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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/30611-8.txt b/30611-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dbfa5c0 --- /dev/null +++ b/30611-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9173 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, +April, 1865, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: December 6, 2009 [EBook #30611] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, APRIL 1865 *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections.) + + + + + + + +THE + +ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +_A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics._ + +VOL. XV.--APRIL, 1865.--NO. XC. + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by TICKNOR AND +FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of +Massachusetts. + + + + +ADVENTURES OF A LONE WOMAN. + + +"I will go and see the oil," remarked Miselle, at the end of a reverie +of ten minutes. + +Caleb laid the "Morning Journal" upon the table, and prepared himself +calmly to accept whatever new dispensation Providence and Miselle had +allotted him. + +"Whaling?" inquired he. + +"No, not whaling. I am going to the Oil Springs." + +"By all means. They lie in the remotest portion of Pennsylvania; they +are inaccessible by railway; such conveyances and such wretched inns as +are to be found are crowded with lawless men, rushing to the wells to +seek their fortunes, or rushing away, savage at having utterly lost +them. At this season the roads are likely to be impassable from mud, the +weather to be stormy. When do you propose going?" + +"Next Monday," replied Miselle, serenely. + +"And with whom? You know that I cannot accompany you." + +"I did not dream of incurring such a responsibility. I go alone." + +Caleb resumed the "Morning Journal." Miselle wrote a letter, signed her +name, and tossed it across the table, saying,-- + +"There, I have written to Friend Williams, who has, as his sister tells +me, set up a shanty and a wife on Oil Creek. I will go to them and so +avoid your wretched inns, and at the same time secure a guide competent +to conduct my explorations. As for the conveyances, the roads, and the +lawless travellers, if men are not afraid to encounter them, surely a +woman need not be." + +"Be cautious, Miselle. This grain of practicability in the shape of +Friend Williams is spoiling the unity of your plan. At first it was a +charmingly consistent absurdity." + +"But now?" + +"Now it is merely foolishly hazardous, and I suppose you will undertake +it. It is your _kismet_; it is Fate; and what am I, to resist Destiny? +Go, child,--my blessing and my bank-book are your own." + +"And '_Je suis Tedesco!_'" pompously quoted Miselle; so no more was said +upon the subject, until the young woman, having received an answer to +her letter, claimed the treasures promised by Caleb, and shortly after +fared forth upon her adventurous way. + +The journey from Boston to New York has for most persons lost the +excitement of novelty; but excitement of another sort is to be obtained +by choosing a route where mile after mile of the roadway is lined with +wrecks of recent accidents, and the papers sold in the cars brim over +with horrible details of death and maiming in consequence. Nor can it be +considered either wholesome or comfortable to be removed in the middle +of a November night from a warm car to a ferry-boat, and thence to +another train of cars without fire and almost without seats,--the +suggestive apology being, that so many carriages had been "smashed" +lately that the enterprising managers of the road had been obliged to +buy an old excursion-train from another company. Meantime, what became +of the unfortunate women who had no kind companion to purvey for them +blankets and pillows from the mephitic sleeping-car, and cups of hot tea +from unknown sources, Miselle cannot conjecture. + +New York at midday, from the standpoint of Fifth Avenue or Central Park, +is a very splendid and attractive place, we shall all agree; but New +York involved in a wilderness of railway station at six o'clock of a +rainy autumn morning is quite the reverse. Cabmen, draymen, porters, all +assume a new ferocity of bearing, horses are more cruelly lashed, +ignorant wayfarers more crushingly snubbed, new trunks more recklessly +smashed, than would be possible at a later hour of the day; and that +large class of persons who may be denominated intermittent gentlemen +fold up their politeness with their travelling-shawls and put it away +for a future occasion. + +Solaced by a breakfast and rest, Miselle bade good-bye to her attentive +escort, and set forth alone to view New York with the critical eye of a +Bostonian. + +Her first experience was significant; and in the course of a three-mile +drive down Broadway, she had time, while standing in the middle of an +omnibus, where were seated nine young gentlemen, for much complacent +comparison of the manners of the two cities. Indeed, after twelve hours +of attentive study, Miselle discovered but two points of superiority in +the New Babylon over the Modern Athens, and these were chocolate-creams +and policemen: the first were delicious, the last civil. + +Six o'clock arrived, and the "Lightning Express," over the Erie Railway, +bore, among other less important freight, Miselle and her fortunes. But, +unfortunately for the interest of this narrative, she had unwittingly +selected an "off-night" for her journey; neither horrible accident nor +raid of bold marauders enlivened the occasion; and undisturbed, the +reckless passengers slept throughout the night, as men have slept who +knew that a scaffold waited for them with the morning's light. + +Only Miselle could not rest. The steady rapidity of motion,--the +terrible power of this force that man has made his own, and yet not so +wholly his own but that it may at any moment break from his control, +asserting itself master,--the dim light and motionless figures about +her,--all these things wrought upon her fancy, until, through the gray +mist of morning, great round hills stood up at either hand with deep +valleys between, from whose nestling hamlets lights began to twinkle out +as if great swarms of fireflies sheltered there. Then, as morning broke, +the wild scenery, growing more distinct, told the traveller that she was +far from home. + +Gray and craggy hills, wild ravines, stormy mountain-streams, dizzy +heights where the traveller looking down remembered Tarpeia, gloomy +caverns, suggesting Simms's theory of an interior world,--none of these +were homelike; and Miselle began to fancy herself an explorer, a +Franklin, a Frémont, a Speke, until the train stopped at Hornellsville +for breakfast, and she was reminded, while watching the operations of +her fellow-passengers, of Du Chaillu peeping from behind tree-trunks at +the domestic pursuits of the gorilla. + +About noon the cars stopped at Corry, Pennsylvania, the entrance of the +oil region and terminus of the Oil Creek Railway; and Miselle, stepping +from the train into a dense cloud of driving rain and oily men, felt one +sudden pang of doubt as to her future course, and almost concluded it +should be to await upon the platform the Eastern-bound express due there +in a few hours. This dastardly impulse, however, was speedily put to +flight by the superior terror of the ridicule sure to greet such a +return, and, assuming a determined mien, Miselle took possession of +Corry. + +Three years ago the census of this place would have given so many foxes, +so many woodchucks, so many badgers, raccoons, squirrels, and +tree-toads; now it numbers four thousand men, women, and children, and +the "old families" have withdrawn to the aristocratic seclusion of the +forest beyond. + +For the accommodation of these newcomers a thousand buildings of various +sorts have been erected,--much as a child takes his toy-village from the +box and sets it here or there, as the whim of the moment dictates. Here +is also a large oil-refinery belonging to Mr. Downer of Boston, where a +good many of the four thousand find employment; and here, too, are +several inns, the best one called "The Boston House." + +Hither Miselle betook herself, confidently expecting to find either Mr. +Williams or a message from him awaiting her; but, behold, no friend, no +letter! + +What was to be done next? Mr. Dick, asked a similar question by Miss +Betsy Trotwood, replied, "Feed him." + +Miselle adopted the suggestion. The hour was one P. M., and the general +repast was concluded; but a special table was soon prepared, whereat she +and a gentleman of imposing appearance, called Viator Ignotus, were soon +seated, before a dinner, of which the intention was excellent, but the +execution as fatal as most executions. + +Viator ate in silence, occasionally startling his companion by wild +plunges across the table, knife in hand. At first she was inclined to +believe him a dangerous madman; but finding that the various dishes, and +not herself, were the objects of attack, she refrained from flight, and +considerately pushed everything within convenient stabbing distance of +the blade, which unweariedly continued to wave in glittering curves from +end to end of the table long after she had finished. + +The banquet over, Miselle found the drawing-room, and in company with a +woman, a girl, a baby, and a lawless stove, devoted herself to the study +of Corry as seen through a window streaming with rain. Tired at last of +this exhilarating pursuit, she engaged in single combat with the stove, +and, being signally beaten, resolved to try a course of human nature as +developed in her companions. + +She soon learned that the girl was in reality a matron of seventeen, and +the actual proprietor of the baby, whom, nevertheless, she appeared to +regard as a mysterious phenomenon attached to the elder woman, whom she +addressed as "Mam." In this view the grandmother seemed to coincide, and +remarked, naïvely,-- + +"Why, lor, Ma'am, she and her husband a'n't nothing but two babies +theirselves. She ha'n't never been away from her folks, nor he from +hisn, till t'other day he got bit with the ile-fever, and nothing would +do but to tote down here to the Crik and make his fortin. They was chirk +enough when they started; but about a week ago he come home, and I tell +you he sung a little smaller than when he was there last. He was clean +discouraged; there wa'n't no ile to be had, 'thout you'd got money +enough to live on, to start with; and victuals and everything else was +so awful dear, a poor man would get run out 'fore he'd realized the fust +thing; wust of all was, Clementiny was so homesick she couldn't neither +sleep nor eat; and the amount was, he'd stop 'long with father in the +shop, and I should go and fetch home the two babies. So here I be, and a +time I've had gittin' 'em along, I tell _you_." + +"It's hard travelling down Oil Creek, then?" asked Miselle, with a +personal interest in the question. + +"Hard! Reckon you'll say that, arter you've tried it. How fur be you +going?" + +"To Tarr Farm." + +"Lor, yes. Well now how d'y' allow to git there?" + +"I am hoping to meet a friend here who will know all about the way; but +if he fails me, I shall ask the people at the railway station." + +"No need to go so fur. I kin tell ye the hull story, for it's from Tarr +Farm I fetched the gal and young 'un this very morning." + +"Indeed? What is the best route, then?" + +"Well, you'll take the railroad down to Schaeffer's, and from there you +start down the Crik either in a stage or a boat. But I wouldn't +recommend the stage nohow. You don't look so very rugged, and if you +wa'n't killed, you'd be scared to death. So you'll hev to look up a +boat." + +"What sort of boat?" asked Miselle, faintly. + +"Oh, a flatboat. They come up loaded with ile, and going back they like +fust rate to catch a passenger. But don't you give 'em too much. They'd +cheat you out of your eye-teeth, but I'll bet you they found I was too +many for 'em. Don't you give more than a dollar, nohow; and I made 'em +take the two of us for a dollar 'n' 'alf." + +"How far is it from Schaeffer's to Tarr Farm? Perhaps I could walk," +suggested Miselle, modestly distrusting her own power in dealing with a +rapacious flatboatman. + +"Well, it's five mild, more or less. Think you could foot it that fur?" + +"Oh, yes, very easily. Is the road pretty good?" + +"My gracious goodness! Clementiny, she wants to know if the road down +the Crik is 'pretty good'!" + +"Reckon you ha'n't travelled round much in these parts. Where d'y' +b'long?" asked the ingenuous Clementina, after a prolonged stare at the +benighted stranger. + +Having satisfied herself for the time being with human nature, Miselle +returned to the window, and found the landscape mistier than ever. + +She was still considering her probable success in finding an oil-boat +and an oil-man to take her down the Creek, and steadily turning her back +upon the vision of the Eastern-bound Lightning Express, when a lady +followed by a gentleman ran up the steps of the Boston House, and +presently entered the dreary parlor, transforming it, as she did so, to +a cheerful abiding-place, by the magic of youth, beauty, and grace. +Miselle devoured her with her eyes, as did Crusoe the human footstep on +his desert island. An answering glance, a suppressed smile on either +side, and an understanding was established, an alliance completed, a tie +more subtile than Freemasonry confessed. + +In ten minutes Miselle and her new friend had conquered the lawless +stove, had seated themselves before it, and were confiding to each other +the mischances that had left them stranded upon the shore of +Corry,--Miselle for the night, Melusina until two o'clock in the +morning. + +Tea-time surprised this interchange of ideas, and so sunny had Miselle's +mood become that she was able to eat and drink, even though confronted +by the baby and its youthful mother, whose knife impartially deposited +in her own mouth and the infant's portions of beefsteak, potatoes, +short-cake, toast, pie, and cake, varied with spoonfuls of hot tea, at +which the wretched little victim blinked and choked, but still +swallowed. + +After tea, the infant, excited by refreshment nearly to the point of +convulsions, was restored to its grandmother, while the mother played +upon a mournful instrument called a melodeon, and sang various popular +songs in a powerful, but uncultivated voice. + +When she was done, Miselle persuaded Melusina to take her seat at the +instrument, and straightway the house was filled with such melody of +sweet German love-songs, operatic morcaux, and stirring battle-hymns, +that the open doorway thronged with uncouth forms, gathering as did the +monsters to Arion's harp. But when at last the clear voice rang out the +melody of the "Star-Spangled Banner," the crowd took up the chorus, and +rendered it with a heartfelt enthusiasm more significant than any music; +for it was almost election-day, and the old query of "How will +Pennsylvania go?" had all day been urged among every knot of men who +gathered to talk of the country's prospects. Then came the good old +"John Brown Song," and the "Marseillaise," which should be snatched from +its Rebel appropriators, on the same principle by which Doctor Byles +adapted sacred words to popular melodies. + +The music over, the little crowd dispersed, and the baby, with its brace +of mothers, gone to bed, the new friends sat cozily down and enjoyed an +hour or two of feminine gossip, exchanged kisses, cards, and +photographs, and so bade good-bye. + + +It seems a trifling matter enough in the telling, but to the lonely +Miselle this chance encounter with a comrade was enough to change the +whole aspect of affairs; and she sat down to breakfast the next morning, +strong in the faith of a brilliant victory over bad roads, oily boats, +and rapacious boatmen. + +A plank walk from the hotel to the station elevates the foot-passenger +in Corry above the mud of the streets, through whose depths flounders a +crowd of wagons laden with crude oil for the refinery, with refined oil +for the freight-trains, with carboys of chemicals, with merchandise, and +with building materials for yet more houses. + +Everything here is new. Not one of the thousand buildings is yet five +years old; and of the four thousand people, not the most easily +acclimated could yet tell how the climate agrees with him. Indeed, it is +so absolutely new that it has not yet reached the raw barrenness of a +new place. + +Nature does not cede her royalty except under strong compulsion, and +still does battle in the streets of Corry with the four thousand, who +have not yet found time to get out the stumps of the hastily felled +trees, to "improve" a wild water-course that dashes down from the bluff +and crosses the main street between a tailor's shop and a restaurant, or +even to trample to death the wildwood ferns and forest flowers which +linger on its margin. When the Coriolanians have attended to these +little matters, their city will look even newer than at present. Then +shall their grandchildren bring other trees and set them along the +streets, and dig wells and fountains, where Kuhleborn may rise to bemoan +the desolation of his ancient domain. + +Probably from sympathy with the bulk of their freight, the +passenger-cars upon the Oil Creek Railway are so streaked with oil upon +the outside, and so imbued with oil within, as to suggest having been +used on excursions to the bottoms of the various wells; but uninviting +as is their appearance, they are always crowded, and Miselle shared her +seat with a portly gentleman, whom at the second glance she recognized +as Viator Ignotus, and he, presently alluding to the fact of their +having dined together the previous day, a conversation grew up, through +which Miselle, much to her amusement, was initiated into the cabinet +secrets of the two or three railway companies who divide the travel of +the West, and who would appear to cherish very much the same jealousies +and avenge their grievances in much the same manner as Mrs. Jones and +Mrs. Brown with their neighborhood quarrels. Then Viator, producing from +his pocket sundry maps and charts, foretold the career of railways yet +unborn, and discoursed learnedly upon their usefulness, or, as he +phrased it, their "paying prospects." Finally, the subject of railways +exhausted, or rather run out, Viator paid his companion the compliment +of inquiring of her the condition of public feeling in her native State +as regarded the election; and the affairs of the nation were not yet +completely arranged when the train arrived at Titusville, and Viator +departed. + +The city of Titusville is probably the most forlorn and dreary looking +place in these United States. To describe the irregular rows of shanties +bordering on impassable sloughs of mud, the scenery, the pigs, and the +people, were a thankless task, as the most eloquent words would fall +short of the reality. In one of the principal streets the blackened +stumps still stand so thickly that the laden wagons meander among them +as sinuously as the path which foxes and squirrels wore there only three +years ago,--while in curious contrast with this avenue and the +surrounding buildings stands a handsome brick church, with a gilded +cross upon its spire, the one thing calm and steadfast in the dismal +scene. + +When the train again moved on, the seat vacated by Viator was taken by a +young woman bound for Oil City, where her husband awaited her; but the +homesickness epidemic among the female population of the Creek had +already seized upon her so strongly as to unfit her for conversation; +and Miselle devoted herself to the dismal landscape, privately agreeing +with her companion that it was "the God-forsakenest-looking place she +ever see." + +On either side the road lay swamps, their gaunt trees festooned, or +rather garroted, with vines, and draped with gray moss; while all about +and among them lay their comrades already prostrate and decaying. On the +higher lands fields had been fenced in, and cleared by burning the +trees, whose charred skeletons still stood, holding black and fleshless +arms to heaven in mute appeal against man's reckless abuse of Nature's +dearest children. + +Later Miselle took occasion to express her horror at the wholesale +destruction of her beloved forests to a land-owner of the region. He +laughed, and stared at the sentimental folly, and then said, +conclusively,-- + +"Oh, but the land, you know,--we want to get at the land; and the +quickest way of disposing of the trees is the best." + +"But even if they must be felled, it is wicked to destroy them entirely, +when so many people freeze to death every winter for want of fuel." + +"Well, I suppose they do," said the land-owner, suppressing a yawn. "But +we can't send them this wood, you know, or even get it down Oil Creek, +where there is a market." + +"At least, the poor people about here need never be cold. I suppose fuel +is very cheap through all this country, isn't it?" + +"Down the Creek we pay ten dollars a cord for all the wood, and a dollar +a bushel for all the coal we burn, and both grow within a mile of the +wells; but the trouble is the labor. Every man about here is in oil, +somehow or another; and even the farmers back of the Creek prefer +bringing their horses down and teaming oil to working the land or +felling wood. This is emphatically the oil region." + +Arrived at Schaeffer's or Shaffer's Farm, the present terminus of the +Oil Creek Railway, Miselle was relieved from much anxiety by seeing upon +the platform Friend Williams, to whom she had, in a fit of temporary +insanity, written that she should leave home on Tuesday instead of +Monday. + +"And how shall we go down the Creek?" asked she, when the first +greetings had been exchanged. + +"In the packet-boat, to be sure. The hack-carriage will take us right +down to the wharf." + +Miselle opened her eyes. Here was metropolitan luxury! Here was ultra +civilization in the heart of the wilderness! Oil-boats and +lumber-wagons, avaunt! Those women at Corry had evidently been +practising upon her ignorance, and amusing themselves with her terrors! + +A sudden rush of citizens toward the edge of the platform interrupted +these meditations. + +"What is it?" asked Miselle, wildly, as her companion seized her arm, +and hurried her along with the crowd. + +"The carriage. There is a rush for places. There! we're too late, I'm +afraid." + +They halted, as he spoke, beside a long, heavy wagon, such as is used +in the Eastern States for drawing wood, springless, with boards laid +across for seats, and with no means of access save the clumsy wheels. +Upon an elevated perch in front sat the driver, grinning over his +shoulder at the scrambling crowd of passengers, most of whom were now +loaded upon the wagon, while a circle of disappointed aspirants danced +wildly around it, looking for a yet possible nook or cranny. + +"Can't you make room for this lady? I will walk," vociferated Mr. +Williams. + +"Can't be did, Capting. Reckin, though, both on ye kin hitch on next +load," drawled the driver, turning his horses into the slough of mud +extending in every direction. + +"I will walk with you. How far is it?" asked Miselle, after a brief +contemplation of the prospect. + +"Not so very far; but the mud is about two feet deep all the way, and +you might soil your feet," suggested Mr. Williams, with a quizzical +smile. + +The objection was unanswerable; and Miselle, folding herself in the +mantle of resignation, waited until the next troubling of the pool, +when, rushing with the rest, she was safely hoisted into the cart, and +the drive commenced. + +"You had better cling to my arm here; it's a mud-hole; don't be +frightened," exclaimed Mr. Williams, as the horses suddenly disappeared +from view, and the wagon poised itself an instant on the edge of a +chasm, and then plunged madly after them. + +"Heavens! what _has_ happened? Have they run away? Didn't the driver see +where they were going? There! we're going o--ver!" shrieked Miselle. + +"No, no; we're all right now, don't you see? The poor nags aren't likely +to run much here; and though the driver saw it well enough, he couldn't +help going through. That's a fair specimen of the road all down the +Creek. Now here's a gully. Cling to me, and don't be frightened." + +It is very easy to say, "Don't be frightened"; but when a wagon with +four wheels travels for a considerable distance upon only two, while +those on the upper side are spinning round in the air, and the whole +affair inclines at a right angle toward a bottomless gulf of mud, it is +rather difficult for a nervous person to heed the injunction. + +Miselle did not shriek this time; but she fancies the "sable score of +fingers four remain on the" arm "impressed," to which she clung during +the ordeal. + +Another plunge, a lurch, a twist, a sharp descent, and the breathless +horses halted on the bank of a stream whose shallow waters were crowded +with flatboats, generally laden with oil. + +"Here is the packet-boat," remarked Mr. Williams, with mischievous +smile, as he lifted his charge from the "hack-carriage," and led her +toward one of these boats, a trifle dirtier than the rest, with planks +laid across for seats, and several inches of water in the bottom. In +shape and size it much resembled the mud-scows navigating the waters of +Back Bay, Boston, and was propelled by a gigantic paddle at either end. + +Miselle's lingering vision of a neat little steamboat with a comfortable +cabin died away; and she placed herself without remark upon the board +selected for her, accepting from her attentive companion the luxury of a +bit of plank for her feet,--an invidious distinction, regarded with much +disapproval by her fellow-passengers. + +The sad and homesick lady was again Miselle's nearest neighbor, and now +found her tongue in expressions of dismay and apprehension so vehement +and sincere that her auditor hardly knew whether to weep with her or +smile at her. + +Fifty luckless souls, more or less decently clothed in bodies, having +been crowded upon the raft, the shore-line was cast off, and she drifted +magnificently out into the stream, and stuck fast about a rod from the +landing. + +The most terrific oaths, the most strenuous exertion of the paddles, +failing to move her, "a team" was loudly called for by the irate +passengers, and presently appeared in the shape of two horses with a +small blue boy perched upon one of them. These were hitched to the +forward part of the boat, and the swearing and pushing recommenced, with +an accompaniment of slashing blows upon the backs of the unfortunate +horses, who strained and plunged, but all to no effect, until another +boat appeared round the bend, slowly towed up against the stream by two +more horses with a placid driver, whose less placid wife sat upon a +throne of oil-barrels in the centre of the craft, alternately smoking a +clay pipe and shouting profane instructions to her husband touching the +management of the boat. To this dual boatman the skipper of the packet +loudly appealed for aid, desiring him to "crowd along and give us a +swell." + +"What in nater was ye sich a cussed fool as ter git stuck fer?" replied +the two heads; and in spite of the disapproval conveyed by the question, +the stranger boat was driven as rapidly as possible close beside the +packet, the result being a long wave or "swell," enabling that luckless +craft to float off into the deeper water. + +"Now, gen'lemen, locate, if you please; please to locate, gen'lemen! You +capting with the specs on, ef yer don't sit down, I'll hev to ax yer +to," vociferated the skipper; and the passengers were nearly seated when +the boat grounded again, and was this time got off only by the aid of a +double team, a swell, and the shoulders of the captain and several of +the passengers, who walked in and out of the boat as recklessly as +Newfoundland dogs. After this style, the passage of five miles was +handsomely accomplished in six hours, and it was the gloaming of a +November day when Miselle, cold, wet, and weary, first set foot, or +rather both her feet, deep in the mud of Tarr Farm, and clambered +through briers and scrub oak up the bluff, where stood her friend's +house, and where the panacea of "a good cup of tea and a night's rest" +soon closed the eventful day. + +The next morning was meant for an artist, and it is to be hoped that +there was one at Tarr Farm to see the curtain of fog slowly lifting from +the bright waters of the Creek, and creeping up the bluff beyond it, +until it melted into the clear blue sky, and let the sunshine come +glancing down the valley, where groups of derricks, long lines of tanks, +engine-houses, counting-rooms replaced the forest growth of a few years +previous, and crowds of workmen, interspersed with overseers and +proprietors on foot or horseback, superseded the wild creatures hardly +yet driven from their lifelong haunt. + +Through the whole extent of Oil Creek, one picturesque feature never +fails: this is the alternation of bluff and flat on the opposite sides +of the Creek, so that the voyager never finds himself between two of +either,--but, as the bluff at his right hand sinks into a plain, he +finds the plain at the left rising sharply into a bluff. + +It is in these flats that the oil is found; and each of them is thickly +studded with derricks and engine-buildings, each representing a distinct +well, with a name of its own,--as the Hyena, the Little Giant, the +Phoenix, the Sca'at Cat, the Little Mac, the Wild Rabbit, the Grant, +Burnside, and Sheridan, with several hundred more. The flats themselves +are generally known as Farms, with the names of the original proprietors +still prefixed,--as the Widow McClintock Farm, Story Farm, Tarr Farm, +and the rest. + +Few of these god-parents of the soil are at present to be found upon it: +many of them in the beginning of the oil speculation having sold out at +moderate prices to shrewd adventurers, who made themselves rich men +before the dispossessed Rip Van Winkles awoke to a consciousness of what +was going on about them. Some, more fortunate or more far-sighted, still +hold possession of the land, but enjoy their enormous incomes in the +cities and places of fashionable resort, where their manners and habits +introduce a refreshing element of novelty. + +Few proprietors can be persuaded to sell the golden goose outright; and +the most usual course is for the individual or company intending to +sink a well to buy what is called a working interest in the soil, the +owner retaining a land interest or royalty, through which he claims half +the proceeds of the well, while the lessee may, after months of expense +and labor, abandon the enterprise with only his labor for his pains. +These failures are also a great source of annoyance to the proprietors: +for many of these abandoned wells require only capital to render them +available; but the finances of the first speculator being exhausted, no +new one will risk his money in them, while the old lease would interfere +with his right to the proceeds. + +Even the land for building purposes is only leased, with the proviso +that the tenant must move, not only himself, but his house, whenever the +landlord sees fit to explore his cellar or flower-garden for oil. + +A land interest obtained, the precise spot for breaking ground is +selected somewhat by experience, but more by chance,--all "oil +territory" being expected to yield oil, if properly sought. An +engine-house and derrick are next put up, the latter of timber in the +modern wells, but in the older ones simply of slender saplings, +sometimes still rooted in the earth. A steam-engine is next set up, and +the boring commences. + +By means of a spile-driver, an iron pipe, sharp at the lower edge and +about six inches in diameter, is driven down until it rests upon the +solid rock, usually at a depth of about fifty feet. The earth is then +removed from the inside of this pipe by means of a sand-pump, and the +"tools" attached to a cable are placed within it. + +These tools, consisting of a centre-bit and a rammer, are each thirty or +thirty-five feet in length, and weigh about eight hundred pounds. At +short intervals these are replaced by the sand-pump, which removes the +drillings. + +The first three strata of rock are usually slate, sandstone, and +soapstone. Beneath these, at a depth of two hundred feet, lies the +second sandstone, and from this all the first yield of oil was taken; +but, though good in quality, this supply was speedily exhausted, and the +modern wells are carried directly through this second sandstone, through +the slate and soapstone beneath, to the third sandstone, in whose +crevices lies the largest yield yet discovered. The proprietors of old +wells are now reaming them out and sinking their shafts to the required +depth, which is about four hundred and fifty feet. + +The oil announces itself in various ways: sometimes by the escape of +gas; sometimes by the appearance of oil upon the cable attached to the +tools; sometimes by the dropping of the tools, showing that a crevice +has been reached; and in occasional happy instances by a rush of oil +spouting to the top of the derrick, and tossing out the heavy tools like +feathers. + +Such a well as this, known as a flowing well, is the best "find" +possible, as the fortunate borer has nothing more to do than to put down +a tubing of cast-iron artesian pipe, lead the oil from its mouth into a +tank, and then, sitting under his own vine and fig-tree, leave his +fortune to accumulate by daily additions of thousands of dollars. A +flowing well, struck while Miselle was upon the Creek, yielded fifteen +hundred barrels per day, the oil selling at the well for ten dollars and +a half the barrel. + +But should the oil decline to flow, or, having flowed, cease to do so, a +force-pump is introduced, and, driven by the same engine that bored the +well, brings up the oil at a rate varying from three to three hundred +barrels per day. The Phillips Well, on Tarr Farm, originally a flowing +well, producing two thousand barrels per day, now pumps about three +hundred and thirty, and is considered a first-class well. + +Before reaching oil, the borer not unfrequently comes upon veins of +water, either salt or fresh; and this water is excluded from the shaft +by a leathern case applied about the pipe and filled with flax-seed. The +seed, swollen by the moisture, completely fills the space remaining +between the tube and the walls of the shaft, so that no water reaches +the oil. But whenever the tubing with its seed-bags is withdrawn, the +water rushing down "drowns" not only its own well, but all such as have +subterraneous communication with it. In this manner one of the most +important wells upon the Creek avenged itself some time ago upon a too +successful rival by drawing its tubing and letting down the water upon +both wells. The rival retaliated by drawing its own tubing, with a like +result, and the proprietors of each lost months of time and hundreds of +thousands of dollars before the quarrel could be adjusted. + +From the mouth of the shaft, elevated some fifteen feet above the +surface of the ground, the oil either flows or is pumped into an immense +vat or tank, and from this is led to another and another, until a large +well will have a series of tanks connected like the joints of a +rattlesnake's tail. Into the last one is put a faucet, and the oil drawn +into barrels is either carried to the local refinery, or in its crude +condition is boated to the railway, or to Oil City, and thence down the +Alleghany. + +One of the principal perils attending oil-seeking is that of fire. +Petroleum, in its crude state, is so highly impregnated with gas and +with naphtha, or benzine as to be very inflammable,--a fact proved, +indeed, many years ago, when, as history informs us, + + "General Clarke kindled the vapor, + Stayed about an hour, and left it a-burning," + +unconsciously turning his back upon a fortune such as probably had never +entered the worthy knight's imagination. + +The petroleum once ignited, it is very hard to extinguish the flames; +and Mr. Williams told of being one of a company of men who labored +twenty-four hours in vain to subdue a burning well. They tried water, +which only aggravated the trouble; they tried covering the well with +earth, but the gas permeated the whole mass and blazed up more defiantly +than ever; they covered the mound of earth with a carpet, (paid for at +the value of cloth of gold,) and the carpet with wet sand, but a bad +smell of burned wool was the only result. Finally, some incipient +Bonaparte hit upon the expedient of dividing the Allies, who together +defied mankind, and, bringing a huge oil-tank, inverted it over the +sand, the carpet, the earth, and the well, by this time one blazing +mass. Fire thus cut off from Air succumbed, and the battle was over. + +"There was no one hurt that time," pursued Friend Williams, in a tone of +airy reminiscence; "but mostly at our fires there'll be two or three +people burned up, and more women than men, I've noticed. Either it's +their clothes, or they get scared and don't look out for themselves. Now +there was the Widow McClintock owned that farm above here. She was worth +her hundreds of thousands of dollars, but she _would_ put kerosene on +her fire to make it burn. So one day it caught, and she caught, and in +half an hour there was no such thing as Widow McClintock on Oil Creek. +Still all the women keep right on pouring kerosene into their stoves, +and every little while one of them goes after the Widow. + +"Then there was a woman who sent to the refinery for a pail of alkali to +clean her floor. The man thought he'd get benzine instead; and just as +he got into the house, the fire from his pipe dropped into it, and the +whole shanty was in a blaze before the poor woman knew what had +happened. The stupid fool that was to blame got off, but the woman +burned up. + +"Then there was a woman whose house was afire, and she would rush back, +after she had been dragged out, to look for her pet teacups, and _she_ +was burned up. And so they go." + +Sometimes also the tanks of crude oil take fire, and these +conflagrations are said to present a splendid spectacle,--the resinous +parts of the oil burning with a fierce deep-red flame and sending up +volumes of smoke, through which are emitted lightning-like flashes +exploding the ignited gas. + +Like some other things, including people, this unappeasable substance +conceals its terrors beneath a placid exterior, and lies in its great +tanks, or in shallow pits dug for it in the earth, looking neither +volcanic nor even combustible, but more like thin green paint than +anything else, except when it has become adulterated with water, when it +assumes a bilious, yellow appearance, exceedingly uninviting to the +spectator. In this case it is allowed to remain undisturbed in the tank +until the oil and water have separated, when the latter is drawn off at +the bottom. + +Wandering one day among groves of derricks and villages of tanks, +Miselle and her guide came upon a building containing a pair of +truculent monsters in a high state of activity. These were introduced to +her as a steam force-pump and its attendant engine; and she was told +that they were at that moment sucking up whole tanks of oil from the +neighboring wells, and pumping it up the precipitous bluff, through the +lonely forest, over marsh and moor, hill and dale, to the great Humboldt +Refinery, more than three miles distant, in the town of Plummer, as it +is called,--although, in point of fact, Plummer, Tarr Farm, and several +other settlements belong to the township of Cornplanter. + +There was something about this brace of monsters very fascinating to +Miselle. They seemed like subjected genii closed in these dull black +cases and this narrow shed, and yet embracing miles of territory in +their invisible arms. Even the genius of Aladdin's lamp was not so +powerful, for he was obliged to betake himself to the scene of the +wonders he was to enact,--and if imprisoned as closely as these, could +not have transferred enough oil from Tarr Farm to Plummer to fill his +own lamp. + +Afterward, in rambling through the woods, Miselle often came upon the +mound raised above the buried pipe, and always regarded it with the same +admiring awe with which the fisherman of Bagdad probably looked at the +copper vessel wherein Solomon had so cunningly "canned" the rebellious +Afrit. + +Leaving the shed of the monsters, Miselle followed her guide out of the +throng of derricks and tanks, and a short distance up the hill, to the +picturesque site of Messrs. Barrows and Hazleton's Refinery, the only +one now in operation on Tarr Farm. + +Entering a low brick building called the still-house, she found herself +in a passage between two brick walls, pierced on either hand for five or +six oven-doors, while overhead the black roof was divided into panels by +a system of iron pipes through which the crude oil was conducted to the +caldrons above the iron doors. + +The presiding genius of the place was a very fat, dirty, but intelligent +Irishman, known as Tommy, who came forward with the politeness of his +nation to greet the visitors, and explain to them the mysteries under +his charge. + +"And give a guess, Ma'am, if ye plase, at what we've got a-burning +undher our big pot here," suggested he, with a hand upon one of the +oven-doors. + +"Soft coal," ventured Miselle, remembering her experience at the +glassworks. + +"Not a bit of it. It's the binzole intirely. We makes the ile cook +itself, an' not a hape of fu'l does it git, but what it brings along +itself." + +"Seething the kid in its mother's milk," remarked Miselle to herself. + +"It's this pipe fetches the binzole from the tank outside, and the mouth +of it's widin the door; and this is the stop-cock as lets it on." + +So saying, Tommy threw open the oven-door, and pointed to the black end +of a pipe just within. At the same time he turned a handle on the +outside, and let on a stream of benzine or naphtha, which blazed +fiercely up with a lurid flame strongly suggestive of the pictured +reward of evil-doers in another life. + +Next, Tommy proceeded to explain, after his own fashion, how the oil in +the caldrons above, urged by these fires, departed in steam and agony +through long pipes called worms, the only outlet from the otherwise +air-tight stills, which worms, wriggling out at the end of the building, +plunged into a bath of cold water provided for them in a huge square +tank fed by a bright mountain-stream winding down from the bluff above +in a fashion so picturesque as to be quite out of keeping with its +ultimate destination. + +Emerging from their cold bath, the worms, crawling along the ground +behind the still-house, arrived at the back of another building, called +the test-room; and here each one, making a sharp turn to enable him to +enter, was pierced at the angle thus formed, and a vertical pipe some +ten feet in length inserted. + +The object of these pipes was to carry off the gas still mingled with +the oil; and, looking attentively, Miselle could distinguish a +flickering column ascending from each pipe and forming itself so humanly +against the evening sky as to vindicate the superstition of the Saxons, +who first named this ether _geist_. + +"What a splendid illumination, if only those ten pipes were lighted some +dark night!" suggested Miselle. + +"Phe-ew! An' yer lumernation wouldn't stop there long, I can tell yer, +Ma'am," retorted Tommy. "The whole works ud be in a swither 'fore iver +we'd time to ax what was comin'." + +"They would? And why?" + +"The binzole, Ma'am, the binzole. It's the Divil's own stuff to manage, +an' there's no thrustin' it wid so much as the light uv a pipe nigh +hand. The air is full of it; and if you was so much as to sthrike a +match here where we stand, it ud be all day wid us 'fore we'd time to +think uv it. You should know that yersilf, Sir," continued he, turning +to Mr. Williams. + +"Yes," returned that gentleman, with a grimace. "I learned the nature of +benzine pretty thoroughly when I first came on the Creek. I had been at +work over one of the wells, and got my clothes pretty oily, but thought +I would not ask my wife to meddle with them. So I sent for a pail of +benzine, and, shutting myself up in my shop, set to work to wash my +clothes. I succeeded very well for a first attempt; and when I had done, +and hung them up to dry, I felt quite proud. Then, as it was pretty +cold, I thought I would put a little fire in the stove, and get them +dried to carry away before my men came in to work the next morning. So I +put some kindling in the stove, and scraped a match on my boot; but I +hadn't time to touch it to the shavings before the whole air was aflame, +not catching from one point to another, but flashing through the whole +place in an instant, and snapping all around my head like a bunch of +fire-crackers. I rushed for the door; but before I could get out I was +pretty well singed, and there was no such thing as saving a single +article. All went together,--shop, stock, tools, clothes, and everything +else. That's benzine." + +"That's binzole," echoed Tommy. "An' now, Ma'am, come in, if yer plase, +to the tistin'-room." + +Miselle complied, and, stepping into the little room, saw first two +parallel troughs running its entire length, and terminating at one end +in a pipe leading through the side of the building. Into each of these +troughs half the pipes were at this moment discharging a colorless, +odorless fluid, the apotheosis, as it were, of petroleum. + +Tommy, perching himself upon a high stool beside the troughs, regarded +his visitors with calm superiority, and was evidently disposed, in this +his stronghold, to treat with them _ex cathedra_. + +"There, thin, Ma'am," began he, "that's what I call iligant ile +intirely. Look at it jist!" + +And taking from its shelf a long tubular glass, he ladled up some of the +oil, and held it to the light for inspection. + +When this had been duly admired, the professor informed his audience +that the first product of the still is the gas, which is led off as +previously described. Next comes naphtha, benzine, or, as Tommy and his +comrades call it, "binzole." This dangerous substance is led from the +troughs of the testing-house to a subterraneous tank, the trap-cover of +which was subsequently lifted, that the visitors might peep, as into the +den of some malignant wild creature. From this it is again drawn, and, +mixed with the heavy oil or residuum of the still, is principally used +for fuel, as before described. + +"And how soon do you cut off for oil?" inquired Mr. Williams, +carelessly. + +The fat man gave him a look of solemn indignation, and proceeded without +heeding the interruption. + +"Whin I joodge, Ma'am, that the binzole is nigh run out, I tist it with +a hyder-rometer, this a-way." + +And Tommy, descending from the stool, took from the shelf first a tin +pot strongly resembling a shaving-mug, and then a little glass +instrument, with a tube divided into sections by numbered lines, and a +bulb half filled with quick-silver at the base. + +Filling the shaving-mug with oil, the lecturer dropped into it his +hydrometer, which, after gracefully dancing up and down for a moment, +remained stationary. + +"It's at 55° you'll find it. Look for yersilf, Ma'am," he resumed, with +the serene confidence of the prestidigitateur who informs the audience +that the missing handkerchief will be found in "that gentleman's +pocket." + +Miselle examined the figures at high-oil mark, and found that they were +actually 55°. + +"The binzole, you see, Ma'am, is so thin that the hyder-rometer drops +right down over head an' ears in it; but as it gits to be ile, it comes +heavier an' stouter, an' kind uv buoys it up, until at lin'th an' at +last the 60° line comes crapin' up in sight. Thin I thry it by the fire +tist. I puts some in a pan over a sperit-lamp, and keep a-thryin' an' +a-thryin' it wid a thermometer; an' whin it's 'most a-bilin', I puts a +lighted match to the ile, an' if it blazes, there's still too much +binzole, an' I lets it run a bit longer. But if all's right, I cuts off +the binzole, and the nixt run is ile sech as you see it. The longer it +runs, the heavier it grows; and whin it gits so that the hyder-rometer +stands at 42°, I cuts off agin. Thin the next run is heavy ile, thick +and yaller, and that doesn't come in here at all, but is drawn from the +still, and mixed wid crude ile, and stilled over agin; and whin no more +good's to be got uv it, it's mighty good along wid the binzole to keep +the pot a-bilin' in beyant." + +"You don't use the fire test in this building, I presume, do you?" + +"Indade, no, Ma'am. There's niver a light nor yit a lanthern allowed +here." + +"But you run all night. How do you get light in this room?" inquired Mr. +Williams. + +"From widout. Did niver ye mind the windys uv this house?" + +And the professor, dismounting from his stool, led the way to the +outside of the building, where he pointed to two picturesque little +windows near the roof, each furnished with a deep hood and a shelf, as +if Tommy had been expected to devote his leisure hours to the +cultivation of mignonette. + +"See now!" + +And the burly lecturer pointed impressively to a laborer at this moment +approaching with a large lighted lantern in each hand. These, placed +upon the mignonette shelves, and snugly protected from wind and rain by +the deep hoods, threw a clear light into the test-room, and brought out +in grotesque distinctness the arabesque pattern wrought with dust and +oil upon Tommy's broad visage. + +"And that's how we gits light, Sir," remarked the professor, in +conclusion, as, with a dignified salutation of farewell, he disappeared +in the still-house. + +Admonished by the lanterns and the fading glory of the west, Miselle and +her host now bent their steps homeward, deferring, like Scheherezade, +"still finer and more wonderful stories until the next morning." + +At their next visit to the Refinery, the visitors were committed to a +little wiry old man, called Jimmy, who first showed them a grewsome +monster, own cousin to him who threw oil from Tarr Farm to Plummer. This +one was called an air-pump, and, with his attendant steam-engine, +inhabited a house by himself. His work will presently be explained. + +The next building was the treating-house, where stand huge tanks +containing the oil as drawn from the testing-room. From these it is +conducted by pipes to the iron vats, called treating-tanks, and there +mixed with vitriol, alkali, and other chemicals, in certain exact +proportions. The monster in the next building is now set in operation, +and forces a stream of compressed air through a pipe from top to bottom +of the tank, whence, following its natural law, it loses no time in +ascending to the surface with a noisy ebullition, just like, as Jimmy +remarked, "a big pot over a sthrong fire." + +This mixing operation was formerly performed by hand in a much less +effectual manner, the steam air-pump being a recent improvement. + +The work of the chemicals accomplished, the oil is cleansed of them by +the introduction of water, and after an interval of quiet the mass +separates so thoroughly that the water and chemicals can be drawn off at +the bottom of the vat with very little disturbance to the oil. + +From the treating-house the perfected oil is drawn to the tanks of the +barrelling-shed, and filled into casks ready for exportation. A large +cooper's shop upon the premises supplies a portion of the barrels, but +is principally used in repairing the old ones. + +The oil is next teamed to the Creek, and either pumped into decked +boats, to be transported in bulk, or, still in barrels, is loaded upon +the ordinary flatboats. During a large portion of the year, however, +neither of these can make the passage of the shallow Creek without the +aid of a "pond-fresh." This occurs when the millers near the head of the +Creek open their dams, and by the sudden influx of water give a gigantic +"swell" to the boats patiently awaiting it at every "farm," from +Schaeffer's to Oil City. + +Sometimes, however, the boatmen, like the necromancer's student who set +the broomstick to bringing water, but could not remember the spell to +stop it, find that it is unsafe to set great agencies at work without +the power of controlling them. Last May, for instance, occurred a +pond-fresh, long to be remembered on Oil Creek, when the stream rose +with such furious, rapidity that the loaded boats became unmanageable, +crowding and dashing together, staving in the sides of the great +oil-in-bulk boats, and grinding the floating barrels to splinters. Not +even the thousands of gallons of oil thus shed upon the stormy waters +were sufficient to assuage either their wrath or that of the boatmen, +who, as their respective craft piled one upon another, sprang to "repel +boarders" with oaths, fists, boat-hooks, or whatever other weapons +Nature or chance had provided them. This scene of anarchy lasted several +days, and some cold-blooded photographer amused himself, "after" Nero, +in taking views of it from different points. Copies of these pictures, +commemorating such destruction of property, temper, and propriety as Oil +Creek never witnessed before, are hung about the "office" of the +Refinery, with which comfortable apartment the visitors finished their +tour. + +Here they were offered the compliments of the season and locality in a +collation of chestnuts; and here also they were invited to inspect a +stereoscope, which, with its accompanying views, is considered on Tarr +Farm as admirable a wonder as was, doubtless, Columbus's watch by the +aborigines of the New World. Dearer to Miselle than chestnuts or +stereoscope, however, were the information and the anecdotes placed at +her service by the gentlemen of the establishment, albeit involuntarily; +and with her friends she shortly after departed from Barrows and +Hazleton's Refinery, filled with content and gratitude. + +The noticeable point in the society of Tarr Farm, or rather in the human +scenery, for society there is none, is the absurd mingling of +inharmonious material. As in the toy called Prince Rupert's Drop, a +multitude of unassimilated particles are bound together by a master +necessity. Remove the necessity, and in the flash of an eye the +particles scatter never to reunite. + +In her two days' tour of Tarr Farm, Miselle talked with gentlemen of +birth and education, gentlemen whose manners contrasted oddly enough +with their coarse clothes and knee-high boots; also with intermittent +gentlemen, who felt Tarr Farm to be no fit theatre for the exercise of +their acquired politeness; also with men like Tommy and Jimmy, whose +claims lay not so much in aristocratic connection and gentle breeding as +in a thorough appreciation of the matter in hand; also with a less +pleasing variety of mankind, men who, originally ignorant and debased, +have through lucky speculations acquired immense wealth without the +habits of body and mind fitly accompanying it. + +Various ludicrous anecdotes are told of this last class, but none +droller than that of the millionnaire, who, after the growth of his +fortune, sent his daughter, already arrived at woman's estate, to +school, that she might learn reading, writing, and other +accomplishments. After a reasonable time the father visited the school, +and inquired concerning his daughter's progress. This he was informed +was but small, owing to a "want of capacity." + +"Capacity! capacity!" echoed the father, thrusting his hands into his +well-lined pockets; "well, by ginger, if the gal's got no capacity, I've +got the money to buy her one, cost what it may!" + +Another young fellow, originally employed in a very humble position by +one of the oil companies, suddenly acquired a fortune, and removed to +another part of the country. Returning for a visit to the scene of his +former labors, he stood inspecting the operations of a cooper at work +upon an oil-barrel. The two men had formerly been comrades, but this +fact the rich man now found it convenient to forget, and the poor one +was too proud to remember. + +"Pray, Cooper," inquired the former at last, tapping the barrel +superciliously with his cane, "are you able to make this thing +oil-tight?" + +"I believe so," retorted Cooper, dryly. "Was you ever troubled by their +leaking, when you rolled them through the mud from the well to the +Creek?" + +Through all this fungus growth it is rather difficult to come at the +indigenous product of the soil; and Miselle found none of whose purity +she could be sure, except the youth who drove her from Tarr Farm to +Schaeffer's on her return. Arriving in sight of the railway, this _puer +ingenuus_, pointing to the track, inquired,-- + +"An' be thot what the keers rides on?" + +"Yes," said Mr. Williams, "that's the track." + +"An' yon's the wagons whar ye'll set?" pursued he, pointing to some +platform-cars, waiting to be loaded with oil-barrels. + +"Hardly. Those are where the oil sits." + +"Be? Then yon's for the fowks, I reckon?" indicating a line of box +freight-cars a little farther on. + +"No, not exactly. Those are the passenger-cars, away up the track, with +windows and steps." + +"An' who rides in the loft up atop?" inquired the youth, after a +prolonged stare. + +This question, referring to the raised portion of the roof, universal in +Western cars, being answered, Mr. Williams inquired in his turn,-- + +"Did you never see the railway before?" + +"Never seed 'em till this minute. Fact, I never went furder from home +than Tarr Farm 'fore to-day. 'Spect there's a many won'erful sights +'twixt here an' Eri', ben't there?" + +Imagine a full-grown lad, in these United States, whose ideas are +bounded by the city of Erie! + +Not indigenous to the soil, but a firmly rooted, exotic growth, was the +sonsy Scotch family whom Miselle was taken to see, the Sunday after her +arrival. + +Two years ago their picturesque log-cabin stood almost in a wilderness, +with the farm-house of James Tarr its only neighbor. Now the derricks +are crowding up the hill toward it, until only a narrow belt of woodland +protects it from invasion. In front, a small flower-garden still showed +some autumn blooms at the time of Miselle's visit, and was the only +attempt at floriculture seen by her on Oil Creek. + +With traditional Scotch hospitality, the mistress of the house, seconded +by Maggie and Belle, the elder daughters, insisted that the proposed +call should include dinner; and Miselle, nothing loath, was glad that +her friends allowed themselves to be prevailed upon to stay. + +"It's no that we hae onything fit to gie ye, but ye maun just tak' the +wull for the deed," said the good mother, as she bustled about, and set +before her guests a plain and plentiful meal, where all was good enough, +and the fresh bread and newly churned butter something more. + +"It's Maggie's baith baker and dairy-woman," said the well-pleased dame, +in answer to a compliment upon these viands. "And it's she'll be gay and +proud to gie ye all her ways about it, gif ye'll ask her." + +So Maggie, being questioned, described the process of making +"salt-rising" bread, and to the recipe added a friendly caution, that, +if allowed to ferment too long, the dough would become "as sad and dour +as a stane, and though you br'ak your heart over it, wad ne'er be itsel' +again." + +From a regard either to etiquette or convenience, only the heads of the +family, and Jamie, the eldest son, a fine young giant, of +one-and-twenty, sat down with the guests: the girls and younger children +waiting upon table, and sitting down afterward with another visitor, an +intelligent negro farmer, one of the most pleasing persons Miselle +encountered on her travels. + +Dinner over, it was proposed that Maggie and Belle should accompany Mr. +and Mrs. Williams and Miselle on a visit to some coal-mines about a mile +farther back in the forest, and, with the addition of a young man named +John, who chanced in on a Sunday-evening call to one of the young +ladies, the party set forth. + +The day was the sweetest of the Indian summer, and the walk through +woods of chestnut and hemlock was as charming as possible, and none the +less so for the rustic coquetries of pretty Belle Miller, whose golden +hair was the precise shade of a lock once shown to Miselle as a +veritable relic of Prince Charlie. + +The forest road ended abruptly in a wide glade, where stood the shanty +occupied by the miners, a shed for the donkeys employed in dragging out +the coal, and, finally, the ruinous tunnel leading horizontally into a +disused mine. The wooden tram-way on which the coal-car had formerly run +still remained; and cautiously walking upon this causeway through the +quagmire of mud, Miselle and Mr. Williams penetrated some distance into +the mine, but saw nothing more wonderful than mould and other fungi, +bats and toads. Retracing their steps, they followed the tram-way to its +termination at the top of a high bank, down which the coals were shot +into a cart stationed below. This coal is of an inferior quality, +bituminous, and largely mixed with slate. It sells readily, however, +upon the Creek, at a dollar a bushel, for use in the steam-engines. + +The sight-seers having satisfied their curiosity with regard to the +mine, and having paid a short visit to the donkeys, were quietly +resuming their walk, when out from the abode of the miners poured a +tumultuous crowd of men, women, and children, who surrounded the little +party in a menacing manner, while their leader, a stalwart fellow, +called Brennan, seized John by the arm, and, shaking a sledge-hammer +fist in his face, inquired what he meant by coming to "spy round an +honest man's house, and make game of his betters?" + +It was in vain that John attempted to disabuse the mind of his assailant +of this view of his visit to the old mine; and indeed his argument could +not even have been heard, as Brennan was now violently reiterating,-- + +"Tak' yer coorse, thin! Why don't ye tak' yer coorse?" + +The advice was sensible, and the party left to themselves would +undoubtedly have followed it; in fact, the females of the party had +already taken their "coorse" along the homeward path as fast as their +feet would carry them, excepting Miselle, who contented herself with +stepping behind a great pine-tree, and watching thence this new +development of human nature. + +From angry words the miners were not long in proceeding to blows, and a +short joust ensued, in which Williams and John gallantly held the lists +against six or eight assailants, who would have been more dangerous, had +they not been all day celebrating the wedding of one of their number. +Suddenly, however, the leader of the colliers darted by John, who was +opposing him, and pounced upon poor Belle Miller, who with her +companions had paused at a little distance to give vent to their +feelings in a chorus of dismal shrieks. Whether these irritated Mr. +Brennan's weakened nerves, or whether he had merely the savage instinct +of reaching the strong through the weak, cannot be certainly known; but +the fact of her forcible capture was rendered sufficiently obvious by +the cries that rent the air, and the heart of the young man John, who, +neglecting his own safety in an attempt at rescue, received a stunning +blow from his opponent, and fell bleeding to the earth. + +Satisfied with the result of his experiment, Brennan, leaving his +captive in custody of his own party, attempted another raid upon the +defenceless flock; but this time Friend Williams, summoned by the voice +of his wife, darted to her rescue, and, with a happy blow, laid the +giant upon his back, where he lay for some moments admiring the evening +sky. + +Brave as were the two knights, however, and manifest as was the right, +Victory would probably have "perched upon the banners of the strongest +battalions," had not an unexpected diversion put a sudden end to the +combat. + +This came from the side of the assailants, in the pleasing shape of a +pretty young woman, who, rushing forward, flung her arms about the neck +of one of the leaders of the mob, crying,-- + +"Patrick Maloney, didn't you stand before the altar with me this day, +and vow to God to be a true and faithful husband? And is this all the +respect you show me on my wedding-day?" + +The appeal was not without its force, and Patrick, pausing to consider +of it, was surrounded by the more pacific of his own party, among whom +now appeared "Big Tommy" from the Refinery, who loudly vouched for the +character of the visitors, claiming them indeed as warm and dear friends +of his own. + +During the stormy council of war ensuing among the attacking party, the +womankind of the attacked ventured to approach near enough to implore +their champions to withdraw, while yet there was time. This pacific +counsel they finally consented to follow, and were led away breathing +vengeance and discontent, when John suddenly paused, exclaiming,-- + +"Where's Belle? They've got her. Come on, Williams! we aren't going to +leave the girl among 'em, surely!" + +At this Maggie and Mrs. Williams uplifted their voices in deprecation of +further hostilities, protesting that they should die at once, if their +protectors were to desert them, and using many other feminine and +magnanimous arguments in favor of a speedy retreat. + +But while yet the question of her rescue was undecided, Belle appeared, +flushed, tearful, and voluble in reproach against the friends who had +deserted her. She attributed her final escape to a free use of her +tongue, and repeated certain pointed remarks which she had addressed to +her custodian, who finally shook her, boxed her ears, and bade her +begone. + +On hearing this recital, John was for returning at once and avenging the +insult; but the rest of the party, remembering the golden maxim of +Hudibras, + + "He who fights and runs away + May live to fight another day," + +prevailed on him to wait for retaliation until a more favorable +opportunity. + +It may be satisfactory to the reader to hear, that, after Miselle had +left Oil Creek, she was informed that Mr. Williams, John, and a body of +men, equal in number to the colliers, paid them a visit, with authority +from the owner of the mine to pull down their house and eject them from +the premises. They also contemplated, it is supposed, a more direct and +personal vengeance; but, on making known their intentions, the pretty +bride again appeared, and, assaulting poor Williams with a whole battery +of tearful eyes, trembling lips, and eloquent appeals, vindicated once +more the superiority of woman's wiles to man's determination. An abject +apology from the colliers, and a decided intimation from the +"Regulators" of the consequences sure to follow any future incivility to +visitors, closed the affair, and the parties separated without further +hostilities. + +The evening was so far advanced when the little party of fugitives were +once more _en route_, that a proposed visit to a working mine at some +little distance was given up, and at the door of the farm-house the +party dispersed to their respective homes. + +The next day had been appointed for a visit to Oil City, the farthest +and most important station upon the Creek; and one object in visiting +the house was to engage Jamie, with his "team," for the expedition. It +fortunately happened that the old Scotchman and his wife were going to +Oil City on the same day, and it was arranged that the two parties +should unite. + +At an early hour in the morning, therefore, Mr. and Mrs. Williams, with +Miselle, once more climbed the mountain to the little log-house, and +found Jamie just harnessing a pair of fine black horses to a wagon, +similar to the "hack-carriage" of Schaeffer's Farm. In the bottom was a +quantity of clean hay, and across the sides were fastened two planks, +covered with bedquilts. Upon one of these were seated Mr. and Mrs. +Williams, while Miselle was invited to the post of honor beside Mrs. +Miller, and the old Scotchman shared the driver's seat with his son. + +"Dinna ye be feared now, dearie. Our Jamie's a car'fu' driver, wi' all +his wild ways," said the old woman kindly, as the wagon, with a +premonitory lurch and twist, turned into the forest road. + +Road! Let the reader call to mind the most precipitous wooded mountain +of his acquaintance, and fancy a road formed over it by the simple +process of cutting off the trees, leaving the stumps and rocks +undisturbed, and then fancy himself dragged over it in a springless +wagon behind two fast horses. + +"Eh, then! It maks an auld body's banes ache sair, siccan a road, as +yon!" said the Scotchwoman, with a significant grimace, as the wagon +paused a moment at the foot of a perpendicular ascent. + +"I reckon ye wad nae ken whatten the Auld Country roads were med for, +gin ye suld see them. They're nae like this, ony way." + +The dear old creature had entered the United States through the St. +Lawrence and the Lakes, and supposed Tarr Farm to be America. Miselle +was so weak as to try to describe the aspect of things about her native +city, and was evidently suspected of patriotic romancing for her pains. + +But such magnificent views! Such glimpses of far mountain-peaks, seen +through vistas of rounded hills! Such flashing streams, tumbling heels +over head across the forest road in their haste to mingle with the blue +waters of the Alleghany! Such wide stretches of country, as the road +crept along the mountain-brow, or curved sinuously down to the far +valley! + +Pictures were there, as yet uncopied, that should hold Church +breathless, with the pencil of the Andes and Niagara quivering in his +fingers,--pictures that Turner might well cross the seas to look upon; +but Miselle remembers them through a distracting mist of bodily terror +and discomfort,--as some painter showed a dance of demons encircling a +maiden's couch, while above it hung her first love-dream. + +"Yon in the valley, where the wood looks so yaller, is a sulphur spring; +an' here in the road's the place where I'm going to tip you all over," +suddenly remarked Jamie, twisting himself round on the box to enjoy the +consternation of his female passengers, while the wagon paused on the +verge of a long gully, some six feet in depth, occupying the whole +middle of the road. + +"Wull ye get out?" continued he, addressing Miselle for the first time. + +"Had we better?" asked she, tremulously. + +"If you're easy scared. But I'm no going to upset, I'll promise you." + +"Then I'll stay in," said Miselle, in the desperate courage of extreme +cowardice; and the wagon went on, two wheels deep in the gully, +crumbling down the clayey mud, two wheels high on the mountain-side, +crashing through brush and over stones. And yet there was no upset. + +"Didn't I tell ye?" inquired Jamie, again twisting himself to look in +Miselle's white face, with a broad smile of delight at her evident +terror. + +"Be done, you bold bairn! Isn't he a sturdy, stirring lad, Ma'am?" said +the proud mother, as Jamie, addressing himself again to his work, +shouted to the black nags, and put them along the bit of level road in +the valley at a pace precluding all further conversation. + +Another precipitous ascent, where the road had been mended by felling a +large tree across it, over whose trunk the horses were obliged to pull +the heavy wagon, and then an equally precipitous descent, gave a view of +the Alleghany River and Oil Creek, with Oil City at their confluence, +and a background of bluffs and mountains cutting sharp against the clear +blue sky. + +This view Miselle contemplated with one eye; but the other remained +rigidly fixed upon the road before her. + +Even Jamie paused, and finally suggested,-- + +"Reckon, men, you'd best get out and walk alongside. The women can stay +in; and if she's going over, you can shore up." + +Under these cheerful auspices the descent was accomplished, and, by some +miracle, without accident. + +At the foot of the bluff commences the slough in which Oil City is set; +and as it deepened, the horses gradually sank from view, until only +their backs were visible, floundering through a sea of oily mud of a +peculiarly tenacious character. Miselle has the warning of Munchausen +before her eyes; but, in all sadness, she avers that in the principal +street of Oil City, and at the door of the principal hotel, the mud was +on that day above the hubs of the wagon-wheels. + +Having refreshed themselves in body and mind at the Petroleum House, +where a lady in a soiled print dress and much jewelry kindly played at +them upon a gorgeous piano, the party went forth to view the city. + +The same mingling of urgent civilization and unsubdued Nature observable +in Corry characterizes Oil City to a greater extent. On one side of the +street, crowded with oil-wagons, the freight of each worth thousands of +dollars, stand long rows of dwellings, shops, and warehouses, all built +within two years, and on the other impinges a bluff still covered with +its forest growth of shrubs and wood-plants,--while upon the frowning +front of a cliff that has for centuries faced nothing meaner than the +Alleghany, with its mountain background, some Vandal has daubed the +advertisement of a quack nostrum. + +Farther on, where the bluff is less precipitous, it has been graded +after a fashion; and the houses built at the upper side of the new +street seem to be sliding rapidly across it to join their opposite +neighbors, which, in their turn, are sinking modestly into the mud. + +A plank sidewalk renders it possible to walk through the principal +streets of this city; but temptation to do so is of the slightest. + +Monotonous lines of frail houses, shops whose scanty assortment of goods +must be sold at enormous prices to pay the expense of transportation +from New York or Philadelphia, crowds of oil-speculators, oil-dealers, +oil-teamsters, a clumsy bridge across the Creek, a prevailing atmosphere +of petroleum,--such is Oil City. + +At the water-side the view is somewhat more interesting. No wharves +have yet been built; and the swarming flatboats "tie up" all along the +bank, just as they used to do three years ago, when, with a freight of +lumber instead of oil, they stopped for the night at the solitary little +Dutch tavern then monopolizing the site of the present city. + +A rakish little stern-wheel steamer lay in the stream, bound for +Pittsburg, and sorely was Miselle tempted to take passage down the +Alleghany in her; but lingering memories of home and the long-suffering +Caleb at last prevailed, and, with a sigh, she turned her back upon the +beautiful river, and retraced her steps through yards crowded with +barrels of oil waiting for shipment,--oil in rows, oil in stacks, oil in +columns, and oil in pyramids wellnigh as tall and as costly as that of +Cheops himself. + +Returned to the Petroleum House, Miselle bade a reluctant good-bye to +the kindly Scots, who here took stage for Franklin, and watched them +float away, as it appeared, upon the sea of mud in a wagon-body whose +wheels and horses were too nearly submerged to make any noticeable +feature in the arrangement. + +Soon after, Jamie appeared at the door of the parlor nominally to +announce himself ready to return; but, after a fierce struggle with his +natural modesty of disposition, he advanced into the room, and silently +laid two of the biggest apples that ever grew in the laps of Mrs. +Williams and Miselle. Putting aside all acknowledgments with "Ho! what's +an apple or two?" the woodsman next proceeded on a tour of inspection +round the room, serenely unconscious of the magnificent scorn withering +him from the eyes of the jewelled lady, who now reclined upon a +broken-backed sofa, taking a leisurely survey of the strangers. + +Jamie paused some time at the piano. + +"And what might such a thing as that cost noo?" asked he, at length, +giving the case a little back-handed blow. + +"About eight hundred dollars," ventured Miselle, to whom the inquiry was +addressed. + +Jamie opened his wide black eyes. + +"Hoot! Feyther could ha' bought Jim Tarr's whole farm for that, three +year ago," said he; and, with one more contemptuous stare at the piano, +he left the room, and was presently seen in the stable-yard, shouldering +from his path a wagon laden with coals. + +Soon after, Miselle and her friends gladly bade farewell to Oil City, +leaving the scornful lady seated at the piano executing the charming +melody of "We're a band of brothers from the old Granite State." + +Having entered the city by the hill-road, it was proposed to return +along the Creek, although, as Jamie candidly stated, the road "might, +like enough, be a thought worser than the other." + +And it was. + +Before the oil fever swept through this region, a man might have +travelled from the mouth of the Creek to its head-waters, and seen no +more buildings than he could have numbered on his ten fingers. Now the +line of derricks, shanties, engine-houses, and oil-tanks is continuous +through the whole distance; and thousands of men may be seen to-day +accumulating millions of dollars where three years ago the squirrel and +his wife, hoarding their winter stores, were the only creatures that +took thought for the morrow. + +After its incongruous mixture of society, the social peculiarity of Oil +Creek is a total disregard of truth. + +A mechanic, a tradesman, or a boatman makes the most solemn promise of +service at a certain time. Terms are settled, a definite hour appointed +for the fulfilment of the contract; the man departs, and is seen no +more. His employer is neither disappointed nor angry; he expects nothing +else. + +A cart laden with country produce enters the settlement from the farms +behind it. Every housewife drops her broom, and rushes out to waylay the +huckster, and induce him to sell her the provisions already engaged to +her neighbor. Happy she, if stout enough of arm to convey her booty home +with her; for if she trust the vendor to leave it at her house, even +after paying him his price, she may bid good-bye to the green delights, +as eagerly craved here as on a long sea-voyage. + +This "peculiar institution" is all very well, doubtless, for those who +understand it, but is somewhat inconvenient to a stranger, as Miselle +discovered during the three days she was trying to leave Tarr Farm. + +On the third morning, after waiting two hours upon the bank of the Creek +for a perjured boatman, Mr. Williams rushed desperately into a crowd of +teamsters and captured the youth whose first impressions of a railway +have been chronicled on a preceding page. Probably even he, had time +been allowed to consider the proposition at length, would have declined +the journey; but, overborne by the vehemence of his employer, he found +himself well upon the road to Schaeffer's Farm before he had by any +means decided to go thither. + +The pleasantest part of the "carriage exercise" on this road is fording +the Creek, a course adopted wherever the bluff comes down to the bank, +and the flat reappears upon the opposite side, no one having yet spent +time to grade a continuous road on one side or the other. A railway +company has, however, made a beginning in this direction; and it is +promised that in another year the traveller may proceed from Schaeffer's +to Oil City by rail. + +At Titusville Miselle bade good-bye to her kind friend Williams, and +once more took herself under her own protection. + +Spending the night at Corry, she next day found herself in the city of +Erie, and could have fancied it Heidelberg instead, the signs bearing +such names as Schultz, Seelinger, Jantzen, Cronenberger, Heidt, and +Heybeck. Hans Preuss sells bread, Valentin Ulrich manufactures saddles, +and P. Loesch keeps a meat-market, with a sign representing one +gentleman holding a mad bull by a bit of packthread tied to his horns, +while an assistant leisurely strolls up to annihilate the creature with +a tack-hammer. + +Here, too, a little beyond the middle of the town, was a girl herding a +flock of geese, precisely as did the princess in the "Brüder Grimm +Tales," while a doltish boy stared at her with just the imbecile +admiration of Kurdkin for the wily maiden who combed her golden, hair +and chanted her naughty spell in the same breath. + +A little farther on stood a charming old Dutch cottage with cabbages in +the front yard, and a hop-vine clambering the porch. An infant Teuton +swung upon the gate, who, being addressed by Miselle, lisped an answer +in High Dutch, while his mother shrilly exchanged the news with her next +neighbor in the same tongue. + +Two hours sufficed to exhaust the wonders of Erie, and Miselle gladly +took the cars for Buffalo, and on the road thither fell in with a good +Samaritan, who solaced her weary faintness with delicate titbits of +grouse, shot and roasted upon an Ohio prairie. + +At Buffalo waited the Eastern-bound cars of the New-York Central +Railway; but only twenty miles farther on, thundered Niagara, and +Miselle could not choose but obey the sonorous summons. So, after +spending the night at a "white man's" hotel in Buffalo, the next morning +found her standing, an insignificant atom, before one of the world's +great wonders. One or two other travellers, however, have mentioned +Niagara; and Miselle refrains from expressing more than her thanks for +the kindness which enabled her to fulfil her darling wish of standing +behind the great fall on the Canada side. + +Truly, it is no empty boast that places Americans preëminent over the +men of every other nation in their courtesy to women; and Miselle would +fain most gratefully acknowledge the constant attention and kindness +everywhere offered to her, while never once was she annoyed by obtrusive +or unwelcome approach; and not the vast resources of her country, not +the grandeur of Niagara, give her such pride and satisfaction as does +the new knowledge she has gained of her countrymen. + + + + +THE SPANIARDS' GRAVES + +AT THE ISLES OF SHOALS. + + + O sailors, did sweet eyes look after you, + The day you sailed away from sunny Spain? + Bright eyes that followed fading ship and crew, + Melting in tender rain? + + Did no one dream of that drear night to be, + Wild with the wind, fierce with the stinging snow, + When, on yon granite point that frets the sea, + The ship met her death-blow? + + Fifty long years ago these sailors died: + (None know how many sleep beneath the waves:) + Fourteen gray headstones, rising side by side, + Point out their nameless graves,-- + + Lonely, unknown, deserted, but for me, + And the wild birds that flit with mournful cry, + And sadder winds, and voices of the sea + That moans perpetually. + + Wives, mothers, maidens, wistfully, in vain + Questioned the distance for the yearning sail, + That, leaning landward, should have stretched again + White arms wide on the gale, + + To bring back their beloved. Year by year, + Weary they watched, till youth and beauty passed, + And lustrous eyes grew dim, and age drew near, + And hope was dead at last. + + Still summer broods o'er that delicious land, + Rich, fragrant, warm with skies of golden glow: + Live any yet of that forsaken band + Who loved so long ago? + + O Spanish women, over the far seas, + Could I but show you where your dead repose! + Could I send tidings on this northern breeze, + That strong and steady blows! + + Dear dark-eyed sisters, you remember yet + These you have lost, but you can never know + One stands at their bleak graves whose eyes are wet + With thinking of your woe! + + + + +GRIT. + + +There is an influential form of practical force, compounded of strong +will, strong sense, and strong egotism, which long waited for a strong +monosyllable to announce its nature. Facts of character, indeed, are +never at rest until they have become terms of language; and that +peculiar thing which is not exactly courage or heroism, but which +unmistakably is "Grit," has coined its own word to blurt out its own +quality. If the word has not yet pushed its way into classic usage, or +effected a lodgement in the dictionaries, the force it names is no less +a reality of the popular consciousness, and the word itself no less a +part of popular speech. Men who possessed the thing were just the men to +snub elegance and stun propriety by giving it an inelegant, though +vitally appropriate name. There is defiance in its very sound. The word +is used by vast numbers of people to express their highest ideal of +manliness, which is "real grit." It is impossible for anybody to acquire +the reputation it confers by the most dexterous mimicry of its outside +expressions; for a swift analysis, which drives directly to the heart of +the man, instantly detects the impostor behind the braggart, and curtly +declares him to lack "the true grit." The word is so close to the thing +it names, has so much pith and point, is so tart on the tongue, and so +stings the ear with its meaning, that foreigners ignorant of the +language might at once feel its significance by its griding utterance as +it is shot impatiently through the resisting teeth. + +Grit is in the grain of character. It may generally be described as +heroism materialized,--spirit and will thrust into heart, brain, and +backbone, so as to form part of the physical substance of the man. The +feeling with which it rushes into consciousness is akin to physical +sensation; and the whole body--every nerve, muscle, and drop of +blood--is thrilled with purpose and passion. "Spunk" does not express +it; for "spunk," besides being _petite_ in itself, is courage in +effervescence rather than courage in essence. A person usually cowardly +may be kicked or bullied into the exhibition of spunk; but the man of +grit carries in his presence a power which spares him the necessity of +resenting insult; for insult sneaks away from his look. It is not mere +"pluck"; for pluck also comes by fits and starts, and can be +disconnected from the other elements of character. A tradesman once had +the pluck to demand of Talleyrand, at the time that trickster-statesman +was at the height of his power, when he intended to pay his bill; but he +was instantly extinguished by the impassive insolence of Talleyrand's +answer,--"My faith, how curious you are!" Considered as an efficient +force, it is sometimes below heroism, sometimes above it: below heroism, +when heroism is the permanent condition of the soul; above heroism, when +heroism is simply the soul's transient mood. Thus, Demosthenes had +flashes of splendid heroism, but his valor depended on his genius being +kindled,--his brave actions naming out from mental ecstasy rather than +intrepid character. The moment his will dropped from its eminence of +impassioned thought, he was scared by dangers which common soldiers +faced with gay indifference. Erskine, the great advocate, was a hero at +the bar; but when he entered the House of Commons, there was something +in the fixed imperiousness and scorn of Pitt which made him feel +inwardly weak and fluttered. Erskine had flashes of heroism; Pitt had +consistent and persistent grit. If we may take the judgment of Sir +Sidney Smith, Wellington had more grit than Napoleon had heroism. Just +before the Battle of Waterloo, Sir Sidney, at Paris, was told that the +Duke had decided to keep his position at all events. "Oh!" he +exclaimed, "if the Duke has said that, of course t' other fellow must +give way." + +And this is essentially the sign of grit, that, when it appears, t' +other fellow or t' other opinion must give way. Its power comes from its +tough hold on the real, and the surly boldness with which it utters and +acts it out. Thus, in social life, it puts itself in rude opposition to +all those substitutes for reality which the weakness and hypocrisy and +courtesy of men find necessary for their mutual defence. It denies that +it has ever surrendered its original rights and aboriginal force, or +that it has assented to the social compact. When it goes into any +company of civilized persons, its pugnacity is roused by seeing that +social life does not rest on the vigor of the persons who compose it, +but on the authority of certain rules and manners to which all are +required to conform. These appear to grit as external defences, thrown +up to protect elegant feebleness against any direct collision with +positive character, and to keep men and women at a respectful distance +from ladies and gentlemen. Life is carried on there at one or more +removes from the realities of life, on this principle, that, "I won't +speak the truth of you, if you won't speak the truth of me"; and the +name of this principle is politeness. It is impolite to tell foolish men +that they are foolish, mean men that they are mean, wicked men that they +are wicked, traitorous men that they are traitors; for smooth lies +cement what impolite veracities would shatter. The system, it is +contended, on the whole, civilizes the individuals whose natures it may +repress, and is better than a sincerity which would set them by the +ears, and put a veto on all social intercourse whatever. But strong as +may be the argument in favor of the system, it is certainly as important +that it should be assailed as that it should exist, and that it should +be assailed from within; for, carried out unchecked to its last +consequences, it results in sinking its victims into the realm of vapors +and vacuity, its representative being the all-accomplished London man of +fashion who committed suicide to save himself from the bore of dressing +and undressing. Besides, in "good society," so called, the best +sentiments and ideas can sometimes get expression only through the form +of bad manners. It is charming to be in a circle where human nature is +pranked out in purple and fine linen, and where you sometimes see +manners as beautiful as the masterpieces of the arts; yet some people +cannot get rid of the uneasy consciousness that a subtle tyranny +pervades the room and ties the tongue,--that philanthropy is impolite, +that heroism is ungenteel, that truth, honor, freedom, humanity, +strongly asserted, are marks of a vulgar mind; and many a person, daring +enough to defend his opinions anywhere else, by speech or by the sword, +quails in the parlor before some supercilious coxcomb, + + "Weak in his watery smile + And educated whisker," + +who can still tattle to the girls that the reformer is "no gentleman." + +Now how different all this is, when a man of social grit thrusts himself +into a drawing-room, and with an easy audacity tosses out disagreeable +facts and unfashionable truths, the porcelain crashing as his words +fall, and saying everything that no gentleman ought to say, indifferent +to the titter or terror of the women and the offended looks and +frightened stare of the men. How the gilded lies vanish in his presence! +How he states, contradicts, confutes! how he smashes through proprieties +to realities, flooding the room with his aggressive vitality, mastering +by main force a position in the most exclusive set, and, by being +perfectly indifferent to their opinion, making it impossible for them to +put him down! He thus becomes a social power by becoming a social +rebel,--persecutes conventional politeness into submission to rude +veracity,--establishes an autocracy of man over the gentleman,--and +practises a kind of "Come-Outerism," while insisting on enjoying all the +advantages of _Go-Interism_. Ben Jonson in the age of Elizabeth, Samuel +Johnson in the last century, Carlyle and Brougham in the present, are +prominent examples of this somewhat insolent manhood in the presence of +social forms. It is, however, one of the rarest, as it is one of the +ugliest, kinds of human strength; it requires, perhaps, in its +combination, full as many defects as merits; and how difficult is its +justifiable exercise we see in the career of so illustrious a +philanthropist as Wilberforce,--a man whose speech in Parliament showed +no lack of vivid conceptions and smiting words, a man whom no threats of +personal violence could intimidate, and who would cheerfully have risked +his life for his cause, yet still a man who could never forget that he +was a Tory and a gentleman, who had no grit before lords and ladies, +whose Abolitionism was not sufficiently blunt and downright in the good +company of cabinet ministers, whose sensitive nature flinched at the +thought of being conscientiously impolite and heroically ill-natured, +and whose manners were thus frequently in the way of the full efficiency +of his morals. In many respects a hero, in all respects benevolent, he +still was not like Romilly, a man of grit. Politeness has been defined +as benevolence in small things. To be benevolent in great things, +decorum must sometimes yield to duty; and Draco, though in the king's +drawing-room, and loyally supporting in Parliament the measures of the +ministry, is still Draco, though cruelty in him has learned the dialect +of fashion and clothed itself in the privileges of the genteel. + +Proceeding from social life to business life, we shall find that it is +this unamiable, but indomitable, quality of grit which not only acquires +fortunes, but preserves them after they have been acquired. The ruin +which overtakes so many merchants is due not so much to their lack of +business talent as to their lack of business nerve. How many lovable +persons we see in trade, endowed with brilliant capacities, but cursed +with yielding dispositions,--who are resolute in no business habits and +fixed in no business principles,--who are prone to follow the instincts +of a weak good-nature against the ominous hints of a clear intelligence, +now obliging this friend by indorsing an unsafe note, and then pleasing +that neighbor by sharing his risk in a hopeless speculation,--and who, +after all the capital they have earned by their industry and sagacity +has been sunk in benevolent attempts to assist blundering or plundering +incapacity, are doomed, in their bankruptcy, to be the mark of bitter +taunts from growling creditors and insolent pity from a gossiping +public. Much has been said about the pleasures of a good conscience; and +among these I reckon the act of that man who, having wickedly lent +certain moneys to a casual acquaintance, was in the end called upon to +advance a sum which transcended his honest means, with a dark hint, +that, if the money was refused, there was but one thing for the casual +acquaintance to do,--that is, to commit suicide. The person thus +solicited, in a transient fit of moral enthusiasm, caught at the hint, +and with great earnestness advised the casual acquaintance to do it, on +the ground that it was the only reparation he could make to the numerous +persons he had swindled. And this advice was given with no fear that the +guilt of that gentleman's blood would lie on his soul, for the mission +of that gentleman was to continue his existence by sucking out the life +of others, and his last thought was to destroy his own; and it is hardly +necessary to announce that he is still alive and sponging. Indeed, a +courageous merchant must ever by ready to face the fact that he will be +called a curmudgeon, if he will not ruin himself to please others, and a +weak fool, if he does. Many a fortune has melted away in the hesitating +utterance of the placable "Yes," which might have been saved by the +unhesitating utterance of the implacable "No!" Indeed, in business, the +perfection of grit is this power of saying "No," and saying it with such +wrathful emphasis that the whole race of vampires and harpies are scared +from you counting-room, and your reputation as unenterprising, +unbearable niggard is fully established among all borrowers of money +never meant to be repaid, and all projectors of schemes intended for the +benefit of the projectors alone. At the expense of a little temporary +obloquy, a man can thus conquer the right to mind his own business; and +having done this, he has shown his possession of that nerve which, in +his business, puts inexorable purpose into clear conceptions, follows +out a plan of operations with sturdy intelligence, and conducts to +fortune by the road of real enterprise. Many others may evince equal +shrewdness in framing a project, but they hesitate, become timid, become +confused, at some step in its development. Their character is not strong +enough to back up their intellect. But the iron-like tenacity of the +merchant of grit holds on to the successful end. + +You can watch the operation of this quality in every-day business +transactions. Your man of grit seems never deficient in news of the +markets, though he may employ no telegraph-operator. Thus, about two +years ago, a great Boston holder of flour went to considerable expense +in obtaining special intelligence, which would, when generally known, +carry flour up to ten dollars and a half a barrel. Another dealer, +suspecting something, went to him and said, "What do you say flour's +worth to-day?"--"Oh," was the careless answer, "I suppose it might bring +ten dollars."--"Well," retorted the querist, gruffly, "I've got five +thousand barrels on hand, and I should like to _see_ the man who would +give me ten dollars barrel for it!"--"I will," said the other, quickly, +disclosing his secret by the eagerness of his manner, "Well," was the +reply, "all I can say is, then, that I have _seen_ the man." + +The importance of this quality as a business power is most apparent in +those frightful panics which periodically occur in our country, and +which sometimes tax the people more severely than wars and standing +armies. In regard to one of the last of these financial hurricanes, that +of 1857, there can be little doubt, that, if the acknowledged holders of +financial power had been men of real grit, it might have been averted; +there can be as little doubt, that, when it burst, if they had been men +of real grit, it might have been made less disastrous. But they kept +nearly all their sails set up to the point of danger, and when the +tempest was on them ignominiously took to their boats and abandoned the +ship. And as for the crew and passengers, it was the old spectacle of a +shipwreck,--individuals squabbling to get a plank, instead of combining +to construct a raft. + +Indeed, there was something pitiable in the state of things which that +panic revealed in the business centres of the country. Common sense +seemed to be disowned by mutual consent; an infectious fear went +shivering from man to man; and a strange fascination led people to +increase by suspicions and reports the peril which threatened their own +destruction. Men, being thus thrown back upon the resources of +character, were put to terrible tests. As the intellect cannot act when +the will is paralyzed, many a merchant, whose debts really bore no +proportion to his property, was seen sitting, like the French prisoner +in the iron cage whose sides were hourly contracting, stupidly gazing at +the bars which were closing in upon him, and feeling in advance the pang +of the iron which was to cut into his flesh and crush his bones. + +In invigorating contrast to the panic-smitten, we had the privilege to +witness many an example of the grit-inspired. Then it was that the +grouty, taciturn, obstinate trader, so unpopular in ordinary times, +showed the stuff he was made of. Then his bearing was cheer and hope to +all who looked upon him. How he girded himself for the fight, resolved, +if he died, to die hard! How he tugged with obstacles as if they were +personal affronts, and hurled them to the right and to the left! How +grandly, amid the chatter of the madmen about him, came his few words of +sense and sanity! And then his brain, brightened, not bewildered, by the +danger, how clear and alert it was, how fertile in expedients, how firm +in principles, with a glance that pierced through the ignorant present +to the future, seeing as calmly and judging as accurately in the tempest +as it had in the sunshine. Never losing heart and never losing head, +with as strong a grip on his honor as on his property, detesting the +very thought of failure, knowing that he might be broken to pieces, but +determined that he would not weakly "go to pieces," he performed the +greatest service to the community, as well as to himself, by resolutely, +at any sacrifice, paying his debts when they became due. It is a pity +that such austere Luthers of commerce, trade-militant instead of +church-militant, who meet hard times with a harder will, had not a +little beauty in their toughness, so that grit, lifted to heroism, would +allure affection as well as enforce respect. But their sense is so +rigid, their integrity so gruff, and their courage so unjoyous, that all +the genial graces fly their companionship; and a libertine Sheridan, +with Ancient Pistol's motto of "Base is the slave that pays," will often +be more popular, even among the creditor portion of the public, than +these crabbed heroes, and, if need be, surly martyrs, of mercantile +honesty and personal honor. + +In regard to public life, and the influence of this rough manliness in +politics, it is a matter of daily observation, that, in the strife of +parties and principles, backbone without brain will carry it against +brain without backbone. A politician weakly and amiably in the right is +no match for a politician tenaciously and pugnaciously in the wrong. You +cannot, by tying an opinion to a man's tongue, make him the +representative of that opinion; and at the close of any battle for +principles, his name will be found neither among the dead nor among the +wounded, but among the missing. The true motto for a party is neither +"Measures, not men," nor "Men, not measures," but "Measures _in_ +men,"--measures which are in their blood as well as in their brain and +on their lips. Wellington said that Napoleon's presence in the French +army was equivalent to forty thousand additional soldiers; and in a +legislative assembly, Mirabeau and John Adams and John Quincy Adams are +not simply persons who hold a single vote, but forces whose power +thrills through the whole mass of voters. Mean natures always feel a +sort of terror before great natures; and many a base thought has been +unuttered, many a sneaking vote withheld, through the fear inspired by +the rebuking presence of one noble man. + +Opinions embodied in men, and thus made aggressive and militant, are the +opinions which mark the union of thought with grit. A politician of this +class is not content to comprehend and wield the elements of power +already existing in a community, but he aims to make his individual +conviction and purpose dominant over the convictions and purposes of the +accredited exponents of public opinion. He cares little about his +unpopularity at the start, and doggedly persists in his course against +obstacles which seem insurmountable. A great, but mischievous, example +of this power appeared in our own generation in the person of Mr. +Calhoun, a statesman who stamped his individual mind on the policy and +thinking of the country more definitely, perhaps, than any statesman +since Hamilton, though his influence has, on the whole, been as evil as +Hamilton's was, on the whole, beneficent. Keen-sighted, far-sighted, and +inflexible, Mr. Calhoun clearly saw the logical foundations and logical +results of the institution of Slavery; and though at first called an +abstractionist and a fanatic by the looser thinkers of his own region, +his inexorable argumentation, conquering by degrees politicians who +could reason, made itself felt at last among politicians who could not +reason; and the conclusions of his logic were adopted by thousands whose +brains would have broken in the attempt to follow its processes. One of +those rare deductive reasoners whose audacity marches abreast their +genius, he would have been willing to fight to the last gasp for a +conclusion which he had laboriously reached by rigid deduction through +a score of intermediate steps, from premises in themselves repugnant to +the primal instincts both of reason and humanity. Always ready to meet +anybody in argument, he detested all reasoners who attempted to show the +fallacy of his argument by pointing out the dangerous results to which +it led. In this he sometimes brought to mind that inflexible professor +of the deductive method who was timidly informed that his principles, if +carried out, would split the world to pieces. "Let it split," was his +careless answer; "there are enough more planets." By pure intellectual +grit, he thus effected a revolution in the ideas and sentiments of the +South, and through the South made his mind act on the policy of the +nation. The present war has its root in the principles he advocated. +Never flinching from any logical consequence of his principles, Mr. +Calhoun did not rest until through him religion, morality, +statesmanship, the Constitution of the United States, the constitution +of man, were all bound in black. Chattel slavery, the most nonsensical +as well as detestable of oppressions, was, to him, the most beneficent +contrivance of human wisdom. He called it an institution: Mr. Emerson +has more happily styled it a destitution. At last the chains of his iron +logic were heard clanking on the whole Southern intellect. Reasoning the +most masterly was employed to annihilate the first principles of reason; +the understanding of man was insanely placed in direct antagonism to his +moral instincts; and finally the astounding conclusion was reached, that +the Creator of mankind has his pet races,--that God himself scouts his +colored children, and nicknames them "Niggers." + +It is delicious to watch the exulting and somewhat contemptuous audacity +with which he hurries to the unforeseen conclusion those who have once +been simple enough to admit his premises. Towards men who have some +logical capacity his tone is that of respectful impatience; but as he +goads on the reluctant and resentful victims of his reasoning, who +loiter and limp painfully in the steps of his rapid deductions, he seems +to say, with ironic scorn, "A little faster, my poor cripples!" + +So confident was Mr. Calhoun in his capacity to demonstrate the validity +of his horrible creed, that he was ever eager to measure swords with the +most accomplished of his antagonists in the duel of debate. And it must +be said that he despised all the subterfuges and evasions by which, in +ordinary controversies, the real question is dodged, and went directly +to the heart of the matter,--a resolute intellect, burning to grapple +with another resolute intellect in a vital encounter. In common +legislative debates, on the contrary, there is no vital encounter. The +exasperated opponents, personally courageous, but deficient in clear and +fixed ideas, mutually contrive to avoid the things essential to be +discussed, while wantoning in all the forms of discussion. They assert, +brag, browbeat, dogmatize, domineer, pummel each other with the +_argumentum ad hominem_, and abundantly prove that they stand for +opposite opinions; we watch them as we watch the feints and hits of a +couple of pugilists in the ring; but after the sparring is over, we find +that neither the Southern champion nor the Northern bruiser has touched +the inner reality of the question to decide which they stripped +themselves for the fight. In regard to the intellectual issue, they are +like two bullies enveloping themselves in an immense concealing dust of +arrogant words, and, as they fearfully retreat from personal collision, +shouting furiously to each other, "Let me get at him!" And this is what +is commonly called grit in politics,--abundant backbone to face persons, +deficient brain-bone to encounter principles. + +Not so was it when two debaters like Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Webster engaged +in the contest of argument. Take, for example, as specimens of pure +mental manliness, their speeches in the Senate, in 1833, on the question +whether or not the Constitution is a compact between sovereign States. +Give Mr. Calhoun those two words, "compact" and "sovereign," and he +conducts you logically to Nullification and to all the consequences of +Nullification. Andrew Jackson, a man in his kind, of indomitable +resolution, intended to arrest the argument at a convenient point by the +sword, and thus save himself the bother of going farther in the chain of +inferences than he pleased. Mr. Webster grappled with the argument and +with the man; and it is curious to watch that spectacle of a meeting +between two such hostile minds. Each is confident of the strength of his +own position; each is eager for a close hug of dialectics. Far from +avoiding the point, they drive directly towards it, clearing their +essential propositions from mutual misconception by the sharpest +analysis and exactest statement. To get their minds near each other, to +think close to the subject, to feel the griding contact of pure +intellect with pure intellect, and, as spiritual beings, to conduct the +war of reason with spiritual weapons,--this is their ambition. +Conventionally courteous to each other, they are really in the deadliest +antagonism; for their contest is the tug and strain of soul with soul, +and each feels that defeat would be worse than death. No nervous +irritation, no hard words, no passionate recriminations, no flinching +from unexpected difficulties, no substitution of declamatory sophisms +for rigorous inferences--but close, calm, ruthless grapple of thought +with thought. To each, at the time, life seems to depend on the +issue--not merely the life which a sword-cut or pistol-bullet can +destroy, but immortal life, the life of immaterial minds and +personalities, thus brought into spiritual feud. They know very well, +that, whatever be the real result, the Webster-men will give the victory +of argument to Webster, the Calhoun-men the victory of argument to +Calhoun; but that consideration does not enter their thoughts as they +prepare to close in that combat which is to determine, not to the world, +but to each other, which is the stronger intellect, and which is in the +right Few ever appreciate great men in this hostile attitude, not of +their passions, but of their minds; and those who do it the least are +their furious partisans. Most people are contented with the argument +that tells, and are apt to be bored with the argument which refutes; but +a true reasoner despises even his success, if he feels that two persons, +himself and his opponent, know that he is in the wrong. And the strain +on the whole being in this contest of intellect with intellect, and the +reluctance with which the most combative enter it unless they are +consciously strong, is well illustrated by Dr. Johnson's remark to some +friends, when sickness had relaxed the tough fibre of his brain,--"If +that fellow Burke were here now, he would kill me." + +A peculiar kind of grit, not falling under any of the special +expressions I have noted, yet partaking in some degree of all, is +illustrated in the character of Lieutenant-General Grant. Without an +atom of pretension or rhetoric, with none of the external signs of +energy and intrepidity, making no parade of the immovable purpose, iron +nerve, and silent, penetrating intelligence God has put into him, his +tranquil greatness is hidden from superficial scrutiny behind a cigar, +as President Lincoln's is behind a joke. When anybody tries to coax, +cajole, overawe, browbeat, or deceive Lincoln, the President nurses his +leg, and is reminded of a story; when anybody tries the same game with +Grant, the General listens and--smokes. If you try to wheedle out of him +his plans for a campaign, he stolidly smokes; if you call him an +imbecile and a blunderer, he blandly lights another cigar; if you praise +him as the greatest general living, he placidly returns the puff from +his regalia; and if you tell him he should run for the Presidency, it +does not disturb the equanimity with which he inhales and exhales the +unsubstantial vapor which typifies the politician's promises. While you +are wondering what kind of man this creature without a tongue is, you +are suddenly electrified with the news of some splendid victory, proving +that behind the cigar, and behind the face discharged of all tell-tale +expression, is the best brain to plan and the strongest heart to dare +among the generals of the Republic. + +It is curious to mark a variation of this intellectual hardihood and +personal force when the premises are not in the solidities, but in the +oddities of thought and character, and whim stands stiffly up to the +remotest inferences which may be deduced from its insanest freaks of +individual opinion. Thus it is said that in one of our country towns +there is an old gentleman who is an eccentric hater of women; and this +crotchet of his character he carries to its extreme logical +consequences. Not content with general declamation against the sex, he +turns eagerly, the moment he receives the daily newspaper, to the list +of deaths; and if he sees the death of a woman recorded, he gleefully +exclaims,--"Good! good! there's another of 'em gone!" + +We have heard of a man who had conceived a violent eccentric prejudice +against negroes; and he was not content with chiming in with the usual +cant of the prejudice that they ought not to be allowed in our churches +and in our rail-road-cars, but vociferated, that, if he had his way, +they should not be allowed in Africa! The advantage of grit in this +respect is in its annihilating a prejudice by presenting a vivid vision +of its theoretical consequences. Carlyle has an eccentric hatred of the +eighteenth century, its manners, morals, politics, religion, and men. He +has expressed this in various ways for thirty years; but in his last +work, the "Life of Frederick the Great," his prejudice reached its +logical climax in the assertion, that the only sensible thing the +eighteenth century ever did was blowing out its own brains in the French +Revolution. + +Again, in discussion, some men have felicity in replying to a question, +others a felicity in replying to the motive which prompted the question. +In one case you get an answer addressed to your understanding; in the +other, an answer which smites like a slap in the face. Thus, when a pert +skeptic asked Martin Luther where God was before He created heaven, +Martin stunned his querist with the retort,--"He was building hell for +such idle, presumptuous, fluttering, and inquisitive spirits as you." +And everybody will recollect the story of the self-complacent cardinal +who went to confess to a holy monk, and thought by self-accusation to +get the reputation of a saint. + +"I have been guilty of every kind of sin," snivelled the cardinal. + +"It is a solemn fact," replied the impassive monk. + +"I have indulged in pride, ambition, malice, and revenge," groaned the +cardinal. + +"It is too true," answered the monk. + +"Why, you fool," exclaimed the enraged dignitary, "you don't imagine +that I mean all this to the letter!" + +"Ho! ho!" said the monk, "so you have been a liar, too, have you?" + +This relentless rebuker of shams furnishes us with a good transition to +another department of the subject, namely, moral hardihood, or grit +organized in conscience, and applying the most rigorous laws of ethics +to the practical affairs of life. Now there is a wide difference between +moral men, so called, and men moralized,--between men who lazily adopt +and lazily practise the conventional moral proprieties of the time, and +men transformed into the image of inexorable, unmerciful moral ideas, +men in whom moral maxims appear organized as moral might. There are +thousands who are prodigal of moral and benevolent opinions, and +honestly eloquent in loud professions of what they would do in case +circumstances called upon them to act; but when the occasion is suddenly +thrust upon them, when temptation, leering into every corner and crevice +of their weak and selfish natures, connects the notion of virtue with +the reality of sacrifice, then, in that sharp pinch, they become +suddenly apprised of the difference between rhetoric and rectitude, and +find that their speeches have been far ahead of their powers of +performance. Thus, in one of Gerald Griffin's novels, there is a scene +in which a young Irish student, fresh from his scholastic ethics, amazes +the company at his father's table, who are all devout believers in the +virtues of the hair-trigger, by an eloquent declamation against the +folly and the sin of duelling. At last one of the set gets sufficient +breath to call him a coward. The hot Irish blood is up in an instant, a +tumbler is thrown at the head of the doubter of his courage, and in ten +seconds the young moralist is crossing swords with his antagonist in a +duel. + +But the characteristic of moral grit is equality with the occasions +which exact its exercise. It is morality with thews and sinews and blood +and passions,--morality made man, and eager to put its phrases to the +test of action. It gives and takes hard blows,--aims not only to be +upright in deed, but downright in word,--silences with a "Thus saith the +Lord" all palliations of convenient sins,--scowls ominously at every +attempt to reconcile the old feud between the right and the expedient +and make them socially shake hands,--and when cant taints the air, +clears it with good wholesome rage and execration. On the virtues of +this stubborn conscientiousness it is needless to dilate; its +limitations spring from its tendency to disconnect morality from mercy, +and law from love,--its too frequent substitution of moral antipathies +for moral insight,--and its habit of describing individual men, not as +they are in themselves, but as they appear to its offended conscience. +Understanding sin better than it understands sinners, it sometimes +sketches phantoms rather than paints portraits,--identifies the weakly +wicked with the extreme of Satanic wickedness,--and in its assaults, +pitches _at_ its adversaries rather than really pitches _into_ them. +But, in a large moral view, the light of intellectual perception should +shine far in advance of the heat of ethical invective, and an ounce of +characterization is worth a ton of imprecations. Indeed, moral grit, +relatively admirable as it is, partakes of the inherent defect of other +and lower kinds of grit, inasmuch as its force is apt to be as +unsympathetic as it is uncompromising, as ungracious as it is +invincible. It drives rather than draws, cuffs rather than coaxes. +Intolerant of human infirmity, it is likewise often intolerant of all +forms of human excellence which do not square with its own conceptions +of right; and its philanthropy in the abstract is apt to secrete a +subtile misanthropy in the concrete. Brave, unselfish, self-sacrificing, +and flinching from no consequences which its principles may bring upon +itself, it flinches from no consequences which they may bring upon +others; and its attitude towards the laws and customs of instituted +imperfection is almost as sourly belligerent as towards those of +instituted iniquity. + +Men of this austere and somewhat crabbed rectitude may be found in every +department of life, but they are most prominent and most efficient when +they engage in the reform of abuses, whether those abuses be in manners, +institutions, or religion; and here they never shrink from the rough, +rude work of the cause they espouse. They are commonly adored by their +followers, commonly execrated by their opponents; but they receive the +execration as the most convincing proof that they have performed their +duties, as the shrieks of the wounded testify to the certainty of the +shots. Indeed, they take a kind of grim delight in so pointing their +invective that the adversaries of their principles are turned into +enemies of their persons, and scout at all fame which does not spring +from obloquy. As they thus exist in a state of war, the gentler elements +of their being fall into the background; the bitterness of the strife +works into their souls, and gives to their conscientious wrath a certain +Puritan pitilessness of temper and tone. In the thick of the fight, +their battle-cry is, "No quarter to the enemies of God and man!"--and +as, unfortunately, there are few men who, tried by their standards, are +friends of man, population very palpably thins as the lava-tide of their +invective sweeps over it, and to the mental eye men, disappear as man +emerges. + +The gulf which yawns between uncompromising moral obligation and +compromising human conduct is so immense that these fierce servants of +the Lord seem to be fanatics and visionaries. But history demonstrates +that they are among the most practical of all the forces which work in +human affairs; for, without taking into account the response which their +inflexible morality finds in the breasts of inflexibly moral men, their +morality, in its application to common life, often becomes materialized, +and shows an intimate connection with the most ordinary human appetites +and passions. They commune with the mass of men through the subtile +freemasonry of discontent. Compelled to hurl the thunderbolts of the +moral law against injustice in possession, they unwittingly set fire to +injustice smouldering in unrealized passions; and their speech is +translated and transformed, in its passage into the public mind, into +some such shape as this:--"These few persons who are dominant in Church +and State, and who, while you physically and spiritually starve, are fed +fat by the products of your labor and the illusions of your +superstition, are powerful and prosperous, not from any virtue in +themselves, but from the violation of those laws which God has ordained +for the beneficent government of the universe. Their property and their +power are the signs, not of their merits, but of their sins." The +instinctive love of property and power are thus addressed to overturn +the present possessors of property and power; and the vices of men are +unconsciously enlisted in the service of the regeneration of man. The +motives which impel whole masses of the community are commonly different +from the motives of those reformers who urge the community to revolt; +and their fervent denunciations of injustice bring to their side +thousands of men who, perhaps unconsciously to themselves, only desire a +chance to be unjust. The annals of all emancipations, revolutions, and +reformations are disfigured by this fact. Better than what they +supplant, their good is still relative, not absolute. + +In the history of religious reforms, few men better illustrate this hard +moral manliness, as distinguished from the highest moral heroism, than +the sturdy Scotch reformer, John Knox. Tenacious, pugnacious, thoroughly +honest and thoroughly earnest, superior to all physical and moral fear, +destitute equally of fine sentiments and weak emotions, blurting out +unwelcome opinions to queens as readily as to peasants, and in words +which hit and hurt like knocks with the fist, he is one of those large, +but somewhat coarse-grained natures, that influence rude populations by +having so much in common with them, and in which the piety of the +Christian, the thought of the Protestant, and the zeal of the martyr are +curiously blended with the ferocity of the demagogue. Jenny Geddes, at +the time when Archbishop Laud attempted to force Episcopacy upon +Scotland, is a fair specimen of the kind of character which the +teachings and the practice of such a man would tend to produce in a +nation. This rustic heroine was present when the new bishop, hateful to +Presbyterian eyes, began the service, with the smooth saying, "Let us +read the Collect of the Day." Jenny rose in wrath, and cried out to the +surpliced official of the Lord,--"Thou foul thief, wilt thou say mass at +my lug?" and hurled her stool at his head. Then rose cries of "A Pope! a +Pope! Stone him!" And "the worship of the Lord in Episcopal decency and +order" was ignominiously stopped. And in the next reign, when the same +thing was attempted, the Covenanters, the true spiritual descendants of +Knox, opposed to the most brutal persecution a fierce, morose heroism, +strangely compounded of barbaric passion and Christian fortitude. They +were the most perfect specimens of pure moral grit the world has ever +seen. In the great theological humorist of the nineteenth century, the +Reverend Sydney Smith, the legitimate intellectual successor of the +Reverend Rabelais and the Reverend Swift and the Reverend Sterne, their +sullen intrepidity excites a mingled feeling, in which fun strives with +admiration. In arguing against all intolerance, the intolerance of the +church to which he belonged as well as the intolerance of the churches +to which he was opposed, he said that persecution and bloodshed had no +effect in preventing the Scotch, "that metaphysical people, from going +to heaven in their true way instead of our true way"; and then comes the +humorous sally,--"With a little oatmeal for food and a little sulphur +for friction, allaying cutaneous irritation with one hand and grasping +his Calvinistical creed with the other, Sawney ran away to the flinty +hills, sung his psalm out of tune his own way, and listened to his +sermon of two hours long, amid the rough and imposing melancholy of the +tallest thistles." But from the graver historian, developing the +historic significance of their determined resistance to the insolent +claims of ecclesiastical authority, their desperate hardihood elicits a +more fitting tribute. "Hunted down," he says, "like wild beasts, +tortured till their bones were beaten flat, imprisoned by hundreds, +hanged by scores, exposed at one time to the license of soldiers from +England, abandoned at another time to the mercy of bands of marauders +from the Highlands, they still stood at bay in a mood so savage that the +boldest and mightiest oppressor could not but dread the audacity of +their despair." + +But the man who, in modern times, stands out most prominently as the +representative of this tough physical and moral fibre is Oliver +Cromwell, the greatest of that class of Puritans who combined the +intensest religious passions with the powers of the soldier and the +statesman, and who, in some wild way, reconciled their austere piety +with remorseless efficiency in the world of facts. After all the +materials for an accurate judgment of Cromwell which have been collected +by the malice of his libellers and the veneration of his partisans, he +is still a puzzle to psychologists; for no one, so far, has bridged the +space which separates the seeming anarchy of his mind from the executive +decision of his conduct. A coarse, strong, massive English +nature, thoroughly impregnated with Hebrew thought and Hebrew +passion,--democratic in his sympathy with the rudest political and +religious feelings of his party, autocratic in the consciousness of +superior abilities and tyrannic will,--emancipated from the illusions of +vanity, but not from those of ambition and pride,--shrinking from no +duty and no policy from the fear of obloquy or the fear of death,--a +fanatic and a politician,--a demagogue and a dictator,--seeking the +kingdom of heaven, but determined to take the kingdom of England by the +way,--believing in God, believing in himself, and believing in his +Ironsides,--clothing spiritual faith in physical force, and backing +dogmas and prayers with pikes and cannon,--anxious at once that his +troops should trust in God and keep their powder dry,--with a mind deep +indeed, but distracted by internal conflicts, and prolific only in +enormous, half-shaped ideas, which stammer into expression at once +obscure and ominous, the language a strange compound of the slang of the +camp and the mystic phrases of inspired prophets and apostles,--we still +feel throughout, that, whatever may be the contradictions of his +character, they are not such as to impair the ruthless energy of his +will. Whatever he dared to think he dared to do. No practical emergency +ever found him deficient either in sagacity or resolution, however it +might have found him deficient in mercy. He overrode the moral judgments +of ordinary men as fiercely as he overrode their physical resistance, +crushing prejudices as well as Parliaments, ideas as well as armies; and +whether his task was to cut off the head of an unmanageable king, or +disperse an unmanageable legislative assembly, or massacre an +unmanageable Irish garrison, or boldly establish himself as the +uncontrolled supreme authority of the land, he ever did it thoroughly +and unrelentingly, and could always throw the responsibility of the +deed on the God of battles and the God of Cromwell. In all this we +observe the operation of a colossal practical force rather than an ideal +power, of grit rather than heroism. However much he may command that +portion of our sympathies which thrill at the touch of vigorous action, +there are other sentiments of our being which detect something partial, +vulgar, and repulsive even in his undisputed greatness. + +In truth, grit, in its highest forms, is not a form of courage deserving +of unmixed respect and admiration. Admitting its immense practical +influence in public and private life, conceding its value in the rough, +direct struggle of person with person and opinions with institutions, it +is still by no means the top and crown of heroic character; for it lacks +the element of beauty and the element of sympathy; it is individual, +unsocial, bigoted, relatively to occasions; and its force has no +necessary connection with grandeur, generosity, and enlargement of soul. +Even in great men, like Cromwell, there is something in its aspect which +is harsh, ugly, haggard, and ungenial; even in them it is strong by the +stifling of many a generous thought and tolerant feeling; and when it +descends to animate sterile and stunted natures, endowed with sufficient +will to make their meanness or malignity efficient, its unfruitful force +is absolutely hateful. It has done good work for the cause of truth and +right; but it has also done bad work for the cause of falsehood and +wrong: for evil has its grit as well as virtue. As it lacks, suppresses, +or subordinates imagination, it is shorn of an important portion of a +complete manhood; for it not only loses the perception of beauty, but +the power of passing into other minds. It never takes the point of view +of the persons it opposes; its object is victory, not insight; and it +thus fails in that modified mercy to men which springs from an interior +knowledge of their characters. Even when it is the undaunted force +through which moral wrath expresses its hatred of injustice and wrong, +its want of imaginative perception makes it somewhat caricature the +sinners it inveighs against. It converts imperfect or immoral men into +perfect demons, which humanity as well as reason refuses to accept; and +it is therefore not surprising that the prayer of its indignant morality +sometimes is, "Almighty God, condemn them, for they _know_ what they +do!" But we cannot forget that there sounds down the ages, from the +saddest and most triumphant of all martyrdoms, a different and a diviner +prayer,--"Father, forgive them, for they know _not_ what they do!" + +Indeed, however much we may be struck with the startling immediateness +of effect which follows the exercise of practical force, we must not +forget the immense agency in human affairs of the ideal powers of the +soul. These work creatively from within to mould character, not only +inflaming great passions, but touching the springs of pity, tenderness, +gentleness, and love,--above all, infusing that wide-reaching sympathy +which sends the individual out of the grit-guarded fortress of his +personality into the wide plain of the race. The culmination of these +ideal powers is in genius and heroism, which draw their inspiration from +ideal and spiritual sources, and radiate it in thoughts beautifully +large and deeds beautifully brave. They do not merely exert power, they +communicate it. If you are overcome by a man of grit, he insolently +makes you conscious of your own weakness. If you are overcome by genius +and heroism, you are made participants in their strength; for they +overcome only to invigorate and uplift. They sweep on their gathering +disciples to the object they have in view, by making it an object of +affection as well as duty. Their power to allure and to attract is not +lost even when their goal is the stake or the cross. They never, in +transient ignominy and pain, lose sight and feeling of the beauty and +bliss inseparably associated with goodness and virtue; and the happiest +death-beds have often been on the rack or in the flame of the +hero-martyr. And they are also, in their results, great practical +influences; for they break down the walls which separate man from +man,--by magnanimous thought or magnanimous act shame us out of our +bitter personal contentions, and flash the sentiment of a common nature +into our individual hatreds and oppositions. As grit decomposes society +into an aggregate of strong and weak persons, genius and heroism unite +them in one humanity. Thus, not many years ago, we were all battling +about the higher law and the law to return fugitive slaves. It was +argument against argument, passion against passion, person against +person, grit against grit. The notions advanced regarding virtue and +vice, justice and injustice, humanity and inhumanity, were as different +as if the controversy had not been between men and men, but between men +and cattle. There were no signs among the combatants that they had the +common reason and the common instincts of a common nature. Then came a +woman of genius, who refused to credit the horrible conceit that the +diversity was essential, who resolutely believed that the human heart +was a unit, and whose glance, piercing the mist of opinions and +interests, saw in the deep and universal sources of humane and human +action the exact point where her blow would tell; and in a novel +unexampled in the annals of literature for popular effect, shook the +whole public reason and public conscience of the country, by the most +searching of all appeals to its heart and imagination. + + + + +THE PETTIBONE LINEAGE. + + +My name is Esek Pettibone, and I wish to affirm in the outset that it is +a good thing to be well-born. In thus connecting the mention of my name +with a positive statement, I am not unaware that a catastrophe lies +coiled up in the juxtaposition. But I cannot help writing plainly that I +am still in favor of a distinguished family-tree. ESTO PERPETUA! To have +had somebody for a great-grandfather that was somebody is exciting. To +be able to look back on long lines of ancestry that were rich, but +respectable, seems decorous and all right. The present Earl of Warwick, +I think, must have an idea that strict justice has been done _him_ in +the way of being launched properly into the world. I saw the Duke of +Newcastle once, and as the farmer in Conway described Mount Washington, +I thought the Duke felt a propensity to "hunch up some." Somehow it is +pleasant to look down on the crowd and have a conscious right to do so. + +Left an orphan at the tender age of four years, having no brothers or +sisters to prop me round with young affections and sympathies, I fell +into three pairs of hands, excellent in their way, but peculiar. +Patience, Eunice, and Mary Ann Pettibone were my aunts on my father's +side. All my mother's relations kept shady when the lonely orphan looked +about for protection; but Patience Pettibone, in her stately way, +said,--"The boy belongs to a good family, and he shall never want while +his three aunts can support him." So I went to live with my plain, but +benignant protectors, in the State of New Hampshire. + +During my boyhood, the best-drilled lesson that fell to my keeping was +this:--"Respect yourself. We come of more than ordinary parentage. +Superior blood was probably concerned in getting up the Pettibones. Hold +your head erect, and some day you shall have proof of your high +lineage." + +I remember once, on being told that I must not share my juvenile sports +with the butcher's three little beings, I begged to know why not. Aunt +Eunice looked at Patience, and Mary Ann knew what she meant. + +"My child," slowly murmured the eldest sister, "our family no doubt came +of a very old stock; perhaps we belong to the nobility. Our ancestors, +it is thought, came over laden with honors, and no doubt were +embarrassed with riches, though the latter importation has dwindled in +the lapse of years. Respect yourself, and when you grow up you will not +regret that your old and careful aunt did not wish you to play with +butchers' offspring." + +I felt mortified that I had ever had a desire to "knuckle up" with any +but kings' sons or sultans' little boys. I longed to be among my equals +in the urchin-line, and fly my kite with only high-born youngsters. + +Thus I lived in a constant scene of self-enchantment on the part of the +sisters, who assumed all the port and feeling that properly belong to +ladies of quality. Patrimonial splendor to come danced before their dim +eyes; and handsome settlements, gay equipages, and a general grandeur of +some sort loomed up in the future for the American branch of the House +of Pettibone. + +It was a life of opulent self-delusion, which my aunts were never tired +of nursing; and I was too young to doubt the reality of it. All the +members of our little household held up their heads, as if each said, in +so many words, "There is no original sin in _our_ composition, whatever +of that commodity there may be mixed up with the common clay of +Snowborough." + +Aunt Patience was a star, and dwelt apart. Aunt Eunice looked at her +through a determined pair of spectacles, and worshipped while she gazed. +The youngest sister lived in a dreamy state of honors to come, and had +constant zoölogical visions of lions, griffins, and unicorns, drawn and +quartered in every possible style known to the Heralds' College. The +Reverend Hebrew Bullet, who used to drop in quite often and drink +several compulsory glasses of home-made wine, encouraged his three +parishioners in their aristocratic notions, and extolled them for what +he called their "stooping down to every-day life." He differed with the +ladies of our house only on one point. He contended that the unicorn of +the Bible and the rhinoceros of to-day were one and the same animal. My +aunts held a different opinion. + +In the sleeping-room of my Aunt Patience reposed a trunk. Often during +my childish years I longed to lift the lid and spy among its contents +the treasures my young fancy conjured up as lying there in state. I +dared not ask to have the cover raised for my gratification, as I had +often been told I was "too little" to estimate aright what that armorial +box contained. "When you grow up, you shall see the inside of it," Aunt +Mary Ann used to say to me; and so I wondered, and wished, but all in +vain. I must have the virtue of _years_ before I could view the +treasures of past magnificence so long entombed in that wooden +sarcophagus. Once I saw the faded sisters bending over the trunk +together, and, as I thought, embalming something in camphor. Curiosity +impelled me to linger, but, under some pretext, I was nodded out of the +room. + +Although my kinswomen's means were far from ample, they determined that +Swiftmouth College should have the distinction of calling me one of her +sons, and accordingly I was in due time sent for preparation to a +neighboring academy. Years of study and hard fare in country +boarding-houses told upon my self-importance as the descendant of a +great Englishman, notwithstanding all my letters from the honored three +came freighted with counsel to "respect myself and keep up the dignity +of the family." Growing-up man forgets good counsel. The Arcadia of +respectability is apt to give place to the levity of football and other +low-toned accomplishments. The book of life, at that period, opens +readily at fun and frolic, and the insignia of greatness give the +schoolboy no envious pangs. + +I was nineteen when I entered the hoary halls of Swiftmouth. I call +them hoary, because they had been built more than fifty years. To me +they seemed uncommonly hoary, and I snuffed antiquity in the dusty +purlieus. I now began to study, in good earnest, the wisdom of the past. +I saw clearly the value of dead men and mouldy precepts, especially if +the former had been entombed a thousand years, and if the latter were +well done in sounding Greek and Latin. I began to reverence royal lines +of deceased monarchs, and longed to connect my own name, now growing +into college popularity, with some far-off mighty one who had ruled in +pomp and luxury his obsequious people. The trunk in Snowborough troubled +my dreams. In that receptacle still slept the proof of our family +distinction. "I will go," quoth I, "to the home of my aunts next +vacation and there learn _how_ we became mighty, and discover precisely +why we don't practise to-day our inherited claims to glory." + +I went to Snowborough. Aunt Patience was now anxious to lay before her +impatient nephew the proof he burned to behold. But first she must +explain. All the old family documents and letters were, no doubt, +destroyed in the great fire of '98, as nothing in the shape of parchment +or paper implying nobility had ever been discovered in Snowborough, or +elsewhere. _But_--there had been preserved, for many years, a suit of +imperial clothes, that had been worn by their great-grandfather in +England, and, no doubt, in the New World also. These garments had been +carefully watched and guarded; for were they not the proof that their +owner belonged to a station in life, second, if second at all, to the +royal court of King George itself? Precious casket, into which I was +soon to have the privilege of gazing! Through how many long years these +fond, foolish virgins had lighted their unflickering lamps of +expectation and hope at this cherished old shrine! + +I was now on my way to the family repository of all our greatness. I +went up stairs "on the jump." We all knelt down before the +well-preserved box; and my proud Aunt Patience, in a somewhat reverent +manner, turned the key. My heart,--I am not ashamed to confess it now, +although it is forty years since the quartette, in search of family +honors, were on their knees that summer afternoon in Snowborough,--my +heart beat high. I was about to look on that which might be a duke's or +an earl's regalia. And I was descended from the owner in a direct line! +I had lately been reading Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus"; and I +remembered, there before the trunk, the lines,-- + + "O sacred receptacle of my joys, + Sweet cell of virtue and nobility!" + +The lid went up, and the sisters began to unroll the precious garments, +which seemed all enshrined in aromatic gums and spices. The odor of that +interior lives with me to this day; and I grow faint with the memory of +that hour. With pious precision the clothes were uncovered, and at last +the whole suit was laid before my expectant eyes. + +Reader! I am an old man now, and have not long to walk this planet. But, +whatever dreadful shock may be in reserve for my declining years, I am +certain I can bear it; for I went through that scene at Snowborough, and +still live! + +When the garments were fully displayed, all the aunts looked at me. I +had been to college; I had studied Burke's "Peerage"; I had been once to +New York. Perhaps I could immediately name the exact station in noble +British life to which that suit of clothes belonged. I could; I saw it +all at a glance. I grew flustered and pale. I dared not look my poor +deluded female relatives in the face. + +"What rank in the peerage do these gold-laced garments and big buttons +betoken?" cried all three. + +"_It is a suit of servant's livery!_" gasped I, and fell back with a +shudder. + +That evening, after the sun had gone down, we buried those hateful +garments in a ditch at the bottom of the garden. Rest there, perturbed +body-coat, yellow trousers, brown gaiters, and all! + + "Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye!" + + + + +UP THE ST. MARY'S. + + +If Sergeant Rivers was a natural king among my dusky soldiers, Corporal +Robert Sutton was the natural prime-minister. If not in all respects the +ablest, he was the wisest man in our ranks. As large, as powerful, and +as black as our good-looking Color-Sergeant, but more heavily built and +with less personal beauty, he had a more massive brain and a far more +meditative and systematic intellect. Not yet grounded even in the +spelling-book, his modes of thought were nevertheless strong, lucid, and +accurate; and he yearned and pined for intellectual companionship beyond +all ignorant men whom I have ever met. I believe that he would have +talked all day and all night, for days together, to any officer who +could instruct him, until his companion, at least, fell asleep +exhausted. His comprehension of the whole problem of Slavery was more +thorough and far-reaching than that of any Abolitionist, so far as its +social and military aspects went; in that direction I could teach him +nothing, and he taught me much. But it was his methods of thought which +always impressed me chiefly: superficial brilliancy he left to others, +and grasped at the solid truth. Of course his interest in the war and in +the regiment was unbounded; he did not take to drill with especial +readiness, but he was insatiable of it and grudged every moment of +relaxation. Indeed, he never had any such moments; his mind was at work +all the time, even when he was singing hymns, of which he had endless +store. He was not, however, one of our leading religionists, but his +moral code was solid and reliable, like his mental processes. Ignorant +as he was, the "years that bring the philosophic mind" had yet been his, +and most of my young officers seemed boys beside him. He was a Florida +man, and had been chiefly employed in lumbering and piloting on the St. +Mary's River, which divides Florida from Georgia. Down this stream he +had escaped in a "dug-out," and after thus finding the way, had returned +(as had not a few of my men, in other cases) to bring away wife and +child. "I wouldn't have leff my child, Cunnel," he said, with an +emphasis that sounded the depths of his strong nature. And up this same +river he was always imploring to be allowed to guide an expedition. + +Many other men had rival propositions to urge, for they gained +self-confidence from drill and guard-duty, and were growing impatient of +inaction. "Ought to go to work, Sa,--don't believe in we lyin' in camp, +eatin' up the perwisions." Such were the quaint complaints, which I +heard with joy. Looking over my note-books of that period, I find them +filled with topographical memoranda, jotted down by a nickering candle, +from the evening talk of the men,--notes of vulnerable points along the +coast, charts of rivers, locations of pickets. I prized these +conversations not more for what I thus learned of the country than for +what I learned of the men. One could thus measure their various degrees +of accuracy and their average military instinct; and I must say that in +every respect, save the accurate estimate of distances, they stood the +test well. But no project took my fancy so much, after all, as that of +the delegate from the St. Mary's River. + +The best peg on which to hang an expedition in the Department of the +South, in those days, was the promise of lumber. Dwelling in the very +land of Southern pine, the Department authorities had to send North for +it, at a vast expense. There was reported to be plenty in the enemy's +country, but somehow the colored soldiers were the only ones who had +been lucky enough to obtain any, thus far, and the supply brought in by +our men, after flooring the tents of the white regiments and our own, +was running low. An expedition of white troops, four companies, with +two steamers and two schooners, had lately returned empty-handed, after +a week's foraging; and now it was our turn. They said the mills were all +burned; but should we go up the St. Mary's, Corporal Sutton was prepared +to offer more lumber than we had transportation to carry. This made the +crowning charm of his suggestion. But there is never any danger of +erring on the side of secrecy, in a military department; and I resolved +to avoid all undue publicity for our plans, by not finally deciding on +any until we should get outside the bar. This was happily approved by my +superior officers, Major-General Hunter and Brigadier-General Saxton; +and I was accordingly permitted to take three steamers, with four +hundred and sixty-two officers and men, and two or three invited guests, +and go down the coast on my own responsibility. We were, in short, to +win our spurs; and if, as among the Araucanians, our spurs were made of +lumber, so much the better. The whole history of the Department of the +South had been defined as "a military picnic," and now we were to take +our share of the entertainment. + +It seemed a pleasant share, when, after the usual vexations and delays, +we found ourselves gliding down the full waters of Beaufort River, the +three vessels having sailed at different hours, with orders to +rendezvous at St. Simon's Island, on the coast of Georgia. Until then, +the flag-ship, so to speak, was to be the "Ben De Ford," Captain +Hallett,--this being by far the largest vessel, and carrying most of the +men. Major Strong was in command upon the "John Adams," an army +gunboat, carrying a thirty-pound Parrott gun, two ten-pound Parrotts, +and an eight-inch howitzer Captain Trowbridge (since promoted +Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment) had charge of the famous "Planter," +brought away from the Rebels by Robert Small; she carried a ten-pound +Parrott gun, and two howitzers. The John Adams was our main reliance. +She was an old East-Boston ferry-boat, a "double-ender," admirable for +river-work, but unfit for sea-service. She drew seven feet of water; the +Planter drew only four; but the latter was very slow, and being obliged +to go to St. Simon's by an inner passage, would delay us from the +beginning. She delayed us so much, before the end, that we virtually +parted company, and her career was almost entirely separated from our +own. + +From boyhood I have had a fancy for boats, and have seldom been without +a share, usually more or less fractional, in a rather indeterminate +number of punts and wherries. But when, for the first time, I found +myself at sea as Commodore of a fleet of armed steamers,--for even the +Ben De Ford boasted a six-pounder or so,--it seemed rather an unexpected +promotion. But it is a characteristic of army life, that one adapts +one's self, as coolly as in a dream, to the most novel responsibilities. +One sits on court-martial, for instance, and decides on the life of a +fellow-creature, without being asked any inconvenient questions as to +previous knowledge of Blackstone; and after such an experience, shall +one shrink from wrecking a steamer or two in the cause of the nation? So +I placidly accepted my naval establishment, as if it were a new form of +boat-club, and looked over the charts, balancing between one river and +another, as if deciding whether to pull up or down Lake Quinsigamond. If +military life ever contemplated the exercise of the virtue of humility +under any circumstances, this would perhaps have been a good opportunity +to begin its practice. But as the "Regulations" clearly contemplated +nothing of the kind, and as I had never met with any precedent which +looked in that direction, I had learned to check promptly all such weak +proclivities. + +Captain Hallett proved the most frank and manly of sailors, and did +everything for our comfort. He was soon warm in his praises of the +demeanor of our men, which was very pleasant to hear, as this was the +first time that colored soldiers in any number had been conveyed on +board a transport, and I know of no place where a white volunteer +appears to so much disadvantage. His mind craves occupation, his body +is intensely uncomfortable, the daily emergency is not great enough to +call out his heroic qualities, and he is apt to be surly, discontented, +and impatient even of sanitary rules. The Southern black soldier, on the +other hand, is seldom sea-sick, (at least, such is my experience,) and, +if properly managed, is equally contented, whether idle or busy; he is, +moreover, so docile that all needful rules are executed with cheerful +acquiescence, and the quarters can therefore be kept clean and +wholesome. Very forlorn faces were soon visible among the officers in +the cabin, but I rarely saw such among the men. + +Pleasant still seemed our enterprise, as we anchored at early morning in +the quiet waters of St. Simon's Sound, and saw the light fall softly on +the beach and the low bluffs, on the picturesque plantation-houses which +nestled there, and the graceful naval vessels that lay at anchor before +us. When we afterwards landed, the air had that peculiar Mediterranean +translucency which Southern islands wear; and the plantation we visited +had the loveliest tropical garden, though tangled and desolate, which I +have ever seen in the South. The deserted house was embowered in great +blossoming shrubs, and filled with hyacinthine odors, among which +predominated that of the little Chickasaw roses which everywhere bloomed +and trailed around. There were fig-trees and date-palms, crape-myrtles +and wax-myrtles, Mexican agaves and English ivies, japonicas, bananas, +oranges, lemons, oleanders, jonquils, great cactuses, and wild Florida +lilies. This was not the plantation which Mrs. Kemble has since made +historic, although that was on the same island; and I could not waste +much sentiment over it, for it had belonged to a Northern renegade, +Thomas Butler King. Yet I felt then, as I have felt a hundred times +since, an emotion of heart-sickness at this desecration of a +homestead,--and especially when, looking from a bare upper window of the +empty house upon a range of broad, flat, sunny roofs, such as children +love to play on, I thought how that place might have been loved by yet +innocent hearts, and I mourned anew the sacrilege of war. + +I had visited the flag-ship Wabash ere we left Port-Royal Harbor, and +had obtained a very kind letter of introduction from Admiral Dupont, +that stately and courtly potentate, elegant as one's ideal French +marquis; and under these credentials I received polite attention from the +naval officers at St. Simon's,--Acting Volunteer Lieutenant Budd, U. S. N., +of the gunboat Potomska, and Acting Master Moses, U. S. N., of +the barque Fernandina. They made valuable suggestions in regard to the +different rivers along the coast, and gave vivid descriptions of the +last previous trip up the St. Mary's, undertaken by Captain Stevens, +U. S. N., in the gunboat Ottawa, when he had to fight his way past +batteries at every bluff in descending the narrow and rapid stream. I +was warned that no resistance would be offered to the ascent, but only +to our return; and was further cautioned against the mistake, then +common, of underrating the courage of the Rebels. "It proved impossible +to dislodge those fellows from the banks," my informant said; "they had +dug rifle-pits, and swarmed like hornets, and when fairly silenced in +one direction, they were sure to open upon us from another." All this +sounded alarming, but it was nine months before that the event had +happened; and although nothing had gone up the river since, I was +satisfied that the resistance now to be encountered was very much +smaller. And something must be risked, anywhere. + +We were delayed all that day in waiting for our consort, and improved +our time by verifying certain rumors about a quantity of new +railroad-iron which was said to be concealed in the abandoned Rebel +forts on St. Simon's and Jekyll Islands, and which would have much value +at Port Royal, if we could only unearth it. Some of our men had worked +upon these very batteries, so that they could easily guide us; and by +the additional discovery of a large flatboat we were enabled to go to +work in earnest upon the removal of the treasure. These iron bars, +surmounted by a dozen feet of sand, formed an invulnerable roof for the +magazines and bomb-proofs of the fort, and the men enjoyed demolishing +them far more than they had relished their construction. Though the day +was the 24th of January, 1863, the sun was very oppressive upon the +sands; but all were in the highest spirits, and worked with the greatest +zeal. The men seemed to regard these massive bars as their first +trophies; and if the rails had been wreathed with roses, they could not +have been got out in more holiday style. Nearly a hundred were obtained +that day, besides a quantity of five-inch plank with which to barricade +the very conspicuous pilot-houses of the John Adams. + +Still another day we were delayed, and could still keep at this work, +not neglecting some foraging on the island, from which horses, cattle, +and agricultural implements were to be removed, and the few remaining +colored families transferred to Fernandina. I had now become quite +anxious about the missing steamboat, as the inner passage, by which +alone she could arrive, was exposed at certain points to fire from Rebel +batteries, and it would have been unpleasant to begin with a disaster. I +remember, that, as I stood on deck, in the still and misty evening, +listening with strained senses for some sound of approach, I heard a low +continuous noise from the distance, more wild and desolate than anything +in my memory can parallel. It came from within the vast girdle of mist, +and seemed like the cry of a myriad of lost souls upon the horizon's +verge; it was Dante become audible: and yet it was but the accumulated +cries of innumerable sea-fowl at the entrance of the outer bay. + +Late that night the Planter arrived. We left St. Simon's on the +following morning, reached Fort Clinch by four o'clock, and there +transferring two hundred men to the very scanty quarters of the John +Adams, allowed the larger transport to go into Fernandina, while the two +other vessels were to ascend the St. Mary's River, unless (as proved +inevitable in the end) the defects in the boiler of the Planter should +oblige her to remain behind. That night I proposed to make a sort of +trial-trip up stream, as far as Township Landing, some fifteen miles, +there to pay our respects to Captain Clark's company of cavalry, whose +camp was reported to lie near by. This was included in Corporal Sutton's +programme, and seemed to me more inviting, and far more useful to the +men, than any amount of mere foraging. The thing really desirable +appeared to be to get them under fire as soon as possible, and to teach +them, by a few small successes, the application of what they had learned +in camp. + +I had ascertained that the camp of this company lay five miles from the +landing, and was accessible by two roads, one of which was a +lumber-path, not commonly used, but which Corporal Sutton had helped to +construct, and along which he could easily guide us. The plan was to go +by night, surround the house and negro cabins at the landing, (to +prevent an alarm from being given,) then to take the side path, and if +all went well, to surprise the camp; but if they got notice of our +approach, through their pickets, we should, at worst, have a fight, in +which the best man must win. + +The moon was bright, and the river swift, but easy of navigation thus +far. Just below Township I landed a small advance force, to surround the +houses silently. With them went Corporal Sutton; and when, after +rounding the point, I went on shore with a larger body of men, he met me +with a silent chuckle of delight, and with the information that there +was a negro in a neighboring cabin who had just come from the Rebel +camp, and could give the latest information. While he hunted up this +valuable auxiliary, I mustered my detachment, winnowing out the men who +had coughs, (not a few,) and sending them ignominiously on board again: +a process I had regularly to perform, during this first season of +catarrh, on all occasions where quiet was needed. The only exception +tolerated at this time was in the case of one man who offered a solemn +pledge, that, if unable to restrain his cough, he would lie down on the +ground, scrape a little hole, and cough into it unheard. The ingenuity +of this proposition was irresistible, and the eager patient was allowed +to pass muster. + +It was after midnight when we set off upon our excursion. I had about a +hundred men, marching by the flank, with a small advanced guard, and +also a few flankers, where the ground permitted. I put my Florida +company at the head of the column, and had by my side Captain Metcalf, +an excellent officer, and Sergeant McIntyre, his first sergeant. We +plunged presently into pine woods, whose resinous smell I can still +remember. Corporal Sutton marched near me, with his captured negro +guide, whose first fear and sullenness had yielded to the magic news of +the President's Proclamation, then just issued, of which Governor Andrew +had sent me a large printed supply;--we seldom found men who could read +it, but they all seemed to feel more secure when they held it in their +hands. We marched on through the woods, with no sound but the peeping of +the frogs in a neighboring marsh, and the occasional yelping of a dog, +as we passed the hut of some "cracker." This yelping always made +Corporal Sutton uneasy: dogs are the detective officers of Slavery's +police. + +We had halted once or twice, to close up the ranks, and had marched some +two miles, seeing and hearing nothing more. I had got all I could out of +our new guide, and was striding on, rapt in pleasing contemplation. All +had gone so smoothly that I had merely to fancy the rest as being +equally smooth. Already I fancied our little detachment bursting out of +the woods, in swift surprise, upon the Rebel quarters,--already the +opposing commander, after hastily firing a charge or two from his +revolver, (of course above my head,) had yielded at discretion, and was +gracefully tendering, in a stage attitude, his unavailing sword,--when +suddenly---- + +There was a trampling of feet among the advanced guard as they came +confusedly to a halt, and almost at the same instant a more ominous +sound, as of galloping horses in the path before us. The moonlight +outside the woods gave that dimness of atmosphere within which is more +bewildering than darkness, because the eyes cannot adapt themselves to +it so well. Yet I fancied, and others aver, that they saw the leader of +an approaching party, mounted on a white horse and reining up in the +pathway; others, again, declare that he drew a pistol from the holster +and took aim; others heard the words, "Charge in upon them! Surround +them!" But all this was confused by the opening rifle-shots of our +advanced guard, and, as clear observation was impossible, I made the men +fix their bayonets and kneel in the cover on each side the pathway, and +I saw with delight the brave fellows, with Sergeant McIntyre at their +head, settling down in the grass as coolly and warily as if wild turkeys +were the only game. Perhaps at the first shot, a man fell at my elbow. I +felt it no more than if a tree had fallen,--I was so busy watching my +own men and the enemy, and planning what to do next. Some of our +soldiers, misunderstanding the order, "Fix bayonets," were actually +_charging_ with them, dashing off into the dim woods, with nothing to +charge at but the vanishing tail of an imaginary horse,--for we could +really see nothing. This zeal I noted with pleasure, and also with +anxiety, as our greatest danger was from confusion and scattering; and +for infantry to pursue cavalry would be a novel enterprise. Captain +Metcalf stood by me well in keeping the men steady, as did +Assistant-Surgeon Minor, and Lieutenant, now Captain, Jackson. How the +men in the rear were behaving I could not tell,--not so coolly, I +afterwards found, because they were more entirely bewildered, supposing, +until the shots came, that the column had simply halted for a moment's +rest, as had been done once or twice before. They did not know who or +where their assailants might be, and the fall of the man beside me +created a hasty rumor that I was killed, so that it was on the whole an +alarming experience for them. They kept together very tolerably, +however, while our assailants, dividing, rode along on each side through +the open pine-barren, firing into our ranks, but mostly over the heads +of the men. My soldiers in turn fired rapidly,--too rapidly, being yet +beginners,--and it was evident, that, dim as it was, both sides had +opportunity to do some execution. + +I could hardly tell whether the fight had lasted ten minutes or an hour, +when, as the enemy's fire had evidently ceased or slackened, I gave the +order to cease firing. But it was very difficult at first to make them +desist: the taste of gunpowder was too intoxicating. One of them was +heard to mutter, indignantly,--"Why de Cunnel order _Cease firing_, when +de Secesh blazin' away at de rate ob ten dollar a day?" Every incidental +occurrence seemed somehow to engrave itself upon my perceptions, without +interrupting the main course of thought. Thus I know, that, in one of +the pauses of the affair, there came wailing through the woods a cracked +female voice, as if calling back some stray husband who had run out to +join in the affray,--"John, John, are you going to leave me, John? Are +you going to let me and the children be killed, John?" I suppose the +poor thing's fears of gunpowder were very genuine, but it was such a +wailing squeak, and so infinitely ludicrous, and John was probably +ensconced so very safely in some hollow tree, that I could see some of +the men showing all their white teeth in the very midst of the fight. +But soon this sound, with all others, had ceased, and left us in +peaceful possession of the field. + +I have made the more of this little affair because it was the first +stand-up fight in which my men had been engaged, though they had been +under fire, in an irregular way, in their small early expeditions. To me +personally the event was of the greatest value: it had given us all an +opportunity to test each other, and our abstract surmises were changed +into positive knowledge. Hereafter it was of small importance what +nonsense might be talked or written about colored troops; so long as +mine did not flinch, it made no difference to me. My brave young +officers, themselves mostly new to danger, viewed the matter much as I +did; and yet we were under bonds of life and death to form a correct +opinion, which was more than could be said of the Northern editors, and +our verdict was proportionately of greater value. + +I was convinced from appearances that we had been victorious, so far, +though I could not suppose that this would be the last of it. We knew +neither the numbers of the enemy, nor their plans, nor their present +condition: whether they had surprised us or whether we had surprised +them was all a mystery. Corporal Sutton was urgent to go on and complete +the enterprise. All my impulses said the same thing; but then I had the +most explicit injunctions from General Saxton to risk as little as +possible in this first enterprise, because of the fatal effect on public +sentiment of even an honorable defeat. We had now an honorable victory, +so far as it went; the officers and men around me were in good spirits, +but the rest of the column might be nervous; and it seemed so important +to make the first fight an entire success, that I thought it wiser to +let well alone; nor have I ever changed this opinion. For one's self, +Montrose's verse may be well applied,--"To win or lose it all." But one +has no right to deal thus lightly with the fortunes of a race, and that +was the weight which I always felt as resting on our action. If my raw +infantry force had stood unflinching a night-surprise from "de hoss +cavalry," as they reverentially termed them, I felt that a good +beginning had been made. All hope of surprising the enemy's camp was now +at an end; I was willing and ready to fight the cavalry over again, but +it seemed wiser that we, not they, should select the ground. + +Attending to the wounded, therefore, and making as we best could +stretchers for those who were to be carried, including the remains of +the man killed at the first discharge, (Private William Parsons of +Company G,) and others who seemed at the point of death, we marched +through the woods to the landing,--expecting at every moment to be +involved in another fight. This not occurring, I was more than ever +satisfied that we had won a victory; for it was obvious that a mounted +force would not allow a detachment of infantry to march two miles +through open woods by night without renewing the fight, unless they +themselves had suffered a good deal. On arrival at the landing, seeing +that there was to be no immediate affray, I sent most of the men on +board, and called for volunteers to remain on shore with me and hold the +plantation-house till morning. They eagerly offered; and I was glad to +see them, when posted as sentinels by Lieutenants Hyde and Jackson, who +stayed with me, pace their beats as steadily and challenge as coolly as +veterans, though of course there was some powder wasted on imaginary +foes. Greatly to my surprise, however, we had no other enemies to +encounter. We did not yet know that we had killed the first lieutenant +of the cavalry, and that our opponents had retreated to the woods in +dismay, without daring to return to their camp. This at least was the +account we heard from prisoners afterwards, and was evidently the tale +current in the neighborhood, though the statements published in Southern +newspapers did not correspond. Admitting the death of Lieutenant Jones, +the Tallahassee "Floridian" of February 14th stated that "Captain Clark, +finding the enemy in strong force, fell back with his command to camp, +and removed his ordnance and commissary and other stores, with twelve +negroes on their way to the enemy, captured on that day." + +In the morning, my invaluable surgeon, Dr. Rogers, sent me his report of +killed and wounded; and I have been since permitted to make the +following extracts from his notes:--"One man killed instantly by ball +through the heart, and seven wounded, one of whom will die. Braver men +never lived. One man with two bullet-holes through the large muscles of +the shoulders and neck brought off from the scene of action, two miles +distant, two muskets; and not a murmur has escaped his lips. Another, +Robert Sutton, with three wounds,--one of which, being on the skull, may +cost him his life,--would not report himself till compelled to do so by +his officers. While dressing his wounds, he quietly talked of what they +had done, and of what they yet could do. To-day I have had the Colonel +_order_ him to obey me. He is perfectly quiet and cool, but takes this +whole affair with the religious bearing of a man who realizes that +freedom is sweeter than life. Yet another soldier did not report himself +at all, but remained all night on guard, and possibly I should not have +known of his having had a buck-shot in his shoulder, if some duty +requiring a sound shoulder had not been required of him to-day." This +last, it may be added, had persuaded a comrade to dig out the buck-shot, +for fear of being ordered on the sick-list. And one of those who were +carried to the vessel--a man wounded through the lungs--asked only if I +were safe, the contrary having been reported. An officer may be pardoned +some enthusiasm for such men as these. + +The anxious night having passed away without an attack, another problem +opened with the morning. For the first time, my officers and men found +themselves in possession of an enemy's abode; and though there was but +little temptation to plunder, I knew that I must here begin to draw the +line. I had long since resolved to prohibit absolutely all +indiscriminate pilfering and wanton outrage, and to allow nothing to be +taken or destroyed but by proper authority. The men, to my great +satisfaction, entered into this view at once, and so did (perhaps a +shade less readily, in some cases) the officers. The greatest trouble +was with the steamboat-hands, and I resolved to let them go ashore as +little as possible. Most articles of furniture were already, however, +before our visit, gone from the plantation-house, which was now used +only as a picket-station. The only valuable article was a piano-forte, +for which a regular packing-box lay invitingly ready outside. I had made +up my mind to burn all picket-stations, and all villages from which I +should be covertly attacked, and nothing else; and as this house was +destined to the flames, I should have left the piano in it, but for the +seductions of that box. With such a receptacle all ready, even to the +cover, it would have seemed like flying in the face of Providence not to +put the piano in. I ordered it removed, therefore, and afterwards +presented it to the school for colored children at Fernandina. This I +mention because it was the only article of property I ever took or +knowingly suffered to be taken, in the enemy's country, save for +legitimate military uses, from first to last; nor would I have taken +this, but for the thought of the school, and, as aforesaid, the +temptation of the box. If any other officer has been more rigid, with +equal opportunities, let him cast the first stone. + +I think the zest with which the men finally set fire to the house at my +order was enhanced by this previous abstemiousness; but there is a +fearful fascination in the use of fire, which every child knows in the +abstract, and which I found to hold true in the practice. On our way +down river we had opportunity to test this again. + +The ruined town of St. Mary's had at that time a bad reputation, among +both naval and military men. Lying but a short distance above +Fernandina, on the Georgia side, it was occasionally visited by our +gunboats. I was informed that the only residents of the town were three +old women, who were apparently kept there as spies,--that, on our +approach, the aged crones would come out and wave white +handkerchiefs,--that they would receive us hospitably, profess to be +profoundly loyal, and exhibit a portrait of Washington,--that they would +solemnly assure us that no Rebel pickets had been there for many +weeks,--but that in the adjoining yard we should find fresh +horse-tracks, and that we should be fired upon by guerrillas the moment +we left the wharf. My officers had been much excited by these tales; and +I had assured them, that, if this programme were literally carried out, +we would straightway return and burn the town, or what was left of it, +for our share. It was essential to show my officers and men, that, while +rigid against irregular outrage, we could still be inexorable against +the enemy. + +We had previously planned to stop at this town, on our way down river, +for some valuable lumber which we had espied on a wharf; and gliding +down the swift current, shelling a few bluffs as we passed, we soon +reached it. Punctual as the figures in a panorama, appeared the old +ladies with their white handkerchiefs. Taking possession of the town, +much of which had previously been destroyed by the gunboats, and +stationing the color-guard, to their infinite delight, in the cupola of +the most conspicuous house, I deployed skirmishers along the exposed +suburb, and set a detail of men at work on the lumber. After a stately +and decorous interview with the queens of society at St. Mary's,--is it +Scott who says that nothing improves the manners like piracy?--I +peacefully withdrew the men when the work was done. There were faces of +disappointment among the officers,--for all felt a spirit of mischief, +after the last night's adventure,--when, just as we had fairly swung out +into the stream and were under way, there came, like the sudden burst of +a tropical tornado, a regular little hailstorm of bullets into the open +end of the boat, driving every gunner in an instant from his post, and +surprising even those who were looking to be surprised. The shock was +but for a second; and though the bullets had pattered precisely like the +sound of hail upon the iron cannon, yet nobody was hurt. With very +respectable promptness, order was restored, our own shells were flying +into the woods from which the attack proceeded, and we were steaming up +to the wharf again, according to promise. + +Who shall describe the theatrical attitudes assumed by the old ladies as +they reappeared at the front door--being luckily out of direct +range--and set the handkerchiefs in wilder motion than ever? They +brandished them, they twirled them after the manner of the domestic mop, +they clasped their hands, handkerchiefs included. Meanwhile their +friends in the wood popped away steadily at us, with small effect; and +occasionally an invisible field-piece thundered feebly from another +quarter, with equally invisible results. Reaching the wharf, one +company, under Lieutenant (now Captain) Danilson, was promptly deployed +in search of our assailants, who soon grew silent. Not so the old +ladies, when I announced to them my purpose, and added, with extreme +regret, that, as the wind was high, I should burn only that half of the +town which lay to leeward of their house, which did not, after all, +amount to much. Between gratitude for this degree of mercy and imploring +appeals for greater, the treacherous old ladies manoeuvred with +clasped hands and demonstrative handkerchiefs around me, impairing the +effect of their eloquence by constantly addressing me as "Mr. Captain"; +for I have observed, that, while the sternest officer is greatly +propitiated by attributing to him a rank a little higher than his own, +yet no one is ever mollified by an error in the opposite direction. I +tried, however, to disregard such low considerations, and to strike the +correct mean betwixt the sublime patriot and the unsanctified +incendiary, while I could find no refuge from weak contrition save in +greater and greater depths of courtesy; and so melodramatic became our +interview that some of the soldiers still maintain that "dem dar ole +Secesh women been a-gwine for kiss de Cunnel," before we ended. But of +this monstrous accusation I wish to register an explicit denial, once +for all. + +Dropping down to Fernandina unmolested after this affair, we were kindly +received by the military and naval commanders,--Colonel Hawley, of the +Seventh Connecticut, (now Brigadier-General Hawley,) and +Lieutenant-Commander Hughes, U. S. N., of the gunboat Mohawk. It turned +out very opportunely that both of these officers had special errands to +suggest still farther up the St. Mary's, and precisely in the region +where I wished to go. Colonel Hawley showed me a letter from the War +Department, requesting him to ascertain the possibility of obtaining a +supply of brick for Fort Clinch from the brickyard which had furnished +the original materials, but which had not been visited since the +perilous river-trip of the Ottawa. Lieutenant Hughes wished to obtain +information for the Admiral respecting a Rebel steamer--the Berosa--said +to be lying somewhere up the river, and awaiting her chance to run the +blockade. I jumped at the opportunity. Berosa and brickyard,--both were +near Woodstock, the former home of Corporal Sutton; he was ready and +eager to pilot us up the river; the moon would be just right that +evening, setting at 3h. 19m. A. M.; and our boat was precisely the one +to undertake the expedition. Its double-headed shape was just what was +needed in that swift and crooked stream; the exposed pilot-houses had +been tolerably barricaded with the thick planks from St. Simon's; and we +further obtained some sand-bags from Fort Clinch, through the aid of +Captain Sears, the officer in charge, who had originally suggested the +expedition after brick. In return for this aid, the Planter was sent +back to the wharf at St. Mary's, to bring away a considerable supply of +the same precious article, which we had observed near the wharf. +Meanwhile the John Adams was coaling from naval supplies, through the +kindness of Lieutenant Hughes; and the Ben De Ford was taking in the +lumber which we had yesterday brought down. It was a great +disappointment to be unable to take the latter vessel up the river; but +I was unwillingly convinced, that, though the depth of water might be +sufficient, yet her length would be unmanageable in the swift current +and sharp turns. The Planter must also be sent on a separate cruise, as +her weak and disabled machinery made her useless for my purpose. Two +hundred men were therefore transferred, as before, to the narrow hold of +the John Adams, in addition to the company permanently stationed on +board to work the guns. At seven o'clock on the evening of January 29th, +beneath a lovely moon, we steamed up the river. + +Never shall I forget the mystery and excitement of that night. I know +nothing in life more fascinating than the nocturnal ascent of an unknown +river, leading far into an enemy's country, where one glides in the dim +moonlight between dark hills and meadows, each turn of the channel +making it seem like an inland lake, and cutting you off as by a barrier +from all behind,--with no sign of human life, but an occasional +picket-fire left glimmering beneath the bank, or the yelp of a dog from +some low-lying plantation. On such occasions, every nerve is strained to +its utmost tension; all dreams of romance appear to promise immediate +fulfilment; all lights on board the vessel are obscured, loud voices are +hushed; you fancy a thousand men on shore, and yet see nothing; the +lonely river, unaccustomed to furrowing keels, lapses by the vessel with +a treacherous sound; and all the senses are merged in a sort of anxious +trance. Three times I have had in full perfection this fascinating +experience; but that night was the first, and its zest was the keenest. +It will come back to me in dreams, if I live a thousand years. + +I feared no attack during our ascent,--that danger was for our return; +but I feared the intricate navigation of the river, though I did not +fully know, till the actual experience, how dangerous it was. We passed +without trouble far above the scene of our first fight,--the Battle of +the Hundred Pines, as my officers had baptized it; and ever, as we +ascended, the banks grew steeper, the current swifter, the channel more +tortuous and more incumbered with projecting branches and drifting wood. +No piloting less skilful than that of Corporal Sutton and his mate, +James Bezzard, could have carried us through, I thought; and no +side-wheel steamer less strong than a ferry-boat could have borne the +crash and force with which we struck the wooded banks of the river. But +the powerful paddles, built to break the Northern ice, could crush the +Southern pine as well; and we came safely out of entanglements that at +first seemed formidable. We had the tide with us, which makes steering +far more difficult; and, in the sharp angles of the river, there was +often no resource but to run the bow boldly on shore, let the stern +swing round, and then reverse the motion. As the reversing machinery was +generally out of order, the engineer stupid or frightened, and the +captain excited, this involved moments of tolerably concentrated +anxiety. Eight times we grounded in the upper waters, and once lay +aground for half an hour; but at last we dropped anchor before the +little town of Woodstock, after moonset and an hour before daybreak, +just as I had planned, and so quietly that scarcely a dog barked, and +not a soul in the town, as we afterwards found, knew of our arrival. + +As silently as possible, the great flatboat which we had brought from +St. Simon's was filled with men. Major Strong was sent on shore with two +companies,--those of Captain James and Captain Metcalf,--with +instructions to surround the town quietly, allow no one to leave it, +molest no one, and hold as temporary prisoners every man whom he found. +I watched them push off into the darkness, got the remaining force ready +to land, and then paced the deck for an hour in silent watchfulness, +waiting for rifle-shots. Not a sound came from the shore, save the +barking of dogs and the morning crow of cocks; the time seemed +interminable; but when daylight came, I landed, and found a pair of +scarlet trousers pacing on their beat before every house in the village, +and a small squad of prisoners, stunted and forlorn as Falstaff's ragged +regiment, already in hand. I observed with delight the good demeanor of +my men towards these forlorn Anglo-Saxons, and towards the more +tumultuous women. Even one soldier, who threatened to throw an old +termagant into the river, took care to append the courteous epithet +"Madam." + +I took a survey of the premises. The chief house, a pretty one with +picturesque outbuildings, was that of Mrs. A., who owned the mills and +lumber-wharves adjoining. The wealth of these wharves had not been +exaggerated. There was lumber enough to freight half a dozen steamers, +and I half regretted that I had agreed to take down a freight of bricks +instead. Further researches made me grateful that I had already +explained to my men the difference between public foraging and private +plunder. Along the river-bank I found building after building crowded +with costly furniture, all neatly packed, just as it was sent up from +St. Mary's when that town was abandoned. Pianos were a drug; china, +glass-ware, mahogany, pictures, all were here. And here were my men, who +knew that their own labor had earned for their masters these luxuries, +or such as these; their own wives and children were still sleeping on +the floor, perhaps, at Beaufort or Fernandina; and yet they submitted, +almost without a murmur, to the enforced abstinence. Bed and bedding for +our hospitals they might take from those store-rooms,--such as the +surgeon selected,--also an old flag which we found in a corner, and an +old field piece, (which the regiment still possesses,)--but after this +the doors were closed and left unmolested. It cost a struggle to some of +the men, whose wives were destitute, I know; but their pride was very +easily touched, and when this abstinence was once recognized as a rule, +they claimed it as an honor, in this and all succeeding expeditions. I +flatter myself, that, if they had once been set upon wholesale +plundering, they would have done it as thoroughly as their betters; but +I have always been infinitely grateful, both for the credit and for the +discipline of the regiment,--as well as for the men's subsequent +lives,--that the opposite method was adopted. + +When the morning was a little advanced, I called on Mrs. A., who +received me in quite a stately way at her own door with "To what am I +indebted for the honor of this visit, Sir?" The foreign name of the +family, and the tropical look of the buildings, made it seem (as, +indeed, did all the rest of the adventure) like a chapter out of "Amyas +Leigh"; but as I had happened to hear that the lady herself was a +Philadelphian and her deceased husband a New-Yorker, I could not feel +even that modicum of reverence due to sincere Southerners. However, I +wished to present my credentials; so, calling up my companion, I said +that I believed she had been previously acquainted with Corporal Robert +Sutton? I never saw a finer bit of unutterable indignation than came +over the face of my hostess, as she slowly recognized him. She drew +herself up, and dropped out the monosyllables of her answer as if they +were so many drops of nitric acid. "Ah," quoth my lady, "_we_ called him +Bob!" + +It was a group for a painter. The whole drama of the war seemed to +reverse itself in an instant, and my tall, well-dressed, imposing, +philosophic Corporal dropped down the immeasurable depth into a mere +plantation "Bob" again. So at least in my imagination; not to that +personage himself. Too essentially dignified in his nature to be moved +by words where substantial realities were in question, he simply turned +from the lady, touched his hat to me, and asked if I would wish to see +the slave-jail, as he had the keys in his possession. + +If he fancied that I was in danger of being overcome by blandishments +and needed to be recalled to realities, it was a master-stroke. + +I must say, that, when the door of that villainous edifice was thrown +open before me, I felt glad that my main interview with its lady +proprietor had passed before I saw it. It was a small building, like a +Northern corn-barn, and seemed to have as prominent and as legitimate a +place among the outbuildings of the establishment. In the middle of the +floor was a large staple with a rusty chain, like an ox-chain, for +fastening a victim down. When the door had been opened after the death +of the late proprietor, my informant said a man was found padlocked in +that chain. We found also three pairs of stocks of various construction, +two of which had smaller as well as larger holes, evidently for the feet +of women or children. In a building near by we found something far more +complicated, which was perfectly unintelligible till the men explained +all its parts: a machine so contrived that a person once imprisoned in +it could neither sit, stand, nor lie, but must support the body half +raised, in a position scarcely endurable. I have since bitterly +reproached myself for leaving this piece of ingenuity behind; but it +would have cost much labor to remove it, and to bring away the other +trophies seemed then enough. I remember the unutterable loathing with +which I leaned against the door of that prison-house; I had thought +myself seasoned to any conceivable horrors of Slavery, but it seemed as +if the visible presence of that den of sin would choke me. Of course it +would have been burned to the ground by us, but that this would have +involved the sacrifice of every other building and all the piles of +lumber, and for the moment it seemed as if the sacrifice would be +righteous. But I forbore, and only took as trophies the instruments of +torture and the keys of the jail. + +We found but few colored people in this vicinity; some we brought away +with us, and an old man and woman preferred to remain. All the white +males whom we found I took as hostages, in order to shield us, if +possible, from attack on our way down river, explaining to them that +they would be put on shore when the dangerous points were passed. I knew +that their wives could easily send notice of this fact to the Rebel +forces along the river. My hostages were a forlorn-looking set of +"crackers," far inferior to our soldiers in _physique_, and yet quite +equal, the latter declared, to the average material of the Southern +armies. None were in uniform, but this proved nothing as to their being +soldiers. One of them, a mere boy, was captured at his own door, with +gun in hand. It was a fowling-piece, which he used only, as his mother +plaintively assured me, "to shoot little birds with." As the guileless +youth had for this purpose loaded the gun with eighteen buck-shot, we +thought it justifiable to confiscate both the weapon and the owner, in +mercy to the birds. + +We took from this place, for the use of the army, a flock of some thirty +sheep, forty bushels of rice; some other provisions, tools, oars, and a +little lumber, leaving all possible space for the bricks which we +expected to obtain just below. I should have gone farther up the river, +but for a dangerous boom which kept back a great number of logs in a +large brook that here fell into the St. Mary's; the stream ran with +force, and if the Rebels had wit enough to do it, they might in ten +minutes so choke the river with drift-wood as infinitely to enhance our +troubles. So we dropped down stream a mile or two, found the very +brickyard from which Fort Clinch had been constructed,--still stored +with bricks, and seemingly unprotected. Here Sergeant Rivers again +planted his standard, and the men toiled eagerly, for several hours, in +loading our boat to the utmost with the bricks. Meanwhile we questioned +black and white witnesses, and learned for the first time that the +Rebels admitted a repulse at Township Landing, and that Lieutenant Jones +and ten of their number were killed,--though this I fancy to have been +an exaggeration. They also declared that the mysterious steamer Berosa +was lying at the head of the river, but was a broken-down and worthless +affair, and would never get to sea. The result has since proved this; +for the vessel subsequently ran the blockade and foundered near shore, +the crew barely escaping with their lives. I had the pleasure, as it +happened, of being the first person to forward this information to +Admiral Dupont, when it came through the pickets, many months +after,--thus concluding my report on the Berosa. + +Before the work at the yard was over, the pickets reported mounted men +in the woods near by, as had previously been the report at Woodstock. +This admonished us to lose no time; and as we left the wharf, immediate +arrangements were made to have the gun-crews all in readiness, and to +keep the rest of the men below, since their musketry would be of little +use now, and I did not propose to risk a life unnecessarily. The chief +obstacle to this was their own eagerness; penned down on one side, they +popped up on the other; their officers, too, were eager to see what was +going on, and were almost as hard to cork down as the men. Add to this, +that the vessel was now very crowded, and that I had to be chiefly on +the hurricane-deck with the pilots. Captain Clifton, master of the +vessel, was brave to excess, and as much excited as the men; he could no +more be kept in the little pilot-house than they below; and when we had +passed one or two bluffs, with no sign of an enemy, he grew more and +more irrepressible, and exposed himself conspicuously on the upper deck. +Perhaps we all were a little lulled by apparent safety; for myself, I +lay down for a moment on a settee in a state-room, having been on my +feet, almost without cessation, for twenty-four hours. + +Suddenly there swept down from a bluff above us, on the Georgia side, a +mingling of shout and roar and rattle as of a tornado let loose; and as +a storm of bullets came pelting against the sides of the vessel and +through a window, there went up a shrill answering shout from our own +men. It took but an instant for me to reach the gun-deck. After all my +efforts, the men had swarmed once more from below, and already, crowding +at both ends of the boat, were loading and firing with inconceivable +rapidity, shouting to each other, "Neber gib it up!" and of course +having no steady aim, as the vessel glided and whirled in the swift +current. Meanwhile the officers in charge of the large guns had their +crews in order, and our shells began to fly over the bluffs, which, as +we now saw, should have been shelled in advance, only that we had to +economize ammunition. The other soldiers I drove below, almost by main +force, with the aid of their officers, who behaved exceedingly well, +giving the men leave to fire from the open port-holes which lined the +lower deck, almost at the water's level. In the very midst of the +_mêlée_, Major Strong came from the upper deck, with a face of horror, +and whispered to me,--"Captain Clifton was killed at the first shot by +my side." + +If he had said that the vessel was on fire, the shock would hardly have +been greater. Of course, the military commander on board a steamer is +almost as helpless as an unarmed man, so far as the risks of water go. A +seaman must command there. In the hazardous voyage of last night, I had +learned, though unjustly, to distrust every official on board the +steamboat except this excitable, brave, warm-hearted sailor; and now, +among these added dangers, to lose him! The responsibility for his life +also thrilled me; he was not among my soldiers, and yet he was killed. I +thought of his wife and children, of whom he had spoken; but one learns +to think rapidly in war, and, cautioning the Major to silence, I went up +to the hurricane-deck and drew in the helpless body, that it should be +safe from further desecration, and then looked to see where we were. + +We were now gliding past a safe reach of marsh, while our assailants +were riding by cross-paths to attack us at the next bluff. It was Reed's +Bluff where we were first attacked, and Scrubby Bluff, I think, was +next. They were shelled in advance, but swarmed manfully to the banks +again as we swept round one of the sharp angles of the stream beneath +their fire. My men were now pretty well imprisoned below in the hot and +crowded hold, and actually fought each other, the officers afterwards +said, for places at the open port-holes, from which to aim. Others +implored to be landed, exclaiming that they "supposed de Cunnel knew +best," but it was "mighty mean" to be shut up down below, when they +might be "fightin' de Secesh _in de clar field_." This clear field, and +no favor, was what they thenceforward sighed for. But in such difficult +navigation it would have been madness to think of landing, although one +daring Rebel actually sprang upon the large boat which we towed astern, +where he was shot down by one of our sergeants. This boat was soon after +swamped and abandoned, then taken and repaired by the Rebels at a later +date, and finally, by a piece of dramatic completeness, was seized by a +party of fugitive slaves, who escaped in it to our lines, and some of +whom enlisted in my own regiment. + +It has always been rather a mystery to me why the Rebels did not fell a +few trees across the stream at some of the many sharp angles where we +might so easily have been thus imprisoned. This, however, they +did not attempt, and with the skilful pilotage of our trusty +Corporal--philosophic as Socrates through all the din, and occasionally +relieving his mind by taking a shot with his rifle through the high +port-holes of the pilot-house--we glided safely on. The steamer did not +ground once on the descent, and the mate in command, Mr. Smith, did his +duty very well. The plank sheathing of the pilot-house was penetrated by +few bullets, though struck by so many outside that it was visited as a +curiosity after our return; and even among the gun-crews, though they +had no protection, not a man was hurt. As we approached some wooded +bluff, usually on the Georgia side, we could see galloping along the +hillside what seemed a regiment of mounted riflemen, and could see our +shell scatter them ere we approached. Shelling did not, however, prevent +a rather fierce fusilade from our old friends of Captain Clark's company +at Waterman's Bluff, near Township Landing; but even this did no serious +damage, and this was the last. + +It was of course impossible, while thus running the gauntlet, to put our +hostages ashore, and I could only explain to them that they must thank +their own friends for their inevitable detention. I was by no means +proud of their forlorn appearance, and besought Colonel Hawley to take +them off my hands; but he was sending no flags of truce at that time, +and liked their looks no better than I did. So I took them to Port +Royal, where they were afterwards sent safely across the lines. Our men +were pleased at taking them back with us, as they had already said, +regretfully, "S'pose we leave dem Secesh at Fernandina, General Saxby +won't see 'em,"--as if they were some new natural curiosity, which +indeed they were. One soldier further suggested the expediency of +keeping them permanently in camp, to be used as marks for the guns of +the relieved guard every morning. But this was rather an ebullition of +fancy than a sober proposition. + +Against these levities I must put a piece of more tragic eloquence, +which I took down by night on the steamer's deck from the thrilling +harangue of Corporal Adam Ashton, one of our most gifted prophets, whose +influence over the men was unbounded. "When I heard," he said "de +bombshell a-screamin' troo de woods like de Judgment Day, I said to +myself, 'If my head was took off to-night, dey couldn't put my soul in +de torments, perceps [except] God was my enemy!' And when de +rifle-bullets came whizzin' across de deck, I cried aloud, 'God help my +congregation! Boys, load and fire!'" + +I must pass briefly over the few remaining days of our cruise. At +Fernandina we met the Planter, which had been successful on her separate +expedition, and had destroyed extensive salt-works at Crooked River, +under charge of the energetic Captain Trowbridge, efficiently aided by +Captain Rogers. Our commodities being in part delivered at Fernandina, +our decks being full, coal nearly out, and time up, we called once more +at St. Simon's Sound, bringing away the remainder of our railroad-iron, +with some which the naval officers had previously disinterred, and then +steamed back to Beaufort. Arriving there at sunrise, (February 2, 1863,) +I made my way with Dr. Rogers to General Saxton's bed-room, and laid +before him the keys and shackles of the slave-prison, with my report of +the good conduct of the men,--as Dr. Rogers remarked, a message from +heaven and another from hell. + +Slight as this expedition now seems among the vast events of the war, +the future student of the newspapers of that day will find that it +occupied no little space in their columns, so intense was the interest +which then attached to the novel experiment of employing black troops. +So obvious, too, was the value, during this raid, of their local +knowledge and their enthusiasm, that it was impossible not to find in +its successes new suggestions for the war. Certainly I would not have +consented to repeat the enterprise with the bravest white troops, +leaving Corporal Sutton and his mates behind, for I should have expected +to fail. For a year after our raid the Upper St. Mary's remained +unvisited, till in 1864 the large force with which we held Florida +secured peace upon its banks; then Mrs. A. took the oath of allegiance, +the Government bought her remaining lumber, and the John Adams again +ascended with a detachment of my men under Lieutenant Parker, and +brought a portion of it to Fernandina. By a strange turn of fortune, +Corporal Sutton (now Sergeant) was at this time in jail at Hilton Head, +under sentence of court-martial for an alleged act of mutiny,--an affair +in which the general voice of our officers sustained him and condemned +his accusers, so that he soon received a full pardon, and was restored +in honor to his place in the regiment, which he has ever since held. + +Nothing can ever exaggerate the fascinations of war, whether on the +largest or smallest scale. When we settled down into camp-life again, it +seemed like a butterfly's folding its wings to re-enter the chrysalis. +None of us could listen to the crack of a gun without recalling +instantly the sharp shots that spilled down from the bluffs of the St. +Mary's, or hear a sudden trampling of horsemen by night without +recalling the sounds which startled us on the Field of the Hundred +Pines. The memory of our raid was preserved in the camp by many legends +of adventure, growing vaster and more incredible as time wore on,--and +by the morning appeals to the surgeon of some veteran invalids, who +could now cut off all reproofs and suspicions with "Doctor, I's been a +sickly pusson eber since de _expeditions_." But to me the most vivid +remembrancer was the flock of sheep which we had "lifted." The Post +Quartermaster discreetly gave us the charge of them, and they filled a +gap in the landscape and in the larder,--which last had before presented +one unvaried round of impenetrable beef. Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck, when he +decided to adopt a pastoral life, and assumed the provisional name of +Thyrsis, never looked upon his flocks and herds with more unalloyed +contentment than I upon that fleecy family. I had been familiar, in +Kansas, with the metaphor by which the sentiments of an owner were +credited to his property, and had heard of a pro-slavery colt and an +anti-slavery cow. The fact that these sheep were but recently converted +from "Secesh" sentiments was their crowning charm. Methought they +frisked and fattened in the joy of their deliverance from the shadow of +Mrs. A.'s slave-jail, and gladly contemplated translation into +mutton-broth for sick or wounded soldiers. The very slaves who once, +perchance, were sold at auction with yon aged patriarch of the flock, +had now asserted their humanity and would devour him as hospital +rations. Meanwhile our shepherd bore a sharp bayonet without a crook, +and I felt myself a peer of Ulysses and Rob Roy,--those sheep-stealers +of less elevated aims,--when I met in my daily rides these wandering +trophies of our wider wanderings. + + + + +ROBIN BADFELLOW. + + + Four bluish eggs all in the moss! + Soft-lined home on the cherry-bough! + Life is trouble, and love is loss,-- + There's only one robin now! + + You robin up in the cherry-tree, + Singing your soul away, + Great is the grief befallen me, + And how can you be so gay? + + Long ago when you cried in the nest, + The last of the sickly brood, + Scarcely a pin-feather warming your breast, + Who was it brought you food? + + Who said, "Music, come fill his throat, + Or ever the May be fled"? + Who was it loved the wee sweet note + And the bosom's sea-shell red? + + Who said, "Cherries, grow ripe and big, + Black and ripe for this bird of mine"? + How little bright-bosom bends the twig, + Drinking the black-heart's wine! + + Now that my days and nights are woe, + Now that I weep for love's dear sake, + There you go singing away as though + Never a heart could break! + + + + +ICE AND ESQUIMAUX. + +CHAPTER IV. + +AUTOCHTHONES + + +_July 30._--At Hopedale, lat. 55° 30', we come upon an object of +first-class interest, worthy of the gravest study,--an original and +pre-Adamite man. In two words I give the reader a key to my final +conclusions, or impressions, concerning the Esquimaux race. + +Original: Shakspeare is a copyist, and England a plagiarism, in +comparison with this race. The Esquimaux has done all for himself: he +has developed his own arts, adjusted himself by his own wit to the +Nature which surrounds him. Heir to no Rome, Greece, Persia, India, he +stands there in the sole strength of his native resources, rich only in +the traditionary accomplishments of his own race. Cut off equally from +the chief bounties of Nature, he has small share in the natural wealth +of mankind. When Ceres came to the earth, and blessed it, she forgot +him. The grains, the domestic animals, which from the high plateaus of +Asia descended with the fathers of history to the great fields of the +world, to him came not. The sole domestic animal he uses, the dog, is +not the same with that creature as known elsewhere; he has domesticated +a wolf, and made a dog for himself. + +Not only is he original, but one of the most special of men, related +more strictly than almost any other to a particular aspect of Nature. +Inseparable from the extreme North, the sea-shore, and the seal, he is +himself, as it were, a seal come to feet and hands, and preying upon his +more primitive kindred. The cetacean of the land, he is localized, like +animals,--not universal, like civilized man. He is no inhabitant of the +globe as a whole, but is contained within special poles. His needle does +not point north and south; it is commanded by special attractions, and +points only from shore to sea and from sea to shore in the arctic zone. +Nor is this relation to particular phases of Nature superficial merely, +a relation of expedient and convenience; it penetrates, saturates, nay, +anticipates and moulds him. Whether he has come to this correspondence +by original creation or by slow adjustment, he certainly does now +correspond in his whole physical and mental structure to the limited and +special surroundings of his life,--the seal itself or the eider-duck not +more. + +He is pre-Adamite, I said,--and name him thus not as a piece of +rhetorical smartness, but in gravest characterization. + +The first of human epochs is that when the thoughts, imaginations, +beliefs of men become to them _objects_, on which further thought and +action are to be adjusted, on which further thought and action may be +based. So long as man is merely responding to outward and physical +circumstances, so long he is living by bread alone, and has no history. +It is when he begins to respond _to himself_--to create necessities and +supplies out of his own spirit,--to build architectures on foundations +and out of materials that exist only in virtue of his own spiritual +activity,--to live by bread which grows, not out of the soil, but out of +the soul,--it is then, then only, that history begins. This one may be +permitted to name the Adamite epoch. + +The Esquimaux belongs to that period, more primitive, when man is simply +responding to outward Nature, to physical necessities. He invents, but +does not create; he adjusts himself to circumstances, but not to ideas; +he works cunningly upon materials which he has _found_, but never on +material which owes its existence to the productive force of his own +spirit. + +In going to look upon the man of this race, you sail, not merely over +seas, but over ages, epochs, unknown periods of time,--sail beyond +antiquity itself, and issue into the obscure existence that antedates +history. Arrived there, you may turn your eye to the historical past of +man as to a barely possible future. Palestine and Greece, Moses and +Homer, as yet are not. Who shall dare to say that they can be? Surely +that were but a wild dream! Expel the impossible fancy from your mind! +Go, spear a seal, and be a reasonable being!--Never enthusiast had a +dream of the future so unspeakably Utopian as actual history becomes, +when seen from the Esquimaux, or pre-Adamite, point of view. + +Swiss lakes are raked, Belgian caves spaded and hammered, to find relics +of old, pre-historical races. Go to Labrador, and you find the object +sought above ground. There he is, preserving all the characters of his +extinct congeners,--small in stature, low and smooth in cranium, held +utterly in the meshes of Nature, skilled only to meet ingeniously the +necessities she imposes, and meeting them rudely, as man ever does till +the ideal element comes in: for any fine feeling of even physical wants, +any delicacy of taste, any high notion of comfort, is due less to the +animal than to the spiritual being of man. + +A little sophisticated he is now, getting to feel himself obsolete in +this strange new world. He begins to borrow, and yet is unable radically +to change; outwardly he gains a very little from civilization, and grows +inwardly poorer and weaker by all that he gains. His day wanes apace; +soon it will be past. He begins to nurse at the breasts of the civilized +world; and the foreign aliment can neither sustain his ancient strength +nor give him new. Civilization forces upon him a rivalry to which he is +unequal; it wrests the seal from his grasp, thins it out of his waters; +and he and his correlative die away together. + + * * * * * + +We reached Hopedale, as intimated above, on the morning of the 30th of +July, at least a month later than had been hoped. The reader will see by +the map that this place is about half way from the Strait of Belle Isle +to Hudson's Strait. We were to go no farther north. This was a great +disappointment; for the expectation of all, and the keen desire of most, +had been to reach at least Cape Chudleigh, at the opening of Hudson's +Strait. Ice and storm had hindered us: they were not the only +hindrances. + +"The Fates are against us," said one. + +"It is true," answered the Elder,--"the Fates are against us: I know of +nothing more fatal than imbecility." + +However, we should be satisfied; for here we have fairly penetrated the +great solitudes of the North. Lower Labrador is visited by near forty +thousand fishermen annually, and vessels there are often more frequent +than in Boston Bay. But at a point not far from the fifty-fifth parallel +of latitude you leave all these behind, and leave equally the white +residents of the coast: to fishermen and residents alike the region +beyond is as little known as the interior of Australia. There their +world comes to an end; there the unknown begins. Knowledge and curiosity +alike pause there; toward all beyond their only feeling is one of vague +dislike and dread. And so I doubt not it was with the ordinary +inhabitant of Western Europe before the discovery of America. The +Unknown, breaking in surf on his very shores, did not invite him, but +dimly repelled. Thought about it, attraction toward it, would seem to +him far-fetched, gratuitous, affected, indicating at best a +feather-headed flightiness of mind. The sailors of Columbus probably +regarded him much as Sancho Panza does Don Quixote, with an obscure, +overpowering awe, and yet with a very definite contempt. + +On our return we passed two Yankee fishermen in the Strait of Belle +Isle. The nearer hailed. + +"How far _down_ [up] have you been?" + +"To Hopedale." + +"WHERE?"--in the tone of one who hears distinctly enough, but cannot +believe that he hears. + +"Hopedale." + +"H-o-p-e-d-a-l-e! Where the Devil's that?" + +"A hundred and fifty miles beyond Cape Harrison." (Cape Weback on the +map.) + +Inarticulate gust of astonishment in response. + +"Where did he say?" inquires some one in the farther schooner. + +"----! He's been to the North Pole!" + +To him it was all North Pole beyond Cape Harrison, and he evidently +looked upon us much as he might upon the apparition of the Flying +Dutchman, or some other spectre-ship. + +The supply-ship which yearly visits the Moravian stations on this coast +anchored in the harbor of Hopedale ten minutes before us: we had been +rapidly gaining upon her in our Flying Yankee for the last twenty miles. +Signal-guns had answered each other from ship and shore; the +missionaries were soon on board, and men and women were falling into +each other's arms with joyful, mournful kisses and tears. The ship +returned some missionaries after long absence; it brought also a +betrothed lady, next day to be married: there was occasion for joy, even +beyond wont on these occasions, when, year by year, the +missionary-exiles feel with bounding blood the touch of civilization +and fatherland. But now those who came on board brought sad +tidings,--for one of their ancient colaborers, closely akin to the new +comers, had within a day or two died. Love and death the world over; and +also the hope of love without death. + +Our eyes have been drawn to them; it is time to have a peep at Hopedale. + +I had been so long looking forward to this place, had heard and thought +of it so much as an old mission-station, where was a village of +Christian Esquimaux, that I fully expected to see a genuine village, +with houses, wharves, streets. It would not equal our towns, of course. +The people were not cleanly; the houses would be unpainted, and poor in +comparison with ours. I had taken assiduous pains to tone down my +expectations, and felt sure that I had moderated them liberally,--nay, +had been philosophical enough to make disappointment impossible, and +open the opposite possibility of a pleasant surprise. I conceived that +in this respect I had done the discreet and virtuous thing, and silently +moralized, not without self-complacency, upon the folly of carrying +through the world expectations which the fact, when seen, could only put +out of countenance. "Make your expectations zero," I said with Sartor. + +I need not put them _below_ zero. That would be too cold an anticipation +to carry even to this latitude. Zero: a poor, shabby village these +Christian Esquimaux will have built, even after nigh a century of +Moravian tuition. Still it will be a real village, not a distracted +jumble of huts, such as we had seen below. + +The prospect had been curiously pleasing. True, I desired much to see +the unadulterated Esquimaux. But that would come, I had supposed, in the +further prosecution of our voyage. Here I could see what they would +become under loving instruction,--could gauge their capabilities, and +thus answer one of the prime questions I had brought. + +A real Hopedale, after all this wild, sterile, hopeless coast! A touch +of civilization, to contrast with the impression of that Labradorian +rag-tag existence which we had hitherto seen, and which one could not +call human without coughing! I like deserts and wilds,--but, if you +please, by way of condiment or sauce to civilization, not for a full +meal. I have not the heroic Thoreau-digestion, and grow thin after a +time on a diet of moss and granite, even when they are served with ice. +Lift the curtain, therefore, and let us look forthwith on your Hopedale. + +"Hopedale? Why, here it is,--look!" + +Well, I have been doing nothing less for the last half-hour. If looking +could make a village, I should begin to see one. There, to be sure, is +the mission-house, conspicuous enough, quaint and by no means +unpleasing. It is a spacious, substantial, two-story edifice, painted in +two shades of a peculiar red, and looking for all the world as if a +principal house, taken from one of those little German toy-villages +which are in vogue about Christmas, had been enormously magnified, and +shipped to Labrador. There, too, and in similar colors, is the long +chapel, on the centre of whose roof there is a belfry, which looks like +two thirds of immense red egg, drawn up at the top into a spindle, and +this surmounted by a weathercock,--as if some giant had attempted to +blow the egg from beneath, and had only blown out of it this small bird +with a stick to stand on! Ah, yes! and there is the pig-sty,--not in +keeping with the rest, by any means! It must be that they keep a pig +only now and then, and for a short time, and house it any way for that +little while. But no, it is not a piggery; it is not a building at all; +it is some chance heap of rubbish, which will be removed to-morrow. + +The mission-station, then, is here; but the village must be elsewhere. +Probably it is on the other side of this point of land on which the +house and chapel are situated; we can see that the water sweeps around +there. That is the case, no doubt; Hopedale is over there. After dinner +we will row around, and have a look at it. + +After dinner, however, we decide to go first and pay our respects to the +missionaries. They are entitled to the precedence. We long, moreover, to +take the loving, self-sacrificing men by the hand; while, aside from +their special claims to honor, it will be _so_ pleasant to meet +cultivated human beings once more! They are Germans, but their +head-quarters are at London; they will speak English; and if their +vocabulary prove scanty, we will try to eke it out with bits of German. + +We row ashore in our own skiff, land, and--Bless us! what is this now? +To the right of the large, neat, comfortable mission-house is a +wretched, squalid spatter and hotch-potch of--what in the world to call +them? Huts? Hovels? One has a respect for his mother-tongue,--above all, +if he have assumed obligations toward it by professing the function of a +writer; and any term by which human dwellings are designated must be +taken _cum grano salis_, if applied to these structures. "It cannot be +that this is Christian Hopedale!" Softly, my good Sir; it can be, for it +is! + +Reader, do you ever say, "Whew-w-w"? There were three minutes, on the +30th of July last, during which that piece of interjectional eloquence +seemed to your humble servant to embody the whole dictionary! + +To get breath, let us turn again to the mission-mansion, which now, +under the effect of sudden contrast, seems too magnificent to be real, +as if it had been built by enchantment rather than by the labor of man. +This is situated half a dozen rods from the shore, at a slight elevation +above it, and looks pleasantly up the bay to the southwest. The site has +been happily chosen. Here, for a wonder, is an acre or two of land which +one may call level,--broader toward the shore, and tapering to a point +as it runs back. To the right, as we face it, the ground rises not very +brokenly, giving a small space for the hunch of huts, then falls quickly +to the sea; while beyond, and toward the ocean, islands twenty miles +deep close in and shelter all. To the left go up again the perpetual +hills, hills. Everywhere around the bay save here, on island and main, +the immitigable gneiss hills rise bold and sudden from the water, now +dimly impurpled with lichen, now in nakedness of rock surface, yet +beautified in their bare severity by alternating and finely waving +stripes of lightest and darkest gray,--as if to show sympathy with the +billowy heaving of the sea. + +Forward to the mansion. In front a high, strong, neat picket-fence +incloses a pretty flower-yard, in which some exotics, tastefully +arranged, seem to be flourishing well. We knock; with no manner of +haste, and with no seeming of cordial willingness, we are admitted, are +shown into a neat room of good size, and entertained by a couple of the +brethren. + +One of these only, and he alone among the missionaries, it appeared, +spoke English. This was an elderly, somewhat cold and forbidding +personage, of Secession sympathies. He had just returned from Europe +after two years' absence, was fresh from London, and put on the true +Exeter-Hall whine in calling ours "a n-dreadful n-war." He did not press +the matter, however, nor in any manner violate the _rôle_ of cold +courtesy which he had assumed; and it was chiefly by the sudden check +and falling of the countenance, when he found us thorough Unionist, that +his sympathies were betrayed. Wine and rusks were brought in, both +delicious,--the latter seeming like ambrosia, after the dough +cannon-balls with which our "head cook at the Tremont House" had regaled +us. After a stay of civil brevity we took our leave, and so closed an +interview in which we had been treated with irreproachable politeness, +but in which the heart was forbidden to have any share. + +First the missionaries; now the natives. The squat and squalid huts, +stuck down upon the earth without any pretence of raised foundation, and +jumbled together, corner to side, back to front, any way, as if some +wind had blown them there, did not improve on acquaintance. The walls, +five feet high, were built of poles some five inches in diameter; the +low roof, made of similar poles, was heavily heaped with earth. What +with this deep earth-covering, and with their grovelling toward the +earth in such a flat and neighborly fashion, they had a dreadfully +under-foot look, and seemed rather dens than houses. Many were ragged +and rotten, all inconceivably cheerless. No outhouses, no inclosures, no +vegetation, no relief of any kind. About and between them the swardless +ground is all trodden into mud. Prick-eared Esquimaux dogs huddle, +sneak, bark, and snarl around, with a free fight now and then, in which +they all fall upon the one that is getting the worst of it. Before the +principal group of huts, in the open space between them and the mansion, +a dead dog lies rotting; children lounge listlessly, and babies toddle +through the slutch about it. Here and there a full-grown Esquimaux, in +greasy and uncouth garb, loiters, doing nothing, _looking_ nothing. + +I, for one, was completely overcrowed by the impression of a bare and +aimless existence, and could not even wonder. Christian Hopedale! "Leave +all hope, ye that enter here!" + +At 5 P. M. the chapel-bell rings, and at once the huts swarm. We follow +the crowd. They enter the chapel by a door at the end nearest their +dens, and seat themselves, the women at the farther, the men at the +hither extreme, all facing a raised desk at the middle of one side. +Behind them, opposite this pulpit, is an organ. Presently, from a door +at the farther end, the missionaries file in, some twelve in number; one +enters the pulpit, the others take seats on either side of him, facing +the audience, and at a dignified remove. The conductor of the service +now rises, makes an address in Esquimaux a minute and a half long, then +gives out a hymn,--the hymns numbered in German, as numbers, to any +extent, are wanting to the Esquimaux language. All the congregation join +in a solid old German tune, keeping good time, and making, on the whole, +better congregational music than I ever heard elsewhere,--unless a +Baptist conventicle in London, Bloomsbury Chapel, furnish the exception. +After this another, then another; at length, when half a dozen or more +have been sung, missionaries and congregation rise, the latter stand in +mute and motionless respect, the missionaries file out with dignity at +their door; and when the last has disappeared, the others begin quietly +to disperse. + +This form of worship is practised at the hour named above on each +weekday, and the natives attend with noticeable promptitude. There are +no prayers, and the preliminary address in this case was exceptional. + +_Sunday, July 31._--I had inquired at what hour the worship would begin +this day, and, with some hesitancy, had been answered, "At half past +nine." But the Colonel also had asked, and his interlocutor, after +consulting a card, said, "At ten o'clock." At ten we went ashore. +Finding the chapel-door still locked, I seated myself on a rock in front +of the mission-house, to wait. The sun was warm (the first warm day for +a month); the mosquitoes swarmed in myriads; I sat there long, wearily +beating them off. Faces peeped out at me from the windows, then +withdrew. Presently Bradford joined me, and began also to fight +mosquitoes. More faces at the windows; but when I looked towards them, +thinking to discover some token of hospitable invitation, they quickly +disappeared. After half an hour, the master of the supply-ship came up, +and entered into conversation; in a minute one of the brethren appeared +at the door, and invited him to enter, but without noticing Bradford and +myself. I took my skiff and rowed to the schooner. Fifteen minutes later +the chapel-bell rang. + +I confess to some spleen that day against the missionaries. When I +expressed it, Captain French, the pilot, an old, prudent, pious man, +"broke out." + +"Them are traders," said he. "I don't call 'em missionaries; I call 'em +traders. They live in luxury; the natives work for 'em, and get for pay +just what they choose to give 'em. They fleece the Esquimaux; they take +off of 'em all but the skin. They are just traders!" + +My spleen did not last. There was some cause of coldness,--I know not +what. The missionaries afterwards became cordial, visited the schooner, +and exchanged presents with us. I believe them good men. If their +relation to the natives assume in some degree a pecuniary aspect, it is +due to the necessity of supporting the mission by the profits of +traffic. If they preserve a stately distance toward the Esquimaux, it is +to retain influence over them. If they allow the native mind to confound +somewhat the worship of God with the worship of its teachers, it is that +the native mind cannot get beyond personal relations, and must worship +something tangible. That they are not at all entangled in the routine +and material necessities of their position I do not assert; that they do +not carry in it something of noble and self-forgetful duty nothing I +have seen will persuade me. + +_August 1._--We go to push our explorations among the Esquimaux, and +invite the reader to make one of the party. Enter a hut. The door is +five feet high,--that is, the height of the wall. Stoop a little,--ah, +there goes a hat to the ground, and a hand to a hurt pate! One must move +carefully in these regions, which one hardly knows whether to call sub- +or supra-terranean. + +This door opens into a sort of porch occupying one end of the den; the +floor, earth. Three or four large, dirty dogs lie dozing here, and start +up with an aspect of indescribable, half-crouching, mean malignity, as +we enter; but a sharp word, with perhaps some menace of stick or cane, +sends the cowardly brutes sneaking away. In a corner is a circle of +stones, on which cooking is done; and another day we may find the family +here picking their food out of a pot, and serving themselves to it, with +the fingers. Save this primitive fireplace, and perhaps a kettle for the +dogs to lick clean, this porch is bare. + +From this we crouch into the living-room through a door two and a half +or three feet high, and find ourselves in an apartment twelve feet +square, and lighted by a small, square skin window in the roof. The only +noticeable furniture consists of two board beds, with skins for +bed-clothes. The women sit on these beds, sewing upon seal-skin boots. +They receive us with their characteristic fat and phlegmatic +good-nature, a pleasant smile on their chubby cheeks and in their dark, +dull eyes,--making room for us on the bedside. Presently others come in, +mildly curious to see the strangers,--all with the same aspect of +unthinking, good-tempered, insensitive, animal content. The head is low +and smooth; the cheekbones high, but less so than those of American +Indians; the jowl so broad and heavy as sometimes to give the _ensemble_ +of head and face the outline of a cone truncated and rounded off above. +In the females, however, the cheek is so extremely plump as perfectly to +pad these broad jaws, giving, instead of the prize-fighter physiognomy, +an aspect of smooth, gentle heaviness. Even without this fleshy cheek, +which is not noticeable, and is sometimes noticeably wanting, in the +men, there is the same look of heavy, well-tempered lameness. The girls +have a rich blood color in their swarthy cheeks, and some of them are +really pretty, though always in a lumpish, domestic-animal style. The +hands and feet are singularly small; the fingers short, but nicely +tapered. Take hold of the hand, and you are struck with its _cetacean_ +feel. It is not flabby, but has a peculiar blubber-like, elastic +compressibility, and seems not quite of human warmth. + +See them in their houses, and you see the horizon of their life. In +these fat faces, with their thoughtless content, in this pent-up, +greasy, wooden den, the whole is told. The air is close and fetid with +animal exhalations. The entrails and part of the flesh of a seal, which +lie on the floor in a corner,--to furnish a dinner,--do not make the +atmosphere nor the aspect more agreeable. Yet you see that to them this +is comfort, this is completeness of existence. If they are hungry, they +seek food. Food obtained, they return to eat and be comfortable until +they are again hungry. Their life has, on this earth at least, no +farther outlook. It sallies, it returns, but here is the fruition; for +is not the seal-flesh dinner there, nicely and neatly bestowed on the +floor? Are they not warm? (The den is swelteringly hot.) Are they not +fed? What would one have more? + +Yes, somewhat more, namely, tobacco,--and also second-hand clothes, with +which to be fine in church. For these they will barter seal-skins, +dog-skins, seal-skin boots, a casual bear-skin, bird-spears, +walrus-spears, anything they have to vend,--concealing their traffic a +little from the missionaries. Colored glass beads were also in request +among the women. Ph---- had brought some large, well-made pocket-knives, +which, being useful, he supposed would be desired. Not at all; they were +fumbled indifferently, then invariably declined. But a plug of +tobacco,--ah, that now _is_ something! + +The men wear tight seal-skin trousers and boots, with an upper garment +of the same material, made like a Guernsey frock. In winter a hood is +added, but in summer they all go bareheaded,--the stiff, black hair +chopped squarely off across the low forehead, but longer behind. The +costume of the females is more peculiar,--seal-skin boots, seal-skin +trousers, which just spring over the hips, and are there met by a +body-garment of seal-skin more lightly colored. Over this goes an +astonishing article of apparel somewhat resembling the dress-coat in +which unhappy civilization sometimes compels itself to masquerade, +but--truth stranger than fiction!--_considerably_ more ugly. A long tail +hangs down to the very heels; a much shorter peak comes down in front; +at the sides it is scooped out below, showing a small portion of the +light-colored body-garment, which irresistibly suggests a very dirty +article of lady-linen whereon the eyes of civilized decorum forbear to +look, while an adventurous imagination associates it only with snowy +whiteness. The whole is surmounted by an enormous peaked hood, in which +now and then one sees a baby carried. + +This elegant garment was evidently copied from the skin of an +animal,--so Ph---- acutely suggested. The high peak of the hood +represents the ears; the arms stand for the fore legs; the downward peak +in front for the hind legs sewed together; the rear dangler represents +the tail. I make no doubt that our dress-coat has the same origin, +though the primal conception has been more modified. It is a bear-skin +_plus_ Paris. + +Is the reader sure of his ribs and waistcoat-buttons? If so, he may +venture to look upon an Esquimaux woman walking,--which I take to be the +most ludicrous spectacle in the world. Conceive of this short, squat, +chunky, lumpish figure in the costume described,--grease _ad libitum_ +being added. The form is so plump and heavy as very much to project the +rear dangler at the point where it leaves the body, while below it falls +in, and goes with a continual muddy slap, slap, against the heels. The +effect of this, especially in the profile view, is wickedly laughable, +but the gait makes it more so. The walk is singularly slow, unelastic, +loggy, and is characterized at each step by an indescribable, sudden sag +or _slump_ at the hip. As she thus slowly and heavily _churns_ herself +along, the nether slap emphasizes each step, as it were, with an +exclamation-point; while, as the foot advances, the shoulder and the +whole body on the same side turn and sag forward, the opposite shoulder +and side dragging back,--as if there were a perpetual debate between the +two sides whether to proceed or not. It was so laughable that it made +one sad; for this, too, was a human being. The gait of the men, on the +contrary, is free and not ungraceful. + +_August 3._--An Esquimaux wedding! In the chapel,--Moravian +ceremony,--so far not noticeable. Costume same as above, only of white +cloth heavily embroidered with red. Demeanor perfect. Bride obliged to +sit down midway in the ceremony, overpowered with emotion. She did so +with a simple, quiet dignity, that would not have misbecome a duchess. + +When the ceremony was ended, the married pair retired into the +mission-house, and half an hour later I saw them going home. This was +the curious part of the affair. The husband walked before, taking care +not to look behind, doing the indifferent and unconscious with great +assiduity, and evidently making it a matter of serious etiquette not to +know that any one followed. Four rods behind comes the wife, doing the +unconscious with equal industry. She is not following this man here in +front,--bless us, no, indeed!--but is simply walking out, or going to +see a neighbor, this nice afternoon, and does not observe that any one +precedes her. Following that man? Pray, where were you reared, that you +are capable of so discourteous a supposition? It gave me a malicious +pleasure to see that the pre-Adamite man, as well as the rest of us, +imposes upon himself at times these difficult duties, _toting_ about +that foolish face, so laboriously vacant of precisely that with which it +is brimming full. + +To adjust himself to outward Nature,--that, we said, is the sole task of +the primitive man. The grand success of the Esquimaux in this direction +is the _kayak_. This is his victory and his school. It is a seal-skin +Oxford or Cambridge, wherein he takes his degree as master of the +primeval arts. Here he acquires not only physical strength and +quickness, but self-possession also, mental agility, the instant use of +his wits,--here becomes, in fine, a _cultivated_ man. + +It is no trifling matter. Years upon years must be devoted to these +studies. Oxford and Cambridge do not task one more, nor exhibit more +degrees of success. Some fail, and never graduate; some become +illustrious for kayak-erudition. + +This culture has also the merit of entire seriousness and sincerity. +Life and death, not merely a name in the newspapers, are in it. Of all +vehicles, on land or sea, to which man intrusts himself, the kayak is +safest and unsafest. It is a very hair-bridge of Mohammed: security or +destruction is in the finest poise of a moving body, the turn of a hand, +the thought of a moment. Every time that the Esquimaux spears a seal at +sea, he pledges his life upon his skill. With a touch, with a moment's +loss of balance, the tipsy craft may go over; over, the oar, with which +it is to be restored, may get entangled, may escape from the hand, +may--what not? For all _what-nots_ the kayaker must preserve instant +preparation; and with his own life on the tip of his fingers, he must +make its preservation an incidental matter. He is there, not to save his +life, but to capture a seal, worth a few dollars! It is his routine +work. Different from getting up a leading article, making a plea in +court, or writing Greek iambics for a bishopric! + +Probably there is no race of men on earth whose ordinary avocations +present so constantly the alternative of rarest skill on the one hand, +or instant destruction on the other. And for these avocations one is +fitted only by a _scholarship_, which it requires prolonged schooling, +the most patient industry, and the most delicate consent of mind and +body to attain. If among us the highest university-education were +necessary, in order that one might live, marry, and become a +householder, we should but parallel in our degree the scheme of their +life. + +Measured by post-Adamite standards, the life of the Esquimaux is a sorry +affair; measured by his own standards, it is a piece of perfection. To +see the virtue of his existence, you must, as it were, look at him with +the eyes of a wolf or fox,--must look up from that low level, and +discern, so far above, this skilled and wondrous creature, who by +ingenuity and self-schooling has converted his helplessness into power, +and made himself the plume and crown of the physical world. + +In the kayak the Esquimaux attains to beauty. As he rows, the extremes +of the two-bladed oar revolve, describing rhythmic circles; the body +holds itself in airy poise, and the light boat skims away with a look of +life. The speed is greater than our swiftest boats attain, and the +motion graceful as that of a flying bird. Kayak and rower become to the +eye one creature; and the civilized spectator must be stronger than I in +his own conceit not to feel a little humble as he looks on. + +We had racing one calm evening. Three kayaks competed: the prize--O +Civilization!--was a plug of tobacco. How the muscles swelled! How the +airy things flew! "Hi! Hi!" jockey the lookers-on: they fly swifter +still. Up goes another plug,--another!--another!--and the kayaks half +leap from the water. It was sad withal. + +The racing over, there was a new feat. One of the kayakers placed +himself in his little craft directly across the course; another +stationed himself at a distance, and then, pushing his kayak forward at +his utmost speed, drove it directly over the other! The high sloping bow +rose above the middle of the stationary kayak on which it impinged, and, +shooting up quite out of water, the boat skimmed over. + +The Esquimaux is an honest creature. I had engaged a woman to make me a +pair of fur boots, leaving my name on a slip of paper. L----, next day, +roaming among the huts, saw her hanging them out to dry. Enamored of +them, and ignorant of our bargain, he sought to purchase them; but at +the first token of his desire, the woman rushed into the hut, and +brought forth the slip of paper, as a sufficient answer to all question +on that matter. L---- having told me of the incident, and informed me +that he had elsewhere bargained for a similar pair, I was wicked enough +to experiment upon this fidelity, desirous of learning what I could. +Taking, therefore, some clothes, which I knew would be desired, and +among them a white silk handkerchief bordered with blue, which had been +purchased at Port Mulgrave, all together far exceeding in value the +stipulated price, I sought the hut, and began admiring the said boots, +now nearly finished. Instantly came forth the inevitable slip with +L----'s name upon it. Making no sign, I proceeded to unroll my package. +The good creature was intensely taken with its contents, and gloated +over them with childish delight. But though she rummaged every corner to +find somewhat to exchange with me for them, it evidently did not even +enter her thoughts to offer me the boots. I took them up and admired +them again; she immediately laid her hand on the slip of paper. So I +gave her the prettiest thing I had, and left with a cordial _okshni_ +(good-bye). + +This honesty is attributed to missionary instruction, and with the more +color as the untaught race is noted for stealing from Europeans +everything they can lay hands on. It is only, however, from foreigners +that they were ever accustomed to steal. Toward each other they have +ever been among the most honest of human beings. Civilization and the +seal they regarded as alike lawful prey. The missionaries have not +implanted in them a new disposition, but only extended the scope of an +old and marked characteristic. + +At the same time their sense of pecuniary obligation would seem not to +extend over long periods. Of the missionaries in winter they buy +supplies on credit, but show little remembrance of the debt when summer +comes. All must be immediate with them; neither their thought nor their +moral sense can carry far; they are equally improvident for the future +and forgetful of the past. The mere Nature-man acts only as Nature and +her necessities press upon him; thought and memory are with him the +offspring of sensation; his brain is but the feminine spouse of his +stomach and blood,--receptive and respondent, rather than virile and +original. + +Partly, however, this seeming forgetfulness is susceptible of a +different explanation. They evidently feel that the mission-house owes +them a living. They make gardens, go to church and save their souls, for +the missionaries; it is but fair that they should be fed at a pinch in +return. + +This remark may seem a sneer. Not so; my word for it. I went to Hopedale +to study this race, with no wish but to find in them capabilities of +spiritual growth, and with no resolve but to see the fact, whatever it +should be, not with wishes, but with eyes. And, pointedly against my +desire, I saw this,--that the religion of the Esquimaux is, nine parts +in ten at least, a matter of personal relation between him and +the missionaries. He goes to church as the dog follows his +master,--expecting a bone and hoping for a pat in return. He comes +promptly at a whistle (the chapel-bell); his docility and decorum are +unimpeachable; he does what is expected of him with a pleased wag of the +tail; but it is still, it is always, the dog and his master. + +The pre-Adamite man is not distinctively religious; for religion implies +ideas, in the blood at least, if not in the brain, as imagination, if +not as thought; and ideas are to him wanting, are impossible. His whole +being is summed and concluded in a relationship to the external, the +tangible, to things or persons; and his relation to persons goes beyond +animal instinct and the sense of physical want only upon the condition +that it shall cling inseparably to them. The spiritual instincts of +humanity are in him also, but obscure, utterly obscure, not having +attained to a circulation in the blood, much less to intellectual +liberation. Obscure they are, fixed, in the bone, locked up in phosphate +of lime. Ideas touch them only as ideas lose their own shape and hide +themselves under physical forms. + +Will he outgrow himself? Will he become post-Adamite, a man to whom +ideas are realities? I desire to say yes, and cannot. Again and again, +in chapel and elsewhere, I stood before a group, and questioned, +questioned their faces, to find there some prophecy of future growth. +And again and again these faces, with their heavy content, with their +dog-docility, with their expression of utter limitation, against which +nothing in them struggled, said to me,--"Your quest is vain; we are once +and forever Esquimaux." Had they been happy, had they been unhappy, I +had hoped for them. They were neither: they were contented. A +half-animal, African exuberance, token of a spirit obscure indeed, but +rich and effervescent, would open for them a future. One sign of dim +inward struggle and pain, as if the spirit resented his imprisonment, +would do the same. Both were wanting. They ruminate; life is the cud +they chew. + +The Esquimaux are celebrated as gluttons. This, however, is but one half +the fact. They can eat, they can also fast, indefinitely. For a week +they gorge themselves without exercise, and have no indigestion; for a +week, exercising vigorously, they live on air, frozen air, too, and +experience no exhaustion. Last winter half a dozen appeared at +Square-Island Harbor, sent out their trained dogs, drove in a herd of +deer, and killed thirteen. They immediately encamped, gathered fuel, +made fires, began to cook and eat,--ate themselves asleep; then waked to +cook, eat, and sleep again, until the thirteenth deer had vanished. +Thereupon they decamped, to travel probably hundreds of miles, and +endure days on days of severe labor, before tasting, or more than +tasting, food again. + +The same explanation serves. These physical capabilities, not to be +attained by the post-Adamite man, belong to the primitive races, as to +hawks, gulls, and beasts of prey. The stomach of the Esquimaux is his +cellar, as that of the camel is a cistern, wherein he lays up stores. + +_August 4._--This day we sailed away from Hopedale, heading +homeward,--leaving behind a race of men who were, to me a problem to be +solved, if possible. All my impressions of them are summed in the +epithet, often repeated, pre-Adamite. In applying, this, I affirm +nothing respecting their physical origin. All that is to me an open +question, to be closed when I have more light than now. It may be, that, +as Mr. Agassiz maintains, they were created originally just as they are. +For this hypothesis much may be said, and it may be freely confessed +that in observing them I felt myself pressed somewhat toward the +acceptance of it as a definite conclusion. It may be that they have +become what they are by slow modification of a type common to all +races,--that, with another parentage, they have been made by adoption +children of the icy North, whose breath has chilled in their souls the +deeper powers of man's being. This it will be impossible for me to deny +until I have investigated more deeply the influence of physical Nature +upon man, and learned more precisely to what degree the traditions of a +people, constituting at length a definite social atmosphere, may come to +penetrate and shape their individual being. I do not pronounce; I wait +and keep the eyes open. Doubtless they are God's children; and knowing +this, one need not be fretfully impatient, even though vigilantly +earnest, to know the rest. + +In naming them pre-Adamite I mean two things. + +First, that they have stopped short of ideas, that is, of the point +where human history begins. They belong, not to spiritual or human, but +to outward and physical Nature. There they are a great success. + +Secondly, in this condition of mere response to physical Nature, their +whole being has become shapen, determined, fixed. They have no future. +Civilization affects them, but only by mechanical modification, not by +vital refreshment and renewal. The more they are instructed, the weaker +they become. + +They change, and are unchangeable. + +Unchangeable: if they assume in any degree the ideas and habits of +civilization, it is only as their women sometimes put on calico gowns +over their seal-skin trousers. The modification is not even skin-deep. +It is a curious illustration of this immobility, that no persuasion, no +authority, can make them fishermen. Inseparable from the sea-shore, the +Esquimaux will not catch a fish, if he can catch a dinner otherwise. The +missionaries, both as matter of paternal care and as a means of +increasing their own traffic,--by which the station is chiefly +sustained,--have done their utmost to make the natives bring in fish for +sale, and have failed. These people are first sealers, then hunters; +some attraction in the blood draws them to these occupations; and at +last it is an attraction in the blood which they obey. + +Yet on the outermost surface of their existence they change, and die. At +Hopedale, out of a population of some two hundred, _twenty-four died in +the month of March last!_ At Nain, where the number of inhabitants is +about the same, twenty-one died in the same month; at Okkak, also +twenty-one. More than decimated in a month! + +The long winter suffocation in their wooden dens, which lack the +ventilation of the _igloe_ that their untaught wit had devised, has +doubtless much to do with this mortality. But one feels that there is +somewhat deeper in the case. One feels that the hands of the great +horologe of time have hunted around the dial, till they have found the +hour of doom for this primeval race. Now at length the tolling bell says +to them, "No more! on the earth no more!" + +Farewell, geological man, _chef-d'oeuvre_, it may be, of some earlier +epoch, but in this a grotesque, grown-up baby, never to become adult! As +you are, and as in this world you must be, I have seen you; but in my +heart is a hope for you which is greater than my thought,--a hope which, +though deep and sure, does not define itself to the understanding, and +must remain unspoken. There is a Heart to which you, too, are dear; and +its throbs are pulsations of Destiny. + + + + +DOCTOR JOHNS. + + +XI. + +There were scores of people in Ashfield who would have been delighted to +speak consolation to the bereaved clergyman; but he was not a man to be +approached easily with the ordinary phrases of sympathy. He bore himself +too sternly under his grief. What, indeed, can be said in the face of +affliction, where the manner of the sufferer seems to say, "God has done +it, and God does all things well"? Ordinary human sympathy falls below +such a standpoint, and is wasted in the utterance. + +Yet there are those, who delight in breaking in upon the serene dignity +which this condition of mind implies with a noisy proffer of +consolation, and an aggravating rehearsal of the occasion for it; as if +such comforters entertained a certain jealousy of the serenity they do +not comprehend, and were determined to test its sufficiency. Dame +Tourtelot was eminently such a person. + +"It's a dreadful blow to ye, Mr. Johns," said she, "I know it is. Almiry +is a'most as much took down by it as you are. 'She was such a lovely +woman,' she says; and the poor, dear little boy,--won't you let him come +and pass a day or two with us? Almiry is very fond of children." + +"Later, later, my good woman," says the parson. "I can't spare the boy +now; the house is too empty." + +"Oh, Mr. Johns,--the poor lonely thing!" (And she says this, with her +hands in black mits, clasped together.) "It's a bitter blow! As I was +a-sayin' to the Deacon, 'Such a lovely young woman, and such a good +comfortable home, and she, poor thing, enjoyin' it so much!' I do hope +you'll bear up under it, Mr. Johns." + +"By God's help, I will, my good woman." + +Dame Tourtelot was disappointed to find the parson wincing so little as +he did under her stimulative sympathy. On returning home, she opened her +views to the Deacon in this style:-- + +"Tourtelot, the parson is not so much broke down by this as we've been +thinkin'; he was as cool, when I spoke to him to-day, as any man I ever +see in my life. The truth is, she was a flighty young person, noways +equal to the parson. I've been a-suspectin' it this long while; she +never, in my opinion, took a real hard hold upon him. But, Tourtelot, +you should go and see Mr. Johns; and I hope you'll talk consolingly and +Scripterally to him. It's your duty." + +And hereupon she shifted the needles in her knitting, and, smoothing +down the big blue stocking-leg over her knee, cast a glance at the +Deacon which signified command. The dame was thoroughly mistress in her +own household, as well as in the households of not a few of her +neighbors. Long before, the meek, mild-mannered little man who was her +husband had by her active and resolute negotiation been made a deacon of +the parish,--for which office he was not indeed ill-fitted, being +religiously disposed, strict in his observance of all duties, and +well-grounded in the Larger Catechism. He had, moreover, certain secular +endowments which were even more marked,--among them, a wonderful +instinct at a bargain, which had been polished by Dame Tourtelot's +superior address to a wonderful degree of sharpness; and by reason of +this the less respectful of the townspeople were accustomed to say, "The +Deacon is very small at home, but great in a trade." Not that the Deacon +could by any means be called an avaricious or miserly man: he had always +his old Spanish milled quarter ready for the contribution-box upon +Collection-Sundays; and no man in the parish brought a heavier turkey to +the parson's larder on donation-days: but he could no more resist the +sharpening of a bargain than he could resist a command of his wife. He +talked of a good trade to the old heads up and down the village street +as a lad talks of a new toy. + +"Squire," he would say, addressing a neighbor on the Common, "what do +you s'pose I paid for that brindle ye'rlin' o' mine? Give us a guess." + +"Waäl, Deacon, I guess you paid about ten dollars." + +"Only eight!" the Deacon would say, with a smile that was fairly +luminous,--"and a pootty likely critter I call it for eight dollars." + +"Five hogs this year," (in this way the Deacon was used to +soliloquize,)--"I hope to make 'em three hundred apiece. The +price works up about Christmas: Deacon Simmons has sold his'n at +five,--distillery-pork; that's sleezy, wastes in bilin'; folks know it: +mine, bein' corn-fed, ought to bring half a cent more,--and say, for +Christmas, six; that'll give a gain of a cent,--on five hogs, at three +hundred apiece, will be fifteen dollars. That'll pay half my pew-rent, +and leave somethin' over for Almiry, who's always wantin' fresh ribbons +about New-Year's." + +The Deacon cherished a strong dread of formal visits to the parsonage: +first, because it involved his Sunday toilet, in which he was never +easy, except at conference or in his pew at the meeting-house; and next, +because he counted it necessary on such occasions to give a Scriptural +garnish to his talk, in which attempt he almost always, under the +authoritative look of the parson, blundered into difficulty. Yet +Tourtelot, in obedience to his wife's suggestion, and primed with a text +from Matthew, undertook the visit of condolence,--and, being a really +kind-hearted man, bore himself well in it. Over and over the good parson +shook his hand in thanks. + +"It'll all be right," says the Deacon. "'Blessed are the mourners,' is +the Scripteral language, 'for they shall inherit the earth.'" + +"No, not that, Deacon," says the minister, to whom a misquotation was +like a wound in the flesh; "the last thing I want is to inherit the +earth. 'They shall be comforted,'--that's the promise, Deacon, and I +count on it." + +It was mortifying to his visitor to be caught napping on so familiar a +text; the parson saw it, and spoke consolingly. But if not strong in +texts, the Deacon knew what his strong points were; so, before leaving, +he invites a little offhand discussion of more familiar topics. + +"Pootty tight spell o' weather we've been havin', Parson." + +"Rather cool, certainly," says the unsuspecting clergyman. + +"Got all your winter's stock o' wood in yit?" + +"No, I haven't," says the parson. + +"Waäl, Mr. Johns, I've got a lot of pastur'-hickory cut and corded, +that's well seared over now,--and if you'd like some of it, I can let +you have it _very reasonable indeed_." + +The sympathy of the Elderkins, if less formal, was none the less hearty. +The Squire had been largely instrumental in securing the settlement of +Mr. Johns, and had been a political friend of his father's. In early +life he had been engaged in the West India trade from the neighboring +port of Middletown; and on one or two occasions he had himself made the +voyage to Porto Rico, taking out a cargo of horses, and bringing back +sugar, molasses, and rum. But it was remarked approvingly in the +bar-room of the Eagle Tavern that this foreign travel had not made the +Squire proud,--nor yet the moderate fortune which he had secured by the +business, in which he was still understood to bear an interest. His +paternal home in Ashfield he had fitted up some years before with +balustrade and other architectural adornments, which, it was averred by +the learned in those matters, were copied from certain palatial +residences in the West Indies. + +The Squire united eminently in himself all those qualities which a +Connecticut observer of those times expressed by the words, "right down +smart man." Not a turnpike enterprise could be started in that quarter +of the State, but the Squire was enlisted, and as shareholder or +director contributed to its execution. A clear-headed, kindly, energetic +man, never idle, prone rather to do needless things than to do nothing; +an ardent disciple of the Jeffersonian school, and in this combating +many of those who relied most upon his sagacity in matters of business; +a man, in short, about whom it was always asked, in regard to any +question of town or State policy, "What does the Squire think?" or "How +does the Squire mean to vote?" And the Squire's opinion was sure to be a +round, hearty one, which he came by honestly, and about which one who +thought differently might safely rally his columns of attack. The +opinion of Giles Elderkin was not inquired into for the sake of a tame +following-after,--that was not the Connecticut mode,--but for the sake +of discussing and toying with it: very much as a sly old grimalkin toys +with a mouse,--now seeming to entertain it kindly, then giving it a run, +then leaping after it, crunching a limb of it, bearing it off into some +private corner, giving it a new escape, swallowing it perhaps at last, +and appropriating it by long process of digestion. And even then, the +shrewd Connecticut man, if accused of modulating his own opinions after +those of the Squire, would say, "No, I allers thought so." + +Such a man as Giles Elderkin is of course ready with a hearty, outspoken +word of cheer for his minister. Nay, the very religion of the Squire, +which the parson had looked upon as somewhat discursive and +human,--giving too large a place to good works,--was decisive and to the +point in the present emergency. + +"It's God's doing," said he; "we must take the cup He gives us. For the +best, isn't it, Parson?" + +"I do, Squire. Thank God, I can." + +There was good Mrs. Elderkin--who made up by her devotion to the special +tenets of the clergyman many of the shortcomings of the Squire--insisted +upon sending for the poor boy Reuben, that he might forget his grief in +her kindness, and in frolic with the Elderkins through that famous +garden, with its huge hedges of box,--such a garden as was certainly not +to be matched elsewhere in Ashfield. The same good woman, too, sends +down a wagon-load of substantial things from her larder, for the present +relief of the stricken household; to which the Squire has added a little +round jug of choice Santa Cruz rum,--remembering the long watches of the +parson. This may shock us now; and yet it is to be feared that in our +day the sin of hypocrisy is to be added to the sin of indulgence: the +old people nestled under no cover of liver specifics or bitters. Reform +has made a grand march indeed; but the Devil, with his square bottles +and Scheidam schnapps, has kept a pretty even pace with it. + + +XII. + +The boy Reuben, in those first weeks after his loss, wandered about as +if in a maze, wondering at the great blank that death had made; or, +warming himself at some out-door sport, he rushed in with a pleasant +forgetfulness,--shouting,--up the stairs,--to the accustomed door, and +bursts in upon the cold chamber, so long closed, where the bitter +knowledge comes upon him fresh once more. Esther, good soul that she is, +has heard his clatter upon, the floor, his bound at the old latch, and, +fancying what it may mean, has come up in time to soothe him and bear +him off with her. The parson, forging some sermon for the next Sabbath, +in the room at the foot of the stairs, hears, may-be, the stifled +sobbing of the boy, as the good Esther half leads and half drags him +down, and opens his door upon them. + +"What now, Esther? Has Reuben caught a fall?" + +"No, Sir, no fall; he's not harmed, Sir. It's only the old room, you +know, Sir, and he quite forgot himself." + +"Poor boy! Will he come with me, Esther?" + +"No, Mr. Johns. I'll find something'll amuse him; hey, Ruby?" + +And the parson goes back to his desk, where he forgets himself in the +glow of that great work of his. He has taught, as never before, that +"all flesh is grass." He accepts his loss as a punishment for having +thought too much and fondly of the blessings of this life; henceforth +the flesh and its affections shall be mortified in him. He has +transferred his bed to a little chamber which opens from his study in +the rear, and which is at the end of the long dining-room, where every +morning and evening the prayers are said, as before. The parishioners +see a light burning in the window of his study far into the night. + +For a time his sermons are more emotional than before. Oftener than in +the earlier days of his settlement he indulges in a forecast of those +courts toward which he would conduct his people, and which a merciful +God has provided for those who trust in Him; and there is a coloring in +these pictures which his sermons never showed in the years gone. + +"We ask ourselves," said he, "my brethren, if we shall knowingly meet +there--where we trust His grace may give us entrance--those from whom +you and I have parted; whether a fond and joyous welcome shall greet us, +not alone from Him whom to love is life, but from those dear ones who +seem to our poor senses to be resting under the sod yonder. Sometimes I +believe that by God's great goodness," (and here he looked, not at his +people, but above, and kept his eye fixed there)--"I believe that we +shall; that His great love shall so delight in making complete our +happiness, even by such little memorials of our earthly affections +(which must seem like waifs of thistle-down beside the great harvest of +His abounding grace); that all the dear faces of those written in the +Golden Book shall beam a welcome, all the more bounteous because +reflecting His joy who has died to save." + +And the listeners whispered each other as he paused, "He thinks of +Rachel." + +With his eyes still fixed above, he goes on,-- + +"Sometimes I think thus; but oftener I ask myself, 'Of what value shall +human ties be, or their memories, in His august presence whom to look +upon is life? What room shall there be for other affections, what room +for other memories, than those of 'the Lamb that was slain'? + +"Nay, my brethren," (and here he turns his eyes upon them again,) "we do +know in our hearts that many whom we have loved fondly--infants, +fathers, mothers, wives, may-be--shall never, never sit with the elect +in Paradise; and shall we remember these in heaven, going away to dwell +with the Devil and his angels? Shall we be tortured with the knowledge +that some poor babe we looked upon only for an hour is wearing out ages +of suffering? 'No,' you may say, 'for we shall be possessed in that day +of such sense of the ineffable justice of God, and of His judgments, +that all shall seem right.' Yet, my brethren, if this sense of His +supreme justice shall overrule all the old longings of our hearts, even +to the suppression of the dearest ties of earth, where they conflict +with His ordained purpose, will they not also overrule all the longings +in respect of friends who are among the elect, in such sort that the man +we counted our enemy, the man we avoided on earth, if so be he have an +inheritance in heaven, shall be met with the same yearning of the heart +as if he were our brother? Does this sound harshly, my brethren? Ah, let +us beware,--let us beware how we entertain any opinions of that future +condition of holiness and of joy promised to the elect, which are +dependent upon these gross attachments of earth, which are colored by +our short-sighted views, which are not in every iota accordant with the +universal love of Him who is our Master!" + +"This man lives above the world," said the people; and if some of them +did not give very cordial assent to these latter views, they smothered +their dissent by a lofty expression of admiration; they felt it a duty +to give them open acceptance, to venerate the speaker the more by +reason of their utterance. And yet their limited acceptance diffused a +certain chill, very likely, over their religious meditations. But it was +a chill which unfortunately they counted it good to entertain,--a rigor +of faith that must needs be borne. It is doubtful, indeed, if they did +not make a merit of their placid intellectual admission of such beliefs +as most violated the natural sensibilities of the heart. They were so +sure that affectionate instincts were by nature wrong in their +tendencies, so eager to cumulate evidences of the original depravity, +that, when their parson propounded a theory that gave a shock to their +natural affections, they submitted with a kind of heroic pride, however +much their hearts might make silent protest, and the grounds of such a +protest they felt a cringing unwillingness to investigate. There was a +determined shackling of all the passional nature. What wonder that +religion took a harsh aspect? As if intellectual adhesion to theological +formulas were to pave our way to a knowledge of the Infinite!--as if our +sensibilities were to be outraged in the march to Heaven!--as if all the +emotional nature were to be clipped away by the shears of the doctors, +leaving only the metaphysic ghost of a soul to enter upon the joys of +Paradise! + +Within eight months after his loss, Mr. Johns thought of Rachel only as +a gift that God had bestowed to try him, and had taken away to work in +him a humiliation of the heart. More severely than ever he wrestled with +the dogmas of his chosen divines, harnessed them to his purposes as +preacher, and wrought on with a zeal that knew no abatement and no rest. + +In the spring of 1825 Mr. Johns was invited by Governor Wolcott to +preach the Election Sermon before the Legislature convened at Hartford: +an honorable duty, and one which he was abundantly competent to fulfil. +The "Hartford Courant" of that date said,--"A large auditory was +collected last week to listen to the Election Sermon by Mr. Johns, +minister of Ashfield. It was a sound, orthodox, and interesting +discourse, and won the undivided attention of all the listeners. We have +not recently listened to a sermon more able or eloquent." + +In that day even country editors were church-goers and God-fearing men. + + +XIII. + +In the latter part of the summer of 1826,--a reasonable time having now +elapsed since the death of poor Rachel,--the gossips of Ashfield began +to discuss the lonely condition of their pastor, in connection with any +desirable or feasible amendment of it. The sin of such gossip--if it be +a sin--is one that all the preaching in the world will never extirpate +from country towns, where the range of talk is by the necessity of the +case exceedingly limited. In the city, curiosity has an omnivorous maw +by reason of position, and finds such variety to feed upon that it is +rarely--except in the case of great political or public +scandal--personal in its attentions; and what we too freely reckon a +perverted and impertinent country taste is but an ordinary appetite of +humanity, which, by the limitation of its feeding-ground, seems to +attach itself perversely to private relations. + +There were some invidious persons in the town who had remarked that Miss +Almira Tourtelot had brought quite a new fervor to her devotional +exercises in the parish within the last year, as well as a new set of +ribbons to her hat; and two maiden ladies opposite, of distinguished +pretensions and long experience of life, had observed that the young +Reuben, on his passage back and forth from the Elderkins, had sometimes +been decoyed within the Tourtelot yard, and presented by the admiring +Dame Tourtelot with fresh doughnuts. The elderly maiden ladies were +perhaps uncharitable in their conclusions; yet it is altogether probable +that the Deacon and his wife may have considered, in the intimacy of +their fireside talk, the possibility of some time claiming the minister +as a son-in-law. Questions like this are discussed in a great many +families even now. + +Dame Tourtelot had crowned with success all her schemes in life, save +one. Almira, her daughter, now verging upon her thirty-second year, had +long been upon the anxious-seat as regarded matrimony; and with a +sentimental turn that incited much reading of Cowper and Montgomery and +(if it must be told) "Thaddeus of Warsaw," the poor girl united a +sickly, in-door look, and a peaked countenance, which had not attracted +wooers. The wonderful executive capacity of the mother had unfortunately +debarred her from any active interest in the household; and though the +Tourtelots had actually been at the expense of providing a piano for +Almira, (the only one in Ashfield,)--upon which the poor girl thrummed, +thinking of "Thaddeus," and, we trust, of better things,--this had not +won a roseate hue to her face, or quickened in any perceptible degree +the alacrity of her admirers. + +Upon a certain night of later October, after Almira has retired, and +when the Tourtelots are seated by the little fire, which the autumn +chills have rendered necessary, and into the embers of which the Deacon +has cautiously thrust the leg of one of the fire-dogs, preparatory to a +modest mug of flip, (with which, by his wife's permission, he +occasionally indulges himself,) the good dame calls out to her husband, +who is dozing in his chair,-- + +"Tourtelot!" + +But she is not loud enough. + +"TOURTELOT! you're asleep!" + +"No," says the Deacon, rousing himself,--"only thinkin'." + +"What are you thinkin' of, Tourtelot?" + +"Thinkin'--thinkin'," says the Deacon, rasped by the dame's sharpness +into sudden mental effort,--"thinkin', Huldy, if it isn't about time to +butcher: we butchered last year nigh upon the twentieth." + +"Nonsense!" says the dame; "what about the parson?" + +"The parson? Oh! Why, the parson'll take a side and two hams." + +"Nonsense!" says the dame, with a great voice; "you're asleep, +Tourtelot. Is the parson goin' to marry, or isn't he? that's what I want +to know"; and she rethreads her needle. + +(She can do it by candle-light at fifty-five, that woman!) + +"Oh, marry!" replies the Deacon, rousing himself more +thoroughly,--"waäl, I don't see no signs, Huldy. If he _doos_ mean to, +he's sly about it; don't you think so, Huldy?" + +The dame, who is intent upon her sewing again,--she is never without her +work, that woman!--does not deign a reply. + +The Deacon, after lifting the fire-dog, blowing off the ashes, and +holding it to his face to try the heat, says,-- + +"I guess Almiry ha'n't much of a chance." + +"What's the use of your guessin'?" says the dame; "better mind your +flip." + +Which the Deacon accordingly does, stirring it in a mild manner, until +the dame breaks out upon him again explosively:-- + +"Tourtelot, you men of the parish ought to _talk_ to the parson; it +a'n't right for things to go on this way. That boy Reuben is growin' up +wild; he wants a woman in the house to look arter him. Besides, a +minister ought to have a wife; it a'n't decent to have the house empty, +and only Esther there. Women want to feel they can drop in at the +parsonage for a chat, or to take tea. But who's to serve tea, I want to +know? Who's to mind Reuben in meetin'? He broke the cover off the best +hymn-book in the parson's pew last Sunday. Who's to prevent him +a-breakin' all the hymn-books that belong to the parish? You men ought +to speak to the parson; and, Tourtelot, if the others won't do it, you +_must_." + +The Deacon was fairly awake now. He pulled at his whiskers +deprecatingly. Yet he clearly foresaw that the emergency was one to be +met; the manner of Dame Tourtelot left no room for doubt; and he was +casting about for such Scriptural injunctions as might be made +available, when the dame interrupted his reflections in more amiable +humor,-- + +"It isn't Almiry, Samuel, I think of, but Mr. Johns and the good of the +parish. I really don't know if Almiry would fancy the parson; the girl +is a good deal taken up with her pianny and books; but there's the +Hapgoods, opposite; there's Joanny Meacham"---- + +"You'll never make that do, Huldy," said the Deacon, stirring his flip +composedly; "they're nigh on as old as parson." + +"Never you mind, Tourtelot," said the dame, sharply; "only you hint to +the parson that they're good, pious women, all of them, and would make +proper ministers' wives. Do you think I don't know what a man is, +Tourtelot? Humph!" And she threads her needle again. + +The Deacon was apt to keep in mind his wife's advices, whatever he might +do with Scripture quotations. So when he called at the parsonage, a few +days after,--ostensibly to learn how the minister would like his pork +cut,--it happened that little Reuben came bounding in, and that the +Deacon gave him a fatherly pat upon the shoulder. + +"Likely boy you've got here, Mr. Johns,--likely boy. But, Parson, don't +you think he must feel a kind o' hankerin' arter somebody to be motherly +to him? I 'most wonder that you don't feel that way yourself, Mr. +Johns." + +"God comforts the mourners," said the clergyman, seriously. + +"No doubt, no doubt, Parson; but He sometimes provides comforts ag'in +which we shet our eyes. You won't think hard o' me, Parson, but I've +heerd say about the village that Miss Meacham or one of the Miss +Hapgoods would make an excellent wife for the minister." + +The parson is suddenly very grave. + +"Don't repeat such idle gossip, Deacon. I'm married to my work. The +Gospel is my bride now." + +"And a very good one it is, Parson. But don't you think that a godly +woman for helpmeet would make the work more effectooal? Miss Meacham is +a pattern of a person in the Sunday school. The women of the parish +would rather like to find the doors of the parsonage openin' for 'em +ag'in." + +"That is to be thought of certainly," said the minister, musingly. + +"You won't think hard o' me, Mr. Johns, for droppin' a word about this +matter?" says the Deacon, rising to leave. "And while I think on 't, +Parson, I see the sill under the no'theast corner o' the meetin'-house +has a little settle to it. I've jest been cuttin' a few sticks o' good +smart chestnut timber; and if the Committee thinks best, I could haul +down one or two on 'em for repairs. It won't cost nigh as much as pine +lumber, and it's every bit as good." + +Even Dame Tourtelot would have been satisfied with the politic way of +the Deacon, both as regarded the wife and the prospective bargain. The +next evening the good woman invited the clergyman--begging him "not to +forget the dear little boy"--to tea. + +This was by no means the first hint which the minister had had of the +tendency of village gossip. The Tew partners, with whom he had fallen +upon very easy terms of familiarity,--both by reason of frequent visits +at their little shop, and by reason of their steady attendance upon his +ministrations,--often dropped hints of the smallness of the good man's +grocery account, and insidious hopes that it might be doubled in size at +some day not far off. + +Squire Elderkin, too, in his bluff, hearty way, had occasionally +complimented the clergyman upon the increased attendance latterly of +ladies of a certain age, and had drawn his attention particularly to the +ardent zeal of a buxom, middle-aged widow, who lived upon the skirts of +the town, and was "the owner," he said, "of as pretty a piece of +property as lay in the county." + +"Have you any knack at farming, Mr. Johns?" continued he, playfully. + +"Farming? why?" says the innocent parson, in a maze. + +"Because I am of opinion, Mr. Johns, that the widow's little property +might be rented by you, under conditions of joint occupancy, on very +easy terms." + +Such badinage was so warded off by the ponderous gravity which the +parson habitually wore, that men like Elderkin loved occasionally to +launch a quiet joke at him, for the pleasure of watching the rebound. + +When, however, the wide-spread gossip of the town had taken the shape +(as in the talk of Deacon Tourtelot) of an incentive to duty, the grave +clergyman gave to it his undivided and prayerful attention. It was +over-true that the boy Reuben was running wild. No lad in Ashfield, of +his years, could match him in mischief. There was surely need of womanly +direction and remonstrance. It was eminently proper, too, that the +parsonage, so long closed, should be opened freely to all his flock; and +the truth was so plain, he wondered it could have escaped him so long. +Duty required that his home should have an established mistress; and a +mistress he forthwith determined it should have. + +Within three weeks from the day of the tea-drinking with the Tourtelots, +the minister suggested certain changes in the long-deserted chamber +which should bring it into more habitable condition. He hinted to his +man Larkin that an additional fire might probably be needed in the house +during the latter part of winter; and before January had gone out, he +had most agreeably surprised the delighted and curious Tew partners with +a very large addition to his usual orders,--embracing certain condiments +in the way of spices, dried fruits, and cordials, which had for a long +time been foreign to the larder of the parsonage. + +Such indications, duly commented on, as they were most zealously, could +not fail to excite a great buzz of talk and of curiosity throughout the +town. + +"I knew it," says Mrs. Tew, authoritatively, setting back her spectacles +from her postal duties;--"these 'ere grave widowers are allers the first +to pop off, and git married." + +"Tourtelot!" said the dame, on a January night, when the evidence had +come in overwhelmingly,--"Tourtelot! what does it all mean?" + +"D'n' know," says the Deacon, stirring his flip,--"d'n' know. It's my +opinion the parson has his sly humors about him." + +"Do you think it's true, Samuel?" + +"Waäl, Huldy,--I _du_." + +"Tourtelot! finish your flip, and go to bed; it's past ten." + +And the Deacon went. + + +XIV + +Toward the latter end of the winter there arrived at the parsonage the +new mistress,--in the person of Miss Eliza Johns, the elder sister of +the incumbent, and a spinster of the ripe age of three-and-thirty. For +the last twelve years she had maintained a lonely, but matronly, command +of the old homestead of the late Major Johns, in the town of Canterbury. +She was intensely proud of the memory of her father, and of _his_ father +before him,--every inch a Johns. No light cause could have provoked her +to a sacrifice of the name; and of weightier causes she had been spared +the trial. The marriage of her brother had always been more or less a +source of mortification to her. The Handbys, though excellent plain +people, were of no particular distinction. Rachel had a pretty face, +with which Benjamin had grown suddenly demented. That source of +mortification and of disturbed intimacy was now buried in the grave. +Benjamin had won a reputation for dignity and ability which was +immensely gratifying to her. She had assured him of it again and again +in her occasional letters. The success of his Election Sermon had been +an event of the greatest interest to her, which she had expressed in an +epistle of three pages, with every comma in its place, and full of +gratulations. Her commas were _always_ in place; so were her stops of +all kinds: her precision was something marvellous. This precision had +enabled her to manage the little property which had been left her in +such a way as to maintain always about her establishment an air of +well-ordered thrift. She concealed adroitly all the shifts--if there +were any--by which she avoided the reproach of seeming poor. + +In person she was not unlike her father, the Major,--tall, erect, with a +dignified bearing, and so trim a figure, and so elastic a step even at +her years, as would have provoked an inquisitive follower to catch sight +of the face. This was by no means attractive. Her features were thin, +her nose unduly prominent; and both eye and mouth, though well formed, +carried about them a kind of hard positiveness that would have +challenged respect, perhaps, but no warmer feeling. Two little curls +were flattened upon either temple; and her neck-tie, dress, gloves, hat, +were always most neatly arranged, and ordered with the same precision +that governed all her action. In the town of Canterbury she was an +institution. Her charities and all her religious observances were +methodical, and never omitted. Her whole life, indeed, was a discipline. +Without any great love for children, she still had her Bible-class; and +it was rare that the weather or any other cause forbade attendance upon +its duties. Nor was there one of the little ones who listened to that +clear, sharp, metallic voice of hers but stood in awe of her; not one +that could say she was unkind; not one who had ever bestowed a childish +gift upon her,--such little gifts as children love to heap on those who +have found the way to their hearts. + +Sentiment had never been effusive in her; and it was now limited to +quick sparkles, that sometimes flashed into a page of her reading. As +regarded the serious question of marriage, implying a home, position, +the married dignities, it had rarely disturbed her; and now her +imaginative forecast did not grapple it with any vigor or longing. If, +indeed, it had been possible that a man of high standing, character, +cultivation,--equal, in short, to the Johnses in every way,--should woo +her with pertinacity, she might have been disposed to yield a dignified +assent, but not unless he could be made to understand and adequately +appreciate the immense favor she was conferring. In short, the suitor +who could abide and admit her exalted pretensions, and submit to them, +would most infallibly be one of a character and temper so far inferior +to her own that she would scorn him from the outset. This dilemma, +imposed by the rigidity of her smaller dignities, that were never +mastered or overshadowed either by her sentiment or her passion, not +only involved a life of celibacy, but was a constant justification of +it, and made it eminently easy to be borne. There are not a few maiden +ladies who are thus lightered over the shoals of a solitary existence by +the buoyancy of their own intemperate vanities. + +Miss Johns did not accept the invitation of her brother to undertake the +charge of his household without due consideration. She by no means left +out of view the contingency of his possible future marriage; but she +trusted largely to her own influences in making it such a one, if +inevitable, as should not be discreditable to the family name. And under +such conditions she would retire with serene contentment to her own more +private sphere of Canterbury,--or, if circumstances should demand, would +accept the position of guest in the house of her brother. Nor did she +leave out of view her influence in the training of the boy Reuben. She +cherished her own hopes of moulding him to her will, and of making him a +pride to the family. + +There was of course prodigious excitement in the parsonage upon her +arrival. Esther had done her best at all household appliances, whether +of kitchen or chamber. The minister received her with his wonted +quietude, and a brotherly kiss of salutation. Reuben gazed wonderingly +at her, and was thinking dreamily if he should ever love her, while he +felt the dreary rustle of her black silk dress swooping round as she +stooped to embrace him. "I hope Master Reuben is a good boy," said she; +"your Aunt Eliza loves all good boys." + +He had nothing to say; but only looked back into that cold gray eye, as +she lifted his chin with her gloved hand. + +"Benjamin, there's a strong look of the Handbys; but it's your forehead. +He's a little man, I hope," and she patted him on the head. + +Still Reuben looked--wonderingly--at her shining silk dress, at her hat, +at the little curls on either temple, at the guard-chain which hung from +her neck with a glittering watch-key upon it, at the bright buckle in +her belt, and most of all at the gray eye which seemed to look on him +from far away. And with the same stare of wonderment, he followed her up +and down throughout the house. + +At night, Esther, who has a chamber near him, creeps in to say +good-night to the lad, and asks,-- + +"Do you like her, Ruby, boy? Do you like your Aunt Eliza?" + +"I d'n know," says Reuben, "She says she likes good boys; don't you like +bad uns, Esther?" + +"But you're not _very_ bad," says Esther, whose orthodoxy does not +forbid kindly praise. + +"Didn't mamma like bad uns, Esther?" + +"Dear heart!" and the good creature gives the boy a great hug; it could +not have been warmer, if he had been her child. + +The household speedily felt the presence of the new comer. Her +precision, her method, her clear, sharp voice,--never raised in anger, +never falling to tenderness,--ruled the establishment. Under all the +cheeriness of the old management, there had been a sad lack of any +economic system, by reason of which the minister was constantly +overrunning his little stipend, and making awkward appeals from time to +time to the Parish Committee for advances. A small legacy that had +befallen the late Mrs. Johns, and which had gone to the purchase of the +parsonage, had brought relief at a very perplexing crisis; but against +all similar troubles Miss Johns set her face most resolutely. There was +a daily examination of butchers' and grocers' accounts, that had been +previously unknown to the household. The kitchen was placed under strict +regimen, into the observance of which the good Esther slipped, not so +much from love of it, as from total inability to cope with the magnetic +authority of the new mistress. Nor was she harsh in her manner of +command. + +"Esther, my good woman, it will be best, I think, to have breakfast a +little more promptly,--at half past six, we will say,--so that prayers +may be over and the room free by eight; the minister, you know, must +have his morning in his study undisturbed." + +"Yes, Marm," says Esther; and she would as soon have thought of flying +over the house-top in her short gown as of questioning the plan. + +Again, the mistress says,--"Larkin, I think it would be well to take up +those scattered bunches of lilies, and place them upon either side of +the walk in the garden, so that the flowers may be all together." + +"Yes, Marm," says Larkin. + +And much as he had loved the little woman now sleeping in her grave, who +had scattered flowers with an errant fancy, he would have thought it +preposterous to object to an order so calmly spoken, so evidently +intended for execution. There was something in the tone of Miss Johns in +giving directions that drew off all moral power of objection as surely +as a good metallic conductor would free an overcharged cloud of its +electricity. + +The parishioners were not slow to perceive that new order prevailed at +the quiet parsonage. Curiosity, no less than the staid proprieties which +governed the action of the chief inhabitants, had brought them early +into contact with the new mistress. She received all with dignity and +with an exactitude of deportment that charmed the precise ones and that +awed the younger folks. The bustling Dame Tourtelot had come among the +earliest, and her brief report was,--"Tourtelot, Miss Johns's as smart +as a steel trap." + +Nor was the spinster sister without a degree of cultivation which +commended her to the more intellectual people of Ashfield. She was a +reader of "Rokeby" and of Miss Austen's novels, of Josephus and of +Rollin's "Ancient History." The Miss Hapgoods, who were the +blue-stockings of the place, were charmed to have such an addition to +the cultivated circle of the parish. To make the success of Miss Johns +still more decided, she brought with her a certain knowledge of the +conventionalisms of the city, by reason of her occasional visits to her +sister Mabel, (now Mrs. Brindlock of Greenwich Street,) which to many +excellent women gave larger assurance of her position and dignity than +all besides. Before the first year of her advent had gone by, it was +quite plain that she was to become one of the prominent directors of the +female world of Ashfield. + +Only in the parsonage itself did her influence find its most serious +limitations,--and these in connection with the boy Reuben. + + +XV. + +There is a deep emotional nature in the lad, which, by the time he has +reached his eighth year,--Miss Eliza having now been in the position of +mistress of the household a twelvemonth,--works itself off in explosive +tempests of feeling, with which the prim spinster has but faint +sympathy. No care could be more studious and complete than that with +which she looks after the boy's wardrobe and the ordering of his little +chamber; his supply of mittens, of stockings, and of underclothing is +always of the most ample; nay, his caprices of the table are not wholly +overlooked, and she hopes to win upon him by the dishes that are most +toothsome; but, however grateful for the moment, his boyish affections +can never make their way with any force or passionate flow through the +stately proprieties of manner with which the spinster aunt is always +hedged about. + +He wanders away after school-hours to the home of the Elderkins,--Phil +and he being sworn friends, and the good mother of Phil always having +ready for him a beaming look of welcome and a tender word or two that +somehow always find their way straight to his heart. He loiters with +Larkin, too, by the great stable-yard of the inn, though it is forbidden +ground. He breaks in upon the precise woman's rule of punctuality sadly; +many a cold dish he eats sulkily,--she sitting bolt upright in her place +at the table, looking down at him with glances which are every one a +punishment. Other times he is straying in the orchard at the hour of +some home-duty, and the active spinster goes to seek him, and not +threateningly, but with an assured step and a firm grip upon the hand of +the loiterer, which he knows not whether to count a favor or a +punishment, (and she as much at a loss, so inextricably interwoven are +her notions of duty and of kindness,) leads him homeward, plying him +with stately precepts upon the sin of negligence, and with earnest story +of the dreadful fate which is sure to overtake all bad boys who do not +obey and keep "by the rules"; and she instances those poor lads who were +eaten by the bears, of whom she has read to him the story in the Old +Testament. + +"Who was it they called 'bald-head,' Reuben? Elisha or Elijah?" + +He, in no mood for reply, is sulkily beating off the daisies with his +feet, as she drags him on; sometimes hanging back, with impotent, yet +concealed struggle, which she--not deigning to notice--overcomes with +even sharper step, and plies him the more closely with the dire results +of badness,--has not finished her talk, indeed, when they reach the +door-step and enter. There he, fuming now with that long struggle, +fuming the more because he has concealed it, makes one violent +discharge with a great frown on his little face, "You're an ugly old +thing, and I don't like you one bit!" + +Esther, good soul, within hearing of it, lifts her hands in apparent +horror, but inwardly indulges in a wicked chuckle over the boy's spirit. + +But the minister has heard him, too, and gravely summons the offender +into his study. + +"My son, Reuben, this is very wrong." + +And the boy breaks into a sob at this stage, which is a great relief. + +"My boy, you ought to love your aunt." + +"Why ought I?" says he. + +"Why? why? Don't you know she's very good to you, and takes excellent +care of you, and hears you say your catechism every Saturday? You ought +to love her." + +"But I can't make myself love her, if I don't," says the boy. + +"It is your duty to love her, Reuben; and we can all do our duty." + +Even the staid clergyman enjoys the boy's discomfiture under so orthodox +a proposition. Miss Johns, however, breaks in here, having overheard the +latter part of the talk:-- + +"No, Benjamin, I wish no love that is given from a sense of duty. Reuben +sha'n't be forced into loving his Aunt Eliza." + +And there is a subdued tone in her speech which touches the boy. But he +is not ready yet for surrender; he watches gravely her retirement, and +for an hour shows a certain preoccupation at his play; then his piping +voice is heard at the foot of the stairway,-- + +"Aunt Eliza! Are you there?" + +"Yes, Master Reuben!" + +Master! It cools somewhat his generous intent; but he is in for it; and +he climbs the stair, sidles uneasily into the chamber where she sits at +her work, stealing a swift, inquiring look into that gray eye of hers,-- + +"I say--Aunt Eliza--I'm sorry I said that--you know what." + +And he looks up with a little of the old yearning,--the yearning he used +to feel when another sat in that place. + +"Ah, that is right, Master Reuben! I hope we shall be friends, now." + +Another disturbed look at her,--remembering the time when he would have +leaped into a mother's arms, after such struggle with his self-will, and +found gladness. That is gone; no swift embrace, no tender hand toying +with his hair, beguiling him from play. And he sidles out again, half +shamefaced at a surrender that has wrought so little. Loitering, and +playing with the balusters as he descends, the swift, keen voice comes +after him,-- + +"Don't soil the paint, Reuben!" + +"I haven't." + +And the swift command and as swift retort put him in his old, wicked +mood again, and he breaks out into a defiant whistle. (Over and over the +spinster has told him it was improper to whistle in-doors.) Yet, with a +lingering desire for sympathy, Reuben makes his way into his father's +study; and the minister lays down his great folio,--it is Poole's +"Annotations,"--and says,-- + +"Well, Reuben!" + +"I told her I was sorry," says the boy; "but I don't believe she likes +me much." + +"Why, my son?" + +"Because she called me Master, and said it was very proper." + +"But doesn't that show an interest in you?" + +"I don't know what interest is." + +"It's love." + +"Mamma never called me Master," said Reuben. + +The grave minister bites his lip, beckons his boy to him,--"Here, my +son!"--passes his arm around him, had almost drawn him to his heart,-- + +"There, there, Reuben; leave me now; I have my sermon to finish. I hope +you won't be disrespectful to your aunt again. Shut the door." + +And the minister goes back to his work, ironly honest, mastering his +sensibilities, tearing great gaps in his heart, even as the anchorites +once fretted their bodies with hair-cloth and scourgings. + +In the summer of 1828 Mr. Johns was called upon to preach a special +discourse at the Commencement exercises of the college from which he +had received his degree; and so sterlingly orthodox was his sermon, at a +crisis when some sister colleges were bolstering up certain new +theological tenets which had a strong taint of heresy, that the old +gentlemen who held rank as fellows of his college, in a burst of zeal, +bestowed upon the worthy man the title of D. D. It was not an honor he +had coveted; indeed, he coveted no human honors; yet this was more +wisely given than most: his dignity, his sobriety, his rigid, complete +adherence to all the accepted forms of religious belief made him a safe +recipient of the title. + +The spinster sister, with an ill-concealed pride, was most zealous in +the bestowal of it; and before a month had passed, she had forced it +into current use throughout the world of Ashfield. + +Did a neglectful neighbor speak of the good health of "Mr. Johns," the +mistress of the parsonage said,--"Why, yes, the Doctor is working very +hard, it is true; but he is quite well; the Doctor is remarkably well." + +Did a younger church-sister speak in praise of some late sermon of "the +minister," Miss Eliza thanked her in a dignified way, and was sure "the +Doctor" would be most happy to hear that his efforts were appreciated. + +As for Larkin and Esther, who stumbled dismally over the new title, the +spinster plied them urgently. + +"Esther, my good woman, make the Doctor's tea very strong to-night." + +"Larkin, the Doctor won't ride to-day; and mind, you must cut the wood +for the Doctor's fire a little shorter." + +Reuben only rebelled, with the mischief of a boy:-- + +"What for do you call papa Doctor? He don't carry saddle-bags." + +To the quiet, staid man himself it was a wholly indifferent matter. In +the solitude of his study, however, it recalled a neglected duty, and in +so far seemed a blessing. By such paltry threads are the colors woven +into our life! It recalled his friend Maverick and his jaunty +prediction; and upon that came to him a recollection of the promise +which he had made to Rachel, that he would write to Maverick. + +So the minister wrote, telling his old friend what grief had stricken +his house,--how his boy and he were left alone,--how the church, by +favor of Providence, had grown under his preaching,--how his sister had +come to be mistress of the parsonage,--how he had wrought the Master's +work in fear and trembling; and after this came godly counsel for the +exile. + +He hoped that light had shone upon him, even in the "dark places" of +infidel France,--that he was not alienated from the faith of his +fathers,--that he did not make a mockery, as did those around him, of +the holy institution of the Sabbath. + +"My friend," he wrote, "God's word is true; God's laws are just; He will +come some day in a chariot of fire. Neither moneys nor high places nor +worldly honors nor pleasures can stay or avert the stroke of that sword +of divine justice which will 'pierce even to the dividing asunder of the +joints and marrow.' Let no siren voices beguile you. Without the gift of +His grace who died that we might live, there is no hope for kings, none +for you, none for me. I pray you consider this, my friend; for I speak +as one commissioned of God." + +Whether these words of the minister were met, after their transmission +over seas, with a smile of derision,--with an empty gratitude, that +said, "Good fellow!" and forgot their burden,--with a stitch of the +heart, that made solemn pause and thoughtfulness, and short, in struggle +against the habit of a life, we will not say; our story may not tell, +perhaps. But to the mind of the parson it was clear that at some great +coming day it _would_ be known of all men where the seed that he had +sown had fallen,--whether on good ground or in stony places. + +The cross-ocean mails were slow in those days; and it was not until +nearly four months after the transmission of the Doctor's letter--he +having almost forgotten it--that Reuben came one day bounding in from +the snow in mid-winter, his cheeks aflame with the keen, frosty air, his +eyes dancing with boyish excitement:-- + +"A letter, papa! a letter!--and Mr. Troop" (it is the new postmaster +under the Adams dynasty) "says it came all the way from Europe. It's got +a funny post-mark." + +The minister lays down his book,--takes the letter,--opens +it,--reads,--paces up and down the study thoughtfully,--reads again, to +the end. + +"Reuben, call your Aunt Eliza." + +There is matter in the letter that concerns her,--that in its issues +will concern the boy,--that may possibly give a new color to the life of +the parsonage, and a new direction to our story. + + + + +OUR FIRST CITIZEN.[A] + + + Winter's cold drift lies glistening o'er his breast; + For him no spring shall bid the leaf unfold: + What Love could speak, by sudden grief oppressed, + What swiftly summoned Memory tell, is told. + + Even as the bells, in one consenting chime, + Filled with their sweet vibrations all the air, + So joined all voices, in that mournful time, + His genius, wisdom, virtues, to declare. + + What place is left for words of measured praise, + Till calm-eyed History, with her iron pen, + Grooves in the unchanging rock the final phrase + That shapes his image in the souls of men? + + Yet while the echoes still repeat his name, + While countless tongues his full-orbed life rehearse, + Love, by his beating pulses taught, will claim + The breath of song, the tuneful throb of verse,-- + + Verse that, in ever-changing ebb and flow, + Moves, like the laboring heart, with rush and rest, + Or swings in solemn cadence, sad and slow, + Like the tired heaving of a grief-worn breast. + + This was a mind so rounded, so complete,-- + No partial gift of Nature in excess,-- + That, like a single stream where many meet, + Each separate talent counted something less. + + A little hillock, if it lonely stand, + Holds o'er the fields an undisputed reign; + While the broad summit of the table-land + Seems with its belt of clouds a level plain. + + Servant of all his powers, that faithful slave, + Unsleeping Memory, strengthening with his toils, + To every ruder task his shoulder gave, + And loaded every day with golden spoils. + + Order, the law of Heaven, was throned supreme + O'er action, instinct, impulse, feeling, thought; + True as the dial's shadow to the beam, + Each hour was equal to the charge it brought. + + Too large his compass for the nicer skill + That weighs the world of science grain by grain; + All realms of knowledge owned the mastering will + That claimed the franchise of his whole domain. + + Earth, air, sea, sky, the elemental fire, + Art, history, song,--what meanings lie in each + Found in his cunning hand a stringless lyre, + And poured their mingling music through his speech. + + Thence flowed those anthems of our festal days, + Whose ravishing division held apart + The lips of listening throngs in sweet amaze, + Moved in all breasts the self-same human heart. + + Subdued his accents, as of one who tries + To press some care, some haunting sadness down; + His smile half shadow; and to stranger eyes + The kingly forehead wore an iron crown. + + He was not armed to wrestle with the storm, + To fight for homely truth with vulgar power; + Grace looked from every feature, shaped his form,-- + The rose of Academe,--the perfect flower! + + Such was the stately scholar whom we knew + In those ill days of soul-enslaving calm, + Before the blast of Northern vengeance blew + Her snow-wreathed pine against the Southern palm. + + Ah, God forgive us! did we hold too cheap + The heart we might have known, but would not see, + And look to find the nation's friend asleep + Through the dread hour of her Gethsemane? + + That wrong is past; we gave him up to Death + With all a hero's honors round his name; + As martyrs coin their blood, he coined his breath, + And dimmed the scholar's in the patriot's fame. + + So shall we blazon on the shaft we raise,-- + Telling our grief, our pride, to unborn years,-- + "He who had lived the mark of all men's praise + Died with the tribute of a nation's tears." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[A] Read at the meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Jan. +30, 1865. + + + + +NEEDLE AND GARDEN + +THE STORY OF A SEAMSTRESS WHO LAID DOWN HER NEEDLE AND BECAME A +STRAWBERRY-GIRL. + +WRITTEN BY HERSELF. + + +CHAPTER IV. + +I quitted the sewing-school on a Friday evening, intending to put my +things in order the following day: for Monday was my birthday,--I should +then be eighteen, and was to go with my father and select a +sewing-machine. + +As before mentioned, he had usually employed all his spare time in +winter, when there was no garden-work to be done, in making seines for +the fishermen. These were very great affairs, being used in the +shad-fishery on the Delaware; and as they were many hundred yards in +length, they required a large gang of men to manage them. This +employment naturally brought him an extensive acquaintance among the +fishermen, by whom he was always invited to participate in their first +hauling of the river, at the breaking up of winter. As he was quite as +fond of this exciting labor as we had been of fishing along the ditches, +he never failed to accept these invitations. He not only enjoyed the +sport, but he was anxious to see how well the seines would operate which +he had sat for weeks in making. In addition to this, there was the +further gratification of being asked to accept of as many of the +earliest shad as he could carry away in his hand. It was a perquisite +which we looked for and prized as much as he did himself. This +recreation was of course attended with much exposure, being always +entered on in the gusty, chilly weather of the early spring. + +The morning after my quitting school saw him leaving us by daybreak to +go on one of these fishing-excursions, taking my brother with him. It +was in April, a cold, raw, and blustering time, and they would be gone +all day. I had put my little matters in order,--though there was really +very little to do in this way, as neither my wardrobe nor chamber was +crowded with superfluities,--and having decided among ourselves where +the machine should stand, I sat down with my mother and sister to sew. +The weather had changed to quite a snow-storm, with angry gusts of wind; +but our small sitting-room was warm and cheerful. We drew round the +stove, and discussed the events of the coming week. We were to try the +machine on the work which my mother and sister then had in the +house,--for Jane had long since left school, and was actively employed +at home. She had gone through a similar training with myself. I was to +teach both mother and her the use of the machine; and we had determined, +that, as soon as Jane had become sufficiently expert as an operator, she +was to obtain a situation in some establishment, and our earnings were +to be saved, until, with father's assistance, we could purchase machines +for her and mother. We made up our minds that we could accomplish this +within a year at farthest. Thus there was much before and around us to +cheer our hearts and fill them with the brightest anticipations. It +seemed to me, that, if I had been travelling in a long lane, I was now +approaching a delightful turn,--for it has been said that there is none +so long as to be without one. + +We had dined frugally, as usual, and mother had set away an ample +provision for the two absentees, who invariably came home with great +appetites. Our work had been resumed around the stove, and all was calm +and comfortable within the little sitting-room, though without the wind +had risen higher and the snow fell faster and faster, when the door was +suddenly opened, and as suddenly shut, by the wife of a neighbor, who, +with hands clasped together, as if overcome by some terrible grief, +rushed toward where my mother was sitting, and exclaimed,-- + +"Oh, Mrs. Lacey! how can I tell you?" + +"What is it?" eagerly inquired my mother, starting from her seat, and +casting from her the work on which she had been engaged. "What is it? +Speak! What has happened?" she cried, wild at the woman's apparent +inability to communicate the tidings she had evidently come to relate. + +Regaining her composure in some measure, the latter, covering her face +with her hands, and bursting into tears, sobbed out,-- + +"He's drowned!" + +"Oh! which of them?" shrieked my mother, wringing her hands, and every +vestige of color in her cheeks supplanted by a pallor so frightful that +it struck dismay to my heart. + +A mysterious instinct had warned her, the moment the woman spoke the +first words, that some calamity had overtaken us. + +"Which of them?" she repeated, with frantic impetuosity, "Is it my +husband or my son? Speak! speak! My heart breaks!" + +"Your husband, Mrs. Lacey," the woman replied; and as if relieved from +the crushing burden she had thus transferred from her own spirit to +ours, she sank back exhausted into a chair. + +"Oh! when, where, and how?" demanded my mother. "Are you sure it is +true? Who brought the news?" + +"Your own son, Ma'am; he sent me here to tell you," answered the woman. + +The door opened at the moment, and Fred, accompanied by several of the +neighbors, entered the room. Crying as if his heart would break, he +called out,-- + +"Oh, mother! it's too true,--father is gone!" + +This confirmation of the withering blow broke her down. I saw that she +was tottering to a fall, and threw my arms round her just in time to +prevent it. We laid her on the settee, insensible to everything about +her. + +As the news of our great bereavement spread, the neighbors crowded in, +offering their sympathy and aid. It was very kind of them, but, alas! +could do nothing towards lightening its weight. The story of how my dear +father came to his untimely end was at length related to us. He had gone +out upon the river in a boat from which a seine was being cast, and by +accident, no one could tell exactly how, had fallen overboard. Being no +swimmer, and the water of icy coldness, he sank immediately, without +again coming to the surface. Strong arms were waiting to seize him, upon +rising, but the deep had closed over him. + +I know not how it was, but the prostration of my poor mother seemed to +give me new strength to bear up under this terrible affliction. Oh! that +was a sad evening for us, and the birthday to which all had looked +forward with so much pleasure as the happiest of my life was to be the +saddest. Morning--it was Sunday--brought comparative calmness to my +mother. But she was broken down by the awful suddenness of the blow. She +wept over the thought that he had died without _her_ being near +him,--that there had been no opportunity for parting words,--that _she_ +was not able to close his dying eyes. She could have borne it better, if +she had been permitted to speak to him, to hear him say farewell, before +death shut out the world from his view. Then there was the painful +anxiety as to recovering the body. It had sunk in deep water, in the +middle of the river, and it was uncertain how far the strong current +might have swept it away from the spot where the accident occurred. The +neighbors had already begun to search for it with drags, and all through +that gloomy Sunday had continued their labor without success; for they +were not watermen, and therefore knew little of the proper methods of +procedure. + +Days passed away in this distressing uncertainty. Our pastor, Mr. +Seeley, missing Fred and Jane from Sunday-school, as well as myself from +the charge of my class, and learning the cause of our absence, came down +to see us. His consolations to my mother, his sympathy, his prayers, +revived and strengthened her. Finding that her immediate anxiety was +about the recovery of the body, he told her that the bodies of drowned +persons were seldom found without a reward being offered for them, and +that one must be promised in the present case. This suggestion brought +up the question of payment, and for the first time in our affliction it +was recollected that my father had always persisted in carrying in his +pocket-wallet all the money he had saved, and thus whatever he might +have accumulated was with him at the time of his death. Following, +nevertheless, the advice of our excellent pastor, a reward of fifty +dollars was advertised, and just one week from the fatal day the body +was brought to our now desolated home. But the wallet, with its +contents, had been abstracted. The little fund my mother had always +managed to keep on hand was too small to meet this heavy draft of the +reward in addition to that occasioned by the funeral, so that, when that +sad ceremony was over, we found ourselves beginning the world that now +opened on us incumbered with a debt of fifty dollars. + +But though borne down by the weight of our affliction, we were far from +being hopelessly discouraged. It is true that my young hopes had been +suddenly blasted. The bright pictures of the future which we had painted +in our little sitting-room the very morning of the day that our calamity +overtook us had all faded from sight, and were remembered only in +contrast with the dark shadows that now filled their places. The cup, +brimming with joyous anticipations, had been dashed from my lips. My +birthday passed in sorrow and gloom. But I roused myself from a torpor +which would have been likely to increase by giving way to it, and put on +all the energy of which I was capable. I felt, that, while I had griefs +for the dead, I had duties to perform to the living. The staff on which +we had mainly leaned for support had been taken away, and we were now +left to depend exclusively on our own exertions. I saw that the +condition of my mother devolved the chief burden on me, and I determined +that I would resolutely assume it. + +I had Fred immediately apprenticed to an iron-founder in the +neighborhood; and thenceforward, by his weekly allowance for board, he +became a contributor to the common support. My knowledge of the +sewing-machine secured for me a situation in a large establishment, in +which more than thirty other girls were employed in making bosoms, +wristbands, and collars for shirts; and I gradually recovered from what +at first was the bitter disappointment of having no machine of my own. + +I have seen it stated in the newspaper, that, when some cotton had been +imported into a certain manufacturing town in England, where all the +mills had long been closed for want of a supply from this country, the +people, who were previously in the greatest distress, went out to meet +it as it was approaching the town, and the women wept over the bales, +and kissed them, and then sang a hymn of thanksgiving for the welcome +importation. It would give them work! It was with a feeling akin to this +that I took my position in the great establishment referred to, having +also succeeded in obtaining a situation for my sister, whom I instructed +in the use of the machine until she became as expert an operator as +myself. + +The certainty of employment, even at moderate wages, relieved my mind of +many domestic cares, while the employment itself was a further relief. +It was, moreover, infinitely more agreeable than working for the +slop-shops, or even for the most fashionable tailors. Our duties were +defined and simple, and there was no unreasonable hurry, and no +night-work: we had our evenings to ourselves. As usual with +sewing-women, the pay was invariably small. The old formula had been +adhered to,--that because the cost of a sewing-woman's board was but +trifling, therefore her wages should be graduated to a figure just above +it. She was not permitted, as men are, to earn too much. My sister and I +were sometimes able to earn eight dollars a week between us, sometimes +only six. But this little income was the stay of the family. And it was +well enough, so long as we had no sickness to interrupt our work and +lessen the moderate sum. + +They paid off the girls by gas-light on Saturday evening. As we had a +long walk to reach home, the streets through which we passed presented, +on that evening, an animated appearance. A vast concourse of work-women, +laborers, mechanics, clerks, and others, who had also received their +weekly wages, thronged the streets. There were crowds of girls from the +binderies, mostly well dressed, and sewing-women carrying great bundles +to the tailors, many of them, without doubt uncertain as to whether +their work would be accepted, just as we had been in former days. As the +evening advanced, the shops of all descriptions for the supply of +family-stores were crowded by the wives of workmen thus paid off, and +the sewing-girls or their mothers, all purchasing necessaries for the +coming week, thus immediately disbursing the vast aggregate paid out on +Saturday for wages. + +The quickness with which I secured employment on the sewing-machine, +because of my having qualified myself to operate it, was a new +confirmation of my idea that women are engaged in so few occupations +only because they have not been taught. Employers want skilful workers, +not novices to whom they are compelled to teach everything. But what was +to be the ultimate effect on female labor of the introduction of this +machine had been a doubtful question with me until now, I worked so +steadily in this establishment, the occupation was so constant, as well +as so light, with far more bodily exercise than formerly when sitting in +one position over the needle, and the wages were paid so punctually, +with no mean attempts to cut us down on the false plea of imperfect +work, that I came insensibly to the conclusion that a vast benefit had +been conferred on the sex by its introduction. Yet the apprehensions +felt by all sewing-women, when the new instrument was first brought out, +were perfectly natural. I have read that similar apprehensions were +entertained by others on similar occasions. When the lace-machines were +first introduced in Nottingham, they were destroyed by riotous mobs of +hand-loom weavers, who feared the ruin of their business. But where, +fifty years ago, there were but a hundred and forty lace-machines in use +in England, there are now thirty-five hundred, while the price of lace +has fallen from a hundred shillings the square yard to sixpence. Before +this lace-machinery was invented, England manufactured only two million +dollars' worth per annum, and in doing so employed only eight +thousand-hands; whereas now she produces thirty million dollars' worth +annually, and employs a hundred and thirty thousand hands. It has been +the same with power-looms, reapers, threshing-machines, and every other +contrivance to economize human labor. I am sure that my brother would be +thrown out of employment, if there were no steam-engine to operate the +foundry where he is at work, and that, if there were no sewing-machines, +my sister and myself would be compelled to join the less fortunate army +of seamstresses who still labor so unrequitedly for the slop-shops. + +To satisfy my mind on this subject, I have looked into such books as I +have had time and opportunity to consult, and have found evidence of the +fact, that, the more we increase our facilities for performing work with +speed and cheapness, the more we shall have to do, and so the more hands +will be required to do it. The time was when it was considered so great +an undertaking for a man to farm a hundred acres, that very few persons +were found cultivating a larger tract. But now, with every farming +process facilitated by the use of labor-saving machines, there are farms +of ten thousand acres better managed than were formerly those of only a +hundred acres. There would be no penny paper brought daily to our door, +unless the same wonderful revolution had been made in all the processes +of the paper-mill, and in the speed of printing-presses. If I had +doubted what was to be the consequence of bringing machinery into +competition with the sewing-women, it was owing to my utter ignorance of +how other great revolutions had affected the labor of different classes +of workers. + +This doubt thus satisfactorily resolved, it very soon became with me a +question for profound wonder, what became of the immensely increased +quantity of clothing which was manufactured by so many thousands of +machines. I could not learn that our population had suddenly increased +to an extent sufficient to account for the enlarged consumption that was +evidently taking place. I had heard that there were nations of savages +who considered shirts a sort of superfluity, and who moved about in very +much the same costume as that in which our primal mother clothed herself +just previously to indulging in the forbidden fruit. But they could not +have thus suddenly taken to the wearing of machine-made shirts. There +was a paragraph also in our paper which stated that the usual dress in +hot weather, in some parts of our own South, was only a hat and spurs. +This, however, I regarded as a piece of raillery, and was not inclined +to place much faith in it. But I had never heard that any other portion +of our people were in the habit of going without shirts or pantaloons. +If such had been the practice, and if it had on the instant been +renounced, it would have accounted for the sudden and unprecedented +demand which now sprang up for these indispensable articles of dress. Or +if the fashion had so changed that men had taken to wearing two shirts +instead of one, that also might account for it,--though the wearing of +two would be considered as great an eccentricity as the wearing of none. + +I found that others with whom I conversed on the subject were equally +surprised with myself. Even some who were concerned in carrying on the +establishment in which we were employed could not account for the +immediate absorption of the vastly increased quantities of work that +were turned out. Few could tell exactly why more was wanted than +formerly, nor where it went. The only fact apparent was that there was a +demand for thrice as much as before sewing-machines were brought into +use. My own conclusion was eventually this,--that distant sections of +our country were supplied exclusively from these manufactories in the +great cities, which combined capital, energy, and enterprise in the +creation of an immense business. Yet I could not understand why people +in those distant sections did not establish manufactories of their own. +They had quite as much capital, and could procure machines as readily, +while the population to be supplied was immediately at their doors. + +I had always heard that the South and West had never at any time +manufactured their own clothing. I knew that the Southern women, +particularly, were so ignorant and helpless that they had always been +dependent on the North for almost everything they wore, from the most +elaborate bonnet down to a pocket pin-cushion, and that the supplying of +their wardrobes, by the men-milliners of this section, was a highly +lucrative employment. As it is a difficult matter to divert any business +from a channel in which it has long flowed, I concluded that our +Northern dealers, having always commanded these distant markets, would +easily retain them by adapting their business to the change of +circumstances. They had the trade already, and could keep it flowing in +its old channels by promptly availing themselves of the new invention. + +They did so without hesitation,--indeed, the great struggle was as to +who should be first to do it,--and not only kept their business, but +obtained for it an unprecedented increase. In doing this they must have +displaced thousands of sewing-women all over the country, as their +cheaper fabrics enabled them to undersell the latter everywhere. I know +that this was the first effect here, and it is difficult to understand +how in other places it should have been otherwise. These sewing-women +must have been deprived of work, or the consumers of clothing must have +immediately begun to purchase and wear double or treble as much as they +had been accustomed to. I do not doubt that the consumption increased +from the mere fact of increased cheapness. I believe it is an invariable +law of trade, that consumption increases as price diminishes. If silks +were to fall to a shilling a yard, everybody would turn away from cotton +shirts. As it was, shirts were made without collars, and the collars +were produced in great manufactories by steam. They were made by +millions, and by millions they were consumed. They were sold in boxes of +a dozen or a hundred, at two or three cents apiece, according to the +wants of the buyer. He could appear once or twice a day in all the glory +of an apparently clean shirt, according to his ambition to shine in a +character which might be a very new one. Judging by the consumption of +these conveniences, it would seem, that, if one had only a clean collar +to display, it was of little consequence whether he had a shirt or not. + +To digress a moment, I will observe, that, when I first saw these +ingenious contrivances to escape the washerwoman's bill, as well as the +cuffs made by the same process for ladies' use, they both struck me so +favorably, while their cheapness was so surprising, that my curiosity +was inflamed to see and know how they were made. In company with my +sister, I visited the manufactory. It was in a large building, and +employed many hands, who operated with machinery that exceeds my ability +to describe. They took a whole piece of thin, cheap muslin, to each side +of which they pasted a covering of the finest white paper by passing the +three layers between iron rollers. The paper and muslin were in rolls +many hundred feet long. The beautiful product of this union was then +parted into strips of the proper width and dried, then passed through +hot metal rollers, combining friction with pressure, whence it was +delivered with a smooth, glossy, enamelled surface. The material for +many thousand collars was thus enamelled in five minutes. It was then +cut by knives into the different shapes and sizes required, and so +rapidly that a man and boy could make more than ten thousand in an hour. +Every collar was then put through a machine which printed upon it +imitation stitches, so exactly resembling the best work of a +sewing-machine as to induce the belief that the collar was actually +stitched. Two girls were working or attending two of these machines, and +the two produced nearly a hundred collars per minute, or about sixty +thousand daily. The button-holes were next punched with even greater +rapidity, then the collar was turned over so nicely that no break +occurred in the material. Then they were counted and put in boxes, and +were ready for market. + +Besides these shirt-collars, there was a great variety of ladies' worked +cuffs and collars, adapted to every taste, and imitating the finest +linen with the nicest exactness, but all made of paper. Some hundreds of +thousands of these were piled up around, ready for counting and packing, +sufficient, it appeared to me, to supply our whole population for a +twelvemonth. They were sold so cheaply, also, that it cost no more to +buy a new collar than to wash an old one. Like friction-matches, they +were used only once and then thrown away; hence, the consumption being +perpetual, the production was continuous the year round. + +I inquired of the proprietor how he accounted for the immense +consumption of these articles, without which the world had been getting +on comfortably for so many thousand years. + +"Why," said he, "we have been fortunate enough to create a new want. +Perhaps we did not really create the want, but only discovered that an +unsatisfied one existed. It is all the same in either case. Any great +convenience, or luxury, heretofore unknown to the public, when fairly +set before them is sure to come into general use. It has been so, in my +experience, with many things that were not thought of twenty years ago. +I have been as much puzzled to account for the unlimited consumption of +cuffs and collars as you are to know why so much more clothing is used +now than before sewing-machines came into operation. But the increased +cheapness of a thing, whether old or new, and the convenience of getting +it, are the great stimulants to enlarged consumption,--and as these +conditions are present, so will be the latter." + +"But when you began this business, did you expect to sell so many?" I +inquired. + +"We did not," he replied, "and are ourselves surprised at the quantity +we sell. Besides, there are several other factories, which produce +greater numbers than we do. But when I reflect on the extent to which +the business has already gone, I find the facts to be only in keeping +with results in other cases. I have thought and read much on the very +subject which so greatly interests you. Some years ago I was puzzled to +account for the immensely increased circulation of newspapers,--rising, +in some instances, from one thousand up to forty thousand. I knew that +our population had not grown at one tenth that rate, yet the circulation +went on extending. One day I asked a country postmaster how _he_ +accounted for it 'Why,' he replied, 'the question is easily +answered;--where a man formerly took only one paper, he now takes seven. +Cheap postage, and the establishment of news-agents all over the +country, enable the people to get papers at less cost and with only half +the trouble of twenty years ago. The power of production is complete, +and the machinery of distribution has kept pace with it. The people +don't actually need the papers any more now than they did then, but the +convenience of having them brought to their doors induces them to buy +six or seven where they formerly bought only one. That's the way it +happens.'" + +"Then," continued my polite and communicative informant, "look at the +article of pins. You ladies, who use so many more than our sex, have +never been able to tell what becomes of them. You know that of late +years you have been using the American solid-head pins, which were +produced so cheaply as immediately to supersede the foreign article. +Now," said he, with a smile, "don't you think you use up six pins you +formerly used only one? Careful people, twenty years ago, when they saw +one on the pavement, or on the parlor-floor, stopped and picked it up; +but now they pass it by, or sweep it into the dust-pan. Is it not so, +and have not careful people ceased to exist?" + +I confess that the illustration was so full of point that some +indistinct conviction of its truth came over me; it was really my own +experience. + +"So you see," he continued, "that, while of all these new and cheaply +manufactured articles there is a vast consumption, there is also a vast +waste. People--that is, prudent people--generally take care of things +according to their cost. You don't wear your best bonnet in the rain. It +is precisely so with our cuffs and collars. We sell them so cheaply that +some people wear three or four a day, while a careful person would make +one suffice. When the collar was attached to the shirt, it served for a +much longer time; what but cheapness and convenience can tempt to such +wastefulness now? My family, at least the female portion, use these +articles about as extravagantly, and I think your whole sex must be +equally fond of indulging in the same lavish use of them,--otherwise the +consumption could not be so great as you see it is." + +I could not but inwardly plead guilty to this weakness of indulging in +clean cuffs and collars,--neither could I fail to recognize the +soundness of this reasoning, which must have grown out of superior +knowledge. It gave me new light, and settled a great many doubts. + +"I suppose, Miss," he resumed, as if unwilling to leave anything +unexplained, "you use friction-matches at home? Now you know how cheap +they are,--two boxes for a cent. But I remember when one box sold for +twenty-five cents. People were then careful how they used them, and it +was not everybody who could afford to do so. The flint and tinder-box +were long in going out of use. But how is it now? Instead of one match +serving to light a cigar, the smokers use two or three. They waste them +because they are cheap, carrying them loose in their pockets, that they +may always have enough, with some to throw away. + +"Take the article of hoop-skirts. Women did very well without them, and +looked quite as well, at least in my opinion. But some ingenious man +conceived the idea of tempting them with a new want, and they were at +once persuaded into believing that hoop-skirts were indispensable to a +genteel appearance. They were adopted all over the country with a +rapidity that outstripped that of the cuffs and collars,--not, perhaps, +that as many were manufactured, because, if that had been the case, they +could not have been consumed, unless each woman had worn two or three. +And they may in fact wear two or three each,--I don't know how that +is,--but look at the waste already visible. Every week or two, new +patterns are brought out, better, lighter, or prettier than the last; +whereupon the old ones are thrown aside, though not half worn. Why, +Miss, do you know that your sex are carrying about them some thousands +of tons of brass and steel in the shape of these skirts? As to the +waste, it is already so large as to have become a public nuisance. An +old hat or shoe may be given away to somebody,--an old scrubbing-brush +may be disposed of by putting it into the stove; but as to an old skirt, +who wants it? You cannot burn it; the very beggars will not take it; and +hence it is thrown into the street, or into the alley close to your +door, where it continues for months to trip up the feet of every +wayfaring man quite as provokingly as it sometimes tripped up those of +the wearer. It is the waste of hoop-skirts, as much as anything else, +that keeps the manufacture so brisk. + +"Then, again," he continued, as if expanded by the skirts he had just +been speaking of, "look at the long dresses which the ladies now wear. +See how the most costly stuffs are dragging over the pavement, sweeping +up the filth with which it is covered. To speak of the foul condition +into which such draggletailed dresses must soon get is positively +sickening. If a dozen of them were thrown into a closet and left there +for a few hours, I have no doubt they would burn of spontaneous +combustion." + +I was half inclined to take fire myself at hearing this, but remained +silent, and he proceeded. + +"See, too, what a constant fidget the wearers are in, under the +incumbrance of a dress so foolishly long as to require the use of both +hands to keep it at a cleanly elevation. I presume the ladies wear these +ridiculous trains because they think they look more graceful in them. +But do you know, Miss, that our sex feel the most profound contempt for +a woman who is so weak as to make such an exhibition of folly? It might +do for great people, at a great party,--but in dirty, sloppy, muddy +streets, by servant-girls as well as by fashionable women, it is +considered not only indecent, but as evincing a want of common sense. +Moreover, the quantity of material destroyed by thus dragging over the +pavement is very great. It must amount to thousands of yards annually, +and it appears to me that the more it costs per yard, the more of it is +devoted to street-sweeping. Here is wastefulness by wholesale." + +"But do you think the same remarks apply to the case of the greatly +increased amount of clothing that is now manufactured by the +sewing-machines?" I inquired. + +"Certainly, Miss," he responded. "There are not a great many more +people in this country now to be clothed than there were three years +ago; yet at least three times as much clothing is manufactured. The +question is as to how it is consumed. I do not suppose that men wear two +coats or shirts, or that any ever went without them. But the increased +cheapness has led to increased waste, exactly as in the case of pins and +matches. Clothing being obtainable at lower prices than were ever known +before in this country, it is purchased in unnecessary quantities, just +like the newspapers, and not taken care of. Thousands of men now have +two or three coats where they formerly had only one. It is these extra +outfits, and this continual waste, that keep up the production at which +you are so much astonished. The facts afford you another illustration of +the great law of supply and demand,--that as you cheapen and multiply +products or manufactures of any kind, so will the consumption of them +increase. If pound-cake could be had at the price of corn-bread, does it +not strike you that the community would consume little else? The cry for +pound-cake would be universal,--it would be, in fact, in everybody's +mouth." + +"But," I again inquired, "will this extraordinary demand for the +products of the sewing-machine continue? I have told you that I am a +sewing-girl, and hence feel a deep interest in learning all I can upon +the subject." + +"Judging from appearances, it must," was his reply. "We are the most +extravagant people in the world. We consume, per head, more coffee, tea, +and sugar, jewelry, silks, and cotton, than the people of any other +country on the face of the earth. Our women wear more satins and laces, +and our men smoke more high-priced cigars, than those of any other part +of the world. They eat more meat, drink more liquor, and spend more in +trifles. And it is not likely that they contemplate any reformation of +these lavish habits, at least while wages keep up to the present rates. +Were it proposed, I think that coats and shirts would be about the last +things the men would begin with, and paper cuffs and collars among the +last the women would repudiate. They are fond enough of changing their +clothes, but have no idea of doing without them." + +"I notice," I observed, "that you employ girls in your establishment, +several being occupied in feeding the stamping-rollers. Could a man feed +those rollers more efficiently than a girl? or would they turn out more +work in a week, if attended by a man than by a girl?" + +"Not any more," he answered. + +"Do the girls receive as much wages as the men?" I added. + +"About one third as much," he replied. + +"But," I suggested, "if they perform as much work as men could, why do +you pay them so much less?" + +"Competition, Miss," he answered, "There is a constant pressure on us +from girls seeking employment, and this keeps down wages. Besides, those +whom we do employ come here wholly ignorant of what they are required to +do. Some have never worked a day in their lives. It requires time to +teach them, and while being taught they spoil a great deal of material. +It is a long time before they become really skilled hands. You can have +no conception of the kind of help that offers itself to us every week. +Parents don't seem to educate their daughters to anything useful; and +our girls nowadays appear to have little or nothing to do in-doors. +Formerly they had plenty of household duties, as a multitude of things +were done at home which even the poorest old woman never thinks of doing +now. The baker now makes their bread; the spinning, the weaving, the +knitting, and sewing are taken out of their hands by machinery; and if +women want to work, they must go out and seek it, just as those do who +apply to us. Machinery has undoubtedly effected a great revolution in +all home-employments for women, compelling many to be idle; and not +being properly encouraged to adopt new employments in place of the old +ones, they remain idle until forced to work for bread, and then go out +in search of occupation, knowing no more of one half the things we want +them to do than mere children." + +"But when they become skilled," I again asked, "you do not pay them as +high wages as you pay the men, though they do as much and as well?" + +"Women don't need as much," he replied. "They can live on less, they pay +less board, have fewer wants, and less occasion for money." + +"But don't you think," I rejoined, "that, if you gave them the money, +they would find the wants, and that the scarcity of the former is the +true reason for the limitation of the latter? Do not working-women live +on the little they get only because they are compelled to?" + +"It may be so," he answered. "Our wants are born with us,--and as one +set is supplied, another rises up to demand gratification. But they +offer to work for these wages, and why should we give them more than +they ask?" + +"But how is it with the women with families, the widows?" I suggested. +"Have they no more wants than young girls? If the fewer necessities of +the girls be a reason for giving them low wages, why should not the more +numerous ones of the widows be as potent a reason for giving them better +wages?" + +"Competition again, Miss," he responded. "The prices at which the girls +work govern the market." + +There was no getting over facts like these. Let me look at the subject +in whatever aspect I might, it seemed impossible that female labor +should be adequately paid by any class of employers. But on the present +occasion this was an incidental question. The primary one, why so much +more sewing was required for the people now than formerly, was answered +measurably to my satisfaction. I thought a great deal on this subject, +because now, since the loss of our main family-dependence, I was more +interested in its solution. I think I settled down into accepting the +foregoing facts and opinions as embodying a satisfactory explanation; +and although not exactly set at ease, yet the conclusion then embraced +has not been changed by any subsequent discovery. + +The gentleman referred to may have been altogether wrong in some parts +of his argument, but I was too little versed in matters of trade, and +the laws of supply and demands to show wherein he was so. It seemed to +me a strange argument, that the consumption of things was to be so +largely attributed to wastefulness. But I suppose this must be what +people call political economy, and how should I be expected to know +anything of that? I knew that in our little family the utmost economy +was practised. I have turned or fixed up the same bonnet as many as four +times, putting on new trimmings at very little expense, and making it +look so different every time that none suspected it of being the old +bonnet altered, while many of my acquaintances admired it as a new one, +some of them even inquiring what it cost, and who was the milliner that +made it. We never thought of giving one away until it had gone through +many such transformations, nor, in fact, until it was actually used up, +at least for me. Even when mine had seen such long and severe service, +my sister Jane fell heir to it, though without knowing it,--for she had +more pride than myself, and was much more particular about her good +looks. Hence, when the thing was at all feasible, my veteran bonnet was +transformed, in private, into a very fair new one for her. She had been +familiar with my head-gear for so many years that I often wondered how +she failed to detect the disguises I put upon it; and I had as much as I +could do to keep from laughing, when I brought to her what we invariably +called her new bonnet. As she grew older, she became more exacting in +her tastes, and at the same time foolishly suspicious of the mysterious +origin of her new bonnets,--just as if they were any worse for my having +worn them for years! I presume her mortification will be extreme, when +she comes to read this. As to old clothes, they were nursed up quite as +carefully, though Jane had her full inheritance of both mine and +mother's. When entirely past service, they were cut up into carpet-rags, +from which we obtained the warmest covering for our floors. Thus +practising no wastefulness ourselves, it was difficult to understand how +the national wastefulness could be great enough to insure the prosperity +of a multitude of extensive manufacturing establishments. But our +premises were very humble ones from which to start an argument of any +description. + +Yet, when the attention of an inquiring mind is directed toward any +given subject, it is astonishing how, if only a little observation is +practised, it will unfold and expand itself. In my walks to and from the +factory there lay numerous open lots or commons, all of which afforded +abundant evidence of the extent to which this public wastefulness was +carried. Heretofore I had passed on without noticing much about them. +But now I observed that they were heaped up with great piles of +coal-ashes, from which cropped out large quantities of the unburnt +mineral, as black and shining as when it came from the mines. There were +thousands of loads of this residuum, in which many hundred tons of pure +coal must have been thus wastefully thrown away. In other parts of the +city the same evidence of carelessness existed, so that the waste of a +single city in the one article of coal must be enormous. Then, over +these commons were scattered, almost daily, the remains of clothing, old +hats, bonnets, and the indestructible hoop-skirts, of which the +collar-maker had complained as being in everybody's way, as much so when +out of use as when in. Somebody had been guilty of wastefulness in thus +casting these things away. But though losses to some, they were gains to +others. By early daylight the rag-pickers came in platoons to gather up +all these waifs. The hats, the bonnets, and the clothing were quickly +appropriated by women and children who had come out of the narrow courts +and hovels of the city in search of what they knew was an every-day +harvest. These small gatherings of the rag-pickers amounted to hundreds +of dollars daily. Then there was another class of searchers after +abandoned treasure, in the persons of other women and children, who, +with pronged or pointed sticks, worked their way into the piles of +ashes, and picked out basketfuls of coal as heavy as they could carry, +and in this laborious way provided themselves with summer and winter +fuel. + +There was living near us a man who made a business of gathering up the +offal of several hundred kitchens in the city, as food for pigs. I know +that he grew rich at this vocation. He lived in a much better house than +ours, and his wife and daughters dressed as expensively as the +wealthiest women. They had a piano, and music in abundance. He had +several carts which were sent on their daily rounds through the city, +collecting the kitchen-waste of boarding-houses, hotels, and private +families. The quantity of good, wholesome food which these carts brought +away to be fed to pigs was incredible. It was a common thing to see +whole loaves of bread taken out of the family swill-tub, with joints of +meat not half eaten, sound vegetables, and fragments of other food, as +palatable and valuable as the portion that had been consumed on the +table. It seemed as if there were hundreds of families who made it a +point never to have food served up a second time. The waste by this +thriftlessness was great. I doubt not that some men must have been kept +poor by such want of proper oversight on the part of their wives, as I +know that it enriched the individual who gathered up the fat crumbs +which fell from their tables. I think it must be quite true that "fat +kitchens make lean wills." + +These slight incidental confirmations of the theory of national +wastefulness came under my daily notice. I had heretofore overlooked +them, but now they attracted my attention. Then I had only to direct my +eye to other and higher fields of observation to be sure that it had +some foundation. The streets, the shop-windows, were eloquent witnesses +for it. The waste of clothing material consequent on the introduction of +hoop-skirts was seen to be prodigious. It was not only the poor thin +body that was now to be covered with finery, but the huge balloon in +which fashion required that that body should be enveloped. I thought, +now that the subject was one for study, that I could see it running +through almost every thing. + +This wastefulness, then, was to be the ground on which the sewing-woman +was to rest her hopes of continued employment. It might be good +holding-ground in times of high general prosperity, when money was +abundant and circulation active; but how would it be when reverses of +any kind overtook the nation? As extravagance was the rule now, it +occurred to me that so would a stringent economy be the rule then, The +old hats that were usually thrown away upon the commons would be +rejuvenated and worn again,--the parsimony of one crisis seeking to make +up for the wastefulness of another; for when a sharp turn of hard times +comes round, everybody takes to economizing. There are older heads and +more observant minds than my own, that must remember how these things +have worked in bygone years. These have had the experience of a whole +lifetime to enable them to judge: I was a mere inquirer on the threshold +of a very brief one. + + * * * * * + +Our employment at the factory kept us comfortable. In time we were able +to earn something more than when we began. Our good pastor had lent us +the money with which to pay the reward for recovering my dear father's +body; and as my mother had a great dread of being in debt, we had +practised a most rigid economy at home in order to save enough to repay +him. This we did, a few dollars at a time, until we had finally paid the +whole. Though he frequently came down to see my mother in her +loneliness, yet he never alluded to the matter of the loan, and actually +declined taking any part of it until it was almost forced upon him. He +even offered, on one occasion, to increase the loan to any extent that +my mother might think necessary for her comfort, and in various ways +manifested a strong disposition to do everything far us that he could. +We had all been favorite pupils in his Sunday school, where I had soon +been promoted to the position of a teacher. Finding, also, that we were +fond of reading, he had lent us books from his own library, and even +invited me to come and select for myself. I sometimes accepted these +invitations, and occasionally chose books on subjects that seemed to +surprise him very much But, after all, are not a few books well chosen +better than a great library? + +The lending of the money at the time we were in so much distress was of +inexpressible value to us. But as every-day life is a leaf in one's +history, so was this pecuniary experience in ours. I had innocently +supposed that the chief value of money was to supply one's own wants, +but I now learned that its highest capacity for good lay in its power of +ministering to the necessities of others. I have read that in prosperity +it is the easiest thing to find a friend; but that in adversity it is of +all things the most difficult. I know that in trouble we often come off +better than we expect, and always better than we deserve. But men of the +noblest dispositions are apt to consider themselves happiest when others +share their happiness with them. Our pastor lent us this little sum of +money at a time when it was of the utmost value to us; but it was done +in a way so hearty, and so unobtrusive, as to add immeasurably to the +obligation. Indeed, I sometimes think that a pecuniary favor which is +granted grudgingly is no favor at all. + +Still, while at work in the factory, there were many things to think of, +and some inconveniences to submit to. The long walks to it were +unpleasant in stormy weather, and occasionally we were compelled to lose +a day or two from this cause. But then the out-door exercise in fine +weather was beneficial to health, and we were spared the public +mortification of carrying great bundles of made-up clothing through the +streets: for, let a sewing-girl feel as independent as she may, she does +not covet the being everywhere known as belonging to that class of +workers. Her bundle is the badge of her profession. My sister had a +great deal of pride on this point. She was extremely nice about her +looks, There was a neat jauntiness in her appearance, of which she +seemed to be fully conscious; and as she grew up to womanhood, I think +it became more apparent in all her actions. She was really a very +attractive girl,--certainly so to me,--and she must have been more so to +the other sex, as I noticed that the men about the establishment were +more courteous to her than they were to me. Even our employer treated +her with a deferential politeness that he did not extend to others, and +when paying us our wages, always had a complimentary remark for Jane, as +if seeking to win the good opinion of one who seemed to be a general +favorite. + +But I confess that during all the time we were working in the factory I +sighed for the possession of a machine of my own, so that I could be +more at home with my mother in her loneliness: for when we left her in +the morning we carried our dinners with us, leaving her to her own +thoughts during the whole day. The grief at my father's loss had by no +means been overcome, for with all of us it was something more than the +shadow of a passing cloud. Personally, I cared nothing for the carrying +of a bundle through the streets, even though it made proclamation of my +being a sewing-girl. Then as to exercise or recreation, I could have +abundance in the garden. As it was, I still continued to see it kept in +order. Fred was very good in doing all I wanted. He would rise early +before breakfast, and do any digging it required, and in the evening, +after returning from the foundry, would attend to many other things +about it as they needed. I was equally industrious; and now that it was +wholly left for me to see to, my fondness for it increased, while I came +to understand its management more thoroughly than when my father was +sole director. The more I had to do, the more I learned. Then there were +times when I rose in the morning feeling so poorly that it was a tax +upon both spirits and strength to tramp the long distance to the +factory; yet it would have been no hardship to work at a machine at +home, or to do an hour's gardening. I think my earnings could have been +made quite as large as they were at the factory, as the owner of a +machine generally received a little more pay than when working on one +belonging to her employer; and I felt quite sure that there would be no +difficulty in obtaining abundance of work. My doubts on this point had +been pretty well settled. + +But we had no hundred and thirty or forty dollars to lay out for a +machine now, and there was no prospect of our being able to save enough +to purchase one. Hence I never even hinted to my mother what my wishes +were, as it would only be to her a fresh anxiety. I did mention the +subject to my sister, but she did not seem to favor my plans. She was a +great favorite at the factory, and why should not the factory be as +great a favorite with her? I have no doubt that our pastor, who was as +wealthy as he was generous and good, would have promptly loaned us, or +even me, the money; but he had heard nothing of the fact that my +father's sudden death had alone prevented my obtaining a machine, nor +during his frequent visits to our house did we ever mention what we had +then expected or what I now so much desired. Besides, it would be a +great debt, so large that I should have hesitated about incurring it. We +had been a long while in getting clear of the other, and the apparent +hopelessness of discharging one nearly three times as great, and that, +too, from my individual earnings, was such, that in the end I concluded +it would be better for me to avoid the debt by doing without the +machine, than to have it only on condition of buying it on credit. + + + + +MEMORIES OF AUTHORS. + +A SERIES OF PORTRAITS FROM PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE. + + +THEODORE HOOK AND HIS FRIENDS. + +Theodore Edward Hook was born in Charlotte Street, Bedford Square, on +the 22d of September, 1788. His father was an eminent musical composer, +who "enjoyed in his time success and celebrity"; his elder brother James +became Dean of Windsor, whose son is the present learned and eloquent +Dean of Chichester; the mother of both was an accomplished lady, and +also an author. + +His natural talent, therefore, was early nursed. Unfortunately, the +green-room was the too frequent study of the youth; for his father's +fame and income were chiefly derived from the composition of operetta +songs, for which Theodore usually wrote the libretti. When little more +than a boy he had produced perhaps thirty farces, and in 1808 gave birth +to a novel. Those who remember the two great actors of a long period, +Mathews and Liston, will be at no loss to comprehend the popularity of +Hook's farces: for they were his "props." + +In 1812, when his finances were low, and the chances of increasing them +limited, and when, perhaps, also, his constitution had been tried by +"excesses," he received the appointment of Accountant-General and +Treasurer at the Mauritius,--a post with an income of two thousand +pounds a year. Hook seems to have derived his qualifications for this +office from his antipathy to arithmetic and his utter unfitness for +business. + +The result might have been easily foreseen. In 1819 he returned to +England: the cause may be indicated by his very famous pun, when, the +Governor of the Cape having expressed a hope that he was not returning +because of ill health, he was "sorry to say they think there is +something wrong in the _chest_." He was found guilty of owing twelve +thousand pounds to the Government: yet he was "without a shilling in his +pocket." If public funds had been abstracted, he was none the richer, +and there was certainly no suspicion that the money had been dishonestly +advantageous to him. + +Although kept for years in hot water, battling with the Treasury, it was +not until 1823 that the penalty was exacted,--sometime after the "John +Bull" had made him a host of enemies. Of course, as he could not pay in +purse, he was doomed to "pay in person." After spending some months +"pleasantly" at a dreary sponging-house in Shoe Lane, where there was +ever "an agreeable prospect, _barring_ the windows," he was removed to +the "Rules of the Bench," residing there a year, being discharged from +custody in 1825. + +Hook, while in the Rules, was under very little restraint; he was almost +as much in society as ever, taking special care not to be seen by any of +his creditors, who might have pounced upon him and made the Marshal +responsible for the debt. The danger was less in Hook's case than in +that of others, for his principal "detaining creditor" was the King. I +remember his telling me, that, during his "confinement" in the Rules, he +made the acquaintance of a gentleman, who, while a prisoner there, paid +a visit to India. The story is this. The gentleman called one morning on +the Marshal, who said,-- + +"Mr. ----, I have not had the pleasure to see you for a long time." + +"No wonder," was the answer; "for since you saw me last I have been to +India." + +In reply to a look of astonished inquiry, he explained,-- + +"I knew my affairs there were so intricate and involved that no one but +myself could unravel them; so I ran the risk, and took my chance. I am +back with ample funds to pay all my debts, and to live comfortably for +the rest of my days." + +Mr. Hook did not say if the gentleman had obtained from his securities a +license for what he had done; but the anecdote illustrates the extreme +laxity enjoyed by prisoners in the Rules, (which extended to several +streets,) as compared with the doleful incarceration to which _poor_ +debtors were subjected, who in those days often had their miserable home +in a jail for debts that might have been paid by shillings. + +Hook then took up his residence at Putney, from which he afterwards +removed to a "mansion" in Cleveland Street, but subsequently to Fulham, +where the remainder of his life was passed, and where he died. It was a +small, detached cottage. It is of this cottage that Lockhart says, "We +doubt if its interior was ever seen by half a dozen people besides the +old confidential worshippers of Bull's mouth." + +He resided here in comparative obscurity. It gave him a pleasant +prospect of Putney Bridge, and of Putney on the opposite side of the +river. As the Thames flowed past the bottom of his small and narrow +garden, he had a perpetually cheerful and changing view of the many gay +passers-by in small boats, yachts, and steamers. The only room of the +cottage I ever saw was somewhat coarsely furnished: a few prints hung on +the walls, but there was no evidence of those suggestive refinements +which substitute intellectual for animal gratifications, in the internal +arrangements of a domicile that becomes necessarily a workshop. + +Hook's love of practical joking seems to have commenced early. Almost of +that character was his well-known answer to the Vice-Chancellor at +Oxford, when asked whether he was prepared to subscribe to the +Thirty-Nine Articles,--"Certainly, to forty of them, if you please"; and +his once meeting the Proctor dressed in his robes, and being questioned, +"Pray, Sir, are you a member of this University?" he replied, "No, Sir; +pray are you?" + +In the Memoirs of Charles Mathews by his widow abundant anecdotes are +recorded of these practical jokes; but, in fact, "Gilbert Gurney," which +may be regarded as an autobiography, is full of them. Mr. Barham, his +biographer, also relates several, and states, that, when a young man, he +had a "museum" containing a large and varied collection of knockers, +sign-paintings, barbers' poles, and cocked hats, gathered together +during his predatory adventures; but its most attractive object was "a +gigantic Highlander," lifted from the shop-door of a tobacconist on a +dark, foggy night. These "enterprises of great pith and moment" are +detailed by himself in full. The most "glorious" of them has been often +told: how he sent through the post some four thousand letters, inviting +on a given day a huge assemblage of visitors to the house of a lady of +fortune, living at 54, Berners Street. They came, beginning with a dozen +sweeps at daybreak, and including lawyers, doctors, upholsterers, +jewellers, coal-merchants, linen-drapers, artists, even the Lord Mayor, +for whose behoof a special temptation was invented. In a word, there was +no conceivable trade, profession, or calling that was not summoned to +augment the crowd of foot-passengers and carriages by which the street +was thronged from dawn till midnight; while Hook and a friend enjoyed +the confusion from a room opposite.[B] Lockhart, in the "Quarterly," +states that the hoax was merely the result of a wager that Hook would in +a week make the quiet dwelling the most famous house in all London. Mr. +Barham affirms that the lady, Mrs. Tottenham, had on some account fallen +under the displeasure of the formidable trio, Mr. Hook and two unnamed +friends. + +His conversation was an unceasing stream of wit, of which he was +profuse, as if he knew the source to be inexhaustible. He never kept it +for display, or for company, or for those only who knew its value: wit +was, indeed, as natural to him as commonplace to commonplace characters. +It was not only in puns, in repartees, in lively retorts, in sparkling +sentences, in brilliant illustrations, or in apt or exciting anecdote, +that this faculty was developed. I have known him string together a +number of graceful verses, every one of which was fine in composition +and admirable in point, at a moment's notice, on a subject the most +inauspicious, and apparently impossible either to wit or rhyme,--yet +with an effect that delighted a party, and might have borne the test of +criticism the most severe. These verses he usually sang in a sort of +recitative to some tune with which all were familiar,--and if a piano +were at hand, he accompanied himself with a gentle strain of music. + +Mrs. Mathews relates that she was present once when Hook dined with the +Drury-Lane Company, at a banquet given to Sheridan in honor of his +return for Westminster. The guests were numerous, yet he made a verse +upon every person in the room:--"Every action was turned to account; +every circumstance, the look, the gesture, or any other accidental +effect, served as occasion for wit." Sheridan was astonished at his +extraordinary faculty, and declared that he could not have imagined such +power possible, had he not witnessed it. + +People used to give him subjects the most unpromising to test his +powers. Thus, Campbell records that he once supplied him with a theme, +"Pepper and Salt," and that he amply seasoned the song with both. + +I was present when this rare faculty was put to even a more severe test, +at a party at Mr. Jerdan's, at Grove House, Brompton,--a house long +since removed to make room for Ovington Square. It was a large +supper-party, and many men and women of mark were present: for the +"Literary Gazette" was then in the zenith of its power, worshipped by +all aspirants for fame, and courted even by those whose laurels had been +won. Its editor, be his shortcomings what they might, was then, as he +had ever been, ready with a helping hand for those who needed help: a +lenient critic, a generous sympathizer, who preferred pushing a dozen +forward to thrusting one back. + +Hook, having been asked for his song, and, as usual, demanding a theme, +one of the guests, either facetiously or maliciously, called out, "Take +Yates's big nose." (Yates, the actor, was one of the party.) To any one +else such a subject would have been appalling: not so to Hook. He rose, +glanced once or twice round the table, and chanted (so to speak) a +series of verses perfect in rhythm and rhyme: the incapable theme being +dealt with in a spirit of fun, humor, serious comment, and absolute +philosophy, utterly inconceivable to those who had never heard the +marvellous improvisator,--each verse describing something which the +world considered great, but which became small, when placed in +comparison with + + "Yates's big nose!" + +It was the first time I had met Hook, and my astonishment was unbounded. +I found it impossible to believe the song was improvised; but I had +afterwards ample reason to know that so thorough a triumph over +difficulties was with him by no means rare. + +I had once a jovial day with him on the Thames,--fishing in a punt on +the river opposite the Swan at Thames-Ditton. Hook was in good health +and good spirits, and brimful of mirth. He loved the angler's craft, +though he seldom followed it; and he spoke with something like affection +of a long-ago time, when bobbing for roach at the foot of Fulham Bridge, +the fisherman perpetually raising or lowering his float, according to +the ebb and flow of the tide. + +A record of his "sayings and doings," that glorious day, from early morn +to set of sun, would fill a goodly volume. It was fine weather, and +fishing on the Thames is lazy fishing; for the gudgeons bite freely, and +there is little labor in "landing" them. It is therefore the perfection +of the _dolce far-niente_, giving leisure for talk, and frequent desire +for refreshment. Idle time _is_ idly spent; but the wit and fun of Mr. +Hook that day might have delighted a hundred by-sitters, and it was a +grief to me that I was the only listener. Hook then conceived--probably +then made--the verses he afterwards gave the "New Monthly," entitled +"The Swan at Ditton." + +The last time I saw Hook was at Prior's Bank, Fulham, where his +neighbors, Mr. Baylis and Mr. Whitmore, had given an "entertainment," +the leading feature being an amateur play,--for which, by the way, I +wrote the prologue. Hook was then in his decadence,--in broken +health,--his animal spirits gone,--the cup of life drained to the dregs. +It was morning before the guests departed, yet Hook remained to the +last; and a light of other days brightened up his features, as he opened +the piano, and began a recitative. The theme was, of course, the +occasion that had brought the party together, and perhaps he never, in +his best time, was more original and pointed. I can recall two of the +lines,-- + + "They may boast of their Fulham omnibus, + But _this_ is the Fulham stage." + +There was a fair young boy standing by his side, while he was singing. +One of the servants suddenly opened the drawing-room shutters, and a +flood of light felt upon the lad's head: the effect was very touching, +but it became a thousand times more so, as Hook, availing himself of the +incident, placed his hand upon the youth's brow, and in tremulous tones +uttered a verse, of which I recall only the concluding lines,-- + + "For _you_ is the dawn of the morning. + For _me_ is the solemn good-night." + +He rose from the piano, burst into tears, and left the room. Few of +those who were present saw him afterwards.[C] + +All the evening Hook had been low in spirits. It seemed impossible to +stir him into animation, until the cause was guessed at by Mr. Blood, a +surgeon, who was at that time an actor at the Haymarket. He prescribed a +glass of Sherry, and retired to procure it, returning presently with a +bottle of pale brandy. Having administered two or three doses, the +machinery was wound up, and the result was as I have described it. + +I give one more instance of his ready wit and rapid power of rhyme. He +had been idle for a fortnight, and had written nothing for the "John +Bull" newspaper. The clerk, however, took him his salary as usual, and +on entering his room said, "Have you heard the news? the king and queen +of the Sandwich Islands are dead," (they had just died in England of the +small-pox.) "and," added the clerk, "we want something about +them."--"Instantly," cried Hook, "you shall have it:-- + + "'Waiter, two Sandwiches,' cried Death. + And their wild Majesties resigned their breath." + +The "John Bull" was established at the close of the year 1820, and it is +said that Sir Walter Scott, having been consulted by some leader among +"high Tories," suggested Hook as the person precisely suited for the +required task. The avowed purpose of the publication was to extinguish +the party of the Queen,--Caroline, wife of George IV.; and in a reckless +and frightful spirit the work was done. She died, however, in 1821, and +persecution was arrested at her grave. Its projectors and proprietors +had counted on a weekly sale of seven hundred and fifty copies, and +prepared accordingly. By the sixth week it had reached a sale of ten +thousand, and became a valuable property to "all concerned." Of course, +there were many prosecutions for libels, damages and costs and +incarceration for breaches of privilege; but all search for actual +delinquents was vain. Suspicions were rife enough, but positive proofs +there were none. + +Hook was of course In no way implicated in so scandalous and slanderous +a publication! On one occasion there appeared among the answers to +correspondents a paragraph purporting to be a reply from Mr. Theodore +Hook, "disavowing all connection with the paper." The gist of the +paragraph was this:--"Two things surprise us in this business: the +first, that anything we have thought worthy of giving to the public +should have been mistaken for Mr. Hook's; and secondly, that _such a +person as Mr. Hook_ should think himself disgraced by a connection with +'John Bull.'" + +Even now, at this distance of time, few of the contributors are actually +known; among them were undoubtedly John Wilson Croker, and avowedly +Haynes Bayly, Barham, and Dr. Maginn. + +In 1836, when I had resigned the "New Monthly" into the hands of Mr. +Hook, he proposed to me to take the sub-editorship and general literary +management of the "John Bull." That post I undertook, retaining it for a +year. Our "business" was carried on, not at the "John Bull" office, but +at Easty's Hotel, in Southampton Street, Strand, in two rooms on the +first floor of that tavern. Mr. Hook was never seen at the office; his +existence, indeed, was not recognized there. If any one had asked for +him by name, the answer would have been that no such person was known. +Although at the period of which I write there was no danger to be +apprehended from his walking in and out of the small office in Fleet +Street, a time had been when it could not have been done without +personal peril. Editorial work was therefore conducted with much +secrecy, a confidential person communicating between the editor and the +printer, who never knew, or rather was assumed not to know, by whom the +articles were written. In 1836, some years before, and during the years +afterwards, no paragraph was inserted that in the remotest degree +assailed private character. Political hatreds and personal hostilities +had grown less in vogue, and Hook had lived long enough to be tired of +assailing those whom he rather liked and respected. The bitterness of +his nature (if it ever existed, which I much doubt) had worn out with +years. Undoubtedly much of the brilliant wit of the "John Bull" had +evaporated, in losing its distinctive feature. It had lost its power, +and as a "property" dwindled to comparative insignificance. Mr. Hook +derived but small income from the editorship during the later years of +his life. I will believe that higher and more honorable motives than +those by which he had been guided during the fierce and turbulent +party-times, when the "John Bull" was established, had led him to +relinquish scandal, slander, and vituperation, as dishonorable weapons. +I know that in my time he did not use them; his advice to me, on more +than one occasion, while acting under him, was to remember that "abuse" +seldom effectually answered a purpose, and that it was wiser as well as +safer to act on the principle that "praise undeserved is satire in +disguise." All that was evil in the "John Bull" had been absorbed by two +infamous weekly newspapers, "The Age" and "The Satirist." They were +prosperous and profitable. Happily, no such newspapers now exist; the +public not only would not buy, they would not tolerate, the +personalities, the indecencies, the gross outrages on public men, the +scandalous assaults on private character, that made these publications +"good speculations" at the period of which I write, and undoubtedly +disgraced the "John Bull" during the early part of its career. + +No wonder, therefore, that no such person as Mr. Theodore Hook was +connected with the "John Bull." He invariably denied all such +connection, and perseveringly protested against the charge that he had +ever written a line in it. I have heard it said, that, during the +troublous period of the Queen's trial, Sir Robert Wilson met Hook in the +street, and said, in a sort of confidential whisper,--"Hook, I am to be +traduced and slandered in the 'John Bull' next Sunday." Hook, of course, +expressed astonishment and abhorrence. "Yes," continued Wilson, "and if +I am, I mean to horsewhip _you_ the first time you come in my way. Now +stop; I know you have nothing to do with that newspaper,--you have told +me so a score of times; nevertheless, if the article, which is purely of +a private nature, appears, let the consequences be what they may, I will +horsewhip _you_!" The article never did appear. I can give no authority +for this anecdote, but I do not doubt its truth. + +I knew Sir Robert Wilson in 1823, and was employed by him to copy and +arrange a series of confidential documents, relative to the Spanish war +of independence, between the Cortes and the Government, the result of +which was an engagement to act as his private secretary, and to receive +a commission in the Spanish service, in the event of Sir Robert's taking +a command in Spain. He went to Spain, leaving me as secretary to the +fund raised in that year in England to assist the cause. Fortunately for +me, British aid began and ended with these subscriptions; no force was +raised. Sir Robert returned without taking service in Spain, and I was +saved from the peril of becoming a soldier. Sir Robert was a tall, +slight man, of wiry form and strong constitution, handsome both in +person and features, with the singularly soldier-like air that we read +so much of in books. In those days of fervid and hopeful youth, the +story of Sir Robert's chivalric and successful efforts to save the life +of Lavalette naturally touched my heart, and if I had remained in his +service, he would have had no more devoted follower. During my +engagement as Secretary to the Spanish Committee, (leading members of +which were John Cam Hobhouse, Joseph Hume, and John Bowring,) I +contributed articles to the "British Press,"--a daily newspaper, long +since deceased,--and this led to my becoming a Parliamentary reporter. + +I apologize for so much concerning myself,--a subject on which I desire +to say as little as possible,--but in this "Memory" it is more a +necessity to do so than it will be hereafter. + +I have another story to tell of these editorial times. One day a +gentleman entered the "John Bull" office, evidently in a state of +extreme exasperation, armed with a stout cudgel. His application to see +the editor was answered by a request to walk up to the second-floor +front room. The room was empty; but presently there entered to him a +huge, tall, broad-shouldered fellow, who, in unmitigated brogue, +asked,-- + +"What do you plase to want, Sir?" + +"Want!" said the gentleman,--"I want the editor." + +"I'm the idditur, Sir, at your sarvice." + +Upon which the gentleman, seeing that no good could arise from an +encounter with such an "editor," made his way down stairs and out of the +house without a word. + +In 1836 Mr. Hook succeeded me in the editorship of the "New Monthly +Magazine." The change arose thus. When Mr. Colburn and Mr. Bentley had +dissolved partnership, and each had his own establishment, much +jealousy, approaching hostility, existed between them. Mr. Bentley had +announced a comic miscellany,--or rather, a magazine of which humor was +to be the leading feature. Mr. Colburn immediately conceived the idea of +a rival in that line, and applied to Hook to be its editor. Hook readily +complied. The terms of four hundred pounds per annum having been +settled, as usual he required payment in advance, and "then and there" +received bills for his first year's salary. Not long afterwards Mr. +Colburn saw the impolicy of his scheme. I had strongly reasoned against +it,--representing to him that the "New Monthly" would lose its most +valuable contributor, Mr. Hook, and other useful allies with him,--that +the ruin of the "New Monthly" must be looked upon as certain, while the +success of his "Joker's Magazine" was problematical at best. Such +arguments prevailed; and he called upon Mr. Hook with a view to +relinquish his design. Mr. Hook was exactly of Mr. Colburn's new +opinion. He had received the money, and was not disposed, even if he +had been able, to give it back, but suggested his becoming editor of the +"New Monthly," and in that way working it out. The project met the views +of Mr. Colburn; and so it was arranged. + +But when the plan was communicated to me, I declined to be placed in the +position of sub-editor. I knew, that, however valuable Mr. Hook might be +as a large contributor, he was utterly unfitted to discharge editorial +duties, and that, as sub-editor, I could have no power to do aught but +obey the orders of my superior, while, as co-editor, I could both +suggest and object, as regarded articles and contributors. This view was +the view of Mr. Colburn, but not that of Mr. Hook. The consequence was +that I retired. As to the conduct of the "New Monthly" in the hands of +Mr. Hook, until it came into those of Mr. Hood, and, not long +afterwards, was sold by Mr. Colburn to Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, it is not +requisite to speak. + +A word here of Mr. Colburn. I cherish the kindliest memory of that +eminent bibliopole. He has been charged with many mean acts as regards +authors; but I know that he was often liberal, and always considerate +towards them. He could be implacable, but also forgiving; and it was +ever easy to move his heart by a tale of sorrow or a case of distress. +For more than a quarter of a century he led the general literature of +the kingdom; and I believe his sins of omission and commission were very +few. Such is my impression, resulting from six years' continual +intercourse with him. He was a little, sprightly man, of mild and kindly +countenance, and of much bodily activity. His peculiarity was, that he +rarely or never finished a sentence, appearing as if he considered it +hazardous to express fully what he thought. Consequently one could +seldom understand what was his real opinion upon any subject he debated +or discussed. His debate was always a "possibly" or "perhaps"; his +discussion invariably led to no conclusion for or against the matter in +hand. + +It was during my editorship of the "New Monthly" that the best of all +Hook's works, "Gilbert Gurney," was published in that magazine. The part +for the ensuing number was rarely ready until the last moment, and more +than once at so late a period of the month, that, unless in the +printer's hands next morning, its publication would have been +impossible. I have driven to Fulham to find not a line of the article +written; and I have waited, sometimes nearly all night, until the +manuscript was produced. Now and then he would relate to me one of the +raciest of the anecdotes before he penned it down,--sometimes as the raw +statement of a fact before it had received its habiliments of fiction, +but more often as even a more brilliant story than the reader found it +on the first of the month.[D] + +Hook was in the habit of sending pen-and-ink sketches of himself in his +letters. I have one of especial interest, in which he represented +himself down upon knees, with handkerchief to eyes. The meaning was to +indicate his grief at being late with his promised article for the "New +Monthly," and his begging pardon thereupon. He had great facility for +taking off likenesses, and it is said was once suspected of being the +"H. B." whose lithographic drawings of eminent or remarkable persons +startled society a few years ago by their rare graphic power and their +striking resemblance,--barely bordering on caricature. + +Here is Hook's contribution to Mrs. Hall's album:-- + +"Having been requested to do that which I never did in my life +before,--write two charades upon two given and by no means sublime +words,--here are they. It is right to say that they are to be taken with +reference to each other. + + "My first is in triumphs most usually found; + Old houses and trees show my second; + My whole is long, spiral, red, tufted, and round, + And with beef is most excellent reckoned. + + My first for age hath great repute; + My second is a tailor; + My whole is like the other root,-- + Only a _little_ paler. + + "THEODORE E. HOOK. + + "September 4, 1835. + + "Do you give them up? + + "_Car-rot._ _Par-snip._" + +The reader will permit me here to introduce some memories of the +immediate contemporaries and allies of Hook, whose names are, indeed, +continually associated with his, and who, on the principle of "'birds of +a feather," may be properly considered in association with this +master-spirit of them all. + +The Reverend Mr. Barham, whose notes supplied material for the "Memoirs +of Hook," edited by his son, and whose "Ingoldsby Legends" are famous, +was a stout, squat, and "hearty-looking" parson of the old school. His +face was full of humor, although when quiescent it seemed dull and +heavy; his eyes were singularly small and inexpressive, whether from +their own color or the light tint of the lashes I cannot say, but they +seemed to me to be what are called white eyes. I do not believe that in +society he had much of the sparkle that characterized his friend, or +that might have been expected in so formidable a wit of the pen. Sam +Beazley, on the contrary, was a light, airy, graceful person, who had +much refinement, without that peculiar manner which bespeaks the +well-bred gentleman. He was the Daly of "Gilbert Gurney," whose epitaph +was written by Hook long before his death,-- + + "Here lies Sam Beazeley, + Who lived and died easily."[E] + +When I knew him, he was practising as an architect in Soho Square. He +was one of Hook's early friends, but I believe they were not in close +intimacy for many years previous to the death of Hook. It was by Beazley +that the present Lyceum Theatre was built. + +Tom Hill was another of Hook's more familiar associates. He is the Hull +of "Gilbert Gurney," and is said to have been the original of Paul Pry, +(which Poole, however, strenuously denied,)--a belief easily entertained +by those who knew the man. A little, round man he was, with straight and +well-made-up figure, and rosy cheeks that might have graced a milkmaid, +when his years numbered certainly fourscore.[F] But his age no one ever +knew. The story is well known of James Smith asserting that it never +could be ascertained, for that the register of his birth was lost in the +fire of London, and Hook's comment,--"Oh, he's much older than that: +he's one of the little Hills that skipped in the Bible." He was a merry +man, _toujours gai_, who seemed as if neither trouble nor anxiety had +ever crossed his threshold or broken the sleep of a single night of his +long life. His peculiar faculty was to find out what everybody did, from +the minister of state to the stable-boy; and there are tales enough told +of his chats with child-maids in the Park, to ascertain the amounts of +their wages, and with lounging footmen in Grosvenor Square, to learn how +many guests had dined at a house the day previous. His curiosity seemed +bent upon prying into small things; for secrets that involved serious +matters he appeared to care nothing. "Pooh, pooh, Sir, don't tell me; I +happen to know!" That phrase was continually coming from his lips. + +Of a far higher and better order was Hook's friend, Mr. Brodrick,--so +long one of the police magistrates,--a gentleman of large acquirements +and sterling rectitude. Nearly as much may be said of Dubois, more than +half a century ago the editor of a then popular magazine, "The Monthly +Mirror." Dubois, in his latter days, enjoyed a snug sinecure, and lived +in Sloane Street. He was a pleasant man in face and in manners, and +retained to the last much of the humor that characterized the +productions of his earlier years. To the admirable actor and estimable +gentleman, Charles Mathews, I can merely allude. His memory has received +full honor and homage from his wife; but there are few who knew him who +will hesitate to indorse her testimony to his many excellences of head +and heart. + +Among leading contributors to the "New Monthly," both before and after +the advent of Mr. Hook, was John Poole, the author of "Little +Pedlington," "Paul Pry," and many other pleasant works, not witty, but +full of true humor. He was, when in his prime, a pleasant companion, +though nervously sensitive, and, like most professional jokers, +exceedingly irritable whenever a joke was made to tell against himself. +It is among my memories, that, during the first month of my editorship +of the "New Monthly," I took from a mass of submitted manuscripts one +written in a small, neat hand, entitled "A New Guide-Book." I had read +it nearly half through, and was about to fling it with contempt among +"the rejected" before I discovered its point. I had perused it so far as +an attempt to describe an actual watering-place, and to bring it into +notoriety. When, however, I did discover the real purpose of the writer, +my delight was large in proportion. The manuscript was the first part of +"Little Pedlington," which subsequently grew into a book. + +It is, and was at the time, generally believed that Tom Hill suggested +the character of Paul Pry. Poole never would admit this. In a sort of +rambling autobiography which he wrote to accompany his portrait in the +"New Monthly," he thus gives the origin of the play. + +"The idea of the character of Paul Pry was suggested to me by the +following anecdote, related to me several years ago by a beloved friend. +An idle old lady, living in a narrow street, had passed so much of her +time in watching the affairs of her neighbors, that she at length +acquired the power of distinguishing the sound of every knocker within +hearing. It happened that she fell ill and was for several days confined +to her bed. Unable to observe in person what was going on without, she +stationed her maid at the window, as a substitute, for the performance +of that duty. But Betty soon grew weary of that occupation; she became +careless in her reports, impatient and tetchy when reprimanded for her +negligence. + +"'Betty, what _are_ you thinking about? Don't you hear a double knock at +No. 9? Who is it?' + +"'The first-floor lodger, Ma'am.' + +"'Betty, Betty, I declare I must give you warning. Why don't you tell me +what that knock is at No. 54?' + +"'Why, lor, it's only the baker with pies.' + +"'Pies, Betty? What _can_ they want with pies at 54? They had pies +yesterday!'" + +Poole had the happy knack of turning every trifling incident to valuable +account. I remember his telling me an anecdote in illustration of this +faculty. I believe he never printed it. Being at Brighton one day, he +strolled into an hotel to get an early dinner, took his seat at a table, +and was discussing his chop and ale, when another guest entered, took +his stand by the fire, and began whistling. After a minute or two,-- + +"Fine day, Sir," said he. + +"Very fine," answered Poole. + +"Business pretty brisk?" + +"I believe so." + +"Do anything with Jones on the Parade?" + +"Now," said Poole, "it so happened that Jones was the grocer from whom I +occasionally bought a quarter of a pound of tea; so I answered,-- + +"'A little.' + +"'Good man, Sir,' quoth the stranger. + +"'Glad to hear it, Sir.' + +"'Do anything with Thomson in King Street?' + +"'No, Sir.' + +"'Shaky, Sir.' + +"'Sorry to hear it, Sir; recommend Mahomet's baths!' + +"'Anything with Smith in James Street?' + +"'Nothing,--I have heard the name of Smith before, certainly; but of +this particular Smith I know nothing.'" + +The stranger looked at Poole earnestly, advanced to the table, and with +his arms a-kimbo said,-- + +"By Jove, Sir, I begin to think you are a gentleman!" + +"I hope so, Sir," answered Poole; "and I hope you are the same!" + +"Nothing of the kind," said the stranger; "and if you are a gentleman, +what business have you here?" + +Upon which he rang the bell, and, as the waiter entered, indignantly +exclaimed,-- + +"That's a gentleman,--turn him out!" + +Poole had unluckily entered and taken his seat in the commercial room of +the hotel! + +All who knew Poole know that he was ever full of himself,--believing his +renown to be the common talk of the world. A whimsical illustration of +this weakness was lately told me by a mutual friend. When at Paris +recently, he chanced to say to Poole, "Of course you are full of all the +theatres."--"No, Sir, I am not," he answered, solemnly and indignantly. +"Will you believe _this_? I went to the Opéra Comique, told the Director +I wished a free admission; he asked me who I was; I said, 'John Poole.' +Sir, I ask you, will you believe _this_? He said, _he didn't know me_!" + +The Queen gave him a nomination to the Charter-House, where his age +might have been passed in ease, respectability, comfort, and competence; +but it was impossible for one so restless to bear the wholesome and +necessary restraint of that institution. He came to me one day, boiling +over with indignation, having resolved to quit its quiet cloisters, his +principal ground for complaint being that he must dine at two o'clock +and be within walls by ten. He resigned the appointment, but +subsequently obtained one of the Crown pensions, took up his final abode +in Paris, where, during the last ten years of his life, he lived, if +that can be called "life" which consisted of one scarcely ever +interrupted course of self-sacrifice to _eau-de-vie_. His mind was of +late entirely gone. I met him in 1861, in the Rue St. Honoré, and he did +not recognize me, a circumstance I could scarcely regret. + +I am not aware of any details concerning his death. When I last inquired +concerning him, all I could learn was that he had gone to live at +Boulogne,--that two quarters had passed without any application from him +for his pension,--and that therefore, of course, he was dead. His death, +however, was a loss to none, and I believe not a grief to any. + +He was a tall, handsome man, by no means "jolly," like some of his +contemporary wits,--rather, I should say, inclined to be taciturn; and I +do not think his habits of drinking were excited by the stimulants of +society.[G] Little, I believe, is known of his life, even to the actors +and playwrights, with whom he chiefly associated, from the time when his +burlesque of "Hamlet Travestie" (printed in 1810) commenced his career +of celebrity, if not of fame, to his death, (in the year 1862, I +believe,) being then probably about seventy years old. + +I knew Dr. Maginn when he was a schoolmaster in Cork. He had even then +established a high reputation for scholastic knowledge, and attained +some eminence as a wit; and about the year 1820 astounded "the beautiful +city" by poetical contributions to "Blackwood's Magazine," in which +certain of its literary citizens were somewhat scurrilously assailed. I +was one of them. There were two parties, who had each their "society." +Maginn and a surgeon named Gosnell were the leaders of one: they were, +for the most part, wild and reckless men of talent. The other society +was conducted by the more sedate and studious. Gosnell wrote the _ottava +rima_ entitled "Daniel O'Rourke," which passed through three or four +numbers of "Blackwood": he died not long afterwards in London, one of +the many unhappy victims of misgoverned passions. + +Maginn was also one of the earlier contributors to the "Literary +Gazette," and Jerdan has recorded with what delight he used to open a +packet directed in the well-known hand, with the post-mark Cork. The +Doctor, it is said, was invited to London in order to share with Hook +the labors of the "John Bull." I believe, however, he was but a very +limited help. Perhaps the old adage, "Two of a trade," applied in this +case; certain it is that he subsequently found a more appreciative +paymaster in Westmacott, who conducted "The Age," a newspaper then +greatly patronized, but, as I have said, one that now would be +universally branded with the term "infamous." + +It is known also that he became a leading contributor to "Fraser's +Magazine,"--a magazine that took its name less from its publisher, +Fraser, than from its first editor, Fraser, a barrister, whose fate, I +have understood, was as mournful as his career had been discreditable. +The particulars of Maginn's duel with Grantley Berkeley are well known. +It arose out of an article in "Fraser," reviewing Berkeley's novel, in +the course of which he spoke in utterly unjustifiable terms of +Berkeley's mother. Mr. Berkeley was not satisfied with inflicting on the +publisher so severe a beating that it was the proximate cause of his +death, but called out the Doctor, who manfully avowed the authorship. +Each, it is understood, fired five shots, without further effect than +that one ball struck the whisker of Mr. Berkeley and another the boot of +Maginn, and when Fraser, who was Maginn's second, asked if there should +be another shot, Maginn is reported to have said, "Blaze away, by ----! +a barrel of powder!" + +The career of Maginn in London was, to say the least, mournful. Few men +ever started with better prospects; there was hardly any position in the +state to which he might not have aspired. His learning was profound; his +wit of the tongue and of the pen ready, pointed, caustic, and brilliant; +his writings, essays, tales, poems, scholastic disquisitions, in short, +his writings upon all conceivable topics, were of the very highest +order; "O'Doherty" is one of the names that made "Blackwood" famous. His +acquaintances, who would willingly have been his friends, were not only +the men of genius of his time, but among them were several noblemen and +statesmen of power as well as rank. In a word, he might have climbed to +the highest round of the ladder, with helping hands all the way up: he +stumbled at its base. + +Maginn's reckless habits soon told upon his character, and almost as +soon on his constitution. They may be illustrated by an anecdote related +of him in Barham's Life of Hook. A friend, when dining with him, and +praising his wine, asked where he got it. "At the tavern, close by," +said the Doctor. "A very good cellar," said the guest; "but do you not +pay rather an extravagant price for it?" "I don't know, I don't know," +returned the Doctor; "I believe they do put down something in a book." +And I have heard of Maginn a story similar to that told of Sheridan, +that, once when he accepted a bill, he exclaimed to the astonished +creditor, "Well, thank Heaven, _that_ debt is off my mind!" + +It is notorious that Maginn wrote at the same time for the "Age," +outrageously Tory, and for the "True Sun," a violently Radical paper. +For many years he was editor of the "Standard." It was, however, less +owing to his thorough want of principle than to his habits of +intoxication that his position was low, when it ought to have been +high,--that he was indigent, when he might have been rich,--that he lost +self-respect, and the respect of all with whom he came in contact, +except the few "kindred spirits" who relished the flow of wit, and +little regarded the impure source whence it issued. The evil seemed +incurable; it was indulged not only at noon and night, but in the +morning. He was one of the eight editors engaged by Mr. Murray to edit +the "Representative" during the eight months of its existence. I was a +reporter on that paper of great promise and large hopes. One evening +Maginn himself undertook to write a notice of a fancy-ball at the +Opera-House in aid of the distressed weavers of Spitalfields. It was a +grand affair, patronized by the royal family and a vast proportion of +the aristocracy of England. Maginn went, of course inebriated, and +returned worse. He contemplated the affair as if it had taken place +among the thieves and demireps of Whitechapel, and so described it in +the paper of the next morning. Well I remember the wrath and indignation +of John Murray, and the universal disgust the article excited. + +I may relate another anecdote to illustrate this sad characteristic. It +was told to me by one of the Doctor's old pupils and most intimate and +steady friends, Mr. Quinten Kennedy of Cork. A gentleman was anxious to +secure Maginn's services for a contemplated literary undertaking of +magnitude, and the Doctor was to dine with him to arrange the affair. +Kennedy was resolved, that, at all events, he should go to the dinner +sober, and so called upon him before he was up, never leaving him for a +moment all day, and resolutely resisting every imploring appeal for a +dram. The hour of six drew near, and they sallied out. On the way, +Kennedy found it almost impossible, even by main force, to prevent the +Doctor entering a public-house. Passing an undertaker's shop, the Doctor +suddenly stopped, recollected he had a message there, and begged Kennedy +to wait for a moment outside,--a request which was readily complied +with, as it was thought there could be no possible danger in such a +place. Maginn entered, with his handkerchief to his eyes, sobbing +bitterly. The undertaker, recognizing a prospective customer, sought to +subdue his grief with the usual words of consolation,--Maginn blubbering +out, "Everything must be done in the best style, no expense must be +spared,--she was worthy, and I can afford it." The undertaker, seeing +such intense grief, presented a seat, and prescribed a little brandy. +After proper resistance, both were accepted; a bottle was produced and +emptied, glass after glass, with suggested "instructions" between +whiles. At length the Doctor rose to join his wondering and impatient +friend, who soon saw what had happened. He was, even before dinner, in +such a state as to preclude all business-talk; and it is needless to add +that the contemplated arrangement was never entered into. + +He lived in wretchedness, and died in misery in 1842. His death took +place at Walton-on-Thames, and in the churchyard of that village he is +buried. Not long ago I visited the place, but no one could point out to +me the precise spot of his interment. It is without a stone, without a +mark, lost among the clay sepulchres of the throng who had no friends to +inscribe a name or ask a memory.[H] + +Maginn was rather under than above the middle size; his countenance was +swarthy, and by no means genial in expression. He had a peculiar +thickness of speech, not quite a stutter. Latterly, excesses told upon +him, producing their usual effects: the quick intelligence of his face +was lost; his features were sullied by unmistakable signs of an +ever-degrading habit; he was old before his time. + +He is another sad example to "warn and scare"; a life that might have +produced so much yielded comparatively nothing; and although there have +been several suggestions, from Lockhart and others, to collect his +writings, they have never been gathered together from the periodical +tombs in which they lie buried, and now, probably, they cannot be all +recognized. + + * * * * * + +From what I have written, the reader will gather that I knew Hook only +in his decline, the relic of a manly form, the decadence of a strong +mind, and the comparative exhaustion of a brilliant wit. Leigh Hunt, +speaking of him at a much earlier period, thus writes:--"He was tall, +dark, and of a good person, with small eyes, and features more round +than weak: a face that had character and humor, but no refinement." And +Mrs. Mathews describes him as with sparkling eyes and expressive +features, of manly form, and somewhat of a dandy in dress. When in the +prime of manhood and the zenith of fame, Mr. Barham says, "He was not +the tuft-hunter, but the tuft-hunted"; and it is easy to believe that +one so full of wit, so redolent of fun, so rich in animal spirits, must +have been a marvellously coveted acquaintance in the society where he +was so eminently qualified to shine: from that of royalty to the major +and minor clubs,--from "The Eccentrics" to "The Garrick," of which he +was all his life long a cherished member. + +In 1825, when I first saw him, he was above the middle height, robust of +frame, and broad of chest, well-proportioned, with evidence of great +physical capacity. His complexion was dark, as were his eyes; there was +nothing fine or elevated in his expression; indeed, his features, when +in repose, were heavy; it was otherwise when animated; yet his manners +were those of a gentleman, less perhaps from inherent faculty than from +the polish which refined society ever gives. + +He is described as a man of "iron energies," and certainly must have had +an iron constitution; for his was a life of perpetual stimulants, +intellectual as well as physical. + +When I saw him last,--it was not long before his death,--he was aged, +more by care than time; his face bore evidence of what is falsely termed +"a gay life"; his voice had lost its roundness and force, his form its +buoyancy, his intellect its strength,-- + + "Alas! how changed from him, + That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!" + +Yet his wit was ready still; he continued to sparkle humor even when +exhausted nature failed; and his last words are said to have been a +brilliant jest. + +At length the iron frame wore down. He was haunted by pecuniary +difficulties, yet compelled to daily work, not only for himself, but for +a family of children by a person to whom he was not married. He then +lived almost entirely on brandy, and became incapable of digesting +animal food. + +Well may his friend Lockhart say, "He came forth, _at best_, from a long +day of labor at his writing-desk, after his faculties had been at the +stretch,--feeling, passion, thought, fancy, excitable nerves, suicidal +brain, all worked, perhaps wellnigh exhausted." + +And thus, "at best," while "seated among the revellers of a princely +saloon," sometimes losing at cards among his great "friends" more money +than he could earn in a month, his thoughts were laboring to devise some +mode of postponing a debt only from one week to another. Well might he +have compared, as he did, his position to that of an alderman who was +required to relish his turtle-soup while forced to eat it sitting on a +tight rope! + +The last time he went out to dinner was with Colonel Shadwell Clarke, at +Brompton Grove. While in the drawing-room he suddenly turned to the +mirror and said, "Ay! I see I look as I am,--done up in purse, in mind, +and in body, too, at last!" + +He died on the 24th of August, 1841. + +Yes, when I knew most of him, he was approaching the close, not of a +long, but of a "fast" life; he had ill used Time, and Time was not in +his debt! He was tall and stout, yet not healthfully stout; with a round +face which told too much of jovial nights and wasted days,--of toil when +the head aches and the hand shakes,--of the absence of self-respect,--of +mornings of ignoble rest to gather strength for evenings of useless +energy,--of, in short, a mind and constitution vigorous and powerful: +both had been sadly and grievously misapplied and misused. + +No writer concerning Hook can claim for him an atom of respect. His +history is but a record of written or spoken or practical jokes that +made no one wiser or better; his career "points a moral" indeed, but it +is by showing the wisdom of virtue. In the end, his friends, so called, +were ashamed openly to give him help,--and although bailiffs did not, as +in the case of Sheridan, + + "Seize his last blanket," + +his death-bed was haunted by apprehensions of arrest; and it was a +relief, rather than a loss to society, when a few comparatively humble +mourners laid him in a corner of Fulham churchyard. + +Alas! let not those who read the records of many distinguished, nay, +many illustrious lives, imagine, that, because men of genius have too +often cherished the perilous habit of seeking consolation or inspiration +from what it is a libel on Nature to call "the social glass," it is +therefore reasonable or excusable, or can ever be innocuous. Talfourd +may gloss it over in Lamb, as averting a vision terrible; Seattle may +deplore it in Campbell, as having become a dismal necessity; the +biographer of Hook may lightly look upon the curse as the springhead of +his perpetual wit. I will not continue the list,--it is frightfully +long. Hook is but one of many men of rare intellect, large mental +powers, with faculties designed and calculated to benefit mankind, who +have sacrificed character, life, I had almost said SOUL, to habits which +are wrongly and wickedly called pleasures,--the pleasures of the table. +Many, indeed, are they who have thus made for themselves miserable +destinies, useless or pernicious lives, and unhonored or dishonorable +graves. I will add the warning of Wordsworth, when addressing the sons +of Burns:-- + + "But ne'er to a seductive lay + Let faith be given, + Nor deem the light that leads astray + Is light from heaven." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[B] In "Gilbert Gurney," Hook makes Daly say, "I am the man; I did it; +for originality of thought and design, I _do_ think that was perfect." + +[C] Mr. Barham has a confused account of this incident. He was not +present on the occasion, as I was, standing close by the piano when it +occurred. + +[D] His biographer does not seem aware that for several months before he +became editor of the "New Monthly" he wrote the "Monthly Commentary" for +that magazine,--a pleasant, piquant, and sometimes severe series of +comments on the leading topics or events of the month. + +[E] Mr. Peake, the dramatist, who wrote most of the "Mathews at Home," +attributes this epitaph to John Hardwicke. Lockhart gives it to Hook. +Hook pictures Beazley in "Gilbert Gurney":--"His conversation was full +of droll conceits, mixed with a considerable degree of superior talent, +and the strongest evidence of general acquirements and accomplishments." + +[F] "He was plump, short, with an intelligent countenance, and +near-sighted, with, a constitution and complexion fresh enough to look +forty, when _I_ believed him to be at least four times that +age."--_Gilbert Gurney._ + +[G] He played a practical joke upon the actors of the Brighton Theatre, +who were defective of a letter in their dialogue, by sending to them a +packet, containing, on cards of various sizes, the letter H. + +[H] While on his death-bed, Sir Robert Peel sent him a sum of money, +probably not the first. It arrived in time to pay his funeral expenses. +In September, 1842, a subscription was made for the widow and children +of Dr. Maginn,--Dr. Giffard (then editor of the "Standard") and Lockhart +being trustees in England, the Bishop of Cork and the Provost of Trinity +College, Dublin, in Ireland, and Professor Wilson in Scotland. The card +that was issued said truly,--"No one ever listened to Maginn's +conversation, or perused even the hastiest of his minor writings, +without feeling the interest of very extraordinary talent; his classical +learning was profound and accurate; his mastery of modern languages +almost unrivalled; his knowledge of mankind and their affairs great and +multifarious"; but it did not state truly, that, "in all his essays, +verse or prose, serious or comic, he never trespassed against decorum or +sound morals," or that "the keenness of his wit was combined with such +playfulness of fancy, good-humor, and kindness of natural sentiment, +that his merits were ungrudgingly acknowledged even by those of politics +most different from his own." + + + + +THE CHIMNEY-CORNER. + +IV. + + +LITTLE FOXES.--PART III. + +Being the true copy of a paper read in my library to my wife and Jennie. + + +REPRESSION. + +I am going now to write on another cause of family unhappiness, more +subtile than either of those before enumerated. + +In the General Confession of the Church, we poor mortals all unite in +saying two things: "We have left undone those things which we ought to +have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have +done." These two heads exhaust the subject of human frailty. + +It is the things left undone which we ought to have done, the things +left unsaid which we ought to have said, that constitute the subject I +am now to treat of. + +I remember my school-day speculations over an old "Chemistry" I used to +study as a text-book, which informed me that a substance called Caloric +exists in all bodies. In some it exists in a latent state: it is there, +but it affects neither the senses nor the thermometer. Certain causes +develop it, when it raises the mercury and warms the hands. I remember +the awe and wonder with which, even then, I reflected on the vast amount +of blind, deaf, and dumb comforts which Nature had thus stowed away. How +mysterious it seemed to me that poor families every winter should be +shivering, freezing, and catching cold, when Nature had all this latent +caloric locked up in her store-closet,--when it was all around them, in +everything they touched and handled! + +In the spiritual world there is an exact analogy to this. There is a +great life-giving, warming power called Love, which exists in human +hearts dumb and unseen, but which has no real life, no warming power, +till set free by expression. + +Did you ever, in a raw, chilly day, just before a snow-storm, sit at +work in a room that was judiciously warmed by an exact thermometer? You +do not freeze, but you shiver; your fingers do not become numb with +cold, but you have all the while an uneasy craving for more positive +warmth. You look at the empty grate, walk mechanically towards it, and, +suddenly awaking, shiver to see that there is nothing there. You long +for a shawl or cloak; you draw yourself within yourself; you consult the +thermometer, and are vexed to find that there is nothing there to be +complained of,--it is standing most provokingly at the exact temperature +that all the good books and good doctors pronounce to be the proper +thing,--the golden mean of health; and yet perversely you shiver, and +feel as if the face of an open fire would be to you as the smile of an +angel. + +Such a lifelong chill, such an habitual shiver, is the lot of many +natures, which are not warm, when all ordinary rules tell them they +ought to be warm,--whose life is cold and barren and meagre,--which +never see the blaze of an open fire. + +I will illustrate my meaning by a page out of my own experience. + +I was twenty-one when I stood as groomsman for my youngest and favorite +sister Emily. I remember her now as she stood at the altar,--a pale, +sweet, flowery face, in a half-shimmer between smiles and tears, looking +out of vapory clouds of gauze and curls and all the vanishing mysteries +of a bridal morning. + +Everybody thought the marriage such a fortunate one!--for her husband +was handsome and manly, a man of worth, of principle good as gold and +solid as adamant,--and Emmy had always been such a flossy little kitten +of a pet, so full of all sorts of impulses, so sensitive and nervous, we +thought her kind, strong, composed, stately husband made just on purpose +for her. "It was quite a Providence," sighed all the elderly ladies, who +sniffed tenderly, and wiped their eyes, according to approved custom, +during the marriage ceremony. + +I remember now the bustle of the day,--the confused whirl of white +gloves, kisses, bridemaids, and bridecakes, the losing of trunk-keys and +breaking of lacings, the tears of mamma--God bless her!--and the jokes +of irreverent Christopher, who could, for the life of him, see nothing +so very dismal in the whole phantasmagoria, and only wished he were as +well off himself. + +And so Emmy was wheeled away from us on the bridal tour, when her +letters came back to us almost every day, just like herself, merry, +frisky little bits of scratches,--as full of little nonsense-beads as a +glass of Champagne, and all ending with telling us how perfect he was, +and how good, and how well he took care of her, and how happy, etc., +etc. + +Then came letters from her new home. His house was not yet built; but +while it was building, they were to live with his mother, who was "such +a good woman," and his sisters, who were also "such nice women." + +But somehow, after this, a change came over Emmy's letters. They grew +shorter; they seemed measured in their words; and in place of sparkling +nonsense and bubbling outbursts of glee, came anxiously worded praises +of her situation and surroundings, evidently written for the sake of +arguing herself into the belief that she was extremely happy. + +John, of course, was not as much with her now: he had his business to +attend to, which took him away all day, and at night he was very tired. +Still he was very good and thoughtful of her, and how thankful she ought +to be! And his mother was very good indeed, and did all for her that she +could reasonably expect,--of course she could not be like her own mamma; +and Mary and Jane were very kind,--"in their way," she wrote, but +scratched it out, and wrote over it, "very kind indeed." They were the +best people in the world,--a great deal better than she was; and she +should try to learn a great deal from them. + +"Poor little Em!" I said to myself, "I am afraid these very nice people +are slowly freezing and starving her." And so, as I was going up into +the mountains for a summer tour, I thought I would accept some of John's +many invitations and stop a day or two with them on my way, and see how +matters stood. John had been known among us in college as a taciturn +fellow, but good as gold. I had gained his friendship by a regular +siege, carrying parallel after parallel, till, when I came into the fort +at last, I found the treasures worth taking. + +I had little difficulty in finding Squire Evan's house. It was _the_ +house of the village,--a true, model, New England house,--a square, +roomy, old-fashioned mansion, which stood on a hillside under a group of +great, breezy old elms, whose wide, wind-swung arms arched over it like +a leafy firmament. Under this bower the substantial white house, with +all its window-blinds closed, with its neat white fences all tight and +trim, stood in its faultless green turfy yard, a perfect Pharisee among +houses. It looked like a house all finished, done, completed, labelled, +and set on a shelf for preservation; but, as is usual with this kind of +edifice in our dear New England, it had not the slightest appearance of +being lived in, not a door or window open, not a wink or blink of life: +the only suspicion of human habitation was the thin, pale-blue smoke +from the kitchen-chimney. + +And now for the people in the house. + +In making a New England visit in winter, was it ever your fortune to be +put to sleep in the glacial spare-chamber, that had been kept from time +immemorial as a refrigerator for guests,--that room which no ray of +daily sunshine and daily living ever warms, whose blinds are closed the +whole year round, whose fireplace knows only the complimentary blaze +which is kindled a few moments before bed-time in an atmosphere where +you can see your breath? Do you remember the process of getting warm in +a bed of most faultless material, with linen sheets and pillow-cases, +slippery and cold as ice? You did get warm at last, but you warmed your +bed by giving out all the heat of your own body. + +Such are some families where you visit. They are of the very best +quality, like your sheets, but so cold that it takes all the vitality +you have to get them warmed up to the talking-point. You think, the +first hour after your arrival, that they must have heard some report to +your disadvantage, or that you misunderstood your letter of invitation, +or that you came on the wrong day; but no, you find in due course that +you _were_ invited, you were expected, and they were doing for you the +best they know how, and treating you as they suppose a guest ought to be +treated. + +If you are a warm-hearted, jovial fellow, and go on feeling your way +discreetly, you gradually thaw quite a little place round yourself in +the domestic circle, till, by the time you are ready to leave, you +really begin to think it is agreeable to stay, and resolve that you will +come again. They are nice people; they like you; at last you have got to +feeling at home with them. + +Three months after, you go to see them again, when, lo! there you are, +back again just where you were at first. The little spot which you had +thawed out is frozen over again, and again you spend all your visit in +thawing it and getting your hosts limbered and in a state for +comfortable converse. + +The first evening that I spent in the wide, roomy front-parlor, with +Judge Evans, his wife, and daughters, fully accounted for the change in +Emmy's letters. Rooms, I verily believe, get saturated with the aroma of +their spiritual atmosphere; and there are some so stately, so correct, +that they would paralyze even the friskiest kitten or the most impudent +Scotch terrier. At a glance, you perceive, on entering, that nothing but +correct deportment, an erect posture, and strictly didactic conversation +is possible there. + +The family, in fact, were all eminently didactic, bent on improvement, +laboriously useful. Not a good work or charitable enterprise could put +forth its head in the neighborhood, of which they were not the support +and life. Judge Evans was the stay and staff of the village and township +of ----; he bore up the pillars thereof. Mrs. Evans was known in the +gates for all the properties and deeds of the virtuous woman, as set +forth by Solomon; the heart of her husband did safely trust in her. But +when I saw them, that evening, sitting, in erect propriety, in their +respective corners each side of the great, stately fireplace, with its +tall, glistening brass andirons, its mantel adorned at either end with +plated candlesticks, with the snuffer-tray in the middle,--she so +collectedly measuring her words, talking in all those well-worn grooves +of correct conversation which are designed, as the phrase goes, to +"entertain strangers," and the Misses Evans, in the best of grammar and +rhetoric, and in most proper time and way possible, showing themselves +for what they were, most high-principled, well-informed, intelligent +women,--I set myself to speculate on the cause of the extraordinary +sensation of stiffness and restraint which pervaded me, as if I had been +dipped in some petrifying spring and was beginning to feel myself +slightly crusting over on the exterior. + +This kind of conversation is such as admits quite easily of one's +carrying on another course of thought within; and so, as I found myself +like a machine, striking in now and then in good time and tune, I looked +at Judge Evans, sitting there so serene, self-poised, and cold, and +began to wonder if he had ever been a boy, a young man,--if Mrs. Evans +ever was a girl,--if he was ever in love with her, and what he did when +he was. + +I thought of the lock of Emmy's hair which I had observed in John's +writing-desk in days when he was falling in love with her,--of sundry +little movements in which at awkward moments I had detected my grave and +serious gentleman when I had stumbled accidentally upon the pair in +moonlight strolls or retired corners,--and wondered whether the models +of propriety before me had ever been convicted of any such human +weaknesses. Now, to be sure, I could as soon imagine the stately tongs +to walk up and kiss the shovel as conceive of any such bygone effusion +in those dignified individuals. But how did they get acquainted? how +came they ever to be married? + +I looked at John, and thought I saw him gradually stiffening and +subsiding into the very image of his father. As near as a young fellow +of twenty-five can resemble an old one of sixty-two, he was growing to +be exactly like him, with the same upright carriage, the same silence +and reserve. Then I looked at Emmy: she, too, was changed,--she, the +wild little pet, all of whose pretty individualities were dear to +us,--that little unpunctuated scrap of life's poetry, full of little +exceptions referable to no exact rule, only to be tolerated under the +wide score of poetic license. Now, as she sat between the two Misses +Evans, I thought I could detect a bored, anxious expression on her +little mobile face,--an involuntary watchfulness and self-consciousness, +as if she were trying to be good on some quite new pattern. She seemed +nervous about some of my jokes, and her eye went apprehensively to her +mother-in-law in the corner; she tried hard to laugh and make things go +merrily for me; she seemed sometimes to look an apology for me to them, +and then again for them to me. For myself, I felt that perverse +inclination to shock people which sometimes comes over one in such +situations. I had a great mind to draw Emmy on to my knee and commence a +brotherly romp with her, to give John a thump on his very upright back, +and to propose to one of the Misses Evans to strike up a waltz, and get +the parlor into a general whirl, before the very face and eyes of +propriety in the corner: but "the spirits" were too strong for me; I +couldn't do it. + +I remembered the innocent, saucy freedom with which Emmy used to treat +her John in the days of their engagement,--the little ways, half loving, +half mischievous, in which she alternately petted and domineered over +him. _Now_ she called him "Mr. Evans," with an anxious affectation of +matronly gravity. Had they been lecturing her into these conjugal +proprieties? Probably not. I felt sure, by what I now experienced in +myself, that, were I to live in that family one week, all such little +deviations from the one accepted pattern of propriety would fall off, +like many-colored sumach-leaves after the first hard frost. I began to +feel myself slowly stiffening, my courage getting gently chilly. I tried +to tell a story, but had to mangle it greatly, because I felt in the air +around me that parts of it were too vernacular and emphatic; and then, +as a man who is freezing makes desperate efforts to throw off the spell, +and finds his brain beginning to turn, so I was beginning to be slightly +insane, and was haunted with a desire to say some horribly improper or +wicked thing which should start them all out of their chairs. Though +never given to profane expressions, I perfectly hankered to let out a +certain round, unvarnished, wicked word, which I knew would create a +tremendous commotion on the surface of this enchanted mill pond,--in +fact, I was so afraid that I should make some such mad demonstration, +that I rose at an early hour and begged leave to retire. Emmy sprang up +with apparent relief, and offered to get my candle and marshal me to my +room. + +When she had ushered me into the chilly hospitality of that stately +apartment, she seemed suddenly disenchanted. She set down the candle, +ran to me, fell on my neck, nestled her little head under my coat, +laughing and crying, and calling me her dear old boy; she pulled my +whiskers, pinched my ear, rummaged my pockets, danced round me in a sort +of wild joy, stunning me with a volley of questions, without stopping to +hear the answer to one of them; in short, the wild little elf of old +days seemed suddenly to come back to me, as I sat down and drew her on +to my knee. + +"It does look so like home to see you, Chris!--dear, dear home!--and the +dear old folks! There never, never was such a home!--everybody there did +just what they wanted to, didn't they, Chris?--and we love each other, +don't we?" + +"Emmy," said I, suddenly, and very improperly, "you aren't happy here." + +"Not happy?" she said, with a half-frightened look,--"what makes you say +so? Oh, you are mistaken. I have everything to make me happy. I should +be very unreasonable and wicked, if I were not. I am very, very happy, I +assure you. Of course, you know, everybody can't be like our folks at +home. _That_ I should not expect, you know,--people's ways are +different,--but then, when you know people are so good, and all that, +why, of course you must be thankful, be happy. It's better for me to +learn to control my feelings, you know, and not give way to impulses. +They are all so good here, they never give way to their feelings,--they +always do right. Oh, they are quite wonderful!" + +"And agreeable?" said I. + +"Oh, Chris, we mustn't think so much of that. They certainly aren't +pleasant and easy, as people at home are; but they are never cross, they +never scold, they always are good. And we oughtn't to think so much of +living to be happy; we ought to think more of doing right, doing our +duty, don't you think so?" + +"All undeniable truth, Emmy; but, for all that, John seems stiff as a +ramrod, and their front-parlor is like a tomb. You mustn't let them +petrify him." + +Her face clouded over a little. + +"John is different here from what he was at our house. He has been +brought up differently,--oh, entirely differently from what we were; and +when he comes back into the old house, the old business, and the old +place between his father and mother and sisters, he goes back into the +old ways. He loves me all the same, but he does not show it in the same +ways, and I must learn, you know, to take it on trust. He is _very_ +busy,--works hard all day, and all for me; and mother says women are +unreasonable that ask any other proof of love from their husbands than +what they give by working for them all the time. She never lectures me, +but I know she thought I was a silly little petted child, and she told +me one day how she brought up John. She never petted him; she put him +away alone to sleep, from the time he was six months old; she never fed +him out of his regular hours when he was a baby, no matter how much he +cried; she never let him talk baby-talk, or have any baby-talk talked to +him, but was very careful to make him speak all his words plain from the +very first; she never encouraged him to express his love by kisses or +caresses, but taught him that the only proof of love was exact +obedience. I remember John's telling me of his running to her once and +hugging her round the neck, when he had come in without wiping his +shoes, and she took off his arms and said, 'My son, this isn't the best +way to show love. I should be much better pleased to have you come in +quietly and wipe your shoes than to come and kiss me when you forget to +do what I say.'" + +"Dreadful old jade!" said I, irreverently, being then only twenty-three. + +"Now, Chris, I won't have anything to say to you, if this is the way you +are going to talk," said Emily, pouting, though a mischievous gleam +darted into her eyes. "Really, however, I think she carried things too +far, though she is so good. I only said it to excuse John, and show how +he was brought up." + +"Poor fellow!" said I. "I know now why he is so hopelessly shut up, and +walled up. Never a warmer heart than he keeps stowed away there inside +of the fortress, with the drawbridge down and moat all round." + +"They are all warm-hearted inside," said Emily. "Would you think she +didn't love him? Once when he was sick, she watched with him seventeen +nights without taking off her clothes; she scarcely would eat all the +time: Jane told me so. She loves him better than she loves herself. It's +perfectly dreadful sometimes to see how intense she is when anything +concerns him; it's her _principle_ that makes her so cold and quiet." + +"And a devilish one it is!" said I. + +"Chris, you are really growing wicked!" + +"I use the word seriously, and in good faith," said I. "Who but the +Father of Evil ever devised such plans for making goodness hateful, and +keeping the most heavenly part of our nature so under lock and key that +for the greater part of our lives we get no use of it? Of what benefit +is a mine of love burning where it warms nobody, does nothing but +blister the soul within with its imprisoned heat? Love repressed grows +morbid, acts in a thousand perverse ways. These three women, I'll +venture to say, are living in the family here like three frozen +islands, knowing as little of each other's inner life as if parted by +eternal barriers of ice,--and all because a cursed principle in the +heart of the mother has made her bring them up in violence to Nature." + +"Well," said Emmy, "sometimes I do pity Jane; she is nearest my age, +and, naturally, I think she was something like me, or might have been. +The other day I remember her coming in looking so flushed and ill that I +couldn't help asking if she were unwell. The tears came into her eyes; +but her mother looked up, in her cool, business-like way, and said, in +her dry voice,-- + +"'Jane, what's the matter?' + +"'Oh, my head aches dreadfully, and I have pains in all my limbs!' + +"I wanted to jump and run to do something for her,--you know at our +house we feel that a sick person must be waited on,--but her mother only +said, in the same dry way,-- + +"'Well, Jane, you've probably got a cold; go into the kitchen and make +yourself some good boneset tea, soak your feet in hot water, and go to +bed at once'; and Jane meekly departed. + +"I wanted to spring and do these things for her; but it's curious, in +this house I never dare offer to do anything; and mother looked at me, +as she went out, with a significant nod,-- + +"'That's always _my_ way; if any of the children are sick, I never +coddle them; it's best to teach them to make as light of it as +possible.'" + +"Dreadful!" said I. + +"Yes, it is dreadful," said Emmy, drawing her breath, as if relieved +that she might speak her mind; "it's dreadful to see these people, who I +know love each other, living side by side and never saying a loving, +tender word, never doing a little loving thing,--sick ones crawling off +alone like sick animals, persisting in being alone, bearing everything +alone. But I won't let them; I will insist on forcing my way into their +rooms. I would go and sit with Jane, and pet her and hold her hand and +bathe her head, though I knew it made her horridly uncomfortable at +first; but I thought she ought to learn to be petted in a Christian way, +when she was sick. I will kiss her, too, sometimes, though she takes it +just like a cat that isn't used to being stroked, and calls me a silly +girl; but I know she is getting to like it. What is the use of people's +loving each other in this horridly cold, stingy, silent way? If one of +them were dangerously ill now, or met with any serious accident, I know +there would be no end to what the others would do for her; if one of +them were to die, the others would be perfectly crushed: but it would +all go inward,--drop silently down into that dark, cold, frozen well; +they couldn't speak to each other; they couldn't comfort each other; +they have lost the power of expression; they absolutely _can't_." + +"Yes," said I, "they are like the fakirs who have held up an arm till it +has become stiffened,--they cannot now change its position; like the +poor mutes, who, being deaf, have become dumb through disuse of the +organs of speech. Their education has been like those iron suits of +armor into which little boys were put in the Middle Ages, solid, +inflexible, put on in childhood, enlarged with every year's growth, till +the warm human frame fitted the mould as if it had been melted and +poured into it. A person educated in this way is hopelessly crippled, +never will be what he might have been." + +"Oh, don't say that, Chris; think of John; think how good he is." + +"I do think how good he is,"--with indignation,--"and how few know it, +too. I think, that, with the tenderest, truest, gentlest heart, the +utmost appreciation of human friendship, he has passed in the world for +a cold, proud, selfish man. If your frank, impulsive, incisive nature +had not unlocked gates and opened doors, he would never have known the +love of woman: and now he is but half disenchanted; he every day tends +to go back to stone." + +"But I sha'n't let him; oh, indeed, I know the danger! I shall bring him +out. I shall work on them all. I know they are beginning to love me a +good deal: in the first place, because I belong to John, and everything +belonging to him is perfect; and in the second place,"---- + +"In the second place, because they expect to weave, day after day, the +fine cobweb lines of their cold system of repression around you, which +will harden and harden, and tighten and tighten, till you are as stiff +and shrouded as any of them. You remind me of our poor little duck: +don't you remember him?" + +"Yes, poor fellow! how he would stay out, and swim round and round, +while the pond kept freezing and freezing, and his swimming-place grew +smaller and smaller every day; but he was such a plucky little fellow +that"---- + +"That at last we found him one morning frozen tight in, and he has +limped ever since on his poor feet." + +"Oh, but I won't freeze in," she said, laughing. + +"Take care, Emmy! You are sensitive, approbative, delicately organized; +your whole nature inclines you to give way and yield to the nature of +those around you. One little lone duck such as you, however +warm-blooded, light-hearted, cannot keep a whole pond from freezing. +While you have any influence, you must use it all to get John away from +these surroundings, where you can have him to yourself." + +"Oh, you know we are building our house; we shall go to housekeeping +soon." + +"Where? Close by, under the very guns of this fortress, where all your +housekeeping, all your little management, will be subject to daily +inspection." + +"But mamma, never interferes, never advises,--unless I ask advice." + +"No, but she influences; she lives, she looks, she is there; and while +she is there, and while your home is within a stone's throw, the old +spell will be on your husband, on your children, if you have any; you +will feel it in the air; it will constrain, it will sway you, it will +rule your house, it will bring up your children." + +"Oh, no! never! never! I never could! I never will! If God should give +me a dear little child, I will not let it grow up in these hateful +ways!" + +"Then, Emmy, there will be a constant, still, undefined, but real +friction of your life-power, from the silent grating of your wishes and +feelings on the cold, positive millstone of their opinion; it will be a +life-battle with a quiet, invisible, pervading spirit, who will never +show himself in fair fight, but who will be around you in the very air +you breathe, at your pillow when you lie down and when you rise. There +is so much in these friends of yours noble, wise, severely good,--their +aims are so high, their efficiency so great, their virtues so +many,--that they will act upon you with the force of a conscience, +subduing, drawing, insensibly constraining you into their moulds. They +have stronger wills, stronger natures than yours; and between the two +forces of your own nature and theirs you will be always oscillating, so +that you will never show what you can do, working either in your own way +or yet in theirs: your life will be a failure." + +"Oh, Chris, why do you discourage me?" + +"I am trying tonic treatment, Emily; I am showing you a real danger; I +am rousing you to flee from it. John is making money fast; there is no +reason why he should always remain buried in this town. Use your +influence as they do,--daily, hourly, constantly,--to predispose him to +take you to another sphere. Do not always shrink and yield; do not +conceal and assimilate and endeavor to persuade him and yourself that +you are happy; do not put the very best face to him on it all; do not +tolerate his relapses daily and hourly into his habitual, cold, +inexpressive manner; and don't lay aside your own little impulsive, +outspoken ways. Respect your own nature, and assert it; woo him, argue +with him; use all a woman's weapons to keep him from falling back into +the old Castle Doubting where he lived till you let him out. Dispute +your mother's hateful dogma, that love is to be taken for granted +without daily proof between lovers; cry down latent caloric in the +market; insist that the mere fact of being a wife is not enough,--that +the words spoken once, years ago, are not enough,--that love needs new +leaves every summer of life, as much as your elm-trees, and new branches +to grow broader and wider, and new flowers at the root to cover the +ground. + +"Oh, but I have heard that here is no surer way to lose love than to be +exacting, and that it never comes for a woman's reproaches." + +"All true as Gospel, Emmy. I am not speaking of reproaches, or of +unreasonable self-assertion, or of ill-temper,--you could not use any of +these forces, if you would, you poor little chick! I am speaking now of +the highest duty we owe our friends, the noblest, the most sacred,--that +of keeping their own nobleness, goodness, pure and incorrupt. +Thoughtless, instinctive, unreasoning love and self-sacrifice, such as +many women long to bestow on husband and children, soil and lower the +very objects of their love. _You_ may grow saintly by self-sacrifice; +but do your husband and children grow saintly by accepting it without +return? I have seen a verse which says,-- + + 'They who kneel at woman's shrine + Breathe on it as they bow.' + +Is not this true of all unreasoning love and self-devotion? If we _let_ +our friend become cold and selfish and exacting without a remonstrance, +we are no true lover, no true friend. Any good man soon learns to +discriminate between the remonstrance that comes from a woman's love to +his soul, her concern for his honor, her anxiety for his moral +development, and the pettish cry which comes from her own personal +wants. It will be your own fault, if, for lack of anything you can do, +your husband relapses into these cold, undemonstrative habits which have +robbed his life of so much beauty and enjoyment. These dead, barren ways +of living are as unchristian as they are disagreeable; and you, as a +good Christian sworn to fight heroically under Christ's banner, must +make headway against this sort of family Antichrist, though it comes +with a show of superior sanctity and self-sacrifice. Remember, dear, +that the Master's family had its outward tokens of love as well as its +inward life. The beloved leaned on His bosom; and the traitor could not +have had a sign for his treachery, had there not been a daily kiss at +meeting and parting with His children." + +"I am glad you have said all this," said Emily, "because now I feel +stronger for it. It does not now seem so selfish for me to want what it +is better for John to give. Yes, I must seek what will be best for him." + +And so the little one, put on the track of self-sacrifice, began to see +her way clearer, as many little women of her sort do. Make them look on +self-assertion as one form of martyrdom, and they will come into it. + +But, for all my eloquence on this evening, the house was built in the +self-same spot as projected; and the family life went on, under the +shadow of Judge Evan's elms, much as if I had not spoken. Emmy became +mother of two fine, lovely boys, and waxed dimmer and fainter; while +with her physical decay came increasing need of the rule in the +household of mamma and sisters, who took her up energetically on eagles' +wings, and kept her house, and managed her children: for what can be +done when a woman hovers half her time between life and death? + +At last I spoke out to John, that the climate and atmosphere were too +severe for her who had become so dear to him,--to them all; and then +they consented that the change much talked of and urged, but always +opposed by the parents, should be made. + +John bought a pretty cottage in our neighborhood, and brought his wife +and boys; and the effect of change of moral atmosphere verified all my +predictions. In a year we had our own blooming, joyous, impulsive little +Emily once more,--full of life, full of cheer, full of energy,--looking +to the ways of her household,--the merry companion of her growing +boys,--the blithe empress over her husband, who took to her genial sway +as in the old happy days of courtship. The nightmare was past, and John +was as joyous as any of us in his freedom. As Emmy said, he was turned +right side out for life; and we all admired the pattern. And that is the +end of my story. + +And now for the moral,--and that is, that life consists of two +parts,--_Expression_ and _Repression_,--each of which has its solemn +duties. To love, joy, hope, faith, pity, belongs the duty of +_expression_: to anger, envy, malice, revenge, and all uncharitableness +belongs the duty of _repression_. + +Some very religious and moral people err by applying _repression_ to +both classes alike. They repress equally the expression of love and of +hatred, of pity and of anger. Such forget one great law, as true in the +moral world as in the physical,--that repression lessens and deadens. +Twice or thrice mowing will kill off the sturdiest crop of weeds; the +roots die for want of expression. A compress on a limb will stop its +growing; the surgeon knows this, and puts a tight bandage around a +tumor; but what if we put a tight bandage about the heart and lungs, as +some young ladies of my acquaintance do,--or bandage the feet, as they +do in China? And what if we bandage a nobler inner faculty, and wrap +_love_ in grave-clothes? + +But again there are others, and their number is legion,--perhaps you and +I, reader, may know something of it in ourselves,--who have an +instinctive habit of repression in regard to all that is noblest and +highest, within them, which they do not feel in their lower and more +unworthy nature. + +It comes far easier to scold our friend in an angry moment than to say +how much we love, honor, and esteem him in a kindly mood. Wrath and +bitterness speak themselves and go with their own force; love is +shamefaced, looks shyly out of the window, lingers long at the +door-latch. + +How much freer utterance among many good Christians have anger, +contempt, and censoriousness, than tenderness and love! _I hate_ is said +loud and with all our force. _I love_ is said with a hesitating voice +and blushing cheek. + +In an angry mood we do an injury to a loving heart with good, strong, +free emphasis; but we stammer and hang back when our diviner nature +tells us to confess and ask pardon. Even when our heart is broken with +repentance, we haggle and linger long before we can + + "Throw away the worser part of it." + +How many live a stingy and niggardly life in regard to their richest +inward treasures! They live with those they love dearly, whom a few more +words and deeds expressive of this love would make so much happier, +richer, and better; and they cannot, will not, turn the key and give it +out. People who in their very souls really do love, esteem, reverence, +almost worship each other, live a barren, chilly life side by side, +busy, anxious, preoccupied, letting their love go by as a matter of +course, a last year's growth, with no present buds and blossoms. + +Are there not sons and daughters who have parents living with them as +angels unawares,--husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, in whom the +material for a beautiful life lies locked away in unfruitful +silence,--who give time to everything but the cultivation and expression +of mutual love? + +The time is coming, they think in some far future when they shall find +leisure to enjoy each other, to stop and rest side by side, to discover +to each other these hidden treasures which lie idle and unused. + +Alas! time flies and death steals on, and we reiterate the complaint of +one in Scripture,--"It came to pass, while thy servant was busy hither +and thither, the man was gone." + +The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds +left undone. "She never knew how I loved her." "He never knew what he +was to me." "I always meant to make more of our friendship." "I did not +know what he was to me till he was gone." Such words are the poisoned +arrows which cruel Death shoots backward at us from the door of the +sepulchre. + +How much more we might make of our family life, of our friendships, if +every secret thought of love blossomed into a deed! We are not now +speaking merely of personal caresses. These may or may not be the best +language of affection. Many are endowed with a delicacy, a +fastidiousness of physical organization, which shrinks away from too +much of these, repelled and overpowered. But there are words and looks +and little observances, thoughtfulnesses, watchful little attentions, +which speak of love, which make it manifest, and there is scarce a +family that might not be richer in heart-wealth for more of them. + +It is a mistake to suppose that relations must of course love each other +because they are relations. Love must be cultivated, and can be +increased by judicious culture, as wild fruits may double their bearing +under the hand of a gardener; and love can dwindle and die out by +neglect, as choice flower-seeds planted in poor soil dwindle and grow +single. + +Two causes in our Anglo-Saxon nature prevent this easy faculty and flow +of expression which strike one so pleasantly in the Italian or the +French life: the dread of flattery, and a constitutional shyness. + +"I perfectly longed to tell So-and-so how I admired her, the other day," +says Miss X. + +"And why in the world didn't you tell her?" + +"Oh, it would seem like flattery, you know." + +Now what is flattery? + +Flattery is _insincere_ praise given from interested motives, not the +sincere utterance to a friend of what we deem good and lovely in him. + +And so, for fear of flattering, these dreadfully sincere people go on +side by side with those they love and admire, giving them all the time +the impression of utter indifference. Parents are so afraid of exciting +pride and vanity in their children by the expression of their love and +approbation, that a child sometimes goes sad and discouraged by their +side, and learns with surprise, in some chance way, that they are proud +and fond of him. There are times when the open expression of a father's +love would be worth more than church or sermon to a boy; and his father +cannot utter it, will not show it. + +The other thing that represses the utterances of love is the +characteristic _shyness_ of the Anglo-Saxon blood. Oddly enough, a race +born of two demonstrative, outspoken nations--the German and the +French--has an habitual reserve that is like neither. There is a +powerlessness of utterance in our blood that we should fight against, +and struggle outward towards expression. We can educate ourselves to it, +if we know and feel the necessity; we can make it a Christian duty, not +only to love, but to be loving,--not only to be true friends, but to +_show_ ourselves friendly. We can make ourselves say the kind things +that rise in our hearts and tremble back on our lips,--do the gentle and +helpful deeds which we long to do and shrink back from; and, little by +little, it will grow easier,--the love spoken, will bring back the +answer of love,--the kind deed will bring back a kind deed in +return,--till the hearts in the family-circle, instead of being so many +frozen, icy islands, shall be full of warm airs and echoing bird-voices +answering back and forth with a constant melody of love. + + + + +MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + + Dear Sir,--Your letter come to han', + Requestin' me to please be funny; + But I a'n't made upon a plan + Thet knows wut 's comin', gall or honey: + Ther' 's times the world doos look so queer, + Odd fancies come afore I call 'em; + An' then agin, for half a year, + No preacher 'thout a call 's more solemn. + + You 're 'n want o' sunthin' light an' cute, + Rattlin' an' shrewd an' kin' o' jingleish, + An' wish, pervidin' it 'ould suit, + I 'd take an' citify my English. + I _ken_ write long-tailed, ef I please,-- + But when I 'm jokin', no, I thankee; + Then, 'fore I know it, my idees + Run helter-skelter into Yankee. + + Sence I begun to scribble rhyme, + I tell ye wut, I ha'n't ben foolin'; + The parson's books, life, death, an' time + Hev took some trouble with my schoolin'; + Nor th' airth don't git put out with me, + Thet love her 'z though she wuz a woman; + Why, th' a'n't a bird upon the tree + But half forgives my bein' human. + + An' yit I love th' unhighschooled way + Ol' farmers hed when I wuz younger; + Their talk wuz meatier, an' 'ould stay, + While book-froth seems to whet, your hunger, + For puttin' in a downright lick + 'Twixt Humbug's eyes, ther' 's few can match it, + An' then it helves my thoughts ez slick + Ez stret-grained hickory doos a hatchet. + + But when I can't, I can't, thet 's all, + For Natur' won't put up with gullin'; + Idees you hev to shove an' haul + Like a druv pig a'n't wuth a mullein; + Live thoughts a'n't sent for; thru all rifts + O' sense they pour an' resh ye onwards, + Like rivers when south-lyin' drifts + Feel thet the airth is wheelin' sunwards. + + Time wuz, the rhymes come crowdin' thick + Ez office-seekers arter 'lection, + An' into ary place 'ould stick + Without no bother nor objection; + But sence the war my thoughts hang back + Ez though I wanted to enlist 'em, + An' substitutes,--wal, _they_ don't lack, + But then they 'll slope afore you 've mist 'em. + + Nothin' don't seem like wut it wuz; + I can't see wut there is to hinder, + An' yit my brains 'jes' go buzz, buzz, + Like bumblebees agin a winder; + 'Fore these times come, in all airth's row, + Ther' wuz one quiet place, my head in, + Where I could hide an' think,--but now + It 's all one teeter, hopin', dreadin'. + + Where 's Peace? I start, some clear-blown night, + When gaunt stone walls grow numb an' number, + An', creakin' 'cross the snow-crust white, + Walk the col' starlight into summer; + Up grows the moon, an' swell by swell + Thru the pale pasturs silvers dimmer + Than the last smile thet strives to tell + O' love gone heavenward in its shimmer. + + I hev ben gladder o' sech things + Than cocks o' spring or bees o' clover, + They filled my heart with livin' springs, + But now they seem to freeze 'em over; + Sights innercent ez babes on knee, + Peaceful ez eyes o' pastur'd cattle, + Jes' coz they be so, seem to me + To rile me more with thoughts o' battle. + + In-doors an' out by spells I try; + Ma'am Natur' keeps her spin-wheel goin', + But leaves my natur' stiff an' dry + Ez fiel's o' clover arter mowin'; + An' her jes' keepin' on the same, + Calmer than clock-work, an' not carin', + An' findin' nary thing to blame, + Is wus than ef she took to swearin'. + + Snow-flakes come whisperin' on the pane + The charm makes blazin' logs so pleasant, + But I can't hark to wut they 're say'n', + With Grant or Sherman oilers present; + The chimbleys shudder in the gale, + Thet lulls, then suddin takes to flappin' + Like a shot hawk, but all's ez stale + To me ez so much sperit-rappin'. + + Under the yaller-pines I house, + When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented, + An' hear among their furry boughs + The baskin' west-wind purr contented,-- + While 'way o'erhead, ez sweet an' low + Ez distant bells thet ring for meetin', + The wedged wil' geese their bugles blow, + Further an' further South retreatin'. + + Or up the slippery knob I strain + An' see a hunderd hills like islan's + Lift their blue woods in broken chain + Out o' the sea o' snowy silence; + The farm-smokes, sweetes' sight on airth, + Slow thru the winter air a-shrinkin', + Seem kin' o' sad, an' roun' the hearth + Of empty places set me thinkin'. + + Beaver roars hoarse with meltin' snows, + An' rattles di'mon's from his granite; + Time wuz, he snatched away my prose, + An' into psalms or satires ran it; + But he, nor all the rest thet once + Started my blood to country-dances, + Can't set me goin' more 'n a dunce + Thet ha'n't no use for dreams an' fancies. + + Rat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street + I hear the drummers makin' riot, + An' I set thinkin' o' the feet + Thet follered once an' now are quiet,-- + White feet ez snowdrops innercent, + Thet never knowed the paths o' Satan, + Whose comin' step ther' 's ears thet won't, + No, not lifelong, leave off awaitin'. + + Why, ha'n't I held 'em on my knee? + Did n't I love to see 'em growin', + Three likely lads ez wal could be, + Handsome an' brave an' not tu knowin'? + I set an' look into the blaze + Whose natur', jes' like their'n, keeps climbin', + Ez long 'z it lives, in shinin' ways, + An' half despise myself for rhymin'. + + Wut 's words to them whose faith an' truth + On War's red techstone rang true metal, + Who ventered life an' love an' youth + For the gret prize o' death in battle? + To him who, deadly hurt, agen + Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, + Tippin' with fire the bolt of men + Thet rived the Rebel line asunder? + + 'T a'n't right to hev the young go fust, + All throbbin' full o' gifts an' graces, + Leavin' life's paupers dry ez dust + To try an' make b'lieve fill their places: + Nothin' but tells us wut we miss, + Ther' 's gaps our lives can't never fay in, + An' thet world seems so fur from this + Lef' for us loafers to grow gray in! + + My eyes cloud up for rain; my mouth + Will take to twitchin' roun' the corners; + I pity mothers, tu, down South, + For all they sot among the scorners: + I 'd sooner take my chance to stan' + At Jedgment where your meanest slave is, + Than at God's bar hol' up a han' + Ez drippin' red ez your'n, Jeff Davis! + + Come, Peace! not like a mourner bowed + For honor lost an' dear ones wasted, + But proud, to meet a people proud, + With eyes thet tell o' triumph tasted! + Come, with han' grippin' on the hilt, + An' step thet proves ye Victory's daughter! + Longin' for you, our sperits wilt + Like shipwrecked men's on raf's for water! + + Come, while our country feels the lift + Of a gret instinct shoutin' forwards, + An' knows thet freedom a'n't a gift + Thet tarries long in hans' o' cowards! + Come, sech ez mothers prayed for, when + They kissed their cross with lips thet quivered, + An' bring fair wages for brave men, + A nation saved, a race delivered! + + + + +"IF MASSA PUT GUNS INTO OUR HAN'S." + + +The record of any one American who has grown up in the nurture of +Abolitionism has but little value by itself considered; but as a +representative experience, capable of explaining all enthusiasms for +liberty which have created "fanatics" and martyrs in our time, let me +recall how I myself came to hate Slavery. + +The training began while I was a babe unborn. A few months before I saw +the light, my father, mother, and sister were driven from their house in +New York by a furious mob. When they came cautiously back, their home +was quiet as a fortress the day after it has been blown up. The +front-parlor was full of paving-stones; the carpets were cut to pieces; +the pictures, the furniture, and the chandelier lay in one common +wreck; and the walls were covered with inscriptions of mingled insult +and glory. Over the mantel-piece had been charcoaled "Rascal"; over the +pier-table, "Abolitionist." We did not fare as badly as several others +who rejoiced in the spoiling of their goods. Mr. Tappan, in Rose Street, +saw a bonfire made of all he had in the world that could make a home or +ornament it. + +Among the earliest stories which were told me in the nursery, I +recollect the martyrdom of Nat Turner,--how Lovejoy, by night, but in +light, was sent quite beyond the reach of human pelting,--and all the +things which Toussaint did, with no white man, but with the whitest +spirit of all, to help him. As to minor sufferers for the cause of +Freedom, I should know that we must have entertained Abolitionists at +our house largely, since even at this day I find it hard to rid myself +of an instinctive impression that the common way of testifying +disapprobation of a lecturer in a small country-town is to bombard him +with obsolete eggs, carried by the audience for that purpose. I saw many +at my father's table who had enjoyed the honors of that ovation. + +I was four years old when I learned that my father combined the two +functions of preaching in a New England college town and ticket-agency +on the Underground Railroad. Four years old has a sort of literal +mindedness about it. Most little boys that I knew had an idea that +professors of religion and professors in college were the same, and that +a real Christian always had to wear black and speak Greek. So I could be +pardoned for going down cellar and watching behind old hogsheads by the +hour to see where the cars came in. + +A year after that I casually saw my first passenger, but regretted not +also to have seen whether he came up by the coal-bin or the meat-safe. +His name was Isidore Smith; so, to protect him from Smith, my father, +being a conscientious man, baptized him into a liberty to say that his +name was John Peterson. I held the blue bowl which served for font. To +this day I feel a sort of semi-accountability for John Peterson. I have +asked after him every time I have crossed the Suspension Bridge since I +grew up. In holding that baptismal bowl I suppose I am, in a sense, his +godfather. Half a godfather is better than none, and in spite of my size +I was a very earnest one. + +There are few godchildren for whom I should have had to renounce fewer +sins than for thee, brave John Peterson! + +John Peterson had been baptized before. No sprinkling that, but an +immersion in hell! He had to strip to show it to us. All down his back +were welts in which my father might lay his finger; and one gash healed +with a scar into which I could put my small, boyish fist. The former +were made by the whip and branding-irons of a Virginia planter,--the +latter by the teeth of his bloodhounds. When I saw that black back, I +cried; and my father might have chosen the place to baptize in, even as +John Baptist did Ænon, "because there was much water there." + +John stayed with us three or four weeks and then got moody. Nobody in +the town twitted him as a runaway. He was inexhaustibly strong in +health, and never tired of doing us service as gardener, porter, +errand-boy, and, on occasion, cook. In few places could his hard-won +freedom be less imperilled than with us. At last the secret of his +melancholy came out. He burst into tears, one morning, as he stood with +the fresh-polished boots at the door of my father's study, and sobbed,-- + +"Massa, I's got to go an' fetch dat yer gal 'n' little Pompey, 'r I's be +done dead afore de yeah's out!" + +As always, a woman in the case! + +Had it been his own case, I think I know my father well enough to +believe that he would have started directly South for "dat yer gal 'n' +little Pompey," though he had to face a frowning world. But being John's +counsellor, his _rôle_ was to counsel moderation, and his duty to put +before him the immense improbability of his ever making a second +passage of the Red Sea, if he now returned. If he were caught and +whipped to death, of what benefit could he be to his wife and child? Why +not stay North and buy them? + +But the marital and the parental are also the automatic and the +immediate. Reason with love! As well with orange-boughs for bearing +orange-buds, or water upon its boiling-point! When John's earnestness +made my father realize that this is the truth, he gave John all the +available funds in the underground till, and started him off at six in +the morning. I was not awake when he went, and felt that my luck was +down on me. I never should see that hole where the black came up. + +For six months the Care-Taker of Ravens had under His sole keeping a +brave head as black as theirs, and a heart like that of the pious negro, +who, in a Southern revival-hymn is thus referred to:-- + + "O! O! + Him hab face jus' like de crow, + But de Lor' gib him heart like snow." + +(The most Southern slaves, who had never travelled and seen snow, found +greater reality in the image of "cotton wool," and used to sing the hymn +with that variation.) At the end of that time, contrary to our most +sanguine expectations, John Peterson appeared. Nor John Peterson alone, +for when he rang our door-bell he put into the arms of a nice-looking +mulatto woman of thirty a little youngster about two years old. + +A new servant, with some trepidation, showed them up to "Massa's" study. +We had weeded John's dialect of that word before he went away, but he +had been six months since then in a servile atmosphere. He stood at the +open study-door. My father stopped shaving, and let the lather dry on +his face, as he shielded with his hand the eyes he in vain tried to +believe. Yes, veritably, John Peterson! + +But John Peterson could not speak. He choked visibly; and then, pointing +to the two beside him, blurted out,-- + +"I's done did it, Massa!" and broke entirely down. + +Again it was Ænon generally, and there was more baptizing done. + +John had made a march somewhat like Sherman's. He had crossed the entire +States of Virginia and Maryland, carrying two non-combatants, and no +weapon of his own but a knife,--subsisting his army on the enemy all the +way,--using negro guides freely, but never sending them back to their +masters,--and terminating his brilliant campaign with an act of bold, +unconstitutional confiscation. He couldn't have found a Chief-Justice in +the world to uphold him in it at that time. + +Hiding by day and walking by night, with his boy strapped to his back +and his wife by his side, he had come within thirty miles of the +Maryland line, when one night the full moon flashed its Judas lantern +full upon him, and, being in the high-road, he naturally enough "tuk a +scar'." Freedom only thirty miles off,--that vast territory behind him, +three times traversed for her dear sake and Love's,--a slave-owner's +stable close by,--a wife and a baby crouching in the thicket,--God above +saying, "The laborer is worthy of his hire." No Chief-Justice in the +world could have convinced that man. + +With an inspired touch,--the _tactus eruditus_ of a bitter memory and a +glorious hope,--John felt for and found the best horse in the stable, +saddled him, led him out without awakening a soul, and, mounting, took +his wife before him with the baby in her arms. A pack of deerhounds came +snuffing about him as he rode off; but, for a wonder, they never howled. + +"Oh, Massa!" said John, "when I see dat, I knowed we was safe anyhow. +Dat Lor' dat stop de moufs of dem dogs was jus' de same as Him dat shut +de moufs of de lions in Dannelindelinesden." (I write it as he +pronounced it. I think he thought it was a place in the Holy Land.) +"When I knowed dat was de same Lor', an' He come down dar to help me, I +rode along jus' as quiet as little Pompey dar, an' neber feared no +moon." + +When he reached the Pennsylvania border he turned back the horse, and +proceeded on his way through a land where as yet there was no +Fugitive-Slave Law, and those who sought to obstruct the progress of the +negro-hunter were, as they ever have been, many. + + * * * * * + +After that I got by accident into a Northern school with Southern +_principals_. + +Æsthetically it was a good school. We wore kid gloves when we went to +meeting, and sat in a gallery like a sort of steamer over the boiler, in +which deacons and other large good people were stewing, through long, +hot Sunday afternoons. If we went to sleep, or ate cloves not to go to +sleep, we were punched in the back with a real gold-headed cane. The +cane we felt proud of, because it had been presented by the boys, and it +was a perpetual compliment to us to see that cane go down the street +with our principal after it; but nothing could have exceeded our +mortification at being punched with it in full sight of the +girls'-school gallery opposite, we having our kid gloves on at the time, +and in some instances coats with tails, like men. + +When I say "Southern" principals, I do not mean to indicate their +nativity; for I suppose no Southerner ever taught a Northerner anything +until Bull Run, when the lesson was, not to despise one's enemy, but to +beat him. Nor do I intend to call them pro-slavery men in the obnoxious +sense. Like many good men of the day, they depended largely on Southern +patronage, and opposed all discussion of what they called "political +differences." At that day, in most famous schools, "Liberty" used to be +cut out of a boy's composition, if it meant anything more than an +exhibition-day splurge with reference to the eagle and the banner in the +immediate context. + +Among the large crowd of young Southerners sent to this school, I began +preaching emancipation in my pinafore. Mounted upon a window-seat in an +alcove of the great play-hall, I passed recess after recess in +haranguing a multitude upon the subject of Freedom, with as little +success as most apostles, and with only less than their crown of +martyrdom, because, though small boys are more malicious than men, they +cannot hit so hard. + +On one occasion, brought to bay by a sophism, I answered unwisely, but +made a good friend. A little Southerner (as often since a large one) +turned on me fiercely and said,-- + +"Would you marry a nigger?" + +Resolved to die by my premises, I gave a great gulp and said,-- + +"Yes!" + +Of course one general shout of derision ascended from the throng. +Nothing but the ringing of the bell prevented me from accepting on the +spot the challenge to a fist-fight of a boy whom Lee has since cashiered +from his colonelcy for selling the commissions in his regiment. After +school I was taken in hand by a gentleman, then one of our +belles-lettres teachers, but now a well-known and eloquent divine in New +York city, who for the first time showed me how to beat an antagonist by +avoiding his deductions. + +"Tell G. the next time," said the present Rev. Dr. W., "that, if you saw +a poor beggar-woman dying of cold and hunger, you would do all in your +power to help her, though you might be far enough from wanting to marry +her." + +How many a _non-sequitur_ of people who didn't sit in the boys' gallery +has this simple little formula of Dr. W.'s helped me to shed aside since +then! + + * * * * * + +Just after the John Brown raid, I went to Florida. I remained in the +State from the first of January till the first week of the May +following. I found there the climate of Utopia, the scenery of Paradise, +and the social system of Hell. + +I am inclined to think that the author of the pamphlet which last spring +advocated amalgamation was a Floridian. The most open relations of +concubinage existed between white chevaliers and black servants in the +town of Jacksonville. I was not surprised at the fact, but was +surprised at its openness. The particular friend of one family belonging +to the cream of Florida society was a gentleman in thriving business who +had for his mistress the waiting-maid of the daughters. He used to sit +composedly with the young ladies of an evening,--one of them playing on +the piano to him, the other smiling upon him over a bouquet,--while the +woman he had afflicted with the burdens, without giving her the +blessings, of marriage, came in curtsying humbly with a tea-tray. +Everybody understood the relation perfectly; but not even the pious +shrugged their shoulders or seemed to care. One day, a lank Virginian, +wintering South in the same hotel with myself, began pitching into me on +the subject of "Northern amalgamators." I called to me a pretty little +boy with the faintest tinge of umber in his skin, and pointed him to the +lank Virginian without a word. The lank Virginian understood the answer, +and sat down to read Bledsoe on the Soul. Bledsoe, as a slave-labor +growth in metaphysics, (indeed, the only Southern metaphysician, if we +except Governor Wise,) is much coddled at the South. I believe, besides, +that he proves the divine right of Slavery _a priori_. If he begins with +the "Everlasting Me," he must be just the kind of reading for a slave +aristocrat. + + * * * * * + +It is very amusing to hear the Southerners talk of arming their slaves. +I often heard them do it in Florida. I have read such Richmond Congress +debates as have transpired upon the subject. I do not believe that any +important steps will be taken in the matter. I have known a master mad +with fear, when he saw an old gun-stock protruding from beneath one of +those dog-heaps of straw and sacking called beds, in the negro-quarters. +The fact that it had been thrown away by himself, had no barrel attached +to it, and was picked up by a colored boy who had a passion for carving, +hardly prevented the man from giving the innocent author of his fright a +round "nine-and-thirty." When I was in Florida, a peculiar set of marks, +like the technical "blaze," were found on certain trees in that and the +adjoining State westward. The people were alive in an instant. There +were editorials and meetings. The Southern heart was fired, and fired +off. There was every indication of a negro uprising, and those marks +pointed the way to the various rendezvous. When they were discovered to +be the work of some insignificant rodent, who had put himself on +bark-tonic to a degree which had never chanced to be observed before, +nobody seemed ashamed, for everybody said,--"Well, it was best to be on +the safe side; the thing might have happened just as well as not." I do +not believe that one thinking Southern man (if any such there be in the +closing hours of a desperate conspiracy) has any more idea of arming his +negroes than of translating San Domingo to the threshold of his home. I +should like to see the negroes whom I knew most thoroughly intrusted +with blockade-run rifles, just by way of experiment. Let me recall a +couple of these acquaintances. + + * * * * * + +The St. John's River is one of the most picturesque and beautiful +streams in the world. Its bluffs never rise higher than fifty or sixty +feet; it has no abrupt precipices; the whole formation about it is +tertiary and drift or modern terrace; but its first eighty miles from +its mouth are broad as a bay of the sea, and its narrow upper course +above Pilatka, where current supersedes tide, is all one dream of +Eden,--an infinitely tortuous avenue, peopled with myriads of beautiful +wild-birds, roofed by overhanging branches of oak, magnolia, and +cypress, draped with the moss that tones down those solitudes into a +sort of day-moonlight, and, in the greatest contrast with this, +festooned by the lavish clusters of odorous yellow jasmine and many-hued +morning-glory,--the latter making a pillar heavy with triumphal wreaths +of every old stump along the plashy brink,--the former swinging from +tree-top to tree-top to knit the whole tropic wilderness into a tangle +of emerald chains, drooping lamps of golden fire, and censers of +bewildering fragrance. + +To the hunting, fishing, and exploration of such a river I was never +sorry that I had brought my own boat. It was one of the +_chefs-d'oeuvres_ of my old schoolmate Ingersoll,--a copper-fastened, +clinker-built pleasure-boat, pulling two pairs of sculls, fifteen feet +long, comfortably accommodating six persons, and adorned by the builder +with a complimentary blue and gilt backboard of mahogany and a pair of +presentation tiller-ropes twisted from white and crimson silk. + +In this boat I and the companion of my exile took much comfort. When we +intended only a short row,--some trifle of ten or twelve miles,--we +always pulled for ourselves; but on long tours, where the faculties of +observation would have been impaired by the fatigue of action, we +employed as our oarsman a black man whom I shall call Sol Cutter,--not +knowing on which side of the lines he may be at present. + +Sol, when we first discovered him, was hovering around the Jacksonville +wharves, looking for a job. It is so novel to see that kind of thing in +the South, that I asked him if he was a free negro. He replied, that he +was the slave of a gentleman who allowed him to buy his time. He said +"allowed"; but I suspect that the truer, though less delicate, way of +putting it would have been to say "obliged" him to, for the sake of a +living. Sol's "Mossa Cutter" had remaining to him none of the paternal +acres; and it never having occurred to him, that, when lands and houses +all are spent, then learning is most excellent, he possessed none of +that _nous_ which would have enabled a Northern man to outflank +embarrassments by directing his forces into new channels. Having worked +a plantation, when he had no longer any plantation to work he was +compelled to send his negroes into the street to earn an eleëmosynary +living for him. This was no obloquy. How many such men has every +Southern traveller seen,--"sons of the first South Carolina +families,"--parodying the Caryatides against the sunny wall of some low +grog-shop during a whole winter afternoon,--their eyes listless, their +hands in their pockets, their legs outstretched, their backs bent, their +conversation a languid mixture of Cracker dialect and overseer slang, +their negroes' earnings running down their throats at intervals, as they +change their outside for a temporary inside position,--and all the +well-dressed citizens addressing them cheerfully as "Colonel" and +"Major," without a blush of shame, as they go by! Goldwin Smith was +right in pointing at such men as one of the former palliations for the +social invectives of the foreign tourist,--though any such tourist with +brains need not have mistaken them for sample Americans, having already +been in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. The trouble is, that foreign +tourists, as a rule, do _not_ have brains. At any rate, they may say to +us, as Artemus Ward of his gifts of eloquence,--"I _have_ them, but--I +haven't got them with me." + +Sol Cutter paid his master eight dollars a week. As he had to keep +himself out of his remainder earnings, he was naturally more +enterprising than most slaves, and I took a fancy to him immediately. +From the day I found him, he always went out with me on my long rows. + +The middle of a river six miles wide is the safest place that can be +found at the South for insurrectionary conversation. Even there I used +to wonder whether the Southerners had not given secret-service money to +the alligators who occasionally stuck their knobby noses above the flood +to scent our colloquies. + +Sol was pulling away steadily, having "got his second wind" at the end +of the first mile. I was sitting with tiller-ropes in hand, and studying +his strong-featured, but utterly expressionless face, with deep +curiosity. His face was one over which the hot roller of a great agony +has passed, smoothing out all its meaning. + +"So your master sells you your time?" + +"Yes, Mossa." (Always "_Mossa_" never "_Massa_," so far South as this.) + +"Do you support your wife and children as well as yourself?" + +A convulsive gulp on the part of Sol, but no reply. + +"Have you never been married?" + +"Yes, Mossa." + +"Is your wife dead?" + +"I hope so,--to de good God, I hope so, Mossa!" + +Sol leaned forward on his oars and stopped rowing. He panted, he gnashed +his teeth, he frothed at the mouth, and when I thought he must be an +epileptic, he lifted himself up with one strong shudder, and turning on +me a face stern as Cato's,-- + +"Nebber, _nebber_, NEBBER, shall I see wife or chil' agin!" + +I then said openly that I was an Abolitionist,--that I believed in every +man's right to freedom,--and that, as to the safest friend in the world, +he might tell me his story,--which he thereupon did, and which was +afterward abundantly corroborated by pro-slavery testimony on shore. + +"Mossa Cutter" had fallen heir in South Carolina to a good plantation +and thirty likely "niggers." At the age of twenty-five he sold out the +former and emigrated to Florida with the latter. The price of the +plantation rapidly disappeared at horse-races, poker-parties, +cock-fights, and rum-shops. If Mossa Cutter speculated, he was always +unsuccessful, because he was always hotheaded and always drunk. + +In process of time "debts of honor" and the sheriff's hammer had +dissipated his entire clientage of blacks, with the exception of Sol, a +pretty yellow woman with a nice baby, who were respectively Sol's wife +and child, and a handsome quadroon boy of seventeen, who was Mossa +Cutter's body-servant. + +Sol came to the quarters one night and found his wife and child gone. +They were on their way to Tallahassee in a coffle which had been made up +as a sudden speculation on the cheerful Bourse of Jacksonville. Four +doors away Mossa Cutter could be seen between the flaunting red curtains +of a bar-room window, drinking Sol's heart's blood at sixpence the +tumblerful. + +Sol, I hear they are going to put an English musket in your hands! + +Sol fell paralyzed to the ground. A moment after, he was up on his feet +again, and, without thought of nine o'clock, pass, patrol, or +whipping-house, rushing on the road likely to be taken by chain-gangs to +Tallahassee. He reached the "Piny Woods" timber on the outskirts of the +town. No one had noticed him, and he struck madly through the sand that +floors those forests, knowing no weariness, for his heart-strings pulled +that way. He travelled all night without overtaking them; but just as +the first gray dawn glimmered between the piny plumes behind him, he +heard the coarse shout of drivers close ahead, and found himself by the +fence of a log-hut where the gang had huddled down for its short sleep. +It was now light enough to travel, and the drivers were "geeing" up +their human cattle. + +Sol rushed to his wife and baby. As the man and woman clasped each other +in frantic caress, the driver came up, and, kicking them, bade them with +an oath to have done. + +"Whose nigger are you?" (to Sol.) + +"I belong to Mossa Cutter. I's come to be taken along." + +"Did he send you?" + +"He did so, Sah. He tol' me partic'lar. I done run hard to catch up wid +you gemplemen, Mossa. Mossa Cutter he sell me to-day to be sol' in de +same lot wid Nancy." + +The drivers went aside and talked for a while, then took him on with +them, and, for a wonder, did sell Sol and Nancy in the same lot. Nancy's +and the baby's price had one good use to Sol, for it kept Mossa Cutter +for a week too drunk to know of his loss or care for his recovery. + +Sol was the coachman, Nancy the laundress, of a gentleman residing at +the capital. Their master had the happy eccentricity of getting more +amiable with every rum-toddy; and as he never for any length of time +discontinued rum-toddies, the days of Sol and Nancy at Judge Q.'s were +halcyon. + +They had not counted on one of the drivers going back to Jacksonville, +meeting Mossa Cutter over his libations, and confidentially confessing +to him,-- + +"I tuk a likely boy o'yourn over to Tallahassee in that gang month afore +last." + +Sol, if they had put a British gun in your hands _then_! + +Mossa Cutter swooped down on them in the midst of their +happiness,--refused to let Judge Q. ransom Sol at twice his value,--and +tore him from his wife and child. Returning with him to Jacksonville, he +beat him almost to death,--after which, he sent him out on the wharves +to earn their common living. + +A few nights after the return of Sol, Mossa Cutter came home with _mania +a potu_. His handsome quadroon body-servant was sitting up for him. +Mossa Cutter said to him,-- + +"You have the sideboard-keys,--bring me that decanter of brandy." + +The boy replied,-- + +"Oh, don't, _dear_ Mossa! you surely kill you'self!" + +Upon this, his master, damning him for a "saucy, disobedient nigger," +drew his bowie-knife and inflicted on him a frightful wound across the +abdomen, from which he died next day. A Jacksonville jury brought in a +verdict of accidental death. + +That might have been another good occasion to hand Sol a musket! + +Not having any, he remained in the proud and notorious position of +"Mossa Cutter's Larst Niggah." + + * * * * * + +In a certain part of Florida (obvious reasons will show themselves for +leaving it indefinite) I enjoyed the acquaintance of two Southern +gentlemen,--gentlemen, however, of widely different kinds. One was a +general, a lawyer, a rake, a drunkard, and white; the other was a +body-servant, a menial, an educated man, a fine man-of-business, a Sir +Roger in his manners, and black. The two had been brought up together, +the black having been given to the white gentleman during the latter's +second year. "They had played marbles in the same hole," the General +said. I know that Jim was unceasing in his attentions to his master, and +that his master could not have lived without them. A sort of attachment +of fidelity certainly did exist on Jim's side; and the most selfish man +must feel an attachment of need for the servant who could manage his +bank-account and superintend his entire interests much more successfully +than himself,--who could tend him without complaint through a week's +sleeplessness, when he had the horrors,--who was in fact, to all intents +and purposes, his own only responsible manifestation to the world. + +Jim's wife was dead, but had left him two sons and a daughter. When I +first saw him, none of them had been sold from him. The boys were +respectively eighteen and twenty years old. Their sister had just turned +sixteen, and was a nice-looking, modest, mulatto girl, whom her father +idolized because she was looking more and more every day "like de oder +Sally dat's gone, Mossa." + +A week after he said that to me, Sally on earth might well have prayed +to Sally in heaven to take her, for she was sold away into the horrors +of concubinage to one of the wickedest men on the river. + +To describe the result of this act upon Jim is beyond my power, if +indeed my heart would allow me to repeat such sorrow. It was not +violent,--but, O South, South, lying on a volcano, if all your negroes +had been violent, how much better for you! + +Jim, I hear they intend to give you a rifle! + +Well, as to that, I remember Jim had heard of such things. + +Boarding at the same hotel with the General, I sat also at the same +table. When he was well enough to come down to his meals, he occupied +the third chair below me on the opposite side. + +One night, when all the boarders but ourselves had left the tea-room, +the General, being confidentially sober, (I say _sober_, for when he +reached the confidential he was on the rising scale,) began talking +politics with me. + +"I see in the 'Mercury,'" said the General, "that some of your Northern +scum are making preparations for another John Brown raid into Virginia." + +"Oh no, I fancy not. That's sensation." + +"Well, now, you just look h'y'ere! If they do come, d'ye know what _I_'m +gwine to do! If I'm too feeble to walk or ride a hoss, I'll crawl on my +knees to the banks of the Potomac, and"---- + +"What, with those new Northern-made pantaloons on?" + +"D'interrupt me, Sir. I'll crawl on my knees to the bank of the Potomac +and defend Old Virginny to the last gasp. She's my sister, Sir! So'll +all the negroes fight for her. Talk about our not trusting 'em! Here's +Jim. He's got all the money I have in the world; takes care of me when +I'm sick; comes after me, to the Gem when I'm--a little not myself, you +know; sees me home; puts me to bed, and never leaves me. Faithful as a +hound, by Heavens! Why, I'd trust him with my life in a minute, Sir! +Yes, Sir, and----Oh, yes! we'll just arm our niggers, and put 'em in the +front ranks to make 'em shoot their brothers, Sir!" + +I said, "Ah?" and the General went out to take a drink, leaving Jim and +myself alone together at the table. The remaining five minutes, before I +finished my tea, Jim seemed very restless. Just as I rose to go, he said +to me,-- + +"Mossa, could you hab de great kin'ness to come out to de quarters to +see Peter?" (his eldest boy,)--"he done catch bery bad col', Sah." + +I was physician in ordinary to the servants in that hotel. In every +distress they called on me. I told Jim that I would gladly accompany +him. When we got to a considerable distance from the main houses, Jim +stopped under an immense magnolia, and, drawing me into its shade, said, +after a sweeping glance in all directions,-- + +"Oh, Mossa! _is_ dat true, dat dem dere Abolitionists is a-comin' down +here to save us,--to redeem us, Mossa? Is dey a-comin' to take pity on +us, Mossa, an' take dis people out of hell? Oh, _is_ dey, _is_ dey, +Mossa?" + +I told Jim that they were very weak and few in number just now; but that +in a few years there would be nobody but them at the North, and then +they'd come down a hundred thousand strong. (I said _one_ hundred +thousand, the modern army not yet having been dreamed of.) I told him to +bide the Lord's time. + +He cast a fainting glance over to that window in the negro quarters, +dark now, where his little Sally used to ply her skilful needle. Then he +tossed his hands wildly into the air, and cried out,-- + +"_Lord's_ time! Oh, _is_ der any Lord?" + +I clasped him by the hand and said,-- + +"_Yes_, my poor, broken-hearted--_brother_!" + +That word fell on his ear for the first time from a white man's lips, +and the stupefaction of it was a countercheck to his grief. + +He became perfectly calm, and clasped me by the hands gently, like a +child. + +"Mossa, you mean dat? To _me_, Mossa? Dear Mossa, den I _will_ try for +to bide de Lord's time! But," (here his face grew black in the growing +moonlight, with a deeper blackness than complexion,)--"but, if de Mossas +only _do_ put de guns into our han's, _oh, dey'll find out which side +we'll turn 'em on!_" + +Jim, I hope you have arms in your hands long ere this, and have done +good work with them! I hope Sol has also. Either of you has enough of +the _vis ab intra_ to make a good soldier. As you won't know what that +means, Jim and Sol, I'll tell you,--it's a broken heart. + +But whether Sol and Jim have arms in their hands or not, by all means +arm the rest. + +Wanted, two hundred thousand British muskets to arm as many likely +niggers,--all warranted equal to samples, Sol and Jim,--same make, same +temper. Blockade-runners had better apply immediately. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. +90, April, 1865, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, APRIL 1865 *** + +***** This file should be named 30611-8.txt or 30611-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/6/1/30611/ + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: December 6, 2009 [EBook #30611] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, APRIL 1865 *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 385]</span></p> + +<h4>THE</h4> + +<h1>ATLANTIC MONTHLY.</h1> + +<h2><i>A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics.</i></h2> + +<h3>VOL. XV.—APRIL, 1865.—NO. XC.</h3> + +<p>Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by <span class="smcap">Ticknor and +Fields</span>, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of +Massachusetts.</p> + +<p class="notes">Transcriber's Note: Minor typos have been corrected and footnotes moved +to the end of the article. Table of contents has been created for the HTML version.</p> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<p> +<a href="#ADVENTURES_OF_A_LONE_WOMAN"><b>ADVENTURES OF A LONE WOMAN.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_SPANIARDS_GRAVES"><b>THE SPANIARDS' GRAVES.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#GRIT"><b>GRIT.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_PETTIBONE_LINEAGE"><b>THE PETTIBONE LINEAGE.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#UP_THE_ST_MARYS"><b>UP THE ST. MARY'S.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#ROBIN_BADFELLOW"><b>ROBIN BADFELLOW.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#ICE_AND_ESQUIMAUX"><b>ICE AND ESQUIMAUX.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#DOCTOR_JOHNS"><b>DOCTOR JOHNS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#OUR_FIRST_CITIZENA"><b>OUR FIRST CITIZEN.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#NEEDLE_AND_GARDEN"><b>NEEDLE AND GARDEN.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#MEMORIES_OF_AUTHORS"><b>MEMORIES OF AUTHORS.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#THE_CHIMNEY-CORNER"><b>THE CHIMNEY-CORNER.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#MR_HOSEA_BIGLOW_TO_THE_EDITOR_OF_THE_ATLANTIC_MONTHLY"><b>MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.</b></a><br /> +<a href="#IF_MASSA_PUT_GUNS_INTO_OUR_HANS"><b>"IF MASSA PUT GUNS INTO OUR HAN'S."</b></a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="ADVENTURES_OF_A_LONE_WOMAN" id="ADVENTURES_OF_A_LONE_WOMAN"></a>ADVENTURES OF A LONE WOMAN.</h2> + + +<p>"I will go and see the oil," remarked Miselle, at the end of a reverie +of ten minutes.</p> + +<p>Caleb laid the "Morning Journal" upon the table, and prepared himself +calmly to accept whatever new dispensation Providence and Miselle had +allotted him.</p> + +<p>"Whaling?" inquired he.</p> + +<p>"No, not whaling. I am going to the Oil Springs."</p> + +<p>"By all means. They lie in the remotest portion of Pennsylvania; they +are inaccessible by railway; such conveyances and such wretched inns as +are to be found are crowded with lawless men, rushing to the wells to +seek their fortunes, or rushing away, savage at having utterly lost +them. At this season the roads are likely to be impassable from mud, the +weather to be stormy. When do you propose going?"</p> + +<p>"Next Monday," replied Miselle, serenely.</p> + +<p>"And with whom? You know that I cannot accompany you."</p> + +<p>"I did not dream of incurring such a responsibility. I go alone."</p> + +<p>Caleb resumed the "Morning Journal." Miselle wrote a letter, signed her +name, and tossed it across the table, saying,—</p> + +<p>"There, I have written to Friend Williams, who has, as his sister tells +me, set up a shanty and a wife on Oil Creek. I will go to them and so +avoid your wretched inns, and at the same time secure a guide competent +to conduct my explorations. As for the conveyances, the roads, and the +lawless travellers, if men are not afraid to encounter them, surely a +woman need not be."</p> + +<p>"Be cautious, Miselle. This grain of practicability in the shape of +Friend Williams is spoiling the unity of your plan. At first it was a +charmingly consistent absurdity."</p> + +<p>"But now?"</p> + +<p>"Now it is merely foolishly hazardous, and I suppose you will undertake +it. It is your <i>kismet</i>; it is Fate; and what am I, to resist Destiny? +Go, child,—my blessing and my bank-book are your own."</p> + +<p>"And '<i>Je suis Tedesco!</i>'" pompously quoted Miselle; so no more was said +upon the subject, until the young woman, having received an answer to +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 386]</span>her letter, claimed the treasures promised by Caleb, and shortly after +fared forth upon her adventurous way.</p> + +<p>The journey from Boston to New York has for most persons lost the +excitement of novelty; but excitement of another sort is to be obtained +by choosing a route where mile after mile of the roadway is lined with +wrecks of recent accidents, and the papers sold in the cars brim over +with horrible details of death and maiming in consequence. Nor can it be +considered either wholesome or comfortable to be removed in the middle +of a November night from a warm car to a ferry-boat, and thence to +another train of cars without fire and almost without seats,—the +suggestive apology being, that so many carriages had been "smashed" +lately that the enterprising managers of the road had been obliged to +buy an old excursion-train from another company. Meantime, what became +of the unfortunate women who had no kind companion to purvey for them +blankets and pillows from the mephitic sleeping-car, and cups of hot tea +from unknown sources, Miselle cannot conjecture.</p> + +<p>New York at midday, from the standpoint of Fifth Avenue or Central Park, +is a very splendid and attractive place, we shall all agree; but New +York involved in a wilderness of railway station at six o'clock of a +rainy autumn morning is quite the reverse. Cabmen, draymen, porters, all +assume a new ferocity of bearing, horses are more cruelly lashed, +ignorant wayfarers more crushingly snubbed, new trunks more recklessly +smashed, than would be possible at a later hour of the day; and that +large class of persons who may be denominated intermittent gentlemen +fold up their politeness with their travelling-shawls and put it away +for a future occasion.</p> + +<p>Solaced by a breakfast and rest, Miselle bade good-bye to her attentive +escort, and set forth alone to view New York with the critical eye of a +Bostonian.</p> + +<p>Her first experience was significant; and in the course of a three-mile +drive down Broadway, she had time, while standing in the middle of an +omnibus, where were seated nine young gentlemen, for much complacent +comparison of the manners of the two cities. Indeed, after twelve hours +of attentive study, Miselle discovered but two points of superiority in +the New Babylon over the Modern Athens, and these were chocolate-creams +and policemen: the first were delicious, the last civil.</p> + +<p>Six o'clock arrived, and the "Lightning Express," over the Erie Railway, +bore, among other less important freight, Miselle and her fortunes. But, +unfortunately for the interest of this narrative, she had unwittingly +selected an "off-night" for her journey; neither horrible accident nor +raid of bold marauders enlivened the occasion; and undisturbed, the +reckless passengers slept throughout the night, as men have slept who +knew that a scaffold waited for them with the morning's light.</p> + +<p>Only Miselle could not rest. The steady rapidity of motion,—the +terrible power of this force that man has made his own, and yet not so +wholly his own but that it may at any moment break from his control, +asserting itself master,—the dim light and motionless figures about +her,—all these things wrought upon her fancy, until, through the gray +mist of morning, great round hills stood up at either hand with deep +valleys between, from whose nestling hamlets lights began to twinkle out +as if great swarms of fireflies sheltered there. Then, as morning broke, +the wild scenery, growing more distinct, told the traveller that she was +far from home.</p> + +<p>Gray and craggy hills, wild ravines, stormy mountain-streams, dizzy +heights where the traveller looking down remembered Tarpeia, gloomy +caverns, suggesting Simms's theory of an interior world,—none of these +were homelike; and Miselle began to fancy herself an explorer, a +Franklin, a Frémont, a Speke, until the train stopped at Hornellsville +for breakfast, and she was reminded, while watching the operations of +her fellow-passengers, of Du Chaillu peeping from behind tree-trunks at +the domestic pursuits of the gorilla.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 387]</span></p> + +<p>About noon the cars stopped at Corry, Pennsylvania, the entrance of the +oil region and terminus of the Oil Creek Railway; and Miselle, stepping +from the train into a dense cloud of driving rain and oily men, felt one +sudden pang of doubt as to her future course, and almost concluded it +should be to await upon the platform the Eastern-bound express due there +in a few hours. This dastardly impulse, however, was speedily put to +flight by the superior terror of the ridicule sure to greet such a +return, and, assuming a determined mien, Miselle took possession of +Corry.</p> + +<p>Three years ago the census of this place would have given so many foxes, +so many woodchucks, so many badgers, raccoons, squirrels, and +tree-toads; now it numbers four thousand men, women, and children, and +the "old families" have withdrawn to the aristocratic seclusion of the +forest beyond.</p> + +<p>For the accommodation of these newcomers a thousand buildings of various +sorts have been erected,—much as a child takes his toy-village from the +box and sets it here or there, as the whim of the moment dictates. Here +is also a large oil-refinery belonging to Mr. Downer of Boston, where a +good many of the four thousand find employment; and here, too, are +several inns, the best one called "The Boston House."</p> + +<p>Hither Miselle betook herself, confidently expecting to find either Mr. +Williams or a message from him awaiting her; but, behold, no friend, no +letter!</p> + +<p>What was to be done next? Mr. Dick, asked a similar question by Miss +Betsy Trotwood, replied, "Feed him."</p> + +<p>Miselle adopted the suggestion. The hour was one <span class="smcap">p. m.</span>, and the general +repast was concluded; but a special table was soon prepared, whereat she +and a gentleman of imposing appearance, called Viator Ignotus, were soon +seated, before a dinner, of which the intention was excellent, but the +execution as fatal as most executions.</p> + +<p>Viator ate in silence, occasionally startling his companion by wild +plunges across the table, knife in hand. At first she was inclined to +believe him a dangerous madman; but finding that the various dishes, and +not herself, were the objects of attack, she refrained from flight, and +considerately pushed everything within convenient stabbing distance of +the blade, which unweariedly continued to wave in glittering curves from +end to end of the table long after she had finished.</p> + +<p>The banquet over, Miselle found the drawing-room, and in company with a +woman, a girl, a baby, and a lawless stove, devoted herself to the study +of Corry as seen through a window streaming with rain. Tired at last of +this exhilarating pursuit, she engaged in single combat with the stove, +and, being signally beaten, resolved to try a course of human nature as +developed in her companions.</p> + +<p>She soon learned that the girl was in reality a matron of seventeen, and +the actual proprietor of the baby, whom, nevertheless, she appeared to +regard as a mysterious phenomenon attached to the elder woman, whom she +addressed as "Mam." In this view the grandmother seemed to coincide, and +remarked, naïvely,—</p> + +<p>"Why, lor, Ma'am, she and her husband a'n't nothing but two babies +theirselves. She ha'n't never been away from her folks, nor he from +hisn, till t'other day he got bit with the ile-fever, and nothing would +do but to tote down here to the Crik and make his fortin. They was chirk +enough when they started; but about a week ago he come home, and I tell +you he sung a little smaller than when he was there last. He was clean +discouraged; there wa'n't no ile to be had, 'thout you'd got money +enough to live on, to start with; and victuals and everything else was +so awful dear, a poor man would get run out 'fore he'd realized the fust +thing; wust of all was, Clementiny was so homesick she couldn't neither +sleep nor eat; and the amount was, he'd stop 'long with father in the +shop, and I should go and fetch home the two babies. So here I be, and a +time I've had gittin' 'em along, I tell <i>you</i>."</p> + +<p>"It's hard travelling down Oil Creek,<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 388]</span> then?" asked Miselle, with a +personal interest in the question.</p> + +<p>"Hard! Reckon you'll say that, arter you've tried it. How fur be you +going?"</p> + +<p>"To Tarr Farm."</p> + +<p>"Lor, yes. Well now how d'y' allow to git there?"</p> + +<p>"I am hoping to meet a friend here who will know all about the way; but +if he fails me, I shall ask the people at the railway station."</p> + +<p>"No need to go so fur. I kin tell ye the hull story, for it's from Tarr +Farm I fetched the gal and young 'un this very morning."</p> + +<p>"Indeed? What is the best route, then?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you'll take the railroad down to Schaeffer's, and from there you +start down the Crik either in a stage or a boat. But I wouldn't +recommend the stage nohow. You don't look so very rugged, and if you +wa'n't killed, you'd be scared to death. So you'll hev to look up a +boat."</p> + +<p>"What sort of boat?" asked Miselle, faintly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, a flatboat. They come up loaded with ile, and going back they like +fust rate to catch a passenger. But don't you give 'em too much. They'd +cheat you out of your eye-teeth, but I'll bet you they found I was too +many for 'em. Don't you give more than a dollar, nohow; and I made 'em +take the two of us for a dollar 'n' 'alf."</p> + +<p>"How far is it from Schaeffer's to Tarr Farm? Perhaps I could walk," +suggested Miselle, modestly distrusting her own power in dealing with a +rapacious flatboatman.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's five mild, more or less. Think you could foot it that fur?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, very easily. Is the road pretty good?"</p> + +<p>"My gracious goodness! Clementiny, she wants to know if the road down +the Crik is 'pretty good'!"</p> + +<p>"Reckon you ha'n't travelled round much in these parts. Where d'y' +b'long?" asked the ingenuous Clementina, after a prolonged stare at the +benighted stranger.</p> + +<p>Having satisfied herself for the time being with human nature, Miselle +returned to the window, and found the landscape mistier than ever.</p> + +<p>She was still considering her probable success in finding an oil-boat +and an oil-man to take her down the Creek, and steadily turning her back +upon the vision of the Eastern-bound Lightning Express, when a lady +followed by a gentleman ran up the steps of the Boston House, and +presently entered the dreary parlor, transforming it, as she did so, to +a cheerful abiding-place, by the magic of youth, beauty, and grace. +Miselle devoured her with her eyes, as did Crusoe the human footstep on +his desert island. An answering glance, a suppressed smile on either +side, and an understanding was established, an alliance completed, a tie +more subtile than Freemasonry confessed.</p> + +<p>In ten minutes Miselle and her new friend had conquered the lawless +stove, had seated themselves before it, and were confiding to each other +the mischances that had left them stranded upon the shore of +Corry,—Miselle for the night, Melusina until two o'clock in the +morning.</p> + +<p>Tea-time surprised this interchange of ideas, and so sunny had Miselle's +mood become that she was able to eat and drink, even though confronted +by the baby and its youthful mother, whose knife impartially deposited +in her own mouth and the infant's portions of beefsteak, potatoes, +short-cake, toast, pie, and cake, varied with spoonfuls of hot tea, at +which the wretched little victim blinked and choked, but still +swallowed.</p> + +<p>After tea, the infant, excited by refreshment nearly to the point of +convulsions, was restored to its grandmother, while the mother played +upon a mournful instrument called a melodeon, and sang various popular +songs in a powerful, but uncultivated voice.</p> + +<p>When she was done, Miselle persuaded Melusina to take her seat at the +instrument, and straightway the house was filled with such melody of +sweet German love-songs, operatic morcaux, and stirring battle-hymns, +that the open doorway thronged with uncouth forms,<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 389]</span> gathering as did the +monsters to Arion's harp. But when at last the clear voice rang out the +melody of the "Star-Spangled Banner," the crowd took up the chorus, and +rendered it with a heartfelt enthusiasm more significant than any music; +for it was almost election-day, and the old query of "How will +Pennsylvania go?" had all day been urged among every knot of men who +gathered to talk of the country's prospects. Then came the good old +"John Brown Song," and the "Marseillaise," which should be snatched from +its Rebel appropriators, on the same principle by which Doctor Byles +adapted sacred words to popular melodies.</p> + +<p>The music over, the little crowd dispersed, and the baby, with its brace +of mothers, gone to bed, the new friends sat cozily down and enjoyed an +hour or two of feminine gossip, exchanged kisses, cards, and +photographs, and so bade good-bye.</p> + + +<p>It seems a trifling matter enough in the telling, but to the lonely +Miselle this chance encounter with a comrade was enough to change the +whole aspect of affairs; and she sat down to breakfast the next morning, +strong in the faith of a brilliant victory over bad roads, oily boats, +and rapacious boatmen.</p> + +<p>A plank walk from the hotel to the station elevates the foot-passenger +in Corry above the mud of the streets, through whose depths flounders a +crowd of wagons laden with crude oil for the refinery, with refined oil +for the freight-trains, with carboys of chemicals, with merchandise, and +with building materials for yet more houses.</p> + +<p>Everything here is new. Not one of the thousand buildings is yet five +years old; and of the four thousand people, not the most easily +acclimated could yet tell how the climate agrees with him. Indeed, it is +so absolutely new that it has not yet reached the raw barrenness of a +new place.</p> + +<p>Nature does not cede her royalty except under strong compulsion, and +still does battle in the streets of Corry with the four thousand, who +have not yet found time to get out the stumps of the hastily felled +trees, to "improve" a wild water-course that dashes down from the bluff +and crosses the main street between a tailor's shop and a restaurant, or +even to trample to death the wildwood ferns and forest flowers which +linger on its margin. When the Coriolanians have attended to these +little matters, their city will look even newer than at present. Then +shall their grandchildren bring other trees and set them along the +streets, and dig wells and fountains, where Kuhleborn may rise to bemoan +the desolation of his ancient domain.</p> + +<p>Probably from sympathy with the bulk of their freight, the +passenger-cars upon the Oil Creek Railway are so streaked with oil upon +the outside, and so imbued with oil within, as to suggest having been +used on excursions to the bottoms of the various wells; but uninviting +as is their appearance, they are always crowded, and Miselle shared her +seat with a portly gentleman, whom at the second glance she recognized +as Viator Ignotus, and he, presently alluding to the fact of their +having dined together the previous day, a conversation grew up, through +which Miselle, much to her amusement, was initiated into the cabinet +secrets of the two or three railway companies who divide the travel of +the West, and who would appear to cherish very much the same jealousies +and avenge their grievances in much the same manner as Mrs. Jones and +Mrs. Brown with their neighborhood quarrels. Then Viator, producing from +his pocket sundry maps and charts, foretold the career of railways yet +unborn, and discoursed learnedly upon their usefulness, or, as he +phrased it, their "paying prospects." Finally, the subject of railways +exhausted, or rather run out, Viator paid his companion the compliment +of inquiring of her the condition of public feeling in her native State +as regarded the election; and the affairs of the nation were not yet +completely arranged when the train arrived at Titusville, and Viator +departed.</p> + +<p>The city of Titusville is probably the<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 390]</span> most forlorn and dreary looking +place in these United States. To describe the irregular rows of shanties +bordering on impassable sloughs of mud, the scenery, the pigs, and the +people, were a thankless task, as the most eloquent words would fall +short of the reality. In one of the principal streets the blackened +stumps still stand so thickly that the laden wagons meander among them +as sinuously as the path which foxes and squirrels wore there only three +years ago,—while in curious contrast with this avenue and the +surrounding buildings stands a handsome brick church, with a gilded +cross upon its spire, the one thing calm and steadfast in the dismal +scene.</p> + +<p>When the train again moved on, the seat vacated by Viator was taken by a +young woman bound for Oil City, where her husband awaited her; but the +homesickness epidemic among the female population of the Creek had +already seized upon her so strongly as to unfit her for conversation; +and Miselle devoted herself to the dismal landscape, privately agreeing +with her companion that it was "the God-forsakenest-looking place she +ever see."</p> + +<p>On either side the road lay swamps, their gaunt trees festooned, or +rather garroted, with vines, and draped with gray moss; while all about +and among them lay their comrades already prostrate and decaying. On the +higher lands fields had been fenced in, and cleared by burning the +trees, whose charred skeletons still stood, holding black and fleshless +arms to heaven in mute appeal against man's reckless abuse of Nature's +dearest children.</p> + +<p>Later Miselle took occasion to express her horror at the wholesale +destruction of her beloved forests to a land-owner of the region. He +laughed, and stared at the sentimental folly, and then said, +conclusively,—</p> + +<p>"Oh, but the land, you know,—we want to get at the land; and the +quickest way of disposing of the trees is the best."</p> + +<p>"But even if they must be felled, it is wicked to destroy them entirely, +when so many people freeze to death every winter for want of fuel."</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose they do," said the land-owner, suppressing a yawn. "But +we can't send them this wood, you know, or even get it down Oil Creek, +where there is a market."</p> + +<p>"At least, the poor people about here need never be cold. I suppose fuel +is very cheap through all this country, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Down the Creek we pay ten dollars a cord for all the wood, and a dollar +a bushel for all the coal we burn, and both grow within a mile of the +wells; but the trouble is the labor. Every man about here is in oil, +somehow or another; and even the farmers back of the Creek prefer +bringing their horses down and teaming oil to working the land or +felling wood. This is emphatically the oil region."</p> + +<p>Arrived at Schaeffer's or Shaffer's Farm, the present terminus of the +Oil Creek Railway, Miselle was relieved from much anxiety by seeing upon +the platform Friend Williams, to whom she had, in a fit of temporary +insanity, written that she should leave home on Tuesday instead of +Monday.</p> + +<p>"And how shall we go down the Creek?" asked she, when the first +greetings had been exchanged.</p> + +<p>"In the packet-boat, to be sure. The hack-carriage will take us right +down to the wharf."</p> + +<p>Miselle opened her eyes. Here was metropolitan luxury! Here was ultra +civilization in the heart of the wilderness! Oil-boats and +lumber-wagons, avaunt! Those women at Corry had evidently been +practising upon her ignorance, and amusing themselves with her terrors!</p> + +<p>A sudden rush of citizens toward the edge of the platform interrupted +these meditations.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" asked Miselle, wildly, as her companion seized her arm, +and hurried her along with the crowd.</p> + +<p>"The carriage. There is a rush for places. There! we're too late, I'm +afraid."</p> + +<p>They halted, as he spoke, beside a<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 391]</span> long, heavy wagon, such as is used +in the Eastern States for drawing wood, springless, with boards laid +across for seats, and with no means of access save the clumsy wheels. +Upon an elevated perch in front sat the driver, grinning over his +shoulder at the scrambling crowd of passengers, most of whom were now +loaded upon the wagon, while a circle of disappointed aspirants danced +wildly around it, looking for a yet possible nook or cranny.</p> + +<p>"Can't you make room for this lady? I will walk," vociferated Mr. +Williams.</p> + +<p>"Can't be did, Capting. Reckin, though, both on ye kin hitch on next +load," drawled the driver, turning his horses into the slough of mud +extending in every direction.</p> + +<p>"I will walk with you. How far is it?" asked Miselle, after a brief +contemplation of the prospect.</p> + +<p>"Not so very far; but the mud is about two feet deep all the way, and +you might soil your feet," suggested Mr. Williams, with a quizzical +smile.</p> + +<p>The objection was unanswerable; and Miselle, folding herself in the +mantle of resignation, waited until the next troubling of the pool, +when, rushing with the rest, she was safely hoisted into the cart, and +the drive commenced.</p> + +<p>"You had better cling to my arm here; it's a mud-hole; don't be +frightened," exclaimed Mr. Williams, as the horses suddenly disappeared +from view, and the wagon poised itself an instant on the edge of a +chasm, and then plunged madly after them.</p> + +<p>"Heavens! what <i>has</i> happened? Have they run away? Didn't the driver see +where they were going? There! we're going o—ver!" shrieked Miselle.</p> + +<p>"No, no; we're all right now, don't you see? The poor nags aren't likely +to run much here; and though the driver saw it well enough, he couldn't +help going through. That's a fair specimen of the road all down the +Creek. Now here's a gully. Cling to me, and don't be frightened."</p> + +<p>It is very easy to say, "Don't be frightened"; but when a wagon with +four wheels travels for a considerable distance upon only two, while +those on the upper side are spinning round in the air, and the whole +affair inclines at a right angle toward a bottomless gulf of mud, it is +rather difficult for a nervous person to heed the injunction.</p> + +<p>Miselle did not shriek this time; but she fancies the "sable score of +fingers four remain on the" arm "impressed," to which she clung during +the ordeal.</p> + +<p>Another plunge, a lurch, a twist, a sharp descent, and the breathless +horses halted on the bank of a stream whose shallow waters were crowded +with flatboats, generally laden with oil.</p> + +<p>"Here is the packet-boat," remarked Mr. Williams, with mischievous +smile, as he lifted his charge from the "hack-carriage," and led her +toward one of these boats, a trifle dirtier than the rest, with planks +laid across for seats, and several inches of water in the bottom. In +shape and size it much resembled the mud-scows navigating the waters of +Back Bay, Boston, and was propelled by a gigantic paddle at either end.</p> + +<p>Miselle's lingering vision of a neat little steamboat with a comfortable +cabin died away; and she placed herself without remark upon the board +selected for her, accepting from her attentive companion the luxury of a +bit of plank for her feet,—an invidious distinction, regarded with much +disapproval by her fellow-passengers.</p> + +<p>The sad and homesick lady was again Miselle's nearest neighbor, and now +found her tongue in expressions of dismay and apprehension so vehement +and sincere that her auditor hardly knew whether to weep with her or +smile at her.</p> + +<p>Fifty luckless souls, more or less decently clothed in bodies, having +been crowded upon the raft, the shore-line was cast off, and she drifted +magnificently out into the stream, and stuck fast about a rod from the +landing.</p> + +<p>The most terrific oaths, the most strenuous exertion of the paddles, +failing to move her, "a team" was loudly called for by the irate +passengers, and presently appeared in the shape of two<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 392]</span> horses with a +small blue boy perched upon one of them. These were hitched to the +forward part of the boat, and the swearing and pushing recommenced, with +an accompaniment of slashing blows upon the backs of the unfortunate +horses, who strained and plunged, but all to no effect, until another +boat appeared round the bend, slowly towed up against the stream by two +more horses with a placid driver, whose less placid wife sat upon a +throne of oil-barrels in the centre of the craft, alternately smoking a +clay pipe and shouting profane instructions to her husband touching the +management of the boat. To this dual boatman the skipper of the packet +loudly appealed for aid, desiring him to "crowd along and give us a +swell."</p> + +<p>"What in nater was ye sich a cussed fool as ter git stuck fer?" replied +the two heads; and in spite of the disapproval conveyed by the question, +the stranger boat was driven as rapidly as possible close beside the +packet, the result being a long wave or "swell," enabling that luckless +craft to float off into the deeper water.</p> + +<p>"Now, gen'lemen, locate, if you please; please to locate, gen'lemen! You +capting with the specs on, ef yer don't sit down, I'll hev to ax yer +to," vociferated the skipper; and the passengers were nearly seated when +the boat grounded again, and was this time got off only by the aid of a +double team, a swell, and the shoulders of the captain and several of +the passengers, who walked in and out of the boat as recklessly as +Newfoundland dogs. After this style, the passage of five miles was +handsomely accomplished in six hours, and it was the gloaming of a +November day when Miselle, cold, wet, and weary, first set foot, or +rather both her feet, deep in the mud of Tarr Farm, and clambered +through briers and scrub oak up the bluff, where stood her friend's +house, and where the panacea of "a good cup of tea and a night's rest" +soon closed the eventful day.</p> + +<p>The next morning was meant for an artist, and it is to be hoped that +there was one at Tarr Farm to see the curtain of fog slowly lifting from +the bright waters of the Creek, and creeping up the bluff beyond it, +until it melted into the clear blue sky, and let the sunshine come +glancing down the valley, where groups of derricks, long lines of tanks, +engine-houses, counting-rooms replaced the forest growth of a few years +previous, and crowds of workmen, interspersed with overseers and +proprietors on foot or horseback, superseded the wild creatures hardly +yet driven from their lifelong haunt.</p> + +<p>Through the whole extent of Oil Creek, one picturesque feature never +fails: this is the alternation of bluff and flat on the opposite sides +of the Creek, so that the voyager never finds himself between two of +either,—but, as the bluff at his right hand sinks into a plain, he +finds the plain at the left rising sharply into a bluff.</p> + +<p>It is in these flats that the oil is found; and each of them is thickly +studded with derricks and engine-buildings, each representing a distinct +well, with a name of its own,—as the Hyena, the Little Giant, the +Phoenix, the Sca'at Cat, the Little Mac, the Wild Rabbit, the Grant, +Burnside, and Sheridan, with several hundred more. The flats themselves +are generally known as Farms, with the names of the original proprietors +still prefixed,—as the Widow McClintock Farm, Story Farm, Tarr Farm, +and the rest.</p> + +<p>Few of these god-parents of the soil are at present to be found upon it: +many of them in the beginning of the oil speculation having sold out at +moderate prices to shrewd adventurers, who made themselves rich men +before the dispossessed Rip Van Winkles awoke to a consciousness of what +was going on about them. Some, more fortunate or more far-sighted, still +hold possession of the land, but enjoy their enormous incomes in the +cities and places of fashionable resort, where their manners and habits +introduce a refreshing element of novelty.</p> + +<p>Few proprietors can be persuaded to sell the golden goose outright; and +the most usual course is for the individual<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 393]</span> or company intending to +sink a well to buy what is called a working interest in the soil, the +owner retaining a land interest or royalty, through which he claims half +the proceeds of the well, while the lessee may, after months of expense +and labor, abandon the enterprise with only his labor for his pains. +These failures are also a great source of annoyance to the proprietors: +for many of these abandoned wells require only capital to render them +available; but the finances of the first speculator being exhausted, no +new one will risk his money in them, while the old lease would interfere +with his right to the proceeds.</p> + +<p>Even the land for building purposes is only leased, with the proviso +that the tenant must move, not only himself, but his house, whenever the +landlord sees fit to explore his cellar or flower-garden for oil.</p> + +<p>A land interest obtained, the precise spot for breaking ground is +selected somewhat by experience, but more by chance,—all "oil +territory" being expected to yield oil, if properly sought. An +engine-house and derrick are next put up, the latter of timber in the +modern wells, but in the older ones simply of slender saplings, +sometimes still rooted in the earth. A steam-engine is next set up, and +the boring commences.</p> + +<p>By means of a spile-driver, an iron pipe, sharp at the lower edge and +about six inches in diameter, is driven down until it rests upon the +solid rock, usually at a depth of about fifty feet. The earth is then +removed from the inside of this pipe by means of a sand-pump, and the +"tools" attached to a cable are placed within it.</p> + +<p>These tools, consisting of a centre-bit and a rammer, are each thirty or +thirty-five feet in length, and weigh about eight hundred pounds. At +short intervals these are replaced by the sand-pump, which removes the +drillings.</p> + +<p>The first three strata of rock are usually slate, sandstone, and +soapstone. Beneath these, at a depth of two hundred feet, lies the +second sandstone, and from this all the first yield of oil was taken; +but, though good in quality, this supply was speedily exhausted, and the +modern wells are carried directly through this second sandstone, through +the slate and soapstone beneath, to the third sandstone, in whose +crevices lies the largest yield yet discovered. The proprietors of old +wells are now reaming them out and sinking their shafts to the required +depth, which is about four hundred and fifty feet.</p> + +<p>The oil announces itself in various ways: sometimes by the escape of +gas; sometimes by the appearance of oil upon the cable attached to the +tools; sometimes by the dropping of the tools, showing that a crevice +has been reached; and in occasional happy instances by a rush of oil +spouting to the top of the derrick, and tossing out the heavy tools like +feathers.</p> + +<p>Such a well as this, known as a flowing well, is the best "find" +possible, as the fortunate borer has nothing more to do than to put down +a tubing of cast-iron artesian pipe, lead the oil from its mouth into a +tank, and then, sitting under his own vine and fig-tree, leave his +fortune to accumulate by daily additions of thousands of dollars. A +flowing well, struck while Miselle was upon the Creek, yielded fifteen +hundred barrels per day, the oil selling at the well for ten dollars and +a half the barrel.</p> + +<p>But should the oil decline to flow, or, having flowed, cease to do so, a +force-pump is introduced, and, driven by the same engine that bored the +well, brings up the oil at a rate varying from three to three hundred +barrels per day. The Phillips Well, on Tarr Farm, originally a flowing +well, producing two thousand barrels per day, now pumps about three +hundred and thirty, and is considered a first-class well.</p> + +<p>Before reaching oil, the borer not unfrequently comes upon veins of +water, either salt or fresh; and this water is excluded from the shaft +by a leathern case applied about the pipe and filled with flax-seed. The +seed, swollen by the moisture, completely fills the space remaining +between the tube and the walls of the shaft, so that no water<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 394]</span> reaches +the oil. But whenever the tubing with its seed-bags is withdrawn, the +water rushing down "drowns" not only its own well, but all such as have +subterraneous communication with it. In this manner one of the most +important wells upon the Creek avenged itself some time ago upon a too +successful rival by drawing its tubing and letting down the water upon +both wells. The rival retaliated by drawing its own tubing, with a like +result, and the proprietors of each lost months of time and hundreds of +thousands of dollars before the quarrel could be adjusted.</p> + +<p>From the mouth of the shaft, elevated some fifteen feet above the +surface of the ground, the oil either flows or is pumped into an immense +vat or tank, and from this is led to another and another, until a large +well will have a series of tanks connected like the joints of a +rattlesnake's tail. Into the last one is put a faucet, and the oil drawn +into barrels is either carried to the local refinery, or in its crude +condition is boated to the railway, or to Oil City, and thence down the +Alleghany.</p> + +<p>One of the principal perils attending oil-seeking is that of fire. +Petroleum, in its crude state, is so highly impregnated with gas and +with naphtha, or benzine as to be very inflammable,—a fact proved, +indeed, many years ago, when, as history informs us,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"General Clarke kindled the vapor,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stayed about an hour, and left it a-burning,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>unconsciously turning his back upon a fortune such as probably had never +entered the worthy knight's imagination.</p> + +<p>The petroleum once ignited, it is very hard to extinguish the flames; +and Mr. Williams told of being one of a company of men who labored +twenty-four hours in vain to subdue a burning well. They tried water, +which only aggravated the trouble; they tried covering the well with +earth, but the gas permeated the whole mass and blazed up more defiantly +than ever; they covered the mound of earth with a carpet, (paid for at +the value of cloth of gold,) and the carpet with wet sand, but a bad +smell of burned wool was the only result. Finally, some incipient +Bonaparte hit upon the expedient of dividing the Allies, who together +defied mankind, and, bringing a huge oil-tank, inverted it over the +sand, the carpet, the earth, and the well, by this time one blazing +mass. Fire thus cut off from Air succumbed, and the battle was over.</p> + +<p>"There was no one hurt that time," pursued Friend Williams, in a tone of +airy reminiscence; "but mostly at our fires there'll be two or three +people burned up, and more women than men, I've noticed. Either it's +their clothes, or they get scared and don't look out for themselves. Now +there was the Widow McClintock owned that farm above here. She was worth +her hundreds of thousands of dollars, but she <i>would</i> put kerosene on +her fire to make it burn. So one day it caught, and she caught, and in +half an hour there was no such thing as Widow McClintock on Oil Creek. +Still all the women keep right on pouring kerosene into their stoves, +and every little while one of them goes after the Widow.</p> + +<p>"Then there was a woman who sent to the refinery for a pail of alkali to +clean her floor. The man thought he'd get benzine instead; and just as +he got into the house, the fire from his pipe dropped into it, and the +whole shanty was in a blaze before the poor woman knew what had +happened. The stupid fool that was to blame got off, but the woman +burned up.</p> + +<p>"Then there was a woman whose house was afire, and she would rush back, +after she had been dragged out, to look for her pet teacups, and <i>she</i> +was burned up. And so they go."</p> + +<p>Sometimes also the tanks of crude oil take fire, and these +conflagrations are said to present a splendid spectacle,—the resinous +parts of the oil burning with a fierce deep-red flame and sending up +volumes of smoke, through which are emitted lightning-like flashes +exploding the ignited gas.</p> + +<p>Like some other things, including people, this unappeasable substance +conceals its terrors beneath a placid exterior, and lies in its great +tanks, or in<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 395]</span> shallow pits dug for it in the earth, looking neither +volcanic nor even combustible, but more like thin green paint than +anything else, except when it has become adulterated with water, when it +assumes a bilious, yellow appearance, exceedingly uninviting to the +spectator. In this case it is allowed to remain undisturbed in the tank +until the oil and water have separated, when the latter is drawn off at +the bottom.</p> + +<p>Wandering one day among groves of derricks and villages of tanks, +Miselle and her guide came upon a building containing a pair of +truculent monsters in a high state of activity. These were introduced to +her as a steam force-pump and its attendant engine; and she was told +that they were at that moment sucking up whole tanks of oil from the +neighboring wells, and pumping it up the precipitous bluff, through the +lonely forest, over marsh and moor, hill and dale, to the great Humboldt +Refinery, more than three miles distant, in the town of Plummer, as it +is called,—although, in point of fact, Plummer, Tarr Farm, and several +other settlements belong to the township of Cornplanter.</p> + +<p>There was something about this brace of monsters very fascinating to +Miselle. They seemed like subjected genii closed in these dull black +cases and this narrow shed, and yet embracing miles of territory in +their invisible arms. Even the genius of Aladdin's lamp was not so +powerful, for he was obliged to betake himself to the scene of the +wonders he was to enact,—and if imprisoned as closely as these, could +not have transferred enough oil from Tarr Farm to Plummer to fill his +own lamp.</p> + +<p>Afterward, in rambling through the woods, Miselle often came upon the +mound raised above the buried pipe, and always regarded it with the same +admiring awe with which the fisherman of Bagdad probably looked at the +copper vessel wherein Solomon had so cunningly "canned" the rebellious +Afrit.</p> + +<p>Leaving the shed of the monsters, Miselle followed her guide out of the +throng of derricks and tanks, and a short distance up the hill, to the +picturesque site of Messrs. Barrows and Hazleton's Refinery, the only +one now in operation on Tarr Farm.</p> + +<p>Entering a low brick building called the still-house, she found herself +in a passage between two brick walls, pierced on either hand for five or +six oven-doors, while overhead the black roof was divided into panels by +a system of iron pipes through which the crude oil was conducted to the +caldrons above the iron doors.</p> + +<p>The presiding genius of the place was a very fat, dirty, but intelligent +Irishman, known as Tommy, who came forward with the politeness of his +nation to greet the visitors, and explain to them the mysteries under +his charge.</p> + +<p>"And give a guess, Ma'am, if ye plase, at what we've got a-burning +undher our big pot here," suggested he, with a hand upon one of the +oven-doors.</p> + +<p>"Soft coal," ventured Miselle, remembering her experience at the +glassworks.</p> + +<p>"Not a bit of it. It's the binzole intirely. We makes the ile cook +itself, an' not a hape of fu'l does it git, but what it brings along +itself."</p> + +<p>"Seething the kid in its mother's milk," remarked Miselle to herself.</p> + +<p>"It's this pipe fetches the binzole from the tank outside, and the mouth +of it's widin the door; and this is the stop-cock as lets it on."</p> + +<p>So saying, Tommy threw open the oven-door, and pointed to the black end +of a pipe just within. At the same time he turned a handle on the +outside, and let on a stream of benzine or naphtha, which blazed +fiercely up with a lurid flame strongly suggestive of the pictured +reward of evil-doers in another life.</p> + +<p>Next, Tommy proceeded to explain, after his own fashion, how the oil in +the caldrons above, urged by these fires, departed in steam and agony +through long pipes called worms, the only outlet from the otherwise +air-tight stills, which worms, wriggling out at the end of the building, +plunged into a bath of cold water provided for them<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 396]</span> in a huge square +tank fed by a bright mountain-stream winding down from the bluff above +in a fashion so picturesque as to be quite out of keeping with its +ultimate destination.</p> + +<p>Emerging from their cold bath, the worms, crawling along the ground +behind the still-house, arrived at the back of another building, called +the test-room; and here each one, making a sharp turn to enable him to +enter, was pierced at the angle thus formed, and a vertical pipe some +ten feet in length inserted.</p> + +<p>The object of these pipes was to carry off the gas still mingled with +the oil; and, looking attentively, Miselle could distinguish a +flickering column ascending from each pipe and forming itself so humanly +against the evening sky as to vindicate the superstition of the Saxons, +who first named this ether <i>geist</i>.</p> + +<p>"What a splendid illumination, if only those ten pipes were lighted some +dark night!" suggested Miselle.</p> + +<p>"Phe-ew! An' yer lumernation wouldn't stop there long, I can tell yer, +Ma'am," retorted Tommy. "The whole works ud be in a swither 'fore iver +we'd time to ax what was comin'."</p> + +<p>"They would? And why?"</p> + +<p>"The binzole, Ma'am, the binzole. It's the Divil's own stuff to manage, +an' there's no thrustin' it wid so much as the light uv a pipe nigh +hand. The air is full of it; and if you was so much as to sthrike a +match here where we stand, it ud be all day wid us 'fore we'd time to +think uv it. You should know that yersilf, Sir," continued he, turning +to Mr. Williams.</p> + +<p>"Yes," returned that gentleman, with a grimace. "I learned the nature of +benzine pretty thoroughly when I first came on the Creek. I had been at +work over one of the wells, and got my clothes pretty oily, but thought +I would not ask my wife to meddle with them. So I sent for a pail of +benzine, and, shutting myself up in my shop, set to work to wash my +clothes. I succeeded very well for a first attempt; and when I had done, +and hung them up to dry, I felt quite proud. Then, as it was pretty +cold, I thought I would put a little fire in the stove, and get them +dried to carry away before my men came in to work the next morning. So I +put some kindling in the stove, and scraped a match on my boot; but I +hadn't time to touch it to the shavings before the whole air was aflame, +not catching from one point to another, but flashing through the whole +place in an instant, and snapping all around my head like a bunch of +fire-crackers. I rushed for the door; but before I could get out I was +pretty well singed, and there was no such thing as saving a single +article. All went together,—shop, stock, tools, clothes, and everything +else. That's benzine."</p> + +<p>"That's binzole," echoed Tommy. "An' now, Ma'am, come in, if yer plase, +to the tistin'-room."</p> + +<p>Miselle complied, and, stepping into the little room, saw first two +parallel troughs running its entire length, and terminating at one end +in a pipe leading through the side of the building. Into each of these +troughs half the pipes were at this moment discharging a colorless, +odorless fluid, the apotheosis, as it were, of petroleum.</p> + +<p>Tommy, perching himself upon a high stool beside the troughs, regarded +his visitors with calm superiority, and was evidently disposed, in this +his stronghold, to treat with them <i>ex cathedra</i>.</p> + +<p>"There, thin, Ma'am," began he, "that's what I call iligant ile +intirely. Look at it jist!"</p> + +<p>And taking from its shelf a long tubular glass, he ladled up some of the +oil, and held it to the light for inspection.</p> + +<p>When this had been duly admired, the professor informed his audience +that the first product of the still is the gas, which is led off as +previously described. Next comes naphtha, benzine, or, as Tommy and his +comrades call it, "binzole." This dangerous substance is led from the +troughs of the testing-house to a subterraneous tank, the trap-cover of +which was subsequently lifted, that the visitors might peep, as into the +den of some malignant wild creature.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 397]</span> From this it is again drawn, and, +mixed with the heavy oil or residuum of the still, is principally used +for fuel, as before described.</p> + +<p>"And how soon do you cut off for oil?" inquired Mr. Williams, +carelessly.</p> + +<p>The fat man gave him a look of solemn indignation, and proceeded without +heeding the interruption.</p> + +<p>"Whin I joodge, Ma'am, that the binzole is nigh run out, I tist it with +a hyder-rometer, this a-way."</p> + +<p>And Tommy, descending from the stool, took from the shelf first a tin +pot strongly resembling a shaving-mug, and then a little glass +instrument, with a tube divided into sections by numbered lines, and a +bulb half filled with quick-silver at the base.</p> + +<p>Filling the shaving-mug with oil, the lecturer dropped into it his +hydrometer, which, after gracefully dancing up and down for a moment, +remained stationary.</p> + +<p>"It's at 55° you'll find it. Look for yersilf, Ma'am," he resumed, with +the serene confidence of the prestidigitateur who informs the audience +that the missing handkerchief will be found in "that gentleman's +pocket."</p> + +<p>Miselle examined the figures at high-oil mark, and found that they were +actually 55°.</p> + +<p>"The binzole, you see, Ma'am, is so thin that the hyder-rometer drops +right down over head an' ears in it; but as it gits to be ile, it comes +heavier an' stouter, an' kind uv buoys it up, until at lin'th an' at +last the 60° line comes crapin' up in sight. Thin I thry it by the fire +tist. I puts some in a pan over a sperit-lamp, and keep a-thryin' an' +a-thryin' it wid a thermometer; an' whin it's 'most a-bilin', I puts a +lighted match to the ile, an' if it blazes, there's still too much +binzole, an' I lets it run a bit longer. But if all's right, I cuts off +the binzole, and the nixt run is ile sech as you see it. The longer it +runs, the heavier it grows; and whin it gits so that the hyder-rometer +stands at 42°, I cuts off agin. Thin the next run is heavy ile, thick +and yaller, and that doesn't come in here at all, but is drawn from the +still, and mixed wid crude ile, and stilled over agin; and whin no more +good's to be got uv it, it's mighty good along wid the binzole to keep +the pot a-bilin' in beyant."</p> + +<p>"You don't use the fire test in this building, I presume, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Indade, no, Ma'am. There's niver a light nor yit a lanthern allowed +here."</p> + +<p>"But you run all night. How do you get light in this room?" inquired Mr. +Williams.</p> + +<p>"From widout. Did niver ye mind the windys uv this house?"</p> + +<p>And the professor, dismounting from his stool, led the way to the +outside of the building, where he pointed to two picturesque little +windows near the roof, each furnished with a deep hood and a shelf, as +if Tommy had been expected to devote his leisure hours to the +cultivation of mignonette.</p> + +<p>"See now!"</p> + +<p>And the burly lecturer pointed impressively to a laborer at this moment +approaching with a large lighted lantern in each hand. These, placed +upon the mignonette shelves, and snugly protected from wind and rain by +the deep hoods, threw a clear light into the test-room, and brought out +in grotesque distinctness the arabesque pattern wrought with dust and +oil upon Tommy's broad visage.</p> + +<p>"And that's how we gits light, Sir," remarked the professor, in +conclusion, as, with a dignified salutation of farewell, he disappeared +in the still-house.</p> + +<p>Admonished by the lanterns and the fading glory of the west, Miselle and +her host now bent their steps homeward, deferring, like Scheherezade, +"still finer and more wonderful stories until the next morning."</p> + +<p>At their next visit to the Refinery, the visitors were committed to a +little wiry old man, called Jimmy, who first showed them a grewsome +monster, own cousin to him who threw oil from Tarr Farm to Plummer. This +one was called an air-pump, and, with his attendant steam-engine, +inhabited a house by himself. His work will presently be explained.</p> + +<p>The next building was the treating-house, where stand huge tanks +containing<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 398]</span> the oil as drawn from the testing-room. From these it is +conducted by pipes to the iron vats, called treating-tanks, and there +mixed with vitriol, alkali, and other chemicals, in certain exact +proportions. The monster in the next building is now set in operation, +and forces a stream of compressed air through a pipe from top to bottom +of the tank, whence, following its natural law, it loses no time in +ascending to the surface with a noisy ebullition, just like, as Jimmy +remarked, "a big pot over a sthrong fire."</p> + +<p>This mixing operation was formerly performed by hand in a much less +effectual manner, the steam air-pump being a recent improvement.</p> + +<p>The work of the chemicals accomplished, the oil is cleansed of them by +the introduction of water, and after an interval of quiet the mass +separates so thoroughly that the water and chemicals can be drawn off at +the bottom of the vat with very little disturbance to the oil.</p> + +<p>From the treating-house the perfected oil is drawn to the tanks of the +barrelling-shed, and filled into casks ready for exportation. A large +cooper's shop upon the premises supplies a portion of the barrels, but +is principally used in repairing the old ones.</p> + +<p>The oil is next teamed to the Creek, and either pumped into decked +boats, to be transported in bulk, or, still in barrels, is loaded upon +the ordinary flatboats. During a large portion of the year, however, +neither of these can make the passage of the shallow Creek without the +aid of a "pond-fresh." This occurs when the millers near the head of the +Creek open their dams, and by the sudden influx of water give a gigantic +"swell" to the boats patiently awaiting it at every "farm," from +Schaeffer's to Oil City.</p> + +<p>Sometimes, however, the boatmen, like the necromancer's student who set +the broomstick to bringing water, but could not remember the spell to +stop it, find that it is unsafe to set great agencies at work without +the power of controlling them. Last May, for instance, occurred a +pond-fresh, long to be remembered on Oil Creek, when the stream rose +with such furious, rapidity that the loaded boats became unmanageable, +crowding and dashing together, staving in the sides of the great +oil-in-bulk boats, and grinding the floating barrels to splinters. Not +even the thousands of gallons of oil thus shed upon the stormy waters +were sufficient to assuage either their wrath or that of the boatmen, +who, as their respective craft piled one upon another, sprang to "repel +boarders" with oaths, fists, boat-hooks, or whatever other weapons +Nature or chance had provided them. This scene of anarchy lasted several +days, and some cold-blooded photographer amused himself, "after" Nero, +in taking views of it from different points. Copies of these pictures, +commemorating such destruction of property, temper, and propriety as Oil +Creek never witnessed before, are hung about the "office" of the +Refinery, with which comfortable apartment the visitors finished their +tour.</p> + +<p>Here they were offered the compliments of the season and locality in a +collation of chestnuts; and here also they were invited to inspect a +stereoscope, which, with its accompanying views, is considered on Tarr +Farm as admirable a wonder as was, doubtless, Columbus's watch by the +aborigines of the New World. Dearer to Miselle than chestnuts or +stereoscope, however, were the information and the anecdotes placed at +her service by the gentlemen of the establishment, albeit involuntarily; +and with her friends she shortly after departed from Barrows and +Hazleton's Refinery, filled with content and gratitude.</p> + +<p>The noticeable point in the society of Tarr Farm, or rather in the human +scenery, for society there is none, is the absurd mingling of +inharmonious material. As in the toy called Prince Rupert's Drop, a +multitude of unassimilated particles are bound together by a master +necessity. Remove the necessity, and in the flash of an eye the +particles scatter never to reunite.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 399]</span></p> + +<p>In her two days' tour of Tarr Farm, Miselle talked with gentlemen of +birth and education, gentlemen whose manners contrasted oddly enough +with their coarse clothes and knee-high boots; also with intermittent +gentlemen, who felt Tarr Farm to be no fit theatre for the exercise of +their acquired politeness; also with men like Tommy and Jimmy, whose +claims lay not so much in aristocratic connection and gentle breeding as +in a thorough appreciation of the matter in hand; also with a less +pleasing variety of mankind, men who, originally ignorant and debased, +have through lucky speculations acquired immense wealth without the +habits of body and mind fitly accompanying it.</p> + +<p>Various ludicrous anecdotes are told of this last class, but none +droller than that of the millionnaire, who, after the growth of his +fortune, sent his daughter, already arrived at woman's estate, to +school, that she might learn reading, writing, and other +accomplishments. After a reasonable time the father visited the school, +and inquired concerning his daughter's progress. This he was informed +was but small, owing to a "want of capacity."</p> + +<p>"Capacity! capacity!" echoed the father, thrusting his hands into his +well-lined pockets; "well, by ginger, if the gal's got no capacity, I've +got the money to buy her one, cost what it may!"</p> + +<p>Another young fellow, originally employed in a very humble position by +one of the oil companies, suddenly acquired a fortune, and removed to +another part of the country. Returning for a visit to the scene of his +former labors, he stood inspecting the operations of a cooper at work +upon an oil-barrel. The two men had formerly been comrades, but this +fact the rich man now found it convenient to forget, and the poor one +was too proud to remember.</p> + +<p>"Pray, Cooper," inquired the former at last, tapping the barrel +superciliously with his cane, "are you able to make this thing +oil-tight?"</p> + +<p>"I believe so," retorted Cooper, dryly. "Was you ever troubled by their +leaking, when you rolled them through the mud from the well to the +Creek?"</p> + +<p>Through all this fungus growth it is rather difficult to come at the +indigenous product of the soil; and Miselle found none of whose purity +she could be sure, except the youth who drove her from Tarr Farm to +Schaeffer's on her return. Arriving in sight of the railway, this <i>puer +ingenuus</i>, pointing to the track, inquired,—</p> + +<p>"An' be thot what the keers rides on?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mr. Williams, "that's the track."</p> + +<p>"An' yon's the wagons whar ye'll set?" pursued he, pointing to some +platform-cars, waiting to be loaded with oil-barrels.</p> + +<p>"Hardly. Those are where the oil sits."</p> + +<p>"Be? Then yon's for the fowks, I reckon?" indicating a line of box +freight-cars a little farther on.</p> + +<p>"No, not exactly. Those are the passenger-cars, away up the track, with +windows and steps."</p> + +<p>"An' who rides in the loft up atop?" inquired the youth, after a +prolonged stare.</p> + +<p>This question, referring to the raised portion of the roof, universal in +Western cars, being answered, Mr. Williams inquired in his turn,—</p> + +<p>"Did you never see the railway before?"</p> + +<p>"Never seed 'em till this minute. Fact, I never went furder from home +than Tarr Farm 'fore to-day. 'Spect there's a many won'erful sights +'twixt here an' Eri', ben't there?"</p> + +<p>Imagine a full-grown lad, in these United States, whose ideas are +bounded by the city of Erie!</p> + +<p>Not indigenous to the soil, but a firmly rooted, exotic growth, was the +sonsy Scotch family whom Miselle was taken to see, the Sunday after her +arrival.</p> + +<p>Two years ago their picturesque log-cabin stood almost in a wilderness, +with the farm-house of James Tarr its only neighbor. Now the derricks +are crowding up the hill toward it, until only a narrow belt of woodland +protects it from<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 400]</span> invasion. In front, a small flower-garden still showed +some autumn blooms at the time of Miselle's visit, and was the only +attempt at floriculture seen by her on Oil Creek.</p> + +<p>With traditional Scotch hospitality, the mistress of the house, seconded +by Maggie and Belle, the elder daughters, insisted that the proposed +call should include dinner; and Miselle, nothing loath, was glad that +her friends allowed themselves to be prevailed upon to stay.</p> + +<p>"It's no that we hae onything fit to gie ye, but ye maun just tak' the +wull for the deed," said the good mother, as she bustled about, and set +before her guests a plain and plentiful meal, where all was good enough, +and the fresh bread and newly churned butter something more.</p> + +<p>"It's Maggie's baith baker and dairy-woman," said the well-pleased dame, +in answer to a compliment upon these viands. "And it's she'll be gay and +proud to gie ye all her ways about it, gif ye'll ask her."</p> + +<p>So Maggie, being questioned, described the process of making +"salt-rising" bread, and to the recipe added a friendly caution, that, +if allowed to ferment too long, the dough would become "as sad and dour +as a stane, and though you br'ak your heart over it, wad ne'er be itsel' +again."</p> + +<p>From a regard either to etiquette or convenience, only the heads of the +family, and Jamie, the eldest son, a fine young giant, of +one-and-twenty, sat down with the guests: the girls and younger children +waiting upon table, and sitting down afterward with another visitor, an +intelligent negro farmer, one of the most pleasing persons Miselle +encountered on her travels.</p> + +<p>Dinner over, it was proposed that Maggie and Belle should accompany Mr. +and Mrs. Williams and Miselle on a visit to some coal-mines about a mile +farther back in the forest, and, with the addition of a young man named +John, who chanced in on a Sunday-evening call to one of the young +ladies, the party set forth.</p> + +<p>The day was the sweetest of the Indian summer, and the walk through +woods of chestnut and hemlock was as charming as possible, and none the +less so for the rustic coquetries of pretty Belle Miller, whose golden +hair was the precise shade of a lock once shown to Miselle as a +veritable relic of Prince Charlie.</p> + +<p>The forest road ended abruptly in a wide glade, where stood the shanty +occupied by the miners, a shed for the donkeys employed in dragging out +the coal, and, finally, the ruinous tunnel leading horizontally into a +disused mine. The wooden tram-way on which the coal-car had formerly run +still remained; and cautiously walking upon this causeway through the +quagmire of mud, Miselle and Mr. Williams penetrated some distance into +the mine, but saw nothing more wonderful than mould and other fungi, +bats and toads. Retracing their steps, they followed the tram-way to its +termination at the top of a high bank, down which the coals were shot +into a cart stationed below. This coal is of an inferior quality, +bituminous, and largely mixed with slate. It sells readily, however, +upon the Creek, at a dollar a bushel, for use in the steam-engines.</p> + +<p>The sight-seers having satisfied their curiosity with regard to the +mine, and having paid a short visit to the donkeys, were quietly +resuming their walk, when out from the abode of the miners poured a +tumultuous crowd of men, women, and children, who surrounded the little +party in a menacing manner, while their leader, a stalwart fellow, +called Brennan, seized John by the arm, and, shaking a sledge-hammer +fist in his face, inquired what he meant by coming to "spy round an +honest man's house, and make game of his betters?"</p> + +<p>It was in vain that John attempted to disabuse the mind of his assailant +of this view of his visit to the old mine; and indeed his argument could +not even have been heard, as Brennan was now violently reiterating,—</p> + +<p>"Tak' yer coorse, thin! Why don't ye tak' yer coorse?"</p> + +<p>The advice was sensible, and the party left to themselves would +undoubtedly<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 401]</span> have followed it; in fact, the females of the party had +already taken their "coorse" along the homeward path as fast as their +feet would carry them, excepting Miselle, who contented herself with +stepping behind a great pine-tree, and watching thence this new +development of human nature.</p> + +<p>From angry words the miners were not long in proceeding to blows, and a +short joust ensued, in which Williams and John gallantly held the lists +against six or eight assailants, who would have been more dangerous, had +they not been all day celebrating the wedding of one of their number. +Suddenly, however, the leader of the colliers darted by John, who was +opposing him, and pounced upon poor Belle Miller, who with her +companions had paused at a little distance to give vent to their +feelings in a chorus of dismal shrieks. Whether these irritated Mr. +Brennan's weakened nerves, or whether he had merely the savage instinct +of reaching the strong through the weak, cannot be certainly known; but +the fact of her forcible capture was rendered sufficiently obvious by +the cries that rent the air, and the heart of the young man John, who, +neglecting his own safety in an attempt at rescue, received a stunning +blow from his opponent, and fell bleeding to the earth.</p> + +<p>Satisfied with the result of his experiment, Brennan, leaving his +captive in custody of his own party, attempted another raid upon the +defenceless flock; but this time Friend Williams, summoned by the voice +of his wife, darted to her rescue, and, with a happy blow, laid the +giant upon his back, where he lay for some moments admiring the evening +sky.</p> + +<p>Brave as were the two knights, however, and manifest as was the right, +Victory would probably have "perched upon the banners of the strongest +battalions," had not an unexpected diversion put a sudden end to the +combat.</p> + +<p>This came from the side of the assailants, in the pleasing shape of a +pretty young woman, who, rushing forward, flung her arms about the neck +of one of the leaders of the mob, crying,—</p> + +<p>"Patrick Maloney, didn't you stand before the altar with me this day, +and vow to God to be a true and faithful husband? And is this all the +respect you show me on my wedding-day?"</p> + +<p>The appeal was not without its force, and Patrick, pausing to consider +of it, was surrounded by the more pacific of his own party, among whom +now appeared "Big Tommy" from the Refinery, who loudly vouched for the +character of the visitors, claiming them indeed as warm and dear friends +of his own.</p> + +<p>During the stormy council of war ensuing among the attacking party, the +womankind of the attacked ventured to approach near enough to implore +their champions to withdraw, while yet there was time. This pacific +counsel they finally consented to follow, and were led away breathing +vengeance and discontent, when John suddenly paused, exclaiming,—</p> + +<p>"Where's Belle? They've got her. Come on, Williams! we aren't going to +leave the girl among 'em, surely!"</p> + +<p>At this Maggie and Mrs. Williams uplifted their voices in deprecation of +further hostilities, protesting that they should die at once, if their +protectors were to desert them, and using many other feminine and +magnanimous arguments in favor of a speedy retreat.</p> + +<p>But while yet the question of her rescue was undecided, Belle appeared, +flushed, tearful, and voluble in reproach against the friends who had +deserted her. She attributed her final escape to a free use of her +tongue, and repeated certain pointed remarks which she had addressed to +her custodian, who finally shook her, boxed her ears, and bade her +begone.</p> + +<p>On hearing this recital, John was for returning at once and avenging the +insult; but the rest of the party, remembering the golden maxim of +Hudibras,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"He who fights and runs away<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May live to fight another day,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>prevailed on him to wait for retaliation until a more favorable +opportunity.</p> + +<p>It may be satisfactory to the reader to hear, that, after Miselle had +left Oil Creek, she was informed that Mr. Williams,<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 402]</span> John, and a body of +men, equal in number to the colliers, paid them a visit, with authority +from the owner of the mine to pull down their house and eject them from +the premises. They also contemplated, it is supposed, a more direct and +personal vengeance; but, on making known their intentions, the pretty +bride again appeared, and, assaulting poor Williams with a whole battery +of tearful eyes, trembling lips, and eloquent appeals, vindicated once +more the superiority of woman's wiles to man's determination. An abject +apology from the colliers, and a decided intimation from the +"Regulators" of the consequences sure to follow any future incivility to +visitors, closed the affair, and the parties separated without further +hostilities.</p> + +<p>The evening was so far advanced when the little party of fugitives were +once more <i>en route</i>, that a proposed visit to a working mine at some +little distance was given up, and at the door of the farm-house the +party dispersed to their respective homes.</p> + +<p>The next day had been appointed for a visit to Oil City, the farthest +and most important station upon the Creek; and one object in visiting +the house was to engage Jamie, with his "team," for the expedition. It +fortunately happened that the old Scotchman and his wife were going to +Oil City on the same day, and it was arranged that the two parties +should unite.</p> + +<p>At an early hour in the morning, therefore, Mr. and Mrs. Williams, with +Miselle, once more climbed the mountain to the little log-house, and +found Jamie just harnessing a pair of fine black horses to a wagon, +similar to the "hack-carriage" of Schaeffer's Farm. In the bottom was a +quantity of clean hay, and across the sides were fastened two planks, +covered with bedquilts. Upon one of these were seated Mr. and Mrs. +Williams, while Miselle was invited to the post of honor beside Mrs. +Miller, and the old Scotchman shared the driver's seat with his son.</p> + +<p>"Dinna ye be feared now, dearie. Our Jamie's a car'fu' driver, wi' all +his wild ways," said the old woman kindly, as the wagon, with a +premonitory lurch and twist, turned into the forest road.</p> + +<p>Road! Let the reader call to mind the most precipitous wooded mountain +of his acquaintance, and fancy a road formed over it by the simple +process of cutting off the trees, leaving the stumps and rocks +undisturbed, and then fancy himself dragged over it in a springless +wagon behind two fast horses.</p> + +<p>"Eh, then! It maks an auld body's banes ache sair, siccan a road, as +yon!" said the Scotchwoman, with a significant grimace, as the wagon +paused a moment at the foot of a perpendicular ascent.</p> + +<p>"I reckon ye wad nae ken whatten the Auld Country roads were med for, +gin ye suld see them. They're nae like this, ony way."</p> + +<p>The dear old creature had entered the United States through the St. +Lawrence and the Lakes, and supposed Tarr Farm to be America. Miselle +was so weak as to try to describe the aspect of things about her native +city, and was evidently suspected of patriotic romancing for her pains.</p> + +<p>But such magnificent views! Such glimpses of far mountain-peaks, seen +through vistas of rounded hills! Such flashing streams, tumbling heels +over head across the forest road in their haste to mingle with the blue +waters of the Alleghany! Such wide stretches of country, as the road +crept along the mountain-brow, or curved sinuously down to the far +valley!</p> + +<p>Pictures were there, as yet uncopied, that should hold Church +breathless, with the pencil of the Andes and Niagara quivering in his +fingers,—pictures that Turner might well cross the seas to look upon; +but Miselle remembers them through a distracting mist of bodily terror +and discomfort,—as some painter showed a dance of demons encircling a +maiden's couch, while above it hung her first love-dream.</p> + +<p>"Yon in the valley, where the wood looks so yaller, is a sulphur spring; +an' here in the road's the place where I'm going to tip you all over," +suddenly remarked Jamie, twisting himself round<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 403]</span> on the box to enjoy the +consternation of his female passengers, while the wagon paused on the +verge of a long gully, some six feet in depth, occupying the whole +middle of the road.</p> + +<p>"Wull ye get out?" continued he, addressing Miselle for the first time.</p> + +<p>"Had we better?" asked she, tremulously.</p> + +<p>"If you're easy scared. But I'm no going to upset, I'll promise you."</p> + +<p>"Then I'll stay in," said Miselle, in the desperate courage of extreme +cowardice; and the wagon went on, two wheels deep in the gully, +crumbling down the clayey mud, two wheels high on the mountain-side, +crashing through brush and over stones. And yet there was no upset.</p> + +<p>"Didn't I tell ye?" inquired Jamie, again twisting himself to look in +Miselle's white face, with a broad smile of delight at her evident +terror.</p> + +<p>"Be done, you bold bairn! Isn't he a sturdy, stirring lad, Ma'am?" said +the proud mother, as Jamie, addressing himself again to his work, +shouted to the black nags, and put them along the bit of level road in +the valley at a pace precluding all further conversation.</p> + +<p>Another precipitous ascent, where the road had been mended by felling a +large tree across it, over whose trunk the horses were obliged to pull +the heavy wagon, and then an equally precipitous descent, gave a view of +the Alleghany River and Oil Creek, with Oil City at their confluence, +and a background of bluffs and mountains cutting sharp against the clear +blue sky.</p> + +<p>This view Miselle contemplated with one eye; but the other remained +rigidly fixed upon the road before her.</p> + +<p>Even Jamie paused, and finally suggested,—</p> + +<p>"Reckon, men, you'd best get out and walk alongside. The women can stay +in; and if she's going over, you can shore up."</p> + +<p>Under these cheerful auspices the descent was accomplished, and, by some +miracle, without accident.</p> + +<p>At the foot of the bluff commences the slough in which Oil City is set; +and as it deepened, the horses gradually sank from view, until only +their backs were visible, floundering through a sea of oily mud of a +peculiarly tenacious character. Miselle has the warning of Munchausen +before her eyes; but, in all sadness, she avers that in the principal +street of Oil City, and at the door of the principal hotel, the mud was +on that day above the hubs of the wagon-wheels.</p> + +<p>Having refreshed themselves in body and mind at the Petroleum House, +where a lady in a soiled print dress and much jewelry kindly played at +them upon a gorgeous piano, the party went forth to view the city.</p> + +<p>The same mingling of urgent civilization and unsubdued Nature observable +in Corry characterizes Oil City to a greater extent. On one side of the +street, crowded with oil-wagons, the freight of each worth thousands of +dollars, stand long rows of dwellings, shops, and warehouses, all built +within two years, and on the other impinges a bluff still covered with +its forest growth of shrubs and wood-plants,—while upon the frowning +front of a cliff that has for centuries faced nothing meaner than the +Alleghany, with its mountain background, some Vandal has daubed the +advertisement of a quack nostrum.</p> + +<p>Farther on, where the bluff is less precipitous, it has been graded +after a fashion; and the houses built at the upper side of the new +street seem to be sliding rapidly across it to join their opposite +neighbors, which, in their turn, are sinking modestly into the mud.</p> + +<p>A plank sidewalk renders it possible to walk through the principal +streets of this city; but temptation to do so is of the slightest.</p> + +<p>Monotonous lines of frail houses, shops whose scanty assortment of goods +must be sold at enormous prices to pay the expense of transportation +from New York or Philadelphia, crowds of oil-speculators, oil-dealers, +oil-teamsters, a clumsy bridge across the Creek, a prevailing atmosphere +of petroleum,—such is Oil City.</p> + +<p>At the water-side the view is somewhat<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 404]</span> more interesting. No wharves +have yet been built; and the swarming flatboats "tie up" all along the +bank, just as they used to do three years ago, when, with a freight of +lumber instead of oil, they stopped for the night at the solitary little +Dutch tavern then monopolizing the site of the present city.</p> + +<p>A rakish little stern-wheel steamer lay in the stream, bound for +Pittsburg, and sorely was Miselle tempted to take passage down the +Alleghany in her; but lingering memories of home and the long-suffering +Caleb at last prevailed, and, with a sigh, she turned her back upon the +beautiful river, and retraced her steps through yards crowded with +barrels of oil waiting for shipment,—oil in rows, oil in stacks, oil in +columns, and oil in pyramids wellnigh as tall and as costly as that of +Cheops himself.</p> + +<p>Returned to the Petroleum House, Miselle bade a reluctant good-bye to +the kindly Scots, who here took stage for Franklin, and watched them +float away, as it appeared, upon the sea of mud in a wagon-body whose +wheels and horses were too nearly submerged to make any noticeable +feature in the arrangement.</p> + +<p>Soon after, Jamie appeared at the door of the parlor nominally to +announce himself ready to return; but, after a fierce struggle with his +natural modesty of disposition, he advanced into the room, and silently +laid two of the biggest apples that ever grew in the laps of Mrs. +Williams and Miselle. Putting aside all acknowledgments with "Ho! what's +an apple or two?" the woodsman next proceeded on a tour of inspection +round the room, serenely unconscious of the magnificent scorn withering +him from the eyes of the jewelled lady, who now reclined upon a +broken-backed sofa, taking a leisurely survey of the strangers.</p> + +<p>Jamie paused some time at the piano.</p> + +<p>"And what might such a thing as that cost noo?" asked he, at length, +giving the case a little back-handed blow.</p> + +<p>"About eight hundred dollars," ventured Miselle, to whom the inquiry was +addressed.</p> + +<p>Jamie opened his wide black eyes.</p> + +<p>"Hoot! Feyther could ha' bought Jim Tarr's whole farm for that, three +year ago," said he; and, with one more contemptuous stare at the piano, +he left the room, and was presently seen in the stable-yard, shouldering +from his path a wagon laden with coals.</p> + +<p>Soon after, Miselle and her friends gladly bade farewell to Oil City, +leaving the scornful lady seated at the piano executing the charming +melody of "We're a band of brothers from the old Granite State."</p> + +<p>Having entered the city by the hill-road, it was proposed to return +along the Creek, although, as Jamie candidly stated, the road "might, +like enough, be a thought worser than the other."</p> + +<p>And it was.</p> + +<p>Before the oil fever swept through this region, a man might have +travelled from the mouth of the Creek to its head-waters, and seen no +more buildings than he could have numbered on his ten fingers. Now the +line of derricks, shanties, engine-houses, and oil-tanks is continuous +through the whole distance; and thousands of men may be seen to-day +accumulating millions of dollars where three years ago the squirrel and +his wife, hoarding their winter stores, were the only creatures that +took thought for the morrow.</p> + +<p>After its incongruous mixture of society, the social peculiarity of Oil +Creek is a total disregard of truth.</p> + +<p>A mechanic, a tradesman, or a boatman makes the most solemn promise of +service at a certain time. Terms are settled, a definite hour appointed +for the fulfilment of the contract; the man departs, and is seen no +more. His employer is neither disappointed nor angry; he expects nothing +else.</p> + +<p>A cart laden with country produce enters the settlement from the farms +behind it. Every housewife drops her broom, and rushes out to waylay the +huckster, and induce him to sell her the provisions already engaged to +her neighbor. Happy she, if stout enough of arm to convey her booty home +with her; for if she trust the vendor to leave it at her<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 405]</span> house, even +after paying him his price, she may bid good-bye to the green delights, +as eagerly craved here as on a long sea-voyage.</p> + +<p>This "peculiar institution" is all very well, doubtless, for those who +understand it, but is somewhat inconvenient to a stranger, as Miselle +discovered during the three days she was trying to leave Tarr Farm.</p> + +<p>On the third morning, after waiting two hours upon the bank of the Creek +for a perjured boatman, Mr. Williams rushed desperately into a crowd of +teamsters and captured the youth whose first impressions of a railway +have been chronicled on a preceding page. Probably even he, had time +been allowed to consider the proposition at length, would have declined +the journey; but, overborne by the vehemence of his employer, he found +himself well upon the road to Schaeffer's Farm before he had by any +means decided to go thither.</p> + +<p>The pleasantest part of the "carriage exercise" on this road is fording +the Creek, a course adopted wherever the bluff comes down to the bank, +and the flat reappears upon the opposite side, no one having yet spent +time to grade a continuous road on one side or the other. A railway +company has, however, made a beginning in this direction; and it is +promised that in another year the traveller may proceed from Schaeffer's +to Oil City by rail.</p> + +<p>At Titusville Miselle bade good-bye to her kind friend Williams, and +once more took herself under her own protection.</p> + +<p>Spending the night at Corry, she next day found herself in the city of +Erie, and could have fancied it Heidelberg instead, the signs bearing +such names as Schultz, Seelinger, Jantzen, Cronenberger, Heidt, and +Heybeck. Hans Preuss sells bread, Valentin Ulrich manufactures saddles, +and P. Loesch keeps a meat-market, with a sign representing one +gentleman holding a mad bull by a bit of packthread tied to his horns, +while an assistant leisurely strolls up to annihilate the creature with +a tack-hammer.</p> + +<p>Here, too, a little beyond the middle of the town, was a girl herding a +flock of geese, precisely as did the princess in the "Brüder Grimm +Tales," while a doltish boy stared at her with just the imbecile +admiration of Kurdkin for the wily maiden who combed her golden, hair +and chanted her naughty spell in the same breath.</p> + +<p>A little farther on stood a charming old Dutch cottage with cabbages in +the front yard, and a hop-vine clambering the porch. An infant Teuton +swung upon the gate, who, being addressed by Miselle, lisped an answer +in High Dutch, while his mother shrilly exchanged the news with her next +neighbor in the same tongue.</p> + +<p>Two hours sufficed to exhaust the wonders of Erie, and Miselle gladly +took the cars for Buffalo, and on the road thither fell in with a good +Samaritan, who solaced her weary faintness with delicate titbits of +grouse, shot and roasted upon an Ohio prairie.</p> + +<p>At Buffalo waited the Eastern-bound cars of the New-York Central +Railway; but only twenty miles farther on, thundered Niagara, and +Miselle could not choose but obey the sonorous summons. So, after +spending the night at a "white man's" hotel in Buffalo, the next morning +found her standing, an insignificant atom, before one of the world's +great wonders. One or two other travellers, however, have mentioned +Niagara; and Miselle refrains from expressing more than her thanks for +the kindness which enabled her to fulfil her darling wish of standing +behind the great fall on the Canada side.</p> + +<p>Truly, it is no empty boast that places Americans preëminent over the +men of every other nation in their courtesy to women; and Miselle would +fain most gratefully acknowledge the constant attention and kindness +everywhere offered to her, while never once was she annoyed by obtrusive +or unwelcome approach; and not the vast resources of her country, not +the grandeur of Niagara, give her such pride and satisfaction as does +the new knowledge she has gained of her countrymen.: </p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 406]</span></p> +<h2><a name="THE_SPANIARDS_GRAVES" id="THE_SPANIARDS_GRAVES"></a>THE SPANIARDS' GRAVES</h2> + +<h3>AT THE ISLES OF SHOALS.</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O sailors, did sweet eyes look after you,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The day you sailed away from sunny Spain?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bright eyes that followed fading ship and crew,<br /></span> +<span class="i20">Melting in tender rain?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Did no one dream of that drear night to be,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wild with the wind, fierce with the stinging snow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When, on yon granite point that frets the sea,<br /></span> +<span class="i20">The ship met her death-blow?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Fifty long years ago these sailors died:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">(None know how many sleep beneath the waves:)<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fourteen gray headstones, rising side by side,<br /></span> +<span class="i20">Point out their nameless graves,—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Lonely, unknown, deserted, but for me,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the wild birds that flit with mournful cry,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sadder winds, and voices of the sea<br /></span> +<span class="i20">That moans perpetually.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Wives, mothers, maidens, wistfully, in vain<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Questioned the distance for the yearning sail,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That, leaning landward, should have stretched again<br /></span> +<span class="i20">White arms wide on the gale,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">To bring back their beloved. Year by year,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Weary they watched, till youth and beauty passed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And lustrous eyes grew dim, and age drew near,<br /></span> +<span class="i20">And hope was dead at last.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Still summer broods o'er that delicious land,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Rich, fragrant, warm with skies of golden glow:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Live any yet of that forsaken band<br /></span> +<span class="i20">Who loved so long ago?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O Spanish women, over the far seas,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Could I but show you where your dead repose!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Could I send tidings on this northern breeze,<br /></span> +<span class="i20">That strong and steady blows!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Dear dark-eyed sisters, you remember yet<br /></span> +<span class="i2">These you have lost, but you can never know<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One stands at their bleak graves whose eyes are wet<br /></span> +<span class="i20">With thinking of your woe!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 407]</span></p> +<h2><a name="GRIT" id="GRIT"></a>GRIT.</h2> + + +<p>There is an influential form of practical force, compounded of strong +will, strong sense, and strong egotism, which long waited for a strong +monosyllable to announce its nature. Facts of character, indeed, are +never at rest until they have become terms of language; and that +peculiar thing which is not exactly courage or heroism, but which +unmistakably is "Grit," has coined its own word to blurt out its own +quality. If the word has not yet pushed its way into classic usage, or +effected a lodgement in the dictionaries, the force it names is no less +a reality of the popular consciousness, and the word itself no less a +part of popular speech. Men who possessed the thing were just the men to +snub elegance and stun propriety by giving it an inelegant, though +vitally appropriate name. There is defiance in its very sound. The word +is used by vast numbers of people to express their highest ideal of +manliness, which is "real grit." It is impossible for anybody to acquire +the reputation it confers by the most dexterous mimicry of its outside +expressions; for a swift analysis, which drives directly to the heart of +the man, instantly detects the impostor behind the braggart, and curtly +declares him to lack "the true grit." The word is so close to the thing +it names, has so much pith and point, is so tart on the tongue, and so +stings the ear with its meaning, that foreigners ignorant of the +language might at once feel its significance by its griding utterance as +it is shot impatiently through the resisting teeth.</p> + +<p>Grit is in the grain of character. It may generally be described as +heroism materialized,—spirit and will thrust into heart, brain, and +backbone, so as to form part of the physical substance of the man. The +feeling with which it rushes into consciousness is akin to physical +sensation; and the whole body—every nerve, muscle, and drop of +blood—is thrilled with purpose and passion. "Spunk" does not express +it; for "spunk," besides being <i>petite</i> in itself, is courage in +effervescence rather than courage in essence. A person usually cowardly +may be kicked or bullied into the exhibition of spunk; but the man of +grit carries in his presence a power which spares him the necessity of +resenting insult; for insult sneaks away from his look. It is not mere +"pluck"; for pluck also comes by fits and starts, and can be +disconnected from the other elements of character. A tradesman once had +the pluck to demand of Talleyrand, at the time that trickster-statesman +was at the height of his power, when he intended to pay his bill; but he +was instantly extinguished by the impassive insolence of Talleyrand's +answer,—"My faith, how curious you are!" Considered as an efficient +force, it is sometimes below heroism, sometimes above it: below heroism, +when heroism is the permanent condition of the soul; above heroism, when +heroism is simply the soul's transient mood. Thus, Demosthenes had +flashes of splendid heroism, but his valor depended on his genius being +kindled,—his brave actions naming out from mental ecstasy rather than +intrepid character. The moment his will dropped from its eminence of +impassioned thought, he was scared by dangers which common soldiers +faced with gay indifference. Erskine, the great advocate, was a hero at +the bar; but when he entered the House of Commons, there was something +in the fixed imperiousness and scorn of Pitt which made him feel +inwardly weak and fluttered. Erskine had flashes of heroism; Pitt had +consistent and persistent grit. If we may take the judgment of Sir +Sidney Smith, Wellington had more grit than Napoleon had heroism. Just +before the Battle of Waterloo, Sir Sidney, at Paris, was told that the +Duke had decided to keep his<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 408]</span> position at all events. "Oh!" he +exclaimed, "if the Duke has said that, of course t' other fellow must +give way."</p> + +<p>And this is essentially the sign of grit, that, when it appears, t' +other fellow or t' other opinion must give way. Its power comes from its +tough hold on the real, and the surly boldness with which it utters and +acts it out. Thus, in social life, it puts itself in rude opposition to +all those substitutes for reality which the weakness and hypocrisy and +courtesy of men find necessary for their mutual defence. It denies that +it has ever surrendered its original rights and aboriginal force, or +that it has assented to the social compact. When it goes into any +company of civilized persons, its pugnacity is roused by seeing that +social life does not rest on the vigor of the persons who compose it, +but on the authority of certain rules and manners to which all are +required to conform. These appear to grit as external defences, thrown +up to protect elegant feebleness against any direct collision with +positive character, and to keep men and women at a respectful distance +from ladies and gentlemen. Life is carried on there at one or more +removes from the realities of life, on this principle, that, "I won't +speak the truth of you, if you won't speak the truth of me"; and the +name of this principle is politeness. It is impolite to tell foolish men +that they are foolish, mean men that they are mean, wicked men that they +are wicked, traitorous men that they are traitors; for smooth lies +cement what impolite veracities would shatter. The system, it is +contended, on the whole, civilizes the individuals whose natures it may +repress, and is better than a sincerity which would set them by the +ears, and put a veto on all social intercourse whatever. But strong as +may be the argument in favor of the system, it is certainly as important +that it should be assailed as that it should exist, and that it should +be assailed from within; for, carried out unchecked to its last +consequences, it results in sinking its victims into the realm of vapors +and vacuity, its representative being the all-accomplished London man of +fashion who committed suicide to save himself from the bore of dressing +and undressing. Besides, in "good society," so called, the best +sentiments and ideas can sometimes get expression only through the form +of bad manners. It is charming to be in a circle where human nature is +pranked out in purple and fine linen, and where you sometimes see +manners as beautiful as the masterpieces of the arts; yet some people +cannot get rid of the uneasy consciousness that a subtle tyranny +pervades the room and ties the tongue,—that philanthropy is impolite, +that heroism is ungenteel, that truth, honor, freedom, humanity, +strongly asserted, are marks of a vulgar mind; and many a person, daring +enough to defend his opinions anywhere else, by speech or by the sword, +quails in the parlor before some supercilious coxcomb,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"Weak in his watery smile<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And educated whisker,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>who can still tattle to the girls that the reformer is "no gentleman."</p> + +<p>Now how different all this is, when a man of social grit thrusts himself +into a drawing-room, and with an easy audacity tosses out disagreeable +facts and unfashionable truths, the porcelain crashing as his words +fall, and saying everything that no gentleman ought to say, indifferent +to the titter or terror of the women and the offended looks and +frightened stare of the men. How the gilded lies vanish in his presence! +How he states, contradicts, confutes! how he smashes through proprieties +to realities, flooding the room with his aggressive vitality, mastering +by main force a position in the most exclusive set, and, by being +perfectly indifferent to their opinion, making it impossible for them to +put him down! He thus becomes a social power by becoming a social +rebel,—persecutes conventional politeness into submission to rude +veracity,—establishes an autocracy of man over the gentleman,—and +practises a kind of "Come-Outerism," while insisting on enjoying all the +advantages of <i>Go-Interism</i>. Ben Jonson in the age of Elizabeth, Samuel<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 409]</span> +Johnson in the last century, Carlyle and Brougham in the present, are +prominent examples of this somewhat insolent manhood in the presence of +social forms. It is, however, one of the rarest, as it is one of the +ugliest, kinds of human strength; it requires, perhaps, in its +combination, full as many defects as merits; and how difficult is its +justifiable exercise we see in the career of so illustrious a +philanthropist as Wilberforce,—a man whose speech in Parliament showed +no lack of vivid conceptions and smiting words, a man whom no threats of +personal violence could intimidate, and who would cheerfully have risked +his life for his cause, yet still a man who could never forget that he +was a Tory and a gentleman, who had no grit before lords and ladies, +whose Abolitionism was not sufficiently blunt and downright in the good +company of cabinet ministers, whose sensitive nature flinched at the +thought of being conscientiously impolite and heroically ill-natured, +and whose manners were thus frequently in the way of the full efficiency +of his morals. In many respects a hero, in all respects benevolent, he +still was not like Romilly, a man of grit. Politeness has been defined +as benevolence in small things. To be benevolent in great things, +decorum must sometimes yield to duty; and Draco, though in the king's +drawing-room, and loyally supporting in Parliament the measures of the +ministry, is still Draco, though cruelty in him has learned the dialect +of fashion and clothed itself in the privileges of the genteel.</p> + +<p>Proceeding from social life to business life, we shall find that it is +this unamiable, but indomitable, quality of grit which not only acquires +fortunes, but preserves them after they have been acquired. The ruin +which overtakes so many merchants is due not so much to their lack of +business talent as to their lack of business nerve. How many lovable +persons we see in trade, endowed with brilliant capacities, but cursed +with yielding dispositions,—who are resolute in no business habits and +fixed in no business principles,—who are prone to follow the instincts +of a weak good-nature against the ominous hints of a clear intelligence, +now obliging this friend by indorsing an unsafe note, and then pleasing +that neighbor by sharing his risk in a hopeless speculation,—and who, +after all the capital they have earned by their industry and sagacity +has been sunk in benevolent attempts to assist blundering or plundering +incapacity, are doomed, in their bankruptcy, to be the mark of bitter +taunts from growling creditors and insolent pity from a gossiping +public. Much has been said about the pleasures of a good conscience; and +among these I reckon the act of that man who, having wickedly lent +certain moneys to a casual acquaintance, was in the end called upon to +advance a sum which transcended his honest means, with a dark hint, +that, if the money was refused, there was but one thing for the casual +acquaintance to do,—that is, to commit suicide. The person thus +solicited, in a transient fit of moral enthusiasm, caught at the hint, +and with great earnestness advised the casual acquaintance to do it, on +the ground that it was the only reparation he could make to the numerous +persons he had swindled. And this advice was given with no fear that the +guilt of that gentleman's blood would lie on his soul, for the mission +of that gentleman was to continue his existence by sucking out the life +of others, and his last thought was to destroy his own; and it is hardly +necessary to announce that he is still alive and sponging. Indeed, a +courageous merchant must ever by ready to face the fact that he will be +called a curmudgeon, if he will not ruin himself to please others, and a +weak fool, if he does. Many a fortune has melted away in the hesitating +utterance of the placable "Yes," which might have been saved by the +unhesitating utterance of the implacable "No!" Indeed, in business, the +perfection of grit is this power of saying "No," and saying it with such +wrathful emphasis that the whole race of vampires and harpies are scared +from you counting-room, and your reputation as unenterprising, +unbearable niggard is<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 410]</span> fully established among all borrowers of money +never meant to be repaid, and all projectors of schemes intended for the +benefit of the projectors alone. At the expense of a little temporary +obloquy, a man can thus conquer the right to mind his own business; and +having done this, he has shown his possession of that nerve which, in +his business, puts inexorable purpose into clear conceptions, follows +out a plan of operations with sturdy intelligence, and conducts to +fortune by the road of real enterprise. Many others may evince equal +shrewdness in framing a project, but they hesitate, become timid, become +confused, at some step in its development. Their character is not strong +enough to back up their intellect. But the iron-like tenacity of the +merchant of grit holds on to the successful end.</p> + +<p>You can watch the operation of this quality in every-day business +transactions. Your man of grit seems never deficient in news of the +markets, though he may employ no telegraph-operator. Thus, about two +years ago, a great Boston holder of flour went to considerable expense +in obtaining special intelligence, which would, when generally known, +carry flour up to ten dollars and a half a barrel. Another dealer, +suspecting something, went to him and said, "What do you say flour's +worth to-day?"—"Oh," was the careless answer, "I suppose it might bring +ten dollars."—"Well," retorted the querist, gruffly, "I've got five +thousand barrels on hand, and I should like to <i>see</i> the man who would +give me ten dollars barrel for it!"—"I will," said the other, quickly, +disclosing his secret by the eagerness of his manner, "Well," was the +reply, "all I can say is, then, that I have <i>seen</i> the man."</p> + +<p>The importance of this quality as a business power is most apparent in +those frightful panics which periodically occur in our country, and +which sometimes tax the people more severely than wars and standing +armies. In regard to one of the last of these financial hurricanes, that +of 1857, there can be little doubt, that, if the acknowledged holders of +financial power had been men of real grit, it might have been averted; +there can be as little doubt, that, when it burst, if they had been men +of real grit, it might have been made less disastrous. But they kept +nearly all their sails set up to the point of danger, and when the +tempest was on them ignominiously took to their boats and abandoned the +ship. And as for the crew and passengers, it was the old spectacle of a +shipwreck,—individuals squabbling to get a plank, instead of combining +to construct a raft.</p> + +<p>Indeed, there was something pitiable in the state of things which that +panic revealed in the business centres of the country. Common sense +seemed to be disowned by mutual consent; an infectious fear went +shivering from man to man; and a strange fascination led people to +increase by suspicions and reports the peril which threatened their own +destruction. Men, being thus thrown back upon the resources of +character, were put to terrible tests. As the intellect cannot act when +the will is paralyzed, many a merchant, whose debts really bore no +proportion to his property, was seen sitting, like the French prisoner +in the iron cage whose sides were hourly contracting, stupidly gazing at +the bars which were closing in upon him, and feeling in advance the pang +of the iron which was to cut into his flesh and crush his bones.</p> + +<p>In invigorating contrast to the panic-smitten, we had the privilege to +witness many an example of the grit-inspired. Then it was that the +grouty, taciturn, obstinate trader, so unpopular in ordinary times, +showed the stuff he was made of. Then his bearing was cheer and hope to +all who looked upon him. How he girded himself for the fight, resolved, +if he died, to die hard! How he tugged with obstacles as if they were +personal affronts, and hurled them to the right and to the left! How +grandly, amid the chatter of the madmen about him, came his few words of +sense and sanity! And then his brain, brightened, not bewildered, by the +danger, how clear and alert it was, how fertile in expedients,<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 411]</span> how firm +in principles, with a glance that pierced through the ignorant present +to the future, seeing as calmly and judging as accurately in the tempest +as it had in the sunshine. Never losing heart and never losing head, +with as strong a grip on his honor as on his property, detesting the +very thought of failure, knowing that he might be broken to pieces, but +determined that he would not weakly "go to pieces," he performed the +greatest service to the community, as well as to himself, by resolutely, +at any sacrifice, paying his debts when they became due. It is a pity +that such austere Luthers of commerce, trade-militant instead of +church-militant, who meet hard times with a harder will, had not a +little beauty in their toughness, so that grit, lifted to heroism, would +allure affection as well as enforce respect. But their sense is so +rigid, their integrity so gruff, and their courage so unjoyous, that all +the genial graces fly their companionship; and a libertine Sheridan, +with Ancient Pistol's motto of "Base is the slave that pays," will often +be more popular, even among the creditor portion of the public, than +these crabbed heroes, and, if need be, surly martyrs, of mercantile +honesty and personal honor.</p> + +<p>In regard to public life, and the influence of this rough manliness in +politics, it is a matter of daily observation, that, in the strife of +parties and principles, backbone without brain will carry it against +brain without backbone. A politician weakly and amiably in the right is +no match for a politician tenaciously and pugnaciously in the wrong. You +cannot, by tying an opinion to a man's tongue, make him the +representative of that opinion; and at the close of any battle for +principles, his name will be found neither among the dead nor among the +wounded, but among the missing. The true motto for a party is neither +"Measures, not men," nor "Men, not measures," but "Measures <i>in</i> +men,"—measures which are in their blood as well as in their brain and +on their lips. Wellington said that Napoleon's presence in the French +army was equivalent to forty thousand additional soldiers; and in a +legislative assembly, Mirabeau and John Adams and John Quincy Adams are +not simply persons who hold a single vote, but forces whose power +thrills through the whole mass of voters. Mean natures always feel a +sort of terror before great natures; and many a base thought has been +unuttered, many a sneaking vote withheld, through the fear inspired by +the rebuking presence of one noble man.</p> + +<p>Opinions embodied in men, and thus made aggressive and militant, are the +opinions which mark the union of thought with grit. A politician of this +class is not content to comprehend and wield the elements of power +already existing in a community, but he aims to make his individual +conviction and purpose dominant over the convictions and purposes of the +accredited exponents of public opinion. He cares little about his +unpopularity at the start, and doggedly persists in his course against +obstacles which seem insurmountable. A great, but mischievous, example +of this power appeared in our own generation in the person of Mr. +Calhoun, a statesman who stamped his individual mind on the policy and +thinking of the country more definitely, perhaps, than any statesman +since Hamilton, though his influence has, on the whole, been as evil as +Hamilton's was, on the whole, beneficent. Keen-sighted, far-sighted, and +inflexible, Mr. Calhoun clearly saw the logical foundations and logical +results of the institution of Slavery; and though at first called an +abstractionist and a fanatic by the looser thinkers of his own region, +his inexorable argumentation, conquering by degrees politicians who +could reason, made itself felt at last among politicians who could not +reason; and the conclusions of his logic were adopted by thousands whose +brains would have broken in the attempt to follow its processes. One of +those rare deductive reasoners whose audacity marches abreast their +genius, he would have been willing to fight to the last gasp for a +conclusion which he had laboriously reached by rigid deduction<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 412]</span> through +a score of intermediate steps, from premises in themselves repugnant to +the primal instincts both of reason and humanity. Always ready to meet +anybody in argument, he detested all reasoners who attempted to show the +fallacy of his argument by pointing out the dangerous results to which +it led. In this he sometimes brought to mind that inflexible professor +of the deductive method who was timidly informed that his principles, if +carried out, would split the world to pieces. "Let it split," was his +careless answer; "there are enough more planets." By pure intellectual +grit, he thus effected a revolution in the ideas and sentiments of the +South, and through the South made his mind act on the policy of the +nation. The present war has its root in the principles he advocated. +Never flinching from any logical consequence of his principles, Mr. +Calhoun did not rest until through him religion, morality, +statesmanship, the Constitution of the United States, the constitution +of man, were all bound in black. Chattel slavery, the most nonsensical +as well as detestable of oppressions, was, to him, the most beneficent +contrivance of human wisdom. He called it an institution: Mr. Emerson +has more happily styled it a destitution. At last the chains of his iron +logic were heard clanking on the whole Southern intellect. Reasoning the +most masterly was employed to annihilate the first principles of reason; +the understanding of man was insanely placed in direct antagonism to his +moral instincts; and finally the astounding conclusion was reached, that +the Creator of mankind has his pet races,—that God himself scouts his +colored children, and nicknames them "Niggers."</p> + +<p>It is delicious to watch the exulting and somewhat contemptuous audacity +with which he hurries to the unforeseen conclusion those who have once +been simple enough to admit his premises. Towards men who have some +logical capacity his tone is that of respectful impatience; but as he +goads on the reluctant and resentful victims of his reasoning, who +loiter and limp painfully in the steps of his rapid deductions, he seems +to say, with ironic scorn, "A little faster, my poor cripples!"</p> + +<p>So confident was Mr. Calhoun in his capacity to demonstrate the validity +of his horrible creed, that he was ever eager to measure swords with the +most accomplished of his antagonists in the duel of debate. And it must +be said that he despised all the subterfuges and evasions by which, in +ordinary controversies, the real question is dodged, and went directly +to the heart of the matter,—a resolute intellect, burning to grapple +with another resolute intellect in a vital encounter. In common +legislative debates, on the contrary, there is no vital encounter. The +exasperated opponents, personally courageous, but deficient in clear and +fixed ideas, mutually contrive to avoid the things essential to be +discussed, while wantoning in all the forms of discussion. They assert, +brag, browbeat, dogmatize, domineer, pummel each other with the +<i>argumentum ad hominem</i>, and abundantly prove that they stand for +opposite opinions; we watch them as we watch the feints and hits of a +couple of pugilists in the ring; but after the sparring is over, we find +that neither the Southern champion nor the Northern bruiser has touched +the inner reality of the question to decide which they stripped +themselves for the fight. In regard to the intellectual issue, they are +like two bullies enveloping themselves in an immense concealing dust of +arrogant words, and, as they fearfully retreat from personal collision, +shouting furiously to each other, "Let me get at him!" And this is what +is commonly called grit in politics,—abundant backbone to face persons, +deficient brain-bone to encounter principles.</p> + +<p>Not so was it when two debaters like Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Webster engaged +in the contest of argument. Take, for example, as specimens of pure +mental manliness, their speeches in the Senate, in 1833, on the question +whether or not the Constitution is a compact between sovereign States. +Give Mr. Calhoun<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 413]</span> those two words, "compact" and "sovereign," and he +conducts you logically to Nullification and to all the consequences of +Nullification. Andrew Jackson, a man in his kind, of indomitable +resolution, intended to arrest the argument at a convenient point by the +sword, and thus save himself the bother of going farther in the chain of +inferences than he pleased. Mr. Webster grappled with the argument and +with the man; and it is curious to watch that spectacle of a meeting +between two such hostile minds. Each is confident of the strength of his +own position; each is eager for a close hug of dialectics. Far from +avoiding the point, they drive directly towards it, clearing their +essential propositions from mutual misconception by the sharpest +analysis and exactest statement. To get their minds near each other, to +think close to the subject, to feel the griding contact of pure +intellect with pure intellect, and, as spiritual beings, to conduct the +war of reason with spiritual weapons,—this is their ambition. +Conventionally courteous to each other, they are really in the deadliest +antagonism; for their contest is the tug and strain of soul with soul, +and each feels that defeat would be worse than death. No nervous +irritation, no hard words, no passionate recriminations, no flinching +from unexpected difficulties, no substitution of declamatory sophisms +for rigorous inferences—but close, calm, ruthless grapple of thought +with thought. To each, at the time, life seems to depend on the +issue—not merely the life which a sword-cut or pistol-bullet can +destroy, but immortal life, the life of immaterial minds and +personalities, thus brought into spiritual feud. They know very well, +that, whatever be the real result, the Webster-men will give the victory +of argument to Webster, the Calhoun-men the victory of argument to +Calhoun; but that consideration does not enter their thoughts as they +prepare to close in that combat which is to determine, not to the world, +but to each other, which is the stronger intellect, and which is in the +right Few ever appreciate great men in this hostile attitude, not of +their passions, but of their minds; and those who do it the least are +their furious partisans. Most people are contented with the argument +that tells, and are apt to be bored with the argument which refutes; but +a true reasoner despises even his success, if he feels that two persons, +himself and his opponent, know that he is in the wrong. And the strain +on the whole being in this contest of intellect with intellect, and the +reluctance with which the most combative enter it unless they are +consciously strong, is well illustrated by Dr. Johnson's remark to some +friends, when sickness had relaxed the tough fibre of his brain,—"If +that fellow Burke were here now, he would kill me."</p> + +<p>A peculiar kind of grit, not falling under any of the special +expressions I have noted, yet partaking in some degree of all, is +illustrated in the character of Lieutenant-General Grant. Without an +atom of pretension or rhetoric, with none of the external signs of +energy and intrepidity, making no parade of the immovable purpose, iron +nerve, and silent, penetrating intelligence God has put into him, his +tranquil greatness is hidden from superficial scrutiny behind a cigar, +as President Lincoln's is behind a joke. When anybody tries to coax, +cajole, overawe, browbeat, or deceive Lincoln, the President nurses his +leg, and is reminded of a story; when anybody tries the same game with +Grant, the General listens and—smokes. If you try to wheedle out of him +his plans for a campaign, he stolidly smokes; if you call him an +imbecile and a blunderer, he blandly lights another cigar; if you praise +him as the greatest general living, he placidly returns the puff from +his regalia; and if you tell him he should run for the Presidency, it +does not disturb the equanimity with which he inhales and exhales the +unsubstantial vapor which typifies the politician's promises. While you +are wondering what kind of man this creature without a tongue is, you +are suddenly electrified with the news of some splendid victory, proving +that behind<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 414]</span> the cigar, and behind the face discharged of all tell-tale +expression, is the best brain to plan and the strongest heart to dare +among the generals of the Republic.</p> + +<p>It is curious to mark a variation of this intellectual hardihood and +personal force when the premises are not in the solidities, but in the +oddities of thought and character, and whim stands stiffly up to the +remotest inferences which may be deduced from its insanest freaks of +individual opinion. Thus it is said that in one of our country towns +there is an old gentleman who is an eccentric hater of women; and this +crotchet of his character he carries to its extreme logical +consequences. Not content with general declamation against the sex, he +turns eagerly, the moment he receives the daily newspaper, to the list +of deaths; and if he sees the death of a woman recorded, he gleefully +exclaims,—"Good! good! there's another of 'em gone!"</p> + +<p>We have heard of a man who had conceived a violent eccentric prejudice +against negroes; and he was not content with chiming in with the usual +cant of the prejudice that they ought not to be allowed in our churches +and in our rail-road-cars, but vociferated, that, if he had his way, +they should not be allowed in Africa! The advantage of grit in this +respect is in its annihilating a prejudice by presenting a vivid vision +of its theoretical consequences. Carlyle has an eccentric hatred of the +eighteenth century, its manners, morals, politics, religion, and men. He +has expressed this in various ways for thirty years; but in his last +work, the "Life of Frederick the Great," his prejudice reached its +logical climax in the assertion, that the only sensible thing the +eighteenth century ever did was blowing out its own brains in the French +Revolution.</p> + +<p>Again, in discussion, some men have felicity in replying to a question, +others a felicity in replying to the motive which prompted the question. +In one case you get an answer addressed to your understanding; in the +other, an answer which smites like a slap in the face. Thus, when a pert +skeptic asked Martin Luther where God was before He created heaven, +Martin stunned his querist with the retort,—"He was building hell for +such idle, presumptuous, fluttering, and inquisitive spirits as you." +And everybody will recollect the story of the self-complacent cardinal +who went to confess to a holy monk, and thought by self-accusation to +get the reputation of a saint.</p> + +<p>"I have been guilty of every kind of sin," snivelled the cardinal.</p> + +<p>"It is a solemn fact," replied the impassive monk.</p> + +<p>"I have indulged in pride, ambition, malice, and revenge," groaned the +cardinal.</p> + +<p>"It is too true," answered the monk.</p> + +<p>"Why, you fool," exclaimed the enraged dignitary, "you don't imagine +that I mean all this to the letter!"</p> + +<p>"Ho! ho!" said the monk, "so you have been a liar, too, have you?"</p> + +<p>This relentless rebuker of shams furnishes us with a good transition to +another department of the subject, namely, moral hardihood, or grit +organized in conscience, and applying the most rigorous laws of ethics +to the practical affairs of life. Now there is a wide difference between +moral men, so called, and men moralized,—between men who lazily adopt +and lazily practise the conventional moral proprieties of the time, and +men transformed into the image of inexorable, unmerciful moral ideas, +men in whom moral maxims appear organized as moral might. There are +thousands who are prodigal of moral and benevolent opinions, and +honestly eloquent in loud professions of what they would do in case +circumstances called upon them to act; but when the occasion is suddenly +thrust upon them, when temptation, leering into every corner and crevice +of their weak and selfish natures, connects the notion of virtue with +the reality of sacrifice, then, in that sharp pinch, they become +suddenly apprised of the difference between rhetoric and rectitude, and +find that their speeches have been far ahead of their powers of +performance. Thus, in one of Gerald Griffin's novels, there is a<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 415]</span> scene +in which a young Irish student, fresh from his scholastic ethics, amazes +the company at his father's table, who are all devout believers in the +virtues of the hair-trigger, by an eloquent declamation against the +folly and the sin of duelling. At last one of the set gets sufficient +breath to call him a coward. The hot Irish blood is up in an instant, a +tumbler is thrown at the head of the doubter of his courage, and in ten +seconds the young moralist is crossing swords with his antagonist in a +duel.</p> + +<p>But the characteristic of moral grit is equality with the occasions +which exact its exercise. It is morality with thews and sinews and blood +and passions,—morality made man, and eager to put its phrases to the +test of action. It gives and takes hard blows,—aims not only to be +upright in deed, but downright in word,—silences with a "Thus saith the +Lord" all palliations of convenient sins,—scowls ominously at every +attempt to reconcile the old feud between the right and the expedient +and make them socially shake hands,—and when cant taints the air, +clears it with good wholesome rage and execration. On the virtues of +this stubborn conscientiousness it is needless to dilate; its +limitations spring from its tendency to disconnect morality from mercy, +and law from love,—its too frequent substitution of moral antipathies +for moral insight,—and its habit of describing individual men, not as +they are in themselves, but as they appear to its offended conscience. +Understanding sin better than it understands sinners, it sometimes +sketches phantoms rather than paints portraits,—identifies the weakly +wicked with the extreme of Satanic wickedness,—and in its assaults, +pitches <i>at</i> its adversaries rather than really pitches <i>into</i> them. +But, in a large moral view, the light of intellectual perception should +shine far in advance of the heat of ethical invective, and an ounce of +characterization is worth a ton of imprecations. Indeed, moral grit, +relatively admirable as it is, partakes of the inherent defect of other +and lower kinds of grit, inasmuch as its force is apt to be as +unsympathetic as it is uncompromising, as ungracious as it is +invincible. It drives rather than draws, cuffs rather than coaxes. +Intolerant of human infirmity, it is likewise often intolerant of all +forms of human excellence which do not square with its own conceptions +of right; and its philanthropy in the abstract is apt to secrete a +subtile misanthropy in the concrete. Brave, unselfish, self-sacrificing, +and flinching from no consequences which its principles may bring upon +itself, it flinches from no consequences which they may bring upon +others; and its attitude towards the laws and customs of instituted +imperfection is almost as sourly belligerent as towards those of +instituted iniquity.</p> + +<p>Men of this austere and somewhat crabbed rectitude may be found in every +department of life, but they are most prominent and most efficient when +they engage in the reform of abuses, whether those abuses be in manners, +institutions, or religion; and here they never shrink from the rough, +rude work of the cause they espouse. They are commonly adored by their +followers, commonly execrated by their opponents; but they receive the +execration as the most convincing proof that they have performed their +duties, as the shrieks of the wounded testify to the certainty of the +shots. Indeed, they take a kind of grim delight in so pointing their +invective that the adversaries of their principles are turned into +enemies of their persons, and scout at all fame which does not spring +from obloquy. As they thus exist in a state of war, the gentler elements +of their being fall into the background; the bitterness of the strife +works into their souls, and gives to their conscientious wrath a certain +Puritan pitilessness of temper and tone. In the thick of the fight, +their battle-cry is, "No quarter to the enemies of God and man!"—and +as, unfortunately, there are few men who, tried by their standards, are +friends of man, population very palpably thins as the lava-tide of their +invective sweeps over it, and to the mental eye men, disappear as man +emerges.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 416]</span></p> + +<p>The gulf which yawns between uncompromising moral obligation and +compromising human conduct is so immense that these fierce servants of +the Lord seem to be fanatics and visionaries. But history demonstrates +that they are among the most practical of all the forces which work in +human affairs; for, without taking into account the response which their +inflexible morality finds in the breasts of inflexibly moral men, their +morality, in its application to common life, often becomes materialized, +and shows an intimate connection with the most ordinary human appetites +and passions. They commune with the mass of men through the subtile +freemasonry of discontent. Compelled to hurl the thunderbolts of the +moral law against injustice in possession, they unwittingly set fire to +injustice smouldering in unrealized passions; and their speech is +translated and transformed, in its passage into the public mind, into +some such shape as this:—"These few persons who are dominant in Church +and State, and who, while you physically and spiritually starve, are fed +fat by the products of your labor and the illusions of your +superstition, are powerful and prosperous, not from any virtue in +themselves, but from the violation of those laws which God has ordained +for the beneficent government of the universe. Their property and their +power are the signs, not of their merits, but of their sins." The +instinctive love of property and power are thus addressed to overturn +the present possessors of property and power; and the vices of men are +unconsciously enlisted in the service of the regeneration of man. The +motives which impel whole masses of the community are commonly different +from the motives of those reformers who urge the community to revolt; +and their fervent denunciations of injustice bring to their side +thousands of men who, perhaps unconsciously to themselves, only desire a +chance to be unjust. The annals of all emancipations, revolutions, and +reformations are disfigured by this fact. Better than what they +supplant, their good is still relative, not absolute.</p> + +<p>In the history of religious reforms, few men better illustrate this hard +moral manliness, as distinguished from the highest moral heroism, than +the sturdy Scotch reformer, John Knox. Tenacious, pugnacious, thoroughly +honest and thoroughly earnest, superior to all physical and moral fear, +destitute equally of fine sentiments and weak emotions, blurting out +unwelcome opinions to queens as readily as to peasants, and in words +which hit and hurt like knocks with the fist, he is one of those large, +but somewhat coarse-grained natures, that influence rude populations by +having so much in common with them, and in which the piety of the +Christian, the thought of the Protestant, and the zeal of the martyr are +curiously blended with the ferocity of the demagogue. Jenny Geddes, at +the time when Archbishop Laud attempted to force Episcopacy upon +Scotland, is a fair specimen of the kind of character which the +teachings and the practice of such a man would tend to produce in a +nation. This rustic heroine was present when the new bishop, hateful to +Presbyterian eyes, began the service, with the smooth saying, "Let us +read the Collect of the Day." Jenny rose in wrath, and cried out to the +surpliced official of the Lord,—"Thou foul thief, wilt thou say mass at +my lug?" and hurled her stool at his head. Then rose cries of "A Pope! a +Pope! Stone him!" And "the worship of the Lord in Episcopal decency and +order" was ignominiously stopped. And in the next reign, when the same +thing was attempted, the Covenanters, the true spiritual descendants of +Knox, opposed to the most brutal persecution a fierce, morose heroism, +strangely compounded of barbaric passion and Christian fortitude. They +were the most perfect specimens of pure moral grit the world has ever +seen. In the great theological humorist of the nineteenth century, the +Reverend Sydney Smith, the legitimate intellectual successor of the +Reverend Rabelais and the Reverend Swift and the Reverend Sterne, their +sullen<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 417]</span> intrepidity excites a mingled feeling, in which fun strives with +admiration. In arguing against all intolerance, the intolerance of the +church to which he belonged as well as the intolerance of the churches +to which he was opposed, he said that persecution and bloodshed had no +effect in preventing the Scotch, "that metaphysical people, from going +to heaven in their true way instead of our true way"; and then comes the +humorous sally,—"With a little oatmeal for food and a little sulphur +for friction, allaying cutaneous irritation with one hand and grasping +his Calvinistical creed with the other, Sawney ran away to the flinty +hills, sung his psalm out of tune his own way, and listened to his +sermon of two hours long, amid the rough and imposing melancholy of the +tallest thistles." But from the graver historian, developing the +historic significance of their determined resistance to the insolent +claims of ecclesiastical authority, their desperate hardihood elicits a +more fitting tribute. "Hunted down," he says, "like wild beasts, +tortured till their bones were beaten flat, imprisoned by hundreds, +hanged by scores, exposed at one time to the license of soldiers from +England, abandoned at another time to the mercy of bands of marauders +from the Highlands, they still stood at bay in a mood so savage that the +boldest and mightiest oppressor could not but dread the audacity of +their despair."</p> + +<p>But the man who, in modern times, stands out most prominently as the +representative of this tough physical and moral fibre is Oliver +Cromwell, the greatest of that class of Puritans who combined the +intensest religious passions with the powers of the soldier and the +statesman, and who, in some wild way, reconciled their austere piety +with remorseless efficiency in the world of facts. After all the +materials for an accurate judgment of Cromwell which have been collected +by the malice of his libellers and the veneration of his partisans, he +is still a puzzle to psychologists; for no one, so far, has bridged the +space which separates the seeming anarchy of his mind from the executive +decision of his conduct. A coarse, strong, massive English +nature, thoroughly impregnated with Hebrew thought and Hebrew +passion,—democratic in his sympathy with the rudest political and +religious feelings of his party, autocratic in the consciousness of +superior abilities and tyrannic will,—emancipated from the illusions of +vanity, but not from those of ambition and pride,—shrinking from no +duty and no policy from the fear of obloquy or the fear of death,—a +fanatic and a politician,—a demagogue and a dictator,—seeking the +kingdom of heaven, but determined to take the kingdom of England by the +way,—believing in God, believing in himself, and believing in his +Ironsides,—clothing spiritual faith in physical force, and backing +dogmas and prayers with pikes and cannon,—anxious at once that his +troops should trust in God and keep their powder dry,—with a mind deep +indeed, but distracted by internal conflicts, and prolific only in +enormous, half-shaped ideas, which stammer into expression at once +obscure and ominous, the language a strange compound of the slang of the +camp and the mystic phrases of inspired prophets and apostles,—we still +feel throughout, that, whatever may be the contradictions of his +character, they are not such as to impair the ruthless energy of his +will. Whatever he dared to think he dared to do. No practical emergency +ever found him deficient either in sagacity or resolution, however it +might have found him deficient in mercy. He overrode the moral judgments +of ordinary men as fiercely as he overrode their physical resistance, +crushing prejudices as well as Parliaments, ideas as well as armies; and +whether his task was to cut off the head of an unmanageable king, or +disperse an unmanageable legislative assembly, or massacre an +unmanageable Irish garrison, or boldly establish himself as the +uncontrolled supreme authority of the land, he ever did it thoroughly +and unrelentingly, and could always throw the responsibility<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 418]</span> of the +deed on the God of battles and the God of Cromwell. In all this we +observe the operation of a colossal practical force rather than an ideal +power, of grit rather than heroism. However much he may command that +portion of our sympathies which thrill at the touch of vigorous action, +there are other sentiments of our being which detect something partial, +vulgar, and repulsive even in his undisputed greatness.</p> + +<p>In truth, grit, in its highest forms, is not a form of courage deserving +of unmixed respect and admiration. Admitting its immense practical +influence in public and private life, conceding its value in the rough, +direct struggle of person with person and opinions with institutions, it +is still by no means the top and crown of heroic character; for it lacks +the element of beauty and the element of sympathy; it is individual, +unsocial, bigoted, relatively to occasions; and its force has no +necessary connection with grandeur, generosity, and enlargement of soul. +Even in great men, like Cromwell, there is something in its aspect which +is harsh, ugly, haggard, and ungenial; even in them it is strong by the +stifling of many a generous thought and tolerant feeling; and when it +descends to animate sterile and stunted natures, endowed with sufficient +will to make their meanness or malignity efficient, its unfruitful force +is absolutely hateful. It has done good work for the cause of truth and +right; but it has also done bad work for the cause of falsehood and +wrong: for evil has its grit as well as virtue. As it lacks, suppresses, +or subordinates imagination, it is shorn of an important portion of a +complete manhood; for it not only loses the perception of beauty, but +the power of passing into other minds. It never takes the point of view +of the persons it opposes; its object is victory, not insight; and it +thus fails in that modified mercy to men which springs from an interior +knowledge of their characters. Even when it is the undaunted force +through which moral wrath expresses its hatred of injustice and wrong, +its want of imaginative perception makes it somewhat caricature the +sinners it inveighs against. It converts imperfect or immoral men into +perfect demons, which humanity as well as reason refuses to accept; and +it is therefore not surprising that the prayer of its indignant morality +sometimes is, "Almighty God, condemn them, for they <i>know</i> what they +do!" But we cannot forget that there sounds down the ages, from the +saddest and most triumphant of all martyrdoms, a different and a diviner +prayer,—"Father, forgive them, for they know <i>not</i> what they do!"</p> + +<p>Indeed, however much we may be struck with the startling immediateness +of effect which follows the exercise of practical force, we must not +forget the immense agency in human affairs of the ideal powers of the +soul. These work creatively from within to mould character, not only +inflaming great passions, but touching the springs of pity, tenderness, +gentleness, and love,—above all, infusing that wide-reaching sympathy +which sends the individual out of the grit-guarded fortress of his +personality into the wide plain of the race. The culmination of these +ideal powers is in genius and heroism, which draw their inspiration from +ideal and spiritual sources, and radiate it in thoughts beautifully +large and deeds beautifully brave. They do not merely exert power, they +communicate it. If you are overcome by a man of grit, he insolently +makes you conscious of your own weakness. If you are overcome by genius +and heroism, you are made participants in their strength; for they +overcome only to invigorate and uplift. They sweep on their gathering +disciples to the object they have in view, by making it an object of +affection as well as duty. Their power to allure and to attract is not +lost even when their goal is the stake or the cross. They never, in +transient ignominy and pain, lose sight and feeling of the beauty and +bliss inseparably associated with goodness and virtue; and the happiest +death-beds have often been on the rack or in the flame of the +hero-martyr. And<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 419]</span> they are also, in their results, great practical +influences; for they break down the walls which separate man from +man,—by magnanimous thought or magnanimous act shame us out of our +bitter personal contentions, and flash the sentiment of a common nature +into our individual hatreds and oppositions. As grit decomposes society +into an aggregate of strong and weak persons, genius and heroism unite +them in one humanity. Thus, not many years ago, we were all battling +about the higher law and the law to return fugitive slaves. It was +argument against argument, passion against passion, person against +person, grit against grit. The notions advanced regarding virtue and +vice, justice and injustice, humanity and inhumanity, were as different +as if the controversy had not been between men and men, but between men +and cattle. There were no signs among the combatants that they had the +common reason and the common instincts of a common nature. Then came a +woman of genius, who refused to credit the horrible conceit that the +diversity was essential, who resolutely believed that the human heart +was a unit, and whose glance, piercing the mist of opinions and +interests, saw in the deep and universal sources of humane and human +action the exact point where her blow would tell; and in a novel +unexampled in the annals of literature for popular effect, shook the +whole public reason and public conscience of the country, by the most +searching of all appeals to its heart and imagination.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_PETTIBONE_LINEAGE" id="THE_PETTIBONE_LINEAGE"></a>THE PETTIBONE LINEAGE.</h2> + + +<p>My name is Esek Pettibone, and I wish to affirm in the outset that it is +a good thing to be well-born. In thus connecting the mention of my name +with a positive statement, I am not unaware that a catastrophe lies +coiled up in the juxtaposition. But I cannot help writing plainly that I +am still in favor of a distinguished family-tree. <span class="smcap">Esto perpetua</span>! To have +had somebody for a great-grandfather that was somebody is exciting. To +be able to look back on long lines of ancestry that were rich, but +respectable, seems decorous and all right. The present Earl of Warwick, +I think, must have an idea that strict justice has been done <i>him</i> in +the way of being launched properly into the world. I saw the Duke of +Newcastle once, and as the farmer in Conway described Mount Washington, +I thought the Duke felt a propensity to "hunch up some." Somehow it is +pleasant to look down on the crowd and have a conscious right to do so.</p> + +<p>Left an orphan at the tender age of four years, having no brothers or +sisters to prop me round with young affections and sympathies, I fell +into three pairs of hands, excellent in their way, but peculiar. +Patience, Eunice, and Mary Ann Pettibone were my aunts on my father's +side. All my mother's relations kept shady when the lonely orphan looked +about for protection; but Patience Pettibone, in her stately way, +said,—"The boy belongs to a good family, and he shall never want while +his three aunts can support him." So I went to live with my plain, but +benignant protectors, in the State of New Hampshire.</p> + +<p>During my boyhood, the best-drilled lesson that fell to my keeping was +this:—"Respect yourself. We come of more than ordinary parentage. +Superior blood was probably concerned in getting up the Pettibones. Hold +your head erect, and some day you shall have proof of your high +lineage."</p> + +<p>I remember once, on being told that I must not share my juvenile sports +with the butcher's three little beings, I begged to know why not. Aunt +Eunice<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 420]</span> looked at Patience, and Mary Ann knew what she meant.</p> + +<p>"My child," slowly murmured the eldest sister, "our family no doubt came +of a very old stock; perhaps we belong to the nobility. Our ancestors, +it is thought, came over laden with honors, and no doubt were +embarrassed with riches, though the latter importation has dwindled in +the lapse of years. Respect yourself, and when you grow up you will not +regret that your old and careful aunt did not wish you to play with +butchers' offspring."</p> + +<p>I felt mortified that I had ever had a desire to "knuckle up" with any +but kings' sons or sultans' little boys. I longed to be among my equals +in the urchin-line, and fly my kite with only high-born youngsters.</p> + +<p>Thus I lived in a constant scene of self-enchantment on the part of the +sisters, who assumed all the port and feeling that properly belong to +ladies of quality. Patrimonial splendor to come danced before their dim +eyes; and handsome settlements, gay equipages, and a general grandeur of +some sort loomed up in the future for the American branch of the House +of Pettibone.</p> + +<p>It was a life of opulent self-delusion, which my aunts were never tired +of nursing; and I was too young to doubt the reality of it. All the +members of our little household held up their heads, as if each said, in +so many words, "There is no original sin in <i>our</i> composition, whatever +of that commodity there may be mixed up with the common clay of +Snowborough."</p> + +<p>Aunt Patience was a star, and dwelt apart. Aunt Eunice looked at her +through a determined pair of spectacles, and worshipped while she gazed. +The youngest sister lived in a dreamy state of honors to come, and had +constant zoölogical visions of lions, griffins, and unicorns, drawn and +quartered in every possible style known to the Heralds' College. The +Reverend Hebrew Bullet, who used to drop in quite often and drink +several compulsory glasses of home-made wine, encouraged his three +parishioners in their aristocratic notions, and extolled them for what +he called their "stooping down to every-day life." He differed with the +ladies of our house only on one point. He contended that the unicorn of +the Bible and the rhinoceros of to-day were one and the same animal. My +aunts held a different opinion.</p> + +<p>In the sleeping-room of my Aunt Patience reposed a trunk. Often during +my childish years I longed to lift the lid and spy among its contents +the treasures my young fancy conjured up as lying there in state. I +dared not ask to have the cover raised for my gratification, as I had +often been told I was "too little" to estimate aright what that armorial +box contained. "When you grow up, you shall see the inside of it," Aunt +Mary Ann used to say to me; and so I wondered, and wished, but all in +vain. I must have the virtue of <i>years</i> before I could view the +treasures of past magnificence so long entombed in that wooden +sarcophagus. Once I saw the faded sisters bending over the trunk +together, and, as I thought, embalming something in camphor. Curiosity +impelled me to linger, but, under some pretext, I was nodded out of the +room.</p> + +<p>Although my kinswomen's means were far from ample, they determined that +Swiftmouth College should have the distinction of calling me one of her +sons, and accordingly I was in due time sent for preparation to a +neighboring academy. Years of study and hard fare in country +boarding-houses told upon my self-importance as the descendant of a +great Englishman, notwithstanding all my letters from the honored three +came freighted with counsel to "respect myself and keep up the dignity +of the family." Growing-up man forgets good counsel. The Arcadia of +respectability is apt to give place to the levity of football and other +low-toned accomplishments. The book of life, at that period, opens +readily at fun and frolic, and the insignia of greatness give the +schoolboy no envious pangs.</p> + +<p>I was nineteen when I entered the hoary halls of Swiftmouth. I call +them<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 421]</span> hoary, because they had been built more than fifty years. To me +they seemed uncommonly hoary, and I snuffed antiquity in the dusty +purlieus. I now began to study, in good earnest, the wisdom of the past. +I saw clearly the value of dead men and mouldy precepts, especially if +the former had been entombed a thousand years, and if the latter were +well done in sounding Greek and Latin. I began to reverence royal lines +of deceased monarchs, and longed to connect my own name, now growing +into college popularity, with some far-off mighty one who had ruled in +pomp and luxury his obsequious people. The trunk in Snowborough troubled +my dreams. In that receptacle still slept the proof of our family +distinction. "I will go," quoth I, "to the home of my aunts next +vacation and there learn <i>how</i> we became mighty, and discover precisely +why we don't practise to-day our inherited claims to glory."</p> + +<p>I went to Snowborough. Aunt Patience was now anxious to lay before her +impatient nephew the proof he burned to behold. But first she must +explain. All the old family documents and letters were, no doubt, +destroyed in the great fire of '98, as nothing in the shape of parchment +or paper implying nobility had ever been discovered in Snowborough, or +elsewhere. <i>But</i>—there had been preserved, for many years, a suit of +imperial clothes, that had been worn by their great-grandfather in +England, and, no doubt, in the New World also. These garments had been +carefully watched and guarded; for were they not the proof that their +owner belonged to a station in life, second, if second at all, to the +royal court of King George itself? Precious casket, into which I was +soon to have the privilege of gazing! Through how many long years these +fond, foolish virgins had lighted their unflickering lamps of +expectation and hope at this cherished old shrine!</p> + +<p>I was now on my way to the family repository of all our greatness. I +went up stairs "on the jump." We all knelt down before the +well-preserved box; and my proud Aunt Patience, in a somewhat reverent +manner, turned the key. My heart,—I am not ashamed to confess it now, +although it is forty years since the quartette, in search of family +honors, were on their knees that summer afternoon in Snowborough,—my +heart beat high. I was about to look on that which might be a duke's or +an earl's regalia. And I was descended from the owner in a direct line! +I had lately been reading Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus"; and I +remembered, there before the trunk, the lines,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"O sacred receptacle of my joys,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sweet cell of virtue and nobility!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The lid went up, and the sisters began to unroll the precious garments, +which seemed all enshrined in aromatic gums and spices. The odor of that +interior lives with me to this day; and I grow faint with the memory of +that hour. With pious precision the clothes were uncovered, and at last +the whole suit was laid before my expectant eyes.</p> + +<p>Reader! I am an old man now, and have not long to walk this planet. But, +whatever dreadful shock may be in reserve for my declining years, I am +certain I can bear it; for I went through that scene at Snowborough, and +still live!</p> + +<p>When the garments were fully displayed, all the aunts looked at me. I +had been to college; I had studied Burke's "Peerage"; I had been once to +New York. Perhaps I could immediately name the exact station in noble +British life to which that suit of clothes belonged. I could; I saw it +all at a glance. I grew flustered and pale. I dared not look my poor +deluded female relatives in the face.</p> + +<p>"What rank in the peerage do these gold-laced garments and big buttons +betoken?" cried all three.</p> + +<p>"<i>It is a suit of servant's livery!</i>" gasped I, and fell back with a +shudder.</p> + +<p>That evening, after the sun had gone down, we buried those hateful +garments in a ditch at the bottom of the garden. Rest there, perturbed +body-coat, yellow trousers, brown gaiters, and all!</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye!"<br /></span> +<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 422]</span></div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="UP_THE_ST_MARYS" id="UP_THE_ST_MARYS"></a>UP THE ST. MARY'S.</h2> + + +<p>If Sergeant Rivers was a natural king among my dusky soldiers, Corporal +Robert Sutton was the natural prime-minister. If not in all respects the +ablest, he was the wisest man in our ranks. As large, as powerful, and +as black as our good-looking Color-Sergeant, but more heavily built and +with less personal beauty, he had a more massive brain and a far more +meditative and systematic intellect. Not yet grounded even in the +spelling-book, his modes of thought were nevertheless strong, lucid, and +accurate; and he yearned and pined for intellectual companionship beyond +all ignorant men whom I have ever met. I believe that he would have +talked all day and all night, for days together, to any officer who +could instruct him, until his companion, at least, fell asleep +exhausted. His comprehension of the whole problem of Slavery was more +thorough and far-reaching than that of any Abolitionist, so far as its +social and military aspects went; in that direction I could teach him +nothing, and he taught me much. But it was his methods of thought which +always impressed me chiefly: superficial brilliancy he left to others, +and grasped at the solid truth. Of course his interest in the war and in +the regiment was unbounded; he did not take to drill with especial +readiness, but he was insatiable of it and grudged every moment of +relaxation. Indeed, he never had any such moments; his mind was at work +all the time, even when he was singing hymns, of which he had endless +store. He was not, however, one of our leading religionists, but his +moral code was solid and reliable, like his mental processes. Ignorant +as he was, the "years that bring the philosophic mind" had yet been his, +and most of my young officers seemed boys beside him. He was a Florida +man, and had been chiefly employed in lumbering and piloting on the St. +Mary's River, which divides Florida from Georgia. Down this stream he +had escaped in a "dug-out," and after thus finding the way, had returned +(as had not a few of my men, in other cases) to bring away wife and +child. "I wouldn't have leff my child, Cunnel," he said, with an +emphasis that sounded the depths of his strong nature. And up this same +river he was always imploring to be allowed to guide an expedition.</p> + +<p>Many other men had rival propositions to urge, for they gained +self-confidence from drill and guard-duty, and were growing impatient of +inaction. "Ought to go to work, Sa,—don't believe in we lyin' in camp, +eatin' up the perwisions." Such were the quaint complaints, which I +heard with joy. Looking over my note-books of that period, I find them +filled with topographical memoranda, jotted down by a nickering candle, +from the evening talk of the men,—notes of vulnerable points along the +coast, charts of rivers, locations of pickets. I prized these +conversations not more for what I thus learned of the country than for +what I learned of the men. One could thus measure their various degrees +of accuracy and their average military instinct; and I must say that in +every respect, save the accurate estimate of distances, they stood the +test well. But no project took my fancy so much, after all, as that of +the delegate from the St. Mary's River.</p> + +<p>The best peg on which to hang an expedition in the Department of the +South, in those days, was the promise of lumber. Dwelling in the very +land of Southern pine, the Department authorities had to send North for +it, at a vast expense. There was reported to be plenty in the enemy's +country, but somehow the colored soldiers were the only ones who had +been lucky enough to obtain any, thus far, and the supply brought in by +our men, after flooring the tents of the white regiments and our own, +was running low. An expedition of white troops, four companies, with<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 423]</span> +two steamers and two schooners, had lately returned empty-handed, after +a week's foraging; and now it was our turn. They said the mills were all +burned; but should we go up the St. Mary's, Corporal Sutton was prepared +to offer more lumber than we had transportation to carry. This made the +crowning charm of his suggestion. But there is never any danger of +erring on the side of secrecy, in a military department; and I resolved +to avoid all undue publicity for our plans, by not finally deciding on +any until we should get outside the bar. This was happily approved by my +superior officers, Major-General Hunter and Brigadier-General Saxton; +and I was accordingly permitted to take three steamers, with four +hundred and sixty-two officers and men, and two or three invited guests, +and go down the coast on my own responsibility. We were, in short, to +win our spurs; and if, as among the Araucanians, our spurs were made of +lumber, so much the better. The whole history of the Department of the +South had been defined as "a military picnic," and now we were to take +our share of the entertainment.</p> + +<p>It seemed a pleasant share, when, after the usual vexations and delays, +we found ourselves gliding down the full waters of Beaufort River, the +three vessels having sailed at different hours, with orders to +rendezvous at St. Simon's Island, on the coast of Georgia. Until then, +the flag-ship, so to speak, was to be the "Ben De Ford," Captain +Hallett,—this being by far the largest vessel, and carrying most of the +men. Major Strong was in command upon the "John Adams," an army +gunboat, carrying a thirty-pound Parrott gun, two ten-pound Parrotts, +and an eight-inch howitzer Captain Trowbridge (since promoted +Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment) had charge of the famous "Planter," +brought away from the Rebels by Robert Small; she carried a ten-pound +Parrott gun, and two howitzers. The John Adams was our main reliance. +She was an old East-Boston ferry-boat, a "double-ender," admirable for +river-work, but unfit for sea-service. She drew seven feet of water; the +Planter drew only four; but the latter was very slow, and being obliged +to go to St. Simon's by an inner passage, would delay us from the +beginning. She delayed us so much, before the end, that we virtually +parted company, and her career was almost entirely separated from our +own.</p> + +<p>From boyhood I have had a fancy for boats, and have seldom been without +a share, usually more or less fractional, in a rather indeterminate +number of punts and wherries. But when, for the first time, I found +myself at sea as Commodore of a fleet of armed steamers,—for even the +Ben De Ford boasted a six-pounder or so,—it seemed rather an unexpected +promotion. But it is a characteristic of army life, that one adapts +one's self, as coolly as in a dream, to the most novel responsibilities. +One sits on court-martial, for instance, and decides on the life of a +fellow-creature, without being asked any inconvenient questions as to +previous knowledge of Blackstone; and after such an experience, shall +one shrink from wrecking a steamer or two in the cause of the nation? So +I placidly accepted my naval establishment, as if it were a new form of +boat-club, and looked over the charts, balancing between one river and +another, as if deciding whether to pull up or down Lake Quinsigamond. If +military life ever contemplated the exercise of the virtue of humility +under any circumstances, this would perhaps have been a good opportunity +to begin its practice. But as the "Regulations" clearly contemplated +nothing of the kind, and as I had never met with any precedent which +looked in that direction, I had learned to check promptly all such weak +proclivities.</p> + +<p>Captain Hallett proved the most frank and manly of sailors, and did +everything for our comfort. He was soon warm in his praises of the +demeanor of our men, which was very pleasant to hear, as this was the +first time that colored soldiers in any number had been conveyed on +board a transport, and I know of no place where a white volunteer +appears<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 424]</span> to so much disadvantage. His mind craves occupation, his body +is intensely uncomfortable, the daily emergency is not great enough to +call out his heroic qualities, and he is apt to be surly, discontented, +and impatient even of sanitary rules. The Southern black soldier, on the +other hand, is seldom sea-sick, (at least, such is my experience,) and, +if properly managed, is equally contented, whether idle or busy; he is, +moreover, so docile that all needful rules are executed with cheerful +acquiescence, and the quarters can therefore be kept clean and +wholesome. Very forlorn faces were soon visible among the officers in +the cabin, but I rarely saw such among the men.</p> + +<p>Pleasant still seemed our enterprise, as we anchored at early morning in +the quiet waters of St. Simon's Sound, and saw the light fall softly on +the beach and the low bluffs, on the picturesque plantation-houses which +nestled there, and the graceful naval vessels that lay at anchor before +us. When we afterwards landed, the air had that peculiar Mediterranean +translucency which Southern islands wear; and the plantation we visited +had the loveliest tropical garden, though tangled and desolate, which I +have ever seen in the South. The deserted house was embowered in great +blossoming shrubs, and filled with hyacinthine odors, among which +predominated that of the little Chickasaw roses which everywhere bloomed +and trailed around. There were fig-trees and date-palms, crape-myrtles +and wax-myrtles, Mexican agaves and English ivies, japonicas, bananas, +oranges, lemons, oleanders, jonquils, great cactuses, and wild Florida +lilies. This was not the plantation which Mrs. Kemble has since made +historic, although that was on the same island; and I could not waste +much sentiment over it, for it had belonged to a Northern renegade, +Thomas Butler King. Yet I felt then, as I have felt a hundred times +since, an emotion of heart-sickness at this desecration of a +homestead,—and especially when, looking from a bare upper window of the +empty house upon a range of broad, flat, sunny roofs, such as children +love to play on, I thought how that place might have been loved by yet +innocent hearts, and I mourned anew the sacrilege of war.</p> + +<p>I had visited the flag-ship Wabash ere we left Port-Royal Harbor, and +had obtained a very kind letter of introduction from Admiral Dupont, +that stately and courtly potentate, elegant as one's ideal French +marquis; and under these credentials I received polite attention from the +naval officers at St. Simon's,—Acting Volunteer Lieutenant Budd, U. S. N., +of the gunboat Potomska, and Acting Master Moses, U. S. N., of +the barque Fernandina. They made valuable suggestions in regard to the +different rivers along the coast, and gave vivid descriptions of the +last previous trip up the St. Mary's, undertaken by Captain Stevens, +U. S. N., in the gunboat Ottawa, when he had to fight his way past +batteries at every bluff in descending the narrow and rapid stream. I +was warned that no resistance would be offered to the ascent, but only +to our return; and was further cautioned against the mistake, then +common, of underrating the courage of the Rebels. "It proved impossible +to dislodge those fellows from the banks," my informant said; "they had +dug rifle-pits, and swarmed like hornets, and when fairly silenced in +one direction, they were sure to open upon us from another." All this +sounded alarming, but it was nine months before that the event had +happened; and although nothing had gone up the river since, I was +satisfied that the resistance now to be encountered was very much +smaller. And something must be risked, anywhere.</p> + +<p>We were delayed all that day in waiting for our consort, and improved +our time by verifying certain rumors about a quantity of new +railroad-iron which was said to be concealed in the abandoned Rebel +forts on St. Simon's and Jekyll Islands, and which would have much value +at Port Royal, if we could only unearth it. Some of our men had worked +upon these very batteries, so<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 425]</span> that they could easily guide us; and by +the additional discovery of a large flatboat we were enabled to go to +work in earnest upon the removal of the treasure. These iron bars, +surmounted by a dozen feet of sand, formed an invulnerable roof for the +magazines and bomb-proofs of the fort, and the men enjoyed demolishing +them far more than they had relished their construction. Though the day +was the 24th of January, 1863, the sun was very oppressive upon the +sands; but all were in the highest spirits, and worked with the greatest +zeal. The men seemed to regard these massive bars as their first +trophies; and if the rails had been wreathed with roses, they could not +have been got out in more holiday style. Nearly a hundred were obtained +that day, besides a quantity of five-inch plank with which to barricade +the very conspicuous pilot-houses of the John Adams.</p> + +<p>Still another day we were delayed, and could still keep at this work, +not neglecting some foraging on the island, from which horses, cattle, +and agricultural implements were to be removed, and the few remaining +colored families transferred to Fernandina. I had now become quite +anxious about the missing steamboat, as the inner passage, by which +alone she could arrive, was exposed at certain points to fire from Rebel +batteries, and it would have been unpleasant to begin with a disaster. I +remember, that, as I stood on deck, in the still and misty evening, +listening with strained senses for some sound of approach, I heard a low +continuous noise from the distance, more wild and desolate than anything +in my memory can parallel. It came from within the vast girdle of mist, +and seemed like the cry of a myriad of lost souls upon the horizon's +verge; it was Dante become audible: and yet it was but the accumulated +cries of innumerable sea-fowl at the entrance of the outer bay.</p> + +<p>Late that night the Planter arrived. We left St. Simon's on the +following morning, reached Fort Clinch by four o'clock, and there +transferring two hundred men to the very scanty quarters of the John +Adams, allowed the larger transport to go into Fernandina, while the two +other vessels were to ascend the St. Mary's River, unless (as proved +inevitable in the end) the defects in the boiler of the Planter should +oblige her to remain behind. That night I proposed to make a sort of +trial-trip up stream, as far as Township Landing, some fifteen miles, +there to pay our respects to Captain Clark's company of cavalry, whose +camp was reported to lie near by. This was included in Corporal Sutton's +programme, and seemed to me more inviting, and far more useful to the +men, than any amount of mere foraging. The thing really desirable +appeared to be to get them under fire as soon as possible, and to teach +them, by a few small successes, the application of what they had learned +in camp.</p> + +<p>I had ascertained that the camp of this company lay five miles from the +landing, and was accessible by two roads, one of which was a +lumber-path, not commonly used, but which Corporal Sutton had helped to +construct, and along which he could easily guide us. The plan was to go +by night, surround the house and negro cabins at the landing, (to +prevent an alarm from being given,) then to take the side path, and if +all went well, to surprise the camp; but if they got notice of our +approach, through their pickets, we should, at worst, have a fight, in +which the best man must win.</p> + +<p>The moon was bright, and the river swift, but easy of navigation thus +far. Just below Township I landed a small advance force, to surround the +houses silently. With them went Corporal Sutton; and when, after +rounding the point, I went on shore with a larger body of men, he met me +with a silent chuckle of delight, and with the information that there +was a negro in a neighboring cabin who had just come from the Rebel +camp, and could give the latest information. While he hunted up this +valuable auxiliary, I mustered my detachment, winnowing out the men who +had coughs, (not a few,) and sending them ignominiously on board again:<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 426]</span> +a process I had regularly to perform, during this first season of +catarrh, on all occasions where quiet was needed. The only exception +tolerated at this time was in the case of one man who offered a solemn +pledge, that, if unable to restrain his cough, he would lie down on the +ground, scrape a little hole, and cough into it unheard. The ingenuity +of this proposition was irresistible, and the eager patient was allowed +to pass muster.</p> + +<p>It was after midnight when we set off upon our excursion. I had about a +hundred men, marching by the flank, with a small advanced guard, and +also a few flankers, where the ground permitted. I put my Florida +company at the head of the column, and had by my side Captain Metcalf, +an excellent officer, and Sergeant McIntyre, his first sergeant. We +plunged presently into pine woods, whose resinous smell I can still +remember. Corporal Sutton marched near me, with his captured negro +guide, whose first fear and sullenness had yielded to the magic news of +the President's Proclamation, then just issued, of which Governor Andrew +had sent me a large printed supply;—we seldom found men who could read +it, but they all seemed to feel more secure when they held it in their +hands. We marched on through the woods, with no sound but the peeping of +the frogs in a neighboring marsh, and the occasional yelping of a dog, +as we passed the hut of some "cracker." This yelping always made +Corporal Sutton uneasy: dogs are the detective officers of Slavery's +police.</p> + +<p>We had halted once or twice, to close up the ranks, and had marched some +two miles, seeing and hearing nothing more. I had got all I could out of +our new guide, and was striding on, rapt in pleasing contemplation. All +had gone so smoothly that I had merely to fancy the rest as being +equally smooth. Already I fancied our little detachment bursting out of +the woods, in swift surprise, upon the Rebel quarters,—already the +opposing commander, after hastily firing a charge or two from his +revolver, (of course above my head,) had yielded at discretion, and was +gracefully tendering, in a stage attitude, his unavailing sword,—when +suddenly——</p> + +<p>There was a trampling of feet among the advanced guard as they came +confusedly to a halt, and almost at the same instant a more ominous +sound, as of galloping horses in the path before us. The moonlight +outside the woods gave that dimness of atmosphere within which is more +bewildering than darkness, because the eyes cannot adapt themselves to +it so well. Yet I fancied, and others aver, that they saw the leader of +an approaching party, mounted on a white horse and reining up in the +pathway; others, again, declare that he drew a pistol from the holster +and took aim; others heard the words, "Charge in upon them! Surround +them!" But all this was confused by the opening rifle-shots of our +advanced guard, and, as clear observation was impossible, I made the men +fix their bayonets and kneel in the cover on each side the pathway, and +I saw with delight the brave fellows, with Sergeant McIntyre at their +head, settling down in the grass as coolly and warily as if wild turkeys +were the only game. Perhaps at the first shot, a man fell at my elbow. I +felt it no more than if a tree had fallen,—I was so busy watching my +own men and the enemy, and planning what to do next. Some of our +soldiers, misunderstanding the order, "Fix bayonets," were actually +<i>charging</i> with them, dashing off into the dim woods, with nothing to +charge at but the vanishing tail of an imaginary horse,—for we could +really see nothing. This zeal I noted with pleasure, and also with +anxiety, as our greatest danger was from confusion and scattering; and +for infantry to pursue cavalry would be a novel enterprise. Captain +Metcalf stood by me well in keeping the men steady, as did +Assistant-Surgeon Minor, and Lieutenant, now Captain, Jackson. How the +men in the rear were behaving I could not tell,—not so coolly, I +afterwards found, because they were more entirely bewildered, supposing, +until the shots came, that the column had simply halted<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 427]</span> for a moment's +rest, as had been done once or twice before. They did not know who or +where their assailants might be, and the fall of the man beside me +created a hasty rumor that I was killed, so that it was on the whole an +alarming experience for them. They kept together very tolerably, +however, while our assailants, dividing, rode along on each side through +the open pine-barren, firing into our ranks, but mostly over the heads +of the men. My soldiers in turn fired rapidly,—too rapidly, being yet +beginners,—and it was evident, that, dim as it was, both sides had +opportunity to do some execution.</p> + +<p>I could hardly tell whether the fight had lasted ten minutes or an hour, +when, as the enemy's fire had evidently ceased or slackened, I gave the +order to cease firing. But it was very difficult at first to make them +desist: the taste of gunpowder was too intoxicating. One of them was +heard to mutter, indignantly,—"Why de Cunnel order <i>Cease firing</i>, when +de Secesh blazin' away at de rate ob ten dollar a day?" Every incidental +occurrence seemed somehow to engrave itself upon my perceptions, without +interrupting the main course of thought. Thus I know, that, in one of +the pauses of the affair, there came wailing through the woods a cracked +female voice, as if calling back some stray husband who had run out to +join in the affray,—"John, John, are you going to leave me, John? Are +you going to let me and the children be killed, John?" I suppose the +poor thing's fears of gunpowder were very genuine, but it was such a +wailing squeak, and so infinitely ludicrous, and John was probably +ensconced so very safely in some hollow tree, that I could see some of +the men showing all their white teeth in the very midst of the fight. +But soon this sound, with all others, had ceased, and left us in +peaceful possession of the field.</p> + +<p>I have made the more of this little affair because it was the first +stand-up fight in which my men had been engaged, though they had been +under fire, in an irregular way, in their small early expeditions. To me +personally the event was of the greatest value: it had given us all an +opportunity to test each other, and our abstract surmises were changed +into positive knowledge. Hereafter it was of small importance what +nonsense might be talked or written about colored troops; so long as +mine did not flinch, it made no difference to me. My brave young +officers, themselves mostly new to danger, viewed the matter much as I +did; and yet we were under bonds of life and death to form a correct +opinion, which was more than could be said of the Northern editors, and +our verdict was proportionately of greater value.</p> + +<p>I was convinced from appearances that we had been victorious, so far, +though I could not suppose that this would be the last of it. We knew +neither the numbers of the enemy, nor their plans, nor their present +condition: whether they had surprised us or whether we had surprised +them was all a mystery. Corporal Sutton was urgent to go on and complete +the enterprise. All my impulses said the same thing; but then I had the +most explicit injunctions from General Saxton to risk as little as +possible in this first enterprise, because of the fatal effect on public +sentiment of even an honorable defeat. We had now an honorable victory, +so far as it went; the officers and men around me were in good spirits, +but the rest of the column might be nervous; and it seemed so important +to make the first fight an entire success, that I thought it wiser to +let well alone; nor have I ever changed this opinion. For one's self, +Montrose's verse may be well applied,—"To win or lose it all." But one +has no right to deal thus lightly with the fortunes of a race, and that +was the weight which I always felt as resting on our action. If my raw +infantry force had stood unflinching a night-surprise from "de hoss +cavalry," as they reverentially termed them, I felt that a good +beginning had been made. All hope of surprising the enemy's camp was now +at an end; I was willing and ready to fight the cavalry<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 428]</span> over again, but +it seemed wiser that we, not they, should select the ground.</p> + +<p>Attending to the wounded, therefore, and making as we best could +stretchers for those who were to be carried, including the remains of +the man killed at the first discharge, (Private William Parsons of +Company G,) and others who seemed at the point of death, we marched +through the woods to the landing,—expecting at every moment to be +involved in another fight. This not occurring, I was more than ever +satisfied that we had won a victory; for it was obvious that a mounted +force would not allow a detachment of infantry to march two miles +through open woods by night without renewing the fight, unless they +themselves had suffered a good deal. On arrival at the landing, seeing +that there was to be no immediate affray, I sent most of the men on +board, and called for volunteers to remain on shore with me and hold the +plantation-house till morning. They eagerly offered; and I was glad to +see them, when posted as sentinels by Lieutenants Hyde and Jackson, who +stayed with me, pace their beats as steadily and challenge as coolly as +veterans, though of course there was some powder wasted on imaginary +foes. Greatly to my surprise, however, we had no other enemies to +encounter. We did not yet know that we had killed the first lieutenant +of the cavalry, and that our opponents had retreated to the woods in +dismay, without daring to return to their camp. This at least was the +account we heard from prisoners afterwards, and was evidently the tale +current in the neighborhood, though the statements published in Southern +newspapers did not correspond. Admitting the death of Lieutenant Jones, +the Tallahassee "Floridian" of February 14th stated that "Captain Clark, +finding the enemy in strong force, fell back with his command to camp, +and removed his ordnance and commissary and other stores, with twelve +negroes on their way to the enemy, captured on that day."</p> + +<p>In the morning, my invaluable surgeon, Dr. Rogers, sent me his report of +killed and wounded; and I have been since permitted to make the +following extracts from his notes:—"One man killed instantly by ball +through the heart, and seven wounded, one of whom will die. Braver men +never lived. One man with two bullet-holes through the large muscles of +the shoulders and neck brought off from the scene of action, two miles +distant, two muskets; and not a murmur has escaped his lips. Another, +Robert Sutton, with three wounds,—one of which, being on the skull, may +cost him his life,—would not report himself till compelled to do so by +his officers. While dressing his wounds, he quietly talked of what they +had done, and of what they yet could do. To-day I have had the Colonel +<i>order</i> him to obey me. He is perfectly quiet and cool, but takes this +whole affair with the religious bearing of a man who realizes that +freedom is sweeter than life. Yet another soldier did not report himself +at all, but remained all night on guard, and possibly I should not have +known of his having had a buck-shot in his shoulder, if some duty +requiring a sound shoulder had not been required of him to-day." This +last, it may be added, had persuaded a comrade to dig out the buck-shot, +for fear of being ordered on the sick-list. And one of those who were +carried to the vessel—a man wounded through the lungs—asked only if I +were safe, the contrary having been reported. An officer may be pardoned +some enthusiasm for such men as these.</p> + +<p>The anxious night having passed away without an attack, another problem +opened with the morning. For the first time, my officers and men found +themselves in possession of an enemy's abode; and though there was but +little temptation to plunder, I knew that I must here begin to draw the +line. I had long since resolved to prohibit absolutely all +indiscriminate pilfering and wanton outrage, and to allow nothing to be +taken or destroyed but by proper authority. The men, to my great +satisfaction, entered into this view at once, and so did (perhaps a +shade less readily,<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 429]</span> in some cases) the officers. The greatest trouble +was with the steamboat-hands, and I resolved to let them go ashore as +little as possible. Most articles of furniture were already, however, +before our visit, gone from the plantation-house, which was now used +only as a picket-station. The only valuable article was a piano-forte, +for which a regular packing-box lay invitingly ready outside. I had made +up my mind to burn all picket-stations, and all villages from which I +should be covertly attacked, and nothing else; and as this house was +destined to the flames, I should have left the piano in it, but for the +seductions of that box. With such a receptacle all ready, even to the +cover, it would have seemed like flying in the face of Providence not to +put the piano in. I ordered it removed, therefore, and afterwards +presented it to the school for colored children at Fernandina. This I +mention because it was the only article of property I ever took or +knowingly suffered to be taken, in the enemy's country, save for +legitimate military uses, from first to last; nor would I have taken +this, but for the thought of the school, and, as aforesaid, the +temptation of the box. If any other officer has been more rigid, with +equal opportunities, let him cast the first stone.</p> + +<p>I think the zest with which the men finally set fire to the house at my +order was enhanced by this previous abstemiousness; but there is a +fearful fascination in the use of fire, which every child knows in the +abstract, and which I found to hold true in the practice. On our way +down river we had opportunity to test this again.</p> + +<p>The ruined town of St. Mary's had at that time a bad reputation, among +both naval and military men. Lying but a short distance above +Fernandina, on the Georgia side, it was occasionally visited by our +gunboats. I was informed that the only residents of the town were three +old women, who were apparently kept there as spies,—that, on our +approach, the aged crones would come out and wave white +handkerchiefs,—that they would receive us hospitably, profess to be +profoundly loyal, and exhibit a portrait of Washington,—that they would +solemnly assure us that no Rebel pickets had been there for many +weeks,—but that in the adjoining yard we should find fresh +horse-tracks, and that we should be fired upon by guerrillas the moment +we left the wharf. My officers had been much excited by these tales; and +I had assured them, that, if this programme were literally carried out, +we would straightway return and burn the town, or what was left of it, +for our share. It was essential to show my officers and men, that, while +rigid against irregular outrage, we could still be inexorable against +the enemy.</p> + +<p>We had previously planned to stop at this town, on our way down river, +for some valuable lumber which we had espied on a wharf; and gliding +down the swift current, shelling a few bluffs as we passed, we soon +reached it. Punctual as the figures in a panorama, appeared the old +ladies with their white handkerchiefs. Taking possession of the town, +much of which had previously been destroyed by the gunboats, and +stationing the color-guard, to their infinite delight, in the cupola of +the most conspicuous house, I deployed skirmishers along the exposed +suburb, and set a detail of men at work on the lumber. After a stately +and decorous interview with the queens of society at St. Mary's,—is it +Scott who says that nothing improves the manners like piracy?—I +peacefully withdrew the men when the work was done. There were faces of +disappointment among the officers,—for all felt a spirit of mischief, +after the last night's adventure,—when, just as we had fairly swung out +into the stream and were under way, there came, like the sudden burst of +a tropical tornado, a regular little hailstorm of bullets into the open +end of the boat, driving every gunner in an instant from his post, and +surprising even those who were looking to be surprised. The shock was +but for a second; and though the bullets had pattered precisely like the +sound of hail upon<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 430]</span> the iron cannon, yet nobody was hurt. With very +respectable promptness, order was restored, our own shells were flying +into the woods from which the attack proceeded, and we were steaming up +to the wharf again, according to promise.</p> + +<p>Who shall describe the theatrical attitudes assumed by the old ladies as +they reappeared at the front door—being luckily out of direct +range—and set the handkerchiefs in wilder motion than ever? They +brandished them, they twirled them after the manner of the domestic mop, +they clasped their hands, handkerchiefs included. Meanwhile their +friends in the wood popped away steadily at us, with small effect; and +occasionally an invisible field-piece thundered feebly from another +quarter, with equally invisible results. Reaching the wharf, one +company, under Lieutenant (now Captain) Danilson, was promptly deployed +in search of our assailants, who soon grew silent. Not so the old +ladies, when I announced to them my purpose, and added, with extreme +regret, that, as the wind was high, I should burn only that half of the +town which lay to leeward of their house, which did not, after all, +amount to much. Between gratitude for this degree of mercy and imploring +appeals for greater, the treacherous old ladies man[oe]uvred with +clasped hands and demonstrative handkerchiefs around me, impairing the +effect of their eloquence by constantly addressing me as "Mr. Captain"; +for I have observed, that, while the sternest officer is greatly +propitiated by attributing to him a rank a little higher than his own, +yet no one is ever mollified by an error in the opposite direction. I +tried, however, to disregard such low considerations, and to strike the +correct mean betwixt the sublime patriot and the unsanctified +incendiary, while I could find no refuge from weak contrition save in +greater and greater depths of courtesy; and so melodramatic became our +interview that some of the soldiers still maintain that "dem dar ole +Secesh women been a-gwine for kiss de Cunnel," before we ended. But of +this monstrous accusation I wish to register an explicit denial, once +for all.</p> + +<p>Dropping down to Fernandina unmolested after this affair, we were kindly +received by the military and naval commanders,—Colonel Hawley, of the +Seventh Connecticut, (now Brigadier-General Hawley,) and +Lieutenant-Commander Hughes, U. S. N., of the gunboat Mohawk. It turned +out very opportunely that both of these officers had special errands to +suggest still farther up the St. Mary's, and precisely in the region +where I wished to go. Colonel Hawley showed me a letter from the War +Department, requesting him to ascertain the possibility of obtaining a +supply of brick for Fort Clinch from the brickyard which had furnished +the original materials, but which had not been visited since the +perilous river-trip of the Ottawa. Lieutenant Hughes wished to obtain +information for the Admiral respecting a Rebel steamer—the Berosa—said +to be lying somewhere up the river, and awaiting her chance to run the +blockade. I jumped at the opportunity. Berosa and brickyard,—both were +near Woodstock, the former home of Corporal Sutton; he was ready and +eager to pilot us up the river; the moon would be just right that +evening, setting at 3h. 19m. <span class="smcap">a. m.</span>; and our boat was precisely the one +to undertake the expedition. Its double-headed shape was just what was +needed in that swift and crooked stream; the exposed pilot-houses had +been tolerably barricaded with the thick planks from St. Simon's; and we +further obtained some sand-bags from Fort Clinch, through the aid of +Captain Sears, the officer in charge, who had originally suggested the +expedition after brick. In return for this aid, the Planter was sent +back to the wharf at St. Mary's, to bring away a considerable supply of +the same precious article, which we had observed near the wharf. +Meanwhile the John Adams was coaling from naval supplies, through the +kindness of Lieutenant Hughes; and the Ben De Ford was taking in the +lumber which we had yesterday brought down. It was a great<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 431]</span> +disappointment to be unable to take the latter vessel up the river; but +I was unwillingly convinced, that, though the depth of water might be +sufficient, yet her length would be unmanageable in the swift current +and sharp turns. The Planter must also be sent on a separate cruise, as +her weak and disabled machinery made her useless for my purpose. Two +hundred men were therefore transferred, as before, to the narrow hold of +the John Adams, in addition to the company permanently stationed on +board to work the guns. At seven o'clock on the evening of January 29th, +beneath a lovely moon, we steamed up the river.</p> + +<p>Never shall I forget the mystery and excitement of that night. I know +nothing in life more fascinating than the nocturnal ascent of an unknown +river, leading far into an enemy's country, where one glides in the dim +moonlight between dark hills and meadows, each turn of the channel +making it seem like an inland lake, and cutting you off as by a barrier +from all behind,—with no sign of human life, but an occasional +picket-fire left glimmering beneath the bank, or the yelp of a dog from +some low-lying plantation. On such occasions, every nerve is strained to +its utmost tension; all dreams of romance appear to promise immediate +fulfilment; all lights on board the vessel are obscured, loud voices are +hushed; you fancy a thousand men on shore, and yet see nothing; the +lonely river, unaccustomed to furrowing keels, lapses by the vessel with +a treacherous sound; and all the senses are merged in a sort of anxious +trance. Three times I have had in full perfection this fascinating +experience; but that night was the first, and its zest was the keenest. +It will come back to me in dreams, if I live a thousand years.</p> + +<p>I feared no attack during our ascent,—that danger was for our return; +but I feared the intricate navigation of the river, though I did not +fully know, till the actual experience, how dangerous it was. We passed +without trouble far above the scene of our first fight,—the Battle of +the Hundred Pines, as my officers had baptized it; and ever, as we +ascended, the banks grew steeper, the current swifter, the channel more +tortuous and more incumbered with projecting branches and drifting wood. +No piloting less skilful than that of Corporal Sutton and his mate, +James Bezzard, could have carried us through, I thought; and no +side-wheel steamer less strong than a ferry-boat could have borne the +crash and force with which we struck the wooded banks of the river. But +the powerful paddles, built to break the Northern ice, could crush the +Southern pine as well; and we came safely out of entanglements that at +first seemed formidable. We had the tide with us, which makes steering +far more difficult; and, in the sharp angles of the river, there was +often no resource but to run the bow boldly on shore, let the stern +swing round, and then reverse the motion. As the reversing machinery was +generally out of order, the engineer stupid or frightened, and the +captain excited, this involved moments of tolerably concentrated +anxiety. Eight times we grounded in the upper waters, and once lay +aground for half an hour; but at last we dropped anchor before the +little town of Woodstock, after moonset and an hour before daybreak, +just as I had planned, and so quietly that scarcely a dog barked, and +not a soul in the town, as we afterwards found, knew of our arrival.</p> + +<p>As silently as possible, the great flatboat which we had brought from +St. Simon's was filled with men. Major Strong was sent on shore with two +companies,—those of Captain James and Captain Metcalf,—with +instructions to surround the town quietly, allow no one to leave it, +molest no one, and hold as temporary prisoners every man whom he found. +I watched them push off into the darkness, got the remaining force ready +to land, and then paced the deck for an hour in silent watchfulness, +waiting for rifle-shots. Not a sound came from the shore, save the +barking of dogs and the morning crow of cocks; the time seemed +interminable; but when<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 432]</span> daylight came, I landed, and found a pair of +scarlet trousers pacing on their beat before every house in the village, +and a small squad of prisoners, stunted and forlorn as Falstaff's ragged +regiment, already in hand. I observed with delight the good demeanor of +my men towards these forlorn Anglo-Saxons, and towards the more +tumultuous women. Even one soldier, who threatened to throw an old +termagant into the river, took care to append the courteous epithet +"Madam."</p> + +<p>I took a survey of the premises. The chief house, a pretty one with +picturesque outbuildings, was that of Mrs. A., who owned the mills and +lumber-wharves adjoining. The wealth of these wharves had not been +exaggerated. There was lumber enough to freight half a dozen steamers, +and I half regretted that I had agreed to take down a freight of bricks +instead. Further researches made me grateful that I had already +explained to my men the difference between public foraging and private +plunder. Along the river-bank I found building after building crowded +with costly furniture, all neatly packed, just as it was sent up from +St. Mary's when that town was abandoned. Pianos were a drug; china, +glass-ware, mahogany, pictures, all were here. And here were my men, who +knew that their own labor had earned for their masters these luxuries, +or such as these; their own wives and children were still sleeping on +the floor, perhaps, at Beaufort or Fernandina; and yet they submitted, +almost without a murmur, to the enforced abstinence. Bed and bedding for +our hospitals they might take from those store-rooms,—such as the +surgeon selected,—also an old flag which we found in a corner, and an +old field piece, (which the regiment still possesses,)—but after this +the doors were closed and left unmolested. It cost a struggle to some of +the men, whose wives were destitute, I know; but their pride was very +easily touched, and when this abstinence was once recognized as a rule, +they claimed it as an honor, in this and all succeeding expeditions. I +flatter myself, that, if they had once been set upon wholesale +plundering, they would have done it as thoroughly as their betters; but +I have always been infinitely grateful, both for the credit and for the +discipline of the regiment,—as well as for the men's subsequent +lives,—that the opposite method was adopted.</p> + +<p>When the morning was a little advanced, I called on Mrs. A., who +received me in quite a stately way at her own door with "To what am I +indebted for the honor of this visit, Sir?" The foreign name of the +family, and the tropical look of the buildings, made it seem (as, +indeed, did all the rest of the adventure) like a chapter out of "Amyas +Leigh"; but as I had happened to hear that the lady herself was a +Philadelphian and her deceased husband a New-Yorker, I could not feel +even that modicum of reverence due to sincere Southerners. However, I +wished to present my credentials; so, calling up my companion, I said +that I believed she had been previously acquainted with Corporal Robert +Sutton? I never saw a finer bit of unutterable indignation than came +over the face of my hostess, as she slowly recognized him. She drew +herself up, and dropped out the monosyllables of her answer as if they +were so many drops of nitric acid. "Ah," quoth my lady, "<i>we</i> called him +Bob!"</p> + +<p>It was a group for a painter. The whole drama of the war seemed to +reverse itself in an instant, and my tall, well-dressed, imposing, +philosophic Corporal dropped down the immeasurable depth into a mere +plantation "Bob" again. So at least in my imagination; not to that +personage himself. Too essentially dignified in his nature to be moved +by words where substantial realities were in question, he simply turned +from the lady, touched his hat to me, and asked if I would wish to see +the slave-jail, as he had the keys in his possession.</p> + +<p>If he fancied that I was in danger of being overcome by blandishments +and needed to be recalled to realities, it was a master-stroke.</p> + +<p>I must say, that, when the door of that<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 433]</span> villainous edifice was thrown +open before me, I felt glad that my main interview with its lady +proprietor had passed before I saw it. It was a small building, like a +Northern corn-barn, and seemed to have as prominent and as legitimate a +place among the outbuildings of the establishment. In the middle of the +floor was a large staple with a rusty chain, like an ox-chain, for +fastening a victim down. When the door had been opened after the death +of the late proprietor, my informant said a man was found padlocked in +that chain. We found also three pairs of stocks of various construction, +two of which had smaller as well as larger holes, evidently for the feet +of women or children. In a building near by we found something far more +complicated, which was perfectly unintelligible till the men explained +all its parts: a machine so contrived that a person once imprisoned in +it could neither sit, stand, nor lie, but must support the body half +raised, in a position scarcely endurable. I have since bitterly +reproached myself for leaving this piece of ingenuity behind; but it +would have cost much labor to remove it, and to bring away the other +trophies seemed then enough. I remember the unutterable loathing with +which I leaned against the door of that prison-house; I had thought +myself seasoned to any conceivable horrors of Slavery, but it seemed as +if the visible presence of that den of sin would choke me. Of course it +would have been burned to the ground by us, but that this would have +involved the sacrifice of every other building and all the piles of +lumber, and for the moment it seemed as if the sacrifice would be +righteous. But I forbore, and only took as trophies the instruments of +torture and the keys of the jail.</p> + +<p>We found but few colored people in this vicinity; some we brought away +with us, and an old man and woman preferred to remain. All the white +males whom we found I took as hostages, in order to shield us, if +possible, from attack on our way down river, explaining to them that +they would be put on shore when the dangerous points were passed. I knew +that their wives could easily send notice of this fact to the Rebel +forces along the river. My hostages were a forlorn-looking set of +"crackers," far inferior to our soldiers in <i>physique</i>, and yet quite +equal, the latter declared, to the average material of the Southern +armies. None were in uniform, but this proved nothing as to their being +soldiers. One of them, a mere boy, was captured at his own door, with +gun in hand. It was a fowling-piece, which he used only, as his mother +plaintively assured me, "to shoot little birds with." As the guileless +youth had for this purpose loaded the gun with eighteen buck-shot, we +thought it justifiable to confiscate both the weapon and the owner, in +mercy to the birds.</p> + +<p>We took from this place, for the use of the army, a flock of some thirty +sheep, forty bushels of rice; some other provisions, tools, oars, and a +little lumber, leaving all possible space for the bricks which we +expected to obtain just below. I should have gone farther up the river, +but for a dangerous boom which kept back a great number of logs in a +large brook that here fell into the St. Mary's; the stream ran with +force, and if the Rebels had wit enough to do it, they might in ten +minutes so choke the river with drift-wood as infinitely to enhance our +troubles. So we dropped down stream a mile or two, found the very +brickyard from which Fort Clinch had been constructed,—still stored +with bricks, and seemingly unprotected. Here Sergeant Rivers again +planted his standard, and the men toiled eagerly, for several hours, in +loading our boat to the utmost with the bricks. Meanwhile we questioned +black and white witnesses, and learned for the first time that the +Rebels admitted a repulse at Township Landing, and that Lieutenant Jones +and ten of their number were killed,—though this I fancy to have been +an exaggeration. They also declared that the mysterious steamer Berosa +was lying at the head of the river, but was a broken-down and worthless +affair, and would never get to sea. The result has since proved this; +for the vessel subsequently<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 434]</span> ran the blockade and foundered near shore, +the crew barely escaping with their lives. I had the pleasure, as it +happened, of being the first person to forward this information to +Admiral Dupont, when it came through the pickets, many months +after,—thus concluding my report on the Berosa.</p> + +<p>Before the work at the yard was over, the pickets reported mounted men +in the woods near by, as had previously been the report at Woodstock. +This admonished us to lose no time; and as we left the wharf, immediate +arrangements were made to have the gun-crews all in readiness, and to +keep the rest of the men below, since their musketry would be of little +use now, and I did not propose to risk a life unnecessarily. The chief +obstacle to this was their own eagerness; penned down on one side, they +popped up on the other; their officers, too, were eager to see what was +going on, and were almost as hard to cork down as the men. Add to this, +that the vessel was now very crowded, and that I had to be chiefly on +the hurricane-deck with the pilots. Captain Clifton, master of the +vessel, was brave to excess, and as much excited as the men; he could no +more be kept in the little pilot-house than they below; and when we had +passed one or two bluffs, with no sign of an enemy, he grew more and +more irrepressible, and exposed himself conspicuously on the upper deck. +Perhaps we all were a little lulled by apparent safety; for myself, I +lay down for a moment on a settee in a state-room, having been on my +feet, almost without cessation, for twenty-four hours.</p> + +<p>Suddenly there swept down from a bluff above us, on the Georgia side, a +mingling of shout and roar and rattle as of a tornado let loose; and as +a storm of bullets came pelting against the sides of the vessel and +through a window, there went up a shrill answering shout from our own +men. It took but an instant for me to reach the gun-deck. After all my +efforts, the men had swarmed once more from below, and already, crowding +at both ends of the boat, were loading and firing with inconceivable +rapidity, shouting to each other, "Neber gib it up!" and of course +having no steady aim, as the vessel glided and whirled in the swift +current. Meanwhile the officers in charge of the large guns had their +crews in order, and our shells began to fly over the bluffs, which, as +we now saw, should have been shelled in advance, only that we had to +economize ammunition. The other soldiers I drove below, almost by main +force, with the aid of their officers, who behaved exceedingly well, +giving the men leave to fire from the open port-holes which lined the +lower deck, almost at the water's level. In the very midst of the +<i>mêlée</i>, Major Strong came from the upper deck, with a face of horror, +and whispered to me,—"Captain Clifton was killed at the first shot by +my side."</p> + +<p>If he had said that the vessel was on fire, the shock would hardly have +been greater. Of course, the military commander on board a steamer is +almost as helpless as an unarmed man, so far as the risks of water go. A +seaman must command there. In the hazardous voyage of last night, I had +learned, though unjustly, to distrust every official on board the +steamboat except this excitable, brave, warm-hearted sailor; and now, +among these added dangers, to lose him! The responsibility for his life +also thrilled me; he was not among my soldiers, and yet he was killed. I +thought of his wife and children, of whom he had spoken; but one learns +to think rapidly in war, and, cautioning the Major to silence, I went up +to the hurricane-deck and drew in the helpless body, that it should be +safe from further desecration, and then looked to see where we were.</p> + +<p>We were now gliding past a safe reach of marsh, while our assailants +were riding by cross-paths to attack us at the next bluff. It was Reed's +Bluff where we were first attacked, and Scrubby Bluff, I think, was +next. They were shelled in advance, but swarmed manfully to the banks +again as we swept round one of the sharp angles of the stream beneath +their fire. My men were now pretty well imprisoned below<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 435]</span> in the hot and +crowded hold, and actually fought each other, the officers afterwards +said, for places at the open port-holes, from which to aim. Others +implored to be landed, exclaiming that they "supposed de Cunnel knew +best," but it was "mighty mean" to be shut up down below, when they +might be "fightin' de Secesh <i>in de clar field</i>." This clear field, and +no favor, was what they thenceforward sighed for. But in such difficult +navigation it would have been madness to think of landing, although one +daring Rebel actually sprang upon the large boat which we towed astern, +where he was shot down by one of our sergeants. This boat was soon after +swamped and abandoned, then taken and repaired by the Rebels at a later +date, and finally, by a piece of dramatic completeness, was seized by a +party of fugitive slaves, who escaped in it to our lines, and some of +whom enlisted in my own regiment.</p> + +<p>It has always been rather a mystery to me why the Rebels did not fell a +few trees across the stream at some of the many sharp angles where we +might so easily have been thus imprisoned. This, however, they +did not attempt, and with the skilful pilotage of our trusty +Corporal—philosophic as Socrates through all the din, and occasionally +relieving his mind by taking a shot with his rifle through the high +port-holes of the pilot-house—we glided safely on. The steamer did not +ground once on the descent, and the mate in command, Mr. Smith, did his +duty very well. The plank sheathing of the pilot-house was penetrated by +few bullets, though struck by so many outside that it was visited as a +curiosity after our return; and even among the gun-crews, though they +had no protection, not a man was hurt. As we approached some wooded +bluff, usually on the Georgia side, we could see galloping along the +hillside what seemed a regiment of mounted riflemen, and could see our +shell scatter them ere we approached. Shelling did not, however, prevent +a rather fierce fusilade from our old friends of Captain Clark's company +at Waterman's Bluff, near Township Landing; but even this did no serious +damage, and this was the last.</p> + +<p>It was of course impossible, while thus running the gauntlet, to put our +hostages ashore, and I could only explain to them that they must thank +their own friends for their inevitable detention. I was by no means +proud of their forlorn appearance, and besought Colonel Hawley to take +them off my hands; but he was sending no flags of truce at that time, +and liked their looks no better than I did. So I took them to Port +Royal, where they were afterwards sent safely across the lines. Our men +were pleased at taking them back with us, as they had already said, +regretfully, "S'pose we leave dem Secesh at Fernandina, General Saxby +won't see 'em,"—as if they were some new natural curiosity, which +indeed they were. One soldier further suggested the expediency of +keeping them permanently in camp, to be used as marks for the guns of +the relieved guard every morning. But this was rather an ebullition of +fancy than a sober proposition.</p> + +<p>Against these levities I must put a piece of more tragic eloquence, +which I took down by night on the steamer's deck from the thrilling +harangue of Corporal Adam Ashton, one of our most gifted prophets, whose +influence over the men was unbounded. "When I heard," he said "de +bombshell a-screamin' troo de woods like de Judgment Day, I said to +myself, 'If my head was took off to-night, dey couldn't put my soul in +de torments, perceps [except] God was my enemy!' And when de +rifle-bullets came whizzin' across de deck, I cried aloud, 'God help my +congregation! Boys, load and fire!'"</p> + +<p>I must pass briefly over the few remaining days of our cruise. At +Fernandina we met the Planter, which had been successful on her separate +expedition, and had destroyed extensive salt-works at Crooked River, +under charge of the energetic Captain Trowbridge, efficiently aided by +Captain Rogers. Our commodities being in part delivered at Fernandina, +our decks being full, coal nearly out, and time up, we called<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 436]</span> once more +at St. Simon's Sound, bringing away the remainder of our railroad-iron, +with some which the naval officers had previously disinterred, and then +steamed back to Beaufort. Arriving there at sunrise, (February 2, 1863,) +I made my way with Dr. Rogers to General Saxton's bed-room, and laid +before him the keys and shackles of the slave-prison, with my report of +the good conduct of the men,—as Dr. Rogers remarked, a message from +heaven and another from hell.</p> + +<p>Slight as this expedition now seems among the vast events of the war, +the future student of the newspapers of that day will find that it +occupied no little space in their columns, so intense was the interest +which then attached to the novel experiment of employing black troops. +So obvious, too, was the value, during this raid, of their local +knowledge and their enthusiasm, that it was impossible not to find in +its successes new suggestions for the war. Certainly I would not have +consented to repeat the enterprise with the bravest white troops, +leaving Corporal Sutton and his mates behind, for I should have expected +to fail. For a year after our raid the Upper St. Mary's remained +unvisited, till in 1864 the large force with which we held Florida +secured peace upon its banks; then Mrs. A. took the oath of allegiance, +the Government bought her remaining lumber, and the John Adams again +ascended with a detachment of my men under Lieutenant Parker, and +brought a portion of it to Fernandina. By a strange turn of fortune, +Corporal Sutton (now Sergeant) was at this time in jail at Hilton Head, +under sentence of court-martial for an alleged act of mutiny,—an affair +in which the general voice of our officers sustained him and condemned +his accusers, so that he soon received a full pardon, and was restored +in honor to his place in the regiment, which he has ever since held.</p> + +<p>Nothing can ever exaggerate the fascinations of war, whether on the +largest or smallest scale. When we settled down into camp-life again, it +seemed like a butterfly's folding its wings to re-enter the chrysalis. +None of us could listen to the crack of a gun without recalling +instantly the sharp shots that spilled down from the bluffs of the St. +Mary's, or hear a sudden trampling of horsemen by night without +recalling the sounds which startled us on the Field of the Hundred +Pines. The memory of our raid was preserved in the camp by many legends +of adventure, growing vaster and more incredible as time wore on,—and +by the morning appeals to the surgeon of some veteran invalids, who +could now cut off all reproofs and suspicions with "Doctor, I's been a +sickly pusson eber since de <i>expeditions</i>." But to me the most vivid +remembrancer was the flock of sheep which we had "lifted." The Post +Quartermaster discreetly gave us the charge of them, and they filled a +gap in the landscape and in the larder,—which last had before presented +one unvaried round of impenetrable beef. Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck, when he +decided to adopt a pastoral life, and assumed the provisional name of +Thyrsis, never looked upon his flocks and herds with more unalloyed +contentment than I upon that fleecy family. I had been familiar, in +Kansas, with the metaphor by which the sentiments of an owner were +credited to his property, and had heard of a pro-slavery colt and an +anti-slavery cow. The fact that these sheep were but recently converted +from "Secesh" sentiments was their crowning charm. Methought they +frisked and fattened in the joy of their deliverance from the shadow of +Mrs. A.'s slave-jail, and gladly contemplated translation into +mutton-broth for sick or wounded soldiers. The very slaves who once, +perchance, were sold at auction with yon aged patriarch of the flock, +had now asserted their humanity and would devour him as hospital +rations. Meanwhile our shepherd bore a sharp bayonet without a crook, +and I felt myself a peer of Ulysses and Rob Roy,—those sheep-stealers +of less elevated aims,—when I met in my daily rides these wandering +trophies of our wider wanderings.: </p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 437]</span></p> +<h2><a name="ROBIN_BADFELLOW" id="ROBIN_BADFELLOW"></a>ROBIN BADFELLOW.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Four bluish eggs all in the moss!<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Soft-lined home on the cherry-bough!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Life is trouble, and love is loss,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">There's only one robin now!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You robin up in the cherry-tree,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Singing your soul away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Great is the grief befallen me,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And how can you be so gay?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Long ago when you cried in the nest,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The last of the sickly brood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scarcely a pin-feather warming your breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who was it brought you food?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Who said, "Music, come fill his throat,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or ever the May be fled"?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who was it loved the wee sweet note<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the bosom's sea-shell red?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Who said, "Cherries, grow ripe and big,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Black and ripe for this bird of mine"?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How little bright-bosom bends the twig,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Drinking the black-heart's wine!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Now that my days and nights are woe,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Now that I weep for love's dear sake,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There you go singing away as though<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Never a heart could break!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="ICE_AND_ESQUIMAUX" id="ICE_AND_ESQUIMAUX"></a>ICE AND ESQUIMAUX.</h2> + +<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3> + +<h3>AUTOCHTHONES</h3> + + +<p><i>July 30.</i>—At Hopedale, lat. 55° 30', we come upon an object of +first-class interest, worthy of the gravest study,—an original and +pre-Adamite man. In two words I give the reader a key to my final +conclusions, or impressions, concerning the Esquimaux race.</p> + +<p>Original: Shakspeare is a copyist, and England a plagiarism, in +comparison with this race. The Esquimaux has done all for himself: he +has developed his own arts, adjusted himself by his own wit to the +Nature which surrounds him. Heir to no Rome, Greece, Persia, India, he +stands there in the sole strength of his native resources, rich only in +the traditionary accomplishments of his own race. Cut off equally from +the chief bounties of Nature, he has small share<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 438]</span> in the natural wealth +of mankind. When Ceres came to the earth, and blessed it, she forgot +him. The grains, the domestic animals, which from the high plateaus of +Asia descended with the fathers of history to the great fields of the +world, to him came not. The sole domestic animal he uses, the dog, is +not the same with that creature as known elsewhere; he has domesticated +a wolf, and made a dog for himself.</p> + +<p>Not only is he original, but one of the most special of men, related +more strictly than almost any other to a particular aspect of Nature. +Inseparable from the extreme North, the sea-shore, and the seal, he is +himself, as it were, a seal come to feet and hands, and preying upon his +more primitive kindred. The cetacean of the land, he is localized, like +animals,—not universal, like civilized man. He is no inhabitant of the +globe as a whole, but is contained within special poles. His needle does +not point north and south; it is commanded by special attractions, and +points only from shore to sea and from sea to shore in the arctic zone. +Nor is this relation to particular phases of Nature superficial merely, +a relation of expedient and convenience; it penetrates, saturates, nay, +anticipates and moulds him. Whether he has come to this correspondence +by original creation or by slow adjustment, he certainly does now +correspond in his whole physical and mental structure to the limited and +special surroundings of his life,—the seal itself or the eider-duck not +more.</p> + +<p>He is pre-Adamite, I said,—and name him thus not as a piece of +rhetorical smartness, but in gravest characterization.</p> + +<p>The first of human epochs is that when the thoughts, imaginations, +beliefs of men become to them <i>objects</i>, on which further thought and +action are to be adjusted, on which further thought and action may be +based. So long as man is merely responding to outward and physical +circumstances, so long he is living by bread alone, and has no history. +It is when he begins to respond <i>to himself</i>—to create necessities and +supplies out of his own spirit,—to build architectures on foundations +and out of materials that exist only in virtue of his own spiritual +activity,—to live by bread which grows, not out of the soil, but out of +the soul,—it is then, then only, that history begins. This one may be +permitted to name the Adamite epoch.</p> + +<p>The Esquimaux belongs to that period, more primitive, when man is simply +responding to outward Nature, to physical necessities. He invents, but +does not create; he adjusts himself to circumstances, but not to ideas; +he works cunningly upon materials which he has <i>found</i>, but never on +material which owes its existence to the productive force of his own +spirit.</p> + +<p>In going to look upon the man of this race, you sail, not merely over +seas, but over ages, epochs, unknown periods of time,—sail beyond +antiquity itself, and issue into the obscure existence that antedates +history. Arrived there, you may turn your eye to the historical past of +man as to a barely possible future. Palestine and Greece, Moses and +Homer, as yet are not. Who shall dare to say that they can be? Surely +that were but a wild dream! Expel the impossible fancy from your mind! +Go, spear a seal, and be a reasonable being!—Never enthusiast had a +dream of the future so unspeakably Utopian as actual history becomes, +when seen from the Esquimaux, or pre-Adamite, point of view.</p> + +<p>Swiss lakes are raked, Belgian caves spaded and hammered, to find relics +of old, pre-historical races. Go to Labrador, and you find the object +sought above ground. There he is, preserving all the characters of his +extinct congeners,—small in stature, low and smooth in cranium, held +utterly in the meshes of Nature, skilled only to meet ingeniously the +necessities she imposes, and meeting them rudely, as man ever does till +the ideal element comes in: for any fine feeling of even physical wants, +any delicacy of taste, any high notion of comfort, is due less to the +animal than to the spiritual being of man.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 439]</span></p> + +<p>A little sophisticated he is now, getting to feel himself obsolete in +this strange new world. He begins to borrow, and yet is unable radically +to change; outwardly he gains a very little from civilization, and grows +inwardly poorer and weaker by all that he gains. His day wanes apace; +soon it will be past. He begins to nurse at the breasts of the civilized +world; and the foreign aliment can neither sustain his ancient strength +nor give him new. Civilization forces upon him a rivalry to which he is +unequal; it wrests the seal from his grasp, thins it out of his waters; +and he and his correlative die away together.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>We reached Hopedale, as intimated above, on the morning of the 30th of +July, at least a month later than had been hoped. The reader will see by +the map that this place is about half way from the Strait of Belle Isle +to Hudson's Strait. We were to go no farther north. This was a great +disappointment; for the expectation of all, and the keen desire of most, +had been to reach at least Cape Chudleigh, at the opening of Hudson's +Strait. Ice and storm had hindered us: they were not the only +hindrances.</p> + +<p>"The Fates are against us," said one.</p> + +<p>"It is true," answered the Elder,—"the Fates are against us: I know of +nothing more fatal than imbecility."</p> + +<p>However, we should be satisfied; for here we have fairly penetrated the +great solitudes of the North. Lower Labrador is visited by near forty +thousand fishermen annually, and vessels there are often more frequent +than in Boston Bay. But at a point not far from the fifty-fifth parallel +of latitude you leave all these behind, and leave equally the white +residents of the coast: to fishermen and residents alike the region +beyond is as little known as the interior of Australia. There their +world comes to an end; there the unknown begins. Knowledge and curiosity +alike pause there; toward all beyond their only feeling is one of vague +dislike and dread. And so I doubt not it was with the ordinary +inhabitant of Western Europe before the discovery of America. The +Unknown, breaking in surf on his very shores, did not invite him, but +dimly repelled. Thought about it, attraction toward it, would seem to +him far-fetched, gratuitous, affected, indicating at best a +feather-headed flightiness of mind. The sailors of Columbus probably +regarded him much as Sancho Panza does Don Quixote, with an obscure, +overpowering awe, and yet with a very definite contempt.</p> + +<p>On our return we passed two Yankee fishermen in the Strait of Belle +Isle. The nearer hailed.</p> + +<p>"How far <i>down</i> [up] have you been?"</p> + +<p>"To Hopedale."</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Where?</span>"—in the tone of one who hears distinctly enough, but cannot +believe that he hears.</p> + +<p>"Hopedale."</p> + +<p>"H-o-p-e-d-a-l-e! Where the Devil's that?"</p> + +<p>"A hundred and fifty miles beyond Cape Harrison." (Cape Weback on the +map.)</p> + +<p>Inarticulate gust of astonishment in response.</p> + +<p>"Where did he say?" inquires some one in the farther schooner.</p> + +<p>"——! He's been to the North Pole!"</p> + +<p>To him it was all North Pole beyond Cape Harrison, and he evidently +looked upon us much as he might upon the apparition of the Flying +Dutchman, or some other spectre-ship.</p> + +<p>The supply-ship which yearly visits the Moravian stations on this coast +anchored in the harbor of Hopedale ten minutes before us: we had been +rapidly gaining upon her in our Flying Yankee for the last twenty miles. +Signal-guns had answered each other from ship and shore; the +missionaries were soon on board, and men and women were falling into +each other's arms with joyful, mournful kisses and tears. The ship +returned some missionaries after long absence; it brought also a +betrothed lady, next day to be married: there was occasion for joy, even +beyond wont on these occasions, when, year by year, the +missionary-exiles feel with bounding<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 440]</span> blood the touch of civilization +and fatherland. But now those who came on board brought sad +tidings,—for one of their ancient colaborers, closely akin to the new +comers, had within a day or two died. Love and death the world over; and +also the hope of love without death.</p> + +<p>Our eyes have been drawn to them; it is time to have a peep at Hopedale.</p> + +<p>I had been so long looking forward to this place, had heard and thought +of it so much as an old mission-station, where was a village of +Christian Esquimaux, that I fully expected to see a genuine village, +with houses, wharves, streets. It would not equal our towns, of course. +The people were not cleanly; the houses would be unpainted, and poor in +comparison with ours. I had taken assiduous pains to tone down my +expectations, and felt sure that I had moderated them liberally,—nay, +had been philosophical enough to make disappointment impossible, and +open the opposite possibility of a pleasant surprise. I conceived that +in this respect I had done the discreet and virtuous thing, and silently +moralized, not without self-complacency, upon the folly of carrying +through the world expectations which the fact, when seen, could only put +out of countenance. "Make your expectations zero," I said with Sartor.</p> + +<p>I need not put them <i>below</i> zero. That would be too cold an anticipation +to carry even to this latitude. Zero: a poor, shabby village these +Christian Esquimaux will have built, even after nigh a century of +Moravian tuition. Still it will be a real village, not a distracted +jumble of huts, such as we had seen below.</p> + +<p>The prospect had been curiously pleasing. True, I desired much to see +the unadulterated Esquimaux. But that would come, I had supposed, in the +further prosecution of our voyage. Here I could see what they would +become under loving instruction,—could gauge their capabilities, and +thus answer one of the prime questions I had brought.</p> + +<p>A real Hopedale, after all this wild, sterile, hopeless coast! A touch +of civilization, to contrast with the impression of that Labradorian +rag-tag existence which we had hitherto seen, and which one could not +call human without coughing! I like deserts and wilds,—but, if you +please, by way of condiment or sauce to civilization, not for a full +meal. I have not the heroic Thoreau-digestion, and grow thin after a +time on a diet of moss and granite, even when they are served with ice. +Lift the curtain, therefore, and let us look forthwith on your Hopedale.</p> + +<p>"Hopedale? Why, here it is,—look!"</p> + +<p>Well, I have been doing nothing less for the last half-hour. If looking +could make a village, I should begin to see one. There, to be sure, is +the mission-house, conspicuous enough, quaint and by no means +unpleasing. It is a spacious, substantial, two-story edifice, painted in +two shades of a peculiar red, and looking for all the world as if a +principal house, taken from one of those little German toy-villages +which are in vogue about Christmas, had been enormously magnified, and +shipped to Labrador. There, too, and in similar colors, is the long +chapel, on the centre of whose roof there is a belfry, which looks like +two thirds of immense red egg, drawn up at the top into a spindle, and +this surmounted by a weathercock,—as if some giant had attempted to +blow the egg from beneath, and had only blown out of it this small bird +with a stick to stand on! Ah, yes! and there is the pig-sty,—not in +keeping with the rest, by any means! It must be that they keep a pig +only now and then, and for a short time, and house it any way for that +little while. But no, it is not a piggery; it is not a building at all; +it is some chance heap of rubbish, which will be removed to-morrow.</p> + +<p>The mission-station, then, is here; but the village must be elsewhere. +Probably it is on the other side of this point of land on which the +house and chapel are situated; we can see that the water sweeps around +there. That is the case, no doubt; Hopedale is over<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 441]</span> there. After dinner +we will row around, and have a look at it.</p> + +<p>After dinner, however, we decide to go first and pay our respects to the +missionaries. They are entitled to the precedence. We long, moreover, to +take the loving, self-sacrificing men by the hand; while, aside from +their special claims to honor, it will be <i>so</i> pleasant to meet +cultivated human beings once more! They are Germans, but their +head-quarters are at London; they will speak English; and if their +vocabulary prove scanty, we will try to eke it out with bits of German.</p> + +<p>We row ashore in our own skiff, land, and—Bless us! what is this now? +To the right of the large, neat, comfortable mission-house is a +wretched, squalid spatter and hotch-potch of—what in the world to call +them? Huts? Hovels? One has a respect for his mother-tongue,—above all, +if he have assumed obligations toward it by professing the function of a +writer; and any term by which human dwellings are designated must be +taken <i>cum grano salis</i>, if applied to these structures. "It cannot be +that this is Christian Hopedale!" Softly, my good Sir; it can be, for it +is!</p> + +<p>Reader, do you ever say, "Whew-w-w"? There were three minutes, on the +30th of July last, during which that piece of interjectional eloquence +seemed to your humble servant to embody the whole dictionary!</p> + +<p>To get breath, let us turn again to the mission-mansion, which now, +under the effect of sudden contrast, seems too magnificent to be real, +as if it had been built by enchantment rather than by the labor of man. +This is situated half a dozen rods from the shore, at a slight elevation +above it, and looks pleasantly up the bay to the southwest. The site has +been happily chosen. Here, for a wonder, is an acre or two of land which +one may call level,—broader toward the shore, and tapering to a point +as it runs back. To the right, as we face it, the ground rises not very +brokenly, giving a small space for the hunch of huts, then falls quickly +to the sea; while beyond, and toward the ocean, islands twenty miles +deep close in and shelter all. To the left go up again the perpetual +hills, hills. Everywhere around the bay save here, on island and main, +the immitigable gneiss hills rise bold and sudden from the water, now +dimly impurpled with lichen, now in nakedness of rock surface, yet +beautified in their bare severity by alternating and finely waving +stripes of lightest and darkest gray,—as if to show sympathy with the +billowy heaving of the sea.</p> + +<p>Forward to the mansion. In front a high, strong, neat picket-fence +incloses a pretty flower-yard, in which some exotics, tastefully +arranged, seem to be flourishing well. We knock; with no manner of +haste, and with no seeming of cordial willingness, we are admitted, are +shown into a neat room of good size, and entertained by a couple of the +brethren.</p> + +<p>One of these only, and he alone among the missionaries, it appeared, +spoke English. This was an elderly, somewhat cold and forbidding +personage, of Secession sympathies. He had just returned from Europe +after two years' absence, was fresh from London, and put on the true +Exeter-Hall whine in calling ours "a n-dreadful n-war." He did not press +the matter, however, nor in any manner violate the <i>rôle</i> of cold +courtesy which he had assumed; and it was chiefly by the sudden check +and falling of the countenance, when he found us thorough Unionist, that +his sympathies were betrayed. Wine and rusks were brought in, both +delicious,—the latter seeming like ambrosia, after the dough +cannon-balls with which our "head cook at the Tremont House" had regaled +us. After a stay of civil brevity we took our leave, and so closed an +interview in which we had been treated with irreproachable politeness, +but in which the heart was forbidden to have any share.</p> + +<p>First the missionaries; now the natives. The squat and squalid huts, +stuck down upon the earth without any pretence of raised foundation, and +jumbled together, corner to side, back to front,<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 442]</span> any way, as if some +wind had blown them there, did not improve on acquaintance. The walls, +five feet high, were built of poles some five inches in diameter; the +low roof, made of similar poles, was heavily heaped with earth. What +with this deep earth-covering, and with their grovelling toward the +earth in such a flat and neighborly fashion, they had a dreadfully +under-foot look, and seemed rather dens than houses. Many were ragged +and rotten, all inconceivably cheerless. No outhouses, no inclosures, no +vegetation, no relief of any kind. About and between them the swardless +ground is all trodden into mud. Prick-eared Esquimaux dogs huddle, +sneak, bark, and snarl around, with a free fight now and then, in which +they all fall upon the one that is getting the worst of it. Before the +principal group of huts, in the open space between them and the mansion, +a dead dog lies rotting; children lounge listlessly, and babies toddle +through the slutch about it. Here and there a full-grown Esquimaux, in +greasy and uncouth garb, loiters, doing nothing, <i>looking</i> nothing.</p> + +<p>I, for one, was completely overcrowed by the impression of a bare and +aimless existence, and could not even wonder. Christian Hopedale! "Leave +all hope, ye that enter here!"</p> + +<p>At 5 <span class="smcap">p. m.</span> the chapel-bell rings, and at once the huts swarm. We follow +the crowd. They enter the chapel by a door at the end nearest their +dens, and seat themselves, the women at the farther, the men at the +hither extreme, all facing a raised desk at the middle of one side. +Behind them, opposite this pulpit, is an organ. Presently, from a door +at the farther end, the missionaries file in, some twelve in number; one +enters the pulpit, the others take seats on either side of him, facing +the audience, and at a dignified remove. The conductor of the service +now rises, makes an address in Esquimaux a minute and a half long, then +gives out a hymn,—the hymns numbered in German, as numbers, to any +extent, are wanting to the Esquimaux language. All the congregation join +in a solid old German tune, keeping good time, and making, on the whole, +better congregational music than I ever heard elsewhere,—unless a +Baptist conventicle in London, Bloomsbury Chapel, furnish the exception. +After this another, then another; at length, when half a dozen or more +have been sung, missionaries and congregation rise, the latter stand in +mute and motionless respect, the missionaries file out with dignity at +their door; and when the last has disappeared, the others begin quietly +to disperse.</p> + +<p>This form of worship is practised at the hour named above on each +weekday, and the natives attend with noticeable promptitude. There are +no prayers, and the preliminary address in this case was exceptional.</p> + +<p><i>Sunday, July 31.</i>—I had inquired at what hour the worship would begin +this day, and, with some hesitancy, had been answered, "At half past +nine." But the Colonel also had asked, and his interlocutor, after +consulting a card, said, "At ten o'clock." At ten we went ashore. +Finding the chapel-door still locked, I seated myself on a rock in front +of the mission-house, to wait. The sun was warm (the first warm day for +a month); the mosquitoes swarmed in myriads; I sat there long, wearily +beating them off. Faces peeped out at me from the windows, then +withdrew. Presently Bradford joined me, and began also to fight +mosquitoes. More faces at the windows; but when I looked towards them, +thinking to discover some token of hospitable invitation, they quickly +disappeared. After half an hour, the master of the supply-ship came up, +and entered into conversation; in a minute one of the brethren appeared +at the door, and invited him to enter, but without noticing Bradford and +myself. I took my skiff and rowed to the schooner. Fifteen minutes later +the chapel-bell rang.</p> + +<p>I confess to some spleen that day against the missionaries. When I +expressed it, Captain French, the pilot, an old, prudent, pious man, +"broke out."</p> + +<p>"Them are traders," said he. "I don't call 'em missionaries; I call 'em +traders. They live in luxury; the natives<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 443]</span> work for 'em, and get for pay +just what they choose to give 'em. They fleece the Esquimaux; they take +off of 'em all but the skin. They are just traders!"</p> + +<p>My spleen did not last. There was some cause of coldness,—I know not +what. The missionaries afterwards became cordial, visited the schooner, +and exchanged presents with us. I believe them good men. If their +relation to the natives assume in some degree a pecuniary aspect, it is +due to the necessity of supporting the mission by the profits of +traffic. If they preserve a stately distance toward the Esquimaux, it is +to retain influence over them. If they allow the native mind to confound +somewhat the worship of God with the worship of its teachers, it is that +the native mind cannot get beyond personal relations, and must worship +something tangible. That they are not at all entangled in the routine +and material necessities of their position I do not assert; that they do +not carry in it something of noble and self-forgetful duty nothing I +have seen will persuade me.</p> + +<p><i>August 1.</i>—We go to push our explorations among the Esquimaux, and +invite the reader to make one of the party. Enter a hut. The door is +five feet high,—that is, the height of the wall. Stoop a little,—ah, +there goes a hat to the ground, and a hand to a hurt pate! One must move +carefully in these regions, which one hardly knows whether to call sub- +or supra-terranean.</p> + +<p>This door opens into a sort of porch occupying one end of the den; the +floor, earth. Three or four large, dirty dogs lie dozing here, and start +up with an aspect of indescribable, half-crouching, mean malignity, as +we enter; but a sharp word, with perhaps some menace of stick or cane, +sends the cowardly brutes sneaking away. In a corner is a circle of +stones, on which cooking is done; and another day we may find the family +here picking their food out of a pot, and serving themselves to it, with +the fingers. Save this primitive fireplace, and perhaps a kettle for the +dogs to lick clean, this porch is bare.</p> + +<p>From this we crouch into the living-room through a door two and a half +or three feet high, and find ourselves in an apartment twelve feet +square, and lighted by a small, square skin window in the roof. The only +noticeable furniture consists of two board beds, with skins for +bed-clothes. The women sit on these beds, sewing upon seal-skin boots. +They receive us with their characteristic fat and phlegmatic +good-nature, a pleasant smile on their chubby cheeks and in their dark, +dull eyes,—making room for us on the bedside. Presently others come in, +mildly curious to see the strangers,—all with the same aspect of +unthinking, good-tempered, insensitive, animal content. The head is low +and smooth; the cheekbones high, but less so than those of American +Indians; the jowl so broad and heavy as sometimes to give the <i>ensemble</i> +of head and face the outline of a cone truncated and rounded off above. +In the females, however, the cheek is so extremely plump as perfectly to +pad these broad jaws, giving, instead of the prize-fighter physiognomy, +an aspect of smooth, gentle heaviness. Even without this fleshy cheek, +which is not noticeable, and is sometimes noticeably wanting, in the +men, there is the same look of heavy, well-tempered lameness. The girls +have a rich blood color in their swarthy cheeks, and some of them are +really pretty, though always in a lumpish, domestic-animal style. The +hands and feet are singularly small; the fingers short, but nicely +tapered. Take hold of the hand, and you are struck with its <i>cetacean</i> +feel. It is not flabby, but has a peculiar blubber-like, elastic +compressibility, and seems not quite of human warmth.</p> + +<p>See them in their houses, and you see the horizon of their life. In +these fat faces, with their thoughtless content, in this pent-up, +greasy, wooden den, the whole is told. The air is close and fetid with +animal exhalations. The entrails and part of the flesh of a seal,<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 444]</span> which +lie on the floor in a corner,—to furnish a dinner,—do not make the +atmosphere nor the aspect more agreeable. Yet you see that to them this +is comfort, this is completeness of existence. If they are hungry, they +seek food. Food obtained, they return to eat and be comfortable until +they are again hungry. Their life has, on this earth at least, no +farther outlook. It sallies, it returns, but here is the fruition; for +is not the seal-flesh dinner there, nicely and neatly bestowed on the +floor? Are they not warm? (The den is swelteringly hot.) Are they not +fed? What would one have more?</p> + +<p>Yes, somewhat more, namely, tobacco,—and also second-hand clothes, with +which to be fine in church. For these they will barter seal-skins, +dog-skins, seal-skin boots, a casual bear-skin, bird-spears, +walrus-spears, anything they have to vend,—concealing their traffic a +little from the missionaries. Colored glass beads were also in request +among the women. Ph—— had brought some large, well-made pocket-knives, +which, being useful, he supposed would be desired. Not at all; they were +fumbled indifferently, then invariably declined. But a plug of +tobacco,—ah, that now <i>is</i> something!</p> + +<p>The men wear tight seal-skin trousers and boots, with an upper garment +of the same material, made like a Guernsey frock. In winter a hood is +added, but in summer they all go bareheaded,—the stiff, black hair +chopped squarely off across the low forehead, but longer behind. The +costume of the females is more peculiar,—seal-skin boots, seal-skin +trousers, which just spring over the hips, and are there met by a +body-garment of seal-skin more lightly colored. Over this goes an +astonishing article of apparel somewhat resembling the dress-coat in +which unhappy civilization sometimes compels itself to masquerade, +but—truth stranger than fiction!—<i>considerably</i> more ugly. A long tail +hangs down to the very heels; a much shorter peak comes down in front; +at the sides it is scooped out below, showing a small portion of the +light-colored body-garment, which irresistibly suggests a very dirty +article of lady-linen whereon the eyes of civilized decorum forbear to +look, while an adventurous imagination associates it only with snowy +whiteness. The whole is surmounted by an enormous peaked hood, in which +now and then one sees a baby carried.</p> + +<p>This elegant garment was evidently copied from the skin of an +animal,—so Ph—— acutely suggested. The high peak of the hood +represents the ears; the arms stand for the fore legs; the downward peak +in front for the hind legs sewed together; the rear dangler represents +the tail. I make no doubt that our dress-coat has the same origin, +though the primal conception has been more modified. It is a bear-skin +<i>plus</i> Paris.</p> + +<p>Is the reader sure of his ribs and waistcoat-buttons? If so, he may +venture to look upon an Esquimaux woman walking,—which I take to be the +most ludicrous spectacle in the world. Conceive of this short, squat, +chunky, lumpish figure in the costume described,—grease <i>ad libitum</i> +being added. The form is so plump and heavy as very much to project the +rear dangler at the point where it leaves the body, while below it falls +in, and goes with a continual muddy slap, slap, against the heels. The +effect of this, especially in the profile view, is wickedly laughable, +but the gait makes it more so. The walk is singularly slow, unelastic, +loggy, and is characterized at each step by an indescribable, sudden sag +or <i>slump</i> at the hip. As she thus slowly and heavily <i>churns</i> herself +along, the nether slap emphasizes each step, as it were, with an +exclamation-point; while, as the foot advances, the shoulder and the +whole body on the same side turn and sag forward, the opposite shoulder +and side dragging back,—as if there were a perpetual debate between the +two sides whether to proceed or not. It was so laughable that it made +one sad; for this, too, was a human being. The gait of the men, on the +contrary, is free and not ungraceful.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 445]</span></p> + +<p><i>August 3.</i>—An Esquimaux wedding! In the chapel,—Moravian +ceremony,—so far not noticeable. Costume same as above, only of white +cloth heavily embroidered with red. Demeanor perfect. Bride obliged to +sit down midway in the ceremony, overpowered with emotion. She did so +with a simple, quiet dignity, that would not have misbecome a duchess.</p> + +<p>When the ceremony was ended, the married pair retired into the +mission-house, and half an hour later I saw them going home. This was +the curious part of the affair. The husband walked before, taking care +not to look behind, doing the indifferent and unconscious with great +assiduity, and evidently making it a matter of serious etiquette not to +know that any one followed. Four rods behind comes the wife, doing the +unconscious with equal industry. She is not following this man here in +front,—bless us, no, indeed!—but is simply walking out, or going to +see a neighbor, this nice afternoon, and does not observe that any one +precedes her. Following that man? Pray, where were you reared, that you +are capable of so discourteous a supposition? It gave me a malicious +pleasure to see that the pre-Adamite man, as well as the rest of us, +imposes upon himself at times these difficult duties, <i>toting</i> about +that foolish face, so laboriously vacant of precisely that with which it +is brimming full.</p> + +<p>To adjust himself to outward Nature,—that, we said, is the sole task of +the primitive man. The grand success of the Esquimaux in this direction +is the <i>kayak</i>. This is his victory and his school. It is a seal-skin +Oxford or Cambridge, wherein he takes his degree as master of the +primeval arts. Here he acquires not only physical strength and +quickness, but self-possession also, mental agility, the instant use of +his wits,—here becomes, in fine, a <i>cultivated</i> man.</p> + +<p>It is no trifling matter. Years upon years must be devoted to these +studies. Oxford and Cambridge do not task one more, nor exhibit more +degrees of success. Some fail, and never graduate; some become +illustrious for kayak-erudition.</p> + +<p>This culture has also the merit of entire seriousness and sincerity. +Life and death, not merely a name in the newspapers, are in it. Of all +vehicles, on land or sea, to which man intrusts himself, the kayak is +safest and unsafest. It is a very hair-bridge of Mohammed: security or +destruction is in the finest poise of a moving body, the turn of a hand, +the thought of a moment. Every time that the Esquimaux spears a seal at +sea, he pledges his life upon his skill. With a touch, with a moment's +loss of balance, the tipsy craft may go over; over, the oar, with which +it is to be restored, may get entangled, may escape from the hand, +may—what not? For all <i>what-nots</i> the kayaker must preserve instant +preparation; and with his own life on the tip of his fingers, he must +make its preservation an incidental matter. He is there, not to save his +life, but to capture a seal, worth a few dollars! It is his routine +work. Different from getting up a leading article, making a plea in +court, or writing Greek iambics for a bishopric!</p> + +<p>Probably there is no race of men on earth whose ordinary avocations +present so constantly the alternative of rarest skill on the one hand, +or instant destruction on the other. And for these avocations one is +fitted only by a <i>scholarship</i>, which it requires prolonged schooling, +the most patient industry, and the most delicate consent of mind and +body to attain. If among us the highest university-education were +necessary, in order that one might live, marry, and become a +householder, we should but parallel in our degree the scheme of their +life.</p> + +<p>Measured by post-Adamite standards, the life of the Esquimaux is a sorry +affair; measured by his own standards, it is a piece of perfection. To +see the virtue of his existence, you must, as it were, look at him with +the eyes of a wolf or fox,—must look up from that low level, and +discern, so far above, this skilled and wondrous creature, who by<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 446]</span> +ingenuity and self-schooling has converted his helplessness into power, +and made himself the plume and crown of the physical world.</p> + +<p>In the kayak the Esquimaux attains to beauty. As he rows, the extremes +of the two-bladed oar revolve, describing rhythmic circles; the body +holds itself in airy poise, and the light boat skims away with a look of +life. The speed is greater than our swiftest boats attain, and the +motion graceful as that of a flying bird. Kayak and rower become to the +eye one creature; and the civilized spectator must be stronger than I in +his own conceit not to feel a little humble as he looks on.</p> + +<p>We had racing one calm evening. Three kayaks competed: the prize—O +Civilization!—was a plug of tobacco. How the muscles swelled! How the +airy things flew! "Hi! Hi!" jockey the lookers-on: they fly swifter +still. Up goes another plug,—another!—another!—and the kayaks half +leap from the water. It was sad withal.</p> + +<p>The racing over, there was a new feat. One of the kayakers placed +himself in his little craft directly across the course; another +stationed himself at a distance, and then, pushing his kayak forward at +his utmost speed, drove it directly over the other! The high sloping bow +rose above the middle of the stationary kayak on which it impinged, and, +shooting up quite out of water, the boat skimmed over.</p> + +<p>The Esquimaux is an honest creature. I had engaged a woman to make me a +pair of fur boots, leaving my name on a slip of paper. L——, next day, +roaming among the huts, saw her hanging them out to dry. Enamored of +them, and ignorant of our bargain, he sought to purchase them; but at +the first token of his desire, the woman rushed into the hut, and +brought forth the slip of paper, as a sufficient answer to all question +on that matter. L—— having told me of the incident, and informed me +that he had elsewhere bargained for a similar pair, I was wicked enough +to experiment upon this fidelity, desirous of learning what I could. +Taking, therefore, some clothes, which I knew would be desired, and +among them a white silk handkerchief bordered with blue, which had been +purchased at Port Mulgrave, all together far exceeding in value the +stipulated price, I sought the hut, and began admiring the said boots, +now nearly finished. Instantly came forth the inevitable slip with +L——'s name upon it. Making no sign, I proceeded to unroll my package. +The good creature was intensely taken with its contents, and gloated +over them with childish delight. But though she rummaged every corner to +find somewhat to exchange with me for them, it evidently did not even +enter her thoughts to offer me the boots. I took them up and admired +them again; she immediately laid her hand on the slip of paper. So I +gave her the prettiest thing I had, and left with a cordial <i>okshni</i> +(good-bye).</p> + +<p>This honesty is attributed to missionary instruction, and with the more +color as the untaught race is noted for stealing from Europeans +everything they can lay hands on. It is only, however, from foreigners +that they were ever accustomed to steal. Toward each other they have +ever been among the most honest of human beings. Civilization and the +seal they regarded as alike lawful prey. The missionaries have not +implanted in them a new disposition, but only extended the scope of an +old and marked characteristic.</p> + +<p>At the same time their sense of pecuniary obligation would seem not to +extend over long periods. Of the missionaries in winter they buy +supplies on credit, but show little remembrance of the debt when summer +comes. All must be immediate with them; neither their thought nor their +moral sense can carry far; they are equally improvident for the future +and forgetful of the past. The mere Nature-man acts only as Nature and +her necessities press upon him; thought and memory are with him the +offspring of sensation; his brain is but the feminine spouse of his +stomach and blood,—receptive<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 447]</span> and respondent, rather than virile and +original.</p> + +<p>Partly, however, this seeming forgetfulness is susceptible of a +different explanation. They evidently feel that the mission-house owes +them a living. They make gardens, go to church and save their souls, for +the missionaries; it is but fair that they should be fed at a pinch in +return.</p> + +<p>This remark may seem a sneer. Not so; my word for it. I went to Hopedale +to study this race, with no wish but to find in them capabilities of +spiritual growth, and with no resolve but to see the fact, whatever it +should be, not with wishes, but with eyes. And, pointedly against my +desire, I saw this,—that the religion of the Esquimaux is, nine parts +in ten at least, a matter of personal relation between him and +the missionaries. He goes to church as the dog follows his +master,—expecting a bone and hoping for a pat in return. He comes +promptly at a whistle (the chapel-bell); his docility and decorum are +unimpeachable; he does what is expected of him with a pleased wag of the +tail; but it is still, it is always, the dog and his master.</p> + +<p>The pre-Adamite man is not distinctively religious; for religion implies +ideas, in the blood at least, if not in the brain, as imagination, if +not as thought; and ideas are to him wanting, are impossible. His whole +being is summed and concluded in a relationship to the external, the +tangible, to things or persons; and his relation to persons goes beyond +animal instinct and the sense of physical want only upon the condition +that it shall cling inseparably to them. The spiritual instincts of +humanity are in him also, but obscure, utterly obscure, not having +attained to a circulation in the blood, much less to intellectual +liberation. Obscure they are, fixed, in the bone, locked up in phosphate +of lime. Ideas touch them only as ideas lose their own shape and hide +themselves under physical forms.</p> + +<p>Will he outgrow himself? Will he become post-Adamite, a man to whom +ideas are realities? I desire to say yes, and cannot. Again and again, +in chapel and elsewhere, I stood before a group, and questioned, +questioned their faces, to find there some prophecy of future growth. +And again and again these faces, with their heavy content, with their +dog-docility, with their expression of utter limitation, against which +nothing in them struggled, said to me,—"Your quest is vain; we are once +and forever Esquimaux." Had they been happy, had they been unhappy, I +had hoped for them. They were neither: they were contented. A +half-animal, African exuberance, token of a spirit obscure indeed, but +rich and effervescent, would open for them a future. One sign of dim +inward struggle and pain, as if the spirit resented his imprisonment, +would do the same. Both were wanting. They ruminate; life is the cud +they chew.</p> + +<p>The Esquimaux are celebrated as gluttons. This, however, is but one half +the fact. They can eat, they can also fast, indefinitely. For a week +they gorge themselves without exercise, and have no indigestion; for a +week, exercising vigorously, they live on air, frozen air, too, and +experience no exhaustion. Last winter half a dozen appeared at +Square-Island Harbor, sent out their trained dogs, drove in a herd of +deer, and killed thirteen. They immediately encamped, gathered fuel, +made fires, began to cook and eat,—ate themselves asleep; then waked to +cook, eat, and sleep again, until the thirteenth deer had vanished. +Thereupon they decamped, to travel probably hundreds of miles, and +endure days on days of severe labor, before tasting, or more than +tasting, food again.</p> + +<p>The same explanation serves. These physical capabilities, not to be +attained by the post-Adamite man, belong to the primitive races, as to +hawks, gulls, and beasts of prey. The stomach of the Esquimaux is his +cellar, as that of the camel is a cistern, wherein he lays up stores.</p> + +<p><i>August 4.</i>—This day we sailed away from Hopedale, heading +homeward,—leaving behind a race of men who were,<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 448]</span> to me a problem to be +solved, if possible. All my impressions of them are summed in the +epithet, often repeated, pre-Adamite. In applying, this, I affirm +nothing respecting their physical origin. All that is to me an open +question, to be closed when I have more light than now. It may be, that, +as Mr. Agassiz maintains, they were created originally just as they are. +For this hypothesis much may be said, and it may be freely confessed +that in observing them I felt myself pressed somewhat toward the +acceptance of it as a definite conclusion. It may be that they have +become what they are by slow modification of a type common to all +races,—that, with another parentage, they have been made by adoption +children of the icy North, whose breath has chilled in their souls the +deeper powers of man's being. This it will be impossible for me to deny +until I have investigated more deeply the influence of physical Nature +upon man, and learned more precisely to what degree the traditions of a +people, constituting at length a definite social atmosphere, may come to +penetrate and shape their individual being. I do not pronounce; I wait +and keep the eyes open. Doubtless they are God's children; and knowing +this, one need not be fretfully impatient, even though vigilantly +earnest, to know the rest.</p> + +<p>In naming them pre-Adamite I mean two things.</p> + +<p>First, that they have stopped short of ideas, that is, of the point +where human history begins. They belong, not to spiritual or human, but +to outward and physical Nature. There they are a great success.</p> + +<p>Secondly, in this condition of mere response to physical Nature, their +whole being has become shapen, determined, fixed. They have no future. +Civilization affects them, but only by mechanical modification, not by +vital refreshment and renewal. The more they are instructed, the weaker +they become.</p> + +<p>They change, and are unchangeable.</p> + +<p>Unchangeable: if they assume in any degree the ideas and habits of +civilization, it is only as their women sometimes put on calico gowns +over their seal-skin trousers. The modification is not even skin-deep. +It is a curious illustration of this immobility, that no persuasion, no +authority, can make them fishermen. Inseparable from the sea-shore, the +Esquimaux will not catch a fish, if he can catch a dinner otherwise. The +missionaries, both as matter of paternal care and as a means of +increasing their own traffic,—by which the station is chiefly +sustained,—have done their utmost to make the natives bring in fish for +sale, and have failed. These people are first sealers, then hunters; +some attraction in the blood draws them to these occupations; and at +last it is an attraction in the blood which they obey.</p> + +<p>Yet on the outermost surface of their existence they change, and die. At +Hopedale, out of a population of some two hundred, <i>twenty-four died in +the month of March last!</i> At Nain, where the number of inhabitants is +about the same, twenty-one died in the same month; at Okkak, also +twenty-one. More than decimated in a month!</p> + +<p>The long winter suffocation in their wooden dens, which lack the +ventilation of the <i>igloe</i> that their untaught wit had devised, has +doubtless much to do with this mortality. But one feels that there is +somewhat deeper in the case. One feels that the hands of the great +horologe of time have hunted around the dial, till they have found the +hour of doom for this primeval race. Now at length the tolling bell says +to them, "No more! on the earth no more!"</p> + +<p>Farewell, geological man, <i>chef-d'[oe]uvre</i>, it may be, of some earlier +epoch, but in this a grotesque, grown-up baby, never to become adult! As +you are, and as in this world you must be, I have seen you; but in my +heart is a hope for you which is greater than my thought,—a hope which, +though deep and sure, does not define itself to the understanding, and +must remain unspoken. There is a Heart to which you, too, are dear; and +its throbs are pulsations of Destiny.: </p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 449]</span></p> +<h2><a name="DOCTOR_JOHNS" id="DOCTOR_JOHNS"></a>DOCTOR JOHNS.</h2> + + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<p>There were scores of people in Ashfield who would have been delighted to +speak consolation to the bereaved clergyman; but he was not a man to be +approached easily with the ordinary phrases of sympathy. He bore himself +too sternly under his grief. What, indeed, can be said in the face of +affliction, where the manner of the sufferer seems to say, "God has done +it, and God does all things well"? Ordinary human sympathy falls below +such a standpoint, and is wasted in the utterance.</p> + +<p>Yet there are those, who delight in breaking in upon the serene dignity +which this condition of mind implies with a noisy proffer of +consolation, and an aggravating rehearsal of the occasion for it; as if +such comforters entertained a certain jealousy of the serenity they do +not comprehend, and were determined to test its sufficiency. Dame +Tourtelot was eminently such a person.</p> + +<p>"It's a dreadful blow to ye, Mr. Johns," said she, "I know it is. Almiry +is a'most as much took down by it as you are. 'She was such a lovely +woman,' she says; and the poor, dear little boy,—won't you let him come +and pass a day or two with us? Almiry is very fond of children."</p> + +<p>"Later, later, my good woman," says the parson. "I can't spare the boy +now; the house is too empty."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Johns,—the poor lonely thing!" (And she says this, with her +hands in black mits, clasped together.) "It's a bitter blow! As I was +a-sayin' to the Deacon, 'Such a lovely young woman, and such a good +comfortable home, and she, poor thing, enjoyin' it so much!' I do hope +you'll bear up under it, Mr. Johns."</p> + +<p>"By God's help, I will, my good woman."</p> + +<p>Dame Tourtelot was disappointed to find the parson wincing so little as +he did under her stimulative sympathy. On returning home, she opened her +views to the Deacon in this style:—</p> + +<p>"Tourtelot, the parson is not so much broke down by this as we've been +thinkin'; he was as cool, when I spoke to him to-day, as any man I ever +see in my life. The truth is, she was a flighty young person, noways +equal to the parson. I've been a-suspectin' it this long while; she +never, in my opinion, took a real hard hold upon him. But, Tourtelot, +you should go and see Mr. Johns; and I hope you'll talk consolingly and +Scripterally to him. It's your duty."</p> + +<p>And hereupon she shifted the needles in her knitting, and, smoothing +down the big blue stocking-leg over her knee, cast a glance at the +Deacon which signified command. The dame was thoroughly mistress in her +own household, as well as in the households of not a few of her +neighbors. Long before, the meek, mild-mannered little man who was her +husband had by her active and resolute negotiation been made a deacon of +the parish,—for which office he was not indeed ill-fitted, being +religiously disposed, strict in his observance of all duties, and +well-grounded in the Larger Catechism. He had, moreover, certain secular +endowments which were even more marked,—among them, a wonderful +instinct at a bargain, which had been polished by Dame Tourtelot's +superior address to a wonderful degree of sharpness; and by reason of +this the less respectful of the townspeople were accustomed to say, "The +Deacon is very small at home, but great in a trade." Not that the Deacon +could by any means be called an avaricious or miserly man: he had always +his old Spanish milled quarter ready for the contribution-box upon +Collection-Sundays; and no man in the parish brought a heavier turkey to +the parson's larder on donation-days: but he could no more resist the +sharpening<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 450]</span> of a bargain than he could resist a command of his wife. He +talked of a good trade to the old heads up and down the village street +as a lad talks of a new toy.</p> + +<p>"Squire," he would say, addressing a neighbor on the Common, "what do +you s'pose I paid for that brindle ye'rlin' o' mine? Give us a guess."</p> + +<p>"Waäl, Deacon, I guess you paid about ten dollars."</p> + +<p>"Only eight!" the Deacon would say, with a smile that was fairly +luminous,—"and a pootty likely critter I call it for eight dollars."</p> + +<p>"Five hogs this year," (in this way the Deacon was used to +soliloquize,)—"I hope to make 'em three hundred apiece. The +price works up about Christmas: Deacon Simmons has sold his'n at +five,—distillery-pork; that's sleezy, wastes in bilin'; folks know it: +mine, bein' corn-fed, ought to bring half a cent more,—and say, for +Christmas, six; that'll give a gain of a cent,—on five hogs, at three +hundred apiece, will be fifteen dollars. That'll pay half my pew-rent, +and leave somethin' over for Almiry, who's always wantin' fresh ribbons +about New-Year's."</p> + +<p>The Deacon cherished a strong dread of formal visits to the parsonage: +first, because it involved his Sunday toilet, in which he was never +easy, except at conference or in his pew at the meeting-house; and next, +because he counted it necessary on such occasions to give a Scriptural +garnish to his talk, in which attempt he almost always, under the +authoritative look of the parson, blundered into difficulty. Yet +Tourtelot, in obedience to his wife's suggestion, and primed with a text +from Matthew, undertook the visit of condolence,—and, being a really +kind-hearted man, bore himself well in it. Over and over the good parson +shook his hand in thanks.</p> + +<p>"It'll all be right," says the Deacon. "'Blessed are the mourners,' is +the Scripteral language, 'for they shall inherit the earth.'"</p> + +<p>"No, not that, Deacon," says the minister, to whom a misquotation was +like a wound in the flesh; "the last thing I want is to inherit the +earth. 'They shall be comforted,'—that's the promise, Deacon, and I +count on it."</p> + +<p>It was mortifying to his visitor to be caught napping on so familiar a +text; the parson saw it, and spoke consolingly. But if not strong in +texts, the Deacon knew what his strong points were; so, before leaving, +he invites a little offhand discussion of more familiar topics.</p> + +<p>"Pootty tight spell o' weather we've been havin', Parson."</p> + +<p>"Rather cool, certainly," says the unsuspecting clergyman.</p> + +<p>"Got all your winter's stock o' wood in yit?"</p> + +<p>"No, I haven't," says the parson.</p> + +<p>"Waäl, Mr. Johns, I've got a lot of pastur'-hickory cut and corded, +that's well seared over now,—and if you'd like some of it, I can let +you have it <i>very reasonable indeed</i>."</p> + +<p>The sympathy of the Elderkins, if less formal, was none the less hearty. +The Squire had been largely instrumental in securing the settlement of +Mr. Johns, and had been a political friend of his father's. In early +life he had been engaged in the West India trade from the neighboring +port of Middletown; and on one or two occasions he had himself made the +voyage to Porto Rico, taking out a cargo of horses, and bringing back +sugar, molasses, and rum. But it was remarked approvingly in the +bar-room of the Eagle Tavern that this foreign travel had not made the +Squire proud,—nor yet the moderate fortune which he had secured by the +business, in which he was still understood to bear an interest. His +paternal home in Ashfield he had fitted up some years before with +balustrade and other architectural adornments, which, it was averred by +the learned in those matters, were copied from certain palatial +residences in the West Indies.</p> + +<p>The Squire united eminently in himself all those qualities which a +Connecticut observer of those times expressed by the words, "right down +smart man." Not a turnpike enterprise could be<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 451]</span> started in that quarter +of the State, but the Squire was enlisted, and as shareholder or +director contributed to its execution. A clear-headed, kindly, energetic +man, never idle, prone rather to do needless things than to do nothing; +an ardent disciple of the Jeffersonian school, and in this combating +many of those who relied most upon his sagacity in matters of business; +a man, in short, about whom it was always asked, in regard to any +question of town or State policy, "What does the Squire think?" or "How +does the Squire mean to vote?" And the Squire's opinion was sure to be a +round, hearty one, which he came by honestly, and about which one who +thought differently might safely rally his columns of attack. The +opinion of Giles Elderkin was not inquired into for the sake of a tame +following-after,—that was not the Connecticut mode,—but for the sake +of discussing and toying with it: very much as a sly old grimalkin toys +with a mouse,—now seeming to entertain it kindly, then giving it a run, +then leaping after it, crunching a limb of it, bearing it off into some +private corner, giving it a new escape, swallowing it perhaps at last, +and appropriating it by long process of digestion. And even then, the +shrewd Connecticut man, if accused of modulating his own opinions after +those of the Squire, would say, "No, I allers thought so."</p> + +<p>Such a man as Giles Elderkin is of course ready with a hearty, outspoken +word of cheer for his minister. Nay, the very religion of the Squire, +which the parson had looked upon as somewhat discursive and +human,—giving too large a place to good works,—was decisive and to the +point in the present emergency.</p> + +<p>"It's God's doing," said he; "we must take the cup He gives us. For the +best, isn't it, Parson?"</p> + +<p>"I do, Squire. Thank God, I can."</p> + +<p>There was good Mrs. Elderkin—who made up by her devotion to the special +tenets of the clergyman many of the shortcomings of the Squire—insisted +upon sending for the poor boy Reuben, that he might forget his grief in +her kindness, and in frolic with the Elderkins through that famous +garden, with its huge hedges of box,—such a garden as was certainly not +to be matched elsewhere in Ashfield. The same good woman, too, sends +down a wagon-load of substantial things from her larder, for the present +relief of the stricken household; to which the Squire has added a little +round jug of choice Santa Cruz rum,—remembering the long watches of the +parson. This may shock us now; and yet it is to be feared that in our +day the sin of hypocrisy is to be added to the sin of indulgence: the +old people nestled under no cover of liver specifics or bitters. Reform +has made a grand march indeed; but the Devil, with his square bottles +and Scheidam schnapps, has kept a pretty even pace with it.</p> + + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<p>The boy Reuben, in those first weeks after his loss, wandered about as +if in a maze, wondering at the great blank that death had made; or, +warming himself at some out-door sport, he rushed in with a pleasant +forgetfulness,—shouting,—up the stairs,—to the accustomed door, and +bursts in upon the cold chamber, so long closed, where the bitter +knowledge comes upon him fresh once more. Esther, good soul that she is, +has heard his clatter upon, the floor, his bound at the old latch, and, +fancying what it may mean, has come up in time to soothe him and bear +him off with her. The parson, forging some sermon for the next Sabbath, +in the room at the foot of the stairs, hears, may-be, the stifled +sobbing of the boy, as the good Esther half leads and half drags him +down, and opens his door upon them.</p> + +<p>"What now, Esther? Has Reuben caught a fall?"</p> + +<p>"No, Sir, no fall; he's not harmed, Sir. It's only the old room, you +know, Sir, and he quite forgot himself."</p> + +<p>"Poor boy! Will he come with me, Esther?"</p> + +<p>"No, Mr. Johns. I'll find something'll amuse him; hey, Ruby?"<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 452]</span></p> + +<p>And the parson goes back to his desk, where he forgets himself in the +glow of that great work of his. He has taught, as never before, that +"all flesh is grass." He accepts his loss as a punishment for having +thought too much and fondly of the blessings of this life; henceforth +the flesh and its affections shall be mortified in him. He has +transferred his bed to a little chamber which opens from his study in +the rear, and which is at the end of the long dining-room, where every +morning and evening the prayers are said, as before. The parishioners +see a light burning in the window of his study far into the night.</p> + +<p>For a time his sermons are more emotional than before. Oftener than in +the earlier days of his settlement he indulges in a forecast of those +courts toward which he would conduct his people, and which a merciful +God has provided for those who trust in Him; and there is a coloring in +these pictures which his sermons never showed in the years gone.</p> + +<p>"We ask ourselves," said he, "my brethren, if we shall knowingly meet +there—where we trust His grace may give us entrance—those from whom +you and I have parted; whether a fond and joyous welcome shall greet us, +not alone from Him whom to love is life, but from those dear ones who +seem to our poor senses to be resting under the sod yonder. Sometimes I +believe that by God's great goodness," (and here he looked, not at his +people, but above, and kept his eye fixed there)—"I believe that we +shall; that His great love shall so delight in making complete our +happiness, even by such little memorials of our earthly affections +(which must seem like waifs of thistle-down beside the great harvest of +His abounding grace); that all the dear faces of those written in the +Golden Book shall beam a welcome, all the more bounteous because +reflecting His joy who has died to save."</p> + +<p>And the listeners whispered each other as he paused, "He thinks of +Rachel."</p> + +<p>With his eyes still fixed above, he goes on,—</p> + +<p>"Sometimes I think thus; but oftener I ask myself, 'Of what value shall +human ties be, or their memories, in His august presence whom to look +upon is life? What room shall there be for other affections, what room +for other memories, than those of 'the Lamb that was slain'?</p> + +<p>"Nay, my brethren," (and here he turns his eyes upon them again,) "we do +know in our hearts that many whom we have loved fondly—infants, +fathers, mothers, wives, may-be—shall never, never sit with the elect +in Paradise; and shall we remember these in heaven, going away to dwell +with the Devil and his angels? Shall we be tortured with the knowledge +that some poor babe we looked upon only for an hour is wearing out ages +of suffering? 'No,' you may say, 'for we shall be possessed in that day +of such sense of the ineffable justice of God, and of His judgments, +that all shall seem right.' Yet, my brethren, if this sense of His +supreme justice shall overrule all the old longings of our hearts, even +to the suppression of the dearest ties of earth, where they conflict +with His ordained purpose, will they not also overrule all the longings +in respect of friends who are among the elect, in such sort that the man +we counted our enemy, the man we avoided on earth, if so be he have an +inheritance in heaven, shall be met with the same yearning of the heart +as if he were our brother? Does this sound harshly, my brethren? Ah, let +us beware,—let us beware how we entertain any opinions of that future +condition of holiness and of joy promised to the elect, which are +dependent upon these gross attachments of earth, which are colored by +our short-sighted views, which are not in every iota accordant with the +universal love of Him who is our Master!"</p> + +<p>"This man lives above the world," said the people; and if some of them +did not give very cordial assent to these latter views, they smothered +their dissent by a lofty expression of admiration; they felt it a duty +to give them<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 453]</span> open acceptance, to venerate the speaker the more by +reason of their utterance. And yet their limited acceptance diffused a +certain chill, very likely, over their religious meditations. But it was +a chill which unfortunately they counted it good to entertain,—a rigor +of faith that must needs be borne. It is doubtful, indeed, if they did +not make a merit of their placid intellectual admission of such beliefs +as most violated the natural sensibilities of the heart. They were so +sure that affectionate instincts were by nature wrong in their +tendencies, so eager to cumulate evidences of the original depravity, +that, when their parson propounded a theory that gave a shock to their +natural affections, they submitted with a kind of heroic pride, however +much their hearts might make silent protest, and the grounds of such a +protest they felt a cringing unwillingness to investigate. There was a +determined shackling of all the passional nature. What wonder that +religion took a harsh aspect? As if intellectual adhesion to theological +formulas were to pave our way to a knowledge of the Infinite!—as if our +sensibilities were to be outraged in the march to Heaven!—as if all the +emotional nature were to be clipped away by the shears of the doctors, +leaving only the metaphysic ghost of a soul to enter upon the joys of +Paradise!</p> + +<p>Within eight months after his loss, Mr. Johns thought of Rachel only as +a gift that God had bestowed to try him, and had taken away to work in +him a humiliation of the heart. More severely than ever he wrestled with +the dogmas of his chosen divines, harnessed them to his purposes as +preacher, and wrought on with a zeal that knew no abatement and no rest.</p> + +<p>In the spring of 1825 Mr. Johns was invited by Governor Wolcott to +preach the Election Sermon before the Legislature convened at Hartford: +an honorable duty, and one which he was abundantly competent to fulfil. +The "Hartford Courant" of that date said,—"A large auditory was +collected last week to listen to the Election Sermon by Mr. Johns, +minister of Ashfield. It was a sound, orthodox, and interesting +discourse, and won the undivided attention of all the listeners. We have +not recently listened to a sermon more able or eloquent."</p> + +<p>In that day even country editors were church-goers and God-fearing men.</p> + + +<h3>XIII.</h3> + +<p>In the latter part of the summer of 1826,—a reasonable time having now +elapsed since the death of poor Rachel,—the gossips of Ashfield began +to discuss the lonely condition of their pastor, in connection with any +desirable or feasible amendment of it. The sin of such gossip—if it be +a sin—is one that all the preaching in the world will never extirpate +from country towns, where the range of talk is by the necessity of the +case exceedingly limited. In the city, curiosity has an omnivorous maw +by reason of position, and finds such variety to feed upon that it is +rarely—except in the case of great political or public +scandal—personal in its attentions; and what we too freely reckon a +perverted and impertinent country taste is but an ordinary appetite of +humanity, which, by the limitation of its feeding-ground, seems to +attach itself perversely to private relations.</p> + +<p>There were some invidious persons in the town who had remarked that Miss +Almira Tourtelot had brought quite a new fervor to her devotional +exercises in the parish within the last year, as well as a new set of +ribbons to her hat; and two maiden ladies opposite, of distinguished +pretensions and long experience of life, had observed that the young +Reuben, on his passage back and forth from the Elderkins, had sometimes +been decoyed within the Tourtelot yard, and presented by the admiring +Dame Tourtelot with fresh doughnuts. The elderly maiden ladies were +perhaps uncharitable in their conclusions; yet it is altogether probable +that the Deacon and his wife may have considered, in the intimacy of +their fireside talk, the possibility of some time<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 454]</span> claiming the minister +as a son-in-law. Questions like this are discussed in a great many +families even now.</p> + +<p>Dame Tourtelot had crowned with success all her schemes in life, save +one. Almira, her daughter, now verging upon her thirty-second year, had +long been upon the anxious-seat as regarded matrimony; and with a +sentimental turn that incited much reading of Cowper and Montgomery and +(if it must be told) "Thaddeus of Warsaw," the poor girl united a +sickly, in-door look, and a peaked countenance, which had not attracted +wooers. The wonderful executive capacity of the mother had unfortunately +debarred her from any active interest in the household; and though the +Tourtelots had actually been at the expense of providing a piano for +Almira, (the only one in Ashfield,)—upon which the poor girl thrummed, +thinking of "Thaddeus," and, we trust, of better things,—this had not +won a roseate hue to her face, or quickened in any perceptible degree +the alacrity of her admirers.</p> + +<p>Upon a certain night of later October, after Almira has retired, and +when the Tourtelots are seated by the little fire, which the autumn +chills have rendered necessary, and into the embers of which the Deacon +has cautiously thrust the leg of one of the fire-dogs, preparatory to a +modest mug of flip, (with which, by his wife's permission, he +occasionally indulges himself,) the good dame calls out to her husband, +who is dozing in his chair,—</p> + +<p>"Tourtelot!"</p> + +<p>But she is not loud enough.</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Tourtelot!</span> you're asleep!"</p> + +<p>"No," says the Deacon, rousing himself,—"only thinkin'."</p> + +<p>"What are you thinkin' of, Tourtelot?"</p> + +<p>"Thinkin'—thinkin'," says the Deacon, rasped by the dame's sharpness +into sudden mental effort,—"thinkin', Huldy, if it isn't about time to +butcher: we butchered last year nigh upon the twentieth."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense!" says the dame; "what about the parson?"</p> + +<p>"The parson? Oh! Why, the parson'll take a side and two hams."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense!" says the dame, with a great voice; "you're asleep, +Tourtelot. Is the parson goin' to marry, or isn't he? that's what I want +to know"; and she rethreads her needle.</p> + +<p>(She can do it by candle-light at fifty-five, that woman!)</p> + +<p>"Oh, marry!" replies the Deacon, rousing himself more +thoroughly,—"waäl, I don't see no signs, Huldy. If he <i>doos</i> mean to, +he's sly about it; don't you think so, Huldy?"</p> + +<p>The dame, who is intent upon her sewing again,—she is never without her +work, that woman!—does not deign a reply.</p> + +<p>The Deacon, after lifting the fire-dog, blowing off the ashes, and +holding it to his face to try the heat, says,—</p> + +<p>"I guess Almiry ha'n't much of a chance."</p> + +<p>"What's the use of your guessin'?" says the dame; "better mind your +flip."</p> + +<p>Which the Deacon accordingly does, stirring it in a mild manner, until +the dame breaks out upon him again explosively:—</p> + +<p>"Tourtelot, you men of the parish ought to <i>talk</i> to the parson; it +a'n't right for things to go on this way. That boy Reuben is growin' up +wild; he wants a woman in the house to look arter him. Besides, a +minister ought to have a wife; it a'n't decent to have the house empty, +and only Esther there. Women want to feel they can drop in at the +parsonage for a chat, or to take tea. But who's to serve tea, I want to +know? Who's to mind Reuben in meetin'? He broke the cover off the best +hymn-book in the parson's pew last Sunday. Who's to prevent him +a-breakin' all the hymn-books that belong to the parish? You men ought +to speak to the parson; and, Tourtelot, if the others won't do it, you +<i>must</i>."</p> + +<p>The Deacon was fairly awake now. He pulled at his whiskers +deprecatingly. Yet he clearly foresaw that the emergency was one to be +met; the manner of Dame Tourtelot left no room for<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 455]</span> doubt; and he was +casting about for such Scriptural injunctions as might be made +available, when the dame interrupted his reflections in more amiable +humor,—</p> + +<p>"It isn't Almiry, Samuel, I think of, but Mr. Johns and the good of the +parish. I really don't know if Almiry would fancy the parson; the girl +is a good deal taken up with her pianny and books; but there's the +Hapgoods, opposite; there's Joanny Meacham"——</p> + +<p>"You'll never make that do, Huldy," said the Deacon, stirring his flip +composedly; "they're nigh on as old as parson."</p> + +<p>"Never you mind, Tourtelot," said the dame, sharply; "only you hint to +the parson that they're good, pious women, all of them, and would make +proper ministers' wives. Do you think I don't know what a man is, +Tourtelot? Humph!" And she threads her needle again.</p> + +<p>The Deacon was apt to keep in mind his wife's advices, whatever he might +do with Scripture quotations. So when he called at the parsonage, a few +days after,—ostensibly to learn how the minister would like his pork +cut,—it happened that little Reuben came bounding in, and that the +Deacon gave him a fatherly pat upon the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Likely boy you've got here, Mr. Johns,—likely boy. But, Parson, don't +you think he must feel a kind o' hankerin' arter somebody to be motherly +to him? I 'most wonder that you don't feel that way yourself, Mr. +Johns."</p> + +<p>"God comforts the mourners," said the clergyman, seriously.</p> + +<p>"No doubt, no doubt, Parson; but He sometimes provides comforts ag'in +which we shet our eyes. You won't think hard o' me, Parson, but I've +heerd say about the village that Miss Meacham or one of the Miss +Hapgoods would make an excellent wife for the minister."</p> + +<p>The parson is suddenly very grave.</p> + +<p>"Don't repeat such idle gossip, Deacon. I'm married to my work. The +Gospel is my bride now."</p> + +<p>"And a very good one it is, Parson. But don't you think that a godly +woman for helpmeet would make the work more effectooal? Miss Meacham is +a pattern of a person in the Sunday school. The women of the parish +would rather like to find the doors of the parsonage openin' for 'em +ag'in."</p> + +<p>"That is to be thought of certainly," said the minister, musingly.</p> + +<p>"You won't think hard o' me, Mr. Johns, for droppin' a word about this +matter?" says the Deacon, rising to leave. "And while I think on 't, +Parson, I see the sill under the no'theast corner o' the meetin'-house +has a little settle to it. I've jest been cuttin' a few sticks o' good +smart chestnut timber; and if the Committee thinks best, I could haul +down one or two on 'em for repairs. It won't cost nigh as much as pine +lumber, and it's every bit as good."</p> + +<p>Even Dame Tourtelot would have been satisfied with the politic way of +the Deacon, both as regarded the wife and the prospective bargain. The +next evening the good woman invited the clergyman—begging him "not to +forget the dear little boy"—to tea.</p> + +<p>This was by no means the first hint which the minister had had of the +tendency of village gossip. The Tew partners, with whom he had fallen +upon very easy terms of familiarity,—both by reason of frequent visits +at their little shop, and by reason of their steady attendance upon his +ministrations,—often dropped hints of the smallness of the good man's +grocery account, and insidious hopes that it might be doubled in size at +some day not far off.</p> + +<p>Squire Elderkin, too, in his bluff, hearty way, had occasionally +complimented the clergyman upon the increased attendance latterly of +ladies of a certain age, and had drawn his attention particularly to the +ardent zeal of a buxom, middle-aged widow, who lived upon the skirts of +the town, and was "the owner," he said, "of as pretty a piece of +property as lay in the county."</p> + +<p>"Have you any knack at farming, Mr. Johns?" continued he, playfully.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 456]</span></p> + +<p>"Farming? why?" says the innocent parson, in a maze.</p> + +<p>"Because I am of opinion, Mr. Johns, that the widow's little property +might be rented by you, under conditions of joint occupancy, on very +easy terms."</p> + +<p>Such badinage was so warded off by the ponderous gravity which the +parson habitually wore, that men like Elderkin loved occasionally to +launch a quiet joke at him, for the pleasure of watching the rebound.</p> + +<p>When, however, the wide-spread gossip of the town had taken the shape +(as in the talk of Deacon Tourtelot) of an incentive to duty, the grave +clergyman gave to it his undivided and prayerful attention. It was +over-true that the boy Reuben was running wild. No lad in Ashfield, of +his years, could match him in mischief. There was surely need of womanly +direction and remonstrance. It was eminently proper, too, that the +parsonage, so long closed, should be opened freely to all his flock; and +the truth was so plain, he wondered it could have escaped him so long. +Duty required that his home should have an established mistress; and a +mistress he forthwith determined it should have.</p> + +<p>Within three weeks from the day of the tea-drinking with the Tourtelots, +the minister suggested certain changes in the long-deserted chamber +which should bring it into more habitable condition. He hinted to his +man Larkin that an additional fire might probably be needed in the house +during the latter part of winter; and before January had gone out, he +had most agreeably surprised the delighted and curious Tew partners with +a very large addition to his usual orders,—embracing certain condiments +in the way of spices, dried fruits, and cordials, which had for a long +time been foreign to the larder of the parsonage.</p> + +<p>Such indications, duly commented on, as they were most zealously, could +not fail to excite a great buzz of talk and of curiosity throughout the +town.</p> + +<p>"I knew it," says Mrs. Tew, authoritatively, setting back her spectacles +from her postal duties;—"these 'ere grave widowers are allers the first +to pop off, and git married."</p> + +<p>"Tourtelot!" said the dame, on a January night, when the evidence had +come in overwhelmingly,—"Tourtelot! what does it all mean?"</p> + +<p>"D'n' know," says the Deacon, stirring his flip,—"d'n' know. It's my +opinion the parson has his sly humors about him."</p> + +<p>"Do you think it's true, Samuel?"</p> + +<p>"Waäl, Huldy,—I <i>du</i>."</p> + +<p>"Tourtelot! finish your flip, and go to bed; it's past ten."</p> + +<p>And the Deacon went.</p> + + +<h3>XIV</h3> + +<p>Toward the latter end of the winter there arrived at the parsonage the +new mistress,—in the person of Miss Eliza Johns, the elder sister of +the incumbent, and a spinster of the ripe age of three-and-thirty. For +the last twelve years she had maintained a lonely, but matronly, command +of the old homestead of the late Major Johns, in the town of Canterbury. +She was intensely proud of the memory of her father, and of <i>his</i> father +before him,—every inch a Johns. No light cause could have provoked her +to a sacrifice of the name; and of weightier causes she had been spared +the trial. The marriage of her brother had always been more or less a +source of mortification to her. The Handbys, though excellent plain +people, were of no particular distinction. Rachel had a pretty face, +with which Benjamin had grown suddenly demented. That source of +mortification and of disturbed intimacy was now buried in the grave. +Benjamin had won a reputation for dignity and ability which was +immensely gratifying to her. She had assured him of it again and again +in her occasional letters. The success of his Election Sermon had been +an event of the greatest interest to her, which she had expressed in an +epistle of three pages, with every comma in its place, and full of +gratulations. Her commas were <i>always</i> in place; so were<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 457]</span> her stops of +all kinds: her precision was something marvellous. This precision had +enabled her to manage the little property which had been left her in +such a way as to maintain always about her establishment an air of +well-ordered thrift. She concealed adroitly all the shifts—if there +were any—by which she avoided the reproach of seeming poor.</p> + +<p>In person she was not unlike her father, the Major,—tall, erect, with a +dignified bearing, and so trim a figure, and so elastic a step even at +her years, as would have provoked an inquisitive follower to catch sight +of the face. This was by no means attractive. Her features were thin, +her nose unduly prominent; and both eye and mouth, though well formed, +carried about them a kind of hard positiveness that would have +challenged respect, perhaps, but no warmer feeling. Two little curls +were flattened upon either temple; and her neck-tie, dress, gloves, hat, +were always most neatly arranged, and ordered with the same precision +that governed all her action. In the town of Canterbury she was an +institution. Her charities and all her religious observances were +methodical, and never omitted. Her whole life, indeed, was a discipline. +Without any great love for children, she still had her Bible-class; and +it was rare that the weather or any other cause forbade attendance upon +its duties. Nor was there one of the little ones who listened to that +clear, sharp, metallic voice of hers but stood in awe of her; not one +that could say she was unkind; not one who had ever bestowed a childish +gift upon her,—such little gifts as children love to heap on those who +have found the way to their hearts.</p> + +<p>Sentiment had never been effusive in her; and it was now limited to +quick sparkles, that sometimes flashed into a page of her reading. As +regarded the serious question of marriage, implying a home, position, +the married dignities, it had rarely disturbed her; and now her +imaginative forecast did not grapple it with any vigor or longing. If, +indeed, it had been possible that a man of high standing, character, +cultivation,—equal, in short, to the Johnses in every way,—should woo +her with pertinacity, she might have been disposed to yield a dignified +assent, but not unless he could be made to understand and adequately +appreciate the immense favor she was conferring. In short, the suitor +who could abide and admit her exalted pretensions, and submit to them, +would most infallibly be one of a character and temper so far inferior +to her own that she would scorn him from the outset. This dilemma, +imposed by the rigidity of her smaller dignities, that were never +mastered or overshadowed either by her sentiment or her passion, not +only involved a life of celibacy, but was a constant justification of +it, and made it eminently easy to be borne. There are not a few maiden +ladies who are thus lightered over the shoals of a solitary existence by +the buoyancy of their own intemperate vanities.</p> + +<p>Miss Johns did not accept the invitation of her brother to undertake the +charge of his household without due consideration. She by no means left +out of view the contingency of his possible future marriage; but she +trusted largely to her own influences in making it such a one, if +inevitable, as should not be discreditable to the family name. And under +such conditions she would retire with serene contentment to her own more +private sphere of Canterbury,—or, if circumstances should demand, would +accept the position of guest in the house of her brother. Nor did she +leave out of view her influence in the training of the boy Reuben. She +cherished her own hopes of moulding him to her will, and of making him a +pride to the family.</p> + +<p>There was of course prodigious excitement in the parsonage upon her +arrival. Esther had done her best at all household appliances, whether +of kitchen or chamber. The minister received her with his wonted +quietude, and a brotherly kiss of salutation. Reuben gazed wonderingly +at her, and was thinking dreamily if he should ever love her, while he +felt the dreary rustle<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 458]</span> of her black silk dress swooping round as she +stooped to embrace him. "I hope Master Reuben is a good boy," said she; +"your Aunt Eliza loves all good boys."</p> + +<p>He had nothing to say; but only looked back into that cold gray eye, as +she lifted his chin with her gloved hand.</p> + +<p>"Benjamin, there's a strong look of the Handbys; but it's your forehead. +He's a little man, I hope," and she patted him on the head.</p> + +<p>Still Reuben looked—wonderingly—at her shining silk dress, at her hat, +at the little curls on either temple, at the guard-chain which hung from +her neck with a glittering watch-key upon it, at the bright buckle in +her belt, and most of all at the gray eye which seemed to look on him +from far away. And with the same stare of wonderment, he followed her up +and down throughout the house.</p> + +<p>At night, Esther, who has a chamber near him, creeps in to say +good-night to the lad, and asks,—</p> + +<p>"Do you like her, Ruby, boy? Do you like your Aunt Eliza?"</p> + +<p>"I d'n know," says Reuben, "She says she likes good boys; don't you like +bad uns, Esther?"</p> + +<p>"But you're not <i>very</i> bad," says Esther, whose orthodoxy does not +forbid kindly praise.</p> + +<p>"Didn't mamma like bad uns, Esther?"</p> + +<p>"Dear heart!" and the good creature gives the boy a great hug; it could +not have been warmer, if he had been her child.</p> + +<p>The household speedily felt the presence of the new comer. Her +precision, her method, her clear, sharp voice,—never raised in anger, +never falling to tenderness,—ruled the establishment. Under all the +cheeriness of the old management, there had been a sad lack of any +economic system, by reason of which the minister was constantly +overrunning his little stipend, and making awkward appeals from time to +time to the Parish Committee for advances. A small legacy that had +befallen the late Mrs. Johns, and which had gone to the purchase of the +parsonage, had brought relief at a very perplexing crisis; but against +all similar troubles Miss Johns set her face most resolutely. There was +a daily examination of butchers' and grocers' accounts, that had been +previously unknown to the household. The kitchen was placed under strict +regimen, into the observance of which the good Esther slipped, not so +much from love of it, as from total inability to cope with the magnetic +authority of the new mistress. Nor was she harsh in her manner of +command.</p> + +<p>"Esther, my good woman, it will be best, I think, to have breakfast a +little more promptly,—at half past six, we will say,—so that prayers +may be over and the room free by eight; the minister, you know, must +have his morning in his study undisturbed."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Marm," says Esther; and she would as soon have thought of flying +over the house-top in her short gown as of questioning the plan.</p> + +<p>Again, the mistress says,—"Larkin, I think it would be well to take up +those scattered bunches of lilies, and place them upon either side of +the walk in the garden, so that the flowers may be all together."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Marm," says Larkin.</p> + +<p>And much as he had loved the little woman now sleeping in her grave, who +had scattered flowers with an errant fancy, he would have thought it +preposterous to object to an order so calmly spoken, so evidently +intended for execution. There was something in the tone of Miss Johns in +giving directions that drew off all moral power of objection as surely +as a good metallic conductor would free an overcharged cloud of its +electricity.</p> + +<p>The parishioners were not slow to perceive that new order prevailed at +the quiet parsonage. Curiosity, no less than the staid proprieties which +governed the action of the chief inhabitants, had brought them early +into contact with the new mistress. She received all with dignity and +with an exactitude of deportment that charmed the precise ones and that +awed the younger folks. The<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 459]</span> bustling Dame Tourtelot had come among the +earliest, and her brief report was,—"Tourtelot, Miss Johns's as smart +as a steel trap."</p> + +<p>Nor was the spinster sister without a degree of cultivation which +commended her to the more intellectual people of Ashfield. She was a +reader of "Rokeby" and of Miss Austen's novels, of Josephus and of +Rollin's "Ancient History." The Miss Hapgoods, who were the +blue-stockings of the place, were charmed to have such an addition to +the cultivated circle of the parish. To make the success of Miss Johns +still more decided, she brought with her a certain knowledge of the +conventionalisms of the city, by reason of her occasional visits to her +sister Mabel, (now Mrs. Brindlock of Greenwich Street,) which to many +excellent women gave larger assurance of her position and dignity than +all besides. Before the first year of her advent had gone by, it was +quite plain that she was to become one of the prominent directors of the +female world of Ashfield.</p> + +<p>Only in the parsonage itself did her influence find its most serious +limitations,—and these in connection with the boy Reuben.</p> + + +<h3>XV.</h3> + +<p>There is a deep emotional nature in the lad, which, by the time he has +reached his eighth year,—Miss Eliza having now been in the position of +mistress of the household a twelvemonth,—works itself off in explosive +tempests of feeling, with which the prim spinster has but faint +sympathy. No care could be more studious and complete than that with +which she looks after the boy's wardrobe and the ordering of his little +chamber; his supply of mittens, of stockings, and of underclothing is +always of the most ample; nay, his caprices of the table are not wholly +overlooked, and she hopes to win upon him by the dishes that are most +toothsome; but, however grateful for the moment, his boyish affections +can never make their way with any force or passionate flow through the +stately proprieties of manner with which the spinster aunt is always +hedged about.</p> + +<p>He wanders away after school-hours to the home of the Elderkins,—Phil +and he being sworn friends, and the good mother of Phil always having +ready for him a beaming look of welcome and a tender word or two that +somehow always find their way straight to his heart. He loiters with +Larkin, too, by the great stable-yard of the inn, though it is forbidden +ground. He breaks in upon the precise woman's rule of punctuality sadly; +many a cold dish he eats sulkily,—she sitting bolt upright in her place +at the table, looking down at him with glances which are every one a +punishment. Other times he is straying in the orchard at the hour of +some home-duty, and the active spinster goes to seek him, and not +threateningly, but with an assured step and a firm grip upon the hand of +the loiterer, which he knows not whether to count a favor or a +punishment, (and she as much at a loss, so inextricably interwoven are +her notions of duty and of kindness,) leads him homeward, plying him +with stately precepts upon the sin of negligence, and with earnest story +of the dreadful fate which is sure to overtake all bad boys who do not +obey and keep "by the rules"; and she instances those poor lads who were +eaten by the bears, of whom she has read to him the story in the Old +Testament.</p> + +<p>"Who was it they called 'bald-head,' Reuben? Elisha or Elijah?"</p> + +<p>He, in no mood for reply, is sulkily beating off the daisies with his +feet, as she drags him on; sometimes hanging back, with impotent, yet +concealed struggle, which she—not deigning to notice—overcomes with +even sharper step, and plies him the more closely with the dire results +of badness,—has not finished her talk, indeed, when they reach the +door-step and enter. There he, fuming now with that long struggle, +fuming the more because he has concealed it, makes one violent +discharge<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 460]</span> with a great frown on his little face, "You're an ugly old +thing, and I don't like you one bit!"</p> + +<p>Esther, good soul, within hearing of it, lifts her hands in apparent +horror, but inwardly indulges in a wicked chuckle over the boy's spirit.</p> + +<p>But the minister has heard him, too, and gravely summons the offender +into his study.</p> + +<p>"My son, Reuben, this is very wrong."</p> + +<p>And the boy breaks into a sob at this stage, which is a great relief.</p> + +<p>"My boy, you ought to love your aunt."</p> + +<p>"Why ought I?" says he.</p> + +<p>"Why? why? Don't you know she's very good to you, and takes excellent +care of you, and hears you say your catechism every Saturday? You ought +to love her."</p> + +<p>"But I can't make myself love her, if I don't," says the boy.</p> + +<p>"It is your duty to love her, Reuben; and we can all do our duty."</p> + +<p>Even the staid clergyman enjoys the boy's discomfiture under so orthodox +a proposition. Miss Johns, however, breaks in here, having overheard the +latter part of the talk:—</p> + +<p>"No, Benjamin, I wish no love that is given from a sense of duty. Reuben +sha'n't be forced into loving his Aunt Eliza."</p> + +<p>And there is a subdued tone in her speech which touches the boy. But he +is not ready yet for surrender; he watches gravely her retirement, and +for an hour shows a certain preoccupation at his play; then his piping +voice is heard at the foot of the stairway,—</p> + +<p>"Aunt Eliza! Are you there?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Master Reuben!"</p> + +<p>Master! It cools somewhat his generous intent; but he is in for it; and +he climbs the stair, sidles uneasily into the chamber where she sits at +her work, stealing a swift, inquiring look into that gray eye of hers,—</p> + +<p>"I say—Aunt Eliza—I'm sorry I said that—you know what."</p> + +<p>And he looks up with a little of the old yearning,—the yearning he used +to feel when another sat in that place.</p> + +<p>"Ah, that is right, Master Reuben! I hope we shall be friends, now."</p> + +<p>Another disturbed look at her,—remembering the time when he would have +leaped into a mother's arms, after such struggle with his self-will, and +found gladness. That is gone; no swift embrace, no tender hand toying +with his hair, beguiling him from play. And he sidles out again, half +shamefaced at a surrender that has wrought so little. Loitering, and +playing with the balusters as he descends, the swift, keen voice comes +after him,—</p> + +<p>"Don't soil the paint, Reuben!"</p> + +<p>"I haven't."</p> + +<p>And the swift command and as swift retort put him in his old, wicked +mood again, and he breaks out into a defiant whistle. (Over and over the +spinster has told him it was improper to whistle in-doors.) Yet, with a +lingering desire for sympathy, Reuben makes his way into his father's +study; and the minister lays down his great folio,—it is Poole's +"Annotations,"—and says,—</p> + +<p>"Well, Reuben!"</p> + +<p>"I told her I was sorry," says the boy; "but I don't believe she likes +me much."</p> + +<p>"Why, my son?"</p> + +<p>"Because she called me Master, and said it was very proper."</p> + +<p>"But doesn't that show an interest in you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what interest is."</p> + +<p>"It's love."</p> + +<p>"Mamma never called me Master," said Reuben.</p> + +<p>The grave minister bites his lip, beckons his boy to him,—"Here, my +son!"—passes his arm around him, had almost drawn him to his heart,—</p> + +<p>"There, there, Reuben; leave me now; I have my sermon to finish. I hope +you won't be disrespectful to your aunt again. Shut the door."</p> + +<p>And the minister goes back to his work, ironly honest, mastering his +sensibilities, tearing great gaps in his heart, even as the anchorites +once fretted their bodies with hair-cloth and scourgings.</p> + +<p>In the summer of 1828 Mr. Johns was called upon to preach a special +discourse<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 461]</span> at the Commencement exercises of the college from which he +had received his degree; and so sterlingly orthodox was his sermon, at a +crisis when some sister colleges were bolstering up certain new +theological tenets which had a strong taint of heresy, that the old +gentlemen who held rank as fellows of his college, in a burst of zeal, +bestowed upon the worthy man the title of D. D. It was not an honor he +had coveted; indeed, he coveted no human honors; yet this was more +wisely given than most: his dignity, his sobriety, his rigid, complete +adherence to all the accepted forms of religious belief made him a safe +recipient of the title.</p> + +<p>The spinster sister, with an ill-concealed pride, was most zealous in +the bestowal of it; and before a month had passed, she had forced it +into current use throughout the world of Ashfield.</p> + +<p>Did a neglectful neighbor speak of the good health of "Mr. Johns," the +mistress of the parsonage said,—"Why, yes, the Doctor is working very +hard, it is true; but he is quite well; the Doctor is remarkably well."</p> + +<p>Did a younger church-sister speak in praise of some late sermon of "the +minister," Miss Eliza thanked her in a dignified way, and was sure "the +Doctor" would be most happy to hear that his efforts were appreciated.</p> + +<p>As for Larkin and Esther, who stumbled dismally over the new title, the +spinster plied them urgently.</p> + +<p>"Esther, my good woman, make the Doctor's tea very strong to-night."</p> + +<p>"Larkin, the Doctor won't ride to-day; and mind, you must cut the wood +for the Doctor's fire a little shorter."</p> + +<p>Reuben only rebelled, with the mischief of a boy:—</p> + +<p>"What for do you call papa Doctor? He don't carry saddle-bags."</p> + +<p>To the quiet, staid man himself it was a wholly indifferent matter. In +the solitude of his study, however, it recalled a neglected duty, and in +so far seemed a blessing. By such paltry threads are the colors woven +into our life! It recalled his friend Maverick and his jaunty +prediction; and upon that came to him a recollection of the promise +which he had made to Rachel, that he would write to Maverick.</p> + +<p>So the minister wrote, telling his old friend what grief had stricken +his house,—how his boy and he were left alone,—how the church, by +favor of Providence, had grown under his preaching,—how his sister had +come to be mistress of the parsonage,—how he had wrought the Master's +work in fear and trembling; and after this came godly counsel for the +exile.</p> + +<p>He hoped that light had shone upon him, even in the "dark places" of +infidel France,—that he was not alienated from the faith of his +fathers,—that he did not make a mockery, as did those around him, of +the holy institution of the Sabbath.</p> + +<p>"My friend," he wrote, "God's word is true; God's laws are just; He will +come some day in a chariot of fire. Neither moneys nor high places nor +worldly honors nor pleasures can stay or avert the stroke of that sword +of divine justice which will 'pierce even to the dividing asunder of the +joints and marrow.' Let no siren voices beguile you. Without the gift of +His grace who died that we might live, there is no hope for kings, none +for you, none for me. I pray you consider this, my friend; for I speak +as one commissioned of God."</p> + +<p>Whether these words of the minister were met, after their transmission +over seas, with a smile of derision,—with an empty gratitude, that +said, "Good fellow!" and forgot their burden,—with a stitch of the +heart, that made solemn pause and thoughtfulness, and short, in struggle +against the habit of a life, we will not say; our story may not tell, +perhaps. But to the mind of the parson it was clear that at some great +coming day it <i>would</i> be known of all men where the seed that he had +sown had fallen,—whether on good ground or in stony places.</p> + +<p>The cross-ocean mails were slow in those days; and it was not until +nearly four months after the transmission of the Doctor's letter—he +having almost<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 462]</span> forgotten it—that Reuben came one day bounding in from +the snow in mid-winter, his cheeks aflame with the keen, frosty air, his +eyes dancing with boyish excitement:—</p> + +<p>"A letter, papa! a letter!—and Mr. Troop" (it is the new postmaster +under the Adams dynasty) "says it came all the way from Europe. It's got +a funny post-mark."</p> + +<p>The minister lays down his book,—takes the letter,—opens +it,—reads,—paces up and down the study thoughtfully,—reads again, to +the end.</p> + +<p>"Reuben, call your Aunt Eliza."</p> + +<p>There is matter in the letter that concerns her,—that in its issues +will concern the boy,—that may possibly give a new color to the life of +the parsonage, and a new direction to our story.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="OUR_FIRST_CITIZENA" id="OUR_FIRST_CITIZENA"></a>OUR FIRST CITIZEN.<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Winter's cold drift lies glistening o'er his breast;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For him no spring shall bid the leaf unfold:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What Love could speak, by sudden grief oppressed,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What swiftly summoned Memory tell, is told.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Even as the bells, in one consenting chime,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Filled with their sweet vibrations all the air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So joined all voices, in that mournful time,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">His genius, wisdom, virtues, to declare.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What place is left for words of measured praise,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Till calm-eyed History, with her iron pen,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grooves in the unchanging rock the final phrase<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That shapes his image in the souls of men?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yet while the echoes still repeat his name,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">While countless tongues his full-orbed life rehearse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love, by his beating pulses taught, will claim<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The breath of song, the tuneful throb of verse,—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Verse that, in ever-changing ebb and flow,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Moves, like the laboring heart, with rush and rest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or swings in solemn cadence, sad and slow,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like the tired heaving of a grief-worn breast.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">This was a mind so rounded, so complete,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">No partial gift of Nature in excess,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That, like a single stream where many meet,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Each separate talent counted something less.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A little hillock, if it lonely stand,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Holds o'er the fields an undisputed reign;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the broad summit of the table-land<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Seems with its belt of clouds a level plain.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 463]</span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Servant of all his powers, that faithful slave,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Unsleeping Memory, strengthening with his toils,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To every ruder task his shoulder gave,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And loaded every day with golden spoils.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Order, the law of Heaven, was throned supreme<br /></span> +<span class="i2">O'er action, instinct, impulse, feeling, thought;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">True as the dial's shadow to the beam,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Each hour was equal to the charge it brought.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Too large his compass for the nicer skill<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That weighs the world of science grain by grain;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All realms of knowledge owned the mastering will<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That claimed the franchise of his whole domain.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Earth, air, sea, sky, the elemental fire,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Art, history, song,—what meanings lie in each<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Found in his cunning hand a stringless lyre,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And poured their mingling music through his speech.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thence flowed those anthems of our festal days,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whose ravishing division held apart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lips of listening throngs in sweet amaze,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Moved in all breasts the self-same human heart.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Subdued his accents, as of one who tries<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To press some care, some haunting sadness down;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His smile half shadow; and to stranger eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The kingly forehead wore an iron crown.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He was not armed to wrestle with the storm,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To fight for homely truth with vulgar power;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grace looked from every feature, shaped his form,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The rose of Academe,—the perfect flower!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Such was the stately scholar whom we knew<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In those ill days of soul-enslaving calm,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before the blast of Northern vengeance blew<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Her snow-wreathed pine against the Southern palm.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ah, God forgive us! did we hold too cheap<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The heart we might have known, but would not see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And look to find the nation's friend asleep<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Through the dread hour of her Gethsemane?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">That wrong is past; we gave him up to Death<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With all a hero's honors round his name;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As martyrs coin their blood, he coined his breath,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And dimmed the scholar's in the patriot's fame.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So shall we blazon on the shaft we raise,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Telling our grief, our pride, to unborn years,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"He who had lived the mark of all men's praise<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Died with the tribute of a nation's tears."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> Read at the meeting of the Massachusetts Historical +Society, Jan. 30, 1865.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 464]</span></p> +<h2><a name="NEEDLE_AND_GARDEN" id="NEEDLE_AND_GARDEN"></a>NEEDLE AND GARDEN</h2> + +<h3>THE STORY OF A SEAMSTRESS WHO LAID DOWN HER NEEDLE AND BECAME A +STRAWBERRY-GIRL.</h3> + +<h4>WRITTEN BY HERSELF.</h4> + + +<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3> + +<p>I quitted the sewing-school on a Friday evening, intending to put my +things in order the following day: for Monday was my birthday,—I should +then be eighteen, and was to go with my father and select a +sewing-machine.</p> + +<p>As before mentioned, he had usually employed all his spare time in +winter, when there was no garden-work to be done, in making seines for +the fishermen. These were very great affairs, being used in the +shad-fishery on the Delaware; and as they were many hundred yards in +length, they required a large gang of men to manage them. This +employment naturally brought him an extensive acquaintance among the +fishermen, by whom he was always invited to participate in their first +hauling of the river, at the breaking up of winter. As he was quite as +fond of this exciting labor as we had been of fishing along the ditches, +he never failed to accept these invitations. He not only enjoyed the +sport, but he was anxious to see how well the seines would operate which +he had sat for weeks in making. In addition to this, there was the +further gratification of being asked to accept of as many of the +earliest shad as he could carry away in his hand. It was a perquisite +which we looked for and prized as much as he did himself. This +recreation was of course attended with much exposure, being always +entered on in the gusty, chilly weather of the early spring.</p> + +<p>The morning after my quitting school saw him leaving us by daybreak to +go on one of these fishing-excursions, taking my brother with him. It +was in April, a cold, raw, and blustering time, and they would be gone +all day. I had put my little matters in order,—though there was really +very little to do in this way, as neither my wardrobe nor chamber was +crowded with superfluities,—and having decided among ourselves where +the machine should stand, I sat down with my mother and sister to sew. +The weather had changed to quite a snow-storm, with angry gusts of wind; +but our small sitting-room was warm and cheerful. We drew round the +stove, and discussed the events of the coming week. We were to try the +machine on the work which my mother and sister then had in the +house,—for Jane had long since left school, and was actively employed +at home. She had gone through a similar training with myself. I was to +teach both mother and her the use of the machine; and we had determined, +that, as soon as Jane had become sufficiently expert as an operator, she +was to obtain a situation in some establishment, and our earnings were +to be saved, until, with father's assistance, we could purchase machines +for her and mother. We made up our minds that we could accomplish this +within a year at farthest. Thus there was much before and around us to +cheer our hearts and fill them with the brightest anticipations. It +seemed to me, that, if I had been travelling in a long lane, I was now +approaching a delightful turn,—for it has been said that there is none +so long as to be without one.</p> + +<p>We had dined frugally, as usual, and mother had set away an ample +provision for the two absentees, who invariably came home with great +appetites. Our work had been resumed around the stove, and all was calm +and comfortable within the little sitting-room, though without the wind +had risen higher and<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 465]</span> the snow fell faster and faster, when the door was +suddenly opened, and as suddenly shut, by the wife of a neighbor, who, +with hands clasped together, as if overcome by some terrible grief, +rushed toward where my mother was sitting, and exclaimed,—</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mrs. Lacey! how can I tell you?"</p> + +<p>"What is it?" eagerly inquired my mother, starting from her seat, and +casting from her the work on which she had been engaged. "What is it? +Speak! What has happened?" she cried, wild at the woman's apparent +inability to communicate the tidings she had evidently come to relate.</p> + +<p>Regaining her composure in some measure, the latter, covering her face +with her hands, and bursting into tears, sobbed out,—</p> + +<p>"He's drowned!"</p> + +<p>"Oh! which of them?" shrieked my mother, wringing her hands, and every +vestige of color in her cheeks supplanted by a pallor so frightful that +it struck dismay to my heart.</p> + +<p>A mysterious instinct had warned her, the moment the woman spoke the +first words, that some calamity had overtaken us.</p> + +<p>"Which of them?" she repeated, with frantic impetuosity, "Is it my +husband or my son? Speak! speak! My heart breaks!"</p> + +<p>"Your husband, Mrs. Lacey," the woman replied; and as if relieved from +the crushing burden she had thus transferred from her own spirit to +ours, she sank back exhausted into a chair.</p> + +<p>"Oh! when, where, and how?" demanded my mother. "Are you sure it is +true? Who brought the news?"</p> + +<p>"Your own son, Ma'am; he sent me here to tell you," answered the woman.</p> + +<p>The door opened at the moment, and Fred, accompanied by several of the +neighbors, entered the room. Crying as if his heart would break, he +called out,—</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother! it's too true,—father is gone!"</p> + +<p>This confirmation of the withering blow broke her down. I saw that she +was tottering to a fall, and threw my arms round her just in time to +prevent it. We laid her on the settee, insensible to everything about +her.</p> + +<p>As the news of our great bereavement spread, the neighbors crowded in, +offering their sympathy and aid. It was very kind of them, but, alas! +could do nothing towards lightening its weight. The story of how my dear +father came to his untimely end was at length related to us. He had gone +out upon the river in a boat from which a seine was being cast, and by +accident, no one could tell exactly how, had fallen overboard. Being no +swimmer, and the water of icy coldness, he sank immediately, without +again coming to the surface. Strong arms were waiting to seize him, upon +rising, but the deep had closed over him.</p> + +<p>I know not how it was, but the prostration of my poor mother seemed to +give me new strength to bear up under this terrible affliction. Oh! that +was a sad evening for us, and the birthday to which all had looked +forward with so much pleasure as the happiest of my life was to be the +saddest. Morning—it was Sunday—brought comparative calmness to my +mother. But she was broken down by the awful suddenness of the blow. She +wept over the thought that he had died without <i>her</i> being near +him,—that there had been no opportunity for parting words,—that <i>she</i> +was not able to close his dying eyes. She could have borne it better, if +she had been permitted to speak to him, to hear him say farewell, before +death shut out the world from his view. Then there was the painful +anxiety as to recovering the body. It had sunk in deep water, in the +middle of the river, and it was uncertain how far the strong current +might have swept it away from the spot where the accident occurred. The +neighbors had already begun to search for it with drags, and all through +that gloomy Sunday had continued their labor without success; for they +were not watermen, and therefore knew little of the proper methods of +procedure.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 466]</span></p> + +<p>Days passed away in this distressing uncertainty. Our pastor, Mr. +Seeley, missing Fred and Jane from Sunday-school, as well as myself from +the charge of my class, and learning the cause of our absence, came down +to see us. His consolations to my mother, his sympathy, his prayers, +revived and strengthened her. Finding that her immediate anxiety was +about the recovery of the body, he told her that the bodies of drowned +persons were seldom found without a reward being offered for them, and +that one must be promised in the present case. This suggestion brought +up the question of payment, and for the first time in our affliction it +was recollected that my father had always persisted in carrying in his +pocket-wallet all the money he had saved, and thus whatever he might +have accumulated was with him at the time of his death. Following, +nevertheless, the advice of our excellent pastor, a reward of fifty +dollars was advertised, and just one week from the fatal day the body +was brought to our now desolated home. But the wallet, with its +contents, had been abstracted. The little fund my mother had always +managed to keep on hand was too small to meet this heavy draft of the +reward in addition to that occasioned by the funeral, so that, when that +sad ceremony was over, we found ourselves beginning the world that now +opened on us incumbered with a debt of fifty dollars.</p> + +<p>But though borne down by the weight of our affliction, we were far from +being hopelessly discouraged. It is true that my young hopes had been +suddenly blasted. The bright pictures of the future which we had painted +in our little sitting-room the very morning of the day that our calamity +overtook us had all faded from sight, and were remembered only in +contrast with the dark shadows that now filled their places. The cup, +brimming with joyous anticipations, had been dashed from my lips. My +birthday passed in sorrow and gloom. But I roused myself from a torpor +which would have been likely to increase by giving way to it, and put on +all the energy of which I was capable. I felt, that, while I had griefs +for the dead, I had duties to perform to the living. The staff on which +we had mainly leaned for support had been taken away, and we were now +left to depend exclusively on our own exertions. I saw that the +condition of my mother devolved the chief burden on me, and I determined +that I would resolutely assume it.</p> + +<p>I had Fred immediately apprenticed to an iron-founder in the +neighborhood; and thenceforward, by his weekly allowance for board, he +became a contributor to the common support. My knowledge of the +sewing-machine secured for me a situation in a large establishment, in +which more than thirty other girls were employed in making bosoms, +wristbands, and collars for shirts; and I gradually recovered from what +at first was the bitter disappointment of having no machine of my own.</p> + +<p>I have seen it stated in the newspaper, that, when some cotton had been +imported into a certain manufacturing town in England, where all the +mills had long been closed for want of a supply from this country, the +people, who were previously in the greatest distress, went out to meet +it as it was approaching the town, and the women wept over the bales, +and kissed them, and then sang a hymn of thanksgiving for the welcome +importation. It would give them work! It was with a feeling akin to this +that I took my position in the great establishment referred to, having +also succeeded in obtaining a situation for my sister, whom I instructed +in the use of the machine until she became as expert an operator as +myself.</p> + +<p>The certainty of employment, even at moderate wages, relieved my mind of +many domestic cares, while the employment itself was a further relief. +It was, moreover, infinitely more agreeable than working for the +slop-shops, or even for the most fashionable tailors. Our duties were +defined and simple, and there was no unreasonable hurry, and no +night-work: we had our evenings to ourselves. As usual with +sewing-women,<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 467]</span> the pay was invariably small. The old formula had been +adhered to,—that because the cost of a sewing-woman's board was but +trifling, therefore her wages should be graduated to a figure just above +it. She was not permitted, as men are, to earn too much. My sister and I +were sometimes able to earn eight dollars a week between us, sometimes +only six. But this little income was the stay of the family. And it was +well enough, so long as we had no sickness to interrupt our work and +lessen the moderate sum.</p> + +<p>They paid off the girls by gas-light on Saturday evening. As we had a +long walk to reach home, the streets through which we passed presented, +on that evening, an animated appearance. A vast concourse of work-women, +laborers, mechanics, clerks, and others, who had also received their +weekly wages, thronged the streets. There were crowds of girls from the +binderies, mostly well dressed, and sewing-women carrying great bundles +to the tailors, many of them, without doubt uncertain as to whether +their work would be accepted, just as we had been in former days. As the +evening advanced, the shops of all descriptions for the supply of +family-stores were crowded by the wives of workmen thus paid off, and +the sewing-girls or their mothers, all purchasing necessaries for the +coming week, thus immediately disbursing the vast aggregate paid out on +Saturday for wages.</p> + +<p>The quickness with which I secured employment on the sewing-machine, +because of my having qualified myself to operate it, was a new +confirmation of my idea that women are engaged in so few occupations +only because they have not been taught. Employers want skilful workers, +not novices to whom they are compelled to teach everything. But what was +to be the ultimate effect on female labor of the introduction of this +machine had been a doubtful question with me until now, I worked so +steadily in this establishment, the occupation was so constant, as well +as so light, with far more bodily exercise than formerly when sitting in +one position over the needle, and the wages were paid so punctually, +with no mean attempts to cut us down on the false plea of imperfect +work, that I came insensibly to the conclusion that a vast benefit had +been conferred on the sex by its introduction. Yet the apprehensions +felt by all sewing-women, when the new instrument was first brought out, +were perfectly natural. I have read that similar apprehensions were +entertained by others on similar occasions. When the lace-machines were +first introduced in Nottingham, they were destroyed by riotous mobs of +hand-loom weavers, who feared the ruin of their business. But where, +fifty years ago, there were but a hundred and forty lace-machines in use +in England, there are now thirty-five hundred, while the price of lace +has fallen from a hundred shillings the square yard to sixpence. Before +this lace-machinery was invented, England manufactured only two million +dollars' worth per annum, and in doing so employed only eight +thousand-hands; whereas now she produces thirty million dollars' worth +annually, and employs a hundred and thirty thousand hands. It has been +the same with power-looms, reapers, threshing-machines, and every other +contrivance to economize human labor. I am sure that my brother would be +thrown out of employment, if there were no steam-engine to operate the +foundry where he is at work, and that, if there were no sewing-machines, +my sister and myself would be compelled to join the less fortunate army +of seamstresses who still labor so unrequitedly for the slop-shops.</p> + +<p>To satisfy my mind on this subject, I have looked into such books as I +have had time and opportunity to consult, and have found evidence of the +fact, that, the more we increase our facilities for performing work with +speed and cheapness, the more we shall have to do, and so the more hands +will be required to do it. The time was when it was considered so great +an undertaking for a man to farm a hundred acres, that very few persons +were found cultivating a<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 468]</span> larger tract. But now, with every farming +process facilitated by the use of labor-saving machines, there are farms +of ten thousand acres better managed than were formerly those of only a +hundred acres. There would be no penny paper brought daily to our door, +unless the same wonderful revolution had been made in all the processes +of the paper-mill, and in the speed of printing-presses. If I had +doubted what was to be the consequence of bringing machinery into +competition with the sewing-women, it was owing to my utter ignorance of +how other great revolutions had affected the labor of different classes +of workers.</p> + +<p>This doubt thus satisfactorily resolved, it very soon became with me a +question for profound wonder, what became of the immensely increased +quantity of clothing which was manufactured by so many thousands of +machines. I could not learn that our population had suddenly increased +to an extent sufficient to account for the enlarged consumption that was +evidently taking place. I had heard that there were nations of savages +who considered shirts a sort of superfluity, and who moved about in very +much the same costume as that in which our primal mother clothed herself +just previously to indulging in the forbidden fruit. But they could not +have thus suddenly taken to the wearing of machine-made shirts. There +was a paragraph also in our paper which stated that the usual dress in +hot weather, in some parts of our own South, was only a hat and spurs. +This, however, I regarded as a piece of raillery, and was not inclined +to place much faith in it. But I had never heard that any other portion +of our people were in the habit of going without shirts or pantaloons. +If such had been the practice, and if it had on the instant been +renounced, it would have accounted for the sudden and unprecedented +demand which now sprang up for these indispensable articles of dress. Or +if the fashion had so changed that men had taken to wearing two shirts +instead of one, that also might account for it,—though the wearing of +two would be considered as great an eccentricity as the wearing of none.</p> + +<p>I found that others with whom I conversed on the subject were equally +surprised with myself. Even some who were concerned in carrying on the +establishment in which we were employed could not account for the +immediate absorption of the vastly increased quantities of work that +were turned out. Few could tell exactly why more was wanted than +formerly, nor where it went. The only fact apparent was that there was a +demand for thrice as much as before sewing-machines were brought into +use. My own conclusion was eventually this,—that distant sections of +our country were supplied exclusively from these manufactories in the +great cities, which combined capital, energy, and enterprise in the +creation of an immense business. Yet I could not understand why people +in those distant sections did not establish manufactories of their own. +They had quite as much capital, and could procure machines as readily, +while the population to be supplied was immediately at their doors.</p> + +<p>I had always heard that the South and West had never at any time +manufactured their own clothing. I knew that the Southern women, +particularly, were so ignorant and helpless that they had always been +dependent on the North for almost everything they wore, from the most +elaborate bonnet down to a pocket pin-cushion, and that the supplying of +their wardrobes, by the men-milliners of this section, was a highly +lucrative employment. As it is a difficult matter to divert any business +from a channel in which it has long flowed, I concluded that our +Northern dealers, having always commanded these distant markets, would +easily retain them by adapting their business to the change of +circumstances. They had the trade already, and could keep it flowing in +its old channels by promptly availing themselves of the new invention.</p> + +<p>They did so without hesitation,—indeed, the great struggle was as to +who should be first to do it,—and not only kept their business, but +obtained<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 469]</span> for it an unprecedented increase. In doing this they must have +displaced thousands of sewing-women all over the country, as their +cheaper fabrics enabled them to undersell the latter everywhere. I know +that this was the first effect here, and it is difficult to understand +how in other places it should have been otherwise. These sewing-women +must have been deprived of work, or the consumers of clothing must have +immediately begun to purchase and wear double or treble as much as they +had been accustomed to. I do not doubt that the consumption increased +from the mere fact of increased cheapness. I believe it is an invariable +law of trade, that consumption increases as price diminishes. If silks +were to fall to a shilling a yard, everybody would turn away from cotton +shirts. As it was, shirts were made without collars, and the collars +were produced in great manufactories by steam. They were made by +millions, and by millions they were consumed. They were sold in boxes of +a dozen or a hundred, at two or three cents apiece, according to the +wants of the buyer. He could appear once or twice a day in all the glory +of an apparently clean shirt, according to his ambition to shine in a +character which might be a very new one. Judging by the consumption of +these conveniences, it would seem, that, if one had only a clean collar +to display, it was of little consequence whether he had a shirt or not.</p> + +<p>To digress a moment, I will observe, that, when I first saw these +ingenious contrivances to escape the washerwoman's bill, as well as the +cuffs made by the same process for ladies' use, they both struck me so +favorably, while their cheapness was so surprising, that my curiosity +was inflamed to see and know how they were made. In company with my +sister, I visited the manufactory. It was in a large building, and +employed many hands, who operated with machinery that exceeds my ability +to describe. They took a whole piece of thin, cheap muslin, to each side +of which they pasted a covering of the finest white paper by passing the +three layers between iron rollers. The paper and muslin were in rolls +many hundred feet long. The beautiful product of this union was then +parted into strips of the proper width and dried, then passed through +hot metal rollers, combining friction with pressure, whence it was +delivered with a smooth, glossy, enamelled surface. The material for +many thousand collars was thus enamelled in five minutes. It was then +cut by knives into the different shapes and sizes required, and so +rapidly that a man and boy could make more than ten thousand in an hour. +Every collar was then put through a machine which printed upon it +imitation stitches, so exactly resembling the best work of a +sewing-machine as to induce the belief that the collar was actually +stitched. Two girls were working or attending two of these machines, and +the two produced nearly a hundred collars per minute, or about sixty +thousand daily. The button-holes were next punched with even greater +rapidity, then the collar was turned over so nicely that no break +occurred in the material. Then they were counted and put in boxes, and +were ready for market.</p> + +<p>Besides these shirt-collars, there was a great variety of ladies' worked +cuffs and collars, adapted to every taste, and imitating the finest +linen with the nicest exactness, but all made of paper. Some hundreds of +thousands of these were piled up around, ready for counting and packing, +sufficient, it appeared to me, to supply our whole population for a +twelvemonth. They were sold so cheaply, also, that it cost no more to +buy a new collar than to wash an old one. Like friction-matches, they +were used only once and then thrown away; hence, the consumption being +perpetual, the production was continuous the year round.</p> + +<p>I inquired of the proprietor how he accounted for the immense +consumption of these articles, without which the world had been getting +on comfortably for so many thousand years.</p> + +<p>"Why," said he, "we have been fortunate enough to create a new want. +Perhaps we did not really create the<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 470]</span> want, but only discovered that an +unsatisfied one existed. It is all the same in either case. Any great +convenience, or luxury, heretofore unknown to the public, when fairly +set before them is sure to come into general use. It has been so, in my +experience, with many things that were not thought of twenty years ago. +I have been as much puzzled to account for the unlimited consumption of +cuffs and collars as you are to know why so much more clothing is used +now than before sewing-machines came into operation. But the increased +cheapness of a thing, whether old or new, and the convenience of getting +it, are the great stimulants to enlarged consumption,—and as these +conditions are present, so will be the latter."</p> + +<p>"But when you began this business, did you expect to sell so many?" I +inquired.</p> + +<p>"We did not," he replied, "and are ourselves surprised at the quantity +we sell. Besides, there are several other factories, which produce +greater numbers than we do. But when I reflect on the extent to which +the business has already gone, I find the facts to be only in keeping +with results in other cases. I have thought and read much on the very +subject which so greatly interests you. Some years ago I was puzzled to +account for the immensely increased circulation of newspapers,—rising, +in some instances, from one thousand up to forty thousand. I knew that +our population had not grown at one tenth that rate, yet the circulation +went on extending. One day I asked a country postmaster how <i>he</i> +accounted for it 'Why,' he replied, 'the question is easily +answered;—where a man formerly took only one paper, he now takes seven. +Cheap postage, and the establishment of news-agents all over the +country, enable the people to get papers at less cost and with only half +the trouble of twenty years ago. The power of production is complete, +and the machinery of distribution has kept pace with it. The people +don't actually need the papers any more now than they did then, but the +convenience of having them brought to their doors induces them to buy +six or seven where they formerly bought only one. That's the way it +happens.'"</p> + +<p>"Then," continued my polite and communicative informant, "look at the +article of pins. You ladies, who use so many more than our sex, have +never been able to tell what becomes of them. You know that of late +years you have been using the American solid-head pins, which were +produced so cheaply as immediately to supersede the foreign article. +Now," said he, with a smile, "don't you think you use up six pins you +formerly used only one? Careful people, twenty years ago, when they saw +one on the pavement, or on the parlor-floor, stopped and picked it up; +but now they pass it by, or sweep it into the dust-pan. Is it not so, +and have not careful people ceased to exist?"</p> + +<p>I confess that the illustration was so full of point that some +indistinct conviction of its truth came over me; it was really my own +experience.</p> + +<p>"So you see," he continued, "that, while of all these new and cheaply +manufactured articles there is a vast consumption, there is also a vast +waste. People—that is, prudent people—generally take care of things +according to their cost. You don't wear your best bonnet in the rain. It +is precisely so with our cuffs and collars. We sell them so cheaply that +some people wear three or four a day, while a careful person would make +one suffice. When the collar was attached to the shirt, it served for a +much longer time; what but cheapness and convenience can tempt to such +wastefulness now? My family, at least the female portion, use these +articles about as extravagantly, and I think your whole sex must be +equally fond of indulging in the same lavish use of them,—otherwise the +consumption could not be so great as you see it is."</p> + +<p>I could not but inwardly plead guilty to this weakness of indulging in +clean cuffs and collars,—neither could I fail to recognize the +soundness of this reasoning, which must have grown out of superior +knowledge. It gave me<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 471]</span> new light, and settled a great many doubts.</p> + +<p>"I suppose, Miss," he resumed, as if unwilling to leave anything +unexplained, "you use friction-matches at home? Now you know how cheap +they are,—two boxes for a cent. But I remember when one box sold for +twenty-five cents. People were then careful how they used them, and it +was not everybody who could afford to do so. The flint and tinder-box +were long in going out of use. But how is it now? Instead of one match +serving to light a cigar, the smokers use two or three. They waste them +because they are cheap, carrying them loose in their pockets, that they +may always have enough, with some to throw away.</p> + +<p>"Take the article of hoop-skirts. Women did very well without them, and +looked quite as well, at least in my opinion. But some ingenious man +conceived the idea of tempting them with a new want, and they were at +once persuaded into believing that hoop-skirts were indispensable to a +genteel appearance. They were adopted all over the country with a +rapidity that outstripped that of the cuffs and collars,—not, perhaps, +that as many were manufactured, because, if that had been the case, they +could not have been consumed, unless each woman had worn two or three. +And they may in fact wear two or three each,—I don't know how that +is,—but look at the waste already visible. Every week or two, new +patterns are brought out, better, lighter, or prettier than the last; +whereupon the old ones are thrown aside, though not half worn. Why, +Miss, do you know that your sex are carrying about them some thousands +of tons of brass and steel in the shape of these skirts? As to the +waste, it is already so large as to have become a public nuisance. An +old hat or shoe may be given away to somebody,—an old scrubbing-brush +may be disposed of by putting it into the stove; but as to an old skirt, +who wants it? You cannot burn it; the very beggars will not take it; and +hence it is thrown into the street, or into the alley close to your +door, where it continues for months to trip up the feet of every +wayfaring man quite as provokingly as it sometimes tripped up those of +the wearer. It is the waste of hoop-skirts, as much as anything else, +that keeps the manufacture so brisk.</p> + +<p>"Then, again," he continued, as if expanded by the skirts he had just +been speaking of, "look at the long dresses which the ladies now wear. +See how the most costly stuffs are dragging over the pavement, sweeping +up the filth with which it is covered. To speak of the foul condition +into which such draggletailed dresses must soon get is positively +sickening. If a dozen of them were thrown into a closet and left there +for a few hours, I have no doubt they would burn of spontaneous +combustion."</p> + +<p>I was half inclined to take fire myself at hearing this, but remained +silent, and he proceeded.</p> + +<p>"See, too, what a constant fidget the wearers are in, under the +incumbrance of a dress so foolishly long as to require the use of both +hands to keep it at a cleanly elevation. I presume the ladies wear these +ridiculous trains because they think they look more graceful in them. +But do you know, Miss, that our sex feel the most profound contempt for +a woman who is so weak as to make such an exhibition of folly? It might +do for great people, at a great party,—but in dirty, sloppy, muddy +streets, by servant-girls as well as by fashionable women, it is +considered not only indecent, but as evincing a want of common sense. +Moreover, the quantity of material destroyed by thus dragging over the +pavement is very great. It must amount to thousands of yards annually, +and it appears to me that the more it costs per yard, the more of it is +devoted to street-sweeping. Here is wastefulness by wholesale."</p> + +<p>"But do you think the same remarks apply to the case of the greatly +increased amount of clothing that is now manufactured by the +sewing-machines?" I inquired.</p> + +<p>"Certainly, Miss," he responded.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 472]</span> "There are not a great many more +people in this country now to be clothed than there were three years +ago; yet at least three times as much clothing is manufactured. The +question is as to how it is consumed. I do not suppose that men wear two +coats or shirts, or that any ever went without them. But the increased +cheapness has led to increased waste, exactly as in the case of pins and +matches. Clothing being obtainable at lower prices than were ever known +before in this country, it is purchased in unnecessary quantities, just +like the newspapers, and not taken care of. Thousands of men now have +two or three coats where they formerly had only one. It is these extra +outfits, and this continual waste, that keep up the production at which +you are so much astonished. The facts afford you another illustration of +the great law of supply and demand,—that as you cheapen and multiply +products or manufactures of any kind, so will the consumption of them +increase. If pound-cake could be had at the price of corn-bread, does it +not strike you that the community would consume little else? The cry for +pound-cake would be universal,—it would be, in fact, in everybody's +mouth."</p> + +<p>"But," I again inquired, "will this extraordinary demand for the +products of the sewing-machine continue? I have told you that I am a +sewing-girl, and hence feel a deep interest in learning all I can upon +the subject."</p> + +<p>"Judging from appearances, it must," was his reply. "We are the most +extravagant people in the world. We consume, per head, more coffee, tea, +and sugar, jewelry, silks, and cotton, than the people of any other +country on the face of the earth. Our women wear more satins and laces, +and our men smoke more high-priced cigars, than those of any other part +of the world. They eat more meat, drink more liquor, and spend more in +trifles. And it is not likely that they contemplate any reformation of +these lavish habits, at least while wages keep up to the present rates. +Were it proposed, I think that coats and shirts would be about the last +things the men would begin with, and paper cuffs and collars among the +last the women would repudiate. They are fond enough of changing their +clothes, but have no idea of doing without them."</p> + +<p>"I notice," I observed, "that you employ girls in your establishment, +several being occupied in feeding the stamping-rollers. Could a man feed +those rollers more efficiently than a girl? or would they turn out more +work in a week, if attended by a man than by a girl?"</p> + +<p>"Not any more," he answered.</p> + +<p>"Do the girls receive as much wages as the men?" I added.</p> + +<p>"About one third as much," he replied.</p> + +<p>"But," I suggested, "if they perform as much work as men could, why do +you pay them so much less?"</p> + +<p>"Competition, Miss," he answered, "There is a constant pressure on us +from girls seeking employment, and this keeps down wages. Besides, those +whom we do employ come here wholly ignorant of what they are required to +do. Some have never worked a day in their lives. It requires time to +teach them, and while being taught they spoil a great deal of material. +It is a long time before they become really skilled hands. You can have +no conception of the kind of help that offers itself to us every week. +Parents don't seem to educate their daughters to anything useful; and +our girls nowadays appear to have little or nothing to do in-doors. +Formerly they had plenty of household duties, as a multitude of things +were done at home which even the poorest old woman never thinks of doing +now. The baker now makes their bread; the spinning, the weaving, the +knitting, and sewing are taken out of their hands by machinery; and if +women want to work, they must go out and seek it, just as those do who +apply to us. Machinery has undoubtedly effected a great revolution in +all home-employments for women, compelling many to be idle; and not +being properly encouraged to adopt new employments in place of the old +ones, they remain idle until forced to work<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 473]</span> for bread, and then go out +in search of occupation, knowing no more of one half the things we want +them to do than mere children."</p> + +<p>"But when they become skilled," I again asked, "you do not pay them as +high wages as you pay the men, though they do as much and as well?"</p> + +<p>"Women don't need as much," he replied. "They can live on less, they pay +less board, have fewer wants, and less occasion for money."</p> + +<p>"But don't you think," I rejoined, "that, if you gave them the money, +they would find the wants, and that the scarcity of the former is the +true reason for the limitation of the latter? Do not working-women live +on the little they get only because they are compelled to?"</p> + +<p>"It may be so," he answered. "Our wants are born with us,—and as one +set is supplied, another rises up to demand gratification. But they +offer to work for these wages, and why should we give them more than +they ask?"</p> + +<p>"But how is it with the women with families, the widows?" I suggested. +"Have they no more wants than young girls? If the fewer necessities of +the girls be a reason for giving them low wages, why should not the more +numerous ones of the widows be as potent a reason for giving them better +wages?"</p> + +<p>"Competition again, Miss," he responded. "The prices at which the girls +work govern the market."</p> + +<p>There was no getting over facts like these. Let me look at the subject +in whatever aspect I might, it seemed impossible that female labor +should be adequately paid by any class of employers. But on the present +occasion this was an incidental question. The primary one, why so much +more sewing was required for the people now than formerly, was answered +measurably to my satisfaction. I thought a great deal on this subject, +because now, since the loss of our main family-dependence, I was more +interested in its solution. I think I settled down into accepting the +foregoing facts and opinions as embodying a satisfactory explanation; +and although not exactly set at ease, yet the conclusion then embraced +has not been changed by any subsequent discovery.</p> + +<p>The gentleman referred to may have been altogether wrong in some parts +of his argument, but I was too little versed in matters of trade, and +the laws of supply and demands to show wherein he was so. It seemed to +me a strange argument, that the consumption of things was to be so +largely attributed to wastefulness. But I suppose this must be what +people call political economy, and how should I be expected to know +anything of that? I knew that in our little family the utmost economy +was practised. I have turned or fixed up the same bonnet as many as four +times, putting on new trimmings at very little expense, and making it +look so different every time that none suspected it of being the old +bonnet altered, while many of my acquaintances admired it as a new one, +some of them even inquiring what it cost, and who was the milliner that +made it. We never thought of giving one away until it had gone through +many such transformations, nor, in fact, until it was actually used up, +at least for me. Even when mine had seen such long and severe service, +my sister Jane fell heir to it, though without knowing it,—for she had +more pride than myself, and was much more particular about her good +looks. Hence, when the thing was at all feasible, my veteran bonnet was +transformed, in private, into a very fair new one for her. She had been +familiar with my head-gear for so many years that I often wondered how +she failed to detect the disguises I put upon it; and I had as much as I +could do to keep from laughing, when I brought to her what we invariably +called her new bonnet. As she grew older, she became more exacting in +her tastes, and at the same time foolishly suspicious of the mysterious +origin of her new bonnets,—just as if they were any worse for my having +worn them for years! I presume her mortification will be extreme, when +she comes to read this. As to old clothes, they were nursed up quite as +carefully, though Jane had her full inheritance of both mine<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 474]</span> and +mother's. When entirely past service, they were cut up into carpet-rags, +from which we obtained the warmest covering for our floors. Thus +practising no wastefulness ourselves, it was difficult to understand how +the national wastefulness could be great enough to insure the prosperity +of a multitude of extensive manufacturing establishments. But our +premises were very humble ones from which to start an argument of any +description.</p> + +<p>Yet, when the attention of an inquiring mind is directed toward any +given subject, it is astonishing how, if only a little observation is +practised, it will unfold and expand itself. In my walks to and from the +factory there lay numerous open lots or commons, all of which afforded +abundant evidence of the extent to which this public wastefulness was +carried. Heretofore I had passed on without noticing much about them. +But now I observed that they were heaped up with great piles of +coal-ashes, from which cropped out large quantities of the unburnt +mineral, as black and shining as when it came from the mines. There were +thousands of loads of this residuum, in which many hundred tons of pure +coal must have been thus wastefully thrown away. In other parts of the +city the same evidence of carelessness existed, so that the waste of a +single city in the one article of coal must be enormous. Then, over +these commons were scattered, almost daily, the remains of clothing, old +hats, bonnets, and the indestructible hoop-skirts, of which the +collar-maker had complained as being in everybody's way, as much so when +out of use as when in. Somebody had been guilty of wastefulness in thus +casting these things away. But though losses to some, they were gains to +others. By early daylight the rag-pickers came in platoons to gather up +all these waifs. The hats, the bonnets, and the clothing were quickly +appropriated by women and children who had come out of the narrow courts +and hovels of the city in search of what they knew was an every-day +harvest. These small gatherings of the rag-pickers amounted to hundreds +of dollars daily. Then there was another class of searchers after +abandoned treasure, in the persons of other women and children, who, +with pronged or pointed sticks, worked their way into the piles of +ashes, and picked out basketfuls of coal as heavy as they could carry, +and in this laborious way provided themselves with summer and winter +fuel.</p> + +<p>There was living near us a man who made a business of gathering up the +offal of several hundred kitchens in the city, as food for pigs. I know +that he grew rich at this vocation. He lived in a much better house than +ours, and his wife and daughters dressed as expensively as the +wealthiest women. They had a piano, and music in abundance. He had +several carts which were sent on their daily rounds through the city, +collecting the kitchen-waste of boarding-houses, hotels, and private +families. The quantity of good, wholesome food which these carts brought +away to be fed to pigs was incredible. It was a common thing to see +whole loaves of bread taken out of the family swill-tub, with joints of +meat not half eaten, sound vegetables, and fragments of other food, as +palatable and valuable as the portion that had been consumed on the +table. It seemed as if there were hundreds of families who made it a +point never to have food served up a second time. The waste by this +thriftlessness was great. I doubt not that some men must have been kept +poor by such want of proper oversight on the part of their wives, as I +know that it enriched the individual who gathered up the fat crumbs +which fell from their tables. I think it must be quite true that "fat +kitchens make lean wills."</p> + +<p>These slight incidental confirmations of the theory of national +wastefulness came under my daily notice. I had heretofore overlooked +them, but now they attracted my attention. Then I had only to direct my +eye to other and higher fields of observation to be sure that it had +some foundation. The streets, the shop-windows, were eloquent witnesses<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 475]</span> +for it. The waste of clothing material consequent on the introduction of +hoop-skirts was seen to be prodigious. It was not only the poor thin +body that was now to be covered with finery, but the huge balloon in +which fashion required that that body should be enveloped. I thought, +now that the subject was one for study, that I could see it running +through almost every thing.</p> + +<p>This wastefulness, then, was to be the ground on which the sewing-woman +was to rest her hopes of continued employment. It might be good +holding-ground in times of high general prosperity, when money was +abundant and circulation active; but how would it be when reverses of +any kind overtook the nation? As extravagance was the rule now, it +occurred to me that so would a stringent economy be the rule then, The +old hats that were usually thrown away upon the commons would be +rejuvenated and worn again,—the parsimony of one crisis seeking to make +up for the wastefulness of another; for when a sharp turn of hard times +comes round, everybody takes to economizing. There are older heads and +more observant minds than my own, that must remember how these things +have worked in bygone years. These have had the experience of a whole +lifetime to enable them to judge: I was a mere inquirer on the threshold +of a very brief one.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Our employment at the factory kept us comfortable. In time we were able +to earn something more than when we began. Our good pastor had lent us +the money with which to pay the reward for recovering my dear father's +body; and as my mother had a great dread of being in debt, we had +practised a most rigid economy at home in order to save enough to repay +him. This we did, a few dollars at a time, until we had finally paid the +whole. Though he frequently came down to see my mother in her +loneliness, yet he never alluded to the matter of the loan, and actually +declined taking any part of it until it was almost forced upon him. He +even offered, on one occasion, to increase the loan to any extent that +my mother might think necessary for her comfort, and in various ways +manifested a strong disposition to do everything far us that he could. +We had all been favorite pupils in his Sunday school, where I had soon +been promoted to the position of a teacher. Finding, also, that we were +fond of reading, he had lent us books from his own library, and even +invited me to come and select for myself. I sometimes accepted these +invitations, and occasionally chose books on subjects that seemed to +surprise him very much But, after all, are not a few books well chosen +better than a great library?</p> + +<p>The lending of the money at the time we were in so much distress was of +inexpressible value to us. But as every-day life is a leaf in one's +history, so was this pecuniary experience in ours. I had innocently +supposed that the chief value of money was to supply one's own wants, +but I now learned that its highest capacity for good lay in its power of +ministering to the necessities of others. I have read that in prosperity +it is the easiest thing to find a friend; but that in adversity it is of +all things the most difficult. I know that in trouble we often come off +better than we expect, and always better than we deserve. But men of the +noblest dispositions are apt to consider themselves happiest when others +share their happiness with them. Our pastor lent us this little sum of +money at a time when it was of the utmost value to us; but it was done +in a way so hearty, and so unobtrusive, as to add immeasurably to the +obligation. Indeed, I sometimes think that a pecuniary favor which is +granted grudgingly is no favor at all.</p> + +<p>Still, while at work in the factory, there were many things to think of, +and some inconveniences to submit to. The long walks to it were +unpleasant in stormy weather, and occasionally we were compelled to lose +a day or two from this cause. But then the out-door exercise in fine +weather was beneficial to health, and we were spared the public<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 476]</span> +mortification of carrying great bundles of made-up clothing through the +streets: for, let a sewing-girl feel as independent as she may, she does +not covet the being everywhere known as belonging to that class of +workers. Her bundle is the badge of her profession. My sister had a +great deal of pride on this point. She was extremely nice about her +looks, There was a neat jauntiness in her appearance, of which she +seemed to be fully conscious; and as she grew up to womanhood, I think +it became more apparent in all her actions. She was really a very +attractive girl,—certainly so to me,—and she must have been more so to +the other sex, as I noticed that the men about the establishment were +more courteous to her than they were to me. Even our employer treated +her with a deferential politeness that he did not extend to others, and +when paying us our wages, always had a complimentary remark for Jane, as +if seeking to win the good opinion of one who seemed to be a general +favorite.</p> + +<p>But I confess that during all the time we were working in the factory I +sighed for the possession of a machine of my own, so that I could be +more at home with my mother in her loneliness: for when we left her in +the morning we carried our dinners with us, leaving her to her own +thoughts during the whole day. The grief at my father's loss had by no +means been overcome, for with all of us it was something more than the +shadow of a passing cloud. Personally, I cared nothing for the carrying +of a bundle through the streets, even though it made proclamation of my +being a sewing-girl. Then as to exercise or recreation, I could have +abundance in the garden. As it was, I still continued to see it kept in +order. Fred was very good in doing all I wanted. He would rise early +before breakfast, and do any digging it required, and in the evening, +after returning from the foundry, would attend to many other things +about it as they needed. I was equally industrious; and now that it was +wholly left for me to see to, my fondness for it increased, while I came +to understand its management more thoroughly than when my father was +sole director. The more I had to do, the more I learned. Then there were +times when I rose in the morning feeling so poorly that it was a tax +upon both spirits and strength to tramp the long distance to the +factory; yet it would have been no hardship to work at a machine at +home, or to do an hour's gardening. I think my earnings could have been +made quite as large as they were at the factory, as the owner of a +machine generally received a little more pay than when working on one +belonging to her employer; and I felt quite sure that there would be no +difficulty in obtaining abundance of work. My doubts on this point had +been pretty well settled.</p> + +<p>But we had no hundred and thirty or forty dollars to lay out for a +machine now, and there was no prospect of our being able to save enough +to purchase one. Hence I never even hinted to my mother what my wishes +were, as it would only be to her a fresh anxiety. I did mention the +subject to my sister, but she did not seem to favor my plans. She was a +great favorite at the factory, and why should not the factory be as +great a favorite with her? I have no doubt that our pastor, who was as +wealthy as he was generous and good, would have promptly loaned us, or +even me, the money; but he had heard nothing of the fact that my +father's sudden death had alone prevented my obtaining a machine, nor +during his frequent visits to our house did we ever mention what we had +then expected or what I now so much desired. Besides, it would be a +great debt, so large that I should have hesitated about incurring it. We +had been a long while in getting clear of the other, and the apparent +hopelessness of discharging one nearly three times as great, and that, +too, from my individual earnings, was such, that in the end I concluded +it would be better for me to avoid the debt by doing without the +machine, than to have it only on condition of buying it on credit.: </p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 477]</span></p> +<h2><a name="MEMORIES_OF_AUTHORS" id="MEMORIES_OF_AUTHORS"></a>MEMORIES OF AUTHORS.</h2> + +<h4>A SERIES OF PORTRAITS FROM PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE.</h4> + + +<h3>THEODORE HOOK AND HIS FRIENDS.</h3> + +<p>Theodore Edward Hook was born in Charlotte Street, Bedford Square, on +the 22d of September, 1788. His father was an eminent musical composer, +who "enjoyed in his time success and celebrity"; his elder brother James +became Dean of Windsor, whose son is the present learned and eloquent +Dean of Chichester; the mother of both was an accomplished lady, and +also an author.</p> + +<p>His natural talent, therefore, was early nursed. Unfortunately, the +green-room was the too frequent study of the youth; for his father's +fame and income were chiefly derived from the composition of operetta +songs, for which Theodore usually wrote the libretti. When little more +than a boy he had produced perhaps thirty farces, and in 1808 gave birth +to a novel. Those who remember the two great actors of a long period, +Mathews and Liston, will be at no loss to comprehend the popularity of +Hook's farces: for they were his "props."</p> + +<p>In 1812, when his finances were low, and the chances of increasing them +limited, and when, perhaps, also, his constitution had been tried by +"excesses," he received the appointment of Accountant-General and +Treasurer at the Mauritius,—a post with an income of two thousand +pounds a year. Hook seems to have derived his qualifications for this +office from his antipathy to arithmetic and his utter unfitness for +business.</p> + +<p>The result might have been easily foreseen. In 1819 he returned to +England: the cause may be indicated by his very famous pun, when, the +Governor of the Cape having expressed a hope that he was not returning +because of ill health, he was "sorry to say they think there is +something wrong in the <i>chest</i>." He was found guilty of owing twelve +thousand pounds to the Government: yet he was "without a shilling in his +pocket." If public funds had been abstracted, he was none the richer, +and there was certainly no suspicion that the money had been dishonestly +advantageous to him.</p> + +<p>Although kept for years in hot water, battling with the Treasury, it was +not until 1823 that the penalty was exacted,—sometime after the "John +Bull" had made him a host of enemies. Of course, as he could not pay in +purse, he was doomed to "pay in person." After spending some months +"pleasantly" at a dreary sponging-house in Shoe Lane, where there was +ever "an agreeable prospect, <i>barring</i> the windows," he was removed to +the "Rules of the Bench," residing there a year, being discharged from +custody in 1825.</p> + +<p>Hook, while in the Rules, was under very little restraint; he was almost +as much in society as ever, taking special care not to be seen by any of +his creditors, who might have pounced upon him and made the Marshal +responsible for the debt. The danger was less in Hook's case than in +that of others, for his principal "detaining creditor" was the King. I +remember his telling me, that, during his "confinement" in the Rules, he +made the acquaintance of a gentleman, who, while a prisoner there, paid +a visit to India. The story is this. The gentleman called one morning on +the Marshal, who said,—</p> + +<p>"Mr. ——, I have not had the pleasure to see you for a long time."</p> + +<p>"No wonder," was the answer; "for since you saw me last I have been to +India."</p> + +<p>In reply to a look of astonished inquiry, he explained,—</p> + +<p>"I knew my affairs there were so intricate and involved that no one but<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 478]</span> +myself could unravel them; so I ran the risk, and took my chance. I am +back with ample funds to pay all my debts, and to live comfortably for +the rest of my days."</p> + +<p>Mr. Hook did not say if the gentleman had obtained from his securities a +license for what he had done; but the anecdote illustrates the extreme +laxity enjoyed by prisoners in the Rules, (which extended to several +streets,) as compared with the doleful incarceration to which <i>poor</i> +debtors were subjected, who in those days often had their miserable home +in a jail for debts that might have been paid by shillings.</p> + +<p>Hook then took up his residence at Putney, from which he afterwards +removed to a "mansion" in Cleveland Street, but subsequently to Fulham, +where the remainder of his life was passed, and where he died. It was a +small, detached cottage. It is of this cottage that Lockhart says, "We +doubt if its interior was ever seen by half a dozen people besides the +old confidential worshippers of Bull's mouth."</p> + +<p>He resided here in comparative obscurity. It gave him a pleasant +prospect of Putney Bridge, and of Putney on the opposite side of the +river. As the Thames flowed past the bottom of his small and narrow +garden, he had a perpetually cheerful and changing view of the many gay +passers-by in small boats, yachts, and steamers. The only room of the +cottage I ever saw was somewhat coarsely furnished: a few prints hung on +the walls, but there was no evidence of those suggestive refinements +which substitute intellectual for animal gratifications, in the internal +arrangements of a domicile that becomes necessarily a workshop.</p> + +<p>Hook's love of practical joking seems to have commenced early. Almost of +that character was his well-known answer to the Vice-Chancellor at +Oxford, when asked whether he was prepared to subscribe to the +Thirty-Nine Articles,—"Certainly, to forty of them, if you please"; and +his once meeting the Proctor dressed in his robes, and being questioned, +"Pray, Sir, are you a member of this University?" he replied, "No, Sir; +pray are you?"</p> + +<p>In the Memoirs of Charles Mathews by his widow abundant anecdotes are +recorded of these practical jokes; but, in fact, "Gilbert Gurney," which +may be regarded as an autobiography, is full of them. Mr. Barham, his +biographer, also relates several, and states, that, when a young man, he +had a "museum" containing a large and varied collection of knockers, +sign-paintings, barbers' poles, and cocked hats, gathered together +during his predatory adventures; but its most attractive object was "a +gigantic Highlander," lifted from the shop-door of a tobacconist on a +dark, foggy night. These "enterprises of great pith and moment" are +detailed by himself in full. The most "glorious" of them has been often +told: how he sent through the post some four thousand letters, inviting +on a given day a huge assemblage of visitors to the house of a lady of +fortune, living at 54, Berners Street. They came, beginning with a dozen +sweeps at daybreak, and including lawyers, doctors, upholsterers, +jewellers, coal-merchants, linen-drapers, artists, even the Lord Mayor, +for whose behoof a special temptation was invented. In a word, there was +no conceivable trade, profession, or calling that was not summoned to +augment the crowd of foot-passengers and carriages by which the street +was thronged from dawn till midnight; while Hook and a friend enjoyed +the confusion from a room opposite.<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> Lockhart, in the "Quarterly," +states that the hoax was merely the result of a wager that Hook would in +a week make the quiet dwelling the most famous house in all London. Mr. +Barham affirms that the lady, Mrs. Tottenham, had on some account fallen +under the displeasure of the formidable trio, Mr. Hook and two unnamed +friends.</p> + +<p>His conversation was an unceasing stream of wit, of which he was +profuse, as if he knew the source to be inexhaustible.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 479]</span> He never kept it +for display, or for company, or for those only who knew its value: wit +was, indeed, as natural to him as commonplace to commonplace characters. +It was not only in puns, in repartees, in lively retorts, in sparkling +sentences, in brilliant illustrations, or in apt or exciting anecdote, +that this faculty was developed. I have known him string together a +number of graceful verses, every one of which was fine in composition +and admirable in point, at a moment's notice, on a subject the most +inauspicious, and apparently impossible either to wit or rhyme,—yet +with an effect that delighted a party, and might have borne the test of +criticism the most severe. These verses he usually sang in a sort of +recitative to some tune with which all were familiar,—and if a piano +were at hand, he accompanied himself with a gentle strain of music.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mathews relates that she was present once when Hook dined with the +Drury-Lane Company, at a banquet given to Sheridan in honor of his +return for Westminster. The guests were numerous, yet he made a verse +upon every person in the room:—"Every action was turned to account; +every circumstance, the look, the gesture, or any other accidental +effect, served as occasion for wit." Sheridan was astonished at his +extraordinary faculty, and declared that he could not have imagined such +power possible, had he not witnessed it.</p> + +<p>People used to give him subjects the most unpromising to test his +powers. Thus, Campbell records that he once supplied him with a theme, +"Pepper and Salt," and that he amply seasoned the song with both.</p> + +<p>I was present when this rare faculty was put to even a more severe test, +at a party at Mr. Jerdan's, at Grove House, Brompton,—a house long +since removed to make room for Ovington Square. It was a large +supper-party, and many men and women of mark were present: for the +"Literary Gazette" was then in the zenith of its power, worshipped by +all aspirants for fame, and courted even by those whose laurels had been +won. Its editor, be his shortcomings what they might, was then, as he +had ever been, ready with a helping hand for those who needed help: a +lenient critic, a generous sympathizer, who preferred pushing a dozen +forward to thrusting one back.</p> + +<p>Hook, having been asked for his song, and, as usual, demanding a theme, +one of the guests, either facetiously or maliciously, called out, "Take +Yates's big nose." (Yates, the actor, was one of the party.) To any one +else such a subject would have been appalling: not so to Hook. He rose, +glanced once or twice round the table, and chanted (so to speak) a +series of verses perfect in rhythm and rhyme: the incapable theme being +dealt with in a spirit of fun, humor, serious comment, and absolute +philosophy, utterly inconceivable to those who had never heard the +marvellous improvisator,—each verse describing something which the +world considered great, but which became small, when placed in +comparison with</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Yates's big nose!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It was the first time I had met Hook, and my astonishment was unbounded. +I found it impossible to believe the song was improvised; but I had +afterwards ample reason to know that so thorough a triumph over +difficulties was with him by no means rare.</p> + +<p>I had once a jovial day with him on the Thames,—fishing in a punt on +the river opposite the Swan at Thames-Ditton. Hook was in good health +and good spirits, and brimful of mirth. He loved the angler's craft, +though he seldom followed it; and he spoke with something like affection +of a long-ago time, when bobbing for roach at the foot of Fulham Bridge, +the fisherman perpetually raising or lowering his float, according to +the ebb and flow of the tide.</p> + +<p>A record of his "sayings and doings," that glorious day, from early morn +to set of sun, would fill a goodly volume. It was fine weather, and +fishing on the Thames is lazy fishing; for the gudgeons bite freely, and +there is little labor in<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 480]</span> "landing" them. It is therefore the perfection +of the <i>dolce far-niente</i>, giving leisure for talk, and frequent desire +for refreshment. Idle time <i>is</i> idly spent; but the wit and fun of Mr. +Hook that day might have delighted a hundred by-sitters, and it was a +grief to me that I was the only listener. Hook then conceived—probably +then made—the verses he afterwards gave the "New Monthly," entitled +"The Swan at Ditton."</p> + +<p>The last time I saw Hook was at Prior's Bank, Fulham, where his +neighbors, Mr. Baylis and Mr. Whitmore, had given an "entertainment," +the leading feature being an amateur play,—for which, by the way, I +wrote the prologue. Hook was then in his decadence,—in broken +health,—his animal spirits gone,—the cup of life drained to the dregs. +It was morning before the guests departed, yet Hook remained to the +last; and a light of other days brightened up his features, as he opened +the piano, and began a recitative. The theme was, of course, the +occasion that had brought the party together, and perhaps he never, in +his best time, was more original and pointed. I can recall two of the +lines,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"They may boast of their Fulham omnibus,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But <i>this</i> is the Fulham stage."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>There was a fair young boy standing by his side, while he was singing. +One of the servants suddenly opened the drawing-room shutters, and a +flood of light felt upon the lad's head: the effect was very touching, +but it became a thousand times more so, as Hook, availing himself of the +incident, placed his hand upon the youth's brow, and in tremulous tones +uttered a verse, of which I recall only the concluding lines,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"For <i>you</i> is the dawn of the morning.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For <i>me</i> is the solemn good-night."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He rose from the piano, burst into tears, and left the room. Few of +those who were present saw him afterwards.<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a></p> + +<p>All the evening Hook had been low in spirits. It seemed impossible to +stir him into animation, until the cause was guessed at by Mr. Blood, a +surgeon, who was at that time an actor at the Haymarket. He prescribed a +glass of Sherry, and retired to procure it, returning presently with a +bottle of pale brandy. Having administered two or three doses, the +machinery was wound up, and the result was as I have described it.</p> + +<p>I give one more instance of his ready wit and rapid power of rhyme. He +had been idle for a fortnight, and had written nothing for the "John +Bull" newspaper. The clerk, however, took him his salary as usual, and +on entering his room said, "Have you heard the news? the king and queen +of the Sandwich Islands are dead," (they had just died in England of the +small-pox.) "and," added the clerk, "we want something about +them."—"Instantly," cried Hook, "you shall have it:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Waiter, two Sandwiches,' cried Death.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And their wild Majesties resigned their breath."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The "John Bull" was established at the close of the year 1820, and it is +said that Sir Walter Scott, having been consulted by some leader among +"high Tories," suggested Hook as the person precisely suited for the +required task. The avowed purpose of the publication was to extinguish +the party of the Queen,—Caroline, wife of George IV.; and in a reckless +and frightful spirit the work was done. She died, however, in 1821, and +persecution was arrested at her grave. Its projectors and proprietors +had counted on a weekly sale of seven hundred and fifty copies, and +prepared accordingly. By the sixth week it had reached a sale of ten +thousand, and became a valuable property to "all concerned." Of course, +there were many prosecutions for libels, damages and costs and +incarceration for breaches of privilege; but all search for actual +delinquents was vain. Suspicions were rife enough, but positive proofs +there were none.</p> + +<p>Hook was of course In no way implicated in so scandalous and slanderous +a publication! On one occasion there appeared among the answers to<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 481]</span> +correspondents a paragraph purporting to be a reply from Mr. Theodore +Hook, "disavowing all connection with the paper." The gist of the +paragraph was this:—"Two things surprise us in this business: the +first, that anything we have thought worthy of giving to the public +should have been mistaken for Mr. Hook's; and secondly, that <i>such a +person as Mr. Hook</i> should think himself disgraced by a connection with +'John Bull.'"</p> + +<p>Even now, at this distance of time, few of the contributors are actually +known; among them were undoubtedly John Wilson Croker, and avowedly +Haynes Bayly, Barham, and Dr. Maginn.</p> + +<p>In 1836, when I had resigned the "New Monthly" into the hands of Mr. +Hook, he proposed to me to take the sub-editorship and general literary +management of the "John Bull." That post I undertook, retaining it for a +year. Our "business" was carried on, not at the "John Bull" office, but +at Easty's Hotel, in Southampton Street, Strand, in two rooms on the +first floor of that tavern. Mr. Hook was never seen at the office; his +existence, indeed, was not recognized there. If any one had asked for +him by name, the answer would have been that no such person was known. +Although at the period of which I write there was no danger to be +apprehended from his walking in and out of the small office in Fleet +Street, a time had been when it could not have been done without +personal peril. Editorial work was therefore conducted with much +secrecy, a confidential person communicating between the editor and the +printer, who never knew, or rather was assumed not to know, by whom the +articles were written. In 1836, some years before, and during the years +afterwards, no paragraph was inserted that in the remotest degree +assailed private character. Political hatreds and personal hostilities +had grown less in vogue, and Hook had lived long enough to be tired of +assailing those whom he rather liked and respected. The bitterness of +his nature (if it ever existed, which I much doubt) had worn out with +years. Undoubtedly much of the brilliant wit of the "John Bull" had +evaporated, in losing its distinctive feature. It had lost its power, +and as a "property" dwindled to comparative insignificance. Mr. Hook +derived but small income from the editorship during the later years of +his life. I will believe that higher and more honorable motives than +those by which he had been guided during the fierce and turbulent +party-times, when the "John Bull" was established, had led him to +relinquish scandal, slander, and vituperation, as dishonorable weapons. +I know that in my time he did not use them; his advice to me, on more +than one occasion, while acting under him, was to remember that "abuse" +seldom effectually answered a purpose, and that it was wiser as well as +safer to act on the principle that "praise undeserved is satire in +disguise." All that was evil in the "John Bull" had been absorbed by two +infamous weekly newspapers, "The Age" and "The Satirist." They were +prosperous and profitable. Happily, no such newspapers now exist; the +public not only would not buy, they would not tolerate, the +personalities, the indecencies, the gross outrages on public men, the +scandalous assaults on private character, that made these publications +"good speculations" at the period of which I write, and undoubtedly +disgraced the "John Bull" during the early part of its career.</p> + +<p>No wonder, therefore, that no such person as Mr. Theodore Hook was +connected with the "John Bull." He invariably denied all such +connection, and perseveringly protested against the charge that he had +ever written a line in it. I have heard it said, that, during the +troublous period of the Queen's trial, Sir Robert Wilson met Hook in the +street, and said, in a sort of confidential whisper,—"Hook, I am to be +traduced and slandered in the 'John Bull' next Sunday." Hook, of course, +expressed astonishment and abhorrence. "Yes," continued Wilson, "and if +I am, I mean to horsewhip <i>you</i> the first time<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 482]</span> you come in my way. Now +stop; I know you have nothing to do with that newspaper,—you have told +me so a score of times; nevertheless, if the article, which is purely of +a private nature, appears, let the consequences be what they may, I will +horsewhip <i>you</i>!" The article never did appear. I can give no authority +for this anecdote, but I do not doubt its truth.</p> + +<p>I knew Sir Robert Wilson in 1823, and was employed by him to copy and +arrange a series of confidential documents, relative to the Spanish war +of independence, between the Cortes and the Government, the result of +which was an engagement to act as his private secretary, and to receive +a commission in the Spanish service, in the event of Sir Robert's taking +a command in Spain. He went to Spain, leaving me as secretary to the +fund raised in that year in England to assist the cause. Fortunately for +me, British aid began and ended with these subscriptions; no force was +raised. Sir Robert returned without taking service in Spain, and I was +saved from the peril of becoming a soldier. Sir Robert was a tall, +slight man, of wiry form and strong constitution, handsome both in +person and features, with the singularly soldier-like air that we read +so much of in books. In those days of fervid and hopeful youth, the +story of Sir Robert's chivalric and successful efforts to save the life +of Lavalette naturally touched my heart, and if I had remained in his +service, he would have had no more devoted follower. During my +engagement as Secretary to the Spanish Committee, (leading members of +which were John Cam Hobhouse, Joseph Hume, and John Bowring,) I +contributed articles to the "British Press,"—a daily newspaper, long +since deceased,—and this led to my becoming a Parliamentary reporter.</p> + +<p>I apologize for so much concerning myself,—a subject on which I desire +to say as little as possible,—but in this "Memory" it is more a +necessity to do so than it will be hereafter.</p> + +<p>I have another story to tell of these editorial times. One day a +gentleman entered the "John Bull" office, evidently in a state of +extreme exasperation, armed with a stout cudgel. His application to see +the editor was answered by a request to walk up to the second-floor +front room. The room was empty; but presently there entered to him a +huge, tall, broad-shouldered fellow, who, in unmitigated brogue, +asked,—</p> + +<p>"What do you plase to want, Sir?"</p> + +<p>"Want!" said the gentleman,—"I want the editor."</p> + +<p>"I'm the idditur, Sir, at your sarvice."</p> + +<p>Upon which the gentleman, seeing that no good could arise from an +encounter with such an "editor," made his way down stairs and out of the +house without a word.</p> + +<p>In 1836 Mr. Hook succeeded me in the editorship of the "New Monthly +Magazine." The change arose thus. When Mr. Colburn and Mr. Bentley had +dissolved partnership, and each had his own establishment, much +jealousy, approaching hostility, existed between them. Mr. Bentley had +announced a comic miscellany,—or rather, a magazine of which humor was +to be the leading feature. Mr. Colburn immediately conceived the idea of +a rival in that line, and applied to Hook to be its editor. Hook readily +complied. The terms of four hundred pounds per annum having been +settled, as usual he required payment in advance, and "then and there" +received bills for his first year's salary. Not long afterwards Mr. +Colburn saw the impolicy of his scheme. I had strongly reasoned against +it,—representing to him that the "New Monthly" would lose its most +valuable contributor, Mr. Hook, and other useful allies with him,—that +the ruin of the "New Monthly" must be looked upon as certain, while the +success of his "Joker's Magazine" was problematical at best. Such +arguments prevailed; and he called upon Mr. Hook with a view to +relinquish his design. Mr. Hook was exactly of Mr. Colburn's new +opinion. He had received<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 483]</span> the money, and was not disposed, even if he +had been able, to give it back, but suggested his becoming editor of the +"New Monthly," and in that way working it out. The project met the views +of Mr. Colburn; and so it was arranged.</p> + +<p>But when the plan was communicated to me, I declined to be placed in the +position of sub-editor. I knew, that, however valuable Mr. Hook might be +as a large contributor, he was utterly unfitted to discharge editorial +duties, and that, as sub-editor, I could have no power to do aught but +obey the orders of my superior, while, as co-editor, I could both +suggest and object, as regarded articles and contributors. This view was +the view of Mr. Colburn, but not that of Mr. Hook. The consequence was +that I retired. As to the conduct of the "New Monthly" in the hands of +Mr. Hook, until it came into those of Mr. Hood, and, not long +afterwards, was sold by Mr. Colburn to Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, it is not +requisite to speak.</p> + +<p>A word here of Mr. Colburn. I cherish the kindliest memory of that +eminent bibliopole. He has been charged with many mean acts as regards +authors; but I know that he was often liberal, and always considerate +towards them. He could be implacable, but also forgiving; and it was +ever easy to move his heart by a tale of sorrow or a case of distress. +For more than a quarter of a century he led the general literature of +the kingdom; and I believe his sins of omission and commission were very +few. Such is my impression, resulting from six years' continual +intercourse with him. He was a little, sprightly man, of mild and kindly +countenance, and of much bodily activity. His peculiarity was, that he +rarely or never finished a sentence, appearing as if he considered it +hazardous to express fully what he thought. Consequently one could +seldom understand what was his real opinion upon any subject he debated +or discussed. His debate was always a "possibly" or "perhaps"; his +discussion invariably led to no conclusion for or against the matter in +hand.</p> + +<p>It was during my editorship of the "New Monthly" that the best of all +Hook's works, "Gilbert Gurney," was published in that magazine. The part +for the ensuing number was rarely ready until the last moment, and more +than once at so late a period of the month, that, unless in the +printer's hands next morning, its publication would have been +impossible. I have driven to Fulham to find not a line of the article +written; and I have waited, sometimes nearly all night, until the +manuscript was produced. Now and then he would relate to me one of the +raciest of the anecdotes before he penned it down,—sometimes as the raw +statement of a fact before it had received its habiliments of fiction, +but more often as even a more brilliant story than the reader found it +on the first of the month.<a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a></p> + +<p>Hook was in the habit of sending pen-and-ink sketches of himself in his +letters. I have one of especial interest, in which he represented +himself down upon knees, with handkerchief to eyes. The meaning was to +indicate his grief at being late with his promised article for the "New +Monthly," and his begging pardon thereupon. He had great facility for +taking off likenesses, and it is said was once suspected of being the +"H. B." whose lithographic drawings of eminent or remarkable persons +startled society a few years ago by their rare graphic power and their +striking resemblance,—barely bordering on caricature.</p> + +<p>Here is Hook's contribution to Mrs. Hall's album:—</p> + +<p>"Having been requested to do that which I never did in my life +before,—write two charades upon two given and by no means sublime +words,—here are they. It is right to say that they are to be taken with +reference to each other.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 484]</span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"My first is in triumphs most usually found;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Old houses and trees show my second;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My whole is long, spiral, red, tufted, and round,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And with beef is most excellent reckoned.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My first for age hath great repute;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My second is a tailor;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My whole is like the other root,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Only a <i>little</i> paler.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6"><span class="smcap">"Theodore E. Hook.</span><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"September 4, 1835.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Do you give them up?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">"<i>Car-rot.</i> <i>Par-snip.</i>"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The reader will permit me here to introduce some memories of the +immediate contemporaries and allies of Hook, whose names are, indeed, +continually associated with his, and who, on the principle of "'birds of +a feather," may be properly considered in association with this +master-spirit of them all.</p> + +<p>The Reverend Mr. Barham, whose notes supplied material for the "Memoirs +of Hook," edited by his son, and whose "Ingoldsby Legends" are famous, +was a stout, squat, and "hearty-looking" parson of the old school. His +face was full of humor, although when quiescent it seemed dull and +heavy; his eyes were singularly small and inexpressive, whether from +their own color or the light tint of the lashes I cannot say, but they +seemed to me to be what are called white eyes. I do not believe that in +society he had much of the sparkle that characterized his friend, or +that might have been expected in so formidable a wit of the pen. Sam +Beazley, on the contrary, was a light, airy, graceful person, who had +much refinement, without that peculiar manner which bespeaks the +well-bred gentleman. He was the Daly of "Gilbert Gurney," whose epitaph +was written by Hook long before his death,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Here lies Sam Beazeley,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who lived and died easily."<a name="FNanchor_E_5" id="FNanchor_E_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E_5" class="fnanchor">[E]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>When I knew him, he was practising as an architect in Soho Square. He +was one of Hook's early friends, but I believe they were not in close +intimacy for many years previous to the death of Hook. It was by Beazley +that the present Lyceum Theatre was built.</p> + +<p>Tom Hill was another of Hook's more familiar associates. He is the Hull +of "Gilbert Gurney," and is said to have been the original of Paul Pry, +(which Poole, however, strenuously denied,)—a belief easily entertained +by those who knew the man. A little, round man he was, with straight and +well-made-up figure, and rosy cheeks that might have graced a milkmaid, +when his years numbered certainly fourscore.<a name="FNanchor_F_6" id="FNanchor_F_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_F_6" class="fnanchor">[F]</a> But his age no one ever +knew. The story is well known of James Smith asserting that it never +could be ascertained, for that the register of his birth was lost in the +fire of London, and Hook's comment,—"Oh, he's much older than that: +he's one of the little Hills that skipped in the Bible." He was a merry +man, <i>toujours gai</i>, who seemed as if neither trouble nor anxiety had +ever crossed his threshold or broken the sleep of a single night of his +long life. His peculiar faculty was to find out what everybody did, from +the minister of state to the stable-boy; and there are tales enough told +of his chats with child-maids in the Park, to ascertain the amounts of +their wages, and with lounging footmen in Grosvenor Square, to learn how +many guests had dined at a house the day previous. His curiosity seemed +bent upon prying into small things; for secrets that involved serious +matters he appeared to care nothing. "Pooh, pooh, Sir, don't tell me; I +happen to know!" That phrase was continually coming from his lips.</p> + +<p>Of a far higher and better order was Hook's friend, Mr. Brodrick,—so +long one of the police magistrates,—a gentleman of large acquirements +and sterling rectitude. Nearly as much may be said of Dubois, more than +half a century<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 485]</span> ago the editor of a then popular magazine, "The Monthly +Mirror." Dubois, in his latter days, enjoyed a snug sinecure, and lived +in Sloane Street. He was a pleasant man in face and in manners, and +retained to the last much of the humor that characterized the +productions of his earlier years. To the admirable actor and estimable +gentleman, Charles Mathews, I can merely allude. His memory has received +full honor and homage from his wife; but there are few who knew him who +will hesitate to indorse her testimony to his many excellences of head +and heart.</p> + +<p>Among leading contributors to the "New Monthly," both before and after +the advent of Mr. Hook, was John Poole, the author of "Little +Pedlington," "Paul Pry," and many other pleasant works, not witty, but +full of true humor. He was, when in his prime, a pleasant companion, +though nervously sensitive, and, like most professional jokers, +exceedingly irritable whenever a joke was made to tell against himself. +It is among my memories, that, during the first month of my editorship +of the "New Monthly," I took from a mass of submitted manuscripts one +written in a small, neat hand, entitled "A New Guide-Book." I had read +it nearly half through, and was about to fling it with contempt among +"the rejected" before I discovered its point. I had perused it so far as +an attempt to describe an actual watering-place, and to bring it into +notoriety. When, however, I did discover the real purpose of the writer, +my delight was large in proportion. The manuscript was the first part of +"Little Pedlington," which subsequently grew into a book.</p> + +<p>It is, and was at the time, generally believed that Tom Hill suggested +the character of Paul Pry. Poole never would admit this. In a sort of +rambling autobiography which he wrote to accompany his portrait in the +"New Monthly," he thus gives the origin of the play.</p> + +<p>"The idea of the character of Paul Pry was suggested to me by the +following anecdote, related to me several years ago by a beloved friend. +An idle old lady, living in a narrow street, had passed so much of her +time in watching the affairs of her neighbors, that she at length +acquired the power of distinguishing the sound of every knocker within +hearing. It happened that she fell ill and was for several days confined +to her bed. Unable to observe in person what was going on without, she +stationed her maid at the window, as a substitute, for the performance +of that duty. But Betty soon grew weary of that occupation; she became +careless in her reports, impatient and tetchy when reprimanded for her +negligence.</p> + +<p>"'Betty, what <i>are</i> you thinking about? Don't you hear a double knock at +No. 9? Who is it?'</p> + +<p>"'The first-floor lodger, Ma'am.'</p> + +<p>"'Betty, Betty, I declare I must give you warning. Why don't you tell me +what that knock is at No. 54?'</p> + +<p>"'Why, lor, it's only the baker with pies.'</p> + +<p>"'Pies, Betty? What <i>can</i> they want with pies at 54? They had pies +yesterday!'"</p> + +<p>Poole had the happy knack of turning every trifling incident to valuable +account. I remember his telling me an anecdote in illustration of this +faculty. I believe he never printed it. Being at Brighton one day, he +strolled into an hotel to get an early dinner, took his seat at a table, +and was discussing his chop and ale, when another guest entered, took +his stand by the fire, and began whistling. After a minute or two,—</p> + +<p>"Fine day, Sir," said he.</p> + +<p>"Very fine," answered Poole.</p> + +<p>"Business pretty brisk?"</p> + +<p>"I believe so."</p> + +<p>"Do anything with Jones on the Parade?"</p> + +<p>"Now," said Poole, "it so happened that Jones was the grocer from whom I +occasionally bought a quarter of a pound of tea; so I answered,—</p> + +<p>"'A little.'</p> + +<p>"'Good man, Sir,' quoth the stranger.</p> + +<p>"'Glad to hear it, Sir.'</p> + +<p>"'Do anything with Thomson in King Street?'<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 486]</span></p> + +<p>"'No, Sir.'</p> + +<p>"'Shaky, Sir.'</p> + +<p>"'Sorry to hear it, Sir; recommend Mahomet's baths!'</p> + +<p>"'Anything with Smith in James Street?'</p> + +<p>"'Nothing,—I have heard the name of Smith before, certainly; but of +this particular Smith I know nothing.'"</p> + +<p>The stranger looked at Poole earnestly, advanced to the table, and with +his arms a-kimbo said,—</p> + +<p>"By Jove, Sir, I begin to think you are a gentleman!"</p> + +<p>"I hope so, Sir," answered Poole; "and I hope you are the same!"</p> + +<p>"Nothing of the kind," said the stranger; "and if you are a gentleman, +what business have you here?"</p> + +<p>Upon which he rang the bell, and, as the waiter entered, indignantly +exclaimed,—</p> + +<p>"That's a gentleman,—turn him out!"</p> + +<p>Poole had unluckily entered and taken his seat in the commercial room of +the hotel!</p> + +<p>All who knew Poole know that he was ever full of himself,—believing his +renown to be the common talk of the world. A whimsical illustration of +this weakness was lately told me by a mutual friend. When at Paris +recently, he chanced to say to Poole, "Of course you are full of all the +theatres."—"No, Sir, I am not," he answered, solemnly and indignantly. +"Will you believe <i>this</i>? I went to the Opéra Comique, told the Director +I wished a free admission; he asked me who I was; I said, 'John Poole.' +Sir, I ask you, will you believe <i>this</i>? He said, <i>he didn't know me</i>!"</p> + +<p>The Queen gave him a nomination to the Charter-House, where his age +might have been passed in ease, respectability, comfort, and competence; +but it was impossible for one so restless to bear the wholesome and +necessary restraint of that institution. He came to me one day, boiling +over with indignation, having resolved to quit its quiet cloisters, his +principal ground for complaint being that he must dine at two o'clock +and be within walls by ten. He resigned the appointment, but +subsequently obtained one of the Crown pensions, took up his final abode +in Paris, where, during the last ten years of his life, he lived, if +that can be called "life" which consisted of one scarcely ever +interrupted course of self-sacrifice to <i>eau-de-vie</i>. His mind was of +late entirely gone. I met him in 1861, in the Rue St. Honoré, and he did +not recognize me, a circumstance I could scarcely regret.</p> + +<p>I am not aware of any details concerning his death. When I last inquired +concerning him, all I could learn was that he had gone to live at +Boulogne,—that two quarters had passed without any application from him +for his pension,—and that therefore, of course, he was dead. His death, +however, was a loss to none, and I believe not a grief to any.</p> + +<p>He was a tall, handsome man, by no means "jolly," like some of his +contemporary wits,—rather, I should say, inclined to be taciturn; and I +do not think his habits of drinking were excited by the stimulants of +society.<a name="FNanchor_G_7" id="FNanchor_G_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_G_7" class="fnanchor">[G]</a> Little, I believe, is known of his life, even to the actors +and playwrights, with whom he chiefly associated, from the time when his +burlesque of "Hamlet Travestie" (printed in 1810) commenced his career +of celebrity, if not of fame, to his death, (in the year 1862, I +believe,) being then probably about seventy years old.</p> + +<p>I knew Dr. Maginn when he was a schoolmaster in Cork. He had even then +established a high reputation for scholastic knowledge, and attained +some eminence as a wit; and about the year 1820 astounded "the beautiful +city" by poetical contributions to "Blackwood's Magazine," in which +certain of its literary citizens were somewhat scurrilously assailed. I +was one of them. There were two parties, who had each their "society." +Maginn and a surgeon named Gosnell were the leaders<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 487]</span> of one: they were, +for the most part, wild and reckless men of talent. The other society +was conducted by the more sedate and studious. Gosnell wrote the <i>ottava +rima</i> entitled "Daniel O'Rourke," which passed through three or four +numbers of "Blackwood": he died not long afterwards in London, one of +the many unhappy victims of misgoverned passions.</p> + +<p>Maginn was also one of the earlier contributors to the "Literary +Gazette," and Jerdan has recorded with what delight he used to open a +packet directed in the well-known hand, with the post-mark Cork. The +Doctor, it is said, was invited to London in order to share with Hook +the labors of the "John Bull." I believe, however, he was but a very +limited help. Perhaps the old adage, "Two of a trade," applied in this +case; certain it is that he subsequently found a more appreciative +paymaster in Westmacott, who conducted "The Age," a newspaper then +greatly patronized, but, as I have said, one that now would be +universally branded with the term "infamous."</p> + +<p>It is known also that he became a leading contributor to "Fraser's +Magazine,"—a magazine that took its name less from its publisher, +Fraser, than from its first editor, Fraser, a barrister, whose fate, I +have understood, was as mournful as his career had been discreditable. +The particulars of Maginn's duel with Grantley Berkeley are well known. +It arose out of an article in "Fraser," reviewing Berkeley's novel, in +the course of which he spoke in utterly unjustifiable terms of +Berkeley's mother. Mr. Berkeley was not satisfied with inflicting on the +publisher so severe a beating that it was the proximate cause of his +death, but called out the Doctor, who manfully avowed the authorship. +Each, it is understood, fired five shots, without further effect than +that one ball struck the whisker of Mr. Berkeley and another the boot of +Maginn, and when Fraser, who was Maginn's second, asked if there should +be another shot, Maginn is reported to have said, "Blaze away, by ——! +a barrel of powder!"</p> + +<p>The career of Maginn in London was, to say the least, mournful. Few men +ever started with better prospects; there was hardly any position in the +state to which he might not have aspired. His learning was profound; his +wit of the tongue and of the pen ready, pointed, caustic, and brilliant; +his writings, essays, tales, poems, scholastic disquisitions, in short, +his writings upon all conceivable topics, were of the very highest +order; "O'Doherty" is one of the names that made "Blackwood" famous. His +acquaintances, who would willingly have been his friends, were not only +the men of genius of his time, but among them were several noblemen and +statesmen of power as well as rank. In a word, he might have climbed to +the highest round of the ladder, with helping hands all the way up: he +stumbled at its base.</p> + +<p>Maginn's reckless habits soon told upon his character, and almost as +soon on his constitution. They may be illustrated by an anecdote related +of him in Barham's Life of Hook. A friend, when dining with him, and +praising his wine, asked where he got it. "At the tavern, close by," +said the Doctor. "A very good cellar," said the guest; "but do you not +pay rather an extravagant price for it?" "I don't know, I don't know," +returned the Doctor; "I believe they do put down something in a book." +And I have heard of Maginn a story similar to that told of Sheridan, +that, once when he accepted a bill, he exclaimed to the astonished +creditor, "Well, thank Heaven, <i>that</i> debt is off my mind!"</p> + +<p>It is notorious that Maginn wrote at the same time for the "Age," +outrageously Tory, and for the "True Sun," a violently Radical paper. +For many years he was editor of the "Standard." It was, however, less +owing to his thorough want of principle than to his habits of +intoxication that his position was low, when it ought to have been +high,—that he was indigent, when he might have been rich,—that he lost +self-respect, and the respect of all with whom he came in contact, +except the few "kindred<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 488]</span> spirits" who relished the flow of wit, and +little regarded the impure source whence it issued. The evil seemed +incurable; it was indulged not only at noon and night, but in the +morning. He was one of the eight editors engaged by Mr. Murray to edit +the "Representative" during the eight months of its existence. I was a +reporter on that paper of great promise and large hopes. One evening +Maginn himself undertook to write a notice of a fancy-ball at the +Opera-House in aid of the distressed weavers of Spitalfields. It was a +grand affair, patronized by the royal family and a vast proportion of +the aristocracy of England. Maginn went, of course inebriated, and +returned worse. He contemplated the affair as if it had taken place +among the thieves and demireps of Whitechapel, and so described it in +the paper of the next morning. Well I remember the wrath and indignation +of John Murray, and the universal disgust the article excited.</p> + +<p>I may relate another anecdote to illustrate this sad characteristic. It +was told to me by one of the Doctor's old pupils and most intimate and +steady friends, Mr. Quinten Kennedy of Cork. A gentleman was anxious to +secure Maginn's services for a contemplated literary undertaking of +magnitude, and the Doctor was to dine with him to arrange the affair. +Kennedy was resolved, that, at all events, he should go to the dinner +sober, and so called upon him before he was up, never leaving him for a +moment all day, and resolutely resisting every imploring appeal for a +dram. The hour of six drew near, and they sallied out. On the way, +Kennedy found it almost impossible, even by main force, to prevent the +Doctor entering a public-house. Passing an undertaker's shop, the Doctor +suddenly stopped, recollected he had a message there, and begged Kennedy +to wait for a moment outside,—a request which was readily complied +with, as it was thought there could be no possible danger in such a +place. Maginn entered, with his handkerchief to his eyes, sobbing +bitterly. The undertaker, recognizing a prospective customer, sought to +subdue his grief with the usual words of consolation,—Maginn blubbering +out, "Everything must be done in the best style, no expense must be +spared,—she was worthy, and I can afford it." The undertaker, seeing +such intense grief, presented a seat, and prescribed a little brandy. +After proper resistance, both were accepted; a bottle was produced and +emptied, glass after glass, with suggested "instructions" between +whiles. At length the Doctor rose to join his wondering and impatient +friend, who soon saw what had happened. He was, even before dinner, in +such a state as to preclude all business-talk; and it is needless to add +that the contemplated arrangement was never entered into.</p> + +<p>He lived in wretchedness, and died in misery in 1842. His death took +place at Walton-on-Thames, and in the churchyard of that village he is +buried. Not long ago I visited the place, but no one could point out to +me the precise spot of his interment. It is without a stone, without a +mark, lost among the clay sepulchres of the throng who had no friends to +inscribe a name or ask a memory.<a name="FNanchor_H_8" id="FNanchor_H_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_H_8" class="fnanchor">[H]</a></p> + +<p>Maginn was rather under than above the middle size; his countenance was +swarthy, and by no means genial in expression. He had a peculiar +thickness of speech, not quite a stutter. Latterly, excesses told upon +him, producing their usual effects: the quick intelligence<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 489]</span> of his face +was lost; his features were sullied by unmistakable signs of an +ever-degrading habit; he was old before his time.</p> + +<p>He is another sad example to "warn and scare"; a life that might have +produced so much yielded comparatively nothing; and although there have +been several suggestions, from Lockhart and others, to collect his +writings, they have never been gathered together from the periodical +tombs in which they lie buried, and now, probably, they cannot be all +recognized.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>From what I have written, the reader will gather that I knew Hook only +in his decline, the relic of a manly form, the decadence of a strong +mind, and the comparative exhaustion of a brilliant wit. Leigh Hunt, +speaking of him at a much earlier period, thus writes:—"He was tall, +dark, and of a good person, with small eyes, and features more round +than weak: a face that had character and humor, but no refinement." And +Mrs. Mathews describes him as with sparkling eyes and expressive +features, of manly form, and somewhat of a dandy in dress. When in the +prime of manhood and the zenith of fame, Mr. Barham says, "He was not +the tuft-hunter, but the tuft-hunted"; and it is easy to believe that +one so full of wit, so redolent of fun, so rich in animal spirits, must +have been a marvellously coveted acquaintance in the society where he +was so eminently qualified to shine: from that of royalty to the major +and minor clubs,—from "The Eccentrics" to "The Garrick," of which he +was all his life long a cherished member.</p> + +<p>In 1825, when I first saw him, he was above the middle height, robust of +frame, and broad of chest, well-proportioned, with evidence of great +physical capacity. His complexion was dark, as were his eyes; there was +nothing fine or elevated in his expression; indeed, his features, when +in repose, were heavy; it was otherwise when animated; yet his manners +were those of a gentleman, less perhaps from inherent faculty than from +the polish which refined society ever gives.</p> + +<p>He is described as a man of "iron energies," and certainly must have had +an iron constitution; for his was a life of perpetual stimulants, +intellectual as well as physical.</p> + +<p>When I saw him last,—it was not long before his death,—he was aged, +more by care than time; his face bore evidence of what is falsely termed +"a gay life"; his voice had lost its roundness and force, his form its +buoyancy, his intellect its strength,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"Alas! how changed from him,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Yet his wit was ready still; he continued to sparkle humor even when +exhausted nature failed; and his last words are said to have been a +brilliant jest.</p> + +<p>At length the iron frame wore down. He was haunted by pecuniary +difficulties, yet compelled to daily work, not only for himself, but for +a family of children by a person to whom he was not married. He then +lived almost entirely on brandy, and became incapable of digesting +animal food.</p> + +<p>Well may his friend Lockhart say, "He came forth, <i>at best</i>, from a long +day of labor at his writing-desk, after his faculties had been at the +stretch,—feeling, passion, thought, fancy, excitable nerves, suicidal +brain, all worked, perhaps wellnigh exhausted."</p> + +<p>And thus, "at best," while "seated among the revellers of a princely +saloon," sometimes losing at cards among his great "friends" more money +than he could earn in a month, his thoughts were laboring to devise some +mode of postponing a debt only from one week to another. Well might he +have compared, as he did, his position to that of an alderman who was +required to relish his turtle-soup while forced to eat it sitting on a +tight rope!</p> + +<p>The last time he went out to dinner was with Colonel Shadwell Clarke, at +Brompton Grove. While in the drawing-room he suddenly turned to the +mirror and said, "Ay! I see I look as I am,—done up in purse, in mind, +and in body, too, at last!"</p> + +<p>He died on the 24th of August, 1841.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 490]</span></p> + +<p>Yes, when I knew most of him, he was approaching the close, not of a +long, but of a "fast" life; he had ill used Time, and Time was not in +his debt! He was tall and stout, yet not healthfully stout; with a round +face which told too much of jovial nights and wasted days,—of toil when +the head aches and the hand shakes,—of the absence of self-respect,—of +mornings of ignoble rest to gather strength for evenings of useless +energy,—of, in short, a mind and constitution vigorous and powerful: +both had been sadly and grievously misapplied and misused.</p> + +<p>No writer concerning Hook can claim for him an atom of respect. His +history is but a record of written or spoken or practical jokes that +made no one wiser or better; his career "points a moral" indeed, but it +is by showing the wisdom of virtue. In the end, his friends, so called, +were ashamed openly to give him help,—and although bailiffs did not, as +in the case of Sheridan,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Seize his last blanket,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>his death-bed was haunted by apprehensions of arrest; and it was a +relief, rather than a loss to society, when a few comparatively humble +mourners laid him in a corner of Fulham churchyard.</p> + +<p>Alas! let not those who read the records of many distinguished, nay, +many illustrious lives, imagine, that, because men of genius have too +often cherished the perilous habit of seeking consolation or inspiration +from what it is a libel on Nature to call "the social glass," it is +therefore reasonable or excusable, or can ever be innocuous. Talfourd +may gloss it over in Lamb, as averting a vision terrible; Seattle may +deplore it in Campbell, as having become a dismal necessity; the +biographer of Hook may lightly look upon the curse as the springhead of +his perpetual wit. I will not continue the list,—it is frightfully +long. Hook is but one of many men of rare intellect, large mental +powers, with faculties designed and calculated to benefit mankind, who +have sacrificed character, life, I had almost said <span class="smcap">soul</span>, to habits which +are wrongly and wickedly called pleasures,—the pleasures of the table. +Many, indeed, are they who have thus made for themselves miserable +destinies, useless or pernicious lives, and unhonored or dishonorable +graves. I will add the warning of Wordsworth, when addressing the sons +of Burns:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"But ne'er to a seductive lay<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Let faith be given,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor deem the light that leads astray<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is light from heaven."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> In "Gilbert Gurney," Hook makes Daly say, "I am the man; I +did it; for originality of thought and design, I <i>do</i> think that was +perfect."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> Mr. Barham has a confused account of this incident. He was +not present on the occasion, as I was, standing close by the piano when +it occurred.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_D_4" id="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4"><span class="label">[D]</span></a> His biographer does not seem aware that for several months +before he became editor of the "New Monthly" he wrote the "Monthly +Commentary" for that magazine,—a pleasant, piquant, and sometimes +severe series of comments on the leading topics or events of the month.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_E_5" id="Footnote_E_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_E_5"><span class="label">[E]</span></a> Mr. Peake, the dramatist, who wrote most of the "Mathews at +Home," attributes this epitaph to John Hardwicke. Lockhart gives it to +Hook. Hook pictures Beazley in "Gilbert Gurney":—"His conversation was +full of droll conceits, mixed with a considerable degree of superior +talent, and the strongest evidence of general acquirements and +accomplishments."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_F_6" id="Footnote_F_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_F_6"><span class="label">[F]</span></a> "He was plump, short, with an intelligent countenance, and +near-sighted, with, a constitution and complexion fresh enough to look +forty, when <i>I</i> believed him to be at least four times that +age."—<i>Gilbert Gurney.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_G_7" id="Footnote_G_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_G_7"><span class="label">[G]</span></a> He played a practical joke upon the actors of the Brighton +Theatre, who were defective of a letter in their dialogue, by sending to +them a packet, containing, on cards of various sizes, the letter H.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_H_8" id="Footnote_H_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_H_8"><span class="label">[H]</span></a> While on his death-bed, Sir Robert Peel sent him a sum of +money, probably not the first. It arrived in time to pay his funeral +expenses. In September, 1842, a subscription was made for the widow and +children of Dr. Maginn,—Dr. Giffard (then editor of the "Standard") and +Lockhart being trustees in England, the Bishop of Cork and the Provost +of Trinity College, Dublin, in Ireland, and Professor Wilson in +Scotland. The card that was issued said truly,—"No one ever listened to +Maginn's conversation, or perused even the hastiest of his minor +writings, without feeling the interest of very extraordinary talent; his +classical learning was profound and accurate; his mastery of modern +languages almost unrivalled; his knowledge of mankind and their affairs +great and multifarious"; but it did not state truly, that, "in all his +essays, verse or prose, serious or comic, he never trespassed against +decorum or sound morals," or that "the keenness of his wit was combined +with such playfulness of fancy, good-humor, and kindness of natural +sentiment, that his merits were ungrudgingly acknowledged even by those +of politics most different from his own."</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_CHIMNEY-CORNER" id="THE_CHIMNEY-CORNER"></a>THE CHIMNEY-CORNER.</h2> + +<h4>IV.</h4> + + +<h3>LITTLE FOXES.—PART III.</h3> + +<h4>Being the true copy of a paper read in my library to my wife and Jennie.</h4> + + +<h3>REPRESSION.</h3> + +<p>I am going now to write on another cause of family unhappiness, more +subtile than either of those before enumerated.</p> + +<p>In the General Confession of the Church, we poor mortals all unite in +saying two things: "We have left undone those things which we ought to +have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have +done." These two heads exhaust the subject of human frailty.</p> + +<p>It is the things left undone which we ought to have done, the things +left unsaid<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 491]</span> which we ought to have said, that constitute the subject I +am now to treat of.</p> + +<p>I remember my school-day speculations over an old "Chemistry" I used to +study as a text-book, which informed me that a substance called Caloric +exists in all bodies. In some it exists in a latent state: it is there, +but it affects neither the senses nor the thermometer. Certain causes +develop it, when it raises the mercury and warms the hands. I remember +the awe and wonder with which, even then, I reflected on the vast amount +of blind, deaf, and dumb comforts which Nature had thus stowed away. How +mysterious it seemed to me that poor families every winter should be +shivering, freezing, and catching cold, when Nature had all this latent +caloric locked up in her store-closet,—when it was all around them, in +everything they touched and handled!</p> + +<p>In the spiritual world there is an exact analogy to this. There is a +great life-giving, warming power called Love, which exists in human +hearts dumb and unseen, but which has no real life, no warming power, +till set free by expression.</p> + +<p>Did you ever, in a raw, chilly day, just before a snow-storm, sit at +work in a room that was judiciously warmed by an exact thermometer? You +do not freeze, but you shiver; your fingers do not become numb with +cold, but you have all the while an uneasy craving for more positive +warmth. You look at the empty grate, walk mechanically towards it, and, +suddenly awaking, shiver to see that there is nothing there. You long +for a shawl or cloak; you draw yourself within yourself; you consult the +thermometer, and are vexed to find that there is nothing there to be +complained of,—it is standing most provokingly at the exact temperature +that all the good books and good doctors pronounce to be the proper +thing,—the golden mean of health; and yet perversely you shiver, and +feel as if the face of an open fire would be to you as the smile of an +angel.</p> + +<p>Such a lifelong chill, such an habitual shiver, is the lot of many +natures, which are not warm, when all ordinary rules tell them they +ought to be warm,—whose life is cold and barren and meagre,—which +never see the blaze of an open fire.</p> + +<p>I will illustrate my meaning by a page out of my own experience.</p> + +<p>I was twenty-one when I stood as groomsman for my youngest and favorite +sister Emily. I remember her now as she stood at the altar,—a pale, +sweet, flowery face, in a half-shimmer between smiles and tears, looking +out of vapory clouds of gauze and curls and all the vanishing mysteries +of a bridal morning.</p> + +<p>Everybody thought the marriage such a fortunate one!—for her husband +was handsome and manly, a man of worth, of principle good as gold and +solid as adamant,—and Emmy had always been such a flossy little kitten +of a pet, so full of all sorts of impulses, so sensitive and nervous, we +thought her kind, strong, composed, stately husband made just on purpose +for her. "It was quite a Providence," sighed all the elderly ladies, who +sniffed tenderly, and wiped their eyes, according to approved custom, +during the marriage ceremony.</p> + +<p>I remember now the bustle of the day,—the confused whirl of white +gloves, kisses, bridemaids, and bridecakes, the losing of trunk-keys and +breaking of lacings, the tears of mamma—God bless her!—and the jokes +of irreverent Christopher, who could, for the life of him, see nothing +so very dismal in the whole phantasmagoria, and only wished he were as +well off himself.</p> + +<p>And so Emmy was wheeled away from us on the bridal tour, when her +letters came back to us almost every day, just like herself, merry, +frisky little bits of scratches,—as full of little nonsense-beads as a +glass of Champagne, and all ending with telling us how perfect he was, +and how good, and how well he took care of her, and how happy, etc., +etc.</p> + +<p>Then came letters from her new<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 492]</span> home. His house was not yet built; but +while it was building, they were to live with his mother, who was "such +a good woman," and his sisters, who were also "such nice women."</p> + +<p>But somehow, after this, a change came over Emmy's letters. They grew +shorter; they seemed measured in their words; and in place of sparkling +nonsense and bubbling outbursts of glee, came anxiously worded praises +of her situation and surroundings, evidently written for the sake of +arguing herself into the belief that she was extremely happy.</p> + +<p>John, of course, was not as much with her now: he had his business to +attend to, which took him away all day, and at night he was very tired. +Still he was very good and thoughtful of her, and how thankful she ought +to be! And his mother was very good indeed, and did all for her that she +could reasonably expect,—of course she could not be like her own mamma; +and Mary and Jane were very kind,—"in their way," she wrote, but +scratched it out, and wrote over it, "very kind indeed." They were the +best people in the world,—a great deal better than she was; and she +should try to learn a great deal from them.</p> + +<p>"Poor little Em!" I said to myself, "I am afraid these very nice people +are slowly freezing and starving her." And so, as I was going up into +the mountains for a summer tour, I thought I would accept some of John's +many invitations and stop a day or two with them on my way, and see how +matters stood. John had been known among us in college as a taciturn +fellow, but good as gold. I had gained his friendship by a regular +siege, carrying parallel after parallel, till, when I came into the fort +at last, I found the treasures worth taking.</p> + +<p>I had little difficulty in finding Squire Evan's house. It was <i>the</i> +house of the village,—a true, model, New England house,—a square, +roomy, old-fashioned mansion, which stood on a hillside under a group of +great, breezy old elms, whose wide, wind-swung arms arched over it like +a leafy firmament. Under this bower the substantial white house, with +all its window-blinds closed, with its neat white fences all tight and +trim, stood in its faultless green turfy yard, a perfect Pharisee among +houses. It looked like a house all finished, done, completed, labelled, +and set on a shelf for preservation; but, as is usual with this kind of +edifice in our dear New England, it had not the slightest appearance of +being lived in, not a door or window open, not a wink or blink of life: +the only suspicion of human habitation was the thin, pale-blue smoke +from the kitchen-chimney.</p> + +<p>And now for the people in the house.</p> + +<p>In making a New England visit in winter, was it ever your fortune to be +put to sleep in the glacial spare-chamber, that had been kept from time +immemorial as a refrigerator for guests,—that room which no ray of +daily sunshine and daily living ever warms, whose blinds are closed the +whole year round, whose fireplace knows only the complimentary blaze +which is kindled a few moments before bed-time in an atmosphere where +you can see your breath? Do you remember the process of getting warm in +a bed of most faultless material, with linen sheets and pillow-cases, +slippery and cold as ice? You did get warm at last, but you warmed your +bed by giving out all the heat of your own body.</p> + +<p>Such are some families where you visit. They are of the very best +quality, like your sheets, but so cold that it takes all the vitality +you have to get them warmed up to the talking-point. You think, the +first hour after your arrival, that they must have heard some report to +your disadvantage, or that you misunderstood your letter of invitation, +or that you came on the wrong day; but no, you find in due course that +you <i>were</i> invited, you were expected, and they were doing for you the +best they know how, and treating you as they suppose a guest ought to be +treated.</p> + +<p>If you are a warm-hearted, jovial fellow, and go on feeling your way +discreetly, you gradually thaw quite a little place round yourself in +the domestic circle,<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 493]</span> till, by the time you are ready to leave, you +really begin to think it is agreeable to stay, and resolve that you will +come again. They are nice people; they like you; at last you have got to +feeling at home with them.</p> + +<p>Three months after, you go to see them again, when, lo! there you are, +back again just where you were at first. The little spot which you had +thawed out is frozen over again, and again you spend all your visit in +thawing it and getting your hosts limbered and in a state for +comfortable converse.</p> + +<p>The first evening that I spent in the wide, roomy front-parlor, with +Judge Evans, his wife, and daughters, fully accounted for the change in +Emmy's letters. Rooms, I verily believe, get saturated with the aroma of +their spiritual atmosphere; and there are some so stately, so correct, +that they would paralyze even the friskiest kitten or the most impudent +Scotch terrier. At a glance, you perceive, on entering, that nothing but +correct deportment, an erect posture, and strictly didactic conversation +is possible there.</p> + +<p>The family, in fact, were all eminently didactic, bent on improvement, +laboriously useful. Not a good work or charitable enterprise could put +forth its head in the neighborhood, of which they were not the support +and life. Judge Evans was the stay and staff of the village and township +of ——; he bore up the pillars thereof. Mrs. Evans was known in the +gates for all the properties and deeds of the virtuous woman, as set +forth by Solomon; the heart of her husband did safely trust in her. But +when I saw them, that evening, sitting, in erect propriety, in their +respective corners each side of the great, stately fireplace, with its +tall, glistening brass andirons, its mantel adorned at either end with +plated candlesticks, with the snuffer-tray in the middle,—she so +collectedly measuring her words, talking in all those well-worn grooves +of correct conversation which are designed, as the phrase goes, to +"entertain strangers," and the Misses Evans, in the best of grammar and +rhetoric, and in most proper time and way possible, showing themselves +for what they were, most high-principled, well-informed, intelligent +women,—I set myself to speculate on the cause of the extraordinary +sensation of stiffness and restraint which pervaded me, as if I had been +dipped in some petrifying spring and was beginning to feel myself +slightly crusting over on the exterior.</p> + +<p>This kind of conversation is such as admits quite easily of one's +carrying on another course of thought within; and so, as I found myself +like a machine, striking in now and then in good time and tune, I looked +at Judge Evans, sitting there so serene, self-poised, and cold, and +began to wonder if he had ever been a boy, a young man,—if Mrs. Evans +ever was a girl,—if he was ever in love with her, and what he did when +he was.</p> + +<p>I thought of the lock of Emmy's hair which I had observed in John's +writing-desk in days when he was falling in love with her,—of sundry +little movements in which at awkward moments I had detected my grave and +serious gentleman when I had stumbled accidentally upon the pair in +moonlight strolls or retired corners,—and wondered whether the models +of propriety before me had ever been convicted of any such human +weaknesses. Now, to be sure, I could as soon imagine the stately tongs +to walk up and kiss the shovel as conceive of any such bygone effusion +in those dignified individuals. But how did they get acquainted? how +came they ever to be married?</p> + +<p>I looked at John, and thought I saw him gradually stiffening and +subsiding into the very image of his father. As near as a young fellow +of twenty-five can resemble an old one of sixty-two, he was growing to +be exactly like him, with the same upright carriage, the same silence +and reserve. Then I looked at Emmy: she, too, was changed,—she, the +wild little pet, all of whose pretty individualities were dear to +us,—that little unpunctuated scrap of life's poetry, full of little +exceptions referable to no exact rule, only to be tolerated under the<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 494]</span> +wide score of poetic license. Now, as she sat between the two Misses +Evans, I thought I could detect a bored, anxious expression on her +little mobile face,—an involuntary watchfulness and self-consciousness, +as if she were trying to be good on some quite new pattern. She seemed +nervous about some of my jokes, and her eye went apprehensively to her +mother-in-law in the corner; she tried hard to laugh and make things go +merrily for me; she seemed sometimes to look an apology for me to them, +and then again for them to me. For myself, I felt that perverse +inclination to shock people which sometimes comes over one in such +situations. I had a great mind to draw Emmy on to my knee and commence a +brotherly romp with her, to give John a thump on his very upright back, +and to propose to one of the Misses Evans to strike up a waltz, and get +the parlor into a general whirl, before the very face and eyes of +propriety in the corner: but "the spirits" were too strong for me; I +couldn't do it.</p> + +<p>I remembered the innocent, saucy freedom with which Emmy used to treat +her John in the days of their engagement,—the little ways, half loving, +half mischievous, in which she alternately petted and domineered over +him. <i>Now</i> she called him "Mr. Evans," with an anxious affectation of +matronly gravity. Had they been lecturing her into these conjugal +proprieties? Probably not. I felt sure, by what I now experienced in +myself, that, were I to live in that family one week, all such little +deviations from the one accepted pattern of propriety would fall off, +like many-colored sumach-leaves after the first hard frost. I began to +feel myself slowly stiffening, my courage getting gently chilly. I tried +to tell a story, but had to mangle it greatly, because I felt in the air +around me that parts of it were too vernacular and emphatic; and then, +as a man who is freezing makes desperate efforts to throw off the spell, +and finds his brain beginning to turn, so I was beginning to be slightly +insane, and was haunted with a desire to say some horribly improper or +wicked thing which should start them all out of their chairs. Though +never given to profane expressions, I perfectly hankered to let out a +certain round, unvarnished, wicked word, which I knew would create a +tremendous commotion on the surface of this enchanted mill pond,—in +fact, I was so afraid that I should make some such mad demonstration, +that I rose at an early hour and begged leave to retire. Emmy sprang up +with apparent relief, and offered to get my candle and marshal me to my +room.</p> + +<p>When she had ushered me into the chilly hospitality of that stately +apartment, she seemed suddenly disenchanted. She set down the candle, +ran to me, fell on my neck, nestled her little head under my coat, +laughing and crying, and calling me her dear old boy; she pulled my +whiskers, pinched my ear, rummaged my pockets, danced round me in a sort +of wild joy, stunning me with a volley of questions, without stopping to +hear the answer to one of them; in short, the wild little elf of old +days seemed suddenly to come back to me, as I sat down and drew her on +to my knee.</p> + +<p>"It does look so like home to see you, Chris!—dear, dear home!—and the +dear old folks! There never, never was such a home!—everybody there did +just what they wanted to, didn't they, Chris?—and we love each other, +don't we?"</p> + +<p>"Emmy," said I, suddenly, and very improperly, "you aren't happy here."</p> + +<p>"Not happy?" she said, with a half-frightened look,—"what makes you say +so? Oh, you are mistaken. I have everything to make me happy. I should +be very unreasonable and wicked, if I were not. I am very, very happy, I +assure you. Of course, you know, everybody can't be like our folks at +home. <i>That</i> I should not expect, you know,—people's ways are +different,—but then, when you know people are so good, and all that, +why, of course you must be thankful, be happy. It's better for me to +learn to control my feelings, you know, and not give way to impulses.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 495]</span> +They are all so good here, they never give way to their feelings,—they +always do right. Oh, they are quite wonderful!"</p> + +<p>"And agreeable?" said I.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Chris, we mustn't think so much of that. They certainly aren't +pleasant and easy, as people at home are; but they are never cross, they +never scold, they always are good. And we oughtn't to think so much of +living to be happy; we ought to think more of doing right, doing our +duty, don't you think so?"</p> + +<p>"All undeniable truth, Emmy; but, for all that, John seems stiff as a +ramrod, and their front-parlor is like a tomb. You mustn't let them +petrify him."</p> + +<p>Her face clouded over a little.</p> + +<p>"John is different here from what he was at our house. He has been +brought up differently,—oh, entirely differently from what we were; and +when he comes back into the old house, the old business, and the old +place between his father and mother and sisters, he goes back into the +old ways. He loves me all the same, but he does not show it in the same +ways, and I must learn, you know, to take it on trust. He is <i>very</i> +busy,—works hard all day, and all for me; and mother says women are +unreasonable that ask any other proof of love from their husbands than +what they give by working for them all the time. She never lectures me, +but I know she thought I was a silly little petted child, and she told +me one day how she brought up John. She never petted him; she put him +away alone to sleep, from the time he was six months old; she never fed +him out of his regular hours when he was a baby, no matter how much he +cried; she never let him talk baby-talk, or have any baby-talk talked to +him, but was very careful to make him speak all his words plain from the +very first; she never encouraged him to express his love by kisses or +caresses, but taught him that the only proof of love was exact +obedience. I remember John's telling me of his running to her once and +hugging her round the neck, when he had come in without wiping his +shoes, and she took off his arms and said, 'My son, this isn't the best +way to show love. I should be much better pleased to have you come in +quietly and wipe your shoes than to come and kiss me when you forget to +do what I say.'"</p> + +<p>"Dreadful old jade!" said I, irreverently, being then only twenty-three.</p> + +<p>"Now, Chris, I won't have anything to say to you, if this is the way you +are going to talk," said Emily, pouting, though a mischievous gleam +darted into her eyes. "Really, however, I think she carried things too +far, though she is so good. I only said it to excuse John, and show how +he was brought up."</p> + +<p>"Poor fellow!" said I. "I know now why he is so hopelessly shut up, and +walled up. Never a warmer heart than he keeps stowed away there inside +of the fortress, with the drawbridge down and moat all round."</p> + +<p>"They are all warm-hearted inside," said Emily. "Would you think she +didn't love him? Once when he was sick, she watched with him seventeen +nights without taking off her clothes; she scarcely would eat all the +time: Jane told me so. She loves him better than she loves herself. It's +perfectly dreadful sometimes to see how intense she is when anything +concerns him; it's her <i>principle</i> that makes her so cold and quiet."</p> + +<p>"And a devilish one it is!" said I.</p> + +<p>"Chris, you are really growing wicked!"</p> + +<p>"I use the word seriously, and in good faith," said I. "Who but the +Father of Evil ever devised such plans for making goodness hateful, and +keeping the most heavenly part of our nature so under lock and key that +for the greater part of our lives we get no use of it? Of what benefit +is a mine of love burning where it warms nobody, does nothing but +blister the soul within with its imprisoned heat? Love repressed grows +morbid, acts in a thousand perverse ways. These three women, I'll +venture to say, are living in the family here like three frozen +islands,<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 496]</span> knowing as little of each other's inner life as if parted by +eternal barriers of ice,—and all because a cursed principle in the +heart of the mother has made her bring them up in violence to Nature."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Emmy, "sometimes I do pity Jane; she is nearest my age, +and, naturally, I think she was something like me, or might have been. +The other day I remember her coming in looking so flushed and ill that I +couldn't help asking if she were unwell. The tears came into her eyes; +but her mother looked up, in her cool, business-like way, and said, in +her dry voice,—</p> + +<p>"'Jane, what's the matter?'</p> + +<p>"'Oh, my head aches dreadfully, and I have pains in all my limbs!'</p> + +<p>"I wanted to jump and run to do something for her,—you know at our +house we feel that a sick person must be waited on,—but her mother only +said, in the same dry way,—</p> + +<p>"'Well, Jane, you've probably got a cold; go into the kitchen and make +yourself some good boneset tea, soak your feet in hot water, and go to +bed at once'; and Jane meekly departed.</p> + +<p>"I wanted to spring and do these things for her; but it's curious, in +this house I never dare offer to do anything; and mother looked at me, +as she went out, with a significant nod,—</p> + +<p>"'That's always <i>my</i> way; if any of the children are sick, I never +coddle them; it's best to teach them to make as light of it as +possible.'"</p> + +<p>"Dreadful!" said I.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is dreadful," said Emmy, drawing her breath, as if relieved +that she might speak her mind; "it's dreadful to see these people, who I +know love each other, living side by side and never saying a loving, +tender word, never doing a little loving thing,—sick ones crawling off +alone like sick animals, persisting in being alone, bearing everything +alone. But I won't let them; I will insist on forcing my way into their +rooms. I would go and sit with Jane, and pet her and hold her hand and +bathe her head, though I knew it made her horridly uncomfortable at +first; but I thought she ought to learn to be petted in a Christian way, +when she was sick. I will kiss her, too, sometimes, though she takes it +just like a cat that isn't used to being stroked, and calls me a silly +girl; but I know she is getting to like it. What is the use of people's +loving each other in this horridly cold, stingy, silent way? If one of +them were dangerously ill now, or met with any serious accident, I know +there would be no end to what the others would do for her; if one of +them were to die, the others would be perfectly crushed: but it would +all go inward,—drop silently down into that dark, cold, frozen well; +they couldn't speak to each other; they couldn't comfort each other; +they have lost the power of expression; they absolutely <i>can't</i>."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said I, "they are like the fakirs who have held up an arm till it +has become stiffened,—they cannot now change its position; like the +poor mutes, who, being deaf, have become dumb through disuse of the +organs of speech. Their education has been like those iron suits of +armor into which little boys were put in the Middle Ages, solid, +inflexible, put on in childhood, enlarged with every year's growth, till +the warm human frame fitted the mould as if it had been melted and +poured into it. A person educated in this way is hopelessly crippled, +never will be what he might have been."</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't say that, Chris; think of John; think how good he is."</p> + +<p>"I do think how good he is,"—with indignation,—"and how few know it, +too. I think, that, with the tenderest, truest, gentlest heart, the +utmost appreciation of human friendship, he has passed in the world for +a cold, proud, selfish man. If your frank, impulsive, incisive nature +had not unlocked gates and opened doors, he would never have known the +love of woman: and now he is but half disenchanted; he every day tends +to go back to stone."</p> + +<p>"But I sha'n't let him; oh, indeed, I know the danger! I shall bring him +out. I shall work on them all. I know they are beginning to love me a +good deal: in the first place, because I belong<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 497]</span> to John, and everything +belonging to him is perfect; and in the second place,"——</p> + +<p>"In the second place, because they expect to weave, day after day, the +fine cobweb lines of their cold system of repression around you, which +will harden and harden, and tighten and tighten, till you are as stiff +and shrouded as any of them. You remind me of our poor little duck: +don't you remember him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, poor fellow! how he would stay out, and swim round and round, +while the pond kept freezing and freezing, and his swimming-place grew +smaller and smaller every day; but he was such a plucky little fellow +that"——</p> + +<p>"That at last we found him one morning frozen tight in, and he has +limped ever since on his poor feet."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I won't freeze in," she said, laughing.</p> + +<p>"Take care, Emmy! You are sensitive, approbative, delicately organized; +your whole nature inclines you to give way and yield to the nature of +those around you. One little lone duck such as you, however +warm-blooded, light-hearted, cannot keep a whole pond from freezing. +While you have any influence, you must use it all to get John away from +these surroundings, where you can have him to yourself."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you know we are building our house; we shall go to housekeeping +soon."</p> + +<p>"Where? Close by, under the very guns of this fortress, where all your +housekeeping, all your little management, will be subject to daily +inspection."</p> + +<p>"But mamma, never interferes, never advises,—unless I ask advice."</p> + +<p>"No, but she influences; she lives, she looks, she is there; and while +she is there, and while your home is within a stone's throw, the old +spell will be on your husband, on your children, if you have any; you +will feel it in the air; it will constrain, it will sway you, it will +rule your house, it will bring up your children."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no! never! never! I never could! I never will! If God should give +me a dear little child, I will not let it grow up in these hateful +ways!"</p> + +<p>"Then, Emmy, there will be a constant, still, undefined, but real +friction of your life-power, from the silent grating of your wishes and +feelings on the cold, positive millstone of their opinion; it will be a +life-battle with a quiet, invisible, pervading spirit, who will never +show himself in fair fight, but who will be around you in the very air +you breathe, at your pillow when you lie down and when you rise. There +is so much in these friends of yours noble, wise, severely good,—their +aims are so high, their efficiency so great, their virtues so +many,—that they will act upon you with the force of a conscience, +subduing, drawing, insensibly constraining you into their moulds. They +have stronger wills, stronger natures than yours; and between the two +forces of your own nature and theirs you will be always oscillating, so +that you will never show what you can do, working either in your own way +or yet in theirs: your life will be a failure."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Chris, why do you discourage me?"</p> + +<p>"I am trying tonic treatment, Emily; I am showing you a real danger; I +am rousing you to flee from it. John is making money fast; there is no +reason why he should always remain buried in this town. Use your +influence as they do,—daily, hourly, constantly,—to predispose him to +take you to another sphere. Do not always shrink and yield; do not +conceal and assimilate and endeavor to persuade him and yourself that +you are happy; do not put the very best face to him on it all; do not +tolerate his relapses daily and hourly into his habitual, cold, +inexpressive manner; and don't lay aside your own little impulsive, +outspoken ways. Respect your own nature, and assert it; woo him, argue +with him; use all a woman's weapons to keep him from falling back into +the old Castle Doubting where he lived till you let him out. Dispute +your mother's hateful dogma, that love is to be taken for granted +without daily proof between lovers; cry<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 498]</span> down latent caloric in the +market; insist that the mere fact of being a wife is not enough,—that +the words spoken once, years ago, are not enough,—that love needs new +leaves every summer of life, as much as your elm-trees, and new branches +to grow broader and wider, and new flowers at the root to cover the +ground.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I have heard that here is no surer way to lose love than to be +exacting, and that it never comes for a woman's reproaches."</p> + +<p>"All true as Gospel, Emmy. I am not speaking of reproaches, or of +unreasonable self-assertion, or of ill-temper,—you could not use any of +these forces, if you would, you poor little chick! I am speaking now of +the highest duty we owe our friends, the noblest, the most sacred,—that +of keeping their own nobleness, goodness, pure and incorrupt. +Thoughtless, instinctive, unreasoning love and self-sacrifice, such as +many women long to bestow on husband and children, soil and lower the +very objects of their love. <i>You</i> may grow saintly by self-sacrifice; +but do your husband and children grow saintly by accepting it without +return? I have seen a verse which says,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'They who kneel at woman's shrine<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Breathe on it as they bow.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Is not this true of all unreasoning love and self-devotion? If we <i>let</i> +our friend become cold and selfish and exacting without a remonstrance, +we are no true lover, no true friend. Any good man soon learns to +discriminate between the remonstrance that comes from a woman's love to +his soul, her concern for his honor, her anxiety for his moral +development, and the pettish cry which comes from her own personal +wants. It will be your own fault, if, for lack of anything you can do, +your husband relapses into these cold, undemonstrative habits which have +robbed his life of so much beauty and enjoyment. These dead, barren ways +of living are as unchristian as they are disagreeable; and you, as a +good Christian sworn to fight heroically under Christ's banner, must +make headway against this sort of family Antichrist, though it comes +with a show of superior sanctity and self-sacrifice. Remember, dear, +that the Master's family had its outward tokens of love as well as its +inward life. The beloved leaned on His bosom; and the traitor could not +have had a sign for his treachery, had there not been a daily kiss at +meeting and parting with His children."</p> + +<p>"I am glad you have said all this," said Emily, "because now I feel +stronger for it. It does not now seem so selfish for me to want what it +is better for John to give. Yes, I must seek what will be best for him."</p> + +<p>And so the little one, put on the track of self-sacrifice, began to see +her way clearer, as many little women of her sort do. Make them look on +self-assertion as one form of martyrdom, and they will come into it.</p> + +<p>But, for all my eloquence on this evening, the house was built in the +self-same spot as projected; and the family life went on, under the +shadow of Judge Evan's elms, much as if I had not spoken. Emmy became +mother of two fine, lovely boys, and waxed dimmer and fainter; while +with her physical decay came increasing need of the rule in the +household of mamma and sisters, who took her up energetically on eagles' +wings, and kept her house, and managed her children: for what can be +done when a woman hovers half her time between life and death?</p> + +<p>At last I spoke out to John, that the climate and atmosphere were too +severe for her who had become so dear to him,—to them all; and then +they consented that the change much talked of and urged, but always +opposed by the parents, should be made.</p> + +<p>John bought a pretty cottage in our neighborhood, and brought his wife +and boys; and the effect of change of moral atmosphere verified all my +predictions. In a year we had our own blooming, joyous, impulsive little +Emily once more,—full of life, full of cheer, full of energy,—looking +to the ways of her household,—the merry companion of<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 499]</span> her growing +boys,—the blithe empress over her husband, who took to her genial sway +as in the old happy days of courtship. The nightmare was past, and John +was as joyous as any of us in his freedom. As Emmy said, he was turned +right side out for life; and we all admired the pattern. And that is the +end of my story.</p> + +<p>And now for the moral,—and that is, that life consists of two +parts,—<i>Expression</i> and <i>Repression</i>,—each of which has its solemn +duties. To love, joy, hope, faith, pity, belongs the duty of +<i>expression</i>: to anger, envy, malice, revenge, and all uncharitableness +belongs the duty of <i>repression</i>.</p> + +<p>Some very religious and moral people err by applying <i>repression</i> to +both classes alike. They repress equally the expression of love and of +hatred, of pity and of anger. Such forget one great law, as true in the +moral world as in the physical,—that repression lessens and deadens. +Twice or thrice mowing will kill off the sturdiest crop of weeds; the +roots die for want of expression. A compress on a limb will stop its +growing; the surgeon knows this, and puts a tight bandage around a +tumor; but what if we put a tight bandage about the heart and lungs, as +some young ladies of my acquaintance do,—or bandage the feet, as they +do in China? And what if we bandage a nobler inner faculty, and wrap +<i>love</i> in grave-clothes?</p> + +<p>But again there are others, and their number is legion,—perhaps you and +I, reader, may know something of it in ourselves,—who have an +instinctive habit of repression in regard to all that is noblest and +highest, within them, which they do not feel in their lower and more +unworthy nature.</p> + +<p>It comes far easier to scold our friend in an angry moment than to say +how much we love, honor, and esteem him in a kindly mood. Wrath and +bitterness speak themselves and go with their own force; love is +shamefaced, looks shyly out of the window, lingers long at the +door-latch.</p> + +<p>How much freer utterance among many good Christians have anger, +contempt, and censoriousness, than tenderness and love! <i>I hate</i> is said +loud and with all our force. <i>I love</i> is said with a hesitating voice +and blushing cheek.</p> + +<p>In an angry mood we do an injury to a loving heart with good, strong, +free emphasis; but we stammer and hang back when our diviner nature +tells us to confess and ask pardon. Even when our heart is broken with +repentance, we haggle and linger long before we can</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Throw away the worser part of it."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>How many live a stingy and niggardly life in regard to their richest +inward treasures! They live with those they love dearly, whom a few more +words and deeds expressive of this love would make so much happier, +richer, and better; and they cannot, will not, turn the key and give it +out. People who in their very souls really do love, esteem, reverence, +almost worship each other, live a barren, chilly life side by side, +busy, anxious, preoccupied, letting their love go by as a matter of +course, a last year's growth, with no present buds and blossoms.</p> + +<p>Are there not sons and daughters who have parents living with them as +angels unawares,—husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, in whom the +material for a beautiful life lies locked away in unfruitful +silence,—who give time to everything but the cultivation and expression +of mutual love?</p> + +<p>The time is coming, they think in some far future when they shall find +leisure to enjoy each other, to stop and rest side by side, to discover +to each other these hidden treasures which lie idle and unused.</p> + +<p>Alas! time flies and death steals on, and we reiterate the complaint of +one in Scripture,—"It came to pass, while thy servant was busy hither +and thither, the man was gone."</p> + +<p>The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds +left undone. "She never knew how I loved her." "He never knew what he +was to me." "I always meant to make more of our friendship." "I did not +know<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 500]</span> what he was to me till he was gone." Such words are the poisoned +arrows which cruel Death shoots backward at us from the door of the +sepulchre.</p> + +<p>How much more we might make of our family life, of our friendships, if +every secret thought of love blossomed into a deed! We are not now +speaking merely of personal caresses. These may or may not be the best +language of affection. Many are endowed with a delicacy, a +fastidiousness of physical organization, which shrinks away from too +much of these, repelled and overpowered. But there are words and looks +and little observances, thoughtfulnesses, watchful little attentions, +which speak of love, which make it manifest, and there is scarce a +family that might not be richer in heart-wealth for more of them.</p> + +<p>It is a mistake to suppose that relations must of course love each other +because they are relations. Love must be cultivated, and can be +increased by judicious culture, as wild fruits may double their bearing +under the hand of a gardener; and love can dwindle and die out by +neglect, as choice flower-seeds planted in poor soil dwindle and grow +single.</p> + +<p>Two causes in our Anglo-Saxon nature prevent this easy faculty and flow +of expression which strike one so pleasantly in the Italian or the +French life: the dread of flattery, and a constitutional shyness.</p> + +<p>"I perfectly longed to tell So-and-so how I admired her, the other day," +says Miss X.</p> + +<p>"And why in the world didn't you tell her?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, it would seem like flattery, you know."</p> + +<p>Now what is flattery?</p> + +<p>Flattery is <i>insincere</i> praise given from interested motives, not the +sincere utterance to a friend of what we deem good and lovely in him.</p> + +<p>And so, for fear of flattering, these dreadfully sincere people go on +side by side with those they love and admire, giving them all the time +the impression of utter indifference. Parents are so afraid of exciting +pride and vanity in their children by the expression of their love and +approbation, that a child sometimes goes sad and discouraged by their +side, and learns with surprise, in some chance way, that they are proud +and fond of him. There are times when the open expression of a father's +love would be worth more than church or sermon to a boy; and his father +cannot utter it, will not show it.</p> + +<p>The other thing that represses the utterances of love is the +characteristic <i>shyness</i> of the Anglo-Saxon blood. Oddly enough, a race +born of two demonstrative, outspoken nations—the German and the +French—has an habitual reserve that is like neither. There is a +powerlessness of utterance in our blood that we should fight against, +and struggle outward towards expression. We can educate ourselves to it, +if we know and feel the necessity; we can make it a Christian duty, not +only to love, but to be loving,—not only to be true friends, but to +<i>show</i> ourselves friendly. We can make ourselves say the kind things +that rise in our hearts and tremble back on our lips,—do the gentle and +helpful deeds which we long to do and shrink back from; and, little by +little, it will grow easier,—the love spoken, will bring back the +answer of love,—the kind deed will bring back a kind deed in +return,—till the hearts in the family-circle, instead of being so many +frozen, icy islands, shall be full of warm airs and echoing bird-voices +answering back and forth with a constant melody of love.: </p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 501]</span></p> +<h2><a name="MR_HOSEA_BIGLOW_TO_THE_EDITOR_OF_THE_ATLANTIC_MONTHLY" id="MR_HOSEA_BIGLOW_TO_THE_EDITOR_OF_THE_ATLANTIC_MONTHLY"></a>MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Dear Sir,—Your letter come to han',<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Requestin' me to please be funny;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I a'n't made upon a plan<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thet knows wut 's comin', gall or honey:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ther' 's times the world doos look so queer,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Odd fancies come afore I call 'em;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' then agin, for half a year,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">No preacher 'thout a call 's more solemn.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">You 're 'n want o' sunthin' light an' cute,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Rattlin' an' shrewd an' kin' o' jingleish,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' wish, pervidin' it 'ould suit,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I 'd take an' citify my English.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I <i>ken</i> write long-tailed, ef I please,—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But when I 'm jokin', no, I thankee;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then, 'fore I know it, my idees<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Run helter-skelter into Yankee.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Sence I begun to scribble rhyme,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I tell ye wut, I ha'n't ben foolin';<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The parson's books, life, death, an' time<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Hev took some trouble with my schoolin';<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor th' airth don't git put out with me,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thet love her 'z though she wuz a woman;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why, th' a'n't a bird upon the tree<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But half forgives my bein' human.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">An' yit I love th' unhighschooled way<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ol' farmers hed when I wuz younger;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their talk wuz meatier, an' 'ould stay,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">While book-froth seems to whet, your hunger,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For puttin' in a downright lick<br /></span> +<span class="i2">'Twixt Humbug's eyes, ther' 's few can match it,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' then it helves my thoughts ez slick<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ez stret-grained hickory doos a hatchet.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But when I can't, I can't, thet 's all,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For Natur' won't put up with gullin';<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Idees you hev to shove an' haul<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like a druv pig a'n't wuth a mullein;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Live thoughts a'n't sent for; thru all rifts<br /></span> +<span class="i2">O' sense they pour an' resh ye onwards,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like rivers when south-lyin' drifts<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Feel thet the airth is wheelin' sunwards.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 502]</span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Time wuz, the rhymes come crowdin' thick<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ez office-seekers arter 'lection,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' into ary place 'ould stick<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Without no bother nor objection;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But sence the war my thoughts hang back<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ez though I wanted to enlist 'em,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' substitutes,—wal, <i>they</i> don't lack,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But then they 'll slope afore you 've mist 'em.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Nothin' don't seem like wut it wuz;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I can't see wut there is to hinder,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' yit my brains 'jes' go buzz, buzz,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like bumblebees agin a winder;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Fore these times come, in all airth's row,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ther' wuz one quiet place, my head in,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where I could hide an' think,—but now<br /></span> +<span class="i2">It 's all one teeter, hopin', dreadin'.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Where 's Peace? I start, some clear-blown night,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When gaunt stone walls grow numb an' number,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An', creakin' 'cross the snow-crust white,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Walk the col' starlight into summer;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Up grows the moon, an' swell by swell<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thru the pale pasturs silvers dimmer<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than the last smile thet strives to tell<br /></span> +<span class="i2">O' love gone heavenward in its shimmer.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I hev ben gladder o' sech things<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Than cocks o' spring or bees o' clover,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They filled my heart with livin' springs,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But now they seem to freeze 'em over;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sights innercent ez babes on knee,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Peaceful ez eyes o' pastur'd cattle,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Jes' coz they be so, seem to me<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To rile me more with thoughts o' battle.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In-doors an' out by spells I try;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ma'am Natur' keeps her spin-wheel goin',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But leaves my natur' stiff an' dry<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ez fiel's o' clover arter mowin';<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' her jes' keepin' on the same,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Calmer than clock-work, an' not carin',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' findin' nary thing to blame,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Is wus than ef she took to swearin'.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Snow-flakes come whisperin' on the pane<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The charm makes blazin' logs so pleasant,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But I can't hark to wut they 're say'n',<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With Grant or Sherman oilers present;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The chimbleys shudder in the gale,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thet lulls, then suddin takes to flappin'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a shot hawk, but all's ez stale<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To me ez so much sperit-rappin'.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'>[Pg 503]</span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Under the yaller-pines I house,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' hear among their furry boughs<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The baskin' west-wind purr contented,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While 'way o'erhead, ez sweet an' low<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ez distant bells thet ring for meetin',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wedged wil' geese their bugles blow,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Further an' further South retreatin'.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Or up the slippery knob I strain<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An' see a hunderd hills like islan's<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lift their blue woods in broken chain<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Out o' the sea o' snowy silence;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The farm-smokes, sweetes' sight on airth,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Slow thru the winter air a-shrinkin',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seem kin' o' sad, an' roun' the hearth<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of empty places set me thinkin'.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Beaver roars hoarse with meltin' snows,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An' rattles di'mon's from his granite;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Time wuz, he snatched away my prose,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An' into psalms or satires ran it;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But he, nor all the rest thet once<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Started my blood to country-dances,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Can't set me goin' more 'n a dunce<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thet ha'n't no use for dreams an' fancies.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Rat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I hear the drummers makin' riot,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' I set thinkin' o' the feet<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thet follered once an' now are quiet,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">White feet ez snowdrops innercent,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thet never knowed the paths o' Satan,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose comin' step ther' 's ears thet won't,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">No, not lifelong, leave off awaitin'.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Why, ha'n't I held 'em on my knee?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Did n't I love to see 'em growin',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Three likely lads ez wal could be,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Handsome an' brave an' not tu knowin'?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I set an' look into the blaze<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whose natur', jes' like their'n, keeps climbin',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ez long 'z it lives, in shinin' ways,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An' half despise myself for rhymin'.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Wut 's words to them whose faith an' truth<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On War's red techstone rang true metal,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who ventered life an' love an' youth<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For the gret prize o' death in battle?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To him who, deadly hurt, agen<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Flashed on afore the charge's thunder,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tippin' with fire the bolt of men<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thet rived the Rebel line asunder?<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 504]</span><br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'T a'n't right to hev the young go fust,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">All throbbin' full o' gifts an' graces,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leavin' life's paupers dry ez dust<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To try an' make b'lieve fill their places:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nothin' but tells us wut we miss,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ther' 's gaps our lives can't never fay in,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' thet world seems so fur from this<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Lef' for us loafers to grow gray in!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My eyes cloud up for rain; my mouth<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Will take to twitchin' roun' the corners;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I pity mothers, tu, down South,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For all they sot among the scorners:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I 'd sooner take my chance to stan'<br /></span> +<span class="i2">At Jedgment where your meanest slave is,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than at God's bar hol' up a han'<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ez drippin' red ez your'n, Jeff Davis!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Come, Peace! not like a mourner bowed<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For honor lost an' dear ones wasted,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But proud, to meet a people proud,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With eyes thet tell o' triumph tasted!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Come, with han' grippin' on the hilt,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">An' step thet proves ye Victory's daughter!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Longin' for you, our sperits wilt<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like shipwrecked men's on raf's for water!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Come, while our country feels the lift<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of a gret instinct shoutin' forwards,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' knows thet freedom a'n't a gift<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Thet tarries long in hans' o' cowards!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Come, sech ez mothers prayed for, when<br /></span> +<span class="i2">They kissed their cross with lips thet quivered,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' bring fair wages for brave men,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A nation saved, a race delivered!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IF_MASSA_PUT_GUNS_INTO_OUR_HANS" id="IF_MASSA_PUT_GUNS_INTO_OUR_HANS"></a>"IF MASSA PUT GUNS INTO OUR HAN'S."</h2> + + +<p>The record of any one American who has grown up in the nurture of +Abolitionism has but little value by itself considered; but as a +representative experience, capable of explaining all enthusiasms for +liberty which have created "fanatics" and martyrs in our time, let me +recall how I myself came to hate Slavery.</p> + +<p>The training began while I was a babe unborn. A few months before I saw +the light, my father, mother, and sister were driven from their house in +New York by a furious mob. When they came cautiously back, their home +was quiet as a fortress the day after it has been blown up. The +front-parlor was full of paving-stones; the carpets were cut to pieces; +the pictures, the furniture, and the chandelier lay in one common +wreck;<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 505]</span> and the walls were covered with inscriptions of mingled insult +and glory. Over the mantel-piece had been charcoaled "Rascal"; over the +pier-table, "Abolitionist." We did not fare as badly as several others +who rejoiced in the spoiling of their goods. Mr. Tappan, in Rose Street, +saw a bonfire made of all he had in the world that could make a home or +ornament it.</p> + +<p>Among the earliest stories which were told me in the nursery, I +recollect the martyrdom of Nat Turner,—how Lovejoy, by night, but in +light, was sent quite beyond the reach of human pelting,—and all the +things which Toussaint did, with no white man, but with the whitest +spirit of all, to help him. As to minor sufferers for the cause of +Freedom, I should know that we must have entertained Abolitionists at +our house largely, since even at this day I find it hard to rid myself +of an instinctive impression that the common way of testifying +disapprobation of a lecturer in a small country-town is to bombard him +with obsolete eggs, carried by the audience for that purpose. I saw many +at my father's table who had enjoyed the honors of that ovation.</p> + +<p>I was four years old when I learned that my father combined the two +functions of preaching in a New England college town and ticket-agency +on the Underground Railroad. Four years old has a sort of literal +mindedness about it. Most little boys that I knew had an idea that +professors of religion and professors in college were the same, and that +a real Christian always had to wear black and speak Greek. So I could be +pardoned for going down cellar and watching behind old hogsheads by the +hour to see where the cars came in.</p> + +<p>A year after that I casually saw my first passenger, but regretted not +also to have seen whether he came up by the coal-bin or the meat-safe. +His name was Isidore Smith; so, to protect him from Smith, my father, +being a conscientious man, baptized him into a liberty to say that his +name was John Peterson. I held the blue bowl which served for font. To +this day I feel a sort of semi-accountability for John Peterson. I have +asked after him every time I have crossed the Suspension Bridge since I +grew up. In holding that baptismal bowl I suppose I am, in a sense, his +godfather. Half a godfather is better than none, and in spite of my size +I was a very earnest one.</p> + +<p>There are few godchildren for whom I should have had to renounce fewer +sins than for thee, brave John Peterson!</p> + +<p>John Peterson had been baptized before. No sprinkling that, but an +immersion in hell! He had to strip to show it to us. All down his back +were welts in which my father might lay his finger; and one gash healed +with a scar into which I could put my small, boyish fist. The former +were made by the whip and branding-irons of a Virginia planter,—the +latter by the teeth of his bloodhounds. When I saw that black back, I +cried; and my father might have chosen the place to baptize in, even as +John Baptist did Ænon, "because there was much water there."</p> + +<p>John stayed with us three or four weeks and then got moody. Nobody in +the town twitted him as a runaway. He was inexhaustibly strong in +health, and never tired of doing us service as gardener, porter, +errand-boy, and, on occasion, cook. In few places could his hard-won +freedom be less imperilled than with us. At last the secret of his +melancholy came out. He burst into tears, one morning, as he stood with +the fresh-polished boots at the door of my father's study, and sobbed,—</p> + +<p>"Massa, I's got to go an' fetch dat yer gal 'n' little Pompey, 'r I's be +done dead afore de yeah's out!"</p> + +<p>As always, a woman in the case!</p> + +<p>Had it been his own case, I think I know my father well enough to +believe that he would have started directly South for "dat yer gal 'n' +little Pompey," though he had to face a frowning world. But being John's +counsellor, his <i>rôle</i> was to counsel moderation, and his duty to put +before him the immense improbability of his ever making a second +passage<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 506]</span> of the Red Sea, if he now returned. If he were caught and +whipped to death, of what benefit could he be to his wife and child? Why +not stay North and buy them?</p> + +<p>But the marital and the parental are also the automatic and the +immediate. Reason with love! As well with orange-boughs for bearing +orange-buds, or water upon its boiling-point! When John's earnestness +made my father realize that this is the truth, he gave John all the +available funds in the underground till, and started him off at six in +the morning. I was not awake when he went, and felt that my luck was +down on me. I never should see that hole where the black came up.</p> + +<p>For six months the Care-Taker of Ravens had under His sole keeping a +brave head as black as theirs, and a heart like that of the pious negro, +who, in a Southern revival-hymn is thus referred to:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">"O! O!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Him hab face jus' like de crow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But de Lor' gib him heart like snow."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>(The most Southern slaves, who had never travelled and seen snow, found +greater reality in the image of "cotton wool," and used to sing the hymn +with that variation.) At the end of that time, contrary to our most +sanguine expectations, John Peterson appeared. Nor John Peterson alone, +for when he rang our door-bell he put into the arms of a nice-looking +mulatto woman of thirty a little youngster about two years old.</p> + +<p>A new servant, with some trepidation, showed them up to "Massa's" study. +We had weeded John's dialect of that word before he went away, but he +had been six months since then in a servile atmosphere. He stood at the +open study-door. My father stopped shaving, and let the lather dry on +his face, as he shielded with his hand the eyes he in vain tried to +believe. Yes, veritably, John Peterson!</p> + +<p>But John Peterson could not speak. He choked visibly; and then, pointing +to the two beside him, blurted out,—</p> + +<p>"I's done did it, Massa!" and broke entirely down.</p> + +<p>Again it was Ænon generally, and there was more baptizing done.</p> + +<p>John had made a march somewhat like Sherman's. He had crossed the entire +States of Virginia and Maryland, carrying two non-combatants, and no +weapon of his own but a knife,—subsisting his army on the enemy all the +way,—using negro guides freely, but never sending them back to their +masters,—and terminating his brilliant campaign with an act of bold, +unconstitutional confiscation. He couldn't have found a Chief-Justice in +the world to uphold him in it at that time.</p> + +<p>Hiding by day and walking by night, with his boy strapped to his back +and his wife by his side, he had come within thirty miles of the +Maryland line, when one night the full moon flashed its Judas lantern +full upon him, and, being in the high-road, he naturally enough "tuk a +scar'." Freedom only thirty miles off,—that vast territory behind him, +three times traversed for her dear sake and Love's,—a slave-owner's +stable close by,—a wife and a baby crouching in the thicket,—God above +saying, "The laborer is worthy of his hire." No Chief-Justice in the +world could have convinced that man.</p> + +<p>With an inspired touch,—the <i>tactus eruditus</i> of a bitter memory and a +glorious hope,—John felt for and found the best horse in the stable, +saddled him, led him out without awakening a soul, and, mounting, took +his wife before him with the baby in her arms. A pack of deerhounds came +snuffing about him as he rode off; but, for a wonder, they never howled.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Massa!" said John, "when I see dat, I knowed we was safe anyhow. +Dat Lor' dat stop de moufs of dem dogs was jus' de same as Him dat shut +de moufs of de lions in Dannelindelinesden." (I write it as he +pronounced it. I think he thought it was a place in the Holy Land.) +"When I knowed dat was de same Lor', an' He come down dar to help me, I +rode along jus' as quiet as little Pompey dar, an' neber feared no +moon."</p> + +<p>When he reached the Pennsylvania<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 507]</span> border he turned back the horse, and +proceeded on his way through a land where as yet there was no +Fugitive-Slave Law, and those who sought to obstruct the progress of the +negro-hunter were, as they ever have been, many.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>After that I got by accident into a Northern school with Southern +<i>principals</i>.</p> + +<p>Æsthetically it was a good school. We wore kid gloves when we went to +meeting, and sat in a gallery like a sort of steamer over the boiler, in +which deacons and other large good people were stewing, through long, +hot Sunday afternoons. If we went to sleep, or ate cloves not to go to +sleep, we were punched in the back with a real gold-headed cane. The +cane we felt proud of, because it had been presented by the boys, and it +was a perpetual compliment to us to see that cane go down the street +with our principal after it; but nothing could have exceeded our +mortification at being punched with it in full sight of the +girls'-school gallery opposite, we having our kid gloves on at the time, +and in some instances coats with tails, like men.</p> + +<p>When I say "Southern" principals, I do not mean to indicate their +nativity; for I suppose no Southerner ever taught a Northerner anything +until Bull Run, when the lesson was, not to despise one's enemy, but to +beat him. Nor do I intend to call them pro-slavery men in the obnoxious +sense. Like many good men of the day, they depended largely on Southern +patronage, and opposed all discussion of what they called "political +differences." At that day, in most famous schools, "Liberty" used to be +cut out of a boy's composition, if it meant anything more than an +exhibition-day splurge with reference to the eagle and the banner in the +immediate context.</p> + +<p>Among the large crowd of young Southerners sent to this school, I began +preaching emancipation in my pinafore. Mounted upon a window-seat in an +alcove of the great play-hall, I passed recess after recess in +haranguing a multitude upon the subject of Freedom, with as little +success as most apostles, and with only less than their crown of +martyrdom, because, though small boys are more malicious than men, they +cannot hit so hard.</p> + +<p>On one occasion, brought to bay by a sophism, I answered unwisely, but +made a good friend. A little Southerner (as often since a large one) +turned on me fiercely and said,—</p> + +<p>"Would you marry a nigger?"</p> + +<p>Resolved to die by my premises, I gave a great gulp and said,—</p> + +<p>"Yes!"</p> + +<p>Of course one general shout of derision ascended from the throng. +Nothing but the ringing of the bell prevented me from accepting on the +spot the challenge to a fist-fight of a boy whom Lee has since cashiered +from his colonelcy for selling the commissions in his regiment. After +school I was taken in hand by a gentleman, then one of our +belles-lettres teachers, but now a well-known and eloquent divine in New +York city, who for the first time showed me how to beat an antagonist by +avoiding his deductions.</p> + +<p>"Tell G. the next time," said the present Rev. Dr. W., "that, if you saw +a poor beggar-woman dying of cold and hunger, you would do all in your +power to help her, though you might be far enough from wanting to marry +her."</p> + +<p>How many a <i>non-sequitur</i> of people who didn't sit in the boys' gallery +has this simple little formula of Dr. W.'s helped me to shed aside since +then!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Just after the John Brown raid, I went to Florida. I remained in the +State from the first of January till the first week of the May +following. I found there the climate of Utopia, the scenery of Paradise, +and the social system of Hell.</p> + +<p>I am inclined to think that the author of the pamphlet which last spring +advocated amalgamation was a Floridian. The most open relations of +concubinage existed between white chevaliers and black servants in the +town of Jacksonville. I was not surprised at the fact,<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 508]</span> but was +surprised at its openness. The particular friend of one family belonging +to the cream of Florida society was a gentleman in thriving business who +had for his mistress the waiting-maid of the daughters. He used to sit +composedly with the young ladies of an evening,—one of them playing on +the piano to him, the other smiling upon him over a bouquet,—while the +woman he had afflicted with the burdens, without giving her the +blessings, of marriage, came in curtsying humbly with a tea-tray. +Everybody understood the relation perfectly; but not even the pious +shrugged their shoulders or seemed to care. One day, a lank Virginian, +wintering South in the same hotel with myself, began pitching into me on +the subject of "Northern amalgamators." I called to me a pretty little +boy with the faintest tinge of umber in his skin, and pointed him to the +lank Virginian without a word. The lank Virginian understood the answer, +and sat down to read Bledsoe on the Soul. Bledsoe, as a slave-labor +growth in metaphysics, (indeed, the only Southern metaphysician, if we +except Governor Wise,) is much coddled at the South. I believe, besides, +that he proves the divine right of Slavery <i>a priori</i>. If he begins with +the "Everlasting Me," he must be just the kind of reading for a slave +aristocrat.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It is very amusing to hear the Southerners talk of arming their slaves. +I often heard them do it in Florida. I have read such Richmond Congress +debates as have transpired upon the subject. I do not believe that any +important steps will be taken in the matter. I have known a master mad +with fear, when he saw an old gun-stock protruding from beneath one of +those dog-heaps of straw and sacking called beds, in the negro-quarters. +The fact that it had been thrown away by himself, had no barrel attached +to it, and was picked up by a colored boy who had a passion for carving, +hardly prevented the man from giving the innocent author of his fright a +round "nine-and-thirty." When I was in Florida, a peculiar set of marks, +like the technical "blaze," were found on certain trees in that and the +adjoining State westward. The people were alive in an instant. There +were editorials and meetings. The Southern heart was fired, and fired +off. There was every indication of a negro uprising, and those marks +pointed the way to the various rendezvous. When they were discovered to +be the work of some insignificant rodent, who had put himself on +bark-tonic to a degree which had never chanced to be observed before, +nobody seemed ashamed, for everybody said,—"Well, it was best to be on +the safe side; the thing might have happened just as well as not." I do +not believe that one thinking Southern man (if any such there be in the +closing hours of a desperate conspiracy) has any more idea of arming his +negroes than of translating San Domingo to the threshold of his home. I +should like to see the negroes whom I knew most thoroughly intrusted +with blockade-run rifles, just by way of experiment. Let me recall a +couple of these acquaintances.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The St. John's River is one of the most picturesque and beautiful +streams in the world. Its bluffs never rise higher than fifty or sixty +feet; it has no abrupt precipices; the whole formation about it is +tertiary and drift or modern terrace; but its first eighty miles from +its mouth are broad as a bay of the sea, and its narrow upper course +above Pilatka, where current supersedes tide, is all one dream of +Eden,—an infinitely tortuous avenue, peopled with myriads of beautiful +wild-birds, roofed by overhanging branches of oak, magnolia, and +cypress, draped with the moss that tones down those solitudes into a +sort of day-moonlight, and, in the greatest contrast with this, +festooned by the lavish clusters of odorous yellow jasmine and many-hued +morning-glory,—the latter making a pillar heavy with triumphal wreaths +of every old stump along the plashy brink,—the former swinging from +tree-top to tree-top to knit the whole tropic wilderness into<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 509]</span> a tangle +of emerald chains, drooping lamps of golden fire, and censers of +bewildering fragrance.</p> + +<p>To the hunting, fishing, and exploration of such a river I was never +sorry that I had brought my own boat. It was one of the +<i>chefs-d'[oe]uvres</i> of my old schoolmate Ingersoll,—a copper-fastened, +clinker-built pleasure-boat, pulling two pairs of sculls, fifteen feet +long, comfortably accommodating six persons, and adorned by the builder +with a complimentary blue and gilt backboard of mahogany and a pair of +presentation tiller-ropes twisted from white and crimson silk.</p> + +<p>In this boat I and the companion of my exile took much comfort. When we +intended only a short row,—some trifle of ten or twelve miles,—we +always pulled for ourselves; but on long tours, where the faculties of +observation would have been impaired by the fatigue of action, we +employed as our oarsman a black man whom I shall call Sol Cutter,—not +knowing on which side of the lines he may be at present.</p> + +<p>Sol, when we first discovered him, was hovering around the Jacksonville +wharves, looking for a job. It is so novel to see that kind of thing in +the South, that I asked him if he was a free negro. He replied, that he +was the slave of a gentleman who allowed him to buy his time. He said +"allowed"; but I suspect that the truer, though less delicate, way of +putting it would have been to say "obliged" him to, for the sake of a +living. Sol's "Mossa Cutter" had remaining to him none of the paternal +acres; and it never having occurred to him, that, when lands and houses +all are spent, then learning is most excellent, he possessed none of +that <i>nous</i> which would have enabled a Northern man to outflank +embarrassments by directing his forces into new channels. Having worked +a plantation, when he had no longer any plantation to work he was +compelled to send his negroes into the street to earn an eleëmosynary +living for him. This was no obloquy. How many such men has every +Southern traveller seen,—"sons of the first South Carolina +families,"—parodying the Caryatides against the sunny wall of some low +grog-shop during a whole winter afternoon,—their eyes listless, their +hands in their pockets, their legs outstretched, their backs bent, their +conversation a languid mixture of Cracker dialect and overseer slang, +their negroes' earnings running down their throats at intervals, as they +change their outside for a temporary inside position,—and all the +well-dressed citizens addressing them cheerfully as "Colonel" and +"Major," without a blush of shame, as they go by! Goldwin Smith was +right in pointing at such men as one of the former palliations for the +social invectives of the foreign tourist,—though any such tourist with +brains need not have mistaken them for sample Americans, having already +been in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. The trouble is, that foreign +tourists, as a rule, do <i>not</i> have brains. At any rate, they may say to +us, as Artemus Ward of his gifts of eloquence,—"I <i>have</i> them, but—I +haven't got them with me."</p> + +<p>Sol Cutter paid his master eight dollars a week. As he had to keep +himself out of his remainder earnings, he was naturally more +enterprising than most slaves, and I took a fancy to him immediately. +From the day I found him, he always went out with me on my long rows.</p> + +<p>The middle of a river six miles wide is the safest place that can be +found at the South for insurrectionary conversation. Even there I used +to wonder whether the Southerners had not given secret-service money to +the alligators who occasionally stuck their knobby noses above the flood +to scent our colloquies.</p> + +<p>Sol was pulling away steadily, having "got his second wind" at the end +of the first mile. I was sitting with tiller-ropes in hand, and studying +his strong-featured, but utterly expressionless face, with deep +curiosity. His face was one over which the hot roller of a great agony +has passed, smoothing out all its meaning.<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 510]</span></p> + +<p>"So your master sells you your time?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mossa." (Always "<i>Mossa</i>" never "<i>Massa</i>," so far South as this.)</p> + +<p>"Do you support your wife and children as well as yourself?"</p> + +<p>A convulsive gulp on the part of Sol, but no reply.</p> + +<p>"Have you never been married?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mossa."</p> + +<p>"Is your wife dead?"</p> + +<p>"I hope so,—to de good God, I hope so, Mossa!"</p> + +<p>Sol leaned forward on his oars and stopped rowing. He panted, he gnashed +his teeth, he frothed at the mouth, and when I thought he must be an +epileptic, he lifted himself up with one strong shudder, and turning on +me a face stern as Cato's,—</p> + +<p>"Nebber, <i>nebber</i>, <span class="smcap">nebber</span>, shall I see wife or chil' agin!"</p> + +<p>I then said openly that I was an Abolitionist,—that I believed in every +man's right to freedom,—and that, as to the safest friend in the world, +he might tell me his story,—which he thereupon did, and which was +afterward abundantly corroborated by pro-slavery testimony on shore.</p> + +<p>"Mossa Cutter" had fallen heir in South Carolina to a good plantation +and thirty likely "niggers." At the age of twenty-five he sold out the +former and emigrated to Florida with the latter. The price of the +plantation rapidly disappeared at horse-races, poker-parties, +cock-fights, and rum-shops. If Mossa Cutter speculated, he was always +unsuccessful, because he was always hotheaded and always drunk.</p> + +<p>In process of time "debts of honor" and the sheriff's hammer had +dissipated his entire clientage of blacks, with the exception of Sol, a +pretty yellow woman with a nice baby, who were respectively Sol's wife +and child, and a handsome quadroon boy of seventeen, who was Mossa +Cutter's body-servant.</p> + +<p>Sol came to the quarters one night and found his wife and child gone. +They were on their way to Tallahassee in a coffle which had been made up +as a sudden speculation on the cheerful Bourse of Jacksonville. Four +doors away Mossa Cutter could be seen between the flaunting red curtains +of a bar-room window, drinking Sol's heart's blood at sixpence the +tumblerful.</p> + +<p>Sol, I hear they are going to put an English musket in your hands!</p> + +<p>Sol fell paralyzed to the ground. A moment after, he was up on his feet +again, and, without thought of nine o'clock, pass, patrol, or +whipping-house, rushing on the road likely to be taken by chain-gangs to +Tallahassee. He reached the "Piny Woods" timber on the outskirts of the +town. No one had noticed him, and he struck madly through the sand that +floors those forests, knowing no weariness, for his heart-strings pulled +that way. He travelled all night without overtaking them; but just as +the first gray dawn glimmered between the piny plumes behind him, he +heard the coarse shout of drivers close ahead, and found himself by the +fence of a log-hut where the gang had huddled down for its short sleep. +It was now light enough to travel, and the drivers were "geeing" up +their human cattle.</p> + +<p>Sol rushed to his wife and baby. As the man and woman clasped each other +in frantic caress, the driver came up, and, kicking them, bade them with +an oath to have done.</p> + +<p>"Whose nigger are you?" (to Sol.)</p> + +<p>"I belong to Mossa Cutter. I's come to be taken along."</p> + +<p>"Did he send you?"</p> + +<p>"He did so, Sah. He tol' me partic'lar. I done run hard to catch up wid +you gemplemen, Mossa. Mossa Cutter he sell me to-day to be sol' in de +same lot wid Nancy."</p> + +<p>The drivers went aside and talked for a while, then took him on with +them, and, for a wonder, did sell Sol and Nancy in the same lot. Nancy's +and the baby's price had one good use to Sol, for it kept Mossa Cutter +for a week too drunk to know of his loss or care for his recovery.</p> + +<p>Sol was the coachman, Nancy the laundress, of a gentleman residing at +the capital. Their master had the happy eccentricity of getting more +amiable<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 511]</span> with every rum-toddy; and as he never for any length of time +discontinued rum-toddies, the days of Sol and Nancy at Judge Q.'s were +halcyon.</p> + +<p>They had not counted on one of the drivers going back to Jacksonville, +meeting Mossa Cutter over his libations, and confidentially confessing +to him,—</p> + +<p>"I tuk a likely boy o'yourn over to Tallahassee in that gang month afore +last."</p> + +<p>Sol, if they had put a British gun in your hands <i>then</i>!</p> + +<p>Mossa Cutter swooped down on them in the midst of their +happiness,—refused to let Judge Q. ransom Sol at twice his value,—and +tore him from his wife and child. Returning with him to Jacksonville, he +beat him almost to death,—after which, he sent him out on the wharves +to earn their common living.</p> + +<p>A few nights after the return of Sol, Mossa Cutter came home with <i>mania +a potu</i>. His handsome quadroon body-servant was sitting up for him. +Mossa Cutter said to him,—</p> + +<p>"You have the sideboard-keys,—bring me that decanter of brandy."</p> + +<p>The boy replied,—</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't, <i>dear</i> Mossa! you surely kill you'self!"</p> + +<p>Upon this, his master, damning him for a "saucy, disobedient nigger," +drew his bowie-knife and inflicted on him a frightful wound across the +abdomen, from which he died next day. A Jacksonville jury brought in a +verdict of accidental death.</p> + +<p>That might have been another good occasion to hand Sol a musket!</p> + +<p>Not having any, he remained in the proud and notorious position of +"Mossa Cutter's Larst Niggah."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In a certain part of Florida (obvious reasons will show themselves for +leaving it indefinite) I enjoyed the acquaintance of two Southern +gentlemen,—gentlemen, however, of widely different kinds. One was a +general, a lawyer, a rake, a drunkard, and white; the other was a +body-servant, a menial, an educated man, a fine man-of-business, a Sir +Roger in his manners, and black. The two had been brought up together, +the black having been given to the white gentleman during the latter's +second year. "They had played marbles in the same hole," the General +said. I know that Jim was unceasing in his attentions to his master, and +that his master could not have lived without them. A sort of attachment +of fidelity certainly did exist on Jim's side; and the most selfish man +must feel an attachment of need for the servant who could manage his +bank-account and superintend his entire interests much more successfully +than himself,—who could tend him without complaint through a week's +sleeplessness, when he had the horrors,—who was in fact, to all intents +and purposes, his own only responsible manifestation to the world.</p> + +<p>Jim's wife was dead, but had left him two sons and a daughter. When I +first saw him, none of them had been sold from him. The boys were +respectively eighteen and twenty years old. Their sister had just turned +sixteen, and was a nice-looking, modest, mulatto girl, whom her father +idolized because she was looking more and more every day "like de oder +Sally dat's gone, Mossa."</p> + +<p>A week after he said that to me, Sally on earth might well have prayed +to Sally in heaven to take her, for she was sold away into the horrors +of concubinage to one of the wickedest men on the river.</p> + +<p>To describe the result of this act upon Jim is beyond my power, if +indeed my heart would allow me to repeat such sorrow. It was not +violent,—but, O South, South, lying on a volcano, if all your negroes +had been violent, how much better for you!</p> + +<p>Jim, I hear they intend to give you a rifle!</p> + +<p>Well, as to that, I remember Jim had heard of such things.</p> + +<p>Boarding at the same hotel with the General, I sat also at the same +table. When he was well enough to come down to his meals, he occupied +the third chair below me on the opposite side.</p> + +<p>One night, when all the boarders but ourselves had left the tea-room, +the General, being confidentially sober, (I say<span class='pagenum'>[Pg 512]</span> <i>sober</i>, for when he +reached the confidential he was on the rising scale,) began talking +politics with me.</p> + +<p>"I see in the 'Mercury,'" said the General, "that some of your Northern +scum are making preparations for another John Brown raid into Virginia."</p> + +<p>"Oh no, I fancy not. That's sensation."</p> + +<p>"Well, now, you just look h'y'ere! If they do come, d'ye know what <i>I</i>'m +gwine to do! If I'm too feeble to walk or ride a hoss, I'll crawl on my +knees to the banks of the Potomac, and"——</p> + +<p>"What, with those new Northern-made pantaloons on?"</p> + +<p>"D'interrupt me, Sir. I'll crawl on my knees to the bank of the Potomac +and defend Old Virginny to the last gasp. She's my sister, Sir! So'll +all the negroes fight for her. Talk about our not trusting 'em! Here's +Jim. He's got all the money I have in the world; takes care of me when +I'm sick; comes after me, to the Gem when I'm—a little not myself, you +know; sees me home; puts me to bed, and never leaves me. Faithful as a +hound, by Heavens! Why, I'd trust him with my life in a minute, Sir! +Yes, Sir, and——Oh, yes! we'll just arm our niggers, and put 'em in the +front ranks to make 'em shoot their brothers, Sir!"</p> + +<p>I said, "Ah?" and the General went out to take a drink, leaving Jim and +myself alone together at the table. The remaining five minutes, before I +finished my tea, Jim seemed very restless. Just as I rose to go, he said +to me,—</p> + +<p>"Mossa, could you hab de great kin'ness to come out to de quarters to +see Peter?" (his eldest boy,)—"he done catch bery bad col', Sah."</p> + +<p>I was physician in ordinary to the servants in that hotel. In every +distress they called on me. I told Jim that I would gladly accompany +him. When we got to a considerable distance from the main houses, Jim +stopped under an immense magnolia, and, drawing me into its shade, said, +after a sweeping glance in all directions,—</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mossa! <i>is</i> dat true, dat dem dere Abolitionists is a-comin' down +here to save us,—to redeem us, Mossa? Is dey a-comin' to take pity on +us, Mossa, an' take dis people out of hell? Oh, <i>is</i> dey, <i>is</i> dey, +Mossa?"</p> + +<p>I told Jim that they were very weak and few in number just now; but that +in a few years there would be nobody but them at the North, and then +they'd come down a hundred thousand strong. (I said <i>one</i> hundred +thousand, the modern army not yet having been dreamed of.) I told him to +bide the Lord's time.</p> + +<p>He cast a fainting glance over to that window in the negro quarters, +dark now, where his little Sally used to ply her skilful needle. Then he +tossed his hands wildly into the air, and cried out,—</p> + +<p>"<i>Lord's</i> time! Oh, <i>is</i> der any Lord?"</p> + +<p>I clasped him by the hand and said,—</p> + +<p>"<i>Yes</i>, my poor, broken-hearted—<i>brother</i>!"</p> + +<p>That word fell on his ear for the first time from a white man's lips, +and the stupefaction of it was a countercheck to his grief.</p> + +<p>He became perfectly calm, and clasped me by the hands gently, like a +child.</p> + +<p>"Mossa, you mean dat? To <i>me</i>, Mossa? Dear Mossa, den I <i>will</i> try for +to bide de Lord's time! But," (here his face grew black in the growing +moonlight, with a deeper blackness than complexion,)—"but, if de Mossas +only <i>do</i> put de guns into our han's, <i>oh, dey'll find out which side +we'll turn 'em on!</i>"</p> + +<p>Jim, I hope you have arms in your hands long ere this, and have done +good work with them! I hope Sol has also. Either of you has enough of +the <i>vis ab intra</i> to make a good soldier. As you won't know what that +means, Jim and Sol, I'll tell you,—it's a broken heart.</p> + +<p>But whether Sol and Jim have arms in their hands or not, by all means +arm the rest.</p> + +<p>Wanted, two hundred thousand British muskets to arm as many likely +niggers,—all warranted equal to samples, Sol and Jim,—same make, same +temper. Blockade-runners had better apply immediately.</p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. +90, April, 1865, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, APRIL 1865 *** + +***** This file should be named 30611-h.htm or 30611-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/6/1/30611/ + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: December 6, 2009 [EBook #30611] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, APRIL 1865 *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections.) + + + + + + + +THE + +ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +_A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics._ + +VOL. XV.--APRIL, 1865.--NO. XC. + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by TICKNOR AND +FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of +Massachusetts. + + + + +ADVENTURES OF A LONE WOMAN. + + +"I will go and see the oil," remarked Miselle, at the end of a reverie +of ten minutes. + +Caleb laid the "Morning Journal" upon the table, and prepared himself +calmly to accept whatever new dispensation Providence and Miselle had +allotted him. + +"Whaling?" inquired he. + +"No, not whaling. I am going to the Oil Springs." + +"By all means. They lie in the remotest portion of Pennsylvania; they +are inaccessible by railway; such conveyances and such wretched inns as +are to be found are crowded with lawless men, rushing to the wells to +seek their fortunes, or rushing away, savage at having utterly lost +them. At this season the roads are likely to be impassable from mud, the +weather to be stormy. When do you propose going?" + +"Next Monday," replied Miselle, serenely. + +"And with whom? You know that I cannot accompany you." + +"I did not dream of incurring such a responsibility. I go alone." + +Caleb resumed the "Morning Journal." Miselle wrote a letter, signed her +name, and tossed it across the table, saying,-- + +"There, I have written to Friend Williams, who has, as his sister tells +me, set up a shanty and a wife on Oil Creek. I will go to them and so +avoid your wretched inns, and at the same time secure a guide competent +to conduct my explorations. As for the conveyances, the roads, and the +lawless travellers, if men are not afraid to encounter them, surely a +woman need not be." + +"Be cautious, Miselle. This grain of practicability in the shape of +Friend Williams is spoiling the unity of your plan. At first it was a +charmingly consistent absurdity." + +"But now?" + +"Now it is merely foolishly hazardous, and I suppose you will undertake +it. It is your _kismet_; it is Fate; and what am I, to resist Destiny? +Go, child,--my blessing and my bank-book are your own." + +"And '_Je suis Tedesco!_'" pompously quoted Miselle; so no more was said +upon the subject, until the young woman, having received an answer to +her letter, claimed the treasures promised by Caleb, and shortly after +fared forth upon her adventurous way. + +The journey from Boston to New York has for most persons lost the +excitement of novelty; but excitement of another sort is to be obtained +by choosing a route where mile after mile of the roadway is lined with +wrecks of recent accidents, and the papers sold in the cars brim over +with horrible details of death and maiming in consequence. Nor can it be +considered either wholesome or comfortable to be removed in the middle +of a November night from a warm car to a ferry-boat, and thence to +another train of cars without fire and almost without seats,--the +suggestive apology being, that so many carriages had been "smashed" +lately that the enterprising managers of the road had been obliged to +buy an old excursion-train from another company. Meantime, what became +of the unfortunate women who had no kind companion to purvey for them +blankets and pillows from the mephitic sleeping-car, and cups of hot tea +from unknown sources, Miselle cannot conjecture. + +New York at midday, from the standpoint of Fifth Avenue or Central Park, +is a very splendid and attractive place, we shall all agree; but New +York involved in a wilderness of railway station at six o'clock of a +rainy autumn morning is quite the reverse. Cabmen, draymen, porters, all +assume a new ferocity of bearing, horses are more cruelly lashed, +ignorant wayfarers more crushingly snubbed, new trunks more recklessly +smashed, than would be possible at a later hour of the day; and that +large class of persons who may be denominated intermittent gentlemen +fold up their politeness with their travelling-shawls and put it away +for a future occasion. + +Solaced by a breakfast and rest, Miselle bade good-bye to her attentive +escort, and set forth alone to view New York with the critical eye of a +Bostonian. + +Her first experience was significant; and in the course of a three-mile +drive down Broadway, she had time, while standing in the middle of an +omnibus, where were seated nine young gentlemen, for much complacent +comparison of the manners of the two cities. Indeed, after twelve hours +of attentive study, Miselle discovered but two points of superiority in +the New Babylon over the Modern Athens, and these were chocolate-creams +and policemen: the first were delicious, the last civil. + +Six o'clock arrived, and the "Lightning Express," over the Erie Railway, +bore, among other less important freight, Miselle and her fortunes. But, +unfortunately for the interest of this narrative, she had unwittingly +selected an "off-night" for her journey; neither horrible accident nor +raid of bold marauders enlivened the occasion; and undisturbed, the +reckless passengers slept throughout the night, as men have slept who +knew that a scaffold waited for them with the morning's light. + +Only Miselle could not rest. The steady rapidity of motion,--the +terrible power of this force that man has made his own, and yet not so +wholly his own but that it may at any moment break from his control, +asserting itself master,--the dim light and motionless figures about +her,--all these things wrought upon her fancy, until, through the gray +mist of morning, great round hills stood up at either hand with deep +valleys between, from whose nestling hamlets lights began to twinkle out +as if great swarms of fireflies sheltered there. Then, as morning broke, +the wild scenery, growing more distinct, told the traveller that she was +far from home. + +Gray and craggy hills, wild ravines, stormy mountain-streams, dizzy +heights where the traveller looking down remembered Tarpeia, gloomy +caverns, suggesting Simms's theory of an interior world,--none of these +were homelike; and Miselle began to fancy herself an explorer, a +Franklin, a Fremont, a Speke, until the train stopped at Hornellsville +for breakfast, and she was reminded, while watching the operations of +her fellow-passengers, of Du Chaillu peeping from behind tree-trunks at +the domestic pursuits of the gorilla. + +About noon the cars stopped at Corry, Pennsylvania, the entrance of the +oil region and terminus of the Oil Creek Railway; and Miselle, stepping +from the train into a dense cloud of driving rain and oily men, felt one +sudden pang of doubt as to her future course, and almost concluded it +should be to await upon the platform the Eastern-bound express due there +in a few hours. This dastardly impulse, however, was speedily put to +flight by the superior terror of the ridicule sure to greet such a +return, and, assuming a determined mien, Miselle took possession of +Corry. + +Three years ago the census of this place would have given so many foxes, +so many woodchucks, so many badgers, raccoons, squirrels, and +tree-toads; now it numbers four thousand men, women, and children, and +the "old families" have withdrawn to the aristocratic seclusion of the +forest beyond. + +For the accommodation of these newcomers a thousand buildings of various +sorts have been erected,--much as a child takes his toy-village from the +box and sets it here or there, as the whim of the moment dictates. Here +is also a large oil-refinery belonging to Mr. Downer of Boston, where a +good many of the four thousand find employment; and here, too, are +several inns, the best one called "The Boston House." + +Hither Miselle betook herself, confidently expecting to find either Mr. +Williams or a message from him awaiting her; but, behold, no friend, no +letter! + +What was to be done next? Mr. Dick, asked a similar question by Miss +Betsy Trotwood, replied, "Feed him." + +Miselle adopted the suggestion. The hour was one P. M., and the general +repast was concluded; but a special table was soon prepared, whereat she +and a gentleman of imposing appearance, called Viator Ignotus, were soon +seated, before a dinner, of which the intention was excellent, but the +execution as fatal as most executions. + +Viator ate in silence, occasionally startling his companion by wild +plunges across the table, knife in hand. At first she was inclined to +believe him a dangerous madman; but finding that the various dishes, and +not herself, were the objects of attack, she refrained from flight, and +considerately pushed everything within convenient stabbing distance of +the blade, which unweariedly continued to wave in glittering curves from +end to end of the table long after she had finished. + +The banquet over, Miselle found the drawing-room, and in company with a +woman, a girl, a baby, and a lawless stove, devoted herself to the study +of Corry as seen through a window streaming with rain. Tired at last of +this exhilarating pursuit, she engaged in single combat with the stove, +and, being signally beaten, resolved to try a course of human nature as +developed in her companions. + +She soon learned that the girl was in reality a matron of seventeen, and +the actual proprietor of the baby, whom, nevertheless, she appeared to +regard as a mysterious phenomenon attached to the elder woman, whom she +addressed as "Mam." In this view the grandmother seemed to coincide, and +remarked, naively,-- + +"Why, lor, Ma'am, she and her husband a'n't nothing but two babies +theirselves. She ha'n't never been away from her folks, nor he from +hisn, till t'other day he got bit with the ile-fever, and nothing would +do but to tote down here to the Crik and make his fortin. They was chirk +enough when they started; but about a week ago he come home, and I tell +you he sung a little smaller than when he was there last. He was clean +discouraged; there wa'n't no ile to be had, 'thout you'd got money +enough to live on, to start with; and victuals and everything else was +so awful dear, a poor man would get run out 'fore he'd realized the fust +thing; wust of all was, Clementiny was so homesick she couldn't neither +sleep nor eat; and the amount was, he'd stop 'long with father in the +shop, and I should go and fetch home the two babies. So here I be, and a +time I've had gittin' 'em along, I tell _you_." + +"It's hard travelling down Oil Creek, then?" asked Miselle, with a +personal interest in the question. + +"Hard! Reckon you'll say that, arter you've tried it. How fur be you +going?" + +"To Tarr Farm." + +"Lor, yes. Well now how d'y' allow to git there?" + +"I am hoping to meet a friend here who will know all about the way; but +if he fails me, I shall ask the people at the railway station." + +"No need to go so fur. I kin tell ye the hull story, for it's from Tarr +Farm I fetched the gal and young 'un this very morning." + +"Indeed? What is the best route, then?" + +"Well, you'll take the railroad down to Schaeffer's, and from there you +start down the Crik either in a stage or a boat. But I wouldn't +recommend the stage nohow. You don't look so very rugged, and if you +wa'n't killed, you'd be scared to death. So you'll hev to look up a +boat." + +"What sort of boat?" asked Miselle, faintly. + +"Oh, a flatboat. They come up loaded with ile, and going back they like +fust rate to catch a passenger. But don't you give 'em too much. They'd +cheat you out of your eye-teeth, but I'll bet you they found I was too +many for 'em. Don't you give more than a dollar, nohow; and I made 'em +take the two of us for a dollar 'n' 'alf." + +"How far is it from Schaeffer's to Tarr Farm? Perhaps I could walk," +suggested Miselle, modestly distrusting her own power in dealing with a +rapacious flatboatman. + +"Well, it's five mild, more or less. Think you could foot it that fur?" + +"Oh, yes, very easily. Is the road pretty good?" + +"My gracious goodness! Clementiny, she wants to know if the road down +the Crik is 'pretty good'!" + +"Reckon you ha'n't travelled round much in these parts. Where d'y' +b'long?" asked the ingenuous Clementina, after a prolonged stare at the +benighted stranger. + +Having satisfied herself for the time being with human nature, Miselle +returned to the window, and found the landscape mistier than ever. + +She was still considering her probable success in finding an oil-boat +and an oil-man to take her down the Creek, and steadily turning her back +upon the vision of the Eastern-bound Lightning Express, when a lady +followed by a gentleman ran up the steps of the Boston House, and +presently entered the dreary parlor, transforming it, as she did so, to +a cheerful abiding-place, by the magic of youth, beauty, and grace. +Miselle devoured her with her eyes, as did Crusoe the human footstep on +his desert island. An answering glance, a suppressed smile on either +side, and an understanding was established, an alliance completed, a tie +more subtile than Freemasonry confessed. + +In ten minutes Miselle and her new friend had conquered the lawless +stove, had seated themselves before it, and were confiding to each other +the mischances that had left them stranded upon the shore of +Corry,--Miselle for the night, Melusina until two o'clock in the +morning. + +Tea-time surprised this interchange of ideas, and so sunny had Miselle's +mood become that she was able to eat and drink, even though confronted +by the baby and its youthful mother, whose knife impartially deposited +in her own mouth and the infant's portions of beefsteak, potatoes, +short-cake, toast, pie, and cake, varied with spoonfuls of hot tea, at +which the wretched little victim blinked and choked, but still +swallowed. + +After tea, the infant, excited by refreshment nearly to the point of +convulsions, was restored to its grandmother, while the mother played +upon a mournful instrument called a melodeon, and sang various popular +songs in a powerful, but uncultivated voice. + +When she was done, Miselle persuaded Melusina to take her seat at the +instrument, and straightway the house was filled with such melody of +sweet German love-songs, operatic morcaux, and stirring battle-hymns, +that the open doorway thronged with uncouth forms, gathering as did the +monsters to Arion's harp. But when at last the clear voice rang out the +melody of the "Star-Spangled Banner," the crowd took up the chorus, and +rendered it with a heartfelt enthusiasm more significant than any music; +for it was almost election-day, and the old query of "How will +Pennsylvania go?" had all day been urged among every knot of men who +gathered to talk of the country's prospects. Then came the good old +"John Brown Song," and the "Marseillaise," which should be snatched from +its Rebel appropriators, on the same principle by which Doctor Byles +adapted sacred words to popular melodies. + +The music over, the little crowd dispersed, and the baby, with its brace +of mothers, gone to bed, the new friends sat cozily down and enjoyed an +hour or two of feminine gossip, exchanged kisses, cards, and +photographs, and so bade good-bye. + + +It seems a trifling matter enough in the telling, but to the lonely +Miselle this chance encounter with a comrade was enough to change the +whole aspect of affairs; and she sat down to breakfast the next morning, +strong in the faith of a brilliant victory over bad roads, oily boats, +and rapacious boatmen. + +A plank walk from the hotel to the station elevates the foot-passenger +in Corry above the mud of the streets, through whose depths flounders a +crowd of wagons laden with crude oil for the refinery, with refined oil +for the freight-trains, with carboys of chemicals, with merchandise, and +with building materials for yet more houses. + +Everything here is new. Not one of the thousand buildings is yet five +years old; and of the four thousand people, not the most easily +acclimated could yet tell how the climate agrees with him. Indeed, it is +so absolutely new that it has not yet reached the raw barrenness of a +new place. + +Nature does not cede her royalty except under strong compulsion, and +still does battle in the streets of Corry with the four thousand, who +have not yet found time to get out the stumps of the hastily felled +trees, to "improve" a wild water-course that dashes down from the bluff +and crosses the main street between a tailor's shop and a restaurant, or +even to trample to death the wildwood ferns and forest flowers which +linger on its margin. When the Coriolanians have attended to these +little matters, their city will look even newer than at present. Then +shall their grandchildren bring other trees and set them along the +streets, and dig wells and fountains, where Kuhleborn may rise to bemoan +the desolation of his ancient domain. + +Probably from sympathy with the bulk of their freight, the +passenger-cars upon the Oil Creek Railway are so streaked with oil upon +the outside, and so imbued with oil within, as to suggest having been +used on excursions to the bottoms of the various wells; but uninviting +as is their appearance, they are always crowded, and Miselle shared her +seat with a portly gentleman, whom at the second glance she recognized +as Viator Ignotus, and he, presently alluding to the fact of their +having dined together the previous day, a conversation grew up, through +which Miselle, much to her amusement, was initiated into the cabinet +secrets of the two or three railway companies who divide the travel of +the West, and who would appear to cherish very much the same jealousies +and avenge their grievances in much the same manner as Mrs. Jones and +Mrs. Brown with their neighborhood quarrels. Then Viator, producing from +his pocket sundry maps and charts, foretold the career of railways yet +unborn, and discoursed learnedly upon their usefulness, or, as he +phrased it, their "paying prospects." Finally, the subject of railways +exhausted, or rather run out, Viator paid his companion the compliment +of inquiring of her the condition of public feeling in her native State +as regarded the election; and the affairs of the nation were not yet +completely arranged when the train arrived at Titusville, and Viator +departed. + +The city of Titusville is probably the most forlorn and dreary looking +place in these United States. To describe the irregular rows of shanties +bordering on impassable sloughs of mud, the scenery, the pigs, and the +people, were a thankless task, as the most eloquent words would fall +short of the reality. In one of the principal streets the blackened +stumps still stand so thickly that the laden wagons meander among them +as sinuously as the path which foxes and squirrels wore there only three +years ago,--while in curious contrast with this avenue and the +surrounding buildings stands a handsome brick church, with a gilded +cross upon its spire, the one thing calm and steadfast in the dismal +scene. + +When the train again moved on, the seat vacated by Viator was taken by a +young woman bound for Oil City, where her husband awaited her; but the +homesickness epidemic among the female population of the Creek had +already seized upon her so strongly as to unfit her for conversation; +and Miselle devoted herself to the dismal landscape, privately agreeing +with her companion that it was "the God-forsakenest-looking place she +ever see." + +On either side the road lay swamps, their gaunt trees festooned, or +rather garroted, with vines, and draped with gray moss; while all about +and among them lay their comrades already prostrate and decaying. On the +higher lands fields had been fenced in, and cleared by burning the +trees, whose charred skeletons still stood, holding black and fleshless +arms to heaven in mute appeal against man's reckless abuse of Nature's +dearest children. + +Later Miselle took occasion to express her horror at the wholesale +destruction of her beloved forests to a land-owner of the region. He +laughed, and stared at the sentimental folly, and then said, +conclusively,-- + +"Oh, but the land, you know,--we want to get at the land; and the +quickest way of disposing of the trees is the best." + +"But even if they must be felled, it is wicked to destroy them entirely, +when so many people freeze to death every winter for want of fuel." + +"Well, I suppose they do," said the land-owner, suppressing a yawn. "But +we can't send them this wood, you know, or even get it down Oil Creek, +where there is a market." + +"At least, the poor people about here need never be cold. I suppose fuel +is very cheap through all this country, isn't it?" + +"Down the Creek we pay ten dollars a cord for all the wood, and a dollar +a bushel for all the coal we burn, and both grow within a mile of the +wells; but the trouble is the labor. Every man about here is in oil, +somehow or another; and even the farmers back of the Creek prefer +bringing their horses down and teaming oil to working the land or +felling wood. This is emphatically the oil region." + +Arrived at Schaeffer's or Shaffer's Farm, the present terminus of the +Oil Creek Railway, Miselle was relieved from much anxiety by seeing upon +the platform Friend Williams, to whom she had, in a fit of temporary +insanity, written that she should leave home on Tuesday instead of +Monday. + +"And how shall we go down the Creek?" asked she, when the first +greetings had been exchanged. + +"In the packet-boat, to be sure. The hack-carriage will take us right +down to the wharf." + +Miselle opened her eyes. Here was metropolitan luxury! Here was ultra +civilization in the heart of the wilderness! Oil-boats and +lumber-wagons, avaunt! Those women at Corry had evidently been +practising upon her ignorance, and amusing themselves with her terrors! + +A sudden rush of citizens toward the edge of the platform interrupted +these meditations. + +"What is it?" asked Miselle, wildly, as her companion seized her arm, +and hurried her along with the crowd. + +"The carriage. There is a rush for places. There! we're too late, I'm +afraid." + +They halted, as he spoke, beside a long, heavy wagon, such as is used +in the Eastern States for drawing wood, springless, with boards laid +across for seats, and with no means of access save the clumsy wheels. +Upon an elevated perch in front sat the driver, grinning over his +shoulder at the scrambling crowd of passengers, most of whom were now +loaded upon the wagon, while a circle of disappointed aspirants danced +wildly around it, looking for a yet possible nook or cranny. + +"Can't you make room for this lady? I will walk," vociferated Mr. +Williams. + +"Can't be did, Capting. Reckin, though, both on ye kin hitch on next +load," drawled the driver, turning his horses into the slough of mud +extending in every direction. + +"I will walk with you. How far is it?" asked Miselle, after a brief +contemplation of the prospect. + +"Not so very far; but the mud is about two feet deep all the way, and +you might soil your feet," suggested Mr. Williams, with a quizzical +smile. + +The objection was unanswerable; and Miselle, folding herself in the +mantle of resignation, waited until the next troubling of the pool, +when, rushing with the rest, she was safely hoisted into the cart, and +the drive commenced. + +"You had better cling to my arm here; it's a mud-hole; don't be +frightened," exclaimed Mr. Williams, as the horses suddenly disappeared +from view, and the wagon poised itself an instant on the edge of a +chasm, and then plunged madly after them. + +"Heavens! what _has_ happened? Have they run away? Didn't the driver see +where they were going? There! we're going o--ver!" shrieked Miselle. + +"No, no; we're all right now, don't you see? The poor nags aren't likely +to run much here; and though the driver saw it well enough, he couldn't +help going through. That's a fair specimen of the road all down the +Creek. Now here's a gully. Cling to me, and don't be frightened." + +It is very easy to say, "Don't be frightened"; but when a wagon with +four wheels travels for a considerable distance upon only two, while +those on the upper side are spinning round in the air, and the whole +affair inclines at a right angle toward a bottomless gulf of mud, it is +rather difficult for a nervous person to heed the injunction. + +Miselle did not shriek this time; but she fancies the "sable score of +fingers four remain on the" arm "impressed," to which she clung during +the ordeal. + +Another plunge, a lurch, a twist, a sharp descent, and the breathless +horses halted on the bank of a stream whose shallow waters were crowded +with flatboats, generally laden with oil. + +"Here is the packet-boat," remarked Mr. Williams, with mischievous +smile, as he lifted his charge from the "hack-carriage," and led her +toward one of these boats, a trifle dirtier than the rest, with planks +laid across for seats, and several inches of water in the bottom. In +shape and size it much resembled the mud-scows navigating the waters of +Back Bay, Boston, and was propelled by a gigantic paddle at either end. + +Miselle's lingering vision of a neat little steamboat with a comfortable +cabin died away; and she placed herself without remark upon the board +selected for her, accepting from her attentive companion the luxury of a +bit of plank for her feet,--an invidious distinction, regarded with much +disapproval by her fellow-passengers. + +The sad and homesick lady was again Miselle's nearest neighbor, and now +found her tongue in expressions of dismay and apprehension so vehement +and sincere that her auditor hardly knew whether to weep with her or +smile at her. + +Fifty luckless souls, more or less decently clothed in bodies, having +been crowded upon the raft, the shore-line was cast off, and she drifted +magnificently out into the stream, and stuck fast about a rod from the +landing. + +The most terrific oaths, the most strenuous exertion of the paddles, +failing to move her, "a team" was loudly called for by the irate +passengers, and presently appeared in the shape of two horses with a +small blue boy perched upon one of them. These were hitched to the +forward part of the boat, and the swearing and pushing recommenced, with +an accompaniment of slashing blows upon the backs of the unfortunate +horses, who strained and plunged, but all to no effect, until another +boat appeared round the bend, slowly towed up against the stream by two +more horses with a placid driver, whose less placid wife sat upon a +throne of oil-barrels in the centre of the craft, alternately smoking a +clay pipe and shouting profane instructions to her husband touching the +management of the boat. To this dual boatman the skipper of the packet +loudly appealed for aid, desiring him to "crowd along and give us a +swell." + +"What in nater was ye sich a cussed fool as ter git stuck fer?" replied +the two heads; and in spite of the disapproval conveyed by the question, +the stranger boat was driven as rapidly as possible close beside the +packet, the result being a long wave or "swell," enabling that luckless +craft to float off into the deeper water. + +"Now, gen'lemen, locate, if you please; please to locate, gen'lemen! You +capting with the specs on, ef yer don't sit down, I'll hev to ax yer +to," vociferated the skipper; and the passengers were nearly seated when +the boat grounded again, and was this time got off only by the aid of a +double team, a swell, and the shoulders of the captain and several of +the passengers, who walked in and out of the boat as recklessly as +Newfoundland dogs. After this style, the passage of five miles was +handsomely accomplished in six hours, and it was the gloaming of a +November day when Miselle, cold, wet, and weary, first set foot, or +rather both her feet, deep in the mud of Tarr Farm, and clambered +through briers and scrub oak up the bluff, where stood her friend's +house, and where the panacea of "a good cup of tea and a night's rest" +soon closed the eventful day. + +The next morning was meant for an artist, and it is to be hoped that +there was one at Tarr Farm to see the curtain of fog slowly lifting from +the bright waters of the Creek, and creeping up the bluff beyond it, +until it melted into the clear blue sky, and let the sunshine come +glancing down the valley, where groups of derricks, long lines of tanks, +engine-houses, counting-rooms replaced the forest growth of a few years +previous, and crowds of workmen, interspersed with overseers and +proprietors on foot or horseback, superseded the wild creatures hardly +yet driven from their lifelong haunt. + +Through the whole extent of Oil Creek, one picturesque feature never +fails: this is the alternation of bluff and flat on the opposite sides +of the Creek, so that the voyager never finds himself between two of +either,--but, as the bluff at his right hand sinks into a plain, he +finds the plain at the left rising sharply into a bluff. + +It is in these flats that the oil is found; and each of them is thickly +studded with derricks and engine-buildings, each representing a distinct +well, with a name of its own,--as the Hyena, the Little Giant, the +Phoenix, the Sca'at Cat, the Little Mac, the Wild Rabbit, the Grant, +Burnside, and Sheridan, with several hundred more. The flats themselves +are generally known as Farms, with the names of the original proprietors +still prefixed,--as the Widow McClintock Farm, Story Farm, Tarr Farm, +and the rest. + +Few of these god-parents of the soil are at present to be found upon it: +many of them in the beginning of the oil speculation having sold out at +moderate prices to shrewd adventurers, who made themselves rich men +before the dispossessed Rip Van Winkles awoke to a consciousness of what +was going on about them. Some, more fortunate or more far-sighted, still +hold possession of the land, but enjoy their enormous incomes in the +cities and places of fashionable resort, where their manners and habits +introduce a refreshing element of novelty. + +Few proprietors can be persuaded to sell the golden goose outright; and +the most usual course is for the individual or company intending to +sink a well to buy what is called a working interest in the soil, the +owner retaining a land interest or royalty, through which he claims half +the proceeds of the well, while the lessee may, after months of expense +and labor, abandon the enterprise with only his labor for his pains. +These failures are also a great source of annoyance to the proprietors: +for many of these abandoned wells require only capital to render them +available; but the finances of the first speculator being exhausted, no +new one will risk his money in them, while the old lease would interfere +with his right to the proceeds. + +Even the land for building purposes is only leased, with the proviso +that the tenant must move, not only himself, but his house, whenever the +landlord sees fit to explore his cellar or flower-garden for oil. + +A land interest obtained, the precise spot for breaking ground is +selected somewhat by experience, but more by chance,--all "oil +territory" being expected to yield oil, if properly sought. An +engine-house and derrick are next put up, the latter of timber in the +modern wells, but in the older ones simply of slender saplings, +sometimes still rooted in the earth. A steam-engine is next set up, and +the boring commences. + +By means of a spile-driver, an iron pipe, sharp at the lower edge and +about six inches in diameter, is driven down until it rests upon the +solid rock, usually at a depth of about fifty feet. The earth is then +removed from the inside of this pipe by means of a sand-pump, and the +"tools" attached to a cable are placed within it. + +These tools, consisting of a centre-bit and a rammer, are each thirty or +thirty-five feet in length, and weigh about eight hundred pounds. At +short intervals these are replaced by the sand-pump, which removes the +drillings. + +The first three strata of rock are usually slate, sandstone, and +soapstone. Beneath these, at a depth of two hundred feet, lies the +second sandstone, and from this all the first yield of oil was taken; +but, though good in quality, this supply was speedily exhausted, and the +modern wells are carried directly through this second sandstone, through +the slate and soapstone beneath, to the third sandstone, in whose +crevices lies the largest yield yet discovered. The proprietors of old +wells are now reaming them out and sinking their shafts to the required +depth, which is about four hundred and fifty feet. + +The oil announces itself in various ways: sometimes by the escape of +gas; sometimes by the appearance of oil upon the cable attached to the +tools; sometimes by the dropping of the tools, showing that a crevice +has been reached; and in occasional happy instances by a rush of oil +spouting to the top of the derrick, and tossing out the heavy tools like +feathers. + +Such a well as this, known as a flowing well, is the best "find" +possible, as the fortunate borer has nothing more to do than to put down +a tubing of cast-iron artesian pipe, lead the oil from its mouth into a +tank, and then, sitting under his own vine and fig-tree, leave his +fortune to accumulate by daily additions of thousands of dollars. A +flowing well, struck while Miselle was upon the Creek, yielded fifteen +hundred barrels per day, the oil selling at the well for ten dollars and +a half the barrel. + +But should the oil decline to flow, or, having flowed, cease to do so, a +force-pump is introduced, and, driven by the same engine that bored the +well, brings up the oil at a rate varying from three to three hundred +barrels per day. The Phillips Well, on Tarr Farm, originally a flowing +well, producing two thousand barrels per day, now pumps about three +hundred and thirty, and is considered a first-class well. + +Before reaching oil, the borer not unfrequently comes upon veins of +water, either salt or fresh; and this water is excluded from the shaft +by a leathern case applied about the pipe and filled with flax-seed. The +seed, swollen by the moisture, completely fills the space remaining +between the tube and the walls of the shaft, so that no water reaches +the oil. But whenever the tubing with its seed-bags is withdrawn, the +water rushing down "drowns" not only its own well, but all such as have +subterraneous communication with it. In this manner one of the most +important wells upon the Creek avenged itself some time ago upon a too +successful rival by drawing its tubing and letting down the water upon +both wells. The rival retaliated by drawing its own tubing, with a like +result, and the proprietors of each lost months of time and hundreds of +thousands of dollars before the quarrel could be adjusted. + +From the mouth of the shaft, elevated some fifteen feet above the +surface of the ground, the oil either flows or is pumped into an immense +vat or tank, and from this is led to another and another, until a large +well will have a series of tanks connected like the joints of a +rattlesnake's tail. Into the last one is put a faucet, and the oil drawn +into barrels is either carried to the local refinery, or in its crude +condition is boated to the railway, or to Oil City, and thence down the +Alleghany. + +One of the principal perils attending oil-seeking is that of fire. +Petroleum, in its crude state, is so highly impregnated with gas and +with naphtha, or benzine as to be very inflammable,--a fact proved, +indeed, many years ago, when, as history informs us, + + "General Clarke kindled the vapor, + Stayed about an hour, and left it a-burning," + +unconsciously turning his back upon a fortune such as probably had never +entered the worthy knight's imagination. + +The petroleum once ignited, it is very hard to extinguish the flames; +and Mr. Williams told of being one of a company of men who labored +twenty-four hours in vain to subdue a burning well. They tried water, +which only aggravated the trouble; they tried covering the well with +earth, but the gas permeated the whole mass and blazed up more defiantly +than ever; they covered the mound of earth with a carpet, (paid for at +the value of cloth of gold,) and the carpet with wet sand, but a bad +smell of burned wool was the only result. Finally, some incipient +Bonaparte hit upon the expedient of dividing the Allies, who together +defied mankind, and, bringing a huge oil-tank, inverted it over the +sand, the carpet, the earth, and the well, by this time one blazing +mass. Fire thus cut off from Air succumbed, and the battle was over. + +"There was no one hurt that time," pursued Friend Williams, in a tone of +airy reminiscence; "but mostly at our fires there'll be two or three +people burned up, and more women than men, I've noticed. Either it's +their clothes, or they get scared and don't look out for themselves. Now +there was the Widow McClintock owned that farm above here. She was worth +her hundreds of thousands of dollars, but she _would_ put kerosene on +her fire to make it burn. So one day it caught, and she caught, and in +half an hour there was no such thing as Widow McClintock on Oil Creek. +Still all the women keep right on pouring kerosene into their stoves, +and every little while one of them goes after the Widow. + +"Then there was a woman who sent to the refinery for a pail of alkali to +clean her floor. The man thought he'd get benzine instead; and just as +he got into the house, the fire from his pipe dropped into it, and the +whole shanty was in a blaze before the poor woman knew what had +happened. The stupid fool that was to blame got off, but the woman +burned up. + +"Then there was a woman whose house was afire, and she would rush back, +after she had been dragged out, to look for her pet teacups, and _she_ +was burned up. And so they go." + +Sometimes also the tanks of crude oil take fire, and these +conflagrations are said to present a splendid spectacle,--the resinous +parts of the oil burning with a fierce deep-red flame and sending up +volumes of smoke, through which are emitted lightning-like flashes +exploding the ignited gas. + +Like some other things, including people, this unappeasable substance +conceals its terrors beneath a placid exterior, and lies in its great +tanks, or in shallow pits dug for it in the earth, looking neither +volcanic nor even combustible, but more like thin green paint than +anything else, except when it has become adulterated with water, when it +assumes a bilious, yellow appearance, exceedingly uninviting to the +spectator. In this case it is allowed to remain undisturbed in the tank +until the oil and water have separated, when the latter is drawn off at +the bottom. + +Wandering one day among groves of derricks and villages of tanks, +Miselle and her guide came upon a building containing a pair of +truculent monsters in a high state of activity. These were introduced to +her as a steam force-pump and its attendant engine; and she was told +that they were at that moment sucking up whole tanks of oil from the +neighboring wells, and pumping it up the precipitous bluff, through the +lonely forest, over marsh and moor, hill and dale, to the great Humboldt +Refinery, more than three miles distant, in the town of Plummer, as it +is called,--although, in point of fact, Plummer, Tarr Farm, and several +other settlements belong to the township of Cornplanter. + +There was something about this brace of monsters very fascinating to +Miselle. They seemed like subjected genii closed in these dull black +cases and this narrow shed, and yet embracing miles of territory in +their invisible arms. Even the genius of Aladdin's lamp was not so +powerful, for he was obliged to betake himself to the scene of the +wonders he was to enact,--and if imprisoned as closely as these, could +not have transferred enough oil from Tarr Farm to Plummer to fill his +own lamp. + +Afterward, in rambling through the woods, Miselle often came upon the +mound raised above the buried pipe, and always regarded it with the same +admiring awe with which the fisherman of Bagdad probably looked at the +copper vessel wherein Solomon had so cunningly "canned" the rebellious +Afrit. + +Leaving the shed of the monsters, Miselle followed her guide out of the +throng of derricks and tanks, and a short distance up the hill, to the +picturesque site of Messrs. Barrows and Hazleton's Refinery, the only +one now in operation on Tarr Farm. + +Entering a low brick building called the still-house, she found herself +in a passage between two brick walls, pierced on either hand for five or +six oven-doors, while overhead the black roof was divided into panels by +a system of iron pipes through which the crude oil was conducted to the +caldrons above the iron doors. + +The presiding genius of the place was a very fat, dirty, but intelligent +Irishman, known as Tommy, who came forward with the politeness of his +nation to greet the visitors, and explain to them the mysteries under +his charge. + +"And give a guess, Ma'am, if ye plase, at what we've got a-burning +undher our big pot here," suggested he, with a hand upon one of the +oven-doors. + +"Soft coal," ventured Miselle, remembering her experience at the +glassworks. + +"Not a bit of it. It's the binzole intirely. We makes the ile cook +itself, an' not a hape of fu'l does it git, but what it brings along +itself." + +"Seething the kid in its mother's milk," remarked Miselle to herself. + +"It's this pipe fetches the binzole from the tank outside, and the mouth +of it's widin the door; and this is the stop-cock as lets it on." + +So saying, Tommy threw open the oven-door, and pointed to the black end +of a pipe just within. At the same time he turned a handle on the +outside, and let on a stream of benzine or naphtha, which blazed +fiercely up with a lurid flame strongly suggestive of the pictured +reward of evil-doers in another life. + +Next, Tommy proceeded to explain, after his own fashion, how the oil in +the caldrons above, urged by these fires, departed in steam and agony +through long pipes called worms, the only outlet from the otherwise +air-tight stills, which worms, wriggling out at the end of the building, +plunged into a bath of cold water provided for them in a huge square +tank fed by a bright mountain-stream winding down from the bluff above +in a fashion so picturesque as to be quite out of keeping with its +ultimate destination. + +Emerging from their cold bath, the worms, crawling along the ground +behind the still-house, arrived at the back of another building, called +the test-room; and here each one, making a sharp turn to enable him to +enter, was pierced at the angle thus formed, and a vertical pipe some +ten feet in length inserted. + +The object of these pipes was to carry off the gas still mingled with +the oil; and, looking attentively, Miselle could distinguish a +flickering column ascending from each pipe and forming itself so humanly +against the evening sky as to vindicate the superstition of the Saxons, +who first named this ether _geist_. + +"What a splendid illumination, if only those ten pipes were lighted some +dark night!" suggested Miselle. + +"Phe-ew! An' yer lumernation wouldn't stop there long, I can tell yer, +Ma'am," retorted Tommy. "The whole works ud be in a swither 'fore iver +we'd time to ax what was comin'." + +"They would? And why?" + +"The binzole, Ma'am, the binzole. It's the Divil's own stuff to manage, +an' there's no thrustin' it wid so much as the light uv a pipe nigh +hand. The air is full of it; and if you was so much as to sthrike a +match here where we stand, it ud be all day wid us 'fore we'd time to +think uv it. You should know that yersilf, Sir," continued he, turning +to Mr. Williams. + +"Yes," returned that gentleman, with a grimace. "I learned the nature of +benzine pretty thoroughly when I first came on the Creek. I had been at +work over one of the wells, and got my clothes pretty oily, but thought +I would not ask my wife to meddle with them. So I sent for a pail of +benzine, and, shutting myself up in my shop, set to work to wash my +clothes. I succeeded very well for a first attempt; and when I had done, +and hung them up to dry, I felt quite proud. Then, as it was pretty +cold, I thought I would put a little fire in the stove, and get them +dried to carry away before my men came in to work the next morning. So I +put some kindling in the stove, and scraped a match on my boot; but I +hadn't time to touch it to the shavings before the whole air was aflame, +not catching from one point to another, but flashing through the whole +place in an instant, and snapping all around my head like a bunch of +fire-crackers. I rushed for the door; but before I could get out I was +pretty well singed, and there was no such thing as saving a single +article. All went together,--shop, stock, tools, clothes, and everything +else. That's benzine." + +"That's binzole," echoed Tommy. "An' now, Ma'am, come in, if yer plase, +to the tistin'-room." + +Miselle complied, and, stepping into the little room, saw first two +parallel troughs running its entire length, and terminating at one end +in a pipe leading through the side of the building. Into each of these +troughs half the pipes were at this moment discharging a colorless, +odorless fluid, the apotheosis, as it were, of petroleum. + +Tommy, perching himself upon a high stool beside the troughs, regarded +his visitors with calm superiority, and was evidently disposed, in this +his stronghold, to treat with them _ex cathedra_. + +"There, thin, Ma'am," began he, "that's what I call iligant ile +intirely. Look at it jist!" + +And taking from its shelf a long tubular glass, he ladled up some of the +oil, and held it to the light for inspection. + +When this had been duly admired, the professor informed his audience +that the first product of the still is the gas, which is led off as +previously described. Next comes naphtha, benzine, or, as Tommy and his +comrades call it, "binzole." This dangerous substance is led from the +troughs of the testing-house to a subterraneous tank, the trap-cover of +which was subsequently lifted, that the visitors might peep, as into the +den of some malignant wild creature. From this it is again drawn, and, +mixed with the heavy oil or residuum of the still, is principally used +for fuel, as before described. + +"And how soon do you cut off for oil?" inquired Mr. Williams, +carelessly. + +The fat man gave him a look of solemn indignation, and proceeded without +heeding the interruption. + +"Whin I joodge, Ma'am, that the binzole is nigh run out, I tist it with +a hyder-rometer, this a-way." + +And Tommy, descending from the stool, took from the shelf first a tin +pot strongly resembling a shaving-mug, and then a little glass +instrument, with a tube divided into sections by numbered lines, and a +bulb half filled with quick-silver at the base. + +Filling the shaving-mug with oil, the lecturer dropped into it his +hydrometer, which, after gracefully dancing up and down for a moment, +remained stationary. + +"It's at 55 deg. you'll find it. Look for yersilf, Ma'am," he resumed, +with the serene confidence of the prestidigitateur who informs the +audience that the missing handkerchief will be found in "that +gentleman's pocket." + +Miselle examined the figures at high-oil mark, and found that they were +actually 55 deg. + +"The binzole, you see, Ma'am, is so thin that the hyder-rometer drops +right down over head an' ears in it; but as it gits to be ile, it comes +heavier an' stouter, an' kind uv buoys it up, until at lin'th an' at +last the 60 deg. line comes crapin' up in sight. Thin I thry it by the +fire tist. I puts some in a pan over a sperit-lamp, and keep a-thryin' +an' a-thryin' it wid a thermometer; an' whin it's 'most a-bilin', I +puts a lighted match to the ile, an' if it blazes, there's still too much +binzole, an' I lets it run a bit longer. But if all's right, I cuts off +the binzole, and the nixt run is ile sech as you see it. The longer it +runs, the heavier it grows; and whin it gits so that the hyder-rometer +stands at 42 deg., I cuts off agin. Thin the next run is heavy ile, thick +and yaller, and that doesn't come in here at all, but is drawn from the +still, and mixed wid crude ile, and stilled over agin; and whin no more +good's to be got uv it, it's mighty good along wid the binzole to keep +the pot a-bilin' in beyant." + +"You don't use the fire test in this building, I presume, do you?" + +"Indade, no, Ma'am. There's niver a light nor yit a lanthern allowed +here." + +"But you run all night. How do you get light in this room?" inquired Mr. +Williams. + +"From widout. Did niver ye mind the windys uv this house?" + +And the professor, dismounting from his stool, led the way to the +outside of the building, where he pointed to two picturesque little +windows near the roof, each furnished with a deep hood and a shelf, as +if Tommy had been expected to devote his leisure hours to the +cultivation of mignonette. + +"See now!" + +And the burly lecturer pointed impressively to a laborer at this moment +approaching with a large lighted lantern in each hand. These, placed +upon the mignonette shelves, and snugly protected from wind and rain by +the deep hoods, threw a clear light into the test-room, and brought out +in grotesque distinctness the arabesque pattern wrought with dust and +oil upon Tommy's broad visage. + +"And that's how we gits light, Sir," remarked the professor, in +conclusion, as, with a dignified salutation of farewell, he disappeared +in the still-house. + +Admonished by the lanterns and the fading glory of the west, Miselle and +her host now bent their steps homeward, deferring, like Scheherezade, +"still finer and more wonderful stories until the next morning." + +At their next visit to the Refinery, the visitors were committed to a +little wiry old man, called Jimmy, who first showed them a grewsome +monster, own cousin to him who threw oil from Tarr Farm to Plummer. This +one was called an air-pump, and, with his attendant steam-engine, +inhabited a house by himself. His work will presently be explained. + +The next building was the treating-house, where stand huge tanks +containing the oil as drawn from the testing-room. From these it is +conducted by pipes to the iron vats, called treating-tanks, and there +mixed with vitriol, alkali, and other chemicals, in certain exact +proportions. The monster in the next building is now set in operation, +and forces a stream of compressed air through a pipe from top to bottom +of the tank, whence, following its natural law, it loses no time in +ascending to the surface with a noisy ebullition, just like, as Jimmy +remarked, "a big pot over a sthrong fire." + +This mixing operation was formerly performed by hand in a much less +effectual manner, the steam air-pump being a recent improvement. + +The work of the chemicals accomplished, the oil is cleansed of them by +the introduction of water, and after an interval of quiet the mass +separates so thoroughly that the water and chemicals can be drawn off at +the bottom of the vat with very little disturbance to the oil. + +From the treating-house the perfected oil is drawn to the tanks of the +barrelling-shed, and filled into casks ready for exportation. A large +cooper's shop upon the premises supplies a portion of the barrels, but +is principally used in repairing the old ones. + +The oil is next teamed to the Creek, and either pumped into decked +boats, to be transported in bulk, or, still in barrels, is loaded upon +the ordinary flatboats. During a large portion of the year, however, +neither of these can make the passage of the shallow Creek without the +aid of a "pond-fresh." This occurs when the millers near the head of the +Creek open their dams, and by the sudden influx of water give a gigantic +"swell" to the boats patiently awaiting it at every "farm," from +Schaeffer's to Oil City. + +Sometimes, however, the boatmen, like the necromancer's student who set +the broomstick to bringing water, but could not remember the spell to +stop it, find that it is unsafe to set great agencies at work without +the power of controlling them. Last May, for instance, occurred a +pond-fresh, long to be remembered on Oil Creek, when the stream rose +with such furious, rapidity that the loaded boats became unmanageable, +crowding and dashing together, staving in the sides of the great +oil-in-bulk boats, and grinding the floating barrels to splinters. Not +even the thousands of gallons of oil thus shed upon the stormy waters +were sufficient to assuage either their wrath or that of the boatmen, +who, as their respective craft piled one upon another, sprang to "repel +boarders" with oaths, fists, boat-hooks, or whatever other weapons +Nature or chance had provided them. This scene of anarchy lasted several +days, and some cold-blooded photographer amused himself, "after" Nero, +in taking views of it from different points. Copies of these pictures, +commemorating such destruction of property, temper, and propriety as Oil +Creek never witnessed before, are hung about the "office" of the +Refinery, with which comfortable apartment the visitors finished their +tour. + +Here they were offered the compliments of the season and locality in a +collation of chestnuts; and here also they were invited to inspect a +stereoscope, which, with its accompanying views, is considered on Tarr +Farm as admirable a wonder as was, doubtless, Columbus's watch by the +aborigines of the New World. Dearer to Miselle than chestnuts or +stereoscope, however, were the information and the anecdotes placed at +her service by the gentlemen of the establishment, albeit involuntarily; +and with her friends she shortly after departed from Barrows and +Hazleton's Refinery, filled with content and gratitude. + +The noticeable point in the society of Tarr Farm, or rather in the human +scenery, for society there is none, is the absurd mingling of +inharmonious material. As in the toy called Prince Rupert's Drop, a +multitude of unassimilated particles are bound together by a master +necessity. Remove the necessity, and in the flash of an eye the +particles scatter never to reunite. + +In her two days' tour of Tarr Farm, Miselle talked with gentlemen of +birth and education, gentlemen whose manners contrasted oddly enough +with their coarse clothes and knee-high boots; also with intermittent +gentlemen, who felt Tarr Farm to be no fit theatre for the exercise of +their acquired politeness; also with men like Tommy and Jimmy, whose +claims lay not so much in aristocratic connection and gentle breeding as +in a thorough appreciation of the matter in hand; also with a less +pleasing variety of mankind, men who, originally ignorant and debased, +have through lucky speculations acquired immense wealth without the +habits of body and mind fitly accompanying it. + +Various ludicrous anecdotes are told of this last class, but none +droller than that of the millionnaire, who, after the growth of his +fortune, sent his daughter, already arrived at woman's estate, to +school, that she might learn reading, writing, and other +accomplishments. After a reasonable time the father visited the school, +and inquired concerning his daughter's progress. This he was informed +was but small, owing to a "want of capacity." + +"Capacity! capacity!" echoed the father, thrusting his hands into his +well-lined pockets; "well, by ginger, if the gal's got no capacity, I've +got the money to buy her one, cost what it may!" + +Another young fellow, originally employed in a very humble position by +one of the oil companies, suddenly acquired a fortune, and removed to +another part of the country. Returning for a visit to the scene of his +former labors, he stood inspecting the operations of a cooper at work +upon an oil-barrel. The two men had formerly been comrades, but this +fact the rich man now found it convenient to forget, and the poor one +was too proud to remember. + +"Pray, Cooper," inquired the former at last, tapping the barrel +superciliously with his cane, "are you able to make this thing +oil-tight?" + +"I believe so," retorted Cooper, dryly. "Was you ever troubled by their +leaking, when you rolled them through the mud from the well to the +Creek?" + +Through all this fungus growth it is rather difficult to come at the +indigenous product of the soil; and Miselle found none of whose purity +she could be sure, except the youth who drove her from Tarr Farm to +Schaeffer's on her return. Arriving in sight of the railway, this _puer +ingenuus_, pointing to the track, inquired,-- + +"An' be thot what the keers rides on?" + +"Yes," said Mr. Williams, "that's the track." + +"An' yon's the wagons whar ye'll set?" pursued he, pointing to some +platform-cars, waiting to be loaded with oil-barrels. + +"Hardly. Those are where the oil sits." + +"Be? Then yon's for the fowks, I reckon?" indicating a line of box +freight-cars a little farther on. + +"No, not exactly. Those are the passenger-cars, away up the track, with +windows and steps." + +"An' who rides in the loft up atop?" inquired the youth, after a +prolonged stare. + +This question, referring to the raised portion of the roof, universal in +Western cars, being answered, Mr. Williams inquired in his turn,-- + +"Did you never see the railway before?" + +"Never seed 'em till this minute. Fact, I never went furder from home +than Tarr Farm 'fore to-day. 'Spect there's a many won'erful sights +'twixt here an' Eri', ben't there?" + +Imagine a full-grown lad, in these United States, whose ideas are +bounded by the city of Erie! + +Not indigenous to the soil, but a firmly rooted, exotic growth, was the +sonsy Scotch family whom Miselle was taken to see, the Sunday after her +arrival. + +Two years ago their picturesque log-cabin stood almost in a wilderness, +with the farm-house of James Tarr its only neighbor. Now the derricks +are crowding up the hill toward it, until only a narrow belt of woodland +protects it from invasion. In front, a small flower-garden still showed +some autumn blooms at the time of Miselle's visit, and was the only +attempt at floriculture seen by her on Oil Creek. + +With traditional Scotch hospitality, the mistress of the house, seconded +by Maggie and Belle, the elder daughters, insisted that the proposed +call should include dinner; and Miselle, nothing loath, was glad that +her friends allowed themselves to be prevailed upon to stay. + +"It's no that we hae onything fit to gie ye, but ye maun just tak' the +wull for the deed," said the good mother, as she bustled about, and set +before her guests a plain and plentiful meal, where all was good enough, +and the fresh bread and newly churned butter something more. + +"It's Maggie's baith baker and dairy-woman," said the well-pleased dame, +in answer to a compliment upon these viands. "And it's she'll be gay and +proud to gie ye all her ways about it, gif ye'll ask her." + +So Maggie, being questioned, described the process of making +"salt-rising" bread, and to the recipe added a friendly caution, that, +if allowed to ferment too long, the dough would become "as sad and dour +as a stane, and though you br'ak your heart over it, wad ne'er be itsel' +again." + +From a regard either to etiquette or convenience, only the heads of the +family, and Jamie, the eldest son, a fine young giant, of +one-and-twenty, sat down with the guests: the girls and younger children +waiting upon table, and sitting down afterward with another visitor, an +intelligent negro farmer, one of the most pleasing persons Miselle +encountered on her travels. + +Dinner over, it was proposed that Maggie and Belle should accompany Mr. +and Mrs. Williams and Miselle on a visit to some coal-mines about a mile +farther back in the forest, and, with the addition of a young man named +John, who chanced in on a Sunday-evening call to one of the young +ladies, the party set forth. + +The day was the sweetest of the Indian summer, and the walk through +woods of chestnut and hemlock was as charming as possible, and none the +less so for the rustic coquetries of pretty Belle Miller, whose golden +hair was the precise shade of a lock once shown to Miselle as a +veritable relic of Prince Charlie. + +The forest road ended abruptly in a wide glade, where stood the shanty +occupied by the miners, a shed for the donkeys employed in dragging out +the coal, and, finally, the ruinous tunnel leading horizontally into a +disused mine. The wooden tram-way on which the coal-car had formerly run +still remained; and cautiously walking upon this causeway through the +quagmire of mud, Miselle and Mr. Williams penetrated some distance into +the mine, but saw nothing more wonderful than mould and other fungi, +bats and toads. Retracing their steps, they followed the tram-way to its +termination at the top of a high bank, down which the coals were shot +into a cart stationed below. This coal is of an inferior quality, +bituminous, and largely mixed with slate. It sells readily, however, +upon the Creek, at a dollar a bushel, for use in the steam-engines. + +The sight-seers having satisfied their curiosity with regard to the +mine, and having paid a short visit to the donkeys, were quietly +resuming their walk, when out from the abode of the miners poured a +tumultuous crowd of men, women, and children, who surrounded the little +party in a menacing manner, while their leader, a stalwart fellow, +called Brennan, seized John by the arm, and, shaking a sledge-hammer +fist in his face, inquired what he meant by coming to "spy round an +honest man's house, and make game of his betters?" + +It was in vain that John attempted to disabuse the mind of his assailant +of this view of his visit to the old mine; and indeed his argument could +not even have been heard, as Brennan was now violently reiterating,-- + +"Tak' yer coorse, thin! Why don't ye tak' yer coorse?" + +The advice was sensible, and the party left to themselves would +undoubtedly have followed it; in fact, the females of the party had +already taken their "coorse" along the homeward path as fast as their +feet would carry them, excepting Miselle, who contented herself with +stepping behind a great pine-tree, and watching thence this new +development of human nature. + +From angry words the miners were not long in proceeding to blows, and a +short joust ensued, in which Williams and John gallantly held the lists +against six or eight assailants, who would have been more dangerous, had +they not been all day celebrating the wedding of one of their number. +Suddenly, however, the leader of the colliers darted by John, who was +opposing him, and pounced upon poor Belle Miller, who with her +companions had paused at a little distance to give vent to their +feelings in a chorus of dismal shrieks. Whether these irritated Mr. +Brennan's weakened nerves, or whether he had merely the savage instinct +of reaching the strong through the weak, cannot be certainly known; but +the fact of her forcible capture was rendered sufficiently obvious by +the cries that rent the air, and the heart of the young man John, who, +neglecting his own safety in an attempt at rescue, received a stunning +blow from his opponent, and fell bleeding to the earth. + +Satisfied with the result of his experiment, Brennan, leaving his +captive in custody of his own party, attempted another raid upon the +defenceless flock; but this time Friend Williams, summoned by the voice +of his wife, darted to her rescue, and, with a happy blow, laid the +giant upon his back, where he lay for some moments admiring the evening +sky. + +Brave as were the two knights, however, and manifest as was the right, +Victory would probably have "perched upon the banners of the strongest +battalions," had not an unexpected diversion put a sudden end to the +combat. + +This came from the side of the assailants, in the pleasing shape of a +pretty young woman, who, rushing forward, flung her arms about the neck +of one of the leaders of the mob, crying,-- + +"Patrick Maloney, didn't you stand before the altar with me this day, +and vow to God to be a true and faithful husband? And is this all the +respect you show me on my wedding-day?" + +The appeal was not without its force, and Patrick, pausing to consider +of it, was surrounded by the more pacific of his own party, among whom +now appeared "Big Tommy" from the Refinery, who loudly vouched for the +character of the visitors, claiming them indeed as warm and dear friends +of his own. + +During the stormy council of war ensuing among the attacking party, the +womankind of the attacked ventured to approach near enough to implore +their champions to withdraw, while yet there was time. This pacific +counsel they finally consented to follow, and were led away breathing +vengeance and discontent, when John suddenly paused, exclaiming,-- + +"Where's Belle? They've got her. Come on, Williams! we aren't going to +leave the girl among 'em, surely!" + +At this Maggie and Mrs. Williams uplifted their voices in deprecation of +further hostilities, protesting that they should die at once, if their +protectors were to desert them, and using many other feminine and +magnanimous arguments in favor of a speedy retreat. + +But while yet the question of her rescue was undecided, Belle appeared, +flushed, tearful, and voluble in reproach against the friends who had +deserted her. She attributed her final escape to a free use of her +tongue, and repeated certain pointed remarks which she had addressed to +her custodian, who finally shook her, boxed her ears, and bade her +begone. + +On hearing this recital, John was for returning at once and avenging the +insult; but the rest of the party, remembering the golden maxim of +Hudibras, + + "He who fights and runs away + May live to fight another day," + +prevailed on him to wait for retaliation until a more favorable +opportunity. + +It may be satisfactory to the reader to hear, that, after Miselle had +left Oil Creek, she was informed that Mr. Williams, John, and a body of +men, equal in number to the colliers, paid them a visit, with authority +from the owner of the mine to pull down their house and eject them from +the premises. They also contemplated, it is supposed, a more direct and +personal vengeance; but, on making known their intentions, the pretty +bride again appeared, and, assaulting poor Williams with a whole battery +of tearful eyes, trembling lips, and eloquent appeals, vindicated once +more the superiority of woman's wiles to man's determination. An abject +apology from the colliers, and a decided intimation from the +"Regulators" of the consequences sure to follow any future incivility to +visitors, closed the affair, and the parties separated without further +hostilities. + +The evening was so far advanced when the little party of fugitives were +once more _en route_, that a proposed visit to a working mine at some +little distance was given up, and at the door of the farm-house the +party dispersed to their respective homes. + +The next day had been appointed for a visit to Oil City, the farthest +and most important station upon the Creek; and one object in visiting +the house was to engage Jamie, with his "team," for the expedition. It +fortunately happened that the old Scotchman and his wife were going to +Oil City on the same day, and it was arranged that the two parties +should unite. + +At an early hour in the morning, therefore, Mr. and Mrs. Williams, with +Miselle, once more climbed the mountain to the little log-house, and +found Jamie just harnessing a pair of fine black horses to a wagon, +similar to the "hack-carriage" of Schaeffer's Farm. In the bottom was a +quantity of clean hay, and across the sides were fastened two planks, +covered with bedquilts. Upon one of these were seated Mr. and Mrs. +Williams, while Miselle was invited to the post of honor beside Mrs. +Miller, and the old Scotchman shared the driver's seat with his son. + +"Dinna ye be feared now, dearie. Our Jamie's a car'fu' driver, wi' all +his wild ways," said the old woman kindly, as the wagon, with a +premonitory lurch and twist, turned into the forest road. + +Road! Let the reader call to mind the most precipitous wooded mountain +of his acquaintance, and fancy a road formed over it by the simple +process of cutting off the trees, leaving the stumps and rocks +undisturbed, and then fancy himself dragged over it in a springless +wagon behind two fast horses. + +"Eh, then! It maks an auld body's banes ache sair, siccan a road, as +yon!" said the Scotchwoman, with a significant grimace, as the wagon +paused a moment at the foot of a perpendicular ascent. + +"I reckon ye wad nae ken whatten the Auld Country roads were med for, +gin ye suld see them. They're nae like this, ony way." + +The dear old creature had entered the United States through the St. +Lawrence and the Lakes, and supposed Tarr Farm to be America. Miselle +was so weak as to try to describe the aspect of things about her native +city, and was evidently suspected of patriotic romancing for her pains. + +But such magnificent views! Such glimpses of far mountain-peaks, seen +through vistas of rounded hills! Such flashing streams, tumbling heels +over head across the forest road in their haste to mingle with the blue +waters of the Alleghany! Such wide stretches of country, as the road +crept along the mountain-brow, or curved sinuously down to the far +valley! + +Pictures were there, as yet uncopied, that should hold Church +breathless, with the pencil of the Andes and Niagara quivering in his +fingers,--pictures that Turner might well cross the seas to look upon; +but Miselle remembers them through a distracting mist of bodily terror +and discomfort,--as some painter showed a dance of demons encircling a +maiden's couch, while above it hung her first love-dream. + +"Yon in the valley, where the wood looks so yaller, is a sulphur spring; +an' here in the road's the place where I'm going to tip you all over," +suddenly remarked Jamie, twisting himself round on the box to enjoy the +consternation of his female passengers, while the wagon paused on the +verge of a long gully, some six feet in depth, occupying the whole +middle of the road. + +"Wull ye get out?" continued he, addressing Miselle for the first time. + +"Had we better?" asked she, tremulously. + +"If you're easy scared. But I'm no going to upset, I'll promise you." + +"Then I'll stay in," said Miselle, in the desperate courage of extreme +cowardice; and the wagon went on, two wheels deep in the gully, +crumbling down the clayey mud, two wheels high on the mountain-side, +crashing through brush and over stones. And yet there was no upset. + +"Didn't I tell ye?" inquired Jamie, again twisting himself to look in +Miselle's white face, with a broad smile of delight at her evident +terror. + +"Be done, you bold bairn! Isn't he a sturdy, stirring lad, Ma'am?" said +the proud mother, as Jamie, addressing himself again to his work, +shouted to the black nags, and put them along the bit of level road in +the valley at a pace precluding all further conversation. + +Another precipitous ascent, where the road had been mended by felling a +large tree across it, over whose trunk the horses were obliged to pull +the heavy wagon, and then an equally precipitous descent, gave a view of +the Alleghany River and Oil Creek, with Oil City at their confluence, +and a background of bluffs and mountains cutting sharp against the clear +blue sky. + +This view Miselle contemplated with one eye; but the other remained +rigidly fixed upon the road before her. + +Even Jamie paused, and finally suggested,-- + +"Reckon, men, you'd best get out and walk alongside. The women can stay +in; and if she's going over, you can shore up." + +Under these cheerful auspices the descent was accomplished, and, by some +miracle, without accident. + +At the foot of the bluff commences the slough in which Oil City is set; +and as it deepened, the horses gradually sank from view, until only +their backs were visible, floundering through a sea of oily mud of a +peculiarly tenacious character. Miselle has the warning of Munchausen +before her eyes; but, in all sadness, she avers that in the principal +street of Oil City, and at the door of the principal hotel, the mud was +on that day above the hubs of the wagon-wheels. + +Having refreshed themselves in body and mind at the Petroleum House, +where a lady in a soiled print dress and much jewelry kindly played at +them upon a gorgeous piano, the party went forth to view the city. + +The same mingling of urgent civilization and unsubdued Nature observable +in Corry characterizes Oil City to a greater extent. On one side of the +street, crowded with oil-wagons, the freight of each worth thousands of +dollars, stand long rows of dwellings, shops, and warehouses, all built +within two years, and on the other impinges a bluff still covered with +its forest growth of shrubs and wood-plants,--while upon the frowning +front of a cliff that has for centuries faced nothing meaner than the +Alleghany, with its mountain background, some Vandal has daubed the +advertisement of a quack nostrum. + +Farther on, where the bluff is less precipitous, it has been graded +after a fashion; and the houses built at the upper side of the new +street seem to be sliding rapidly across it to join their opposite +neighbors, which, in their turn, are sinking modestly into the mud. + +A plank sidewalk renders it possible to walk through the principal +streets of this city; but temptation to do so is of the slightest. + +Monotonous lines of frail houses, shops whose scanty assortment of goods +must be sold at enormous prices to pay the expense of transportation +from New York or Philadelphia, crowds of oil-speculators, oil-dealers, +oil-teamsters, a clumsy bridge across the Creek, a prevailing atmosphere +of petroleum,--such is Oil City. + +At the water-side the view is somewhat more interesting. No wharves +have yet been built; and the swarming flatboats "tie up" all along the +bank, just as they used to do three years ago, when, with a freight of +lumber instead of oil, they stopped for the night at the solitary little +Dutch tavern then monopolizing the site of the present city. + +A rakish little stern-wheel steamer lay in the stream, bound for +Pittsburg, and sorely was Miselle tempted to take passage down the +Alleghany in her; but lingering memories of home and the long-suffering +Caleb at last prevailed, and, with a sigh, she turned her back upon the +beautiful river, and retraced her steps through yards crowded with +barrels of oil waiting for shipment,--oil in rows, oil in stacks, oil in +columns, and oil in pyramids wellnigh as tall and as costly as that of +Cheops himself. + +Returned to the Petroleum House, Miselle bade a reluctant good-bye to +the kindly Scots, who here took stage for Franklin, and watched them +float away, as it appeared, upon the sea of mud in a wagon-body whose +wheels and horses were too nearly submerged to make any noticeable +feature in the arrangement. + +Soon after, Jamie appeared at the door of the parlor nominally to +announce himself ready to return; but, after a fierce struggle with his +natural modesty of disposition, he advanced into the room, and silently +laid two of the biggest apples that ever grew in the laps of Mrs. +Williams and Miselle. Putting aside all acknowledgments with "Ho! what's +an apple or two?" the woodsman next proceeded on a tour of inspection +round the room, serenely unconscious of the magnificent scorn withering +him from the eyes of the jewelled lady, who now reclined upon a +broken-backed sofa, taking a leisurely survey of the strangers. + +Jamie paused some time at the piano. + +"And what might such a thing as that cost noo?" asked he, at length, +giving the case a little back-handed blow. + +"About eight hundred dollars," ventured Miselle, to whom the inquiry was +addressed. + +Jamie opened his wide black eyes. + +"Hoot! Feyther could ha' bought Jim Tarr's whole farm for that, three +year ago," said he; and, with one more contemptuous stare at the piano, +he left the room, and was presently seen in the stable-yard, shouldering +from his path a wagon laden with coals. + +Soon after, Miselle and her friends gladly bade farewell to Oil City, +leaving the scornful lady seated at the piano executing the charming +melody of "We're a band of brothers from the old Granite State." + +Having entered the city by the hill-road, it was proposed to return +along the Creek, although, as Jamie candidly stated, the road "might, +like enough, be a thought worser than the other." + +And it was. + +Before the oil fever swept through this region, a man might have +travelled from the mouth of the Creek to its head-waters, and seen no +more buildings than he could have numbered on his ten fingers. Now the +line of derricks, shanties, engine-houses, and oil-tanks is continuous +through the whole distance; and thousands of men may be seen to-day +accumulating millions of dollars where three years ago the squirrel and +his wife, hoarding their winter stores, were the only creatures that +took thought for the morrow. + +After its incongruous mixture of society, the social peculiarity of Oil +Creek is a total disregard of truth. + +A mechanic, a tradesman, or a boatman makes the most solemn promise of +service at a certain time. Terms are settled, a definite hour appointed +for the fulfilment of the contract; the man departs, and is seen no +more. His employer is neither disappointed nor angry; he expects nothing +else. + +A cart laden with country produce enters the settlement from the farms +behind it. Every housewife drops her broom, and rushes out to waylay the +huckster, and induce him to sell her the provisions already engaged to +her neighbor. Happy she, if stout enough of arm to convey her booty home +with her; for if she trust the vendor to leave it at her house, even +after paying him his price, she may bid good-bye to the green delights, +as eagerly craved here as on a long sea-voyage. + +This "peculiar institution" is all very well, doubtless, for those who +understand it, but is somewhat inconvenient to a stranger, as Miselle +discovered during the three days she was trying to leave Tarr Farm. + +On the third morning, after waiting two hours upon the bank of the Creek +for a perjured boatman, Mr. Williams rushed desperately into a crowd of +teamsters and captured the youth whose first impressions of a railway +have been chronicled on a preceding page. Probably even he, had time +been allowed to consider the proposition at length, would have declined +the journey; but, overborne by the vehemence of his employer, he found +himself well upon the road to Schaeffer's Farm before he had by any +means decided to go thither. + +The pleasantest part of the "carriage exercise" on this road is fording +the Creek, a course adopted wherever the bluff comes down to the bank, +and the flat reappears upon the opposite side, no one having yet spent +time to grade a continuous road on one side or the other. A railway +company has, however, made a beginning in this direction; and it is +promised that in another year the traveller may proceed from Schaeffer's +to Oil City by rail. + +At Titusville Miselle bade good-bye to her kind friend Williams, and +once more took herself under her own protection. + +Spending the night at Corry, she next day found herself in the city of +Erie, and could have fancied it Heidelberg instead, the signs bearing +such names as Schultz, Seelinger, Jantzen, Cronenberger, Heidt, and +Heybeck. Hans Preuss sells bread, Valentin Ulrich manufactures saddles, +and P. Loesch keeps a meat-market, with a sign representing one +gentleman holding a mad bull by a bit of packthread tied to his horns, +while an assistant leisurely strolls up to annihilate the creature with +a tack-hammer. + +Here, too, a little beyond the middle of the town, was a girl herding a +flock of geese, precisely as did the princess in the "Brueder Grimm +Tales," while a doltish boy stared at her with just the imbecile +admiration of Kurdkin for the wily maiden who combed her golden, hair +and chanted her naughty spell in the same breath. + +A little farther on stood a charming old Dutch cottage with cabbages in +the front yard, and a hop-vine clambering the porch. An infant Teuton +swung upon the gate, who, being addressed by Miselle, lisped an answer +in High Dutch, while his mother shrilly exchanged the news with her next +neighbor in the same tongue. + +Two hours sufficed to exhaust the wonders of Erie, and Miselle gladly +took the cars for Buffalo, and on the road thither fell in with a good +Samaritan, who solaced her weary faintness with delicate titbits of +grouse, shot and roasted upon an Ohio prairie. + +At Buffalo waited the Eastern-bound cars of the New-York Central +Railway; but only twenty miles farther on, thundered Niagara, and +Miselle could not choose but obey the sonorous summons. So, after +spending the night at a "white man's" hotel in Buffalo, the next morning +found her standing, an insignificant atom, before one of the world's +great wonders. One or two other travellers, however, have mentioned +Niagara; and Miselle refrains from expressing more than her thanks for +the kindness which enabled her to fulfil her darling wish of standing +behind the great fall on the Canada side. + +Truly, it is no empty boast that places Americans preeminent over the +men of every other nation in their courtesy to women; and Miselle would +fain most gratefully acknowledge the constant attention and kindness +everywhere offered to her, while never once was she annoyed by obtrusive +or unwelcome approach; and not the vast resources of her country, not +the grandeur of Niagara, give her such pride and satisfaction as does +the new knowledge she has gained of her countrymen. + + + + +THE SPANIARDS' GRAVES + +AT THE ISLES OF SHOALS. + + + O sailors, did sweet eyes look after you, + The day you sailed away from sunny Spain? + Bright eyes that followed fading ship and crew, + Melting in tender rain? + + Did no one dream of that drear night to be, + Wild with the wind, fierce with the stinging snow, + When, on yon granite point that frets the sea, + The ship met her death-blow? + + Fifty long years ago these sailors died: + (None know how many sleep beneath the waves:) + Fourteen gray headstones, rising side by side, + Point out their nameless graves,-- + + Lonely, unknown, deserted, but for me, + And the wild birds that flit with mournful cry, + And sadder winds, and voices of the sea + That moans perpetually. + + Wives, mothers, maidens, wistfully, in vain + Questioned the distance for the yearning sail, + That, leaning landward, should have stretched again + White arms wide on the gale, + + To bring back their beloved. Year by year, + Weary they watched, till youth and beauty passed, + And lustrous eyes grew dim, and age drew near, + And hope was dead at last. + + Still summer broods o'er that delicious land, + Rich, fragrant, warm with skies of golden glow: + Live any yet of that forsaken band + Who loved so long ago? + + O Spanish women, over the far seas, + Could I but show you where your dead repose! + Could I send tidings on this northern breeze, + That strong and steady blows! + + Dear dark-eyed sisters, you remember yet + These you have lost, but you can never know + One stands at their bleak graves whose eyes are wet + With thinking of your woe! + + + + +GRIT. + + +There is an influential form of practical force, compounded of strong +will, strong sense, and strong egotism, which long waited for a strong +monosyllable to announce its nature. Facts of character, indeed, are +never at rest until they have become terms of language; and that +peculiar thing which is not exactly courage or heroism, but which +unmistakably is "Grit," has coined its own word to blurt out its own +quality. If the word has not yet pushed its way into classic usage, or +effected a lodgement in the dictionaries, the force it names is no less +a reality of the popular consciousness, and the word itself no less a +part of popular speech. Men who possessed the thing were just the men to +snub elegance and stun propriety by giving it an inelegant, though +vitally appropriate name. There is defiance in its very sound. The word +is used by vast numbers of people to express their highest ideal of +manliness, which is "real grit." It is impossible for anybody to acquire +the reputation it confers by the most dexterous mimicry of its outside +expressions; for a swift analysis, which drives directly to the heart of +the man, instantly detects the impostor behind the braggart, and curtly +declares him to lack "the true grit." The word is so close to the thing +it names, has so much pith and point, is so tart on the tongue, and so +stings the ear with its meaning, that foreigners ignorant of the +language might at once feel its significance by its griding utterance as +it is shot impatiently through the resisting teeth. + +Grit is in the grain of character. It may generally be described as +heroism materialized,--spirit and will thrust into heart, brain, and +backbone, so as to form part of the physical substance of the man. The +feeling with which it rushes into consciousness is akin to physical +sensation; and the whole body--every nerve, muscle, and drop of +blood--is thrilled with purpose and passion. "Spunk" does not express +it; for "spunk," besides being _petite_ in itself, is courage in +effervescence rather than courage in essence. A person usually cowardly +may be kicked or bullied into the exhibition of spunk; but the man of +grit carries in his presence a power which spares him the necessity of +resenting insult; for insult sneaks away from his look. It is not mere +"pluck"; for pluck also comes by fits and starts, and can be +disconnected from the other elements of character. A tradesman once had +the pluck to demand of Talleyrand, at the time that trickster-statesman +was at the height of his power, when he intended to pay his bill; but he +was instantly extinguished by the impassive insolence of Talleyrand's +answer,--"My faith, how curious you are!" Considered as an efficient +force, it is sometimes below heroism, sometimes above it: below heroism, +when heroism is the permanent condition of the soul; above heroism, when +heroism is simply the soul's transient mood. Thus, Demosthenes had +flashes of splendid heroism, but his valor depended on his genius being +kindled,--his brave actions naming out from mental ecstasy rather than +intrepid character. The moment his will dropped from its eminence of +impassioned thought, he was scared by dangers which common soldiers +faced with gay indifference. Erskine, the great advocate, was a hero at +the bar; but when he entered the House of Commons, there was something +in the fixed imperiousness and scorn of Pitt which made him feel +inwardly weak and fluttered. Erskine had flashes of heroism; Pitt had +consistent and persistent grit. If we may take the judgment of Sir +Sidney Smith, Wellington had more grit than Napoleon had heroism. Just +before the Battle of Waterloo, Sir Sidney, at Paris, was told that the +Duke had decided to keep his position at all events. "Oh!" he +exclaimed, "if the Duke has said that, of course t' other fellow must +give way." + +And this is essentially the sign of grit, that, when it appears, t' +other fellow or t' other opinion must give way. Its power comes from its +tough hold on the real, and the surly boldness with which it utters and +acts it out. Thus, in social life, it puts itself in rude opposition to +all those substitutes for reality which the weakness and hypocrisy and +courtesy of men find necessary for their mutual defence. It denies that +it has ever surrendered its original rights and aboriginal force, or +that it has assented to the social compact. When it goes into any +company of civilized persons, its pugnacity is roused by seeing that +social life does not rest on the vigor of the persons who compose it, +but on the authority of certain rules and manners to which all are +required to conform. These appear to grit as external defences, thrown +up to protect elegant feebleness against any direct collision with +positive character, and to keep men and women at a respectful distance +from ladies and gentlemen. Life is carried on there at one or more +removes from the realities of life, on this principle, that, "I won't +speak the truth of you, if you won't speak the truth of me"; and the +name of this principle is politeness. It is impolite to tell foolish men +that they are foolish, mean men that they are mean, wicked men that they +are wicked, traitorous men that they are traitors; for smooth lies +cement what impolite veracities would shatter. The system, it is +contended, on the whole, civilizes the individuals whose natures it may +repress, and is better than a sincerity which would set them by the +ears, and put a veto on all social intercourse whatever. But strong as +may be the argument in favor of the system, it is certainly as important +that it should be assailed as that it should exist, and that it should +be assailed from within; for, carried out unchecked to its last +consequences, it results in sinking its victims into the realm of vapors +and vacuity, its representative being the all-accomplished London man of +fashion who committed suicide to save himself from the bore of dressing +and undressing. Besides, in "good society," so called, the best +sentiments and ideas can sometimes get expression only through the form +of bad manners. It is charming to be in a circle where human nature is +pranked out in purple and fine linen, and where you sometimes see +manners as beautiful as the masterpieces of the arts; yet some people +cannot get rid of the uneasy consciousness that a subtle tyranny +pervades the room and ties the tongue,--that philanthropy is impolite, +that heroism is ungenteel, that truth, honor, freedom, humanity, +strongly asserted, are marks of a vulgar mind; and many a person, daring +enough to defend his opinions anywhere else, by speech or by the sword, +quails in the parlor before some supercilious coxcomb, + + "Weak in his watery smile + And educated whisker," + +who can still tattle to the girls that the reformer is "no gentleman." + +Now how different all this is, when a man of social grit thrusts himself +into a drawing-room, and with an easy audacity tosses out disagreeable +facts and unfashionable truths, the porcelain crashing as his words +fall, and saying everything that no gentleman ought to say, indifferent +to the titter or terror of the women and the offended looks and +frightened stare of the men. How the gilded lies vanish in his presence! +How he states, contradicts, confutes! how he smashes through proprieties +to realities, flooding the room with his aggressive vitality, mastering +by main force a position in the most exclusive set, and, by being +perfectly indifferent to their opinion, making it impossible for them to +put him down! He thus becomes a social power by becoming a social +rebel,--persecutes conventional politeness into submission to rude +veracity,--establishes an autocracy of man over the gentleman,--and +practises a kind of "Come-Outerism," while insisting on enjoying all the +advantages of _Go-Interism_. Ben Jonson in the age of Elizabeth, Samuel +Johnson in the last century, Carlyle and Brougham in the present, are +prominent examples of this somewhat insolent manhood in the presence of +social forms. It is, however, one of the rarest, as it is one of the +ugliest, kinds of human strength; it requires, perhaps, in its +combination, full as many defects as merits; and how difficult is its +justifiable exercise we see in the career of so illustrious a +philanthropist as Wilberforce,--a man whose speech in Parliament showed +no lack of vivid conceptions and smiting words, a man whom no threats of +personal violence could intimidate, and who would cheerfully have risked +his life for his cause, yet still a man who could never forget that he +was a Tory and a gentleman, who had no grit before lords and ladies, +whose Abolitionism was not sufficiently blunt and downright in the good +company of cabinet ministers, whose sensitive nature flinched at the +thought of being conscientiously impolite and heroically ill-natured, +and whose manners were thus frequently in the way of the full efficiency +of his morals. In many respects a hero, in all respects benevolent, he +still was not like Romilly, a man of grit. Politeness has been defined +as benevolence in small things. To be benevolent in great things, +decorum must sometimes yield to duty; and Draco, though in the king's +drawing-room, and loyally supporting in Parliament the measures of the +ministry, is still Draco, though cruelty in him has learned the dialect +of fashion and clothed itself in the privileges of the genteel. + +Proceeding from social life to business life, we shall find that it is +this unamiable, but indomitable, quality of grit which not only acquires +fortunes, but preserves them after they have been acquired. The ruin +which overtakes so many merchants is due not so much to their lack of +business talent as to their lack of business nerve. How many lovable +persons we see in trade, endowed with brilliant capacities, but cursed +with yielding dispositions,--who are resolute in no business habits and +fixed in no business principles,--who are prone to follow the instincts +of a weak good-nature against the ominous hints of a clear intelligence, +now obliging this friend by indorsing an unsafe note, and then pleasing +that neighbor by sharing his risk in a hopeless speculation,--and who, +after all the capital they have earned by their industry and sagacity +has been sunk in benevolent attempts to assist blundering or plundering +incapacity, are doomed, in their bankruptcy, to be the mark of bitter +taunts from growling creditors and insolent pity from a gossiping +public. Much has been said about the pleasures of a good conscience; and +among these I reckon the act of that man who, having wickedly lent +certain moneys to a casual acquaintance, was in the end called upon to +advance a sum which transcended his honest means, with a dark hint, +that, if the money was refused, there was but one thing for the casual +acquaintance to do,--that is, to commit suicide. The person thus +solicited, in a transient fit of moral enthusiasm, caught at the hint, +and with great earnestness advised the casual acquaintance to do it, on +the ground that it was the only reparation he could make to the numerous +persons he had swindled. And this advice was given with no fear that the +guilt of that gentleman's blood would lie on his soul, for the mission +of that gentleman was to continue his existence by sucking out the life +of others, and his last thought was to destroy his own; and it is hardly +necessary to announce that he is still alive and sponging. Indeed, a +courageous merchant must ever by ready to face the fact that he will be +called a curmudgeon, if he will not ruin himself to please others, and a +weak fool, if he does. Many a fortune has melted away in the hesitating +utterance of the placable "Yes," which might have been saved by the +unhesitating utterance of the implacable "No!" Indeed, in business, the +perfection of grit is this power of saying "No," and saying it with such +wrathful emphasis that the whole race of vampires and harpies are scared +from you counting-room, and your reputation as unenterprising, +unbearable niggard is fully established among all borrowers of money +never meant to be repaid, and all projectors of schemes intended for the +benefit of the projectors alone. At the expense of a little temporary +obloquy, a man can thus conquer the right to mind his own business; and +having done this, he has shown his possession of that nerve which, in +his business, puts inexorable purpose into clear conceptions, follows +out a plan of operations with sturdy intelligence, and conducts to +fortune by the road of real enterprise. Many others may evince equal +shrewdness in framing a project, but they hesitate, become timid, become +confused, at some step in its development. Their character is not strong +enough to back up their intellect. But the iron-like tenacity of the +merchant of grit holds on to the successful end. + +You can watch the operation of this quality in every-day business +transactions. Your man of grit seems never deficient in news of the +markets, though he may employ no telegraph-operator. Thus, about two +years ago, a great Boston holder of flour went to considerable expense +in obtaining special intelligence, which would, when generally known, +carry flour up to ten dollars and a half a barrel. Another dealer, +suspecting something, went to him and said, "What do you say flour's +worth to-day?"--"Oh," was the careless answer, "I suppose it might bring +ten dollars."--"Well," retorted the querist, gruffly, "I've got five +thousand barrels on hand, and I should like to _see_ the man who would +give me ten dollars barrel for it!"--"I will," said the other, quickly, +disclosing his secret by the eagerness of his manner, "Well," was the +reply, "all I can say is, then, that I have _seen_ the man." + +The importance of this quality as a business power is most apparent in +those frightful panics which periodically occur in our country, and +which sometimes tax the people more severely than wars and standing +armies. In regard to one of the last of these financial hurricanes, that +of 1857, there can be little doubt, that, if the acknowledged holders of +financial power had been men of real grit, it might have been averted; +there can be as little doubt, that, when it burst, if they had been men +of real grit, it might have been made less disastrous. But they kept +nearly all their sails set up to the point of danger, and when the +tempest was on them ignominiously took to their boats and abandoned the +ship. And as for the crew and passengers, it was the old spectacle of a +shipwreck,--individuals squabbling to get a plank, instead of combining +to construct a raft. + +Indeed, there was something pitiable in the state of things which that +panic revealed in the business centres of the country. Common sense +seemed to be disowned by mutual consent; an infectious fear went +shivering from man to man; and a strange fascination led people to +increase by suspicions and reports the peril which threatened their own +destruction. Men, being thus thrown back upon the resources of +character, were put to terrible tests. As the intellect cannot act when +the will is paralyzed, many a merchant, whose debts really bore no +proportion to his property, was seen sitting, like the French prisoner +in the iron cage whose sides were hourly contracting, stupidly gazing at +the bars which were closing in upon him, and feeling in advance the pang +of the iron which was to cut into his flesh and crush his bones. + +In invigorating contrast to the panic-smitten, we had the privilege to +witness many an example of the grit-inspired. Then it was that the +grouty, taciturn, obstinate trader, so unpopular in ordinary times, +showed the stuff he was made of. Then his bearing was cheer and hope to +all who looked upon him. How he girded himself for the fight, resolved, +if he died, to die hard! How he tugged with obstacles as if they were +personal affronts, and hurled them to the right and to the left! How +grandly, amid the chatter of the madmen about him, came his few words of +sense and sanity! And then his brain, brightened, not bewildered, by the +danger, how clear and alert it was, how fertile in expedients, how firm +in principles, with a glance that pierced through the ignorant present +to the future, seeing as calmly and judging as accurately in the tempest +as it had in the sunshine. Never losing heart and never losing head, +with as strong a grip on his honor as on his property, detesting the +very thought of failure, knowing that he might be broken to pieces, but +determined that he would not weakly "go to pieces," he performed the +greatest service to the community, as well as to himself, by resolutely, +at any sacrifice, paying his debts when they became due. It is a pity +that such austere Luthers of commerce, trade-militant instead of +church-militant, who meet hard times with a harder will, had not a +little beauty in their toughness, so that grit, lifted to heroism, would +allure affection as well as enforce respect. But their sense is so +rigid, their integrity so gruff, and their courage so unjoyous, that all +the genial graces fly their companionship; and a libertine Sheridan, +with Ancient Pistol's motto of "Base is the slave that pays," will often +be more popular, even among the creditor portion of the public, than +these crabbed heroes, and, if need be, surly martyrs, of mercantile +honesty and personal honor. + +In regard to public life, and the influence of this rough manliness in +politics, it is a matter of daily observation, that, in the strife of +parties and principles, backbone without brain will carry it against +brain without backbone. A politician weakly and amiably in the right is +no match for a politician tenaciously and pugnaciously in the wrong. You +cannot, by tying an opinion to a man's tongue, make him the +representative of that opinion; and at the close of any battle for +principles, his name will be found neither among the dead nor among the +wounded, but among the missing. The true motto for a party is neither +"Measures, not men," nor "Men, not measures," but "Measures _in_ +men,"--measures which are in their blood as well as in their brain and +on their lips. Wellington said that Napoleon's presence in the French +army was equivalent to forty thousand additional soldiers; and in a +legislative assembly, Mirabeau and John Adams and John Quincy Adams are +not simply persons who hold a single vote, but forces whose power +thrills through the whole mass of voters. Mean natures always feel a +sort of terror before great natures; and many a base thought has been +unuttered, many a sneaking vote withheld, through the fear inspired by +the rebuking presence of one noble man. + +Opinions embodied in men, and thus made aggressive and militant, are the +opinions which mark the union of thought with grit. A politician of this +class is not content to comprehend and wield the elements of power +already existing in a community, but he aims to make his individual +conviction and purpose dominant over the convictions and purposes of the +accredited exponents of public opinion. He cares little about his +unpopularity at the start, and doggedly persists in his course against +obstacles which seem insurmountable. A great, but mischievous, example +of this power appeared in our own generation in the person of Mr. +Calhoun, a statesman who stamped his individual mind on the policy and +thinking of the country more definitely, perhaps, than any statesman +since Hamilton, though his influence has, on the whole, been as evil as +Hamilton's was, on the whole, beneficent. Keen-sighted, far-sighted, and +inflexible, Mr. Calhoun clearly saw the logical foundations and logical +results of the institution of Slavery; and though at first called an +abstractionist and a fanatic by the looser thinkers of his own region, +his inexorable argumentation, conquering by degrees politicians who +could reason, made itself felt at last among politicians who could not +reason; and the conclusions of his logic were adopted by thousands whose +brains would have broken in the attempt to follow its processes. One of +those rare deductive reasoners whose audacity marches abreast their +genius, he would have been willing to fight to the last gasp for a +conclusion which he had laboriously reached by rigid deduction through +a score of intermediate steps, from premises in themselves repugnant to +the primal instincts both of reason and humanity. Always ready to meet +anybody in argument, he detested all reasoners who attempted to show the +fallacy of his argument by pointing out the dangerous results to which +it led. In this he sometimes brought to mind that inflexible professor +of the deductive method who was timidly informed that his principles, if +carried out, would split the world to pieces. "Let it split," was his +careless answer; "there are enough more planets." By pure intellectual +grit, he thus effected a revolution in the ideas and sentiments of the +South, and through the South made his mind act on the policy of the +nation. The present war has its root in the principles he advocated. +Never flinching from any logical consequence of his principles, Mr. +Calhoun did not rest until through him religion, morality, +statesmanship, the Constitution of the United States, the constitution +of man, were all bound in black. Chattel slavery, the most nonsensical +as well as detestable of oppressions, was, to him, the most beneficent +contrivance of human wisdom. He called it an institution: Mr. Emerson +has more happily styled it a destitution. At last the chains of his iron +logic were heard clanking on the whole Southern intellect. Reasoning the +most masterly was employed to annihilate the first principles of reason; +the understanding of man was insanely placed in direct antagonism to his +moral instincts; and finally the astounding conclusion was reached, that +the Creator of mankind has his pet races,--that God himself scouts his +colored children, and nicknames them "Niggers." + +It is delicious to watch the exulting and somewhat contemptuous audacity +with which he hurries to the unforeseen conclusion those who have once +been simple enough to admit his premises. Towards men who have some +logical capacity his tone is that of respectful impatience; but as he +goads on the reluctant and resentful victims of his reasoning, who +loiter and limp painfully in the steps of his rapid deductions, he seems +to say, with ironic scorn, "A little faster, my poor cripples!" + +So confident was Mr. Calhoun in his capacity to demonstrate the validity +of his horrible creed, that he was ever eager to measure swords with the +most accomplished of his antagonists in the duel of debate. And it must +be said that he despised all the subterfuges and evasions by which, in +ordinary controversies, the real question is dodged, and went directly +to the heart of the matter,--a resolute intellect, burning to grapple +with another resolute intellect in a vital encounter. In common +legislative debates, on the contrary, there is no vital encounter. The +exasperated opponents, personally courageous, but deficient in clear and +fixed ideas, mutually contrive to avoid the things essential to be +discussed, while wantoning in all the forms of discussion. They assert, +brag, browbeat, dogmatize, domineer, pummel each other with the +_argumentum ad hominem_, and abundantly prove that they stand for +opposite opinions; we watch them as we watch the feints and hits of a +couple of pugilists in the ring; but after the sparring is over, we find +that neither the Southern champion nor the Northern bruiser has touched +the inner reality of the question to decide which they stripped +themselves for the fight. In regard to the intellectual issue, they are +like two bullies enveloping themselves in an immense concealing dust of +arrogant words, and, as they fearfully retreat from personal collision, +shouting furiously to each other, "Let me get at him!" And this is what +is commonly called grit in politics,--abundant backbone to face persons, +deficient brain-bone to encounter principles. + +Not so was it when two debaters like Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Webster engaged +in the contest of argument. Take, for example, as specimens of pure +mental manliness, their speeches in the Senate, in 1833, on the question +whether or not the Constitution is a compact between sovereign States. +Give Mr. Calhoun those two words, "compact" and "sovereign," and he +conducts you logically to Nullification and to all the consequences of +Nullification. Andrew Jackson, a man in his kind, of indomitable +resolution, intended to arrest the argument at a convenient point by the +sword, and thus save himself the bother of going farther in the chain of +inferences than he pleased. Mr. Webster grappled with the argument and +with the man; and it is curious to watch that spectacle of a meeting +between two such hostile minds. Each is confident of the strength of his +own position; each is eager for a close hug of dialectics. Far from +avoiding the point, they drive directly towards it, clearing their +essential propositions from mutual misconception by the sharpest +analysis and exactest statement. To get their minds near each other, to +think close to the subject, to feel the griding contact of pure +intellect with pure intellect, and, as spiritual beings, to conduct the +war of reason with spiritual weapons,--this is their ambition. +Conventionally courteous to each other, they are really in the deadliest +antagonism; for their contest is the tug and strain of soul with soul, +and each feels that defeat would be worse than death. No nervous +irritation, no hard words, no passionate recriminations, no flinching +from unexpected difficulties, no substitution of declamatory sophisms +for rigorous inferences--but close, calm, ruthless grapple of thought +with thought. To each, at the time, life seems to depend on the +issue--not merely the life which a sword-cut or pistol-bullet can +destroy, but immortal life, the life of immaterial minds and +personalities, thus brought into spiritual feud. They know very well, +that, whatever be the real result, the Webster-men will give the victory +of argument to Webster, the Calhoun-men the victory of argument to +Calhoun; but that consideration does not enter their thoughts as they +prepare to close in that combat which is to determine, not to the world, +but to each other, which is the stronger intellect, and which is in the +right Few ever appreciate great men in this hostile attitude, not of +their passions, but of their minds; and those who do it the least are +their furious partisans. Most people are contented with the argument +that tells, and are apt to be bored with the argument which refutes; but +a true reasoner despises even his success, if he feels that two persons, +himself and his opponent, know that he is in the wrong. And the strain +on the whole being in this contest of intellect with intellect, and the +reluctance with which the most combative enter it unless they are +consciously strong, is well illustrated by Dr. Johnson's remark to some +friends, when sickness had relaxed the tough fibre of his brain,--"If +that fellow Burke were here now, he would kill me." + +A peculiar kind of grit, not falling under any of the special +expressions I have noted, yet partaking in some degree of all, is +illustrated in the character of Lieutenant-General Grant. Without an +atom of pretension or rhetoric, with none of the external signs of +energy and intrepidity, making no parade of the immovable purpose, iron +nerve, and silent, penetrating intelligence God has put into him, his +tranquil greatness is hidden from superficial scrutiny behind a cigar, +as President Lincoln's is behind a joke. When anybody tries to coax, +cajole, overawe, browbeat, or deceive Lincoln, the President nurses his +leg, and is reminded of a story; when anybody tries the same game with +Grant, the General listens and--smokes. If you try to wheedle out of him +his plans for a campaign, he stolidly smokes; if you call him an +imbecile and a blunderer, he blandly lights another cigar; if you praise +him as the greatest general living, he placidly returns the puff from +his regalia; and if you tell him he should run for the Presidency, it +does not disturb the equanimity with which he inhales and exhales the +unsubstantial vapor which typifies the politician's promises. While you +are wondering what kind of man this creature without a tongue is, you +are suddenly electrified with the news of some splendid victory, proving +that behind the cigar, and behind the face discharged of all tell-tale +expression, is the best brain to plan and the strongest heart to dare +among the generals of the Republic. + +It is curious to mark a variation of this intellectual hardihood and +personal force when the premises are not in the solidities, but in the +oddities of thought and character, and whim stands stiffly up to the +remotest inferences which may be deduced from its insanest freaks of +individual opinion. Thus it is said that in one of our country towns +there is an old gentleman who is an eccentric hater of women; and this +crotchet of his character he carries to its extreme logical +consequences. Not content with general declamation against the sex, he +turns eagerly, the moment he receives the daily newspaper, to the list +of deaths; and if he sees the death of a woman recorded, he gleefully +exclaims,--"Good! good! there's another of 'em gone!" + +We have heard of a man who had conceived a violent eccentric prejudice +against negroes; and he was not content with chiming in with the usual +cant of the prejudice that they ought not to be allowed in our churches +and in our rail-road-cars, but vociferated, that, if he had his way, +they should not be allowed in Africa! The advantage of grit in this +respect is in its annihilating a prejudice by presenting a vivid vision +of its theoretical consequences. Carlyle has an eccentric hatred of the +eighteenth century, its manners, morals, politics, religion, and men. He +has expressed this in various ways for thirty years; but in his last +work, the "Life of Frederick the Great," his prejudice reached its +logical climax in the assertion, that the only sensible thing the +eighteenth century ever did was blowing out its own brains in the French +Revolution. + +Again, in discussion, some men have felicity in replying to a question, +others a felicity in replying to the motive which prompted the question. +In one case you get an answer addressed to your understanding; in the +other, an answer which smites like a slap in the face. Thus, when a pert +skeptic asked Martin Luther where God was before He created heaven, +Martin stunned his querist with the retort,--"He was building hell for +such idle, presumptuous, fluttering, and inquisitive spirits as you." +And everybody will recollect the story of the self-complacent cardinal +who went to confess to a holy monk, and thought by self-accusation to +get the reputation of a saint. + +"I have been guilty of every kind of sin," snivelled the cardinal. + +"It is a solemn fact," replied the impassive monk. + +"I have indulged in pride, ambition, malice, and revenge," groaned the +cardinal. + +"It is too true," answered the monk. + +"Why, you fool," exclaimed the enraged dignitary, "you don't imagine +that I mean all this to the letter!" + +"Ho! ho!" said the monk, "so you have been a liar, too, have you?" + +This relentless rebuker of shams furnishes us with a good transition to +another department of the subject, namely, moral hardihood, or grit +organized in conscience, and applying the most rigorous laws of ethics +to the practical affairs of life. Now there is a wide difference between +moral men, so called, and men moralized,--between men who lazily adopt +and lazily practise the conventional moral proprieties of the time, and +men transformed into the image of inexorable, unmerciful moral ideas, +men in whom moral maxims appear organized as moral might. There are +thousands who are prodigal of moral and benevolent opinions, and +honestly eloquent in loud professions of what they would do in case +circumstances called upon them to act; but when the occasion is suddenly +thrust upon them, when temptation, leering into every corner and crevice +of their weak and selfish natures, connects the notion of virtue with +the reality of sacrifice, then, in that sharp pinch, they become +suddenly apprised of the difference between rhetoric and rectitude, and +find that their speeches have been far ahead of their powers of +performance. Thus, in one of Gerald Griffin's novels, there is a scene +in which a young Irish student, fresh from his scholastic ethics, amazes +the company at his father's table, who are all devout believers in the +virtues of the hair-trigger, by an eloquent declamation against the +folly and the sin of duelling. At last one of the set gets sufficient +breath to call him a coward. The hot Irish blood is up in an instant, a +tumbler is thrown at the head of the doubter of his courage, and in ten +seconds the young moralist is crossing swords with his antagonist in a +duel. + +But the characteristic of moral grit is equality with the occasions +which exact its exercise. It is morality with thews and sinews and blood +and passions,--morality made man, and eager to put its phrases to the +test of action. It gives and takes hard blows,--aims not only to be +upright in deed, but downright in word,--silences with a "Thus saith the +Lord" all palliations of convenient sins,--scowls ominously at every +attempt to reconcile the old feud between the right and the expedient +and make them socially shake hands,--and when cant taints the air, +clears it with good wholesome rage and execration. On the virtues of +this stubborn conscientiousness it is needless to dilate; its +limitations spring from its tendency to disconnect morality from mercy, +and law from love,--its too frequent substitution of moral antipathies +for moral insight,--and its habit of describing individual men, not as +they are in themselves, but as they appear to its offended conscience. +Understanding sin better than it understands sinners, it sometimes +sketches phantoms rather than paints portraits,--identifies the weakly +wicked with the extreme of Satanic wickedness,--and in its assaults, +pitches _at_ its adversaries rather than really pitches _into_ them. +But, in a large moral view, the light of intellectual perception should +shine far in advance of the heat of ethical invective, and an ounce of +characterization is worth a ton of imprecations. Indeed, moral grit, +relatively admirable as it is, partakes of the inherent defect of other +and lower kinds of grit, inasmuch as its force is apt to be as +unsympathetic as it is uncompromising, as ungracious as it is +invincible. It drives rather than draws, cuffs rather than coaxes. +Intolerant of human infirmity, it is likewise often intolerant of all +forms of human excellence which do not square with its own conceptions +of right; and its philanthropy in the abstract is apt to secrete a +subtile misanthropy in the concrete. Brave, unselfish, self-sacrificing, +and flinching from no consequences which its principles may bring upon +itself, it flinches from no consequences which they may bring upon +others; and its attitude towards the laws and customs of instituted +imperfection is almost as sourly belligerent as towards those of +instituted iniquity. + +Men of this austere and somewhat crabbed rectitude may be found in every +department of life, but they are most prominent and most efficient when +they engage in the reform of abuses, whether those abuses be in manners, +institutions, or religion; and here they never shrink from the rough, +rude work of the cause they espouse. They are commonly adored by their +followers, commonly execrated by their opponents; but they receive the +execration as the most convincing proof that they have performed their +duties, as the shrieks of the wounded testify to the certainty of the +shots. Indeed, they take a kind of grim delight in so pointing their +invective that the adversaries of their principles are turned into +enemies of their persons, and scout at all fame which does not spring +from obloquy. As they thus exist in a state of war, the gentler elements +of their being fall into the background; the bitterness of the strife +works into their souls, and gives to their conscientious wrath a certain +Puritan pitilessness of temper and tone. In the thick of the fight, +their battle-cry is, "No quarter to the enemies of God and man!"--and +as, unfortunately, there are few men who, tried by their standards, are +friends of man, population very palpably thins as the lava-tide of their +invective sweeps over it, and to the mental eye men, disappear as man +emerges. + +The gulf which yawns between uncompromising moral obligation and +compromising human conduct is so immense that these fierce servants of +the Lord seem to be fanatics and visionaries. But history demonstrates +that they are among the most practical of all the forces which work in +human affairs; for, without taking into account the response which their +inflexible morality finds in the breasts of inflexibly moral men, their +morality, in its application to common life, often becomes materialized, +and shows an intimate connection with the most ordinary human appetites +and passions. They commune with the mass of men through the subtile +freemasonry of discontent. Compelled to hurl the thunderbolts of the +moral law against injustice in possession, they unwittingly set fire to +injustice smouldering in unrealized passions; and their speech is +translated and transformed, in its passage into the public mind, into +some such shape as this:--"These few persons who are dominant in Church +and State, and who, while you physically and spiritually starve, are fed +fat by the products of your labor and the illusions of your +superstition, are powerful and prosperous, not from any virtue in +themselves, but from the violation of those laws which God has ordained +for the beneficent government of the universe. Their property and their +power are the signs, not of their merits, but of their sins." The +instinctive love of property and power are thus addressed to overturn +the present possessors of property and power; and the vices of men are +unconsciously enlisted in the service of the regeneration of man. The +motives which impel whole masses of the community are commonly different +from the motives of those reformers who urge the community to revolt; +and their fervent denunciations of injustice bring to their side +thousands of men who, perhaps unconsciously to themselves, only desire a +chance to be unjust. The annals of all emancipations, revolutions, and +reformations are disfigured by this fact. Better than what they +supplant, their good is still relative, not absolute. + +In the history of religious reforms, few men better illustrate this hard +moral manliness, as distinguished from the highest moral heroism, than +the sturdy Scotch reformer, John Knox. Tenacious, pugnacious, thoroughly +honest and thoroughly earnest, superior to all physical and moral fear, +destitute equally of fine sentiments and weak emotions, blurting out +unwelcome opinions to queens as readily as to peasants, and in words +which hit and hurt like knocks with the fist, he is one of those large, +but somewhat coarse-grained natures, that influence rude populations by +having so much in common with them, and in which the piety of the +Christian, the thought of the Protestant, and the zeal of the martyr are +curiously blended with the ferocity of the demagogue. Jenny Geddes, at +the time when Archbishop Laud attempted to force Episcopacy upon +Scotland, is a fair specimen of the kind of character which the +teachings and the practice of such a man would tend to produce in a +nation. This rustic heroine was present when the new bishop, hateful to +Presbyterian eyes, began the service, with the smooth saying, "Let us +read the Collect of the Day." Jenny rose in wrath, and cried out to the +surpliced official of the Lord,--"Thou foul thief, wilt thou say mass at +my lug?" and hurled her stool at his head. Then rose cries of "A Pope! a +Pope! Stone him!" And "the worship of the Lord in Episcopal decency and +order" was ignominiously stopped. And in the next reign, when the same +thing was attempted, the Covenanters, the true spiritual descendants of +Knox, opposed to the most brutal persecution a fierce, morose heroism, +strangely compounded of barbaric passion and Christian fortitude. They +were the most perfect specimens of pure moral grit the world has ever +seen. In the great theological humorist of the nineteenth century, the +Reverend Sydney Smith, the legitimate intellectual successor of the +Reverend Rabelais and the Reverend Swift and the Reverend Sterne, their +sullen intrepidity excites a mingled feeling, in which fun strives with +admiration. In arguing against all intolerance, the intolerance of the +church to which he belonged as well as the intolerance of the churches +to which he was opposed, he said that persecution and bloodshed had no +effect in preventing the Scotch, "that metaphysical people, from going +to heaven in their true way instead of our true way"; and then comes the +humorous sally,--"With a little oatmeal for food and a little sulphur +for friction, allaying cutaneous irritation with one hand and grasping +his Calvinistical creed with the other, Sawney ran away to the flinty +hills, sung his psalm out of tune his own way, and listened to his +sermon of two hours long, amid the rough and imposing melancholy of the +tallest thistles." But from the graver historian, developing the +historic significance of their determined resistance to the insolent +claims of ecclesiastical authority, their desperate hardihood elicits a +more fitting tribute. "Hunted down," he says, "like wild beasts, +tortured till their bones were beaten flat, imprisoned by hundreds, +hanged by scores, exposed at one time to the license of soldiers from +England, abandoned at another time to the mercy of bands of marauders +from the Highlands, they still stood at bay in a mood so savage that the +boldest and mightiest oppressor could not but dread the audacity of +their despair." + +But the man who, in modern times, stands out most prominently as the +representative of this tough physical and moral fibre is Oliver +Cromwell, the greatest of that class of Puritans who combined the +intensest religious passions with the powers of the soldier and the +statesman, and who, in some wild way, reconciled their austere piety +with remorseless efficiency in the world of facts. After all the +materials for an accurate judgment of Cromwell which have been collected +by the malice of his libellers and the veneration of his partisans, he +is still a puzzle to psychologists; for no one, so far, has bridged the +space which separates the seeming anarchy of his mind from the executive +decision of his conduct. A coarse, strong, massive English +nature, thoroughly impregnated with Hebrew thought and Hebrew +passion,--democratic in his sympathy with the rudest political and +religious feelings of his party, autocratic in the consciousness of +superior abilities and tyrannic will,--emancipated from the illusions of +vanity, but not from those of ambition and pride,--shrinking from no +duty and no policy from the fear of obloquy or the fear of death,--a +fanatic and a politician,--a demagogue and a dictator,--seeking the +kingdom of heaven, but determined to take the kingdom of England by the +way,--believing in God, believing in himself, and believing in his +Ironsides,--clothing spiritual faith in physical force, and backing +dogmas and prayers with pikes and cannon,--anxious at once that his +troops should trust in God and keep their powder dry,--with a mind deep +indeed, but distracted by internal conflicts, and prolific only in +enormous, half-shaped ideas, which stammer into expression at once +obscure and ominous, the language a strange compound of the slang of the +camp and the mystic phrases of inspired prophets and apostles,--we still +feel throughout, that, whatever may be the contradictions of his +character, they are not such as to impair the ruthless energy of his +will. Whatever he dared to think he dared to do. No practical emergency +ever found him deficient either in sagacity or resolution, however it +might have found him deficient in mercy. He overrode the moral judgments +of ordinary men as fiercely as he overrode their physical resistance, +crushing prejudices as well as Parliaments, ideas as well as armies; and +whether his task was to cut off the head of an unmanageable king, or +disperse an unmanageable legislative assembly, or massacre an +unmanageable Irish garrison, or boldly establish himself as the +uncontrolled supreme authority of the land, he ever did it thoroughly +and unrelentingly, and could always throw the responsibility of the +deed on the God of battles and the God of Cromwell. In all this we +observe the operation of a colossal practical force rather than an ideal +power, of grit rather than heroism. However much he may command that +portion of our sympathies which thrill at the touch of vigorous action, +there are other sentiments of our being which detect something partial, +vulgar, and repulsive even in his undisputed greatness. + +In truth, grit, in its highest forms, is not a form of courage deserving +of unmixed respect and admiration. Admitting its immense practical +influence in public and private life, conceding its value in the rough, +direct struggle of person with person and opinions with institutions, it +is still by no means the top and crown of heroic character; for it lacks +the element of beauty and the element of sympathy; it is individual, +unsocial, bigoted, relatively to occasions; and its force has no +necessary connection with grandeur, generosity, and enlargement of soul. +Even in great men, like Cromwell, there is something in its aspect which +is harsh, ugly, haggard, and ungenial; even in them it is strong by the +stifling of many a generous thought and tolerant feeling; and when it +descends to animate sterile and stunted natures, endowed with sufficient +will to make their meanness or malignity efficient, its unfruitful force +is absolutely hateful. It has done good work for the cause of truth and +right; but it has also done bad work for the cause of falsehood and +wrong: for evil has its grit as well as virtue. As it lacks, suppresses, +or subordinates imagination, it is shorn of an important portion of a +complete manhood; for it not only loses the perception of beauty, but +the power of passing into other minds. It never takes the point of view +of the persons it opposes; its object is victory, not insight; and it +thus fails in that modified mercy to men which springs from an interior +knowledge of their characters. Even when it is the undaunted force +through which moral wrath expresses its hatred of injustice and wrong, +its want of imaginative perception makes it somewhat caricature the +sinners it inveighs against. It converts imperfect or immoral men into +perfect demons, which humanity as well as reason refuses to accept; and +it is therefore not surprising that the prayer of its indignant morality +sometimes is, "Almighty God, condemn them, for they _know_ what they +do!" But we cannot forget that there sounds down the ages, from the +saddest and most triumphant of all martyrdoms, a different and a diviner +prayer,--"Father, forgive them, for they know _not_ what they do!" + +Indeed, however much we may be struck with the startling immediateness +of effect which follows the exercise of practical force, we must not +forget the immense agency in human affairs of the ideal powers of the +soul. These work creatively from within to mould character, not only +inflaming great passions, but touching the springs of pity, tenderness, +gentleness, and love,--above all, infusing that wide-reaching sympathy +which sends the individual out of the grit-guarded fortress of his +personality into the wide plain of the race. The culmination of these +ideal powers is in genius and heroism, which draw their inspiration from +ideal and spiritual sources, and radiate it in thoughts beautifully +large and deeds beautifully brave. They do not merely exert power, they +communicate it. If you are overcome by a man of grit, he insolently +makes you conscious of your own weakness. If you are overcome by genius +and heroism, you are made participants in their strength; for they +overcome only to invigorate and uplift. They sweep on their gathering +disciples to the object they have in view, by making it an object of +affection as well as duty. Their power to allure and to attract is not +lost even when their goal is the stake or the cross. They never, in +transient ignominy and pain, lose sight and feeling of the beauty and +bliss inseparably associated with goodness and virtue; and the happiest +death-beds have often been on the rack or in the flame of the +hero-martyr. And they are also, in their results, great practical +influences; for they break down the walls which separate man from +man,--by magnanimous thought or magnanimous act shame us out of our +bitter personal contentions, and flash the sentiment of a common nature +into our individual hatreds and oppositions. As grit decomposes society +into an aggregate of strong and weak persons, genius and heroism unite +them in one humanity. Thus, not many years ago, we were all battling +about the higher law and the law to return fugitive slaves. It was +argument against argument, passion against passion, person against +person, grit against grit. The notions advanced regarding virtue and +vice, justice and injustice, humanity and inhumanity, were as different +as if the controversy had not been between men and men, but between men +and cattle. There were no signs among the combatants that they had the +common reason and the common instincts of a common nature. Then came a +woman of genius, who refused to credit the horrible conceit that the +diversity was essential, who resolutely believed that the human heart +was a unit, and whose glance, piercing the mist of opinions and +interests, saw in the deep and universal sources of humane and human +action the exact point where her blow would tell; and in a novel +unexampled in the annals of literature for popular effect, shook the +whole public reason and public conscience of the country, by the most +searching of all appeals to its heart and imagination. + + + + +THE PETTIBONE LINEAGE. + + +My name is Esek Pettibone, and I wish to affirm in the outset that it is +a good thing to be well-born. In thus connecting the mention of my name +with a positive statement, I am not unaware that a catastrophe lies +coiled up in the juxtaposition. But I cannot help writing plainly that I +am still in favor of a distinguished family-tree. ESTO PERPETUA! To have +had somebody for a great-grandfather that was somebody is exciting. To +be able to look back on long lines of ancestry that were rich, but +respectable, seems decorous and all right. The present Earl of Warwick, +I think, must have an idea that strict justice has been done _him_ in +the way of being launched properly into the world. I saw the Duke of +Newcastle once, and as the farmer in Conway described Mount Washington, +I thought the Duke felt a propensity to "hunch up some." Somehow it is +pleasant to look down on the crowd and have a conscious right to do so. + +Left an orphan at the tender age of four years, having no brothers or +sisters to prop me round with young affections and sympathies, I fell +into three pairs of hands, excellent in their way, but peculiar. +Patience, Eunice, and Mary Ann Pettibone were my aunts on my father's +side. All my mother's relations kept shady when the lonely orphan looked +about for protection; but Patience Pettibone, in her stately way, +said,--"The boy belongs to a good family, and he shall never want while +his three aunts can support him." So I went to live with my plain, but +benignant protectors, in the State of New Hampshire. + +During my boyhood, the best-drilled lesson that fell to my keeping was +this:--"Respect yourself. We come of more than ordinary parentage. +Superior blood was probably concerned in getting up the Pettibones. Hold +your head erect, and some day you shall have proof of your high +lineage." + +I remember once, on being told that I must not share my juvenile sports +with the butcher's three little beings, I begged to know why not. Aunt +Eunice looked at Patience, and Mary Ann knew what she meant. + +"My child," slowly murmured the eldest sister, "our family no doubt came +of a very old stock; perhaps we belong to the nobility. Our ancestors, +it is thought, came over laden with honors, and no doubt were +embarrassed with riches, though the latter importation has dwindled in +the lapse of years. Respect yourself, and when you grow up you will not +regret that your old and careful aunt did not wish you to play with +butchers' offspring." + +I felt mortified that I had ever had a desire to "knuckle up" with any +but kings' sons or sultans' little boys. I longed to be among my equals +in the urchin-line, and fly my kite with only high-born youngsters. + +Thus I lived in a constant scene of self-enchantment on the part of the +sisters, who assumed all the port and feeling that properly belong to +ladies of quality. Patrimonial splendor to come danced before their dim +eyes; and handsome settlements, gay equipages, and a general grandeur of +some sort loomed up in the future for the American branch of the House +of Pettibone. + +It was a life of opulent self-delusion, which my aunts were never tired +of nursing; and I was too young to doubt the reality of it. All the +members of our little household held up their heads, as if each said, in +so many words, "There is no original sin in _our_ composition, whatever +of that commodity there may be mixed up with the common clay of +Snowborough." + +Aunt Patience was a star, and dwelt apart. Aunt Eunice looked at her +through a determined pair of spectacles, and worshipped while she gazed. +The youngest sister lived in a dreamy state of honors to come, and had +constant zoological visions of lions, griffins, and unicorns, drawn and +quartered in every possible style known to the Heralds' College. The +Reverend Hebrew Bullet, who used to drop in quite often and drink +several compulsory glasses of home-made wine, encouraged his three +parishioners in their aristocratic notions, and extolled them for what +he called their "stooping down to every-day life." He differed with the +ladies of our house only on one point. He contended that the unicorn of +the Bible and the rhinoceros of to-day were one and the same animal. My +aunts held a different opinion. + +In the sleeping-room of my Aunt Patience reposed a trunk. Often during +my childish years I longed to lift the lid and spy among its contents +the treasures my young fancy conjured up as lying there in state. I +dared not ask to have the cover raised for my gratification, as I had +often been told I was "too little" to estimate aright what that armorial +box contained. "When you grow up, you shall see the inside of it," Aunt +Mary Ann used to say to me; and so I wondered, and wished, but all in +vain. I must have the virtue of _years_ before I could view the +treasures of past magnificence so long entombed in that wooden +sarcophagus. Once I saw the faded sisters bending over the trunk +together, and, as I thought, embalming something in camphor. Curiosity +impelled me to linger, but, under some pretext, I was nodded out of the +room. + +Although my kinswomen's means were far from ample, they determined that +Swiftmouth College should have the distinction of calling me one of her +sons, and accordingly I was in due time sent for preparation to a +neighboring academy. Years of study and hard fare in country +boarding-houses told upon my self-importance as the descendant of a +great Englishman, notwithstanding all my letters from the honored three +came freighted with counsel to "respect myself and keep up the dignity +of the family." Growing-up man forgets good counsel. The Arcadia of +respectability is apt to give place to the levity of football and other +low-toned accomplishments. The book of life, at that period, opens +readily at fun and frolic, and the insignia of greatness give the +schoolboy no envious pangs. + +I was nineteen when I entered the hoary halls of Swiftmouth. I call +them hoary, because they had been built more than fifty years. To me +they seemed uncommonly hoary, and I snuffed antiquity in the dusty +purlieus. I now began to study, in good earnest, the wisdom of the past. +I saw clearly the value of dead men and mouldy precepts, especially if +the former had been entombed a thousand years, and if the latter were +well done in sounding Greek and Latin. I began to reverence royal lines +of deceased monarchs, and longed to connect my own name, now growing +into college popularity, with some far-off mighty one who had ruled in +pomp and luxury his obsequious people. The trunk in Snowborough troubled +my dreams. In that receptacle still slept the proof of our family +distinction. "I will go," quoth I, "to the home of my aunts next +vacation and there learn _how_ we became mighty, and discover precisely +why we don't practise to-day our inherited claims to glory." + +I went to Snowborough. Aunt Patience was now anxious to lay before her +impatient nephew the proof he burned to behold. But first she must +explain. All the old family documents and letters were, no doubt, +destroyed in the great fire of '98, as nothing in the shape of parchment +or paper implying nobility had ever been discovered in Snowborough, or +elsewhere. _But_--there had been preserved, for many years, a suit of +imperial clothes, that had been worn by their great-grandfather in +England, and, no doubt, in the New World also. These garments had been +carefully watched and guarded; for were they not the proof that their +owner belonged to a station in life, second, if second at all, to the +royal court of King George itself? Precious casket, into which I was +soon to have the privilege of gazing! Through how many long years these +fond, foolish virgins had lighted their unflickering lamps of +expectation and hope at this cherished old shrine! + +I was now on my way to the family repository of all our greatness. I +went up stairs "on the jump." We all knelt down before the +well-preserved box; and my proud Aunt Patience, in a somewhat reverent +manner, turned the key. My heart,--I am not ashamed to confess it now, +although it is forty years since the quartette, in search of family +honors, were on their knees that summer afternoon in Snowborough,--my +heart beat high. I was about to look on that which might be a duke's or +an earl's regalia. And I was descended from the owner in a direct line! +I had lately been reading Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus"; and I +remembered, there before the trunk, the lines,-- + + "O sacred receptacle of my joys, + Sweet cell of virtue and nobility!" + +The lid went up, and the sisters began to unroll the precious garments, +which seemed all enshrined in aromatic gums and spices. The odor of that +interior lives with me to this day; and I grow faint with the memory of +that hour. With pious precision the clothes were uncovered, and at last +the whole suit was laid before my expectant eyes. + +Reader! I am an old man now, and have not long to walk this planet. But, +whatever dreadful shock may be in reserve for my declining years, I am +certain I can bear it; for I went through that scene at Snowborough, and +still live! + +When the garments were fully displayed, all the aunts looked at me. I +had been to college; I had studied Burke's "Peerage"; I had been once to +New York. Perhaps I could immediately name the exact station in noble +British life to which that suit of clothes belonged. I could; I saw it +all at a glance. I grew flustered and pale. I dared not look my poor +deluded female relatives in the face. + +"What rank in the peerage do these gold-laced garments and big buttons +betoken?" cried all three. + +"_It is a suit of servant's livery!_" gasped I, and fell back with a +shudder. + +That evening, after the sun had gone down, we buried those hateful +garments in a ditch at the bottom of the garden. Rest there, perturbed +body-coat, yellow trousers, brown gaiters, and all! + + "Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye!" + + + + +UP THE ST. MARY'S. + + +If Sergeant Rivers was a natural king among my dusky soldiers, Corporal +Robert Sutton was the natural prime-minister. If not in all respects the +ablest, he was the wisest man in our ranks. As large, as powerful, and +as black as our good-looking Color-Sergeant, but more heavily built and +with less personal beauty, he had a more massive brain and a far more +meditative and systematic intellect. Not yet grounded even in the +spelling-book, his modes of thought were nevertheless strong, lucid, and +accurate; and he yearned and pined for intellectual companionship beyond +all ignorant men whom I have ever met. I believe that he would have +talked all day and all night, for days together, to any officer who +could instruct him, until his companion, at least, fell asleep +exhausted. His comprehension of the whole problem of Slavery was more +thorough and far-reaching than that of any Abolitionist, so far as its +social and military aspects went; in that direction I could teach him +nothing, and he taught me much. But it was his methods of thought which +always impressed me chiefly: superficial brilliancy he left to others, +and grasped at the solid truth. Of course his interest in the war and in +the regiment was unbounded; he did not take to drill with especial +readiness, but he was insatiable of it and grudged every moment of +relaxation. Indeed, he never had any such moments; his mind was at work +all the time, even when he was singing hymns, of which he had endless +store. He was not, however, one of our leading religionists, but his +moral code was solid and reliable, like his mental processes. Ignorant +as he was, the "years that bring the philosophic mind" had yet been his, +and most of my young officers seemed boys beside him. He was a Florida +man, and had been chiefly employed in lumbering and piloting on the St. +Mary's River, which divides Florida from Georgia. Down this stream he +had escaped in a "dug-out," and after thus finding the way, had returned +(as had not a few of my men, in other cases) to bring away wife and +child. "I wouldn't have leff my child, Cunnel," he said, with an +emphasis that sounded the depths of his strong nature. And up this same +river he was always imploring to be allowed to guide an expedition. + +Many other men had rival propositions to urge, for they gained +self-confidence from drill and guard-duty, and were growing impatient of +inaction. "Ought to go to work, Sa,--don't believe in we lyin' in camp, +eatin' up the perwisions." Such were the quaint complaints, which I +heard with joy. Looking over my note-books of that period, I find them +filled with topographical memoranda, jotted down by a nickering candle, +from the evening talk of the men,--notes of vulnerable points along the +coast, charts of rivers, locations of pickets. I prized these +conversations not more for what I thus learned of the country than for +what I learned of the men. One could thus measure their various degrees +of accuracy and their average military instinct; and I must say that in +every respect, save the accurate estimate of distances, they stood the +test well. But no project took my fancy so much, after all, as that of +the delegate from the St. Mary's River. + +The best peg on which to hang an expedition in the Department of the +South, in those days, was the promise of lumber. Dwelling in the very +land of Southern pine, the Department authorities had to send North for +it, at a vast expense. There was reported to be plenty in the enemy's +country, but somehow the colored soldiers were the only ones who had +been lucky enough to obtain any, thus far, and the supply brought in by +our men, after flooring the tents of the white regiments and our own, +was running low. An expedition of white troops, four companies, with +two steamers and two schooners, had lately returned empty-handed, after +a week's foraging; and now it was our turn. They said the mills were all +burned; but should we go up the St. Mary's, Corporal Sutton was prepared +to offer more lumber than we had transportation to carry. This made the +crowning charm of his suggestion. But there is never any danger of +erring on the side of secrecy, in a military department; and I resolved +to avoid all undue publicity for our plans, by not finally deciding on +any until we should get outside the bar. This was happily approved by my +superior officers, Major-General Hunter and Brigadier-General Saxton; +and I was accordingly permitted to take three steamers, with four +hundred and sixty-two officers and men, and two or three invited guests, +and go down the coast on my own responsibility. We were, in short, to +win our spurs; and if, as among the Araucanians, our spurs were made of +lumber, so much the better. The whole history of the Department of the +South had been defined as "a military picnic," and now we were to take +our share of the entertainment. + +It seemed a pleasant share, when, after the usual vexations and delays, +we found ourselves gliding down the full waters of Beaufort River, the +three vessels having sailed at different hours, with orders to +rendezvous at St. Simon's Island, on the coast of Georgia. Until then, +the flag-ship, so to speak, was to be the "Ben De Ford," Captain +Hallett,--this being by far the largest vessel, and carrying most of the +men. Major Strong was in command upon the "John Adams," an army +gunboat, carrying a thirty-pound Parrott gun, two ten-pound Parrotts, +and an eight-inch howitzer Captain Trowbridge (since promoted +Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment) had charge of the famous "Planter," +brought away from the Rebels by Robert Small; she carried a ten-pound +Parrott gun, and two howitzers. The John Adams was our main reliance. +She was an old East-Boston ferry-boat, a "double-ender," admirable for +river-work, but unfit for sea-service. She drew seven feet of water; the +Planter drew only four; but the latter was very slow, and being obliged +to go to St. Simon's by an inner passage, would delay us from the +beginning. She delayed us so much, before the end, that we virtually +parted company, and her career was almost entirely separated from our +own. + +From boyhood I have had a fancy for boats, and have seldom been without +a share, usually more or less fractional, in a rather indeterminate +number of punts and wherries. But when, for the first time, I found +myself at sea as Commodore of a fleet of armed steamers,--for even the +Ben De Ford boasted a six-pounder or so,--it seemed rather an unexpected +promotion. But it is a characteristic of army life, that one adapts +one's self, as coolly as in a dream, to the most novel responsibilities. +One sits on court-martial, for instance, and decides on the life of a +fellow-creature, without being asked any inconvenient questions as to +previous knowledge of Blackstone; and after such an experience, shall +one shrink from wrecking a steamer or two in the cause of the nation? So +I placidly accepted my naval establishment, as if it were a new form of +boat-club, and looked over the charts, balancing between one river and +another, as if deciding whether to pull up or down Lake Quinsigamond. If +military life ever contemplated the exercise of the virtue of humility +under any circumstances, this would perhaps have been a good opportunity +to begin its practice. But as the "Regulations" clearly contemplated +nothing of the kind, and as I had never met with any precedent which +looked in that direction, I had learned to check promptly all such weak +proclivities. + +Captain Hallett proved the most frank and manly of sailors, and did +everything for our comfort. He was soon warm in his praises of the +demeanor of our men, which was very pleasant to hear, as this was the +first time that colored soldiers in any number had been conveyed on +board a transport, and I know of no place where a white volunteer +appears to so much disadvantage. His mind craves occupation, his body +is intensely uncomfortable, the daily emergency is not great enough to +call out his heroic qualities, and he is apt to be surly, discontented, +and impatient even of sanitary rules. The Southern black soldier, on the +other hand, is seldom sea-sick, (at least, such is my experience,) and, +if properly managed, is equally contented, whether idle or busy; he is, +moreover, so docile that all needful rules are executed with cheerful +acquiescence, and the quarters can therefore be kept clean and +wholesome. Very forlorn faces were soon visible among the officers in +the cabin, but I rarely saw such among the men. + +Pleasant still seemed our enterprise, as we anchored at early morning in +the quiet waters of St. Simon's Sound, and saw the light fall softly on +the beach and the low bluffs, on the picturesque plantation-houses which +nestled there, and the graceful naval vessels that lay at anchor before +us. When we afterwards landed, the air had that peculiar Mediterranean +translucency which Southern islands wear; and the plantation we visited +had the loveliest tropical garden, though tangled and desolate, which I +have ever seen in the South. The deserted house was embowered in great +blossoming shrubs, and filled with hyacinthine odors, among which +predominated that of the little Chickasaw roses which everywhere bloomed +and trailed around. There were fig-trees and date-palms, crape-myrtles +and wax-myrtles, Mexican agaves and English ivies, japonicas, bananas, +oranges, lemons, oleanders, jonquils, great cactuses, and wild Florida +lilies. This was not the plantation which Mrs. Kemble has since made +historic, although that was on the same island; and I could not waste +much sentiment over it, for it had belonged to a Northern renegade, +Thomas Butler King. Yet I felt then, as I have felt a hundred times +since, an emotion of heart-sickness at this desecration of a +homestead,--and especially when, looking from a bare upper window of the +empty house upon a range of broad, flat, sunny roofs, such as children +love to play on, I thought how that place might have been loved by yet +innocent hearts, and I mourned anew the sacrilege of war. + +I had visited the flag-ship Wabash ere we left Port-Royal Harbor, and +had obtained a very kind letter of introduction from Admiral Dupont, +that stately and courtly potentate, elegant as one's ideal French +marquis; and under these credentials I received polite attention from the +naval officers at St. Simon's,--Acting Volunteer Lieutenant Budd, U. S. N., +of the gunboat Potomska, and Acting Master Moses, U. S. N., of +the barque Fernandina. They made valuable suggestions in regard to the +different rivers along the coast, and gave vivid descriptions of the +last previous trip up the St. Mary's, undertaken by Captain Stevens, +U. S. N., in the gunboat Ottawa, when he had to fight his way past +batteries at every bluff in descending the narrow and rapid stream. I +was warned that no resistance would be offered to the ascent, but only +to our return; and was further cautioned against the mistake, then +common, of underrating the courage of the Rebels. "It proved impossible +to dislodge those fellows from the banks," my informant said; "they had +dug rifle-pits, and swarmed like hornets, and when fairly silenced in +one direction, they were sure to open upon us from another." All this +sounded alarming, but it was nine months before that the event had +happened; and although nothing had gone up the river since, I was +satisfied that the resistance now to be encountered was very much +smaller. And something must be risked, anywhere. + +We were delayed all that day in waiting for our consort, and improved +our time by verifying certain rumors about a quantity of new +railroad-iron which was said to be concealed in the abandoned Rebel +forts on St. Simon's and Jekyll Islands, and which would have much value +at Port Royal, if we could only unearth it. Some of our men had worked +upon these very batteries, so that they could easily guide us; and by +the additional discovery of a large flatboat we were enabled to go to +work in earnest upon the removal of the treasure. These iron bars, +surmounted by a dozen feet of sand, formed an invulnerable roof for the +magazines and bomb-proofs of the fort, and the men enjoyed demolishing +them far more than they had relished their construction. Though the day +was the 24th of January, 1863, the sun was very oppressive upon the +sands; but all were in the highest spirits, and worked with the greatest +zeal. The men seemed to regard these massive bars as their first +trophies; and if the rails had been wreathed with roses, they could not +have been got out in more holiday style. Nearly a hundred were obtained +that day, besides a quantity of five-inch plank with which to barricade +the very conspicuous pilot-houses of the John Adams. + +Still another day we were delayed, and could still keep at this work, +not neglecting some foraging on the island, from which horses, cattle, +and agricultural implements were to be removed, and the few remaining +colored families transferred to Fernandina. I had now become quite +anxious about the missing steamboat, as the inner passage, by which +alone she could arrive, was exposed at certain points to fire from Rebel +batteries, and it would have been unpleasant to begin with a disaster. I +remember, that, as I stood on deck, in the still and misty evening, +listening with strained senses for some sound of approach, I heard a low +continuous noise from the distance, more wild and desolate than anything +in my memory can parallel. It came from within the vast girdle of mist, +and seemed like the cry of a myriad of lost souls upon the horizon's +verge; it was Dante become audible: and yet it was but the accumulated +cries of innumerable sea-fowl at the entrance of the outer bay. + +Late that night the Planter arrived. We left St. Simon's on the +following morning, reached Fort Clinch by four o'clock, and there +transferring two hundred men to the very scanty quarters of the John +Adams, allowed the larger transport to go into Fernandina, while the two +other vessels were to ascend the St. Mary's River, unless (as proved +inevitable in the end) the defects in the boiler of the Planter should +oblige her to remain behind. That night I proposed to make a sort of +trial-trip up stream, as far as Township Landing, some fifteen miles, +there to pay our respects to Captain Clark's company of cavalry, whose +camp was reported to lie near by. This was included in Corporal Sutton's +programme, and seemed to me more inviting, and far more useful to the +men, than any amount of mere foraging. The thing really desirable +appeared to be to get them under fire as soon as possible, and to teach +them, by a few small successes, the application of what they had learned +in camp. + +I had ascertained that the camp of this company lay five miles from the +landing, and was accessible by two roads, one of which was a +lumber-path, not commonly used, but which Corporal Sutton had helped to +construct, and along which he could easily guide us. The plan was to go +by night, surround the house and negro cabins at the landing, (to +prevent an alarm from being given,) then to take the side path, and if +all went well, to surprise the camp; but if they got notice of our +approach, through their pickets, we should, at worst, have a fight, in +which the best man must win. + +The moon was bright, and the river swift, but easy of navigation thus +far. Just below Township I landed a small advance force, to surround the +houses silently. With them went Corporal Sutton; and when, after +rounding the point, I went on shore with a larger body of men, he met me +with a silent chuckle of delight, and with the information that there +was a negro in a neighboring cabin who had just come from the Rebel +camp, and could give the latest information. While he hunted up this +valuable auxiliary, I mustered my detachment, winnowing out the men who +had coughs, (not a few,) and sending them ignominiously on board again: +a process I had regularly to perform, during this first season of +catarrh, on all occasions where quiet was needed. The only exception +tolerated at this time was in the case of one man who offered a solemn +pledge, that, if unable to restrain his cough, he would lie down on the +ground, scrape a little hole, and cough into it unheard. The ingenuity +of this proposition was irresistible, and the eager patient was allowed +to pass muster. + +It was after midnight when we set off upon our excursion. I had about a +hundred men, marching by the flank, with a small advanced guard, and +also a few flankers, where the ground permitted. I put my Florida +company at the head of the column, and had by my side Captain Metcalf, +an excellent officer, and Sergeant McIntyre, his first sergeant. We +plunged presently into pine woods, whose resinous smell I can still +remember. Corporal Sutton marched near me, with his captured negro +guide, whose first fear and sullenness had yielded to the magic news of +the President's Proclamation, then just issued, of which Governor Andrew +had sent me a large printed supply;--we seldom found men who could read +it, but they all seemed to feel more secure when they held it in their +hands. We marched on through the woods, with no sound but the peeping of +the frogs in a neighboring marsh, and the occasional yelping of a dog, +as we passed the hut of some "cracker." This yelping always made +Corporal Sutton uneasy: dogs are the detective officers of Slavery's +police. + +We had halted once or twice, to close up the ranks, and had marched some +two miles, seeing and hearing nothing more. I had got all I could out of +our new guide, and was striding on, rapt in pleasing contemplation. All +had gone so smoothly that I had merely to fancy the rest as being +equally smooth. Already I fancied our little detachment bursting out of +the woods, in swift surprise, upon the Rebel quarters,--already the +opposing commander, after hastily firing a charge or two from his +revolver, (of course above my head,) had yielded at discretion, and was +gracefully tendering, in a stage attitude, his unavailing sword,--when +suddenly---- + +There was a trampling of feet among the advanced guard as they came +confusedly to a halt, and almost at the same instant a more ominous +sound, as of galloping horses in the path before us. The moonlight +outside the woods gave that dimness of atmosphere within which is more +bewildering than darkness, because the eyes cannot adapt themselves to +it so well. Yet I fancied, and others aver, that they saw the leader of +an approaching party, mounted on a white horse and reining up in the +pathway; others, again, declare that he drew a pistol from the holster +and took aim; others heard the words, "Charge in upon them! Surround +them!" But all this was confused by the opening rifle-shots of our +advanced guard, and, as clear observation was impossible, I made the men +fix their bayonets and kneel in the cover on each side the pathway, and +I saw with delight the brave fellows, with Sergeant McIntyre at their +head, settling down in the grass as coolly and warily as if wild turkeys +were the only game. Perhaps at the first shot, a man fell at my elbow. I +felt it no more than if a tree had fallen,--I was so busy watching my +own men and the enemy, and planning what to do next. Some of our +soldiers, misunderstanding the order, "Fix bayonets," were actually +_charging_ with them, dashing off into the dim woods, with nothing to +charge at but the vanishing tail of an imaginary horse,--for we could +really see nothing. This zeal I noted with pleasure, and also with +anxiety, as our greatest danger was from confusion and scattering; and +for infantry to pursue cavalry would be a novel enterprise. Captain +Metcalf stood by me well in keeping the men steady, as did +Assistant-Surgeon Minor, and Lieutenant, now Captain, Jackson. How the +men in the rear were behaving I could not tell,--not so coolly, I +afterwards found, because they were more entirely bewildered, supposing, +until the shots came, that the column had simply halted for a moment's +rest, as had been done once or twice before. They did not know who or +where their assailants might be, and the fall of the man beside me +created a hasty rumor that I was killed, so that it was on the whole an +alarming experience for them. They kept together very tolerably, +however, while our assailants, dividing, rode along on each side through +the open pine-barren, firing into our ranks, but mostly over the heads +of the men. My soldiers in turn fired rapidly,--too rapidly, being yet +beginners,--and it was evident, that, dim as it was, both sides had +opportunity to do some execution. + +I could hardly tell whether the fight had lasted ten minutes or an hour, +when, as the enemy's fire had evidently ceased or slackened, I gave the +order to cease firing. But it was very difficult at first to make them +desist: the taste of gunpowder was too intoxicating. One of them was +heard to mutter, indignantly,--"Why de Cunnel order _Cease firing_, when +de Secesh blazin' away at de rate ob ten dollar a day?" Every incidental +occurrence seemed somehow to engrave itself upon my perceptions, without +interrupting the main course of thought. Thus I know, that, in one of +the pauses of the affair, there came wailing through the woods a cracked +female voice, as if calling back some stray husband who had run out to +join in the affray,--"John, John, are you going to leave me, John? Are +you going to let me and the children be killed, John?" I suppose the +poor thing's fears of gunpowder were very genuine, but it was such a +wailing squeak, and so infinitely ludicrous, and John was probably +ensconced so very safely in some hollow tree, that I could see some of +the men showing all their white teeth in the very midst of the fight. +But soon this sound, with all others, had ceased, and left us in +peaceful possession of the field. + +I have made the more of this little affair because it was the first +stand-up fight in which my men had been engaged, though they had been +under fire, in an irregular way, in their small early expeditions. To me +personally the event was of the greatest value: it had given us all an +opportunity to test each other, and our abstract surmises were changed +into positive knowledge. Hereafter it was of small importance what +nonsense might be talked or written about colored troops; so long as +mine did not flinch, it made no difference to me. My brave young +officers, themselves mostly new to danger, viewed the matter much as I +did; and yet we were under bonds of life and death to form a correct +opinion, which was more than could be said of the Northern editors, and +our verdict was proportionately of greater value. + +I was convinced from appearances that we had been victorious, so far, +though I could not suppose that this would be the last of it. We knew +neither the numbers of the enemy, nor their plans, nor their present +condition: whether they had surprised us or whether we had surprised +them was all a mystery. Corporal Sutton was urgent to go on and complete +the enterprise. All my impulses said the same thing; but then I had the +most explicit injunctions from General Saxton to risk as little as +possible in this first enterprise, because of the fatal effect on public +sentiment of even an honorable defeat. We had now an honorable victory, +so far as it went; the officers and men around me were in good spirits, +but the rest of the column might be nervous; and it seemed so important +to make the first fight an entire success, that I thought it wiser to +let well alone; nor have I ever changed this opinion. For one's self, +Montrose's verse may be well applied,--"To win or lose it all." But one +has no right to deal thus lightly with the fortunes of a race, and that +was the weight which I always felt as resting on our action. If my raw +infantry force had stood unflinching a night-surprise from "de hoss +cavalry," as they reverentially termed them, I felt that a good +beginning had been made. All hope of surprising the enemy's camp was now +at an end; I was willing and ready to fight the cavalry over again, but +it seemed wiser that we, not they, should select the ground. + +Attending to the wounded, therefore, and making as we best could +stretchers for those who were to be carried, including the remains of +the man killed at the first discharge, (Private William Parsons of +Company G,) and others who seemed at the point of death, we marched +through the woods to the landing,--expecting at every moment to be +involved in another fight. This not occurring, I was more than ever +satisfied that we had won a victory; for it was obvious that a mounted +force would not allow a detachment of infantry to march two miles +through open woods by night without renewing the fight, unless they +themselves had suffered a good deal. On arrival at the landing, seeing +that there was to be no immediate affray, I sent most of the men on +board, and called for volunteers to remain on shore with me and hold the +plantation-house till morning. They eagerly offered; and I was glad to +see them, when posted as sentinels by Lieutenants Hyde and Jackson, who +stayed with me, pace their beats as steadily and challenge as coolly as +veterans, though of course there was some powder wasted on imaginary +foes. Greatly to my surprise, however, we had no other enemies to +encounter. We did not yet know that we had killed the first lieutenant +of the cavalry, and that our opponents had retreated to the woods in +dismay, without daring to return to their camp. This at least was the +account we heard from prisoners afterwards, and was evidently the tale +current in the neighborhood, though the statements published in Southern +newspapers did not correspond. Admitting the death of Lieutenant Jones, +the Tallahassee "Floridian" of February 14th stated that "Captain Clark, +finding the enemy in strong force, fell back with his command to camp, +and removed his ordnance and commissary and other stores, with twelve +negroes on their way to the enemy, captured on that day." + +In the morning, my invaluable surgeon, Dr. Rogers, sent me his report of +killed and wounded; and I have been since permitted to make the +following extracts from his notes:--"One man killed instantly by ball +through the heart, and seven wounded, one of whom will die. Braver men +never lived. One man with two bullet-holes through the large muscles of +the shoulders and neck brought off from the scene of action, two miles +distant, two muskets; and not a murmur has escaped his lips. Another, +Robert Sutton, with three wounds,--one of which, being on the skull, may +cost him his life,--would not report himself till compelled to do so by +his officers. While dressing his wounds, he quietly talked of what they +had done, and of what they yet could do. To-day I have had the Colonel +_order_ him to obey me. He is perfectly quiet and cool, but takes this +whole affair with the religious bearing of a man who realizes that +freedom is sweeter than life. Yet another soldier did not report himself +at all, but remained all night on guard, and possibly I should not have +known of his having had a buck-shot in his shoulder, if some duty +requiring a sound shoulder had not been required of him to-day." This +last, it may be added, had persuaded a comrade to dig out the buck-shot, +for fear of being ordered on the sick-list. And one of those who were +carried to the vessel--a man wounded through the lungs--asked only if I +were safe, the contrary having been reported. An officer may be pardoned +some enthusiasm for such men as these. + +The anxious night having passed away without an attack, another problem +opened with the morning. For the first time, my officers and men found +themselves in possession of an enemy's abode; and though there was but +little temptation to plunder, I knew that I must here begin to draw the +line. I had long since resolved to prohibit absolutely all +indiscriminate pilfering and wanton outrage, and to allow nothing to be +taken or destroyed but by proper authority. The men, to my great +satisfaction, entered into this view at once, and so did (perhaps a +shade less readily, in some cases) the officers. The greatest trouble +was with the steamboat-hands, and I resolved to let them go ashore as +little as possible. Most articles of furniture were already, however, +before our visit, gone from the plantation-house, which was now used +only as a picket-station. The only valuable article was a piano-forte, +for which a regular packing-box lay invitingly ready outside. I had made +up my mind to burn all picket-stations, and all villages from which I +should be covertly attacked, and nothing else; and as this house was +destined to the flames, I should have left the piano in it, but for the +seductions of that box. With such a receptacle all ready, even to the +cover, it would have seemed like flying in the face of Providence not to +put the piano in. I ordered it removed, therefore, and afterwards +presented it to the school for colored children at Fernandina. This I +mention because it was the only article of property I ever took or +knowingly suffered to be taken, in the enemy's country, save for +legitimate military uses, from first to last; nor would I have taken +this, but for the thought of the school, and, as aforesaid, the +temptation of the box. If any other officer has been more rigid, with +equal opportunities, let him cast the first stone. + +I think the zest with which the men finally set fire to the house at my +order was enhanced by this previous abstemiousness; but there is a +fearful fascination in the use of fire, which every child knows in the +abstract, and which I found to hold true in the practice. On our way +down river we had opportunity to test this again. + +The ruined town of St. Mary's had at that time a bad reputation, among +both naval and military men. Lying but a short distance above +Fernandina, on the Georgia side, it was occasionally visited by our +gunboats. I was informed that the only residents of the town were three +old women, who were apparently kept there as spies,--that, on our +approach, the aged crones would come out and wave white +handkerchiefs,--that they would receive us hospitably, profess to be +profoundly loyal, and exhibit a portrait of Washington,--that they would +solemnly assure us that no Rebel pickets had been there for many +weeks,--but that in the adjoining yard we should find fresh +horse-tracks, and that we should be fired upon by guerrillas the moment +we left the wharf. My officers had been much excited by these tales; and +I had assured them, that, if this programme were literally carried out, +we would straightway return and burn the town, or what was left of it, +for our share. It was essential to show my officers and men, that, while +rigid against irregular outrage, we could still be inexorable against +the enemy. + +We had previously planned to stop at this town, on our way down river, +for some valuable lumber which we had espied on a wharf; and gliding +down the swift current, shelling a few bluffs as we passed, we soon +reached it. Punctual as the figures in a panorama, appeared the old +ladies with their white handkerchiefs. Taking possession of the town, +much of which had previously been destroyed by the gunboats, and +stationing the color-guard, to their infinite delight, in the cupola of +the most conspicuous house, I deployed skirmishers along the exposed +suburb, and set a detail of men at work on the lumber. After a stately +and decorous interview with the queens of society at St. Mary's,--is it +Scott who says that nothing improves the manners like piracy?--I +peacefully withdrew the men when the work was done. There were faces of +disappointment among the officers,--for all felt a spirit of mischief, +after the last night's adventure,--when, just as we had fairly swung out +into the stream and were under way, there came, like the sudden burst of +a tropical tornado, a regular little hailstorm of bullets into the open +end of the boat, driving every gunner in an instant from his post, and +surprising even those who were looking to be surprised. The shock was +but for a second; and though the bullets had pattered precisely like the +sound of hail upon the iron cannon, yet nobody was hurt. With very +respectable promptness, order was restored, our own shells were flying +into the woods from which the attack proceeded, and we were steaming up +to the wharf again, according to promise. + +Who shall describe the theatrical attitudes assumed by the old ladies as +they reappeared at the front door--being luckily out of direct +range--and set the handkerchiefs in wilder motion than ever? They +brandished them, they twirled them after the manner of the domestic mop, +they clasped their hands, handkerchiefs included. Meanwhile their +friends in the wood popped away steadily at us, with small effect; and +occasionally an invisible field-piece thundered feebly from another +quarter, with equally invisible results. Reaching the wharf, one +company, under Lieutenant (now Captain) Danilson, was promptly deployed +in search of our assailants, who soon grew silent. Not so the old +ladies, when I announced to them my purpose, and added, with extreme +regret, that, as the wind was high, I should burn only that half of the +town which lay to leeward of their house, which did not, after all, +amount to much. Between gratitude for this degree of mercy and imploring +appeals for greater, the treacherous old ladies manoeuvred with +clasped hands and demonstrative handkerchiefs around me, impairing the +effect of their eloquence by constantly addressing me as "Mr. Captain"; +for I have observed, that, while the sternest officer is greatly +propitiated by attributing to him a rank a little higher than his own, +yet no one is ever mollified by an error in the opposite direction. I +tried, however, to disregard such low considerations, and to strike the +correct mean betwixt the sublime patriot and the unsanctified +incendiary, while I could find no refuge from weak contrition save in +greater and greater depths of courtesy; and so melodramatic became our +interview that some of the soldiers still maintain that "dem dar ole +Secesh women been a-gwine for kiss de Cunnel," before we ended. But of +this monstrous accusation I wish to register an explicit denial, once +for all. + +Dropping down to Fernandina unmolested after this affair, we were kindly +received by the military and naval commanders,--Colonel Hawley, of the +Seventh Connecticut, (now Brigadier-General Hawley,) and +Lieutenant-Commander Hughes, U. S. N., of the gunboat Mohawk. It turned +out very opportunely that both of these officers had special errands to +suggest still farther up the St. Mary's, and precisely in the region +where I wished to go. Colonel Hawley showed me a letter from the War +Department, requesting him to ascertain the possibility of obtaining a +supply of brick for Fort Clinch from the brickyard which had furnished +the original materials, but which had not been visited since the +perilous river-trip of the Ottawa. Lieutenant Hughes wished to obtain +information for the Admiral respecting a Rebel steamer--the Berosa--said +to be lying somewhere up the river, and awaiting her chance to run the +blockade. I jumped at the opportunity. Berosa and brickyard,--both were +near Woodstock, the former home of Corporal Sutton; he was ready and +eager to pilot us up the river; the moon would be just right that +evening, setting at 3h. 19m. A. M.; and our boat was precisely the one +to undertake the expedition. Its double-headed shape was just what was +needed in that swift and crooked stream; the exposed pilot-houses had +been tolerably barricaded with the thick planks from St. Simon's; and we +further obtained some sand-bags from Fort Clinch, through the aid of +Captain Sears, the officer in charge, who had originally suggested the +expedition after brick. In return for this aid, the Planter was sent +back to the wharf at St. Mary's, to bring away a considerable supply of +the same precious article, which we had observed near the wharf. +Meanwhile the John Adams was coaling from naval supplies, through the +kindness of Lieutenant Hughes; and the Ben De Ford was taking in the +lumber which we had yesterday brought down. It was a great +disappointment to be unable to take the latter vessel up the river; but +I was unwillingly convinced, that, though the depth of water might be +sufficient, yet her length would be unmanageable in the swift current +and sharp turns. The Planter must also be sent on a separate cruise, as +her weak and disabled machinery made her useless for my purpose. Two +hundred men were therefore transferred, as before, to the narrow hold of +the John Adams, in addition to the company permanently stationed on +board to work the guns. At seven o'clock on the evening of January 29th, +beneath a lovely moon, we steamed up the river. + +Never shall I forget the mystery and excitement of that night. I know +nothing in life more fascinating than the nocturnal ascent of an unknown +river, leading far into an enemy's country, where one glides in the dim +moonlight between dark hills and meadows, each turn of the channel +making it seem like an inland lake, and cutting you off as by a barrier +from all behind,--with no sign of human life, but an occasional +picket-fire left glimmering beneath the bank, or the yelp of a dog from +some low-lying plantation. On such occasions, every nerve is strained to +its utmost tension; all dreams of romance appear to promise immediate +fulfilment; all lights on board the vessel are obscured, loud voices are +hushed; you fancy a thousand men on shore, and yet see nothing; the +lonely river, unaccustomed to furrowing keels, lapses by the vessel with +a treacherous sound; and all the senses are merged in a sort of anxious +trance. Three times I have had in full perfection this fascinating +experience; but that night was the first, and its zest was the keenest. +It will come back to me in dreams, if I live a thousand years. + +I feared no attack during our ascent,--that danger was for our return; +but I feared the intricate navigation of the river, though I did not +fully know, till the actual experience, how dangerous it was. We passed +without trouble far above the scene of our first fight,--the Battle of +the Hundred Pines, as my officers had baptized it; and ever, as we +ascended, the banks grew steeper, the current swifter, the channel more +tortuous and more incumbered with projecting branches and drifting wood. +No piloting less skilful than that of Corporal Sutton and his mate, +James Bezzard, could have carried us through, I thought; and no +side-wheel steamer less strong than a ferry-boat could have borne the +crash and force with which we struck the wooded banks of the river. But +the powerful paddles, built to break the Northern ice, could crush the +Southern pine as well; and we came safely out of entanglements that at +first seemed formidable. We had the tide with us, which makes steering +far more difficult; and, in the sharp angles of the river, there was +often no resource but to run the bow boldly on shore, let the stern +swing round, and then reverse the motion. As the reversing machinery was +generally out of order, the engineer stupid or frightened, and the +captain excited, this involved moments of tolerably concentrated +anxiety. Eight times we grounded in the upper waters, and once lay +aground for half an hour; but at last we dropped anchor before the +little town of Woodstock, after moonset and an hour before daybreak, +just as I had planned, and so quietly that scarcely a dog barked, and +not a soul in the town, as we afterwards found, knew of our arrival. + +As silently as possible, the great flatboat which we had brought from +St. Simon's was filled with men. Major Strong was sent on shore with two +companies,--those of Captain James and Captain Metcalf,--with +instructions to surround the town quietly, allow no one to leave it, +molest no one, and hold as temporary prisoners every man whom he found. +I watched them push off into the darkness, got the remaining force ready +to land, and then paced the deck for an hour in silent watchfulness, +waiting for rifle-shots. Not a sound came from the shore, save the +barking of dogs and the morning crow of cocks; the time seemed +interminable; but when daylight came, I landed, and found a pair of +scarlet trousers pacing on their beat before every house in the village, +and a small squad of prisoners, stunted and forlorn as Falstaff's ragged +regiment, already in hand. I observed with delight the good demeanor of +my men towards these forlorn Anglo-Saxons, and towards the more +tumultuous women. Even one soldier, who threatened to throw an old +termagant into the river, took care to append the courteous epithet +"Madam." + +I took a survey of the premises. The chief house, a pretty one with +picturesque outbuildings, was that of Mrs. A., who owned the mills and +lumber-wharves adjoining. The wealth of these wharves had not been +exaggerated. There was lumber enough to freight half a dozen steamers, +and I half regretted that I had agreed to take down a freight of bricks +instead. Further researches made me grateful that I had already +explained to my men the difference between public foraging and private +plunder. Along the river-bank I found building after building crowded +with costly furniture, all neatly packed, just as it was sent up from +St. Mary's when that town was abandoned. Pianos were a drug; china, +glass-ware, mahogany, pictures, all were here. And here were my men, who +knew that their own labor had earned for their masters these luxuries, +or such as these; their own wives and children were still sleeping on +the floor, perhaps, at Beaufort or Fernandina; and yet they submitted, +almost without a murmur, to the enforced abstinence. Bed and bedding for +our hospitals they might take from those store-rooms,--such as the +surgeon selected,--also an old flag which we found in a corner, and an +old field piece, (which the regiment still possesses,)--but after this +the doors were closed and left unmolested. It cost a struggle to some of +the men, whose wives were destitute, I know; but their pride was very +easily touched, and when this abstinence was once recognized as a rule, +they claimed it as an honor, in this and all succeeding expeditions. I +flatter myself, that, if they had once been set upon wholesale +plundering, they would have done it as thoroughly as their betters; but +I have always been infinitely grateful, both for the credit and for the +discipline of the regiment,--as well as for the men's subsequent +lives,--that the opposite method was adopted. + +When the morning was a little advanced, I called on Mrs. A., who +received me in quite a stately way at her own door with "To what am I +indebted for the honor of this visit, Sir?" The foreign name of the +family, and the tropical look of the buildings, made it seem (as, +indeed, did all the rest of the adventure) like a chapter out of "Amyas +Leigh"; but as I had happened to hear that the lady herself was a +Philadelphian and her deceased husband a New-Yorker, I could not feel +even that modicum of reverence due to sincere Southerners. However, I +wished to present my credentials; so, calling up my companion, I said +that I believed she had been previously acquainted with Corporal Robert +Sutton? I never saw a finer bit of unutterable indignation than came +over the face of my hostess, as she slowly recognized him. She drew +herself up, and dropped out the monosyllables of her answer as if they +were so many drops of nitric acid. "Ah," quoth my lady, "_we_ called him +Bob!" + +It was a group for a painter. The whole drama of the war seemed to +reverse itself in an instant, and my tall, well-dressed, imposing, +philosophic Corporal dropped down the immeasurable depth into a mere +plantation "Bob" again. So at least in my imagination; not to that +personage himself. Too essentially dignified in his nature to be moved +by words where substantial realities were in question, he simply turned +from the lady, touched his hat to me, and asked if I would wish to see +the slave-jail, as he had the keys in his possession. + +If he fancied that I was in danger of being overcome by blandishments +and needed to be recalled to realities, it was a master-stroke. + +I must say, that, when the door of that villainous edifice was thrown +open before me, I felt glad that my main interview with its lady +proprietor had passed before I saw it. It was a small building, like a +Northern corn-barn, and seemed to have as prominent and as legitimate a +place among the outbuildings of the establishment. In the middle of the +floor was a large staple with a rusty chain, like an ox-chain, for +fastening a victim down. When the door had been opened after the death +of the late proprietor, my informant said a man was found padlocked in +that chain. We found also three pairs of stocks of various construction, +two of which had smaller as well as larger holes, evidently for the feet +of women or children. In a building near by we found something far more +complicated, which was perfectly unintelligible till the men explained +all its parts: a machine so contrived that a person once imprisoned in +it could neither sit, stand, nor lie, but must support the body half +raised, in a position scarcely endurable. I have since bitterly +reproached myself for leaving this piece of ingenuity behind; but it +would have cost much labor to remove it, and to bring away the other +trophies seemed then enough. I remember the unutterable loathing with +which I leaned against the door of that prison-house; I had thought +myself seasoned to any conceivable horrors of Slavery, but it seemed as +if the visible presence of that den of sin would choke me. Of course it +would have been burned to the ground by us, but that this would have +involved the sacrifice of every other building and all the piles of +lumber, and for the moment it seemed as if the sacrifice would be +righteous. But I forbore, and only took as trophies the instruments of +torture and the keys of the jail. + +We found but few colored people in this vicinity; some we brought away +with us, and an old man and woman preferred to remain. All the white +males whom we found I took as hostages, in order to shield us, if +possible, from attack on our way down river, explaining to them that +they would be put on shore when the dangerous points were passed. I knew +that their wives could easily send notice of this fact to the Rebel +forces along the river. My hostages were a forlorn-looking set of +"crackers," far inferior to our soldiers in _physique_, and yet quite +equal, the latter declared, to the average material of the Southern +armies. None were in uniform, but this proved nothing as to their being +soldiers. One of them, a mere boy, was captured at his own door, with +gun in hand. It was a fowling-piece, which he used only, as his mother +plaintively assured me, "to shoot little birds with." As the guileless +youth had for this purpose loaded the gun with eighteen buck-shot, we +thought it justifiable to confiscate both the weapon and the owner, in +mercy to the birds. + +We took from this place, for the use of the army, a flock of some thirty +sheep, forty bushels of rice; some other provisions, tools, oars, and a +little lumber, leaving all possible space for the bricks which we +expected to obtain just below. I should have gone farther up the river, +but for a dangerous boom which kept back a great number of logs in a +large brook that here fell into the St. Mary's; the stream ran with +force, and if the Rebels had wit enough to do it, they might in ten +minutes so choke the river with drift-wood as infinitely to enhance our +troubles. So we dropped down stream a mile or two, found the very +brickyard from which Fort Clinch had been constructed,--still stored +with bricks, and seemingly unprotected. Here Sergeant Rivers again +planted his standard, and the men toiled eagerly, for several hours, in +loading our boat to the utmost with the bricks. Meanwhile we questioned +black and white witnesses, and learned for the first time that the +Rebels admitted a repulse at Township Landing, and that Lieutenant Jones +and ten of their number were killed,--though this I fancy to have been +an exaggeration. They also declared that the mysterious steamer Berosa +was lying at the head of the river, but was a broken-down and worthless +affair, and would never get to sea. The result has since proved this; +for the vessel subsequently ran the blockade and foundered near shore, +the crew barely escaping with their lives. I had the pleasure, as it +happened, of being the first person to forward this information to +Admiral Dupont, when it came through the pickets, many months +after,--thus concluding my report on the Berosa. + +Before the work at the yard was over, the pickets reported mounted men +in the woods near by, as had previously been the report at Woodstock. +This admonished us to lose no time; and as we left the wharf, immediate +arrangements were made to have the gun-crews all in readiness, and to +keep the rest of the men below, since their musketry would be of little +use now, and I did not propose to risk a life unnecessarily. The chief +obstacle to this was their own eagerness; penned down on one side, they +popped up on the other; their officers, too, were eager to see what was +going on, and were almost as hard to cork down as the men. Add to this, +that the vessel was now very crowded, and that I had to be chiefly on +the hurricane-deck with the pilots. Captain Clifton, master of the +vessel, was brave to excess, and as much excited as the men; he could no +more be kept in the little pilot-house than they below; and when we had +passed one or two bluffs, with no sign of an enemy, he grew more and +more irrepressible, and exposed himself conspicuously on the upper deck. +Perhaps we all were a little lulled by apparent safety; for myself, I +lay down for a moment on a settee in a state-room, having been on my +feet, almost without cessation, for twenty-four hours. + +Suddenly there swept down from a bluff above us, on the Georgia side, a +mingling of shout and roar and rattle as of a tornado let loose; and as +a storm of bullets came pelting against the sides of the vessel and +through a window, there went up a shrill answering shout from our own +men. It took but an instant for me to reach the gun-deck. After all my +efforts, the men had swarmed once more from below, and already, crowding +at both ends of the boat, were loading and firing with inconceivable +rapidity, shouting to each other, "Neber gib it up!" and of course +having no steady aim, as the vessel glided and whirled in the swift +current. Meanwhile the officers in charge of the large guns had their +crews in order, and our shells began to fly over the bluffs, which, as +we now saw, should have been shelled in advance, only that we had to +economize ammunition. The other soldiers I drove below, almost by main +force, with the aid of their officers, who behaved exceedingly well, +giving the men leave to fire from the open port-holes which lined the +lower deck, almost at the water's level. In the very midst of the +_melee_, Major Strong came from the upper deck, with a face of horror, +and whispered to me,--"Captain Clifton was killed at the first shot by +my side." + +If he had said that the vessel was on fire, the shock would hardly have +been greater. Of course, the military commander on board a steamer is +almost as helpless as an unarmed man, so far as the risks of water go. A +seaman must command there. In the hazardous voyage of last night, I had +learned, though unjustly, to distrust every official on board the +steamboat except this excitable, brave, warm-hearted sailor; and now, +among these added dangers, to lose him! The responsibility for his life +also thrilled me; he was not among my soldiers, and yet he was killed. I +thought of his wife and children, of whom he had spoken; but one learns +to think rapidly in war, and, cautioning the Major to silence, I went up +to the hurricane-deck and drew in the helpless body, that it should be +safe from further desecration, and then looked to see where we were. + +We were now gliding past a safe reach of marsh, while our assailants +were riding by cross-paths to attack us at the next bluff. It was Reed's +Bluff where we were first attacked, and Scrubby Bluff, I think, was +next. They were shelled in advance, but swarmed manfully to the banks +again as we swept round one of the sharp angles of the stream beneath +their fire. My men were now pretty well imprisoned below in the hot and +crowded hold, and actually fought each other, the officers afterwards +said, for places at the open port-holes, from which to aim. Others +implored to be landed, exclaiming that they "supposed de Cunnel knew +best," but it was "mighty mean" to be shut up down below, when they +might be "fightin' de Secesh _in de clar field_." This clear field, and +no favor, was what they thenceforward sighed for. But in such difficult +navigation it would have been madness to think of landing, although one +daring Rebel actually sprang upon the large boat which we towed astern, +where he was shot down by one of our sergeants. This boat was soon after +swamped and abandoned, then taken and repaired by the Rebels at a later +date, and finally, by a piece of dramatic completeness, was seized by a +party of fugitive slaves, who escaped in it to our lines, and some of +whom enlisted in my own regiment. + +It has always been rather a mystery to me why the Rebels did not fell a +few trees across the stream at some of the many sharp angles where we +might so easily have been thus imprisoned. This, however, they +did not attempt, and with the skilful pilotage of our trusty +Corporal--philosophic as Socrates through all the din, and occasionally +relieving his mind by taking a shot with his rifle through the high +port-holes of the pilot-house--we glided safely on. The steamer did not +ground once on the descent, and the mate in command, Mr. Smith, did his +duty very well. The plank sheathing of the pilot-house was penetrated by +few bullets, though struck by so many outside that it was visited as a +curiosity after our return; and even among the gun-crews, though they +had no protection, not a man was hurt. As we approached some wooded +bluff, usually on the Georgia side, we could see galloping along the +hillside what seemed a regiment of mounted riflemen, and could see our +shell scatter them ere we approached. Shelling did not, however, prevent +a rather fierce fusilade from our old friends of Captain Clark's company +at Waterman's Bluff, near Township Landing; but even this did no serious +damage, and this was the last. + +It was of course impossible, while thus running the gauntlet, to put our +hostages ashore, and I could only explain to them that they must thank +their own friends for their inevitable detention. I was by no means +proud of their forlorn appearance, and besought Colonel Hawley to take +them off my hands; but he was sending no flags of truce at that time, +and liked their looks no better than I did. So I took them to Port +Royal, where they were afterwards sent safely across the lines. Our men +were pleased at taking them back with us, as they had already said, +regretfully, "S'pose we leave dem Secesh at Fernandina, General Saxby +won't see 'em,"--as if they were some new natural curiosity, which +indeed they were. One soldier further suggested the expediency of +keeping them permanently in camp, to be used as marks for the guns of +the relieved guard every morning. But this was rather an ebullition of +fancy than a sober proposition. + +Against these levities I must put a piece of more tragic eloquence, +which I took down by night on the steamer's deck from the thrilling +harangue of Corporal Adam Ashton, one of our most gifted prophets, whose +influence over the men was unbounded. "When I heard," he said "de +bombshell a-screamin' troo de woods like de Judgment Day, I said to +myself, 'If my head was took off to-night, dey couldn't put my soul in +de torments, perceps [except] God was my enemy!' And when de +rifle-bullets came whizzin' across de deck, I cried aloud, 'God help my +congregation! Boys, load and fire!'" + +I must pass briefly over the few remaining days of our cruise. At +Fernandina we met the Planter, which had been successful on her separate +expedition, and had destroyed extensive salt-works at Crooked River, +under charge of the energetic Captain Trowbridge, efficiently aided by +Captain Rogers. Our commodities being in part delivered at Fernandina, +our decks being full, coal nearly out, and time up, we called once more +at St. Simon's Sound, bringing away the remainder of our railroad-iron, +with some which the naval officers had previously disinterred, and then +steamed back to Beaufort. Arriving there at sunrise, (February 2, 1863,) +I made my way with Dr. Rogers to General Saxton's bed-room, and laid +before him the keys and shackles of the slave-prison, with my report of +the good conduct of the men,--as Dr. Rogers remarked, a message from +heaven and another from hell. + +Slight as this expedition now seems among the vast events of the war, +the future student of the newspapers of that day will find that it +occupied no little space in their columns, so intense was the interest +which then attached to the novel experiment of employing black troops. +So obvious, too, was the value, during this raid, of their local +knowledge and their enthusiasm, that it was impossible not to find in +its successes new suggestions for the war. Certainly I would not have +consented to repeat the enterprise with the bravest white troops, +leaving Corporal Sutton and his mates behind, for I should have expected +to fail. For a year after our raid the Upper St. Mary's remained +unvisited, till in 1864 the large force with which we held Florida +secured peace upon its banks; then Mrs. A. took the oath of allegiance, +the Government bought her remaining lumber, and the John Adams again +ascended with a detachment of my men under Lieutenant Parker, and +brought a portion of it to Fernandina. By a strange turn of fortune, +Corporal Sutton (now Sergeant) was at this time in jail at Hilton Head, +under sentence of court-martial for an alleged act of mutiny,--an affair +in which the general voice of our officers sustained him and condemned +his accusers, so that he soon received a full pardon, and was restored +in honor to his place in the regiment, which he has ever since held. + +Nothing can ever exaggerate the fascinations of war, whether on the +largest or smallest scale. When we settled down into camp-life again, it +seemed like a butterfly's folding its wings to re-enter the chrysalis. +None of us could listen to the crack of a gun without recalling +instantly the sharp shots that spilled down from the bluffs of the St. +Mary's, or hear a sudden trampling of horsemen by night without +recalling the sounds which startled us on the Field of the Hundred +Pines. The memory of our raid was preserved in the camp by many legends +of adventure, growing vaster and more incredible as time wore on,--and +by the morning appeals to the surgeon of some veteran invalids, who +could now cut off all reproofs and suspicions with "Doctor, I's been a +sickly pusson eber since de _expeditions_." But to me the most vivid +remembrancer was the flock of sheep which we had "lifted." The Post +Quartermaster discreetly gave us the charge of them, and they filled a +gap in the landscape and in the larder,--which last had before presented +one unvaried round of impenetrable beef. Mr. Obadiah Oldbuck, when he +decided to adopt a pastoral life, and assumed the provisional name of +Thyrsis, never looked upon his flocks and herds with more unalloyed +contentment than I upon that fleecy family. I had been familiar, in +Kansas, with the metaphor by which the sentiments of an owner were +credited to his property, and had heard of a pro-slavery colt and an +anti-slavery cow. The fact that these sheep were but recently converted +from "Secesh" sentiments was their crowning charm. Methought they +frisked and fattened in the joy of their deliverance from the shadow of +Mrs. A.'s slave-jail, and gladly contemplated translation into +mutton-broth for sick or wounded soldiers. The very slaves who once, +perchance, were sold at auction with yon aged patriarch of the flock, +had now asserted their humanity and would devour him as hospital +rations. Meanwhile our shepherd bore a sharp bayonet without a crook, +and I felt myself a peer of Ulysses and Rob Roy,--those sheep-stealers +of less elevated aims,--when I met in my daily rides these wandering +trophies of our wider wanderings. + + + + +ROBIN BADFELLOW. + + + Four bluish eggs all in the moss! + Soft-lined home on the cherry-bough! + Life is trouble, and love is loss,-- + There's only one robin now! + + You robin up in the cherry-tree, + Singing your soul away, + Great is the grief befallen me, + And how can you be so gay? + + Long ago when you cried in the nest, + The last of the sickly brood, + Scarcely a pin-feather warming your breast, + Who was it brought you food? + + Who said, "Music, come fill his throat, + Or ever the May be fled"? + Who was it loved the wee sweet note + And the bosom's sea-shell red? + + Who said, "Cherries, grow ripe and big, + Black and ripe for this bird of mine"? + How little bright-bosom bends the twig, + Drinking the black-heart's wine! + + Now that my days and nights are woe, + Now that I weep for love's dear sake, + There you go singing away as though + Never a heart could break! + + + + +ICE AND ESQUIMAUX. + +CHAPTER IV. + +AUTOCHTHONES + + +_July 30._--At Hopedale, lat. 55 deg. 30', we come upon an object of +first-class interest, worthy of the gravest study,--an original and +pre-Adamite man. In two words I give the reader a key to my final +conclusions, or impressions, concerning the Esquimaux race. + +Original: Shakspeare is a copyist, and England a plagiarism, in +comparison with this race. The Esquimaux has done all for himself: he +has developed his own arts, adjusted himself by his own wit to the +Nature which surrounds him. Heir to no Rome, Greece, Persia, India, he +stands there in the sole strength of his native resources, rich only in +the traditionary accomplishments of his own race. Cut off equally from +the chief bounties of Nature, he has small share in the natural wealth +of mankind. When Ceres came to the earth, and blessed it, she forgot +him. The grains, the domestic animals, which from the high plateaus of +Asia descended with the fathers of history to the great fields of the +world, to him came not. The sole domestic animal he uses, the dog, is +not the same with that creature as known elsewhere; he has domesticated +a wolf, and made a dog for himself. + +Not only is he original, but one of the most special of men, related +more strictly than almost any other to a particular aspect of Nature. +Inseparable from the extreme North, the sea-shore, and the seal, he is +himself, as it were, a seal come to feet and hands, and preying upon his +more primitive kindred. The cetacean of the land, he is localized, like +animals,--not universal, like civilized man. He is no inhabitant of the +globe as a whole, but is contained within special poles. His needle does +not point north and south; it is commanded by special attractions, and +points only from shore to sea and from sea to shore in the arctic zone. +Nor is this relation to particular phases of Nature superficial merely, +a relation of expedient and convenience; it penetrates, saturates, nay, +anticipates and moulds him. Whether he has come to this correspondence +by original creation or by slow adjustment, he certainly does now +correspond in his whole physical and mental structure to the limited and +special surroundings of his life,--the seal itself or the eider-duck not +more. + +He is pre-Adamite, I said,--and name him thus not as a piece of +rhetorical smartness, but in gravest characterization. + +The first of human epochs is that when the thoughts, imaginations, +beliefs of men become to them _objects_, on which further thought and +action are to be adjusted, on which further thought and action may be +based. So long as man is merely responding to outward and physical +circumstances, so long he is living by bread alone, and has no history. +It is when he begins to respond _to himself_--to create necessities and +supplies out of his own spirit,--to build architectures on foundations +and out of materials that exist only in virtue of his own spiritual +activity,--to live by bread which grows, not out of the soil, but out of +the soul,--it is then, then only, that history begins. This one may be +permitted to name the Adamite epoch. + +The Esquimaux belongs to that period, more primitive, when man is simply +responding to outward Nature, to physical necessities. He invents, but +does not create; he adjusts himself to circumstances, but not to ideas; +he works cunningly upon materials which he has _found_, but never on +material which owes its existence to the productive force of his own +spirit. + +In going to look upon the man of this race, you sail, not merely over +seas, but over ages, epochs, unknown periods of time,--sail beyond +antiquity itself, and issue into the obscure existence that antedates +history. Arrived there, you may turn your eye to the historical past of +man as to a barely possible future. Palestine and Greece, Moses and +Homer, as yet are not. Who shall dare to say that they can be? Surely +that were but a wild dream! Expel the impossible fancy from your mind! +Go, spear a seal, and be a reasonable being!--Never enthusiast had a +dream of the future so unspeakably Utopian as actual history becomes, +when seen from the Esquimaux, or pre-Adamite, point of view. + +Swiss lakes are raked, Belgian caves spaded and hammered, to find relics +of old, pre-historical races. Go to Labrador, and you find the object +sought above ground. There he is, preserving all the characters of his +extinct congeners,--small in stature, low and smooth in cranium, held +utterly in the meshes of Nature, skilled only to meet ingeniously the +necessities she imposes, and meeting them rudely, as man ever does till +the ideal element comes in: for any fine feeling of even physical wants, +any delicacy of taste, any high notion of comfort, is due less to the +animal than to the spiritual being of man. + +A little sophisticated he is now, getting to feel himself obsolete in +this strange new world. He begins to borrow, and yet is unable radically +to change; outwardly he gains a very little from civilization, and grows +inwardly poorer and weaker by all that he gains. His day wanes apace; +soon it will be past. He begins to nurse at the breasts of the civilized +world; and the foreign aliment can neither sustain his ancient strength +nor give him new. Civilization forces upon him a rivalry to which he is +unequal; it wrests the seal from his grasp, thins it out of his waters; +and he and his correlative die away together. + + * * * * * + +We reached Hopedale, as intimated above, on the morning of the 30th of +July, at least a month later than had been hoped. The reader will see by +the map that this place is about half way from the Strait of Belle Isle +to Hudson's Strait. We were to go no farther north. This was a great +disappointment; for the expectation of all, and the keen desire of most, +had been to reach at least Cape Chudleigh, at the opening of Hudson's +Strait. Ice and storm had hindered us: they were not the only +hindrances. + +"The Fates are against us," said one. + +"It is true," answered the Elder,--"the Fates are against us: I know of +nothing more fatal than imbecility." + +However, we should be satisfied; for here we have fairly penetrated the +great solitudes of the North. Lower Labrador is visited by near forty +thousand fishermen annually, and vessels there are often more frequent +than in Boston Bay. But at a point not far from the fifty-fifth parallel +of latitude you leave all these behind, and leave equally the white +residents of the coast: to fishermen and residents alike the region +beyond is as little known as the interior of Australia. There their +world comes to an end; there the unknown begins. Knowledge and curiosity +alike pause there; toward all beyond their only feeling is one of vague +dislike and dread. And so I doubt not it was with the ordinary +inhabitant of Western Europe before the discovery of America. The +Unknown, breaking in surf on his very shores, did not invite him, but +dimly repelled. Thought about it, attraction toward it, would seem to +him far-fetched, gratuitous, affected, indicating at best a +feather-headed flightiness of mind. The sailors of Columbus probably +regarded him much as Sancho Panza does Don Quixote, with an obscure, +overpowering awe, and yet with a very definite contempt. + +On our return we passed two Yankee fishermen in the Strait of Belle +Isle. The nearer hailed. + +"How far _down_ [up] have you been?" + +"To Hopedale." + +"WHERE?"--in the tone of one who hears distinctly enough, but cannot +believe that he hears. + +"Hopedale." + +"H-o-p-e-d-a-l-e! Where the Devil's that?" + +"A hundred and fifty miles beyond Cape Harrison." (Cape Weback on the +map.) + +Inarticulate gust of astonishment in response. + +"Where did he say?" inquires some one in the farther schooner. + +"----! He's been to the North Pole!" + +To him it was all North Pole beyond Cape Harrison, and he evidently +looked upon us much as he might upon the apparition of the Flying +Dutchman, or some other spectre-ship. + +The supply-ship which yearly visits the Moravian stations on this coast +anchored in the harbor of Hopedale ten minutes before us: we had been +rapidly gaining upon her in our Flying Yankee for the last twenty miles. +Signal-guns had answered each other from ship and shore; the +missionaries were soon on board, and men and women were falling into +each other's arms with joyful, mournful kisses and tears. The ship +returned some missionaries after long absence; it brought also a +betrothed lady, next day to be married: there was occasion for joy, even +beyond wont on these occasions, when, year by year, the +missionary-exiles feel with bounding blood the touch of civilization +and fatherland. But now those who came on board brought sad +tidings,--for one of their ancient colaborers, closely akin to the new +comers, had within a day or two died. Love and death the world over; and +also the hope of love without death. + +Our eyes have been drawn to them; it is time to have a peep at Hopedale. + +I had been so long looking forward to this place, had heard and thought +of it so much as an old mission-station, where was a village of +Christian Esquimaux, that I fully expected to see a genuine village, +with houses, wharves, streets. It would not equal our towns, of course. +The people were not cleanly; the houses would be unpainted, and poor in +comparison with ours. I had taken assiduous pains to tone down my +expectations, and felt sure that I had moderated them liberally,--nay, +had been philosophical enough to make disappointment impossible, and +open the opposite possibility of a pleasant surprise. I conceived that +in this respect I had done the discreet and virtuous thing, and silently +moralized, not without self-complacency, upon the folly of carrying +through the world expectations which the fact, when seen, could only put +out of countenance. "Make your expectations zero," I said with Sartor. + +I need not put them _below_ zero. That would be too cold an anticipation +to carry even to this latitude. Zero: a poor, shabby village these +Christian Esquimaux will have built, even after nigh a century of +Moravian tuition. Still it will be a real village, not a distracted +jumble of huts, such as we had seen below. + +The prospect had been curiously pleasing. True, I desired much to see +the unadulterated Esquimaux. But that would come, I had supposed, in the +further prosecution of our voyage. Here I could see what they would +become under loving instruction,--could gauge their capabilities, and +thus answer one of the prime questions I had brought. + +A real Hopedale, after all this wild, sterile, hopeless coast! A touch +of civilization, to contrast with the impression of that Labradorian +rag-tag existence which we had hitherto seen, and which one could not +call human without coughing! I like deserts and wilds,--but, if you +please, by way of condiment or sauce to civilization, not for a full +meal. I have not the heroic Thoreau-digestion, and grow thin after a +time on a diet of moss and granite, even when they are served with ice. +Lift the curtain, therefore, and let us look forthwith on your Hopedale. + +"Hopedale? Why, here it is,--look!" + +Well, I have been doing nothing less for the last half-hour. If looking +could make a village, I should begin to see one. There, to be sure, is +the mission-house, conspicuous enough, quaint and by no means +unpleasing. It is a spacious, substantial, two-story edifice, painted in +two shades of a peculiar red, and looking for all the world as if a +principal house, taken from one of those little German toy-villages +which are in vogue about Christmas, had been enormously magnified, and +shipped to Labrador. There, too, and in similar colors, is the long +chapel, on the centre of whose roof there is a belfry, which looks like +two thirds of immense red egg, drawn up at the top into a spindle, and +this surmounted by a weathercock,--as if some giant had attempted to +blow the egg from beneath, and had only blown out of it this small bird +with a stick to stand on! Ah, yes! and there is the pig-sty,--not in +keeping with the rest, by any means! It must be that they keep a pig +only now and then, and for a short time, and house it any way for that +little while. But no, it is not a piggery; it is not a building at all; +it is some chance heap of rubbish, which will be removed to-morrow. + +The mission-station, then, is here; but the village must be elsewhere. +Probably it is on the other side of this point of land on which the +house and chapel are situated; we can see that the water sweeps around +there. That is the case, no doubt; Hopedale is over there. After dinner +we will row around, and have a look at it. + +After dinner, however, we decide to go first and pay our respects to the +missionaries. They are entitled to the precedence. We long, moreover, to +take the loving, self-sacrificing men by the hand; while, aside from +their special claims to honor, it will be _so_ pleasant to meet +cultivated human beings once more! They are Germans, but their +head-quarters are at London; they will speak English; and if their +vocabulary prove scanty, we will try to eke it out with bits of German. + +We row ashore in our own skiff, land, and--Bless us! what is this now? +To the right of the large, neat, comfortable mission-house is a +wretched, squalid spatter and hotch-potch of--what in the world to call +them? Huts? Hovels? One has a respect for his mother-tongue,--above all, +if he have assumed obligations toward it by professing the function of a +writer; and any term by which human dwellings are designated must be +taken _cum grano salis_, if applied to these structures. "It cannot be +that this is Christian Hopedale!" Softly, my good Sir; it can be, for it +is! + +Reader, do you ever say, "Whew-w-w"? There were three minutes, on the +30th of July last, during which that piece of interjectional eloquence +seemed to your humble servant to embody the whole dictionary! + +To get breath, let us turn again to the mission-mansion, which now, +under the effect of sudden contrast, seems too magnificent to be real, +as if it had been built by enchantment rather than by the labor of man. +This is situated half a dozen rods from the shore, at a slight elevation +above it, and looks pleasantly up the bay to the southwest. The site has +been happily chosen. Here, for a wonder, is an acre or two of land which +one may call level,--broader toward the shore, and tapering to a point +as it runs back. To the right, as we face it, the ground rises not very +brokenly, giving a small space for the hunch of huts, then falls quickly +to the sea; while beyond, and toward the ocean, islands twenty miles +deep close in and shelter all. To the left go up again the perpetual +hills, hills. Everywhere around the bay save here, on island and main, +the immitigable gneiss hills rise bold and sudden from the water, now +dimly impurpled with lichen, now in nakedness of rock surface, yet +beautified in their bare severity by alternating and finely waving +stripes of lightest and darkest gray,--as if to show sympathy with the +billowy heaving of the sea. + +Forward to the mansion. In front a high, strong, neat picket-fence +incloses a pretty flower-yard, in which some exotics, tastefully +arranged, seem to be flourishing well. We knock; with no manner of +haste, and with no seeming of cordial willingness, we are admitted, are +shown into a neat room of good size, and entertained by a couple of the +brethren. + +One of these only, and he alone among the missionaries, it appeared, +spoke English. This was an elderly, somewhat cold and forbidding +personage, of Secession sympathies. He had just returned from Europe +after two years' absence, was fresh from London, and put on the true +Exeter-Hall whine in calling ours "a n-dreadful n-war." He did not press +the matter, however, nor in any manner violate the _role_ of cold +courtesy which he had assumed; and it was chiefly by the sudden check +and falling of the countenance, when he found us thorough Unionist, that +his sympathies were betrayed. Wine and rusks were brought in, both +delicious,--the latter seeming like ambrosia, after the dough +cannon-balls with which our "head cook at the Tremont House" had regaled +us. After a stay of civil brevity we took our leave, and so closed an +interview in which we had been treated with irreproachable politeness, +but in which the heart was forbidden to have any share. + +First the missionaries; now the natives. The squat and squalid huts, +stuck down upon the earth without any pretence of raised foundation, and +jumbled together, corner to side, back to front, any way, as if some +wind had blown them there, did not improve on acquaintance. The walls, +five feet high, were built of poles some five inches in diameter; the +low roof, made of similar poles, was heavily heaped with earth. What +with this deep earth-covering, and with their grovelling toward the +earth in such a flat and neighborly fashion, they had a dreadfully +under-foot look, and seemed rather dens than houses. Many were ragged +and rotten, all inconceivably cheerless. No outhouses, no inclosures, no +vegetation, no relief of any kind. About and between them the swardless +ground is all trodden into mud. Prick-eared Esquimaux dogs huddle, +sneak, bark, and snarl around, with a free fight now and then, in which +they all fall upon the one that is getting the worst of it. Before the +principal group of huts, in the open space between them and the mansion, +a dead dog lies rotting; children lounge listlessly, and babies toddle +through the slutch about it. Here and there a full-grown Esquimaux, in +greasy and uncouth garb, loiters, doing nothing, _looking_ nothing. + +I, for one, was completely overcrowed by the impression of a bare and +aimless existence, and could not even wonder. Christian Hopedale! "Leave +all hope, ye that enter here!" + +At 5 P. M. the chapel-bell rings, and at once the huts swarm. We follow +the crowd. They enter the chapel by a door at the end nearest their +dens, and seat themselves, the women at the farther, the men at the +hither extreme, all facing a raised desk at the middle of one side. +Behind them, opposite this pulpit, is an organ. Presently, from a door +at the farther end, the missionaries file in, some twelve in number; one +enters the pulpit, the others take seats on either side of him, facing +the audience, and at a dignified remove. The conductor of the service +now rises, makes an address in Esquimaux a minute and a half long, then +gives out a hymn,--the hymns numbered in German, as numbers, to any +extent, are wanting to the Esquimaux language. All the congregation join +in a solid old German tune, keeping good time, and making, on the whole, +better congregational music than I ever heard elsewhere,--unless a +Baptist conventicle in London, Bloomsbury Chapel, furnish the exception. +After this another, then another; at length, when half a dozen or more +have been sung, missionaries and congregation rise, the latter stand in +mute and motionless respect, the missionaries file out with dignity at +their door; and when the last has disappeared, the others begin quietly +to disperse. + +This form of worship is practised at the hour named above on each +weekday, and the natives attend with noticeable promptitude. There are +no prayers, and the preliminary address in this case was exceptional. + +_Sunday, July 31._--I had inquired at what hour the worship would begin +this day, and, with some hesitancy, had been answered, "At half past +nine." But the Colonel also had asked, and his interlocutor, after +consulting a card, said, "At ten o'clock." At ten we went ashore. +Finding the chapel-door still locked, I seated myself on a rock in front +of the mission-house, to wait. The sun was warm (the first warm day for +a month); the mosquitoes swarmed in myriads; I sat there long, wearily +beating them off. Faces peeped out at me from the windows, then +withdrew. Presently Bradford joined me, and began also to fight +mosquitoes. More faces at the windows; but when I looked towards them, +thinking to discover some token of hospitable invitation, they quickly +disappeared. After half an hour, the master of the supply-ship came up, +and entered into conversation; in a minute one of the brethren appeared +at the door, and invited him to enter, but without noticing Bradford and +myself. I took my skiff and rowed to the schooner. Fifteen minutes later +the chapel-bell rang. + +I confess to some spleen that day against the missionaries. When I +expressed it, Captain French, the pilot, an old, prudent, pious man, +"broke out." + +"Them are traders," said he. "I don't call 'em missionaries; I call 'em +traders. They live in luxury; the natives work for 'em, and get for pay +just what they choose to give 'em. They fleece the Esquimaux; they take +off of 'em all but the skin. They are just traders!" + +My spleen did not last. There was some cause of coldness,--I know not +what. The missionaries afterwards became cordial, visited the schooner, +and exchanged presents with us. I believe them good men. If their +relation to the natives assume in some degree a pecuniary aspect, it is +due to the necessity of supporting the mission by the profits of +traffic. If they preserve a stately distance toward the Esquimaux, it is +to retain influence over them. If they allow the native mind to confound +somewhat the worship of God with the worship of its teachers, it is that +the native mind cannot get beyond personal relations, and must worship +something tangible. That they are not at all entangled in the routine +and material necessities of their position I do not assert; that they do +not carry in it something of noble and self-forgetful duty nothing I +have seen will persuade me. + +_August 1._--We go to push our explorations among the Esquimaux, and +invite the reader to make one of the party. Enter a hut. The door is +five feet high,--that is, the height of the wall. Stoop a little,--ah, +there goes a hat to the ground, and a hand to a hurt pate! One must move +carefully in these regions, which one hardly knows whether to call sub- +or supra-terranean. + +This door opens into a sort of porch occupying one end of the den; the +floor, earth. Three or four large, dirty dogs lie dozing here, and start +up with an aspect of indescribable, half-crouching, mean malignity, as +we enter; but a sharp word, with perhaps some menace of stick or cane, +sends the cowardly brutes sneaking away. In a corner is a circle of +stones, on which cooking is done; and another day we may find the family +here picking their food out of a pot, and serving themselves to it, with +the fingers. Save this primitive fireplace, and perhaps a kettle for the +dogs to lick clean, this porch is bare. + +From this we crouch into the living-room through a door two and a half +or three feet high, and find ourselves in an apartment twelve feet +square, and lighted by a small, square skin window in the roof. The only +noticeable furniture consists of two board beds, with skins for +bed-clothes. The women sit on these beds, sewing upon seal-skin boots. +They receive us with their characteristic fat and phlegmatic +good-nature, a pleasant smile on their chubby cheeks and in their dark, +dull eyes,--making room for us on the bedside. Presently others come in, +mildly curious to see the strangers,--all with the same aspect of +unthinking, good-tempered, insensitive, animal content. The head is low +and smooth; the cheekbones high, but less so than those of American +Indians; the jowl so broad and heavy as sometimes to give the _ensemble_ +of head and face the outline of a cone truncated and rounded off above. +In the females, however, the cheek is so extremely plump as perfectly to +pad these broad jaws, giving, instead of the prize-fighter physiognomy, +an aspect of smooth, gentle heaviness. Even without this fleshy cheek, +which is not noticeable, and is sometimes noticeably wanting, in the +men, there is the same look of heavy, well-tempered lameness. The girls +have a rich blood color in their swarthy cheeks, and some of them are +really pretty, though always in a lumpish, domestic-animal style. The +hands and feet are singularly small; the fingers short, but nicely +tapered. Take hold of the hand, and you are struck with its _cetacean_ +feel. It is not flabby, but has a peculiar blubber-like, elastic +compressibility, and seems not quite of human warmth. + +See them in their houses, and you see the horizon of their life. In +these fat faces, with their thoughtless content, in this pent-up, +greasy, wooden den, the whole is told. The air is close and fetid with +animal exhalations. The entrails and part of the flesh of a seal, which +lie on the floor in a corner,--to furnish a dinner,--do not make the +atmosphere nor the aspect more agreeable. Yet you see that to them this +is comfort, this is completeness of existence. If they are hungry, they +seek food. Food obtained, they return to eat and be comfortable until +they are again hungry. Their life has, on this earth at least, no +farther outlook. It sallies, it returns, but here is the fruition; for +is not the seal-flesh dinner there, nicely and neatly bestowed on the +floor? Are they not warm? (The den is swelteringly hot.) Are they not +fed? What would one have more? + +Yes, somewhat more, namely, tobacco,--and also second-hand clothes, with +which to be fine in church. For these they will barter seal-skins, +dog-skins, seal-skin boots, a casual bear-skin, bird-spears, +walrus-spears, anything they have to vend,--concealing their traffic a +little from the missionaries. Colored glass beads were also in request +among the women. Ph---- had brought some large, well-made pocket-knives, +which, being useful, he supposed would be desired. Not at all; they were +fumbled indifferently, then invariably declined. But a plug of +tobacco,--ah, that now _is_ something! + +The men wear tight seal-skin trousers and boots, with an upper garment +of the same material, made like a Guernsey frock. In winter a hood is +added, but in summer they all go bareheaded,--the stiff, black hair +chopped squarely off across the low forehead, but longer behind. The +costume of the females is more peculiar,--seal-skin boots, seal-skin +trousers, which just spring over the hips, and are there met by a +body-garment of seal-skin more lightly colored. Over this goes an +astonishing article of apparel somewhat resembling the dress-coat in +which unhappy civilization sometimes compels itself to masquerade, +but--truth stranger than fiction!--_considerably_ more ugly. A long tail +hangs down to the very heels; a much shorter peak comes down in front; +at the sides it is scooped out below, showing a small portion of the +light-colored body-garment, which irresistibly suggests a very dirty +article of lady-linen whereon the eyes of civilized decorum forbear to +look, while an adventurous imagination associates it only with snowy +whiteness. The whole is surmounted by an enormous peaked hood, in which +now and then one sees a baby carried. + +This elegant garment was evidently copied from the skin of an +animal,--so Ph---- acutely suggested. The high peak of the hood +represents the ears; the arms stand for the fore legs; the downward peak +in front for the hind legs sewed together; the rear dangler represents +the tail. I make no doubt that our dress-coat has the same origin, +though the primal conception has been more modified. It is a bear-skin +_plus_ Paris. + +Is the reader sure of his ribs and waistcoat-buttons? If so, he may +venture to look upon an Esquimaux woman walking,--which I take to be the +most ludicrous spectacle in the world. Conceive of this short, squat, +chunky, lumpish figure in the costume described,--grease _ad libitum_ +being added. The form is so plump and heavy as very much to project the +rear dangler at the point where it leaves the body, while below it falls +in, and goes with a continual muddy slap, slap, against the heels. The +effect of this, especially in the profile view, is wickedly laughable, +but the gait makes it more so. The walk is singularly slow, unelastic, +loggy, and is characterized at each step by an indescribable, sudden sag +or _slump_ at the hip. As she thus slowly and heavily _churns_ herself +along, the nether slap emphasizes each step, as it were, with an +exclamation-point; while, as the foot advances, the shoulder and the +whole body on the same side turn and sag forward, the opposite shoulder +and side dragging back,--as if there were a perpetual debate between the +two sides whether to proceed or not. It was so laughable that it made +one sad; for this, too, was a human being. The gait of the men, on the +contrary, is free and not ungraceful. + +_August 3._--An Esquimaux wedding! In the chapel,--Moravian +ceremony,--so far not noticeable. Costume same as above, only of white +cloth heavily embroidered with red. Demeanor perfect. Bride obliged to +sit down midway in the ceremony, overpowered with emotion. She did so +with a simple, quiet dignity, that would not have misbecome a duchess. + +When the ceremony was ended, the married pair retired into the +mission-house, and half an hour later I saw them going home. This was +the curious part of the affair. The husband walked before, taking care +not to look behind, doing the indifferent and unconscious with great +assiduity, and evidently making it a matter of serious etiquette not to +know that any one followed. Four rods behind comes the wife, doing the +unconscious with equal industry. She is not following this man here in +front,--bless us, no, indeed!--but is simply walking out, or going to +see a neighbor, this nice afternoon, and does not observe that any one +precedes her. Following that man? Pray, where were you reared, that you +are capable of so discourteous a supposition? It gave me a malicious +pleasure to see that the pre-Adamite man, as well as the rest of us, +imposes upon himself at times these difficult duties, _toting_ about +that foolish face, so laboriously vacant of precisely that with which it +is brimming full. + +To adjust himself to outward Nature,--that, we said, is the sole task of +the primitive man. The grand success of the Esquimaux in this direction +is the _kayak_. This is his victory and his school. It is a seal-skin +Oxford or Cambridge, wherein he takes his degree as master of the +primeval arts. Here he acquires not only physical strength and +quickness, but self-possession also, mental agility, the instant use of +his wits,--here becomes, in fine, a _cultivated_ man. + +It is no trifling matter. Years upon years must be devoted to these +studies. Oxford and Cambridge do not task one more, nor exhibit more +degrees of success. Some fail, and never graduate; some become +illustrious for kayak-erudition. + +This culture has also the merit of entire seriousness and sincerity. +Life and death, not merely a name in the newspapers, are in it. Of all +vehicles, on land or sea, to which man intrusts himself, the kayak is +safest and unsafest. It is a very hair-bridge of Mohammed: security or +destruction is in the finest poise of a moving body, the turn of a hand, +the thought of a moment. Every time that the Esquimaux spears a seal at +sea, he pledges his life upon his skill. With a touch, with a moment's +loss of balance, the tipsy craft may go over; over, the oar, with which +it is to be restored, may get entangled, may escape from the hand, +may--what not? For all _what-nots_ the kayaker must preserve instant +preparation; and with his own life on the tip of his fingers, he must +make its preservation an incidental matter. He is there, not to save his +life, but to capture a seal, worth a few dollars! It is his routine +work. Different from getting up a leading article, making a plea in +court, or writing Greek iambics for a bishopric! + +Probably there is no race of men on earth whose ordinary avocations +present so constantly the alternative of rarest skill on the one hand, +or instant destruction on the other. And for these avocations one is +fitted only by a _scholarship_, which it requires prolonged schooling, +the most patient industry, and the most delicate consent of mind and +body to attain. If among us the highest university-education were +necessary, in order that one might live, marry, and become a +householder, we should but parallel in our degree the scheme of their +life. + +Measured by post-Adamite standards, the life of the Esquimaux is a sorry +affair; measured by his own standards, it is a piece of perfection. To +see the virtue of his existence, you must, as it were, look at him with +the eyes of a wolf or fox,--must look up from that low level, and +discern, so far above, this skilled and wondrous creature, who by +ingenuity and self-schooling has converted his helplessness into power, +and made himself the plume and crown of the physical world. + +In the kayak the Esquimaux attains to beauty. As he rows, the extremes +of the two-bladed oar revolve, describing rhythmic circles; the body +holds itself in airy poise, and the light boat skims away with a look of +life. The speed is greater than our swiftest boats attain, and the +motion graceful as that of a flying bird. Kayak and rower become to the +eye one creature; and the civilized spectator must be stronger than I in +his own conceit not to feel a little humble as he looks on. + +We had racing one calm evening. Three kayaks competed: the prize--O +Civilization!--was a plug of tobacco. How the muscles swelled! How the +airy things flew! "Hi! Hi!" jockey the lookers-on: they fly swifter +still. Up goes another plug,--another!--another!--and the kayaks half +leap from the water. It was sad withal. + +The racing over, there was a new feat. One of the kayakers placed +himself in his little craft directly across the course; another +stationed himself at a distance, and then, pushing his kayak forward at +his utmost speed, drove it directly over the other! The high sloping bow +rose above the middle of the stationary kayak on which it impinged, and, +shooting up quite out of water, the boat skimmed over. + +The Esquimaux is an honest creature. I had engaged a woman to make me a +pair of fur boots, leaving my name on a slip of paper. L----, next day, +roaming among the huts, saw her hanging them out to dry. Enamored of +them, and ignorant of our bargain, he sought to purchase them; but at +the first token of his desire, the woman rushed into the hut, and +brought forth the slip of paper, as a sufficient answer to all question +on that matter. L---- having told me of the incident, and informed me +that he had elsewhere bargained for a similar pair, I was wicked enough +to experiment upon this fidelity, desirous of learning what I could. +Taking, therefore, some clothes, which I knew would be desired, and +among them a white silk handkerchief bordered with blue, which had been +purchased at Port Mulgrave, all together far exceeding in value the +stipulated price, I sought the hut, and began admiring the said boots, +now nearly finished. Instantly came forth the inevitable slip with +L----'s name upon it. Making no sign, I proceeded to unroll my package. +The good creature was intensely taken with its contents, and gloated +over them with childish delight. But though she rummaged every corner to +find somewhat to exchange with me for them, it evidently did not even +enter her thoughts to offer me the boots. I took them up and admired +them again; she immediately laid her hand on the slip of paper. So I +gave her the prettiest thing I had, and left with a cordial _okshni_ +(good-bye). + +This honesty is attributed to missionary instruction, and with the more +color as the untaught race is noted for stealing from Europeans +everything they can lay hands on. It is only, however, from foreigners +that they were ever accustomed to steal. Toward each other they have +ever been among the most honest of human beings. Civilization and the +seal they regarded as alike lawful prey. The missionaries have not +implanted in them a new disposition, but only extended the scope of an +old and marked characteristic. + +At the same time their sense of pecuniary obligation would seem not to +extend over long periods. Of the missionaries in winter they buy +supplies on credit, but show little remembrance of the debt when summer +comes. All must be immediate with them; neither their thought nor their +moral sense can carry far; they are equally improvident for the future +and forgetful of the past. The mere Nature-man acts only as Nature and +her necessities press upon him; thought and memory are with him the +offspring of sensation; his brain is but the feminine spouse of his +stomach and blood,--receptive and respondent, rather than virile and +original. + +Partly, however, this seeming forgetfulness is susceptible of a +different explanation. They evidently feel that the mission-house owes +them a living. They make gardens, go to church and save their souls, for +the missionaries; it is but fair that they should be fed at a pinch in +return. + +This remark may seem a sneer. Not so; my word for it. I went to Hopedale +to study this race, with no wish but to find in them capabilities of +spiritual growth, and with no resolve but to see the fact, whatever it +should be, not with wishes, but with eyes. And, pointedly against my +desire, I saw this,--that the religion of the Esquimaux is, nine parts +in ten at least, a matter of personal relation between him and +the missionaries. He goes to church as the dog follows his +master,--expecting a bone and hoping for a pat in return. He comes +promptly at a whistle (the chapel-bell); his docility and decorum are +unimpeachable; he does what is expected of him with a pleased wag of the +tail; but it is still, it is always, the dog and his master. + +The pre-Adamite man is not distinctively religious; for religion implies +ideas, in the blood at least, if not in the brain, as imagination, if +not as thought; and ideas are to him wanting, are impossible. His whole +being is summed and concluded in a relationship to the external, the +tangible, to things or persons; and his relation to persons goes beyond +animal instinct and the sense of physical want only upon the condition +that it shall cling inseparably to them. The spiritual instincts of +humanity are in him also, but obscure, utterly obscure, not having +attained to a circulation in the blood, much less to intellectual +liberation. Obscure they are, fixed, in the bone, locked up in phosphate +of lime. Ideas touch them only as ideas lose their own shape and hide +themselves under physical forms. + +Will he outgrow himself? Will he become post-Adamite, a man to whom +ideas are realities? I desire to say yes, and cannot. Again and again, +in chapel and elsewhere, I stood before a group, and questioned, +questioned their faces, to find there some prophecy of future growth. +And again and again these faces, with their heavy content, with their +dog-docility, with their expression of utter limitation, against which +nothing in them struggled, said to me,--"Your quest is vain; we are once +and forever Esquimaux." Had they been happy, had they been unhappy, I +had hoped for them. They were neither: they were contented. A +half-animal, African exuberance, token of a spirit obscure indeed, but +rich and effervescent, would open for them a future. One sign of dim +inward struggle and pain, as if the spirit resented his imprisonment, +would do the same. Both were wanting. They ruminate; life is the cud +they chew. + +The Esquimaux are celebrated as gluttons. This, however, is but one half +the fact. They can eat, they can also fast, indefinitely. For a week +they gorge themselves without exercise, and have no indigestion; for a +week, exercising vigorously, they live on air, frozen air, too, and +experience no exhaustion. Last winter half a dozen appeared at +Square-Island Harbor, sent out their trained dogs, drove in a herd of +deer, and killed thirteen. They immediately encamped, gathered fuel, +made fires, began to cook and eat,--ate themselves asleep; then waked to +cook, eat, and sleep again, until the thirteenth deer had vanished. +Thereupon they decamped, to travel probably hundreds of miles, and +endure days on days of severe labor, before tasting, or more than +tasting, food again. + +The same explanation serves. These physical capabilities, not to be +attained by the post-Adamite man, belong to the primitive races, as to +hawks, gulls, and beasts of prey. The stomach of the Esquimaux is his +cellar, as that of the camel is a cistern, wherein he lays up stores. + +_August 4._--This day we sailed away from Hopedale, heading +homeward,--leaving behind a race of men who were, to me a problem to be +solved, if possible. All my impressions of them are summed in the +epithet, often repeated, pre-Adamite. In applying, this, I affirm +nothing respecting their physical origin. All that is to me an open +question, to be closed when I have more light than now. It may be, that, +as Mr. Agassiz maintains, they were created originally just as they are. +For this hypothesis much may be said, and it may be freely confessed +that in observing them I felt myself pressed somewhat toward the +acceptance of it as a definite conclusion. It may be that they have +become what they are by slow modification of a type common to all +races,--that, with another parentage, they have been made by adoption +children of the icy North, whose breath has chilled in their souls the +deeper powers of man's being. This it will be impossible for me to deny +until I have investigated more deeply the influence of physical Nature +upon man, and learned more precisely to what degree the traditions of a +people, constituting at length a definite social atmosphere, may come to +penetrate and shape their individual being. I do not pronounce; I wait +and keep the eyes open. Doubtless they are God's children; and knowing +this, one need not be fretfully impatient, even though vigilantly +earnest, to know the rest. + +In naming them pre-Adamite I mean two things. + +First, that they have stopped short of ideas, that is, of the point +where human history begins. They belong, not to spiritual or human, but +to outward and physical Nature. There they are a great success. + +Secondly, in this condition of mere response to physical Nature, their +whole being has become shapen, determined, fixed. They have no future. +Civilization affects them, but only by mechanical modification, not by +vital refreshment and renewal. The more they are instructed, the weaker +they become. + +They change, and are unchangeable. + +Unchangeable: if they assume in any degree the ideas and habits of +civilization, it is only as their women sometimes put on calico gowns +over their seal-skin trousers. The modification is not even skin-deep. +It is a curious illustration of this immobility, that no persuasion, no +authority, can make them fishermen. Inseparable from the sea-shore, the +Esquimaux will not catch a fish, if he can catch a dinner otherwise. The +missionaries, both as matter of paternal care and as a means of +increasing their own traffic,--by which the station is chiefly +sustained,--have done their utmost to make the natives bring in fish for +sale, and have failed. These people are first sealers, then hunters; +some attraction in the blood draws them to these occupations; and at +last it is an attraction in the blood which they obey. + +Yet on the outermost surface of their existence they change, and die. At +Hopedale, out of a population of some two hundred, _twenty-four died in +the month of March last!_ At Nain, where the number of inhabitants is +about the same, twenty-one died in the same month; at Okkak, also +twenty-one. More than decimated in a month! + +The long winter suffocation in their wooden dens, which lack the +ventilation of the _igloe_ that their untaught wit had devised, has +doubtless much to do with this mortality. But one feels that there is +somewhat deeper in the case. One feels that the hands of the great +horologe of time have hunted around the dial, till they have found the +hour of doom for this primeval race. Now at length the tolling bell says +to them, "No more! on the earth no more!" + +Farewell, geological man, _chef-d'oeuvre_, it may be, of some earlier +epoch, but in this a grotesque, grown-up baby, never to become adult! As +you are, and as in this world you must be, I have seen you; but in my +heart is a hope for you which is greater than my thought,--a hope which, +though deep and sure, does not define itself to the understanding, and +must remain unspoken. There is a Heart to which you, too, are dear; and +its throbs are pulsations of Destiny. + + + + +DOCTOR JOHNS. + + +XI. + +There were scores of people in Ashfield who would have been delighted to +speak consolation to the bereaved clergyman; but he was not a man to be +approached easily with the ordinary phrases of sympathy. He bore himself +too sternly under his grief. What, indeed, can be said in the face of +affliction, where the manner of the sufferer seems to say, "God has done +it, and God does all things well"? Ordinary human sympathy falls below +such a standpoint, and is wasted in the utterance. + +Yet there are those, who delight in breaking in upon the serene dignity +which this condition of mind implies with a noisy proffer of +consolation, and an aggravating rehearsal of the occasion for it; as if +such comforters entertained a certain jealousy of the serenity they do +not comprehend, and were determined to test its sufficiency. Dame +Tourtelot was eminently such a person. + +"It's a dreadful blow to ye, Mr. Johns," said she, "I know it is. Almiry +is a'most as much took down by it as you are. 'She was such a lovely +woman,' she says; and the poor, dear little boy,--won't you let him come +and pass a day or two with us? Almiry is very fond of children." + +"Later, later, my good woman," says the parson. "I can't spare the boy +now; the house is too empty." + +"Oh, Mr. Johns,--the poor lonely thing!" (And she says this, with her +hands in black mits, clasped together.) "It's a bitter blow! As I was +a-sayin' to the Deacon, 'Such a lovely young woman, and such a good +comfortable home, and she, poor thing, enjoyin' it so much!' I do hope +you'll bear up under it, Mr. Johns." + +"By God's help, I will, my good woman." + +Dame Tourtelot was disappointed to find the parson wincing so little as +he did under her stimulative sympathy. On returning home, she opened her +views to the Deacon in this style:-- + +"Tourtelot, the parson is not so much broke down by this as we've been +thinkin'; he was as cool, when I spoke to him to-day, as any man I ever +see in my life. The truth is, she was a flighty young person, noways +equal to the parson. I've been a-suspectin' it this long while; she +never, in my opinion, took a real hard hold upon him. But, Tourtelot, +you should go and see Mr. Johns; and I hope you'll talk consolingly and +Scripterally to him. It's your duty." + +And hereupon she shifted the needles in her knitting, and, smoothing +down the big blue stocking-leg over her knee, cast a glance at the +Deacon which signified command. The dame was thoroughly mistress in her +own household, as well as in the households of not a few of her +neighbors. Long before, the meek, mild-mannered little man who was her +husband had by her active and resolute negotiation been made a deacon of +the parish,--for which office he was not indeed ill-fitted, being +religiously disposed, strict in his observance of all duties, and +well-grounded in the Larger Catechism. He had, moreover, certain secular +endowments which were even more marked,--among them, a wonderful +instinct at a bargain, which had been polished by Dame Tourtelot's +superior address to a wonderful degree of sharpness; and by reason of +this the less respectful of the townspeople were accustomed to say, "The +Deacon is very small at home, but great in a trade." Not that the Deacon +could by any means be called an avaricious or miserly man: he had always +his old Spanish milled quarter ready for the contribution-box upon +Collection-Sundays; and no man in the parish brought a heavier turkey to +the parson's larder on donation-days: but he could no more resist the +sharpening of a bargain than he could resist a command of his wife. He +talked of a good trade to the old heads up and down the village street +as a lad talks of a new toy. + +"Squire," he would say, addressing a neighbor on the Common, "what do +you s'pose I paid for that brindle ye'rlin' o' mine? Give us a guess." + +"Waael, Deacon, I guess you paid about ten dollars." + +"Only eight!" the Deacon would say, with a smile that was fairly +luminous,--"and a pootty likely critter I call it for eight dollars." + +"Five hogs this year," (in this way the Deacon was used to +soliloquize,)--"I hope to make 'em three hundred apiece. The +price works up about Christmas: Deacon Simmons has sold his'n at +five,--distillery-pork; that's sleezy, wastes in bilin'; folks know it: +mine, bein' corn-fed, ought to bring half a cent more,--and say, for +Christmas, six; that'll give a gain of a cent,--on five hogs, at three +hundred apiece, will be fifteen dollars. That'll pay half my pew-rent, +and leave somethin' over for Almiry, who's always wantin' fresh ribbons +about New-Year's." + +The Deacon cherished a strong dread of formal visits to the parsonage: +first, because it involved his Sunday toilet, in which he was never +easy, except at conference or in his pew at the meeting-house; and next, +because he counted it necessary on such occasions to give a Scriptural +garnish to his talk, in which attempt he almost always, under the +authoritative look of the parson, blundered into difficulty. Yet +Tourtelot, in obedience to his wife's suggestion, and primed with a text +from Matthew, undertook the visit of condolence,--and, being a really +kind-hearted man, bore himself well in it. Over and over the good parson +shook his hand in thanks. + +"It'll all be right," says the Deacon. "'Blessed are the mourners,' is +the Scripteral language, 'for they shall inherit the earth.'" + +"No, not that, Deacon," says the minister, to whom a misquotation was +like a wound in the flesh; "the last thing I want is to inherit the +earth. 'They shall be comforted,'--that's the promise, Deacon, and I +count on it." + +It was mortifying to his visitor to be caught napping on so familiar a +text; the parson saw it, and spoke consolingly. But if not strong in +texts, the Deacon knew what his strong points were; so, before leaving, +he invites a little offhand discussion of more familiar topics. + +"Pootty tight spell o' weather we've been havin', Parson." + +"Rather cool, certainly," says the unsuspecting clergyman. + +"Got all your winter's stock o' wood in yit?" + +"No, I haven't," says the parson. + +"Waael, Mr. Johns, I've got a lot of pastur'-hickory cut and corded, +that's well seared over now,--and if you'd like some of it, I can let +you have it _very reasonable indeed_." + +The sympathy of the Elderkins, if less formal, was none the less hearty. +The Squire had been largely instrumental in securing the settlement of +Mr. Johns, and had been a political friend of his father's. In early +life he had been engaged in the West India trade from the neighboring +port of Middletown; and on one or two occasions he had himself made the +voyage to Porto Rico, taking out a cargo of horses, and bringing back +sugar, molasses, and rum. But it was remarked approvingly in the +bar-room of the Eagle Tavern that this foreign travel had not made the +Squire proud,--nor yet the moderate fortune which he had secured by the +business, in which he was still understood to bear an interest. His +paternal home in Ashfield he had fitted up some years before with +balustrade and other architectural adornments, which, it was averred by +the learned in those matters, were copied from certain palatial +residences in the West Indies. + +The Squire united eminently in himself all those qualities which a +Connecticut observer of those times expressed by the words, "right down +smart man." Not a turnpike enterprise could be started in that quarter +of the State, but the Squire was enlisted, and as shareholder or +director contributed to its execution. A clear-headed, kindly, energetic +man, never idle, prone rather to do needless things than to do nothing; +an ardent disciple of the Jeffersonian school, and in this combating +many of those who relied most upon his sagacity in matters of business; +a man, in short, about whom it was always asked, in regard to any +question of town or State policy, "What does the Squire think?" or "How +does the Squire mean to vote?" And the Squire's opinion was sure to be a +round, hearty one, which he came by honestly, and about which one who +thought differently might safely rally his columns of attack. The +opinion of Giles Elderkin was not inquired into for the sake of a tame +following-after,--that was not the Connecticut mode,--but for the sake +of discussing and toying with it: very much as a sly old grimalkin toys +with a mouse,--now seeming to entertain it kindly, then giving it a run, +then leaping after it, crunching a limb of it, bearing it off into some +private corner, giving it a new escape, swallowing it perhaps at last, +and appropriating it by long process of digestion. And even then, the +shrewd Connecticut man, if accused of modulating his own opinions after +those of the Squire, would say, "No, I allers thought so." + +Such a man as Giles Elderkin is of course ready with a hearty, outspoken +word of cheer for his minister. Nay, the very religion of the Squire, +which the parson had looked upon as somewhat discursive and +human,--giving too large a place to good works,--was decisive and to the +point in the present emergency. + +"It's God's doing," said he; "we must take the cup He gives us. For the +best, isn't it, Parson?" + +"I do, Squire. Thank God, I can." + +There was good Mrs. Elderkin--who made up by her devotion to the special +tenets of the clergyman many of the shortcomings of the Squire--insisted +upon sending for the poor boy Reuben, that he might forget his grief in +her kindness, and in frolic with the Elderkins through that famous +garden, with its huge hedges of box,--such a garden as was certainly not +to be matched elsewhere in Ashfield. The same good woman, too, sends +down a wagon-load of substantial things from her larder, for the present +relief of the stricken household; to which the Squire has added a little +round jug of choice Santa Cruz rum,--remembering the long watches of the +parson. This may shock us now; and yet it is to be feared that in our +day the sin of hypocrisy is to be added to the sin of indulgence: the +old people nestled under no cover of liver specifics or bitters. Reform +has made a grand march indeed; but the Devil, with his square bottles +and Scheidam schnapps, has kept a pretty even pace with it. + + +XII. + +The boy Reuben, in those first weeks after his loss, wandered about as +if in a maze, wondering at the great blank that death had made; or, +warming himself at some out-door sport, he rushed in with a pleasant +forgetfulness,--shouting,--up the stairs,--to the accustomed door, and +bursts in upon the cold chamber, so long closed, where the bitter +knowledge comes upon him fresh once more. Esther, good soul that she is, +has heard his clatter upon, the floor, his bound at the old latch, and, +fancying what it may mean, has come up in time to soothe him and bear +him off with her. The parson, forging some sermon for the next Sabbath, +in the room at the foot of the stairs, hears, may-be, the stifled +sobbing of the boy, as the good Esther half leads and half drags him +down, and opens his door upon them. + +"What now, Esther? Has Reuben caught a fall?" + +"No, Sir, no fall; he's not harmed, Sir. It's only the old room, you +know, Sir, and he quite forgot himself." + +"Poor boy! Will he come with me, Esther?" + +"No, Mr. Johns. I'll find something'll amuse him; hey, Ruby?" + +And the parson goes back to his desk, where he forgets himself in the +glow of that great work of his. He has taught, as never before, that +"all flesh is grass." He accepts his loss as a punishment for having +thought too much and fondly of the blessings of this life; henceforth +the flesh and its affections shall be mortified in him. He has +transferred his bed to a little chamber which opens from his study in +the rear, and which is at the end of the long dining-room, where every +morning and evening the prayers are said, as before. The parishioners +see a light burning in the window of his study far into the night. + +For a time his sermons are more emotional than before. Oftener than in +the earlier days of his settlement he indulges in a forecast of those +courts toward which he would conduct his people, and which a merciful +God has provided for those who trust in Him; and there is a coloring in +these pictures which his sermons never showed in the years gone. + +"We ask ourselves," said he, "my brethren, if we shall knowingly meet +there--where we trust His grace may give us entrance--those from whom +you and I have parted; whether a fond and joyous welcome shall greet us, +not alone from Him whom to love is life, but from those dear ones who +seem to our poor senses to be resting under the sod yonder. Sometimes I +believe that by God's great goodness," (and here he looked, not at his +people, but above, and kept his eye fixed there)--"I believe that we +shall; that His great love shall so delight in making complete our +happiness, even by such little memorials of our earthly affections +(which must seem like waifs of thistle-down beside the great harvest of +His abounding grace); that all the dear faces of those written in the +Golden Book shall beam a welcome, all the more bounteous because +reflecting His joy who has died to save." + +And the listeners whispered each other as he paused, "He thinks of +Rachel." + +With his eyes still fixed above, he goes on,-- + +"Sometimes I think thus; but oftener I ask myself, 'Of what value shall +human ties be, or their memories, in His august presence whom to look +upon is life? What room shall there be for other affections, what room +for other memories, than those of 'the Lamb that was slain'? + +"Nay, my brethren," (and here he turns his eyes upon them again,) "we do +know in our hearts that many whom we have loved fondly--infants, +fathers, mothers, wives, may-be--shall never, never sit with the elect +in Paradise; and shall we remember these in heaven, going away to dwell +with the Devil and his angels? Shall we be tortured with the knowledge +that some poor babe we looked upon only for an hour is wearing out ages +of suffering? 'No,' you may say, 'for we shall be possessed in that day +of such sense of the ineffable justice of God, and of His judgments, +that all shall seem right.' Yet, my brethren, if this sense of His +supreme justice shall overrule all the old longings of our hearts, even +to the suppression of the dearest ties of earth, where they conflict +with His ordained purpose, will they not also overrule all the longings +in respect of friends who are among the elect, in such sort that the man +we counted our enemy, the man we avoided on earth, if so be he have an +inheritance in heaven, shall be met with the same yearning of the heart +as if he were our brother? Does this sound harshly, my brethren? Ah, let +us beware,--let us beware how we entertain any opinions of that future +condition of holiness and of joy promised to the elect, which are +dependent upon these gross attachments of earth, which are colored by +our short-sighted views, which are not in every iota accordant with the +universal love of Him who is our Master!" + +"This man lives above the world," said the people; and if some of them +did not give very cordial assent to these latter views, they smothered +their dissent by a lofty expression of admiration; they felt it a duty +to give them open acceptance, to venerate the speaker the more by +reason of their utterance. And yet their limited acceptance diffused a +certain chill, very likely, over their religious meditations. But it was +a chill which unfortunately they counted it good to entertain,--a rigor +of faith that must needs be borne. It is doubtful, indeed, if they did +not make a merit of their placid intellectual admission of such beliefs +as most violated the natural sensibilities of the heart. They were so +sure that affectionate instincts were by nature wrong in their +tendencies, so eager to cumulate evidences of the original depravity, +that, when their parson propounded a theory that gave a shock to their +natural affections, they submitted with a kind of heroic pride, however +much their hearts might make silent protest, and the grounds of such a +protest they felt a cringing unwillingness to investigate. There was a +determined shackling of all the passional nature. What wonder that +religion took a harsh aspect? As if intellectual adhesion to theological +formulas were to pave our way to a knowledge of the Infinite!--as if our +sensibilities were to be outraged in the march to Heaven!--as if all the +emotional nature were to be clipped away by the shears of the doctors, +leaving only the metaphysic ghost of a soul to enter upon the joys of +Paradise! + +Within eight months after his loss, Mr. Johns thought of Rachel only as +a gift that God had bestowed to try him, and had taken away to work in +him a humiliation of the heart. More severely than ever he wrestled with +the dogmas of his chosen divines, harnessed them to his purposes as +preacher, and wrought on with a zeal that knew no abatement and no rest. + +In the spring of 1825 Mr. Johns was invited by Governor Wolcott to +preach the Election Sermon before the Legislature convened at Hartford: +an honorable duty, and one which he was abundantly competent to fulfil. +The "Hartford Courant" of that date said,--"A large auditory was +collected last week to listen to the Election Sermon by Mr. Johns, +minister of Ashfield. It was a sound, orthodox, and interesting +discourse, and won the undivided attention of all the listeners. We have +not recently listened to a sermon more able or eloquent." + +In that day even country editors were church-goers and God-fearing men. + + +XIII. + +In the latter part of the summer of 1826,--a reasonable time having now +elapsed since the death of poor Rachel,--the gossips of Ashfield began +to discuss the lonely condition of their pastor, in connection with any +desirable or feasible amendment of it. The sin of such gossip--if it be +a sin--is one that all the preaching in the world will never extirpate +from country towns, where the range of talk is by the necessity of the +case exceedingly limited. In the city, curiosity has an omnivorous maw +by reason of position, and finds such variety to feed upon that it is +rarely--except in the case of great political or public +scandal--personal in its attentions; and what we too freely reckon a +perverted and impertinent country taste is but an ordinary appetite of +humanity, which, by the limitation of its feeding-ground, seems to +attach itself perversely to private relations. + +There were some invidious persons in the town who had remarked that Miss +Almira Tourtelot had brought quite a new fervor to her devotional +exercises in the parish within the last year, as well as a new set of +ribbons to her hat; and two maiden ladies opposite, of distinguished +pretensions and long experience of life, had observed that the young +Reuben, on his passage back and forth from the Elderkins, had sometimes +been decoyed within the Tourtelot yard, and presented by the admiring +Dame Tourtelot with fresh doughnuts. The elderly maiden ladies were +perhaps uncharitable in their conclusions; yet it is altogether probable +that the Deacon and his wife may have considered, in the intimacy of +their fireside talk, the possibility of some time claiming the minister +as a son-in-law. Questions like this are discussed in a great many +families even now. + +Dame Tourtelot had crowned with success all her schemes in life, save +one. Almira, her daughter, now verging upon her thirty-second year, had +long been upon the anxious-seat as regarded matrimony; and with a +sentimental turn that incited much reading of Cowper and Montgomery and +(if it must be told) "Thaddeus of Warsaw," the poor girl united a +sickly, in-door look, and a peaked countenance, which had not attracted +wooers. The wonderful executive capacity of the mother had unfortunately +debarred her from any active interest in the household; and though the +Tourtelots had actually been at the expense of providing a piano for +Almira, (the only one in Ashfield,)--upon which the poor girl thrummed, +thinking of "Thaddeus," and, we trust, of better things,--this had not +won a roseate hue to her face, or quickened in any perceptible degree +the alacrity of her admirers. + +Upon a certain night of later October, after Almira has retired, and +when the Tourtelots are seated by the little fire, which the autumn +chills have rendered necessary, and into the embers of which the Deacon +has cautiously thrust the leg of one of the fire-dogs, preparatory to a +modest mug of flip, (with which, by his wife's permission, he +occasionally indulges himself,) the good dame calls out to her husband, +who is dozing in his chair,-- + +"Tourtelot!" + +But she is not loud enough. + +"TOURTELOT! you're asleep!" + +"No," says the Deacon, rousing himself,--"only thinkin'." + +"What are you thinkin' of, Tourtelot?" + +"Thinkin'--thinkin'," says the Deacon, rasped by the dame's sharpness +into sudden mental effort,--"thinkin', Huldy, if it isn't about time to +butcher: we butchered last year nigh upon the twentieth." + +"Nonsense!" says the dame; "what about the parson?" + +"The parson? Oh! Why, the parson'll take a side and two hams." + +"Nonsense!" says the dame, with a great voice; "you're asleep, +Tourtelot. Is the parson goin' to marry, or isn't he? that's what I want +to know"; and she rethreads her needle. + +(She can do it by candle-light at fifty-five, that woman!) + +"Oh, marry!" replies the Deacon, rousing himself more +thoroughly,--"waael, I don't see no signs, Huldy. If he _doos_ mean to, +he's sly about it; don't you think so, Huldy?" + +The dame, who is intent upon her sewing again,--she is never without her +work, that woman!--does not deign a reply. + +The Deacon, after lifting the fire-dog, blowing off the ashes, and +holding it to his face to try the heat, says,-- + +"I guess Almiry ha'n't much of a chance." + +"What's the use of your guessin'?" says the dame; "better mind your +flip." + +Which the Deacon accordingly does, stirring it in a mild manner, until +the dame breaks out upon him again explosively:-- + +"Tourtelot, you men of the parish ought to _talk_ to the parson; it +a'n't right for things to go on this way. That boy Reuben is growin' up +wild; he wants a woman in the house to look arter him. Besides, a +minister ought to have a wife; it a'n't decent to have the house empty, +and only Esther there. Women want to feel they can drop in at the +parsonage for a chat, or to take tea. But who's to serve tea, I want to +know? Who's to mind Reuben in meetin'? He broke the cover off the best +hymn-book in the parson's pew last Sunday. Who's to prevent him +a-breakin' all the hymn-books that belong to the parish? You men ought +to speak to the parson; and, Tourtelot, if the others won't do it, you +_must_." + +The Deacon was fairly awake now. He pulled at his whiskers +deprecatingly. Yet he clearly foresaw that the emergency was one to be +met; the manner of Dame Tourtelot left no room for doubt; and he was +casting about for such Scriptural injunctions as might be made +available, when the dame interrupted his reflections in more amiable +humor,-- + +"It isn't Almiry, Samuel, I think of, but Mr. Johns and the good of the +parish. I really don't know if Almiry would fancy the parson; the girl +is a good deal taken up with her pianny and books; but there's the +Hapgoods, opposite; there's Joanny Meacham"---- + +"You'll never make that do, Huldy," said the Deacon, stirring his flip +composedly; "they're nigh on as old as parson." + +"Never you mind, Tourtelot," said the dame, sharply; "only you hint to +the parson that they're good, pious women, all of them, and would make +proper ministers' wives. Do you think I don't know what a man is, +Tourtelot? Humph!" And she threads her needle again. + +The Deacon was apt to keep in mind his wife's advices, whatever he might +do with Scripture quotations. So when he called at the parsonage, a few +days after,--ostensibly to learn how the minister would like his pork +cut,--it happened that little Reuben came bounding in, and that the +Deacon gave him a fatherly pat upon the shoulder. + +"Likely boy you've got here, Mr. Johns,--likely boy. But, Parson, don't +you think he must feel a kind o' hankerin' arter somebody to be motherly +to him? I 'most wonder that you don't feel that way yourself, Mr. +Johns." + +"God comforts the mourners," said the clergyman, seriously. + +"No doubt, no doubt, Parson; but He sometimes provides comforts ag'in +which we shet our eyes. You won't think hard o' me, Parson, but I've +heerd say about the village that Miss Meacham or one of the Miss +Hapgoods would make an excellent wife for the minister." + +The parson is suddenly very grave. + +"Don't repeat such idle gossip, Deacon. I'm married to my work. The +Gospel is my bride now." + +"And a very good one it is, Parson. But don't you think that a godly +woman for helpmeet would make the work more effectooal? Miss Meacham is +a pattern of a person in the Sunday school. The women of the parish +would rather like to find the doors of the parsonage openin' for 'em +ag'in." + +"That is to be thought of certainly," said the minister, musingly. + +"You won't think hard o' me, Mr. Johns, for droppin' a word about this +matter?" says the Deacon, rising to leave. "And while I think on 't, +Parson, I see the sill under the no'theast corner o' the meetin'-house +has a little settle to it. I've jest been cuttin' a few sticks o' good +smart chestnut timber; and if the Committee thinks best, I could haul +down one or two on 'em for repairs. It won't cost nigh as much as pine +lumber, and it's every bit as good." + +Even Dame Tourtelot would have been satisfied with the politic way of +the Deacon, both as regarded the wife and the prospective bargain. The +next evening the good woman invited the clergyman--begging him "not to +forget the dear little boy"--to tea. + +This was by no means the first hint which the minister had had of the +tendency of village gossip. The Tew partners, with whom he had fallen +upon very easy terms of familiarity,--both by reason of frequent visits +at their little shop, and by reason of their steady attendance upon his +ministrations,--often dropped hints of the smallness of the good man's +grocery account, and insidious hopes that it might be doubled in size at +some day not far off. + +Squire Elderkin, too, in his bluff, hearty way, had occasionally +complimented the clergyman upon the increased attendance latterly of +ladies of a certain age, and had drawn his attention particularly to the +ardent zeal of a buxom, middle-aged widow, who lived upon the skirts of +the town, and was "the owner," he said, "of as pretty a piece of +property as lay in the county." + +"Have you any knack at farming, Mr. Johns?" continued he, playfully. + +"Farming? why?" says the innocent parson, in a maze. + +"Because I am of opinion, Mr. Johns, that the widow's little property +might be rented by you, under conditions of joint occupancy, on very +easy terms." + +Such badinage was so warded off by the ponderous gravity which the +parson habitually wore, that men like Elderkin loved occasionally to +launch a quiet joke at him, for the pleasure of watching the rebound. + +When, however, the wide-spread gossip of the town had taken the shape +(as in the talk of Deacon Tourtelot) of an incentive to duty, the grave +clergyman gave to it his undivided and prayerful attention. It was +over-true that the boy Reuben was running wild. No lad in Ashfield, of +his years, could match him in mischief. There was surely need of womanly +direction and remonstrance. It was eminently proper, too, that the +parsonage, so long closed, should be opened freely to all his flock; and +the truth was so plain, he wondered it could have escaped him so long. +Duty required that his home should have an established mistress; and a +mistress he forthwith determined it should have. + +Within three weeks from the day of the tea-drinking with the Tourtelots, +the minister suggested certain changes in the long-deserted chamber +which should bring it into more habitable condition. He hinted to his +man Larkin that an additional fire might probably be needed in the house +during the latter part of winter; and before January had gone out, he +had most agreeably surprised the delighted and curious Tew partners with +a very large addition to his usual orders,--embracing certain condiments +in the way of spices, dried fruits, and cordials, which had for a long +time been foreign to the larder of the parsonage. + +Such indications, duly commented on, as they were most zealously, could +not fail to excite a great buzz of talk and of curiosity throughout the +town. + +"I knew it," says Mrs. Tew, authoritatively, setting back her spectacles +from her postal duties;--"these 'ere grave widowers are allers the first +to pop off, and git married." + +"Tourtelot!" said the dame, on a January night, when the evidence had +come in overwhelmingly,--"Tourtelot! what does it all mean?" + +"D'n' know," says the Deacon, stirring his flip,--"d'n' know. It's my +opinion the parson has his sly humors about him." + +"Do you think it's true, Samuel?" + +"Waael, Huldy,--I _du_." + +"Tourtelot! finish your flip, and go to bed; it's past ten." + +And the Deacon went. + + +XIV + +Toward the latter end of the winter there arrived at the parsonage the +new mistress,--in the person of Miss Eliza Johns, the elder sister of +the incumbent, and a spinster of the ripe age of three-and-thirty. For +the last twelve years she had maintained a lonely, but matronly, command +of the old homestead of the late Major Johns, in the town of Canterbury. +She was intensely proud of the memory of her father, and of _his_ father +before him,--every inch a Johns. No light cause could have provoked her +to a sacrifice of the name; and of weightier causes she had been spared +the trial. The marriage of her brother had always been more or less a +source of mortification to her. The Handbys, though excellent plain +people, were of no particular distinction. Rachel had a pretty face, +with which Benjamin had grown suddenly demented. That source of +mortification and of disturbed intimacy was now buried in the grave. +Benjamin had won a reputation for dignity and ability which was +immensely gratifying to her. She had assured him of it again and again +in her occasional letters. The success of his Election Sermon had been +an event of the greatest interest to her, which she had expressed in an +epistle of three pages, with every comma in its place, and full of +gratulations. Her commas were _always_ in place; so were her stops of +all kinds: her precision was something marvellous. This precision had +enabled her to manage the little property which had been left her in +such a way as to maintain always about her establishment an air of +well-ordered thrift. She concealed adroitly all the shifts--if there +were any--by which she avoided the reproach of seeming poor. + +In person she was not unlike her father, the Major,--tall, erect, with a +dignified bearing, and so trim a figure, and so elastic a step even at +her years, as would have provoked an inquisitive follower to catch sight +of the face. This was by no means attractive. Her features were thin, +her nose unduly prominent; and both eye and mouth, though well formed, +carried about them a kind of hard positiveness that would have +challenged respect, perhaps, but no warmer feeling. Two little curls +were flattened upon either temple; and her neck-tie, dress, gloves, hat, +were always most neatly arranged, and ordered with the same precision +that governed all her action. In the town of Canterbury she was an +institution. Her charities and all her religious observances were +methodical, and never omitted. Her whole life, indeed, was a discipline. +Without any great love for children, she still had her Bible-class; and +it was rare that the weather or any other cause forbade attendance upon +its duties. Nor was there one of the little ones who listened to that +clear, sharp, metallic voice of hers but stood in awe of her; not one +that could say she was unkind; not one who had ever bestowed a childish +gift upon her,--such little gifts as children love to heap on those who +have found the way to their hearts. + +Sentiment had never been effusive in her; and it was now limited to +quick sparkles, that sometimes flashed into a page of her reading. As +regarded the serious question of marriage, implying a home, position, +the married dignities, it had rarely disturbed her; and now her +imaginative forecast did not grapple it with any vigor or longing. If, +indeed, it had been possible that a man of high standing, character, +cultivation,--equal, in short, to the Johnses in every way,--should woo +her with pertinacity, she might have been disposed to yield a dignified +assent, but not unless he could be made to understand and adequately +appreciate the immense favor she was conferring. In short, the suitor +who could abide and admit her exalted pretensions, and submit to them, +would most infallibly be one of a character and temper so far inferior +to her own that she would scorn him from the outset. This dilemma, +imposed by the rigidity of her smaller dignities, that were never +mastered or overshadowed either by her sentiment or her passion, not +only involved a life of celibacy, but was a constant justification of +it, and made it eminently easy to be borne. There are not a few maiden +ladies who are thus lightered over the shoals of a solitary existence by +the buoyancy of their own intemperate vanities. + +Miss Johns did not accept the invitation of her brother to undertake the +charge of his household without due consideration. She by no means left +out of view the contingency of his possible future marriage; but she +trusted largely to her own influences in making it such a one, if +inevitable, as should not be discreditable to the family name. And under +such conditions she would retire with serene contentment to her own more +private sphere of Canterbury,--or, if circumstances should demand, would +accept the position of guest in the house of her brother. Nor did she +leave out of view her influence in the training of the boy Reuben. She +cherished her own hopes of moulding him to her will, and of making him a +pride to the family. + +There was of course prodigious excitement in the parsonage upon her +arrival. Esther had done her best at all household appliances, whether +of kitchen or chamber. The minister received her with his wonted +quietude, and a brotherly kiss of salutation. Reuben gazed wonderingly +at her, and was thinking dreamily if he should ever love her, while he +felt the dreary rustle of her black silk dress swooping round as she +stooped to embrace him. "I hope Master Reuben is a good boy," said she; +"your Aunt Eliza loves all good boys." + +He had nothing to say; but only looked back into that cold gray eye, as +she lifted his chin with her gloved hand. + +"Benjamin, there's a strong look of the Handbys; but it's your forehead. +He's a little man, I hope," and she patted him on the head. + +Still Reuben looked--wonderingly--at her shining silk dress, at her hat, +at the little curls on either temple, at the guard-chain which hung from +her neck with a glittering watch-key upon it, at the bright buckle in +her belt, and most of all at the gray eye which seemed to look on him +from far away. And with the same stare of wonderment, he followed her up +and down throughout the house. + +At night, Esther, who has a chamber near him, creeps in to say +good-night to the lad, and asks,-- + +"Do you like her, Ruby, boy? Do you like your Aunt Eliza?" + +"I d'n know," says Reuben, "She says she likes good boys; don't you like +bad uns, Esther?" + +"But you're not _very_ bad," says Esther, whose orthodoxy does not +forbid kindly praise. + +"Didn't mamma like bad uns, Esther?" + +"Dear heart!" and the good creature gives the boy a great hug; it could +not have been warmer, if he had been her child. + +The household speedily felt the presence of the new comer. Her +precision, her method, her clear, sharp voice,--never raised in anger, +never falling to tenderness,--ruled the establishment. Under all the +cheeriness of the old management, there had been a sad lack of any +economic system, by reason of which the minister was constantly +overrunning his little stipend, and making awkward appeals from time to +time to the Parish Committee for advances. A small legacy that had +befallen the late Mrs. Johns, and which had gone to the purchase of the +parsonage, had brought relief at a very perplexing crisis; but against +all similar troubles Miss Johns set her face most resolutely. There was +a daily examination of butchers' and grocers' accounts, that had been +previously unknown to the household. The kitchen was placed under strict +regimen, into the observance of which the good Esther slipped, not so +much from love of it, as from total inability to cope with the magnetic +authority of the new mistress. Nor was she harsh in her manner of +command. + +"Esther, my good woman, it will be best, I think, to have breakfast a +little more promptly,--at half past six, we will say,--so that prayers +may be over and the room free by eight; the minister, you know, must +have his morning in his study undisturbed." + +"Yes, Marm," says Esther; and she would as soon have thought of flying +over the house-top in her short gown as of questioning the plan. + +Again, the mistress says,--"Larkin, I think it would be well to take up +those scattered bunches of lilies, and place them upon either side of +the walk in the garden, so that the flowers may be all together." + +"Yes, Marm," says Larkin. + +And much as he had loved the little woman now sleeping in her grave, who +had scattered flowers with an errant fancy, he would have thought it +preposterous to object to an order so calmly spoken, so evidently +intended for execution. There was something in the tone of Miss Johns in +giving directions that drew off all moral power of objection as surely +as a good metallic conductor would free an overcharged cloud of its +electricity. + +The parishioners were not slow to perceive that new order prevailed at +the quiet parsonage. Curiosity, no less than the staid proprieties which +governed the action of the chief inhabitants, had brought them early +into contact with the new mistress. She received all with dignity and +with an exactitude of deportment that charmed the precise ones and that +awed the younger folks. The bustling Dame Tourtelot had come among the +earliest, and her brief report was,--"Tourtelot, Miss Johns's as smart +as a steel trap." + +Nor was the spinster sister without a degree of cultivation which +commended her to the more intellectual people of Ashfield. She was a +reader of "Rokeby" and of Miss Austen's novels, of Josephus and of +Rollin's "Ancient History." The Miss Hapgoods, who were the +blue-stockings of the place, were charmed to have such an addition to +the cultivated circle of the parish. To make the success of Miss Johns +still more decided, she brought with her a certain knowledge of the +conventionalisms of the city, by reason of her occasional visits to her +sister Mabel, (now Mrs. Brindlock of Greenwich Street,) which to many +excellent women gave larger assurance of her position and dignity than +all besides. Before the first year of her advent had gone by, it was +quite plain that she was to become one of the prominent directors of the +female world of Ashfield. + +Only in the parsonage itself did her influence find its most serious +limitations,--and these in connection with the boy Reuben. + + +XV. + +There is a deep emotional nature in the lad, which, by the time he has +reached his eighth year,--Miss Eliza having now been in the position of +mistress of the household a twelvemonth,--works itself off in explosive +tempests of feeling, with which the prim spinster has but faint +sympathy. No care could be more studious and complete than that with +which she looks after the boy's wardrobe and the ordering of his little +chamber; his supply of mittens, of stockings, and of underclothing is +always of the most ample; nay, his caprices of the table are not wholly +overlooked, and she hopes to win upon him by the dishes that are most +toothsome; but, however grateful for the moment, his boyish affections +can never make their way with any force or passionate flow through the +stately proprieties of manner with which the spinster aunt is always +hedged about. + +He wanders away after school-hours to the home of the Elderkins,--Phil +and he being sworn friends, and the good mother of Phil always having +ready for him a beaming look of welcome and a tender word or two that +somehow always find their way straight to his heart. He loiters with +Larkin, too, by the great stable-yard of the inn, though it is forbidden +ground. He breaks in upon the precise woman's rule of punctuality sadly; +many a cold dish he eats sulkily,--she sitting bolt upright in her place +at the table, looking down at him with glances which are every one a +punishment. Other times he is straying in the orchard at the hour of +some home-duty, and the active spinster goes to seek him, and not +threateningly, but with an assured step and a firm grip upon the hand of +the loiterer, which he knows not whether to count a favor or a +punishment, (and she as much at a loss, so inextricably interwoven are +her notions of duty and of kindness,) leads him homeward, plying him +with stately precepts upon the sin of negligence, and with earnest story +of the dreadful fate which is sure to overtake all bad boys who do not +obey and keep "by the rules"; and she instances those poor lads who were +eaten by the bears, of whom she has read to him the story in the Old +Testament. + +"Who was it they called 'bald-head,' Reuben? Elisha or Elijah?" + +He, in no mood for reply, is sulkily beating off the daisies with his +feet, as she drags him on; sometimes hanging back, with impotent, yet +concealed struggle, which she--not deigning to notice--overcomes with +even sharper step, and plies him the more closely with the dire results +of badness,--has not finished her talk, indeed, when they reach the +door-step and enter. There he, fuming now with that long struggle, +fuming the more because he has concealed it, makes one violent +discharge with a great frown on his little face, "You're an ugly old +thing, and I don't like you one bit!" + +Esther, good soul, within hearing of it, lifts her hands in apparent +horror, but inwardly indulges in a wicked chuckle over the boy's spirit. + +But the minister has heard him, too, and gravely summons the offender +into his study. + +"My son, Reuben, this is very wrong." + +And the boy breaks into a sob at this stage, which is a great relief. + +"My boy, you ought to love your aunt." + +"Why ought I?" says he. + +"Why? why? Don't you know she's very good to you, and takes excellent +care of you, and hears you say your catechism every Saturday? You ought +to love her." + +"But I can't make myself love her, if I don't," says the boy. + +"It is your duty to love her, Reuben; and we can all do our duty." + +Even the staid clergyman enjoys the boy's discomfiture under so orthodox +a proposition. Miss Johns, however, breaks in here, having overheard the +latter part of the talk:-- + +"No, Benjamin, I wish no love that is given from a sense of duty. Reuben +sha'n't be forced into loving his Aunt Eliza." + +And there is a subdued tone in her speech which touches the boy. But he +is not ready yet for surrender; he watches gravely her retirement, and +for an hour shows a certain preoccupation at his play; then his piping +voice is heard at the foot of the stairway,-- + +"Aunt Eliza! Are you there?" + +"Yes, Master Reuben!" + +Master! It cools somewhat his generous intent; but he is in for it; and +he climbs the stair, sidles uneasily into the chamber where she sits at +her work, stealing a swift, inquiring look into that gray eye of hers,-- + +"I say--Aunt Eliza--I'm sorry I said that--you know what." + +And he looks up with a little of the old yearning,--the yearning he used +to feel when another sat in that place. + +"Ah, that is right, Master Reuben! I hope we shall be friends, now." + +Another disturbed look at her,--remembering the time when he would have +leaped into a mother's arms, after such struggle with his self-will, and +found gladness. That is gone; no swift embrace, no tender hand toying +with his hair, beguiling him from play. And he sidles out again, half +shamefaced at a surrender that has wrought so little. Loitering, and +playing with the balusters as he descends, the swift, keen voice comes +after him,-- + +"Don't soil the paint, Reuben!" + +"I haven't." + +And the swift command and as swift retort put him in his old, wicked +mood again, and he breaks out into a defiant whistle. (Over and over the +spinster has told him it was improper to whistle in-doors.) Yet, with a +lingering desire for sympathy, Reuben makes his way into his father's +study; and the minister lays down his great folio,--it is Poole's +"Annotations,"--and says,-- + +"Well, Reuben!" + +"I told her I was sorry," says the boy; "but I don't believe she likes +me much." + +"Why, my son?" + +"Because she called me Master, and said it was very proper." + +"But doesn't that show an interest in you?" + +"I don't know what interest is." + +"It's love." + +"Mamma never called me Master," said Reuben. + +The grave minister bites his lip, beckons his boy to him,--"Here, my +son!"--passes his arm around him, had almost drawn him to his heart,-- + +"There, there, Reuben; leave me now; I have my sermon to finish. I hope +you won't be disrespectful to your aunt again. Shut the door." + +And the minister goes back to his work, ironly honest, mastering his +sensibilities, tearing great gaps in his heart, even as the anchorites +once fretted their bodies with hair-cloth and scourgings. + +In the summer of 1828 Mr. Johns was called upon to preach a special +discourse at the Commencement exercises of the college from which he +had received his degree; and so sterlingly orthodox was his sermon, at a +crisis when some sister colleges were bolstering up certain new +theological tenets which had a strong taint of heresy, that the old +gentlemen who held rank as fellows of his college, in a burst of zeal, +bestowed upon the worthy man the title of D. D. It was not an honor he +had coveted; indeed, he coveted no human honors; yet this was more +wisely given than most: his dignity, his sobriety, his rigid, complete +adherence to all the accepted forms of religious belief made him a safe +recipient of the title. + +The spinster sister, with an ill-concealed pride, was most zealous in +the bestowal of it; and before a month had passed, she had forced it +into current use throughout the world of Ashfield. + +Did a neglectful neighbor speak of the good health of "Mr. Johns," the +mistress of the parsonage said,--"Why, yes, the Doctor is working very +hard, it is true; but he is quite well; the Doctor is remarkably well." + +Did a younger church-sister speak in praise of some late sermon of "the +minister," Miss Eliza thanked her in a dignified way, and was sure "the +Doctor" would be most happy to hear that his efforts were appreciated. + +As for Larkin and Esther, who stumbled dismally over the new title, the +spinster plied them urgently. + +"Esther, my good woman, make the Doctor's tea very strong to-night." + +"Larkin, the Doctor won't ride to-day; and mind, you must cut the wood +for the Doctor's fire a little shorter." + +Reuben only rebelled, with the mischief of a boy:-- + +"What for do you call papa Doctor? He don't carry saddle-bags." + +To the quiet, staid man himself it was a wholly indifferent matter. In +the solitude of his study, however, it recalled a neglected duty, and in +so far seemed a blessing. By such paltry threads are the colors woven +into our life! It recalled his friend Maverick and his jaunty +prediction; and upon that came to him a recollection of the promise +which he had made to Rachel, that he would write to Maverick. + +So the minister wrote, telling his old friend what grief had stricken +his house,--how his boy and he were left alone,--how the church, by +favor of Providence, had grown under his preaching,--how his sister had +come to be mistress of the parsonage,--how he had wrought the Master's +work in fear and trembling; and after this came godly counsel for the +exile. + +He hoped that light had shone upon him, even in the "dark places" of +infidel France,--that he was not alienated from the faith of his +fathers,--that he did not make a mockery, as did those around him, of +the holy institution of the Sabbath. + +"My friend," he wrote, "God's word is true; God's laws are just; He will +come some day in a chariot of fire. Neither moneys nor high places nor +worldly honors nor pleasures can stay or avert the stroke of that sword +of divine justice which will 'pierce even to the dividing asunder of the +joints and marrow.' Let no siren voices beguile you. Without the gift of +His grace who died that we might live, there is no hope for kings, none +for you, none for me. I pray you consider this, my friend; for I speak +as one commissioned of God." + +Whether these words of the minister were met, after their transmission +over seas, with a smile of derision,--with an empty gratitude, that +said, "Good fellow!" and forgot their burden,--with a stitch of the +heart, that made solemn pause and thoughtfulness, and short, in struggle +against the habit of a life, we will not say; our story may not tell, +perhaps. But to the mind of the parson it was clear that at some great +coming day it _would_ be known of all men where the seed that he had +sown had fallen,--whether on good ground or in stony places. + +The cross-ocean mails were slow in those days; and it was not until +nearly four months after the transmission of the Doctor's letter--he +having almost forgotten it--that Reuben came one day bounding in from +the snow in mid-winter, his cheeks aflame with the keen, frosty air, his +eyes dancing with boyish excitement:-- + +"A letter, papa! a letter!--and Mr. Troop" (it is the new postmaster +under the Adams dynasty) "says it came all the way from Europe. It's got +a funny post-mark." + +The minister lays down his book,--takes the letter,--opens +it,--reads,--paces up and down the study thoughtfully,--reads again, to +the end. + +"Reuben, call your Aunt Eliza." + +There is matter in the letter that concerns her,--that in its issues +will concern the boy,--that may possibly give a new color to the life of +the parsonage, and a new direction to our story. + + + + +OUR FIRST CITIZEN.[A] + + + Winter's cold drift lies glistening o'er his breast; + For him no spring shall bid the leaf unfold: + What Love could speak, by sudden grief oppressed, + What swiftly summoned Memory tell, is told. + + Even as the bells, in one consenting chime, + Filled with their sweet vibrations all the air, + So joined all voices, in that mournful time, + His genius, wisdom, virtues, to declare. + + What place is left for words of measured praise, + Till calm-eyed History, with her iron pen, + Grooves in the unchanging rock the final phrase + That shapes his image in the souls of men? + + Yet while the echoes still repeat his name, + While countless tongues his full-orbed life rehearse, + Love, by his beating pulses taught, will claim + The breath of song, the tuneful throb of verse,-- + + Verse that, in ever-changing ebb and flow, + Moves, like the laboring heart, with rush and rest, + Or swings in solemn cadence, sad and slow, + Like the tired heaving of a grief-worn breast. + + This was a mind so rounded, so complete,-- + No partial gift of Nature in excess,-- + That, like a single stream where many meet, + Each separate talent counted something less. + + A little hillock, if it lonely stand, + Holds o'er the fields an undisputed reign; + While the broad summit of the table-land + Seems with its belt of clouds a level plain. + + Servant of all his powers, that faithful slave, + Unsleeping Memory, strengthening with his toils, + To every ruder task his shoulder gave, + And loaded every day with golden spoils. + + Order, the law of Heaven, was throned supreme + O'er action, instinct, impulse, feeling, thought; + True as the dial's shadow to the beam, + Each hour was equal to the charge it brought. + + Too large his compass for the nicer skill + That weighs the world of science grain by grain; + All realms of knowledge owned the mastering will + That claimed the franchise of his whole domain. + + Earth, air, sea, sky, the elemental fire, + Art, history, song,--what meanings lie in each + Found in his cunning hand a stringless lyre, + And poured their mingling music through his speech. + + Thence flowed those anthems of our festal days, + Whose ravishing division held apart + The lips of listening throngs in sweet amaze, + Moved in all breasts the self-same human heart. + + Subdued his accents, as of one who tries + To press some care, some haunting sadness down; + His smile half shadow; and to stranger eyes + The kingly forehead wore an iron crown. + + He was not armed to wrestle with the storm, + To fight for homely truth with vulgar power; + Grace looked from every feature, shaped his form,-- + The rose of Academe,--the perfect flower! + + Such was the stately scholar whom we knew + In those ill days of soul-enslaving calm, + Before the blast of Northern vengeance blew + Her snow-wreathed pine against the Southern palm. + + Ah, God forgive us! did we hold too cheap + The heart we might have known, but would not see, + And look to find the nation's friend asleep + Through the dread hour of her Gethsemane? + + That wrong is past; we gave him up to Death + With all a hero's honors round his name; + As martyrs coin their blood, he coined his breath, + And dimmed the scholar's in the patriot's fame. + + So shall we blazon on the shaft we raise,-- + Telling our grief, our pride, to unborn years,-- + "He who had lived the mark of all men's praise + Died with the tribute of a nation's tears." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[A] Read at the meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Jan. +30, 1865. + + + + +NEEDLE AND GARDEN + +THE STORY OF A SEAMSTRESS WHO LAID DOWN HER NEEDLE AND BECAME A +STRAWBERRY-GIRL. + +WRITTEN BY HERSELF. + + +CHAPTER IV. + +I quitted the sewing-school on a Friday evening, intending to put my +things in order the following day: for Monday was my birthday,--I should +then be eighteen, and was to go with my father and select a +sewing-machine. + +As before mentioned, he had usually employed all his spare time in +winter, when there was no garden-work to be done, in making seines for +the fishermen. These were very great affairs, being used in the +shad-fishery on the Delaware; and as they were many hundred yards in +length, they required a large gang of men to manage them. This +employment naturally brought him an extensive acquaintance among the +fishermen, by whom he was always invited to participate in their first +hauling of the river, at the breaking up of winter. As he was quite as +fond of this exciting labor as we had been of fishing along the ditches, +he never failed to accept these invitations. He not only enjoyed the +sport, but he was anxious to see how well the seines would operate which +he had sat for weeks in making. In addition to this, there was the +further gratification of being asked to accept of as many of the +earliest shad as he could carry away in his hand. It was a perquisite +which we looked for and prized as much as he did himself. This +recreation was of course attended with much exposure, being always +entered on in the gusty, chilly weather of the early spring. + +The morning after my quitting school saw him leaving us by daybreak to +go on one of these fishing-excursions, taking my brother with him. It +was in April, a cold, raw, and blustering time, and they would be gone +all day. I had put my little matters in order,--though there was really +very little to do in this way, as neither my wardrobe nor chamber was +crowded with superfluities,--and having decided among ourselves where +the machine should stand, I sat down with my mother and sister to sew. +The weather had changed to quite a snow-storm, with angry gusts of wind; +but our small sitting-room was warm and cheerful. We drew round the +stove, and discussed the events of the coming week. We were to try the +machine on the work which my mother and sister then had in the +house,--for Jane had long since left school, and was actively employed +at home. She had gone through a similar training with myself. I was to +teach both mother and her the use of the machine; and we had determined, +that, as soon as Jane had become sufficiently expert as an operator, she +was to obtain a situation in some establishment, and our earnings were +to be saved, until, with father's assistance, we could purchase machines +for her and mother. We made up our minds that we could accomplish this +within a year at farthest. Thus there was much before and around us to +cheer our hearts and fill them with the brightest anticipations. It +seemed to me, that, if I had been travelling in a long lane, I was now +approaching a delightful turn,--for it has been said that there is none +so long as to be without one. + +We had dined frugally, as usual, and mother had set away an ample +provision for the two absentees, who invariably came home with great +appetites. Our work had been resumed around the stove, and all was calm +and comfortable within the little sitting-room, though without the wind +had risen higher and the snow fell faster and faster, when the door was +suddenly opened, and as suddenly shut, by the wife of a neighbor, who, +with hands clasped together, as if overcome by some terrible grief, +rushed toward where my mother was sitting, and exclaimed,-- + +"Oh, Mrs. Lacey! how can I tell you?" + +"What is it?" eagerly inquired my mother, starting from her seat, and +casting from her the work on which she had been engaged. "What is it? +Speak! What has happened?" she cried, wild at the woman's apparent +inability to communicate the tidings she had evidently come to relate. + +Regaining her composure in some measure, the latter, covering her face +with her hands, and bursting into tears, sobbed out,-- + +"He's drowned!" + +"Oh! which of them?" shrieked my mother, wringing her hands, and every +vestige of color in her cheeks supplanted by a pallor so frightful that +it struck dismay to my heart. + +A mysterious instinct had warned her, the moment the woman spoke the +first words, that some calamity had overtaken us. + +"Which of them?" she repeated, with frantic impetuosity, "Is it my +husband or my son? Speak! speak! My heart breaks!" + +"Your husband, Mrs. Lacey," the woman replied; and as if relieved from +the crushing burden she had thus transferred from her own spirit to +ours, she sank back exhausted into a chair. + +"Oh! when, where, and how?" demanded my mother. "Are you sure it is +true? Who brought the news?" + +"Your own son, Ma'am; he sent me here to tell you," answered the woman. + +The door opened at the moment, and Fred, accompanied by several of the +neighbors, entered the room. Crying as if his heart would break, he +called out,-- + +"Oh, mother! it's too true,--father is gone!" + +This confirmation of the withering blow broke her down. I saw that she +was tottering to a fall, and threw my arms round her just in time to +prevent it. We laid her on the settee, insensible to everything about +her. + +As the news of our great bereavement spread, the neighbors crowded in, +offering their sympathy and aid. It was very kind of them, but, alas! +could do nothing towards lightening its weight. The story of how my dear +father came to his untimely end was at length related to us. He had gone +out upon the river in a boat from which a seine was being cast, and by +accident, no one could tell exactly how, had fallen overboard. Being no +swimmer, and the water of icy coldness, he sank immediately, without +again coming to the surface. Strong arms were waiting to seize him, upon +rising, but the deep had closed over him. + +I know not how it was, but the prostration of my poor mother seemed to +give me new strength to bear up under this terrible affliction. Oh! that +was a sad evening for us, and the birthday to which all had looked +forward with so much pleasure as the happiest of my life was to be the +saddest. Morning--it was Sunday--brought comparative calmness to my +mother. But she was broken down by the awful suddenness of the blow. She +wept over the thought that he had died without _her_ being near +him,--that there had been no opportunity for parting words,--that _she_ +was not able to close his dying eyes. She could have borne it better, if +she had been permitted to speak to him, to hear him say farewell, before +death shut out the world from his view. Then there was the painful +anxiety as to recovering the body. It had sunk in deep water, in the +middle of the river, and it was uncertain how far the strong current +might have swept it away from the spot where the accident occurred. The +neighbors had already begun to search for it with drags, and all through +that gloomy Sunday had continued their labor without success; for they +were not watermen, and therefore knew little of the proper methods of +procedure. + +Days passed away in this distressing uncertainty. Our pastor, Mr. +Seeley, missing Fred and Jane from Sunday-school, as well as myself from +the charge of my class, and learning the cause of our absence, came down +to see us. His consolations to my mother, his sympathy, his prayers, +revived and strengthened her. Finding that her immediate anxiety was +about the recovery of the body, he told her that the bodies of drowned +persons were seldom found without a reward being offered for them, and +that one must be promised in the present case. This suggestion brought +up the question of payment, and for the first time in our affliction it +was recollected that my father had always persisted in carrying in his +pocket-wallet all the money he had saved, and thus whatever he might +have accumulated was with him at the time of his death. Following, +nevertheless, the advice of our excellent pastor, a reward of fifty +dollars was advertised, and just one week from the fatal day the body +was brought to our now desolated home. But the wallet, with its +contents, had been abstracted. The little fund my mother had always +managed to keep on hand was too small to meet this heavy draft of the +reward in addition to that occasioned by the funeral, so that, when that +sad ceremony was over, we found ourselves beginning the world that now +opened on us incumbered with a debt of fifty dollars. + +But though borne down by the weight of our affliction, we were far from +being hopelessly discouraged. It is true that my young hopes had been +suddenly blasted. The bright pictures of the future which we had painted +in our little sitting-room the very morning of the day that our calamity +overtook us had all faded from sight, and were remembered only in +contrast with the dark shadows that now filled their places. The cup, +brimming with joyous anticipations, had been dashed from my lips. My +birthday passed in sorrow and gloom. But I roused myself from a torpor +which would have been likely to increase by giving way to it, and put on +all the energy of which I was capable. I felt, that, while I had griefs +for the dead, I had duties to perform to the living. The staff on which +we had mainly leaned for support had been taken away, and we were now +left to depend exclusively on our own exertions. I saw that the +condition of my mother devolved the chief burden on me, and I determined +that I would resolutely assume it. + +I had Fred immediately apprenticed to an iron-founder in the +neighborhood; and thenceforward, by his weekly allowance for board, he +became a contributor to the common support. My knowledge of the +sewing-machine secured for me a situation in a large establishment, in +which more than thirty other girls were employed in making bosoms, +wristbands, and collars for shirts; and I gradually recovered from what +at first was the bitter disappointment of having no machine of my own. + +I have seen it stated in the newspaper, that, when some cotton had been +imported into a certain manufacturing town in England, where all the +mills had long been closed for want of a supply from this country, the +people, who were previously in the greatest distress, went out to meet +it as it was approaching the town, and the women wept over the bales, +and kissed them, and then sang a hymn of thanksgiving for the welcome +importation. It would give them work! It was with a feeling akin to this +that I took my position in the great establishment referred to, having +also succeeded in obtaining a situation for my sister, whom I instructed +in the use of the machine until she became as expert an operator as +myself. + +The certainty of employment, even at moderate wages, relieved my mind of +many domestic cares, while the employment itself was a further relief. +It was, moreover, infinitely more agreeable than working for the +slop-shops, or even for the most fashionable tailors. Our duties were +defined and simple, and there was no unreasonable hurry, and no +night-work: we had our evenings to ourselves. As usual with +sewing-women, the pay was invariably small. The old formula had been +adhered to,--that because the cost of a sewing-woman's board was but +trifling, therefore her wages should be graduated to a figure just above +it. She was not permitted, as men are, to earn too much. My sister and I +were sometimes able to earn eight dollars a week between us, sometimes +only six. But this little income was the stay of the family. And it was +well enough, so long as we had no sickness to interrupt our work and +lessen the moderate sum. + +They paid off the girls by gas-light on Saturday evening. As we had a +long walk to reach home, the streets through which we passed presented, +on that evening, an animated appearance. A vast concourse of work-women, +laborers, mechanics, clerks, and others, who had also received their +weekly wages, thronged the streets. There were crowds of girls from the +binderies, mostly well dressed, and sewing-women carrying great bundles +to the tailors, many of them, without doubt uncertain as to whether +their work would be accepted, just as we had been in former days. As the +evening advanced, the shops of all descriptions for the supply of +family-stores were crowded by the wives of workmen thus paid off, and +the sewing-girls or their mothers, all purchasing necessaries for the +coming week, thus immediately disbursing the vast aggregate paid out on +Saturday for wages. + +The quickness with which I secured employment on the sewing-machine, +because of my having qualified myself to operate it, was a new +confirmation of my idea that women are engaged in so few occupations +only because they have not been taught. Employers want skilful workers, +not novices to whom they are compelled to teach everything. But what was +to be the ultimate effect on female labor of the introduction of this +machine had been a doubtful question with me until now, I worked so +steadily in this establishment, the occupation was so constant, as well +as so light, with far more bodily exercise than formerly when sitting in +one position over the needle, and the wages were paid so punctually, +with no mean attempts to cut us down on the false plea of imperfect +work, that I came insensibly to the conclusion that a vast benefit had +been conferred on the sex by its introduction. Yet the apprehensions +felt by all sewing-women, when the new instrument was first brought out, +were perfectly natural. I have read that similar apprehensions were +entertained by others on similar occasions. When the lace-machines were +first introduced in Nottingham, they were destroyed by riotous mobs of +hand-loom weavers, who feared the ruin of their business. But where, +fifty years ago, there were but a hundred and forty lace-machines in use +in England, there are now thirty-five hundred, while the price of lace +has fallen from a hundred shillings the square yard to sixpence. Before +this lace-machinery was invented, England manufactured only two million +dollars' worth per annum, and in doing so employed only eight +thousand-hands; whereas now she produces thirty million dollars' worth +annually, and employs a hundred and thirty thousand hands. It has been +the same with power-looms, reapers, threshing-machines, and every other +contrivance to economize human labor. I am sure that my brother would be +thrown out of employment, if there were no steam-engine to operate the +foundry where he is at work, and that, if there were no sewing-machines, +my sister and myself would be compelled to join the less fortunate army +of seamstresses who still labor so unrequitedly for the slop-shops. + +To satisfy my mind on this subject, I have looked into such books as I +have had time and opportunity to consult, and have found evidence of the +fact, that, the more we increase our facilities for performing work with +speed and cheapness, the more we shall have to do, and so the more hands +will be required to do it. The time was when it was considered so great +an undertaking for a man to farm a hundred acres, that very few persons +were found cultivating a larger tract. But now, with every farming +process facilitated by the use of labor-saving machines, there are farms +of ten thousand acres better managed than were formerly those of only a +hundred acres. There would be no penny paper brought daily to our door, +unless the same wonderful revolution had been made in all the processes +of the paper-mill, and in the speed of printing-presses. If I had +doubted what was to be the consequence of bringing machinery into +competition with the sewing-women, it was owing to my utter ignorance of +how other great revolutions had affected the labor of different classes +of workers. + +This doubt thus satisfactorily resolved, it very soon became with me a +question for profound wonder, what became of the immensely increased +quantity of clothing which was manufactured by so many thousands of +machines. I could not learn that our population had suddenly increased +to an extent sufficient to account for the enlarged consumption that was +evidently taking place. I had heard that there were nations of savages +who considered shirts a sort of superfluity, and who moved about in very +much the same costume as that in which our primal mother clothed herself +just previously to indulging in the forbidden fruit. But they could not +have thus suddenly taken to the wearing of machine-made shirts. There +was a paragraph also in our paper which stated that the usual dress in +hot weather, in some parts of our own South, was only a hat and spurs. +This, however, I regarded as a piece of raillery, and was not inclined +to place much faith in it. But I had never heard that any other portion +of our people were in the habit of going without shirts or pantaloons. +If such had been the practice, and if it had on the instant been +renounced, it would have accounted for the sudden and unprecedented +demand which now sprang up for these indispensable articles of dress. Or +if the fashion had so changed that men had taken to wearing two shirts +instead of one, that also might account for it,--though the wearing of +two would be considered as great an eccentricity as the wearing of none. + +I found that others with whom I conversed on the subject were equally +surprised with myself. Even some who were concerned in carrying on the +establishment in which we were employed could not account for the +immediate absorption of the vastly increased quantities of work that +were turned out. Few could tell exactly why more was wanted than +formerly, nor where it went. The only fact apparent was that there was a +demand for thrice as much as before sewing-machines were brought into +use. My own conclusion was eventually this,--that distant sections of +our country were supplied exclusively from these manufactories in the +great cities, which combined capital, energy, and enterprise in the +creation of an immense business. Yet I could not understand why people +in those distant sections did not establish manufactories of their own. +They had quite as much capital, and could procure machines as readily, +while the population to be supplied was immediately at their doors. + +I had always heard that the South and West had never at any time +manufactured their own clothing. I knew that the Southern women, +particularly, were so ignorant and helpless that they had always been +dependent on the North for almost everything they wore, from the most +elaborate bonnet down to a pocket pin-cushion, and that the supplying of +their wardrobes, by the men-milliners of this section, was a highly +lucrative employment. As it is a difficult matter to divert any business +from a channel in which it has long flowed, I concluded that our +Northern dealers, having always commanded these distant markets, would +easily retain them by adapting their business to the change of +circumstances. They had the trade already, and could keep it flowing in +its old channels by promptly availing themselves of the new invention. + +They did so without hesitation,--indeed, the great struggle was as to +who should be first to do it,--and not only kept their business, but +obtained for it an unprecedented increase. In doing this they must have +displaced thousands of sewing-women all over the country, as their +cheaper fabrics enabled them to undersell the latter everywhere. I know +that this was the first effect here, and it is difficult to understand +how in other places it should have been otherwise. These sewing-women +must have been deprived of work, or the consumers of clothing must have +immediately begun to purchase and wear double or treble as much as they +had been accustomed to. I do not doubt that the consumption increased +from the mere fact of increased cheapness. I believe it is an invariable +law of trade, that consumption increases as price diminishes. If silks +were to fall to a shilling a yard, everybody would turn away from cotton +shirts. As it was, shirts were made without collars, and the collars +were produced in great manufactories by steam. They were made by +millions, and by millions they were consumed. They were sold in boxes of +a dozen or a hundred, at two or three cents apiece, according to the +wants of the buyer. He could appear once or twice a day in all the glory +of an apparently clean shirt, according to his ambition to shine in a +character which might be a very new one. Judging by the consumption of +these conveniences, it would seem, that, if one had only a clean collar +to display, it was of little consequence whether he had a shirt or not. + +To digress a moment, I will observe, that, when I first saw these +ingenious contrivances to escape the washerwoman's bill, as well as the +cuffs made by the same process for ladies' use, they both struck me so +favorably, while their cheapness was so surprising, that my curiosity +was inflamed to see and know how they were made. In company with my +sister, I visited the manufactory. It was in a large building, and +employed many hands, who operated with machinery that exceeds my ability +to describe. They took a whole piece of thin, cheap muslin, to each side +of which they pasted a covering of the finest white paper by passing the +three layers between iron rollers. The paper and muslin were in rolls +many hundred feet long. The beautiful product of this union was then +parted into strips of the proper width and dried, then passed through +hot metal rollers, combining friction with pressure, whence it was +delivered with a smooth, glossy, enamelled surface. The material for +many thousand collars was thus enamelled in five minutes. It was then +cut by knives into the different shapes and sizes required, and so +rapidly that a man and boy could make more than ten thousand in an hour. +Every collar was then put through a machine which printed upon it +imitation stitches, so exactly resembling the best work of a +sewing-machine as to induce the belief that the collar was actually +stitched. Two girls were working or attending two of these machines, and +the two produced nearly a hundred collars per minute, or about sixty +thousand daily. The button-holes were next punched with even greater +rapidity, then the collar was turned over so nicely that no break +occurred in the material. Then they were counted and put in boxes, and +were ready for market. + +Besides these shirt-collars, there was a great variety of ladies' worked +cuffs and collars, adapted to every taste, and imitating the finest +linen with the nicest exactness, but all made of paper. Some hundreds of +thousands of these were piled up around, ready for counting and packing, +sufficient, it appeared to me, to supply our whole population for a +twelvemonth. They were sold so cheaply, also, that it cost no more to +buy a new collar than to wash an old one. Like friction-matches, they +were used only once and then thrown away; hence, the consumption being +perpetual, the production was continuous the year round. + +I inquired of the proprietor how he accounted for the immense +consumption of these articles, without which the world had been getting +on comfortably for so many thousand years. + +"Why," said he, "we have been fortunate enough to create a new want. +Perhaps we did not really create the want, but only discovered that an +unsatisfied one existed. It is all the same in either case. Any great +convenience, or luxury, heretofore unknown to the public, when fairly +set before them is sure to come into general use. It has been so, in my +experience, with many things that were not thought of twenty years ago. +I have been as much puzzled to account for the unlimited consumption of +cuffs and collars as you are to know why so much more clothing is used +now than before sewing-machines came into operation. But the increased +cheapness of a thing, whether old or new, and the convenience of getting +it, are the great stimulants to enlarged consumption,--and as these +conditions are present, so will be the latter." + +"But when you began this business, did you expect to sell so many?" I +inquired. + +"We did not," he replied, "and are ourselves surprised at the quantity +we sell. Besides, there are several other factories, which produce +greater numbers than we do. But when I reflect on the extent to which +the business has already gone, I find the facts to be only in keeping +with results in other cases. I have thought and read much on the very +subject which so greatly interests you. Some years ago I was puzzled to +account for the immensely increased circulation of newspapers,--rising, +in some instances, from one thousand up to forty thousand. I knew that +our population had not grown at one tenth that rate, yet the circulation +went on extending. One day I asked a country postmaster how _he_ +accounted for it 'Why,' he replied, 'the question is easily +answered;--where a man formerly took only one paper, he now takes seven. +Cheap postage, and the establishment of news-agents all over the +country, enable the people to get papers at less cost and with only half +the trouble of twenty years ago. The power of production is complete, +and the machinery of distribution has kept pace with it. The people +don't actually need the papers any more now than they did then, but the +convenience of having them brought to their doors induces them to buy +six or seven where they formerly bought only one. That's the way it +happens.'" + +"Then," continued my polite and communicative informant, "look at the +article of pins. You ladies, who use so many more than our sex, have +never been able to tell what becomes of them. You know that of late +years you have been using the American solid-head pins, which were +produced so cheaply as immediately to supersede the foreign article. +Now," said he, with a smile, "don't you think you use up six pins you +formerly used only one? Careful people, twenty years ago, when they saw +one on the pavement, or on the parlor-floor, stopped and picked it up; +but now they pass it by, or sweep it into the dust-pan. Is it not so, +and have not careful people ceased to exist?" + +I confess that the illustration was so full of point that some +indistinct conviction of its truth came over me; it was really my own +experience. + +"So you see," he continued, "that, while of all these new and cheaply +manufactured articles there is a vast consumption, there is also a vast +waste. People--that is, prudent people--generally take care of things +according to their cost. You don't wear your best bonnet in the rain. It +is precisely so with our cuffs and collars. We sell them so cheaply that +some people wear three or four a day, while a careful person would make +one suffice. When the collar was attached to the shirt, it served for a +much longer time; what but cheapness and convenience can tempt to such +wastefulness now? My family, at least the female portion, use these +articles about as extravagantly, and I think your whole sex must be +equally fond of indulging in the same lavish use of them,--otherwise the +consumption could not be so great as you see it is." + +I could not but inwardly plead guilty to this weakness of indulging in +clean cuffs and collars,--neither could I fail to recognize the +soundness of this reasoning, which must have grown out of superior +knowledge. It gave me new light, and settled a great many doubts. + +"I suppose, Miss," he resumed, as if unwilling to leave anything +unexplained, "you use friction-matches at home? Now you know how cheap +they are,--two boxes for a cent. But I remember when one box sold for +twenty-five cents. People were then careful how they used them, and it +was not everybody who could afford to do so. The flint and tinder-box +were long in going out of use. But how is it now? Instead of one match +serving to light a cigar, the smokers use two or three. They waste them +because they are cheap, carrying them loose in their pockets, that they +may always have enough, with some to throw away. + +"Take the article of hoop-skirts. Women did very well without them, and +looked quite as well, at least in my opinion. But some ingenious man +conceived the idea of tempting them with a new want, and they were at +once persuaded into believing that hoop-skirts were indispensable to a +genteel appearance. They were adopted all over the country with a +rapidity that outstripped that of the cuffs and collars,--not, perhaps, +that as many were manufactured, because, if that had been the case, they +could not have been consumed, unless each woman had worn two or three. +And they may in fact wear two or three each,--I don't know how that +is,--but look at the waste already visible. Every week or two, new +patterns are brought out, better, lighter, or prettier than the last; +whereupon the old ones are thrown aside, though not half worn. Why, +Miss, do you know that your sex are carrying about them some thousands +of tons of brass and steel in the shape of these skirts? As to the +waste, it is already so large as to have become a public nuisance. An +old hat or shoe may be given away to somebody,--an old scrubbing-brush +may be disposed of by putting it into the stove; but as to an old skirt, +who wants it? You cannot burn it; the very beggars will not take it; and +hence it is thrown into the street, or into the alley close to your +door, where it continues for months to trip up the feet of every +wayfaring man quite as provokingly as it sometimes tripped up those of +the wearer. It is the waste of hoop-skirts, as much as anything else, +that keeps the manufacture so brisk. + +"Then, again," he continued, as if expanded by the skirts he had just +been speaking of, "look at the long dresses which the ladies now wear. +See how the most costly stuffs are dragging over the pavement, sweeping +up the filth with which it is covered. To speak of the foul condition +into which such draggletailed dresses must soon get is positively +sickening. If a dozen of them were thrown into a closet and left there +for a few hours, I have no doubt they would burn of spontaneous +combustion." + +I was half inclined to take fire myself at hearing this, but remained +silent, and he proceeded. + +"See, too, what a constant fidget the wearers are in, under the +incumbrance of a dress so foolishly long as to require the use of both +hands to keep it at a cleanly elevation. I presume the ladies wear these +ridiculous trains because they think they look more graceful in them. +But do you know, Miss, that our sex feel the most profound contempt for +a woman who is so weak as to make such an exhibition of folly? It might +do for great people, at a great party,--but in dirty, sloppy, muddy +streets, by servant-girls as well as by fashionable women, it is +considered not only indecent, but as evincing a want of common sense. +Moreover, the quantity of material destroyed by thus dragging over the +pavement is very great. It must amount to thousands of yards annually, +and it appears to me that the more it costs per yard, the more of it is +devoted to street-sweeping. Here is wastefulness by wholesale." + +"But do you think the same remarks apply to the case of the greatly +increased amount of clothing that is now manufactured by the +sewing-machines?" I inquired. + +"Certainly, Miss," he responded. "There are not a great many more +people in this country now to be clothed than there were three years +ago; yet at least three times as much clothing is manufactured. The +question is as to how it is consumed. I do not suppose that men wear two +coats or shirts, or that any ever went without them. But the increased +cheapness has led to increased waste, exactly as in the case of pins and +matches. Clothing being obtainable at lower prices than were ever known +before in this country, it is purchased in unnecessary quantities, just +like the newspapers, and not taken care of. Thousands of men now have +two or three coats where they formerly had only one. It is these extra +outfits, and this continual waste, that keep up the production at which +you are so much astonished. The facts afford you another illustration of +the great law of supply and demand,--that as you cheapen and multiply +products or manufactures of any kind, so will the consumption of them +increase. If pound-cake could be had at the price of corn-bread, does it +not strike you that the community would consume little else? The cry for +pound-cake would be universal,--it would be, in fact, in everybody's +mouth." + +"But," I again inquired, "will this extraordinary demand for the +products of the sewing-machine continue? I have told you that I am a +sewing-girl, and hence feel a deep interest in learning all I can upon +the subject." + +"Judging from appearances, it must," was his reply. "We are the most +extravagant people in the world. We consume, per head, more coffee, tea, +and sugar, jewelry, silks, and cotton, than the people of any other +country on the face of the earth. Our women wear more satins and laces, +and our men smoke more high-priced cigars, than those of any other part +of the world. They eat more meat, drink more liquor, and spend more in +trifles. And it is not likely that they contemplate any reformation of +these lavish habits, at least while wages keep up to the present rates. +Were it proposed, I think that coats and shirts would be about the last +things the men would begin with, and paper cuffs and collars among the +last the women would repudiate. They are fond enough of changing their +clothes, but have no idea of doing without them." + +"I notice," I observed, "that you employ girls in your establishment, +several being occupied in feeding the stamping-rollers. Could a man feed +those rollers more efficiently than a girl? or would they turn out more +work in a week, if attended by a man than by a girl?" + +"Not any more," he answered. + +"Do the girls receive as much wages as the men?" I added. + +"About one third as much," he replied. + +"But," I suggested, "if they perform as much work as men could, why do +you pay them so much less?" + +"Competition, Miss," he answered, "There is a constant pressure on us +from girls seeking employment, and this keeps down wages. Besides, those +whom we do employ come here wholly ignorant of what they are required to +do. Some have never worked a day in their lives. It requires time to +teach them, and while being taught they spoil a great deal of material. +It is a long time before they become really skilled hands. You can have +no conception of the kind of help that offers itself to us every week. +Parents don't seem to educate their daughters to anything useful; and +our girls nowadays appear to have little or nothing to do in-doors. +Formerly they had plenty of household duties, as a multitude of things +were done at home which even the poorest old woman never thinks of doing +now. The baker now makes their bread; the spinning, the weaving, the +knitting, and sewing are taken out of their hands by machinery; and if +women want to work, they must go out and seek it, just as those do who +apply to us. Machinery has undoubtedly effected a great revolution in +all home-employments for women, compelling many to be idle; and not +being properly encouraged to adopt new employments in place of the old +ones, they remain idle until forced to work for bread, and then go out +in search of occupation, knowing no more of one half the things we want +them to do than mere children." + +"But when they become skilled," I again asked, "you do not pay them as +high wages as you pay the men, though they do as much and as well?" + +"Women don't need as much," he replied. "They can live on less, they pay +less board, have fewer wants, and less occasion for money." + +"But don't you think," I rejoined, "that, if you gave them the money, +they would find the wants, and that the scarcity of the former is the +true reason for the limitation of the latter? Do not working-women live +on the little they get only because they are compelled to?" + +"It may be so," he answered. "Our wants are born with us,--and as one +set is supplied, another rises up to demand gratification. But they +offer to work for these wages, and why should we give them more than +they ask?" + +"But how is it with the women with families, the widows?" I suggested. +"Have they no more wants than young girls? If the fewer necessities of +the girls be a reason for giving them low wages, why should not the more +numerous ones of the widows be as potent a reason for giving them better +wages?" + +"Competition again, Miss," he responded. "The prices at which the girls +work govern the market." + +There was no getting over facts like these. Let me look at the subject +in whatever aspect I might, it seemed impossible that female labor +should be adequately paid by any class of employers. But on the present +occasion this was an incidental question. The primary one, why so much +more sewing was required for the people now than formerly, was answered +measurably to my satisfaction. I thought a great deal on this subject, +because now, since the loss of our main family-dependence, I was more +interested in its solution. I think I settled down into accepting the +foregoing facts and opinions as embodying a satisfactory explanation; +and although not exactly set at ease, yet the conclusion then embraced +has not been changed by any subsequent discovery. + +The gentleman referred to may have been altogether wrong in some parts +of his argument, but I was too little versed in matters of trade, and +the laws of supply and demands to show wherein he was so. It seemed to +me a strange argument, that the consumption of things was to be so +largely attributed to wastefulness. But I suppose this must be what +people call political economy, and how should I be expected to know +anything of that? I knew that in our little family the utmost economy +was practised. I have turned or fixed up the same bonnet as many as four +times, putting on new trimmings at very little expense, and making it +look so different every time that none suspected it of being the old +bonnet altered, while many of my acquaintances admired it as a new one, +some of them even inquiring what it cost, and who was the milliner that +made it. We never thought of giving one away until it had gone through +many such transformations, nor, in fact, until it was actually used up, +at least for me. Even when mine had seen such long and severe service, +my sister Jane fell heir to it, though without knowing it,--for she had +more pride than myself, and was much more particular about her good +looks. Hence, when the thing was at all feasible, my veteran bonnet was +transformed, in private, into a very fair new one for her. She had been +familiar with my head-gear for so many years that I often wondered how +she failed to detect the disguises I put upon it; and I had as much as I +could do to keep from laughing, when I brought to her what we invariably +called her new bonnet. As she grew older, she became more exacting in +her tastes, and at the same time foolishly suspicious of the mysterious +origin of her new bonnets,--just as if they were any worse for my having +worn them for years! I presume her mortification will be extreme, when +she comes to read this. As to old clothes, they were nursed up quite as +carefully, though Jane had her full inheritance of both mine and +mother's. When entirely past service, they were cut up into carpet-rags, +from which we obtained the warmest covering for our floors. Thus +practising no wastefulness ourselves, it was difficult to understand how +the national wastefulness could be great enough to insure the prosperity +of a multitude of extensive manufacturing establishments. But our +premises were very humble ones from which to start an argument of any +description. + +Yet, when the attention of an inquiring mind is directed toward any +given subject, it is astonishing how, if only a little observation is +practised, it will unfold and expand itself. In my walks to and from the +factory there lay numerous open lots or commons, all of which afforded +abundant evidence of the extent to which this public wastefulness was +carried. Heretofore I had passed on without noticing much about them. +But now I observed that they were heaped up with great piles of +coal-ashes, from which cropped out large quantities of the unburnt +mineral, as black and shining as when it came from the mines. There were +thousands of loads of this residuum, in which many hundred tons of pure +coal must have been thus wastefully thrown away. In other parts of the +city the same evidence of carelessness existed, so that the waste of a +single city in the one article of coal must be enormous. Then, over +these commons were scattered, almost daily, the remains of clothing, old +hats, bonnets, and the indestructible hoop-skirts, of which the +collar-maker had complained as being in everybody's way, as much so when +out of use as when in. Somebody had been guilty of wastefulness in thus +casting these things away. But though losses to some, they were gains to +others. By early daylight the rag-pickers came in platoons to gather up +all these waifs. The hats, the bonnets, and the clothing were quickly +appropriated by women and children who had come out of the narrow courts +and hovels of the city in search of what they knew was an every-day +harvest. These small gatherings of the rag-pickers amounted to hundreds +of dollars daily. Then there was another class of searchers after +abandoned treasure, in the persons of other women and children, who, +with pronged or pointed sticks, worked their way into the piles of +ashes, and picked out basketfuls of coal as heavy as they could carry, +and in this laborious way provided themselves with summer and winter +fuel. + +There was living near us a man who made a business of gathering up the +offal of several hundred kitchens in the city, as food for pigs. I know +that he grew rich at this vocation. He lived in a much better house than +ours, and his wife and daughters dressed as expensively as the +wealthiest women. They had a piano, and music in abundance. He had +several carts which were sent on their daily rounds through the city, +collecting the kitchen-waste of boarding-houses, hotels, and private +families. The quantity of good, wholesome food which these carts brought +away to be fed to pigs was incredible. It was a common thing to see +whole loaves of bread taken out of the family swill-tub, with joints of +meat not half eaten, sound vegetables, and fragments of other food, as +palatable and valuable as the portion that had been consumed on the +table. It seemed as if there were hundreds of families who made it a +point never to have food served up a second time. The waste by this +thriftlessness was great. I doubt not that some men must have been kept +poor by such want of proper oversight on the part of their wives, as I +know that it enriched the individual who gathered up the fat crumbs +which fell from their tables. I think it must be quite true that "fat +kitchens make lean wills." + +These slight incidental confirmations of the theory of national +wastefulness came under my daily notice. I had heretofore overlooked +them, but now they attracted my attention. Then I had only to direct my +eye to other and higher fields of observation to be sure that it had +some foundation. The streets, the shop-windows, were eloquent witnesses +for it. The waste of clothing material consequent on the introduction of +hoop-skirts was seen to be prodigious. It was not only the poor thin +body that was now to be covered with finery, but the huge balloon in +which fashion required that that body should be enveloped. I thought, +now that the subject was one for study, that I could see it running +through almost every thing. + +This wastefulness, then, was to be the ground on which the sewing-woman +was to rest her hopes of continued employment. It might be good +holding-ground in times of high general prosperity, when money was +abundant and circulation active; but how would it be when reverses of +any kind overtook the nation? As extravagance was the rule now, it +occurred to me that so would a stringent economy be the rule then, The +old hats that were usually thrown away upon the commons would be +rejuvenated and worn again,--the parsimony of one crisis seeking to make +up for the wastefulness of another; for when a sharp turn of hard times +comes round, everybody takes to economizing. There are older heads and +more observant minds than my own, that must remember how these things +have worked in bygone years. These have had the experience of a whole +lifetime to enable them to judge: I was a mere inquirer on the threshold +of a very brief one. + + * * * * * + +Our employment at the factory kept us comfortable. In time we were able +to earn something more than when we began. Our good pastor had lent us +the money with which to pay the reward for recovering my dear father's +body; and as my mother had a great dread of being in debt, we had +practised a most rigid economy at home in order to save enough to repay +him. This we did, a few dollars at a time, until we had finally paid the +whole. Though he frequently came down to see my mother in her +loneliness, yet he never alluded to the matter of the loan, and actually +declined taking any part of it until it was almost forced upon him. He +even offered, on one occasion, to increase the loan to any extent that +my mother might think necessary for her comfort, and in various ways +manifested a strong disposition to do everything far us that he could. +We had all been favorite pupils in his Sunday school, where I had soon +been promoted to the position of a teacher. Finding, also, that we were +fond of reading, he had lent us books from his own library, and even +invited me to come and select for myself. I sometimes accepted these +invitations, and occasionally chose books on subjects that seemed to +surprise him very much But, after all, are not a few books well chosen +better than a great library? + +The lending of the money at the time we were in so much distress was of +inexpressible value to us. But as every-day life is a leaf in one's +history, so was this pecuniary experience in ours. I had innocently +supposed that the chief value of money was to supply one's own wants, +but I now learned that its highest capacity for good lay in its power of +ministering to the necessities of others. I have read that in prosperity +it is the easiest thing to find a friend; but that in adversity it is of +all things the most difficult. I know that in trouble we often come off +better than we expect, and always better than we deserve. But men of the +noblest dispositions are apt to consider themselves happiest when others +share their happiness with them. Our pastor lent us this little sum of +money at a time when it was of the utmost value to us; but it was done +in a way so hearty, and so unobtrusive, as to add immeasurably to the +obligation. Indeed, I sometimes think that a pecuniary favor which is +granted grudgingly is no favor at all. + +Still, while at work in the factory, there were many things to think of, +and some inconveniences to submit to. The long walks to it were +unpleasant in stormy weather, and occasionally we were compelled to lose +a day or two from this cause. But then the out-door exercise in fine +weather was beneficial to health, and we were spared the public +mortification of carrying great bundles of made-up clothing through the +streets: for, let a sewing-girl feel as independent as she may, she does +not covet the being everywhere known as belonging to that class of +workers. Her bundle is the badge of her profession. My sister had a +great deal of pride on this point. She was extremely nice about her +looks, There was a neat jauntiness in her appearance, of which she +seemed to be fully conscious; and as she grew up to womanhood, I think +it became more apparent in all her actions. She was really a very +attractive girl,--certainly so to me,--and she must have been more so to +the other sex, as I noticed that the men about the establishment were +more courteous to her than they were to me. Even our employer treated +her with a deferential politeness that he did not extend to others, and +when paying us our wages, always had a complimentary remark for Jane, as +if seeking to win the good opinion of one who seemed to be a general +favorite. + +But I confess that during all the time we were working in the factory I +sighed for the possession of a machine of my own, so that I could be +more at home with my mother in her loneliness: for when we left her in +the morning we carried our dinners with us, leaving her to her own +thoughts during the whole day. The grief at my father's loss had by no +means been overcome, for with all of us it was something more than the +shadow of a passing cloud. Personally, I cared nothing for the carrying +of a bundle through the streets, even though it made proclamation of my +being a sewing-girl. Then as to exercise or recreation, I could have +abundance in the garden. As it was, I still continued to see it kept in +order. Fred was very good in doing all I wanted. He would rise early +before breakfast, and do any digging it required, and in the evening, +after returning from the foundry, would attend to many other things +about it as they needed. I was equally industrious; and now that it was +wholly left for me to see to, my fondness for it increased, while I came +to understand its management more thoroughly than when my father was +sole director. The more I had to do, the more I learned. Then there were +times when I rose in the morning feeling so poorly that it was a tax +upon both spirits and strength to tramp the long distance to the +factory; yet it would have been no hardship to work at a machine at +home, or to do an hour's gardening. I think my earnings could have been +made quite as large as they were at the factory, as the owner of a +machine generally received a little more pay than when working on one +belonging to her employer; and I felt quite sure that there would be no +difficulty in obtaining abundance of work. My doubts on this point had +been pretty well settled. + +But we had no hundred and thirty or forty dollars to lay out for a +machine now, and there was no prospect of our being able to save enough +to purchase one. Hence I never even hinted to my mother what my wishes +were, as it would only be to her a fresh anxiety. I did mention the +subject to my sister, but she did not seem to favor my plans. She was a +great favorite at the factory, and why should not the factory be as +great a favorite with her? I have no doubt that our pastor, who was as +wealthy as he was generous and good, would have promptly loaned us, or +even me, the money; but he had heard nothing of the fact that my +father's sudden death had alone prevented my obtaining a machine, nor +during his frequent visits to our house did we ever mention what we had +then expected or what I now so much desired. Besides, it would be a +great debt, so large that I should have hesitated about incurring it. We +had been a long while in getting clear of the other, and the apparent +hopelessness of discharging one nearly three times as great, and that, +too, from my individual earnings, was such, that in the end I concluded +it would be better for me to avoid the debt by doing without the +machine, than to have it only on condition of buying it on credit. + + + + +MEMORIES OF AUTHORS. + +A SERIES OF PORTRAITS FROM PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE. + + +THEODORE HOOK AND HIS FRIENDS. + +Theodore Edward Hook was born in Charlotte Street, Bedford Square, on +the 22d of September, 1788. His father was an eminent musical composer, +who "enjoyed in his time success and celebrity"; his elder brother James +became Dean of Windsor, whose son is the present learned and eloquent +Dean of Chichester; the mother of both was an accomplished lady, and +also an author. + +His natural talent, therefore, was early nursed. Unfortunately, the +green-room was the too frequent study of the youth; for his father's +fame and income were chiefly derived from the composition of operetta +songs, for which Theodore usually wrote the libretti. When little more +than a boy he had produced perhaps thirty farces, and in 1808 gave birth +to a novel. Those who remember the two great actors of a long period, +Mathews and Liston, will be at no loss to comprehend the popularity of +Hook's farces: for they were his "props." + +In 1812, when his finances were low, and the chances of increasing them +limited, and when, perhaps, also, his constitution had been tried by +"excesses," he received the appointment of Accountant-General and +Treasurer at the Mauritius,--a post with an income of two thousand +pounds a year. Hook seems to have derived his qualifications for this +office from his antipathy to arithmetic and his utter unfitness for +business. + +The result might have been easily foreseen. In 1819 he returned to +England: the cause may be indicated by his very famous pun, when, the +Governor of the Cape having expressed a hope that he was not returning +because of ill health, he was "sorry to say they think there is +something wrong in the _chest_." He was found guilty of owing twelve +thousand pounds to the Government: yet he was "without a shilling in his +pocket." If public funds had been abstracted, he was none the richer, +and there was certainly no suspicion that the money had been dishonestly +advantageous to him. + +Although kept for years in hot water, battling with the Treasury, it was +not until 1823 that the penalty was exacted,--sometime after the "John +Bull" had made him a host of enemies. Of course, as he could not pay in +purse, he was doomed to "pay in person." After spending some months +"pleasantly" at a dreary sponging-house in Shoe Lane, where there was +ever "an agreeable prospect, _barring_ the windows," he was removed to +the "Rules of the Bench," residing there a year, being discharged from +custody in 1825. + +Hook, while in the Rules, was under very little restraint; he was almost +as much in society as ever, taking special care not to be seen by any of +his creditors, who might have pounced upon him and made the Marshal +responsible for the debt. The danger was less in Hook's case than in +that of others, for his principal "detaining creditor" was the King. I +remember his telling me, that, during his "confinement" in the Rules, he +made the acquaintance of a gentleman, who, while a prisoner there, paid +a visit to India. The story is this. The gentleman called one morning on +the Marshal, who said,-- + +"Mr. ----, I have not had the pleasure to see you for a long time." + +"No wonder," was the answer; "for since you saw me last I have been to +India." + +In reply to a look of astonished inquiry, he explained,-- + +"I knew my affairs there were so intricate and involved that no one but +myself could unravel them; so I ran the risk, and took my chance. I am +back with ample funds to pay all my debts, and to live comfortably for +the rest of my days." + +Mr. Hook did not say if the gentleman had obtained from his securities a +license for what he had done; but the anecdote illustrates the extreme +laxity enjoyed by prisoners in the Rules, (which extended to several +streets,) as compared with the doleful incarceration to which _poor_ +debtors were subjected, who in those days often had their miserable home +in a jail for debts that might have been paid by shillings. + +Hook then took up his residence at Putney, from which he afterwards +removed to a "mansion" in Cleveland Street, but subsequently to Fulham, +where the remainder of his life was passed, and where he died. It was a +small, detached cottage. It is of this cottage that Lockhart says, "We +doubt if its interior was ever seen by half a dozen people besides the +old confidential worshippers of Bull's mouth." + +He resided here in comparative obscurity. It gave him a pleasant +prospect of Putney Bridge, and of Putney on the opposite side of the +river. As the Thames flowed past the bottom of his small and narrow +garden, he had a perpetually cheerful and changing view of the many gay +passers-by in small boats, yachts, and steamers. The only room of the +cottage I ever saw was somewhat coarsely furnished: a few prints hung on +the walls, but there was no evidence of those suggestive refinements +which substitute intellectual for animal gratifications, in the internal +arrangements of a domicile that becomes necessarily a workshop. + +Hook's love of practical joking seems to have commenced early. Almost of +that character was his well-known answer to the Vice-Chancellor at +Oxford, when asked whether he was prepared to subscribe to the +Thirty-Nine Articles,--"Certainly, to forty of them, if you please"; and +his once meeting the Proctor dressed in his robes, and being questioned, +"Pray, Sir, are you a member of this University?" he replied, "No, Sir; +pray are you?" + +In the Memoirs of Charles Mathews by his widow abundant anecdotes are +recorded of these practical jokes; but, in fact, "Gilbert Gurney," which +may be regarded as an autobiography, is full of them. Mr. Barham, his +biographer, also relates several, and states, that, when a young man, he +had a "museum" containing a large and varied collection of knockers, +sign-paintings, barbers' poles, and cocked hats, gathered together +during his predatory adventures; but its most attractive object was "a +gigantic Highlander," lifted from the shop-door of a tobacconist on a +dark, foggy night. These "enterprises of great pith and moment" are +detailed by himself in full. The most "glorious" of them has been often +told: how he sent through the post some four thousand letters, inviting +on a given day a huge assemblage of visitors to the house of a lady of +fortune, living at 54, Berners Street. They came, beginning with a dozen +sweeps at daybreak, and including lawyers, doctors, upholsterers, +jewellers, coal-merchants, linen-drapers, artists, even the Lord Mayor, +for whose behoof a special temptation was invented. In a word, there was +no conceivable trade, profession, or calling that was not summoned to +augment the crowd of foot-passengers and carriages by which the street +was thronged from dawn till midnight; while Hook and a friend enjoyed +the confusion from a room opposite.[B] Lockhart, in the "Quarterly," +states that the hoax was merely the result of a wager that Hook would in +a week make the quiet dwelling the most famous house in all London. Mr. +Barham affirms that the lady, Mrs. Tottenham, had on some account fallen +under the displeasure of the formidable trio, Mr. Hook and two unnamed +friends. + +His conversation was an unceasing stream of wit, of which he was +profuse, as if he knew the source to be inexhaustible. He never kept it +for display, or for company, or for those only who knew its value: wit +was, indeed, as natural to him as commonplace to commonplace characters. +It was not only in puns, in repartees, in lively retorts, in sparkling +sentences, in brilliant illustrations, or in apt or exciting anecdote, +that this faculty was developed. I have known him string together a +number of graceful verses, every one of which was fine in composition +and admirable in point, at a moment's notice, on a subject the most +inauspicious, and apparently impossible either to wit or rhyme,--yet +with an effect that delighted a party, and might have borne the test of +criticism the most severe. These verses he usually sang in a sort of +recitative to some tune with which all were familiar,--and if a piano +were at hand, he accompanied himself with a gentle strain of music. + +Mrs. Mathews relates that she was present once when Hook dined with the +Drury-Lane Company, at a banquet given to Sheridan in honor of his +return for Westminster. The guests were numerous, yet he made a verse +upon every person in the room:--"Every action was turned to account; +every circumstance, the look, the gesture, or any other accidental +effect, served as occasion for wit." Sheridan was astonished at his +extraordinary faculty, and declared that he could not have imagined such +power possible, had he not witnessed it. + +People used to give him subjects the most unpromising to test his +powers. Thus, Campbell records that he once supplied him with a theme, +"Pepper and Salt," and that he amply seasoned the song with both. + +I was present when this rare faculty was put to even a more severe test, +at a party at Mr. Jerdan's, at Grove House, Brompton,--a house long +since removed to make room for Ovington Square. It was a large +supper-party, and many men and women of mark were present: for the +"Literary Gazette" was then in the zenith of its power, worshipped by +all aspirants for fame, and courted even by those whose laurels had been +won. Its editor, be his shortcomings what they might, was then, as he +had ever been, ready with a helping hand for those who needed help: a +lenient critic, a generous sympathizer, who preferred pushing a dozen +forward to thrusting one back. + +Hook, having been asked for his song, and, as usual, demanding a theme, +one of the guests, either facetiously or maliciously, called out, "Take +Yates's big nose." (Yates, the actor, was one of the party.) To any one +else such a subject would have been appalling: not so to Hook. He rose, +glanced once or twice round the table, and chanted (so to speak) a +series of verses perfect in rhythm and rhyme: the incapable theme being +dealt with in a spirit of fun, humor, serious comment, and absolute +philosophy, utterly inconceivable to those who had never heard the +marvellous improvisator,--each verse describing something which the +world considered great, but which became small, when placed in +comparison with + + "Yates's big nose!" + +It was the first time I had met Hook, and my astonishment was unbounded. +I found it impossible to believe the song was improvised; but I had +afterwards ample reason to know that so thorough a triumph over +difficulties was with him by no means rare. + +I had once a jovial day with him on the Thames,--fishing in a punt on +the river opposite the Swan at Thames-Ditton. Hook was in good health +and good spirits, and brimful of mirth. He loved the angler's craft, +though he seldom followed it; and he spoke with something like affection +of a long-ago time, when bobbing for roach at the foot of Fulham Bridge, +the fisherman perpetually raising or lowering his float, according to +the ebb and flow of the tide. + +A record of his "sayings and doings," that glorious day, from early morn +to set of sun, would fill a goodly volume. It was fine weather, and +fishing on the Thames is lazy fishing; for the gudgeons bite freely, and +there is little labor in "landing" them. It is therefore the perfection +of the _dolce far-niente_, giving leisure for talk, and frequent desire +for refreshment. Idle time _is_ idly spent; but the wit and fun of Mr. +Hook that day might have delighted a hundred by-sitters, and it was a +grief to me that I was the only listener. Hook then conceived--probably +then made--the verses he afterwards gave the "New Monthly," entitled +"The Swan at Ditton." + +The last time I saw Hook was at Prior's Bank, Fulham, where his +neighbors, Mr. Baylis and Mr. Whitmore, had given an "entertainment," +the leading feature being an amateur play,--for which, by the way, I +wrote the prologue. Hook was then in his decadence,--in broken +health,--his animal spirits gone,--the cup of life drained to the dregs. +It was morning before the guests departed, yet Hook remained to the +last; and a light of other days brightened up his features, as he opened +the piano, and began a recitative. The theme was, of course, the +occasion that had brought the party together, and perhaps he never, in +his best time, was more original and pointed. I can recall two of the +lines,-- + + "They may boast of their Fulham omnibus, + But _this_ is the Fulham stage." + +There was a fair young boy standing by his side, while he was singing. +One of the servants suddenly opened the drawing-room shutters, and a +flood of light felt upon the lad's head: the effect was very touching, +but it became a thousand times more so, as Hook, availing himself of the +incident, placed his hand upon the youth's brow, and in tremulous tones +uttered a verse, of which I recall only the concluding lines,-- + + "For _you_ is the dawn of the morning. + For _me_ is the solemn good-night." + +He rose from the piano, burst into tears, and left the room. Few of +those who were present saw him afterwards.[C] + +All the evening Hook had been low in spirits. It seemed impossible to +stir him into animation, until the cause was guessed at by Mr. Blood, a +surgeon, who was at that time an actor at the Haymarket. He prescribed a +glass of Sherry, and retired to procure it, returning presently with a +bottle of pale brandy. Having administered two or three doses, the +machinery was wound up, and the result was as I have described it. + +I give one more instance of his ready wit and rapid power of rhyme. He +had been idle for a fortnight, and had written nothing for the "John +Bull" newspaper. The clerk, however, took him his salary as usual, and +on entering his room said, "Have you heard the news? the king and queen +of the Sandwich Islands are dead," (they had just died in England of the +small-pox.) "and," added the clerk, "we want something about +them."--"Instantly," cried Hook, "you shall have it:-- + + "'Waiter, two Sandwiches,' cried Death. + And their wild Majesties resigned their breath." + +The "John Bull" was established at the close of the year 1820, and it is +said that Sir Walter Scott, having been consulted by some leader among +"high Tories," suggested Hook as the person precisely suited for the +required task. The avowed purpose of the publication was to extinguish +the party of the Queen,--Caroline, wife of George IV.; and in a reckless +and frightful spirit the work was done. She died, however, in 1821, and +persecution was arrested at her grave. Its projectors and proprietors +had counted on a weekly sale of seven hundred and fifty copies, and +prepared accordingly. By the sixth week it had reached a sale of ten +thousand, and became a valuable property to "all concerned." Of course, +there were many prosecutions for libels, damages and costs and +incarceration for breaches of privilege; but all search for actual +delinquents was vain. Suspicions were rife enough, but positive proofs +there were none. + +Hook was of course In no way implicated in so scandalous and slanderous +a publication! On one occasion there appeared among the answers to +correspondents a paragraph purporting to be a reply from Mr. Theodore +Hook, "disavowing all connection with the paper." The gist of the +paragraph was this:--"Two things surprise us in this business: the +first, that anything we have thought worthy of giving to the public +should have been mistaken for Mr. Hook's; and secondly, that _such a +person as Mr. Hook_ should think himself disgraced by a connection with +'John Bull.'" + +Even now, at this distance of time, few of the contributors are actually +known; among them were undoubtedly John Wilson Croker, and avowedly +Haynes Bayly, Barham, and Dr. Maginn. + +In 1836, when I had resigned the "New Monthly" into the hands of Mr. +Hook, he proposed to me to take the sub-editorship and general literary +management of the "John Bull." That post I undertook, retaining it for a +year. Our "business" was carried on, not at the "John Bull" office, but +at Easty's Hotel, in Southampton Street, Strand, in two rooms on the +first floor of that tavern. Mr. Hook was never seen at the office; his +existence, indeed, was not recognized there. If any one had asked for +him by name, the answer would have been that no such person was known. +Although at the period of which I write there was no danger to be +apprehended from his walking in and out of the small office in Fleet +Street, a time had been when it could not have been done without +personal peril. Editorial work was therefore conducted with much +secrecy, a confidential person communicating between the editor and the +printer, who never knew, or rather was assumed not to know, by whom the +articles were written. In 1836, some years before, and during the years +afterwards, no paragraph was inserted that in the remotest degree +assailed private character. Political hatreds and personal hostilities +had grown less in vogue, and Hook had lived long enough to be tired of +assailing those whom he rather liked and respected. The bitterness of +his nature (if it ever existed, which I much doubt) had worn out with +years. Undoubtedly much of the brilliant wit of the "John Bull" had +evaporated, in losing its distinctive feature. It had lost its power, +and as a "property" dwindled to comparative insignificance. Mr. Hook +derived but small income from the editorship during the later years of +his life. I will believe that higher and more honorable motives than +those by which he had been guided during the fierce and turbulent +party-times, when the "John Bull" was established, had led him to +relinquish scandal, slander, and vituperation, as dishonorable weapons. +I know that in my time he did not use them; his advice to me, on more +than one occasion, while acting under him, was to remember that "abuse" +seldom effectually answered a purpose, and that it was wiser as well as +safer to act on the principle that "praise undeserved is satire in +disguise." All that was evil in the "John Bull" had been absorbed by two +infamous weekly newspapers, "The Age" and "The Satirist." They were +prosperous and profitable. Happily, no such newspapers now exist; the +public not only would not buy, they would not tolerate, the +personalities, the indecencies, the gross outrages on public men, the +scandalous assaults on private character, that made these publications +"good speculations" at the period of which I write, and undoubtedly +disgraced the "John Bull" during the early part of its career. + +No wonder, therefore, that no such person as Mr. Theodore Hook was +connected with the "John Bull." He invariably denied all such +connection, and perseveringly protested against the charge that he had +ever written a line in it. I have heard it said, that, during the +troublous period of the Queen's trial, Sir Robert Wilson met Hook in the +street, and said, in a sort of confidential whisper,--"Hook, I am to be +traduced and slandered in the 'John Bull' next Sunday." Hook, of course, +expressed astonishment and abhorrence. "Yes," continued Wilson, "and if +I am, I mean to horsewhip _you_ the first time you come in my way. Now +stop; I know you have nothing to do with that newspaper,--you have told +me so a score of times; nevertheless, if the article, which is purely of +a private nature, appears, let the consequences be what they may, I will +horsewhip _you_!" The article never did appear. I can give no authority +for this anecdote, but I do not doubt its truth. + +I knew Sir Robert Wilson in 1823, and was employed by him to copy and +arrange a series of confidential documents, relative to the Spanish war +of independence, between the Cortes and the Government, the result of +which was an engagement to act as his private secretary, and to receive +a commission in the Spanish service, in the event of Sir Robert's taking +a command in Spain. He went to Spain, leaving me as secretary to the +fund raised in that year in England to assist the cause. Fortunately for +me, British aid began and ended with these subscriptions; no force was +raised. Sir Robert returned without taking service in Spain, and I was +saved from the peril of becoming a soldier. Sir Robert was a tall, +slight man, of wiry form and strong constitution, handsome both in +person and features, with the singularly soldier-like air that we read +so much of in books. In those days of fervid and hopeful youth, the +story of Sir Robert's chivalric and successful efforts to save the life +of Lavalette naturally touched my heart, and if I had remained in his +service, he would have had no more devoted follower. During my +engagement as Secretary to the Spanish Committee, (leading members of +which were John Cam Hobhouse, Joseph Hume, and John Bowring,) I +contributed articles to the "British Press,"--a daily newspaper, long +since deceased,--and this led to my becoming a Parliamentary reporter. + +I apologize for so much concerning myself,--a subject on which I desire +to say as little as possible,--but in this "Memory" it is more a +necessity to do so than it will be hereafter. + +I have another story to tell of these editorial times. One day a +gentleman entered the "John Bull" office, evidently in a state of +extreme exasperation, armed with a stout cudgel. His application to see +the editor was answered by a request to walk up to the second-floor +front room. The room was empty; but presently there entered to him a +huge, tall, broad-shouldered fellow, who, in unmitigated brogue, +asked,-- + +"What do you plase to want, Sir?" + +"Want!" said the gentleman,--"I want the editor." + +"I'm the idditur, Sir, at your sarvice." + +Upon which the gentleman, seeing that no good could arise from an +encounter with such an "editor," made his way down stairs and out of the +house without a word. + +In 1836 Mr. Hook succeeded me in the editorship of the "New Monthly +Magazine." The change arose thus. When Mr. Colburn and Mr. Bentley had +dissolved partnership, and each had his own establishment, much +jealousy, approaching hostility, existed between them. Mr. Bentley had +announced a comic miscellany,--or rather, a magazine of which humor was +to be the leading feature. Mr. Colburn immediately conceived the idea of +a rival in that line, and applied to Hook to be its editor. Hook readily +complied. The terms of four hundred pounds per annum having been +settled, as usual he required payment in advance, and "then and there" +received bills for his first year's salary. Not long afterwards Mr. +Colburn saw the impolicy of his scheme. I had strongly reasoned against +it,--representing to him that the "New Monthly" would lose its most +valuable contributor, Mr. Hook, and other useful allies with him,--that +the ruin of the "New Monthly" must be looked upon as certain, while the +success of his "Joker's Magazine" was problematical at best. Such +arguments prevailed; and he called upon Mr. Hook with a view to +relinquish his design. Mr. Hook was exactly of Mr. Colburn's new +opinion. He had received the money, and was not disposed, even if he +had been able, to give it back, but suggested his becoming editor of the +"New Monthly," and in that way working it out. The project met the views +of Mr. Colburn; and so it was arranged. + +But when the plan was communicated to me, I declined to be placed in the +position of sub-editor. I knew, that, however valuable Mr. Hook might be +as a large contributor, he was utterly unfitted to discharge editorial +duties, and that, as sub-editor, I could have no power to do aught but +obey the orders of my superior, while, as co-editor, I could both +suggest and object, as regarded articles and contributors. This view was +the view of Mr. Colburn, but not that of Mr. Hook. The consequence was +that I retired. As to the conduct of the "New Monthly" in the hands of +Mr. Hook, until it came into those of Mr. Hood, and, not long +afterwards, was sold by Mr. Colburn to Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, it is not +requisite to speak. + +A word here of Mr. Colburn. I cherish the kindliest memory of that +eminent bibliopole. He has been charged with many mean acts as regards +authors; but I know that he was often liberal, and always considerate +towards them. He could be implacable, but also forgiving; and it was +ever easy to move his heart by a tale of sorrow or a case of distress. +For more than a quarter of a century he led the general literature of +the kingdom; and I believe his sins of omission and commission were very +few. Such is my impression, resulting from six years' continual +intercourse with him. He was a little, sprightly man, of mild and kindly +countenance, and of much bodily activity. His peculiarity was, that he +rarely or never finished a sentence, appearing as if he considered it +hazardous to express fully what he thought. Consequently one could +seldom understand what was his real opinion upon any subject he debated +or discussed. His debate was always a "possibly" or "perhaps"; his +discussion invariably led to no conclusion for or against the matter in +hand. + +It was during my editorship of the "New Monthly" that the best of all +Hook's works, "Gilbert Gurney," was published in that magazine. The part +for the ensuing number was rarely ready until the last moment, and more +than once at so late a period of the month, that, unless in the +printer's hands next morning, its publication would have been +impossible. I have driven to Fulham to find not a line of the article +written; and I have waited, sometimes nearly all night, until the +manuscript was produced. Now and then he would relate to me one of the +raciest of the anecdotes before he penned it down,--sometimes as the raw +statement of a fact before it had received its habiliments of fiction, +but more often as even a more brilliant story than the reader found it +on the first of the month.[D] + +Hook was in the habit of sending pen-and-ink sketches of himself in his +letters. I have one of especial interest, in which he represented +himself down upon knees, with handkerchief to eyes. The meaning was to +indicate his grief at being late with his promised article for the "New +Monthly," and his begging pardon thereupon. He had great facility for +taking off likenesses, and it is said was once suspected of being the +"H. B." whose lithographic drawings of eminent or remarkable persons +startled society a few years ago by their rare graphic power and their +striking resemblance,--barely bordering on caricature. + +Here is Hook's contribution to Mrs. Hall's album:-- + +"Having been requested to do that which I never did in my life +before,--write two charades upon two given and by no means sublime +words,--here are they. It is right to say that they are to be taken with +reference to each other. + + "My first is in triumphs most usually found; + Old houses and trees show my second; + My whole is long, spiral, red, tufted, and round, + And with beef is most excellent reckoned. + + My first for age hath great repute; + My second is a tailor; + My whole is like the other root,-- + Only a _little_ paler. + + "THEODORE E. HOOK. + + "September 4, 1835. + + "Do you give them up? + + "_Car-rot._ _Par-snip._" + +The reader will permit me here to introduce some memories of the +immediate contemporaries and allies of Hook, whose names are, indeed, +continually associated with his, and who, on the principle of "'birds of +a feather," may be properly considered in association with this +master-spirit of them all. + +The Reverend Mr. Barham, whose notes supplied material for the "Memoirs +of Hook," edited by his son, and whose "Ingoldsby Legends" are famous, +was a stout, squat, and "hearty-looking" parson of the old school. His +face was full of humor, although when quiescent it seemed dull and +heavy; his eyes were singularly small and inexpressive, whether from +their own color or the light tint of the lashes I cannot say, but they +seemed to me to be what are called white eyes. I do not believe that in +society he had much of the sparkle that characterized his friend, or +that might have been expected in so formidable a wit of the pen. Sam +Beazley, on the contrary, was a light, airy, graceful person, who had +much refinement, without that peculiar manner which bespeaks the +well-bred gentleman. He was the Daly of "Gilbert Gurney," whose epitaph +was written by Hook long before his death,-- + + "Here lies Sam Beazeley, + Who lived and died easily."[E] + +When I knew him, he was practising as an architect in Soho Square. He +was one of Hook's early friends, but I believe they were not in close +intimacy for many years previous to the death of Hook. It was by Beazley +that the present Lyceum Theatre was built. + +Tom Hill was another of Hook's more familiar associates. He is the Hull +of "Gilbert Gurney," and is said to have been the original of Paul Pry, +(which Poole, however, strenuously denied,)--a belief easily entertained +by those who knew the man. A little, round man he was, with straight and +well-made-up figure, and rosy cheeks that might have graced a milkmaid, +when his years numbered certainly fourscore.[F] But his age no one ever +knew. The story is well known of James Smith asserting that it never +could be ascertained, for that the register of his birth was lost in the +fire of London, and Hook's comment,--"Oh, he's much older than that: +he's one of the little Hills that skipped in the Bible." He was a merry +man, _toujours gai_, who seemed as if neither trouble nor anxiety had +ever crossed his threshold or broken the sleep of a single night of his +long life. His peculiar faculty was to find out what everybody did, from +the minister of state to the stable-boy; and there are tales enough told +of his chats with child-maids in the Park, to ascertain the amounts of +their wages, and with lounging footmen in Grosvenor Square, to learn how +many guests had dined at a house the day previous. His curiosity seemed +bent upon prying into small things; for secrets that involved serious +matters he appeared to care nothing. "Pooh, pooh, Sir, don't tell me; I +happen to know!" That phrase was continually coming from his lips. + +Of a far higher and better order was Hook's friend, Mr. Brodrick,--so +long one of the police magistrates,--a gentleman of large acquirements +and sterling rectitude. Nearly as much may be said of Dubois, more than +half a century ago the editor of a then popular magazine, "The Monthly +Mirror." Dubois, in his latter days, enjoyed a snug sinecure, and lived +in Sloane Street. He was a pleasant man in face and in manners, and +retained to the last much of the humor that characterized the +productions of his earlier years. To the admirable actor and estimable +gentleman, Charles Mathews, I can merely allude. His memory has received +full honor and homage from his wife; but there are few who knew him who +will hesitate to indorse her testimony to his many excellences of head +and heart. + +Among leading contributors to the "New Monthly," both before and after +the advent of Mr. Hook, was John Poole, the author of "Little +Pedlington," "Paul Pry," and many other pleasant works, not witty, but +full of true humor. He was, when in his prime, a pleasant companion, +though nervously sensitive, and, like most professional jokers, +exceedingly irritable whenever a joke was made to tell against himself. +It is among my memories, that, during the first month of my editorship +of the "New Monthly," I took from a mass of submitted manuscripts one +written in a small, neat hand, entitled "A New Guide-Book." I had read +it nearly half through, and was about to fling it with contempt among +"the rejected" before I discovered its point. I had perused it so far as +an attempt to describe an actual watering-place, and to bring it into +notoriety. When, however, I did discover the real purpose of the writer, +my delight was large in proportion. The manuscript was the first part of +"Little Pedlington," which subsequently grew into a book. + +It is, and was at the time, generally believed that Tom Hill suggested +the character of Paul Pry. Poole never would admit this. In a sort of +rambling autobiography which he wrote to accompany his portrait in the +"New Monthly," he thus gives the origin of the play. + +"The idea of the character of Paul Pry was suggested to me by the +following anecdote, related to me several years ago by a beloved friend. +An idle old lady, living in a narrow street, had passed so much of her +time in watching the affairs of her neighbors, that she at length +acquired the power of distinguishing the sound of every knocker within +hearing. It happened that she fell ill and was for several days confined +to her bed. Unable to observe in person what was going on without, she +stationed her maid at the window, as a substitute, for the performance +of that duty. But Betty soon grew weary of that occupation; she became +careless in her reports, impatient and tetchy when reprimanded for her +negligence. + +"'Betty, what _are_ you thinking about? Don't you hear a double knock at +No. 9? Who is it?' + +"'The first-floor lodger, Ma'am.' + +"'Betty, Betty, I declare I must give you warning. Why don't you tell me +what that knock is at No. 54?' + +"'Why, lor, it's only the baker with pies.' + +"'Pies, Betty? What _can_ they want with pies at 54? They had pies +yesterday!'" + +Poole had the happy knack of turning every trifling incident to valuable +account. I remember his telling me an anecdote in illustration of this +faculty. I believe he never printed it. Being at Brighton one day, he +strolled into an hotel to get an early dinner, took his seat at a table, +and was discussing his chop and ale, when another guest entered, took +his stand by the fire, and began whistling. After a minute or two,-- + +"Fine day, Sir," said he. + +"Very fine," answered Poole. + +"Business pretty brisk?" + +"I believe so." + +"Do anything with Jones on the Parade?" + +"Now," said Poole, "it so happened that Jones was the grocer from whom I +occasionally bought a quarter of a pound of tea; so I answered,-- + +"'A little.' + +"'Good man, Sir,' quoth the stranger. + +"'Glad to hear it, Sir.' + +"'Do anything with Thomson in King Street?' + +"'No, Sir.' + +"'Shaky, Sir.' + +"'Sorry to hear it, Sir; recommend Mahomet's baths!' + +"'Anything with Smith in James Street?' + +"'Nothing,--I have heard the name of Smith before, certainly; but of +this particular Smith I know nothing.'" + +The stranger looked at Poole earnestly, advanced to the table, and with +his arms a-kimbo said,-- + +"By Jove, Sir, I begin to think you are a gentleman!" + +"I hope so, Sir," answered Poole; "and I hope you are the same!" + +"Nothing of the kind," said the stranger; "and if you are a gentleman, +what business have you here?" + +Upon which he rang the bell, and, as the waiter entered, indignantly +exclaimed,-- + +"That's a gentleman,--turn him out!" + +Poole had unluckily entered and taken his seat in the commercial room of +the hotel! + +All who knew Poole know that he was ever full of himself,--believing his +renown to be the common talk of the world. A whimsical illustration of +this weakness was lately told me by a mutual friend. When at Paris +recently, he chanced to say to Poole, "Of course you are full of all the +theatres."--"No, Sir, I am not," he answered, solemnly and indignantly. +"Will you believe _this_? I went to the Opera Comique, told the Director +I wished a free admission; he asked me who I was; I said, 'John Poole.' +Sir, I ask you, will you believe _this_? He said, _he didn't know me_!" + +The Queen gave him a nomination to the Charter-House, where his age +might have been passed in ease, respectability, comfort, and competence; +but it was impossible for one so restless to bear the wholesome and +necessary restraint of that institution. He came to me one day, boiling +over with indignation, having resolved to quit its quiet cloisters, his +principal ground for complaint being that he must dine at two o'clock +and be within walls by ten. He resigned the appointment, but +subsequently obtained one of the Crown pensions, took up his final abode +in Paris, where, during the last ten years of his life, he lived, if +that can be called "life" which consisted of one scarcely ever +interrupted course of self-sacrifice to _eau-de-vie_. His mind was of +late entirely gone. I met him in 1861, in the Rue St. Honore, and he did +not recognize me, a circumstance I could scarcely regret. + +I am not aware of any details concerning his death. When I last inquired +concerning him, all I could learn was that he had gone to live at +Boulogne,--that two quarters had passed without any application from him +for his pension,--and that therefore, of course, he was dead. His death, +however, was a loss to none, and I believe not a grief to any. + +He was a tall, handsome man, by no means "jolly," like some of his +contemporary wits,--rather, I should say, inclined to be taciturn; and I +do not think his habits of drinking were excited by the stimulants of +society.[G] Little, I believe, is known of his life, even to the actors +and playwrights, with whom he chiefly associated, from the time when his +burlesque of "Hamlet Travestie" (printed in 1810) commenced his career +of celebrity, if not of fame, to his death, (in the year 1862, I +believe,) being then probably about seventy years old. + +I knew Dr. Maginn when he was a schoolmaster in Cork. He had even then +established a high reputation for scholastic knowledge, and attained +some eminence as a wit; and about the year 1820 astounded "the beautiful +city" by poetical contributions to "Blackwood's Magazine," in which +certain of its literary citizens were somewhat scurrilously assailed. I +was one of them. There were two parties, who had each their "society." +Maginn and a surgeon named Gosnell were the leaders of one: they were, +for the most part, wild and reckless men of talent. The other society +was conducted by the more sedate and studious. Gosnell wrote the _ottava +rima_ entitled "Daniel O'Rourke," which passed through three or four +numbers of "Blackwood": he died not long afterwards in London, one of +the many unhappy victims of misgoverned passions. + +Maginn was also one of the earlier contributors to the "Literary +Gazette," and Jerdan has recorded with what delight he used to open a +packet directed in the well-known hand, with the post-mark Cork. The +Doctor, it is said, was invited to London in order to share with Hook +the labors of the "John Bull." I believe, however, he was but a very +limited help. Perhaps the old adage, "Two of a trade," applied in this +case; certain it is that he subsequently found a more appreciative +paymaster in Westmacott, who conducted "The Age," a newspaper then +greatly patronized, but, as I have said, one that now would be +universally branded with the term "infamous." + +It is known also that he became a leading contributor to "Fraser's +Magazine,"--a magazine that took its name less from its publisher, +Fraser, than from its first editor, Fraser, a barrister, whose fate, I +have understood, was as mournful as his career had been discreditable. +The particulars of Maginn's duel with Grantley Berkeley are well known. +It arose out of an article in "Fraser," reviewing Berkeley's novel, in +the course of which he spoke in utterly unjustifiable terms of +Berkeley's mother. Mr. Berkeley was not satisfied with inflicting on the +publisher so severe a beating that it was the proximate cause of his +death, but called out the Doctor, who manfully avowed the authorship. +Each, it is understood, fired five shots, without further effect than +that one ball struck the whisker of Mr. Berkeley and another the boot of +Maginn, and when Fraser, who was Maginn's second, asked if there should +be another shot, Maginn is reported to have said, "Blaze away, by ----! +a barrel of powder!" + +The career of Maginn in London was, to say the least, mournful. Few men +ever started with better prospects; there was hardly any position in the +state to which he might not have aspired. His learning was profound; his +wit of the tongue and of the pen ready, pointed, caustic, and brilliant; +his writings, essays, tales, poems, scholastic disquisitions, in short, +his writings upon all conceivable topics, were of the very highest +order; "O'Doherty" is one of the names that made "Blackwood" famous. His +acquaintances, who would willingly have been his friends, were not only +the men of genius of his time, but among them were several noblemen and +statesmen of power as well as rank. In a word, he might have climbed to +the highest round of the ladder, with helping hands all the way up: he +stumbled at its base. + +Maginn's reckless habits soon told upon his character, and almost as +soon on his constitution. They may be illustrated by an anecdote related +of him in Barham's Life of Hook. A friend, when dining with him, and +praising his wine, asked where he got it. "At the tavern, close by," +said the Doctor. "A very good cellar," said the guest; "but do you not +pay rather an extravagant price for it?" "I don't know, I don't know," +returned the Doctor; "I believe they do put down something in a book." +And I have heard of Maginn a story similar to that told of Sheridan, +that, once when he accepted a bill, he exclaimed to the astonished +creditor, "Well, thank Heaven, _that_ debt is off my mind!" + +It is notorious that Maginn wrote at the same time for the "Age," +outrageously Tory, and for the "True Sun," a violently Radical paper. +For many years he was editor of the "Standard." It was, however, less +owing to his thorough want of principle than to his habits of +intoxication that his position was low, when it ought to have been +high,--that he was indigent, when he might have been rich,--that he lost +self-respect, and the respect of all with whom he came in contact, +except the few "kindred spirits" who relished the flow of wit, and +little regarded the impure source whence it issued. The evil seemed +incurable; it was indulged not only at noon and night, but in the +morning. He was one of the eight editors engaged by Mr. Murray to edit +the "Representative" during the eight months of its existence. I was a +reporter on that paper of great promise and large hopes. One evening +Maginn himself undertook to write a notice of a fancy-ball at the +Opera-House in aid of the distressed weavers of Spitalfields. It was a +grand affair, patronized by the royal family and a vast proportion of +the aristocracy of England. Maginn went, of course inebriated, and +returned worse. He contemplated the affair as if it had taken place +among the thieves and demireps of Whitechapel, and so described it in +the paper of the next morning. Well I remember the wrath and indignation +of John Murray, and the universal disgust the article excited. + +I may relate another anecdote to illustrate this sad characteristic. It +was told to me by one of the Doctor's old pupils and most intimate and +steady friends, Mr. Quinten Kennedy of Cork. A gentleman was anxious to +secure Maginn's services for a contemplated literary undertaking of +magnitude, and the Doctor was to dine with him to arrange the affair. +Kennedy was resolved, that, at all events, he should go to the dinner +sober, and so called upon him before he was up, never leaving him for a +moment all day, and resolutely resisting every imploring appeal for a +dram. The hour of six drew near, and they sallied out. On the way, +Kennedy found it almost impossible, even by main force, to prevent the +Doctor entering a public-house. Passing an undertaker's shop, the Doctor +suddenly stopped, recollected he had a message there, and begged Kennedy +to wait for a moment outside,--a request which was readily complied +with, as it was thought there could be no possible danger in such a +place. Maginn entered, with his handkerchief to his eyes, sobbing +bitterly. The undertaker, recognizing a prospective customer, sought to +subdue his grief with the usual words of consolation,--Maginn blubbering +out, "Everything must be done in the best style, no expense must be +spared,--she was worthy, and I can afford it." The undertaker, seeing +such intense grief, presented a seat, and prescribed a little brandy. +After proper resistance, both were accepted; a bottle was produced and +emptied, glass after glass, with suggested "instructions" between +whiles. At length the Doctor rose to join his wondering and impatient +friend, who soon saw what had happened. He was, even before dinner, in +such a state as to preclude all business-talk; and it is needless to add +that the contemplated arrangement was never entered into. + +He lived in wretchedness, and died in misery in 1842. His death took +place at Walton-on-Thames, and in the churchyard of that village he is +buried. Not long ago I visited the place, but no one could point out to +me the precise spot of his interment. It is without a stone, without a +mark, lost among the clay sepulchres of the throng who had no friends to +inscribe a name or ask a memory.[H] + +Maginn was rather under than above the middle size; his countenance was +swarthy, and by no means genial in expression. He had a peculiar +thickness of speech, not quite a stutter. Latterly, excesses told upon +him, producing their usual effects: the quick intelligence of his face +was lost; his features were sullied by unmistakable signs of an +ever-degrading habit; he was old before his time. + +He is another sad example to "warn and scare"; a life that might have +produced so much yielded comparatively nothing; and although there have +been several suggestions, from Lockhart and others, to collect his +writings, they have never been gathered together from the periodical +tombs in which they lie buried, and now, probably, they cannot be all +recognized. + + * * * * * + +From what I have written, the reader will gather that I knew Hook only +in his decline, the relic of a manly form, the decadence of a strong +mind, and the comparative exhaustion of a brilliant wit. Leigh Hunt, +speaking of him at a much earlier period, thus writes:--"He was tall, +dark, and of a good person, with small eyes, and features more round +than weak: a face that had character and humor, but no refinement." And +Mrs. Mathews describes him as with sparkling eyes and expressive +features, of manly form, and somewhat of a dandy in dress. When in the +prime of manhood and the zenith of fame, Mr. Barham says, "He was not +the tuft-hunter, but the tuft-hunted"; and it is easy to believe that +one so full of wit, so redolent of fun, so rich in animal spirits, must +have been a marvellously coveted acquaintance in the society where he +was so eminently qualified to shine: from that of royalty to the major +and minor clubs,--from "The Eccentrics" to "The Garrick," of which he +was all his life long a cherished member. + +In 1825, when I first saw him, he was above the middle height, robust of +frame, and broad of chest, well-proportioned, with evidence of great +physical capacity. His complexion was dark, as were his eyes; there was +nothing fine or elevated in his expression; indeed, his features, when +in repose, were heavy; it was otherwise when animated; yet his manners +were those of a gentleman, less perhaps from inherent faculty than from +the polish which refined society ever gives. + +He is described as a man of "iron energies," and certainly must have had +an iron constitution; for his was a life of perpetual stimulants, +intellectual as well as physical. + +When I saw him last,--it was not long before his death,--he was aged, +more by care than time; his face bore evidence of what is falsely termed +"a gay life"; his voice had lost its roundness and force, his form its +buoyancy, his intellect its strength,-- + + "Alas! how changed from him, + That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim!" + +Yet his wit was ready still; he continued to sparkle humor even when +exhausted nature failed; and his last words are said to have been a +brilliant jest. + +At length the iron frame wore down. He was haunted by pecuniary +difficulties, yet compelled to daily work, not only for himself, but for +a family of children by a person to whom he was not married. He then +lived almost entirely on brandy, and became incapable of digesting +animal food. + +Well may his friend Lockhart say, "He came forth, _at best_, from a long +day of labor at his writing-desk, after his faculties had been at the +stretch,--feeling, passion, thought, fancy, excitable nerves, suicidal +brain, all worked, perhaps wellnigh exhausted." + +And thus, "at best," while "seated among the revellers of a princely +saloon," sometimes losing at cards among his great "friends" more money +than he could earn in a month, his thoughts were laboring to devise some +mode of postponing a debt only from one week to another. Well might he +have compared, as he did, his position to that of an alderman who was +required to relish his turtle-soup while forced to eat it sitting on a +tight rope! + +The last time he went out to dinner was with Colonel Shadwell Clarke, at +Brompton Grove. While in the drawing-room he suddenly turned to the +mirror and said, "Ay! I see I look as I am,--done up in purse, in mind, +and in body, too, at last!" + +He died on the 24th of August, 1841. + +Yes, when I knew most of him, he was approaching the close, not of a +long, but of a "fast" life; he had ill used Time, and Time was not in +his debt! He was tall and stout, yet not healthfully stout; with a round +face which told too much of jovial nights and wasted days,--of toil when +the head aches and the hand shakes,--of the absence of self-respect,--of +mornings of ignoble rest to gather strength for evenings of useless +energy,--of, in short, a mind and constitution vigorous and powerful: +both had been sadly and grievously misapplied and misused. + +No writer concerning Hook can claim for him an atom of respect. His +history is but a record of written or spoken or practical jokes that +made no one wiser or better; his career "points a moral" indeed, but it +is by showing the wisdom of virtue. In the end, his friends, so called, +were ashamed openly to give him help,--and although bailiffs did not, as +in the case of Sheridan, + + "Seize his last blanket," + +his death-bed was haunted by apprehensions of arrest; and it was a +relief, rather than a loss to society, when a few comparatively humble +mourners laid him in a corner of Fulham churchyard. + +Alas! let not those who read the records of many distinguished, nay, +many illustrious lives, imagine, that, because men of genius have too +often cherished the perilous habit of seeking consolation or inspiration +from what it is a libel on Nature to call "the social glass," it is +therefore reasonable or excusable, or can ever be innocuous. Talfourd +may gloss it over in Lamb, as averting a vision terrible; Seattle may +deplore it in Campbell, as having become a dismal necessity; the +biographer of Hook may lightly look upon the curse as the springhead of +his perpetual wit. I will not continue the list,--it is frightfully +long. Hook is but one of many men of rare intellect, large mental +powers, with faculties designed and calculated to benefit mankind, who +have sacrificed character, life, I had almost said SOUL, to habits which +are wrongly and wickedly called pleasures,--the pleasures of the table. +Many, indeed, are they who have thus made for themselves miserable +destinies, useless or pernicious lives, and unhonored or dishonorable +graves. I will add the warning of Wordsworth, when addressing the sons +of Burns:-- + + "But ne'er to a seductive lay + Let faith be given, + Nor deem the light that leads astray + Is light from heaven." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[B] In "Gilbert Gurney," Hook makes Daly say, "I am the man; I did it; +for originality of thought and design, I _do_ think that was perfect." + +[C] Mr. Barham has a confused account of this incident. He was not +present on the occasion, as I was, standing close by the piano when it +occurred. + +[D] His biographer does not seem aware that for several months before he +became editor of the "New Monthly" he wrote the "Monthly Commentary" for +that magazine,--a pleasant, piquant, and sometimes severe series of +comments on the leading topics or events of the month. + +[E] Mr. Peake, the dramatist, who wrote most of the "Mathews at Home," +attributes this epitaph to John Hardwicke. Lockhart gives it to Hook. +Hook pictures Beazley in "Gilbert Gurney":--"His conversation was full +of droll conceits, mixed with a considerable degree of superior talent, +and the strongest evidence of general acquirements and accomplishments." + +[F] "He was plump, short, with an intelligent countenance, and +near-sighted, with, a constitution and complexion fresh enough to look +forty, when _I_ believed him to be at least four times that +age."--_Gilbert Gurney._ + +[G] He played a practical joke upon the actors of the Brighton Theatre, +who were defective of a letter in their dialogue, by sending to them a +packet, containing, on cards of various sizes, the letter H. + +[H] While on his death-bed, Sir Robert Peel sent him a sum of money, +probably not the first. It arrived in time to pay his funeral expenses. +In September, 1842, a subscription was made for the widow and children +of Dr. Maginn,--Dr. Giffard (then editor of the "Standard") and Lockhart +being trustees in England, the Bishop of Cork and the Provost of Trinity +College, Dublin, in Ireland, and Professor Wilson in Scotland. The card +that was issued said truly,--"No one ever listened to Maginn's +conversation, or perused even the hastiest of his minor writings, +without feeling the interest of very extraordinary talent; his classical +learning was profound and accurate; his mastery of modern languages +almost unrivalled; his knowledge of mankind and their affairs great and +multifarious"; but it did not state truly, that, "in all his essays, +verse or prose, serious or comic, he never trespassed against decorum or +sound morals," or that "the keenness of his wit was combined with such +playfulness of fancy, good-humor, and kindness of natural sentiment, +that his merits were ungrudgingly acknowledged even by those of politics +most different from his own." + + + + +THE CHIMNEY-CORNER. + +IV. + + +LITTLE FOXES.--PART III. + +Being the true copy of a paper read in my library to my wife and Jennie. + + +REPRESSION. + +I am going now to write on another cause of family unhappiness, more +subtile than either of those before enumerated. + +In the General Confession of the Church, we poor mortals all unite in +saying two things: "We have left undone those things which we ought to +have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have +done." These two heads exhaust the subject of human frailty. + +It is the things left undone which we ought to have done, the things +left unsaid which we ought to have said, that constitute the subject I +am now to treat of. + +I remember my school-day speculations over an old "Chemistry" I used to +study as a text-book, which informed me that a substance called Caloric +exists in all bodies. In some it exists in a latent state: it is there, +but it affects neither the senses nor the thermometer. Certain causes +develop it, when it raises the mercury and warms the hands. I remember +the awe and wonder with which, even then, I reflected on the vast amount +of blind, deaf, and dumb comforts which Nature had thus stowed away. How +mysterious it seemed to me that poor families every winter should be +shivering, freezing, and catching cold, when Nature had all this latent +caloric locked up in her store-closet,--when it was all around them, in +everything they touched and handled! + +In the spiritual world there is an exact analogy to this. There is a +great life-giving, warming power called Love, which exists in human +hearts dumb and unseen, but which has no real life, no warming power, +till set free by expression. + +Did you ever, in a raw, chilly day, just before a snow-storm, sit at +work in a room that was judiciously warmed by an exact thermometer? You +do not freeze, but you shiver; your fingers do not become numb with +cold, but you have all the while an uneasy craving for more positive +warmth. You look at the empty grate, walk mechanically towards it, and, +suddenly awaking, shiver to see that there is nothing there. You long +for a shawl or cloak; you draw yourself within yourself; you consult the +thermometer, and are vexed to find that there is nothing there to be +complained of,--it is standing most provokingly at the exact temperature +that all the good books and good doctors pronounce to be the proper +thing,--the golden mean of health; and yet perversely you shiver, and +feel as if the face of an open fire would be to you as the smile of an +angel. + +Such a lifelong chill, such an habitual shiver, is the lot of many +natures, which are not warm, when all ordinary rules tell them they +ought to be warm,--whose life is cold and barren and meagre,--which +never see the blaze of an open fire. + +I will illustrate my meaning by a page out of my own experience. + +I was twenty-one when I stood as groomsman for my youngest and favorite +sister Emily. I remember her now as she stood at the altar,--a pale, +sweet, flowery face, in a half-shimmer between smiles and tears, looking +out of vapory clouds of gauze and curls and all the vanishing mysteries +of a bridal morning. + +Everybody thought the marriage such a fortunate one!--for her husband +was handsome and manly, a man of worth, of principle good as gold and +solid as adamant,--and Emmy had always been such a flossy little kitten +of a pet, so full of all sorts of impulses, so sensitive and nervous, we +thought her kind, strong, composed, stately husband made just on purpose +for her. "It was quite a Providence," sighed all the elderly ladies, who +sniffed tenderly, and wiped their eyes, according to approved custom, +during the marriage ceremony. + +I remember now the bustle of the day,--the confused whirl of white +gloves, kisses, bridemaids, and bridecakes, the losing of trunk-keys and +breaking of lacings, the tears of mamma--God bless her!--and the jokes +of irreverent Christopher, who could, for the life of him, see nothing +so very dismal in the whole phantasmagoria, and only wished he were as +well off himself. + +And so Emmy was wheeled away from us on the bridal tour, when her +letters came back to us almost every day, just like herself, merry, +frisky little bits of scratches,--as full of little nonsense-beads as a +glass of Champagne, and all ending with telling us how perfect he was, +and how good, and how well he took care of her, and how happy, etc., +etc. + +Then came letters from her new home. His house was not yet built; but +while it was building, they were to live with his mother, who was "such +a good woman," and his sisters, who were also "such nice women." + +But somehow, after this, a change came over Emmy's letters. They grew +shorter; they seemed measured in their words; and in place of sparkling +nonsense and bubbling outbursts of glee, came anxiously worded praises +of her situation and surroundings, evidently written for the sake of +arguing herself into the belief that she was extremely happy. + +John, of course, was not as much with her now: he had his business to +attend to, which took him away all day, and at night he was very tired. +Still he was very good and thoughtful of her, and how thankful she ought +to be! And his mother was very good indeed, and did all for her that she +could reasonably expect,--of course she could not be like her own mamma; +and Mary and Jane were very kind,--"in their way," she wrote, but +scratched it out, and wrote over it, "very kind indeed." They were the +best people in the world,--a great deal better than she was; and she +should try to learn a great deal from them. + +"Poor little Em!" I said to myself, "I am afraid these very nice people +are slowly freezing and starving her." And so, as I was going up into +the mountains for a summer tour, I thought I would accept some of John's +many invitations and stop a day or two with them on my way, and see how +matters stood. John had been known among us in college as a taciturn +fellow, but good as gold. I had gained his friendship by a regular +siege, carrying parallel after parallel, till, when I came into the fort +at last, I found the treasures worth taking. + +I had little difficulty in finding Squire Evan's house. It was _the_ +house of the village,--a true, model, New England house,--a square, +roomy, old-fashioned mansion, which stood on a hillside under a group of +great, breezy old elms, whose wide, wind-swung arms arched over it like +a leafy firmament. Under this bower the substantial white house, with +all its window-blinds closed, with its neat white fences all tight and +trim, stood in its faultless green turfy yard, a perfect Pharisee among +houses. It looked like a house all finished, done, completed, labelled, +and set on a shelf for preservation; but, as is usual with this kind of +edifice in our dear New England, it had not the slightest appearance of +being lived in, not a door or window open, not a wink or blink of life: +the only suspicion of human habitation was the thin, pale-blue smoke +from the kitchen-chimney. + +And now for the people in the house. + +In making a New England visit in winter, was it ever your fortune to be +put to sleep in the glacial spare-chamber, that had been kept from time +immemorial as a refrigerator for guests,--that room which no ray of +daily sunshine and daily living ever warms, whose blinds are closed the +whole year round, whose fireplace knows only the complimentary blaze +which is kindled a few moments before bed-time in an atmosphere where +you can see your breath? Do you remember the process of getting warm in +a bed of most faultless material, with linen sheets and pillow-cases, +slippery and cold as ice? You did get warm at last, but you warmed your +bed by giving out all the heat of your own body. + +Such are some families where you visit. They are of the very best +quality, like your sheets, but so cold that it takes all the vitality +you have to get them warmed up to the talking-point. You think, the +first hour after your arrival, that they must have heard some report to +your disadvantage, or that you misunderstood your letter of invitation, +or that you came on the wrong day; but no, you find in due course that +you _were_ invited, you were expected, and they were doing for you the +best they know how, and treating you as they suppose a guest ought to be +treated. + +If you are a warm-hearted, jovial fellow, and go on feeling your way +discreetly, you gradually thaw quite a little place round yourself in +the domestic circle, till, by the time you are ready to leave, you +really begin to think it is agreeable to stay, and resolve that you will +come again. They are nice people; they like you; at last you have got to +feeling at home with them. + +Three months after, you go to see them again, when, lo! there you are, +back again just where you were at first. The little spot which you had +thawed out is frozen over again, and again you spend all your visit in +thawing it and getting your hosts limbered and in a state for +comfortable converse. + +The first evening that I spent in the wide, roomy front-parlor, with +Judge Evans, his wife, and daughters, fully accounted for the change in +Emmy's letters. Rooms, I verily believe, get saturated with the aroma of +their spiritual atmosphere; and there are some so stately, so correct, +that they would paralyze even the friskiest kitten or the most impudent +Scotch terrier. At a glance, you perceive, on entering, that nothing but +correct deportment, an erect posture, and strictly didactic conversation +is possible there. + +The family, in fact, were all eminently didactic, bent on improvement, +laboriously useful. Not a good work or charitable enterprise could put +forth its head in the neighborhood, of which they were not the support +and life. Judge Evans was the stay and staff of the village and township +of ----; he bore up the pillars thereof. Mrs. Evans was known in the +gates for all the properties and deeds of the virtuous woman, as set +forth by Solomon; the heart of her husband did safely trust in her. But +when I saw them, that evening, sitting, in erect propriety, in their +respective corners each side of the great, stately fireplace, with its +tall, glistening brass andirons, its mantel adorned at either end with +plated candlesticks, with the snuffer-tray in the middle,--she so +collectedly measuring her words, talking in all those well-worn grooves +of correct conversation which are designed, as the phrase goes, to +"entertain strangers," and the Misses Evans, in the best of grammar and +rhetoric, and in most proper time and way possible, showing themselves +for what they were, most high-principled, well-informed, intelligent +women,--I set myself to speculate on the cause of the extraordinary +sensation of stiffness and restraint which pervaded me, as if I had been +dipped in some petrifying spring and was beginning to feel myself +slightly crusting over on the exterior. + +This kind of conversation is such as admits quite easily of one's +carrying on another course of thought within; and so, as I found myself +like a machine, striking in now and then in good time and tune, I looked +at Judge Evans, sitting there so serene, self-poised, and cold, and +began to wonder if he had ever been a boy, a young man,--if Mrs. Evans +ever was a girl,--if he was ever in love with her, and what he did when +he was. + +I thought of the lock of Emmy's hair which I had observed in John's +writing-desk in days when he was falling in love with her,--of sundry +little movements in which at awkward moments I had detected my grave and +serious gentleman when I had stumbled accidentally upon the pair in +moonlight strolls or retired corners,--and wondered whether the models +of propriety before me had ever been convicted of any such human +weaknesses. Now, to be sure, I could as soon imagine the stately tongs +to walk up and kiss the shovel as conceive of any such bygone effusion +in those dignified individuals. But how did they get acquainted? how +came they ever to be married? + +I looked at John, and thought I saw him gradually stiffening and +subsiding into the very image of his father. As near as a young fellow +of twenty-five can resemble an old one of sixty-two, he was growing to +be exactly like him, with the same upright carriage, the same silence +and reserve. Then I looked at Emmy: she, too, was changed,--she, the +wild little pet, all of whose pretty individualities were dear to +us,--that little unpunctuated scrap of life's poetry, full of little +exceptions referable to no exact rule, only to be tolerated under the +wide score of poetic license. Now, as she sat between the two Misses +Evans, I thought I could detect a bored, anxious expression on her +little mobile face,--an involuntary watchfulness and self-consciousness, +as if she were trying to be good on some quite new pattern. She seemed +nervous about some of my jokes, and her eye went apprehensively to her +mother-in-law in the corner; she tried hard to laugh and make things go +merrily for me; she seemed sometimes to look an apology for me to them, +and then again for them to me. For myself, I felt that perverse +inclination to shock people which sometimes comes over one in such +situations. I had a great mind to draw Emmy on to my knee and commence a +brotherly romp with her, to give John a thump on his very upright back, +and to propose to one of the Misses Evans to strike up a waltz, and get +the parlor into a general whirl, before the very face and eyes of +propriety in the corner: but "the spirits" were too strong for me; I +couldn't do it. + +I remembered the innocent, saucy freedom with which Emmy used to treat +her John in the days of their engagement,--the little ways, half loving, +half mischievous, in which she alternately petted and domineered over +him. _Now_ she called him "Mr. Evans," with an anxious affectation of +matronly gravity. Had they been lecturing her into these conjugal +proprieties? Probably not. I felt sure, by what I now experienced in +myself, that, were I to live in that family one week, all such little +deviations from the one accepted pattern of propriety would fall off, +like many-colored sumach-leaves after the first hard frost. I began to +feel myself slowly stiffening, my courage getting gently chilly. I tried +to tell a story, but had to mangle it greatly, because I felt in the air +around me that parts of it were too vernacular and emphatic; and then, +as a man who is freezing makes desperate efforts to throw off the spell, +and finds his brain beginning to turn, so I was beginning to be slightly +insane, and was haunted with a desire to say some horribly improper or +wicked thing which should start them all out of their chairs. Though +never given to profane expressions, I perfectly hankered to let out a +certain round, unvarnished, wicked word, which I knew would create a +tremendous commotion on the surface of this enchanted mill pond,--in +fact, I was so afraid that I should make some such mad demonstration, +that I rose at an early hour and begged leave to retire. Emmy sprang up +with apparent relief, and offered to get my candle and marshal me to my +room. + +When she had ushered me into the chilly hospitality of that stately +apartment, she seemed suddenly disenchanted. She set down the candle, +ran to me, fell on my neck, nestled her little head under my coat, +laughing and crying, and calling me her dear old boy; she pulled my +whiskers, pinched my ear, rummaged my pockets, danced round me in a sort +of wild joy, stunning me with a volley of questions, without stopping to +hear the answer to one of them; in short, the wild little elf of old +days seemed suddenly to come back to me, as I sat down and drew her on +to my knee. + +"It does look so like home to see you, Chris!--dear, dear home!--and the +dear old folks! There never, never was such a home!--everybody there did +just what they wanted to, didn't they, Chris?--and we love each other, +don't we?" + +"Emmy," said I, suddenly, and very improperly, "you aren't happy here." + +"Not happy?" she said, with a half-frightened look,--"what makes you say +so? Oh, you are mistaken. I have everything to make me happy. I should +be very unreasonable and wicked, if I were not. I am very, very happy, I +assure you. Of course, you know, everybody can't be like our folks at +home. _That_ I should not expect, you know,--people's ways are +different,--but then, when you know people are so good, and all that, +why, of course you must be thankful, be happy. It's better for me to +learn to control my feelings, you know, and not give way to impulses. +They are all so good here, they never give way to their feelings,--they +always do right. Oh, they are quite wonderful!" + +"And agreeable?" said I. + +"Oh, Chris, we mustn't think so much of that. They certainly aren't +pleasant and easy, as people at home are; but they are never cross, they +never scold, they always are good. And we oughtn't to think so much of +living to be happy; we ought to think more of doing right, doing our +duty, don't you think so?" + +"All undeniable truth, Emmy; but, for all that, John seems stiff as a +ramrod, and their front-parlor is like a tomb. You mustn't let them +petrify him." + +Her face clouded over a little. + +"John is different here from what he was at our house. He has been +brought up differently,--oh, entirely differently from what we were; and +when he comes back into the old house, the old business, and the old +place between his father and mother and sisters, he goes back into the +old ways. He loves me all the same, but he does not show it in the same +ways, and I must learn, you know, to take it on trust. He is _very_ +busy,--works hard all day, and all for me; and mother says women are +unreasonable that ask any other proof of love from their husbands than +what they give by working for them all the time. She never lectures me, +but I know she thought I was a silly little petted child, and she told +me one day how she brought up John. She never petted him; she put him +away alone to sleep, from the time he was six months old; she never fed +him out of his regular hours when he was a baby, no matter how much he +cried; she never let him talk baby-talk, or have any baby-talk talked to +him, but was very careful to make him speak all his words plain from the +very first; she never encouraged him to express his love by kisses or +caresses, but taught him that the only proof of love was exact +obedience. I remember John's telling me of his running to her once and +hugging her round the neck, when he had come in without wiping his +shoes, and she took off his arms and said, 'My son, this isn't the best +way to show love. I should be much better pleased to have you come in +quietly and wipe your shoes than to come and kiss me when you forget to +do what I say.'" + +"Dreadful old jade!" said I, irreverently, being then only twenty-three. + +"Now, Chris, I won't have anything to say to you, if this is the way you +are going to talk," said Emily, pouting, though a mischievous gleam +darted into her eyes. "Really, however, I think she carried things too +far, though she is so good. I only said it to excuse John, and show how +he was brought up." + +"Poor fellow!" said I. "I know now why he is so hopelessly shut up, and +walled up. Never a warmer heart than he keeps stowed away there inside +of the fortress, with the drawbridge down and moat all round." + +"They are all warm-hearted inside," said Emily. "Would you think she +didn't love him? Once when he was sick, she watched with him seventeen +nights without taking off her clothes; she scarcely would eat all the +time: Jane told me so. She loves him better than she loves herself. It's +perfectly dreadful sometimes to see how intense she is when anything +concerns him; it's her _principle_ that makes her so cold and quiet." + +"And a devilish one it is!" said I. + +"Chris, you are really growing wicked!" + +"I use the word seriously, and in good faith," said I. "Who but the +Father of Evil ever devised such plans for making goodness hateful, and +keeping the most heavenly part of our nature so under lock and key that +for the greater part of our lives we get no use of it? Of what benefit +is a mine of love burning where it warms nobody, does nothing but +blister the soul within with its imprisoned heat? Love repressed grows +morbid, acts in a thousand perverse ways. These three women, I'll +venture to say, are living in the family here like three frozen +islands, knowing as little of each other's inner life as if parted by +eternal barriers of ice,--and all because a cursed principle in the +heart of the mother has made her bring them up in violence to Nature." + +"Well," said Emmy, "sometimes I do pity Jane; she is nearest my age, +and, naturally, I think she was something like me, or might have been. +The other day I remember her coming in looking so flushed and ill that I +couldn't help asking if she were unwell. The tears came into her eyes; +but her mother looked up, in her cool, business-like way, and said, in +her dry voice,-- + +"'Jane, what's the matter?' + +"'Oh, my head aches dreadfully, and I have pains in all my limbs!' + +"I wanted to jump and run to do something for her,--you know at our +house we feel that a sick person must be waited on,--but her mother only +said, in the same dry way,-- + +"'Well, Jane, you've probably got a cold; go into the kitchen and make +yourself some good boneset tea, soak your feet in hot water, and go to +bed at once'; and Jane meekly departed. + +"I wanted to spring and do these things for her; but it's curious, in +this house I never dare offer to do anything; and mother looked at me, +as she went out, with a significant nod,-- + +"'That's always _my_ way; if any of the children are sick, I never +coddle them; it's best to teach them to make as light of it as +possible.'" + +"Dreadful!" said I. + +"Yes, it is dreadful," said Emmy, drawing her breath, as if relieved +that she might speak her mind; "it's dreadful to see these people, who I +know love each other, living side by side and never saying a loving, +tender word, never doing a little loving thing,--sick ones crawling off +alone like sick animals, persisting in being alone, bearing everything +alone. But I won't let them; I will insist on forcing my way into their +rooms. I would go and sit with Jane, and pet her and hold her hand and +bathe her head, though I knew it made her horridly uncomfortable at +first; but I thought she ought to learn to be petted in a Christian way, +when she was sick. I will kiss her, too, sometimes, though she takes it +just like a cat that isn't used to being stroked, and calls me a silly +girl; but I know she is getting to like it. What is the use of people's +loving each other in this horridly cold, stingy, silent way? If one of +them were dangerously ill now, or met with any serious accident, I know +there would be no end to what the others would do for her; if one of +them were to die, the others would be perfectly crushed: but it would +all go inward,--drop silently down into that dark, cold, frozen well; +they couldn't speak to each other; they couldn't comfort each other; +they have lost the power of expression; they absolutely _can't_." + +"Yes," said I, "they are like the fakirs who have held up an arm till it +has become stiffened,--they cannot now change its position; like the +poor mutes, who, being deaf, have become dumb through disuse of the +organs of speech. Their education has been like those iron suits of +armor into which little boys were put in the Middle Ages, solid, +inflexible, put on in childhood, enlarged with every year's growth, till +the warm human frame fitted the mould as if it had been melted and +poured into it. A person educated in this way is hopelessly crippled, +never will be what he might have been." + +"Oh, don't say that, Chris; think of John; think how good he is." + +"I do think how good he is,"--with indignation,--"and how few know it, +too. I think, that, with the tenderest, truest, gentlest heart, the +utmost appreciation of human friendship, he has passed in the world for +a cold, proud, selfish man. If your frank, impulsive, incisive nature +had not unlocked gates and opened doors, he would never have known the +love of woman: and now he is but half disenchanted; he every day tends +to go back to stone." + +"But I sha'n't let him; oh, indeed, I know the danger! I shall bring him +out. I shall work on them all. I know they are beginning to love me a +good deal: in the first place, because I belong to John, and everything +belonging to him is perfect; and in the second place,"---- + +"In the second place, because they expect to weave, day after day, the +fine cobweb lines of their cold system of repression around you, which +will harden and harden, and tighten and tighten, till you are as stiff +and shrouded as any of them. You remind me of our poor little duck: +don't you remember him?" + +"Yes, poor fellow! how he would stay out, and swim round and round, +while the pond kept freezing and freezing, and his swimming-place grew +smaller and smaller every day; but he was such a plucky little fellow +that"---- + +"That at last we found him one morning frozen tight in, and he has +limped ever since on his poor feet." + +"Oh, but I won't freeze in," she said, laughing. + +"Take care, Emmy! You are sensitive, approbative, delicately organized; +your whole nature inclines you to give way and yield to the nature of +those around you. One little lone duck such as you, however +warm-blooded, light-hearted, cannot keep a whole pond from freezing. +While you have any influence, you must use it all to get John away from +these surroundings, where you can have him to yourself." + +"Oh, you know we are building our house; we shall go to housekeeping +soon." + +"Where? Close by, under the very guns of this fortress, where all your +housekeeping, all your little management, will be subject to daily +inspection." + +"But mamma, never interferes, never advises,--unless I ask advice." + +"No, but she influences; she lives, she looks, she is there; and while +she is there, and while your home is within a stone's throw, the old +spell will be on your husband, on your children, if you have any; you +will feel it in the air; it will constrain, it will sway you, it will +rule your house, it will bring up your children." + +"Oh, no! never! never! I never could! I never will! If God should give +me a dear little child, I will not let it grow up in these hateful +ways!" + +"Then, Emmy, there will be a constant, still, undefined, but real +friction of your life-power, from the silent grating of your wishes and +feelings on the cold, positive millstone of their opinion; it will be a +life-battle with a quiet, invisible, pervading spirit, who will never +show himself in fair fight, but who will be around you in the very air +you breathe, at your pillow when you lie down and when you rise. There +is so much in these friends of yours noble, wise, severely good,--their +aims are so high, their efficiency so great, their virtues so +many,--that they will act upon you with the force of a conscience, +subduing, drawing, insensibly constraining you into their moulds. They +have stronger wills, stronger natures than yours; and between the two +forces of your own nature and theirs you will be always oscillating, so +that you will never show what you can do, working either in your own way +or yet in theirs: your life will be a failure." + +"Oh, Chris, why do you discourage me?" + +"I am trying tonic treatment, Emily; I am showing you a real danger; I +am rousing you to flee from it. John is making money fast; there is no +reason why he should always remain buried in this town. Use your +influence as they do,--daily, hourly, constantly,--to predispose him to +take you to another sphere. Do not always shrink and yield; do not +conceal and assimilate and endeavor to persuade him and yourself that +you are happy; do not put the very best face to him on it all; do not +tolerate his relapses daily and hourly into his habitual, cold, +inexpressive manner; and don't lay aside your own little impulsive, +outspoken ways. Respect your own nature, and assert it; woo him, argue +with him; use all a woman's weapons to keep him from falling back into +the old Castle Doubting where he lived till you let him out. Dispute +your mother's hateful dogma, that love is to be taken for granted +without daily proof between lovers; cry down latent caloric in the +market; insist that the mere fact of being a wife is not enough,--that +the words spoken once, years ago, are not enough,--that love needs new +leaves every summer of life, as much as your elm-trees, and new branches +to grow broader and wider, and new flowers at the root to cover the +ground. + +"Oh, but I have heard that here is no surer way to lose love than to be +exacting, and that it never comes for a woman's reproaches." + +"All true as Gospel, Emmy. I am not speaking of reproaches, or of +unreasonable self-assertion, or of ill-temper,--you could not use any of +these forces, if you would, you poor little chick! I am speaking now of +the highest duty we owe our friends, the noblest, the most sacred,--that +of keeping their own nobleness, goodness, pure and incorrupt. +Thoughtless, instinctive, unreasoning love and self-sacrifice, such as +many women long to bestow on husband and children, soil and lower the +very objects of their love. _You_ may grow saintly by self-sacrifice; +but do your husband and children grow saintly by accepting it without +return? I have seen a verse which says,-- + + 'They who kneel at woman's shrine + Breathe on it as they bow.' + +Is not this true of all unreasoning love and self-devotion? If we _let_ +our friend become cold and selfish and exacting without a remonstrance, +we are no true lover, no true friend. Any good man soon learns to +discriminate between the remonstrance that comes from a woman's love to +his soul, her concern for his honor, her anxiety for his moral +development, and the pettish cry which comes from her own personal +wants. It will be your own fault, if, for lack of anything you can do, +your husband relapses into these cold, undemonstrative habits which have +robbed his life of so much beauty and enjoyment. These dead, barren ways +of living are as unchristian as they are disagreeable; and you, as a +good Christian sworn to fight heroically under Christ's banner, must +make headway against this sort of family Antichrist, though it comes +with a show of superior sanctity and self-sacrifice. Remember, dear, +that the Master's family had its outward tokens of love as well as its +inward life. The beloved leaned on His bosom; and the traitor could not +have had a sign for his treachery, had there not been a daily kiss at +meeting and parting with His children." + +"I am glad you have said all this," said Emily, "because now I feel +stronger for it. It does not now seem so selfish for me to want what it +is better for John to give. Yes, I must seek what will be best for him." + +And so the little one, put on the track of self-sacrifice, began to see +her way clearer, as many little women of her sort do. Make them look on +self-assertion as one form of martyrdom, and they will come into it. + +But, for all my eloquence on this evening, the house was built in the +self-same spot as projected; and the family life went on, under the +shadow of Judge Evan's elms, much as if I had not spoken. Emmy became +mother of two fine, lovely boys, and waxed dimmer and fainter; while +with her physical decay came increasing need of the rule in the +household of mamma and sisters, who took her up energetically on eagles' +wings, and kept her house, and managed her children: for what can be +done when a woman hovers half her time between life and death? + +At last I spoke out to John, that the climate and atmosphere were too +severe for her who had become so dear to him,--to them all; and then +they consented that the change much talked of and urged, but always +opposed by the parents, should be made. + +John bought a pretty cottage in our neighborhood, and brought his wife +and boys; and the effect of change of moral atmosphere verified all my +predictions. In a year we had our own blooming, joyous, impulsive little +Emily once more,--full of life, full of cheer, full of energy,--looking +to the ways of her household,--the merry companion of her growing +boys,--the blithe empress over her husband, who took to her genial sway +as in the old happy days of courtship. The nightmare was past, and John +was as joyous as any of us in his freedom. As Emmy said, he was turned +right side out for life; and we all admired the pattern. And that is the +end of my story. + +And now for the moral,--and that is, that life consists of two +parts,--_Expression_ and _Repression_,--each of which has its solemn +duties. To love, joy, hope, faith, pity, belongs the duty of +_expression_: to anger, envy, malice, revenge, and all uncharitableness +belongs the duty of _repression_. + +Some very religious and moral people err by applying _repression_ to +both classes alike. They repress equally the expression of love and of +hatred, of pity and of anger. Such forget one great law, as true in the +moral world as in the physical,--that repression lessens and deadens. +Twice or thrice mowing will kill off the sturdiest crop of weeds; the +roots die for want of expression. A compress on a limb will stop its +growing; the surgeon knows this, and puts a tight bandage around a +tumor; but what if we put a tight bandage about the heart and lungs, as +some young ladies of my acquaintance do,--or bandage the feet, as they +do in China? And what if we bandage a nobler inner faculty, and wrap +_love_ in grave-clothes? + +But again there are others, and their number is legion,--perhaps you and +I, reader, may know something of it in ourselves,--who have an +instinctive habit of repression in regard to all that is noblest and +highest, within them, which they do not feel in their lower and more +unworthy nature. + +It comes far easier to scold our friend in an angry moment than to say +how much we love, honor, and esteem him in a kindly mood. Wrath and +bitterness speak themselves and go with their own force; love is +shamefaced, looks shyly out of the window, lingers long at the +door-latch. + +How much freer utterance among many good Christians have anger, +contempt, and censoriousness, than tenderness and love! _I hate_ is said +loud and with all our force. _I love_ is said with a hesitating voice +and blushing cheek. + +In an angry mood we do an injury to a loving heart with good, strong, +free emphasis; but we stammer and hang back when our diviner nature +tells us to confess and ask pardon. Even when our heart is broken with +repentance, we haggle and linger long before we can + + "Throw away the worser part of it." + +How many live a stingy and niggardly life in regard to their richest +inward treasures! They live with those they love dearly, whom a few more +words and deeds expressive of this love would make so much happier, +richer, and better; and they cannot, will not, turn the key and give it +out. People who in their very souls really do love, esteem, reverence, +almost worship each other, live a barren, chilly life side by side, +busy, anxious, preoccupied, letting their love go by as a matter of +course, a last year's growth, with no present buds and blossoms. + +Are there not sons and daughters who have parents living with them as +angels unawares,--husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, in whom the +material for a beautiful life lies locked away in unfruitful +silence,--who give time to everything but the cultivation and expression +of mutual love? + +The time is coming, they think in some far future when they shall find +leisure to enjoy each other, to stop and rest side by side, to discover +to each other these hidden treasures which lie idle and unused. + +Alas! time flies and death steals on, and we reiterate the complaint of +one in Scripture,--"It came to pass, while thy servant was busy hither +and thither, the man was gone." + +The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds +left undone. "She never knew how I loved her." "He never knew what he +was to me." "I always meant to make more of our friendship." "I did not +know what he was to me till he was gone." Such words are the poisoned +arrows which cruel Death shoots backward at us from the door of the +sepulchre. + +How much more we might make of our family life, of our friendships, if +every secret thought of love blossomed into a deed! We are not now +speaking merely of personal caresses. These may or may not be the best +language of affection. Many are endowed with a delicacy, a +fastidiousness of physical organization, which shrinks away from too +much of these, repelled and overpowered. But there are words and looks +and little observances, thoughtfulnesses, watchful little attentions, +which speak of love, which make it manifest, and there is scarce a +family that might not be richer in heart-wealth for more of them. + +It is a mistake to suppose that relations must of course love each other +because they are relations. Love must be cultivated, and can be +increased by judicious culture, as wild fruits may double their bearing +under the hand of a gardener; and love can dwindle and die out by +neglect, as choice flower-seeds planted in poor soil dwindle and grow +single. + +Two causes in our Anglo-Saxon nature prevent this easy faculty and flow +of expression which strike one so pleasantly in the Italian or the +French life: the dread of flattery, and a constitutional shyness. + +"I perfectly longed to tell So-and-so how I admired her, the other day," +says Miss X. + +"And why in the world didn't you tell her?" + +"Oh, it would seem like flattery, you know." + +Now what is flattery? + +Flattery is _insincere_ praise given from interested motives, not the +sincere utterance to a friend of what we deem good and lovely in him. + +And so, for fear of flattering, these dreadfully sincere people go on +side by side with those they love and admire, giving them all the time +the impression of utter indifference. Parents are so afraid of exciting +pride and vanity in their children by the expression of their love and +approbation, that a child sometimes goes sad and discouraged by their +side, and learns with surprise, in some chance way, that they are proud +and fond of him. There are times when the open expression of a father's +love would be worth more than church or sermon to a boy; and his father +cannot utter it, will not show it. + +The other thing that represses the utterances of love is the +characteristic _shyness_ of the Anglo-Saxon blood. Oddly enough, a race +born of two demonstrative, outspoken nations--the German and the +French--has an habitual reserve that is like neither. There is a +powerlessness of utterance in our blood that we should fight against, +and struggle outward towards expression. We can educate ourselves to it, +if we know and feel the necessity; we can make it a Christian duty, not +only to love, but to be loving,--not only to be true friends, but to +_show_ ourselves friendly. We can make ourselves say the kind things +that rise in our hearts and tremble back on our lips,--do the gentle and +helpful deeds which we long to do and shrink back from; and, little by +little, it will grow easier,--the love spoken, will bring back the +answer of love,--the kind deed will bring back a kind deed in +return,--till the hearts in the family-circle, instead of being so many +frozen, icy islands, shall be full of warm airs and echoing bird-voices +answering back and forth with a constant melody of love. + + + + +MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + + Dear Sir,--Your letter come to han', + Requestin' me to please be funny; + But I a'n't made upon a plan + Thet knows wut 's comin', gall or honey: + Ther' 's times the world doos look so queer, + Odd fancies come afore I call 'em; + An' then agin, for half a year, + No preacher 'thout a call 's more solemn. + + You 're 'n want o' sunthin' light an' cute, + Rattlin' an' shrewd an' kin' o' jingleish, + An' wish, pervidin' it 'ould suit, + I 'd take an' citify my English. + I _ken_ write long-tailed, ef I please,-- + But when I 'm jokin', no, I thankee; + Then, 'fore I know it, my idees + Run helter-skelter into Yankee. + + Sence I begun to scribble rhyme, + I tell ye wut, I ha'n't ben foolin'; + The parson's books, life, death, an' time + Hev took some trouble with my schoolin'; + Nor th' airth don't git put out with me, + Thet love her 'z though she wuz a woman; + Why, th' a'n't a bird upon the tree + But half forgives my bein' human. + + An' yit I love th' unhighschooled way + Ol' farmers hed when I wuz younger; + Their talk wuz meatier, an' 'ould stay, + While book-froth seems to whet, your hunger, + For puttin' in a downright lick + 'Twixt Humbug's eyes, ther' 's few can match it, + An' then it helves my thoughts ez slick + Ez stret-grained hickory doos a hatchet. + + But when I can't, I can't, thet 's all, + For Natur' won't put up with gullin'; + Idees you hev to shove an' haul + Like a druv pig a'n't wuth a mullein; + Live thoughts a'n't sent for; thru all rifts + O' sense they pour an' resh ye onwards, + Like rivers when south-lyin' drifts + Feel thet the airth is wheelin' sunwards. + + Time wuz, the rhymes come crowdin' thick + Ez office-seekers arter 'lection, + An' into ary place 'ould stick + Without no bother nor objection; + But sence the war my thoughts hang back + Ez though I wanted to enlist 'em, + An' substitutes,--wal, _they_ don't lack, + But then they 'll slope afore you 've mist 'em. + + Nothin' don't seem like wut it wuz; + I can't see wut there is to hinder, + An' yit my brains 'jes' go buzz, buzz, + Like bumblebees agin a winder; + 'Fore these times come, in all airth's row, + Ther' wuz one quiet place, my head in, + Where I could hide an' think,--but now + It 's all one teeter, hopin', dreadin'. + + Where 's Peace? I start, some clear-blown night, + When gaunt stone walls grow numb an' number, + An', creakin' 'cross the snow-crust white, + Walk the col' starlight into summer; + Up grows the moon, an' swell by swell + Thru the pale pasturs silvers dimmer + Than the last smile thet strives to tell + O' love gone heavenward in its shimmer. + + I hev ben gladder o' sech things + Than cocks o' spring or bees o' clover, + They filled my heart with livin' springs, + But now they seem to freeze 'em over; + Sights innercent ez babes on knee, + Peaceful ez eyes o' pastur'd cattle, + Jes' coz they be so, seem to me + To rile me more with thoughts o' battle. + + In-doors an' out by spells I try; + Ma'am Natur' keeps her spin-wheel goin', + But leaves my natur' stiff an' dry + Ez fiel's o' clover arter mowin'; + An' her jes' keepin' on the same, + Calmer than clock-work, an' not carin', + An' findin' nary thing to blame, + Is wus than ef she took to swearin'. + + Snow-flakes come whisperin' on the pane + The charm makes blazin' logs so pleasant, + But I can't hark to wut they 're say'n', + With Grant or Sherman oilers present; + The chimbleys shudder in the gale, + Thet lulls, then suddin takes to flappin' + Like a shot hawk, but all's ez stale + To me ez so much sperit-rappin'. + + Under the yaller-pines I house, + When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented, + An' hear among their furry boughs + The baskin' west-wind purr contented,-- + While 'way o'erhead, ez sweet an' low + Ez distant bells thet ring for meetin', + The wedged wil' geese their bugles blow, + Further an' further South retreatin'. + + Or up the slippery knob I strain + An' see a hunderd hills like islan's + Lift their blue woods in broken chain + Out o' the sea o' snowy silence; + The farm-smokes, sweetes' sight on airth, + Slow thru the winter air a-shrinkin', + Seem kin' o' sad, an' roun' the hearth + Of empty places set me thinkin'. + + Beaver roars hoarse with meltin' snows, + An' rattles di'mon's from his granite; + Time wuz, he snatched away my prose, + An' into psalms or satires ran it; + But he, nor all the rest thet once + Started my blood to country-dances, + Can't set me goin' more 'n a dunce + Thet ha'n't no use for dreams an' fancies. + + Rat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street + I hear the drummers makin' riot, + An' I set thinkin' o' the feet + Thet follered once an' now are quiet,-- + White feet ez snowdrops innercent, + Thet never knowed the paths o' Satan, + Whose comin' step ther' 's ears thet won't, + No, not lifelong, leave off awaitin'. + + Why, ha'n't I held 'em on my knee? + Did n't I love to see 'em growin', + Three likely lads ez wal could be, + Handsome an' brave an' not tu knowin'? + I set an' look into the blaze + Whose natur', jes' like their'n, keeps climbin', + Ez long 'z it lives, in shinin' ways, + An' half despise myself for rhymin'. + + Wut 's words to them whose faith an' truth + On War's red techstone rang true metal, + Who ventered life an' love an' youth + For the gret prize o' death in battle? + To him who, deadly hurt, agen + Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, + Tippin' with fire the bolt of men + Thet rived the Rebel line asunder? + + 'T a'n't right to hev the young go fust, + All throbbin' full o' gifts an' graces, + Leavin' life's paupers dry ez dust + To try an' make b'lieve fill their places: + Nothin' but tells us wut we miss, + Ther' 's gaps our lives can't never fay in, + An' thet world seems so fur from this + Lef' for us loafers to grow gray in! + + My eyes cloud up for rain; my mouth + Will take to twitchin' roun' the corners; + I pity mothers, tu, down South, + For all they sot among the scorners: + I 'd sooner take my chance to stan' + At Jedgment where your meanest slave is, + Than at God's bar hol' up a han' + Ez drippin' red ez your'n, Jeff Davis! + + Come, Peace! not like a mourner bowed + For honor lost an' dear ones wasted, + But proud, to meet a people proud, + With eyes thet tell o' triumph tasted! + Come, with han' grippin' on the hilt, + An' step thet proves ye Victory's daughter! + Longin' for you, our sperits wilt + Like shipwrecked men's on raf's for water! + + Come, while our country feels the lift + Of a gret instinct shoutin' forwards, + An' knows thet freedom a'n't a gift + Thet tarries long in hans' o' cowards! + Come, sech ez mothers prayed for, when + They kissed their cross with lips thet quivered, + An' bring fair wages for brave men, + A nation saved, a race delivered! + + + + +"IF MASSA PUT GUNS INTO OUR HAN'S." + + +The record of any one American who has grown up in the nurture of +Abolitionism has but little value by itself considered; but as a +representative experience, capable of explaining all enthusiasms for +liberty which have created "fanatics" and martyrs in our time, let me +recall how I myself came to hate Slavery. + +The training began while I was a babe unborn. A few months before I saw +the light, my father, mother, and sister were driven from their house in +New York by a furious mob. When they came cautiously back, their home +was quiet as a fortress the day after it has been blown up. The +front-parlor was full of paving-stones; the carpets were cut to pieces; +the pictures, the furniture, and the chandelier lay in one common +wreck; and the walls were covered with inscriptions of mingled insult +and glory. Over the mantel-piece had been charcoaled "Rascal"; over the +pier-table, "Abolitionist." We did not fare as badly as several others +who rejoiced in the spoiling of their goods. Mr. Tappan, in Rose Street, +saw a bonfire made of all he had in the world that could make a home or +ornament it. + +Among the earliest stories which were told me in the nursery, I +recollect the martyrdom of Nat Turner,--how Lovejoy, by night, but in +light, was sent quite beyond the reach of human pelting,--and all the +things which Toussaint did, with no white man, but with the whitest +spirit of all, to help him. As to minor sufferers for the cause of +Freedom, I should know that we must have entertained Abolitionists at +our house largely, since even at this day I find it hard to rid myself +of an instinctive impression that the common way of testifying +disapprobation of a lecturer in a small country-town is to bombard him +with obsolete eggs, carried by the audience for that purpose. I saw many +at my father's table who had enjoyed the honors of that ovation. + +I was four years old when I learned that my father combined the two +functions of preaching in a New England college town and ticket-agency +on the Underground Railroad. Four years old has a sort of literal +mindedness about it. Most little boys that I knew had an idea that +professors of religion and professors in college were the same, and that +a real Christian always had to wear black and speak Greek. So I could be +pardoned for going down cellar and watching behind old hogsheads by the +hour to see where the cars came in. + +A year after that I casually saw my first passenger, but regretted not +also to have seen whether he came up by the coal-bin or the meat-safe. +His name was Isidore Smith; so, to protect him from Smith, my father, +being a conscientious man, baptized him into a liberty to say that his +name was John Peterson. I held the blue bowl which served for font. To +this day I feel a sort of semi-accountability for John Peterson. I have +asked after him every time I have crossed the Suspension Bridge since I +grew up. In holding that baptismal bowl I suppose I am, in a sense, his +godfather. Half a godfather is better than none, and in spite of my size +I was a very earnest one. + +There are few godchildren for whom I should have had to renounce fewer +sins than for thee, brave John Peterson! + +John Peterson had been baptized before. No sprinkling that, but an +immersion in hell! He had to strip to show it to us. All down his back +were welts in which my father might lay his finger; and one gash healed +with a scar into which I could put my small, boyish fist. The former +were made by the whip and branding-irons of a Virginia planter,--the +latter by the teeth of his bloodhounds. When I saw that black back, I +cried; and my father might have chosen the place to baptize in, even as +John Baptist did AEnon, "because there was much water there." + +John stayed with us three or four weeks and then got moody. Nobody in +the town twitted him as a runaway. He was inexhaustibly strong in +health, and never tired of doing us service as gardener, porter, +errand-boy, and, on occasion, cook. In few places could his hard-won +freedom be less imperilled than with us. At last the secret of his +melancholy came out. He burst into tears, one morning, as he stood with +the fresh-polished boots at the door of my father's study, and sobbed,-- + +"Massa, I's got to go an' fetch dat yer gal 'n' little Pompey, 'r I's be +done dead afore de yeah's out!" + +As always, a woman in the case! + +Had it been his own case, I think I know my father well enough to +believe that he would have started directly South for "dat yer gal 'n' +little Pompey," though he had to face a frowning world. But being John's +counsellor, his _role_ was to counsel moderation, and his duty to put +before him the immense improbability of his ever making a second +passage of the Red Sea, if he now returned. If he were caught and +whipped to death, of what benefit could he be to his wife and child? Why +not stay North and buy them? + +But the marital and the parental are also the automatic and the +immediate. Reason with love! As well with orange-boughs for bearing +orange-buds, or water upon its boiling-point! When John's earnestness +made my father realize that this is the truth, he gave John all the +available funds in the underground till, and started him off at six in +the morning. I was not awake when he went, and felt that my luck was +down on me. I never should see that hole where the black came up. + +For six months the Care-Taker of Ravens had under His sole keeping a +brave head as black as theirs, and a heart like that of the pious negro, +who, in a Southern revival-hymn is thus referred to:-- + + "O! O! + Him hab face jus' like de crow, + But de Lor' gib him heart like snow." + +(The most Southern slaves, who had never travelled and seen snow, found +greater reality in the image of "cotton wool," and used to sing the hymn +with that variation.) At the end of that time, contrary to our most +sanguine expectations, John Peterson appeared. Nor John Peterson alone, +for when he rang our door-bell he put into the arms of a nice-looking +mulatto woman of thirty a little youngster about two years old. + +A new servant, with some trepidation, showed them up to "Massa's" study. +We had weeded John's dialect of that word before he went away, but he +had been six months since then in a servile atmosphere. He stood at the +open study-door. My father stopped shaving, and let the lather dry on +his face, as he shielded with his hand the eyes he in vain tried to +believe. Yes, veritably, John Peterson! + +But John Peterson could not speak. He choked visibly; and then, pointing +to the two beside him, blurted out,-- + +"I's done did it, Massa!" and broke entirely down. + +Again it was AEnon generally, and there was more baptizing done. + +John had made a march somewhat like Sherman's. He had crossed the entire +States of Virginia and Maryland, carrying two non-combatants, and no +weapon of his own but a knife,--subsisting his army on the enemy all the +way,--using negro guides freely, but never sending them back to their +masters,--and terminating his brilliant campaign with an act of bold, +unconstitutional confiscation. He couldn't have found a Chief-Justice in +the world to uphold him in it at that time. + +Hiding by day and walking by night, with his boy strapped to his back +and his wife by his side, he had come within thirty miles of the +Maryland line, when one night the full moon flashed its Judas lantern +full upon him, and, being in the high-road, he naturally enough "tuk a +scar'." Freedom only thirty miles off,--that vast territory behind him, +three times traversed for her dear sake and Love's,--a slave-owner's +stable close by,--a wife and a baby crouching in the thicket,--God above +saying, "The laborer is worthy of his hire." No Chief-Justice in the +world could have convinced that man. + +With an inspired touch,--the _tactus eruditus_ of a bitter memory and a +glorious hope,--John felt for and found the best horse in the stable, +saddled him, led him out without awakening a soul, and, mounting, took +his wife before him with the baby in her arms. A pack of deerhounds came +snuffing about him as he rode off; but, for a wonder, they never howled. + +"Oh, Massa!" said John, "when I see dat, I knowed we was safe anyhow. +Dat Lor' dat stop de moufs of dem dogs was jus' de same as Him dat shut +de moufs of de lions in Dannelindelinesden." (I write it as he +pronounced it. I think he thought it was a place in the Holy Land.) +"When I knowed dat was de same Lor', an' He come down dar to help me, I +rode along jus' as quiet as little Pompey dar, an' neber feared no +moon." + +When he reached the Pennsylvania border he turned back the horse, and +proceeded on his way through a land where as yet there was no +Fugitive-Slave Law, and those who sought to obstruct the progress of the +negro-hunter were, as they ever have been, many. + + * * * * * + +After that I got by accident into a Northern school with Southern +_principals_. + +AEsthetically it was a good school. We wore kid gloves when we went to +meeting, and sat in a gallery like a sort of steamer over the boiler, in +which deacons and other large good people were stewing, through long, +hot Sunday afternoons. If we went to sleep, or ate cloves not to go to +sleep, we were punched in the back with a real gold-headed cane. The +cane we felt proud of, because it had been presented by the boys, and it +was a perpetual compliment to us to see that cane go down the street +with our principal after it; but nothing could have exceeded our +mortification at being punched with it in full sight of the +girls'-school gallery opposite, we having our kid gloves on at the time, +and in some instances coats with tails, like men. + +When I say "Southern" principals, I do not mean to indicate their +nativity; for I suppose no Southerner ever taught a Northerner anything +until Bull Run, when the lesson was, not to despise one's enemy, but to +beat him. Nor do I intend to call them pro-slavery men in the obnoxious +sense. Like many good men of the day, they depended largely on Southern +patronage, and opposed all discussion of what they called "political +differences." At that day, in most famous schools, "Liberty" used to be +cut out of a boy's composition, if it meant anything more than an +exhibition-day splurge with reference to the eagle and the banner in the +immediate context. + +Among the large crowd of young Southerners sent to this school, I began +preaching emancipation in my pinafore. Mounted upon a window-seat in an +alcove of the great play-hall, I passed recess after recess in +haranguing a multitude upon the subject of Freedom, with as little +success as most apostles, and with only less than their crown of +martyrdom, because, though small boys are more malicious than men, they +cannot hit so hard. + +On one occasion, brought to bay by a sophism, I answered unwisely, but +made a good friend. A little Southerner (as often since a large one) +turned on me fiercely and said,-- + +"Would you marry a nigger?" + +Resolved to die by my premises, I gave a great gulp and said,-- + +"Yes!" + +Of course one general shout of derision ascended from the throng. +Nothing but the ringing of the bell prevented me from accepting on the +spot the challenge to a fist-fight of a boy whom Lee has since cashiered +from his colonelcy for selling the commissions in his regiment. After +school I was taken in hand by a gentleman, then one of our +belles-lettres teachers, but now a well-known and eloquent divine in New +York city, who for the first time showed me how to beat an antagonist by +avoiding his deductions. + +"Tell G. the next time," said the present Rev. Dr. W., "that, if you saw +a poor beggar-woman dying of cold and hunger, you would do all in your +power to help her, though you might be far enough from wanting to marry +her." + +How many a _non-sequitur_ of people who didn't sit in the boys' gallery +has this simple little formula of Dr. W.'s helped me to shed aside since +then! + + * * * * * + +Just after the John Brown raid, I went to Florida. I remained in the +State from the first of January till the first week of the May +following. I found there the climate of Utopia, the scenery of Paradise, +and the social system of Hell. + +I am inclined to think that the author of the pamphlet which last spring +advocated amalgamation was a Floridian. The most open relations of +concubinage existed between white chevaliers and black servants in the +town of Jacksonville. I was not surprised at the fact, but was +surprised at its openness. The particular friend of one family belonging +to the cream of Florida society was a gentleman in thriving business who +had for his mistress the waiting-maid of the daughters. He used to sit +composedly with the young ladies of an evening,--one of them playing on +the piano to him, the other smiling upon him over a bouquet,--while the +woman he had afflicted with the burdens, without giving her the +blessings, of marriage, came in curtsying humbly with a tea-tray. +Everybody understood the relation perfectly; but not even the pious +shrugged their shoulders or seemed to care. One day, a lank Virginian, +wintering South in the same hotel with myself, began pitching into me on +the subject of "Northern amalgamators." I called to me a pretty little +boy with the faintest tinge of umber in his skin, and pointed him to the +lank Virginian without a word. The lank Virginian understood the answer, +and sat down to read Bledsoe on the Soul. Bledsoe, as a slave-labor +growth in metaphysics, (indeed, the only Southern metaphysician, if we +except Governor Wise,) is much coddled at the South. I believe, besides, +that he proves the divine right of Slavery _a priori_. If he begins with +the "Everlasting Me," he must be just the kind of reading for a slave +aristocrat. + + * * * * * + +It is very amusing to hear the Southerners talk of arming their slaves. +I often heard them do it in Florida. I have read such Richmond Congress +debates as have transpired upon the subject. I do not believe that any +important steps will be taken in the matter. I have known a master mad +with fear, when he saw an old gun-stock protruding from beneath one of +those dog-heaps of straw and sacking called beds, in the negro-quarters. +The fact that it had been thrown away by himself, had no barrel attached +to it, and was picked up by a colored boy who had a passion for carving, +hardly prevented the man from giving the innocent author of his fright a +round "nine-and-thirty." When I was in Florida, a peculiar set of marks, +like the technical "blaze," were found on certain trees in that and the +adjoining State westward. The people were alive in an instant. There +were editorials and meetings. The Southern heart was fired, and fired +off. There was every indication of a negro uprising, and those marks +pointed the way to the various rendezvous. When they were discovered to +be the work of some insignificant rodent, who had put himself on +bark-tonic to a degree which had never chanced to be observed before, +nobody seemed ashamed, for everybody said,--"Well, it was best to be on +the safe side; the thing might have happened just as well as not." I do +not believe that one thinking Southern man (if any such there be in the +closing hours of a desperate conspiracy) has any more idea of arming his +negroes than of translating San Domingo to the threshold of his home. I +should like to see the negroes whom I knew most thoroughly intrusted +with blockade-run rifles, just by way of experiment. Let me recall a +couple of these acquaintances. + + * * * * * + +The St. John's River is one of the most picturesque and beautiful +streams in the world. Its bluffs never rise higher than fifty or sixty +feet; it has no abrupt precipices; the whole formation about it is +tertiary and drift or modern terrace; but its first eighty miles from +its mouth are broad as a bay of the sea, and its narrow upper course +above Pilatka, where current supersedes tide, is all one dream of +Eden,--an infinitely tortuous avenue, peopled with myriads of beautiful +wild-birds, roofed by overhanging branches of oak, magnolia, and +cypress, draped with the moss that tones down those solitudes into a +sort of day-moonlight, and, in the greatest contrast with this, +festooned by the lavish clusters of odorous yellow jasmine and many-hued +morning-glory,--the latter making a pillar heavy with triumphal wreaths +of every old stump along the plashy brink,--the former swinging from +tree-top to tree-top to knit the whole tropic wilderness into a tangle +of emerald chains, drooping lamps of golden fire, and censers of +bewildering fragrance. + +To the hunting, fishing, and exploration of such a river I was never +sorry that I had brought my own boat. It was one of the +_chefs-d'oeuvres_ of my old schoolmate Ingersoll,--a copper-fastened, +clinker-built pleasure-boat, pulling two pairs of sculls, fifteen feet +long, comfortably accommodating six persons, and adorned by the builder +with a complimentary blue and gilt backboard of mahogany and a pair of +presentation tiller-ropes twisted from white and crimson silk. + +In this boat I and the companion of my exile took much comfort. When we +intended only a short row,--some trifle of ten or twelve miles,--we +always pulled for ourselves; but on long tours, where the faculties of +observation would have been impaired by the fatigue of action, we +employed as our oarsman a black man whom I shall call Sol Cutter,--not +knowing on which side of the lines he may be at present. + +Sol, when we first discovered him, was hovering around the Jacksonville +wharves, looking for a job. It is so novel to see that kind of thing in +the South, that I asked him if he was a free negro. He replied, that he +was the slave of a gentleman who allowed him to buy his time. He said +"allowed"; but I suspect that the truer, though less delicate, way of +putting it would have been to say "obliged" him to, for the sake of a +living. Sol's "Mossa Cutter" had remaining to him none of the paternal +acres; and it never having occurred to him, that, when lands and houses +all are spent, then learning is most excellent, he possessed none of +that _nous_ which would have enabled a Northern man to outflank +embarrassments by directing his forces into new channels. Having worked +a plantation, when he had no longer any plantation to work he was +compelled to send his negroes into the street to earn an eleemosynary +living for him. This was no obloquy. How many such men has every +Southern traveller seen,--"sons of the first South Carolina +families,"--parodying the Caryatides against the sunny wall of some low +grog-shop during a whole winter afternoon,--their eyes listless, their +hands in their pockets, their legs outstretched, their backs bent, their +conversation a languid mixture of Cracker dialect and overseer slang, +their negroes' earnings running down their throats at intervals, as they +change their outside for a temporary inside position,--and all the +well-dressed citizens addressing them cheerfully as "Colonel" and +"Major," without a blush of shame, as they go by! Goldwin Smith was +right in pointing at such men as one of the former palliations for the +social invectives of the foreign tourist,--though any such tourist with +brains need not have mistaken them for sample Americans, having already +been in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. The trouble is, that foreign +tourists, as a rule, do _not_ have brains. At any rate, they may say to +us, as Artemus Ward of his gifts of eloquence,--"I _have_ them, but--I +haven't got them with me." + +Sol Cutter paid his master eight dollars a week. As he had to keep +himself out of his remainder earnings, he was naturally more +enterprising than most slaves, and I took a fancy to him immediately. +From the day I found him, he always went out with me on my long rows. + +The middle of a river six miles wide is the safest place that can be +found at the South for insurrectionary conversation. Even there I used +to wonder whether the Southerners had not given secret-service money to +the alligators who occasionally stuck their knobby noses above the flood +to scent our colloquies. + +Sol was pulling away steadily, having "got his second wind" at the end +of the first mile. I was sitting with tiller-ropes in hand, and studying +his strong-featured, but utterly expressionless face, with deep +curiosity. His face was one over which the hot roller of a great agony +has passed, smoothing out all its meaning. + +"So your master sells you your time?" + +"Yes, Mossa." (Always "_Mossa_" never "_Massa_," so far South as this.) + +"Do you support your wife and children as well as yourself?" + +A convulsive gulp on the part of Sol, but no reply. + +"Have you never been married?" + +"Yes, Mossa." + +"Is your wife dead?" + +"I hope so,--to de good God, I hope so, Mossa!" + +Sol leaned forward on his oars and stopped rowing. He panted, he gnashed +his teeth, he frothed at the mouth, and when I thought he must be an +epileptic, he lifted himself up with one strong shudder, and turning on +me a face stern as Cato's,-- + +"Nebber, _nebber_, NEBBER, shall I see wife or chil' agin!" + +I then said openly that I was an Abolitionist,--that I believed in every +man's right to freedom,--and that, as to the safest friend in the world, +he might tell me his story,--which he thereupon did, and which was +afterward abundantly corroborated by pro-slavery testimony on shore. + +"Mossa Cutter" had fallen heir in South Carolina to a good plantation +and thirty likely "niggers." At the age of twenty-five he sold out the +former and emigrated to Florida with the latter. The price of the +plantation rapidly disappeared at horse-races, poker-parties, +cock-fights, and rum-shops. If Mossa Cutter speculated, he was always +unsuccessful, because he was always hotheaded and always drunk. + +In process of time "debts of honor" and the sheriff's hammer had +dissipated his entire clientage of blacks, with the exception of Sol, a +pretty yellow woman with a nice baby, who were respectively Sol's wife +and child, and a handsome quadroon boy of seventeen, who was Mossa +Cutter's body-servant. + +Sol came to the quarters one night and found his wife and child gone. +They were on their way to Tallahassee in a coffle which had been made up +as a sudden speculation on the cheerful Bourse of Jacksonville. Four +doors away Mossa Cutter could be seen between the flaunting red curtains +of a bar-room window, drinking Sol's heart's blood at sixpence the +tumblerful. + +Sol, I hear they are going to put an English musket in your hands! + +Sol fell paralyzed to the ground. A moment after, he was up on his feet +again, and, without thought of nine o'clock, pass, patrol, or +whipping-house, rushing on the road likely to be taken by chain-gangs to +Tallahassee. He reached the "Piny Woods" timber on the outskirts of the +town. No one had noticed him, and he struck madly through the sand that +floors those forests, knowing no weariness, for his heart-strings pulled +that way. He travelled all night without overtaking them; but just as +the first gray dawn glimmered between the piny plumes behind him, he +heard the coarse shout of drivers close ahead, and found himself by the +fence of a log-hut where the gang had huddled down for its short sleep. +It was now light enough to travel, and the drivers were "geeing" up +their human cattle. + +Sol rushed to his wife and baby. As the man and woman clasped each other +in frantic caress, the driver came up, and, kicking them, bade them with +an oath to have done. + +"Whose nigger are you?" (to Sol.) + +"I belong to Mossa Cutter. I's come to be taken along." + +"Did he send you?" + +"He did so, Sah. He tol' me partic'lar. I done run hard to catch up wid +you gemplemen, Mossa. Mossa Cutter he sell me to-day to be sol' in de +same lot wid Nancy." + +The drivers went aside and talked for a while, then took him on with +them, and, for a wonder, did sell Sol and Nancy in the same lot. Nancy's +and the baby's price had one good use to Sol, for it kept Mossa Cutter +for a week too drunk to know of his loss or care for his recovery. + +Sol was the coachman, Nancy the laundress, of a gentleman residing at +the capital. Their master had the happy eccentricity of getting more +amiable with every rum-toddy; and as he never for any length of time +discontinued rum-toddies, the days of Sol and Nancy at Judge Q.'s were +halcyon. + +They had not counted on one of the drivers going back to Jacksonville, +meeting Mossa Cutter over his libations, and confidentially confessing +to him,-- + +"I tuk a likely boy o'yourn over to Tallahassee in that gang month afore +last." + +Sol, if they had put a British gun in your hands _then_! + +Mossa Cutter swooped down on them in the midst of their +happiness,--refused to let Judge Q. ransom Sol at twice his value,--and +tore him from his wife and child. Returning with him to Jacksonville, he +beat him almost to death,--after which, he sent him out on the wharves +to earn their common living. + +A few nights after the return of Sol, Mossa Cutter came home with _mania +a potu_. His handsome quadroon body-servant was sitting up for him. +Mossa Cutter said to him,-- + +"You have the sideboard-keys,--bring me that decanter of brandy." + +The boy replied,-- + +"Oh, don't, _dear_ Mossa! you surely kill you'self!" + +Upon this, his master, damning him for a "saucy, disobedient nigger," +drew his bowie-knife and inflicted on him a frightful wound across the +abdomen, from which he died next day. A Jacksonville jury brought in a +verdict of accidental death. + +That might have been another good occasion to hand Sol a musket! + +Not having any, he remained in the proud and notorious position of +"Mossa Cutter's Larst Niggah." + + * * * * * + +In a certain part of Florida (obvious reasons will show themselves for +leaving it indefinite) I enjoyed the acquaintance of two Southern +gentlemen,--gentlemen, however, of widely different kinds. One was a +general, a lawyer, a rake, a drunkard, and white; the other was a +body-servant, a menial, an educated man, a fine man-of-business, a Sir +Roger in his manners, and black. The two had been brought up together, +the black having been given to the white gentleman during the latter's +second year. "They had played marbles in the same hole," the General +said. I know that Jim was unceasing in his attentions to his master, and +that his master could not have lived without them. A sort of attachment +of fidelity certainly did exist on Jim's side; and the most selfish man +must feel an attachment of need for the servant who could manage his +bank-account and superintend his entire interests much more successfully +than himself,--who could tend him without complaint through a week's +sleeplessness, when he had the horrors,--who was in fact, to all intents +and purposes, his own only responsible manifestation to the world. + +Jim's wife was dead, but had left him two sons and a daughter. When I +first saw him, none of them had been sold from him. The boys were +respectively eighteen and twenty years old. Their sister had just turned +sixteen, and was a nice-looking, modest, mulatto girl, whom her father +idolized because she was looking more and more every day "like de oder +Sally dat's gone, Mossa." + +A week after he said that to me, Sally on earth might well have prayed +to Sally in heaven to take her, for she was sold away into the horrors +of concubinage to one of the wickedest men on the river. + +To describe the result of this act upon Jim is beyond my power, if +indeed my heart would allow me to repeat such sorrow. It was not +violent,--but, O South, South, lying on a volcano, if all your negroes +had been violent, how much better for you! + +Jim, I hear they intend to give you a rifle! + +Well, as to that, I remember Jim had heard of such things. + +Boarding at the same hotel with the General, I sat also at the same +table. When he was well enough to come down to his meals, he occupied +the third chair below me on the opposite side. + +One night, when all the boarders but ourselves had left the tea-room, +the General, being confidentially sober, (I say _sober_, for when he +reached the confidential he was on the rising scale,) began talking +politics with me. + +"I see in the 'Mercury,'" said the General, "that some of your Northern +scum are making preparations for another John Brown raid into Virginia." + +"Oh no, I fancy not. That's sensation." + +"Well, now, you just look h'y'ere! If they do come, d'ye know what _I_'m +gwine to do! If I'm too feeble to walk or ride a hoss, I'll crawl on my +knees to the banks of the Potomac, and"---- + +"What, with those new Northern-made pantaloons on?" + +"D'interrupt me, Sir. I'll crawl on my knees to the bank of the Potomac +and defend Old Virginny to the last gasp. She's my sister, Sir! So'll +all the negroes fight for her. Talk about our not trusting 'em! Here's +Jim. He's got all the money I have in the world; takes care of me when +I'm sick; comes after me, to the Gem when I'm--a little not myself, you +know; sees me home; puts me to bed, and never leaves me. Faithful as a +hound, by Heavens! Why, I'd trust him with my life in a minute, Sir! +Yes, Sir, and----Oh, yes! we'll just arm our niggers, and put 'em in the +front ranks to make 'em shoot their brothers, Sir!" + +I said, "Ah?" and the General went out to take a drink, leaving Jim and +myself alone together at the table. The remaining five minutes, before I +finished my tea, Jim seemed very restless. Just as I rose to go, he said +to me,-- + +"Mossa, could you hab de great kin'ness to come out to de quarters to +see Peter?" (his eldest boy,)--"he done catch bery bad col', Sah." + +I was physician in ordinary to the servants in that hotel. In every +distress they called on me. I told Jim that I would gladly accompany +him. When we got to a considerable distance from the main houses, Jim +stopped under an immense magnolia, and, drawing me into its shade, said, +after a sweeping glance in all directions,-- + +"Oh, Mossa! _is_ dat true, dat dem dere Abolitionists is a-comin' down +here to save us,--to redeem us, Mossa? Is dey a-comin' to take pity on +us, Mossa, an' take dis people out of hell? Oh, _is_ dey, _is_ dey, +Mossa?" + +I told Jim that they were very weak and few in number just now; but that +in a few years there would be nobody but them at the North, and then +they'd come down a hundred thousand strong. (I said _one_ hundred +thousand, the modern army not yet having been dreamed of.) I told him to +bide the Lord's time. + +He cast a fainting glance over to that window in the negro quarters, +dark now, where his little Sally used to ply her skilful needle. Then he +tossed his hands wildly into the air, and cried out,-- + +"_Lord's_ time! Oh, _is_ der any Lord?" + +I clasped him by the hand and said,-- + +"_Yes_, my poor, broken-hearted--_brother_!" + +That word fell on his ear for the first time from a white man's lips, +and the stupefaction of it was a countercheck to his grief. + +He became perfectly calm, and clasped me by the hands gently, like a +child. + +"Mossa, you mean dat? To _me_, Mossa? Dear Mossa, den I _will_ try for +to bide de Lord's time! But," (here his face grew black in the growing +moonlight, with a deeper blackness than complexion,)--"but, if de Mossas +only _do_ put de guns into our han's, _oh, dey'll find out which side +we'll turn 'em on!_" + +Jim, I hope you have arms in your hands long ere this, and have done +good work with them! I hope Sol has also. Either of you has enough of +the _vis ab intra_ to make a good soldier. As you won't know what that +means, Jim and Sol, I'll tell you,--it's a broken heart. + +But whether Sol and Jim have arms in their hands or not, by all means +arm the rest. + +Wanted, two hundred thousand British muskets to arm as many likely +niggers,--all warranted equal to samples, Sol and Jim,--same make, same +temper. Blockade-runners had better apply immediately. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. +90, April, 1865, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, APRIL 1865 *** + +***** This file should be named 30611.txt or 30611.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/6/1/30611/ + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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