the State who cannot read or write, 51,283;
+public libraries, 393; volumes, 363,400; value of churches, $11,853,291;
+percentage of native free, population (adults) who cannot read or write,
+4.56. (Comp. Census of 1850.)
+
+The number of public schools in Virginia in 1850 was 2,937; teachers,
+3,005; pupils, 67,438; colleges, academies, &c., pupils, 10,326;
+attending school, as returned by families, 109,775; native white adults
+of the State who cannot read or write, 75,868; public libraries, 54;
+volumes, 88,462; value of churches, $2,902,220; percentage of native
+free adults of Virginia who cannot read or write, 19.90. (Comp. Census
+of 1850.) Thus, the church and educational statistics of Pennsylvania,
+and especially of free adults who cannot read or write, is as five to
+one nearly in favor of Pennsylvania. When we recollect that nearly one
+third of the population of Pennsylvania are of the great German race,
+and speak the noble German language, to which they are greatly attached,
+and hence the difficulty of introducing common _English_ public schools
+in the State, the advantage, in this respect, of Pennsylvania over
+Virginia is most extraordinary.
+
+These official statistics enable me, then, again to say that slavery is
+hostile to the progress of _wealth_ and _education_, to _science_ and
+_literature_, to _schools_, _colleges_, and _universities_, to _books_
+and _libraries_, to _churches_ and _religion_, to the PRESS, and
+therefore to FREE GOVERNMENT; hostile to the _poor_, keeping them in
+_want_ and _ignorance_; hostile to LABOR, reducing it to _servitude_ and
+decreasing _two thirds_ the value of its products; hostile to _morals_,
+repudiating among slaves the _marital_ and _parental_ condition,
+classifying them by law as CHATTELS, _darkening_ the _immortal soul_,
+and making it a _crime_ to teach millions of _human beings_ to _read_ or
+_write_.
+
+And yet, there are desperate leaders of the Peace party of Pennsylvania,
+desecrating the name of _Democrats_, but, in fact, Tories and traitors,
+who would separate that glorious old commonwealth from the North, and
+bid her sue in abject humiliation for admission as one of the Slave
+States of the rebel confederacy. Shades of Penn and Franklin, and of the
+thousands of martyred patriots of Pennsylvania who have fallen in
+defence of the Union from 1776 to 1863, forbid the terrible degradation.
+
+
+
+
+DOWN IN TENNESSEE.
+
+
+Sultry and wearisome the day had been in that Tennessee valley, and
+after drill, we had laid around under the trees--tall, noble trees they
+were--and the fresh grass was green and soft under them as on the old
+'Campus,' and we had been smoking and talking over a wide, wide range of
+subjects, from deep Carlyleism--of which Carlyle doubtless never
+heard--to the significance of the day's orders. It was not an
+inharmonious picture--Camp Alabama, so we had named it--for it was with
+a 'here we rest' feeling that a dozen days before we had marched in at
+noon. The ground sloped to the eastward--a single winding road of yellow
+sand crept over the slope into the horizon, a mile or more away; north,
+a hill rose with some abruptness; south and west, a grove of wonderful
+beauty skirted the valley. A single building--an old but large log
+farmhouse--stood near the tent, whose fluttering banner indicated
+headquarters. This old house was well filled with commissary stores,
+and, following that incomprehensible Tennessee policy, four companies of
+our regiment, the twenty-third, had been detached to guard them under
+Major Fanning--'a noble soldier he, but all untried.' We had never yet
+seen active service, and our tents were still white and unstained. The
+ground had been once the lawn of the deserted house--in the long ago
+probably the home of a planter of some pretension; and, as we lay there
+under the trees watching the boys over the fires, kindled for their
+evening meal, the blue smoke curling up among the trees, it made, as I
+have said, a most harmonious picture.
+
+That fair June evening! I can never forget it, and I wish I were an
+artist that I could show you the sloping valley, the white tents,
+flushing like a girl's cheek to the good-night kisses of the sun, the
+curling smoke wreaths, and far, far above the amethystine heaven, from
+which floated over all a dim purple tint. I was the youngest
+commissioned officer in the regiment, having been promoted to a vacancy
+a week or two before through Major Fanning's influence.
+
+We were all invited that evening to supper with our commanding officer
+and his wife--who had been with him for a few days. A fresh breeze
+stirred the trees at sunset, and, after slight attention to our
+toilette, we dropped by twos and threes into the neighborhood of the
+major's tent. A little back from the rows of other tents, a few fine
+oaks made a temple in front, worthy even of its presiding genius, Grace
+Fanning--but I am _not_ going to rhapsodize. She was a fair, modest,
+young thing, with the girl rose yet fresh on her wife's cheek. I had
+known her from childhood; very nearly of the same age, and the children
+of neighbors, we had been inseparable; of course in my first college
+vacation, finding her grown tall and womanly, I had entertained for her
+a devoted boyish passion, and had gone from her presence, one August
+night, mad with rejection, and wild with what I called despair. But
+_that_ passed, and we had been good friends ever since--she the
+confidential one, to whom I related my varied college love affairs,
+listening ever with a tender, genial sympathy. I had no sister, and
+Grace Jones (I am sorry, but her name _was_ Jones) was dear to me as
+one. Two years of professional study had kept me away from my village
+home, and a few words came once in a long while, in my mother's letters
+'to assure me of Grace's remembrance and regard.' A little of the elder
+sister's advising tone amused my one and twenty years and my incipient
+moustache amazingly; and I resolved, when I saw her, to convince her of
+my dignity--to patronize her. But the notes that called me home were too
+clarion-like for a relapse into puppyism. My country spoke my name, and
+I arose a man, and 'put away childish things.' I came home to say
+farewell. A regiment was forming there, I enlisted, and a few days
+before our departure, I stood in the village church, looking and
+listening while Grace promised eternal fidelity to Harry Fanning. I was
+a stranger to him. He had come to Danville after my departure, winning
+from all golden opinions, and from Grace a woman's priceless heart. She
+gave him freely to his country, and denied not her hand to his parting
+prayer. I had had time only to say farewell to her, and the old footing
+had not been restored, but I _think_ she spoke to the major of me, for
+he soon sought me, giving me genial friendship and sympathy, and
+procuring for me, as I have related, my commission. I had seen her but
+once since she came to Camp Alabama, and she gave me warm and kindly
+welcome as I came in, the last of the group, having found in my tent
+some unexpected employment. Being a soldier, I shall not shock my fair
+readers if I confess that it was--buttons. Ah! me, I am frivolous. But I
+linger in the spirit of that happy hour. Grace's chair was shaded by a
+gracefully draped flag; the major stood near her, his love for her as
+visible in his eye as his cordial kindness for us. To me, in honor of my
+'juniority,' as Mrs. Fanning said, was assigned a place near her. The
+others had choice between campstools and blankets on the grass. And the
+oddest but most respectable of contrabands served us soon with our
+supper, so homelike that we suspected 'Mrs. Major's' fair hands of
+interference.
+
+It was a happy evening. Merry laughter at our camp stories rang silverly
+from her fair lips. Or we listened eagerly to her as she told us of the
+homes we had left, and the bonny maidens there, sobered since our
+departure into patriotic industry. Stories of touching self-denial, with
+a wholesome pathos, and sometimes from her dainty musical talk she
+dropped, pebble-like, a name, as 'Fanny,' 'Carry,' 'Maggie,' and
+responsive blushes rippled up over sunburned, honest faces, and a soft
+mist brightened for a second resolute eyes. Presently the band--a part
+only of the regiment's--began to play soft, well-known tunes. Through a
+few marches and national airs, I looked and listened as a year before,
+in the village church at home. And as the 'Star-Spangled Banner' rose
+inspiringly, I felt the coincidence strangely, and could scarcely say
+which scene was real: the church aisle and the bridal party, in white
+robes and favors, with mellow organ-tones rising in patriotic strains
+concerning the 'dear old flag,' or the group under the oaks; the young
+wife in her gray travelling dress, and the uniformed figures gathered
+around her; the moon-rise over the hill, lighting softly the drooping
+flag, the major's dark hair, and Mrs. Fanning's sunny braids, the wild
+notes of the same beloved melody overswelling all. But voices near
+aroused me, and we joined in the chorus, and in the following tune,
+'Sweet Home,' the usual finale of our evening programme. Then, as the
+tones died, Grace lifted her voice and sang with sweet, pure soprano
+tones, an old-time ballad of love and parting and reunion.
+
+We had a wild little battle song in 'Our Mess,' written by Charlie
+Marsh, our fair-haired boy-poet soldier, speaking of home, and the
+country's need, and victory, and possible deaths in ringing notes. We
+sang it there in the light of the slowly rising moon. The chorus was
+like this:
+
+  'Our country's foe before us,
+  Our country's banner o'er us,
+  Our country to deplore us,
+    These are a soldier's needs.'
+
+As we closed, Grace caught the strain, and with soft, birdlike notes
+sang:
+
+  'Your country's flag above you,
+  Your country's true hearts love you--
+  So let your country move you
+    To brave, undying deeds.'
+
+More songs followed, and happy words of cheer in distress, of
+self-consecration, of past and future victory; but Major Fanning was
+unusually silent. Hardly sad, for he flung into our conversation
+occasional cheerful words; but gravely quiet, his dark eye following
+every motion of his fair young wife. Finally we called on Captain
+Carter, our 'oldest man,' a grave bachelor of forty-five, and to our
+surprise, who knew him harsh and sometimes profane, he sang, with a
+voice not faultless, but soft and expressive, that exquisite health of
+Campbell's:
+
+  'Drink ye to her that each loves best,
+    And if you nurse a flame
+  That's told but to her mutual breast,
+    We will not ask her name.
+
+  'And far, far hence be jest or boast,
+    From hallowed thoughts so dear;
+  But drink to her that each loves most,
+    As she would love to hear.'
+
+Then silence for a little space; and the moonlight full and fair in
+soldiers' faces, young and old, but all firm and true, and fair and full
+on Grace Fanning's fresh, young brow. Then 'good-nights,' mingled with
+expressions of enjoyment, and plans for the morrow. I left them last.
+
+'I am glad you are here, Robert,' said the major; 'Grace would not be
+all alone, even if I'--
+
+Her white hand flashed to his lips, where a kiss met it, and laughingly
+we parted. A few rods away, I paused and turned. They stood there under
+the flag. Her bright head on his bosom, his arms about her, and the
+silver moonlight over all. Fair Grace Fanning! Have I named my story
+wrongly, pretty reader? I called it 'Camp Sketch,' and it reads too like
+a love story. 'Ah! gentle girl, seeking adventure in fiction, but
+shrinking really from even a cut finger, there is enough of battle even
+in my little story, though you slept peacefully and happily that fair
+June night, or waltzed yourself weary to the sound of the sea at the
+'Ocean House.'
+
+A few 'good nights' commendatory of our hostess and our evening greeted
+me as I sought my tent and made ready for sleep. I was very happy, no
+memory of our talk was sullied by coarse or unlovely thought; pure as
+herself had been our enjoyment of Mrs. Fanning's society, and I slept
+sweetly.
+
+The long roll! None but those who have heard it when it means instant
+danger and possible death, can conceive the thrill with which I sprang
+from deep slumber, and made hasty preparation for action. Quick as I
+was, others had been before me, and I found the half-dressed men drawn
+up in battle line before the encampment. I took my place.
+
+Behind us lay the camp, a wide, street-like space, fringed with a double
+row of tents--at its foot the old log mansion; near that, a little in
+front, but at one side, the flag of headquarters--this behind. Before us
+the major--the western wood, and the flashing sabres of a band of
+hostile cavalry. They came on heedless of the fast-emptying saddles, on,
+_on_, and more following from the wood, the moon in the mid heaven,
+clear like day.
+
+A gallant charge--a firm repulse. Major Fanning's clear voice on the
+night air, rallying the men to attack the furious foe. They sweep their
+horses around to left, but calmly the major wheels his battalion, still
+unflanked; again those fierce steeds try the first point of attack;
+again we front them undaunted. In our turn, with lifted level bayonets
+we charge; the enemy falls back--a shout threads along our lines,
+changing suddenly into a wail, for, calling us on, our leader falls.
+Pitiless to his noble valor, a well-aimed carbine-shot lays him low.
+They lift him, some brave soldiers near; and, his young face bathed in
+blood, they bear him to his waiting bride; he opens his eyes, as he
+passes.
+
+'Courage! victory! my boys!' he calls; then, seeing me: 'Go! tell her,
+Robert.'
+
+I call my orderly to my place, and before they have pierced our lines
+with their beloved burden, I am at the tent door. She stands there
+waiting, a little pistol in her hand--a light wrapper about her, and her
+fair hair streaming over her shoulders. I look at her mutely; she knows
+there is something terrible for her, and while I seek words, her eye
+goes on, resting where down the moonlit trees they are bringing him. A
+moment, she is by his side, and tearless and white, her hand on his
+unanswering heart, she moves beside him. The soldiers lay their leader
+on the ground under his flag, and her imperious gesture sends them back
+to their places in the battle. And then she, sinking beside him, cries
+out:
+
+'Oh, Robert! will he never speak to me again? Help him!'
+
+My two years at lectures had not been passed in vain, and surgery had
+been my hobby. I knelt and strove to aid him. It was a cruel wound. I
+asked for bandages. She tore them from her garments wildly. I stilled
+the trickling crimson stream, and going into the tent, found some
+restoratives. I poured the wine down his throat, and, soon opening his
+eyes, he spoke:
+
+'Grace!'
+
+I stepped away--near enough for call, not near enough for intrusion.
+Looking at the lines of dark forms topped by the light glimmer of stray
+bayonets, I saw with dismay that our men were retreating before those
+heavy charges; in thick, dense masses they moved back, nearing us. I
+thought of our soldier chief, crushed under those wild hoofs; I thought
+of Grace, unprotected in her youth and widowed, desolate beauty, and
+sprang to her side, ready with my life for her.
+
+The major saw it all, and, faint as he was, rose on his elbow, watching.
+Charge after charge, wild and impetuous, break the slowly retreating
+battalions. In vain I heard Carter's stern oaths (may the angel of tears
+forgive him!), and Charlie Marsh's boyish calls. The men are facing us.
+The enemy, cheering, and in the background huge torches flaming with
+pitch, are ready for incendiarism.
+
+'Grace! Grace! I _must_ rally them, let me go!' and I see Major Fanning
+straggling in her arms. I clasp him also.
+
+'It is certain death,' I say to her, mad with fright and misery.
+
+'And this is worse, worse, Grace; you might better kill me!' his voice
+was harsh--cruel even.
+
+Suddenly she was gone, and I held him alone; catching his sword, she
+sprang like a flash of lightning into the open space before the log
+house, and, lifting the bare blade with naked, slender arm, its loose
+sleeve floating from her shoulder like a wing, she faced those
+panic-stricken men.
+
+'For shame!' she cried; but her weak voice was lost; then, stern as the
+angel of death, she stepped forward.
+
+'The first man that passes me shall die!' and she swung the flashing
+blade up, ready to fall. A moment's halt, and then, she spoke to them
+with wonderful strange words. I cannot recall them; with inspired
+eloquence she spoke, a slight, white-robed figure in the clear
+moonlight, and the rout was stayed, and they turned bravely to meet the
+foe. Then she came faint and weak to her husband's side again. He looked
+up with glad, eager eyes.
+
+'Darling!'
+
+Infinite love, soul-recognition, shone on both faces, and then blank
+unconsciousness crept over his. Firmly our boys met the charging steeds
+now. That moment had restored to them their courage. Emptied saddles
+were frequent, but still fresh forces dashed from the wood. Is there no
+hope for us? Must we be overpowered? Is all this valor vain? Grace from
+her husband's side looks mutely up to heaven. I find my place among the
+men. Little hope remains. Some one calls 'retreat.' 'Just once more,'
+cries Charlie, and falls before us. But listen; above the battle din
+comes a new, an approaching sound from the eastward.
+
+Along the yellow road pours swiftly a force of cavalry, behind the
+rumble of cannon almost flying over the ground, and high in air, reeling
+from the swift motion of its bearer's steed, the banner of the free. We
+are saved! A wild shout rings along our lines. Among the enemy,
+frightened consultation followed by flight; another second, and our
+friends are with us and beyond us in hot pursuit.
+
+Brief question and answer told us of the friendly warning in the distant
+camp, the hasty march to aid us. The rest we saw. Then, 'A surgeon for
+Major Fanning.' The man of the green sash had not grown callous. There
+were tears in his eyes as he rose from his vain endeavors, saying only:
+
+'I can do nothing here; I am needed elsewhere.'
+
+Our young hero was dead!
+
+They composed his limbs, laying him on a blanket under the trees, and
+Grace sat down beside him, tearless still, but pale as her dress, or the
+white hand lying cold over the soldier's pulseless heart.
+
+'Robert, send them away,' she said to me, as sympathizing strangers
+pressed round; and they left us alone with the dead. I spoke at last the
+commonplaces of consolation, suggested and modified by the hour and my
+soldier feelings.
+
+'Yes, Robert,' she answered, 'I gave him long ago. GOD will comfort me
+for my hero--in time. Do not speak to me just yet. Do not let any one
+come.'
+
+The tears came now, and she wept bitterly, silently, under the starry
+banner, beside the dead. I heard the hum of many voices, and now and
+then a cry of pain, and knew they were all helping the sufferers. Then I
+turned to her again. Her streaming hair swept the ground, golden in the
+light. Her fair face was hidden on the cold dead face. And I dared not
+speak to her. Oh, that picture! Poor Grace Fanning! and the silver,
+silver moonlight over all.
+
+
+
+
+POETRY AND POETICAL SELECTIONS.
+
+  'Oh, deem not in this world of strife,
+    An idle art the Poet brings;
+      Let high Philosophy control,
+  And sages calm the stream of life;
+    'Tis he refines its fountain springs,
+      The nobler passions of the soul.'
+
+
+In the annals of literature, Poetry antedates Prose. Creation precedes
+Providence, not merely in the order of sequence, but what is usually
+called intellectual and physical grandeur. So in genius and taste,
+Poetry transcends prose. In the work of Creation the Almighty broke the
+awful stillness of Eternity, by His first creative fiat, and angels were
+the first-born of God. They took their thrones in the galleries of the
+universe, and in silent contemplation sat. They spoke not; for words, as
+signs of thought or will or emotion, were not then conceived, and,
+consequently, then unborn. They gazed in rapture on one another, and in
+solemn silence thought. Their emotions bodied forth the Anthem of
+Creation.
+
+Human words being created breath, and breath being air in motion, prior
+to these language was impossible. And as the deaf are always dumb,
+language, like faith, comes by hearing. But hearing itself is a
+pensioner, waiting upon a speaker; consequently, it must ever be
+contingent on a cause alike antecedent and extrinsic of itself. It is,
+therefore, equally an oracle of reason and of faith that, however God
+may have communicated to angels, to _man_ He spoke in articulate sounds,
+before man articulated a thought, a feeling, or an emotion of his soul.
+And as an emotional soul is but a harp of many strings, a hand there
+must have been to play upon its chords, before melody and harmony,
+twins-born of Heaven, had either a local habitation or a name.
+
+But, it may be asked--Is there not in the regions of Poetry an aeolian
+harp, found in the cave of AEolus, on which the winds of heaven played
+many a celestial symphony, without the skill or touch of human hand?
+Grant all that the Poetic Muse assumes, and then we ask--Who made the
+harp? And whence directed came the musing sylvan Zephyrus and his choir?
+Came they not from a land of images and dreams?
+
+But we are inquiring for originals. Images and originals are the poles
+apart. An original without an image is possible; but an image without an
+original is alike impossible and inconceivable. Hence, alike
+philosophically and logically, we conclude that _neither man nor angel
+addressed each other until they themselves had been addressed by their
+Creator_. Then they intercommunicated thought, sentiment, and emotion
+with one another as God had communicated to them.
+
+The mystery of language and Poetry is insoluble but on the admission of
+a revelation or communication of some sort, unconceived by the human
+mind, unexecuted by the human hand. If invention and creation be the
+grand characteristics of the Poet, Moses, if uninspired, was a greater
+Poet than Homer, or Milton, or Shakspeare, on the hypothesis that he
+invented the drama which he wrote. The first chapter of Genesis is the
+greatest and most splendid Poem ever conceived by human imagination, or
+written by human hand.
+
+All Poets, ancient and modern, are mere plagiarists, if Moses was
+uninspired. We prove his Divine Legation by the intrinsic and
+transcendent merits of the Poem which he wrote. Imagination originates
+nothing absolutely new. It merely imitates and combines. It is regarded
+as the creative faculty of man; but its material is already furnished.
+The portrait of an unreal Adam is as conceivable as a child without a
+father, or an effect without a cause.
+
+Thus we are obliged, by an inseparable necessity, to admit the
+credibility of the Poem which he wrote. And what does Moses say? Nothing
+more than that _God spoke, and the universe was!_ This is the sublime of
+true Poetry. This is more than the logic of the proposition, _God was,
+therefore we are!_ It is more than the philosophy, _ex nihilo, nihil
+fit!_ or than, that _nothing_ cannot be the parent of _something_.
+
+But we must place our foot on a higher round of the ladder, before we
+can stand on such an eminence as to see, in all its fair proportions,
+the column on which the Muses perch themselves.
+
+Job, and not Moses, shall be our guide, and the oracle alike of our
+reason and our imagination. But who is Job? There is not much poetry in
+the name, Job. But Rome and its vulgate vulgarized this hallowed name,
+and Britain followed Rome. His name in Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic, is
+Jobab. There is more poetry in this. There is no metre, no poetry in a
+monotone or monosyllable. Born among rocks and mountains, the proper
+theatre of a heaven-inspired Muse--not in Arabia the Happy, but in
+Arabia the Rocky--he was a heart-touching, a soul-stirring, emotional
+Bard. In such a case the clouds that overshadow the era of the man only
+enhance the genius and inspiration of the Poet.
+
+In internal and external evidence, according to our calendar of the
+Muses, he is the first-born of the Poets that yet survive the wasteful
+ravages of hoary Time. He sings not, indeed, of Chaos and Eternal Night.
+But as one inspired by a heaven-born Muse, he echoes the chorus of the
+Angelic Song, when on the utterance of the first _fiat_ the Morning
+Stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Hence we
+argue, that Poetry is not only prior to prose, but that language, its
+intellectual and emotional embodiment, is heaven-conceived, and
+heaven-born.
+
+But in a short essay it would be out of place and in bad taste to
+attempt a discourse upon the broad field of ancient or modern Poetry. We
+merely attempt to suggest one idea on this rich and lofty theme. Our
+radical conception of the essential and differential attribute of
+Poetry, as contradistinguished from prose, however chaste, pure,
+beautiful, and philosophic, is not mere art, nor science, but
+_creation_.
+
+The universe itself is a grand Heroic Poem. Hence its instrument is that
+power usually called Imagination. But _human_ imagination is not first,
+second, or third in rank on the scale of the universe. God Himself
+imagined the universe before He created it. His imagination is infinite.
+The Cherubim and Seraphim have wings that elevate them above our zenith.
+And angels, too, excel us in this creative faculty, and therefore veil
+their faces before the Majesty of heaven and earth. Still, man has an
+humble portion of it, and can turn it to a good account.
+
+But there is another idea essential to the character of Poetry, as good
+or evil in its spirit and adornings. We need scarcely say, for we are
+anticipated by every reflecting mind, that this is the _spirit_ of the
+Poem. Poetry, in the abstract, is not necessarily good or evil. It may
+be Christian, Jewish, Pagan, or Infidel in its spirit and tendencies. It
+may corrupt or purify the heart. It may save or ruin the reader in
+fortune or in fame. Hence, as Poetry is powerful to elevate or degrade,
+to purify or to corrupt a people, much depends on the spirit of the
+Poetry which they may put into the hands of the youth of a country; as
+well observed by an eminent moralist: 'Let me write the poems or
+ballads of a people, and I care but little who enacts their laws.'
+
+The genius of a Poet is a rare genius. And most happily it is so; for
+elevated taste and high-toned morality are not, by any means, the common
+heritage of man. Anacreon and Burns were genuine Poets. They uttered, in
+fine style, many truths; and were not merely fluent in their respective
+languages, but affluent. But, perhaps, like some other men of mighty
+parts and grand proportions, better for mankind they had never been
+born. A Cowper and a Byron, in their whole career of song, will exert a
+very different influence, not only on earth, but in eternity, on the
+destiny of their amateurs. We need not argue this position as though,
+among a Christian people, it were a doubtful or debatable position. If
+the evil spirit, or the melancholy demon, that fitfully possessed the
+first king of Israel, was expelled by the skilful hand of his successor,
+even when his youthful fingers awoke the melodies of the lyre, how much
+more puissant the exquisite Odes of the sweet Psalmist, inspired as they
+were with sentiments and views alike honorable to God and man, to
+elevate the conceptions, purify the heart, ennoble the aspirations, and
+adorn the life of man!
+
+As the cask long retains the odor of the wine put into it, so the moral
+and religious fragrance of many a fine poetic effusion, securely lodged
+in the recesses of memory, may yield, and often does yield, a rich
+repast of pleasurable associations and emotions which, beside their
+opportune recurrence in some trying or tempting hour or season of
+adversity, do often energize our souls with a moral heroism to deeds of
+nobler daring, which result in enterprises full of blessings to
+ourselves, and not unfrequently to our associates in the walks of life,
+and radiate through them salutary light for generations to come.
+
+Imagination, like every other faculty, is to be cultivated. But here we
+are interrogated--'What is Imagination?'
+
+No distinction has given critics more trouble, in the way of definition,
+than that between Imagination and Fancy. Fancy, it is held, is given to
+beguile and quicken the temporal part of our nature; Imagination to
+incite and support the eternal.
+
+It would be vain to enumerate the various definitions of this term, or
+to attempt to give even an abstract of the diversity of views
+entertained by philosophers respecting the nature and extent of its
+operations. It is regarded by some writers as that power or faculty of
+the mind by which it conceives and forms ideas of things communicated to
+it by the organs of sense. So defines our encyclopaedias. Bacon defined
+it to be the 'representation of an individual thought.' But Dugald
+Stewart more philosophically defines it as the 'power of modifying our
+conceptions, by combining the parts of different ones so as to form new
+wholes of our own creation.' The Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, not satisfied
+with this, says Webster defines it to be the _will working on the
+materials of memory, selecting parts of different conceptions, or
+objects of memory, to form some new whole_.
+
+This has long been our cherished view of Imagination. It creates only as
+a mechanic creates a chest of drawers, a sideboard, a clock, or a watch.
+It originates not a single material of thought, volition, or action.
+But, mechanic-like, it works by plumb and rule on all the materials
+found in the warehouse of memory; and manufactures, out of the same
+plank of pine, or bar of iron, or wedge of gold, or precious stone, some
+new utensil, ornament, or adornment never found in Nature. In its
+present form it is the offspring of the art and contrivance of man.
+Hence our invulnerable position against Atheism or Deism. _No one could
+have created the idea of a God or of a Christ, without a special
+inspiration, any more than he could create a gold watch without the
+metal called gold._
+
+The deaf are necessarily dumb. The blind cannot conceive of color. A
+Poet cannot work without language, any more than the nightingale could
+sing without air. Language and prototypes precede and necessarily
+antedate writing and prose. Hence the idea of Poetry is preceded by the
+idea of Prose, as speaking by the idea of hearing. There was reason, and
+an age of reason, without, and antecedent to, rhyme; and therefore we
+sometimes find rhyme without reason, as well as reason without rhyme.
+
+Rhyme, however, facilitates memory and recollection. Memory, indeed, is
+but a printed tablet, and recollection the art and mystery of reading
+it. Poetry, therefore, is both useful and pleasing. It aids
+recollection, and soothes and excites and animates the soul of man. It
+makes deeper, more pungent, more stimulating, more exciting, and more
+enduring impressions on the mind than prose; and, therefore, greatly
+facilitates both the acquisition and retention of ideas and impressions.
+Of it Horace says ('Ars Poetica'):
+
+  'Ut pictura, poesis; erit, quae, si propius stes,
+  Te capiet magis, et quaedam, si longius abstes.
+  Haec amat obscurum; volet haec sub luce videri,
+  Judicis argutum quae non formidat acumen:
+  Haec placuit semel, haec decies repetita placebit.'
+
+No one ever attained to what is usually called _good taste_ who has not
+devoted a portion of his time and study to the whole science and art of
+Poetry. We do not mean good taste in relation to any one manifestation
+of it.
+
+There is a general as well as a special good taste, but they are
+distinguishable only as genus and species. There is, it may be alleged,
+a _native_ as well as an _acquired_ taste. This may also be conceded.
+There is in some persons a greater innate susceptibility of deriving
+pleasure from the works of Nature and of Art than is discoverable in
+others. Still we cannot imagine any one gifted with reason and
+sensibility to be entirely destitute of it. It is an element of reason
+and of sense peculiar to man. As a fabulist once represented a cock in
+quest of barleycorns, scraping for his breakfast, saying to himself, on
+discovering a precious and brilliant gem: 'If a lapidary were in my
+place he would now have made his fortune; but as for myself, I prefer
+one grain of barley to all the precious stones in the world.'
+
+But what man, so feeling and thinking, would not 'blush and hang his
+head to think himself a man'? Apart from the value of the gem, every man
+of reason or of thought has pleasure in the contemplation of the
+beautiful diamond, whether on his own person or on that of another.
+Taste seems to be as inseparable from reason as Poetry is from
+imagination. It is not wholly the gift of Nature, nor wholly the gift of
+Art. It is an innate element of the human constitution, designed to
+beautify and beatify man. To cultivate and improve it is an essential
+part of education. The highest civilization known in Christendom is but
+the result or product of good taste. Even religion and morality, in
+their highest excellence, are but, so far as society is concerned,
+developments and demonstrations of cultivated taste. There may, indeed,
+be a fictitious or chimerical taste without Poetry or Religion; but a
+genuine good taste, in our judgment, without these handmaids, is
+unattainable.
+
+But as no interesting landscape--no mountain, hill, or valley, no river,
+lake or sea--affords us all that charms, excites or elevates our
+imagination viewed from any one point of vision, so the poetic faculty
+itself can neither be conceived of nor appreciated, contemplated out of
+its own family register.
+
+There is in all the 'Fine Arts' a common paternity, and hence a family
+lineage and a family likeness. To appreciate any one of them we must
+form an acquaintance with the whole sisterhood--Poetry, Music, Painting,
+and Sculpture.
+
+And are not all these the genuine offspring of Imagination? Hence they
+are of one paternity, though not of one maternity. The eye, the ear, and
+the hand, has each its own peculiar sympathetic nerve. For, as all God's
+works are perfect, when and where He gives an eye to see or an ear to
+hear, He gives a hand to execute. This is the law; and as all God's laws
+are universal as perfect, there is no exception save from accident, or
+from something poetically styled a _lusus naturae_--a mere caprice or
+sport of Nature.
+
+But the philosophy of Poetry is not necessary to its existence any more
+than the astronomy of the heavens is to the brilliancy of the sun or to
+the splendors of a comet. A Poet is a creator, and his most perfect
+creature is a portraiture of any work of God or man; of any attribute of
+God or man in perfect keeping with Nature or with the original
+prototype, be it in fact or in fiction, in repose or in operation.
+
+Imitation is sometimes regarded as the test of poetic excellence. But
+what is imitation but the creation of an image! Alexander Pope so well
+imitates Homer, that, as an English critic once said, in speaking of his
+translation of that Prince of Grecian Poets--'a time might come, should
+the annals of Greece and England be confounded in some convulsion of
+Nature, when it might be a grave question of debate whether Pope
+translated Homer, or Homer Pope.'
+
+For our own part, we have never been able to decide to our own entire
+satisfaction, which excels in the true Heroic style. Pope, in his
+translation of the exordium of Homer, we think more than equals Homer
+himself:
+
+  'Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring
+  Of woes unnumbered, heavenly goddess, sing!
+  That wrath which hurled to Pluto's dark domain
+  The souls of mighty chiefs in battle slain;
+  Whose limbs, unburied on the fatal shore,
+  Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore;
+  Since great Achilles and Atrides strove,
+  Such was the sovereign doom and such the will of Jove.'[18]
+
+We opine that Pope, being trammelled with a copy, and consequently his
+imagination cramped, displays every attribute of poetic genius fully
+equal, if not superior, to that of the beau ideal of the Grecian Muse.
+
+But Alexander Pope, of England, is not the Pope of English Poetry, a
+brother Poet being judge, for Dryden says:
+
+  'Three Poets, in three distant ages born,
+  Greece, Italy, and England did adorn;
+  The first in majesty of thought surpassed,
+  The next in melody--in both the last:
+  The force of Nature could no further go,
+  To make the third she joined the other two.'
+
+And who awards not to Milton the richest medal in the Temple of the
+Muses! Not, perhaps, for the elegant diction and sublime imagery of his
+PARADISE LOST, but for his grand conceptions of Divinity in all its
+attributes, and of humanity in all its conditions, past, present, and
+future.
+
+We Americans have a peculiar respect for Lyric Poetry. We have not time
+for the Epic. If anything with us is good, it is superlatively good for
+being brief. Short sermons, short prayers, short hymns, and short metre
+are peculiarly interesting. We are, too, a miscellaneous people, and we
+are peculiarly fond of miscellanies. The age of folios and quartos is
+forever past with Young America. Octavos are waning, and more in need of
+brushing than of burnishing. But still we must have Poetry--_good_
+Poetry; for we Americans prefer to live rather in the style of good
+lyric than in that of grave, elongated hexameter. Variety, too, is with
+us the spice of life. We are not satisfied with grand prairies, rivers,
+and cataracts, and even cascades and _jet d'eaus_!
+
+Collections of miscellaneous Poetry seem alike due to the Poetic Muse
+and to the American people. We love variety. It is, as we have remarked,
+the spice of American life; and our country will ever cherish it as
+being most in harmony with itself. It is, moreover, more in unison with
+the conditions of human nature and human existence. There is, too, as
+the wisest of men and the greatest of kings has said, 'a time for every
+purpose and for every work.' No volume of Poetry or of Prose can,
+therefore, be popular or interesting to such a nation as we are, that
+does not adapt itself to the versatile genius of our people, and to the
+ever-varying conditions of their lives and fortunes.
+
+There is, therefore, a propriety in getting up good selections, because
+a greater advantage is to be derived from well selected specimens of the
+Poetic Muse than from the labors of any one of the great masters of the
+Lyre! Who would not rather visit a rich and extensive museum of the
+products and arts of civilized life--some well assorted repository of
+its scientific or artistic developments, than to traverse a whole state
+or kingdom in pursuit of such knowledge of the wisdom, talents, and
+contrivances of its population?
+
+Of all kinds of composition, Poetry is that which gives to the lovers of
+it the greatest and most enduring pleasure. Almost every one of them can
+heartily respond to the beautiful words of one who was not only a great
+Poet, but a profound philosopher--Coleridge--who, speaking of the
+delight he had experienced in writing his Poems, says: 'Poetry has been
+to me its own exceeding great reward. It has soothed my afflictions; it
+has multiplied and refined my enjoyments; it has endeared solitude; and
+it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the Good and the
+Beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me.'
+
+In no way can the imagination be more effectually or safely exercised
+and improved than by the constant perusal and study of our best Poets.
+Poetry appeals to the universal sympathies of mankind. With the
+contemplative writers, we can indulge our pensive and thoughtful tastes.
+With the describers of natural scenery, we can delight in the beauties
+and glories of the external universe. With the great dramatists, we are
+able to study all the phases of the human mind, and to take their
+fictitious personages as models or beacons for ourselves. With the great
+creative Poets, we can go outside of all these, and find ourselves in a
+region of pure Imagination, which may be as true to our higher
+instincts--perhaps more so--than the shows which surround us.
+
+If it be as truthfully as it has been happily expressed by the prince of
+dramatic Poets, that
+
+  'He who has no music in his soul
+  Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils,'
+
+it should be a paramount duty with every one who loves his species, and
+cultivates a generous philanthropy, to patronize every effort to diffuse
+widely through society, Poetry of genuine character, and to cultivate a
+taste for it as an element of a literary, religious, and moral
+education. We commend, as a standard of appreciation of the true
+character of the gifts of the Poetic Muse, the following critique from
+Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham:
+
+  ''Tis not a flash of fancy, which sometimes,
+  Dazzling our minds, sets off the slightest rhymes,
+  Bright as a blaze, but in a moment done;
+  True wit is everlasting, like the sun,
+  Which, though sometimes behind a cloud retired,
+  Breaks out again, and is by all admired.
+  Number and rhyme, and that harmonious sound
+  Which not the nicest ear with harshness wound,
+  Are necessary, yet but vulgar arts;
+  And all in rain these superficial parts
+  Contribute to the structure of the whole,
+  Without a genius too--for that's the soul;
+  A spirit which inspires the work throughout,
+  As that of Nature moves the world about;
+  A flame that glows amidst conceptions fit;
+  E'en something of divine, and more than wit;
+  Itself unseen, yet all things by it shown,
+  Describing all men, but described by none.'
+
+We neither intend nor desire to institute any invidious comparisons
+between Old Britain and Young America. We are one people--one in blood,
+one literature, one faith, one religion, in fact or in profession. Our
+language girdles the whole earth. Our science and our religion more or
+less enlighten every land, as our sails whiten every sea, and our
+commerce, in some degree, enriches every people. There is a magnanimity,
+a benevolence, a philanthropy, in English Poetry, whether the Muse be
+English, Scotch, Irish, or American, that thrills the social nerve and
+warms the kindred hearts of all who think, or speak, or dream in our
+vernacular. The pen of the gifted Bard is more puissant than the
+cannon's thundering roar or the warrior's glittering sword; and the
+soft, sweet melodies of English Poetry, gushing from a Christian Muse,
+are Heaven's sovereign specifics for a wounded spirit and an aching
+heart!
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 18:
+
+  [Greek: Menin aeide, thea, Peleiadeo, Achileos,
+  Oulomenen, he myri' Achaiois alge' etheken,
+  Pollas d' iphthimous psychas Aidi proiapsen
+  Heroon, autous de heloria teuche kynessin
+
+  K.T.L.]]
+
+
+
+
+PATRIA SPES ULTIMA MUNDI.
+
+FLAG OF OUR UNION.
+
+National Song.
+
+BY HON. ROBERT J. WALKER
+
+_Dedicated to the Union Army and Navy._
+
+
+  The day our nation's life began,
+  Dawned on the sovereignty of man,
+  His charter then our Fathers signed,
+  Proclaiming Freedom for mankind.
+  May Heaven still guard her glorious sway,
+  Till time with endless years grows gray.
+
+        Flag of our Union! float unfurled,
+        Thy stars shall light a ransomed world.
+
+  Americans, your mighty name,
+  With glory floods the peaks of fame;
+  Ye whom our Washington has led,
+  Men who with Warren nobly bled,
+  Who never quailed on land or sea,
+  Your watchword, _Death or Liberty_!
+
+        Flag of our Union! float unfurled,
+        Thy stars shall light a ransomed world.
+
+  It was the Union made us free,
+  Its loss, man's second fall would be.
+  States linked in kindred glory save,
+  Till the last despot finds a grave;
+  And angels hasten here to see
+  Man break his chains, the whole earth free!
+
+        Flag of our Union! float unfurled,
+        Thy stars shall light a ransomed world.
+
+  Ye struggling brothers o'er the sea,
+  Who spurn the chain of tyranny,
+  Like brave Columbus westward steer,
+  Our stars of hope will guide you here,
+  Where States still rising bless our land,
+  And freedom strengthens labor's hand.
+
+        Flag of our Union! float unfurled,
+        Thy stars shall light a ransomed world.
+
+  Ye toiling millions, free and brave,
+  Whose shores two mighty oceans lave:
+  Your cultured fields, your marts of trade,
+  Keels by the hand of genius laid,
+  The shuttle's hum, the anvil's ring
+  Echo your voice that God is King.
+
+        Flag of our Union! float unfurled,
+        Thy stars shall light a ransomed world.
+
+  Hail! Union Army, true and brave,
+  And dauntless Navy on the wave.
+  Holy the cause where Freedom leads,
+  Sacred the field where patriot bleeds;
+  Victory shall crown your spotless fame,
+  Nations and ages bless your name.
+
+        Flag of our Union! float unfurled,
+        Thy stars shall light a ransomed world.
+
+
+
+
+A FANCY SKETCH.
+
+
+I am a banker, and I need hardly say I am in comfortable circumstances.
+Some of my friends, of whom I have a good many, are pleased to call me
+rich, and I shall not take it upon myself to dispute their word. Until I
+was twenty-five, I travelled, waltzed, and saw the best foreign society;
+from twenty-five to thirty I devoted myself to literature and the art of
+dining; I am now entered upon the serious business of life, which
+consists in increasing one's estate. At forty I shall marry, and as this
+epoch is nine years distant, I trust none of the fair readers of this
+journal will trouble themselves to address me notes which I really
+cannot answer, and which it would give me pain to throw in the fire.
+
+Some persons think it beneath a gentleman to write for the magazines or
+papers. This is a low and vulgar idea. The great wits of the world have
+found their best friends in the journals; there were some who never
+learned to write,--who ever hears of them now? I write anonymously of
+course, and I amuse myself by listening to the remarks that society
+makes upon my productions. Society talks about them a great deal, and I
+divide attention with the last novelist, whether an unknown young lady
+of the South, or a drumhead writer of romances. People say, 'That was a
+brilliant article of so and so's in the last ----, wasn't it?' You will
+often hear this remark. I am that gentleman--I wrote that article--it
+was brilliant, and, though I say it, I am capable of producing others
+fully equal to it.
+
+Many persons imagine that business disqualifies from the exercise of the
+imagination. This is a mistake. Alexander was a business man of the
+highest order; so was Caesar; so was Bonaparte; so was Burr; so am I. To
+be sure, none of these distinguished characters wrote poetry; but I take
+it, poetry is a low species of writing, quite inferior to prose, and
+unworthy one's attention. Look at the splendid qualities of these great
+men, particularly in the line in which the imaginative faculties tend.
+See how they fascinated the ladies, who it is well known adore a fine
+imagination. How well they talked love, the noblest of all subjects--for
+a man's idle hours. Then observe the schemes they projected. Conquests,
+consolidations, empires, dominion, and to include my own project, a
+bullion bank with a ten-acre vault. It appears that a lack of capital
+was at the bottom of all their plans. Alexander confessed that he was
+bankrupt for lack of more worlds, and is reputed to have shed tears over
+his failure, which might have been expected from a modern dry-goods
+jobber, but not from Alexander. Caesar and Bonaparte failed for the want
+of men: they do not seem to have been aware of the existence of Rhode
+Island. I think Burr failed for the lack of impudence--he had more than
+all the rest of the world together, but he needed much more than that to
+push his projects ahead of his times. As for myself, when I have doubled
+my capital, I shall found my bullion bank in the face of all opposition.
+The ten-acre lot at the corner of Broadway and Wall street is already
+selected and paid for, and I shall excavate as soon as the present crop
+is off.
+
+There is no question that the occupation of banking conduces to literary
+pursuits. When I take interest out of my fellow beings, I naturally take
+interest in them, and so fall to writing about them. I have in my
+portfolio sketches of all the leading merchants of the age, romantically
+wrought, and full of details of their private lives, hopes, fears, and
+pleasures. These men that go up town every day have had, and still have,
+little fanciful excursions that are quite amusing when an observer of my
+talent notes them down. I know all about old Boscobello, the Spanish
+merchant, of the house of Boscobello, Bolaso & Co. My romance of his
+life from twenty to forty fills three volumes, and is as exciting as the
+diaries of those amusing French people whom Bossuet preached to with
+such small effect. Boscobello has sobered since forty, and begs for
+loans as an old business man ought to. I think he sees the error of his
+ways, and is anxious to repair his fortunes to the old point, but it is
+easier to spend a million than to make it. My cashier reports his
+account overdrawn the other day, and not made good till late next
+afternoon. This is a sign of failing circumstances, and must be attended
+to.
+
+When Boscobello comes in about half past two of an afternoon for the
+usual loan of a hundred dollars to enable him to go on, I amuse myself
+by talking to him while I look over his securities. He has two or three
+loans to pay up before three o'clock, in different parts of the town,
+and we cannot blame him for being in a hurry, but this is no concern of
+mine. If he _will_ get into a tight place, one may surely take one's
+time at helping him out: and really it does require some little time to
+investigate the class of securities he brings, and which are
+astonishingly varied. For instance, he brought me to-day as collateral
+to an accommodation, a deed to a South Brooklyn block, title clouded; a
+Mackerelville second mortgage; ten shares of coal-oil stock; an
+undivided quarter right in a guano island, and the note of a President
+of the Unterrified Insurance Company. 'How much was the cartage, Bos?'
+said I, for you see my great mind descends to the smallest particulars,
+and I was benevolent enough to wish to deduct his expenses from the
+bonus I was about to charge him for the loan. 'Never mind the cartage,'
+said he, 'that's a very strong list, and will command the money any day
+in Wall street, but I have a particular reason for getting it of you.'
+'The particular reason being,' said I, 'that you can't get it anywhere
+else. Jennings,' I continued to my cashier, 'give Mr. Boscobello
+ninety-five dollars Norfolk or Richmond due-bills, and take his check
+payable in current funds next Saturday for a hundred.'
+
+Poor old Boscobello! A man at forty ought not to look old, but Bos had
+often seen the sun rise before he went to bed, and he _had_ been gay, so
+all my aunts said. Some stories Bos has told me himself, o' nights at my
+house, after having in vain endeavored to induce me to take shares in
+the guano island, or 'go into' South Brooklyn water lots. 'I'm too old
+for that sort of a thing, Bos,' I say; 'it's quite natural for you to
+ask me, and I don't blame you for trying it on, but you must find some
+younger man. Tell me about that little affair with the mysterious Cuban
+lady; when you only weighed a hundred and forty pounds, and never went
+out without a thousand dollars in your pocket--in the blooming days of
+youth, Bos, when you went plucking purple pansies along the shore.'
+
+Boscobello weighs over two hundred now, and would have a rush of blood
+to the head if he were to stoop to pluck pansies. Mysterious Cuban
+ladies, in fact ladies of any description, would pass him by as a
+middle-aged person of a somewhat distressed appearance, and the dreams
+of his youth are quite dreamed out. Nevertheless, when he warms with my
+white Hermitage, the colors of his old life come richly out into sight,
+and the romantic adventures of wealth and high spirits overpower, though
+in the tame measures of recital, all the adverse influences of the
+present hour. But as the evening wanes, the colors fade again; his
+voice assumes a dreary tone; and I once more feel that I am with a man
+who has outlived himself, and who, having never learned where the late
+roses blow, is now too old to learn.
+
+The reader will perceive I am sorry for Boscobello. If I am remarkable
+for anything, it is for my humanity, consideration, and sympathy.
+
+These qualities of my constitution lead me to enter into the affairs of
+my clients with feeling and sincerity, but I fear I am sometimes
+misunderstood. Not long ago I issued an order to my junior partners to
+exercise more compassion for those unfortunate men with whom we decline
+business, and not to tumble them down the front steps so roughly. Let
+six of the porters attend with trestles, I said, and carry them out
+carefully, and dump them with discretion in some quiet corner, where, as
+soon as they recover their faculties, they may get up and walk away. I
+put it to the reader if this was not a very humane idea, and yet there
+are those who have stigmatized it as heartless.
+
+I wish I was better acquainted with the way in which common people live.
+I can see how I have made mistakes in consequence of not understanding
+the restricted means and the exigencies of these people, who are styled
+respectable merchants. Thus when Boscobello has made some more than
+ordinarily piteous application, I have said, 'Boscobello, dismiss about
+fifty of your servants;' or, 'Boscobello, sell a railroad and put the
+money back again into your business;' or, 'Boscobello, my good friend,
+limit your table, say, to turtle soup, champagne, and truffles; live
+more plainly, and don't take above ten quarts of strawberries a day
+during the winter,--the lower servants don't really need them;' or,
+'Boscobello, if you are really short, send around a hundred or so of
+your fast trotters to my stables, and I'll pay you a long figure for
+them, if they are warranted under two minutes.' Boscobello has never
+made any very definite replies to such advice, and I have attributed his
+silence to his nervousness; but I begin to suspect he has'nt quite
+understood me on such occasions. Then again, when Twigsmith declared he
+was a ruined man, in consequence of my refusal of further advances, and
+that he should be unable to provide for his family, I said: 'Why,
+Twigsmith, retire to one of your country seats, and live on the interest
+of some canal or other, or discount bonds and mortgages for the country
+banks.' Actually, I heard Twigsmith mutter as he went out, that it
+wasn't right to insult a man's poverty. Now I hadn't the remotest idea
+of injuring Twigsmith's feelings, for he was a very clever fellow, and
+we made a good thing out of him in his time, but it seems that my advice
+might not have been properly grounded.
+
+It begins to occur to me that there _may_ be such a case as that a man
+may want something, and not be able to get it; and again, that at such a
+time a weak mind may complain, and grow discouraged, and make itself
+disagreeable to others.
+
+There is a set of old fellows who call themselves family men, and apply
+for discounts as if they had a right to them, by reason of their having
+families to provide for. I have never yet been able to see the logical
+sequence of their conclusions, and so I tell them. What right does it
+give anybody to my money that he has a wife, six children, and lives in
+a large house with three nursery-maids, a cook, and a boy to clean the
+knives? 'Limit your expenses,' I say to these respectable gentlemen, 'do
+as I do. When Jennings comes to me on Monday morning, and reports that
+the receipts of the week will be eighty millions, exclusive of the
+Labrador coupons, which, if paid, will be eighty millions more, I say,
+'Jennings, discount seventy, and don't encroach upon the reserves; you
+may however let Boscobello have ten on call.' This is true philosophy;
+adapt your outlay to your income, and you will never be in trouble, or
+go begging for loans. If the Bank of England had always managed in this
+way, they wouldn't have been obliged to call on our house for assistance
+during the Irish famine.'
+
+These family men invite me to their wives' parties, constantly,
+unremittingly. The billets sometimes reach my desk, although I have
+given orders to put them all into the waste basket unopened. I went to
+one of these parties, only one, I give you my honor as a gentleman, and
+after Twigsmith and his horrid wife had almost wrung my hand off, I was
+presented to a young female, to whom Nature had been tolerably kind, but
+who was most shamefully dressed. In fact her dress couldn't have cost
+over a thousand dollars--one of my chambermaids going to a Teutonia ball
+is better got up. This young person asked me 'how I liked the Germania?'
+Taking it for granted that such a badly dressed young woman must be a
+school teacher, with perhaps classical tastes, I replied that it was one
+of the most pleasing compositions of Tacitus, and that I occasionally
+read it of a morning. 'Oh, it's not very taciturn,' she replied; 'I mean
+the band.' 'Very true,' said I, 'he says _agmen_, which you translate
+band very happily, though I might possibly say 'body' in a familiar
+reading.' 'Oh dear,' she replied, blushing, 'I'm sure I don't know what
+kind of men they are, nor anything about their bodies, but they
+certainly seem very respectable, and they play elegantly; oh, don't you
+think so?' 'I am glad you are pleased so easily,' I answered; 'Tacitus
+describes their performances as indeed fearful, and calculated to strike
+horror into the hearts of their enemies. But,' continued I, endeavoring
+to make my retreat, for I began to think I was in company with an inmate
+of a private lunatic hospital, 'they were devoted to the ladies.'
+'Indeed they are,' said she,'and the harpist is _so_ gallant, and gets
+so many nice bouquets.' It then flashed across my mind that she meant
+the Germania musicians. 'They might do passably well, madame,' said I,
+'for a quadrille party at a country inn, but for a dress ball or a
+dinner you would need three of them rolled into one.' 'Oh, you gentlemen
+are so hard to please,' she replied; and catching sight of the
+Koh-i-noor on my little finger, she began to smile so sweetly that I
+fled at once.
+
+It was at that party that I perspired. I had heard doctors talk about
+perspiration, and I had seen waiters at a dinner with little drops on
+their faces, but I supposed it was the effect of a spatter, or that some
+champagne had flown into their eyes, or something of that sort. But at
+this party I happened to pass a mirror, and did it the honor to look
+into it. I saw there the best dressed man in America, but his face was
+flushed, and there were drops on it. This is fearful, thought I; I took
+my _mouchoir_ and gently removed them. They dampened the delicate
+fabric, and I shook with agitation. The large doors were open, and after
+a struggle of an hour and three quarters, I reached them, and promising
+the hostess to send my _valet_ in the morning to make my respects, which
+the present exigency would not allow me to stay to accomplish, I was
+rapidly whirled homeward. I can hardly pen the details, but on the
+removal of my linen, it was found--can I go on?--tumbled, and here and
+there the snowy lawn confessed a small damp spot, or fleck of moisture.
+Remorse and terror seized me. Medical attendance was called, and I
+passed the night in a bath of attar of roses delicately medicated with
+_aqua pura_. Of course, I have never again appeared at a party.
+
+People haven't right ideas of entertainment. What entertainment is it to
+stand all the evening in a set of sixteen-by-twenty parlors, jammed in
+among all sorts of strange persons, and stranger perfumes, deafened with
+a hubbub of senseless talk, and finally be led down to feed at a long
+table where the sherry is hot, and the partridges are cold? Very
+probably some boy or other across the table lets off a champagne cork
+into your eyes, and the fattest men in the room _will_ tread on your
+toes. One might describe such scenes of torture at length, but the
+recital of human follies and miseries is not agreeable to my
+sensibilities.
+
+I dare say the reader might find himself gratified at one of my little
+fetes. The editors of this journal attend them regularly, and have done
+me the honor to approve of them. You enter on Twelfth avenue; a modest
+door just off Nine-and-a-half street opens quietly, and you are ushered
+by a polite gentleman--one of our city bank presidents, who takes this
+means to increase his income--into an attiring room. Here you are
+dressed by the most accomplished Schneider of the age, in your own
+selections from an unequalled _repertoire_ of sartorial _chef d'ouvres_,
+and your old clothes are sent home in an omnibus.
+
+I might delight you with a description of the ball room, but the editors
+have requested me to the contrary. Some secrets of gorgeous splendor
+there are which are wisely concealed from the general gaze. But a floor
+three hundred feet square, and walls as high as the mast of an East
+Boston clipper, confer ample room for motion; and the unequalled
+atmosphere of the saloon is perhaps unnecessarily refreshed by fountains
+of rarest distilled waters. This is also my picture gallery, where all
+mythology is exhausted by the great painters of the antique; and modern
+art is thoroughly illustrated by the famous landscapes of both
+hemispheres. The luxuriant fancy of my favorite artist has suggested
+unique collocations of aquaria and mossy grottoes in the angles of the
+apartment, where the vegetable wealth of the tropics rises in perfect
+bounty and lawless exuberance, and fishes of every hue and shape flash
+to and fro among the tangled roots, in the light of a thousand lamps. In
+the centre, I have caused the seats of the orchestra to be hidden at the
+summit of a picturesque group of rocks, profusely hung with vegetation,
+and gemmed with a hundred tiny fountains that trickle in bright beads
+and diamonds into the reservoir at the base. From this eminence, the
+melody of sixty unequalled performers pervades the saloon, justly
+diffused, and on all sides the same; unlike the crude arrangements of
+most modern orchestras, where at one end of the room you are deluged
+with music, and at the other extremity you distinguish the notes with
+pain or difficulty. The ceiling, by a rare combination of mechanical
+ingenuity and artistic inspiration, displays, so as to quite deceive the
+senses, the heavens with all their stars moving in just and harmonious
+order. Here on summer nights you see Lyra and Altair triumphantly
+blazing in the middle sky as they sweep their mighty arch through the
+ample zenith; and low in the south, the Scorpion crawls along the verge
+with the red Antares at his heart, and the bright arrows of the Archer
+forever pursuing him. Here in winter, gazing up through the warm and
+perfumed air, you behold those bright orbs that immemorially suggest the
+icy blasts of January: Aldebaran; the mighty suns of Orion; diamond-like
+Capella; and the clear eyes of the Gemini. Under such influences, with
+the breath of the tropics in your nostrils, and your heart stirred by
+the rich melodies of the invisible orchestra, waltzing becomes a sublime
+passion, in which all your faculties dilate to utmost expansion, and you
+float out into happy forgetfulness of time and destiny.
+
+Rarely at these fetes do we dance to other measures than those of the
+waltz, though at times we find a relief from the luxuriance of that
+divine rhythm in the cooler cadences of the Schottish. By universal
+consent and instinct, we banish the quadrille, stiff and artificial; the
+polka, inelegant and essentially vulgar; and the various hybrid
+measures with which the low ingenuity of professors has filled society.
+But we move like gods and goddesses to the sadly joyful strains of
+Strauss and Weber and Beethoven and Mozart, and the mighty art of these
+great masters fills and re-creates all our existence.
+
+Sometimes in these divine hours, thrilled by the touch of a companion
+whose heart beats against and consonantly with mine, I catch glimpses of
+the possibilities of a free life of the spirit when it shall be released
+from earth and gravitation, and I conjecture the breadth of a future
+existence. This will only seem irrational to such as have squeezed out
+their souls flat between the hard edges of dollars, or have buried them
+among theologic texts which they are too self-wise to understand.
+History and the experience of the young are with me.
+
+From twelve to four you sup, when, and as, and where, you will. A
+succession of little rooms lie open around an atrium, all different as
+to size and ornament, yet none too large for a single couple, and none
+too small for the reunion of six. What charming accidents of company and
+conversation sometimes occur in these Lucullian boudoirs! You pass and
+repass, come and go, at your own pleasure. Waltzing, and Burgundy, and
+Love, and Woodcock are here combined into a dramatic poem, in which we
+are all star performers, and sure of applause. These hours cannot last
+forever, and the first daybeams that tell of morning, are accompanied by
+those vague feelings of languor that hint to us that we are mortal. Then
+we pause, and separate before these faint hints of our imperfection
+deepen into distasteful monitions, and before our fulness of enjoyment
+degenerates into satiety. Antiquity has conferred an immortal blessing
+upon us in bequeathing to us that golden legend, NE QUID NIMIS;[19] a
+legend better than all the teachings of Galen, or than all the dialogues
+of Socrates. For in these brief words are compressed the experiences of
+the best lives, and Alcibiades and Zeno might equally profit by them.
+They contain the priceless secret of happiness; and do you, reader,
+wisely digest them till we meet again.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote 19: 'Not too much.']
+
+
+
+
+THE SOLDIER.
+
+[BURNS.]
+
+
+  For gold the merchant ploughs the main,
+    The farmer ploughs the manor;
+  But glory is the soldier's pride,
+    The soldier's wealth is honor.
+  The brave, poor soldier ne'er despise,
+    Nor count him as a stranger;
+  Remember he's his country's stay
+    In day and hour of danger!
+
+
+
+
+OUR PRESENT POSITION: ITS DANGERS AND ITS DUTIES.
+
+ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE OF ALL POLITICAL PARTIES.
+
+
+When Daniel Webster replied to Senator Hayne, of South Carolina, during
+the exciting debate on the right of secession, he commenced his
+ever-memorable speech with these words:
+
+     'When the mariner has been tossed for many days in thick weather
+     and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first
+     pause in the storm--the earliest glance of the sun--to take his
+     latitude, and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from
+     his true course. Let us imitate this prudence before we float
+     farther, that we may at least be able to conjecture where we now
+     are.'
+
+No words are fitter for our ears at this tumultuous period than are
+these, when the passions of our countrymen, North and South, are excited
+with the bitterest animosity, and when the discordant cries of party
+faction at the North are threatening a desolation worse than that of
+contending armies. In considering, then, our condition, it behooves us
+first, to 'take our latitude, and ascertain where we now are,'--not as a
+section or a party, but as a nation and a people. Let us avail ourselves
+of that distant and dim glimmer in the heavens which even now is looked
+upon by the sanguine as the promise of peace, and in its light survey
+our dangers and nerve ourselves to our duties. We behold, then, a
+people, bound together by the ties of a common interest, namely,
+national prosperity and renown, and in possession of a land more favored
+by natural elements of advantage than any other on the face of the
+globe. We see them standing up in the ranks of hostile resistance each
+to each, the one great and glorious army fighting for the restoration of
+a nation once the envy of the world; the other great and glorious army
+equally ardent and valorous in behalf of a separation of that territory
+in which they are taught to believe we cannot hold together in peace and
+amity. Both armies and people are evincing in their very warfare the
+elements of character which heretofore distinguished us as a nation, and
+are employing the very means for each other's destruction which were of
+late the principles of action which rendered us in the highest degree a
+nation worthy of respect at home and admiration abroad. It is not the
+purpose of this paper to go back to causes or to relate the subsequent
+events which have placed us where we are. These causes and events are
+well known to us and to the world. But here we now stand, with this
+fratricidal war increased to the most alarming proportions, and with,
+results but partially developed. Here we of the North stand, with a
+still invincible army, loyal to the cause nearest to the heart of every
+patriot, and confident in the ability to withstand and overcome the
+machinations of the enemy. Here, too, we--ay, _we_ of the South stand,
+bound together in a common aim, an ardent hope, and a proclaimed and
+omnipotent impulse to action. _This is the only proper view to take of
+the case_--to regard our opponents as we regard ourselves, and to give
+due credit where credit is due for valor, for motives, and for
+principles of action. The North believes itself to be engaged in a
+strife forced upon it by blinded prejudice and evil passion, and fights
+for that which, if not worthy of fighting, ay, and dying for, is unfit
+to live for, namely, national integrity. The South claims, little as we
+can understand it, the same ground for rising against the land they had
+sworn to protect, and whose fathers died with our fathers to create. We
+at the North would have been pusillanimous and weak indeed had we
+silently submitted to that which is in our view against every principle
+of national right and renown. To have acted otherwise would have been to
+bring down upon our heads the scorn and contempt of our enemies and of
+every foreign power, from the strongest oligarchy to the most benevolent
+form of monarchical government. Hence it is that while certain foreign
+powers have not failed to improve the opportunity of our weakness, as a
+divided nation, to insult and sneer, to preach peace with dishonor, and
+advocate separation, which they know to be but another word for
+humiliation, yet have they not failed to see and been forced to confess
+that, divided as we are, we have shown inherent greatness and power,
+_which, united, would be a degree of national superiority which might
+well defy the world_. Nothing is more striking at this moment than this
+great fact, and no topic is more worthy of the serious consideration of
+our countrymen, North and South, than this. No time is fitter than now
+to suggest the subject, and to see in it matter which is pregnant with
+hopes for our future. If nothing but this great truth had been developed
+by the war--this truth, bold, naked, defiant as it is, _is worth the
+war_--worth all its cost of noble lives, of sacred blood, of yet
+uncounted treasure. We stand before the world this day divided by the
+fearful conflict, with malignant hate lighting the fires of either camp,
+and with hands reeking in fraternal blood--with both sections of our
+land more or less afflicted--with credit impaired, with the scoff and
+jeers of nations ringing in our ears--we stand losers of almost every
+thing but our individual self-respect, which has inspired both foes with
+the ardor and courage born within us as Americans. This it is that
+leaves us unshorn of our strength; this it is that enables us in this
+very day of trial and adversity to present to the world the undeniable
+fact that we have within us--not as Northerners, not as Southerners,
+_but as Americans_--the elements of innate will and physical power,
+which makes the scale of valor hang almost with an even beam, and
+foretells us, with words which we cannot but hear--and which would to
+God we might heed!--that, united, we can rear up on this beautiful and
+bountiful land a temple of political, social, and commercial prosperity,
+more glorious than that which entered into the dreams and aspirations of
+the fathers who founded it.
+
+Alas! that the contemplation of so worthy a theme is marred by the 'ifs'
+and 'buts' of controversial strife. Alas! that we cannot depress the
+sectional opposing interests which are but secondary to a condition of
+political consolidation, and elevate above these distracting and
+isolated evils, the great and eternal principle, Strength as it alone
+exists in Unity. Alas! that with the beam of suicidal measures we blind
+the eye political, because, forsooth, the motes of individual or local
+injuries afflict, as they afflict _all_ human forms of government.
+
+The great evil, North and South, before the war, during the war, and
+now, is the want of political charity--that charity which, like its
+moral prototype, 'suffereth long and is kind.' We the people, North and
+South, have been and are unwilling to grant to the other people and
+States the right to think, speak, and urge their own opinions--the very
+right which each insists upon claiming for itself. It has been held
+'dangerous' to discuss questions which, though in one sense pertaining
+only to particular States, nevertheless bear upon the whole country. It
+has been considered 'heresy' to urge with rhetoric and declamation, even
+in our halls of Congress, certain principles for and against Slavery,
+for example, lest mischief result from the agitation of those topics.
+But in such remonstrance we have forgotten that the very principle of
+democratic institutions involves the right of all men to think and act,
+under the law, as each pleases. We have also forgotten that any subject
+which will not bear discussion and political consideration must be
+dangerous _in itself_, and pregnant with weakness, if not evil. There is
+no harm in discussing questions upon which hang vital principles; for if
+there exists on the one side strength and justice, all arguments on the
+other side can do it no injury. With regard to Slavery, one of the
+'causes' or 'occasions' of this unhappy war, it may be said that the
+North owes much to the South which it has never paid, in a true and
+kindly appreciation of the difficulties which have ever surrounded the
+institutions of the latter. But let us not forget that one reason why
+this debt has not been paid is because the South owes the North its
+value received, by not being willing to admit in the other's behalf the
+motives which underlay the efforts which have been made by the earnest,
+or so-called 'radical' men, who have opposed the institution of slavery.
+Pure misunderstanding of motive, pure lack of political as well as moral
+charity, has been wanting between the men of the North who opposed, and
+the men of the South who maintained the extension of slavery. Had each
+understood the other better, it is probable that the character of each
+would have assumed the following proportions: The slaveholder of the
+South, inheriting from generations back a system of servitude which even
+ancient history supported and defended, and which he in his inmost heart
+believes to be beneficial to the slave not less than the master, regards
+himself as violating no law of God or man in receiving from this
+inferior race or grade of men the labor of their hands, and the right to
+their control, while they draw from him the necessary physical support
+and protection which it is in his belief his bounden duty to give. The
+planter, a gentleman educated and a Christian, with the fear of God
+before his eyes, believes this--the belief was born in him and dies in
+him, and he is conscientiously faithful in carrying out the principles
+of his faith. I speak now of no exceptional, but of general cases,
+instancing only the representative of the highest class of Southern men.
+Is it to be wondered at that such a man, looking from _his_ point of
+vision, should regard with suspicion and distrust the efforts of those
+who sought to abolish even by gradual means the apparent sources of his
+prosperity? Is it remarkable that he should regard as his enemy the man
+who preaches against and denounces as criminal the very system in which
+he trusts his social and political safety? He will not regard that
+apparent enemy what at heart and soul he really is, namely, a man as
+pure and devout, as well meaning and conscientious as himself. The man
+whom he scoffs at as a 'radical,' an 'abolitionist,' and a 'fanatic,' by
+education and intuition believes in his very soul that the holding of
+men in bondage, forcing from them involuntary labor, and the
+consequences thereof, are pregnant with moral and political ruin and
+decay. The system, not the men, is offensive to his eyes. Is he to blame
+for this opinion, provided it be well founded in his mind? Admit it
+eroneous in logic, still, if he believes it, is he to be condemned for
+holding the belief, and would he not be contemptible in his own eyes if
+he feared to express the moral convictions of his soul? The error of
+both has been that both are uncharitable--both unwilling to allow the
+right of opinion and freedom of debate on what both, as American
+citizens, hold to be vital principles, dependent upon constitutional
+provisions; the one claiming Slavery as the 'corner stone of political
+freedom,' the other as the stumbling block in the way of its
+advancement. This unwillingness to appreciate the motives of opposing
+minds led at last one section of our beloved country to an unwillingness
+to recognize the right of election, and, worse than all, an
+unwillingness to abide by the results of that election. When that
+principle--submission to the will of the majority--was overthrown, then,
+indeed, did the pillars of our national temple tremble, and the seat of
+our national power rock in its foundation.
+
+And now a word in connection with this same principle of submission, as
+applicable to the people of the North in our present emergency. In
+accordance with the plan adopted by the founders of our Government, and
+practically illustrated in the election of George Washington and his
+successors, the people by a plurality of votes elected to office and
+placed at the head of our political system as its highest authority and
+ruler, the present Chief Magistrate. From the day of his acknowledged
+election, party politics settled into the calm of acquiescence, and all
+loyal and true States and men bowed to the arbitrament of the ballot
+box. That man, Abraham Lincoln, instantly became invested with the
+potential right of rule under the Constitution, and the great principle
+of constitutional liberty in his election and elevation stood justified.
+It mattered not then, nor matters it now, to us, what may be individual
+opinion of his merits or demerits, his ability or his disability. There
+he is, not as a private citizen, but as the head of our Government: his
+individuality is lost in his official embodiment. This principle being
+acknowledged, and party opinion being buried, in theory at least, at the
+foot of the altar of the Government _de facto_, whence is it that at
+this time creeps into our council chambers, our political cliques, our
+social haunts, our market places, ay, our most sacred tabernacles--a
+spirit adverse to the principles for which we are fighting, laboring
+for, and dying for? Let us--a people anxious for peace on honorable
+grounds, anxious for a Union which no rash hand shall ever again attempt
+to destroy--look, with a moment's calm reflection, at this alarming
+evil.
+
+It is very evident to most men that, in spite of temporary defeats and
+an unexpected prolongation of the war, the loyal States hold
+unquestionably the preponderance of power. Nothing but armed
+intervention from abroad can now affect even temporarily this
+preponderance. As events and purposes are seen more clearly through the
+smoke of the battle fields by the ever-watchful eyes of Europe, armed
+intervention becomes less and less a matter of probability. The hopes of
+an honorable peace, therefore, hang upon the increase and continuance of
+this military preponderance. With the spirit of determination evinced by
+both combatants, the unflinching valor of both armies, and with the
+unquestioned resources and ability to hold out of the North, it appears
+evident that the strife for mastery will in time terminate in favor of
+the loyal States. There is but one undermining influence which can
+defeat this end, and still further prolong the war, or, what is worse,
+plunge the North into the irretrievable disaster of internal
+conflict--and that undermining influence is _dissension among
+ourselves_. Such a consummation would bring joy to the hearts of our
+enemies and lend them the first ray of real hope that ultimate
+separation will be their purchased peace. We will not here draw a
+picture of that fallacious peace, that suicidal gap, whose festering
+political sore would breed misery and ruin, not only for ourselves, but
+for our posterity, for ages to come. But let us be warned in time. Even
+now the insidious movement of dissension is hailed with satisfaction and
+delight in the council meetings at Richmond, and no effort will be
+spared to aid its devastating progress. False rumors will be raised on
+the slightest and most insignificant grounds. Trivial mistakes and
+blunders in the cabinet and the field will be magnified; facts
+distorted, and the flame be blown by corrupting influences abroad and
+at home, in the hopes--let them be vain hopes--that we the people will
+be diverted from the great cause we have most at heart into side issues
+and sectional distrust. And why? Because more powerful than serried
+hosts and open warfare is the poison of sedition and conspiracy that is
+thrown into the cup of domestic peace and confidence--more fatal than
+the ravages of the battle field is that of the worm that creeps slowly
+and surely--weakening, as it works, the foundations of the edifice in
+which we dwell unsuspicious of evil. Is it astonishing that they, the
+enemies of our common weal, should rejoice in these signs of incipient
+weakness, or fail to resort to any expedient whereby our strength as a
+united and loyal people can be made less? Have they not shown themselves
+capable and ready to avail themselves of every weakness in our counsels
+and in the field? Would not we do the same did we perceive distrust and
+dissatisfaction presenting through the mailed armor of our opponents a
+vulnerable point for attack? Then blame them not with muttered
+imprecations, but look--ay, look to ourselves. The shape of this
+undermining influence is political dissension at a period when the name
+of 'party' ought to be obliterated from the people's creed. Let opinion
+on measures and men have full and unrestricted sway, so far as these
+opinions may silently work under the banner of the one great cause of
+self-preservation; but let them not interfere with the prosecution of
+the efforts of the Government, whether State or national, to prosecute
+this holy and patriotic war in defence of the principles which created
+and are to keep us a united nation. Let us not tempt the strength of the
+ice that covers the waters of political and partisan problems, while we
+have enough to do to protect and cover the solid ground already in our
+possession. The President of the United States, be he who or what he
+may--think he how or what he will, enact he what he chooses--is, let us
+remember, the corner stone of our political liberty. The Constitution is
+a piece of parchment--sacred and to be revered--but it is, in its
+outward presentment, material and inactive. The _spirit_ of the
+Constitution is intangible and ideal, its interpretation alone is its
+vitality. We the people--through equally material morsels of paper
+entitled votes--raise the spirit of the Constitution by placing in the
+halls of Congress the interpreters of that Constitution, over whom and
+above all sits the Chief Magistrate, who, once endowed by us with power,
+retains and sways it until another, by the same process, carries out at
+our will the same eventualities. Our part as electors and adjudicators
+is done, and it ill becomes us to weaken or hold up to the ridicule of
+the world the power therein invested, by questions as to the President's
+'right' or 'power' or 'ability' to enact this measure or that.
+
+Away then with the unseemly cry of 'the Constitution as it is,' 'the
+Union at it was,' the 'expediency' or 'non-expediency' of employing the
+war power, the interference or the non-interference of the man and the
+men established by us to represent us with the military leaders, the
+finances, or the thousand and one implements of administration, _which
+they are bound to employ_, not as we, but as they, holding our powers of
+attorney for a specified and legalized period, in their human wisdom
+deem best for the common good of the land. Let us have faith in the
+motives and intentions of our political administration, or if we have
+lost our faith, let us submit--patiently and with accord. Above all, at
+a period like this, when the minds of the best men and the truest are
+oppressed with a sense of the injustice with which a portion of our
+countrymen regard us, it most behooves us to keep our social and
+political ranks closed and in order, subject to the will of that
+commander, disobedience to which is infamy and ruin. No matter with
+what diversity of tongues and opinions we pursue our individual
+avocations and aims, we are all pilgrims pressing forward like the
+followers of Mohammed to the Kebla stone of _our_ faith--Peace founded
+on Union.
+
+What if a party clique utters sentiments adverse to our own on the never
+ceasing topic of political policy? Is it not the expression of a mind or
+a hundred minds forming a portion of the great body politic, of which we
+ourselves are a part, and are they not entitled to their opinion and
+modes of expressing it, providing it be done with decorum and with a
+proper respect for the opinions of their adversaries? Why then do we or
+they employ, through the press and in rhetorical bombast, opprobrious
+epithets, fit only for the pot-house or the shambles? Shall we men and
+citizens, each of us a pillar upholding the crowning dome of our
+nationality, be taught, like vexed and querulous children, the impotence
+of personal abuse? Why seek to lay upon the head of this Cabinet officer
+or that, this Senator or that, the responsibility of temporary military
+defeats, when we are no more able to command and prevent reverses than
+are they? Or if in our superior wisdom we deem ourselves to be the
+better able to direct and administer, why do we forget that others among
+us, inspired by the same love of country, and equally ardent for its
+safety and advancement, hold exactly contrary opinions? It is not a
+matter of opinion--it is not a matter for interference, it is simply and
+only a matter for untiring unflinching confidence and support. We have
+done our duty as a people, and elected our Administration--let us, in
+the name of all that is sublime and fundamental in republican
+principles, support and not perplex them in the hard and complex problem
+which they are appointed to solve. These are principles, which, however
+trite, need to be kept before us and practically sustained at a period
+when, as is often the case in long and tedious wars, the dispiriting
+influence of delays and occasional defeats work erroneous conclusions in
+the minds of the people, leading to unjust accusations against the men
+in power, and an unwillingness to frankly acknowledge that the evil too
+often originated where the result most immediately occurred. In other
+words, our armies have often suffered simply and for no other reason
+than that they were outgeneralled on the field of battle, or overpowered
+by military causes for which no one is to blame--least of all, the
+President or his advisers.
+
+And here let one word be said against the arguments of those
+well-meaning and patriotic men who attempt to prove that certain acts of
+the Government have been injudicious and unwise--such, for example, as
+the suspension of the habeas corpus, the alleged illegal arrests, and
+the emancipation policy. It is not the purpose of this paper to enter
+into additional argument to sustain this opinion or to disprove it. But
+in justice to the Government--simply because it is a Government--let it
+not be forgotten that when events heretofore unforeseen and unprepared
+for are throwing our vast nation into incalculable confusion, and when
+it becomes absolutely imperative that the head of the Government must
+act decisively and according to the promptness of his honest judgment,
+and when we know equally well that that judgment, be it what it may,
+cannot accord with the various and diverse opinions of _all_ men, then
+it behooves his countrymen, if not to acquiesce in, to support whatever
+that honest judgment may decide to be best for the emergency. No doubt,
+errors have been made, but they are errors inconceivably less in their
+results than would be the unpardonable sin of the people, should they,
+because differing in opinion, weaken the hands and confuse the purposes
+of the powers that be. With secret and treacherous foes in our very
+midst, hidden behind the masks of a painted loyalty, the President,
+after deep and earnest consultation and reflection, deemed it his duty
+to authorize arrests under circumstances which he solemnly believed were
+the best adapted to arrest the evil, though, by so doing, many good and
+innocent men might temporarily suffer with the bad. So too with regard
+to the proclamation of freedom--be the step wise or unwise, and there is
+by no means a unity of sentiment on this head--the President conceived
+it to be the duty of his office--a duty which never entered into his
+plans or intentions until the war had increased to gigantic and
+threatening proportions--to level a blow at what he and millions of his
+countrymen believe to be the stronghold of the enemy, viz., that system
+of human servitude which nourished the body politic and social now
+standing in armed and fearful resistance to the Constitution and the
+laws. It matters not, so far as opinion goes, whether the step was wise
+or foolish, if the executive head deemed it wise. Nor was it a hasty or
+spasmodic movement on his part. Months were devoted to its
+consideration, and every argument was patiently and candidly listened to
+from all the representatives of political theory for and against. Even
+then no hasty step was taken; but, on the contrary, our deluded
+countrymen in arms against us were forewarned, and earnestly,
+respectfully advised and entreated to take that step in behalf of Union
+and peace, which would leave their institution as it had existed. Nay,
+more: terms whereby no personal inconvenience or pecuniary loss to them
+would be involved if they would but be simply loyal to the Government,
+were liberally offered them, with three months for their consideration.
+Let those of us who, notwithstanding these ameliorating circumstances,
+doubt the good policy of the act, remember that they of the South, our
+open foes, invited the measures. Their leaders acknowledged and their
+press boasted that the Southern army never could be overcome--if for no
+other reason, for this reason, that while the army of the North was
+composed of the bone and muscle of the great working classes, drawn away
+from the fields of labor and enterprise, which must necessarily, in
+their opinion, languish from this absence, the Confederate army was
+composed of 'citizens' and property owners (to wit, slaveholders), whose
+absence from their plantations in no way interfered with the growth of
+their cotton, sugar, corn, and rice, from which sources of wealth and
+nourishment they could continue to draw the sinews of war. They went
+farther than this, and acted upon their declaration by employing their
+surplus slave labor in the work of intrenching their fortifications,
+serving their army, and finally fighting in their army.
+
+Upon this basis of slave labor they asserted their omnipotence in war
+and ability to continue the struggle without limit of time. The
+subsidized press of England supported this theory, and declared that
+with such advantages it was idle for the Federal Government to maintain
+a struggle in the face of such belligerent advantages! Then, and not
+till then, were the eyes of the President open to a fact which none but
+the political blind man could fail to observe, and then it was that not
+only the President, but a very large proportion of our countrymen,
+heretofore strictly conservative men, felt that the time had come when
+further forbearance would be suicidal. Although many doubted and still
+doubt if slavery was the cause of the rebellion, very many were forced
+to the conclusion that what our enemies themselves admitted to be the
+strength of the rebellion was indeed such, and that the time had arrived
+to avail themselves of that military necessity which authorizes the
+Government to adopt such measures as may be deemed the most fitting for
+crushing rebellion and restoring our constitutional liberty. Let us
+think, then, as we please upon the judiciousness of the
+proclamation--that it was uttered with forethought, calmness, and with a
+full sense of the responsibility of the President to his God and his
+country, none of us can deny. With this we should be satisfied. We have
+but one duty before us, then, as a government and a people--and that is,
+an earnest, devoted prosecution of this war for the integrity of our
+common country. In the untrammelled hands of that Government let us
+leave its prosecution. We have but one duty before us as individuals,
+and that is to support the existing Government with our individual
+might. Let the cry be loud and long, as, thank Heaven, it still is, 'On
+with the war,' not for war's sake, but for the sake of that peace, which
+only war, humanely and vigorously conducted, can achieve.
+
+Fling personal ambition and individual aggrandizement to the winds. Let
+political preferment and partisan proclivities bide their time, and as a
+united and one-minded people, devote heart and mind, strength and money,
+to the prosecution of the campaign, without considering what may be its
+duration, and without fear of circumstance or expenditure. If it be
+necessary, let the public debt be increased until it reaches and exceeds
+the public liabilities of the most indebted Government of Europe. We and
+our descendants will cheerfully pay the interest on that expenditure
+which purchased so great a blessing as national endurability. Meanwhile,
+with unity, forbearance, perseverance, and the silent administration of
+the ballot box, we will, as a people, maintain, notwithstanding that a
+portion of the land we hold dear stands severed from us by hatred and
+prejudice, the prosperity which we still claim, and the renown which was
+once accorded to us. By so doing, and by so doing only, shall our former
+grandeur come back to us--though its garments be stained with blood. A
+grandeur which, without hyperbole, it may be said, will outstrip the
+glory which, as a young and sanguine people, we have ever claimed for
+our country. The reason for so believing is the simple and undeniable
+fact that out of the saddening humiliation and devastation of this civil
+war has arisen the better knowledge of the wonderful resources,
+abilities, and determined spirit of the American people. We see--both
+combatants--that we are giants fighting, and not quarrelling pigmies, as
+the foreign enemies of us both have vainly attempted to prove. We see,
+both combatants, how vast and important to each is the territory we are
+struggling for, how inseparable to our united interests are the sources
+of wealth imbedded in our rocks, underlying our soil, and growing in its
+beneficent bosom. We see, both combatants, how strong is the commerce of
+the East to supply, like a diligent handmaiden, the wants of every
+section; how bountiful are the plantations of the South and the
+granaries of the West to keep the world united to us in the strong bonds
+of commercial and friendly intercourse; how absolutely necessary to the
+prosperity of both are the deep and wide-flowing rivers which run, like
+silver bands of peace, through the length and breadth of a land whose
+vast privileges we have been too blind to appreciate, and in that
+blindness would destroy. Above all, we are _beginning_ to see that like
+two mighty champions fighting for the belt of superiority, we can
+neither of us achieve that individual advantage which can utterly and
+forever place the other beyond the ability of again accepting the
+gauntlet of defiance, and that our true and lasting glory can alone
+proceed from a determination to shake hands in peace, and, as united
+champions, defying no longer each other, defy the world. Nor would the
+South in consenting to a reunion _now_ find humiliation or dishonor. She
+has proved herself a noble foe--quick in expedient, firm in
+determination, valorous in war. We know each other the better for the
+contest; we shall, when peace returns, respect each other the more; and
+although the cost of that peace, whenever it comes, will be the
+sacrifice of many local prejudices and sectional privileges, what, oh,
+what are such sacrifices to the inestimable blessings of national
+salvation?
+
+
+
+
+THE COMPLAINING BORE.
+
+
+About the most disagreeable people one meets with in life are those who
+make a business of complaining. They ask for sympathy when they merit
+censure. There is no excuse for man or woman making known their private
+griefs except to intimate friends or those who stand in the nearest
+relation to them. I have no patience with the man who wishes to catch
+the public ear with the sound of his repining. Be it that he complain of
+the world generally, or specify the particular occasion of his
+dumpishness, he is in either aspect equally contemptible. What a
+serio-comic spectacle a man presents who imagines that everybody is in a
+leagued conspiracy against him to disappoint his hopes and thwart his
+plans for success! He thinks he is kept from rising by some untoward
+fate that is bent on crushing him into the ground, feels that he is the
+victim of persecution, the sport of angry gods. Not having the spirit of
+a martyr, he frets and fumes about his condition, and finds a selfish
+relief in counting over his grievances in the presence of all who are
+good-natured enough to listen. Such a fellow is a social nuisance--away
+with him! The fact usually is that the world has more reason to complain
+of him than he of the world. For instance, I know a man who has become
+misanthropic, but who should hate himself instead of the whole race.
+
+Mr. Jordan Algrieve has become disgusted with life, and confesses than
+his experiment with existence has thus far proved a failure. He has
+combated with the world, and the world has proved too much for him, and
+he acknowledges the defeat. Mr. Algrieve is on the shady side of fifty,
+and his hair getting to be of an iron gray. His features are prominent,
+with a face wrinkled and shrivelled by discontent and acidity of temper.
+His tall figure is bent, not so much by cares and weight of years, as in
+a kind of typical submission to the stern decree of an evil destiny.
+
+Strange to say, he is well educated, and graduated with honor at one of
+our Eastern colleges. With a knowledge of this fact, it is pitiable to
+see him standing at the corner of the street in his busy town in a suit
+of seedy black and a shockingly bad hat, chafing his hands together and
+pretending to wait for somebody who never comes.
+
+Poor Algrieve, he is a man under the table, and he knows it. He has
+tried to be somebody in his way, but has failed sadly in all his
+efforts. It is said that Algrieve always had a constitutional aversion
+to legitimate and continued labor, but has a passion for making strikes
+and securing positions that afford liberal pay for little work.
+
+Thinking a profession too monotonous and plodding, he never took the
+trouble to acquire one. As to honest manual toil, that was an expedient
+he never so much as dreamed of. In early life he was so unfortunate as
+to secure an appointment to a clerkship in the Assembly, and after that
+he haunted the State Legislature for five or six winters in hot pursuit
+of another place, but his claims failing to be recognized, he relapsed
+into the natural belief that his party was in league to proscribe him.
+After making a large number of political ventures of a more ambitious
+order, and with the same mortifying results, he abandoned that field and
+took to speculation in patent rights. He vended a wonderful churn-dash,
+circulated a marvellous flatiron, and expatiated through the country on
+the latest improvement in the line of a washing machine. But these
+operations somehow afforded him but transient relief, and left him
+always involved still more largely in debt. At different times in his
+life he had also been a horse dealer, a dry-goods merchant, a saloon
+keeper, the proprietor of a tenpin alley, and managed to grow poorer in
+all these various occupations. The last I saw of him he was reduced to
+peddling books in a small way, carrying his whole stock in a new market
+basket. He was very importunate in his appeals to customers to purchase,
+putting it upon the ground that he had been unfortunate and had a claim
+to their charity. I happened to see him in the office of the popular
+hotel in Podgeville, when he was more than usually clamorous for
+patronage. He accosted nearly every man in the room with a dull,
+uninteresting volume in his hand, and for which he asked a respectable
+price. At last he set down his basket, and commenced a kind of
+snivelling harangue to his little audience. Mr. Algrieve opened by
+saying:
+
+     'Gentlemen, you'll pardon me for thrusting myself upon your
+     attention; but it is hard to have the world turned against ye, and
+     to work like a slave all your life to get something to fall back on
+     in old age, and then have to die poor at last! I hope none of you
+     have ever known what it is to be born unlucky; to never undertake
+     anything but turned out a failure, and to meet disappointment where
+     you deserved success. I am such a man!'
+
+Here Mr. Algrieve produced a fragmentary pocket handkerchief for the
+ostensible purpose of absorbing an expected tear, but really to give his
+remark a tragic effect. He continued:
+
+     'Behold an individual who has been doomed to penury and
+     destitution, but who has not met his fate without a struggle. You
+     who have known me, gentlemen, for the last thirty years, know that
+     Jordan Algrieve has battled with life manfully.' At this point he
+     put out his clenched fist in defiance of his fancied enemy.' But I
+     have been compelled to yield to the force of circumstances--not,
+     however, till I had taken my chance in nearly every department of
+     honorary endeavor, and experienced the most wretched success. The
+     world has pronounced its ban upon me, and I must bow submissively
+     to its cruel imposition. I tried to serve my country in the
+     capacity of a public official, but my services and talents were
+     repeatedly rejected--the majority of voters always so necessary to
+     an honest election was forever on the side of my lucky opponent.
+     When I withdrew from the political field, impoverished by my
+     efforts to advance the prosperity of my party, I embarked in a
+     small commercial enterprise; but owing to the tightness of the
+     times, and my want of capital, I was soon obliged to give up and
+     throw myself upon the mercy of my creditors. I have tried popular
+     amusements, and lost money--that is, I failed to make it. I even
+     branched out into fancy speculations, but they only served to sink
+     me still deeper in the yawning depths of insolvency!'
+
+Mr. Algrieve here paused, and seemed to look down into the frightful
+gulf with a shuddering expression, as if he were not quite accustomed to
+the descent yet.
+
+     'In short, gentlemen, I am completely prostrated--I am floored! And
+     is the world willing to help me up? By no means! On the contrary,
+     when I commenced falling and slipping on the stairs of human
+     endeavor the world was ready to kick me down, down, till I reached
+     the--in short, gentlemen, till I became what I now am. Now, what
+     have I done, let me ask, that I should fare thus? Have I not made
+     an effort? I appeal to you, gentlemen, to say. [A voice from the
+     crowd here chimed in: 'Yes, Algrieve, your efforts to live without
+     work have been immense!'] But here I am, poor and persecuted; my
+     family are in want of some of the common necessaries of life; and
+     now, gentlemen, I beg some of you will buy that book (holding out a
+     copy of the 'Pilgrim's Progress'), and do something to avert for a
+     while, at least, the pauper's fate!'
+
+Some benevolent gentleman, either from a charitable motive, or to put an
+end to his lachrymose oration, bought the volume for $1.25. Mr. Algrieve
+received the money with many expressions of gratitude, and, gathering up
+his stock, moped off into the drinking room, and invested a dime in a
+gin cocktail, and five cents in a cigar, with which he sought to solace
+himself for all the inflictions of the inexorable world.
+
+Thus Jordan Algrieve goes about telling of his reverses and misfortunes,
+exhibiting them to the public eye like a beggar his sores, without shame
+or remorse; seeking to levy contributions on his fellow men, as one who
+has been robbed of his estate. Reader, will you say that you have never
+met with Jordan Algrieve?
+
+Another common species of the complaining bore are those who are
+continually parading their bodily infirmities. For example, a man will
+call on you, apparently for the express purpose of illustrating a most
+interesting case of neuralgia. He comes into your office, perhaps, with
+his head tied up in a handkerchief, and an expression of face as if he
+had some time winked one eye very close, and had never since been able
+to open it. Thinking himself an object worthy of study, he shows how the
+darting pains vacillate between his eyes, invade his teeth, hold general
+muster in his cheeks, take refuge in the back of his neck; and
+demonstrates these points to you by applying his hands to the parts
+designated, and uttering cries of feigned anguish to give effect to his
+description. He informs you, as a piece of refreshing intelligence, that
+it is devilish hard to bear, and enough to make a saint indulge in
+profanity. When he has proceeded thus far, he may be taken with one of
+his capricious pains, ducks his head between his knees, squeezes it with
+his hands, and bawls out: 'O-h! Je-ru-sa-lem!' with a duration of sound
+only limited by the capacity of his wind. He feels that he has a witness
+to his sufferings, and wishes to make the most of it. When he gets
+sufficiently easy, he tells you his experience with various remedies,
+enumerates all the lotions, liniments, ointments, and other applications
+he has used, with his opinion on the merits of each.
+
+Another person will accost you on a bright day with a most saturnine and
+wo-begone visage, informing you that he is in a terrible way, that his
+food distresses him, and he can't any longer take comfort in eating. He
+places his hand in the region of his stomach, remarks that he feels a
+great load there, and makes the usual complaints of a dyspeptic. He is
+pathetic over the fact that his physician has denied him fried oysters
+and mince pie for evening lunch, and closes his observations by
+exclaiming in a moralizing vein that 'such is life!'
+
+A third individual has a throat disease, and, forgetful of his bad
+breath, desires you to take a minute survey of his glottis, and inform
+him of its appearance. Accordingly he opens his mouth and throws back
+his head as if he were inviting you to an entertaining show.
+
+These are but a tithe of the examples of people who exhibit in public
+and at social gatherings their ills and ailments, accompanied with
+dreary complainings of their bodily inflictions. It implies no
+indifference or lack of sympathy for physical pain and hardships to say
+that its victims have no right to mar the enjoyment of others by the
+unnecessary display of their infirmities or present sufferings. If a man
+will make a travelling show of his disorders, he should be obliged to
+carry a hand organ to give variety to his stupid entertainment. Were
+these fellows all compelled to furnish this accompaniment, what a
+musical bedlam our streets would become! Of course, there is no law
+against complaining and repining--it may not be immoral--but it is a
+very poor method of making those around us happy, which is a duty that
+none but selfish natures can forget. A man who goes through life with a
+smiling face and cheerful temper, despite the grievances common to us
+all, is a public benefactor in his way, as much as one who founds a
+library or establishes an asylum.
+
+Misanthropy is a sublime egotism that mistakes its own distemper for a
+disease of the universe. With all the mishaps to which our life is
+subject, a glance over a wide range of human experience proves that God
+helps those who help themselves, and whatever be the tenor of our
+fortune, levity is more seemly than moodiness, and under any
+circumstances there is more virtue in being a clown than a cynic. But in
+adversity, a subdued cheerfulness and quiet humor are, next to Christian
+fortitude, the golden mean of feeling that makes the loss of worldly
+things rest lightly on the heart, and spreads out before the hopeful eye
+the vision of better days!
+
+
+
+
+DEATH OF THE BRAVE.
+
+
+  'How sleep the brave who sink to rest
+  By all their country's wishes blest!
+  When spring with dewy fingers cold
+  Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
+  She then shall dress a sweeter sod
+  Than fancy's feet have ever trod.'
+
+
+
+
+LITERARY NOTICES
+
+
+     THE ICE MAIDEN, AND OTHER TALES. By HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.
+     Translated by FANNY FULLER. Philadelphia: F. Leypoldt. New York: C.
+     T. EVANS. 1863.
+
+Probably no writer of stories for the young ever equalled Hans Christian
+Andersen; certainly none ever succeeded as he has done in reproducing
+the nameless charm of the real fairy tale which springs up without an
+author among the people,--the best specimens of which are the stories
+collected by the Brothers Grimm in Germany. But this exquisite
+fascination of an inner life in animals and in inanimate objects, which
+every child's mind produces from dolls and other puppets, and which
+makes fairies of flowers, is by Andersen adroitly turned very often to
+good moral and instructive purpose, without losing the original sweet
+and simple charm which blends the real and the imaginary. Here he
+surpasses all other tale writers, nearly all of whom, in their efforts
+at simplicity in such narratives, generally become supremely silly.
+
+The present volume contains four stories--'The Ice Maiden,' 'The
+Butterfly,' 'The Psyche,' and 'The Snail and the Rose Tree,'--all in
+Andersen's usual happy and successful vein; for he is preeminently an
+_equal_ writer, and never falls behind himself. Perhaps the highest
+compliment which can be paid them is the truthful assertion that any
+person may read them with keen interest, and never reflect that they
+were written for young people. Poetry and prose meet in them on equal
+grounds, and any of them in verse would be charming. The main reason for
+this is that such stories to charm must set forth natural objects with
+Irving-like fidelity; nay, the writer must, with a few words, bring
+before us scenes and things as in a mirror. In this 'The Ice Maiden'
+excels; Swiss life is depicted as though we were listening to _yodle_
+songs on the mountains, and felt the superstitions of the icy winter
+nights taking hold of our souls.
+
+'The Psyche' is an art-story. Most writers would have made it a legend
+of 'high' art, but it is far sweeter and more impressive from the sad
+simplicity and gentleness with which it is here told. 'The Butterfly,'
+on the contrary, is a delightful little burlesque on flirtations and
+fops; and 'The Snail and the Rose Tree' is much like it. Both are really
+fables of the highest order, or shrewd prose epigrams.
+
+The volume before us is well translated; very well, notwithstanding one
+or two trifling inadvertencies, which, however, really testify to the
+fact that the best of all pens for such version--a lady's--was employed
+in the work. A _Skytte_, for instance, in Danish, or _Schutz_ in German,
+is generally termed among the fraternity of sportsmen a 'shot,' and not
+a 'shooter.' But the spirit of the original is charmingly preserved, and
+Miss Fuller has the rare gift of using short and simple words, which are
+the best in the world when one knows how to use them as she does. We
+trust that we shall see many more stories of this kind, translated by
+her.
+
+We must, in conclusion, say a word for the dainty binding (Pawson &
+Nicholson), the exquisite paper and typography, and, finally, for the
+pretty photograph vignette with which this volume is adorned. Mr.
+Leypoldt has benefited Philadelphia in many ways,--by his foreign and
+American circulating library, his lecture room, and by his republication
+in photograph of first-class engravings,--and we now welcome him to the
+society of publishers. His first step in this direction is a most
+promising one.
+
+
+     NOTES, CRITICISMS, AND CORRESPONDENCE UPON SHAKSPEARE'S PLAYS AND
+     ACTORS. By JAMES HENRY HACKETT. New York: Carleton, 413 Broadway.
+     1863.
+
+This work will be one of great interest, firstly to all those who visit
+the theatre, secondly to readers of Shakspeare, and thirdly to all who
+relish originality and naivete of character, such as Mr. Hackett
+displays abundantly, from the rising of the curtain even to the going
+down of the same, in his book. There are no men who live so much within
+their profession as actors, or are so earnest in their faith in it; and
+this devotion is reflected unconsciously, but very entertainingly,
+through the whole volume. Shakspeare tells us that all the world is a
+stage--to the actor the stage is all his world, the only one in which he
+truly lives.
+
+We thank Mr. Hackett for giving us in this volume, firstly, very minute
+and excellent descriptions of all the eminent actors of Shakespeare
+within his memory--not a brief one, he having been himself a really
+excellent and eminent actor since 1828. It is to be regretted that there
+are not more such judicious descriptions as these. The author has, as we
+gather from his book, been in the habit of recording his daily
+experiences, and consequently writes from better data than those
+afforded by mere memory. The reader will also thank him for many
+agreeable minor reminiscences of celebrities, and for giving to the
+public his extremely interesting correspondence on Shaksperean subjects
+with John Quincy Adams and others. The views of the venerable statesman
+on _Hamlet_, and on 'Misconceptions of Shakspeare on the Stage,'
+indicate a very great degree of study of the great poet, and of
+reflection on the manner in which he is over or under acted. Nor are Mr.
+Hackett's own letters and criticisms by any means devoid of
+merit--witness the following:
+
+     'Mr. Forrest recites the text (of King Lear) as though it were all
+     prose, and not occasionally written in poetic measure; whereas,
+     blank verse can, and always should, be distinguishable from prose
+     by proper modulations of the voice, which a listener with a nice
+     ear and a cultivated taste could not mistake, nor, if confounded,
+     detect in their respective recitals: else Milton as well as
+     Shakspeare has toiled to little purpose in the best-proportioned
+     numbers.'
+
+The criticism on Forrest is throughout judicious, and, though frequently
+severe, is still very kindly written when we consider the 'capacities'
+of the subject.
+
+As regards Mr. Hackett's views of readings, we detect in them a little
+of that tendency to excessive accentuation, and that disposition to
+'make a hit' or a sensation in every sentence which renders most, or
+all, Shaksperean or tragic acting so harsh and strained, and which has
+made the word 'theatrical' in ordinary conversation synonymous with
+'unnatural.' Something of this is reflected in the enormous amount of
+needless italicizing with which the typography of the book is afflicted,
+and which we trust will be amended in future editions. We cheerfully
+pardon Mr. Hackett for sounding his own praises--sometimes rather loudly
+and frequently, as in the republication of a sketch of himself--since,
+after all, we thereby gain a more accurate idea of a favorite actor, who
+has for thirty-six years pleased the public, and gained in that long
+time the character of a conscientious artist who has always striven to
+improve himself.
+
+To one thing, however, we decidedly object--the questionable taste
+displayed by the author in answering in type criticisms of his acting,
+and in republishing them in his work. We can well imagine the temptation
+to be great, but to yield to it is not creditable to a good artist. With
+this little exception, we cordially commend the work to all readers.
+
+
+     DEVOTIONAL POEMS. By R. T. CONRAD. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott &
+     Co. 1862.
+
+The late Judge Conrad left a number of religious poems, which
+fortunately fell into the hands of those who appreciated their merit,
+and we now have them in volume, with an introductory poem to the widow
+of the deceased and a preface by George H. Boker, to whom the editing of
+the present volume was committed. These lyrics, as we infer, were
+written in the spirit of private devotion, and are therefore gifted with
+the greatest merit which can possibly inspire religious writing--we mean
+deep sincerity. But apart from the _spirit_,--the _sine qua non_,--the
+beauty of the form of these works will always give them a high value to
+the impartial critic. They are far above the mediocrity into which most
+religious writers always at first _appear_ to be lost, owing to the vast
+amount of thoughts and expressions which they are compelled to share in
+common with others. And as there has been awakened within a few years a
+spirit of collecting and studying such poetry, we cordially commend this
+work to all who share it.
+
+As regards form, one of the more marked poems in this collection is
+'The Stricken;' we have room only for the beginning:
+
+    Heavy! Heavy! Oh, my heart
+      Seems a cavern deep and drear,
+    From whose dark recesses start,
+        Flatteringly like birds of night,
+      Throes of passion, thoughts of fear,
+        Screaming in their flight.
+      Wildly o'er the gloom they sweep,
+  Spreading a horror dim,--a woe that cannot weep!
+
+    Weary! Weary! What is life
+      But a spectre-crowded tomb?
+    Startled with unearthly strife,
+      Spirits fierce in conflict met,
+    In the lightning and the gloom,
+      The agony and sweat;
+    Passions wild and powers insane,
+  And thoughts with vulture beak, and quick Promethean pain.
+
+We select this single specimen from its remarkable resemblance to
+Anglo-Saxon religious poetry,--by far the sincerest, and, so far as it
+was ripened, the soundest, in our language. With the exception of the
+Promethean allusion, every line in these verses is singularly Saxon--the
+night birds, screaming in gloom--as in the '_Sea Farer_,' where, instead
+of joyous mirth,
+
+  'Storms beat the stone cliffs,
+  Where them the starling answered,
+  Icy of wing.'
+
+The divisions of this work are 'Sinai,' which is in great measure a
+commentary on virtues and vices, 'Sonnets on the Lord's Prayer,' and
+'Bible Breathings.' Of these we would commend the Sonnets, as forming
+collectively a highly finished and beautiful poem, complete in each
+detail. The little poem, 'A Thought,' is as perfect as a mere simile in
+verse could be.
+
+Robert T. Conrad, who was born in Philadelphia in 1810, and died there
+in 1858, first became known to the public by a drama entitled _Conrad of
+Naples_, a subject which has been extensively treated by German writers,
+Uhland himself having written a tragedy on it. After being admitted to
+the bar, Conrad connected himself with the press, but resumed the
+practice of law in 1834 with success, being appointed judge of the
+criminal sessions in 1838, and of the general sessions in 1840. He was
+subsequently president of a well-known railroad company, and mayor of
+his native city. During the intervals of his business he was at one time
+editor of _Graham's Magazine_, and acquired a literary reputation by his
+articles in the _North American_, and by the well-known tragedy of
+_Aylmere_, in which Mr. Forrest, the actor, has frequently appeared as
+'Jack Cade.' In addition to these, Mr. Conrad published, in 1852, a
+volume entitled 'Aylmere and other poems,' which was very extensively
+reviewed. In it the 'Sonnets on the Lord's Prayer' first appeared.
+
+The volume before us is very well edited in every respect, and makes its
+appearance in very beautiful 'externals.' The paper, binding, and
+typography are, in French phrase, as applied to such matters,
+'luxurious.'
+
+
+     SKETCHES OF THE WAR: A Series of Letters to the North Moore Street
+     School of New York. By CHARLES C. NOTT, Captain in the Fifth Iowa
+     Cavalry. New York: Charles T. Evans, 448 Broadway. 1863.
+
+Were this little work ten times its present length, we should have read
+it to the end with the same interest which its perusal inspired, and
+arrived, with the same regret that there was not more of it, at its last
+page. It is simple and unpretending, but as life-like and spirited as
+any collection of descriptive sketches which we can recall. We realize
+in it all the vexations of mud, all the horrors of blood, and all the
+joys of occasional chickens and a good night's rest, which render the
+soldier's life at once so great and yet so much a matter of petty joys
+and sorrows. The love of the rider for the good horse--for his pet
+Gypsy--her caprices and coquetries, are set forth, for instance, very
+freely, without, however, a shadow of affectation, while in all his
+interviews with men and women, the characters come before us 'like
+life,' and give us a singularly accurate conception of the social
+effects of the war in the West. The appearance of the country is
+unconsciously detailed as accurately as in a photograph, and the events
+and sensations of battle are presented with great ability; in fact, we
+have as yet seen no sketches from the war which in these particulars are
+equal to them. They are free from 'fine writing,' and are given in
+simple, intelligible language which cannot fail to make them generally
+popular. The occasional flashes of humorous description are extremely
+well given--so well that we only wish there had been more of them, as
+the author has evidently a talent in that direction, which we trust will
+be more fully developed in other works.
+
+
+
+
+EDITOR'S TABLE
+
+
+With all the outcry that has been raised at the slow progress of the
+war, it is difficult for a comprehensive mind to conceive how, on the
+whole, the struggle with the South could have advanced more favorably to
+the _general interests_ and future prosperity of the whole country, than
+it has thus far done. 'Had the Administration been possessed of
+sufficient energy, it could have crushed the rebellion in the first
+month,' say the grumblers. Very possibly--to break out again! No amount
+of prompt action could have calmed the first fire and fury of the South.
+It required _blood_; it was starving for war; it was running over with
+hatred for the North.
+
+The war went on, and, as it progressed, it became evident that, while
+thousands deprecated agitation of the slave question as untimely, the
+war could never end until that question was disposed of. And it also
+became every day more plain that the 'little arrangement' so frequently
+insisted on, and expressed in the words, 'Conquer the enemy _first_, and
+_then_ free the slaves,' was a little absurdity. It was 'all very
+pretty,' but with the whole North and South at swords-points over this
+as the alleged cause of war--with all Europe declaring that the North
+had no intention of removing the cause of the war--with the slave
+constantly interfering in all our military movements--and, finally, with
+a party of domestic traitors springing up everywhere, at home and in the
+army itself, it became high time to adopt a fixed policy. It _was_
+adopted, and President LINCOLN, to his lasting honor, and despite
+tremendous opposition, issued the Proclamation of January First--the
+noblest document in history.
+
+It is difficult to see how, when, or in what manner slavery would have
+disappeared from a single State, had the war been sooner ended; and
+nothing is more certain than that any early victory or temporary
+compromise would have simply postponed the struggle, to be settled with
+compound interest. But another benefit has resulted and is resulting
+from the experience of the past two years. Our own Free States have
+abounded with men who are at heart traitors; men who have, by their
+ignorance of the great principles of national welfare involved in this
+war, acted as a continual drawback on our progress. This body of men,
+incapable of comprehending the great principles of republicanism as laid
+down in the Constitution, and as urged by Washington, would be after all
+only partially vanquished should we subdue the rebels. They are around
+us here in our own homes; their treason rings from the halls of national
+legislation; they are busy night and day in their 'copperhead' councils
+in giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and in poisoning the minds of
+the ignorant, by hissing slanders at the President and his advisers as
+being devoid of energy and ability.
+
+It would avail us little could we conclude a peace to-morrow, if these
+aiders and abetters of treason--these foes of all enlightened
+measures--these worse than open rebels--were to remain among us to
+destroy by their selfishness and malignity those great measures by which
+this country is destined to become great. The war is doing us the
+glorious service of bringing the 'copperheads' before the people in
+their true light--the light of foes to equality, to the rights of the
+many, and as perverse friends of all that is anti-American. Who and
+_what_, indeed, are their leaders! Review them all, from FERNANDO WOOD
+down to the wretched SAULSBURY, including W. B. REED, in whose veins
+hereditary traitorous blood seems, with every descent, to have acquired
+a fresh taint--consider the character which has for years attached to
+most of them--and then reflect on what a party must be with such
+leaders!
+
+These men have no desire to be brought distinctly before the public;
+they would by far prefer to burrow in silence. But the war and
+emancipation have proved an Ithuriel's spear to touch the toad and make
+him spring up in his full and naturally fiendish form. The sooner and
+the more distinctly he is seen, the better will it be for the country.
+We must dispose of rebels abroad and copperheads at home ere we can have
+peace, and the sooner the country knows its foes, the better will it be
+for it. We have come at last to either carrying out the great
+centralizing system of an Union, superior to all States Rights, as
+commended by Washington, or to division into a thousand petty
+principalities, each ruled by its WOOD, or other demagogue, who can
+succeed in securing a majority-mob of adherents!
+
+It is with such men and their measures that Gen. GEORGE B. MCCLELLAN,
+the frequently proposed candidate for the next presidency, is becoming
+firmly connected in the minds of the people! Fortunately the war has
+developed the objects of the traitors, and the Union Leagues which are
+springing up by hundreds over the country are doing good service in
+making them thoroughly known. Until treason is fairly rooted out at home
+and abroad, and until _Union at the centre for the people everywhere_ is
+fully enforced, this war can only be concluded now, to be renewed
+in tenfold horror to-morrow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is a complication of interests at present springing up in Europe,
+which is difficult to fathom. Just now it seems as if the Polish
+insurrection were being fomented by Austria, at French instigation, in
+order that the hands of Russia may be tied, so that in case of war with
+America, we may be deprived of the aid of our great European friend.
+England sees it in this light, and angrily protests against Prussian
+interference in the matter. Should a general war result, who would gain
+by it? Would France avail herself of the opportunity to array her forces
+against Prussia, and seize the Rhine, and perhaps Belgium? Or would the
+Emperor avail himself of circumstances to embroil England in a war, and
+then withdraw to a position of profitable neutrality? Let it be borne in
+mind, meantime, that it required all the strength of France, England,
+and Austria, combined, to beat Russia in the Crimea, and that a short
+prolongation of the war would have witnessed the arrival of vast bodies
+of Russian troops--many of whom had been nearly a year on the march.
+Those troops are now far more accessible in case of war.
+
+A war between England and the United States, however it might injure us,
+would be utter ruin to our adversary. With our commerce destroyed, we
+should still have a vast territory left; but nine tenths of England's
+prosperity lies within her wooden walls, which would be swept from the
+ocean. With her exportation destroyed, England would be ruined. We
+should suffer, unquestionably, but we could hold our own, and would
+undoubtedly progress as regards manufacturing. But what would become of
+the British workshops, and how would the British people endure such
+suffering as never yet befell them? Even with our Southern Rebellion on
+our hands, and English men-of-war on our coast, we could still, with our
+merchant marine, bring John Bull to his face. And John Bull knows it.
+
+England is now building, in the cause of slavery and for the South, a
+great fleet of iron-clad pirate vessels, which are intended to prey on
+our commerce. How long will it be before retaliation on England begins,
+and, _when_ it begins, how will it end? Ay--_how_ will it end? It is not
+to be supposed that we can long be blinded by such a flimsy humbug as a
+transfer to Southern possession of these vessels 'for the Chinese
+trade!' Are the English mad, demented, or besotted, that they suppose we
+intend to endure such deliberate aid of our enemies? When those vessels
+'for the Chinese' are afloat, and our merchants begin to suffer, let
+England beware! We are not a people to stop and reason nicely on legal
+points, when they are enforced in the form of fire and death. Better for
+England that she weighed the iron of that fleet pound for pound with
+gold, and cast it into the sea, than that she suffered it to be
+launched. _Qui facit per alium, facit per se._ England is the _real_
+criminal in this business, for her Government could have _prevented_ it;
+and to her we shall look for the responsibility. All through America a
+spirit of fierce indignation has been awakened at hearing of this
+'Chinese' fleet, which will burst out ere long in a storm. We are very
+far from being afraid of war--we are in it; we know what it is like--and
+those who openly, brazenly, infamously, aid our enemies and make war for
+them, shall also learn, let it cost what it may.
+
+England hopes to cover the world's oceans with pirates, with murder,
+rapine, and robbery--to exaggerate still more the horrors of war--and
+yet deems that her commerce will escape! This is a different matter from
+the affair of the Trent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Don't grumble! Don't be incessantly croaking from morning to night at
+the war and the administration and the generals, and everything else!
+Things have gone better on the whole than you imagine, and your endless
+growling is just what the traitors like. Were there no croakers there
+would be no traitors.
+
+It was growling and croaking which caused the reverses of the army of
+the Potomac--sheer grumbling. Now the truth is coming out, and we are
+beginning to see the disadvantages of eternal fault-finding. The truth
+is that the war in the Crimea was much worse conducted than this of ours
+has been--even as regards swindling by contracts--and it was so with
+every other war. We have no monopoly of faults.
+
+Now that the war is being reorganized, we would modestly suggest that a
+little severity--say an occasional halter--would not be out of place as
+regards deserters. There has been altogether too much of this amusement
+in vogue, which a few capital punishments in the beginning would have
+entirely obviated. Pennsylvania, we are told, is full of hulking runaway
+young farmers, and our cities abound in ex-rowdies, who, after securing
+their bounties, have deserted, and who are now aiding treason, and
+spreading 'verdigrease' in every direction by their falsehoods. Let
+every exertion be made to arrest and return these scamps--cost what it
+may; and let their punishment be exemplary. And let there be a new
+policy inaugurated with the new levy, which shall effectually prevent
+all further escaping.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Reader--wherever you are, either join a Union League, or get one up. If
+there be none in your town, gather a few friends together--and mind that
+they be good, loyal Unionists, without a suspicion of verdigrease or
+copperhead poison about them--and at once put yourselves in connection
+with the central Leagues of the great cities. Those of Philadelphia, New
+York and Boston are all conducted by honorable men of the highest
+character--and we may remark, by the way, that in this respect the
+contrast between the leaders of the League and of the Verdigrease Clubs
+is indeed remarkable. When you have formed your League, see that
+addresses are delivered there frequently, that patriotic documents and
+newspapers are collected there, and finally that it does good service in
+every way in forwarding the war, and in promoting the determination to
+preserve the Union.
+
+The copperheads aim not only at letting the South go--they hope to break
+the North to fragments, and trust that in the general crash each of them
+may secure his share. When the war first broke out, FERNANDO WOOD
+publicly recommended the secession of New York as a free city--and a
+very free city it would have been under the rule of Fernando the First!
+And this object of 'dissolution and of division' is still cherished in
+secret among the true leaders of the traitors.
+
+The time has come when every true American should go to work in earnest
+to strengthen the Union and destroy treason, whether in the field or at
+home. A foe to liberty and to human rights is a foe, whether he be a
+fellow countryman or not, and against such foes it is the duty of every
+good citizen to declare himself openly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It will be seen by the annexed that our Art correspondent, a gentleman
+of wide experiences, has gone into the battle. We trust that his
+experiences will amuse the reader. As for the _facts_--never mind!
+
+                                                    CAMP O'BELLOW,
+                                            _Army of the Potomac_.
+
+MY PATRIOTIC FRIEND AND EDITOR:
+
+I have changed my base.
+
+When I last wrote you, it was from the field of art--this time it is
+from the floor of my tent--at least it will be, as soon as my fellows
+pitch it. N. B.--For special information I would add that this is not
+done, as I have seen a Kalmouk do it, with a bucket of pitch and a rag
+on a stick. One way, however, of pitching tents is to pitch 'em down
+when the enemy is coming, and run like the juice. Ha, ha!
+
+But I must not laugh too loudly, as yon small soldier may hear me.
+Little pitchers have long ears.
+
+Now for my sufferings.
+
+The first is my stove.
+
+My stove is made of a camp kettle.
+
+It has such a vile draught that I think of giving it a lesson in
+drawing. _Joke._ Perhaps you remember it of old in the jolly old Studio
+Building in Tenth Street. By the way how is WHITTREDGE?--I believe _he_
+imported that joke from Rome where he learned it of JULES DE MONTALANT
+who acquired it of CHAPMAN who got it from GIBSON, who learned it of
+THORWALDSEN who picked it up from DAVID who stole it from the elder
+VERNET to whom it had come down from MICHAEL ANGELO who cribbed it from
+ALBERT DUeRER who sucked it somehow from GIOTTO.
+
+I wish you could see that stove. I cook in it and on it and all around
+the sides and underneath it. I wash my clothes in it, make punch in it,
+write on it, when cold sit on it, play poker on it, and occasionally use
+it for a trunk. It also gives music, for though it don't draw, it can
+sing.
+
+My second friend is my Iron Bride--the sword. She is a useful creeter.
+Little did I think, when you, my beloved friends, presented me with that
+deadly brand, how useful she would prove in getting at the brandy, when
+I should have occasion to 'decap' a bottle. She kills pigs, cuts cheese,
+toasts pork, slices lemons, stirs coffee, licks the horses, scares
+Secesh, and cuts lead pencils. In a word, if I wished to give useful
+advice to a cavalry officer, it would be not to go to war without a
+sword.
+
+A revolver is also extremely utilitarious. A _large_ revolver, mind you,
+with _six corks_. Mine contains red and black pepper, salt, vinegar,
+oil, and ketchup--when I'm in a hurry. A curious circumstance once
+'transpired,' as the missionaries say, in relation to this article of
+the _quizzeen_. All the barrels were loaded--which I had forgotten--and
+so proceeded to give it an extra charge of groceries. * * *
+
+It was a deadly fray. _Rang tang bang, paoufff!_ We fought as if it had
+been a Sixth Ward election. Suddingly I found myself amid a swarm of my
+country's foes. Sabres slashed at me, and in my rage I determined to
+exterminate something. Looking around from mere force of habit to see
+that there were no police about, I drew my revolver and aimed at JIM
+MARRYGOLD of Charleston, whom I had last seen owling it in New Orleans,
+four years ago. He and DICK MIDDLETONGUE of Natchez (who carved the
+Butcher's Daughter at Florence, and who is now a Secesh major), came
+down with their cheese knives, evidently intending to carve _me_. Such
+language you never heard, such a diluvium of profanity, such
+double-shotted d--ns! I drew my pistol _at once_, and gave Dick a
+blizzard. The ball went through his ear--the red pepper took his eyes,
+while Jim received the shot in his hat, and with it the sweet oil. In
+this sweet state of affairs, CHARLEY RUFFEM of Savannah was descending
+on me with his sabre. (He was the man who said my browns were all put in
+with guano.) I put him out of the way of criticism with a _third_
+barrel--killed him _dead_, and _salted_ him.
+
+The best of this war is, it enables me to exterminate so many _bad
+artists_.
+
+The worst of it is that Charley owed me five dollars.
+
+A fifth Secesh now made his appearance. We went it on the sword, and
+fought--for further particulars see Ivanhoe, volume second. My foe was
+RAWLEY CHIVERS, of Tuscumbia, Ala., and as the mischief would have it,
+he knew all my guards and cuts. We used to fence together, and had had
+more than one trial at _'fertig-los!'_ on the old _Pauk-boden_ in
+Heidelberg.
+
+'POP!' said he on the seventeenth round, 'are we going to chop all day?'
+
+'CHIV,' said I, as I drew my castor, '_are you ready_?'
+
+'Ready,' quoth he, effecting the same manoeuvre--'_one_, _two_,
+_three_.'
+
+I scratched his cheek, but the mustard settled him.
+Sputter--p'l'z'z'z--how he swore! I went at him with both hands.
+
+'_Priz?_' I cried.
+
+'Priz it is,' he answered.
+
+So I took him off as a priz. He was very glad to go too, for he hadn't
+had a dinner for six weeks, and would have made a fine study for a
+Murillo beggar so ar as rags went.
+
+I punish my men whenever I catch them foraging. Punish them by
+confiscation. Mild as I am by nature, I never allow them to keep stolen
+provisions--when I am hungry.
+
+Yesterday evening I detected a vast German private with a colossal
+bull-turkey.
+
+'Lay it down _there_, sir!' I exclaimed fiercely--indicating the floor
+of my tent as the bank of deposit.
+
+'But den when I leafs it you eats de toorky up!' he exclaimed in
+sorrowful remonstrance.
+
+'Yes,' I replied, like a Roman. 'Yes--I may _eat_ it--but,' I added in
+tones of high moral conscientiousness, 'remember that I didn't STEAL
+it!'
+
+He went forth abashed.
+
+No more till it is eaten, from
+
+  Yours truly,
+
+  POPPY OYLE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+We are indebted to a Philadelphia correspondent for the following:
+
+  Alas! that noble thoughts so oft
+  Are born to live but for an hour,
+  Then sleep in slumber of the soul
+  As droops at night the passion flower,
+  Their morn is like a summer sun
+  With splendor dawning on the day--
+  Their eve beholds that glory gone,
+  And light with splendor fled away.
+
+  J. W. L.
+
+True indeed. The difference between the great mind and the small is
+after all that the former can _retain_ its 'noble thoughts,' while with
+the latter they are evanescent. And it is the glory of Art that it
+revives such feelings, and keeps early impressions alive.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FROM THE GERMAN OF HEINE.
+
+
+  My love, in our light boat riding,
+    We sat at the close of day;
+  And still through the night went gliding,
+    Afar on our watery way.
+
+  The Spirit Isle, soft glowing,
+    Lay dimmering 'neath moon and star;
+  There music was softly flowing,
+    And cloud dances waved afar:
+
+  And ever more sweetly pealing,
+    And waving more winningly;
+  But past it our boat went stealing,
+    All sad on the wide, wide sea.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Here is an
+
+ADVENTURE WITH A GRIZZLY BEAR,
+
+from a Philadelphia correspondent:
+
+     'We had gone out one morning, while camping upon the river San
+     Joaquin, to indulge in the sport of fowling. There were three of
+     us, and we possessed two skiffs, but an accident had reduced our
+     sculls to a single pair, which my companion used to propel one of
+     the boats down the stream, after securing the other, with me as its
+     occupant, in the midst of a thicket of tule, where I awaited in
+     ambush the flying flocks. As geese and ducks abounded, and nearly
+     all of my shots told, in a few hours I had killed plenty of game;
+     but becoming weary, as the intervals lengthened between the flights
+     of the birds, I sat down, and had already begun to nod dozingly,
+     when a startling splash, near the river bank, instantly aroused me.
+     Grasping my gun and springing upright, I looked in the direction
+     whence the sound had come; but, owing to the intervening mass of
+     tule, could not see what kind of animal--for such I at once
+     conjectured it must be--had occasioned my sudden surprise. Having
+     hitherto seen no domestic stock hereabouts, I therefore felt fully
+     satisfied that it could not belong to a tame species. Judging from
+     the noise of its still continued movements, it was of no small
+     bulk; and, if its ferocity were correspondent with its apparent
+     size, this was indeed a beast to be dreaded.
+
+     'The thought at once occurred to me that, as I possessed neither
+     oars nor other means of propulsion, it would be difficult to move
+     the boat from its mooring if chance or acuteness of scent should
+     lead the creature to my place of concealment. In short, this, with
+     various suggestions of fancy, some of them ludicrously exaggerated,
+     speedily made me apprehensive of imminent danger. Nor was my
+     suspicion unfounded, for a crisis was at hand.
+
+     'There was a space of clear water between the river bank and the
+     margin of the tule, in which the brute seemed to disport a few
+     moments; and then the rustling of the reeds indicated that it was
+     about to advance. With heavy footfalls it came toward me; as it
+     approached my nervousness increased; I could not mistake that
+     significant tread; undoubtedly it was a grizzly bear. But how could
+     I escape? Bruin, though his progress was not unimpeded, was surely
+     drawing near. Following my first impulse in this pressing
+     emergency, I placed myself forward in the boat, and, seizing a
+     handful of green blades on either side of it, endeavored, by
+     violently pulling upon them, to force the craft through the thick
+     growth which surrounded it. The headway of the skiff was slow, but
+     my efforts were not silent. In fact, the commotion occasioned by my
+     own panic became, to my hearing, so confounded with the sound made
+     by my floundering pursuer that my excited imagination multiplied
+     the single supposed bear, and the water seemed to be dashed about
+     by several formidable 'grizzlies.'
+
+     'You smile, gentlemen, but really I was so impressed with this and
+     like extravagant creations of fear that my better judgment was
+     temporarily suspended. This deception, however, was only of
+     momentary duration.
+
+     'Suddenly the skiff encountered some obstacle and remained
+     immovable. Quickly clutching my gun and firing it aimlessly, I
+     sprang overboard, and, with extraordinary energy, made for the
+     other side of the river and safety.
+
+     'My remembrance of that hazardous crossing even now fills me with a
+     sympathetic thrill. The river, near where I had leaped in, varied
+     in depth from my middle to my neck, and the snaky stalks of tule
+     clung to me, retarding my retreat like faithful allies of the
+     enemy. An area of this plant extended to the channel, a distance of
+     some fifty yards, where a clear current rendered swimming feasible;
+     and this I essayed to reach, urged onward by terror, and regardless
+     of ordinary obstructions. So vigorous was my action that,
+     notwithstanding the frequent reversals of my head and 'head's
+     antipodes' as I tripped over reeds and roots, perhaps I should have
+     reached the 'point proposed' with only a loss equivalent to the
+     proverbial 'year's growth,' had not a hidden snag unluckily lain in
+     the way, which 'by hook or by crook' fastened itself in the part of
+     my trowsers exactly corresponding, when dry, with that 'broad disk
+     of drab' finally seen, after much anxiety, by the curious Geoffrey
+     Crayon between the parted coat-skirts of a certain mysterious
+     'Stout Gentleman,' and inextricably held me in check despite my
+     frantic struggles.
+
+     'Imagine my feelings while thus entangled by a bond of enduring
+     material, a bait for a fierce brute which eagerly pressed forward
+     to snap at me. Believe me, boys, this was _not_ the happiest moment
+     of my life. I knew no reason why I should resignedly submit to so
+     undistinguished a fate. My knife, however, was in the boat, so that
+     my release could only be attained by extreme exertion. Accordingly
+     I writhed and jerked with my 'best violence,' all the time
+     denouncing the whole race of bears, from 'Noah's pets' down; and
+     you may be sure, emphatically expressing not a very exalted opinion
+     of snags.
+
+     'Ah! how that brief period of horrible _suspense_ appeared to
+     stretch out almost to the crack of doom. I roared lustily for help,
+     but no aid came. The bear continued its course through the thicket;
+     in another instant I might be seized.
+
+     'Rather than suffer such a 'taking off' as this, which now seemed
+     inevitable, I should have welcomed as an easy death any method of
+     exit from life that I might hitherto have deprecated. Incited then
+     by the proximity of the beast, which so intensified the horror of
+     my situation, to a last desperate effort to avert this much dreaded
+     fate; and, concentrating nearly a superhuman strength upon one
+     impetuous bound, the _stubborn fabric burst_, and--joy possessed my
+     soul!
+
+     'Even greater than my recent misery was the ecstasy which succeeded
+     my liberation. The happy sense of relief imparted to me such a
+     feeling of buoyancy that I was enabled to extricate myself from
+     this 'slough of despond,' and I soon reached the swift current,
+     when a few strokes landed me in security on a jutting bar.
+
+     'Without unnecessary delay I sought out my comrades, to whom I told
+     the story of my escape. Their response was a hearty laugh, and
+     certain equivocal words which might imply doubt--not as to my
+     fright, for that was too plain--but concerning the identity of the
+     'grizzly.' I observed, however, that, as they rowed nearer to the
+     scene of my disaster, their display of levity lessened; and as we
+     came within sight of the suspicious locality, there was not the
+     'ghost of a joke' on board; but, on the contrary, thay both charged
+     me to 'keep a bright look out,' as well as to 'see that the arms
+     were all right,' thus showing a remarkable diminution of their
+     previous incredulity.
+
+     'While cautiously exploring the vicinity of my memorable flight, we
+     saw the bear in the distance, upon a piece of rising ground. It
+     moved off with a lumbering shuffle and probably a contented
+     stomach, for, on searching for my scattered game, we found but
+     little of it left besides sundry fragments and many feathers.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the old times people received queer names, and plenty of them. On
+Long Island a Mr. Crabb named a child
+'Through-much-tribulation-we-enter-into-the-kingdom-of-heaven Crabb.'
+The child went by the name of _Tribby_. Scores of such names could be
+cited. The practice of giving long and curious names is not yet out of
+date. In Saybrook, Conn., is a family by the name of Beman, whose
+children are successively named as follows:
+
+1. Jonathan Hubbard Lubbard Lambard Hunk Dan Dunk Peter Jacobus Lackany
+Christian Beman.
+
+2. Prince Frederick Henry Jacob Zacheus Christian Beman.
+
+3. Queen Caroline Sarah Rogers Ruhamah Christian Beman.
+
+4. Charity Freelove Ruth Grace Mercy Truth Faith and Hope and Peace
+pursue I'll have no more to do for that will go clear through Christian
+Beman.
+
+Some of the older American names were not unmusical. In a Genealogical
+Register open before us we frequently find Dulcena, Eusena, Sabra, and
+Norman; 'Czarina' also occurs. Rather peculiar at the present day are
+Puah and Azoa (girls), Albion, Ardelia, Philomelia, Serepta, Persis,
+Electa, Typhenia, Lois, Selim, Damarias, Thankful, Sephemia, Zena,
+Experience, Hilpa, Penninnah, Juduthum, Freelove, Luthena, Meriba (this
+lady married 'Oney Anness' at Providence, R.I., in 1785), Paris,
+Francena, Vienna, Florantina, Phedora, Azuba, Achsah, Alma, Arad,
+Asenah, Braman, Cairo, Candace, China (this was a Miss Ware--China
+Ware--who married Moses Bullen at Sherburne, Mass., in 1805), Curatia,
+Deliverance, Diadema, Electus, Hopestill, Izanna, Loannis, Loravia,
+Lovice, Orilla, Orison, Osro, Ozoro, Permelia, Philinda, Roavea,
+Rozilla, Royal, Salmon, Saloma, Samantha, Silence, Siley, Alamena, Eda,
+Aseneth, Bloomy, Syrell, Geneora, Burlin, Idella, Hadasseh, Patrora
+(Martainly), Allethina, Philura, and Zebina.
+
+Some of these names are still extant--most have become obsolete. It
+would be a commendable idea should some scholar publish a work
+containing the Names of all Nations!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Doubtless the reader has heard much of the Wandering Jew and of his
+trials, but we venture to say that he has probably not encountered a
+more affecting state of the case than is set forth in the following
+lyric, translated from the German, in which language it is entitled
+'Ahasver,' and beginneth as follows:
+
+THE EVERLASTING OLD JEW.
+
+  'Ich bin der alte
+     Ahasver,
+   Ich wand're hin,
+     Ich wand're her.
+   Mein Ruh ist hin,
+     Mein Herz ist schwer,
+   Ich finde sie nimmer,
+     Und nimmermehr.'
+
+  I am the old
+    Ahasuer;
+  I wander here,
+    I wander there.
+  My rest is gone,
+    My heart is sair;
+  I find it never,
+    And nevermair.
+
+  Loud roars the storm,
+    The milldams tear;
+  I cannot perish,
+    O _malheur!_
+  My heart is void,
+    My head is bare;
+  I am the old
+    Ahasuer.
+
+  Belloweth ox
+    And danceth bear,
+  I find them never,
+    Never mair.
+  I'm the old Hebrew
+    On a tare;
+  I order arms:
+    My heart is sair.
+
+  I'm goaded round,
+    I know not where:
+  I wander here,
+    I wander there.
+  I'd like to sleep,
+    But must forbear:
+  I am the old
+    Ahasuer.
+
+  I meet folks alway
+    Unaware:
+  My rest is gone,
+    I'm in despair.
+  I cross all lands,
+    The sea I dare:
+  I travel here,
+    I wander there.
+
+  I feel each pain,
+    I sometimes swear:
+  I am the old
+    Ahasuer.
+  Criss-cross I wander
+    Anywhere;
+  I find it never,
+    Never mair.
+
+  Against the wale
+    I lean my spear;
+  I find no quiet,
+    I declare.
+  My peace is lost,
+    My heart is sair:
+  I swing like pendulum in air.
+
+  I'm hard of hearing,
+    You're aware?
+  Curacoa is
+    A fine _liqueur_.
+  I 'listed once
+    _En militaire_:
+  I find no comfort
+    Anywhere.
+
+  But what's to stop it?
+    Pray declare!
+  My peace is gone.
+    My heart is sair:
+  I am the old
+    Ahasuer.
+  Now I know nothing,
+    Nothing mair.
+
+Truly a hard case, and one far surpassing the paltry picturing of Eugene
+Sue. There is a vagueness of mind and a senile bewilderment manifested
+in this poem, which is indeed remarkable.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One fine day, some time ago, SAVIN and PIDGEON were walking down Fifth
+avenue to their offices.
+
+A funeral was starting from No. --. On the door plate was the word
+IRVING.
+
+'Such is life,' said Savin. 'All that is mortal of the great essayist is
+being borne to the grave: in fact, the cold and silent tomb.'
+
+A tear came to Pidgeon's eye. Pidgeon has an enthusiastic veneration for
+genius. He adores literary talent.
+
+'Savin,' said he, 'there is a seat vacant in this carriage. I will enter
+it, and pay my last tribute of respect to the illustrious departed. But
+I thought he had a place up the river.'
+
+'This was his town house,' said Savin. 'How I should like to join with
+you in your thoughtful remembrance, and in your somewhat unceleritous
+journey to the churchyard! But, no, the case of Blackbridge _vs._
+Bridgeblack will be called at twelve, and I have no time to lose.'
+
+Pidgeon entered the carriage. There was a large man on the seat, but
+Pigeon found room beside him. The carriage slowly moved off. Pidgeon put
+his handkerchief to his eyes; the large man coughed and took a chew of
+tobacco.
+
+Presently said Pidgeon:
+
+'We are following to the grave the remains of a splendid writer.'
+
+'Uncommon,' said the large man. 'Sech a man with a pen _I_ never
+see--ekalled by few, and excelled by none; copperplate wasn't nowhere.'
+
+'Indeed,' replied Pidgeon, 'I wasn't aware his chirography was so
+unusually elegant; but his books were magnificent, weren't they? So
+equable, too, and without that bold speculation that we too often meet
+with, nowadays.'
+
+'Ah, you may well say so,' returned the large man. 'He always kept them
+himself; had 'em sent up to his house whenever he was sick, likeways;
+but he wasn't without his bold speculations neither. Look at that there
+operation of his into figs, last year.'
+
+'Figs!'
+
+'Figs, yes; and there was dates into the same cargo.'
+
+'Dates! figs! My good friend, do you mean to say that the great
+Washington Irving speculated in groceries?'
+
+'Lord, no, not that _I_ know of. This here is Josh Irving, whose
+remains'--
+
+Pidgeon opened the carriage door, and, being agile, got out without
+stopping the procession. Arriving at his office, where the boy was
+diligently occupied in sticking red wafers over the velvet of his desk
+lid, he took down 'Sugden on Vendors,' to ascertain if there was any
+legal remedy for the manner in which he had been sold, and at the latest
+dates had unsuccessfully travelled nearly half through that very
+entertaining volume.
+
+THERE is no time to be lost. Either the Union is to be made stronger, or
+it is to perish; and the sooner every man's position is defined, the
+better. If you are opposed to the war, say so, and step over to
+Secession, but do not falter and equivocate, croak and grumble, and play
+the bat of the fable. The manly, good, old-fashioned Democrats, at
+least, are above this, and are rapidly dividing from the copperheads.
+The Philadelphia _Evening Bulletin_, a staunch patriotic journal, says:
+
+'The sooner that the fact is made clear that the mass of the Democrats,
+as well as of all other parties, are loyal and opposed to the infamous
+teachings of Vallandigham, Biddle, Reed, Ingersoll, Wood, and their
+compeers, the sooner will the war be brought to an end and the Union be
+restored.'
+
+Show your colors. Let us know at once who and what everybody is, in this
+great struggle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LOVE-LIFE.
+
+  In a forest lone, 'neath a mossy stone,
+    Pale flowrets grew:
+  No sunlight fell in the sombre dell,
+    Raindrop nor dew.
+
+  Bring them to light, where all is bright,
+    See if they grow?
+  Yes, stem and leaf are green,
+  While, hid in crimson sheen,
+    The petals glow.
+
+  Girl blossoms, too, love the sun and dew,
+    And the soft air:
+  Hidden from love's eye they fade and die,
+  In city low or cloister high,
+    Yes, everywhere.
+
+  Give them but love, the fire from above,
+    And they will grow,
+  The once cold children of the gloom,
+  Rich in their bloom, shedding perfume
+    On high and low.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We beg leave to remind our readers that Mr. LELAND'S new book, _Sunshine
+in Thought_, retail price $1, is given as a premium to all who subscribe
+$3 in advance to the CONTINENTAL MONTHLY. Will the reader permit us to
+call attention to the following notice of the work from the Philadelphia
+_Evening Bulletin_:
+
+     'A beautiful volume, entitled _Sunshine in Thought_, by Charles
+     Godfrey Leland, has just been published by Charles T. Evans. No
+     work from Mr. Leland's pen has afforded us so much pleasure, and we
+     recommend it to all who want and relish bright, refreshing,
+     cheering reading. It consists of a number of essays, the main idea
+     of which is to inculcate joyousness in thought and feeling, in
+     opposition to the sickly, sentimental seriousness which is so much
+     affected in literature and in society. That a volume based on this
+     one idea should be filled with reading that is never tiresome, is a
+     proof of great cleverness. But Mr. Leland's varied learning, and
+     his extensive acquaintance with foreign as well as English
+     literature, combine with his native talent to qualify him for such
+     a work. He has done nothing so well, not even his admirable
+     translation of Heine's _Reisebilder_. He is thoroughly imbued with
+     the spirit of his motto, '_Hilariter_,' and in expressing his
+     bright thoughts, he has been peculiarly felicitous in style.
+     Nothing of his that we have read shows so much elegance and polish.
+     Every chapter in the book is delightful, but we especially enjoyed
+     that on 'Tannhaeuser,' with the fine translation and subsequent
+     elucidation of the famous legend.' But the boldest and most
+     original chapter is the concluding one, with its strange
+     speculations on 'The Musical After-Life of the Soul,' and the
+     after-death experience of 'Dione' and 'Bel-er-oph-on,' which the
+     author characterizes in the conclusion as 'an idle, fantastic,
+     foolish dream.' So it may be, but it is as vividly told as any
+     dream of the Opium-Eater or the Hasheesh-Eater. Mr. Leland is to be
+     congratulated on his _Sunshine in Thought_. It is a book that will
+     be enjoyed by every reader of culture, and its effect will be good
+     wherever it is read.'
+
+The aim proposed in this work is one of great interest at the present
+time, or, as the Philadelphia _North American_ declares, 'is a great and
+noble one'--'to aid in fully developing the glorious problem of freeing
+labor from every drawback, and of constantly raising it and intellect in
+the social scale.' 'Mr. LELAND believes that one of the most powerful
+levers for raising labor to its true position in the estimation of the
+world, is the encouragement of cheerfulness and joyousness in every
+phase of literature and of practical life.' 'The work is one long,
+glowing sermon, the text of which is the example of Jesus Christ.'
+
+  E. K.
+
+
+BUST-HEAD WHISKEY.
+
+For two days the quiet of the Rising Sun Tavern, in the quaint little
+town of Shearsville, Ohio, was disturbed by a drunken Democratic member
+of the Pennsylvania Legislature, who visited the town in order to
+address what he hoped would turn out to be the assembled multitude of
+copperheads, but which proved after all no great snakes!
+
+For two days this worthless vagabond insulted travellers stopping at the
+tavern, until at last the landlord's wife, a woman of some intelligence,
+determined to have her revenge, since no man on the premises had pluck
+enough to give the sot the thrashing he so well merited.
+
+On the third day, after a very severe night's carouse on bust-head
+whiskey, the Pennsylvanian appeared at the breakfast table, looking
+sadly the worse for wear, and having an awful headache. The landlady
+having previously removed the only looking glass in the tavern--one
+hanging in the barroom--said to the beast as he sat down to table:
+
+'Poor man! oh, what _is_ the matter with your face? It is terribly
+swollen, and your whole head too. Can't I do something for you? send for
+the doctor, or'--
+
+The legislator, who was in a state of half-besottedness, listened with
+sharp ears to this remark, but believing the landlady was only making
+fun of him, interrupted her with--
+
+'There ain't nothin' the matter with my head. I'm all right; only a
+little headache what don't 'mount to nothing.'
+
+But a man who sat opposite to him at table, and who had his clue from
+the landlady, said with an alarmed look--
+
+'I say, mister, I don't know it's any of my business, but I'll be hanged
+for a horse thief, if your head ain't swelled up twicet its nat'ral
+size. You'd better do something for it, I'm thinking.'
+
+The drunken legislator! (Legislator, _n._ One who makes laws for a
+state: vide dictionary) believing at last that his face must in fact be
+swollen, since several other travellers, who were in the plot, also
+spoke to him of his shocking appearance, got up from the table and went
+out to the barroom to consult the looking glass, such luxuries not being
+placed in the chambers. But there was no glass there. After some time he
+found the landlady, and she told him that the barroom glass was broken,
+but she could lend him a small one; which she at once gave him.
+
+The poor sot, with trembling hand, held it in front of his face, and
+looked in.
+
+'Well,' said he, 'if that ain't a swelled head I hope I may never be a
+senator! or sell my vote again at Harrisburg.'
+
+'Poor man!' exclaimed the bystanders.
+
+'Fellers,' said the legislator, 'wot d'ye think I'd better do?' Here he
+gave another hard look in the glass. 'I ought to be back in Harrisburg
+right off, but I cant go with a head like that onto me. Nobody'd give me
+ten cents to vote for 'em with such a head as that. It's a'--
+
+'Big thing,' interrupted a bystander.
+
+'Fellers,' said the blackguard, 'I'll kill a feller any day of the week,
+with old rye, if he'll only tell er feller how to cure this head of
+mine.'
+
+'Have it shaved, sir, by all means,' spoke the landlady: 'shaved at
+once, and then a mild fly blister will draw out the inflammation, and
+the swelling will go down. Don't you think so, doctor?'
+
+The doctor thus addressed was a cow doctor, but, accustomed to attending
+brutes, his advice was worth something in the present case; so he also
+recommended shaving and blistering.
+
+'I'll go git the barber right off the reel, sha'n't I?' asked the
+doctor, to which the legislator assenting, it chanced that in fifteen
+minutes his head was as bald as a billiard ball, and in a few more was
+covered with a good-sized fly blister.
+
+'Ouch--good woman--how it hurts!' he cried. But that was only the
+beginning of it.
+
+'Ee-ea-ah!' he roared, as it grew hotter and hotter. One might have
+heard him a mile. The neighbors did hear it, and rushed in. The joke was
+'contaminated' round among them, and they enjoyed it. He had disgusted
+them all.
+
+'Golly! what a big head!' cried a bystander.
+
+The legislator took another look at the glass. They held it about a yard
+from him.
+
+'It's gittin' smaller, ain't it?' he groaned.
+
+'Yes, it's wiltin',' said the landlady. 'Now go to bed.'
+
+He went, and on rising departed. Whether he ever became an honest man is
+not known, but the legend says he has from that day avoided 'bust-head
+whiskey.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Don't you _see_ it, reader? The landlady had shown him his face in a
+convex mirror--one of those old-fashioned things, which may occasionally
+be found in country taverns.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+WAR-WAIFS.
+
+The chronicles of war in all ages show us that this internecine strife
+into which we of the North have been driven by those who will eventually
+rue the necessity, is by no manner of means the first in which brother
+has literally been pitted against brother in the deadly 'tug of war.'
+The fiercest conflict of the kind, however, which we can at present call
+up from the memory of past readings, was one in which THEODEBERT, king
+of Austria, took the field against his own brother, THIERRI, king of
+Burgundy. Historians tell us that, so close was the hand-to-hand
+fighting in this battle, slain soldiers did not fall until the _melee_
+was over, but were borne to and fro in an upright position amid the
+serried ranks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Although many and many of England's greatest battles have been won for
+her by her Irish soldiers, it is not always that the latter can be
+depended upon by her. With the Celt, above all men, 'blood is thicker
+than water;' and, although he is very handy at breaking the head of
+another Celt with a blackthorn 'alpeen,' in a free faction fight, he
+objects to making assaults upon his fellow countrymen with the 'pomp and
+circumstance of war.' A striking instance of this occurred during the
+Irish rebellion of 1798. The 5th Royal Irish Light Dragoons refused to
+charge upon a body of the rebels when the word was given. Not a man or
+horse stirred from the ranks. Here was a difficult card to play, now,
+for the authorities, because it would have been inconvenient to try the
+whole regiment by court martial, and the soldiers were quite too
+valuable to be mowed down _en masse_. The only course left was to
+disband the regiment, which was done. The disaffected men were
+distributed into regiments serving in India and other remote colonies,
+and the officers, none of whom, we believe, were involved in the mutiny,
+were provided for in various quarters. The circumstance was commemorated
+in a curious way. It was ordered that the 5th Royal Irish Light Dragoons
+should be erased from the records of the army list, in which a blank
+between the 4th and 6th Dragoons should remain forever, as a memorial of
+disgrace. For upward of half a century this gap remained in the army
+list, as anybody may see by referring to any number of that publication
+of half-a-dozen years back. The regiment was revived during, or just
+after, the Crimean war, and the numbers in the army list are once more
+complete.
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+CONTINENTAL MONTHLY.
+
+
+The readers of the CONTINENTAL are aware of the important position it
+has assumed, of the influence which it exerts, and of the brilliant
+array of political and literary talent of the highest order which
+supports it. No publication of the kind has, in this country, so
+successfully combined the energy and freedom of the daily newspaper with
+the higher literary tone of the first-class monthly; and it is very
+certain that no magazine has given wider range to its contributors, or
+preserved itself so completely from the narrow influences of party or of
+faction. In times like the present, such a journal is either a power in
+the land or it is nothing. That the CONTINENTAL is not the latter is
+abundantly evidenced _by what it has done_--by the reflection of its
+counsels in many important public events, and in the character and power
+of those who are its staunchest supporters.
+
+Though but little more than a year has elapsed since the CONTINENTAL was
+first established, it has during that time acquired a strength and a
+political significance elevating it to a position far above that
+previously occupied by any publication of the kind in America. In proof
+of which assertion we call attention, to the following facts:
+
+1. Of its POLITICAL articles republished in pamphlet form, a single one
+has had, thus far, a circulation of _one hundred and six thousand_
+copies.
+
+2. From its LITERARY department, a single serial novel, "Among the
+Pines," has, within a very few months, sold nearly _thirty-five
+thousand_ copies. Two other series of its literary articles have also
+been republished in book form, while the first portion of a third is
+already in press.
+
+No more conclusive facts need be alleged to prove the excellence of the
+contributions to the CONTINENTAL, or their _extraordinary popularity_;
+and its conductors are determined that it shall not fall behind.
+Preserving all "the boldness, vigor, and ability" which a thousand
+journals have attributed to it, it will greatly enlarge its circle of
+action, and discuss, fearlessly and frankly, every principle involved in
+the great questions of the day. The first minds of the country,
+embracing the men most familiar with its diplomacy and most
+distinguished for ability, are among its contributors; and it is no mere
+"flattering promise of a prospectus" to say that this "magazine for the
+times" will employ the first intellect in America, under auspices which
+no publication ever enjoyed before in this country.
+
+While the CONTINENTAL will express decided opinions on the great
+questions of the day, it will not be a mere political journal: much the
+larger portion of its columns will be enlivened, as heretofore, by
+tales, poetry, and humor. In a word, the CONTINENTAL will be found,
+under its new staff of Editors, occupying, a position and presenting
+attractions never before found in a magazine.
+
+
+
+
+TERMS TO CLUBS.
+
+  Two copies for one year,         Five dollars.
+
+  Three copies for one year,       Six dollars.
+
+  Six copies for one year,         Eleven dollars.
+
+  Eleven copies for one year,      Twenty dollars.
+
+  Twenty copies for one year,      Thirty-six dollars.
+
+  PAID IN ADVANCE.
+
+  _Postage, Thirty-six cents a year_, TO BE PAID BY THE SUBSCRIBER.
+
+  SINGLE COPIES.
+
+  Three dollars a year, IN ADVANCE. _Postage paid by the Publisher._
+
+
+  JOHN F. TROW, 50 Greene St, N.Y.,
+
+  PUBLISHER FOR THE PROPRIETORS.
+
+
+[Symbol: Hand] As an inducement to new subscribers, the Publisher
+offers the following liberal premiums:
+
+[Symbol: Hand] Any person remitting $3, in advance, will receive the
+magazine from July, 1862, to January, 1864, thus securing the whole of
+Mr. KIMBALL's and Mr. KIRKE's new serials, which are alone worth the
+price of subscription. Or, if preferred, a subscriber can take the
+magazine for 1863 and a copy of "Among the Pines," or of "Undercurrents
+of Wall Street," by R. B. KIMBALL, bound in cloth, or of "Sunshine in
+Thought," by CHARLES GODFREY LELAND (retail price, $1.25.) The book to
+be sent postage paid.
+
+[Symbol: Hand] Any person remitting $4.50, will receive the magazine
+from its commencement, January, 1862, to January, 1864, thus securing
+Mr. KIMBALL's "Was He Successful?" and Mr. KIRKE's "Among the Pines,"
+and "Merchant's Story," and nearly 3,000 octavo pages of the best
+literature in the world. Premium subscribers to pay their own postage.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE FINEST FARMING LANDS
+
+_WHEAT CORN COTTON FRUITS & VEGETABLES_]
+
+EQUAL TO ANY IN THE WORLD!!!
+
+MAY BE PROCURED
+
+At FROM $8 to $12 PER ACRE,
+
+Near Markets, Schools, Railroads, Churches, and all the blessings of
+Civilization.
+
+1,200,000 Acres, in Farms of 40, 80, 120, 160 Acres and upwards, in
+ILLINOIS, the Garden State of America.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    The Illinois Central Railroad Company offer, ON LONG CREDIT, the
+    beautiful and fertile PRAIRIE LANDS lying along the whole line of
+    their Railroad, 700 MILES IN LENGTH, upon the most Favorable Terms
+    for enabling Farmers, Manufacturers, Mechanics and Workingmen to
+    make for themselves and their families a competency, and a HOME they
+    can call THEIR OWN, as will appear from the following statements:
+
+
+ILLINOIS.
+
+Is about equal in extent to England, with a population of 1,722,666 and
+a soil capable of supporting 20,000,000. No State in the Valley of the
+Mississippi offers so great an inducement to the settler as the State of
+Illinois. There is no part of the world where all the conditions of
+climate and soil so admirably combine to produce those two great
+staples, CORN and WHEAT.
+
+
+CLIMATE.
+
+Nowhere can the industrious farmer secure such immediate results from
+his labor as on these deep, rich, loamy soils, cultivated with so much
+ease. The climate from the extreme southern part of the State to the
+Terre Haute, Alton and St. Louis Railroad, a distance of nearly 200
+miles, is well adapted to Winter.
+
+
+WHEAT, CORN, COTTON, TOBACCO.
+
+Peaches, Pears, Tomatoes, and every variety of fruit and vegetables is
+grown in great abundance, from which Chicago and other Northern markets
+are furnished from four to six weeks earlier than their immediate
+vicinity. Between the Terre Haute, Alton & St. Louis Railway and the
+Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, (it distance of 115 miles on the Branch,
+and 136 miles on the Main Trunk,) lies the great Corn and Stock raising
+portion of the State.
+
+
+THE ORDINARY YIELD
+
+of Corn is from 50 to 80 bushels per acre. Cattle, Horses, Mules, Sheep
+and Hogs are raised here at a small cost, and yield large profits. It is
+believed that no section of country presents greater inducements for
+Dairy Farming than the Prairies of Illinois, a branch of farming to
+which but little attention has been paid, and which must yield sure
+profitable results. Between the Kankakee and Illinois Rivers, and
+Chicago and Dunleith, (a distance of 56 miles on the Branch and 147
+miles by the Main Trunk,) Timothy Hay, Spring Wheat, Corn, &c., are
+produced in great abundance.
+
+
+AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS.
+
+The Agricultural products of Illinois are greater than those of any
+other State. The Wheat crop of 1861 was estimated at 85,000,000 bushels,
+while the Corn crop yields not less than 140,000,000 bushels besides the
+crop of Oats, Barley, Rye, Buckwheat, Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes,
+Pumpkins, Squashes, Flax, Hemp, Peas, Clover, Cabbage, Beets, Tobacco,
+Sorghum, Grapes, Peaches, Apples. &c., which go to swell the vast
+aggregate of production in this fertile region. Over Four Million tons
+of produce were sent out the State of Illinois during the past year.
+
+
+STOCK RAISING.
+
+In Central and Southern Illinois uncommon advantages are presented for
+the extension of Stock raising. All kinds of Cattle, Horses, Mules,
+Sheep, Hogs, &c., of the best breeds, yield handsome profits; large
+fortunes have already been made, and the field is open for others to
+enter with the fairest prospects of like results. DAIRY FARMING also
+presents its inducements to many.
+
+
+CULTIVATION OF COTTON.
+
+_The experiments in Cotton culture are of very great promise. Commencing
+in latitude 39 deg. 30 min. (see Mattoon on the Branch, and Assumption
+the Main Line), the Company owns thousands of acres well adapted to the
+perfection of this fibre. A settler having a family of young children,
+can turn their youthful labor to a most profitable account in the growth
+and perfection of this plant._
+
+
+THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD
+
+Traverses the whole length of the State, from the banks of the
+Mississippi and Lake Michigan to the Ohio, As its name imports, the
+Railroad runs through the centre of the State, and on either side of the
+road along its whole length lie the lands offered for sale.
+
+
+CITIES, TOWNS, MARKETS DEPOTS.
+
+There are Ninety-eight Depots on the Company's Railway, giving about one
+every seven miles. Cities, Towns and Villages are situated at convenient
+distances throughout the whole route, where every desirable commodity
+may be found as readily as in the oldest cities of the Union and where
+buyers are to be met for all kinds of farm produce.
+
+
+EDUCATION.
+
+Mechanics and working-men will find the free school system encouraged by
+the State, and endowed with a large revenue for the support of the
+schools. Children can live in sight of the school, the college, the
+church, and grow up with the prosperity of the leading State in the
+Great Western Empire.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+PRICES AND TERMS OF PAYMENT--ON LONG CREDIT.
+
+80 acres at $10 per acre with interest at 6 per ct. annually on the
+following terms:
+
+  Cash payment               $48.00
+  Payment in one year         48.00
+     "    in two years        48.00
+     "    in three years      48.00
+     "    in four years      236.00
+     "    in five years      224.00
+     "    in six years       212.00
+     "    in seven years     200.00
+
+  40 acres, at $10.00 per acre:
+
+  Cash payment               $24.00
+  Payment in one year         24.00
+     "     in two years       24.00
+     "     in three years     24.00
+     "     in four years     118.00
+     "     in five years     112.00
+     "     in six years      106.00
+     "     in seven years    100.00
+
+
+
+
+Number 17.
+
+25 Cents.
+
+THE
+
+CONTINENTAL
+
+MONTHLY.
+
+DEVOTED TO
+
+Literature and National Policy.
+
+MAY, 1863.
+
+  NEW YORK:
+  JOHN F. TROW 50 GREENE STREET
+  (FOR THE PROPRIETORS).
+
+  HENRY DEXTER AND SINCLAIR TOUSEY.
+  WASHINGTON, D.C.: FRANCK TAYLOR.
+
+
+CONTENTS.--No. XVII.
+
+  The Great Prairie State. By Mrs. C. M. Kirkland,                   513
+
+  A Winter in Camp. By E. G. Hammond,                                519
+
+  In Memoriam. By Richard Wolcott,                                   527
+
+  A Merchant's Story. By Edmund Kirke,                               528
+
+  Shylock _vs._ Antonio. By Carlton Edwards                          539
+
+  A Heroine of To-Day,                                               543
+
+  National Ode,                                                      554
+
+  The Surrender of Forts Jackson and St. Philip,
+    on the Mississippi. By F. H. Gerdes. Assistant
+    U. S. Coast Survey,                                              557
+
+  Reason, Rhyme, and Rhythm. By Mrs. Martha Cook,                    562
+
+  The Value of the Union. By William H. Muller,                      571
+
+  War Song--Earth's Last Battle. By Mrs. Martha Cook,                586
+
+  Miriam's Testimony. By M. A. Edwards,                              589
+
+  The Destiny of the African Race in the United States.
+    By Rev. J. M. Sturtevant, D.D.,                                  600
+
+  Was He Successful? By Richard B. Kimball,                          611
+
+  The Union. By Hon. Robert J. Walker,                               615
+
+  The Causes and Results of the War. By Lieut. Egbert
+    Phelps, U.S.A                                                    617
+
+  Great Heart,                                                       629
+
+  Literary Notices                                                   630
+
+
+The June No. of the Continental will contain an article on 'The
+Confederation and the Nation,' by Edward Carey.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by JAMES R.
+GILMORE, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United
+States for the Southern District of New York.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV,
+April 1863, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONTINENTAL MONTHLY, APRIL 1863 ***
+
+***** This file should be named 29736.txt or 29736.zip *****
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