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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/31838-8.txt b/31838-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..159e1c9 --- /dev/null +++ b/31838-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9476 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 81, +July, 1864, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 81, July, 1864 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: April 1, 2010 [EBook #31838] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections.) + + + + + + + +THE + +ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF + +LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOLUME XIV. + +[Illustration] + +BOSTON: + +TICKNOR AND FIELDS, + +135, WASHINGTON STREET. + +LONDON: TRÜBNER AND COMPANY. + +M DCCC LXIV. + +Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by + TICKNOR AND FIELDS, +in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. + +RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +Beer-Drinking, Head-Quarters of _Andrew Ten Broeck_ 185 +Biography, The New School of _Gail Hamilton_ 579 + +Cadmean Madness, The _W. L. Symonds_ 265 +Columbia River, On the _Fitz-Hugh Ludlow_ 703 +Communication _D.A. Wasson_ 424 +Cullet _Jane G. Austin_ 304 +Currency _George S. Lang_ 109 + +Democracy and the Secession War _C. C. Hazewell_ 505 +Dixie, Our Last Day in _Edmund Kirke_ 715 +Dolliver Romance, A Scene from the _Nathaniel Hawthorne_ 101 + +Electric Girl of La Perrière, The _Robert Dale Owen_ 284 +England and America _Prof. Goldwin Smith_ 749 +English Authors in Florence _Miss K. Field_ 660 + +Foreign Relations, Our Recent _G. M. Towle_ 243 + +Glorying in the Goad _Gail Hamilton_ 21 +Gourgues, Dominic de, The Vengeance of _F. Parkman_ 530 + +Halcyon Days _Caroline Chesebro_ 675 +Hawthorne _O. W. Holmes_ 98 +Highland Light, The _H. D. Thoreau_ 649 +House and Home Papers _Harriet Beecher Stowe_ 93, + 230, 434, 565, 689 +How Rome is Governed _Prof. G. W. Greene_ 150 + +Ice and Esquimaux _D. A. Wasson_ 728 +Ice-Period in America _Prof. Louis Agassiz_ 86 +Inanimate Things, The Total Depravity of _Mrs. E. A. Walker_ 357 + +Jones, Paul, and Denis Duval _F. Ingham_ 493 + +Lamb's, Charles, Uncollected Writings _J. E. Babson_ 478, 552 +Leaves from an Officer's Journal _T. W. Higginson_ 521, 740 +Lina 538 +Little Country-Girl, The _Mrs. A. M. Diaz_ 212 +Luigi, The True Story of _Harriet E. Prescott_ 411 + +Mexico _G. Reynolds_ 51 +Meyerbeer _Francis Williams_ 116 + +Night in the Water, A _T. W. Higginson_ 393 + +Oregon, On Horseback into _Fitz-Hugh Ludlow_ 75 + +Paris, Literary Life in "_Spiridion_" 200, 292 +Presidential Election, The Twentieth _C. C. Hazewell_ 633 + +Reade, Charles _Harriet E. Prescott_ 137 +Récamier, Madame _Miss J. M. Luyster_ 446 +Regular and Volunteer Officers _T. W. Higginson_ 348 +Revolution, Finances of the _Prof. G. W. Greene_ 591 +Richmond, Our Visit to _Edmund Kirke_ 372 +Rim, The _Harriet E. Prescott_ 63 + +Saadi _R. W. Emerson_ 33 +San Francisco, Through-Tickets to _Fitz-Hugh Ludlow_ 604 +Sculpture, The Process of _Harriet Hosmer_ 734 +Sea-Hours with a Dyspeptic _Joseph D. Howard_ 617 + +Vendue, On a Late _J. E. Babson_ 406 +Virginia, The May Campaign in "_Carleton_" 124 + +We are a Nation _J. T. Trowbridge_ 769 +Wellfleet Oysterman, The _H. D. Thoreau_ 470 +Wet-Weather Work _Donald G. Mitchell_ 39, 333 +What shall we have for Dinner? _E. E. Hale_ 364 +What will become of Them? _J. T. Trowbridge_ 170, 320 +Wife's Story, The _Author of "Life in the Iron-Mills"_ 1 + + +POETRY. + +Before Vicksburg _G. H. Baker_ 371 +Bridge of Cloud, The _H. W. Longfellow_ 283 +Bryant, To William Cullen _H. T. Tuckerman_ 563 +Bryant's Seventieth Birthday _O. W. Holmes_ 738 + +Concord _H. W. Longfellow_ 169 + +Divina Commedia, On Translating the _H. W. Longfellow_ 688 + +Forgotten _Elisabeth A. C. Akers_ 332 +Friar Jerome's Beautiful Book _T. B. Aldrich_ 195 + +Heart of the War, The _J. G. Holland_ 240 + +In Memory of J. W.--R. W. _O. W. Holmes_ 115 + +Last Rally, The _J. T. Trowbridge_ 589 + +Maskers, The _J. T. Trowbridge_ 303 + +Palingenesis _H. W. Longfellow_ 19 + +Return of the Birds, The _W. C. Bryant_ 37 +Riches 530 +Ride to Camp, The _G. H. Boker_ 404 + +Service _J. T. Trowbridge_ 443 +Summer, The Future 503 +Sweet-Brier 229 + +Tobacconalian Ode, A 672 + +Vanishers, The _J. G. Whittier_ 726 + +Watching 74 +Works and Days _T. W. Parsons_ 491 + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + +Arnold on Translating Homer 136 +Arnold's Last Words 136 +Browning's Dramatis Personæ 644 +Carter's Summer Cruise 515 +Dufour's Strategy and Tactics 259 +Farnham's Eliza Woodson 388 +---- Woman and her Era 388 +Greeley's American Conflict 133 +Guizot's Meditations on Christianity 784 +Haupt on Military Bridges 781 +Hazard on Freedom of Mind in Willing 778 +Jennie Juneiana 387 +Kingsley's Roman and Teuton 252 +Marsh's Man and Nature 261 +Mill's Dissertations and Discussions 776 +Newman's Translation of the Iliad 135 +Owen's Wrong of Slavery 517 +Parton's Life and Times of Franklin 383 +Prescott's Azarian 515 +Privations and Sufferings of U.S. Soldiers in Rebel Prisons 777 +Reid's Cliff-Climbers 390 +Tennyson's Enoch Arden 518 +Thoreau's Maine Woods 386 +Trollope's Small House at Allington 254 +Webster's American Dictionary 642 +Wilson's History of the Anti-Slavery Measures of Congress 787 +Youmans's Class-Book of Chemistry 256 + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS 136, 263, 391, 648, 788 + + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. XIV.--JULY, 1864.--NO. LXXXI. + + + + +THE WIFE'S STORY. + + +I will tell you the story of my life, since you ask it; for, though the +meaning of the life of any woman of my character would be the same, I +believe, the facts of mine, being sharp and compressed, may make it, +perhaps, more apparent. It will be enough for me to give you the history +of one day,--that of our first coming to Newport; for it seems to me as +if it held and spoke out plainly whatever gist and significance there +was in all the years for me. I know many people hold the theory, that +once in every life God puts the stuff of which He has made the man or +woman to the test, gives the soul a chance of a conscious fight with +that other Power to win or lose itself, once for all. I do not know: it +seems but just that one should be so left, untrammelled, to choose +between heaven and hell: but who can shake off trammels,--make +themselves naked of their birth and education? I know on that day when +the face of my fate changed, I myself was conscious of no inward +master-struggle: the great Life above and Life below pressed no closer +on me, seemed to wait on no word of mine. It was a busy, vulgar day +enough: each passing moment occupied me thoroughly. I did not look +through them for either God or Death; and as for the deed I did, I had +been drifting to that all my life: it began when I was a pampered, +thin-blooded baby, learning the alphabet from blocks on my mother's lap; +then years followed, succulent to satiety for my hungry brain and +stimulated tastes; a taint of hereditary selfishness played its part, +and so the end came. Yet I know that on that day I entered the gate +through which there is no returning: for, believe me, there are such +ways and gates in life; every day, I see more clearly how far and how +immovably the paths into those other worlds abut into this, and I know +that I, for one, have gone in, and the door is closed behind me. There +is no going back for me into that long-ago time. Only He who led me here +knows how humbly and through what pain I dared to believe this, and dare +to believe that He did lead me,--that it was by no giddy, blear-sighted +free-will of my own that I arrived where I stand to-day. + +It was about eighteen months after my marriage that we came to Newport. +But let me go back a few weeks to one evening when my husband first told +me of the failure of the house in which his property was invested; for +it was then, I think, that the terror and the temptation which had beset +my married life first took a definite shape and hold on me. + +It was a cool September evening, I remember: a saffronish umber stain +behind the low Hudson hills all that was left of the day's fresh and +harvest-scented heat; the trails of black smoke from the boats against +the sky, the close-shut cottages on the other shore, the very red cows +coming slowly up from the meadow-pool, looking lonesome and cold in the +sharp, blue air. In the library, however, there was a glow of warmth and +light, as usual where Doctor Manning sat. He had been opening the +evening's mail, and laid the last letter on the table, taking off his +glasses in his slow, deliberate way. + +"It is as we feared," turning to me. "It's quite gone, Hester, quite. +I'll have to begin at the beginning again. It would have been better I +had not trusted the whole to Knopps,--yes." + +I said nothing: the news was not altogether unexpected. He took off his +wig, and rubbed his head slowly, his eyes fixed on my face with some +anxious, steady inquiry, which his tones did not express. + +"I'll go back to Newport. Rob's there. I'll get a school again. You did +not know I taught there when I was a young man?" + +"No." + +I knew nothing of my husband's youth. Miss Monchard, his ward, who was +in the room, did, however; and after waiting for me a moment to go on, +she said, cheerfully,-- + +"The boys will be men now, Sir. Friends ready waiting. And different +sort of friends from any we have here, eh?" + +He laughed. + +"Yes, Jacky, you're right. Yes. They've all turned out well, even those +Arndts. Jim Arndt used to trot you on his knee on the school-house +steps, when you were a baby. But he _was_ a wild chap. He's in the +sugar-trade, Rob writes me. But they'll always be boys to me, +Jacky,--boys." + +His head dropped, with a smile still on his mouth, and he began +fingering his scanty beard, as was his habit in his fits of silent +musing. Jacqueline looked at him satisfied, then turned to me. I do not +know what she saw upon my face, but she turned hastily away. + +"It's a town with a real character of its own, Newport, Mrs. +Manning,"--trying to make her coarse bass voice gentle. "You'll +understand it better than I. New-York houses, now, even these on the +Hudson, hint at nothing but a satisfied animal necessity. But there, +with the queer dead streets, like a bit of the old-time world, and the +big salt sea"----She began to stammer, as usual, and grow confused. +"It's like looking out of some far-gone, drowsy old day of the Colonies, +and yet feeling life and eternity fresh and near to you." + +I only smiled civilly, by way of answer. Jacqueline always tried me. She +was Western-born, I a New-Englander; and every trait about her, from the +freedom with which she hurled out her opinions to the very setting-down +of her broad foot, jarred on me as a something boorish and reckless. Her +face grew red now. + +"I don't say what I want exactly," she hesitated. "I only hoped you'd +like the town, that it would reconcile----There's crabs there," +desperately turning to Teddy, who was playing a furtive game of marbles +under the table, and grabbing him by the foot. "Come here till I tell +you about the crabs." + +I remember that I got up and went out of the low window on to the porch, +looking down at the quiet dun shadows and the slope of yellowed grass +leading to the river, while Jacky and the boy kept up a hurly-burly +conversation about soldier-crabs that tore each other's legs off, and +purple and pink sea-roses that ate raw meat, and sea-spiders like specks +of blood in the rocks. My husband laughed once or twice, helping Jacky +out with her natural history. I think it was the sound of that cheery, +mellow laugh of his that fermented every bitter drop in my heart, and +brought clearly before me for the first time the idea of the course +which I afterwards followed. I thrust it back then, as if it had been a +sneer of the Devil's at all I held good and pure. What was there in the +world good and pure for me but the man sitting yonder, and the thought +that I was his wife? And yet----I had an unquiet brain, of moderate +power, perhaps, but which had been forced and harried and dragged into +exertion every moment of my life, according to the custom with women in +the States from which I came. Every meanest hint of a talent in me had +been nursed, every taste purged, by the rules of my father's clique of +friends. The chance of this was all over,--had been escaping since my +marriage-day. Now I clearly saw the life opening before me. What would +taste or talent be worth in the coarse struggle we were about to begin +for bread and butter? "Surely, we have lost something beyond money," I +thought, looking behind into the room, where my husband was quietly +going back to the Arndts in quest of food for reflection, and Jacky +prosed on about sea-anemones. I caught a glimpse of my sallow face in +the mirror: it was full of a fierce disgust. Was their indifference to +this loss a mere torpid ignorance of the actual brain- and soul-wants it +would bring on us, or did they really look at life and accept its hard +circumstances from some strange standing-ground of which I knew nothing? +I had not become acclimated to the atmosphere of my husband's family in +the year and a half that I had been his wife. He had been married +before; there were five children, beginning at Robert, the young +preacher at Newport, and ending with Teddy, beating the drum with his +fists yonder on the table; all of them, like their father, Western-born, +with big, square-built frames, and grave, downright-looking faces; +simple-hearted, and much given, the whole party, to bursts of hearty +laughter, and a habit of perpetually joking with each other. There might +be more in them than this, but I had not found it: I doubted much if it +were worth the finding. I came from a town in Massachusetts, where, as +in most New-England villages, there was more mental power than was +needed for the work that was to be done, and which reacted constantly on +itself in a way which my husband called unwholesome; it was no wonder, +therefore, that these people seemed to me but clogs of flesh, the mere +hands by which the manual work of the world's progress was to be +accomplished. I had hinted this to Doctor Manning one day, but he only +replied by the dry, sad smile with which it had become his habit of late +to listen to my speculations. It had cost me no pain thus to label and +set aside his children: but for himself it was different; he was my +husband. He was the only thing in the world which I had never weighed +and valued to estimate how much it was worth to me: some feeling I could +not define had kept me from it until now. But I did it that evening: I +remember how the cool river-air blew in the window-curtain, and I held +it back, looking steadily in at the thick-set, middle-aged figure of the +man sitting there, in the lamp-light, dressed in rough gray: peering at +the leather-colored skin, the nervous features of the square face, at +the scanty fringe of iron-gray whisker, and the curly wig which he had +bought after we were married, thinking to please me, at the brown eyes, +with the gentle reticent look in them belonging to a man or beast who is +thorough "game"; taking the whole countenance as the metre of the man; +going sharply over the salient points of our life together, measuring +myself by him, as if to know--what? to know what it would cost me to +lose him. God be merciful to me, what thought was this? Oh, the wrench +in heart and brain that came then! A man who has done a murder may feel +as I did while I stood for the next half-hour looking at the red lights +of the boats going up and down the Hudson, in the darkening fog. + +After a while Teddy came waddling out on the porch, in his usual uncouth +fashion, and began pulling at my cape. + +"You're getting cold, mother. Come in. Come!" + +I remember how I choked as I tried to answer him, and, patting his +gilt-buttoned coat, took the fat chapped little hands in mine, kissing +them at last. I was so hungry for affection that night! I would have +clung to a dog that had been kind to me. I thought of the first day +Doctor Manning had brought him to me, in this same comical little +jacket, by the way, and the strangely tender tone in which he had +said,--"This is your mother, boy. He's as rough as a bear, Hetty, but he +won't give you trouble or pain. Nothing shall give you pain, if +I"----Then he stopped. I never heard that man make a promise. If he had +come out instead of Teddy on the porch that night, and had spoken once +in the old tone, calling me "Hetty," God knows how different all that +came after would have been. The motherless boy, holding himself up by my +knees, was more sturdy than I that night, and self-reliant: never could +have known, in his most helpless baby-days, the need with which I, an +adult woman, craved a cheering word, and a little petting. + +Jacqueline came behind me and pinned a woollen shawl around my neck, +patting my shoulders in her cozy, comfortable fashion. + +"None of your dark river-fogs at Newport," she laughed. "The sea-air has +the sweep of half the world to gather cold and freshness in, and it +makes even your bones alive. Your very sleep is twice as much sleep +there as anywhere else." + +Jacky's rough voice was like the cuckoo's: it always prophesied pleasant +weather. She went in again now, and sat down on her little sewing-chair. +The low, rolling fogs outside, and the sharp September wind rattling the +bare branches of the orchard-trees and the bushes on the lawn, only made +the solid home-look of comfort within warmer and brighter. There was a +wood-fire kindled on the library-hearth, and its glow picked out red +flushes of light on the heavy brown curtains, and the white bust of +Psyche, and a chubby plaster angel looking down. Jacky, rocking and +sewing, her red mouth pursed up, half whistling, suited the picture, +somehow, I could not but feel, mere lump and matter though she might be. +There was something fresh and spicy about her. I never had been +impressed so justly by her as on that night. Rough, perhaps, but it was +a pure roughness: everything about the girl had been clean since she was +born, you felt, from the paint of the house where she lived to the +prayer her nurse had taught her. Her skin was white and ruddy, her blue +eyes clear and full of honesty, her brown curls crisp and unoiled. She +could not reason, maybe; but she was straightforward and comfortable: +every bone in her roly-poly little figure forgot to be a bone, and went +into easy cushions of dimpled flesh. If ever Jacky died and went into a +more spiritual world, she would be sure to take with her much of the +warmth and spring and vigor of this. She had drawn her chair close to +Doctor Manning's, where the flickering light touched the soft woollen +folds of her dress and the bit of crimson ribbon at her throat. He liked +bright colors, like most men of his age. It was a pretty picture. + +I turned and looked down at the river again, shivering,--trying to think +of the place and all we were leaving. I did not wonder that it cost the +others little to give up the house: it meant but little to them. Doctor +Manning had bought it just before we were married, being then a square +chocolate-colored farm-house, and we had worked our own whims on it to +make it into a home, thrusting out a stout-pillared big porch at one +side, and one or two snug little bay-windows from my sewing-room. There +was a sunny slope of clover down to the river, a dusky old apple and +plum orchard at the left, and Mary's kitchen-garden on the right, with a +purblind old peacock strutting through the paths, showing its green and +gold. Not much in all this: nothing to please Jacky's artist and poet +sense, if she had any. But----I held on to the porch-railings now, +drumming with my fingers, as I thought of it. It was all the childhood +_I_ ever had known. He brought me there the day we were married, and +until August--six months--we had been there alone. I could hear his old +nag Tinder neighing now, in the stable where we used to go every evening +to feed and rub him down: for I went with Daniel, as I called him, then, +everywhere, even to consult his mason or farm-hands. He used to stand +joking with them a minute after the business was over, in an unwonted +fashion for him, and then scramble into the buggy beside me, and drive +off, his fresh, bright eye turned to the landscape as if enjoying it for +the first time. + +"God bless you, Hetty!" he used to say, "this is putting new blood into +my veins." + +Generally, in those long rides, I used to succeed in coaxing him +imperceptibly back to talk of his life in South America,--not only that +I liked to hear this new phase of wild adventuring life, but my own +blood would glow and freshen to see the fierce dare-devil look come back +into the eye, and the shut teeth of the grave, laconic old Doctor. +People did not know the man I had married,--no; and I would draw in +closer to his shaggy coat, and spur him on to his years of trading in +the West, and later in this State. He had a curious epigrammatic way of +talking that I have noticed in a less degree in many Western men: coming +at the marrow and meaning of a scene or person in his narration with a +sheer subtilized common-sense, a tough appreciation of fact beyond +theory, and of its deeper, juster significance, and a dramatic aptness +for expression. Added to all this, my husband's life had been compacted, +crowded with incident; it had saddened and silenced his nature +abnormally; this was the first break: a going back to what he might have +been, such as his children were now. + +"I never talked to any one before, Hetty," he said thoughtfully once, as +we were driving along, after a few moments' silence. "I feel as if I had +got breath, this late in the day, that I never expected, for whatever +thought was in me,--and--whatever love." + +He turned away his face, crimson at this. He was as strangely reticent +and tender on some points as a woman. So seldom he put his love into +words! That time I remember how the tears suddenly blinded me, when I +heard him, and my fingers grew unsteady, holding the reins. I was so +happy and proud. But I said nothing: he would not have liked it. + +Of one time in his life Doctor Manning had never talked to me: of his +earlier youth; when he was married before. He was not a man of whom you +could ask questions; yet I had hinted an inquiry once or twice in his +presence, but only by a change of color and a strange vague restlessness +had he shown that he understood my drift of meaning. Soon after that, +his eldest son, Robert, came to see his father's new wife, and stayed +with us a day or two. He was a short, thickly built young man, with +heavy jaws and black hair and eyes,--keen eyes, I soon felt, that were +weighing and analyzing me as justly, but more shrewdly than ever his +father had done. The night before he went away he came up to the +porch-step where I sat, and said abruptly,-- + +"I am satisfied, and happy to go now." + +"I am glad of that," I said earnestly; for the tenderness of the son to +the father had touched me. + +"Yes. You cannot know the dread I had of seeing you. I knew the risk he +ran in laying his happiness in any woman's hands at his hour of life. +But it was hard he never should know a home and love like other +men,"--his voice unsteady, and with an appealing look. + +"He never shall need it," I said, quietly. + +"You think not?"--his eyes on the ground. "At all events,"--after a +pause,--"he is resting like a child now: it will not be easy to startle +him to any harsh reality, and," looking up, "I hope God may deal with +you, Mrs. Manning, as you deal with my father. Forgive me," as I began +to speak, "you do not know what this is to me. It makes me rough, I +know. I never yet have forgiven the woman that"----His mother? He caught +the look, stopped, pushed his hair back, caught his breath. "One thing +let me say," after a moment's silence. "You do not know my father. If he +wakens to find his wife is not what he thinks her, it will be too late +for me to warn you then. He has been hurt sore and deeply in his life. +Your chance is but once." + +I did not reply to Robert Manning, nor was I offended: there was too +much solemnity in his coarseness. The man's affection for his father was +as part of his life-blood, I believed. + +My husband came to me when he saw Robert go, and loosened my hands from +my face. I clung to him as I never did before. + +"What is this hurt he talks of in your life, Daniel? Will I be enough to +take it out? Will I?" + +He laughed, a low, constrained laugh, holding my shoulders as if I were +a bit of a child. + +"God knows you are enough, Hetty. I never thought He'd send me this. Rob +has been talking to you? He"---- + +"He is bitter." + +"He loves me,--poor Rob!" + +"Tell me of those people that hurt you, as he says." + +It was a prurient, morbid curiosity that had seized me. A sort of shiver +ran over his frame. + +"Eh, what, Hetty?"--in a low voice. "Let that go, let that +go,"--standing silent a moment, looking down. "Why would we bring them +back, and hack over the old dead faults? Had _she_ no pain to bear? We +couldn't find that out to speak for her. But God knows it." + +I might have known how my question would have ended; for, always, he +covered over the ill-doing of others with a nervous haste, with the +charity of a man himself sharply sensitive to pain. + +"It is healthful to go back to past pain," I said, half dissatisfied. + +"Is it so?"--doubtfully, as he turned away with me. "I don't know, +child. Now and then He has to punish us, or cut out a cancer maybe. But +for going back to gloat over the cure or the whip-lash----No; it will +keep us busy enough to find good air and food, every minute for itself"; +and, with a ruddy, genial smile, he had stooped and kissed my forehead. + +A year had passed since that night. I was standing on the same porch, +but I was alone now. My husband sat a few feet from me in his old +easy-chair, but no gulf could have parted us so wide and deeply. Robert +Manning had said I would have but one chance. Well, I had had it, and it +was gone. So I stood there, looking quietly at him and Jacky and the +boy. The child had pushed his father's wig off, and his bare head with +its thin iron-gray hair fell forward on his breast, resting on Teddy's +sleeping cheek. I saw now how broad and sad the forehead was,--the quiet +dignity on the whole face. Yet it had been such a simple-hearted thing +to do,--to buy that wig to please me! One of those little follies the +like of which would never come again. + +I went in and sat down as usual, apart, throwing aside from my neck the +shawl which Jacky had pinned there, loathing anything she had touched, +so real and sharp was the thought about her become, as if the evening's +fog and cold had lent it a venomous life. They had made a quiet cozy +picture before, which had bitterly brought back our first married days, +but it was broken up now. The Doctor's three boys came lumbering in, +with muddy shoes, game-bags, and the usual fiery faces and loud jokes +after their day's sport. Jacky threw down her sewing, and went out to +see the squirrels drawn, and the Doctor smoothed Teddy's hair, looking +after them with a pleased smile. One of the rarest sparkles of our daily +life! It was a year since Doctor Manning had brought his children home. +They filled the house. Musing on the past now, and trying to look at +that year calmly, while I sat by the fire, my husband would fade back in +the picture into an unmeaning lay-figure. Was this my fault? Could I +help it, if God had made me with a different, clearer insight into life +and its uses than these people with their sound beef and muscle, their +uncouth rejoicing in being alive? There was work enough in them: a +broad-fisted grappling with the day's task or obstacle, a drinking of +its pain or success into their slow brains, but nowhere the metre to +note the soul's changes, nor the eye to speculate on them. "No," my +husband had said to me one day, "we Western people have the mass of this +country's appointed work to do, so we are content that God should +underlie the hypotheses. We waste no strength in guesses at the reason +why." + +I remember how intolerably the days of that year dragged even in memory, +as I sat there trying to judge them fairly,--how other years of my life +thrust them aside, persistently, as foreign, alien to me. These others +were to me home,--the thoughts that had held me nearest the divine life: +I went back to them, my eyes wet, and my heart sick under my weak lungs. +The little village of Concord, away up yonder, where I was born,--I was +glad to have been born there: thinking how man not only had learned +there to stand self-poised and found himself God, but Nature herself +seemed there to stop and reflect on her own beauty, and so root deeper +in the inner centre. The slow-dropping river, the thoughtful hills, the +very dust-colored fern that covers its fields, which might grow in +Hades, so breathless and crisp it is, came back to me with a glamour of +quiet that night. The soul had space to grow there! remembering how its +doors of thought stood wider open to welcome truth than anywhere +else on earth. "The only object in life is to grow." It was my +father's,--Margaret Fuller's motto. I had been nursed on it, I might +say. There had been a time when I had dreamed of attaining Margaret's +stature; and as I thought of that, some old subtile flame stirred in me +with a keen delight. New to me, almost; for, since my baby was born, my +soul as well as my body had been weak and nauseated. It had been so +sharp a disappointment! I had intended my child should be reared in New +England: what I had lacked in gifts and opportunities he should possess: +there was not a step of his progress which I had not mapped out. But the +child was a girl, a weazen-faced little mortal, crying night and day +like any other animal. It was an animal, wearing out in me the strength +needed by-and-by for its mental training. I sent it to a nurse in the +country. Her father had met the woman carrying it out to the wagon, and +took it in his arms. "Eh? eh? is it so, little lass?" I heard him say. +For days after that he looked paler, and his face had a quiet, settled +look, as if he had tested the world and was done with it. The days of +Tinder and the paddock and the drives were long gone then. I do not +remember that after this he ever called me Hetty. But he was cheerful as +ever with the boys, and, the week after, Jacky came. + +Why did I think of all this now? Some latent, unconscious jar of thought +brought suddenly before me a scene of many years before, a damp spring +morning in Paris, when I had gone to Rosa Bonheur's studio, just out of +the city, to see her "Horse-Fair": the moist smell of jonquils; the +drifting light clouds above the Seine, like patches of wool; but most, +the peculiar life that seemed to impregnate the place itself, holding +her, as it were, to her own precise niche and work in the world,--the +sharply managed lights, the skins, trappings, her disguises on the +walls, the stables outside, and the finished work before us, instinct +with vigor and an observation as patient as keen. I remembered how some +one had quoted her as saying, "Any woman can be a wife or mother, but +this is my work alone." + +I, too, had my gift: but one. But again the quick shiver of ecstasy ran +through me;--it was my power, my wand with which to touch the world, my +"_Vollmachtsbrief zum Glücke_": was I to give it unused back to God? I +could sing: not that only; I could compose music,--the highest +soul-utterance. I remember clutching my hands up to my throat, as if +holding safe the power that should release me, suffer me to grow again, +and looking across the oil-lamp on the table at my husband. I _had_ been +called, then,--set apart to a mission; it was a true atom of the +creative power that had fired my brain; my birth had placed me on a +fitting plane of self-development, and I had thrust it all aside--for +what? A mess of weakest pottage,--a little love, silly rides behind +Tinker, petting and paltering such as other women's souls grew imbecile +without. It was the consciousness of this that had grown slowly on me in +the year just gone; I had put my husband from me day by day because of +it; it had reached its intolerable climax to-night. Well, it was fact: +no fancy. My nature was differently built from others: I could look now +at my husband, and see the naked truth about us both. Two middle-aged +people, with inharmonious intellects: tastes and habits jarring at every +step, clenched together only by faith in a vague whim or fever of the +blood called love. Better apart: we were too old for fevers. If I +remained with Doctor Manning, my _rôle_ was outlined plain to the end: +years of cooking, stitching, scraping together of cents: it was the fate +of thousands of married women without means, to grovel every year nearer +the animal life, to grow niggardly and common. Better apart. + +As I thought that, he laid Teddy down, and came towards me,--the usual +uncertain, anxious half-smile on his face with which he regarded me. + +"I am sure they will all like my old home, now, lads and all. I'm glad +of that. Sure of all but you, Hester. But you say nothing." + +"The loss is great." + +I shut my lips firmly, and leaned back, for he had put his hard hand +gently on my shoulder. It made me turn faint, with some weakness that +must have come down to me from my infant days, so meaningless was it. I +did not hear his answer; for with the same passionate feebleness I +caught the sleeve of his dressing-gown in my fingers, and began +smoothing it. It was the first thing I had ever made for him. I +remembered how proud I was the evening he put it on. He was looking down +steadily at me with his grave, reasonable eyes, and speaking when I +looked up. + +"I have been knocked up and down so perpetually in my own life: that may +be the reason the change did not trouble me as it ought. It makes one +feel as if outside matters were but just the tithes of mint and +cumin,--a hurly-burly like that which I've lived in. I am sorry. I +thought you would grieve least of all, Hester. You are stronger-brained +than we Mannings, eh? I was sure the life meant so much more to you than +food or raiment." + +"What do you mean by the life? Have I found it here, Daniel?" + +"No, Hester?" + +"I want work fit for me," I said, almost fiercely. "God made me for a +good, high purpose." + +"I know," cheerfully. "We'll find it, dear: no man's work is kept back +from him. We'll find it together." + +But under the cheerfulness there was a sad quiet, as of one who has lost +something forever, and tries to hide the loss from himself. There was a +moment's silence, then I got up, and pushed him down into my chair. I +took the gray head in my arms, leaned it on my shoulder, held the thin +bits of hair in my hand. + +"Why, why, child!" + +"Call me Hetty, Daniel. I'd like to think that name belonged to me yet." + +"Surely, dear. Why! but--this is just the old times again, Hetty! You'll +be bringing me my slippers again." + +"Yes, I will." + +I went to the cupboard, and brought them, sitting down on the floor as +he put them on. Another of the old foolish tricks gone long ago. There +was a look on his face which had not been there this many a day. He had +such a credulous heart, so easy to waken into happiness. I took his +wrist in my bony hands, to raise myself; the muscles were like steel, +the cording veins throbbing with health; there was an indescribable rest +in the touch. + +"Daniel," I said, looking him full in the face, "I'd like to have no +mission in God's world. I'd like to give up my soul, and forget +everything but you." + +He did not answer. I think now that he understood me then and before far +better than I dreamed. He only put his hand on mine with an unutterable +tenderness. I could read nothing on his face but a grave common-sense. +Presently he unbuttoned my sleeves and the close collar about my throat +to let the cool damp blow on me. + +"Yes," I said, "it's a fever, Daniel. In the blood. That is all,--with +me. I decided that long ago. It will not last long." And I laughed. + +"Come," he said, quietly. "I am going to write to Rob now, about our +plans. You can help me." + +I followed him, and sat down by the table. "There is something in the +man stronger than the woman," I thought, doggedly, "inside of blood and +muscle." Yet the very galling of that consciousness set me more firmly +in the mind to be again free. + +A month after that we came to Newport. It was not an idle month. Jacky +had proposed a review of my husband's and his sons' clothes, and day +after day I had sat by the window looking out on the sluggish Hudson, a +hank of patent thread about my neck, stitching patches on the stiff, +half-worn trousers. "It becomes us to take care of the pence now," she +would say, and go on with her everlasting whistling, La-la. It rasped on +my brain like the chirp of the partridge outside in the cedar-hedge. +When she would go out of the room sometimes, I would hold my hand to my +head, and wonder if it was for this in reality God had made me. + +Yet I had my own secret. The work of my life, before I was married, had +been the score of an opera. I got it out now by stealth, at night, +putting my pen to it here and there, with the controlled fever with +which a man might lay his hand on a dear dead face, if he knew the touch +would bring it back to life. Was there any waking that dead life of +mine? At that time, in New York, M. Vaux was trying the experiment of an +English opera in one of the minor theatres. I sent the score to him. It +did not trouble me, that, if produced, its first effect would be tried +on an uncultured caste of hearers: if the leaven was pure, what matter +where it began to work? and no poet or artist was ever more sincere in +the belief that the divine power spoke through Him than I. I thought, +that, if I remained with Doctor Manning as his wife, this venture +mattered little: if I shook myself free, and, taking up my mission, came +before the public as a singer, it would open the way for me. For my plan +had grown defined and practical to me now. + +M. Vaux had left his family at Newport after the season was over. I was +to meet him there when we went down, and hear his decision on the score. +I met him one day on Broadway, and hinted my vague desire of making my +voice also available. + +"To sing? did you say sing, Mrs. Manning? go on the stage?"--pawing his +chin with one hand. + +He was a short, puffy little man, with a bullet head at half-cock in the +air, producing a general effect of nostrils on you. + +"Sing, eh?" he mumbled, once or twice. + +Before this I had been Mrs. Manning, throwing off an opera-score as a +careless whim, one of the class to whom he and his like presented arms: +he surveyed me now with the eye of a stock-raiser buying a new mule, and +set the next evening as the time when I should "drop in at his house +and give him a trill or two.--Keeping dark before the old man yet, eh?" +with a wink. I went in the next day, but he declined to pronounce +judgment until we came to Newport. + +I remember my husband met me at the gate when I returned, and lifted me +from the little pony-carriage. + +"I'm so glad my girl is taking her drives again,"--his face in a +glow,--"coming back with the old red cheeks, too. They're a sort of hint +of all the good years coming. We're far off from being old people yet, +Hetty." And so went beside me slowly up the garden-walk, his hands +clasped behind him, stopping to look now and then at his favorite purple +and crimson hollyhocks. + +I looked at him askance, as we went through the evening shadows. There +was something grand in the quiet of the face, growing old with the depth +of sadness and endurance subdued in it: the kindly smile over all. I had +brought the smile there. But it would not be for long: and I remember +how the stalk of gillyflower I held snapped in my hand, and its spicy +odor made me throw it down. I have loathed it ever since. Was my life to +be wasted in calling a smile to an old man's face? My husband and M. +Vaux were different men; but, on the other side, they were gates to me +of different lives: here, a sordid slavery of work; there,--something in +me glowed warm and triumphant,--fame and an accomplished deed in life! + +Surely these mawkish home-ties were fast loosing their hold on me, I +thought, as we went in. I asked no questions as to my husband's plans; +no one spoke to me of them. In the few days before our departure I roped +up chairs, packed china in straw, sorted clothes into trunks, working +harder than the others, and then creeping off alone would hum an air +from the score, thanking God for giving me this thoroughly pure, holy +message to utter in the world. It was the redemption of my soul from +these vulgar taints: it was a sort of mortgage I held on the eternal +truth and life. Yet, when no one told me of their plans, when I saw they +all held some secret back from me, watching me constantly and furtively, +when Jacky buzzed about my husband all day, whispering, laughing, +cooking his favorite omelet for breakfast, bringing his slippers at +night,--it was like so many sharp stings through stupor. "It's the +woman's flesh of me!" I used to say bitterly, when I would have been +glad to meanly creep after them, to cuddle Teddy up in my arms, or to +lean my head on his father's knees. "I can live it down. I have 'a manly +soul.'" For it was part of my creed that Nature was something given us +to be lived down in fulfilling our mission. + +We went by the evening's boat to Newport. I saw M. Vaux in the outer +cabin, as we passed through: he nodded familiarly when Doctor Manning's +back was turned, without removing his cigar. + +It was stifling below, with the smell of frying meat and numerous +breaths. We went on deck, my husband drawing a bench around to shelter +me from the keen wind across the bow, and wrapping my flannel hood +closer to my throat when we drifted out within scent of salt water. It +was a night that waited and listened: the sea silent and threatening, a +few yellow, dogged, low breakers running in at long intervals; now and +then a rasping gurgle of wind from shore, as of one who held his breath; +some thin, brown clouds ragged along the edges of the cold sky, ready +for flight. + +I sat there thinking how well the meaning of the sea suited my soul that +night. It was no work of God's praising Him continually: it was the +eternal protest and outcry against Fate,--chained, helpless, +unappealing. Let the mountains and the sunshine and the green fields +chant an anthem, if they would; but for this solitary sea, with its +inarticulate cry, surely all the pain and impatience of the world's six +thousand years had gone down and found a voice in that. Having thus +cleared to myself the significance of the sea in Nature, I was trying to +define its exact effect upon my own temperament, (a favorite mental +exercise of my father's,) when my husband touched my shoulder. + +"I'll go down and smoke a bit, Hetty dear, and leave you with Jacky. +She's as good guard as a troop of horse." + +Jacky nodded vehemently once or twice from where she stood, followed him +with her eyes as he went down the steps, anxiously, and then stood +gravely silent. She was but a lump of "woman's flesh," that was clear, +and I doubted if there was any soul inside to live it down. Her face was +red and her eyes shining with the sea-wind. She had been at the stern +with the boys, making a riot about the porpoises rolling under the boat; +in the engine-room with Teddy; had tried to drag me to the deck-railing +to watch the unsteady shimmer of some pale-blue sea-weed under the +water, which the wheel threw up in silver flashes, or to see how, before +the sun went down, we floated over almost motionless stretches of pale +tea-colored water, holding, it seemed, little curdling pools of light +far below in their depths on depths of shivering brown and dull red +mosses. + +"Ach-h! I'm glad I'm alive to-night!" she had said, gritting her teeth +in her Dutch fashion. + +But some new demon had possession of her brain now: she stood working +with her shawl uncertainly, a trifle pale, watching me. She came to me +at last, and stood balancing herself first on her heels and then her +toes, biting her lip as if doubtful how to begin. + +"I wish we had the baby along!" came with a gruff burst, finally. "God +bless its little soul! I went out to see it on Saturday. It would do +Uncle Daniel good. He needs something fresh and hearty, +bread-and-butter-like, or a baby. You did not notice him this evening +particularly, Mrs. Manning, eh?" anxiously. + +"No." + +"Nothing----Well, no matter. I'm fanciful, maybe. There's an old saying +in the family about him, some Doctor's prophecy, and it makes me +over-watchful, likely." + +She waited for a question. I asked none. There was a dull throb of pain +in my heart, but I thrust it down. The girl waited a few moments, +debating with herself: I could read the struggle on her face: then she +looked up straight into my eyes, her small white teeth showing +determined as a steel-trap. + +"It's quiet here, Mrs. Manning, and will be for a bit, and there's a +story I'd like to tell you. It would do me good, if it were off my mind. +Perhaps you, too," with a sharp glance. + +"Go on." + +She put her hand into her pocket and pulled out a broken morocco case. + +"Look here. This tells the whole of the story, almost,"--holding it +where the light from the cabin-window fell on it. + +It was the daguerreotype of a woman: one of those faces that grow out of +a torpid, cunning, sensual life; apparently marked, too, by some strange +disease, the skin white, and hanging loose from the flesh. I pushed it +away. Jacqueline polished it with her palm. + +"She was an opium-eater, you see? The eyes have that rigid staring, +like Death looking into life. You pushed it from you, Mrs. +Manning?"--shutting it. "Yet I know a man who cherished that living face +tenderly in his bosom for fifteen long years, and never opened his lips +to say to God once that it was hard to bear: faugh!" and she flung the +case into the water. "I only kept it to show you. She, the foul vampire, +sucked his youth away. I think it was but the husk of life that was left +him when she died;--and we are making that mean and poor enough,"--in a +lower voice. "Yet that man"--more firmly--"has a stronger brain and +fresher heart than you or I are fit to comprehend, Mrs. Manning. One +would think God meant that the last of his life, after that gone, should +be a warm Indian-summer day, opening broad and happily into the life He +is keeping for him,--would you not?" + +"Who is the man?"--my lips growing cold. + +"Your husband." + +"I thought so. You did well to tell me that story." + +She looked from me, her color coming and going. + +"It was hard to do it. You are an older woman than I. But I thought it +was needed." + +I looked up at the hard-set, chubby little face, beyond at the far +yellow night-line of sea, listened to the low choke, choke, of the water +in the wheels. + +"I wish you would leave me. Let me be alone awhile." + +She went to the other end of the deck, where she could keep me in sight. +It was so dull, that throb of the water, playing some old tune that +would not vary! The sea stretched out in such blank, featureless +reaches! + +To nestle down into this man's heart and life! To make his last years +that warm Indian-summer day! I could do it! I! What utter rest there +were in that! + +Yet was this power within me to rot and waste? My nature, all the habit +and teaching of the years gone, dragged me back, held up my Self before +me, bade me look at that. A whiff of tobacco-scented breathing made me +look up. M. Vaux was leaning on the deck-railing, his legs crossed, +surveying me critically through his half-shut eyes. + +"Well, 'm, glad of the chance t' tell you. Henz and Doctor Howe thought +so well of that little thing of yours that we've put it in +rehearsal,--bring it out Monday week. 'N' 've concluded you can try the +part of Marian in it. Not much in that,--one aria you can make something +of, but begin easy, hey?" + +"I have concluded to give up that scheme, Monsieur." + +"Tut! tut! No such thing. Why, you've a master-talent,--that is, with +cultivation, cultivation. A fine gift, Madam. Belongs to the public. +Why," tapping his yellow teeth with his cane-head, "it's shutting up a +bird in a cage, to smother a voice like yours. Must have training,--yes, +yes, 'll see to that; 'n' there are tricks and bits of stage-effect; but +you'll catch 'em,--soon enough. There's other little matters," with a +furtive glance at my square shoulders and bony figure, "necessary to +success. But you'll understand." + +I saw how anxious the man was that I should accede to the proposal. I +had not overrated my genius, then? + +"If the thing's to be done, let it be done quickly. I'm going to run +back to town to-morrow night, and you'd best go with me, and go in +rehearsal at once. You can break it to your people to-morrow. I'll meet +you in the boat,--that is," with an unwilling hesitation, "if you decide +to go." + +Jacky approached us. + +"I will let you know," I said; and as he walked away, the water began +its dull throb, throb, again, that lasted all night long. + +All night long! Other people may approach the crisis of their fate with +senses and faculties all on guard and alert; but with me, although I +knew the next day would witness my choice for life, I believe that heavy +thud of the water was the most real thought, trying my brain beyond +endurance. I tried to reason coolly in the night about M. Vaux and his +scheme: both vulgar, degrading in outside appearance,--I felt that, to +the quick, keenly enough; but inside lay a career, utterance for +myself,--and I had been dumb and choking so long! + +A beam of light from the cabin-chandelier struck just then sharply +across Doctor Manning's face, where he lay asleep in his berth. There +was an unusual look in it, as Jacky had said, now that I looked closely: +a blueness about the mouth, and a contraction of the nostrils. Was it a +hint of any secret disease, that she had looked so terrified, and even +the boys had kept such a sidelong scrutiny over him all day? I sat up. +If I could go to him, put my hands about his head, cling to him, let my +young strength and life ooze into his to atone for all he had lost in +those old days! There was passion and power of love under my +stiff-muscled fingers and hard calculating brain, such as these people +with their hot blood knew nothing of. It _was_ passion, a weak fever of +the flesh. I drew the sheet over me, and lay down again. + +The morning was stiflingly hot. I remember the crowd of porters, drays, +etc., jostling on the wharf: the narrow street: Monsieur passing me, as +we turned into it, and muttering, "By six this afternoon I must know +your decision": Robert's grave, inquiring face, when he first met his +father, and saw his changed look. The rooms he had taken for us were but +partially furnished, carpetless, the sun staring in through dirty +windows, blue and yellow paper on the walls. He went out with Dr. +Manning for a walk; the boys scattered off noisily to the sea-side. I +went to work making a sort of lounge for Teddy to sleep on, out of some +blocks of wood and staves of an old barrel, and so passed the time until +noon. Then I sat down to mend the weekly heap of boys' socks, +half-washed and leather-stained. Out of the window where I sat I looked +down into the muddy back-yard of the boarding-house, where an Irishwoman +was washing and gossiping with the cook cleaning fish over the ash-heap. +_This_ was what Life held for me now, was it? When the door was opened, +a strong whiff of dinner filled the room. Two o'clock came. + +"I will not go down to dinner," I said to Jacqueline, when the cracked +bell rang. "I will go out and find Doctor Manning on the cliffs. I may +have something to say to him." + +But when she was gone, I darned on at the unclean socks. Somehow the +future faced me in my work and surroundings. But I did not think of it +as a whole. The actual dignity and beauty of life, God's truth itself, +may have grown dim to me, behind a faint body and tired fingers; but let +the hard-worked woman who is without that sin throw the first stone at +me. I got up at last, folded the stockings, and put them away; then +pinned on my bonnet and shawl. Teddy was sitting on the stairs, half +asleep. I stopped to kiss him. + +"You'll be back soon, mother?"--hugging me close about the neck. + +"Good bye, Bud! Bring your father his pipe to-night, as he likes you to +do,--and every night." + +I strained him close to my breast again; he had a warm, honest little +heart of his own; he would be such a man as his father. I gasped, set +him down: I dared not kiss him after I thought of that: and went out of +the hall, stumbling over the boarders' hats and greasy oil-cloth. +Without, the air had that yellow stirless calm peculiar to Newport, +which gives to the sea and landscape the effect of those French pictures +glassed in tinted crystal. There were but few passengers on the street. +I wondered if any of them held his fate in his hand as I did mine that +day. Before I reached the cliffs the afternoon was passing away rapidly; +the heated pavements under my feet growing cooler, and barred with long +gray shadows; a sea-breeze blowing tattered sand-colored clouds inland; +the bell of the steamer rang out sharply down at the quiet little wharf. +In half an hour she would sail. M. Vaux was on board, awaiting me. I had +but little time to spare. + +I turned and crept slowly along the road to where the grassy street +opened on the cliffs, and sat down on the brown rocks. I could see my +husband on the sands with Robert, pacing to and fro; the scent of their +cigars almost reached me where I sat. I must see him once more. The bell +of the boat rang again; but I sat still, breaking off bits of the salt +crust from the rock, hardly looking up to see if her steam was up. I was +going. I knew she would not sail until I was on board. And I must see +him again; he would call me Hetty, maybe: that would be something to +remember. It was very quiet. The bare, ghastly cliffs formed a sort of +crescent, on which I sat; far below, the sea rolled in, over the white +sand, in heavy ashen sweeps: in one horn of the crescent the quaint old +town nestled, its smoky breath sleepily giving good-night to the clear +pink air; in the other stood the sullen fort, the flag flapping sharply +against the sky. The picture cut itself vividly on my brain. The two +black figures came slowly towards me, across the sands, seeing me at +last. I would not tell him I was going: I could write from New York: I +thought, my courage giving way. What a hard, just face Robert Manning +had! What money I made should go to the support of my child: Robert +should not think me derelict in every duty. Then I tried to get up to +meet them, but leaned back more heavily on the rocks, twisting my +fingers in a tuft of salt hay that grew there. + +I heard Robert say something about "jaded" and "overworked," as he +looked at me, throwing away his cigar; his father answered in a whisper, +which made the young man's face soften, and when they came near, he +called me "mother," for the first time. Into the face of the man beside +him I did not look: I thought I never could look again. There was a +small rip in the sleeve of his great-coat: I remember I saw it, and +wondered feebly if Jacky would attend to it,--if my child, when she was +a woman, would be careful and tender with her father. Meantime my +husband was talking in his cheerfullest, heartiest voice. + +"Coming here makes me feel as if the old boy-time had come back, Hetty. +Rob and I have been planning out our new life, and the sea and the fresh +air and the very houses seemed to join in the talk, and help me on as +they used to do then. I'll begin all new: just as then. Only now"---- + +He put his hand on my shawl with a motion that had infinite meaning and +affection in it. The little steamer at the wharf swayed and rocked. Her +freight was nearly all on deck: I had but a few moments more,--that is, +if I meant to be free. + +"We are going down to the hotel for a few minutes,--business, Hetty," he +said. "Will you wait for us here? or are you afraid to be alone? + +"No, I'm not afraid to be alone. It is better for me." + +"Good bye, then. Come, Rob." + +I did not say good-bye. Even then, I think I did not know what I had +resolved. I thrust my fingers deeper into the wet tuft of grass, heard +the long dash of the breakers on the beach, looked at the square black +figure of Robert Manning as it went slowly up the sandy road into the +street. At the other, taller and more bent, beside it, I did not once +look. I wiped the clammy moisture off my face and throat. + +"It's the woman's flesh of me," I said. "There is better stuff in me +than that. I will go now, and fulfil my calling." + +On the wharf, as I went creeping along, I met Monsieur. He offered me +his fat little arm, with smiles and congratulations, and handed me +hurriedly over the plank on to the deck. In a moment the steamer was +puffing out of harbor. + + * * * * * + +I was to play Marian in my own opera. God had given me a power of +head-work, skill for a certain mission, and I was going to perform it. +The vast, vague substance on which I was to act was brought before me +to-night, palpable,--the world, posterity, time; how did I call it? But, +somehow, it was not what I had dreamed of since my babyhood up yonder in +Concord. Nothing was vast or vague. I was looking into a little glass in +a black-painted frame, and saw the same Mrs. Manning, with the same high +cheekbones, the yellow mole on the upper lip, the sorrowful brown eyes: +dressed in tulle now, though, the angular arms and shoulders bare, and +coated with chalk, a pat of rouge laid on each cheek: under the +tulle-body the same old half-sickness; the same throbbing back-tooth +threatening to ache. The room was small, triangular: a striped, reddish +cotton carpet on the floor, a door with a brass handle, my bandbox open +on a chair, a basin with soapy water, soiled towels, two dripping +tallow-candles: in short, a dressing-room in a theatre. Outside, wheels, +pulleys, pasteboard castles, trees, chairs, more bony women, more +chalk, more tulle. Monsieur in a greasy green dressing-gown odorous of +tobacco, swearing at a boy with blear eyes,--a scene-shifter. The +orchestra tuning beyond the foot-lights: how vilely the first violin +slurred over that second passage! "Life's Prophecy," I called it; and +that "Vision of Heaven," the trombonist came in always false on the +bass, because, as Monsieur said, he had always two brandy-slings too +much. Beyond was "the world," passive, to be acted upon; the +parquet,--ranged seats of young men with the flash-stamp on them +from their thick noses to the broad-checked trousers; the +dress-circle,--young girls with their eyes and brains full-facing their +attendant sweethearts, and a side-giggle for the stage; crude faces in +the gallery, tamed faces lower down; gray and red and black and +tow-colored heads full of myriad teeming thoughts of business, work, +pleasure, outside of this: treble and tenor notes wandering through +them, dying almost ere born; touching what soul behind the dress and +brain-work? and touching it how? Ah, well! "I am going to fulfil my +mission." I said that, again and again, as I stood waiting. "Now. This +is it. I take it up." But my blood would not be made to thrill. + +"This wart must be covered," said a walking-lady in red paper-muslin, +touching the mole on my lip with Meen Fun. M. Vaux tapped at the +door,--a sly, oily smile on his mouth. + +"We are honored to-night. Be prepared, my dear Madam, for surprises in +your audience. Your husband is in the house,--and his son, Robert +Manning." + +I put up my hands in the vain effort to cover the bare neck and +shoulders,--then, going back into the dressing-room, sat down, without a +word. I remember how the two tallow-candles flared and sputtered, as I +sat staring at them; how on the other side of the brass-handled door the +play went on, the pulleys creaked, and the trombones grated, and the +other women in tulle and chalk capered and sang, and that at last the +stuffy voice of the call-boy outside cried, "Marian, on," and it was my +time to fulfil my mission. I remember how broad a gap the green floor of +the stage made to the shining tin foot-lights; how the thousand brassy, +mocking eyes were centred on the lean figure that moved forward; how I +heard a weak quaver going up, and knew it to be my own voice: I remember +nothing more until the scene was ended: the test and last scene of the +opera it had been: and as the curtain fell, it was stopped by a faint, +dismal hiss that grew slowly louder and more venomous, was mingled with +laughs and jeers from the gallery, and the play was damned. I stood with +my white gauze and bony body and rouge behind a pasteboard flower-vase, +and looked out at the laughing mob of faces. This was the world; I had +done my best head-work for it, and even these plebeian brains had found +it unfit for use, and tossed it aside. I waited there a moment, and then +passing Monsieur, whose puffy face was purple with disappointment and +rage, went into the dressing-room. + +"What wonder?" I heard him demand in French. "It was so coarse a theft! +But I hoped the catch-dresses would pass it off." + +I wrapped a flannel cloak over my airy robes, and went out, down the +crooked back-stairs into the street. I had no money; if I went back to +the hotel where I had been stopping, it would be as a beggar. + +I waited outside of the theatre by an old woman's candy-stand for the +crowd to hustle past, holding myself up by her chair-back. She was +nodding, for it was past midnight, but opened her red eyes to lift a +little child on her knees who had been asleep at her feet. + +"Come, Puss, the play's out, it's time for you an' Granny to be snug at +home." + +I laughed. Why, there was not one of these women or men crowding by, the +very black beggar holding your horse, who had not a home, a child to +touch, to love them,--not one. And I--I had my Self. I had developed +that. + +I pulled the cloak closer about me and went down the pavement. The +street was thronged with street-cars stopping for the play-goers, hacks, +and omnibuses; the gas flamed in red and green letters over the +house-fronts; the crowd laughed and swayed and hummed snatches of songs, +as they went by. I saw one or two husbands drawing the wrappings tighter +about their wives' throats, for the air was sharp. My husband had seen +my shoulders to-night,--so had they all, covered with chalk. There were +children, too, cuddling close to their mothers' sides in the carriages. +I wondered if my child would ever know it had a mother. So I went slowly +down the street. I never saw the sky so dark and steely a blue as it was +that night: if there had been one star in it, I think it would have +looked softer, more pitying, somehow, when I looked up. Knowing all that +I had done, I yet cannot but feel a pity for the wretch I was that +night. If the home I had desolated, the man and child I had abandoned, +had chosen their revenge, they could not have asked that the woman's +flesh and soul should rise in me with a hunger so mad as this. + +At the corner of the street, a group from the crowd had stopped at the +door of a drug-shop; they were anxious, curious, whispering back to +those behind them. Some woman fainting, perhaps, or some one ill. I +could not pass the lock of carriages at the crossing, and stopped, +looking into the green light of the window-bottles. In a moment I caught +my own name, "Manning," from a policeman who came out, and a word or two +added. The crowd drew back with a sudden breath of horror; but I passed +them, and went in. It was a large shop: the lustres, marble +soda-fountains, and glittering shelves of bottles dazzled me at first, +but I saw presently two or three men, from whom the crowd had shrunk +away, standing at the far end of the shop. Something lay on the counter +among them,--a large, black figure, the arm hanging down, the feet +crossed. It did not move. I do not know how long I stood there, it might +be hours, or minutes, and it did not move. But I knew, the first moment +I looked at it, that it never would move again. They worked with him, +the three men, not speaking a word. The waistcoat and shirt were open; +there was a single drop of blood on the neck, where they had tried to +open a vein. After a while the physician drew back, and put his hand +gently on the shoulder of the shorter, stouter of the other two men. + +"My friend," he said, compassionately. + +Robert Manning did not seem to hear him. He had knelt on the floor and +hid his face in the hand that hung down still and cold. The druggist, a +pale, little person, drew the doctor aside. + +"What is it, now? Apoplexy?" his face full of pity. + +"No. Brought on by nervous excitement,--heart, you know. Threatened a +long time, his son says. His wife, the woman who"---- + +The policeman had been eying my dress under the cloak for some time. + +"Hi! _You_'d best move on," he whispered. "This a'n't no place for the +likes of you." + +I stood still a moment looking at the brawny black figure lying on the +counter. The old days of Tinder and the paddock,--I don't know why I +thought of them. It did not move: it never would move again. Dead. I had +murdered him. I! I got my fingers in my oily hair, and pulled at it. +"Hetty, Hetty Manning," I said, "good bye! Good bye, Daniel!" I remember +hearing myself laugh as I left the shop-door; then I went down the +street. + +When I was far down the Bowery, an old thought came feebly up in my +brain. It was how the water had choked, choked, all that night long in +the wheel of the boat. When I thought of that, I waited to think. Then I +turned and went to the bay, beyond Castle Garden. + + * * * * * + +The rain, drip, dripping on a cottage-roof: on branches, too, near at +hand, that rustled and struck now and then against the little +window-shutters, in a fashion just dreary enough to make one nestle +closer into the warm bed, and peep out into the shadowy chamber, with +the cozy little fire burning hotly in the grate. Patter, patter: +gurgling down the spouts: slacking for a minute, threatening to stop and +let you sleep in a usual, soundless, vulgar way, as on other nights: +then at it again, drip, drip, more monotonous, cheerfuller in its +dreariness than ever. Thunder, too: growling off in the hills, where the +night and rain found no snug little bed-room to make brighter by their +besieging: greenish-white jets of lightning in the cracks of the +shutters, making the night-lamp on the toilet-table and the fire +suddenly go out and kindle up fiercely again. + +This for a long time: hours or not, why should one try to know? A little +bed, with crimson curtains, cool white pillows: a soft bed, where the +aching limbs rested afresh with every turn. After a while, a +comfortable, dumpling little figure in a loose wrapper, popping out of +some great chair's depths by the fire and stirring some posset on the +hearth: smelling at a medicine-bottle: coming to the bed-side, putting a +fat hand on one's forehead: a start, a nervous kiss, a shaky little +laugh or two, as she fumbles about, saying, "Hush-h!" and a sudden +disappearing behind the curtains. A grave, pale face looking steadily +down, as if afraid to believe, until the dear eyes fill with tears, and +the head, with its old wig, is dropped, and I and God only know what his +soul is saying. + +"My husband!" + +"Hetty!" + +"Is it you?--Daniel?" + +He lifted me in his arms farther up on the pillow, smoothing the +blankets about me, trying to speak, but only choking, in a ridiculous +fashion. + +"And the opera, and the drug-shop, and"---- + +I held my hand to my head. + +"The truth is," said Jacky, bobbing out from behind the curtains, her +eyes suspiciously red and shiny, "I'm afraid you've had some bad dreams, +dear. Just take a teaspoonful of this, that's a good soul! You've been +ill, you see. Brain-fever, and what not. The very day we came to +Newport. Uncle Daniel and Robert found you on the cliff." + +"When we came from the hotel, you remember?" still pulling the blanket +up, his lip unsteady. + +"You'll choke her; what a nurse you are, to be sure, Uncle Dan! And the +woman's feet as bare"---- + +"There, there, Jacky! I know,"--submissively, twitching at my nightcap, +and then gathering my head into his arms until I could hear how his +heart throbbed under the strong chest. "My wife! Hetty! Hetty!" he +whispered. + +I knew he was thanking God for giving me to him again. I dared not think +of God, or him: God, that had given me another chance. + +I lay there until morning, weak and limp, on his arm, touching it now +and then to be sure it was alive, an actual flesh-and-blood arm,--that I +was not a murderer. Weak as any baby: and it seemed to me--it comes to +me yet as a great truth--that God had let me be born again: that He, who +gave a new life to the thief in his last foul breath, had given me, too, +another chance to try again. Jacky, who was the most arbitrary of +nurses, coiled herself up on the foot of the bed, and kept her unwinking +eyes sharp on us to enforce silence. Never were eyes more healthful and +friendly, I thought feebly. But I tried all the time to press my poor +head in closer to my husband's breast: I was barely free from that +vacuum of death and crime, and in there were the strength and life that +were to save me; I knew that. God, who had brought me to this, alone +knew how I received it: whether it was a true wife that lay on Daniel +Manning's bosom that night; how I loathed the self I had worshipped so +long; how the misused, diseased body and soul were alive with love for +him, craved a week's, a day's life to give themselves utterly to him, to +creep closer to him and the Father that he knew so simply and so well. I +heard him once in the night, when he thought I was asleep, say to +himself something of the wife who had been restored to him, who "was +dead and is alive again, was lost and is found." But how true those +words were he can never know. + +I fell asleep towards morning, and when I woke, it was with a clear head +and stronger eye to comprehend my new chance in life. The room had a +pure, fresh, daylight look, snug and tidy; a clear fire crackled on the +clean hearth; Jacky herself had her most invigorating of morning faces, +going off at the least hint of a joke into redness and smiles. It rained +still, but the curtains were drawn back, and I could see through the +gray wet what a pleasant slope of meadow there was outside, clumped over +with horse-chestnuts and sycamores, down to a narrow creek. The water +was fogged over now with drifting mist, but beyond I caught glimpses of +low wooded hills, and far to the left the pale flush of the sea running +in on the sand. My husband was watching me eagerly as I looked out. + +"I do not know where I am, Daniel." + +"No, of course you don't,"--rubbing his forehead, as he always did when +he was especially pleased. "There's so much to tell you, Hetty dear! +We're beginning all new again, you see." + +"You'll not tell a word, until she's had her breakfast," said Jacky, +dogmatically, coming with her white basin of cool water. + +Oh, the remembrance of that plunge of cold on the hot skin, of the +towel's smelling of lavender, of the hard-brushed hair, of the dainty +little tray, with its smoking cup of fragrant, amber tea, and delicatest +slice of crisp toast! Truly, the woman's flesh of me, having been +triumphant so long, goes back with infinite relish to that first meal, +and the two bright faces bent over me. And then came Teddy, slying to +the pillow-side, watching my pale face and thin hands with an awe-struck +gaze, and carrying off the tea and toast to finish by the hearth. + +"You can't see much for the rain, mother," anxiously. "Not the orchard, +nor the stable,--but there _is_ a stable, and hay, and eggs every +morning, only the gray hen's trying to set, if you'll believe it. And +old Mary's in the kitchen, and we've got even Tinder and our old peacock +from the Hudson." + +"Eat your toast now, Captain," said his father, putting his arm about me +again. + +"Yes, Hetty, it's a bit of a farm,--ten or fifteen acres. Our cozery: +yours and mine, dear. It's Rob's surprise,"--with the awkward laugh a +man gives, when, if he were a woman, the tears would come. + +"Rob?" + +"Yes. He had it ready. I knew it before we left New York, but we wanted +to surprise you. The boys all put in a little. They're good boys. I've +hardly deserved it of them,"--pulling at the quilt-fringe. "I've been a +glum, unsociable old dog. I might have made their lives cheerfuller. +They're going West: Bill and John to Chicago, and Jem to St. Louis: just +waiting for you to be better." + +"I am sorry." + +I was sorry. The thought of their earnest, honest, downright faces came +to me now with a new meaning, somehow: I could enter into their life +now: it was an eager affection I was ready to give them, that they could +not understand: I had wakened up, so thirsty for love, and to love. + +"Yes, Rob did it,"--lingering on the name tenderly. "It's a snug home +for us: we'll have to rough it outside a little, but we're not old yet, +Hetty, eh?" turning up my face. "I have my old school in town again. We +have everything we want now, to begin afresh." + +I did not answer; nor, through the day, when Jacky and the boys, one +after another, would say anxiously, as one does to a sick person, "Is +there anything you need, mother?" did I utter a wish. I dared not: I +knew all that I had done: and if God never gave me _that_ gift again, I +never should ask for it. But I saw them watching me more uneasily, and +towards evening caught part of Jacky's talk with Doctor Manning. + +"I tell you I will. I'll risk the fever," impatiently. "It's that she +wants. I can see it in her eyes. Heaven save you, Uncle Dan, you're not +a woman!" + +And in a moment she brought my baby and laid it in my breast. It was +only when its little hand touched me that I surely knew God had forgiven +me. + +It ceased raining in the evening: the clouds cleared off, red and heavy. +Rob had come up from town, and took his father's place beside me, but he +and Jacky brought their chairs close, so we had a quiet evening all +together. Their way of talking, of politics or religion or even news, +was so healthy and alive, warm-blooded! And I entered into it with so +keen a relish! It was such an earnest, heartsome world I had come into, +out of myself! Once, when Jacqueline was giving me a drink, she said,-- + +"I wish you'd tell us what you dreamed in all these days, dear." + +Robert glanced at me keenly. + +"No, Jacky," he said, his face flushing. + +I looked him full in the eyes: from that moment I had a curious reliance +and trust in his shrewd, just, kindly nature, and in his religion, a +something below that. If I were dying, I should be glad if Robert +Manning would pray for me. I should think his prayers would be heard. + +"I will not forget what I dreamed, Robert," I said. + +"No, mother. I know." + +After that, awhile, I was talking to him of the home he had prepared for +his father and me. + +"I wanted you just to start anew, with Teddy and the baby, here," he +said, lightly. + +"And Jacky," I added, looking up at the bright, chubby face. + +It grew suddenly crimson, then colorless, then the tears came. There was +a strange silence. + +"Rob," she whispered, hiding her head sheepishly, "Rob says no." + +"Yes, Rob says no," putting his hand on her crisp curls. "He wants you. +And mother, here, will tell you a woman has no better work in life than +the one she has taken up: to make herself a visible Providence to her +husband and child." + +I kissed Jacky again and again, but I said nothing. He went away just +after that. When he shook hands, I held up the baby to be kissed. He +played with it a minute, and then put it down. + +"God bless the baby," he said, "and its mother," more earnestly. + +Then he and Jacky went out and left me alone with my husband and my +child. + + + + +PALINGENESIS. + + + I lay upon the headland-height, and listened + To the incessant sobbing of the sea + In caverns under me, + And watched the waves, that tossed and fled and glistened, + Until the rolling meadows of amethyst + Melted away in mist. + + Then suddenly, as one from sleep, I started; + For round about me all the sunny capes + Seemed peopled with the shapes + Of those whom I had known in days departed, + Apparelled in the loveliness which gleams + On faces seen in dreams. + + A moment only, and the light and glory + Faded away, and the disconsolate shore + Stood lonely as before; + And the wild roses of the promontory + Around me shuddered in the wind, and shed + Their petals of pale red. + + There was an old belief that in the embers + Of all things their primordial form exists, + And cunning alchemists + Could recreate the rose with all its members + From its own ashes, but without the bloom, + Without the lost perfume. + + Ah, me! what wonder-working, occult science + Can from the ashes in our hearts once more + The rose of youth restore? + What craft of alchemy can bid defiance + To time and change, and for a single hour + Renew this phantom-flower? + + "Oh, give me back," I cried, "the vanished splendors, + The breath of morn, and the exultant strife, + When the swift stream of life + Bounds o'er its rocky channel, and surrenders + The pond, with all its lilies, for the leap + Into the unknown deep!" + + And the sea answered, with a lamentation, + Like some old prophet wailing, and it said, + "Alas! thy youth is dead! + It breathes no more, its heart has no pulsation, + In the dark places with the dead of old + It lies forever cold!" + + Then said I, "From its consecrated cerements + I will not drag this sacred dust again, + Only to give me pain; + But, still remembering all the lost endearments, + Go on my way, like one who looks before, + And turns to weep no more." + + Into what land of harvests, what plantations + Bright with autumnal foliage and the glow + Of sunsets burning low; + Beneath what midnight skies, whose constellations + Light up the spacious avenues between + This world and the unseen! + + Amid what friendly greetings and caresses, + What households, though not alien, yet not mine, + What bowers of rest divine; + To what temptations in lone wildernesses, + What famine of the heart, what pain and loss, + The bearing of what cross! + + I do not know; nor will I vainly question + Those pages of the mystic book which hold + The story still untold, + But without rash conjecture or suggestion + Turn its last leaves in reverence and good heed, + Until "The End" I read. + + + + +GLORYING IN THE GOAD. + + + "Let the wealthy and great + Roll in splendor and state, + I envy them not, I declare it; + I eat my own lamb, + My own chickens and ham, + I shear my own fleece, and I wear it; + I have lawns, I have bowers, + I have fruits, I have flowers, + The lark is my morning alarmer; + So, jolly boys, now. + Here's God speed the plough, + Long life and success to the farmer!" + +So sings a certain venerable pitcher its untiring song. A brave pitcher +it was in its day. A well-ordered farm lies along its swelling sides. A +purple man merrily drives his purple team afield. Gold and purple +milkmaids are milking purple and golden cows. Young boys bind the +ripened sheaves, or bear mugs of foaming cider to the busy hay-makers, +with artistic defiance of chronology. There are ploughs and harrows, +hoes and spades, beehives and poultry-houses, all in the best repair, +and all resplendent in purple and gold. Alas! _Ilium fuit._ The gold is +become dim, the purple is dingy, the lucent whiteness has gone gray; a +very large, brown, zigzag fissure has rent its volcanic path through the +happy home, dividing the fair garden, cutting the plough in two, +narrowly escaping the ploughman; and, indeed, the whole structure is +saved from violent disruption only by the unrelaxing clasp of a string +of blue yarn. Thus passes away the glory of the world! + +Is it not too often typical of the glory of our rural dreams? To live in +the country; to lie on green lawns, or under bowers of roses and +honeysuckle; to watch the procession of the flowers, and bind upon our +brows the sweetest and the fairest; to take largess of all the fruits in +their season; to be entirely independent of the world, dead to its din, +alive only to its beauty; to feed upon butter and honey, and feast upon +strawberries and cream, all found within your own garden-wall; to be +wakened by the lark, and lulled asleep by the cricket; to hear the +tinkling of the cow-bell as you walk, and to smell the new-mown hay: +surely we have found Arcadia at last. Cast away day-book and ledger, +green bag and yardstick; let us go straightway into the country and buy +a farm. + +But before the deeds are actually delivered, before your feet have +finally deserted the pavement to make life-long acquaintance with the +dew, it will be worth while to ascertain whether the pitcher's word is +as good as its bond. If its fallen fortunes are indicative of what +yours shall be,--if Arcadia blooms only in its gorgeous bosom, and will +turn into an Arabia Petræa at the first touch of your spade,--better for +you a pitcher of roughest Delft on board of deal than all this pomp and +circumstance of lies. + +Reports of societies are not generally "as interesting as a novel." +Nevertheless, if one will consult the Report of the Commission of +Agriculture for 1862, he will find, among fascinating columns of +figures, bold disquisitions on the midge, a mirage of grapes, pears, and +peaches, and uncomfortable-looking "thoroughbred" cattle, an essay, by +Dr. W.W. Hall of New York city, which may assist him in forming his +plans. It is not necessarily destructive of the most charming theories, +but it is very definite and damnatory as to facts. Among other +unromantic and disagreeable things, it asserts--and proves its +assertions by still more disagreeable, because incontrovertible +statistics,--that, for all the sylvan delights of lawn and bower, and +the exquisite sensation of eating your own hams, the largest class of +patients in insane asylums comes from the "jolly boys" and their wives +and daughters; but better watch a grass-blade struggling up under the +curb-stone of the sidewalk than view the fairest landscape in the world +from behind a grated window. We learn also, that, in spite of his ample +larder, his freedom from envy and carking care, the farmer does not live +so long as the pale clergyman whose white hands he looks upon with only +not contempt; but how sweet soever may be the scent of clover and +buttercup, he little heeds their fragrance who lies beneath them. We are +told that a very large part of our farming population have no breadth of +view; that they cannot enter into a conversation beyond a few comments +on the weather, the crops, the markets, and the neighborhood-news. The +freshness, the beauty, the music and motion, that breathe and stir +around them, can gain no foothold in the unvarying routine of their +lives; but in vain do the heavens spread out their glory, and in vain +the earth unfolds her loveliness, if + + "A primrose by the river's brim + A yellow primrose is to him, + And it is nothing more." + +To these skeletons is added, perhaps, the causal and certainly the most +common skeleton of all: in this rustic paradise, this home of all the +graces and comforts, the grim spectre Debt stalks to and fro, eating out +the farmer's substance, and giving him in return anxiety, makeshifts, +irascibility, and despair. Three homes out of four, according to this +writer's estimate, suffer from the ravages of debt. + +This is a general, perhaps a national view. We may come a little nearer +home, and find that a closer examination only confirms the conclusions +arrived at by the broader survey. Thoreau, who "has travelled a great +deal in Concord," and whose keen eyes took note there for forty years, +says,--"When I consider my neighbors, the farmers of Concord,... I find +that for the most part they have been toiling twenty, thirty, or forty +years, that they may become the real owners of their farms, which +commonly they have inherited with incumbrances, or else bought with +hired money,... but commonly they have not paid for them yet. It is +true, the incumbrances sometimes outweigh the value of the farm, so that +the farm itself becomes one great incumbrance, and still a man is found +to inherit it, being well acquainted with it, as he says. On applying to +the assessors, I am surprised to learn that they cannot at once name a +dozen in the town who own their farms free and clear. If you would know +the history of these homesteads, inquire at the bank where they are +mortgaged. The man who has actually paid for his farm with labor on it +is so rare that every neighbor can point to him. I doubt if there are +three such men in Concord. What has been said of the merchants,--that a +very large majority, even ninety-seven in a hundred, are sure to +fail,--is equally true of the farmers.... Yet the Middlesex Cattle-Show +goes off here with _éclat_ annually, as if all the joints of the +agricultural machine were suent." + +If you do not trust the testimony of books, but will turn to living men, +you will scarcely fare better. One man, whose recreations have been +rural, but his business civic, conducts you through his groves and +summer-houses, his stone barns and his latticed cottages, but tempers +your enthusiasm with the remark, that this fancy farming is sowing +ninepences to reap sixpences. Relinquishing fancy farms, you go to the +practical man swinging his scythe in his hay-field, his shirt-sleeves +rolled above his elbows, and his trousers tucked into his boots. He +shows you the face-walls and the compost-heap, the drains and the +resultant hay-cocks, with measurable pride, but tells you at the same +time that every dollar he has earned on that farm has cost him nine +shillings. This will never do. A third farmer has inherited his farm, +not only without incumbrance, but with money at interest. Under his +hands it waxes fat and flourishing, and sends to market every year its +twelve or fifteen hundred dollars' worth of produce. But you overhear +its owner telling his neighbor that "it's a Cain's business, this +farming: make any man cross enough to kill his brother!" You find this +farmer racked with rheumatism, though in the prime of life,--bent with +the weight of years before his time. He has lost his health just as he +has improved his farm, by working early and late through sun and rain. +You turn to still another farm, whose owner brings the learning of a +college as well as the muscles of a yeoman to the culture of the soil. +His nurseries and orchards are thrifty, his cattle sleek and +comfortable, his yards broad, cleanly, and sunny. His fields wave with +plenty, his granary overflows. Here, surely, you have struck into the +Happy Valley. Here at last Tityrus reposes under the shade of his +broad-spreading beech-trees. On the contrary, you find Tityrus in the +back sitting-room, rolling his eyes in a fine frenzy over a very prose +bucolic on the Condition and Prospects of Sheep-Husbandry, which he is +writing for the "Country Gentleman" at five dollars a page. All the cool +of the day he works on his farm, and all the hot of the day he devotes +to his manuscript; and he avers with a solemnity which carries +conviction, that he and his wife have come to the conclusion that they +are carrying on their farm for the benefit of the hired help! He is +devoted to farming; he is interested in its processes; but the men and +maids get all the profits, and he supports his family by his pen. +Everywhere you find one song with variations. Farmers and farmers' wives +are not in love with their calling. They are not enthusiastic over it. +The "smartest" of the children do not remain at home to take charge of +the farm, unless impelled by a sense of duty to their aged parents, or +lured by some promise of extraordinary recompense. Everywhere the farmer +finds farming to be "a slave's life," "a dog's life," "delve all your +days, and nothin' to show for 't," "hard scrapin' to make both ends +meet." It is so unwieldly a mode of applying means to ends, that, if you +must believe him, every quart of milk costs him six cents, with the +labor thrown in, while you pay the milkman but five cents at your own +door; every dozen eggs which he gathers from his own barn he gathers at +the rate of twenty-five cents a dozen, while you are paying only +twenty-two. And even when both ends do meet, and not only meet, but lap +over, you scarcely find a hearty cheerfulness and sunshine, a liberal +praise and unfeigned ardor, a contagious delight in the soil. "Jolly +boys" in purple blouses may drive ploughs around pitchers, but they are +rarely met on the hill-sides of New England. If we may credit Dr. Hall, +they are quite as rarely seen on the rich, rolling lands toward the +sunset. + +Is this state of things inevitable? Farmers have a very general belief +that it is. They not only plod on in the old way themselves, but they +have no faith in the possible opening-up of any other way. Their sole +hope of bettering their condition lies in abandoning it altogether. If +one son is superior to the others, if an only son concentrates upon +himself all the parental affection, they do not plan for him a brilliant +career in their own line; they do not look to him to obtain distinction +by some great agricultural achievement, a discovery of new laws or a new +combination of old laws; all their love and hope find expression in the +determination "not to bring him up to farming." They "don't mean he +shall ever have to work." Hard work and small profits is the story of +their lives and of the lives of their ancestors, and they do not believe +any other story will ever be truly told of the genuine farmer. And when +we say small profits, we wish the phrase to hold all the meaning of +which it is capable. It is hard work and small profits to body and soul; +small profits to heart and brain as well as purse. But every plan which +looks to better things is "notional," "new-fangled," "easier to tell of +than 'tis to do"; and so the farmer goes on his daily beat, with a +shamefaced pride in his independence, fostered by the flattery of his +county-fair orators, yet vituperating his occupation, bemoaning its +hardships, and depreciating its emoluments, stubbornly set in the belief +that he knows all there is to know about farming, and scornful of +whatever attempts to go deeper than his own ploughshare or cut a broader +swath than his own scythe. + +To suggest the possibility that all this is the result of limited +knowledge, and that the most favorable and beneficial change might be +found in a more liberal education and a wider acquaintance with the +facts discovered and the deductions made by science, would be considered +by a bold yeomanry, our country's pride, as an outbreak of +"book-farming" in its most virulent form. "You may bet your hat on one +thing," says the bold yeoman,--"a man may know sunthin', an' be a good +minister an' a tol'able deacon, but he's spiled for farmin'." + +Two words are beginning to be coupled in the newspapers and to float +about in the air, whose juxtaposition is the cause of many a demure +chuckle among the rural population,--"Agricultural College." Separately, +the words command all respect; united, they are a living refutation of +the well-known axiom that "the whole is equal to all its parts." On the +contrary, so far are our farmers from believing this, that, while they +acknowledge each part to be a very serious and important fact, they look +upon the whole as the flimsiest of fallacies. + +"Gov'ment is goin' to build an Agriculteral College. Farmin' an' +learnin' marry an' set up house-keepin'. Guess Uncle Sam'll have to give +'em a hist with a donation-party now 'n' then. Agriculteral College? +Yes, Sir! Well, Sir, if you'll show me a man, Sir, that's a gradooate +from that College, that'll ever be seen with a hoe in his hand, I'll +give him leave to knock my brains out with it! Yes, Sir! An' it'll be +the best use he can put it to, Sir! He'll do less mischief that way 'n +any other! Agriculteral College! Edicated farmers! Yes, Sir, I've seen +'em! Got a grist up in Topsell. Jint-stock farm. The best talent in +Essex County's been a-carryin' on that farm, an' nigh about carried it +off, an' themselves along with it. Yes, Sir, the best talent in Essex +County, an' had the farm given 'em, an' they've sunk a thousan' dollars, +Sir, a'ready! That's what I call a Sinkin'-Fund, Sir! That's to begin +with. Jones is an edicated farmer. He made his cider last fall on +scinetific principles. Well, Sir, I could put an apple in my mouth, an' +swim down Merrimac River, an' have better cider 'n that all the way! +Edicated farmin' 's a very pootty thing, if a man can be at the expense +on't; but when it comes to gittin' a livin', farmin' 's farmin'. +Agriculteral College! Yes, Sir, farmin' 's a hard life, lookin' at the +best side. Soil's light an' runnin' to stones. But this here college +stuff's the poorest kind o' top-dressin' you can give it. Learnin's a +good thing. I've nothin' agin learnin', but 't a'n't the best use you +can make on 't to plough it in. The only way to promote the agriculteral +interests of Essex County, Sir, is to keep the farmers jest as they +are. Greek 'n' Latin a'n't state-prison offences, but they're sure death +to pork 'n' potaters. Minute you edicate the farmers they'll be as +uneasy as a toad under a harrow. What kind of a hand would Doctor Hall +or Squire Smith make, to come an' take a farm alongside o' me?" + +This is the way our bold yeoman puts it. Planting himself on the +indisputable facts of his pork and potatoes, he regards one who stands +upon any other ground as a dreamer and a visionary. He forgets that pork +and potatoes are not the only facts in the world. The earth itself is a +larger fact than anything that springs from it. It is the inalienable +inheritance, the sole support of man. Mother and nurse, from the cradle +to the grave, there comes no hour when he can withdraw from her +nourishing bosom. But, by our farmers' showing, it is but a harsh and +niggardly step-mother, opening the fountains of life only under +enforcement. Is this reasonable? Is it reasonable to suppose that the +one calling which is essential to life, the one calling on which every +other depends, should be the Canaan accursed, servant of servants to its +brethren? Is it reasonable to suppose that God gave us this beautiful +round world, source of all our wealth, almoner of every comfort, +possessor and dispenser of all grace and loveliness, yet with such +poison in her veins that they alone are safe who deal with her at a +remove,--she withers the hand that touches her? The ancients believed +better things than these. They reverenced the Mighty Mother, and fabled +a giant's strength to him who craved a blessing by the laying-on of +hands. We know that a curse was pronounced upon the earth, but why +farmers should be so forward to monopolize the curse it is difficult to +conceive. It is generally supposed that all the descendants of Adam are +equally implicated. It is not the farmer alone, but the minister and the +mechanic as well, who is to eat bread in the sweat of his face. One +product of the earth was no more accursed than another. Wheat and barley +and corn are no more under a ban than gold and iron and timber, which +all come from the same bountiful bosom; but while artificers in gold and +iron magnify their office and wax fat, the farmer depreciates his, and +according to his own showing is clothed upon with leanness. + +Surely these things ought not so to be. Looking at this earth as the +divinely prepared dwelling-place of man, and looking at man as divinely +appointed to dress and keep it, to replenish and subdue it, we should +naturally suppose that there would be an obvious and preëminent +adaptation of the one to the other. We should naturally suppose that the +primary, the fundamental occupation of the race would be one which +should not only keep body and soul together, but should be especially +and exactly fitted to develop and strengthen all the powers called into +exercise, and should also be most likely to call into exercise a great +variety of powers to the fashioning of a healthy and beautiful symmetry. +Looking still further at the secondary occupations, we find our views +confirmed. The shoemaker must bend over his lapstone, and he becomes +stooping and hollow-chested. The blacksmith twists the sinews of his +arms to strength, but at the expense of his other members. The +watchmaker trains his eyes to microscopic vision, but his muscles are +small and his skin colorless. A very large majority of the secondary +callings remove men from the open air, often from the sunshine, and +generally train one or a few faculties at the expense of the others. The +artisan carries skill to perfection, the genius towers into sublimity, +but the man suffers. Not so the farmer. His life is not only many-, but +all-sided. His ever-changing employment gives him every variety of +motion and posture. Not a muscle but is pressed into service. His work +lies chiefly out-of-doors. The freedom of earth and sky are his. Every +power of his mind may be brought into play. He is surrounded by +mysteries which the longest life will not give him time enough to +fathom, problems whose solution may furnish employment for the deepest +thought and the most sustained attention, and whose solution is at the +same time a direct and most important contribution to his own ease and +riches. The constant presence of beautiful and ever-shifting scenery +ministers to his taste and his imagination. Nature, in her grandeur, in +her loveliness, in the surpassing beauty of her utilities, is always +spread before him. All her wonderful processes go on beneath his eyes. +The great laboratory is ever open. The furnace-fire is always burning. +Patent to his curious or admiring gaze the transmutation takes place. +The occult principle of life surrounds him, might almost bewilder him, +with manifestations. Bee and bird, fruit and blossom, and the phantom +humanity in beasts, offer all their secrets to his eyes. Every process +is his minister. His mental and material interests lie in one right +line. The sun is his servant. The shower fulfils his behest. The dew +drops silently down to do his work. The fragrance of the apple-orchard +shall turn to gold in his grasp. The beauty of bloom shall fill his home +with plenty. The frost of winter is his treasure-keeper, and the snows +wrap him about with beneficence. With nothing trivial, deceptive, +inflated, has he to do. An unimpeachable sincerity pervades all things. +All things are natural, and all things act after their kind. Is it a +divine decree that all this shall tend to no good? Shall all this pomp +of preparation rightly come to nothing? Do we gather the natural fruits +of circumstance, when the mind travels on to madness, the body goes +prematurely to disease and decay, and the heart shrivels away from love +and is overcast with gloom? Is all the appearance of adaptation false, +and do farmers gain the due emoluments of their position? Not so. It is +their fault that they do not see the life which revels in exuberance +around them. In their minds is no under-draining, no subsoiling. Earth +with all her interests takes unrelaxing hold of their potato-patch, but +they have eyes only for the potato-patch. Accustoming themselves to the +contemplation of little things, considered separately and not as links +in the universal chain, their angle of vision has grown preternaturally +acute. Things they see, but not the relations of things. They dwell on +desert islands. For all the integrity of Nature, they fail to learn +integrity. The honest farmer is no more common than the honest merchant. +He abhors the tricks of trade, he has his standing joke about the +lawyer's conscience: but the load of hay which he sold to the merchant +was heavier by his own weight on the scales than at the merchant's +stable-yard; the lawyer who buys his wood, taught by broad rural +experience, looks closely to the admeasurement; and a trout in the milk +Thoreau counts as very strong circumstantial evidence. The farmer does +not compass sublime swindles like the merchant, nor such sharp practice +as the lawyer; but in small ways he is the peer of either. We do not say +that farmers are any more addicted to their characteristic vices than +the lawyers and merchants are to theirs; but that they have their +peculiarities, like other classes, and that the term _honest_ is as +necessary a prefix to _farmer_ as to any other noun of occupation. We +admit all this, but we believe it is the fault of the farmer, and not of +his circumstances. + +"His fault!" says the farmer, and say many men of whom better things +might be expected. "How can he get wisdom that holdeth the plough, and +that glorieth in the goad, that driveth oxen, and is occupied in their +labors, and whose talk is of bullocks?" How? By "seeking her as silver, +and searching for her as for hid treasures." For remember, O farmer! the +despairing question is from below, the inspiring answer from above. It +is not the Bible, but the Apocrypha, that casts doubt upon agricultural +education. There is wisdom to him that holdeth the plough. Honor and +health and wealth and great-heartedness are to be found in the soil. +Earth is not one huge incumbrance to weigh man down; it is the means by +which he may rise to heavenly heights. Earth has been the mother of +dignity ever since her Maker's eyes looked upon her, and the Maker's +voice pronounced her very good. And "Very Good" is the true verdict. +Ignorance, stupidity, and sin insist upon perpetuating the curse from +which she has been once redeemed; but a blessing lies in her heart for +him who has but the courage to grasp it. + +What analogies have they to prop their conclusions withal, who maintain +the necessary degradation of the soil? Fire, air, and water bow down and +do obeisance to man. They are analyzed and recombined. They are studied +with insatiable curiosity. They receive the absorbed attention of a +lifetime. Daily their secrets are wrested from them. Their likings and +their dislikings are forced into man's service; they are coupled in +strange unions and harnessed to his chariot. Whithersoever he will, they +bear him. They minister to his lowliest needs, they bend to his loftiest +dreams. They have lifted him from the earth whereon he crept, and have +given him the wings of the wind. Swifter than the eagle flies, swift as +the lightnings flash, they run to and fro at his command. Nor has the +limit of their capacities been reached. Nor has man ceased to pry into +the mysteries which lie hidden in their depths. He was once their abject +slave. He is now their crowned king. He will one day be their absolute +monarch. + +But while the three ancient elements are thus wrought into glory and +honor, the fourth sister, Earth, remains a clod. They give gifts to men, +but she only sears him with the brand of servitude. Every bold seeker, +adventuring into their arcana, bears back his treasure-trove; but the +earth only mocks her wooer, and robs him of his strength who sleeps upon +her knees! + +It is easy to point to occurrences which seem to prove this,--to +experiments which seemed fruitless,--to plans adopted only to be laid +aside,--to new modes that were heralded with great flourish of trumpets, +and shuffled ignominiously out through the pantry-door. But every +science and every art has had its empirical age, and every age has its +empiricists. Astrology spoke its great swelling words, made its +cabalistic signs, and passed away to its burial; but astronomy remains +eternal as the heavens. The stars cannot tell a man when he shall die, +and they shine upon the shepherd as brightly as on the sage; but they +have marvellous secrets to whisper to him who watches the long night +through to behold their coming and mark the magic of their ways; and by +so much knowledge unfolded Earth takes her place in the skies. There was +no El Dorado beyond the western sea to bestow eternal youth upon the +Spanish dreamer; but there was a land fairer than all his fancy painted, +to whose light the Gentiles shall yet come, and kings to the brightness +of its rising. The philosopher's stone has never been found which should +transmute all metals to gold; but gold itself is worthless in the +presence of such truths as philosophy reveals. All the way through, no +science has been pushed to barren results. A thousand errors have +branched off from the central truth, and have sometimes been mistaken +for it; a thousand false steps have been made for one in the right +direction; yet the truth is central and indivisible, and men have +pressed on steadily to reach it. Counterfeits do not annihilate the pure +coin. Pretenders do not destroy faith in the rightful prince. Even +failures lead the way to success. Honest, wise, persevering research has +ever been rewarded in full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and +running over. And it is not to be supposed that the one science of the +earth vaster and nobler than all others, the science that ministers most +directly to man's life, shall be the one science to baffle his research +and yield him meagre returns. We do not know what wealth the earth holds +in store for us, and it is our shame and misery that we so little +strive to know, so little care to seek. With an ignorance for which our +rich experience leaves us no excuse, we doggedly assume that we have +attained the ultimatum. The earth is to us but an immense pippin covered +all over with the arrogant label, "Seek-no-further." + +If farmers choose to accept this label as their motto, they should also +accept the consequences without complaint. If they choose to live in a +rut, they must not expect to breathe the air which they would find on a +hill. Many readers will remember a passage at arms that occurred in the +legislative assembly of one of our New-England States. A clergyman, +advocating a bill which was to help a certain class of young men in +obtaining education, referred to several persons who had by assistance +become men of note, but who without it would have remained "only +farmers." Another member immediately took umbrage, avowed himself to be +a farmer, and assured the assembly that he should not vote for a bill +which was to educate young men to sneer at him! The bill +failed,--whether from constitutional weakness or from this death-blow we +are not informed, but are left to infer the latter. The repartee was +very good as a repartee, and a respectable degree of Parliamentary skill +was shown in seizing upon a plausible pretext for a foregone conclusion; +but so far as the question was of principle and not of repartee, the +clergyman was right and the farmer was wrong. We may exalt democracy, +and abase aristocracy, and cajole people with specious phrases. +Ignorance and uncouthness may put on the garb of modest merit, and +worthlessness seek to veil itself by an unattractive exterior; but under +never so many layers the truth remains intact. "Only a farmer" expresses +with all-sufficient accuracy the relative position of farmers,--not +their necessary, but their actual position. The occupation which should +be a liberal profession is a most illiberal labor. The eloquence of +Demosthenes cannot change facts. Farming is honorable, just as any other +business is honorable, according to the amount of mind and heart brought +to bear on it. Shoemaking will always be an inferior craft to +statesmanship, because the amount of intellect required is less in the +former than in the latter. The man who aims at the highest culture, both +of his farm and himself, is aiming, whether consciously or not, at the +highest rank, and he shall not stand among mean men; but he who simply +delves in the dirt will find no laurels there. Fine-sounding phrases +cannot give dignity to that which is in itself undignified. No amount of +complaint can elevate prejudice, obstinacy, and routine into +intelligence, generosity, magnanimity. Farmers themselves act upon this +principle with entire unanimity, because it is a law of Nature, and not +an effort of the will. The man upon whose experiments they look with +utter distrust, ill-concealed contempt, and covert ridicule, whose +science seems to them mere nonsense, extravagance, and recklessness, +they at the same time regard with reverence, admiration, and confidence. +They look down upon him as a farmer, but they look up to him as a man. +They have a consciousness that he lives on another plane than theirs. +They are proud and pleased to have his family visit and receive theirs. +They feel that he is of a different order from themselves. And if +farmers persist in keeping education and science away from their farms, +if they will bring only their hard hands to the work, and will leave +their brains to shrivel in their skulls, this state of things must go +on. The best of materials is of no use without will and skill to work +it. Matter is a sorry substance until mind lays hold of it. The world +was not made with tug and sweat, but He spake and it was done, He +commanded, and it stood fast. As the world was made, so must it be +subdued, not by matter clawing at matter, but by the calm dominion of +spirit over matter. Until intellect percolates the soil, the soil will +not part with its hidden hoards. We shall have effort, struggle, wear, +and weariness, but no victory. It is the strife of clod with clod. + +So it is that the men who grieve to bring their minds into play will +never make of their occupation a profession. The people who work mind +and muscle, who turn knowledge into wisdom, shall stand before kings. +Those who + + "Keep in uninquiring trust + The old dull round of things" + +shall be hewers of wood and drawers of water to the end of the days. If +farming is doomed, farmers are doomed. For here is the earth ready-made, +and however much we may dislike it, it is all we have and the best we +shall get. If farming must be mere mechanical labor,--_peine forte et +dure_,--then there is a point where elevation and improvement must stop, +for there must always exist a class of serfs,--serfs to the soil, slaves +of their own farms; and none are more sure of this than those who have +lived in a farming community, and seen how surely the adventurous +spirits, the active, the energetic, the intellectual, the promising, +turn away from the dismal monotony of the farm and launch out on +currents of freer flow, or, if they remain at home, remain only in +consequence of the continued and earnest expostulations and the fairest +promises of parents, to rock the cradle of their declining years, and +not unfrequently to rock it over. + +But if the founders of our Agricultural College, or if any furtherers of +rural education, propose to themselves to diffuse light (and dispel +darkness) by appealing to farmers,--if they think to correct the evils +of ignorance by furnishing special opportunities to farmers,--if they +flatter themselves that they can establish a college of aims and claims +so moderate that farmers and farmers' boys will not be discouraged by +the time, money, or mind required,--if they design to narrow the crown +that lesser brows may be circled,--they are spending their strength for +nought. No college and no school can be founded so wisely and fitly, +that farmers, as a class, will send their sons to it. Why should they, +believing, as they do, that the district-school already gives them as +much "learnin'" as they need? Boys there can "read, write, and cipher." +They gain knowledge enough to reckon with the hired man, to keep the +tally of the marketing, to compute interest, and to do parish business. +What more do they want? Your college-men will talk about selections and +temperatures, silex and fluorine; but what has all that to do with +planting the ten-acre lot? Timothy and red-top grew before Liebig was +born. A rose by any other name is just as sweet to the agricultural +nose. Farmers who have grown to manhood with full faith in the fixity of +their condition, in the impossibility of its improvement, are not to be +turned right-about-face by a programme. The best patent cultivator could +not root out this main article of their creed. Agricultural colleges may +spread all their blandishments; but farmers will not listen to the voice +of the charmer, charm he never so wisely. The academic roof may be set +low and the academic door flung wide open, and the academic Siren, with +new and deeper meaning, may sweetly + + "Sing a song of sixpence, a bag full of rye"; + +but before it reaches the rural ear, it will have transformed itself +into a new rendering of the fatal entomological civility,-- + + "'Will you walk into my parlor?' said the spider to the fly." + +Reasoning is of no avail. Analogy has nothing to take hold of. Farmers +do not grasp the chances already offered them; how should they be +expected to possess themselves of future ones? Able treatises on +breeding, instructive, eloquent, and forcible, are written and printed; +but these men continue to tie up nightly their ill-favored and +lean-fleshed kine, and are weekly dragged to church by loose-jointed +nags wabbling over the road, head between legs. There are yearly +reports, rich in suggestion, well printed, cleverly illustrated, +distributed without cost--to the receivers. They will not read them. +They may glance at the foreign-looking sheep, with folds of wool on his +throat; they will utter a strong idiomatic exclamation over the +broad-sided short-horn; but they will not go beyond the limits of their +own township to replenish their stock. They have not time nor money nor +heart for experiments. You prove to them beyond the possibility of +gainsaying that their mode is cumbrous, and, in truth, extravagant; they +will assent to your propositions, admit the force of your arguments, but +inevitably leave your presence with the remark, that, "after all, they +think, like Gran'ma'am Howdy, they'd better go on in the good old +diabolical way,"--and there, accordingly, they go. Their logic is +devious, but it is always ready. It may not be convincing, but it is +conclusive. The major premise is often hidden, but it is as firm as +Fate. + +"Parson Edwards's been round with the temperance-pledge," says one old +farmer to another. + +"Yes," answers the latter. "Came to me. Asked me, says he, 'Mr. +Solomon,' says he, 'have you got any cider in your suller?' 'Yes, Sir,' +says I,--'sixteen barrels, good as ever you see in your life, I don't +care _where_ 't is.' 'Well,' says he, 'Mr. Solomon, my advice to you is, +to go an' tap them barrels, every one on 'em, an' let it run!'" + +"Guess you told him you'd wait a spell, didn't you?" + +"Humph! Let it run! _I knew his gran'sir!_ Meddlin' toad! Advisin' me to +throw my cider away! I KNEW HIS GRAN'SIR!" + +Whenever any amendment is suggested, some "gran'sir" or other will be +sure to block the way. That he has been two generations dead, or that he +has no apparent connection with the point at issue, may be indisputably +proved, but it does not open the road. + +Nor will the farmer's sons be any more ready to avail themselves of +their college than the farmer's self. As a general thing, they have +either ploughed their own furrow "in the good old diabolical way," and +walk in it as their fathers walked, caring for no other, or they have +acquired so unconquerable a repugnance to the uncongenial toil that they +cannot conceive of any plan or process by which it can be made +tolerable. To elevate farming by placing the lever under the farmers is +to attack a fort where its defences are strongest. But we can apply +socially as well as agriculturally the principle of a rotation of crops. +Poets are not necessarily the sons of poets. We do not draw upon +engineers' families for our supply of engineers. The greatest statesman +of the age may come from the smallest estate in the country. So also is +there no Medo-Persic law compelling the cultivation of our lands by +farmers' sons. An infusion of fresh blood is sometimes the best remedy +for longstanding disease and weakness, especially in social +organizations. The end desired is not the education of any special +existing class, but the establishment of a class fit to receive in trust +special existing interests. We want our country's soil to be +intelligently and beneficially cultivated. We desire that it shall be +rescued from ignorance and from quackery, and placed in the hands of +active intellect and sound sense. We want our farmers to be working-men, +not day-laborers. We want them to be practical farmers, book-farmers, +and gentlemen-farmers in one. The proprietors of the soil stand at the +base of society, and should constitute by themselves an order of +nobility,--but eclectic, not hereditary. Whenever a boy displays a turn +for agriculture, there is a fit subject for agricultural education, a +proper student for an agricultural college, whether his father were +merchant, farmer, policeman, or president. You cannot make a college so +mean that farmers' sons will flock into it, but you can make it so great +that the best of all classes shall press in. Endosmose and exosmose are +the soul of growth; either, alone, would bring death,--death on one side +from exhaustion, on the other from over-fulness. The city is currently +said to draw its best blood from the country. Let the city pour it +back again over field and meadow, turning our wildernesses into +gardens. Country and city will be invigorated by an exchange of +commodities,--the one giving of its nature, the other of its culture. +We want no exclusiveness, aristocratic or democratic. We want +intelligent men to develop the capacity of the soil. The problem is, to +vindicate the ways of God to man,--to demonstrate that He spake truth, +when He looked upon the earth which He had made, and pronounced it very +good. It is the duty of this generation to show to the future that +agriculture opens a career, and not a grave, to thought, energy, and +genius. It needs strong arms and stout hearts, but there are bays to be +won and worn. We want farmers who do not look upon their land as a +malicious menial, but who love it and woo it, and delight in enriching +and adorning it. We want men who are enthusiastic,--who will not be put +down by failures, nor disheartened by delay,--men who believe that the +Earth holds in her lap richer stores than gold or silver,--who are not +deceived by all the grovelling that has been laid to her charge, but +know in their inmost souls that she is full of beneficence and power, +and that it needs only to pronounce the "Open Sesame!" to gain +admittance to her treasure-house and possession of her richest gifts. We +want men who are willing to spend and be spent, not for paltry gains or +sordid existence, but for gains that are not paltry and existence that +is not sordid,--for love of truth,--men who attribute the failure of +their experiments, not to the poverty of Nature, but to their own +short-sighted, rough-handed endeavor, and who will simply take heart and +try again,--men who are fully persuaded in their own minds that there +must be, and are fully determined in their own hearts that there shall +be, profit to him that glorieth in the goad. + +It is left for our country to show that manual and mental skill, +strength, exercise, and labor are not incompatible,--that hard hands may +comport with gracious manners,--that one may be a gentleman digging in a +ditch, as well as dancing in a drawing-room. The Old World groans under +her peasant system,--even free England has her Hodge; but we will have +no peasantry here, no Hodges in hobnailed shoes, no stolid perpetual +serfdom to nurse our vanity and pride. The very genius of our nation +makes every man's manhood his most valuable possession. America +professes to believe that no one can with impunity evade the decree, "In +the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." She professes to hold labor +in honor; but she should show her faith by her work. She should display +her children of labor, fairer and fatter than the children of kings and +princes. If they are seen to be decrepit in mind and body before their +time,--if they have less happiness than the Austrian peasant, and less +content than the English clown, and no breadth of vision or liberality +of thought or clear foresight to atone for such deficiency, we shall +have to compass sea and land before we make many intelligent men or +nations proselytes to our faith. + +The time especially has need of men. This hour, and every hour of the +last three years, ought to prove to us beyond cavil that no class can +safely be left in ignorance, least of all the class that holds in its +hands a people's staff of life. Our country needs all the brain, all the +conscience, all the nerve and patience and moral strength, that can be +commanded. Her salvation lies in a yeomanry capable of comprehending the +momentous issues at stake. "More light!" is the dying gasp of a dying +people. Our republican institutions are but half completed. To give +every man the right to vote, without giving him at the same time the +power to vote intelligently, is but questionable service. If such an +arrangement were perpetual, it would be unquestionable disservice. Only +as fast and as far as we keep enlightenment abreast of power are we +seeing that the Republic receives no detriment. Ignorance is the +never-failing foe of freedom, the never-failing ally of despotism. We +have organized and successfully fought a crusade against tyranny; we are +now in the full tide of our crusade against slavery; let us have one +more, organized and efficient, against ignorance, that the fruit of our +former victories be not lost to us for lack of wisdom to use them +aright. + +That the people who suffer most from want of knowledge should disdain it +is but natural. To see the need of teaching, men must be taught. It is +this very ignorance which is the strong buttress against education. +Ignorance propagates itself. It can be subdued only by force or tact, +not by argument. But for men who have attained by the help of their +education whatever reputation they possess to affect to question its +importance is to spurn the ladder by which they have mounted to +eminence. We are sometimes almost tempted to suspect the existence of a +petty jealousy in members of the learned professions. It would seem as +if a small fear were indulged lest a wider diffusion of knowledge and a +more thorough culture among the farming classes should detract from the +supremacy of others. There is certainly, among some writers, a leaning +towards a continuance of present abuses for which it is difficult to +account. The shrewdness of the plain farmer is pitted against the +science of the scholar, to the entire discomfiture of the latter. But +would the plain farmer's shrewdness be at all diminished by educating +the plain farmer? Would his sharp sense be blunted by being expressed +with some partial subjection to grammatical forms? Would his observation +be any less close for being trained? Would his reasoning be any less +profitable by being wisely directed than by running at hap-hazard? Would +it not be more economical to strengthen and polish his powerful weapons, +and give them honest work to do, than to leave them rough and rusty from +disuse, and only brought out at long intervals to hew and hack devices +for walking in darkness? If education is not the foe of legal, +mechanical, polemic, nor forensic acuteness, why should it be hostile to +any? + +No lover of his country, who brings to this view the same clearness and +sense which he takes to political or personal plans, but must hail as an +omen of good the efforts now making throughout the North in behalf of +agriculture and education. It is a cause for proud and grateful +gratulation and congratulation, that our government is so wise and +strong as to look through all the smoke and cloud of warfare, and set +firm in the tumultuous present the foundations of future +greatness,--that, calm and confident, it lays in the midst of the +thunder-storm of battle the corner-stone of the temple of Peace. It is +equally encouraging to see the States from east to west responding to +this movement, consulting with each other, enlisting in the enterprise +their best men, and sending them up and down in the land, and in other +lands, to observe and collate and infer, that the beneficent designs of +Congress may be carried out and carried on in the best possible manner +for the highest good of all. So a free people governs itself. So a free +people discerns its weakness and unfolds its strength. So a true +aristocracy will yet develop a worthy democracy. From such living, +far-seeing patriotism we augur the best results. Mistakes will doubtless +be made; wisdom will not die with this generation; but a beginning is +the sure presage of the end. Hesitation and precipitancy, unseemly delay +and ill-advised action, may retard, but will not prevent, a glorious +consummation. In these colleges we look to see agricultural centres from +which shall radiate new light across our hills and valleys. They will +not at once turn every plough-boy into a philosopher, nor send us +Liebigs to milk the cows; but to every plough-boy and dairyman in the +country they will give a new and a wider horizon. They will bring fresh +and manly incentives into the domain of toil. They will establish in +society a new order of men,--an order whose mere existence will give +heart and hope to the farmer-lad disgusted with his narrow life, yet +unable to relinquish it. They will send out to us men who have learned +and will teach that the plough, the hoe, the rake are implements of +profit and honor, as well as of industry. They will show that the hand +and the head may march abreast, and that only so can their full capacity +be tested. Science will be corrected by practice, and practice will be +guided by science. These men will go over the land and quietly set up +their household gods among our old-time farmers. They will gradually +acquire influence, not by loud-voiced rhetoric, but by the silent +eloquence of rich cornfields, heavy-laden orchards, full-uddered kine, +and merry-hearted boys and girls,--by the gentle, but irresistible force +of kindly words, pleasant ways, ready sympathy, a helping hand in +trouble, "sage counsel in cumber,"--by the thousand little devices of +taste and culture and good-fellowship,--by the cheap elegances, the fine +endearments, all the small, sweet courtesies of life. They will approve +the beneficence and the power of the Great Mother; they will demonstrate +to farmers the possibility of large and generous living; they will teach +them to distinguish between the mountebanks of pretended science and the +apostles of that science which alone is truth; they will give to thought +a new direction, to energy a new impulse, to earth a new creation, to +man a new life. + + + + +SAADI. + + +Whilst the Journal of the Oriental Society attests the presence of good +Semitic and Sanskrit scholars in our colleges, no translation of an +Eastern poet has yet appeared in America. Of the two hundred Persian +bards of whose genius Von Hammer Purgstall has given specimens to +Germany, we have had only some fragments collected in journals and +anthologies. There are signs that this neglect is about to be retrieved. +In the interval, while we wait for translations of our own, we welcome +the announcement of an American edition, if it be only a careful +reprint, of the "Gulistan" of Saadi,--a book which has been current in +Asia and Europe now for six hundred years. Of the "Gulistan or +Rose-Garden" there exist three respectable English translations. That of +Gladwin is to be preferred for its more simple and forcible style. Mr. +Gladwin has not thought fit to turn into rhyme the passages of verse +with which the "Gulistan" is interspersed. It is the less important, +that these verses are seldom more than a metrical repetition of the +sentiment of the preceding paragraph. Mr. Eastwick's metrical renderings +do not make us regret their omission. Mr. James Ross, in an "Essay on +the Life and Genius of Saadi," has searched the works of his author, as +well as outside history, for biographical facts or personal allusions. + +The slowness to import these books into our libraries--mainly owing, no +doubt, to the forbidding difficulty of the original languages--is due +also in part to some repulsion in the genius of races. At first sight, +the Oriental rhetoric does not please our Western taste. Life in the +East wants the complexity of European and American existence; and in the +writing of the primitive nations a certain monotony betrays the poverty +of the landscape, and of social conditions. Every word in Arabic is said +to be derived from the camel, the horse, or the sheep. We fancy we are +soon familiar with all their images. Medschun and Leila, rose and +nightingale, parrots and tulips; mosques and dervishes; desert, caravan, +and robbers; peeps at the harem; bags of gold dinars; slaves, horses, +camels, sabres, shawls, pearls, amber, cohol, and henna; insane +compliments to the Sultan, borrowed from the language of prayer; Hebrew +and Gueber legends molten into Arabesque;--'tis a short inventory of +topics and tropes, which incessantly return in Persian poetry. I do not +know but at the first encounter many readers take also an impression of +tawdry rhetoric, an exaggeration, and a taste for scarlet, running to +the borders of the negro-fine,--or if not, yet a pushing of the luxury +of ear and eye where it does not belong, as the Chinese in their +mathematics employ the colors blue and red for algebraic signs, instead +of our pitiless _x_ and _y_. These blemishes disappear, or diminish, on +better acquaintance. Where there is real merit, we are soon reconciled +to differences of taste. The charge of monotony lies more against the +numerous Western imitations than against the Persians themselves, and +though the torrid, like the arctic zone, puts some limit to variety, it +is least felt in the masters. It is the privilege of genius to play its +game indifferently with few or with many pieces, as Nature draws all her +opulence out of a few elements. Saadi exhibits perpetual variety of +situation and incident, and an equal depth of experience with Cardinal +de Retz in Paris or Doctor Johnson in London. He finds room on his +narrow canvas for the extremes of lot, the play of motives, the rule of +destiny, the lessons of morals, and the portraits of great men. He has +furnished the originals of a multitude of tales and proverbs which are +current in our mouths, and attributed by us to recent writers; as, for +example, the story of "Abraham and the Fire-Worshipper," once claimed +for Doctor Franklin, and afterwards traced to Jeremy Taylor, who +probably found it in Gentius. + +The superlative, so distasteful in the temperate region, has vivacity in +the Eastern speech. In his compliments to the Shah, Saadi says,--"The +incurvated back of the sky became straight with joy at thy birth." "A +tax-gatherer," he says, "fell into a place so dangerous, that, from +fear, a male lion would become a female." Of dunces he says, with a +double superlative,--"If the ass of Christ should go to Mecca, it would +come back an ass still." It is a saying from I know not what poet,--"If +the elegant verses of Dhoair Fariabi fall into thy hands, steal them, +though it were in the sacred temple of Mecca itself." But the wildness +of license appears in poetical praises of the Sultan:--"When his bow +moves, it is already the last day [for his enemies]; whom his onset +singles out, to him is life not appointed; and the ghost of the Holy +Ghost were not sure of its time." + +But when once the works of these poets are made accessible, they must +draw the curiosity of good readers. It is provincial to ignore them. If, +as Mackintosh said, "whatever is popular deserves attention," much more +does that which has fame. The poet stands in strict relation to his +people: he has the over-dose of their nationality. We did not know them, +until they declared their taste by their enthusiastic welcome of his +genius. Foreign criticism might easily neglect him, unless their +applauses showed the high historic importance of his powers. In these +songs and elegies breaks into light the national mind of the Persians +and Arabians. The monotonies which we accuse, accuse our own. We pass +into a new landscape, new costume, new religion, new manners and +customs, under which humanity nestles very comfortably at Shiraz and +Mecca, with good appetite, and with moral and intellectual results that +correspond, point for point, with ours at New York and London. It needs +in every sense a free translation, just as, from geographical position, +the Persians attribute to the east wind what we say of the west. + +Saadi, though he has not the lyric flights of Hafiz, has wit, practical +sense, and just moral sentiments. He has the instinct to teach, and from +every occurrence must draw the moral, like Franklin. He is the poet of +friendship, love, self-devotion, and serenity. There is a uniform force +in his page, and, conspicuously, a tone of cheerfulness, which has +almost made his name a synonyme for this grace. The word _Saadi_ means +_Fortunate_. In him the trait is no result of levity, much less of +convivial habit, but first of a happy nature, to which victory is +habitual, easily shedding mishaps, with sensibility to pleasure, and +with resources against pain. But it also results from the habitual +perception of the beneficent laws that control the world. He inspires in +the reader a good hope. What a contrast between the cynical tone of +Byron and the benevolent wisdom of Saadi! + +Saadi has been longer and better known in the Western nations than any +of his countrymen. By turns, a student, a water-carrier, a traveller, a +soldier fighting against the Christians in the Crusades, a prisoner +employed to dig trenches before Tripoli, and an honored poet in his +protracted old age at home,--his varied and severe experience took away +all provincial tone, and gave him a facility of speaking to all +conditions. But the commanding reason of his wider popularity is his +deeper sense, which, in his treatment, expands the local forms and tints +to a cosmopolitan breadth. Through his Persian dialect he speaks to all +nations, and, like Homer, Shakspeare, Cervantes, and Montaigne, is +perpetually modern. + +To the sprightly, but indolent Persians, conversation is a game of +skill. They wish to measure wit with you, and expect an adroit, a +brilliant, or a profound answer. Many narratives, doubtless, have +suffered in the translation, since a promising anecdote sometimes +heralds a flat speech. But Saadi's replies are seldom vulgar. His wit +answers to the heart of the question, often quite over the scope of the +inquirer. He has also that splendor of expression which alone, without +wealth of thought, sometimes constitutes a poet, and forces us to ponder +the problem of style. In his poem on his old age, he says,--"Saadi's +whole power lies in his sweet words: let this gift remain to me, I care +not what is taken." + +The poet or thinker must always, in a rude nation, be the chief +authority on religion. All questions touching its truth and obligation +will come home to him, at last, for their answer. As he thinks and +speaks will intelligent men believe. Therefore a certain deference must +be shown him by the priests,--a result which conspicuously appears in +the history of Hafiz and Saadi. In common with his countrymen, Saadi +gives prominence to fatalism,--a doctrine which, in Persia, in Arabia, +and in India, has had, in all ages, a dreadful charm. "To all men," says +the Koran, "is their day of death appointed, and they cannot postpone or +advance it one hour. Wilt thou govern the world which God governs? Thy +lot is cast beforehand, and whithersoever it leads, thou must follow." +"Not one is among you," said Mahomet, "to whom is not already appointed +his seat in fire or his seat in bliss." + +But the Sheik's mantle sits loosely on Saadi's shoulders, and I find in +him a pure theism. He asserts the universality of moral laws, and the +perpetual retributions. He celebrates the omnipotence of a virtuous +soul. A certain intimate and avowed piety, obviously in sympathy with +the feeling of his nation, is habitual to him. All the forms of courtesy +and of business in daily life take a religious tinge, as did those of +Europe in the Middle Age. + +With the exception of a few passages, of which we need not stop to give +account, the morality of the "Gulistan" and the "Bostan" is pure, and so +little clogged with the superstition of the country that this does not +interfere with the pleasure of the modern reader: he can easily +translate their ethics into his own. Saadi praises alms, hospitality, +justice, courage, bounty, and humility; he respects the poor, and the +kings who befriend the poor. He admires the royal eminence of the +dervish or religious ascetic. "Hunger is a cloud out of which falls a +rain of eloquence and knowledge: when the belly is empty, the body +becomes spirit; when it is full, the spirit becomes body." He praises +humility. "Make thyself dust, to do anything well." "Near Casbin," he +tells us, "a man of the country of Parthia came forth to accost me, +mounted on a tiger. At this sight, such fear seized me that I could not +flee nor move. But he said,--'O Saadi, be not surprised at what thou +seest. Do thou only not withdraw thy neck from the yoke of God, and +nothing shall be able to withdraw its neck from thy yoke.'" + +In a country where there are no libraries and no printing, people must +carry wisdom in sentences. Wonderful is the inconsecutiveness of the +Persian poets. European criticism finds that the unity of a beautiful +whole is everywhere wanting. Not only the story is short, but no two +sentences are joined. In looking through Von Hammer's anthology, culled +from a paradise of poets, the reader feels this painful discontinuity. +'Tis sand without lime,--as if the neighboring desert had _saharized_ +the mind. It was said of Thomson's "Seasons," that the page would read +as well by omitting every alternate line. But the style of Thomson is +glue and bitumen to the loose and irrecoverable ramble of the Oriental +bards. No topic is too remote for their rapid suggestion. The Ghaselle +or Kassida is a chapter of proverbs, or proverbs unchaptered, unthreaded +beads of all colors, sizes, and values. Yet two topics are sure to +return in any and every proximity,--the mistress and the name of the +poet. Out of every ambush these leap on the unwary reader. Saadi, in the +"Gulistan," by the necessity of the narrative, corrects this arid +looseness, which appears, however, in his odes and elegies, as in Hafiz +and Dschami. As for the incessant return of the poet's name,--which +appears to be a sort of registry of copyrights,--the Persians often +relieve this heavy custom by wit and audacious sallies. + +The Persians construct with great intrepidity their mythology and +legends of typical men. Jamschid, who reigned seven hundred years, and +was then driven from his throne, is their favorite example of the turns +of fortune. Karun or Corah, the alchemist, who converted all things to +gold, but perished with his treasures at the word of Moses, is their +Croesus. Lokman, the Æsop of the East, lived to an enormous age, was +the great-grandson of Noah, etc. Saadi relates, that Lokman, in his last +years, dwelt on the border of a reedy marsh, where he constructed a +cabin, and busied himself with making osier baskets. The Angel of Death +appeared to him, and said,--"Lokman, how is it, that, in three thousand +years that you have lived in the world, you have never known how to +build a house?" Lokman replied,--"O Azrael! one would be a fool, knowing +that you were always at his heels, to set himself at building a house." +Hatem Tai is their type of hospitality, who, when the Greek emperor sent +to pray him to bestow on him his incomparable horse, received the +messenger with honor, and, having no meat in his tent, killed the horse +for his banquet, before he yet knew the object of the visit. Nushirvan +the Just is their Marcus Antoninus, or Washington, to whom every wise +counsel in government is attributed. And the good behavior of rulers is +a point to which Saadi constantly returns. It is one of his maxims, that +the "_bons mots_ of kings are the kings of _bons mots_." One of these +is,--"At night thou must go in prayer a beggar, if by day thou wilt +carry thyself as a king." Again,--"A king is like a great and massive +wall: as soon as he leans from the perpendicular [of equity], he is near +his ruin." Again,--"You, O king, sit in the place of those who are gone, +and of those who are to come: how can you establish a firm abode between +two non-existences?" Dzoul Noun, of Grand Cairo, said to the Caliph,--"I +have learned that one to whom you have given power in the country treats +the subjects with severity, and permits daily wrongs and violences +there." The Caliph replied,--"There will come a day when I will severely +punish him." "Yes," returned the other, "you will wait until he has +taken all the goods of the subjects; then you will bestir yourself, and +snatch them from him, and will fill your treasury. But what good will +that do to your poor and miserable people?" The Caliph was ashamed, and +ordered the instant punishment of the offender. + +It appears, from the anecdotes which Professor Graf has rendered from +the Calcutta manuscripts, that Saadi enjoyed very high respect from the +great in his own time, and from the Sultan of the Mongolian court,--and +that he used very plain dealing with this last, for the redress of +grievances which fell under his notice. These, with other passages, mark +the state of society wherein a shepherd becomes a robber, then a +conqueror, and then sultan. In a rude and religious society, a poet and +traveller is thereby a noble and the associate of princes, a teacher of +religion, a mediator between the people and the prince, and, by his +exceptional position, uses great freedom with the rulers. The growth of +cities and increase of trade rapidly block up this bold access of truth +to the courts, as the narrator of these events in Saadi's life plainly +intimates. "The Sultan, Abake Khan, found great pleasure in the verses. +Truly, at the present time, no learned men or Sheiks would dare to utter +such advice, even to a grocer or a butcher; and hence, also, is the +world in such bad plight as we see." + +The Persians have been called "the French of Asia"; and their superior +intelligence, their esteem for men of learning, their welcome to Western +travellers, and their tolerance of Christian sects in their territory, +as contrasted with Turkish fanaticism, would seem to derive from the +rich culture of this great choir of poets, perpetually reinforced +through five hundred years, which again and again has enabled the +Persians to refine and civilize their conquerors, and to preserve a +national identity. To the expansion of this influence there is no limit; +and we wish that the promised republication may add to the genius of +Saadi a new audience in America. + + + + +THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS. + + + I hear, from many a little throat, + A warble interrupted long; + I hear the robin's flute-like note, + The bluebird's slenderer song. + + Brown meadows and the russet hill, + Not yet the haunt of grazing herds, + And thickets by the glimmering rill + Are all alive with birds. + + O Choir of Spring, why come so soon? + On leafless grove and herbless lawn + Warm lie the yellow beams of noon; + Yet winter is not gone. + + For frost shall sheet the pools again; + Again the blustering East shall blow, + Whirl a white tempest through the glen, + And load the pines with snow. + + Yet, haply, from the region where, + Waked by an earlier spring than here, + The blossomed wild-plum scents the air, + Ye come in haste and fear. + + For there is heard the bugle-blast, + The booming gun, the jarring drum, + And on their chargers, spurring fast, + Armed warriors go and come. + + There mighty hosts have pitched the camp + In valleys that were yours till then, + And Earth has shuddered to the tramp + Of half a million men. + + In groves where once ye used to sing, + In orchards where ye had your birth, + A thousand glittering axes swing + To smite the trees to earth. + + Ye love the fields by ploughman trod; + But there, when sprouts the beechen spray, + The soldier only breaks the sod + To hide the slain away. + + Stay, then, beneath our ruder sky; + Heed not the storm-clouds rising black, + Nor yelling winds that with them fly; + Nor let them fright you back,-- + + Back to the stifling battle-cloud, + To burning towns that blot the day, + And trains of mounting dust that shroud + The armies on their way. + + Stay, for a tint of green shall creep + Soon o'er the orchard's grassy floor, + And from its bed the crocus peep + Beside the housewife's door. + + Here build, and dread no harsher sound, + To scare you from the sheltering tree, + Than winds that stir the branches round + And murmur of the bee. + + And we will pray, that, ere again + The flowers of autumn bloom and die, + Our generals and their strong-armed men + May lay their weapons by. + + Then may ye warble, unafraid, + Where hands, that wear the fetter now, + Free as your wings shall ply the spade, + And guide the peaceful plough. + + Then, as our conquering hosts return, + What shouts of jubilee shall break + From placid vale and mountain stern + And shore of mighty lake! + + And midland plain and ocean-strand + Shall thunder: "Glory to the brave, + Peace to the torn and bleeding land, + And freedom to the slave!" + + MARCH, 1864. + + + + +WET-WEATHER WORK. + +BY A FARMER. + + +VII. + +In these notes upon the Farm-Writers and the Pastorals, I have +endeavored to keep a certain chronologic order; and upon this wet +morning I find myself embayed among those old gentlemen who lived in the +latter part of the eighteenth century. George III. is tottering under +his load of royalty; the French Revolution is all asmoke. Fox and +Sheridan and Burke and the younger Pitt are launching speeches at this +Gallic tempest of blood,--each in his own way. Our American struggle for +liberty has been fought bravely out; and the master of it has retired to +his estates upon the Potomac. There, in his house at Mount Vernon, he +receives one day a copy of the early volumes of Young's "Annals of +Agriculture," with the author's compliments, and the proffer of his +services to execute orders for seeds, implements, cattle, or "anything +else that might contribute to the General's rural amusements." + +The General, in his good old-fashioned way, returns the compliments with +interest, and says, "I will give you the trouble, Sir, of providing and +sending to the care of Wakelin Welch, of London, merchant, the following +articles:-- + +"Two of the simplest and best-constructed ploughs for land which is +neither very heavy nor sandy; to be drawn by two horses; to have spare +shares and coulters; and a mould, on which to form new irons, when the +old ones are worn out, or will require repairing. I will take the +liberty to observe, that, some years ago, from a description or a +recommendation thereof which I had somewhere met with, I sent to England +for what was then called the Rotherham or patent plough; and, till it +began to wear and was ruined by a bungling country-smith, that no plough +could have done better work, or appeared to have gone easier with two +horses; but, for want of a mould, which I neglected to order with the +plough, it became useless after the irons which came with it were much +worn. + +"A little of the best kind of cabbage seed for field-culture. + +"Twenty pounds of the best turnip seed. + +"Ten bushels of sainfoin seed. + +"Eight bushels of the winter vetches. + +"Two bushels of rye-grass seed. + +"Fifty pounds of hop-clover seed." + +The curious reader may be interested to know that this shipment of +goods, somewhat injured by stowage in the hold of the vessel, reached +Mount Vernon just one week after Washington had left it to preside over +the sittings of the Constitutional Convention. And amidst all the +eagerness of those debates under which the ark of our nationality was +being hammered into shape, this great man of system did not omit to send +to his farm-manager the most minute directions in respect to the +disposition of the newly arrived seeds. + +Of those directions, and of the farm-method at the home of Washington, I +may possibly have something to say at another time: I have named the +circumstance only to show that Arthur Young had a world-wide reputation +as an agriculturist at this day, (1786-7,) although he lived for more +than thirty years beyond it. + +Arthur Young was born at a little village near to Bury St. Edmund's, +(evermore famous as the scene of Pickwickian adventure,) in the year +1741. He had his schooling like other boys, and was for a time in a +counting-room at Lynn, where he plunged into literature at the unfledged +age of seventeen, by writing a tract on the American war; and this he +followed up with several novels, among which was one entitled "The Fair +American."[A] I greatly fear that the book was not even with the title: +it has certainly slipped away from the knowledge of all the +bibliographers. + +At twenty-two, he undertook the management of the farm upon which his +mother was living, and of which the lease was about expiring: here, by +his own account, he spent a great deal more than he ever reaped. A +little later, having come to the dignity of a married man, he leased a +farm in Essex, (Samford Hall,) consisting of some three hundred acres. +This, however, he abandoned in despair very shortly,--giving a +brother-farmer a hundred pounds to take it off his hands. Thereupon he +advertises for another venture, gallops through all the South of England +to examine those offered to his notice, and ends with renting a +hundred-acre farm in Hertfordshire, which proved of "a hungry vitriolic +gravel," where, he says, "for nine years, I occupied the jaws of a +wolf." + +Meantime, however, his pen has not been idle; for, previously to 1773, +he had written and published no less than sixteen octavo volumes +relating mostly to agricultural subjects, besides two ponderous quartos +filled with tabular details of "Experiments on the Cultivation of all +Sorts of Grain and Pulse, both in the Old and New Methods." + +This last was the most pretentious of his books, the result of most +painstaking labor, and by far the most useless and uninteresting; it +passed long ago into the waste-paper shops of London. A very full +synopsis of it, however, may be found in four or five consecutive +numbers of the old "Monthly Review" for 1771. + +The great fault of the book is, (and it is the fault of a good many +books,) it does not prove what the author wants to prove. He had hoped +by a long-continued course of minute experiments (and those detailed in +his book count a thousand, and extend over a period of five years) to +lay down an exact law of procedure for the guidance of his +brother-farmers. But the brother-farmers did not weary themselves over +his tables; or if they did, they found themselves as much muddled as the +experimenter himself. A good rule for dry weather was a bad one for wet; +and what might be advisable for Suffolk would be wrong in Herts. Upon +one occasion, where he shows a loss of nearly three pounds to the acre +on drilled wheat, against a loss of two shillings fourpence on +broadcast-sowing, he observes,--"Reason is so often mistaken in matters +of husbandry, that it is _never fully_ to be trusted, even in deducing +consequences evident from experiment itself." By which we may safely +conclude that the experiment disappointed his expectations. It must be +remembered, however, that Mr. Young was quite youthful and inexperienced +at the time of conducting these trials, and that he possessed none of +that scientific accuracy which characterizes the analysis of +farm-experiments at Rothamstead or at Bechelbron. He says, with a +diverting sincerity, that he was never "absent more than a single week +at a time from the field of his observations without leaving affairs in +charge of a trusty bailiff." He was too full of a constitutional unrest, +and too much wedded to a habit of wide and rapid generalization, to +acquit himself well in the task of laborious and minute observation. + +His "Tours" through the English counties, and his "Letters to Farmers," +were of great service, and were widely read. His "Farmer's Calendar" +became a standard work. He entertained at one time the project of +emigrating to America; but, abandoning this, he enlisted as +Parliamentary reporter for the "Morning Post,"--walking seventeen miles +to his country-home every Saturday evening, and returning afoot every +Monday morning. His energy and industry were immense; his information +upon all subjects connected with agriculture, whether British or +Continental, entirely unmatched. The Empress of Russia sent three lads +to him to be taught the arts of husbandry,--at which, I venture, his +plodding neighbors who "made the ends meet" laughed incontinently. He +had also pupils from France, America, Italy, Poland, Sicily, and +Portugal. + +In 1784 he commenced the publication of his famous "Annals of +Agriculture," which grew to the enormous mass of forty-five volumes, and +in the course of which dukes and princes and kings and republican +generals were his correspondents. At the formation of the Board of +Agriculture, he was named Secretary, with a salary and duties that kept +him mostly in London, where he died at an advanced age in 1820. + +It is a somewhat remarkable fact, that a man so distinguished in +agriculture, so full of information, so earnest in advocacy of unproved +methods of culture, so doggedly industrious, should yet never have +undertaken farming on his own account save at a loss. I attribute this +very much to his zeal for experiments. If he could establish, or +controvert, some popular theory by the loss of his crop, he counted it +no loss, but a gain to husbandry. Such men are benefactors; such men +need salaries; and if any such are afloat with us, unprovided for, I beg +to recommend them for clerkships in the Agricultural Bureau at +Washington; and if the Commissioner shall hit upon one Arthur Young +among the score of his _protégés_, the country will be better repaid +than it usually is. + + * * * * * + +The "Practical Farmer," and other books of William Ellis, Hertfordshire, +were in considerable vogue in the days of Young, and receive a little +faint praise from him, while he says that through half his works he is +"a mere old woman." + +I notice that Ellis recommends strongly the ploughing-in of +buckwheat,[B]--a practice which Washington followed extensively at Mount +Vernon. He tells us that a cow is reckoned in his day to pay a clear +profit of four pounds a year (for butter and cheese); but he adds, +"Certain it is that no one knows what a cow will pay, unless she has her +constant bellyful of requisite meat." And his talk about cider has such +a relishy smack of a "mere old woman" that I venture to quote it. + +"I have drank," he says, "such Pippin Cyder, as I never met with +anywhere, but at Ivinghoe, just under our _Chiltern_ Hills, where their +Soil is partly a chalky Loam: It was made by its Owner, a Farmer, and on +my Recommendation our Minister went with me to prove it, and gave it +his Approbation. This was made from the Holland Pippin: And of such a +wholesome Nature is the Pippin of any Sort above all others, that I +remember there is a Relation of its wonderful influences, I think it was +in Germany: A Mother and two or three of her Sons having a Trial at Law, +were asked what they eat and drank to obtain such an Age, which was four +or five hundred years that they all made up amongst them; they answered, +chiefly by eating the Apple, and drinking its Juice. And I knew an +eminent, rich Lawyer, almost eighty Years old, who was very much +debilitated through a tedious Sickness, on the telling him this Story, +got Pippins directly, sliced them to the number of a dozen at a Time, +and infused them in Spring-Water, and made it his common Drink, till +Cyder-Time came on; also he fell on planting a number of Pippin-Trees in +order to his enjoying their salubrious Quality, and a fine Plantation +there is at this Day in his Gardens a few miles from me. This Practice +of his drinking the Pippin Liquor and Cyder, answered extraordinary +well, for he lived several Years after, in a pretty good State of +Health." + + * * * * * + +The next name I come upon, in this rainy-day service, starts a pleasant +picture to my mind,--not offset by a British landscape, but by one of +our own New-England hills. A group of heavy, overgrown chestnuts stand +stragglingly upon a steep ascent of pasture; they are flanked by a wide +reach of velvety turf covering the same swift slope of hill; gray +boulders of granite, scattered here and there, show gleaming spangles of +mica; clumps of pokeweed lift sturdily a massive luxuriance of stems and +a great growth of purple berries; occasional stumps are cushioned over +with mosses, green and gray; and, winding among stumps and rocks, there +comes trending down the green hill-side a comely flock of great, +long-woolled sheep: they nibble at stray clover-blossoms; they lift +their heads and look,--it is only the old dog who is by me,--they know +him; they straggle on. I strew the salt here and there upon a stone; +"Dandie" pretends to sleep; and presently the woolly company is all +around me,--the "Bakewell" flock. + +Robert Bakewell,[C] who gave the name to this race of sheep, (afterward +known as New-Leicesters,) lived at Dishley, upon the highway from +Leicester to Derby, and not very far from that Ashby de la Zouche where +Scott plants the immortal scene of the tournament in "Ivanhoe." He was a +farmer's son, with limited education, and with limited means; yet, by +due attention to crosses, he succeeded in establishing a flock which +gained a world-wide reputation. His first letting of bucks at some +fifteen shillings the season was succeeded in the year 1774 by lettings +at a hundred guineas a head; and there were single animals in his flock +from which he is reported to have received, in the height of his fame, +the sum of twelve hundred pounds. + +Nor was Bakewell less known for his stock of neat-cattle, for his +judicious crosses, and for a gentleness of management by which he +secured the utmost docility. A writer in the "Gentleman's Magazine" of +his date says,--"This docility seemed to run through the herd. At an age +when most of his brethren are either foaming or bellowing with rage and +madness, old 'Comely' had all the gentleness of a lamb, both in his look +and action. He would lick the hand of his feeder; and if any one patted +or scratched him, he would bow himself down almost on his knees." + +The same writer, describing Mr. Bakewell's hall, says,--"The separate +joints and points of each of the more celebrated of his cattle were +preserved in pickle, or hung up there side by side,--showing the +thickness of the flesh and external fat on each, and the smallness of +the offal. There were also skeletons of the different breeds, that they +might be compared with each other, and the comparative difference +marked." + +Arthur Young, in his "Eastern Tour," says, "All his bulls stand still in +the field to be examined; the way of driving them from one field to +another, or home, is by a little switch; he or his men walk by their +side, and guide them with the stick wherever they please; and they are +accustomed to this method from being calves." + +He left no book for future farmers to maltreat,--not even so much as a +pamphlet; and the sheep that bore his name are now refined by other +crosses, or are supplanted by the long-woolled troop of +"New-Oxfordshire." + + * * * * * + +On the way from Leicestershire to London, one passed, in the old +coach-days, through Northampton; and from Northampton it is one of the +most charming of drives for an agriculturist over to the town of +Newport-Pagnell. I lodged there, at the Swan tavern, upon a July night +some twenty years gone; and next morning I rambled over between the +hedge-rows and across meadows to the little village of Weston, where I +lunched at the inn of "Cowper's Oak." The house where the poet had lived +with good Mrs. Unwin was only next door, and its front was quite covered +over with a clambering rose-tree. The pretty waitress of the inn showed +me the way, and a wheezing old man--half gardener and half +butler--introduced me to the rooms where Cowper had passed so many a +dreary hour, and where he had been cheered by the blithe company of +Cousin Lady Hesketh. + +My usher remembered the crazy recluse, and, when we had descended to the +garden, told me how much he, with other village-boys, stood in awe of +him,--and how the poet used to walk up and down the garden-alleys in +dressing-gown and white-tasselled cotton cap, muttering to himself; but +what mutterings some of them were! + + "Thy silver locks, once auburn bright, + Are still more lovely in my sight + Than golden beams of orient light, + My Mary! + + "For could I view nor them nor thee, + What sight worth seeing could I see? + The sun would rise in vain for me, + My Mary! + + "Partakers of thy sad decline, + Thy hands their little force resign, + Yet, gently pressed, press gently mine, + My Mary!" + +Afterward the shuffling old usher turns a key in a green gate, and shows +me into the "Wilderness." Here I come presently upon the Temple,--sadly +shattered,--and upon the urns with their mouldy inscriptions; I wander +through the stately avenue of lindens to the Alcove, and, so true are +the poet's descriptions, I recognize at once the seat of the +Throckmortons, the "Peasant's Nest," the "Rustic Bridge," and far away a +glimpse of the spire of Olney. + +Plainly as I see to-day the farm-flat of Edgewood smoking under the +spring rains below me, I see again the fat meadows that lie along the +sluggish Ouse reeking with the heats of July. And I bethink me of the +bewildered, sensitive poet, shrinking from the world, loving Nature so +dearly, loving friends like a child, loving God with reverence, and yet +with a great fear that is quickened by the harsh hammering of John +Newton's iron Calvinism into a wild turbulence of terror. From this he +seeks escape in the walks of the "Wilderness," and paces moodily up and +down from temple to alcove,--in every shady recess still haunted by "a +fearful looking-for of judgment," and from every sunny bit of turf +clutching fancies by eager handful, to strew over his sweet poem of the +"Task." + +A sweet poem, I repeat, though not a finished or a grand one; but there +is in it such zealous, earnest overflow of country-love that we farmers +must needs welcome it with open hearts. + +I should not like such a man as Cowper for a tenant, where any bargains +were to be made, or any lambs to be killed; nor do I think that the +mere memory of his verse would have put me upon that July walk from +Newport to Weston; but his letters and his sad life, throughout which +trees and flowers were made almost his only confidants, led me to the +scene where that strange marriage with Nature was solemnized. And though +the day was balmy, and the sun fairly golden, the garden and the alley +and the trees and the wilderness were like a widow in her weeds. + + * * * * * + +Gilbert White, of Selborne, belongs to this epoch; and no lover of the +country or of country-things can pass him by without cordial recognition +and genial praise. There is not so much of incident or of adventure in +his little book as would suffice to pepper the romances of one issue of +a weekly paper in our day. The literary mechanicians would find in him +no artful contrivance of parts and no rhetorical jangle of language. It +is only good Parson White, who, wandering about the fields and the +brook-sides of Selborne, scrutinizes with rare clearness and patience a +thousand miracles of God's providence, in trees, in flowers, in stones, +in birds,--and jots down the story of his scrutiny with such simplicity, +such reverent trust in His power and goodness, such loving fondness for +almost every created thing, that the reading of it charms like Walton's +story of the fishes. + +We Americans, indeed, do not altogether recognize his chaffinches and +his titlarks; his daws and his fern-owl are strange to us; and his +robin-redbreast, though undoubtedly the same which in our nursery-days +flitted around the dead "Children in the Wood," (while tears stood in +our eyes,) and + + "painfully + Did cover them with leaves," + +is by no means our American redbreast. For one, I wish it were +otherwise; I wish with all my heart that I could identify the old, +pitying, feathered mourners in the British wood with the joyous, +rollicking singer who perches every sunrise, through all the spring, +upon the thatch of the bee-house, within stone's-throw of my window, and +stirs the dewy air with his loud _bravura_. + +Notwithstanding, however, the dissimilarity of species, the studies of +this old naturalist are directed with a nice particularity, and are +colored with an unaffected homeliness, which are very charming; and I +never hear the first whisk of a swallow's wing in summer but I feel an +inclination to take down the booklet of the good old Parson, drop into +my library-chair, and follow up at my leisure all the gyrations and +flutterings and incubations of all the _hirundines_ of Selborne. Every +country-liver should own the book, and be taught from it--nicety of +observation. + + * * * * * + +There was another clergyman of a different stamp,--the Reverend John +Trusler of Cobham, Surrey,--who wrote about this time a book on +chronology, a few romances, a book on law, and another upon farming. He +commenced public life as an apothecary; from his drug-shop he went to +the pulpit, thence to book-selling, and finally to book-making. I am +inclined to think that he found the first of these two trades the more +profitable one: it generally is. + +Mr. Trusler introduces his agricultural work by declaring that it +"contains all the knowledge necessary in the plain business of farming, +unencumbered with theory, speculation, or experimental inquiry";--by +which it will be seen that the modesty of the author was largely +overborne by the enterprise of the bookseller. The sole value of his +treatise lies in certain statistical details with regard to the cost and +profits of different crops, prices of food, rates of wages, etc. By his +showing, the profit of an acre of wheat in 1780 was £2 10_s_; of barley, +£3 3_s_ 6_d_; of buckwheat, £2 19_s_; and a farm of one hundred and +fifty acres, judiciously managed, would leave a profit of £379. + +These estimates of farm-profits, however, at all times, are very +deceptive. A man can write up his own balance-sheet, but he cannot make +up his neighbor's. There will be too many screws--or pigs--loose, which +he cannot take into the reckoning. The agricultural journals give us +from time to time the most alluring "cash-accounts" of farm-revenue, +which make me regard, for a month or two thereafter, every sober-sided +farmer I meet as a Rasselas,--"choring" and "teaming it" in a Happy +Valley; but shortly I come upon some retired citizen, turned farmer, and +active member of a Horticultural Society, slipping about the doors of +some "Produce and Commission Store" for his winter's stock of +vegetables, butter, and fruits,--and the fact impresses me doubtfully +and painfully. It is not often, unfortunately, that printed +farm-accounts--most of all, model-farm-accounts--will bear close +scrutiny. Sometimes there is delicate reservation of any charge for +personal labor or superintendence; sometimes an equally cheerful +reticence in respect to any interest upon capital; and in nearly all of +them such miniature expression of the cost of labor as gives a very +shaky consistency to the exhibit. + +Farmers, I am aware, are not much given to figures; but outside +"averagers" are; and agricultural writers, if they indulge in figures, +ought to show some decent respect for the proprieties of arithmetic. I +have before me now the "Bi-Monthly Report of the United States +Agricultural Department for January and February, 1864," in the course +of which it is gravely asserted, that, in the event of a certain +suggested tax on tobacco, "the tobacco-grower would find at the end of +the year two hundred and ten percent of his crops unsold." Now I am not +familiar with the tobacco-crop, and still less familiar with the +Washington schemes of taxation; but whatever may be the exigencies of +the former, and whatever may be the enormities of the latter, I find +myself utterly unable to measure, even proximately, the misfortune of a +tobacco-grower who should find himself stranded with two hundred and ten +percent of his crop, after his sales were closed! It is plainly a case +involving a pretty large _quid pro quo_, if it be not a clear one of +_nisi quid_. + + * * * * * + +Sir John Sinclair, so honorably known in connection with British +agriculture, dealt with an estate in Scotland of a hundred thousand +acres. He parcelled this out in manageable farms, advanced money to +needy tenants, and by his liberality and enterprise gave enormous +increase to his rental. He also organized the first valid system for +obtaining agricultural statistics through the clergymen of the different +parishes in Scotland, thus bringing together a vast amount of valuable +information, which was given to the public at intervals between 1790 and +1798. And I notice with interest that the poet Burns was a contributor +to one of these volumes,[D] over the signature of "A Peasant," in which +he gives account of a farmers' library established in his neighborhood, +and adds, in closing,--"A peasant who can read and enjoy such books is +certainly a much superior being to his neighbor, who, perhaps, stalks +beside his team, very little removed, except in shape, from the brutes +he drives." + +There is reason to believe that Sir John Sinclair, at one time,--in the +heat of the French Revolution,--projected emigration to America; and I +find in one of Washington's letters[E] to him the following allusion to +the scheme:--"To have such a tenant as Sir John Sinclair (however +desirable it might be) is an honor I dare not hope for; and to alienate +any part of the fee-simple estate of Mount Vernon is a measure I am not +inclined to." + + * * * * * + +Another British cultivator of this period, whose name is associated with +the Mount Vernon estate, was a certain Richard Parkinson of Doncaster, +who wrote "The Experienced Farmer," and who not only proposed at one +time to manage one of the Washington farms, but did actually sail for +America, occupied a place called Orange-Hill, near Baltimore, for a year +or more, travelled through the country, making what sale he could of his +"Experienced Farmer," and on his return to England, published "A Tour +in America," which is to be met with here and there upon the top-shelves +of old libraries, and which is not calculated to encourage immigration. + +He sets out by saying,--"The great advantages held out by different +authors, and men travelling from America with commission to sell land, +have deluded persons of all denominations with an idea of becoming +land-owners and independent. They have, however, been most lamentably +disappointed,--particularly the farmers, and all those that have +purchased land; for, notwithstanding the low price at which the American +lands are sold, _the poverty of the soil is such_ as to make it not to +pay for labor; therefore the greater part have brought themselves and +their families to total ruin." + +He is distressed, too, by the independence of the laborers,--being +"often forced to rise in the morning to milk the cows, when the servants +were in bed." + +Among other animals which he took with him, he mentions "two +race-horses, ten blood mares, a bull and cow of the North Devon, a bull +and cow of the no-horned York, a cow (with two calves and in calf again) +of the Holderness, five boar- and seven sow-pigs of four different +kinds." + +On arriving at Norfolk, Virginia, in November, he inquired for hay, and +"was informed that American cattle subsisted on blades and slops, and +that no hay was to be had." He found, also, that "American cows eat +horse-dung as naturally as an English cow eats hay; and as America grows +no grass, the street is the cheapest place to keep them in." This sounds +very much as if it had been excerpted from the scientific column of the +London "Athenæum." Again he says, with a delightful pointedness of +manner,--"No transaction in America reflects any discredit on a man, +unless he loses money by it.... I remember an Englishman, after +repeating all the things that could fill a stranger's mind with trouble +and horror, said, with a very heavy sigh, as he was going out of the +house, 'It is the Devil's own country, to be sure!'" + +The "Times" newspaper never said a prettier word than that! + + * * * * * + +Mr. Robert Brown was a worthier man, and, I suspect, a better farmer; he +was one of the earlier types of those East-Lothian men who made their +neighborhood the garden of Scotland. He was also the author of a book on +"Rural Affairs," the editor for fifteen years of the well-known +"Edinburgh Farmers' Magazine," and (if I am not mistaken) communicated +the very valuable article on "Agriculture" to the old "Encyclopædia +Britannica." + +At this period, too, I find an Earl of Dundonald (Archibald Cochrane) +writing upon the relations of chemistry to agriculture,--and a little +later, Richard Kirwan, F.R.S., indulging in vagaries upon the same +broad, and still unsettled, subject. + +Joseph Cradock, a quiet, cultivated gentleman, who had been on terms of +familiarity with Johnson, Garrick, and Goldsmith, published in 1775 his +"Village Memoirs," in which Lancelot Brown has a little fun pointed at +him, under the name of "Layout," the general "undertaker" for gardens. +Sir Uvedale Price, too, a man of somewhat stronger calibre, and of great +taste, (fully demonstrated on his own place of Foxley,) made poor Brown +the target for some well-turned witticisms, and, what was far better, +demonstrated the near relationship which should always exist between the +aims of the landscape-painter and those of the landscape-gardener. I am +inclined to think that Brown was a little unfairly used by these new +writers, and that he had won a success which provoked a great deal of +jealousy. A popularity too great is always dangerous. Sir Uvedale was a +man of strong conservative tendencies, and believed no more in the +levelling of men than in the levelling of hills. He found his love for +the picturesque sated in many of those hoary old avenues which, under +Brown, had been given to the axe. I suspect he would have forgiven the +presence of a clipped yew in a landscape where it had thriven for +centuries; the moss of age could give picturesqueness even to formality. +He speaks somewhere of the kindly work of his uncle, who had disposed +his walks so as to be a convenience to the poor people of an adjoining +parish, and adds, with curious _naïveté_,--"Such attentive kindnesses +are amply repaid by affectionate regard and reverence; and were they +general throughout the kingdom, they would do much more towards guarding +us against democratical opinions than 'twenty thousand soldiers armed in +proof.'" + +Richard Knight (a brother of the distinguished horticulturist) +illustrated the picturesque theory of Price in a passably clever poem, +called "The Landscape," which had not, however, enough of outside merit +to keep it alive. Humphrey Repton, a professional designer of gardens, +whose work is to be found in almost every county of England, took issue +with Price in respect to his picturesque theory,--as became an +independent gardener who would not recognize allegiance to the painters. +But the antagonism was only one of those petty wars about +non-essentials, and significance of terms, into which eager book-makers +are so apt to run. + + * * * * * + +In the course of one of my earlier Wet-Days I took occasion to allude to +the brave old age that was reached by the classic veterans,--Xenophon, +Cato, and Varro; and now I find among the most eminent British +agriculturists and gardeners of the close of the last century a firm +grip on life that would have matched the hardihood of Cato. Old +Abercrombie of Preston Pans, as we have already seen, reached the age of +eighty. Walpole, though I lay no claim to him as farmer or gardener, +yet, thanks to the walks and garden-work of Strawberry Hill, lived to +the same age. Philip Miller was an octogenarian. Lord Kames was aged +eighty-seven at his death (1782). Arthur Young, though struggling with +blindness in his later years, had accumulated such stock of vitality by +his out-door life as to bridge him well over into the present century: +he died in 1820, aged seventy-nine. Parson Trusler, notwithstanding his +apothecary-schooling, lived to be eighty. In 1826 died Joseph Cradock of +the "Village Memoirs," and a devoted horticulturist, aged eighty-five. +Three years after, (1829,) Sir Uvedale Price bade final adieu to his +delightful seat of Foxley, at the age of eighty-three. Sir John Sinclair +lived fairly into our own time, (1835,) and was eighty-one at his death. + +William Speechley, whom Johnson calls the best gardener of his time, and +who established the first effective system of hot-house culture for +pines in England, died in 1819, aged eighty-six; and in the same year, +William Marshal, a voluminous agricultural writer and active farmer, +died at the age of eighty. And I must mention one more, in Dr. Andrew +Duncan, a Scotch physician, who cultivated his garden with his own +hands,--inscribing over the entrance-gate, "_Hinc salus_,"--and who was +the founder of the Horticultural Society of Edinburgh. This hale old +doctor died in 1828, at the extreme age of eighty-four; and to the very +last year of his life he never omitted going up to the top of Arthur's +Seat every May-Day morning, to bathe his forehead in the summer's dew. + +As a country-liver, I like to contemplate and to boast of the hoary age +of these veterans. The inscription of good old Dr. Duncan was not +exaggerated. Every man who digs his own garden, and keeps the weeds down +thoroughly, may truthfully place the same writing over the gate,--"_Hinc +salus_" (wherever he may place his "_Hinc pecunia_"). Nor is the +comparative safety of active gardening or farming pursuits due entirely +to the vigorous bodily exercise involved, but quite as much, it seems to +me, to that enlivening and freshening influence which must belong to an +intimate and loving and intelligent companionship with Nature. It may be +an animal view of the matter,--but, in estimating the comparative +advantages and disadvantages of a country-life, I think we take too +little account of that glow and exhilaration of the blood which come of +every-day dealings with the ground and flowers and trees, and which, as +age approaches, subside into a calm equanimity that looks Death in the +face no more fearingly than if it were a frost. I have gray-haired +neighbors around me who have come to a hardy old age upon their little +farms,--buffeting all storms,--petting the cattle which have come down +to them from ten generations of short-lived kine, gone by,--trailing +ancient vines, that have seen a quarter of a century of life, over their +door-steps,--turning over soil, every cheery season of May, from which +they have already gathered fifty harvests; and I cannot but regard their +serene philosophy, and their quiet, thankful, and Christian enjoyment of +the bounties of Nature, as something quite as much to be envied as the +distinctions of town-craft. I ask myself,--If these old gentlemen had +plunged into the whirlpool of a city five-and-fifty years ago, would +they have been still adrift upon this tide of time, where we are all +serving our apprenticeships?--and if so, would they have worn the same +calm and cheerful equanimity amid the harvests of traffic or the blight +of a panic?--and if not adrift, would they have carried a clearer and +more justifying record to the hearing of the Great Court than they will +carry hence when our village-bell doles out the funeral march for them? + +The rain is beating on my windows; the rain is beating on the plain; a +mist is driving in from the Sound, over which I see only the +spires,--those Christian beacons. And (by these hints, that always fret +the horizon) calling to mind that bit of the best of all prayers, "_Lead +us not into temptation_," it seems to me that many a country-liver might +transmute it without offence, and in all faith, into words like +these,--"Lead us not into cities." To think for a moment of poor farmer +Burns, with the suppers of Edinburgh, and the orgies of the gentlemen of +the Caledonian hunt, inflaming his imagination there in the wretched +chamber of his low farm-house of Ellisland! + +But all this, down my last half-page, relates to the physical and the +moral aspects of the matter,--aspects which are, surely, richly worthy +of consideration. The question whether country-life and country-pursuits +will bring the intellectual faculties to their strongest bent is quite a +distinct one. There may be opportunity for culture; but opportunity +counts for nothing, except it occur under conditions that prompt to its +employment. The incitement to the largest efforts of which the mind is +capable comes ordinarily from mental attrition,--an attrition for which +the retirement demanded by rural pursuits gives little occasion. Milton +would never have come to his stature among pear-trees,--nor Newton, nor +Burke. They may have made first-rate farmers or horticulturists; they +may have surpassed all about them; but their level of action would have +been a far lower one than that which they actually occupied. There is a +great deal of balderdash written and talked upon this subject, which +ought to have an end; it does not help farming, it does not help the +world,--simply because it is untrue. Rural life offers charming objects +of study; but to most minds it does not offer the promptings for large +intellectual exertion. It ripens healthfully all the receptive +faculties; it disposes to that judicial calmness of mind which is +essential to clearness and directness of vision; but it does not kindle +the heat of large and ambitious endeavor. Hence we often find that a man +who has passed the first half of his life in comparative isolation, +cultivating his resources quietly, unmoved by the disturbances and the +broils of civic life, will, on transfer to public scenes, and stirred by +that emulation which comes of contact with the world, feel all his +faculties lighted with a new glow, and accomplish results which are as +much a wonder to himself as to others. The pent river is at length set +loose,--the barriers broken by the wear of mingled waters, and the force +and the roar of it are amazing. + +I have alluded to the poet-farmer Burns,--a capital ploughman, a poor +manager, an intemperate lover, a sad reveller, a stilted letter-writer, +a rare good-fellow, and a poet whose poems will live forever. It is no +wonder he did not succeed as farmer; Moss-giel had an ugly, wet subsoil, +and draining-tiles were as yet not in vogue; but from all the accounts I +can gather, there was never a truer furrow laid than was laid by Robert +Burns in his days of vigor, upon that same damp upland of Moss-giel; his +"fearings" were all true, and his headlands as clear of draggled sod as +if he had used the best "Ruggles, Nourse, and Mason" of our time. Alas +for the daisies! he must have turned over perches of them in his day; +and yet only one has caught the glory of his lamentation! + +Ellisland, where he went later, and where he hoped to redeem his +farm-promise, was not over-fertile; it had been hardly used by scurvy +tenants before him, and was so stony that a rain-storm made a +fresh-rolled field of sown barley look like a paved street. He tells us +this; and we farmers know what it means. But it lay in Nithsdale; and +the beauty of Nithsdale shed a regal splendor on his home. It was the +poet that had chosen the farm, and not the grain-grower. + +Then there were the "callants" coming from Edinburgh, from Dumfries, +from London, from all the world, to have their "crack" with the +peasant-poet, who had sung the "Lass of Ballochmyle." Can this man, +whose tears drip (in verse) for a homeless field-mouse, keep by the +plough, when a half-score of good-fellows are up from Dumfries to see +him, and when John Barleycorn stands frothing in the cupboard? + +Consider, again, that his means, notwithstanding the showy and +short-lived generosity of his Edinburgh friends, enabled him only to +avail himself of the old Scotch plough; his harrow, very likely, had +wooden teeth; he could venture nothing for the clearing of gorse and +broom; he could enter upon no system of drainage, even of the simple +kind recommended by Lord Kames; he had hardly funds to buy the best +quality of seed, and none at all for "liming," or for "wrack" from the +shore. Even the gift of a pretty heifer he repays with a song. + +Besides all this, he was exciseman; and he loved galloping over the +hills in search of recreants, and cozy sittings in the tap of the "Jolly +Beggars" of Mauchline, better than he loved a sight of the stunted +barley of Ellisland. + +No wonder that he left his farm; no wonder that he went to +Dumfries,--shabby as the street might be where he was to live; no +wonder, that, with his mad pride and his impulsive generosity, he died +there, leaving wife and children almost beggars. But, in all charity, +let us remember that it is not alone the poor exciseman who is dead, but +the rare poet, who has intoned a prayer for ten thousand lips,-- + + "That He, who stills the raven's clamorous nest, + And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, + Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, + For them and for their little ones provide, + But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside." + +Let no one fancy that Burns was a poor farmer because he was a poet: he +was a poor farmer simply because he gave only his hand to the business, +and none of his brain. He had enough of good sense and of +clear-sightedness to sweep away every agricultural obstacle in his path, +and to make Ellisland "pay well"; but good-fellowship, and the "Jolly +Beggars," and his excise-galloping among the hills by Nithsdale made an +end of the farmer,--and, in due time, made an end of the man. + +Robert Bloomfield was another poet-farmer of these times, but of a much +humbler calibre. I could never give any very large portion of a wet day +to his reading. There is truthfulness of description in him, and a +certain grace of rhythm, but nothing to kindle any glow. The story of +Giles, and of the milking, and of the spotted heifers, may be true +enough; but every day, in my barn-yard, I find as true and as lively a +story. The fact is, that the details of farm-life--the muddy boots, the +sweaty workers, the amber-colored pools, the wallowing pigs--are not of +a kind to warrant or to call out any burning imprint of verse. Theme for +this lies in the breezes, the birds, the waving-wooded mountains +([Greek: Nêriton einosiphyllon]), the glorious mornings + + "Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy," + +--and for these the poet must soar above the barn-yard and the +house-tops. There is more of the spirit of true poesy in that little +fragment of Jean Ingelow's,[F] beginning,-- + + "What change has made the pastures sweet, + And reached the daisies at my feet, + And cloud that wears a golden hem?" + +than in all the verse of Bloomfield, if all of Bloomfield were +compressed into a single song. + +And yet, if we had lived in those days, we should all have subscribed +for the book of the peasant-bard, perhaps have read it,--but, most +infallibly, have given it away to some country-cousin. + + * * * * * + +I will not leave the close of the last century without paying my +respects to good Mrs. Barbauld,--not so much for her pleasant "Ode to +Spring," about which there is a sweet odor of the fields, as for her +partnership in those "Evenings at Home" which are associated--I scarce +can remember how--with roaring fires and winter nights in the country; +and not less strongly with the first noisy chorus of the frogs in the +pools, and the first coy uplift of the crocuses and the sweet violets. +There are pots of flowers, and glowing fruit-trees, and country +hill-sides scattered up and down those little stories, which, though my +eye has not lighted on them these twenty odd years past, are still fresh +in my mind, and full of a sweet pastoral fragrance. The sketches may be +very poor, with few artist-like touches in them; it may be only a boyish +caprice by which I cling to them; but what pleasanter or more grateful +whim to cherish than one which brings back all the aroma of childhood in +the country,--floating upon the remnant-patches of a story that is only +half recalled? The cowslips are there; the pansies are there; the +overhanging chestnuts are there; the dusty high-road is there; the +toiling wagons are there; and, betimes, the rain is dripping from the +cottage-eaves--as the rain is dripping to-day. + +And from Mrs. Barbauld I am led away to speak of Miss +Austen,--belonging, it is true, to a little later date, and the tender +memory of her books to an age that had outgrown "Evenings at Home." +Still, the association of her tales is strongest with the country, and +with country-firesides. I sometimes take up one of her works upon an odd +hour even now; and how like finding old-garret clothes--big bonnets and +scant skirts--is the reading of such old-time story! How the +"proprieties" our grandmothers taught us come drifting back upon the +tide of those buckram conventionalities of the "Dashwoods"![G] Ah, +Marianne, how we once loved you! Ah, Sir John, how we once thought you a +profane swearer!--as you really were. + +There are people we know between the covers of Miss Austen: Mrs. +Jennings has a splutter of tease, and crude incivility, and shapeless +tenderness, that you and I see every day;--not so patent and +demonstrative in our friend Mrs. Jones; but the difference is only in +fashion: Mrs. Jennings was in scant petticoats, and Mrs. Jones wears +hoops, thirty springs strong. + +How funny, too, the old love-talk! "My beloved Amanda, the charm of your +angelic features enraptures my regard." It is earnest; but it's not the +way those things are done. + +And what visions such books recall of the days when they were read,--the +girls in pinafores,--the boys in roundabouts,--the elders looking +languishingly on, when the reader comes to tender passages! And was not +a certain Mary Jane another Ellinor? And was not Louisa (who lived in +the two-story white house on the corner) another Marianne,--gushing, +tender? Yes, by George, she was! (that was the form our boyish oaths +took). + +And was not the tall fellow who offered his arm to the girls so gravely, +and saw them home from our evening visits so cavalierly,--was he not +another gay deceiver,--a Lothario, a Willoughby? He could kiss a girl on +the least provocation; he took pay out, for his escort, that way. It was +wonderful,--the fellow's effrontery. It never forsook him. I do not know +about the romance in his family; but he went into the grocery-line, and +has become a contractor now, enormously rich. He offers his arm to +Columbia, who wishes to get home before dark; and takes pay in rifling +her of golden kisses. Yes, by George, he does! + +FOOTNOTES: + +[A] By an odd coincidence, I observe that Washington made one of his +first shipments of tobacco (after his marriage with Mrs. Custis) upon a +vessel called "The Fair American." Did the ship possibly give a name to +the novel, or the novel a name to the ship? + +[B] _Practical Farmer_, by William Ellis. London, 1759. + +[C] The eminent geologist, Robert Bakewell, who lived many years later, +wrote of the "Influence of the Soil on Wool," and for that reason, +perhaps, is frequently confounded by agricultural writers with the great +breeder. + +[D] Third volume _Statistics_, p. 598. + +[E] Dated December, 1796. Sparks's _Life and Letters_, Vol. XII. p. 328. + +[F] A poetess whose merits, as it seems to me, are, as yet, only half +acknowledged. + +[G] _Sense and Sensibility._ + + + + +MEXICO. + + +Had the question been asked, forty years ago, what country, beside our +own, possesses the greatest natural advantages, and gives the best +promise of future growth and prosperity, very likely the answer would +have been, Mexico, which had then just thrown off the Spanish yoke and +achieved national independence. Cast aside for a moment all modern +ideas, derived from her known weakness and anarchy, and see how great +and manifold those apparent advantages and prospects were. + +Situated where the continent of North America is narrowing from the +immense breadths of the United States and British America to that thread +of communication between continents, the Isthmus of Panama, on the one +side its shores are washed by the waters of the Gulf of Mexico for more +than sixteen hundred miles, and on the other by the tranquil Pacific for +four thousand more. Yet the distance from her great eastern port, Vera +Cruz, to the old Spanish treasure-depot, Acapulco, on the western coast, +was not, as the bird flies, more than three hundred miles: a distance +scarcely greater than that from Boston to New York, and which, with +modern means of transit, might be traversed between sunrise and sunset. +Thus with one hand she seemed ready to grasp the wealth of the Indies, +while with the other she welcomed all the products of European skill. +This wonderful geographical advantage had, indeed, been rendered futile +in the past by the jealous spirit and the exclusive enactments of her +oppressor. But what might not be hoped in the future from a free people, +quickened into fresh life by the breath of liberty? + +Then the marvellous resources of every description which Nature had +crowded into her soil. Perhaps there is not on the whole earth another +strip of country, extending north and south only a thousand miles and +varying in width from one to five hundred miles, where side by side are +all climates and all their products. On the coasts the land is low, hot, +vaporous, and luxuriant,--the native home of the richest tropical +growths. Travel inland but a few leagues, and you rise to a greater +elevation, and find yourself beneath almost Italian skies and inhaling +Italian airs; while all around is a new vegetation,--the vine, the +olive, the tobacco, the banana, itself perhaps the most prolific and +nourishing of all plants, and which, on the space where Indian corn +would sustain but three human lives, will nourish with its free bounty +more than fifty. A few miles more, and you stand on that great plateau, +elevated with but little variation six or seven thousand feet above the +level of the sea, and stretching on every side we know not over how many +hundred thousands of square miles. There, under the tropics and beneath +a tropical sun, is a temperate atmosphere, cool, salubrious, and +bracing. There, almost within sight of the deadly miasma of the coast, +is a new climate, which deals kindly even with a European constitution. +There all the great cereals of the North, the wheat, the barley, the +corn, come to their most luxuriant perfection. And so it is literally +true, that, travelling a few hundred miles from Gulf to Ocean, you pass +through more climates and see a wider variety of vegetation than if you +traversed our whole country from the great lakes in the North to the +southernmost cape of Florida. Nay, so striking is this contact of the +zones, that in that table-land itself are, it is said, deep valleys, +where with one glance the eye may behold far up the deep shades of the +pine, while below waves the feathery grace of the palm,--or where one +may walk amid familiar waving grain, and see beneath him, descending in +beautiful gradation, the corn, the olive, the sugar-cane, down to depths +where a torrid clime lavishes its full wealth of verdure. + +Here, too, is the true Ophir; here, the rivers that roll down their +yellow sands. For here are the veins of gold that attracted the Spaniard +with his fatal greed, and the mines of silver that for three hundred +years have been yielding untold treasures, and to-day are as ready as +ever to yield untold treasures more. With such germs of wealth hidden in +her soil, what was needed to make Mexico one of the master-nations but +men? What, to crowd her ports with ships, to make her borders pleasant +with the hum of industry, and to fill her storehouses with its products, +but the same sagacity and energy which have made the sterile hills of +New England populous, and which are now transforming the prairies of the +West into one broad cornfield? Was it surprising, then, that fifty years +ago men were dreaming great things of Mexico? + +And it will not be denied that into men's estimate of her future some +elements of romance entered, to blind their eyes and to distort their +judgment. This was the land of Cortés and Montezuma. Here it was that +the Spaniard, fresh from the conquest of fair Granada, found in the +depths of the New World a barbarian civilization which mocked the pomp +and luxury of the Moor. Here, on these plains, beneath these mountains, +on the bosom of these tranquil lakes, was transacted that marvellous +episode in history, which, on the pages of Prescott, looks like the +creations of the fabled Genii. Here an aboriginal race rose to more than +aboriginal splendor; and here, beneath the conqueror's heel, they sank +to unsounded depths of misery and servitude. He must have a prosaic +nature to whom the memories and associations of such a land do not come +glowing with the warm flush of sentiment and romance. + +There was much, too, in the long and bitter struggle by which this +people were winning their independence, which appealed to the sympathy +of men who had just achieved their own freedom. Very likely, as we read +now the history of that struggle,--as we see how little of any broad and +generous patriotism entered into it,--as we mark how every step was +stained with blood and darkened by cruel passions,--as we behold on +every field the selfish ambition of petty men taking the place of the +self-devotion of great souls, it will not look heroic. But it did once. +Men saw it from afar off. They beheld in it the ancient conflict between +liberty and oppression. It was the time-worn story, of men in poverty, +of men in exile, of men dying for freedom. + +Thus, from one cause or another, from reasons of utility or from reasons +of sentiment and imagination, it is certain that many cherished the +highest hopes for Mexico, and saw before her a long future of rare +prosperity and honor. "It is to Mexico," writes a glowing admirer, "that +we turn and turn again with fond delight. We invoke the reader to ponder +her present position, her capacity for future greatness, the career she +has yet to commence and run. We look toward her, and we see the +day-spring of a glorious national existence arising within her bounds." + +When we look at this picture, drawn by hope and fancy, and then turn to +the reality,--when we see Mexico as she is, the blankest failure of the +century,--when we run over her forty years of anarchy, with its four +constitutions and twenty-seven plans of government, with its bewildering +array of presidents and dictators that come and go until the eye is +wearied and the memory fails to preserve even their names,--when we +behold her the helpless victim of any power that chooses to assail +her,--when, in short, we compare the Mexico that is with the Mexico that +was to be,--we ask ourselves, What are the causes which have made so +many advantages worse than futile?--what fate has ordained that so much +sacrifice and so much blood should be lavished, and in vain? That is the +very question we seek to answer. + + * * * * * + +We begin with what is the true foundation of all national fortunes, the +character and social relations of the people. It is the profound remark +of a profound man, that "you can create no national spirit where no +nation is." That is at the root of Mexico's troubles. She is not in any +proper sense a nation. All her sufferings have not as yet moulded her +diverse elements into any real and efficient unity. Modern Mexico, +dating from the Conquest, was founded, not upon social unity, but upon +the widest social divergence. At one end of the scale, high up in luxury +and pride, was the Spanish Conqueror and oppressor. At the other, deep +down as degradation could go, the crushed and cowering descendant of the +native races. Between them the half-bloods, with the vices of both and +the virtues of neither. The Spaniard did all that he could to dig deep +and broad this gulf of separation between the classes, and to make it +perpetual. As if to stamp inequality in biting phrase upon men's speech, +he called the whites people with reason, the Indians people without +reason. + +Look, then, first at the condition of the native races under this +Colonial authority. In the beginning, they were literally slaves, bound +to the withering toil of the mines. Then they became serfs, mere +appendages to estates. And when the progress of light swept away this +institution, and gave them a nominal freedom, still they were in the eye +of the law in a state of perpetual minority. They were simply grown-up +children. They were confined in villages, out of which they could not +go, and into which the white could not come. They were held to be +incapable of making contracts above a sum equal to five of our dollars. +The very men who were set to watch over their interests, by enticing +them into debts which they would not pay, changed their legal freedom +into a peonage, which was actual, and too often life-long, slavery. Says +Chevalier,--"These functionaries acquired for themselves troops of +slaves. They constituted themselves arbitrarily creditors of the Indians +by forcing them to buy, at unreasonable prices, horses, mules, and +clothing. The Indians, never being able to pay, were forced to work for +them, and this obligation to work, or, to speak more clearly, this +servitude, once contracted, was easily made perpetual." Here, then, we +have in Colonial Mexico, at the foundation of the State, the Indian, +whom oppression had made but half a man. + +Just above them were the half-bloods. These were not slaves. They were +not serfs. They were not considered to be children of a larger growth. +It was expressly said of them that they were "rational people." But they +had burdens of their own. Having little social position and less +education, incapable by nature of that sullen patience which kept the +Indian from chafing under his yoke, they were both more unhappy and more +demoralized. The crimes against property, the robberies on the highway, +could for the most part be traced to the half-breeds. "Are there any +robbers on this route?" asked Baron Deffandis, as he travelled in the +North of Mexico. "Oh, no!" was the answer; "you have nothing to fear; in +this part of the country there are no rational people,"--the speaker +remaining all unconscious of the bitter satire which was hidden in his +words. + +Above the half-bloods were the Creoles, the children of white parents +and born in the Colony. Even they were doomed to feel the sting of +inferiority. They had no real political liberty, and no place in the +State. No royal trust was ever committed to them. The places of public +emolument were closed against them. All were reserved for Spaniards, +born in Spain. Of fifty-six Mexican viceroys but one was a Creole, and +he a Creole of Peru. It is the boast of a Frenchman, that in his +country, in its most despotic days, the people have always had their +songs, and that their writers have dared to breathe forth their +maledictions upon the oppression which has loaded them with exactions. +But in Spain and her colonies the Inquisition weighed heavily upon free +speech, and enforced upon all the higher subjects of human thought a +silence like the grave. The Creole scarcely knew that there was any +world beyond his horizon, or that there could be a better than his empty +and barren life; or if he did know more, he must keep that knowledge in +the solitude of his own breast. All that the Spaniard vouchsafed to him +was the liberty to achieve wealth, which opened to him no career of +usefulness and distinction. At most, he loaded himself with cheap +decorations, to which there was no answering position of responsibility. +"One is surprised," says a tourist, "to see all the traders turned into +colonels and captains, and to find officers of the militia in full +uniform, and decorated with the badge of the order of Charles III., +seated in their shops, weighing out sugar, coffee, and vanilla." But as +for any real distinction, the Creole had none. These empty titles +sufficed to separate him in feeling yet more from the great mass of his +countrymen, but they did not satisfy those aspirations for real dignity +and freedom which cannot quite die out in any breast. + +We see, then, what a fatal legacy the mother-country left to her +rebellious child: four castes,--the Spaniard, hated by all; the Creole, +proud, hospitable, and brave, but by his very training incapable of +persistent energy; the half-breed, wild and untamable, a natural brigand +and guerrilla; and the Indian, subdued, sad, and patient, yet with a +drop of the fierce and cruel blood of his Aztec progenitor coursing in +his veins. + +The first act in the drama of the Mexican Revolution showed how great an +obstacle to national unity this sentiment of caste was. When the priest +Hidalgo in the year 1810 raised the standard of rebellion, though the +Creole heart was throbbing almost to bursting with the desire for +freedom, yet the Creole population nearly in a body sided with the +Government. Do you ask why? The answer is simple. Hidalgo's followers +were Indians. And all through that prolonged struggle of ten years under +Morelos, Vittoria, Teran, and countless other partisan leaders, even to +that hour when the rebellion was extinguished in its own blood, it was +the Creole who stood between the Spaniard and destruction, and who, +through his fear and jealousy of the native races, was the accomplice in +binding heavier chains on his own limbs. When in 1820 the revolt passed +out of the hand of the Indian into that of the native white, the +struggle was over. The hundred thousand foreigners were impotent, when +they stood alone. + +We do not say that this jealousy and dislike have not been greatly +modified by the lapse of years and by the endurance of common +sufferings. No doubt there has been a great improvement. There would be +small hope for the country, if it were not so. But these feelings have +not by any means been altogether eradicated. An intelligent writer, as +lately as last year, speaking of the difficulties which the Liberal +Government, now overthrown by the French, had to encounter, says that +they were not a little aggravated by the fact that Benito Juarez, its +head, was an Indian. Though he was one of the most remarkable men who +have risen to power, the haughty Creole could not brook the thought that +an Indian should climb from his _adobe_ hut to be the first personage in +the State. Nor is the fire quite quenched in the Indian's breast. Under +a grave taciturnity he hides burning memories. An acute observer of the +native character remarks,--"I have myself frequently heard Indians, when +their ordinary reserve has been overcome by spirituous liquors, declare +that they were the true owners of the soil, and all others foreign +intruders,--and that, if the Creoles could expel the Spaniards, they +themselves had a far better right to expel the Creoles." We say, then, +emphatically, that the first and perhaps the greatest cause of Mexican +anarchy is that the Mexicans are not as yet a people. Their diverse +elements have not as yet been fused into a living and conscious +nationality. + + * * * * * + +Another striking cause is the popular ignorance. We are coming more and +more to understand that it is not enough to have the shape and thews of +a man,--that, to be fit for freedom, or long to retain it, a people must +have mental and moral intelligence sufficient to teach them +self-control, and to enable them to judge wisely of public men and +public measures. Now in Mexico there is very little of the regulating +force of a just popular sentiment. You never catch the thunder of the +people's voice, before whose majesty base men and base plans must bow. +This destitution is not a matter of chance. It is another fatal legacy +of the mother-country. Spain steadily resisted all generous culture of +her colonists. She did not hesitate to declare that it was not expedient +that learning should become general in America. A viceroy said, with +more bluntness than courtesy, that "in America education ought always to +be confined to the Catechism." Under one pretence or another, a college +established for the instruction of Indians, in the better days of +Spanish domination, was broken, up. No book was permitted to be printed +in Mexico, or to be imported from abroad, without the consent both of +the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. Under this rule the actual +literature of the country was sufficiently dry and barren. A bishop +writes that the deplorable condition of the Indians has produced such +sluggishness of mind and such absolute indifference and apathy, that +they have no feelings either of hope or of fear. And he predicted the +very results, which then were prophecy, but now are history. + +How entire this ignorance was, when the colonial tie was sundered, we +cannot definitely determine. But we have the testimony of one who had +ample opportunity for observation, and who made the most extended +personal inquiries, that, twenty-five years afterwards, only two per +cent. of the Indians, and only twenty per cent. of the whites and +half-breeds, could read and write; and in 1856, actual statistics showed +that but one in thirty-seven attended school. When we consider that in +Massachusetts one in every five and a third of our population enjoys +school-privileges, we shall comprehend how large a portion of the youth +of Mexico are even now growing up in utter ignorance. + +One of the direct results of this popular ignorance is, that the conduct +of affairs has virtually passed out of the hands of the people. To a +considerable extent, it may be affirmed that the strifes which divide +and desolate Mexico do not rise to the dignity of civil wars. They are +not so much the conflicts of a divided people as the disgraceful brawls +of ambitious demagogues and their adherents. Every traveller notes with +astonishment how little these great changes, which ought to stir to its +depths the national heart, ruffle even the surface of society,--how the +great mass sit undisturbed, while events big with importance are +transacted before their eyes,--how a few ambitious leaders, or a few +military chieftains, with their mercenary bands, are permitted to uphold +or betray, to advance or trample under foot, great principles which with +us excite every mind and arouse every heart. We believe it to be +strictly true that a large portion of the Mexican people have not enough +mental and moral activity to take an interest of any kind in these +desolating wars,--much less to exercise that repressing influence by +which the criminal ambition of the few must bow to the rights of the +many. There could not be a worse sign. Popular ignorance, therefore, +leading to popular apathy, must be put down among the influential causes +of Mexican sorrows. + + * * * * * + +A third cause is that indifference to blood which appears to be +characteristic of the Mexican people, or at least of that portion of +them who have concerned themselves with public commotions. Some terrible +elements have entered into this Mexican stock. The Spaniard, one of its +sources, has written his name in blood in the history both of the Old +and the New World. Whether hunting out the remnants of the unhappy +Moriscos from the fastnesses of their native hills,--or torturing the +Jews in the dungeons of his Inquisition,--or with lust and murder +filling to the brim the cup of horror and misery for the captive cities +of Holland,--or exterminating, in the pitiless labor of the mines, the +peaceful aborigines of San Domingo,--or with Cortés putting to slaughter +a whole city on mere suspicion,--everywhere the Spaniard has recorded +great deeds with a pen of iron dipped in blood. And the Aztec, the other +source of that stock, had, if we are to credit his conqueror, a cruel +and merciless side to his character, which made him the peer of his +oppressor. + +The Mexican Revolution had its horrible chapters. And impartial truth +demands that we should say that both sides made fearful contributions to +those chapters. Hidalgo, the first popular leader, wrote to his +lieutenant these terrible words:--"If you suspect your prisoners of +entertaining restless or seditious ideas, bury them in oblivion at once +by putting them to death in some secret and solitary place, where their +fate may remain forever unknown." His practical commentary was a +permission to his followers to slay every white whom they could find in +the first stronghold which they stormed, and afterwards many a midnight +execution in the gloomy ravines of the mountains. On the other hand, +Calleja, the King's general, boasts that after the Battle of Aculco he +put to death five thousand insurgents in cold blood. And Iturbide, then +a Government general, writes, under date, "Good-Friday, 1814, In honor +of the day I have just ordered three hundred excommunicated wretches to +be shot":--a missive in which we know not which to admire most, the +hideous brevity, the blasphemy, or the cruelty. One act of noble +clemency stands out in peculiar sweetness from this background of +horror. When Morelos had given to his lieutenant, Bravo, three hundred +of the King's soldiers to be used as a ransom for his father, who was a +prisoner in the hands of the Royalists, and when the viceroy, Venegas, +scornfully rejected the offer, and ordered his victim to immediate +execution, Bravo instantly set at liberty the soldiers:--"For I would +wish," he said, "to put it out of my own power to avenge on them the +death of a parent, lest, in the first moments of grief, the temptation +should prove irresistible." The experiences of the Texan War, whose +massacre of Alamo was the battle-cry of the borderers in all succeeding +conflicts, and whose martyrdom at Goliad, where three hundred and fifty +unarmed prisoners, trusting in the pledged faith of their captors, were +led out in squads and shot, would seem to show that the tendencies of +Mexican leaders and soldiers had not greatly changed in later times. +What can result from such examples but utter carelessness of human life? +But to destroy among any people the sacredness of life is to erase one +of the safeguards of peace and order. The nation which does not shrink +from carnage, which is not ready to sacrifice everything but principle +to avert it, will be the nation of all others to risk everything, honor, +safety, social stability, for a whim. Beyond a doubt, too great +indifference to blood has been a fertile source of unnecessary +agitations, and so of weakness and anarchy. + + * * * * * + +We have postponed to this stage of our inquiry the consideration of that +rock upon which the Mexican State has finally split,--party-spirit. +During the forty stormy years of its existence, that ancient conflict, +ever old and ever new, between conservatism and radicalism, has been +going on. A statistician records that Mexico has had twenty-seven new +constitutions, or at least modifications of old ones, or final plans of +settlement. It has been too much the custom to talk of these as though +they were utterly meaningless. They are full of meaning. They mark the +flux and reflux of this great battle. They stand for the victories or +defeats of one or the other of these great principles. + +It is not probable, that, at the outset of the Revolution, the Creoles +had any thought of separating from the mother-country. They professed +the greatest loyalty. And they proved it by unshaken fidelity on many a +bloody field. Their only request was, that some constitutional features +might mitigate the despotism under which they groaned. Even after eleven +years' struggle, what they settled upon was a limited monarchy, with the +King's son at its head,--or, if he refused, then some scion of another +royal house. And even when this project failed, they raised to the +vacant throne their own general, Iturbide. So strong in the beginning +was the element of conservatism, or reaction, as they term it now, in +Mexican affairs. + +In 1823, however, the Liberal party obtained the supremacy, and under +the lead of Santa Aña, who then first came into prominence, drove +Iturbide from the throne, and put into operation a constitution +patterned after our own. It is not too much to say, that, from that day +to the hour when the allied troops landed at Vera Cruz, the conflict +between two parties, two principles, two methods of government, has been +waged with ever increasing bitterness and ever changing fortunes. It is +probable that the Liberals have always been numerically the stronger. +But the reactionary party has had its advantages. The rich and +aristocratic have been with it. To a great extent the army, ever partial +to the iron hand, has given it the support of its great power. And the +Church, which has possessed perhaps one-quarter of the whole wealth of +the country, and whose income has often far exceeded that of the State, +has always plotted for the downfall of the Liberals. + +In 1835 the power of these combined forces was so great that they were +able to overthrow the constitution of 1824, and put into operation a new +one on the plan of centralization. By this plan all federal +representation ceased, and popular freedom was subject to unaccustomed +restraints. The most noteworthy fact connected with this change was the +Texan Rebellion, and consequent upon it our own Mexican War. But of +these we shall speak hereafter. It was not until 1857 that the Liberals +won back all that they had lost,--and more; for they replaced the old +constitution by a new and freer one, and, as if by one stroke to inflict +a final blow upon their adversaries, decreed the confiscation of all +Church property. The Reactionists had at least vitality enough to make a +death-struggle. Leagued with the army, they drove Comonfort from the +presidency, and his party from the city of Mexico. For three years there +were two presidents and two sets of officers of all sorts, and a civil +war. The Liberals, under the Indian Benito Juarez, held Vera Cruz and +the larger part of the country. At the end of this period the Liberal +chieftain, with an unexpected energy, drove the opposing party out of +the city of Mexico, and its leaders into exile, carried into effect the +decree for the confiscation of Church property, and wellnigh crushed +out organized resistance. + +Not only, then, did this sorely tried Republic begin its precarious +existence with a people wholly unapt for freedom and embittered by +caste-feeling, but, from the outset, it was so divided by a broad gulf +of political dissension, that the whole body politic has ever since been +in reality cloven asunder. + + * * * * * + +We have omitted from their proper place the Texan War and its +consequences, which in their turn have done more than any one cause to +weaken and dishonor Mexico,--not so much because they took away from her +valuable districts as because they advertised to the whole world what +feebleness was behind great apparent power. We tread now upon the embers +of an extinguished controversy. And while around us blaze the lurid +flames of a mightier conflagration, which it helped to kindle, we could +not wish to stir again its ashes. But seeking the causes of the downfall +of Mexico, we can hardly omit the weightiest cause. + +The Texans were, as we all know, a people who came for the most part +from the United States, and who were drawn southward by the combined +influence of a genial climate and liberal gifts of land. These +attractions had but one drawback, and that was of a religious nature. By +the very terms of the gift, all emigrants were, or became, or professed +to become, Roman Catholics. In many cases marriages of long standing +were reconsecrated with Catholic ceremonies, while the children were +baptized at Catholic altars. Until the year 1835 the Texans had been +citizens of Mexico,--the district which they inhabited, together with +Coahuila, making a sovereign state and constituent part of that federal +republic. Though the Texans had thus lived for many years under the +protection of Mexican law, it would not be true to say that they had +done so always cheerfully or even peaceably. There had been much +smothered discontent, and some open violence. The reasons were various. +The vexations, and perhaps oppression, incident to the rapid and violent +changes of the Mexican government, led to much ill feeling, and +engendered controversies not easily put to sleep. The natural +averseness, too, of a people of Anglo-Saxon origin to yield obedience, +however legitimate, to a mixed race like the Mexicans, created +bitterness, which was intensified by the arrogant and reckless temper +characteristic of no small part of the Texan people. Last, but not +least, their irritation at those laws which abolished slavery, and which +from the beginning they had always broken and always meant to break, +would have sundered a far stronger chain than ever bound them to the +land of their adoption. When the centralized constitution of 1835 came +into force, their discontent ripened into open rebellion. In the light +of our own bitter experience, with the inception and growth of our own +civil war open for our instruction, few Northern men will doubt that +this was the infant Secession whose full-grown power we are breasting. +That there were some real grievances we may allow; for, with so many +shifting governments, there could hardly have failed to be some +injustice and some oppressive measures or deeds. That, with the +essential difference of feeling, character, and habits which existed +between the two people, disturbances must sooner or later have arisen, +we may also allow. But, after all, one of the most powerful motives for +rebellion was love of slavery. Mexico stood a bar to the establishment +of that new and powerful Slave State which was the dream not only of the +Texan, but perhaps even more of the statesmen and leaders of the extreme +South. If Mexico became a powerful government, all the more would she be +an insuperable bar to such a project. However much, then, the Texans may +have desired a separate State existence, and however little they may +have liked the establishment of a great central power, their fear was +not so much that the strong government would oppress them as that it +might grow strong enough to force them to cease oppressing others. +There were Mexican laws which they never had obeyed, never intended to +obey, and which by the aid of State existence they had always succeeded +in evading. And now, when the progress of events and the strengthening +of the central authority threatened as never before the cherished +institution, like their compeers, they took their stand on the same +battle-ground of State Rights. We repeat, that other influences and real +wrongs no doubt helped them to this conclusion. What was the exact power +of each particular influence no one can tell. But, back of all +influences, a baneful spirit and motive, was the love of slavery and the +desire to perpetuate it. Their independence achieved, the Texans did not +know what to do with it. Few in numbers, burdened with debt, harassed on +the one side by the wild Camanches and Apaches, and on the other by the +Mexican guerrillas, pressed by the British and French governments, who +wished to abolish slavery and establish a protectorate, they sought +annexation to the United States, which, after a severe Congressional +struggle, was accomplished early in the year 1845. + +The farther the lapse of years removes us from the passions and pride of +the hour, perhaps the less reason shall we find for entire satisfaction +with our course, both as regards this act of annexation and the war with +Mexico by which it was succeeded. While the feelings with which we now +contemplate the French aggressions in Mexico show us that there were +other and good reasons besides love of slavery why we might wish to keep +this new and feeble Gulf State out of foreign hands,--while we cannot +fail to regard with admiration the courage and skill with which our +gallant army won its way to the very capital of a hostile State,--while, +too, the progress of events has given us no cause to regret that +sleeping California was given up to the fresh energy of the +Anglo-Saxon,--while we rejoice to believe that this present war will +result in adding to the manifold resources of Texas the crowning +blessing of freedom,--while, in short, we see that what men call +circumstance, but which is God's majestic Providence, is turning our +errors into good,--yet the final verdict of impartial truth must be, +that it was neither in the spirit of wisdom nor of justice that we +strengthened the power which even then waited to slay us, and that in +our pride and impatience we showed too little consideration to that +State at the root of whose greatness we were laying the axe. + +Those who delight in historical parallels will remember that this very +tract, from the Sabine to the Rio Grande, which was included in Texas, +was the same territory which was in controversy between us and Spain at +the beginning of the century,--and that as in 1846 the advance of the +Mexican general across the southern boundary of the controverted +district brought on the Mexican War, so, forty years before, the advance +of an American general across the northern boundary of the same district +brought us to the verge of a Spanish war. + +But whatever any one may think of the nature and justice of the Mexican +War, no one can doubt that its result was the infliction of the severest +of blows upon a sister-republic. And the severity consisted, we repeat, +not so much in the territory which she relinquished as in her entire +loss of prestige among the nations. We took away, indeed, more than +eight hundred thousand square miles. We left her hardly seven hundred +thousand square miles. But had there been any recuperative energy, +perhaps the State, so much more compact in territory, and so little +diminished in population, would have been stronger rather than weaker by +the process. + + * * * * * + +We return to our narrative. The spring of 1861 found the Liberal party +triumphant. Never had it seemed so firmly rooted. Never had its +opponents been so cast down. Well does the Scripture say, "Let him that +thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." All through the spring and +summer of 1861, the leaders of the Church party were flitting from +Paris to Madrid, and from Madrid to Paris again, weaving what webs of +intrigue, seeking what forms of intervention, none but the arch-plotter +of the Tuileries can tell. There were floating about that summer rumors +of intervention, coming through what avenues, or to whom traceable, +nobody knew. Did any one wish to intervene, there were certainly +ostensible reasons enough. In that long agony of anarchy, Mexico had +inflicted, through one or another of her jarring parties, insults and +injuries, in robberies, in murders, in forced loans, in illegal taxes, +in neglected debts, sufficient to give an apparent justification to any +violence of policy in a foreign power. The British minister, under date +of June 27, 1861, transmitted to Lord John Russell a fearful list of +outrages against English subjects. In that list were included three +murders committed, or permitted, by Government officials, and +twenty-four robberies, forced loans and the like, some of them to the +amount of twenty-five and even sixty thousand dollars. These he styles +"British claims of the small and distressing class." One fact disturbs +the force of this impeachment of the Liberal government. Almost without +exception, these outrages were confessedly the work of the conservative +party, which had just been expelled after an open rebellion of three +years against the legitimate authorities. It was as though England +should enter complaint against our Government for property destroyed by +the Alabama, or for insults and injuries inflicted upon British subjects +in the streets of Richmond. No doubt, the form of law was with her, but +hardly substantial justice. As the French have progressed, we have seen +still stranger anomalies. The leaders of this very conservative party, +who more than all others were responsible for the state of irritation +which produced the conflict, have appeared in the ranks of the French +army, thus acting the part of public prosecutors, and convicting and +condemning innocent people for their own sins. + +But it remained for Juarez himself, driven by necessity, to commit the +act which settled the fortunes of his country. On the 17th of July, +1861, he published a decree announcing that for the term of two years +all payments on debts would be suspended, expressly including foreign +bonds. From that moment Mexico was doomed. The British and French +ministers at once sent in sharp protests. The reply of the Mexican +cabinet-minister is pitiful to read. His excuse is absolute necessity. +The mismanagement of his predecessors has made it impossible that he +should carry on the Government, and at the same time pay its debts. +After some further correspondence, apologetic on the part of Mexico, +sharp and bitter on the part of the foreign ministers, diplomatic +intercourse ceased. The Mexican minister at Paris, in obedience to +orders, sought an interview with M. Thouvenal. He began by saying that +"he was instructed to give the most ample explanations." Whereupon M. +Thouvenal interrupted him, exclaiming, "We will not hear any +explanations; we will receive none"; adding, in great excitement, "We +have fully approved the conduct of M. Saligny. We have issued orders, in +concert with England, that a squadron composed of vessels of both +nations shall exact from the Government of Mexico due satisfaction, and +your Government will learn from our minister and our admiral what are +the claims of France." We have quoted thus fully from official documents +to show that the emergency found France armed and ready, if not glad, to +pursue the quarrel to the end. + +What was that end? As it stood on paper, simply to take possession of +the ports of Mexico, and sequestrate their customs to pay the interest +on foreign debts. This is stated over and over again by every party in +all possible forms of distinctness. By no means is any interference to +be permitted in the internal affairs of that country. In November, 1861, +Lord John Russell writes to the British minister at Mexico in these +unmistakable terms:--"You must be careful to observe with strictness +Article Two of the Convention, signed yesterday between Great Britain, +France, and Spain, by which it is provided that no influence shall be +used in the internal affairs of Mexico, calculated to prejudice the +right of the Mexican nation freely to choose its own form of government. +Should any Mexican, or any party in Mexico, ask your advice on such +subjects, you will say that any regular form of government, which shall +protect the lives and properties of natives and foreigners, and shall +not permit British subjects to be attacked or annoyed on account of +their occupation, their rights of property, or their religion, will +secure the moral support of the British Government." The statement of +France was just as clear, only shorter. M. Thouvenal said to Mr. Dayton +that "France could do no more than she had already done, and that was to +assure us of her purpose not to interfere in any way with the internal +government of Mexico; that their sole purpose was to obtain payment of +their claims and reparation for the wrongs and injuries done them." The +language of Spain, if anything, was shortest and clearest of all. She +assured Mr. Schurtz, that, "if Spain did take part in this intervention, +it would be solely for redress of her grievances, and not for the +purpose of imposing new institutions upon Mexico." So it was clear, +after all, that this was nothing but a grand naval excursion for the +collection of just dues from a reluctant or dishonest debtor! Nothing +more! No intention whatever of intruding upon the poor man's castle! + +Was it not surprising, now, that, with everything so transparent, nobody +had any faith? Almost simultaneously, from Mr. Adams at London, from Mr. +Dayton at Paris, from Mr. Schurtz at Madrid, and from Mr. Corwin at +Mexico, came missives, couched in different language, but all conveying +the same lesson: England meant what she said, and France and Spain did +not. All at once, too, the air was full of rumors. The conservative +party was to be restored by force. A monarchy was to be set up. Prince +Maximilian was to be invited to the throne of Mexico. As before, nobody +could trace these rumors to any trustworthy source. But everybody +believed them. And every one of them has proved to be true. About this +time there appeared in Paris a striking book, part history, part +philosophy, part prophecy, entitled, "Mexico, Ancient and Modern," by +Michel Chevalier. What is peculiar about the book, so far as it relates +to present affairs, is, that it says but little in regard to the +collection of dues, much concerning the necessity of reorganizing +Mexico, much as to the duty of France to uphold the interests of the +Latin races, much more concerning the wisdom of establishing a strong +barrier against the ambition of the United States. + +We all know what has actually happened, and that is perhaps all we have +a right to expect while the present Emperor of France is at the helm. +Events have explained these dim rumors and intimations. Vera Cruz and +Tampico taken, France unfolded new and bolder schemes. She insisted upon +marching inland and conquering Mexico, and establishing there a strong +government. Here England and Spain parted from her: the former, +evidently because she always meant what she said; the latter, either +because she, too, meant what she said, or because she found herself +measured with a more acute gamester, with a heavier hand and a sharper +sword than she could boast. France has gone forward. She has stormed +Puebla. The gates of Mexico have been thrown open to her. Her authority +has been extended over many of the States. With the assistance of the +reactionary party she has established a monarchy, and invited Maximilian +to be its head. Never results so exceeded the plan. Whatever else may be +dark, this is clear, that henceforth under the Empire promises mean +nothing,--and that whoever trusts Imperial assurances which war with +Imperial interests does so at his own proper peril. + +From the Emperor's own language, and from this book which he has +permitted to appear, and to which we have alluded, we gather easily the +real motives which have governed his conduct. No doubt, the mere _éclat_ +of having conducted to a successful issue a difficult undertaking, and +by which he would secure anew the respect and pride of the fickle people +over whom he reigns, may have been a minor motive. It is not unlikely, +either, that he has gone much farther than he himself originally +intended,--that the prize was so tempting, when once he had coquetted +with it, that he could not keep his hands off from it. For look again at +Mexico. A country full of noble possibilities. A land which, ruled by a +strong hand and a sagacious mind, may be the fruitful source of all +useful commodities. And if he can keep it, what a giant stride he makes +to girdling the earth with his posts! Count them: France, Martinique, +Vera Cruz, Acapulco, Tahiti, Saigon, his new ports at the mouth of the +Red Sea, Algiers, and France again. Not many links wanting in that +chain! If he cannot girdle the earth in forty minutes, he bids fair to +do it as quickly and as thoroughly as mortal skill and mortal audacity +ever did. And if he can secure all these benefits by open conquest, or, +better yet, by the people's apparently free choice of a government of +which he shall be the sole guardian and administrator, what is there in +his past career to warrant us in the expectation that he will shrink +back from any double-dealing necessary for the achievement of such a +master-stroke? + + * * * * * + +And now what shall we say of this policy as it concerns ourselves, and +especially the welfare and prospects of the Mexican people? We cannot +like it. That is plain. For, suffered to remain unchallenged, it cuts +right through our traditional policy. No mere diplomacy can ever mend +that again. All our fine discourse about the Monroe doctrine is, as +matters stand now, nothing but a flight of rhetoric. Then, in such a +_nonchalant_ way, it puts the curb on any future ambition which we may +cherish southward, that it is still more disagreeable. And besides, it +is such a mingled menace and warning! If this potentate could do, and +would do, such things to feeble Mexico,--if real or fancied interest +demand it, what may he not attempt with us, now that we are not so +stalwart as of old, now that we are bearing upon our shoulders a burden +that would have tasked the fabled Atlas? It is plain that we cannot +look, and ought not to look, with any favor upon this man, or any of his +Western works. + +But how will his policy affect the happiness and prosperity of Mexico? +Will it hold her back from the realization of that dream of greatness +which we all cherished for her once? Or will it send her forward with a +quicker pace to its speedy fulfilment? One feature of this event is +memorable. A conqueror, with bayonet and cannon-ball, has brought to +this people the very boon which forty years ago they craved,--a +monarchy, with an offshoot from European royalty sitting upon its +throne. If Maximilian come to Mexico, he can build his palace on a +corner-stone which Iturbide, Guerrero, and many another patriot leader +who sleeps in a bloody grave, helped to lay. So the pendulum swings +back, be its arc ever so long. A closer examination, however, will show +that this remarkable coincidence is not simply an accident. The +combination which in 1823 swept away the Spanish power and established a +monarchy was not a combination of the free and liberal elements of +Mexican society, but rather of those same aristocratic, ecclesiastical, +and conservative elements which are now in alliance with the French +Emperor, and in deadly hostility to what is democratic or republican in +that distracted land. We cannot doubt, therefore, that, whatever Louis +Napoleon may affirm, that, whatever generalities he may put forth +concerning Mexican reorganization and growth, the purpose of his sway +cannot be the real elevation or freedom of the people. He has espoused +the interests of that party which seeks to perpetuate among the mass of +the people ignorance, superstition, poverty, and social degradation. +While, therefore, his invasion originated to a very great extent in +injustice and thirst for power, it is not probable that his occupation +of the country will be used with any intention of elevating and blessing +it. + +But God is greater than man. And so it may well happen that the results +of human ambition may be kinder than its purpose. And if Louis Napoleon +gives Mexico rest from change and suffering, that will be something. If +the steel gauntlet crushes out the banditti, and the silken glove +encourages honest toil, then, by the blessing of God, with stable +industry and peace secured to her, and with every good gift blossoming +at her feet, Mexico may yet be trained to take her place among the +galaxy of the nations. And when that hour comes, if come it may, it will +be no power four thousand miles across gulf and sea that will keep her +from her true destiny. + + + + +THE RIM. + + +PART III.--CONCLUSION. + +The boat went cutting through the tide-waves and dashing the spray over +her bows, the wide sea was opening all around them,--the salt wind stung +his brain to keener life. To what horrid fate were they hurrying, she +alone with this maniacal man? Out there beyond, away and away, the +mighty billows tossed in their cruel glee, silvered their crests and +horns in the moonlight, and grew and disappeared like phantoms. Her +heart sank down abysses with every beat,--she covered her face with her +hands in some vain call for miraculous aid. + +Just then another boat came by and took the wind from their sails. +Éloise felt the slackened speed, and looked up. First the figure of a +horseman standing against the sky on the cliff above, as if a portion of +the stone itself, caught her eye; next, the sail sheering by them; then +she was on her feet beside Marlboro'. She reached out her hand to the +tiller; she looked in his face and laughed in her old way. It was hardly +an effort, for all at once her heart had grown light as a bubble. + +"Mr. Marlboro'," she said, in the sweet natural ring of her every-day +tones and without a quiver, "these are the Blue Bluffs close above us." + +The voice, the air, the meaning, made him irresolute. At the same moment +the tiller obeyed her hand, that threw out all its strength, the sails +flapped loosely across their bending brows, they went about, heading for +the little cove of still water. + +"You are right," said he. "That is our home. What fiercely glad wild +dream have I had? Our home!" + +The keel grated on the pebbles,--some one came dashing down the narrow +path, shoved them off, and leaped on board. + +"Now, Marlboro'," said Mr. St. George, "the rudder is mine. A pretty +dance with Death have you been leading Miss Changarnier! How long do you +suppose this cockle-shell could buffet such a sea as is playing outside? +Do you fancy I can countenance such treatment of my ward? Ease that rope +a little, Miss Éloise. Here we go! What will Murray say, Marlboro', when +he sees me come sailing by with you? + + "'A-sailing and a-sailing, + My love he left me sad; + A-sailing and a-sailing, + Let him come and make me glad!'" + +sang Mr. St. George, and they went flying up the river. + + "The south winds blow, the waters flow, + His sail is in the sun; + Though twenty storms between us go, + His heart and mine are one," + +sang Éloise, in jubilant response at her safety,--and Marlboro', fain to +follow, echoed the air they trolled. + +Up the stream, this way and that, tacking and veering, past the boats +that hung on their oars and cheered them this time lustily themselves, +touching shore,--and the hunters had their boat again. Then all trooping +back across the turf, her hand in his, to the place where Marlboro's +horse waited with pawing hoofs. What a mad evening it had been! And in +the whirl of it Éloise had uttered no word to break her bonds. But +broken they must be;--in what insanity had she riveted them,--set free +this slave of his passion? His bottle-imp--had not her master once said +it?--must grow into a demon that with his wide wings would blacken the +sky. One experience of it was too much. Oh, why had nobody warned her? + +Every one must have a cup of coffee to counteract the damp. Mrs. Arles +had it ready. The horse at the door gave a loud, impatient neigh. The +rider would not wait. + +"You were right, Marlboro'," said, in his significant undertone, Mr. St. +George to him from the other side, as he mounted, while Éloise stood on +the step above. "Success perched on your banners. I should have lost, if +I had tossed." + +"You know it, then? Why, then, of course, it's true. I am half afraid +lest it prove one of my cloud-capped dreams. I shall need no more opium +to-night, I have other magic," said Marlboro',--bent down and would have +kissed the forehead of Éloise, when the horse curvetted, reared, and +galloped off. + +Was she really pledged? then thought Éloise, as the bead of all her +defiant effervescence fell. Was there no loop of escape? Had she so +rashly given all at once? Should she inevitably become the wife of +Marlboro'? Were the chains upon her? Was she doomed? Nobody guessed her +misery, as she reëntered with a _fanfare_ of jests, unless it were the +gay St. George himself. + +"Are you to be congratulated?" asked the low-voiced Mrs. Arles, having +smilingly approached. + +"No, no, indeed!" exclaimed Éloise, in a smothered agony; and Mrs. +Arles, misunderstanding her, supposed it was not finally arranged. + +"What a reckless rider!" cried Miss Murray, looking down the moonlit way +after Marlboro'. + +"It is not the only reckless thing he does," said her brother. + +"No," interpolated Mr. Dean. "The way in which Marlboro' manages his +affairs is too Plutonic. But what a gloss those shining sovereign +manners of his do put upon it all!" + +"Sovereign manners! Don't talk of sovereign manners, unless you mention +Mr. St. George's," said Lottie Humphreys under her breath, and glancing +to see if he could possibly hear with the length of the room between +them. "Mr. St. George puts my heart in a flutter, when he asks will I +have ice or cream." + +"I've no doubt of it," whispered Emma Houghton, with meaning. + +"Sure you're right, Dean?" asked Mr. Humphreys. "I should not like to +have at home the dangerous cattle Marlboro' can put finger on." + +"Perhaps they would be less dangerous, if the fingers were less +weighty." + +"Here's Marlboro's theory, and in the long run it's about the true one, +you must confess.--Shut that door, Kate, my dear.--A cramped stature +does not feel a cramped roof; but raise the stature, and the slave +outgrows his institution, and there's revolt. Eh? There's such a thing +as equally bad extremes. Our old friend Mr. Erne's of late, and St. +George's now,--beg your pardon, St. George,--are both of them just as +bad the other way." + +"You are severe," said St. George, as he set the chessmen. + +"Our host yonder," continued Mr. Humphreys, in the best of humors, +sipping his coffee, "among his other crotchets, endows his people with +what Nature saw fit to deny to them,--souls. But he's one of those men +autocratic enough to reverse Nature. Indeed,--I am out of all +patience,--the whole place is managed other than I think at all wise." + +"That is to be regretted," said St. George, challenging his adversary. + +"Well, here is an instance, a single instance, trivial enough, but +dragging after it a train as enormous as the Genius drew from the +fisherman's jar. These people are reared to a degree of independence +that will stop no one knows where. They supply the house with poultry, +eggs, and vegetables from their own yards, which the house purchases +with money, or with commodities beyond the usual allowance,--actually +pays for,--do you mark? Any labor of extra hours is always compensated; +there is a system of holidays; the quarters are, so to say, palatial; +and, in fact, a very detrimental policy is pursued,--one that occasions +discontent on all the neighboring plantations. Marlboro' 'd have less +trouble, if St. George had different discipline. It will not do,--I've +told you so, St. George,--I'm older than you,--it will not do. There are +hands on the place who, as their master says, have found their manhood +and felt their slavery: there's one of them now, that coachman Ned. I'd +sell him to-morrow." + +"Will Mr. St. George?" + +"He? Oh, no! There's this Quixotic chivalry again! You listen, my dear +fellow? He will let the man purchase his freedom,--if he don't lend him +the money to do it himself! Ha! ha! ha!" + +"But," said Mr. Dean, "I've tried St. George's plan, on his +recommendation, these three or four months, Humphreys,--not wishing to +be illiberal, or have the world outstrip me,--and, so far, I find that +it will do very well,--that it will do admirably." + +"Well, we won't speak of new brooms." + +"Yet there's a great deal of disturbance everywhere about, I hear. You +don't know, perhaps," said Mr. Houghton, in an under-voice, and +nervously drawing up his chair, "that Marlboro' has had his place under +guard these three weeks?" + +"Crowded on all his steam, and now he's sitting on the valve. What a +blessed life it is!" said Mr. Dean. + +"Come, come, Dean, we shall have to look up your record!" + +"Dear me!" said Miss Murray, "why will you talk about it? It's worse +than ghost-stories just before bed. I've heard you gentlemen insinuating +so much together that I fancy every night I hear the great alarm-bell +booming in my dreams." + +"There's no danger of that here." + +"But it would be so terrible anywhere!" + +"Here is Will," said her mother, as the young brother of Laura entered. +"If, my dear friends, we should change the subject for bed-candles"-- + +"Check!" said Mr. St. George, rising. + +It was a balmy meridional night, and Éloise, at length alone in her +misery, leaned from her window to breathe the wind that floated in over +the fields, fragrant and gentle. Leaning there, and great resplendent +stars seeming to hang out of heaven close above her, the minutes went +slipping into the hours, and the house-clock struck one, startling her +with its peal, as doubtless it did Miss Murray. Bending her head that +she might not strike the sash, a dark cobweb caught Éloise's eye;--it +was a lace shawl, which the draught had borne through the window, and +caught outside upon the thorny vine. It was too firmly fixed to +disentangle at a touch; she put out her hand, and, taking the stem, +shook the whole blossoming mass, scattering a rain of dew and perfume, +and the filmy thing detached and fluttered to the ground. Without +waiting to think, Éloise hastened down and found an exit. Coming round +beneath the gable, the great dog following with his nose in her hand, +she found herself insphered in a soft light that stole from the open +cabinet-casement, but, hoping to escape notice, flitted on after the +lace, with which the breeze was already frolicking. Suddenly the dog +perceived her object and bounded after it. Fear possessed her soul; it +was Laura Murray's; he would rend and mouth the costly thing, which her +whole year's salary, she thought, could not buy, as he would her +handkerchief. She softly called him away; but the dog refused to hear. + +"Rounce!" cried another voice, and Rounce came tumbling and gambolling +back, while Mr. St. George obtained the shawl, and was beside her. + +"So, Miss Changarnier, it was this little thing that brought you out +here after midnight? Never do it again. It is forbidden. Nothing could +be more unsafe." + +"Thank you, Mr. St. George; I did not perceive danger." + +As she spoke, and while they paused, there stole upon them the far and +faint pulsation of a bell. It was the tide-bell placed on a distant reef +to swing and ring with the ebb and flow. + + "Era già l' ora che volge 'l desio + A' naviganti, e intenerisce 'l cuore + Lo dì ch' an detto a' dolci amici a Dio; + + "E che lo nuovo peregrin d' amore + Punge, se ode squilla di lontano + Che paia 'l giorno pianger che si muore," + +murmured Mr. St. George, half lifting the book in which his bitter mood +had sought stinging solace, and where his finger yet kept the place. + +"It is many hours too late for that sweet vesper-bell," said Éloise. + +"Any slow bell at night is like it. The tones of a bell are always +homesick tones to me,--who have no home!" + +"You, Sir!" said Éloise, forgetfully,--half losing sight of her own +burden. + +Mr. St. George, for all response, gazed at her a moment. Was she +entirely plighted to Marlboro'? Could she care for him? How far did that +tacit promise go? + +"Éloise!" he said. + +But suddenly she turned away her head, outstretching a forbidding hand. +Abruptly he bowed and stepped aside, and followed her only at a +distance. + + * * * * * + +When Mr. Marlboro' appeared just at breakfast the next morning, with a +color fanned into his cheek by the half-score miles of gallop, Vane came +trotting along behind him. + +"Vane," said Mr. Marlboro', after he had saluted Éloise as warmly as he +dared, "this is your mistress." + +And Éloise felt her fetters close miserably upon her. This had been his +device to know if he had dreamed or not on the night before, to detect +whether his joy were solid truth or mounting laudanum-fumes. But as for +Vane, so soon as his bow was made and homage paid, he fled away round +the corner and lost himself in Hazel's happy arms. + +At dinner that day the ladies rose early, as they were to dress for a +wedding-party that awaited them some miles away. Just as Éloise, who was +the last, passed out of the door which Mr. St. George held open, he +produced from somewhere and placed in her hand a braided trencher of +broad vine and fig-leaves that bore a mass of strange and beautiful +growth. Scarcely had she plunged taper fingers between the scented +layers, when a box with Mr. Marlboro's compliments was delivered, which, +on being laughingly opened, proved to hold rare wreaths of pinky buds +and bells. + + "Four gray walls and four gray towers + Overlook a space of flowers," + +hummed Lottie; but Mr. St. George was consummately oblivious, and +returned to his friends. Why it fell out, that, when Miss Changarnier +came floating down the staircase again, robed in something thin, white, +and glittering as the hoar-frost itself, the darkness of her hair was +twined neither with the roseate Marlboro' bells, nor yet with the long +acacia-sprays whose golden balls should have expanded and bloomed in the +light and heat till they seemed like fragrant drops of lustre, Miss +Changarnier could best tell for herself. + +But the wedding passed as weddings do,--to-day cake, to-morrow +crumbs,--and at length the carriages were ordered for The Rim. The +evening had not been without its triumphs to Éloise, however many masks +she wore over her inner depression. St. George had forgotten her till a +late hour, and, conspicuous as Marlboro's _devoir_ had been, her own +acceptance of it had been scarcely less so. Perhaps there was nothing in +the world, of its kind, more beautiful than Éloise Changarnier's +dancing. Fragrances, if they were visible, would float with just such a +dreamy grace from flower to flower. Simple and sensuous, yet airy and +fine, was the spirit of every motion; and with every wave, with every +look, she appealed to the beholder's heart. Swimming down the room on +the slow circles of the indolent languor of the waltz, perfumes fanning +all about her, the wind lifting the curtains and letting in gleams of +amethyst heavens and low-hanging stars, the music pulsing in passionate +throbs,--once only she raised her eyes, and the great beryl jewels +rested on Earl St. George Erne's, as he leaned against the wall with his +supreme indifference of lordly manner; and if he revenged himself with +the swift gleam of that involuntary smile that must never kindle for +her, though it shot its light over brow and lip forever, he never knew +it. An instant afterwards he was beside her, yet he dared not with the +next strain suffer it to be his arm that upheld her, and Éloise sat +where he placed her and danced no more. And then Mrs. Murray came, and +they all took their seats in the carriages: Laura jubilant, but stately; +Lottie eminently dishevelled, and still clutching the crumpled list of +her partners; Master Will with his fists in his eyes, and heavy beneath +a drowsiness from which he soon had enough to waken him; while in Mr. +St. George's deportment to every one there was a shade of the old +sardonic displeasure with which he was occasionally wont to favor his +friends. But Lottie, after a few furlongs, was asleep in somebody's +arms; the rest were, perhaps, living the evening over again in reverie; +the other carriages were far, far ahead, and theirs, which, having been +detained, was the last, trundled on slowly over a bad road. At length +Laura stirred, and exclaimed,-- + +"Did you ever hear such divine music, Éloise? Why didn't Mrs. Arles +come, do you know, Mr. Marlboro'?" + +"Does Mrs. Arles go into such general society?" replied Mr. Marlboro'. + +"Can't say. How long she wore black! so long that it has really become +quite gray! Has she been husbanding her charms, or is she husbanding +them now? Don't you shake your fan at me, Éloise Changarnier, or I shall +tell how you said it yourself this very noon!" + +The carriage-top had been thrown open, and at the moment of these words +Miss Changarnier saw Mr. St. George, from his seat on the box beside the +coachman, hastily start and turn, but whether on account of Mrs. Arles, +or at something in the road, she could not discern; for Marlboro's horse +having very singularly fallen lame in the stables that night, she had +heard Mr. St. George muttering something about foul play, as he offered +the other a seat, and she felt that he entertained apprehensions. Had +she seen Marlboro's arm raised quiveringly, while the lash of the +riding-whip fell across the groom's face in a welt, as he dismissed him, +she might have felt also a womanly fear that the apprehensions were not +groundless. For Marlboro', unable to get speech with Éloise one moment +apart from others that day, had fled home in a fury, and had thus, when +his anger cooled, been obliged to ride alone to the place of merry +rendezvous. + +Gradually, now, as they jogged along, Mrs. Murray began nodding here and +there about the carriage, dropping her head very much as if she meant to +drop it for good and all; one by one the others forgot themselves; but +Éloise could see Marlboro' in the opposite corner sitting alert and pale +and sparkling-eyed, and felt that Mr. St. George was watching every +brier on the road-side, beneath his slouching brim. At length the +carriage stopped with a jerk just as they reached the little log-bridge +that crossed the creek, and Mr. St. George appeared at the door. + +"You must all alight a moment," he said. "Here is a break-down;--and, +moreover, a log of the bridge has been displaced,"--the last in an aside +to Marlboro'. + +It took but a few moments to repair the road, and to tie up the broken +springs of the coach as they could; but, after a trial, it was found +impossible for all to ride. + +"I will walk," said Éloise, stepping down before any one could arrest +her. "We were all too much crowded. Come with me, Will,--if only, Mr. +St. George, you will take the reins yourself and spare Ned to us?" + +"No," said Mr. St. George, perhaps knowing from old experience that it +would be useless to oppose Éloise, and having no time to lose. "Keep +your place, Will; do you hear? The horses are best used to the customary +driver. That makes it all right." + +"Certainly, St. George, this should be my duty!" exclaimed Marlboro'. + +But, as he sprang up, Mr. St. George's arm barred the way. + +"You have quite enough to do to take care of yourself, Marlboro'!" said +he, thrusting his revolver into the other's hand. "Drive on, Ned. Only +keep us in sight." + +"Mas'r Sin George, Sah," said the stolid Ned, "you are safe enough. +Expect, 'f you want _him_ safe," with supreme contempt, "I'd better get +de go out o' dese yer critters wile dey feel der oats!" + +"Wretched insolence!" murmured Marlboro', still incensed. And in a few +minutes the coach had disappeared round the winding way. + +"So much for Marlboro's theories!" burst forth St. George, in a moment. +"A man's works follow him. Sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind is +too much of a good thing. He has been away so long and so often, there +has been such mismanagement under a long minority, such changes and such +misrule, such a hard hand and such a high hand, that the whole place is +a fester. How dares he prowl round the country so after nightfall? I +wouldn't give a pin for his life this moment, if it weren't for that +white defiance of his that would back him against a whole Ashantee +tribe! If he were the coward that I am, he'd be a better master; but +he's what the poor trash call a damned aristocrat,--which means an +aristocrat past salvation, I take it." + +Éloise laughed to hear the words from Mr. St. George's autocratic lips. +"It is very odd," said she, "that so formidable an aristocracy must +needs underlie so powerful a democracy!" + +The night was clear and deep; great shadows floated down from the +heavens, as if of beings travelling on the winds: one of those perfect +seasons when the powers of the dark seem to be surprised at their work, +although low in the horizon behind lay a glimmer, as if the hour were +soon to bring forth its marvel,--a glimmer which made the whole more +weird, and hung the very spirit of summer nights about them as they +walked. + +"What should you have thought of yourself, Miss Éloise," said Mr. St. +George, "if a year ago, you had seen your image prospected on the canvas +of a dark and lonely highway, extremely late at night, or early in the +morning,--as you choose,--with, for sole companion, a creature who +indulges himself in pipes, porter, and parties, a usurper, a +demagogue,--in fact, one who can be represented only as disreputable? A +very improper young woman?" + +One year ago! The tears sprang to Éloise's eyes. She dared not look up, +but let them fall from the downcast lashes. Yet Mr. St. George saw them. + +"And what is there, so painful in the picture, may I ask?" said he. + +"A year ago my father was alive, Mr. St. George." + +A change came over his face,--pallor like a soft cloud. + +"Yet you are better off than I," he said, with singular unreserve for +him. "It is twelve times as long since _my_ father was with _me_. And +you could hardly have worshipped the one more than I worship the memory +of the other." + +Yet, as if this at least were a sympathy between them, his manner became +for the moment tenderer, and he forgot himself in order to arouse her. +For Éloise was already full of reproach at having made one at so gay a +reunion,--not remembering that all the rest had seriously vowed they +would stay at home, unless she joined them, and that the wedding had +been also that of a dear friend. So Mr. St. George was no longer lofty; +he told her strange legends of the region that somehow she had never +heard, repeated tiny droplets of song that would have lost their +volatile essence in any alembic of translation, pointed out to her all +the signs of the night, for the nonce forgot politics, and gathered +spray after spray of the gorgeous creepers from the way-side, whose +names and natures he knew. + +"How is it," she asked, "that you, whose mind is certainly filled with +things of an apparently vaster scale,--with legislation and war and +finance,--can care for these bubbles, these songs and flowers?" + +"Do you know Homer, Miss Éloise,--Chapman's Homer? Although I'm not sure +but that the old English poet breathes a bloom upon the Greek. Well, I +do not forget, that, when the envoys went to appease the enraged +Æacides, that thunderer in arms,-- + + "The quarter of the Myrmidons they reached, and found him set + Delighted with his solemn harp, which curiously was fret + With works conceited through the verge; the bawdrick that embraced + His lofty neck was silver twist; this, when his hand laid waste + Aëtion's city, he did choose as his especial prize, + And, loving sacred music well, made it his exercise." + +"That is superb! You must find me the place to-morrow. But Achilles +playing on the harp? I am afraid he will suffer in Will Murray's +estimation." + +"Hush! don't breathe it! Will doesn't know it yet,--perhaps may never +find it out. Do you know, Miss Éloise, as you go flitting along in that +misty dress, with the little scarf dropping from your hair, that you are +like the very soul of a white cloud fallen from above and trailing along +beside me?" + +"I? with my dark skin?" said Éloise, before she thought. + +"Yes, you, Egypt! White, because there combine all colors that are; and +in you--pardon me--there is a universal wealth of tint, be it carnation, +sea-green, black, or cream, so harmonized that one looks a hundred times +before finding it all. You recollect how a great painter produces his +effect of white,--of white sunlight on a stem? He lays the solar +spectrum there, the seven colors of light,--and their union in the +beholder's eye makes the dash of sunshine, the white lustre. Do you +know, in fact, what you remind me of?" + +"No,--how should I?--Hark! what was that?" + +It was the pealing of a bell, the far and faint pulsation of that bell +she had once before heard, as it rang out the changes of the sea, now +above and now below the flashing, falling foam-crests. + +"It is the tide-bell," said Mr. St. George, stiffly; and, with the word, +the previous midnight rose as if by incantation, and she kept her eyes +on the ground. Yet, as they walked, it seemed to Éloise that her +quickened senses detected a hidden rustle and murmur, as if the distant +morasses, the neighboring thickets, were alive. She seemed to be aware +of soft and stealthy soundless foot-falls; shadowy forms, she would have +said, were gliding around them in the night. Cold terror made her heart +stand still. Suddenly all these fears condensed into shape,--two flaming +eyeballs glared in the copse,--a shock, a flash, a smell of powder, just +as she had seized Mr. St. George's arm and snatched him back. Then the +boughs crashed, and the dark shade went leaping away. Terror died in +Éloise's heart. Intrepid rage possessed her. She sprang forward, still +holding him back with the continued gesture of the light hand on his +arm, and gazed over the bushes, the very incarnation of splendid +fearlessness and defiance. Mr. St. George laughed. + +"Is there nothing that excites your indignation?" she cried. "Could you +not have throttled him?" + +"A flash in the pan," said he, coolly. "However, it might have been +worse. It has blown a breeze through my _sombrero_,"--taking off the +hat, which the ball had partly twisted around. "It was meant for +Marlboro', Miss Changarnier. I am in his place to-night, you see. You +have misled the rascals. Listen!" he murmured, in a lower tone, beside +her. "There is a freemasonry among these black devils,--doubtless the +tide-bell signals some secret meeting. They are all about us. Here! you +are the last person to be seen. Take this, and hurry on while I wait; +you can walk fast. Go!" + +And the handle of a knife, a great broad blade, produced from some +hidden sheath, was between her fingers. + +But Éloise did not stir. + +"Go!" he repeated, in the same smothered murmur. + +"Place you in such danger? Leave you so?" said Éloise. "Never!" + +"Do as I bid you!" he replied, in a tone as full of cold, unsuppressed +bitterness as a north wind, motioning her away, and moving back. + +The moon behind him, as he stepped, was floating up from the horizon, a +great bubble of glory, whitening the tops of the whole dark landscape, +throwing out in glittering points, like frosted silver-work, the rimy, +dewy tracery of budding boughs, studding each twig with gems, and +pouring light into the high hollow heaven, like vast draughts shed +crystal-clear from some shining drinking-horn. When, then, Mr. St. +George mounted the stump by the way-side and stood there erect, +weaponless and with folded arms, the moonlight upslanted full on face +and form, and made him as distinctly and rigidly visible to all the low +land on either side the road as if he had been some statue set up for a +mile-stone. A little time he remained so. A night-hawk slowly wheeled +from a distant grove, and came dreamily sailing high above his head. +There was an instant's flare that revealed a group of dusky faces in the +swamp below, a report, and the night-hawk plunged downwards and fell at +his feet. + +"Mas'r Sin George," cried a voice, grim with murder ten minutes since, +"we lebe you our card. Good night!" + +Mr. St. George stood there a moment and watched the group till it faded +off from sight in the shadows of that distant cypress-grove, and then +stepped down and found Éloise with clasped hands exactly where he had +left her. + +"Why didn't you obey?" he said,--but this time with what a different +voice! "You could not feel your danger! You did not know your risk! +Great God, Éloise"---- + +Mr. St. George silenced himself abruptly. + +"Well," he continued, after a few paces, "I convinced the wretches of my +identity. It is quite like life in the Romagna, an hour with the +brigands of the Marches, is it not? It is pleasant to play the hero for +five minutes. But you! They know Marlboro' can be hurt through you. +Truth runs in subtle channels here. Come, hasten! By God! if I had such +people as Marlboro's, I _would_ sell them, and that with a +tan-toasting!--or I'd send them all to the North, that's so fond of +them! Come, hasten!"--and, half dragging her on his arm, he strode +forward, wordless and fierce, till they reached the house. + +I do not know what thoughts whirled through Éloise's dreamless brain +during the rest of that night, nor with what half-trembling resolutions +she arose, nor how much pride she had drowned in a vaster flood. But +when she descended, she found the house ablaze with fearful rumors that +had risen like marsh-lights everywhere out of the ground. All was not +right at Blue Bluffs, they said; some escaping slave--perhaps the +compunctious Vane himself, who knew?--had dared to breathe of great +disturbance and of retaliatory examples during the week before, which, +seen in the light of last night's broken bridge and gunshots, struck up +fresh terror. At noon Marlboro' came, but only for a brief stay. There +had been trouble with the creatures on his place, he said, +contemptuously, owing to some conspiracy among them, suspicions and +punishments. He could not account for such a state of affairs, unless +through incendiary emissaries. If further punishments were found +necessary, they should be just within the letter of the law, he vowed in +an angry aside to Mr. Humphreys,--the thing must now be settled once for +all. He would be here again on the next day, no new occurrence detaining +him at home, he said, as calmly as if that covered nothing; and with his +fair hair shining in the sun, and the handsome Vandyck-face laughing +over the shoulder, he rode off in gay heart and knightly guise, +accompanied by Evan Murray and Earl St. George Erne. + +They were all standing on the piazza that night, looking for Mr. St. +George's return ere going to bed. A sudden toll, and then a sharp, quick +ringing, broken by other tolls, burst the air close above them. + +It was the alarm-bell, and Ned the saturnine, rebellious in reason and +loyal in love, stood at the wheel. Mr. Murray, the father, leaped away. +Mr. Humphreys drew his brood within-doors. There was mustering of +weapons, shrieking of children; Miss Houghton fell in hysterics; Mrs. +Arles brought her the camphor, as quietly as she would have done at any +other time; Miss Changarnier stood like the expiatory victim for the +white race. Then came runners, overseers galloped up the avenue, +gentlemen, crackers, and leashed blood-hounds. There followed hurried +words and counter-commands; then part remained, part dashed away on the +road to Blue Bluffs. Nobody thought of sleeping; in the dead of night +the dull tramp of infantry resounded from the distant turnpike, and +later they heard the clang of grounding arms, and by the faint morning +light they saw the forms of the silent sentries stalking stalwart about +them, while, all around, the Erne slaves pursued, some their usual +routine, some the steps of the moment's master or mistress, and others +watched, huddled into frightened groups. Éloise stood leaning against +one side of the long drawing-room window; without knowing it, her +fingers constantly closed around the knife that lay in her belt, and +which she had failed to restore to its owner. All night she kept her +motionless position, looking far out and away to the eastward, till the +dark mass of Blue Bluffs should resolve itself into the azure mist of +castellated height that by daylight ever loomed upon the sea-horizon. + +Hours of suspense and of silence. At length, hurriedly resounding hoofs, +and St. George once more stood among them. + +"A revolt at Blue Bluffs," said he. + +"As I have expected every night this month," said Mr. Dean. + +"They have captured the ringleaders?" demanded Mrs. Arles. + +"What have they done with them?" cried Emma Houghton. + +Every one paused. + +"Never mind," said Mr. St. George, with a terrible hiatus. + +"And where is Mr. Marlboro'?" + +"Where should you expect a man to be who crowds down the steam and sits +on the valve,--who walks on crater-crust? Marlboro',--poor +Marlboro'!--Marlboro' is dead." + +Éloise dropped in a heap upon the floor. + +The women gathered over her and got her away, laid at last upon her +bed,--and then she ordered them all to leave her, which glad enough were +they to do. + +Mr. St. George walked the room in silence then, and finally sitting down +and resting his elbows on the table, remained so a long time,--his +knotted brow hidden by the tightly clasped hands. Nobody got any further +information from him. They must wait till Evan Murray returned with the +officers from the forts. Then he rose. + +"You are in no danger here," he said to Mr. Murray. "There is a guard +detailed for every adjacent plantation. The affair is altogether +crushed.--I must go just the same," he muttered, and entered his cabinet +alone. + +It was about two hours afterward, that Éloise--with whom, after having +roused herself from the horror of the shock, a feeling of unspeakable +pity, awe, and quaking terror had merged in another of equally +indescribable and cruel relief and freedom--was wakened from the dull +dream that sogged upon her brain in answering the place of two nights' +lost rest, by a servant at the door who brought to her a note. All +confused at the instant of starting, suddenly memory struck out the late +events in letters of fire. Half awake, with her pulse beating in great +shocks all about her wherever a pulse could play, she tore the note open +and read its but half-interpretable hieroglyphs twice before she +comprehended it. + + "Distasteful as the thought of me may be at such a time, you + must endure it for a moment. + + "I return to you to-day the property of which many months + ago I despoiled you. I leave it in better condition than I + found it, and so well has it met my demands, that, in spite + of all expenditure, you will find the customary income for + the length of time in the cabinet-escritoire untouched. + + "I leave it because it becomes impossible for me to retain + it. I leave it because it becomes impossible for me to live + longer in the house with you, to breathe the air you + breathe, to feel myself growing desperate beneath the sound + of your voice. Because I cannot see you in sorrow for + another. Because self-control can go no farther. I leave it, + Éloise, because I love you! + + "If I cherished one hope, it would not be at this time that + I should tell you my deadly secret. I have none, and + therefore I go. + + "EARL ST. GEORGE ERNE." + +A sickly thrill of something like disgust swept over Éloise as she read, +that one could think of anything but the great horrid fact of the hour. +Then she trembled from head to foot, and hid her face with shame and +sobs. "What does it mean?" she cried. "'At such a time'? What time? Oh! +he thinks--can he think?--I love Marlboro'! Will no one keep him? Is he +gone? He leaves because he loves me? Why, if he loves me, I should think +he would stay! Oh, is it true? is it true? St. George, St. George, do +you love me?" Hurriedly she smoothed her hair while she exclaimed, threw +over her shoulders the scarf of blue and silver hanging across the +mirror, and ran down. + +Mr. St. George had that moment left, saying he was absolutely obliged to +depart, but that he hoped his guests would remain the guests of Miss +Changarnier. His luggage was to be sent after him. + +"Which way had he gone? towards Blue Bluffs?" + +"No, the other way." + +Éloise summoned Vane and Hazel to follow her, and, flashing out of the +house, went rapidly down the mazes of the woody avenue, over the fields, +to the nearest place where the road crossed the creek. If Mr. St. George +was on the winding highway, by taking this straight cut she would reach +the creek even before his galloping horse could do so. At length she +paused, stationed Hazel and Vane behind her,--busy enough in themselves, +for Hazel, become happy again, had again become coquette,--and went on +alone. There had been a heavy shower that morning; Éloise stooped and +examined the clayey path that led up from the creek, to see if +footprints had lately been set there, and found nothing. The minutes +dragged away like hours, and when thirty elapsed, she wondered why it +was not growing dark. "He has not come this way!" she exclaimed. "He is +gone! I never shall know where he is!"--and she threw herself down among +the wild, rich growth that half rose and buried her. Gradually, when her +fever of sobs had died away, a sound broke on her ear, the sound of a +slow, steady tramp. Was it the beating of her heart?--or was it Earl St. +George? It drew nearer; she dared not rise and see. She heard the splash +of the feet in the water, in the intense light within her brain could +seem to see the dark water strike up and break in showers of prisms. +Then the feet left it, and came up the bank. Should she dare? If she +delayed--Suddenly that apparition tangled in the blue and silver scarf +rose and confronted Mr. St. George. + +The horse knew her, as he swerved, then bent to rub his cheek on her +shoulder; Rounce, who, from stopping to plant his nose deep in every +rose upon his way, had just rushed up breathless, knew her too, and fell +to frolicking about her feet. She stood with both her arms about the +horse's bending neck, with her face half drooping there, and the black, +falling tress curving forward on the cheek. + +"I never loved him!" was what she murmured. "I never meant to marry +him!" + +"Miss Changarnier!" exclaimed Mr. St. George, dismounting, thinking, +perhaps, that trouble made her wild. "Here? To-day? Alone? You must +return at once!" + +"I never, never will return, unless you take me back!" she said, raising +her head, but not daring to raise her quivering glance. + +"Éloise! Éloise! Do you know what you say?" + +She ventured just a glimpse at the dark eyes above her, glowing and +glooming, smiles breaking out of their pain, and then with a little +blind motion the tender face was hidden in his breast. + +Just there a cloud peeled off the sun and went all radiant upon its way, +the silent birds fell into one deep chorus, the locust shot out its +great whirring lance of jubilant sound, the whole forest grew astir and +alive over the glad secret it had learned. + +The sun was setting, when Mr. St. George, leading his horse, on whose +back Éloise was throned, and followed by Hazel and Vane, came into view +of the wondering, waiting, indignant party on the piazza. The party, +fickle as any mob, be it patrician or plebeian, was easily appeased with +such quarry as it found, and changed itself straightway with acclaim +into a bridal party. That night St. George brought in and tried upon the +third finger of the white left-hand a narrow glittering band. + +"Nothing but a wedding-fetter?" he asked. "Yet capable of great things, +that fetter! It holds the famous elixir which sinks two identities in +one; it is the visible sign of a sacrament; it is to be the type of our +souls' union, pure, perfect, and without end"---- + +But here, perhaps, the eyes of Éloise silenced him, perhaps the mouth. +And when life settled in its new channel at The Rim, Éloise, wearing at +last her father's name, sat at the head of her husband's table, and Mrs. +Earl St. George Erne herself entertained her guests. They lingered a +little while, with the disinclination that any group finds to separate, +and circumstances had knitted a bond among them all. And then, when +deepening summer ended the renewed cheer, Mrs. Arles put on her +widow's-cap once more, her little foot went into obscurity, and the gold +and ebony riding-whip hung reclaimed above her mantel. + + + + +WATCHING. + + + In childhood's season fair, + On many a balmy, moonless summer night, + While wheeled the light-house arms of dark and bright + Far through the humid air,-- + + How patient have I been, + Sitting alone, a happy little maid, + Waiting to see, cheery and unafraid, + My father's boat come in,-- + + Close to the water's edge + Holding a tiny spark, that he might steer + (So dangerous the landing far and near) + Safe past the ragged ledge! + + No fears had I, not one. + The wild, wide waste of water leagues around + Washed ceaselessly, there was no human sound, + And I was all alone. + + But Nature was so kind! + Like a dear friend I loved the loneliness; + My heart rose glad, as at some sweet caress, + When passed the wandering wind. + + Yet it was joy to hear + From out the darkness sounds grow clear at last, + Of rattling rowlocks, and of creaking mast, + And voices drawing near. + + "Is't thou, dear father? Say!" + What well-known shout resounded in reply, + As loomed the tall sail, smitten suddenly + With the great light-house ray! + + I will be patient now, + Dear Heavenly Father, waiting here for Thee! + I know the darkness holds Thee! Shall I be + Afraid, when it is Thou? + + On Thy eternal shore, + In pauses, when Life's tide is at its prime, + I hear the everlasting rote of Time + Beating forevermore! + + Shall I not, then, rejoice? + Oh, never lost or sad should child of Thine + Sit weeping, fearing lest there come no sign, + No whisper of Thy voice! + + + + +ON HORSEBACK INTO OREGON. + + +After our return from the Yo-Semite Valley, Bierstadt and myself +remained in San Francisco, or its delightful neighborhood, making short +excursions around and across the bay, for more than a fortnight. But +this lotus-eating life soon palled. We burned to see the giant Shasta, +and grew thirsty for the eternal snows of the Cascade Peaks still +farther north. So much of a horseback-ride to the Columbia as brought us +into Oregon I here propose to sketch in brief. + +The rest of our party had become sated with travel and gone home. One +glorious September day we took our saddle-bags, note-books, and +color-boxes, put our horses on board the Sacramento steamer, and, +without other baggage or company of any sort, set out for the Columbia +River and Vancouver's Island. + +At Sacramento, on the next morning after leaving San Francisco, we +shifted our quarters to a smaller and light-draught boat which was to +take us up the shallow river to its head of navigation. This arrangement +was a great economy of time. The country bordering the Upper Sacramento +for two hundred miles from the Californian capital is level and +comparatively tame, so that no artistic advantage would have resulted +from following the bank on horseback. From the little steamer the view +became a perpetual pleasure. About twenty miles above Sacramento we +passed the mouth of Feather River, disgorging coffee-colored mud from +the innumerable gold-diggings along its course, and came into lovely +blue water, pure as the cradling snow-ridges between which it issued. +The immediate margin began to be thickly wooded with overhanging +willows, oaks, and sycamores. These were alive with birds of every +aquatic description. The shag, a large fowl of black and dingy-white +plumage, apparently belonging to the cormorant family, peopled every +dead tree with a live fruit whose weight nearly cracked its branches; +every snag projecting from the river-bed was studded with a row of the +same creatures at mathematically equal intervals, each possessing just +room enough for his favorite pastime of slowly opening his wings to the +utmost, and then shutting them again in solemn rhythm, like a pupil of +Dr. Dio Lewis's or a patient in the Swedish Movement-Cure. The quiet +embayed pools and eddies swarmed with ducks; every sunny bar or level +beach was a stalking-ground for stately cranes, both white and +sand-hill; and garrulous crows kept the air lively, in company with big +California magpies, above our heads. + +The course of the river grew more and more sinuous as we ascended; it +was near the close of the dry season, and there remained none of those +cut-offs which economize distance during the prevalence of the rains. +The Upper Sacramento, especially when softened and rendered illusory by +such a full moon as it was our good-fortune to travel under, perpetually +recalls that loveliest of fairy streams, the higher St. John's, in +Florida. Nothing out of dreams is more peacefully enchanting than the +embowered stretches of clear water rippled into silver arabesque through +a long moonlight night, or the hazy vistas, impurpled by twilight, into +which one swings around the short curves of the Sacramento, amid a +silence that would be absolute but for his own motion, while beyond +either woody margin the great plains spread away untenanted, a waving +wilderness of wild grass and _tulé_. + +Enjoying the _far-niente_ of a life of such sweet monotone all the more +because it was such a contrast to our rough riding past and future, we +spent two golden days, as many mezzotint twilights, and a pair of silver +nights upon our steamer. On the morning of the third day we reached +Tehama, a dead-and-alive little settlement, seven hours' journey by the +river-windings from Red Bluffs, the head of navigation, but only ten +miles by land. We had now got in sight of mountains; the ethereal blue +of Lassen's Buttes, rimmed with the opal of perpetual snow, bounded our +view northerly; and as every motive for taking to the saddle now +consisted with our desire for economizing time, we here began our +horseback-ride, reaching Red Bluffs several hours before the steamer. + +Just out of Tehama we struck into a country whose features reminded us +of the wooded tracts between Stockton and Mariposa. After two days of +_tulé_ and wild grass, Nature grew suddenly ennobled in our eyes by +thick and frequent groves of the royal California oak. There was a +feeling of luxury in the change, which none can know who have not had a +surfeit of boundless plains. We bathed our hearts and heads in shadow; +the fever of unbroken light went out of us; our very horses shared in +the relief, and gave themselves up to a sweet somnambulism with which we +had too much sympathy to break it by spurs. + +Red Bluffs we found a place of more apparent stir and enterprise than +any Californian town we had seen, except San Francisco and Sacramento. +There was quite a New-England air about the main street,--so much so +that I have forgotten to call it _Plaza_, as I ought. This place is the +starting-point for all overland supplies sent between the Sacramento and +Portland. Immense wagons--shaped like the Eastern charcoal-vehicle, but +dwarfing it into insignificance by a size not much inferior to that of a +Mississippi flat-boat--are perpetually leaving the town, drawn by twelve +mules or horses, and in charge of drivers whose magnificent isolation +has individualized them to a degree not exceeded in the most +characteristic coachman of the Weller tribe, or the typical skipper of +the Yankee fishing-smack. There are few finer places to study _genre_ +than the California ranches frequented by the captains of these +"prairie-schooners." At convenient distances for noon halts and nightly +turnings-in, the main freighting-roads of the State are adorned with +gigantic caravanseras offering every accommodation for man and beast, +provided with arcades straddling nearly across the road, under which all +passing wagoners not only may, but must, shelter themselves from the +rigors of rain or sun, and billeted along their fronts with seductive +descriptions of the paradise within, to which few hearts prove obdurate +after being softened by the compulsory magnanimity of the arcade. + +In time there must be a railroad all the way from Sacramento to +Portland. There is not a mile of the distance between Red Bluffs and the +Oregon metropolis where it is not greatly needed already. Nearly the +whole intervening region is exhaustlessly fertile,--one of the finest +fruit-countries in the world,--but so entirely without an economical +avenue for its supplies or outlet for its productions, that many of the +ranchmen who have settled in it feel despondent in the midst of +abundance, and leave hundreds of magnificent orchard-acres paved with +rotting apples which would command a "bit" a pound in the San-Francisco +market, if the freight did not more than consume the profit, and the +length of the journey render the fruit unsalable. + +The first day out from Tehama we made a distance of nearly forty +miles,--part of the way through oak-groves and part over fine breezy +plains, with the noble mountain-chain out of which Lassen's Buttes rise +into the perpetual-snow region continually in sight on the right hand. +The only incident that occurred to us this day, in any other key than +that of pure sensuous delight in the fact of life and motion under such +a spotless sky and in an air that was such breathable elixir, together +with the artistic happiness which flowed down on us from the noble +neighboring mountains, was our discovery early in the afternoon of a +cloud of dust about half a mile ahead, with the forms of a hundred +horsemen dimly looming through it. Such a sight sets an old overlander +instinctively fumbling at his holsters; fresh as we were from the +horrors of the desert, we felt our scalps begin to detach themselves +slightly from the cranium. But we rode straight ahead, as our only +method of safety was to wear a bold front, if the cavaliers were, as we +half suspected, a party of Humboldt Indians who had lately taken the +warpath between Lassen's Buttes and the coast. I don't recollect ever +having been better pleased with the look of Uncle Sam's cavalry-uniform +than we were, upon coming up with the squad and finding it a detachment +of our own men sent out to chastise the savages. + +That night we reached a ranch called the "American,"--and certainly its +title was none too ambitious, for it had the whole horizon to itself, +and to all appearance might have been the only house on the continent. +It was a place unvisited of fresh meat and ignorant of gridirons; but we +were tired enough, after the first day of our return to the saddle, to +sleep soundly in a bed of tea-tray dimensions, and under what appeared +to be a casual selection from a hamper of soiled pocket-handkerchiefs, +when we had despatched the first of that long series of suppers on fried +pork and green-serpentine saleratus-biscuits which stretched between us +and the northern edge of Oregon. + +Though the month was September, the heat in the middle of the day upon +the broad rolling plains we now had to traverse was as oppressive as an +Eastern July. During our whole horseback-journey, therefore, we made it +our custom to rise as soon after dawn as possible, breakfast, travel a +stage of fifteen or twenty miles, make a long mid-day halt in some +pleasant nook, and push on twenty miles farther before we unsaddled for +the night. We were just now enabled to make this second stage the most +leisurely and the longest of the two,--for the moon was still in all the +glory of its California brightness and plenitude, and to have travelled +by moonlight between the Sacramento and Mount Shasta is one of the +prominent memories of a lifetime. No patriotic attachment is demanded to +make the Californian say with the Irishman that his country's full-moon +is twice as large and splendid as any other's. Phenomenally, at least, +the bare facts support him. + +At noon of the day on which we left the American Ranch, we came up a +rugged hill into the settlement of Shasta. This town is a mining depot +of some importance, chiefly memorable to us for some excellent pie, made +out of the California apple-melon, in wonderful imitation of the Eastern +green-apple tart, and a charge of five dollars and a half in gold made +by the great Californian Express Company for bringing Bierstadt's +color-box (heavy as a small valise) from Red Bluffs, whither we had let +it go on by boat. Why this should have left a memorable impression on +our minds it would be hard to say; for, although the demand was somewhat +more than the stage employed by the Express Company would have charged +to take either one of us the same distance, accompanied by a heavy +trunk, we should by this time have acquired sufficient familiarity with +extortion from the Company's officials to have paid very quietly a bill +of fifty dollars for the same service, and then dismissed the trifling +matter from our minds. But indignation at swindles is sometimes +cumulative. + +At the town of Shasta we left the main wagon-road,--finding that it +passed a long way from the most important point on our itinerary, the +base of Shasta Peak. By striking across the country six miles to the +small settlement of Buckeye, we intersected a route little travelled, +but far more picturesque, and leading directly to the great object of +our longings. On the way to Buckeye we again encountered the Sacramento, +here dwindled to a narrow mountain-stream, with bold precipitous banks +and a rock bottom, a smooth and deep, but rapid current, and full of +trout and salmon. We crossed it on a rope-ferry, and climbed the steeps +on the other side, but did not leave it. Thenceforward to Shasta Peak +we were never out of its neighborhood. + +By this _détour_ of ours we came into a country better wooded and +watered than any through which we had been travelling. When the sun left +us, we found the moonlight so seductive that we pushed on late into the +evening,--making our all-night halt at a ranch-man's whose name had been +given us by some passing native, who praised his accommodations +unboundedly, but proved much more of a friend to him than to ourselves. +It is a duty to visit the afflicted. It is a misfortune, not a crime, to +have a wife and six children, the latter all under twelve years of age. +It is a still greater and no less irresponsible calamity to have them +all prostrated by chills-and-fever, yet forbidden to yield to its +depressing influence by the stimulus of several million healthy fleas. +Ignorance, not wilfulness, may be at the causal bottom of a batch of +bread which is half saleratus, and a stew of venerable hens which is +one-third feathers. Nor can we regard it as other than a beneficent +arrangement in the grand scheme of Nature's laws, that a pack of noble +hounds should pass the hours of slumber around our humble casement in +the free indulgence of a liberty distinctly authorized by the sacred +Watts as follows,-- + + "_Let_ dogs delight to bark," etc. + +Still, I think public opinion will sustain me in the view that the much +afflicted family were not agreeable to pass the night with. + +This is the place for a useful financial statement. Everything on our +present trip cost a dollar. Bed for one, i. e. one's share of a bed for +two,--supper,--each horse's forage,--breakfast,--every several item, a +dollar. No matter how afflicted the family, saleratusy the bread, loud +the dogs,--nothing was furnished under the dollar. When people happen to +have enough dollars, this becomes comic. It reminded us of the Catskill +Mountain House, where in specie-times everything (after hotel-bills) was +twenty-five cents,--from getting a waiter to look at you, to having the +Falls tipped up for you. + +The day's journey between the afflicted family and Dog Creek, where we +stopped the third night, is such an affluent remembrance of beauty that +I feel glad while I write about it. We started under circumstances +somewhat tedious. Nobody was going toward Mount Shasta with so much as a +pack-mule. The father of the afflicted family labored under the blight +of his surroundings, and after severe thought gave up the task of +attempting to recall when anybody _had_ been going toward Mount Shasta. +It was also too much for him to calculate when anybody would be going. +We paid him his dollars,--wished that his shadow might never be less, +which it couldn't very well, unless the ague can dance on a mathematical +line,--and set out with the color-box carried alternately before us on +our pommels. It had been our _bête noire_ from the time five dollars and +fifty cents ransomed it at Shasta. We now began to wonder whether the +Express Company also had carried it on a pommel,--in which case we +thought we could forgive the Express Company. The morning was sultry, +and as we started our horses forth upon a walk,--for the box could not +stand jolting,--we looked forward to a tiresome day. + +As we went on, Nature seemed determined to kiss us out of the sulks. +Just as we broke into fresh grumbles, which we wanted to indulge, and +our horses into fresh trots, which we desired, but could not tolerate, +we entered some lovely glen, musical with tinkling springs, its walling +banks tapestried with the richest velvet of deep-green grass, brocaded +with spots of leaf-filtered sunshine. When we began to swelter, we came +into the dense shadow of great oaks, or caught the balmiest wind in the +world through aromatic pine and cedar vistas along the crown of some +lofty ridge. It was impossible to be vexed with the step-mother, Fate, +when the fingers of our mother, Nature, were straying through our hair. +To drive away the last elf of ill-humor, and make us thenceforth agree +to regard the box as an ornamental appendage which we were good-natured +enough to let each other enjoy by turns. Pitt River, the last fork of +the Upper Sacramento, came glancing into our landscape, the very +perfection of fluent freedom and gladness. Every rod of the journey +along its west bank disclosed a new picture. The misty blue mountains of +the range toward Shasta Peak formed the abiding background of every +view. Steep, fir-battlemented banks of one generic form, but endless +variety in the beauty of the tree forms and groups which rose from their +_glacis_, mile after mile, framed in some new loveliness of +light-and-shadow-flecked bend, deep sepia-dark pool, singing shallow, or +brawling rapid of the clear stream. Eagles were sailing, like a placid +thought in a large heart, far over our heads in the intimacy of a +spotless sky; the great ground-squirrel flashed like a gray gleam over +the gnarled mossy roots at the side of our narrow dug-way; and in +brilliant blots or darting shafts of Magenta fire, we recognized among +the tree-tops that loveliest bird of the North-American forest, the +great crested woodpecker. Here and there, to introduce a human element, +came cleared spaces by the river's brink, where pointed wands stood +impaling flakes of red salmon-flesh,--the open-air curing-house and +out-door store-room of the Pitt-River Indians. Once in the course of the +day we lighted on a picturesque ragged hut, where the purveyors of this +meat were soaking themselves in full side-hill sunlight,--where little +savages of every degree of gauntness in their limbs, ochriness on their +cheeks, shockiness in their heads, and protuberance in their +abdomens, were gorging themselves to still more hideous ventral +_embonpoint_,--where white men, lower than the lowest Diggers they +herded with, had forgotten the little they ever knew of civilization, +and stood glaring at us like half-sated Satyrs as we passed. Other bits +of _genre_ hourly came into the picture with pappoose-carrying squaws +who hunted yew-berries along the road-side fringe of woods, youngsters +wearing no attire but a party-colored acorn-basket of deft finger-work, +which they carried loaded on their shoulders, or listlessly trailed +empty at their sides. Dr. Prichard has some hideous pictures of Papuans +and Australians; but if Ethnology were a match-game, we could give him +those two points, and beat him easily by playing a few of the Digger +women whom we saw that day. They reached the ugliness of aboriginal +specimens which we had encountered on the west verge of the Goshoot +country; and if any earthly pilgrimage, short of the mountains of +Nightmare, can reveal _their_ rivals, I should like to get into a prime +state of health and be allowed a peep at them through a spy-glass. + +The condition of the white men who live and make alliances with these +poor creatures is too heart-sickening to print. The law that governs all +associations of culture with barbarism, where the latter is in dynamic +excess, holds rigorously true in California. The higher race recollects +only the cultivated evil of the state whence it fell,--and carrying to +its savage mates subtler means of accomplishing vice than they knew +before, presently gives rise to a combination from which all the +simplicity of the low race is eliminated, and into which enter all the +devils of mature civilization. Nor do these devils come accompanied by a +single grace or angel which softened or restrained crime in the +developed community. The attachment of this region's older settlers for +their savage comrades is something incredible. To enjoy their society +they cheerfully embrace a life as impure, uncleanly, free from all +humanizing influences, as that of the lowest Digger with whom they +consort. Sometimes a strange incongruous romance, like moonlight on a +puddle, lights up these mongrel _liaisons_, and infuses into them a +burlesque of sentiment. We found one old hunter whose squaw ran away +from him into the mountains at regular six-months' intervals, and who +invariably spent hundreds of dollars and no end to hardships in hunting +her up and restoring her to his wigwam. Another, who had kept an Indian +seraglio from the time of the earliest gold-discoveries, had repeatedly +been to the nearest legal officer, (two or three days' journey off,) and +besought him, without effect, to marry him to one of his squaws in +Christian fashion. It certainly did seem hard that the poor fellow +should be forbidden to make the only reparation in his power for wrongs +of twelve years' standing; but the æsthetic, naturally enough to those +who have seen Diggers, predominated over the legal and moral in the +judicial mind, and he was finally sent away with an injunction never to +show his face again while "this court continued to know herself" in the +Shasta region. + +As often happens in the discipline of human life, the thorn in the flesh +was withdrawn as soon as we had learned the lesson of bearing it +resignedly. At the last crossing of the Sacramento, we learned from the +ferryman that a providential wagoner was just ahead of us, going +certainly to Dog Creek, and presumably, if we made it an object, all the +way to Strawberry Valley, at the foot of Shasta. The one whose turn it +was not to carry the color-box galloped ahead, and detained the wagoner +until the heavy dragoon had time to come up. With a deep sigh of relief, +we stowed our box in the "prairie-schooner,"--made a contract to have it +packed on mule-back from Dog Creek to Shasta, in consideration of one +among a gross of cheap watches which we had brought for trade with +Indians and Trappers,--and, relieving our horses by the first canter +they had enjoyed that day, sped away with the deep conviction that the +man who first called chrome and white-lead _light_ colors must have been +indulging the subtile irony of a diseased mind. + +The seven miles of our journey from the last Sacramento crossing to Dog +Creek were even grander in their scenery than our morning stage. The +road was a dug-way from one to seven hundred feet above the base of a +winding castellated cliff, here and there cut in rugged sandstone, but +often both walled and buttressed with steep slopes of virgin turf kept +emerald by innumerable trickling springs, ice-cold and crystal-clear, +while here and there it passed through woods as dark as twilight. The +slope on which we travelled formed one side of a valley, green at its +bottom as a New-England meadow, and watered by a picturesque affluent of +the Sacramento. About dark we came to the Dog-Creek Ranch, where we had +such a delicious supper of trout, cooked in the good old Green-Mountain +fashion with an Indian-meal night-gown on, as made us "forget the steps +already trod," followed by a really nice _pair_ of beds, wherein we took +long and ample preparation to "onward urge our way" upon the morrow. + +At Dog Creek we were encamped round about by the largest and most +prosperous Indian tribe that we had seen on our trip. Their bows and +arrows were elegant in shape and color: the former stained in a variety +of patterns, sometimes carved, and wrapped as well as strung with +deer-sinews; the latter headed with nicely cut pieces of a black +obsidian which abounds in the vicinity of Shasta Peak, and which of +itself is an unerring test of the original volcanic character of the +mountain. The quivers of this Dog-Creek tribe were the most beautiful +preparations of whole mink, otter, and sable skins, which I have seen in +Indian hands anywhere on the continent. One of the men had a great cap +made out of an entire grizzly cub-skin, the claws very nicely preserved +and dangling behind, while the head curved forward on top like the crest +of an old Greek helmet. Nowhere did we find neater, more ornamental +berry-baskets, or more carefully worked dishes and basins, than those +woven or scooped and stained by this tribe. In wandering through their +stick-and-bark lodges we found some tolerably good-looking men, far +above the average brutality of the Diggers, with simple, pleasant +expressions, and not afraid to look one in the eye. In one lodge +crouched a man and woman who without exception were the oldest-looking +people I ever saw. The husband was blind, the wife palsied; but they had +been left in charge of a sprawling family of their fifth generation, +which haste and the warm weather forbade our counting. I gave the old +lady a plug of tobacco, and watched, as she put it up against her +husband's face, to see which of the wrinkles was his mouth; while, on +her filling a pipe and smoking with grunts of evident approbation +directed to myself, I felt pleasant and Biblical, as if I had been doing +a good turn to Methuselah's aunt. + +Only forty miles more stretched between us and Shasta Peak. We had now +reached an elevation where it was visible to us in its full majesty from +the southwestern side. All day, after our leaving Dog Creek, its giant +cone, snow-wrapt half-way to the base, kept surprising us through clefts +in the surrounding crags at the end of long wooded vistas, or on some +clear, treeless height to which we had climbed, forgetting the mountain +in our heat and labor. The country about us was becoming wilder and +wilder: our road was sometimes a mere trail, half obliterated by springs +or traversing rivulets. We now rode in the woods most of the time, and +found the shadow, stillness, and fragrance all delicious. Beside all the +springs we discovered the southernwood of our Eastern gardens growing +wild, its strawberry-scented and maroon-colored buds much larger than +those of our variety, and, though a trifle less intense in their +perfume, still sufficiently sweet to make every nook in which they grew +delicious for yards around. Here and there the woods showed some +symptoms of autumnal change; there were hectic spots now and then on the +maple-leaves; but nothing approaching in loveliness the +forest-euthanasia of our Eastern fall appeared until we had crossed the +boundary of Oregon. Shasta Peak is, by the track, nearly eighty miles +from that line. To-day, just as the sun got down to the tree-tops, the +wooded slope suddenly receded from our left, and towered into one of +those noble crags which all over the continent go by the name of "Castle +Rock," but which include no instance more truly deserving the name than +this bold mass of pinnacles and bastions, bare as a Yo-Semite precipice, +which lifted itself apparently about a thousand feet above the green +_glacis_ of the slope, stern and gray at the base, but etherealized +along its crest and battlement by sunset spendors of red and gold. +Simultaneously with the Castle's appearance, our leafy covert parted +before us, and disclosed in level light, which made its snow opalescent, +and bathed its vast, rugged masses of stone and earth in one inclusive +winy glow, the glorious giant of California which had drawn us hither +through the wilderness. The height of Shasta is variously stated. It is +certainly over sixteen thousand feet, and may likely be nearer eighteen +thousand. The last geological survey pronounced it the highest mountain +in the Nevada range,--a statement taking into account Mount Hood and the +other great peaks of the Cascade system, which itself is but an Oregon +reappearance of the Sierra Nevada. The distance from which Hood, Saint +Helen's, and Rainier could be seen with the naked eye led us afterward +to regard this statement with some doubt; but certainly no peak which we +met in all our large experience of the mountains of the continent ever +compared with Shasta in producing the effect of vast height. All the +others which we have seen, with the exception of Lander's Peak, whether +in the Rocky, the Nevada, the Cascade, or the Pacific Coast range, have +suffered, visually, from modulation through their gradually ascending +tiers of foothills, or by the blending of their outlines with the +neighboring peaks. This is especially so with Pike's Peak, which, +despite its being one of the loftiest mountains in America, has its +proportions most dissatisfyingly disguised, in all but a single point of +view, in the _cañon_ of the Fontaine-qui-Bouille. Shasta is a mountain +without mediations. It sits on the verge of a plain, broken for a +hundred miles to the northward only by pigmy volcanic cones heaped +around extinct _solfataras_. We approached it in the only direction +where there were anything like foothills to climb; but even upon us, on +reaching Strawberry Valley, at its southwestern foot, the wonderful peak +broke with as little feeling of gradual approach as if we had not seen +its head glowing grander and more real out of the blue distance +repeatedly during the last three days. When we first saw the whole of it +distinctly, it seemed to make no compromise with surrounding plains or +ridges, but rose in naked majesty, alone and simple, from the grass of +our valley to its own topmost iridescent ice. + +That view was not accorded to us on our first day out from Dog Creek. It +was nearly dark when we reached the Soda Springs, nine miles south of +Strawberry,--took a draught of the most delicious mineral-water I ever +drank, more piquant than Kissingen, and cold as ice,--resisted the +seductions of a small, premature boy of eight, who issued from the +Springs Ranch to dilate agedly on the tonic properties of the water, the +relaxing virtues of the beds, and the terrors of the grim forest which +lay for us in the black night between there and Strawberry,--and, +clapping spurs to our tired horses, pushed forward with stern +determination to reach Sisson's that evening. + +I think that a darker night than presently lapped us among the thick +evergreens was never travelled in. There were some streaks of blackness +a mile long, in which, literally, I could not see my horse's head. But +we had learned confidence in our animals' sagacity, and walked them, +cheerily whistling to keep each other informed of our whereabouts, +through at least six miles of road utterly unknown to and unseen by us. +It was what Eastern people call very "poky"; but the language addressed +to us by the premature boy had made it a matter of personal self-respect +for us to get to Sisson's that night. With a certain sense of triumph +over that unpleasant and dissuasive child, we saw a lantern gleam from a +corral about ten P. M., and had our interrogative hail of "Sisson's?" +answered in welcome affirmative by Sisson himself. + +At Sisson's, or exploring with him in the neighborhood of Shasta, we +passed one of the most delightful weeks in our diary of travel through +any land. His house was a low, two-story building, which had run like a +verbena in all directions over a grassy level,--putting out a fresh arm +at every new suggestion of domestic convenience, until it had become at +once the most amorphous and the most comfortable dwelling in the +California wilds. His herds were populous and prosperous; only the +merest pretence of fences broke their dream, without affecting their +reality, of limitless pasture. His ranch ostensibly consisted of a few +hundred acres; but Old Shasta was his only surveyor of landmarks, and +his base of supplies was coextensive with the base of the mountain. His +family consisted of an admirably energetic and thrifty wife, who had +accompanied him from Illinois, where he used to be a schoolmaster, and +one pretty little baby-girl indigenous to Strawberry Valley. The +presence of this mother and child in a wilderness which otherwise howled +chiefly with rough sporadic men and equally rough ubiquitous bears, was +a perpetual delight to us, so far from our domestic communications. We +admired Shasta all the more for looking at it over a little, gentle, +pink-and-white baby who lay asleep in its shadow, like a cherub pressed +to the bosom of one of the Djinn. Escaping from the poetical ground, I +may observe, that, between the chief French _restaurant_ of Sacramento +City and the Dennison House in Portland, Oregon, no family whom we +encountered lived in such wholesome and homelike luxury as Sisson's. If +a Society for the Diffusion of Gastronomic Intelligence among the +Heathen is ever founded in California and Oregon, (and how bitterly such +a philanthropic enterprise is needed my diary spotted with the +abominable grease of universal _frying_ bears abundant witness,) I hope +that the first tract which it publishes will be a biography of Mrs. +Sisson, the first point insisted on by that tract, "This excellent and +devoted woman used a gridiron." Bless her! how she could broil things! +No man who has not built up his system during a long expedition with +brick after brick of pork fried hard in its own ooze,--who has not +turned all his brain's active phosphorus into phosphate of soda by +alkali-biscuits drawn from the oven in the hot-dough stage,--who has not +drunk his pease-coffee without milk at the tables of repeated Pike +settlers too shiftless to milk one of their fifty kine,--who has not +slept myriads in a bed with _Cimex lectularius_ and his livelier +congener of the saltatory habits,--can imagine what a blissful bay in +the iron-bound coast of bad-living Sisson's seemed to us both in +fruition and retrospection. We occasionally had beef, when Sisson, or +some near neighbor ten miles off, "killed a critter" and distributed it +around; excellent mountain-mutton, flavorous as the Welsh, was not +lacking in its turn; but the great stand-by of our table was venison, +roast, broiled, made into pasties, treated with every variety of +preparation save an oil-soak in the pagan frying-pan of the country. As +for chickens and eggs, it "snewe in Sisson's house" of that sort of +"mete and drinke,"--he was Chaucer's Franklin transported to Shasta. +Cream flowed in upon us like a river; potatoes were stewed in it; it was +the base of chicken-sauce; the sirupy baked pears, whose secret Mrs. +Sisson had inherited from some dim religious ancestor in the New-England +past, were drowned in it; and we took a glass of it with magical shiny +rusk for nine-o'clock supper, just to oil our joints before we relaxed +them in innocent repose. Our rooms were ample, our beds luxurious, our +surroundings the grandest within Nature's bestowal. Our capital host and +hostess became our personal friends; and all that they did for us was so +heartily kind and so cheerily comfortable, that, if we were asked where, +on the whole, we passed the pleasantest, as distinct from the grandest, +week in California, I think we should answer, "At Sisson's, in +Strawberry Valley." + +Sisson was, without exception, the best rifle-shot I ever saw. I have +seen him bring down a hawk soaring as high as I could see it. Before a +target, at any distance usual for such experiments, his aim was +practically unerring. He possessed, in addition, two other prime +qualities of a first-class woodsman,--keen sight for game in covert, and +soft-footedness in stealing on it,--to a degree so unequalled in my +acquaintance that I feel justified in calling him, not only the best +shot, but the best hunter I ever knew. We spent three days in exploring, +sketching, and deer-stalking with him, during all which time he was +never once taken by surprise, but invariably saw his game before it +scented him, and as invariably cracked it over before ourselves, or +another old huntsman with us, had time to say, "Where is it?" Our main +excursion led us about a dozen miles from the house to a lofty ridge, +populous with game, thickly wooded with evergreens, and on its bold +prominences giving us splendid views of Shasta. No height that we could +attain dwarfed the grandeur of the mountain by sinking its base, and no +lateral variation of our standing-points produced any change in its +shape. New delicacies of rock and snow network came out as we shifted, +and the sunlight produced different beauties of color and chiaroscuro in +the glacier-like cradles of its upper ice; but so far as height and form +were concerned, it seemed to have no more parallax than a fixed star. +This fact is of course partly due to its being a nearly regular cone, +but much of it depends on the intrinsic grandeur of a mountain standing +lonely on the plain, full sixty miles in cincture, and in stature nearly +eighteen thousand feet. + +We came back from our expedition with an abundance of venison, a number +of interesting color-studies, and memories of California scenery +surpassed only by the Yo-Semite. We had struggled through miles of +_chaparral_, after which no abatis that I ever saw on the Potomac would +have been any discouragement to us, provided only we had the same +wonderful horses. To get some idea of this peculiarly Californian +institution as we encountered it, imagine a side-hill which would have +given the best horse a hard pull, even had it been bare of undergrowth, +and set this hill as thick as it will hold with _manzanita_ and +burr-oak: the former, as its name implies, like a little apple-tree, +only more viciously gnarled, leathery, and complicated in its boughs +than the most picturesque old russet in a New-England orchard, and +ramifying at once from the root without any main trunk; the latter, an +oak-bush of the same general characteristics, having its swarming +acorn-cups covered with spikes like the chestnut. When these have +interlocked with each other till the earth is invisible and the whole +tract has become a lattice of springes and pitfalls, push a horse +through it three miles up a slope of forty-five degrees, the breast-high +twigs scourging him at every step; and if you get out, as we did, +without a fall or a broken leg to either man or beast, you will not only +have acquired a just idea of the California _chaparral_, but an +admiration for the California horse which will last you to your +dying-day. To repay us for this struggle, we had found one lake lying in +a precipitous gorge, only twice before visited by white men; while +Bierstadt, always the indefatigable explorer of every party we were in +together, climbed with his color-box to still another lake, of which he +was the first discoverer, and whose lovely lineaments he preserved in +one of the best studies of our trip. Besides these results of our +expedition, we brought away the satisfaction of having leaped our horses +across the Sacramento River. Where it flowed at the bottom of one deep +ravine we had to traverse, it was a foot deep and ten feet wide. The +twig which cracked under my horse's hoof, and fell into the stream as he +sprang over, a month hence might be dashing about in the scud under the +foot of some Pacific whaler, or, still farther off in time, drift into +the harbor of Hong Kong. Rivers always seem to me like the nerves of +Nature: there is no conductor of thought and impression like that little +silver thread which leads out from the ganglion of a deep forest-spring, +to spread, many leagues off, upon the sensory surface of the Oceanic +World. In an earlier article I spoke of the mighty emotions which came +thronging on me at the heads of the Platte and the Colorado: I felt them +only less powerfully when my horse jumped across the Sacramento's +birthplace. + +After a day's rest at Sisson's, we bade the capital fellow and his +excellent wife a good-bye which had more regret in it than we ever felt +before for comrades of a single week's standing, and resumed our +northward journey,--Bierstadt's color-box the fuller by a score of +Shasta studies taken under every possible variety of position, sky, and +time of day. + +The country continued thickly wooded for nearly twenty miles from +Strawberry, and the forest-trail was every now and then drowned out of +sight by streams rushing from the snow of Shasta. When we emerged from +the timber, we found ourselves on a plain opening widely to the north +between diverging ridges, and scattered here and there with black +_scoriæ_ like the slag of a furnace. In some places an attempt had been +made to mend the road with lava, and as it crunched under our horses' +hoofs we could almost imagine ourselves making the circuit of Vesuvius, +so evident was it from the look and feel of things that Pluto has at no +very remote period boiled his dinner-pot on the hob of Shasta Peak. + +The day was fine,--the air more bracing than we had found since leaving +the Yo-Semite. Our week of comparative rest at Sissons had brought our +horses into splendid condition for the road; both we and they were +boiling over with animal spirits; and it was still early in the +afternoon when we rode the fortieth mile of our way into Yreka, on the +full gallop. I need not say that we had made other arrangements than +our pommels for the transportation of our heavy baggage to the next +place where we should need it. Sisson, always full of resources, had +taken good care of that for us both. + +Neither to the traveller nor the _raconteur_ is Yreka a place to linger +in. It consists of one long street, with a tolerable brick hotel at one +end, and a kennel of straggling houses swarming with Chinese of ill odor +and worse repute at the other,--intersected by half a dozen narrow +lanes, devoted principally to stables, gambling-shops, and liquor-dens. +I only quote the language of all the inhabitants whom I conversed with, +when I say that such glory as it once held among the northern +mining-towns has entirely departed from it. The discovery of the Boisé +and John-Day mines to the far northeast has attracted away all the +principal gold-seekers who once dug and panned in the vicinity; and if +there ever was a place which had nothing intrinsic to fall back upon, it +is Yreka. We were glad to leave it after one night's rest. + +The day we evacuated it was atmospherically the most glorious that we +enjoyed upon our whole trip. The air had a golden look, as if it not +merely transmitted, but were stained with sunshine. The sky was +spotless, the weather as warm as our mid-June, but without the least +languor. The landscape was that broad plain I have mentioned, with +Shasta on its verge, intersected by low rolling ridges, and broken by +the cones of extinct volcanic spiracles, sometimes grouped, but oftener +isolated. Shasta himself seemed to have gained rather than lost in +majesty by our forty and now steadily increasing miles of distance. +Either from atmospheric effect, or because we now saw a new and more +irregular portion of his crown, the snow upon it became opalescent to a +degree which I have never seen surpassed by any such effect. The light +reflected from it seemed to gleam like a softened flame deep down +beneath some pearly medium, rather than any rebound of sunlight from a +surface. + +The rugged hillocks between which we rode were bare and craggy at their +tops, but all about their base, and far down into the plain, grew +abundance of a plant wonderfully like the heather in its size as well as +in the shape and color of its blossoms. Broad, exquisitely claret-tinted +streaks and patches of this lovely thing softened the landscape +everywhere. We seemed to be travelling in a beautiful confusion of +Nature, where the Scottish Highlands had got together under a California +sky with the Roman Campagna. Throughout this sweet desolation reigned a +visible and audible quiet which made our horses' hoofs seem noisy. +Between Yreka and the Klamath River--a narrow, rapid stream, recalling +some portions of the Housatonic, which we intersected about noon, and +along which we rode for an hour--we met only two or three silent +horsemen and as many eremitic wood-choppers. + +Turning north from the Klamath, we dined at a miserable settlement +called Cottonwood, around which for miles in every direction departed +gold-hunters had burrowed till the ground was a honey-comb, or more +properly a last-year's hornets'-nest, since there was no sign of honey +in the cells, and, from what a most dejected native told us of the +yield, never had been any to speak of. + +Leaving dreary Cottonwood with even greater pleasure than we had felt in +abandoning Yreka, we began ascending the slope toward the Oregon line. +At every mile the country grew lovelier. California seemed determined to +make our last impressions of her tender. The bare, brown rocks became +densely wooded with oaks and evergreens. Late in the afternoon we came +to broad meadows of such refreshing deep-green grass as we had not seen +before since we left the rich farming-lands of the Atlantic side, and +the level golden bars which lay on them between forest-edges made us +homesick with memories of peaceful Eastern lawns at sunset. After +crossing several miles of such meadows, and the quiet brooks which ran +through them, we traversed a number of strange low ridges, undulating in +systematic rhythm, like a mountain-chain making a series of false starts +prior to the word "go," reached the true base of the Siskiyou Mountains, +and began our final climb out of the Golden State. + +The road was very uneven, rocky, cut up by rivulets from the higher +ridges, and in most places only a rude dug-way, with a rocky wall on one +side, and a butment of thickly wooded _débris_ steeply descending to a +black brawling torrent on the other. But we did not trouble ourselves +with the road. The wild beauty of the forest absorbed us on either hand; +and we were astonished at the rapid transition which the leaves suddenly +took on, from the dry, burnt look, characteristic of the end of the +California dry season, to autumnal splendors of red and yellow, hardly +rivalled by the numberless varieties of tint in our own October woods. +Just as the sun sank out of sight, we reached a lofty commanding ridge, +stopped to rest, turned around and saw Shasta looming grandly up out of +the valley-twilight, his icy forehead all one mass of gold and ruby +fire. It was one of the grandest mountain-sights I ever looked on: such +a purple hush over the vast level below us; such colossal broad shadows +on the giant's foot; such a wonderful flame on that noble, solitary +head, which, but for the unbroken outlines leading up to it out of the +twilight, might have been only some loftier cloud catching good-night +sun-glimpses at half-way up the firmament. Goodnight from Shasta! Alas, +not only to the sun, but to us! We felt a real pang, as we confessed to +ourselves that we were now looking upon this noblest and serenest, if +not loftiest, of all the mountains in our travel, for the last time in +years,--perhaps the last forever. We gazed wistfully till admonished by +the deepening twilight; then, as Shasta became a shadow on the horizon, +plunged silently into the dense woods again, climbed to the Siskiyou +summit, and, descending through almost jetty darkness, were in Oregon. + + + + +ICE-PERIOD IN AMERICA. + + +In the autumn of 1846, six years after my visit to Great Britain in +search of glaciers, I sailed for America. When the steamer stopped at +Halifax, eager to set foot on the new continent so full of promise for +me, I sprang on shore and started at a brisk pace for the heights above +the landing. On the first undisturbed ground, after leaving the town, I +was met by the familiar signs, the polished surfaces, the furrows and +scratches, the _line-engraving_ of the glacier, so well known in the Old +World; and I became convinced of what I had already anticipated as the +logical sequence of my previous investigations, that here also this +great agent had been at work, although it was only after a long +residence in America, and repeated investigations of the glacial +phenomena in various parts of the country, that I fully understood the +universality of its action. A detailed description of these appearances +could hardly be more than a monotonous repetition of my statements +respecting their existence in other regions; but the peculiar +configuration of this continent, as compared with the more mountainous +countries of Europe and Asia, has led to some modifications of the same +phenomena here, worthy of special notice. + +Thus far, the traces of ancient glaciers in America have been studied +only east of the Rocky Mountains; little is known of the glaciers still +remaining in the high mountain-ranges dividing the eastern part of the +continent from California, still less respecting any indications of +their former extension. There can be little doubt that such traces +exist, and as soon as the so-called _parks_ between Pike's Peak and Long +Peak are explored, we may hope for information on this point. Indeed, +the investigation may be spoken of as already undertaken; for among the +exploring parties now on their way to that region are some intelligent +observers who will not fail to make this point a subject of special +study. But it is well known that the usual characteristic marks of +glaciers extend over the whole surface of the land in the eastern half +of the continent, from the Atlantic shores to the States west of the +Mississippi, and from the Arctic Sea to the latitude of the Ohio, in its +middle course, while within the range of the Alleghanies they stretch as +far south as Georgia and Alabama. In no other region where these traces +have been observed do they extend over such wide tracts of country in +unbroken continuity, this being of course owing to the level character +of the land itself. + +The continent of North America, east of the Rocky Mountains, is, indeed, +an immense uniform plain, intersected from east to west only by the +ranges of low hills running in the direction of the St. Lawrence and the +Canadian lakes, and from northeast to southwest by the Alleghany range +stretching from Alabama to New England, where it trends towards the +Canadian hills in the ridges known as the Green and White Mountains. +This coast-range has a short slope towards the Atlantic, and a long one +in the direction of the great Mississippi valley. With the exception of +some higher points of the Alleghany range, the surface of this whole +plain is glacier-worn from the Arctic regions to about the fortieth +degree of northern latitude, the glacier-marks trending from north to +south, with occasional slight inclinations to the east or west, +according to the minor inequalities of the surface. There is, however, +no decided modification of their general trend in consequence of the +range of hills intersecting them at right angles for nearly the whole +width of the continent between latitudes forty-six and fifty; indeed, +the Canadian, or, as they are sometimes called, the Laurentian Hills, +formed a no more powerful barrier to the onward progress of the immense +fields of ice covering the continent than did the small hummocks, or +_roches moutonnées_, in the Swiss valleys to the advance of the Alpine +glaciers. In fact, these low hills may be considered as a succession of +_roches moutonnées_, trending in a continuous ridge from east to west, +over which the masses of northern ice have moved unimpeded to the +latitude of the Ohio. + +Owing to the absence of high mountain-ranges over this vast expanse of +land, the glacial phenomena of America are not grouped about special +centres of dispersion, or radiating from them, as in Europe. During the +greatest extension of the ice-fields, there were but few prominent peaks +rising above them, and dropping here and there huge boulders on their +surface, to be transported to great distances without losing their rough +angular character. And when the temperature under which these vast +frozen masses had been formed rose again, the wasting ice must have +yielded first on its southern boundary, gradually and uniformly +retreating to the Arctic regions, without breaking up into distinct +glacial regions, separated from one another, each with its local +distribution of erratic boulders and glacier-marks radiating from +circumscribed areas on higher levels, as they occur everywhere in +Europe. It is true that there are a few localities within the Alleghany +range, on the Green and White Mountains, and in parts of Maine, where it +is evident that local glaciers have had a temporary existence; but even +throughout this eastern coast-range the elevation of the mountains is so +slight, and their trend so uniform in a northeasterly and southwesterly +direction through twenty degrees of latitude, that the localization of +the phenomena is less marked than in Norway, Great Britain, or +Switzerland. In short, the ice of the great glacial period in America +moved over the continent as one continuous sheet, overriding nearly all +the inequalities of the surface. Thus the peculiar physical character of +the country gives a new aspect to the study of glacial evidences here. +The polished surfaces stretch continuously over hundreds and hundreds of +miles; the rectilinear scratches, grooves, and furrows are unbroken for +great distances; the drift spreads in one vast sheet over the whole +land, consisting of an indiscriminate medley of clays, sands, gravels, +pebbles, boulders of all dimensions, and so uniformly mixed together +that it presents hardly any difference in its composition, whether we +examine it in New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, +Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, in Iowa beyond the Mississippi, in the +more northern Territories, or in Canada. + +In Europe, boulders of large dimensions do not often occur within the +drift, but are usually resting above it with their sharp angles and +rough surfaces unchanged, having travelled evidently upon the glacier +and not under it. But such large boulders, polished and scratched like +the smaller pebbles, are to be found everywhere imbedded in American +drift, while the angular fragments of rock resting above these +triturated masses are comparatively rare.[H] It is evident from this +that the ice overtopped the rocky inequalities of the land, and that the +detached fragments remaining beneath the icy covering underwent the same +action from friction and pressure to which the whole mass of drift was +subjected. The distribution of the few angular boulders scattered over +the country no doubt began when some of the higher portions of the land +had emerged from the mass of snow and ice; and they are most frequent in +New England, where the mountain-elevation is greatest. + +The mineralogical character of the loose materials forming the American +drift leaves no doubt that the whole movement, with the exception of a +few local modifications easily accounted for by the lay of the land, was +from north to south, all the fragments not belonging to the localities +where they occur being readily traced to rocks _in situ_ to the north of +their present resting-places. The farther one journeys from their +origin, the more extraordinary does the presence of these boulders +become. It strikes one strangely to find even in New England fragments +of rock from the shores of Lake Superior; but it is still more +impressive to meet with masses of northern rock on the prairies of +Illinois or Iowa. One may follow these boulders to the fortieth degree +of latitude, beyond which they become more and more rare, while the +finer drift alone extends farther south. + +It is not only, however, by tracking the boulders back to their origin +in the North that we ascertain the starting-point of the whole mass; we +have another kind of evidence to this effect, already alluded to in the +description of the _roches moutonnées_. Wherever the natural surface of +any hill, having a steep southern slope, is exposed, the marks are +always found to be very distinct on the northern side and entirely +wanting on the southern one, showing, that, as in the case of many of +the _roches moutonnées_ in Switzerland, the mass moved up the northern +slope, forcing its way against it, grinding and furrowing the northern +face of the hill as it moved over it, but bridging the opposite side in +its descent without coming into contact with it.[I] This is true, not +only of hills, but of much slighter obstacles which presented themselves +in the path of the ice. Even pebbles imbedded in masses of +pudding-stone, but rising sometimes above the level of the general +surface, often have their northern side polished and scratched, while +the southern one remains untouched. + +Moraines are not wanting to complete the chain of evidence respecting +the ancient existence of glaciers in this country, although we cannot +expect to find them here so frequently as in Europe, where the many +local glaciers in circumscribed valleys afforded special facilities for +the building up of these lateral and transverse walls. Over the broad +expanse of the United States, on the contrary, with such slight +variations of level, the disappearance of the ice at its breaking-up +would naturally be more complete and continuous than in a country +intersected by frequent mountain-chains, where the ice would linger in +the higher valleys long after it had disappeared from the plains below. +Yet it is evident that here also in certain localities the boundary-line +of the ice underwent oscillations, pausing here and there long enough to +collect mounds of the same character as those spanning the valleys of +Switzerland and Great Britain. We have several of these mounds in our +immediate vicinity. The Waverley Oaks, so well known to all lovers of +fine trees in our community, stand on an ancient moraine, and there are +others in the neighborhood of the Blue Hills. In the southeastern parts +of Maine, also, I have observed very well-defined moraines. In Vermont, +the valley of the Winooski River retains ample traces of the local +glacier by which it was formerly filled; and, indeed, throughout the +Alleghany range, in its northeastern as well as its southern extension, +we have various evidences of localized glaciers, which must have +outlived the general ice-period for a longer or shorter time. + +I am unwilling to weary my readers by dwelling upon appearances +identical with those already described; but I may state, for the +guidance of those who wish to investigate these traces for themselves, +that any recently uncovered ledge of rock in our neighborhood, the +surface of which has not been altered by atmospheric agencies, presents +the glacier-worn surfaces with the characteristic _striæ_ and furrows. +These marks may be traced everywhere, even to the sea-shore, not only +down to the water's edge, but beneath it, where-ever the harder rocks +have resisted the action of the tides and retain their original +character. In our granitic regions intersected by innumerable trap +dikes, as, for instance, at Nahant, the smooth surface of many of the +rocks, where sienite and trap have been evenly levelled, shows that the +same inexorable saw, cutting alike through hard and soft materials, has +passed over them. In the hills of pudding-stone in the neighborhood of +Roxbury, we have quartz pebbles cut down to the same level with the +softer paste in which they lie imbedded with pebbles of sandstone, +clay-slate, gneiss, and limestone. In the limestone regions of Western +New York and Northern Ohio, about the neighborhood of Buffalo and +Cleveland, the flat surfaces of the limestone are most uniformly +polished, furrowed, and scratched, the furrows often exhibiting that +_staccato_ grating action described in a former article. I have observed +the same traces in the vicinity of Milwaukee and Iowa City, and we know, +from the accounts given by Arctic travellers of their overland +expeditions, that these peculiar appearances of the surface are +characteristic of the rocks in those regions, wherever they are not +disintegrating under the influence of the present atmospheric agents. + +Upon these surfaces, through the whole expanse of the country, rests the +drift, having everywhere the characteristic composition of +glacier-drift, and nowhere that of an aqueous stratified deposit, except +when afterwards remodelled by the action of water. But of this +stratified drift I shall have occasion to speak more in detail +hereafter. There is, however, one circumstance, of frequent occurrence +along our New-England shores, requiring special explanation, because it +is generally misunderstood. Along our sea-shore, and even within the +harbor of Boston, at the base of the harbor-islands, as well as at the +outlet of our larger Atlantic streams, numbers of boulders are found of +considerable size; and this fact is often adduced as showing the power +of water to transport massive fragments of rock to great distances, the +mineralogical character of these boulders being frequently such as to +show that they cannot have originated in the neighborhood of their +present resting-places. But a careful examination of the surrounding +country, and a comparison of the nature and level of the drift on the +mainland with those of the same deposits on the harbor-islands, (a +series of evidence to be given with more detail in a future article,) +suggest a different explanation of these phenomena. The sheet of drift +was once more continuous and extensive than it is now, and the +localities in which we find these crops of boulders are spots where the +tide has eaten into the drift, wearing away the finer materials, or the +paste in which the larger fragments were imbedded, and allowing them to +fall to the bottom, or where the same result has been produced by the +action of rivers cutting their way through the drift, and thus finding +an outlet to the sea. In short, instead of showing the power of currents +to carry along heavy fragments, these stranded boulders prove, on the +contrary, the inability of water to produce any such effect, since it is +evident that the tides washing against the shore, or the rivers rushing +down to the sea, were equally incapable of bearing off the weightier +materials, and allowed them to drop to the bottom, while they readily +swept away the lighter ones. Such localities compare with the +surrounding drift much as the bottom of a gravel-pit which has been +partially worked compares with its banks. Look into any gravel-pit, a +portion of which has already been carted away. At its bottom a number of +larger stones and boulders are usually lying, too heavy for the cart, +and therefore left upon the spot. Fragments of the same size and +character, and equally numerous, will be seen protruding at various +heights from the sides, where they are imbedded in the general mass of +the drift. As soon as the work progresses a little farther, and the +finer materials are removed, these boulders will also drop out, and lie +as thickly scattered over the surface of the ground, as they now do in +that portion of the bottom where the pit has been completely opened and +the gravel removed. We shall see hereafter how these boulders, derived +from the land-drift and scattered along the coast, may be distinguished +from those cast ashore by icebergs. + +Notwithstanding the number of facts thus far collected respecting +glacial phenomena in America, certainly forming in their combination a +very strong chain of evidence, the scientific world has, nevertheless, +been slow to admit the possibility of the former existence of glaciers +over such a wide, unbroken expanse of level land. This backwardness is, +no doubt, partly due to the fact, that, as glaciers have hitherto been +studied in mountainous countries, their presence has been supposed to +imply the presence of mountains, this impression being strengthened by +the downward and onward movement of existing glaciers, so long supposed +to be exclusively due to the slopes along which all modern glaciers +advance. Were it true that glaciers move solely or mainly on account of +the sloping bottom on which they rest, and that they can advance only +on an inclined plane, all the phenomena concerning drift, polished and +furrowed surfaces, boulders, etc., in America, would hardly justify us +in assuming a moving sheet of ice as their cause. But we have seen that +the phenomena of glaciers, like those of currents, are in great part +meteorological. The Gulf-Stream does not flow toward the English shore +because the ocean-bottom slopes eastward; nor does the cold current of +Baffin's Bay run down-hill when it pours its icy waters southward upon +our northeast coast. Their course is determined by laws of temperature, +and so have we also seen that the motion of glaciers is mainly +determined by conditions of temperature, although, in this case, an +internal mechanical action is combined with external influences; and +while it is true that glaciers, as they now exist, are dependent upon +the shape of the valleys in lofty mountain-chains, yet under different +geographical conditions the same phenomena may be produced over level, +open countries. + +I believe that circumstances similar to those determining the more rapid +advance of the glaciers from higher to lower levels at that point where +the alternate thawing and freezing, the infiltration of water and +consequent expansion of the ice under frost, are greatest, would also +determine the motion of a large body of ice from north to south, since +it would be along its southern limits that these conditions would +prevail; while the great reservoir of snow at the north would correspond +to the upper troughs of the present glaciers, from which their lower +ranges are constantly fed. The change of snow into ice is owing to +alterations of temperature, to partial melting and subsequent freezing, +constantly renewed,--and also to the sinking of the mass upon itself in +consequence of its own weight, the lower portions being thus forced out +by the pressure of the superincumbent ice. Upon an inclined plane the +movement consequent upon these changes will of course be downward; but +what would be the result, if a field of snow many thousand feet thick, +corresponding, except in its greater bulk, to the accumulations by which +the present glaciers are caused, were stretched over an extensive level +surface? The moisture from the upper superficial layers would permeate +the larger mass as it now does the smaller one, trickling down into its +lower portions, while the pressure from above would render the bottom +hard and compact, changing it gradually into ice. If this should take +place under climatic conditions which would keep the whole as a mass in +a frozen state, the pressure from above would force out the lower ice in +every direction beyond its original circumscription, thus enlarging the +area covered by it, while the whole would subside in its bulk. Let us +for a moment assume that such an accumulation of snow takes place around +the northern and southern poles, stretching thence over the northern and +southern hemispheres to latitude forty, and that this field of snow +acquires a thickness of from twelve to fifteen thousand feet. Such a +mass would subside upon itself in consequence of its own weight; it +would be transformed into ice with greater or less rapidity and +completeness, according to the latitude determining the surrounding +climatic influences and the amount of moisture falling upon it as rain +or dew, the alternations of temperature being of course more frequent +and greater along its outer limit. In proportion as, with the rising of +the temperature, these alternations became more general, a packing of +the mass would begin, corresponding to that observed in the glacial +valleys of Switzerland, though here the action would not be intensified +by lateral pressure; an internal movement of the whole mass would be +initiated, and the result could be no other than a uniform advance in a +southerly direction from the Arctic toward the more temperate latitudes +in Europe, Asia, and North America, and from the Antarctic toward South +America, the Cape of Good Hope, and Van Diemen's Land. But we need not +build up a theoretical case in order to form an approximate idea of the +great ice-sheet stretching over the northern part of this continent +during the glacial period. It would seem that man was intended to +decipher the past history of his home, for some remnants or traces of +all its great events are left as a key to the whole. Greenland and the +Arctic regions hold all that remains of the glacial period in North +America. Their shrunken ice-fields, formidable as they seem to us, are +to the frozen masses of that secular winter but as the patches of snow +and ice lingering on the north side of our hills after the spring has +opened; let us expand them in imagination till they extend over half the +continent, and we shall have a sufficiently vivid picture of this frozen +world. And a temperature which would bring the climate of Greenland down +to the fortieth degree of latitude would not only render the field of +ice far more extensive, but thousands of feet thicker than it is at +present. The physical configuration of Greenland also confirms the +possibility of a glacial period in America, for there we have at this +moment a wide expanse of land unbroken by mountains, over which a +uniform sheet of ice moves southward, with occasional variations of its +trend according to the undulations of the surface. The interesting +accounts of Dr. Rink show that in reality Greenland is a miniature +picture of the ice-period. The immense number of icebergs breaking off +and floating southward every summer gives us some idea of the annual +waste and renewal of the ice. How can we doubt, that, when, under the +same latitude, Norway, Sweden, Scotland, England, and Ireland were +covered by sheets of ice many thousand feet in height, the ice-fields of +Greenland must have shared in the same climatic influences, and have +been much thicker and far more extensive than they are at present? + +Notwithstanding the absence of lofty mountain-chains in America, we are +not wholly without the means of measuring the thickness of the +ice-sheet, by comparing it, as in Europe, with some of our highest +elevations. The slopes of the Alleghany range, wherever they have been +examined, are glacier-worn to the very top, with the exception of a few +points; but these points are sufficient to give us data for the +comparison. Mount Washington, for instance, is over six thousand feet +high, and the rough, unpolished surface of its summit, covered with +loose fragments, just below the level of which glacier-marks come to an +end, tells us that it lifted its head alone above the desolate waste of +ice and snow. In this region, then, the thickness of the sheet cannot +have been much less than six thousand feet, and this is in keeping with +the same kind of evidence in other parts of the country; for, wherever +the mountains are much below six thousand feet, the ice seems to have +passed directly over them, while the few peaks rising to that height are +left untouched. And while we can thus sink our plummet from the summit +to the base of Mount Washington and measure the thickness of the mass of +ice, we have a no less accurate indication of its extension in the +undulating line marking the southern termination of the drift. I have +shown that the moraines mark the oscillations of the glaciers in Europe. +Where such accumulations of loose materials took place at its terminus, +there we know the glacier must have held its ground long enough to allow +time for the collection of these _débris_. In the same way we may trace +the southern border of our ancient ice-sheet on this continent by the +limit of the boulders; beyond that line it evidently did not advance as +a solid mass, since it ceased to transport the heavier materials. But as +soon as the outskirts of the ice began to yield and to flow off as +water, the lighter portions of the drift were swept onward; and hence we +find a sheet of finer drift-deposit, sand and gravel more or less +distinctly stratified, carried to greater or less distances, and fading +into the Southern States, where it mingles with the most recent +river-deposits. + +One naturally asks, What was the use of this great engine set at work +ages ago to grind, furrow, and knead over, as it were, the surface of +the earth? We have our answer in the fertile soil which spreads over the +temperate regions of the globe. The glacier was God's great plough; and +when the ice vanished from the face of the land, it left it prepared for +the hand of the husbandman. The hard surface of the rocks was ground to +powder, the elements of the soil were mingled in fair proportions, +granite was carried into the lime regions, lime was mingled with the +more arid and unproductive granite districts, and a soil was prepared +fit for the agricultural uses of man. I have been asked whether this +inference was not inconsistent with the fact that a rich vegetation +preceded the ice-period,--a vegetation sufficiently abundant to sustain +the tropical animals then living throughout the temperate regions. But +the vegetation which has succeeded the ice-period is of a different +character, and one that could not have flourished on a soil that would +nourish a more tropical growth. The soil we have now over the temperate +zone is a grain-growing soil,--one especially adapted to those plants +most necessary to the higher domestic and social organizations of the +human race. Therefore I think we may believe that God did not shroud the +world He had made in snow and ice without a purpose, and that this, like +many other operations of His Providence, seemingly destructive and +chaotic in its first effects, is nevertheless a work of beneficence and +order. + + * * * * * + +In the next article, in order to put the reader in possession of the +glacial question as it stands at present, I shall say something of the +possible causes of this extraordinary accumulation of snow,--though all +such explanations are thus far mere suggestions,--and shall also give +some more precise estimates of the changes of temperature involved in +the history of the glacial period, before proceeding to the +consideration of the effects produced by the breaking-up of the ice, as +shown in our stratified lowland drift, and in our estuaries and +river-terraces. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[H] The greater proportion of large, rounded boulders in the American +drift, as compared with the European, is a singular fact not fully met +by the above explanation; since, while the number of mountain-peaks +rising above the ice in Europe would account for the frequency of large +angular fragments transported upon its surface, there would seem to be +no reason why the drift, carried along by a mass of ice having the same +thickness in both continents, should not contain as many rounded masses +in one as in the other. The facts, however, are as I have stated them, +and the difference may be due partly to the broken character of the +ground over which the drift must have passed in Europe, subjecting it to +a more violent process of friction and grinding than in America, and +partly to the use that has been made of the drift-boulders during so +many centuries for building-purposes in the Old World, the +drift-boulders being naturally taken first, because they are more easily +reached, while the angular ones are frequently perched on almost +inaccessible spots. Indeed, the stone fences in both countries tell us +the use to which many of the rounded boulders have been put, and the +ground in many parts of the United States has already been cleared to a +great extent of its rocky fragments for this and like purposes. In the +course of time they will, no doubt, disappear from the surface of this +country, as they have done from that of Europe. + +[I] Fuller descriptions of these polished hills may be found in my work +on Lake Superior. + + + + +HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS. + +BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD. + + +VII. + +While I was preparing my article for the "Atlantic," our friend Bob +Stephens burst in upon us, in some considerable heat, with a newspaper +in his hand. + +"Well, girls, your time is come now! You women have been preaching +heroism and sacrifice to us,--so splendid to go forth and suffer and die +for our country,--and now comes the test of feminine patriotism." + +"Why, what's the matter now?" said Jennie, running eagerly to look over +his shoulder at the paper. + +"No more foreign goods," said he, waving it aloft,--"no more gold +shipped to Europe for silks, laces, jewels, kid gloves, and what-not. +Here it is,--great movement, headed by senators' and generals' wives, +Mrs. General Butler, Mrs. John P. Hale, Mrs. Henry Wilson, and so on, a +long string of them, to buy no more imported articles during the war." + +"But I don't see how it _can_ be done," said Jennie. + +"Why," said I, "do you suppose that 'nothing to wear' is made in +America?" + +"But, dear Mr. Crowfield," said Miss Featherstone, a nice girl, who was +just then one of our family-circle, "there is not, positively, much that +is really fit to use or wear made in America,--_is_ there now? Just +think; how is Marianne to furnish her house here without French papers +and English carpets?--those American papers are so common, and as to +American carpets, everybody knows their colors don't hold; and then, as +to dress, a lady must have gloves, you know,--and everybody knows no +such things are made in America as gloves." + +"I think," I said, "that I have heard of certain fair ladies wishing +that they were men, that they might show with what alacrity they would +sacrifice everything on the altar of their country: life and limb would +be nothing; they would glory in wounds and bruises, they would enjoy +losing a right arm, they wouldn't mind limping about on a lame leg the +rest of their lives, _if they were John or Peter_, if only they might +serve their dear country." + +"Yes," said Bob, "that's female patriotism! Girls are always ready to +jump off from precipices, or throw themselves into abysses, but as to +wearing an unfashionable hat or thread gloves, that they can't do,--not +even for their dear country. No matter whether there's any money left to +pay for the war or not, the dear souls must have twenty yards of silk in +a dress,--it's the fashion, you know." + +"Now, isn't he too bad?" said Marianne. "As if we'd ever been asked to +make these sacrifices and refused! I think I have seen women ready to +give up dress and fashion and everything else, for a good cause." + +"For that matter," said I, "the history of all wars has shown women +ready to sacrifice what is most intimately feminine in times of peril to +their country. The women of Carthage not only gave up their jewels in +the siege of their city, but, in the last extremity, cut off their hair +for bow-strings. The women of Hungary and Poland, in their country's +need, sold their jewels and plate and wore ornaments of iron and lead. +In the time of our own Revolution, our women dressed in plain homespun +and drank herb-tea,--and certainly nothing is more feminine than a cup +of tea. And in this very struggle, the women of the Southern States have +cut up their carpets for blankets, have borne the most humiliating +retrenchments and privations of all kinds without a murmur. So let us +exonerate the female sex of want of patriotism, at any rate." + +"Certainly," said my wife; "and if our Northern women have not +retrenched and made sacrifices, it has been because it has not been +impressed on them that there is any particular call for it. Everything +has seemed to be so prosperous and plentiful in the Northern States, +money has been so abundant and easy to come by, that it has really been +difficult to realize that a dreadful and destructive war was raging. +Only occasionally, after a great battle, when the lists of the killed +and wounded have been sent through the country, have we felt that we +were making a sacrifice. The women who have spent such sums for laces +and jewels and silks have not had it set clearly before them why they +should not do so. The money has been placed freely in their hands, and +the temptation before their eyes." + +"Yes," said Jennie, "I am quite sure that there are hundreds who have +been buying foreign goods, who would not do it, if they could see any +connection between their not doing it and the salvation of the country; +but when I go to buy a pair of gloves, I naturally want the best pair I +can find, the pair that will last the longest and look the best, and +these always happen to be French gloves." + +"Then," said Miss Featherstone, "I never could clearly see why people +should confine their patronage and encouragement to works of their own +country. I'm sure the poor manufacturers of England have shown the very +noblest spirit with relation to our cause, and so have the silk-weavers +and artisans of France,--at least, so I have heard; why should we not +give them a fair share of encouragement, particularly when they make +things that we are not in circumstances to make, have not the means to +make?" + +"Those are certainly sensible questions," I replied, "and ought to meet +a fair answer, and I should say, that, were our country in a fair +ordinary state of prosperity, there would be no reason why our wealth +should not flow out for the encouragement of well-directed industry in +any part of the world; from this point of view we might look on the +whole world as our country, and cheerfully assist in developing its +wealth and resources. But our country is now in the situation of a +private family whose means are absorbed by an expensive sickness, +involving the life of its head; just now it is all we can do to keep the +family together, all our means are swallowed up by our own domestic +wants, we have nothing to give for the encouragement of other families, +we must exist ourselves, we must get through this crisis and hold our +own, and that we may do it all the family-expenses must be kept within +ourselves as far as possible. If we drain off all the gold of the +country to send to Europe to encourage her worthy artisans, we produce +high prices and distress among equally worthy ones at home, and we +lessen the amount of our resources for maintaining the great struggle +for national existence. The same amount of money which we pay for +foreign luxuries, if passed into the hands of our own manufacturers and +producers, becomes available for the increasing expenses of the war." + +"But, papa," said Jennie, "I understood that a great part of our +Governmental income was derived from the duties on foreign goods and so +I inferred that the more foreign goods were imported the better it would +be." + +"Well, suppose," said I, "that for every hundred thousand dollars we +send out of the country we pay the Government ten thousand; that is +about what our gain as a nation would be;--we send our gold abroad in a +great stream, and give our Government a little driblet." + +"Well, but," said Miss Featherstone, "_what can be got in America?_ +Hardly anything, I believe, except common calicoes." + +"Begging your pardon, my dear lady," said I, "there is where you and +multitudes of others are greatly mistaken. Your partiality for foreign +things has kept you ignorant of what you have at home. Now I am not +blaming the love of foreign things; it is not peculiar to us Americans; +all nations have it. It is a part of the poetry of our nature to love +what comes from afar, and reminds us of lands distant and different from +our own. The English belles seek after French laces; the French beauty +enumerates English laces among her rarities; and the French dandy piques +himself upon an English tailor. We Americans are great travellers, and +few people travel, I fancy, with more real enjoyment than we; our +domestic establishments, as compared with those of the Old World, are +less cumbrous and stately, and so our money is commonly in hand as +pocket-money, to be spent freely and gayly in our tours abroad. + +"We have such bright and pleasant times in every country that we +conceive a kindliness for its belongings. To send to Paris for our +dresses and our shoes and our gloves may not be a mere bit of foppery, +but a reminder of the bright, pleasant hours we have spent in that city +of Boulevards and fountains. Hence it comes, in a way not very blamable, +that many people have been so engrossed with what can be got from abroad +that they have neglected to inquire what can be found at home; they have +supposed, of course, that to get a decent watch they must send to Geneva +or to London,--that to get thoroughly good carpets they must have the +English manufacture,--that a really tasteful wall-paper could be found +only in Paris,--and that flannels and broadcloths could come only from +France, Great Britain, or Germany." + +"Well, isn't it so?" said Miss Featherstone. "I certainly have always +thought so; I never heard of American watches, I'm sure." + +"Then," said I, "I'm sure you can't have read an article that you should +have read on the Waltham watches, written by our friend George W. +Curtis, in the "Atlantic" for January of last year. I must refer you to +that to learn that we make in America watches superior to those of +Switzerland or England, bringing into the service machinery and modes of +workmanship unequalled for delicacy and precision; as I said before, you +must get the article and read it, and if some sunny day you could make a +trip to Waltham, and see the establishment, it would greatly assist your +comprehension." + +"Then, as to men's clothing," said Bob, "I know to my entire +satisfaction that many of the most popular cloths for men's wear are +actually American fabrics baptized with French and English names to make +them sell." + +"Which shows," said I, "the use of a general community-movement to +employ American goods. It will change the fashion. The demand will +create the supply. When the leaders of fashion are inquiring for +American instead of French and English fabrics, they will be surprised +to find what nice American articles there are. The work of our own hands +will no more be forced to skulk into the market under French and English +names, and we shall see, what is really true, that an American gentleman +need not look beyond his own country for a wardrobe befitting him. I am +positive that we need not seek broadcloth or other woollen goods from +foreign lands,--that _better_ hats are made in America than in Europe, +and better boots and shoes; and I should be glad to send an American +gentleman to the World's Fair dressed from top to toe in American +manufactures, with an American watch in his pocket, and see if he would +suffer in comparison with the gentlemen of any other country." + +"Then, as to house-furnishing," began my wife, "American carpets are +getting to be every way equal to the English." + +"Yes," said I, "and what is more, the Brussels carpets of England are +woven on looms invented by an American, and bought of him. Our +countryman, Bigelow, went to England to study carpet-weaving in the +English looms,--supposing that all arts were generously open for the +instruction of learners. He was denied the opportunity of studying the +machinery and watching the processes by a short-sighted jealousy. He +immediately sat down with a yard of carpeting, and, patiently +unravelling it, thread by thread, combined and calculated till he +invented the machinery on which the best carpets of the Old and New +World are woven. No pains which such ingenuity and energy can render +effective are spared to make our fabrics equal those of the British +market, and we need only to be disabused of the old prejudice, and to +keep up with the movement of our own country, and find out our own +resources. The fact is, every year improves our fabrics. Our mechanics, +our manufacturers, are working with an energy, a zeal, and a skill that +carry things forward faster than anybody dreams of; and nobody can +predicate the character of American articles, in any department, now, by +their character even five years ago." + +"Well, as to wall-papers," said Miss Featherstone, "there you must +confess the French are and must be unequalled." + +"I do not confess any such thing," said I, hardily. "I grant you that in +that department of paper-hangings which exhibits floral decoration the +French designs and execution are and must be for some time to come far +ahead of all the world,--their drawing of flowers, vines, and foliage +has the accuracy of botanical studies and the grace of finished works of +art, and we cannot as yet pretend in America to do anything equal to it. +But for satin finish, and for a variety of exquisite tints of plain +colors, American papers equal any in the world; our gilt papers even +surpass in the heaviness and polish of the gilding those of foreign +countries; and we have also gorgeous velvets. All I have to say is, let +people who are furnishing houses inquire for articles of American +manufacture, and they will be surprised at what they will see. We need +go no farther than our Cambridge glass-works to see that the most dainty +devices of cut-glass, crystal, ground and engraved glass of every color +and pattern, may be had of American workmanship, every way equal to the +best European make, and for half the price. In fact, it would require +very little self-denial to resolve to carpet and paper and furnish a +house entirely from the manufactures of America." + +"Well," said Miss Featherstone, "there is one point you cannot make +out,--gloves; certainly the French have the monopoly of that article." + +"I am not going to ruin my cause by asserting too much," said I. "I +haven't been with nicely dressed women so many years not to speak with +proper respect of Alexander's gloves,--and I confess, honestly, that to +forego them must be a fair, square sacrifice to patriotism. But then, on +the other hand, it is nevertheless true that gloves have long been made +in America and surreptitiously brought into market as French. I have +lately heard that very nice kid gloves are made at Watertown and in +Philadelphia. I have only heard of them, and not seen. A loud demand +might bring forth an unexpected supply from these and other sources. If +the women of America were bent on having gloves made in their own +country, how long would it be before apparatus and factories would +spring into being? Look at the hoop-skirt factories,--women wanted +hoop-skirts,--would have them or die,--and forthwith factories arose, +and hoop-skirts became as the dust of the earth for abundance." + +"Yes," said Miss Featherstone, "and, to say the truth, the American +hoop-skirts are the only ones fit to wear. When we were living on the +Champs Élysées, I remember we searched high and low for something like +them, and finally had to send home to America for some." + +"Well," said I, "that shows what I said. Let there be only a hearty call +for an article, and it will come. These spirits of the vasty deep are +not so very far off, after all, as we may imagine, and women's unions +and leagues will lead to inquiries and demands which will as infallibly +bring supplies as a vacuum will create a draught of air." + +"But, at least, there are no ribbons made in America," said Miss +Featherstone. + +"Pardon, my lady, there is a ribbon-factory now in operation in Boston, +and ribbons of every color are made in New York; there is also in the +vicinity of Boston a factory which makes Roman scarfs. This shows that +the faculty of weaving ribbons is not wanting to us Americans, and a +zealous patronage would increase the supply. + +"As to silks and satins, I am not going to pretend that they are to be +found here. It is true, there are silk manufactories, like that of the +Cheneys in Connecticut, where very pretty foulard dress-silks are made, +together with sewing-silk enough to supply a large demand. Enough has +been done to show that silks might be made in America; but at present, +as compared with Europe, we claim neither silks nor thread laces among +our manufactures. + +"But what then? These are not necessaries of life. Ladies can be very +tastefully dressed in other fabrics besides silks. There are many pretty +American dress-goods which the leaders of fashion might make +fashionable; and certainly no leader of fashion could wish to dress for +a nobler object than to aid her country in deadly peril. + +"It is not a life-pledge, not a total abstinence, that is asked,--only a +temporary expedient to meet a stringent crisis. Surely, women whose +exertions in Sanitary Fairs have created an era in the history of the +world will not shrink from so small a sacrifice for so obvious a good. + +"Here is something in which every individual woman can help. Every +woman who goes into a shop and asks for American goods renders an +appreciable aid to our cause. She expresses her opinion and her +patriotism; and her voice forms a part of that demand which shall arouse +and develop the resources of her country. We shall learn to know our own +country. We shall learn to respect our own powers,--and every branch of +useful labor will spring and flourish under our well-directed efforts. +We shall come out of our great contest, not bedraggled, ragged, and +poverty-stricken, but developed, instructed, and rich. Then will we +gladly join with other nations in the free interchange of manufactures, +and gratify our eye and taste with what is foreign, while we can in turn +send abroad our own productions in equal ratio." + +"Upon my word," said Miss Featherstone, "I should think it was the +Fourth of July,--but I yield the point. I am convinced; and henceforth +you will see me among the most stringent of the leaguers." + +"Right!" said I. + +And, fair lady-reader, let me hope you will say the same. You can do +something for your country,--it lies right in your hand. Go to the +shops, determined on supplying your family and yourself with American +goods. Insist on having them; raise the question of origin over every +article shown to you. In the Revolutionary times, some of the leading +matrons of New England gave parties where the ladies were dressed in +homespun and drank sage-tea. Fashion makes all things beautiful, and +you, my charming and accomplished friend, can create beauty by creating +fashion. What makes the beauty of half the Cashmere shawls? Not anything +in the shawls themselves, for they look coarse and dingy. It is the +association with style and fashion. Fair lady, give style and fashion to +the products of your own country,--resolve that the money in your hand +shall go to your brave brothers, to your co-Americans, now straining +every nerve to uphold the nation, and cause it to stand high in the +earth. What are you without your country? As Americans you can hope for +no rank but the rank of your native land, no badge of nobility but her +beautiful stars. It rests with this conflict to decide whether those +stars shall be badges of nobility to you and your children in all lands. +Women of America, your country expects every woman to do her duty! + + + + +HAWTHORNE. + + +It is with a sad pleasure that the readers of this magazine will see in +its pages the first chapter of "The Dolliver Romance," the latest record +of Nathaniel Hawthorne meant for the public eye. The charm of his +description and the sweet flow of his style will lead all who open upon +it to read on to the closing paragraph. With its harmonious cadences the +music of this quaint, mystic overture is suddenly hushed, and we seem to +hear instead the tolling of a bell in the far distance. The procession +of shadowy characters which was gathering in our imaginations about the +ancient man and the little child who come so clearly before our sight +seems to fade away, and in its place a slow-pacing train winds through +the village-road and up the wooded hill-side until it stops at a little +opening among the tall trees. There the bed is made in which he whose +dreams had peopled our common life with shapes and thoughts of beauty +and wonder is to take his rest. This is the end of the first chapter we +have been reading, and of that other first chapter in the life of an +Immortal, whose folded pages will be opened, we trust, in the light of a +brighter day. + +It was my fortune to be among the last of the friends who looked upon +Hawthorne's living face. Late in the afternoon of the day before he left +Boston on his last journey I called upon him at the hotel where he was +staying. He had gone out but a moment before. Looking along the street, +I saw a figure at some distance in advance which could only be his,--but +how changed from his former port and figure! There was no mistaking the +long iron-gray locks, the carriage of the head, and the general look of +the natural outlines and movement; but he seemed to have shrunken in all +his dimensions, and faltered along with an uncertain, feeble step, as if +every movement were an effort. I joined him, and we walked together half +an hour, during which time I learned so much of his state of mind and +body as could be got at without worrying him with suggestive +questions,--my object being to form an opinion of his condition, as I +had been requested to do, and to give him some hints that might be +useful to him on his journey. + +His aspect, medically considered, was very unfavorable. There were +persistent local symptoms, referred especially to the stomach,--"boring +pain," distension, difficult digestion, with great wasting of flesh and +strength. He was very gentle, very willing to answer questions, very +docile to such counsel as I offered him, but evidently had no hope of +recovering his health. He spoke as if his work were done, and he should +write no more. + +With all his obvious depression, there was no failing noticeable in his +conversational powers. There was the same backwardness and hesitancy +which in his best days it was hard for him to overcome, so that talking +with him was almost like love-making, and his shy, beautiful soul had to +be wooed from its bashful pudency like an unschooled maiden. The calm +despondency with which he spoke about himself confirmed the unfavorable +opinion suggested by his look and history. + +The journey on which Mr. Hawthorne was setting out, when I saw him, was +undertaken for the benefit of his health. A few weeks earlier he had +left Boston on a similar errand in company with Mr. William D. Ticknor, +who had kindly volunteered to be his companion in a trip which promised +to be of some extent and duration, and from which this faithful friend, +whose generous devotion deserves the most grateful remembrance, hoped to +bring him back restored, or at least made stronger. Death joined the +travellers, but it was not the invalid whom he selected as his victim. +The strong man was taken, and the suffering valetudinarian found himself +charged with those last duties which he was so soon to need at the hands +of others. The fatigue of mind and body thus substituted for the +recreation which he greatly needed must have hastened the course of his +disease, or at least have weakened his powers of resistance to no small +extent. + +Once more, however, in company with his old college-friend and +classmate, Ex-President Pierce, he made the attempt to recover his lost +health by this second journey. My visit to him on the day before his +departure was a somewhat peculiar one, partly of friendship, but partly +also in compliance with the request I have referred to. + +I asked only such questions as were like to afford practical hints as to +the way in which he should manage himself on his journey. It was more +important that he should go away as hopeful as might be than that a +searching examination should point him to the precise part diseased, +condemning him to a forlorn self-knowledge such as the masters of the +art of diagnosis sometimes rashly substitute for the ignorance which is +comparative happiness. Being supposed to remember something of the craft +pleasantly satirized in the chapter before us, I volunteered, not "an +infallible panacea of my own distillation," but some familiar +palliatives which I hoped might relieve the symptoms of which he +complained most. The history of his disease must, I suppose, remain +unwritten, and perhaps it is just as well that it should be so. Men of +sensibility and genius hate to have their infirmities dragged out of +them by the roots in exhaustive series of cross-questionings and +harassing physical explorations, and he who has enlarged the domain of +the human soul may perhaps be spared his contribution to the pathology +of the human body. At least, I was thankful that it was not my duty to +sound all the jarring chords of this sensitive organism, and that a few +cheering words and the prescription of a not ungrateful sedative and +cordial or two could not lay on me the reproach of having given him his +"final bitter taste of this world, perhaps doomed to be a recollected +nauseousness in the next." + +There was nothing in Mr. Hawthorne's aspect that gave warning of so +sudden an end as that which startled us all. It seems probable that he +died by the gentlest of all modes of release, fainting, without the +trouble and confusion of coming back to life,--a way of ending liable to +happen in any disease attended with much debility. + +Mr. Hawthorne died in the town of Plymouth, New Hampshire, on the +nineteenth of May. The moment, and even the hour, could not be told, for +he had passed away without giving any sign of suffering, such as might +call the attention of the friend near him. On Monday, the twenty-third +of May, his body was given back to earth in the place where he had long +lived, and which he had helped to make widely known,--the ancient town +of Concord. + +The day of his burial will always live in the memory of all who shared +in its solemn, grateful duties. All the fair sights and sweet sounds of +the opening season mingled their enchantments as if in homage to the +dead master, who, as a lover of Nature and a student of life, had given +such wealth of poetry to our New-England home, and invested the stern +outlines of Puritan character with the colors of romance. It was the +bridal day of the season, perfect in light as if heaven were looking on, +perfect in air as if Nature herself were sighing for our loss. The +orchards were all in fresh flower,-- + + "One boundless blush, one white-empurpled shower + Of mingled blossoms";-- + +the banks were literally blue with violets; the elms were putting out +their tender leaves, just in that passing aspect which Raphael loved to +pencil in the backgrounds of his holy pictures, not as yet printing deep +shadows, but only mottling the sunshine at their feet. The birds were in +full song; the pines were musical with the soft winds they sweetened. +All was in faultless accord, and every heart was filled with the beauty +that flooded the landscape. + +The church where the funeral services were performed was luminous with +the whitest blossoms of the luxuriant spring. A great throng of those +who loved him, of those who honored his genius, of those who held him in +kindly esteem as a neighbor and friend, filled the edifice. Most of +those who were present wished to look once more at the features which +they remembered with the lights and shadows of life's sunshine upon +them. The cold moonbeam of death lay white on the noble forehead and +still, placid features; but they never looked fuller of power than in +this last aspect with which they met the eyes that were turned upon +them. + +In a patch of sunlight, flecked by the shade of tall, murmuring pines, +at the summit of a gently swelling mound where the wild-flowers had +climbed to find the light and the stirring of fresh breezes, the tired +poet was laid beneath the green turf. Poet let us call him, though his +chants were not modulated in the rhythm of verse. The element of poetry +is air: we know the poet by his atmospheric effects, by the blue of his +distances, by the softening of every hard outline he touches, by the +silvery mist in which he veils deformity and clothes what is common so +that it changes to awe-inspiring mystery, by the clouds of gold and +purple which are the drapery of his dreams. And surely we have had but +one prose-writer who could be compared with him in aërial perspective, +if we may use the painter's term. If Irving is the Claude of our +unrhymed poetry, Hawthorne is its Poussin. + +This is not the occasion for the analysis and valuation of Hawthorne's +genius. If the reader wishes to see a thoughtful and generous estimate +of his powers, and a just recognition of the singular beauty of his +style, he may turn to the number of this magazine published in May, +1860. The last effort of Hawthorne's creative mind is before him in the +chapter here printed. The hand of the dead master shows itself in every +line. The shapes and scenes he pictures slide at once into our +consciousness, as if they belonged there as much as our own homes and +relatives. That limpid flow of expression, never laboring, never +shallow, never hurried nor uneven nor turbid, but moving on with +tranquil force, clear to the depths of its profoundest thought, shows +itself with all its consummate perfections. Our literature could ill +spare the rich ripe autumn of such a life as Hawthorne's, but he has +left enough to keep his name in remembrance as long as the language in +which he shaped his deep imaginations is spoken by human lips. + + + + +A SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE. + + +Doctor Dolliver, a worthy personage of extreme antiquity, was aroused +rather prematurely, one summer morning, by the shouts of the child +Pansie, in an adjoining chamber, summoning Old Martha (who performed the +duties of nurse, housekeeper, and kitchen-maid, in the Doctor's +establishment) to take up her little ladyship and dress her. The old +gentleman woke with more than his customary alacrity, and, after taking +a moment to gather his wits about him, pulled aside the faded moreen +curtains of his ancient bed, and thrust his head into a beam of sunshine +that caused him to wink and withdraw it again. This transitory glimpse +of good Dr. Dolliver showed a flannel nightcap, fringed round with stray +locks of silvery white hair, and surmounting a meagre and duskily yellow +visage, which was crossed and criss-crossed with a record of his long +life in wrinkles, faithfully written, no doubt, but with such cramped +chirography of Father Time that the purport was illegible. It seemed +hardly worth while for the patriarch to get out of bed any more, and +bring his forlorn shadow into the summer day that was made for younger +folks. The Doctor, however, was by no means of that opinion, being +considerably encouraged towards the toil of living twenty-four hours +longer by the comparative ease with which he found himself going through +the usually painful process of bestirring his rusty joints, (stiffened +by the very rest and sleep that should have made them pliable,) and +putting them in a condition to bear his weight upon the floor. Nor was +he absolutely disheartened by the idea of those tonsorial, ablutionary, +and personally decorative labors which are apt to become so intolerably +irksome to an old gentleman, after performing them daily and daily for +fifty, sixty, or seventy years, and finding them still as immitigably +recurrent as at first. Dr. Dolliver could nowise account for this happy +condition of his spirits and physical energies, until he remembered +taking an experimental sip of a certain cordial which was long ago +prepared by his grandson and carefully scaled up in a bottle, and had +been reposited in a dark closet among a parcel of effete medicines ever +since that gifted young man's death. + +"It may have wrought effect upon me," thought the Doctor, shaking his +head as he lifted it again from the pillow. "It may be so; for poor +Cornelius oftentimes instilled a strange efficacy into his perilous +drugs. But I will rather believe it to be the operation of God's mercy, +which may have temporarily invigorated my feeble age for little Pansie's +sake." + +A twinge of his familiar rheumatism, as he put his foot out of bed, +taught him that he must not reckon too confidently upon even a day's +respite from the intrusive family of aches and infirmities which, with +their proverbial fidelity to attachments once formed, had long been the +closest acquaintances that the poor old gentleman had in the world. +Nevertheless, he fancied the twinge a little less poignant than those of +yesterday; and, moreover, after stinging him pretty smartly, it passed +gradually off with a thrill, which, in its latter stages, grew to be +almost agreeable. Pain is but pleasure too strongly emphasized. With +cautious movements, and only a groan or two, the good Doctor transferred +himself from the bed to the floor, where he stood awhile, gazing from +one piece of quaint furniture to another, (such as stiff-backed +Mayflower chairs, an oaken chest-of-drawers carved cunningly with shapes +of animals and wreaths of foliage, a table with multitudinous legs, a +family-record in faded embroidery, a shelf of black-bound books, a dirty +heap of gallipots and phials in a dim corner,)--gazing at these things +and steadying himself by the bedpost, while his inert brain, still +partially benumbed with sleep, came slowly into accordance with the +realities about him. The object which most helped to bring Dr. Dolliver +completely to his waking perceptions was one that common observers might +suppose to have been snatched bodily out of his dreams. The same sunbeam +that had dazzled the Doctor between the bed-curtains gleamed on the +weather-beaten gilding which had once adorned this mysterious symbol, +and showed it to be an enormous serpent, twining round a wooden post, +and reaching quite from the floor of the chamber to its ceiling. + +It was evidently a thing that could boast of considerable antiquity, the +dry-rot having eaten out its eyes and gnawed away the tip of its tail; +and it must have stood long exposed to the atmosphere, for a kind of +gray moss had partially overspread its tarnished gilt surface, and a +swallow, or other familiar little bird, in some by-gone summer, seemed +to have built its nest in the yawning and exaggerated mouth. It looked +like a kind of Manichean idol, which might have been elevated on a +pedestal for a century or so, enjoying the worship of its votaries in +the open air, until the impious sect perished from among men,--all save +old Dr. Dolliver, who had set up the monster in his bedchamber for the +convenience of private devotion. But we are unpardonable in suggesting +such a fantasy to the prejudice of our venerable friend, knowing him to +have been as pious and upright a Christian, and with as little of the +serpent in his character, as ever came of Puritan lineage. Not to make a +further mystery about a very simple matter, this bedimmed and rotten +reptile was once the medical emblem or apothecary's sign of the famous +Dr. Swinnerton, who practised physic in the earlier days of New England, +when a head of Æsculapius or Hippocrates would have vexed the souls of +the righteous as savoring of heathendom. The ancient dispenser of drugs +had therefore set up an image of the Brazen Serpent, and followed his +business for many years, with great credit, under this Scriptural +device; and Dr. Dolliver, being the apprentice, pupil, and humble friend +of the learned Swinnerton's old age, had inherited the symbolic snake, +and much other valuable property, by his bequest. + +While the patriarch was putting on his small-clothes, he took care to +stand in the parallelogram of bright sunshine that fell upon the +uncarpeted floor. The summer warmth was very genial to his system, and +yet made him shiver; his wintry veins rejoiced at it, though the +reviving blood tingled through them with a half painful and only half +pleasurable titillation. For the first few moments after creeping out of +bed, he kept his back to the sunny window and seemed mysteriously shy of +glancing thitherward; but as the June fervor pervaded him more and more +thoroughly, he turned bravely about, and looked forth at a burial-ground +on the corner of which he dwelt. There lay many an old acquaintance, who +had gone to sleep with the flavor of Dr. Dolliver's tinctures and +powders upon his tongue; it was the patient's final bitter taste of this +world, and perhaps doomed to be a recollected nauseousness in the next. +Yesterday, in the chill of his forlorn old age, the Doctor expected soon +to stretch out his weary bones among that quiet community, and might +scarcely have shrunk from the prospect on his own account, except, +indeed, that he dreamily mixed up the infirmities of his present +condition with the repose of the approaching one, being haunted by a +notion that the damp earth, under the grass and dandelions, must needs +be pernicious for his cough and his rheumatism. But, this morning, the +cheerful sunbeams, or the mere taste of his grandson's cordial that he +had taken at bedtime, or the fitful vigor that often sports irreverently +with aged people, had caused an unfrozen drop of youthfulness, somewhere +within him, to expand. + +"Hem! ahem!" quoth the Doctor, hoping with one effort to clear his +throat of the dregs of a ten years' cough. "Matters are not so far gone +with me as I thought. I have known mighty sensible men, when only a +little age-stricken or otherwise out of sorts, to die of mere +faint-heartedness, a great deal sooner than they need." + +He shook his silvery head at his own image in the looking-glass, as if +to impress the apophthegm on that shadowy representative of himself; and +for his part, he determined to pluck up a spirit and live as long as he +possibly could, if it were only for the sake of little Pansie, who stood +as close to one extremity of human life as her great-grandfather to the +other. This child of three years old occupied all the unfossilized +portion of good Dr. Dolliver's heart. Every other interest that he +formerly had, and the entire confraternity of persons whom he once +loved, had long ago departed, and the poor Doctor could not follow them, +because the grasp of Pansie's baby-fingers held him back. + +So he crammed a great silver watch into his fob, and drew on a patchwork +morning-gown of an ancient fashion. Its original material was said to +have been the embroidered front of his own wedding-waistcoat and the +silken skirt of his wife's bridal attire, which his eldest granddaughter +had taken from the carved chest-of-drawers, after poor Bessie, the +beloved of his youth, had been half a century in the grave. Throughout +many of the intervening years, as the garment got ragged, the spinsters +of the old man's family had quilted their duty and affection into it in +the shape of patches upon patches, rose-color, crimson, blue, violet, +and green, and then (as their hopes faded, and their life kept growing +shadier, and their attire took a sombre hue) sober gray and great +fragments of funereal black, until the Doctor could revive the memory of +most things that had befallen him by looking at his patchwork-gown, as +it hung upon a chair. And now it was ragged again, and all the fingers +that should have mended it were cold. It had an Eastern fragrance, too, +a smell of drugs, strong-scented herbs, and spicy gums, gathered from +the many potent infusions that had from time to time been spilt over it; +so that, snuffing him afar off, you might have taken Dr. Dolliver for a +mummy, and could hardly have been undeceived by his shrunken and torpid +aspect, as he crept nearer. + +Wrapt in his odorous and many-colored robe, he took staff in hand and +moved pretty vigorously to the head of the staircase. As it was somewhat +steep, and but dimly lighted, he began cautiously to descend, putting +his left hand on the banister, and poking down his long stick to assist +him in making sure of the successive steps; and thus he became a living +illustration of the accuracy of Scripture, where it describes the aged +as being "afraid of that which is high,"--a truth that is often found to +have a sadder purport than its external one. Half-way to the bottom, +however, the Doctor heard the impatient and authoritative tones of +little Pansie,--Queen Pansie, as she might fairly have been styled, in +reference to her position in the household,--calling amain for grandpapa +and breakfast. He was startled into such perilous activity by the +summons, that his heels slid on the stairs, the slippers were shuffled +off his feet, and he saved himself from a tumble only by quickening his +pace, and coming down at almost a run. + +"Mercy on my poor old bones!" mentally exclaimed the Doctor, fancying +himself fractured in fifty places. "Some of them are broken, surely, and +methinks my heart has leaped out of my mouth! What! all right? Well, +well! but Providence is kinder to me than I deserve, prancing down this +steep staircase like a kid of three months old!" + +He bent stiffly to gather up his slippers and fallen staff; and +meanwhile Pansie had heard the tumult of her great-grandfather's +descent, and was pounding against the door of the breakfast-room in her +haste to come at him. The Doctor opened it, and there she stood, a +rather pale and large-eyed little thing, quaint in her aspect, as might +well be the case with a motherless child, dwelling in an uncheerful +house, with no other playmates than a decrepit old man and a kitten, and +no better atmosphere within-doors than the odor of decayed +apothecary's-stuff, nor gayer neighborhood than that of the adjacent +burial-ground, where all her relatives, from her great-grandmother +downward, lay calling to her, "Pansie, Pansie, it is bedtime!" even in +the prime of the summer morning. For those dead womenfolk, especially +her mother and the whole row of maiden aunts and grand-aunts, could not +but be anxious about the child, knowing that little Pansie would be far +safer under a tuft of dandelions than if left alone, as she soon must +be, in this difficult and deceitful world. + +Yet, in spite of the lack of damask roses in her cheeks, she seemed a +healthy child, and certainly showed great capacity of energetic movement +in the impulsive capers with which she welcomed her venerable +progenitor. She shouted out her satisfaction, moreover, (as her custom +was, having never had any over-sensitive auditors about her to tame down +her voice,) till even the Doctor's dull ears were full of the clamor. + +"Pansie, darling," said Dr. Dolliver cheerily, patting her brown hair +with his tremulous fingers, "thou hast put some of thine own friskiness +into poor old grandfather, this fine morning! Dost know, child, that he +came near breaking his neck down-stairs at the sound of thy voice? What +wouldst thou have done then, little Pansie?" + +"Kiss poor grandpapa and make him well!" answered the child, remembering +the Doctor's own mode of cure in similar mishaps to herself. "It shall +do poor grandpapa good!" she added, putting up her mouth to apply the +remedy. + +"Ah, little one, thou hast greater faith in thy medicines than ever I +had in my drugs," replied the patriarch with a giggle, surprised and +delighted at his own readiness of response. "But the kiss is good for my +feeble old heart, Pansie, though it might do little to mend a broken +neck; so give grandpapa another dose, and let us to breakfast." + +In this merry humor they sat down to the table, great-grandpapa and +Pansie side by side, and the kitten, as soon appeared, making a third in +the party. First, she showed her mottled head out of Pansie's lap, +delicately sipping milk from the child's basin without rebuke; then she +took post on the old gentleman's shoulder, purring like a +spinning-wheel, trying her claws in the wadding of his dressing-gown, +and still more impressively reminding him of her presence by putting out +a paw to intercept a warmed-over morsel of yesterday's chicken on its +way to the Doctor's mouth. After skilfully achieving this feat, she +scrambled down upon the breakfast-table and began to wash her face and +hands. Evidently, these companions were all three on intimate terms, as +was natural enough, since a great many childish impulses were softly +creeping back on the simple-minded old man; insomuch that, if no worldly +necessities nor painful infirmity had disturbed him, his remnant of life +might have been as cheaply and cheerily enjoyed as the early playtime of +the kitten and the child. Old Dr. Dolliver and his great-grand-daughter +(a ponderous title, which seemed quite to overwhelm the tiny figure of +Pansie) had met one another at the two extremities of the life-circle: +her sunrise served him for a sunset, illuminating his locks of silver +and hers of golden brown with a homogeneous shimmer of twinkling light. + +Little Pansie was the one earthly creature that inherited a drop of the +Dolliver blood. The Doctor's only child, poor Bessie's offspring, had +died the better part of a hundred years before, and his grandchildren, a +numerous and dimly remembered brood, had vanished along his weary track +in their youth, maturity, or incipient age, till, hardly knowing how it +had all happened, he found himself tottering onward with an infant's +small fingers in his nerveless grasp. So mistily did his dead progeny +come and go in the patriarch's decayed recollection, that this solitary +child represented for him the successive babyhoods of the many that had +gone before. The emotions of his early paternity came back to him. She +seemed the baby of a past age oftener than she seemed Pansie. A whole +family of grand-aunts, (one of whom had perished in her cradle, never so +mature as Pansie now, another in her virgin bloom, another in autumnal +maidenhood, yellow and shrivelled, with vinegar in her blood, and still +another, a forlorn widow, whose grief outlasted even its vitality, and +grew to be merely a torpid habit, and was saddest then,)--all their +hitherto forgotten features peeped through the face of the +great-grandchild, and their long inaudible voices sobbed, shouted, or +laughed, in her familiar tones. But it often happened to Dr. Dolliver, +while frolicking amid this throng of ghosts, where the one reality +looked no more vivid than its shadowy sisters,--it often happened that +his eyes filled with tears at a sudden perception of what a sad and +poverty-stricken old man he was, already remote from his own generation, +and bound to stray farther onward as the sole playmate and protector of +a child! + +As Dr. Dolliver, in spite of his advanced epoch of life, is likely to +remain a considerable time longer upon our hands, we deem it expedient +to give a brief sketch of his position, in order that the story may get +onward with the greater freedom when he rises from the breakfast-table. +Deeming it a matter of courtesy, we have allowed him the honorary title +of Doctor, as did all his towns-people and contemporaries, except, +perhaps, one or two formal old physicians, stingy of civil phrases and +over-jealous of their own professional dignity. Nevertheless, these +crusty graduates were technically right in excluding Dr. Dolliver from +their fraternity. He had never received the degree of any medical +school, nor (save it might be for the cure of a toothache, or a child's +rash, or a whitlow on a seamstress's finger, or some such trifling +malady) had he ever been even a practitioner of the awful science with +which his popular designation connected him. Our old friend, in short, +even at his highest social elevation, claimed to be nothing more than an +apothecary, and, in these later and far less prosperous days, scarcely +so much. Since the death of his last surviving grandson, (Pansie's +father, whom he had instructed in all the mysteries of his science, and +who, being distinguished by an experimental and inventive tendency, was +generally believed to have poisoned himself with an infallible panacea +of his own distillation,)--since that final bereavement, Dr. Dolliver's +once pretty flourishing business had lamentably declined. After a few +months of unavailing struggle, he found it expedient to take down the +Brazen Serpent from the position to which Dr. Swinnerton had originally +elevated it, in front of his shop in the main street, and to retire to +his private dwelling, situated in a by-lane and on the edge of a +burial-ground. + +This house, as well as the Brazen Serpent, some old medical books, and a +drawer full of manuscripts, had come to him by the legacy of Dr. +Swinnerton. The dreariness of the locality had been of small importance +to our friend in his young manhood, when he first led his fair wife over +the threshold, and so long as neither of them had any kinship with the +human dust that rose into little hillocks, and still kept accumulating +beneath their window. But, too soon afterwards, when poor Bessie herself +had gone early to rest there, it is probable that an influence from her +grave may have prematurely calmed and depressed her widowed husband, +taking away much of the energy from what should have been the most +active portion of his life. Thus he never grew rich. His thrifty +townsmen used to tell him, that, in any other man's hands, Dr. +Swinnerton's Brazen Serpent (meaning, I presume, the inherited credit +and good-will of that old worthy's trade) would need but ten years' time +to transmute its brass into gold. In Dr. Dolliver's keeping, as we have +seen, the inauspicious symbol lost the greater part of what superficial +gilding it originally had. Matters had not mended with him in more +advanced life, after he had deposited a further and further portion of +his heart and its affections in each successive one of a long row of +kindred graves; and as he stood over the last of them, holding Pansie by +the hand and looking down upon the coffin of his grandson, it is no +wonder that the old man wept, partly for those gone before, but not so +bitterly as for the little one that stayed behind. Why had not God taken +her with the rest? And then, so hopeless as he was, so destitute of +possibilities of good, his weary frame, his decrepit bones, his dried-up +heart, might have crumbled into dust at once, and have been scattered by +the next wind over all the heaps of earth that were akin to him. + +This intensity of desolation, however, was of too positive a character +to be long sustained by a person of Dr. Dolliver's original gentleness +and simplicity, and now so completely tamed by age and misfortune. Even +before he turned away from the grave, he grew conscious of a slightly +cheering and invigorating effect from the tight grasp of the child's +warm little hand. Feeble as he was, she seemed to adopt him willingly +for her protector. And the Doctor never afterwards shrank from his duty +nor quailed beneath it, but bore himself like a man, striving, amid the +sloth of age and the breaking-up of intellect, to earn the competency +which he had failed to accumulate even in his most vigorous days. + +To the extent of securing a present subsistence for Pansie and himself, +he was successful. After his son's death, when the Brazen Serpent fell +into popular disrepute, a small share of tenacious patronage followed +the old man into his retirement. In his prime, he had been allowed to +possess more skill than usually fell to the share of a Colonial +apothecary, having been regularly apprenticed to Dr. Swinnerton, who, +throughout his long practice, was accustomed personally to concoct the +medicines which he prescribed and dispensed. It was believed, indeed, +that the ancient physician had learned the art at the world-famous +drug-manufactory of Apothecary's Hall, in London, and, as some people +half-malignly whispered, had perfected himself under masters more subtle +than were to be found even there. Unquestionably, in many critical +cases he was known to have employed remedies of mysterious composition +and dangerous potency, which in less skilful hands would have been more +likely to kill than cure. He would willingly, it is said, have taught +his apprentice the secrets of these prescriptions, but the latter, being +of a timid character and delicate conscience, had shrunk from +acquaintance with them. It was probably as the result of the same +scrupulosity that Dr. Dolliver had always declined to enter the medical +profession, in which his old instructor had set him such heroic examples +of adventurous dealing with matters of life and death. Nevertheless, the +aromatic fragrance, so to speak, of the learned Swinnerton's reputation +had clung to our friend through life; and there were elaborate +preparations in the pharmacopoeia of that day, requiring such minute +skill and conscientious fidelity in the concocter that the physicians +were still glad to confide them to one in whom these qualities were so +evident. + +Moreover, the grandmothers of the community were kind to him, and +mindful of his perfumes, his rose-water, his cosmetics, tooth-powders, +pomanders, and pomades, the scented memory of which lingered about their +toilet-tables, or came faintly back from the days when they were +beautiful. Among this class of customers there was still a demand for +certain comfortable little nostrums, (delicately sweet and pungent to +the taste, cheering to the spirits, and fragrant in the breath,) the +proper distillation of which was the airiest secret that the mystic +Swinnerton had left behind him. And, besides, these old ladies had +always liked the manners of Dr. Dolliver, and used to speak of his +gentle courtesy behind the counter as having positively been something +to admire; though, of later years, an unrefined, an almost rustic +simplicity, such as belonged to his humble ancestors, appeared to have +taken possession of him, as it often does of prettily mannered men in +their late decay. + +But it resulted from all these favorable circumstances that the Doctor's +marble mortar, though worn with long service and considerably damaged by +a crack that pervaded it, continued to keep up an occasional intimacy +with the pestle; and he still weighed drachms and scruples in his +delicate scales, though it seemed impossible, dealing with such minute +quantities, that his tremulous fingers should not put in too little or +too much, leaving out life with the deficiency or spilling in death with +the surplus. To say the truth, his stanchest friends were beginning to +think that Dr. Dolliver's fits of absence (when his mind appeared +absolutely to depart from him, while his frail old body worked on +mechanically) rendered him not quite trustworthy without a close +supervision of his proceedings. It was impossible, however, to convince +the aged apothecary of the necessity for such vigilance; and if anything +could stir up his gentle temper to wrath, or, as oftener happened, to +tears, it was the attempt (which he was marvellously quick to detect) +thus to interfere with his long-familiar business. + +The public, meanwhile, ceasing to regard Dr. Dolliver in his +professional aspect, had begun to take an interest in him as perhaps +their oldest fellow-citizen. It was he that remembered the Great Fire +and the Great Snow, and that had been a grown-up stripling at the +terrible epoch of Witch-Times, and a child just breeched at the +breaking-out of King Philip's Indian War. He, too, in his school-boy +days, had received a benediction from the patriarchal Governor +Bradstreet, and thus could boast (somewhat as Bishops do of their +unbroken succession from the Apostles) of a transmitted blessing from +the whole company of sainted Pilgrims, among whom the venerable +magistrate had been an honored companion. Viewing their townsman in this +aspect, the people revoked the courteous Doctorate with which they had +heretofore decorated him, and now knew him most familiarly as Grandsir +Dolliver. His white head, his Puritan band, his threadbare garb, (the +fashion of which he had ceased to change, half a century ago,) his +gold-headed staff, that had been Dr. Swinnerton's, his shrunken, frosty +figure, and its feeble movement,--all these characteristics had a +wholeness and permanence in the public recognition, like the +meeting-house steeple or the town-pump. All the younger portion of the +inhabitants unconsciously ascribed a sort of aged immortality to +Grandsir Dolliver's infirm and reverend presence. They fancied that he +had been born old, (at least, I remember entertaining some such notions +about age-stricken people, when I myself was young,) and that he could +the better tolerate his aches and incommodities, his dull ears and dim +eyes, his remoteness from human intercourse within the crust of +indurated years, the cold temperature that kept him always shivering and +sad, the heavy burden that invisibly bent down his shoulders,--that all +these intolerable things might bring a kind of enjoyment to Grandsir +Dolliver, as the life-long conditions of his peculiar existence. + +But, alas! it was a terrible mistake. This weight of years had a +perennial novelty for the poor sufferer. He never grew accustomed to it, +but, long as he had now borne the fretful torpor of his waning life, and +patient as he seemed, he still retained an inward consciousness that +these stiffened shoulders, these quailing knees, this cloudiness of +sight and brain, this confused forgetfulness of men and affairs, were +troublesome accidents that did not really belong to him. He possibly +cherished a half-recognized idea that they might pass away. Youth, +however eclipsed for a season, is undoubtedly the proper, permanent, and +genuine condition of man; and if we look closely into this dreary +delusion of growing old, we shall find that it never absolutely succeeds +in laying hold of our innermost convictions. A sombre garment, woven of +life's unrealities, has muffled us from our true self, but within it +smiles the young man whom we knew; the ashes of many perishable things +have fallen upon our youthful fire, but beneath them lurk the seeds of +inextinguishable flame. So powerful is this instinctive faith that men +of simple modes of character are prone to antedate its consummation. And +thus it happened with poor Grandsir Dolliver, who often awoke from an +old man's fitful sleep with a sense that his senile predicament was but +a dream of the past night; and hobbling hastily across the cold floor to +the looking-glass, he would be grievously disappointed at beholding the +white hair, the wrinkles and furrows, the ashen visage and bent form, +the melancholy mask of Age, in which, as he now remembered, some strange +and sad enchantment had involved him for years gone by! + +To other eyes than his own, however, the shrivelled old gentleman looked +as if there were little hope of his throwing off this too artfully +wrought disguise, until, at no distant day, his stooping figure should +be straightened out, his hoary locks be smoothed over his brows, and his +much enduring bones be laid safely away, with a green coverlet spread +over them, beside his Bessie, who doubtless would recognize her youthful +companion in spite of his ugly garniture of decay. He longed to be gazed +at by the loving eyes now closed; he shrank from the hard stare of them +that loved him not. Walking the streets seldom and reluctantly, he felt +a dreary impulse to elude the people's observation, as if with a sense +that he had gone irrevocably out of fashion, and broken his connecting +links with the network of human life; or else it was that +nightmare-feeling which we sometimes have in dreams, when we seem to +find ourselves wandering through a crowded avenue, with the noonday sun +upon us, in some wild extravagance of dress or nudity. He was conscious +of estrangement from his towns-people, but did not always know how nor +wherefore, nor why he should be thus groping through the twilight mist +in solitude. If they spoke loudly to him, with cheery voices, the +greeting translated itself faintly and mournfully to his ears; if they +shook him by the hand, it was as if a thick, insensible glove absorbed +the kindly pressure and the warmth. When little Pansie was the companion +of his walk, her childish gayety and freedom did not avail to bring him +into closer relationship with men, but seemed to follow him into that +region of indefinable remoteness, that dismal Fairy-Land of aged fancy, +into which old Grandsir Dolliver had so strangely crept away. + +Yet there were moments, as many persons had noticed, when the +great-grandpapa would suddenly take stronger hues of life. It was as if +his faded figure had been colored over anew, or at least, as he and +Pansie moved along the street, as if a sunbeam had fallen across him, +instead of the gray gloom of an instant before. His chilled +sensibilities had probably been touched and quickened by the warm +contiguity of his little companion through the medium of her hand, as it +stirred within his own, or some inflection of her voice that set his +memory ringing and chiming with forgotten sounds. While that music +lasted, the old man was alive and happy. And there were seasons, it +might be, happier than even these, when Pansie had been kissed and put +to bed, and Grandsir Dolliver sat by his fireside gazing in among the +massive coals, and absorbing their glow into those cavernous abysses +with which all men communicate. Hence come angels or fiends into our +twilight musings, according as we may have peopled them in by-gone +years. Over our friend's face, in the rosy flicker of the fire-gleam, +stole an expression of repose and perfect trust that made him as +beautiful to look at, in his high-backed chair, as the child Pansie on +her pillow; and sometimes the spirits that were watching him beheld a +calm surprise draw slowly over his features and brighten into joy, yet +not go vividly as to break his evening quietude. The gate of heaven had +been kindly left ajar, that this forlorn old creature might catch a +glimpse within. All the night afterwards, he would be semi-conscious of +an intangible bliss diffused through the fitful lapses of an old man's +slumber, and would awake, at early dawn, with a faint thrilling of the +heart-strings, as if there had been music just now wandering over them. + + + + +CURRENCY. + + +It is not only for gold that men labor, fight, and die. One labors long +to perfect an invention; another, to illustrate a theory; a third, to +express a sentiment; a fourth, to acquire real estate. With success, the +first has a machine; the second, a treatise; the third, a poem; the +fourth, a deed. Perhaps no other four persons would willingly expend the +same amount of labor on the same objects; yet this difference of +estimate effects no difference in the objects. Estimation, therefore, or +value, is not a quality of those objects, but a state of mind in +relation to them; accordingly, the poem has value as well as the +machine,--the deed, as well as the wealth it defines. The value of the +deed is, however, widely different from that of the wealth. The value of +the wealth is based on desire, that of the deed on right, though in +neither case exclusively, as, in a general sense, value always involves +both desire and right, and is, therefore, a commercial relation, +resulting from a state of society. + +Men have the sense of right, and the intellect to define it, the will to +defend, and the power to enforce it; and, for the more perfect +development of these capabilities, they have instituted government. The +functions of government are, therefore, the definition, the defence, and +the enforcement of right. + +The exercise of the function of definition led to the invention of two +classes of commercial instrumentalities,--the real, consisting of +weights and measures, and the ideal or representative, consisting of +writing and notation. The exercise of the remaining functions of +government secures the wealth these serve to define. It may, indeed, be +true, in a rude sense, that possession is nine points of the law; but it +is equally true, in a proper sense, that the remaining point is worth +more than the nine; the defence and enforcement of right being an +absolute and well-defined rule of government. In a state of barbarism +men prefer fact to right, for an obvious reason; but as they advance in +science and civilization, as their conceptions become more distinct, +their definitions more exact, their defences more complete, and their +enforcements more powerful, their faith in right increases, and their +esteem increases with their faith, until right becomes of more value +than possession. + +Exchange, whether by barter or sale, is the result of differences of +estimate or value. By barter, the articles exchanged are themselves the +mediums; if, therefore, a given article be generally accepted to that +use, it becomes a common medium; and if it be divided by government into +well-defined quantities, suited and intended for that use, it becomes +money. Money, therefore, in its original form, is a common medium of +barter, that is accepted to that use by authority of law,--a medium +which, considered distinctly from that authority, is simply an article +of merchandise possessing qualities that make it preferable as a means +of barter, and which, for convenience of use, bears the stamp of the +government-inspector, defining the exact quantity contained in each +piece, but which, inasmuch as it is authorized, and partakes of the +nature of law, has ideal qualities that make it the means of sale: these +are, right of use, nomination, and numeration. The ideal qualities of +money serve to establish price, to create money of account, to make +credits possible, and ultimately to produce credit-mediums of exchange, +or bills, which, in a given form, though mere declarations of right to +the wealth they are said to represent, become, in the hands of a +civilized people, a species of currency that, with all its defects, has +proved itself to be the most effectual means both of commerce and of +government. + +Wealth is that which may be used. Value is that by means of which wealth +may be exchanged. A currency, therefore, should consist of +representatives of value,--of representatives, because value, being +ideal, is known only by that means,--of value, because it is only by +differences of estimate or value that exchanges are possible. But, as +these representatives are wholly nominal, and may, therefore, be issued +in any quantity, and as their increase or decrease affects the value of +credits, their issue requires regulation. The quantity of the currency +may be well regulated by finding the rate per head of population during +a favorable state of trade, and by adhering to that invariably. + +That the people of the United States have reached the degree of science +and civilization proper to the creation of such a currency is not yet +evident; but there is reason to believe that they will take the lead in +this as they have in some other actions indicative of advance,--that +they will erelong understand the impropriety of attempting to measure +value by means of merchandise, that is, by a means that is subject to +variations of quantity,--a conclusion that may not appear obvious in +this aspect, but it will be readily understood that in commerce a +variable measure is absurd in theory and intolerable in practice. Yet +this is precisely parallel with using gold, or any other article of +merchandise, as a measure of value. + +The elements of currency are value, a commercial relation derived from +persons, and quantity, a property of things derived heretofore from the +precious metals or their representatives. But this quantity is +inconstant, and to use an inconstant quantity as a measure, is absurd. +The quantity of the currency may, however, be rendered constant, both +positively and relatively, by deriving it wholly from persons,--that is, +by giving it an invariable quantitative relation to the population: a +rule that is both simple and easy of practice, because value is already +nominated and numerated, and the population is already sufficiently well +known. The divisions of the currency should be the simplest possible, +that is, binary, and the definitions of the parts should be as simple as +those of coins. + +With regard to the legal-tender currency, so called, it serves well for +temporary use,--much better, indeed, than any of its predecessors; and +as long as its promises are ignored, and as long as its quantity is not +increased faster than the increase of the population, it is practically +a value-currency, resting on its own inherent right of use, with the +exception of the limitation defined by the law of legal tender. + +One of the duties of the National Government is to supply the people +with a currency. That this is to be used is sufficiently obvious; and +that, being intended for use, and authorized by law, it has the right of +use, is equally obvious; there is, therefore, little need of a law of +legal tender to give it that right. Accordingly, however affirmative +such laws may be in form, their intention is not so much to bestow as to +withhold. + +That the currencies of the world have great defects is so well known +that the statement of the fact would be superfluous, except as +introductory to an attempt to ascertain the nature of those defects, and +to propose an adequate remedy,--an attempt suggested by the rapidity +with which the people, profiting by their present tuition, are learning +wisdom by the things which they suffer in the defence and enforcement of +right. + +Of a specie-currency the defect is want of constancy. This defect, +derived from its material element, has a particular and a general +aspect. The particular is the reduction of the quantity of metal in +coins. The Roman money-unit--the _as_--consisted originally of a pound +of bronze; that of England--the pound sterling--and that of France--the +livre--consisted each of a pound of silver. The first Punic war caused +the pound of bronze to be reduced to two ounces; the second caused its +further reduction to half an ounce; and what now is the weight of the +pound sterling? where now is the livre? and what of coins generally? +Like these individuals, types of the class, they depreciate. The general +aspect is, the occasional reduction of the quantity of coin in +circulation. The merchant, believing it to be more immediately +profitable, exports the coin,--that is, finding the currency to consist +of an article of merchandise that suits his immediate purpose, he treats +it accordingly,--though by so doing he causes a rise of prices where he +buys and a fall where he sells, and to that extent nullifies his own +business-intentions, and deranges those of others. If this derangement +be sufficient, hoarding commences; and as this action multiplies itself, +the currency is soon reduced to its minimum quantity, and business of +every kind with it, until the industry of the country is reduced to a +state of atrophy, until a mere commercial derangement is converted into +an immense loss; because the rise in the value of the currency, due to +its scarcity, causes a corresponding fall in the value of all the wealth +of the country, and thus checks industry and stays production. + +These defects are not pointed out for the purpose of preventing the +adoption of a specie-currency. There is no probability of such a +currency ever prevailing in this country, except in the neighborhood of +the mines, and there only for a time. Much is said about it, as is +usually the case with subjects that are little understood; but the +driblets of specie that may be seen occasionally are not a currency; +neither are those larger quantities held by banks and brokers. Indeed, a +specie-currency in the presence of bank-notes is an impossibility, +because the notes proclaim their own inferiority; consequently, the +specie is retained and the notes circulated. Yet, the operations of the +mint are continued, with the avowed object of creating a specie +currency. This practice is, however, of some use. It serves to show that +mind and matter are governed by the same general laws,--that either +being put in motion wilt continue to move in the given direction, though +the original intention may have ceased. That the original intention of +coining has ceased when the use of the precious metals is confined +almost exclusively to ornamentation and security is a plain case. + +The National Government issues coin for currency, and the States create +banks, with the privilege of using the coin as security, and of issuing +in its stead a larger quantity of notes. These, diluted in value to the +extent of the difference, form, with the authority derived from State +laws, a species of currency that, because of its great convenience, +derived from its representative character, has become, notwithstanding +its defects, one of the greatest powers known to man. The defects of a +bank-note currency are, that, being based on specie, it is necessarily +inconstant, and being insufficiently based, it is necessarily insecure. + +The precious metals are desired for three distinct uses,--ornamentation, +security, and currency; they have, therefore, three distinct elements of +value. By the creation of banks a portion of the currency is converted +into security, and another portion undergoes the same change by reason +of the insecurity of bank-notes. Thus, by the influence of banks, the +precious metals are deprived of most of the value they had as currency, +the specie and the notes depreciating together, and maintaining an +equilibrium of value, until the exportation of the former to countries +where its value is not thus impaired becomes profitable. Then, if the +notes continue to depreciate, as is sometimes the case, the equilibrium +is destroyed, and specie commands a premium. This causes the remainder +to be hoarded, so that it then commands an additional premium as +security, in view of the increasing insecurity of bank-notes. + +A result of the inconstancy of a bank-note currency is exhibited in each +of its several states,--as a diluted, as a depreciated, and as an +irredeemable currency; but more especially in this its third state. But +as it is not intended to be redeemed, except to a very limited extent, +and as these several states are proper to it, and differ only in degree, +it will be sufficient to point out the final result or climax. This is +depreciation in relation to specie, because of the demand for that +article, first for exportation, and then for security; and, at the same +time, appreciation in relation to every other article of merchandise, +because of the reduction of its own quantity, necessary to the +restoration of the lost equilibrium,--necessary to the reëstablishment +of its essential element, credit. Thus it appears that the results of a +bank-note currency are similar to those of a specie-currency, but as +much more disastrous as its expansions and contractions are greater and +more sudden. + +To avoid these disasters, it is proposed to issue a national currency +that is constant, and that is therefore a standard measure of value,--an +instrumentality that commerce has never yet been furnished with, though +it is the only one capable of affording to the industry of the country +proper, that is, invariable, encouragement. Not being empirical, it will +make no pretence of furnishing the precious metals at less than the +market-rate, either for exportation or hoarding; but it will have the +effect of reducing them to their true position, that of merchandise, so +that they may be exchanged for the products of other countries with +profit. For the same reason it will not be redeemable. To redeem a +currency is to replace it by another. What other? Specie? That is out of +the question. However desirable specie may be as wealth, as a currency, +except for change, it is a nuisance. Accordingly, merchants prefer a +representative currency, even though its representative character be +somewhat problematical. And government failing to supply a better, this +becomes the currency of the country by a species of necessity. In short, +because of its inconveniences and risks, specie is not used as a +currency, and will not be, because, in addition to these obstacles, the +representative currency in use, being without proper regulation, has +increased to such an extent that there is not sufficient coin to replace +it,--a fact that practically settles in the negative the question of the +sufficiency of the precious metals for currency, in addition to their +other use, in a country where civilization has established credit as a +means of trade. Nevertheless, a specie-currency is advocated even by +those who carefully avoid handling it, and who would be the last to +consent to such a reduction of the currency as its exclusive use would +require,--a confusion of mind due to the fact that the difference +between value and wealth is not always distinctly recognized. Moreover, +it is not the function of a currency to be replaced, but to be a means +of payment. This the proposed currency will be by right of use,--a right +inherent in a national currency, and respected as long as the government +respects itself, that is, as long as the people govern wisely. + +A dollar, value-currency, will always buy a dollar's worth of gold, but +it may not always buy the quantity of gold contained in the gold dollar. +How much it will buy depends on the quantitative relation of the +currency to the population,--a relation which, though entirely optional, +should never be changed, because, with whatever change, provided the +proper relation of the parts to the whole be preserved, with little +there will be no lack, and with much, there will be nothing over,--and +because any change of that relation is injurious to commerce, inasmuch +as it produces a corresponding change in the value of credits. And +assuming a change to have been made, a return to the former rate, +instead of being a mitigation, will be a repetition of the injury, +except in regard to credits so extended that they embrace both changes. +If, however, a reduction be insisted on, a suitable mode may be +proposed. Twenty dollars per head gives six hundred millions. Assuming +this quantity to be superabundant, if it be adhered to until the +population reaches forty millions, the rate will be fifteen dollars per +head, which may be assumed to be abundant. If it be adhered to until the +population reaches sixty millions, which it will probably do in one +generation, the rate will be ten dollars per head, which may be assumed +to be convenient; and any attained rate may be continued, or made +constant, by increasing the currency proportionately with the increase +of the population. This mode of reduction, however, is possible with a +national value-currency only. A specie-currency is incapable of +regulation. The same may be said of any currency based on specie. +Indeed, a credit-currency will necessarily collapse under a +superabundant issue, unless its promises be ignored, or unless it be +sustained at the expense of the nation,--an expense which the nation +itself cannot sustain permanently. + +The rate of the currency governs the value of wealth. It is important, +therefore, that government have time to pay its debts before any great +decrease of currency takes place; otherwise, that decrease will be +equivalent to an increase of taxes, without producing a corresponding +decrease of the public debt. For the portion payable in gold it will be +better economy to pay the premium than to reduce the currency +sufficiently to avoid it; because such a reduction will work a +corresponding reduction of the value of all the wealth of the country, a +sum much greater than the debt. It is scarcely necessary to suggest that +the more currency the less taxes, and the greater the ability to pay +them; or that, when the war is over, government will cease to spend +several hundred millions per annum, and the industry this money supports +will require time to rearrange and adapt itself to pacific demands; or +that, if the currency be suddenly and largely reduced at such a time, +an accumulation of distress will follow, such as is rarely seen. With +the proposed currency, however, and the proposed mode of reduction, if a +reduction be agreed on, the change from the condition of war to that of +peace may take place without producing the prostration of business so +justly anticipated, because so fully warranted by experience of a +credit-currency, and so earnestly to be deprecated, because so evidently +and so easily avoidable by the adoption of a national currency that is +capable of regulation, and that, being properly regulated, cannot fail. + +Though this currency, like that of bank-notes, is wholly nominal, the +words of which it consists are those of a nation, and represent power. +Accordingly, they give to the currency power to perform its allotted +function; but they give it no other power. Has any other currency any +other power? A specie-currency may be converted into ear-rings, but it +is no longer a currency; it may be buried in iron pots, or locked in +iron safes, but it is not then a currency; it may be exported to foreign +lands, but it is not there a currency until reauthorized. Currencies, +properly speaking, are ideas clothed in words,--the words of a nation, +otherwise called laws. The merchandise attached to a specie-currency is +an evidence of former barbarism,--a remain of the primitive practice of +barter,--an incongruous element, tending to impede rather than to assist +circulation, to destroy rather than to create a currency. + +But is a value-currency possible? It is, to a people enjoying universal +equality before the law, and knowing that every individual has a direct +and immediate interest in it,--knowing that it is a part of the +business-policy of each. And it is only such a people that will dare to +inaugurate, and persevere to sustain it. Nevertheless, as it cannot but +appear problematical to minds that have not given to the subject the +most earnest attention, its adoption will doubtless be most strenuously +opposed, by habits of thought, by modes of action, and by interests, as +ancient, as universal, and apparently as fixed as the race itself. Yet, +as M. Arago justly remarks in one of his biographies addressed to the +French Academy,--"The moral transformations of society are subject to +the laws of continuity; they rise and grow, like the productions of the +earth, by imperceptible gradations. Each century develops, discusses, +and adapts to itself, in some degree, truths--or, if you prefer it, +principles--of which the conception belonged to the preceding century; +this work of the mind usually goes on without being perceived by the +vulgar; but when the day of application arrives, when principles claim +their part in practice, when they aim at penetrating into political +life, the ancient interests, if they have only this same antiquity to +invoke in their favor, become excited, resist, and struggle, and society +is shaken to its foundations. The tableau will be complete, Gentlemen, +when I add, that, in these obstinate conflicts, it is never the +principles that succumb." + + + + +IN MEMORY OF + +J. W.--R. W. + + + No mystic charm, no mortal art + Can bid our loved companions stay; + The bands that clasp them to our heart + Snap in death's frost and fall apart; + Like shadows fading with the day, + They pass away. + + The young are stricken in their pride, + The old, long tottering, faint and fall; + Master and scholar, side by side, + Through the dark portals silent glide, + That open in life's mouldering wall + And close on all. + + Our friend's, our teacher's task was done, + When mercy called him from on high; + A little cloud had dimmed the sun, + The saddening hours had just begun, + And darker days were drawing nigh: + 'Twas time to die. + + A whiter soul, a fairer mind, + A life with purer course and aim, + A gentler eye, a voice more kind, + We may not look on earth to find. + The love that lingers o'er his name + Is more than fame. + + These blood-red summers ripen fast; + The sons are older than the sires; + Ere yet the tree to earth is cast, + The sapling falls before the blast; + Life's ashes keep their covered fires,-- + Its flame expires. + + Struck by the noiseless, viewless foe, + Whose deadlier breath than shot or shell + Has laid the best and bravest low, + His boy, all bright in morning's glow, + That high-souled youth he loved so well, + Untimely fell. + + Yet still he wore his placid smile, + And, trustful in the cheering creed + That strives all sorrow to beguile, + Walked calmly on his way awhile: + Ah, breast that leans on breaking reed + Must ever bleed! + + So they both left us, sire and son, + With opening leaf, with laden bough: + The youth whose race was just begun, + The wearied man whose course was run, + Its record written on his brow, + Are brothers now. + + Brothers!--the music of the sound + Breathes softly through my closing strain; + The floor we tread is holy ground, + Those gentle spirits hovering round, + While our fair circle joins again + Its broken chain. + + MAY 25th, 1864. + + + + +MEYERBEER. + + +"Thou knowest not the day nor the hour." Scarcely two years ago the +great composer, whose recent death involves so irreparable a loss to the +world of musical art, was accosted, while in a Paris coffee-house, by a +friend recently arrived from Berlin. + +"What do they say of me there?" asked Meyerbeer, after the first +salutations. + +"They say, with regret, that you are just now as reticent as Rossini." + +"Indeed!" + +"Yet, after all, they add that you are busier than Rossini, for he is +doing nothing, and you, at least, have an opera in your portfolio." + +"Ah! I see you are hinting about the 'Africaine'." + +"Yes, I refer to the 'Africaine'." + +"Bah! bah! The Parisians are in a great hurry about it. I am not dead +yet, and some fine day I will astonish them in a way they will +remember." + +Providence decreed that this harmless boast, this careless prediction, +should come to nought. While he was yet working on the "Africaine", the +hand of death interposed, and, at the cold touch, the pen was laid +aside, the music-paper dropped unheeded on the floor, the piano was +silent, and the composer left forever the scene of his labors and his +triumphs. Few men might, at the last hour, be more justified in +pleading, with earnest anxiety,--"Not now!--not now!" + +Biographers already differ about the date of Meyerbeer's birth, some +asserting that it took place in 1791, while the majority agree that the +day was September 5, 1794. Born of a rich family of Jewish bankers, he +was, at an early age, stimulated to honorable exertion by the success in +other pursuits of his brother William, the astronomer, and Michael, the +poet,--successes which, however, at this day, are chiefly remembered +from their association with the name made really famous by the composer. +His parents encouraged the talent of the youth, who, at as early an age +as Mozart himself, manifested plainly the possession of genius; and when +only five years old, the boy was placed under the instruction of Lanska, +a local celebrity of Berlin. Two years later, little Jacob was a fair +performer on the piano-forte, or such an instrument as at that time +served for the Érard, the Chickering, the Steinway of the present day. +He played, as a prodigy, at the most fashionable amateur-concerts given +at the Prussian capital; and a faded old copy of a Leipsic paper, which +bears the date of 1803, yet survives the destruction awarded to all old +newspapers, simply because it mentions the youthful prodigy--then nine +years old--as one of the best pianists of his native city. + +One of those charming old musical enthusiasts who nowadays are met with +only in Germany--and but seldom there--about this time visited Berlin. +He heard little Jacob play, and at once predicted that the boy would +"one day become one of the glories of Europe," To take lessons in the +theory of music was the advice of this old enthusiast, the Abbé Vogler. + +So the lad was transferred from the tuition of Lanska to that of Bernard +Anselm Weber, a former pupil of old Vogler, and at that time director of +the orchestra at the Berlin opera; and from this master the boy learned +the art of instrumentation and harmony, to a certain degree at least. +Weber was very fond of his pupil, and sent one of his fugues to Vogler, +to show the old man that he was not the only one able to turn out +accomplished scholars. Two months passed without any answer, and Weber +attributed the silence to jealousy, until, one day, a large roll arrived +at his house. It contained a complete "Treatise on the Fugue," written +entirely by the hand of the old master, and containing also a critical +analysis of little Jacob's work, exposing its errors, adding example to +precept, by contrasting with it a fugue written by the Abbé on the same +theme, and also subjecting the two compositions to a severe and logical +criticism, which only proved the superiority of the masterly hand over +the inexperienced. + +Little Jacob was less mortified by this incident than was his poor +teacher, Weber. He took the manuscript, and, after a faithful study of +its contents, wrote another eight-part fugue, which he sent himself to +Vogler. The result was precisely as he desired: he became a pupil of the +old musician. + +Among the central towns of Germany, few are more pleasing, and, perhaps, +none at all more utterly neglected, than Darmstadt. The capital of a +duchy, it contains a harmless, quiet little court, to which are attached +a court-church and a court-theatre, alternately attracting the attention +of the courtiers. The palace is a quaint old affair, on one side as +precise and finished as a modern Italian villa, but taking its revenge +by indulging on the opposite side in a series of wild irregularities as +incomprehensible as they are picturesque,--old towers, romantic +gateways, broken battlements, running ivies, and gay, green foliage, +uniting, in charming confusion, to form the most pleasing picture in the +dear, lazy old town. + +A year or two ago, the quiet, neglected little Darmstadt came +temporarily to the surface, and was seen of men. The Princess Alice of +England married the heir to the Duchy, and the event aroused (in England +especially) a natural curiosity as to the young lady's future home,--a +curiosity which has since quite died away. Darmstadt, about twenty years +ago, was also somewhat talked of in a distant Northern land; for from +the dull old Ducal palace went forth a pretty, delicate-looking girl, +who is now the wife of Alexander II, and the Empress of all the Russias. + +In the Darmstadt picture-gallery is an old painting of the city as it +was just one century ago,--in 1764. It was a very little and a very +shabby city then. People dressed in the most ridiculous of costumes, and +the picture shows His Serene Highness, arrayed in scarlet and yellow, +getting out of a very clumsy, gilded carriage, amid the adulation of +bowing and wigged courtiers. When Meyerbeer was there, however, +Darmstadt was much as it is to-day,--a city so quiet that you might +almost pitch your tent in the middle of the principal street, and sleep +undisturbed for a week at least. + +The Abbé Vogler was organist of the cathedral, an ugly, clumsy old +building, darkened by wide wooden galleries. Meyerbeer was a Jew, but +his parents were liberal enough to send him to the fireside of a +Christian, and the boy became an inmate of Vogler's house. For two +years he studied faithfully, and by that time was initiated, as he had +never been before, into the mysteries of counterpoint. For several years +after this he remained with Vogler, studying, working, composing, and +enjoying. + +Indeed, the biographer who shall give us a permanent "Life of Meyerbeer" +must recur to the composer's sojourn in Darmstadt as the most romantic +phase of his existence,--when, away from the pleasures and temptations +of a great capital, free from the demands of society, with nothing to +distract his mind from Art, he consecrated his young life to her +service. His few associates of his own age were devoted to the same +cause, and all were certainly inspired by a mutual emulation. But only +one of the little group, besides the subject of this sketch, has left a +name to be remembered,--and that is Carl Maria von Weber. The other two +may have had as noble aspirations, as untiring energy, as passionate +ambitions; but Fate had decreed that Godefroy von Weber and Gänsbacher +should never win the world's applause. Carl Maria and Meyerbeer were the +"cronies" of the little school. They were constantly together; they +built their air-castles with a view to future joint occupancy; they made +their boyish vows of eternal friendship. Among the papers of Weber was +found, after his death, one bearing the title, "Cantata, written by +Weber for the Birthday of Vogler, and set to Music by Meyerbeer." The +words of Weber, it is said, are better than the music of his friend. + +All these boys loved their old master, the Abbé, and knew no greater +pleasure than to enjoy his personal instructions. The duties of each day +were regular, simple, and gladly performed. The Abbé, in his capacity of +priest, began by celebrating a mass, at which Carl Maria von Weber +assisted, as little boys do in these times at every mass throughout the +land. Then, as a _maëstro_, the Abbé apportioned to each of his pupils +the task for the day,--the _Kyrie_, the _Sanctus_, or the _Gloria in +Excelsis_. Vogler himself joined in the task, and the completed +compositions were sent to the various church-choirs in the Duchy for +performance. In the twilight hours, there were strolls about the quiet +streets of Darmstadt, in the Ducal gardens, or among the tombstones of +an old churchyard in the suburbs of the city. Outside the town there was +really little to attract the pleasure-seeker, for Darmstadt lies in a +flat, cultivated plain, and its surroundings are tame and monotonous. On +Sundays they all went to the cathedral, where there were two organs. The +Abbé played one, and as he finished some masterly voluntary or some +scientific fugue, his pupils would in turn respond on the other +instrument, at times playing fanciful variations, on some theme given +out by their teacher, and again wandering in rich extemporaneous +harmonies over the old yellow keys. Who knows but that, in this way, the +quiet, phlegmatic congregation of the Darmstadt cathedral may have +heard, unheedingly, from the hand of Weber, sweet strains which +afterwards were elaborated in "Oberon" and "Der Freischütz"? or have +listened, with dreamy pleasure, to snatches of melody destined in future +years to be woven by Meyerbeer into the score of "Robert" or the +"Huguenots"? + +Thus the quiet music life at Darmstadt passed on, each of the four boys +living but for their art. Meyerbeer was the foremost in success; for, +when but seventeen years old, he wrote a religious _cantata_, called +"God and Nature," which, performed before the Duke, secured to him the +title of Composer to the Court. In 1811 a still greater excitement +disturbed the serenity of Meyerbeer's period of study. Vogler closed his +school, and started with his scholars on a tour through the principal +cities of Germany. Each of the young composers carried with him a +portfolio of original compositions, though they were generous enough to +consider a manuscript opera by Meyerbeer, called "The Vow of Jephthah," +as the ablest work, and at Munich aided heartily in preparing it for +the stage. In this critical Bavarian capital Meyerbeer made his first +appeal to public favor as an operatic composer,--and failed. He was not +hissed or ridiculed, but "The Vow of Jephthah" fell coldly on the +audience, and was shortly withdrawn. + +Doubting whether he was destined to succeed as a composer, Meyerbeer +went to Vienna, a city not unfrequently called by musicians Pianopolis, +and there he heard Hummel play the piano. He had already taken a few +lessons of Clementi, but no sooner did he listen to the former master +than he recognized his own inefficiency, and saw work before him. He +determined to unite in himself, as a pianist, the brilliancy of +execution of Clementi, and the charm, the grace, and purity of Hummel's +style. He succeeded, and made his _début_ at a concert at Vienna with +the most flattering applause. At this day the amateur would give much to +hear exactly how such men as Meyerbeer, and Hummel, and Clementi played, +and to compare them with Thalberg, Gottschalk, and Satter. It is +impossible to say in what respects Meyerbeer may have fallen behind or +surpassed these accomplished executants; but certain it is, that, in the +beginning of the present century, and while scarce out of his teens, the +favorite pupil of the Abbé Vogler was the favorite pianist of the Vienna +public. + +Yet, after all his triumphs in the concert-room, he yearned for the +greater triumphs of the stage, and leaving the piano to his renowned +successors, Chopin and Liszt, he turned again to composing. He wrote an +opera called "The Two Caliphs," which, like his previous effort, was +replete with strange harmonies, very sparing in melody, and met with the +same (lack of) success. The celebrated Metternich--an authority in Art +as well as in diplomacy--was present at the production of "The Two +Caliphs," but only once ventured to applaud. The old master, Vogler, and +the dearer friend, Von Weber, still encouraged the young composer with +their approbation, and only blamed a stupid audience that would not +discern the beauties appreciable by their sharper ears. + +Meyerbeer had good sense, and with a modesty perhaps more unusual in a +musician than in any one else, he was disposed rather to blame himself +than the public. A prominent amateur composer of Vienna--Salieri by +name--advised him to go to Italy; and to Venice, as the nearest point, +he hastened without delay. + +In these days of universal travel, when every tourist can talk glibly of +the different theatres and composers of the Old World, it seems almost +incredible that a young man of wealth and taste like Meyerbeer should +not have visited Italy till almost forced to do so. Yet such was the +case. Meyerbeer was a man of one idea, and that idea was music. No +journey which had any other object possessed attractions for him. To the +influences of history, to the grandeur of that land which should not be +named without an almost holy veneration, he was quite indifferent. It +was not the Cæsars that drew him to Italy, nor the Popes, nor the +Raphaels, nor the Michel Angelos,--it was Rossini and the modern opera. + +At that time the composer of "Semiramide" was at the height of his +popularity, and Meyerbeer heard "Tancredi," and for the first time felt +the delicious fascination of Italian melody. He determined to transplant +it into the rugged soil of his own masculine musical science; and three +years after the Rossinian revelation at Venice, his first Italian opera, +"Romilda e Costanza," was produced at that dismal old metropolis of +necromancy, Padua, Signora Pisaroni taking the principal part. It +pleased, as did his next work, "Semiramide Riconosciuta," produced at +Turin, though neither was so successful as his "Emma di Risburgo," first +heard at Venice, and for some time a rival in popularity to "Tancredi." + +At this period Meyerbeer adopted the name of Giacomo,--the Italian +translation of Jacob,--which he ever after retained. His true name was +Meyer Liebmann Beer, but he suppressed the Liebmann, because that word +in German, when joined with Beer, could by weak punsters be translated +into "a philanthropic bear"; so he Italianized his pre-nomen, dropped +his middle name, and joined the two other words in one,--the result of +all these liberties in nomenclature being "Giacomo Meyerbeer." + +Thus, doubly armed with an Italian name and an Italian reputation, he +returned to Germany, but was coldly welcomed. Even Weber charged him +with being a renegade to the cause of German Art, and, while "Emma di +Risburgo" was played at one of the Berlin theatres, had "The Two +Caliphs" revived at another. Meyerbeer thus could have heard his two +styles of composition exemplified in the same night. Weber, indeed, +always looked upon Meyerbeer's Italian operas as a sad falling away from +grace, and in a letter written to his brother, Godefroy,--the fourth of +the little group of Darmstadt students,--says,-- + +"Meyerbeer has promised on his return to Berlin to write a German opera. +God be praised for it! I appealed strongly to his conscience in the +matter." + +Returning to Italy, Meyerbeer produced "Margherita d' Angiu" at La +Scala, Milan, following it with "L'Esule di Granata"; and then in 1824 +Venice saw and heard the "Crociato." This last opera made the tour of +the world, carried the name of the composer to every place where musical +art was cultivated, and won for Meyerbeer, from the distant Emperor of +Brazil, the decoration of the Cross of the South. + +In Paris alone--Paris, which afterwards made such an idol of the +composer--did the "Crociato" fail to meet with immediate success. In +nonsense and folly it may be truly said of the Parisians that "a little +child shall lead them"; and so it happened on this occasion. In the +admirable quartette of the second act a child is introduced, as in +"Norma," to awaken the sympathies of an untractable tenor papa. This +juvenile, by no means a young Apollo, took not the slightest interest in +the music, and was so indifferent to the publicity of the situation, so +utterly _blasé_, (and sleepy,) as to yawn during the most affecting +passages. At the first yawn, the audience smiled; the _prima donna_, +proceeding with her part, exclaimed in tragic Italian, "Restrain thy +tears!"--and the child gaped again for the second time, while the +audience grinned. "Heaven will comfort thee!" shrieked the +singer,--whereat the child gave such a prodigious yawn that the house +burst into laughter, and the vocalist could not finish the piece. + +In 1827 Meyerbeer married, and retired from public life for a while. Two +of the children born to him died, their loss casting so deep a shade on +his soul that for nearly two years he composed only religious music to +words selected from the Book of Psalms, or written by Klopstock. He also +wrote a collection of melodies, among them an elegy entitled "At the +Tomb of Beethoven." But erelong the glorious old instinct for operatic +composition returned. On the seventeenth of September, 1829, M. Lubbert, +then director of the opera, received a letter couched in these terms:-- + + "_17 Septembre, 1829_. + + "J'ai l'honneur de vous prévenir, Monsieur, que par décision + de ce jour j'ai accordé à M. Meyerbeer, compositeur, ses + entrées à l'Académie Royale de Musique.... + + "L'Aide-de-Camp du Roi, + + "Directeur-Général des Beaux-Arts, + + "VICOMTE DE LAROCHEFOUCAULD." + +And two years later, on the twenty-first of September, 1831, Dr. Véron, +the successor of Lubbert, opened his doors for the first performance of +"Robert le Diable." This wonderful and popular opera was written in +French, to a _libretto_ sent to Berlin by Scribe, and was at first +intended for the Opéra Comique, but its three acts were subsequently +increased to five, and its destination changed to the Grand Opéra. +Meyerbeer himself had to bear much of the expense of preparing the +stage-appointments, though not to such an extent as on the production of +his "Romilda" in Italy, when he bought the _libretto_, gave the music +gratis, paid the singers, and provided the costumes. + +Dr. Véron, in his Memoirs, gives an amusing account of the accidents +which attended the first production of "Robert." In the third act, a +chandelier fell, and the _prima donna_ Dorus had a narrow escape from +being hit by the falling glass; after the chorus of demons, a cloud, +rising from the cave to hide the stage, reached a certain elevation, and +then, giving way, tumbled on the boards, nearly striking Taglioni the +dancer, who, as _Elena_, was extended on her tomb, ready for the next +scene; and in the last act, Nourrit, the _Robert_ of the evening, in the +excitement of the moment, leaped down the trap-door by which Levasseur +(the _Bertram_) had just disappeared. This last event received different +interpretations. On the stage there was alarm and weeping, because it +was then thought Nourrit in his leap had been killed or maimed; by the +audience it was supposed that the author intended _Robert_ should share +with _Bertram_ the infernal regions; while _under_ the stage Levasseur +greeted the tenor with mingled surprise and disgust:--"_Que diable +faites vous ici? Est ce qu'on a changé le dénouement?_" Luckily, Nourrit +was unhurt, the curtain was raised again, the singers made their +conventional acknowledgments, and the names of the authors were +announced amid the wildest enthusiasm. + +After that night Meyerbeer had to pay no more money to get his operas on +the stage. The tables were so completely turned that he thenceforth +could command almost any price he chose to ask. To follow his career +more minutely, after this period of his emergence into the bright light +of fame, would be but to recount a story with which almost every one is +familiar. + +The "Huguenots" was the next opera, and it was produced only after +infinite delays; indeed, just before the rehearsal, Madame Meyerbeer +fell ill, and her husband decided to convey her to Italy. He took the +music from the orchestra desks, forfeited a fine of thirty thousand +francs, and a few hours later he and his "Huguenots" were on the way to +Nice. When finally produced at Paris, this opera was as well received as +the "Robert." It appears, that, after the first general rehearsal, +Nourrit, the tenor, found fault with the sublime music of the fourth +act. Meyerbeer returned home in a very unpleasant frame of mind, and +told his troubles to the friend with whom he lodged. "If I only had," +said he, "a few stanzas to arrange as an _andante_ and _duo_, all would +be right. But I cannot ask Scribe to add more verses." The friend +immediately called a literary acquaintance, Émile Deschamps, who was +playing cards in a neighboring _café_, explained to him the situation, +and in a few minutes the verses were written. It was about midnight, and +the composer, seating himself at the piano with the words before him, in +a fever of inspiration threw out the splendid _duo_ between _Raoul_ and +_Valentine_ which closes the act, and which always equally enchants +performers and audience; and when this music was performed at the next +rehearsal, the orchestra, players, and vocalists carried the composer in +triumph on the stage to receive their spontaneous plaudits and +congratulations, while Nourrit embraced him with tears of delight. + +Eight years later came another triumph of elaborate Art in "Le +Prophète," a work which is generally underrated by the leading French +critics, though it contains many of the very noblest inspirations of the +genius of Meyerbeer. To this opera followed "L'Ètoile du Nord," and "Le +Pardon de Ploermel," while to these will soon follow "L'Africaine," so +long promised, and in behalf of which the composer was visiting Paris at +the time of his death. The score of the opera has been completed since +1860. + +On Friday, the twenty-second of April last, Meyerbeer dined alone at his +residence, his meal being, as usual, very frugal. On Saturday, the +twenty-third of April, he felt unwell, but a physician was not sent for +till the next week, and in the mean time Meyerbeer was busy +superintending the copyists engaged in his house on the score of +"L'Africaine," for which he had, instead of his customary orchestral +introduction, just written a long overture. On the following Sunday, the +first of May, his disorder, which was internal, grew worse, and his +weakness increased so that he became almost irritable about it,--he was +so anxious to continue at the work of the orchestration of his new +opera, and so annoyed by the illness which prevented him. His family +were sent for by telegraph, but were mostly too late to hold converse +with him; for on Sunday night, before they arrived, he turned in his bed +and bade them farewell with a faint smile, as he said, "I now bid you +good-night till to-morrow morning." These were his last words; for when +the morning was come, and daylight peered into the windows of the tall +house at Paris, he was shadowed by the mystery of that night which +awaits a resurrection-morning. + +Among his papers in his travelling-portfolio was found a packet marked, +"To be opened after death," containing directions, written in German, of +which the following is a literal translation:-- + + * * * * * + +"I desire the following details to be observed after my decease. + +"I wish to be left lying on my bed, with my face exposed to view, just +as I was previously to my death, for four days, and on the fifth day to +have incisions made in the brachial artery and in the foot. After this, +my body is to be conveyed to Berlin, where I wish to be interred in the +tomb of my dearly beloved mother. Should there be no room, I beg that I +may be laid by the side of my two dear children, who died at a very +early age. + +"Should I happen to die far from those related to me, the same measures +are to be pursued, and two attendants are to watch my body day and night +to see whether I do not give any signs of life. + +"If, owing to any particular circumstances, it is necessary to take me +to a dead-house, I desire, that, according to custom, little bells shall +be fastened to my hands and feet, in order to keep the attendants on the +alert. + +"Having always feared being buried alive, my object in giving the above +directions is to prevent the possibility of any return of life. + +"The will of God be done, and His name sanctified and blessed in heaven +and on earth! Amen!" + + * * * * * + +All these directions were complied with; while the funeral +arrangements--in Paris at least--were very theatrical and "Frenchy," +though at Berlin they were conducted with greater dignity. The line of +procession, led by a band playing extracts from Meyerbeer's music, +passed the Opéra Comique and the Grand Opéra, both of which were dressed +in black. Auber was among the pall-bearers, and Gounod among the +mourners. Behind the coffin were carried on a cushion the various +decorations with which sovereigns and societies had decked the composer. +At the Northern Railway station, (also draped in mourning,) orations +were delivered, _and applauded_ by the listeners, and sometimes +interrupted by the impatient steam-whistles of departing trains. An +incident of the funeral was the decoration of the _catafalque_ with a +silver cross: Meyerbeer was a Jew, and the inconsistency was not noticed +till there was barely time to tear away the Christian emblem before the +body of the Israelite composer was laid in its place. That same night, +at the Grand Opéra, the "Huguenots" was performed, and never did Sax, +Gueymard, Faure, and Beisal sing or act with greater effect. After the +fourth act the curtain was raised; and while the orchestra played the +Coronation March from the "Prophète," the bust of the composer was +crowned with laurel by the performers. + +The family, in accordance with the curious European custom, sent around +to their friends a circular worded as follows:-- + + "Sir,--Madame Meyerbeer (widow); Mlles. Cécile and Cornélie + Meyerbeer; the Baron and Baroness De Korf, and Son; M. and + Madame Georges Beer; M. and Madame Jules Beer and Children; + M. and Madame Alexandre Oppenheim; M. and Madame S. de + Haber, Madlle. Laure de Haber; and Madlle. Anna Eberty, have + the honor to announce to you the sad loss they have just + suffered by the death of M. Giacomo Meyerbeer, their + husband, father, father-in-law, grandfather, uncle, and + great-uncle, who died at Paris on the 2nd May, 1864, aged + seventy-two." + +Meyerbeer was, up to the last, full of plans for the future, and while +getting "L'Africaine" ready was looking for the _libretto_ of a comic +opera to compose "for amusement," as a repose between grander works. It +is said that he has left another completed opera, on the Biblical story +of Judith and Holofernes; and he also had a vague idea of writing a +grand historical opera on an English subject, the idea having been +suggested by a visit to the Princess Theatre, London, when Charles Kean +was playing, with unusual scenic accessories, Shakspeare's "Henry VIII." +The proposed opera was to have been equally as grand a work as the +"Huguenots," and the peculiarities of old English music--the style of +melody of Locke, Purcell, and Arne--were to have been imitated with that +skill of which Meyerbeer was so eminently a master. He never would write +an oratorio, because he had no hope of excelling Mendelssohn in that +branch of musical art. His last composition was an aria written to +Italian words for a Spanish lady-friend, the Señorita Zapater; and he +was about to arrange the accompaniment for the orchestra when his last +illness came on. + +Personally, Giacomo Meyerbeer had many characteristics which were not +inviting. He was fond of money, yet willing to lavish it whenever Art +demanded the sacrifice. He took snuff, and wore green spectacles, was +careless, often shabby in his dress, and would stroll through the +streets of Paris wearing a wretched hat, inwardly composing music as he +walked along; on grand occasions, however, he would go to the opposite +extreme in matters of toilet, and appear radiant with the numerous +decorations presented to him by the different sovereigns of Europe. He +knew the power of the press, and was not too delicate to invite the +leading critics to elaborate dinners at the Trois Frères the night +before a first performance. + +It is not intended here to enter into a critical or scientific analysis +of Meyerbeer as a composer. As far as the present development of Art +would indicate, his name seems to us destined to go down to posterity +encircled by a fadeless halo of glory; and at the same time we must +remember that there have been other composers who, though now forgotten, +yet in their time and at their death have similarly impressed their +contemporaries. But certain it is, that, in our day and generation, and +at least during the life of every one now existing, the fame of +Meyerbeer will be brilliant indeed, and the music of the "Robert," the +"Huguenots," and the "Prophète" will challenge the admiration and love +of all susceptible to the influence of the grandest and noblest strains +that musical science has yet evoked. + + + + +THE MAY CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. + + +There are few months in the calendar of centuries that will have a more +conspicuous place in history than the month of May, 1864. It will be +remembered on account of the momentous events which have taken place +during the present military operations. It inaugurates one of the +greatest campaigns of history. We who are in it are amazed, not by its +magnitude merely, for there have been larger armies, heavier trains of +artillery, greater preparations, in European warfare,--but we are +overwhelmed by a succession of events unparalleled for rapidity. We +cannot fully comprehend the amount of endurance, the persistency, the +hard marching, the harder fighting, the unwearied, cheerful energy and +effort which have carried the Army of the Potomac from the Rappahannock +to the Chickahominy in thirty days, against the stubborn opposition of +an army of almost equal numbers. There has not been a day of rest, +scarcely an hour of quiet. Morning, noon, and midnight, the booming of +cannon and the rattling of musketry have echoed unceasingly through the +Wilderness, around the hillocks of Spottsylvania, along the banks of the +North Anna, and among the groves of Bethesda Church and Coal Harbor. + +A brief _résumé_ of the campaign, thus far developed, is all that can be +attempted in the space assigned me. I must pass by the efforts of +individuals, as heroic and soul-stirring as those of the old Cavaliers +renowned in story and song, where all the energies of life are centred +in one moment,--the spirited advance of regiments, the onset of +brigades; and the resistless charges of divisions. I can speak only of +the movements of corps, without dwelling upon those scenes which stir +the blood and fire the soul,--the hardihood, the endurance, the cool, +collected, reserved force, abiding the time, the calm facing of death, +the swift advance, the rush, the plunge into the thickest of the fight, +where hundreds of cannon, where fifty thousand muskets, fill the air +with iron hail and leaden rain! + + +THE GENERAL PLAN. + +The army wintered between the Rappahannock and the Rapidan. There had +been a reduction and reconstruction of its corps,--an incorporation of +the First and Third with the Fifth and Sixth, with reinforcements added +to the Second. The Second was commanded by Major-General Hancock, the +Fifth by Major-General Warren, the Sixth by Major-General Sedgwick. No +definite statement of the number of men composing the army can be given, +for the campaign is not yet ended; and no aid or comfort, no information +of value to the enemy, can be tendered through the columns of the loyal +"Atlantic." + +These three corps, with three divisions of cavalry commanded by General +Sheridan, composed the Army of the Potomac, commanded by Major-General +Meade. The Ninth Corps, commanded by Major-General Burnside, was added +when the army took up its line of march. + +There was concentration everywhere. General Gillmore, with what troops +could be spared from the department of the South, joined his forces to +those already on the Peninsula and at Suffolk; Sigel had several +thousand in the Shenandoah; Crook and Averell had a small army in +Western Virginia; while at Chattanooga, under Sherman and Thomas, was +gathered a large army of Western troops. + +The _dramatis personæ_ were known to the public, but the part assigned +to each was kept profoundly secret. There was discussion and speculation +whether Burnside, from his encampment at Annapolis, would suddenly take +transports and go to Wilmington, or up the Rappahannock, or the James, +or the York, uniting his forces with Butler's. Would Meade move +directly across the Rapidan and attack Lee in front, with every passage, +every hill and ravine enfiladed by Rebel cannon? Or would he move his +right flank along the Blue Ridge, crowding Lee to the seaboard? Would he +not make, rather, a sudden change of base to Fredericksburg? None of the +wise men, military or civil, in their speculations, indicated the line +which General Grant adopted. The public accepted the disaster at +Chancellorsville and the failure at Mine Run as conclusive evidence that +a successful advance across the Rapidan by the middle fords was +impossible, or at least improbable. So well was the secret kept, that, +aside from the corps commanders, none in or out of the army, except the +President and Secretary of War, had information of the line of march +intended. + +We know now how General Burnside marched to Washington, contrary to the +expectations of the public; how his troops passed in review before the +President,--a few veterans, with Roanoke, Newbern, all the seven days +before Richmond, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Vicksburg, and Knoxville on +their tattered ensigns; how they were cheered by the crowd; how, +following them, came a division for the first time shouldering a musket +for their country,--who till a year ago never had a country,--who even +now, although Americans, are not citizens,--disfranchised, yet fighting +for the flag,--beholding now for the first time the careworn, yet +benevolent face of their benefactor, and rending the air with their +hurrahs. There was swinging of hats, waving of handkerchiefs and +banners. They marched to victory or certain death. For them there was no +surrender, after the massacres of Milliken's Bend, Plymouth, and Fort +Pillow. + +We know how Butler went up to White House, and then suddenly down the +York and up the James to Bermuda Hundred. We know of the movements of +Sigel and Crook and Averell,--minor, yet important in the general plan. +We have had the victorious march of Sherman, flanking and defeating +Johnston. All these movements were parts of the well-considered plan of +operations. + +The expedition of General Banks up the Red River was in process of +execution when General Grant was appointed Commander-in-Chief of all the +forces in the field. He sent a messenger recalling it; but, through some +miscarriage or misconception of orders, or from some cause yet +unexplained, the expedition kept on its way, resulting in disaster. The +withdrawal of the gunboats which had been demonstrating off Mobile, and +the departure of troops from the Mississippi, enabled General Johnston +to gather all the forces of the Southwest in front of Sherman. General +Grant designed that General Banks, with troops and flotilla, should +suddenly fall upon Mobile, front and rear. If the works were carried by +assault, then gunboats and transports could appear at Montgomery, +flanking Johnston. It would be the thrusting of a probe deep into the +tenderest and sorest parts of the Confederate body-politic. It would +sever Alabama and Mississippi from the other Rebel States. Or, if +failing in the assault, it would at least compel Johnston to send back +the troops withdrawn, thus making it easy work for Sherman. + +The failure of any part in a concerted movement affects all other parts. +General Banks not appearing at Mobile has retarded Sherman. The failure +of Butler to close the Southern portal, and the defeat of Sigel, who, +instead of knocking loudly at the back-door of the Rebel capital, was +himself knocked back, have enabled Lee to concentrate all his troops +against the Army of the Potomac. Finnegan's troops from Florida, +Beauregard's from Charleston, Pickett's from North Carolina, Buckner's +from Western Virginia, and Breckenridge's from the Shenandoah, at the +close of the month, are fighting against General Grant at Coal Harbor. + +These are the general features of the campaign as a whole; but, separate +and distinct from the movements of all other armies and bodies of men, +are the operations of the Army of the Potomac, which has a campaign of +its own,--forever memorable! + + +LEFT-FLANK MOVEMENTS. + +There have been four movements by the left flank:-- + +From Culpepper to Wilderness. + +From Wilderness to Spottsylvania. + +From Spottsylvania to the North Anna. + +From the North Anna to the Chickahominy. + +It has been a month of marching and fighting,--fighting and +marching,--day and night,--night and day,--winning no great, decisive +victory, nor suffering defeat, yet getting nearer the while to Richmond, +and compelling the enemy to choose new positions or be cut off from his +capital. + +The accompanying diagram will convey to the eye the relative movements +of the two armies,--General Grant moving on the arcs of the circles, as +represented by the dotted lines, and Lee upon the chords of the arcs, as +indicated by the continuous lines. + +[ILLUSTRATION: + + C. Culpepper. + O. Orange Court-House. + W. Wilderness. + S. Spottsylvania. + N. A. North Anna. + C. H. Coal Harbor. + E. Richmond.] + + +FROM CULPEPPER TO WILDERNESS. + +On Tuesday afternoon, May 3d, the cavalry broke camp on the Orange and +Alexandria railroad, and moved eastward,--General Gregg's division +toward Ely's Ford, and General Wilson's division towards Germanna Ford, +each having pontoons. At midnight the Second Corps, which had been +encamped east of Culpepper, followed General Gregg. At daylight on the +morning of the 4th of May, the Fifth and Sixth Corps and the reserve +artillery were moving towards Germanna Ford. The supply-train--sixty +miles in length, eight thousand wagons--followed the Second Corps. There +were but these two available roads. + +The enemy was at Orange Court-House, watching, from his elevated lookout +on Clark's Mountain, for the first sign of change. In the light of the +early dawn he saw that the encampments at Culpepper were broken up, +while the dust-cloud hanging over the forest toward the east was the +sure indication of the movement. + +General Lee put his army in instant motion to strike the advancing +columns as they crossed the Rapidan. The movement of Grant was +southeast, that of Lee northeast,--lines of advance which must produce +collision, unless Grant was far enough forward to slip by the angle. +There is reason to believe that General Grant did not intend to fight +Lee at Wilderness, but that it was his design to slip past that point +and swing round by Spottsylvania, and, if possible, get between Lee and +Richmond. He boldly cut loose his connection with Washington, and sailed +out into the unknown and untried, relying upon the ability of his +soldiers to open a new base for supplies whenever needed. + +In this first day's movement he did not uncover Washington. Burnside was +still lying on the north bank of the Rappahannock. It was understood in +the army that the Ninth Corps was to be a reserve to protect the +capital. So, perhaps, Lee understood it. But at nightfall, on the 4th, +the shelter-tents are folded, and the men of the Ninth, with six days' +rations in their haversacks, are on the march along the forest-road, +lighted only by the stars, joining the main army at Germanna Ford on the +morning of the 5th. + +Although the movement of the troops was well timed, and the march made +with great rapidity, the trains were delayed, and it was not possible +for General Grant to swing past the enemy advancing upon his flank. + +Early in the morning of the 5th, Generals Meade and Grant, with their +staffs, after riding five miles from Germanna Ford, halted near the old +mill in the Wilderness. General Sheridan's cavalry had been pushing out +south and west. Aids came back with despatches. + +"They say that Lee intends to fight us here," said General Meade, as he +read them. + +"Very well," was the quiet reply of General Grant. + +The two commanders retire a little from the crowd, and stand by the +road-side in earnest conversation. Grant is of medium stature, yet has a +well-developed _physique_, sandy whiskers and moustache, blue eyes, +earnest, thoughtful, and far-seeing, a cigar in his mouth, a knife in +one hand, and a stick in the other, which he is whittling to a point. He +whittles slowly towards him. His thoughts are not yet crystallized. His +words are few. Suddenly he commences upon the other end of the stick, +and whittles energetically from him. His mind is made up,--his plan +matured. He is less reticent,--talks freely. He is dressed in plain +blue; and were it not for the three stars upon his shoulder, few would +select him as the Lieutenant-General commanding all the armies of the +Union in the field. + +Meade is tall, thin, a little stooping in the shoulders, quick, +comprehending the situation of affairs in an instant, energetic,--an +officer of excellent executive ability. + + +THE BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS. + +At the old Wilderness tavern the Stevensburg plank-road leading +southeast from Germanna Ford crosses the Orange and Fredericksburg +turnpike. Five miles beyond the tavern is Wilderness Church, at the +junction of the Stevensburg with the Orange and Fredericksburg +plank-road. Near by is the Brock road, which leads south to +Spottsylvania Court-House. West of the old tavern, four miles on the +turnpike, is Parker's store. In the early morning, General Ewell's +brigades appeared in line of battle at the store, on both sides of the +turnpike, while General A. P. Hill's corps was found to be pushing +rapidly eastward along the Orange plank-road, to gain the junction of +the roads at Old Church. Longstreet was following Hill. + +The Second Corps, which had crossed at Ely's Ford, was already on the +move towards Spottsylvania. A recall was sent, also orders directing +Hancock to hold the junction of the roads. The Fifth Corps was thrown +out upon the turnpike towards Parker's store. The Sixth was moved up +from the Germanna road, west, into the woods, and placed in position to +cover all approaches to the ford. The Ninth arrived during the day, and +moved into the gap between the Fifth and Second. Divisions were moved to +the right, to the left, and to the centre, during the two days' fight, +but the positions of the corps remained unchanged. + +[Illustration: + + 2. Second Corps. + 5. Fifth Corps. + 6. Sixth Corps. + 9. Ninth Corps. + T. Old Tavern. + C. Old Church. + P. Parker's Store. + == Rebel Lines.] + +Standing by the old tavern and looking west, you see the line of battle. +At your feet is a brook flowing from the southwest to the northeast, and +there is another smaller stream joining its waters at the crossing of +the roads. Beyond the bridge the turnpike crosses a ridge of land. On +the southern slope is the house of Major Lucy, with a smooth lawn, and +meadows green with the verdure of spring. Beyond the meadows are hills +wooded with oaks, pines, and cedar-thickets. At the right hand of the +turnpike the ridge is closely set with pines and cedars. Farther out it +breaks down into a ravine. Ewell has the western slope, and Warren with +the Fifth Corps the eastern, with the Sixth on his right. + +It is a mixture of tall trees and small underbrush,--dense, almost +impenetrable. There are hills, knolls, dells, dark ravines. It is a +battle-ground for Indians, but one not admitting of the military +movements,--of advance by columns, or lines, as laid down in the books. + +The battle commenced on Thursday afternoon and closed Saturday morning. +It was fierce, terrible, bloody, and yet indecisive. It was one unbroken +roll of musketry. There was a hostile meeting of two hundred thousand +men. There were bayonet-charges, surgings to and fro of the opposing +lines, a meeting and commingling, like waves of the ocean, sudden +upspringings from the underbrush of divisions stealthily advanced. There +was the continuous rattle, the roll deepening into long heavy swells, +the crescendo and the diminuendo of a terrible symphony, rising to +thunder-tones, to crash and uproar indescribable, then dying away to a +ripple, to silence at last! + +Lee hastened from his intrenchments beyond Mine Run to strike Grant a +damaging blow,--to fall upon him while his line was thin and attenuated. +Grant was in column, moving southeast,--Lee in two columns, moving +northeast. These lines show it to the eye:-- + +[Illustration] + +The advance of Lee has its parallel in naval warfare,--in Nelson's lines +of battle at Trafalgar. But there the comparison fails. The advance is +the same,--the result, instead of a victory, a defeat. He fell upon the +Fifth Corps, first at Parker's store, then on the right centre, then on +the left, then upon the Sixth, then upon the Second,--then upon the +whole line, renewing and repeating the assaults. Grant stood throughout +upon the line selected at the beginning of the battle. Lee began the +attack on the 5th, and renewed it at daybreak on the 6th. + +Through all those long hours of conflict, there was patient endurance in +front of the enemy. There were temporary successes and reverses on both +sides. In only a single instance was there permanent advantage to the +enemy, and that he had not the power to improve. It was at the close of +the contest on the 6th. The sun had gone down, and twilight was +deepening into night. The wearied men of Rickett's division of the Sixth +Corps, in the front line of battle on the right, had thrown themselves +upon the ground. Suddenly there was a rush upon their flank. There was +musketry, blinding flashes from cannon, and explosions of shells. The +line which had stood firmly through the day gave way, not because it was +overpowered, but because it was surprised. General Seymour and a portion +of his brigade were taken prisoners. There was a partial panic, which +soon subsided. The second line remained firm, the enemy was driven back, +and the disaster repaired by swinging the Sixth Corps round to a new +position, covered by the reserve artillery. It was the only substantial +advantage gained by Lee during the battle. + +There were indications in the forenoon of Saturday, the 7th, that Lee +was withdrawing his army. A reconnoissance in force made it more +apparent. Orders were issued for the removal of the wounded to +Fredericksburg. At two o'clock in the afternoon the Ninth Corps was on +the march to Spottsylvania. The first step towards Richmond had been +successfully taken. If Grant had not gained what he desired, a position +between Lee and Richmond, Lee on the other hand had utterly failed in +his attempt to crush Grant by a sudden blow upon his flank. He had not +been able, in the language of the President, even to "jostle him from +his chosen line of march." + + +SPOTTSYLVANIA. + +At sunrise on the 8th, the Fifth Corps was at Todd's Tavern, four miles +from Spottsylvania, where Gregg had just defeated Fitz Hugh Lee, in a +hard-fought contest on Saturday. The Sixth and Second Corps arrived +during the day. The Ninth moved with the teams through Chancellorsville +farther to the east. + +The natural defences of Spottsylvania are two small streams,--the Po and +the Ny, affluents of the Mattapony. The advance of the Fifth Corps was +checked, three miles west of the Court-House, by Longstreet's and +Ewell's corps, which had left Wilderness on the night of the 6th. The +Sixth came up at five o'clock and joined in the conflict, driving the +enemy from the position he had taken on the north bank of the Ny. + +On Monday morning, the 9th, it was apparent that Lee, having failed on +Grant's flank, had now placed himself squarely in front, with his entire +army. + +One of the great battles of the campaign was fought on Tuesday, the +corps occupying positions as in the diagram:-- + +[Illustration: + + A. Catharpen Road. + B. Brock Road. + C. Pine-Grove Road. + D. Fredericksburg Road. + E. Bowling-Green Road. + F. Richmond Road. + _L_. Longstreet. + _E_. Ewell. + _H_. Hill. + 2, 5, 6, 9. Corps positions, 9th May. + ............ Position of Grant, 17th May.] + +The line of battle was formed with the Second Corps on the right, the +Fifth on the right-centre, the Sixth on the left-centre, with the Ninth +nine miles distant, approaching by the Fredericksburg road. There was a +severe engagement in the afternoon, brought on by the advance of the +Second Corps, which pushed across an affluent of the Po, west of the +Court-House. On the left, the Rebels made an attack upon Wilcox's +division of the Ninth, but were repulsed. + +The battle was fought in the forest,--in the marshes along the Ny,--in +ravines,--in pine-thickets, densely shaded with the dark evergreens that +shut out the rays of the noonday sun,--in open fields, where Rebel +batteries had full sweep and play with shell and grape and canister from +intrenched positions on the hills. + +It began in the morning. There was an hour of calm at noon, but at one +o'clock artillery and infantry became engaged all along the line. Grant +was the attacking party. There was no cessation or diminution of effort +during the afternoon. The Rebel outer line of works in the centre was +carried by Upton's brigade of the first division, and Russell's brigade +of the third division of the Sixth Corps. The men of these brigades, +(and among them were the stalwart sons of Vermont,) without firing a +shot, moved steadily to the charge with fixed bayonets; they were cut +through by solid shot, their ranks torn by shells, thinned by constant +volleys of musketry, but, with matchless ardor and unconquerable will, +they went up to the line of earthworks, leaped over them, and gathered a +thousand prisoners; they held the ground, but their valor had carried +them so far beyond their supports that it was deemed prudent to withdraw +them. + +There was some fighting on the 11th. General Lee sent in a flag of truce +for a cessation of hostilities to bury the dead; but the request was not +acceded to by General Grant. + +The early dawn of Thursday, the 12th, beholds the Second Corps in +motion,--not to flank the enemy, but moving, with fixed bayonets, +straight on towards his intrenchments. Barlow's and Birney's divisions +in columns of battalions, doubled on the centre, to give strength and +firmness, lead in the assault. They move silently through the +forest,--through the ravine in front of them,--up to their own +skirmish-line,--past it,--no longer marching, but running now, dashing +on with life and energy and enthusiasm thrilling every nerve. They sweep +away the Rebel picket-line as if it were a cobweb. On,--into the +intrenchments with a hurrah which startles the soldiers of both armies +from their morning slumbers. Major-General Johnson and Brigadier-General +Stewart and three thousand men of Ewell's division are taken prisoners, +eighteen cannon and twenty-two standards captured. + +It is the work of five minutes,--as sudden as the swoop of an eagle. The +uproar of the day began. The second line of the enemy's works was +assaulted; but, exasperated by their losses, the Rebels fought with +great stubbornness. The Ninth Corps was moved up from the left to +support the Second. Longstreet, on the other hand, was brought over to +help Ewell. The Fifth and Sixth became partially engaged. There were +charges and counter-charges. Positions were gained and lost. From +morning till night the contest raged on the right, in the centre, and on +the left, swaying to and fro over the undulations and through the +ravines. It was a battle of fourteen hours' duration,--in severity, in +unflinching determination, in obstinacy and persistency, not exceeded by +any during the war. Between forty and fifty pieces of artillery were at +one time in the hands of General Hancock; but, owing to the difficulties +of removal, and the efforts of the enemy, he could secure only eighteen. +During the day, Grant advanced his lines a mile towards the Court-House, +and repulsed Lee in all his counter-attacks. + +By this success Lee was compelled on Thursday night to withdraw his +troops from the line he had held so tenaciously, and concentrate them in +a smaller semi-circle. Lee had the advantage of Johnston. It was +Gettysburg reversed. + +There was constant skirmishing and continuous artillery-firing through +the 13th, and a moving of the army from the north to the east of the +Court-House. A rain-storm set in. The roads became heavy, and a +contemplated movement--a sudden flank-attack--was necessarily abandoned. + +There was a severe skirmish on the 14th, constant picket-firing on the +15th, and on the 16th another engagement all along the line,--not fought +with the fierceness of that of the 12th, but lasting through the +forenoon, and resulting in the taking of a line of rifle-pits from the +enemy. + +On Wednesday, the 18th, there was an assault upon Lee's outer line of +works. Two lines of rifle-pits were carried; but an impassable abatis +prevented farther advance, and after a six hours' struggle the troops +were withdrawn. + +On the afternoon of the 19th Ewell gained the rear of Grant's right +flank, came suddenly upon Tyler's division of heavy artillery, armed as +infantry, just arrived upon the field. Though surprised, they held the +enemy in check, forced him back, and with aid from the Second Corps +compelled him to retreat with great loss. This attack was made to cover +Lee's withdrawal to the North Anna. His troops were already on the +march. + +Grant was swift to follow. + + +THE NORTH ANNA. + +It is a two days' march from Spottsylvania to the North Anna. The +crossings of the Mattapony were held by Rebel cavalry, which were +quickly driven. For want of space I am forced to pass over the +operations on that natural line of defence,--the gallant crossing of the +Fifth Corps at Jericho Ford, the irresistible charge of Birney and +Barlow at Taylor's Bridge, the sweeping-in of five hundred prisoners, +the severe engagements lasting three days,--all memorable events, worthy +of prominence in the full history of the campaign. + +Instead of walking over the obstacle, Grant decided to go round it. +Stealing a march upon Lee, he moved suddenly southeast, and crossed the +Pamunky at Hanover Town, opened a new base of supplies at White House, +forcing Lee to fall back on the Chickahominy. + +[ILLUSTRATION: + + 2, 5, 6, 9, 18. Corps. + B. Bethesda Church. + C. H. Coal Harbor. + G. Gaines's Mill. + R. Richmond.] + + +ON THE CHICKAHOMINY. + +On Sunday, the 29th, there was one of the severest cavalry-engagements +of the war, at Hawes's shop, west of Hanover Town, where Sheridan drove +the Rebels back upon Bethesda Church. The array came into position on +the 30th, its right towards Hanover Court-House. Lee was already in +position, and during the day there was firing all along the line. Each +corps was engaged. The Second Corps by the Shelton House with a +bayonet-charge pushed the enemy from the outer line of works which he +had thrown up, while the Fifth Corps rolled back, with terrible +slaughter, the mass of men which came upon its flank and front at +Bethesda Church. At Coal Harbor, the Sixth, joined by the Eighteenth +Army Corps, under Major-General W. F. Smith, from Bermuda Hundred, met +Longstreet and Breckenridge and troops from Beauregard. Sheridan had +seized this important point,--important because of the junction of +roads,--and held it against cavalry and infantry till the arrival of the +Fifth and Eighteenth. The point secured, a new line of battle was formed +on the 1st of June. The Ninth held the right at Bethesda Church; the +Fifth was south of the church, joining the Eighteenth; the Sixth held +the road from Coal Harbor to Gaines's Mill; while the Second was thrown +out on the left, on the road leading to Despatch Station and the +Chickahominy, as indicated by the diagram (p. 131). + +Such was the position of the army within ten miles of Richmond,--the +line of battle crossing the ground occupied by Stonewall Jackson at the +Battle of Gaines's Mill. + +Sanguinary conflicts have since taken place,--bayonet-charges, desperate +encounters with varying success and reverse,--but the record of the +month has closed. There, face to face, cannon fronting cannon, with less +than two hundred feet between, are the two armies on the 31st of May, at +midnight. Without losing a train of supplies, cutting loose from one +base after another,--from Washington, Belle Plain, and Port Royal +successively,--establishing new depots at pleasure, General Grant has +moved from the Rappahannock to the Chickahominy, against the utmost +efforts of General Lee to turn him back. General Grant believes that the +military power of the Rebels must be broken before the Rebellion can be +crushed. Continued hammering produces abrasion at last, in the toughest +iron. Break the iron pillars, and the edifice tumbles. There is a +manifest weakening of the Rebel army. Longstreet's veterans have lost +their fire; and since the Battles of the Wilderness, the Rebel troops +have had no heart for a bayonet-charge. + +The line of advance taken by General Grant turned the Rebels from +Washington. The country over which the two armies marched is a +desolation. There is no subsistence remaining. The railroads are +destroyed. Lee has no longer the power to invade the North. On the other +hand, General Grant can swing upon the James and isolate the Rebel army +from direct connection with the South. That accomplished, and, sooner or +later,--with Hunter in the Shenandoah, with Union cavalry sweeping down +to Wilmington, Weldon, and Danville, and up to the Blue Ridge, cutting +railroads, burning bridges, destroying supplies of ammunition and +provisions,--the question with Lee must be, not one of earthworks and +cannon and powder and ball, but of subsistence. Plainly, the day is +approaching when the Army of the Potomac, unfortunate at times in the +past, derided, ridiculed, but now triumphant through unparalleled +hardship, endurance, courage, persistency, will plant its banners on the +defences of Richmond, crumble the Rebel army beyond the possibility of +future cohesion, and, in conjunction with the forces in other +departments, crush out the last vestige of the Rebellion. + + + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + + _The American Conflict_: A History of the Great Rebellion in + the United States of America, 1860-64. By HORACE GREELEY. + Vol. I. 8vo. pp. 648. Hartford: O. D. Case & Co. + +The plan of this work contemplates not only a faithful and complete +historical description of the leading events in the stupendous conflict +now raging between the interests of Slavery and the principles of +Freedom, but an accurate analysis and lucid exposition of the antagonist +ideas which have attained their full development in the present civil +war. With this purpose, the issue of the portion now submitted to the +American public cannot be regarded as premature or unseasonable. If the +time has not arrived for the elaboration of a thorough historic survey +of the mighty struggle which has convulsed the nation to its deepest +heart, there are ample materials for a profound review of the past, and +an instructive exhibition of the moral and intellectual movement, the +pregnant conflict of thought, which has found its ultimate issue in the +bloody death-throes of the battle-field. No nobler theme could tempt the +pen of the philosophic historian. No subject of study could present more +attractive features, or prove of more fruitful import to every +intelligent American thinker. + +Mr. Greeley's position and professional training as a prominent +journalist give him, in many respects, excellent facilities for the +accomplishment of his delicate and by no means easy task. Nor is he less +admirably qualified for its execution by the native bent of his mind, +and his experience as one of the leaders of a great political party. +With an instinctive passion for freedom, a profound faith in social and +humanitary progress, and an ardent devotion to the interests of the +masses, irrespective of artificial and temporary distinctions, he has +long watched the conflict of opinions and the development of ideas with +reference to their bearing on the great American principle of political +justice and individual right. Without following the lead of any special +class of reformers, he has been keenly sensitive to the wrongs and +outrages which, under the semblance of freedom, have blended themselves +with the institutions of the country. His clear-headed sagacity has +enabled him to foresee the perilous consequences of political +inconsistencies. For many years he has anticipated the disastrous +effects of the social anomalies for which our statesmen of all parties +have sought a remedy in compromises and concealment. He has adhered to +the policy of attacking political evils with political weapons. The +institution of Slavery, in his view, was one of the crying wrongs for +which the cure was to be found in the ballot-box. Not so much by +denouncing and exhorting as by giving effect to popular sentiment +through the elections, has he aimed at social regeneration. To this +principle he has steadily adhered throughout his public life. His +political relations have been formed in accordance with this idea. The +character and tendency of parties have been judged by this standard. +Hence the present work is eminently the record of his personal +experience. It presents in vivid outlines and with striking +illustrations the action of political causes with which he has been as +familiar as with the alphabet of his mother-tongue. The principles of +the great rebellion are traced back to the little germs which have since +expanded into a tree of such mighty proportions and of such baleful +character. Few men, we may perhaps safely say no man, among us, could +bring to the composition of a work with this intent such a rich fund of +observation, such intimate knowledge of the practical working of +parties, such true insight into the aims and motives of the conspicuous +American statesmen, such accurate judgment in regard to the leading +measures of governmental policy, combined with such prevailing fairness +of mind, and such a high degree of literary skill and mastership. + +Regarded as a contribution to the historical treasures of which American +literature can boast such rare wealth, Mr. Greeley's work may challenge, +if not perhaps unqualified, sincere and respectful commendation. His +style is eminently his own. Familiar with the best models, he follows +none. Although aiming at vigor and popular effect, rather than at +graceful and polished elegance, it shows a remarkable sense of the power +and aptness of words, and an unusual command of the resources of +expression. He does not hesitate at a certain quaintness of phrase which +gives an antique air to many of his sentences; but he is never dull, +never languid, never commonplace, always free, emphatic, and racy. The +purely narrative portions of the volume are truly excellent. In the +immense range of his productions as a journalist, to our thinking, Mr. +Greeley has written nothing better. Compact, sustained, and enlivened +with a choice variety of coloring, the story as it comes from his pen is +uniformly clear even to transparency, and never fails to read with +singular interest, while it abounds in fresh and novel information. He +cannot always resist the temptation to a little episodical pleasantry; +but his humor is never ill-timed, and often mercilessly effective by its +keenness and truth, though for the most part genial and good-natured. +Sometimes, however, we notice a mischievous delight in calling attention +to the dead flies in the apothecary's ointment. The author's sincerity +of conviction and honesty of purpose are apparent on every page of his +work, and give it a sterling, permanent value, irrespective of its other +merits. + +In the selection of his materials, Mr. Greeley has made great use of the +speeches, messages, letters, and other public documents relating to the +different branches of his subject, the essential points of which he +often interweaves into his narrative, though in all suitable cases he +does not scruple to present from them full and copious citations. In +most instances which involve the opinions of his political antagonists, +he has confined himself to the latter method. Impressed with the +difficulty of exhibiting the views of an opponent with fairness and +accuracy, he has wisely preferred to employ the very language of his +original authorities, wherever the exercise of perfect impartiality +might appear too sublime a virtue for our fallen and frail human nature. +In the mutations of opinion, moreover, many persons are apt to forget +that the faith, which they zealously defended but two years ago is at +war with their present creed. The surest guaranty of exact and +satisfactory statements, accordingly, is to fall back on the primitive +authentic platform. + +The subject of compromises, under the Federal Constitution, between the +conflicting interests of the country, occupies, of course, a prominent +place in these pages, and is treated by Mr. Greeley, as we think, with +signal discretion and ability. His views on this point are marked by +candor and moderation, though he is firm and uncompromising in his +hostility to concession for the purpose of conciliating the Slave-Power. +Political compromises, he maintains, though liable to abuse, are the +necessary incidents of all governments, excepting pure and simple +despotisms. Liberty cannot exist without diversity of opinions. Unless +one will is permitted the supremacy over all others, a medium must be +sought between widely differing convictions. If a legislature composed +of two distinct bodies differs with regard to a special appropriation, a +partial concession on each side is often the only practicable mode of +adjustment. When the object is unprecedented, or not essential to the +general efficiency of the public service, such as the construction of a +new railroad, canal, or other public work, the opposition of either +house should suffice for its defeat, or, at least, for its postponement. +Neither branch has a right to demand from the other conformity with its +views on a disputed point as the price of its own concurrence in +measures essential to the existence of the government. Hence the +movement of the United States Senate in 1849, dictating to the House a +certain organization of the Territories, under penalty of defeating the +Civil Appropriation Bill, was totally unjustifiable. But the fact should +never be lost sight of, that differences of opinion often occur on +momentous questions where the rights of each party are equal, and where +an ultimate concurrence in one common line of action is essential. +Without some mutual concession to adverse views, the union of the States +would have been impossible. In cases, moreover, where the Executive is +permitted a veto on legislative measures, a certain deference to his +views is necessary to the practical working of the government. A +compromise, accordingly, is at times indispensable and laudable. But no +valid defence can be made of the celebrated compromise of 1850. It was +a monstrous corruption in legislation, which not even the great name of +Henry Clay could shield from subsequent opprobrium. + +Still, this compromise was accepted and ratified by a great majority of +the American people, both in the North and in the South. The +announcement that all sectional differences had been adjusted was hailed +with almost universal joy. The terms of settlement were regarded as of +subordinate consequence. The people wanted peace and prosperity, and +were content with driving a lucrative business. They had no disposition +to shed each other's blood in a quarrel concerning the condition of +negroes. The compromise had taken no money from their pockets. It had +imposed upon them no pecuniary burdens. It had exposed them to no +personal dangers. It had rather appeased the terrors of disunion, +increased the facilities for money-making, and opened a brilliant +prospect of national greatness, security, and peace. + +But this same compromise contained the seeds of disunion and civil war. +The extreme State-Rights party in the South resolved not to submit to +it, but to prepare the people for forcible resistance. Still, the time +had not yet come for open demonstrations. The new Fugitive-Slave Law +produced a wide-spread excitement at the North. This was increased by +the frequent cases of brutality which occurred under its execution. The +progress of opinion was rapid and decisive, preparing for the bloody +conflict which commenced with the attack on Fort Sumter. + +The development of events from this cardinal epoch to the defeat of the +Union arms at Ball's Bluff, is traced by Mr. Greeley with a vigorous and +discriminating pen. His comments may not always command conviction, but +they can never fail to win respect. He expresses himself with freedom, +although temperately, in regard to the character of the prominent +military leaders, and subsequent facts have confirmed the sagacity of +his judgment. He holds General Scott to a rigid responsibility for the +inglorious days of Bull Run, which dispelled all lingering illusions as +to his capacity for the conduct of a great war. The Fabian policy of +General McClellan in the campaign of the succeeding winter is ably +discussed. According to Mr. Greeley, this is not to be accounted for by +a constitutional aversion on the part of our young Napoleon to the +shedding of blood,--that is, of other men's; since he was eager to +involve the country in another war by the refusal to surrender Mason and +Slidell. Natural timidity and irresolution no doubt had their influence. +But beyond this was the slowly awakened consciousness that Slavery was +the real assailant of our national existence. General McClellan saw, +that, in order to carry out the policy to which he had been long +committed, in order to save both slavery and the Union, there must be +little fighting and a speedy compromise. It is only on this hypothesis +that his course while in high command, but especially during that long +autumn and winter, admits of a consistent and intelligible explanation. + + + _The Iliad of Homer faithfully translated into Unrhymed + English Metre._ By F. W. NEWMAN. London. 1856. + +Mr. Newman executed this translation upon the theory that Homer was a +"noble savage"; that his congener would be found in a "lively African +from the Gold-Coast"; that his style of language and thought was to the +age of Pericles what that of the very oldest ballads is to ours; that he +must be rendered, therefore, in English by a ballad-metre and an +antiquated diction. To this capricious and indefensible theory, and to +the translation, so far as founded upon it, Mr. Matthew Arnold seems to +have given the _coup de grace_. We come, accordingly, not to criticize, +but to bury. + +_Hic jacet_, therefore, what was mortal of Newman's Homer,--a work +executed upon a theory which no art of performance could redeem, while +to that theory it was rather clumsily than skilfully adapted. Yet was it +the work of a scholar so thorough, of a writer so able, of a translator +so faithful to his original, that no error of theory could wholly +vitiate his performance. The pictures of Homer, despite the crudity of +his coloring and the spots and daubs with which his rendering was +conscientiously sprinkled, he brought out more clearly than any had done +before him. His work, therefore, being dead, still lives; its ashes glow +and shine from the urn which contains them. Its ill-fortune was, that +it was only antiquarian literature from its birth; its good-fortune is, +that it shall never cease to be cherished as such. _Honestas mortem +vincit_: the high degrees of intellectual sincerity and power conquer +even literary damnation. + + + 1. _On Translating Homer._ By MATTHEW ARNOLD. London. + + 2. _Last Words._ By the Same. + +Whoever loves Homer will like these little books. Mr. Arnold is a man of +large and liberal intelligence, well up with his time; he is critically +inspired, yet himself a poet; his thinking, while ample, is singularly +definite; he has an admirable faculty of minding his own business, doing +what he _can_ do, and speaking where he has a right to speak; his style, +while precise and vigorous, has a charm of composure and naturalness; +and he exhibits such a combination of two-edged critical truth and +intrepidity with perfect temper as is rarely seen. In his first volume +he had been Rhadamanthine upon the translation of Mr. Newman. The latter +replied with asperity. In "Last Words" Mr. Arnold responds in a tone so +pure, so manly and gentle, that the volume should be memorable for this +alone, were there nothing else to recommend it. Let us all hasten to +bless the banns between steel-edged truth and perfect amenity. + +Mr. Arnold characterizes Homer as rapid, as plain, direct, and natural +in language, as the same in his thought, and finally as noble, having +the grand manner. A translation must reproduce these features, whatever +it fail to do. Passing existing translations in review, he finds Cowper +slow, Pope artificial, Chapman fanciful, Newman, through the vice of his +theory, ignoble. Some one having pronounced Tennyson eminently Homeric, +Mr. Arnold discusses the relation of the English idyllic to the Ionian +epic poet, and finds him at the opposite pole in respect of simplicity. + +As to a vehicle for the translation of Homer, he gives his voice +decidedly in favor of English hexameter, and tries his own hand at that +measure. His success strikes us as respectable, but not eminent. Blank +verse he thinks too slow in movement, and too much opposed in character. +Mr. Tennyson answers this last by translating a passage from Homer into +blank verse, and shows at least that he can make it run like a +race-horse, and that, too, without sacrifice of fineness or of melody. + +Right or wrong on these matters, and notwithstanding we confess to +certain sympathies with Mr. Newman, we find in Mr. Arnold's books some +of the pleasantest reading we have seen this many a day, and wish that +for every leisure hour of life a companion so intelligent and liberal, +so cultivated and genuine, so manly and mannerly, might await us. + + + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +Military Bridges: with Suggestions of New Expedients and Constructions +for crossing Streams and Chasms; including, also, Designs for Trestle +and Truss Bridges for Military Railroads. Adapted especially to the +Wants of the Service in the United States. By Hermann Haupt, A. M., +Civil Engineer, late Chief of Bureau in Charge of the Construction and +Operation of United States Military Railway, Author of "General Theory +of Bridge-Construction," etc. Illustrated by Sixty-Nine Lithographic +Engravings. New York. D. Van Nostrand. 8vo. pp. xx., 310. $6.00. + +The Ear, its Diseases and their Treatment. Illustrated by Engravings. By +Franz Adolph von Moschzisker, M. D., Oculist and Aurist, Author of "A +Guide to Diseases of the Eye, and their Treatment." Philadelphia. Martin +& Randall. 16mo. pp. xxii., 319. $1.50. + +Stories of the Patriarchs. By O. B. Frothingham. Boston. Walker, Wise, & +Co. Square 16 mo. pp. 232. $1.00. + +The Ferry-Boy and the Financier. By A Contributor to the "Atlantic." +Boston. Walker, Wise, & Co. 16mo. pp. 332. $1.25. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. +81, July, 1864, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY *** + +***** This file should be named 31838-8.txt or 31838-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/8/3/31838/ + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections.) + + +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 14, No. 81, July, 1864 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: April 1, 2010 [EBook #31838] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<h4>THE</h4> + +<h1>ATLANTIC MONTHLY.</h1> + +<h3>A MAGAZINE OF</h3> + +<h2>LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.</h2> + +<h3>VOLUME XIV.</h3> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;"> +<img src="images/image3.jpg" width="150" height="143" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<h4>BOSTON:</h4> + +<p class="center">TICKNOR AND FIELDS,<br /> + +LONDON: TRÜBNER AND COMPANY.<br /> + +M DCCC LXIV.<br /><br /> + +Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by<br /> +<span class="smcap">Ticknor and Fields</span>,<br /> +in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.<br /> +</p> + +<h4>RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.</h4> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>Beer-Drinking, Head-Quarters of</td><td align='left'><i>Andrew Ten Broeck</i></td><td align='right'>185</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Biography, The New School of</td><td align='left'><i>Gail Hamilton</i></td><td align='right'>579</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Cadmean Madness, The</td><td align='left'><i>W. L. Symonds</i></td><td align='right'>265</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Columbia River, On the</td><td align='left'><i>Fitz-Hugh Ludlow</i></td><td align='right'>703</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Communication</td><td align='left'><i>D.A. Wasson</i></td><td align='right'>424</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Cullet</td><td align='left'><i>Jane G. Austin</i></td><td align='right'>304</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Currency</td><td align='left'><i>George S. Lang</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Democracy and the Secession War</td><td align='left'><i>C. C. Hazewell</i></td><td align='right'>505</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Dixie, Our Last Day in</td><td align='left'><i>Edmund Kirke</i></td><td align='right'>715</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Dolliver Romance, A Scene from the</td><td align='left'><i>Nathaniel Hawthorne</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Electric Girl of La Perrière, The</td><td align='left'><i>Robert Dale Owen</i></td><td align='right'>284</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>England and America</td><td align='left'><i>Prof. Goldwin Smith</i></td><td align='right'>749</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>English Authors in Florence</td><td align='left'><i>Miss K. Field</i></td><td align='right'>660</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Foreign Relations, Our Recent</td><td align='left'><i>G. M. Towle</i></td><td align='right'>243</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Glorying in the Goad</td><td align='left'><i>Gail Hamilton</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Gourgues, Dominic de, The Vengeance of</td><td align='left'><i>F. Parkman</i></td><td align='right'>530</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Halcyon Days</td><td align='left'><i>Caroline Chesebro</i></td><td align='right'>675</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Hawthorne</td><td align='left'><i>O. W. Holmes</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_98">98</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Highland Light, The</td><td align='left'><i>H. D. Thoreau</i></td><td align='right'>649</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>House and Home Papers</td><td align='left'><i>Harriet Beecher Stowe</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_93">93</a>, 230, 434, 565, 689</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>How Rome is Governed</td><td align='left'><i>Prof. G. W. Greene</i></td><td align='right'>150</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Ice and Esquimaux</td><td align='left'><i>D. A. Wasson</i></td><td align='right'>728</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Ice-Period in America</td><td align='left'><i>Prof. Louis Agassiz</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_86">86</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Inanimate Things, The Total Depravity of</td><td align='left'><i>Mrs. E. A. Walker</i></td><td align='right'>357</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Jones, Paul, and Denis Duval</td><td align='left'><i>F. Ingham</i></td><td align='right'>493</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lamb's, Charles, Uncollected Writings</td><td align='left'><i>J. E. Babson</i></td><td align='right'>478, 552</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Leaves from an Officer's Journal</td><td align='left'><i>T. W. Higginson</i></td><td align='right'>521, 740</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lina</td><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>538</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Little Country-Girl, The</td><td align='left'><i>Mrs. A. M. Diaz</i></td><td align='right'>212</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Luigi, The True Story of</td><td align='left'><i>Harriet E. Prescott</i></td><td align='right'>411</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mexico</td><td align='left'><i>G. Reynolds</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_51">51</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Meyerbeer</td><td align='left'><i>Francis Williams</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Night in the Water, A</td><td align='left'><i>T. W. Higginson</i></td><td align='right'>393</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Oregon, On Horseback into</td><td align='left'><i>Fitz-Hugh Ludlow</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Paris, Literary Life in</td><td align='left'>"<i>Spiridion</i>"</td><td align='right'>200, 292</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Presidential Election, The Twentieth</td><td align='left'><i>C. C. Hazewell</i></td><td align='right'>633</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Reade, Charles</td><td align='left'><i>Harriet E. Prescott</i></td><td align='right'>137</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Récamier, Madame</td><td align='left'><i>Miss J. M. Luyster</i></td><td align='right'>446</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Regular and Volunteer Officers</td><td align='left'><i>T. W. Higginson</i></td><td align='right'>348</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Revolution, Finances of the</td><td align='left'><i>Prof. G. W. Greene</i></td><td align='right'>591</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Richmond, Our Visit to</td><td align='left'><i>Edmund Kirke</i></td><td align='right'>372</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Rim, The</td><td align='left'><i>Harriet E. Prescott</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Saadi</td><td align='left'><i>R. W. Emerson</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>San Francisco, Through-Tickets to</td><td align='left'><i>Fitz-Hugh Ludlow</i></td><td align='right'>604</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sculpture, The Process of</td><td align='left'><i>Harriet Hosmer</i></td><td align='right'>734</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sea-Hours with a Dyspeptic</td><td align='left'><i>Joseph D. Howard</i></td><td align='right'>617</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Vendue, On a Late</td><td align='left'><i>J. E. Babson</i></td><td align='right'>406</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Virginia, The May Campaign in</td><td align='left'>"<i>Carleton</i>"</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>We are a Nation</td><td align='left'><i>J. T. Trowbridge</i></td><td align='right'>769</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Wellfleet Oysterman, The</td><td align='left'><i>H. D. Thoreau</i></td><td align='right'>470</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Wet-Weather Work</td><td align='left'><i>Donald G. Mitchell</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_39">39</a>, 333</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>What shall we have for Dinner?</td><td align='left'><i>E. E. Hale</i></td><td align='right'>364</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>What will become of Them?</td><td align='left'><i>J. T. Trowbridge</i></td><td align='right'>170, 320</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Wife's Story, The</td><td align='left'><i>Author of "Life in the Iron-Mills"</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Poetry.</span></h3> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>Before Vicksburg</td><td align='left'><i>G. H. Baker</i></td><td align='right'>371</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Bridge of Cloud, The</td><td align='left'><i>H. W. Longfellow</i></td><td align='right'>283</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Bryant, To William Cullen</td><td align='left'><i>H. T. Tuckerman</i></td><td align='right'>563</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Bryant's Seventieth Birthday</td><td align='left'><i>O. W. Holmes</i></td><td align='right'>738</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Concord</td><td align='left'><i>H. W. Longfellow</i></td><td align='right'>169</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Divina Commedia, On Translating the</td><td align='left'><i>H. W. Longfellow</i></td><td align='right'>688</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Forgotten</td><td align='left'><i>Elisabeth A. C. Akers</i></td><td align='right'>332</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Friar Jerome's Beautiful Book</td><td align='left'><i>T. B. Aldrich</i></td><td align='right'>195</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Heart of the War, The</td><td align='left'><i>J. G. Holland</i></td><td align='right'>240</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>In Memory of J. W.—R. W.</td><td align='left'><i>O. W. Holmes</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Last Rally, The</td><td align='left'><i>J. T. Trowbridge</i></td><td align='right'>589</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Maskers, The</td><td align='left'><i>J. T. Trowbridge</i></td><td align='right'>303</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Palingenesis</td><td align='left'><i>H. W. Longfellow</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Return of the Birds, The</td><td align='left'><i>W. C. Bryant</i></td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Riches</td><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>530</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Ride to Camp, The</td><td align='left'><i>G. H. Boker</i></td><td align='right'>404</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Service</td><td align='left'><i>J. T. Trowbridge</i></td><td align='right'>443</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Summer, The Future</td><td align='right'></td><td align='right'>503</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sweet-Brier</td><td align='left'> </td><td align='right'>229</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Tobacconalian Ode, A</td><td align='left'> </td><td align='right'>672</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Vanishers, The</td><td align='left'><i>J. G. Whittier</i></td><td align='right'>726</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'> </td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Watching</td><td align='left'> </td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Works and Days</td><td align='left'><i>T. W. Parsons</i></td><td align='right'>491</td></tr> +</table></div> + + + +<h3><span class="smcap">Reviews and Literary Notices.</span></h3> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>Arnold on Translating Homer</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Arnold's Last Words</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Browning's Dramatis Personæ</td><td align='right'>644</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Carter's Summer Cruise</td><td align='right'>515</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Dufour's Strategy and Tactics</td><td align='right'>259</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Farnham's Eliza Woodson</td><td align='right'>388</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>---- Woman and her Era</td><td align='right'>388</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Greeley's American Conflict</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_133">133</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Guizot's Meditations on Christianity</td><td align='right'>784</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Haupt on Military Bridges</td><td align='right'>781</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Hazard on Freedom of Mind in Willing</td><td align='right'>778</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Jennie Juneiana</td><td align='right'>387</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Kingsley's Roman and Teuton</td><td align='right'>252</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Marsh's Man and Nature</td><td align='right'>261</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mill's Dissertations and Discussions</td><td align='right'>776</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Newman's Translation of the Iliad</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_135">135</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Owen's Wrong of Slavery</td><td align='right'>517</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Parton's Life and Times of Franklin</td><td align='right'>383</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Prescott's Azarian</td><td align='right'>515</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Privations and Sufferings of U.S. Soldiers in Rebel Prisons</td><td align='right'>777</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Reid's Cliff-Climbers</td><td align='right'>390</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Tennyson's Enoch Arden</td><td align='right'>518</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Thoreau's Maine Woods</td><td align='right'>386</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Trollope's Small House at Allington</td><td align='right'>254</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Webster's American Dictionary</td><td align='right'>642</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Wilson's History of the Anti-Slavery Measures of Congress</td><td align='right'>787</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Youmans's Class-Book of Chemistry</td><td align='right'>256</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Recent American Publications</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_136">136</a>, 263, 391, 648, 788</td></tr> +</table></div> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h1>THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.</h1> + +<h3>A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.</h3> + +<h4>VOL. XIV.—JULY, 1864.—NO. LXXXI.</h4> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE WIFE'S STORY.</h2> + + +<p>I will tell you the story of my life, since you ask it; for, though the +meaning of the life of any woman of my character would be the same, I +believe, the facts of mine, being sharp and compressed, may make it, +perhaps, more apparent. It will be enough for me to give you the history +of one day,—that of our first coming to Newport; for it seems to me as +if it held and spoke out plainly whatever gist and significance there +was in all the years for me. I know many people hold the theory, that +once in every life God puts the stuff of which He has made the man or +woman to the test, gives the soul a chance of a conscious fight with +that other Power to win or lose itself, once for all. I do not know: it +seems but just that one should be so left, untrammelled, to choose +between heaven and hell: but who can shake off trammels,—make +themselves naked of their birth and education? I know on that day when +the face of my fate changed, I myself was conscious of no inward +master-struggle: the great Life above and Life below pressed no closer +on me, seemed to wait on no word of mine. It was a busy, vulgar day +enough: each passing moment occupied me thoroughly. I did not look +through them for either God or Death; and as for the deed I did, I had +been drifting to that all my life: it began when I was a pampered, +thin-blooded baby, learning the alphabet from blocks on my mother's lap; +then years followed, succulent to satiety for my hungry brain and +stimulated tastes; a taint of hereditary selfishness played its part, +and so the end came. Yet I know that on that day I entered the gate +through which there is no returning: for, believe me, there are such +ways and gates in life; every day, I see more clearly how far and how +immovably the paths into those other worlds abut into this, and I know +that I, for one, have gone in, and the door is closed behind me. There +is no going back for me into that long-ago time. Only He who led me here +knows how humbly and through what pain I dared to believe this, and dare +to believe that He did lead me,—that it was by no giddy, blear-sighted +free-will of my own that I arrived where I stand to-day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was about eighteen months after my marriage that we came to Newport. +But let me go back a few weeks to one evening when my husband first told +me of the failure of the house in which his property was invested; for +it was then, I think, that the terror and the temptation which had beset +my married life first took a definite shape and hold on me.</p> + +<p>It was a cool September evening, I remember: a saffronish umber stain +behind the low Hudson hills all that was left of the day's fresh and +harvest-scented heat; the trails of black smoke from the boats against +the sky, the close-shut cottages on the other shore, the very red cows +coming slowly up from the meadow-pool, looking lonesome and cold in the +sharp, blue air. In the library, however, there was a glow of warmth and +light, as usual where Doctor Manning sat. He had been opening the +evening's mail, and laid the last letter on the table, taking off his +glasses in his slow, deliberate way.</p> + +<p>"It is as we feared," turning to me. "It's quite gone, Hester, quite. +I'll have to begin at the beginning again. It would have been better I +had not trusted the whole to Knopps,—yes."</p> + +<p>I said nothing: the news was not altogether unexpected. He took off his +wig, and rubbed his head slowly, his eyes fixed on my face with some +anxious, steady inquiry, which his tones did not express.</p> + +<p>"I'll go back to Newport. Rob's there. I'll get a school again. You did +not know I taught there when I was a young man?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>I knew nothing of my husband's youth. Miss Monchard, his ward, who was +in the room, did, however; and after waiting for me a moment to go on, +she said, cheerfully,—</p> + +<p>"The boys will be men now, Sir. Friends ready waiting. And different +sort of friends from any we have here, eh?"</p> + +<p>He laughed.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Jacky, you're right. Yes. They've all turned out well, even those +Arndts. Jim Arndt used to trot you on his knee on the school-house +steps, when you were a baby. But he <i>was</i> a wild chap. He's in the +sugar-trade, Rob writes me. But they'll always be boys to me, +Jacky,—boys."</p> + +<p>His head dropped, with a smile still on his mouth, and he began +fingering his scanty beard, as was his habit in his fits of silent +musing. Jacqueline looked at him satisfied, then turned to me. I do not +know what she saw upon my face, but she turned hastily away.</p> + +<p>"It's a town with a real character of its own, Newport, Mrs. +Manning,"—trying to make her coarse bass voice gentle. "You'll +understand it better than I. New-York houses, now, even these on the +Hudson, hint at nothing but a satisfied animal necessity. But there, +with the queer dead streets, like a bit of the old-time world, and the +big salt sea"——She began to stammer, as usual, and grow confused. +"It's like looking out of some far-gone, drowsy old day of the Colonies, +and yet feeling life and eternity fresh and near to you."</p> + +<p>I only smiled civilly, by way of answer. Jacqueline always tried me. She +was Western-born, I a New-Englander; and every trait about her, from the +freedom with which she hurled out her opinions to the very setting-down +of her broad foot, jarred on me as a something boorish and reckless. Her +face grew red now.</p> + +<p>"I don't say what I want exactly," she hesitated. "I only hoped you'd +like the town, that it would reconcile——There's crabs there," +desperately turning to Teddy, who was playing a furtive game of marbles +under the table, and grabbing him by the foot. "Come here till I tell +you about the crabs."</p> + +<p>I remember that I got up and went out of the low window on to the porch, +looking down at the quiet dun shadows and the slope of yellowed grass +leading to the river, while Jacky and the boy kept up a hurly-burly +conversation about soldier-crabs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> that tore each other's legs off, and +purple and pink sea-roses that ate raw meat, and sea-spiders like specks +of blood in the rocks. My husband laughed once or twice, helping Jacky +out with her natural history. I think it was the sound of that cheery, +mellow laugh of his that fermented every bitter drop in my heart, and +brought clearly before me for the first time the idea of the course +which I afterwards followed. I thrust it back then, as if it had been a +sneer of the Devil's at all I held good and pure. What was there in the +world good and pure for me but the man sitting yonder, and the thought +that I was his wife? And yet——I had an unquiet brain, of moderate +power, perhaps, but which had been forced and harried and dragged into +exertion every moment of my life, according to the custom with women in +the States from which I came. Every meanest hint of a talent in me had +been nursed, every taste purged, by the rules of my father's clique of +friends. The chance of this was all over,—had been escaping since my +marriage-day. Now I clearly saw the life opening before me. What would +taste or talent be worth in the coarse struggle we were about to begin +for bread and butter? "Surely, we have lost something beyond money," I +thought, looking behind into the room, where my husband was quietly +going back to the Arndts in quest of food for reflection, and Jacky +prosed on about sea-anemones. I caught a glimpse of my sallow face in +the mirror: it was full of a fierce disgust. Was their indifference to +this loss a mere torpid ignorance of the actual brain- and soul-wants it +would bring on us, or did they really look at life and accept its hard +circumstances from some strange standing-ground of which I knew nothing? +I had not become acclimated to the atmosphere of my husband's family in +the year and a half that I had been his wife. He had been married +before; there were five children, beginning at Robert, the young +preacher at Newport, and ending with Teddy, beating the drum with his +fists yonder on the table; all of them, like their father, Western-born, +with big, square-built frames, and grave, downright-looking faces; +simple-hearted, and much given, the whole party, to bursts of hearty +laughter, and a habit of perpetually joking with each other. There might +be more in them than this, but I had not found it: I doubted much if it +were worth the finding. I came from a town in Massachusetts, where, as +in most New-England villages, there was more mental power than was +needed for the work that was to be done, and which reacted constantly on +itself in a way which my husband called unwholesome; it was no wonder, +therefore, that these people seemed to me but clogs of flesh, the mere +hands by which the manual work of the world's progress was to be +accomplished. I had hinted this to Doctor Manning one day, but he only +replied by the dry, sad smile with which it had become his habit of late +to listen to my speculations. It had cost me no pain thus to label and +set aside his children: but for himself it was different; he was my +husband. He was the only thing in the world which I had never weighed +and valued to estimate how much it was worth to me: some feeling I could +not define had kept me from it until now. But I did it that evening: I +remember how the cool river-air blew in the window-curtain, and I held +it back, looking steadily in at the thick-set, middle-aged figure of the +man sitting there, in the lamp-light, dressed in rough gray: peering at +the leather-colored skin, the nervous features of the square face, at +the scanty fringe of iron-gray whisker, and the curly wig which he had +bought after we were married, thinking to please me, at the brown eyes, +with the gentle reticent look in them belonging to a man or beast who is +thorough "game"; taking the whole countenance as the metre of the man; +going sharply over the salient points of our life together, measuring +myself by him, as if to know—what? to know what it would cost me to +lose him. God be merciful to me, what thought was this? Oh, the wrench +in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> heart and brain that came then! A man who has done a murder may feel +as I did while I stood for the next half-hour looking at the red lights +of the boats going up and down the Hudson, in the darkening fog.</p> + +<p>After a while Teddy came waddling out on the porch, in his usual uncouth +fashion, and began pulling at my cape.</p> + +<p>"You're getting cold, mother. Come in. Come!"</p> + +<p>I remember how I choked as I tried to answer him, and, patting his +gilt-buttoned coat, took the fat chapped little hands in mine, kissing +them at last. I was so hungry for affection that night! I would have +clung to a dog that had been kind to me. I thought of the first day +Doctor Manning had brought him to me, in this same comical little +jacket, by the way, and the strangely tender tone in which he had +said,—"This is your mother, boy. He's as rough as a bear, Hetty, but he +won't give you trouble or pain. Nothing shall give you pain, if +I"——Then he stopped. I never heard that man make a promise. If he had +come out instead of Teddy on the porch that night, and had spoken once +in the old tone, calling me "Hetty," God knows how different all that +came after would have been. The motherless boy, holding himself up by my +knees, was more sturdy than I that night, and self-reliant: never could +have known, in his most helpless baby-days, the need with which I, an +adult woman, craved a cheering word, and a little petting.</p> + +<p>Jacqueline came behind me and pinned a woollen shawl around my neck, +patting my shoulders in her cozy, comfortable fashion.</p> + +<p>"None of your dark river-fogs at Newport," she laughed. "The sea-air has +the sweep of half the world to gather cold and freshness in, and it +makes even your bones alive. Your very sleep is twice as much sleep +there as anywhere else."</p> + +<p>Jacky's rough voice was like the cuckoo's: it always prophesied pleasant +weather. She went in again now, and sat down on her little sewing-chair. +The low, rolling fogs outside, and the sharp September wind rattling the +bare branches of the orchard-trees and the bushes on the lawn, only made +the solid home-look of comfort within warmer and brighter. There was a +wood-fire kindled on the library-hearth, and its glow picked out red +flushes of light on the heavy brown curtains, and the white bust of +Psyche, and a chubby plaster angel looking down. Jacky, rocking and +sewing, her red mouth pursed up, half whistling, suited the picture, +somehow, I could not but feel, mere lump and matter though she might be. +There was something fresh and spicy about her. I never had been +impressed so justly by her as on that night. Rough, perhaps, but it was +a pure roughness: everything about the girl had been clean since she was +born, you felt, from the paint of the house where she lived to the +prayer her nurse had taught her. Her skin was white and ruddy, her blue +eyes clear and full of honesty, her brown curls crisp and unoiled. She +could not reason, maybe; but she was straightforward and comfortable: +every bone in her roly-poly little figure forgot to be a bone, and went +into easy cushions of dimpled flesh. If ever Jacky died and went into a +more spiritual world, she would be sure to take with her much of the +warmth and spring and vigor of this. She had drawn her chair close to +Doctor Manning's, where the flickering light touched the soft woollen +folds of her dress and the bit of crimson ribbon at her throat. He liked +bright colors, like most men of his age. It was a pretty picture.</p> + +<p>I turned and looked down at the river again, shivering,—trying to think +of the place and all we were leaving. I did not wonder that it cost the +others little to give up the house: it meant but little to them. Doctor +Manning had bought it just before we were married, being then a square +chocolate-colored farm-house, and we had worked our own whims on it to +make it into a home, thrusting out a stout-pillared big porch at one +side, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> one or two snug little bay-windows from my sewing-room. There +was a sunny slope of clover down to the river, a dusky old apple and +plum orchard at the left, and Mary's kitchen-garden on the right, with a +purblind old peacock strutting through the paths, showing its green and +gold. Not much in all this: nothing to please Jacky's artist and poet +sense, if she had any. But——I held on to the porch-railings now, +drumming with my fingers, as I thought of it. It was all the childhood +<i>I</i> ever had known. He brought me there the day we were married, and +until August—six months—we had been there alone. I could hear his old +nag Tinder neighing now, in the stable where we used to go every evening +to feed and rub him down: for I went with Daniel, as I called him, then, +everywhere, even to consult his mason or farm-hands. He used to stand +joking with them a minute after the business was over, in an unwonted +fashion for him, and then scramble into the buggy beside me, and drive +off, his fresh, bright eye turned to the landscape as if enjoying it for +the first time.</p> + +<p>"God bless you, Hetty!" he used to say, "this is putting new blood into +my veins."</p> + +<p>Generally, in those long rides, I used to succeed in coaxing him +imperceptibly back to talk of his life in South America,—not only that +I liked to hear this new phase of wild adventuring life, but my own +blood would glow and freshen to see the fierce dare-devil look come back +into the eye, and the shut teeth of the grave, laconic old Doctor. +People did not know the man I had married,—no; and I would draw in +closer to his shaggy coat, and spur him on to his years of trading in +the West, and later in this State. He had a curious epigrammatic way of +talking that I have noticed in a less degree in many Western men: coming +at the marrow and meaning of a scene or person in his narration with a +sheer subtilized common-sense, a tough appreciation of fact beyond +theory, and of its deeper, juster significance, and a dramatic aptness +for expression. Added to all this, my husband's life had been compacted, +crowded with incident; it had saddened and silenced his nature +abnormally; this was the first break: a going back to what he might have +been, such as his children were now.</p> + +<p>"I never talked to any one before, Hetty," he said thoughtfully once, as +we were driving along, after a few moments' silence. "I feel as if I had +got breath, this late in the day, that I never expected, for whatever +thought was in me,—and—whatever love."</p> + +<p>He turned away his face, crimson at this. He was as strangely reticent +and tender on some points as a woman. So seldom he put his love into +words! That time I remember how the tears suddenly blinded me, when I +heard him, and my fingers grew unsteady, holding the reins. I was so +happy and proud. But I said nothing: he would not have liked it.</p> + +<p>Of one time in his life Doctor Manning had never talked to me: of his +earlier youth; when he was married before. He was not a man of whom you +could ask questions; yet I had hinted an inquiry once or twice in his +presence, but only by a change of color and a strange vague restlessness +had he shown that he understood my drift of meaning. Soon after that, +his eldest son, Robert, came to see his father's new wife, and stayed +with us a day or two. He was a short, thickly built young man, with +heavy jaws and black hair and eyes,—keen eyes, I soon felt, that were +weighing and analyzing me as justly, but more shrewdly than ever his +father had done. The night before he went away he came up to the +porch-step where I sat, and said abruptly,—</p> + +<p>"I am satisfied, and happy to go now."</p> + +<p>"I am glad of that," I said earnestly; for the tenderness of the son to +the father had touched me.</p> + +<p>"Yes. You cannot know the dread I had of seeing you. I knew the risk he +ran in laying his happiness in any woman's hands at his hour of life. +But it was hard he never should know a home and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> love like other +men,"—his voice unsteady, and with an appealing look.</p> + +<p>"He never shall need it," I said, quietly.</p> + +<p>"You think not?"—his eyes on the ground. "At all events,"—after a +pause,—"he is resting like a child now: it will not be easy to startle +him to any harsh reality, and," looking up, "I hope God may deal with +you, Mrs. Manning, as you deal with my father. Forgive me," as I began +to speak, "you do not know what this is to me. It makes me rough, I +know. I never yet have forgiven the woman that"——His mother? He caught +the look, stopped, pushed his hair back, caught his breath. "One thing +let me say," after a moment's silence. "You do not know my father. If he +wakens to find his wife is not what he thinks her, it will be too late +for me to warn you then. He has been hurt sore and deeply in his life. +Your chance is but once."</p> + +<p>I did not reply to Robert Manning, nor was I offended: there was too +much solemnity in his coarseness. The man's affection for his father was +as part of his life-blood, I believed.</p> + +<p>My husband came to me when he saw Robert go, and loosened my hands from +my face. I clung to him as I never did before.</p> + +<p>"What is this hurt he talks of in your life, Daniel? Will I be enough to +take it out? Will I?"</p> + +<p>He laughed, a low, constrained laugh, holding my shoulders as if I were +a bit of a child.</p> + +<p>"God knows you are enough, Hetty. I never thought He'd send me this. Rob +has been talking to you? He"——</p> + +<p>"He is bitter."</p> + +<p>"He loves me,—poor Rob!"</p> + +<p>"Tell me of those people that hurt you, as he says."</p> + +<p>It was a prurient, morbid curiosity that had seized me. A sort of shiver +ran over his frame.</p> + +<p>"Eh, what, Hetty?"—in a low voice. "Let that go, let that +go,"—standing silent a moment, looking down. "Why would we bring them +back, and hack over the old dead faults? Had <i>she</i> no pain to bear? We +couldn't find that out to speak for her. But God knows it."</p> + +<p>I might have known how my question would have ended; for, always, he +covered over the ill-doing of others with a nervous haste, with the +charity of a man himself sharply sensitive to pain.</p> + +<p>"It is healthful to go back to past pain," I said, half dissatisfied.</p> + +<p>"Is it so?"—doubtfully, as he turned away with me. "I don't know, +child. Now and then He has to punish us, or cut out a cancer maybe. But +for going back to gloat over the cure or the whip-lash——No; it will +keep us busy enough to find good air and food, every minute for itself"; +and, with a ruddy, genial smile, he had stooped and kissed my forehead.</p> + +<p>A year had passed since that night. I was standing on the same porch, +but I was alone now. My husband sat a few feet from me in his old +easy-chair, but no gulf could have parted us so wide and deeply. Robert +Manning had said I would have but one chance. Well, I had had it, and it +was gone. So I stood there, looking quietly at him and Jacky and the +boy. The child had pushed his father's wig off, and his bare head with +its thin iron-gray hair fell forward on his breast, resting on Teddy's +sleeping cheek. I saw now how broad and sad the forehead was,—the quiet +dignity on the whole face. Yet it had been such a simple-hearted thing +to do,—to buy that wig to please me! One of those little follies the +like of which would never come again.</p> + +<p>I went in and sat down as usual, apart, throwing aside from my neck the +shawl which Jacky had pinned there, loathing anything she had touched, +so real and sharp was the thought about her become, as if the evening's +fog and cold had lent it a venomous life. They had made a quiet cozy +picture before, which had bitterly brought back our first married days, +but it was broken up now. The Doctor's three boys came lumbering in, +with muddy shoes, game-bags, and the usual fiery faces and loud jokes +after their day's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> sport. Jacky threw down her sewing, and went out to +see the squirrels drawn, and the Doctor smoothed Teddy's hair, looking +after them with a pleased smile. One of the rarest sparkles of our daily +life! It was a year since Doctor Manning had brought his children home. +They filled the house. Musing on the past now, and trying to look at +that year calmly, while I sat by the fire, my husband would fade back in +the picture into an unmeaning lay-figure. Was this my fault? Could I +help it, if God had made me with a different, clearer insight into life +and its uses than these people with their sound beef and muscle, their +uncouth rejoicing in being alive? There was work enough in them: a +broad-fisted grappling with the day's task or obstacle, a drinking of +its pain or success into their slow brains, but nowhere the metre to +note the soul's changes, nor the eye to speculate on them. "No," my +husband had said to me one day, "we Western people have the mass of this +country's appointed work to do, so we are content that God should +underlie the hypotheses. We waste no strength in guesses at the reason +why."</p> + +<p>I remember how intolerably the days of that year dragged even in memory, +as I sat there trying to judge them fairly,—how other years of my life +thrust them aside, persistently, as foreign, alien to me. These others +were to me home,—the thoughts that had held me nearest the divine life: +I went back to them, my eyes wet, and my heart sick under my weak lungs. +The little village of Concord, away up yonder, where I was born,—I was +glad to have been born there: thinking how man not only had learned +there to stand self-poised and found himself God, but Nature herself +seemed there to stop and reflect on her own beauty, and so root deeper +in the inner centre. The slow-dropping river, the thoughtful hills, the +very dust-colored fern that covers its fields, which might grow in +Hades, so breathless and crisp it is, came back to me with a glamour of +quiet that night. The soul had space to grow there! remembering how its +doors of thought stood wider open to welcome truth than anywhere else on +earth. "The only object in life is to grow." It was my +father's,—Margaret Fuller's motto. I had been nursed on it, I might +say. There had been a time when I had dreamed of attaining Margaret's +stature; and as I thought of that, some old subtile flame stirred in me +with a keen delight. New to me, almost; for, since my baby was born, my +soul as well as my body had been weak and nauseated. It had been so +sharp a disappointment! I had intended my child should be reared in New +England: what I had lacked in gifts and opportunities he should possess: +there was not a step of his progress which I had not mapped out. But the +child was a girl, a weazen-faced little mortal, crying night and day +like any other animal. It was an animal, wearing out in me the strength +needed by-and-by for its mental training. I sent it to a nurse in the +country. Her father had met the woman carrying it out to the wagon, and +took it in his arms. "Eh? eh? is it so, little lass?" I heard him say. +For days after that he looked paler, and his face had a quiet, settled +look, as if he had tested the world and was done with it. The days of +Tinder and the paddock and the drives were long gone then. I do not +remember that after this he ever called me Hetty. But he was cheerful as +ever with the boys, and, the week after, Jacky came.</p> + +<p>Why did I think of all this now? Some latent, unconscious jar of thought +brought suddenly before me a scene of many years before, a damp spring +morning in Paris, when I had gone to Rosa Bonheur's studio, just out of +the city, to see her "Horse-Fair": the moist smell of jonquils; the +drifting light clouds above the Seine, like patches of wool; but most, +the peculiar life that seemed to impregnate the place itself, holding +her, as it were, to her own precise niche and work in the world,—the +sharply managed lights, the skins, trappings, her disguises on the +walls, the stables outside, and the finished work before us, instinct +with vigor and an observation as patient as keen. I remembered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> how some +one had quoted her as saying, "Any woman can be a wife or mother, but +this is my work alone."</p> + +<p>I, too, had my gift: but one. But again the quick shiver of ecstasy ran +through me;—it was my power, my wand with which to touch the world, my +"<i>Vollmachtsbrief zum Glücke</i>": was I to give it unused back to God? I +could sing: not that only; I could compose music,—the highest +soul-utterance. I remember clutching my hands up to my throat, as if +holding safe the power that should release me, suffer me to grow again, +and looking across the oil-lamp on the table at my husband. I <i>had</i> been +called, then,—set apart to a mission; it was a true atom of the +creative power that had fired my brain; my birth had placed me on a +fitting plane of self-development, and I had thrust it all aside—for +what? A mess of weakest pottage,—a little love, silly rides behind +Tinker, petting and paltering such as other women's souls grew imbecile +without. It was the consciousness of this that had grown slowly on me in +the year just gone; I had put my husband from me day by day because of +it; it had reached its intolerable climax to-night. Well, it was fact: +no fancy. My nature was differently built from others: I could look now +at my husband, and see the naked truth about us both. Two middle-aged +people, with inharmonious intellects: tastes and habits jarring at every +step, clenched together only by faith in a vague whim or fever of the +blood called love. Better apart: we were too old for fevers. If I +remained with Doctor Manning, my <i>rôle</i> was outlined plain to the end: +years of cooking, stitching, scraping together of cents: it was the fate +of thousands of married women without means, to grovel every year nearer +the animal life, to grow niggardly and common. Better apart.</p> + +<p>As I thought that, he laid Teddy down, and came towards me,—the usual +uncertain, anxious half-smile on his face with which he regarded me.</p> + +<p>"I am sure they will all like my old home, now, lads and all. I'm glad +of that. Sure of all but you, Hester. But you say nothing."</p> + +<p>"The loss is great."</p> + +<p>I shut my lips firmly, and leaned back, for he had put his hard hand +gently on my shoulder. It made me turn faint, with some weakness that +must have come down to me from my infant days, so meaningless was it. I +did not hear his answer; for with the same passionate feebleness I +caught the sleeve of his dressing-gown in my fingers, and began +smoothing it. It was the first thing I had ever made for him. I +remembered how proud I was the evening he put it on. He was looking down +steadily at me with his grave, reasonable eyes, and speaking when I +looked up.</p> + +<p>"I have been knocked up and down so perpetually in my own life: that may +be the reason the change did not trouble me as it ought. It makes one +feel as if outside matters were but just the tithes of mint and +cumin,—a hurly-burly like that which I've lived in. I am sorry. I +thought you would grieve least of all, Hester. You are stronger-brained +than we Mannings, eh? I was sure the life meant so much more to you than +food or raiment."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by the life? Have I found it here, Daniel?"</p> + +<p>"No, Hester?"</p> + +<p>"I want work fit for me," I said, almost fiercely. "God made me for a +good, high purpose."</p> + +<p>"I know," cheerfully. "We'll find it, dear: no man's work is kept back +from him. We'll find it together."</p> + +<p>But under the cheerfulness there was a sad quiet, as of one who has lost +something forever, and tries to hide the loss from himself. There was a +moment's silence, then I got up, and pushed him down into my chair. I +took the gray head in my arms, leaned it on my shoulder, held the thin +bits of hair in my hand.</p> + +<p>"Why, why, child!"</p> + +<p>"Call me Hetty, Daniel. I'd like to think that name belonged to me yet."</p> + +<p>"Surely, dear. Why! but—this is just the old times again, Hetty! You'll +be bringing me my slippers again."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, I will."</p> + +<p>I went to the cupboard, and brought them, sitting down on the floor as +he put them on. Another of the old foolish tricks gone long ago. There +was a look on his face which had not been there this many a day. He had +such a credulous heart, so easy to waken into happiness. I took his +wrist in my bony hands, to raise myself; the muscles were like steel, +the cording veins throbbing with health; there was an indescribable rest +in the touch.</p> + +<p>"Daniel," I said, looking him full in the face, "I'd like to have no +mission in God's world. I'd like to give up my soul, and forget +everything but you."</p> + +<p>He did not answer. I think now that he understood me then and before far +better than I dreamed. He only put his hand on mine with an unutterable +tenderness. I could read nothing on his face but a grave common-sense. +Presently he unbuttoned my sleeves and the close collar about my throat +to let the cool damp blow on me.</p> + +<p>"Yes," I said, "it's a fever, Daniel. In the blood. That is all,—with +me. I decided that long ago. It will not last long." And I laughed.</p> + +<p>"Come," he said, quietly. "I am going to write to Rob now, about our +plans. You can help me."</p> + +<p>I followed him, and sat down by the table. "There is something in the +man stronger than the woman," I thought, doggedly, "inside of blood and +muscle." Yet the very galling of that consciousness set me more firmly +in the mind to be again free.</p> + +<p>A month after that we came to Newport. It was not an idle month. Jacky +had proposed a review of my husband's and his sons' clothes, and day +after day I had sat by the window looking out on the sluggish Hudson, a +hank of patent thread about my neck, stitching patches on the stiff, +half-worn trousers. "It becomes us to take care of the pence now," she +would say, and go on with her everlasting whistling, La-la. It rasped on +my brain like the chirp of the partridge outside in the cedar-hedge. +When she would go out of the room sometimes, I would hold my hand to my +head, and wonder if it was for this in reality God had made me.</p> + +<p>Yet I had my own secret. The work of my life, before I was married, had +been the score of an opera. I got it out now by stealth, at night, +putting my pen to it here and there, with the controlled fever with +which a man might lay his hand on a dear dead face, if he knew the touch +would bring it back to life. Was there any waking that dead life of +mine? At that time, in New York, M. Vaux was trying the experiment of an +English opera in one of the minor theatres. I sent the score to him. It +did not trouble me, that, if produced, its first effect would be tried +on an uncultured caste of hearers: if the leaven was pure, what matter +where it began to work? and no poet or artist was ever more sincere in +the belief that the divine power spoke through Him than I. I thought, +that, if I remained with Doctor Manning as his wife, this venture +mattered little: if I shook myself free, and, taking up my mission, came +before the public as a singer, it would open the way for me. For my plan +had grown defined and practical to me now.</p> + +<p>M. Vaux had left his family at Newport after the season was over. I was +to meet him there when we went down, and hear his decision on the score. +I met him one day on Broadway, and hinted my vague desire of making my +voice also available.</p> + +<p>"To sing? did you say sing, Mrs. Manning? go on the stage?"—pawing his +chin with one hand.</p> + +<p>He was a short, puffy little man, with a bullet head at half-cock in the +air, producing a general effect of nostrils on you.</p> + +<p>"Sing, eh?" he mumbled, once or twice.</p> + +<p>Before this I had been Mrs. Manning, throwing off an opera-score as a +careless whim, one of the class to whom he and his like presented arms: +he surveyed me now with the eye of a stock-raiser buying a new mule, and +set the next evening as the time when I should "drop in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> at his house +and give him a trill or two.—Keeping dark before the old man yet, eh?" +with a wink. I went in the next day, but he declined to pronounce +judgment until we came to Newport.</p> + +<p>I remember my husband met me at the gate when I returned, and lifted me +from the little pony-carriage.</p> + +<p>"I'm so glad my girl is taking her drives again,"—his face in a +glow,—"coming back with the old red cheeks, too. They're a sort of hint +of all the good years coming. We're far off from being old people yet, +Hetty." And so went beside me slowly up the garden-walk, his hands +clasped behind him, stopping to look now and then at his favorite purple +and crimson hollyhocks.</p> + +<p>I looked at him askance, as we went through the evening shadows. There +was something grand in the quiet of the face, growing old with the depth +of sadness and endurance subdued in it: the kindly smile over all. I had +brought the smile there. But it would not be for long: and I remember +how the stalk of gillyflower I held snapped in my hand, and its spicy +odor made me throw it down. I have loathed it ever since. Was my life to +be wasted in calling a smile to an old man's face? My husband and M. +Vaux were different men; but, on the other side, they were gates to me +of different lives: here, a sordid slavery of work; there,—something in +me glowed warm and triumphant,—fame and an accomplished deed in life!</p> + +<p>Surely these mawkish home-ties were fast loosing their hold on me, I +thought, as we went in. I asked no questions as to my husband's plans; +no one spoke to me of them. In the few days before our departure I roped +up chairs, packed china in straw, sorted clothes into trunks, working +harder than the others, and then creeping off alone would hum an air +from the score, thanking God for giving me this thoroughly pure, holy +message to utter in the world. It was the redemption of my soul from +these vulgar taints: it was a sort of mortgage I held on the eternal +truth and life. Yet, when no one told me of their plans, when I saw they +all held some secret back from me, watching me constantly and furtively, +when Jacky buzzed about my husband all day, whispering, laughing, +cooking his favorite omelet for breakfast, bringing his slippers at +night,—it was like so many sharp stings through stupor. "It's the +woman's flesh of me!" I used to say bitterly, when I would have been +glad to meanly creep after them, to cuddle Teddy up in my arms, or to +lean my head on his father's knees. "I can live it down. I have 'a manly +soul.'" For it was part of my creed that Nature was something given us +to be lived down in fulfilling our mission.</p> + +<p>We went by the evening's boat to Newport. I saw M. Vaux in the outer +cabin, as we passed through: he nodded familiarly when Doctor Manning's +back was turned, without removing his cigar.</p> + +<p>It was stifling below, with the smell of frying meat and numerous +breaths. We went on deck, my husband drawing a bench around to shelter +me from the keen wind across the bow, and wrapping my flannel hood +closer to my throat when we drifted out within scent of salt water. It +was a night that waited and listened: the sea silent and threatening, a +few yellow, dogged, low breakers running in at long intervals; now and +then a rasping gurgle of wind from shore, as of one who held his breath; +some thin, brown clouds ragged along the edges of the cold sky, ready +for flight.</p> + +<p>I sat there thinking how well the meaning of the sea suited my soul that +night. It was no work of God's praising Him continually: it was the +eternal protest and outcry against Fate,—chained, helpless, +unappealing. Let the mountains and the sunshine and the green fields +chant an anthem, if they would; but for this solitary sea, with its +inarticulate cry, surely all the pain and impatience of the world's six +thousand years had gone down and found a voice in that. Having thus +cleared to myself the significance of the sea in Nature, I was trying to +define its exact effect upon my own temperament,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> (a favorite mental +exercise of my father's,) when my husband touched my shoulder.</p> + +<p>"I'll go down and smoke a bit, Hetty dear, and leave you with Jacky. +She's as good guard as a troop of horse."</p> + +<p>Jacky nodded vehemently once or twice from where she stood, followed him +with her eyes as he went down the steps, anxiously, and then stood +gravely silent. She was but a lump of "woman's flesh," that was clear, +and I doubted if there was any soul inside to live it down. Her face was +red and her eyes shining with the sea-wind. She had been at the stern +with the boys, making a riot about the porpoises rolling under the boat; +in the engine-room with Teddy; had tried to drag me to the deck-railing +to watch the unsteady shimmer of some pale-blue sea-weed under the +water, which the wheel threw up in silver flashes, or to see how, before +the sun went down, we floated over almost motionless stretches of pale +tea-colored water, holding, it seemed, little curdling pools of light +far below in their depths on depths of shivering brown and dull red +mosses.</p> + +<p>"Ach-h! I'm glad I'm alive to-night!" she had said, gritting her teeth +in her Dutch fashion.</p> + +<p>But some new demon had possession of her brain now: she stood working +with her shawl uncertainly, a trifle pale, watching me. She came to me +at last, and stood balancing herself first on her heels and then her +toes, biting her lip as if doubtful how to begin.</p> + +<p>"I wish we had the baby along!" came with a gruff burst, finally. "God +bless its little soul! I went out to see it on Saturday. It would do +Uncle Daniel good. He needs something fresh and hearty, +bread-and-butter-like, or a baby. You did not notice him this evening +particularly, Mrs. Manning, eh?" anxiously.</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Nothing——Well, no matter. I'm fanciful, maybe. There's an old saying +in the family about him, some Doctor's prophecy, and it makes me +over-watchful, likely."</p> + +<p>She waited for a question. I asked none. There was a dull throb of pain +in my heart, but I thrust it down. The girl waited a few moments, +debating with herself: I could read the struggle on her face: then she +looked up straight into my eyes, her small white teeth showing +determined as a steel-trap.</p> + +<p>"It's quiet here, Mrs. Manning, and will be for a bit, and there's a +story I'd like to tell you. It would do me good, if it were off my mind. +Perhaps you, too," with a sharp glance.</p> + +<p>"Go on."</p> + +<p>She put her hand into her pocket and pulled out a broken morocco case.</p> + +<p>"Look here. This tells the whole of the story, almost,"—holding it +where the light from the cabin-window fell on it.</p> + +<p>It was the daguerreotype of a woman: one of those faces that grow out of +a torpid, cunning, sensual life; apparently marked, too, by some strange +disease, the skin white, and hanging loose from the flesh. I pushed it +away. Jacqueline polished it with her palm.</p> + +<p>"She was an opium-eater, you see? The eyes have that rigid staring, like +Death looking into life. You pushed it from you, Mrs. +Manning?"—shutting it. "Yet I know a man who cherished that living face +tenderly in his bosom for fifteen long years, and never opened his lips +to say to God once that it was hard to bear: faugh!" and she flung the +case into the water. "I only kept it to show you. She, the foul vampire, +sucked his youth away. I think it was but the husk of life that was left +him when she died;—and we are making that mean and poor enough,"—in a +lower voice. "Yet that man"—more firmly—"has a stronger brain and +fresher heart than you or I are fit to comprehend, Mrs. Manning. One +would think God meant that the last of his life, after that gone, should +be a warm Indian-summer day, opening broad and happily into the life He +is keeping for him,—would you not?"</p> + +<p>"Who is the man?"—my lips growing cold.</p> + +<p>"Your husband."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I thought so. You did well to tell me that story."</p> + +<p>She looked from me, her color coming and going.</p> + +<p>"It was hard to do it. You are an older woman than I. But I thought it +was needed."</p> + +<p>I looked up at the hard-set, chubby little face, beyond at the far +yellow night-line of sea, listened to the low choke, choke, of the water +in the wheels.</p> + +<p>"I wish you would leave me. Let me be alone awhile."</p> + +<p>She went to the other end of the deck, where she could keep me in sight. +It was so dull, that throb of the water, playing some old tune that +would not vary! The sea stretched out in such blank, featureless +reaches!</p> + +<p>To nestle down into this man's heart and life! To make his last years +that warm Indian-summer day! I could do it! I! What utter rest there +were in that!</p> + +<p>Yet was this power within me to rot and waste? My nature, all the habit +and teaching of the years gone, dragged me back, held up my Self before +me, bade me look at that. A whiff of tobacco-scented breathing made me +look up. M. Vaux was leaning on the deck-railing, his legs crossed, +surveying me critically through his half-shut eyes.</p> + +<p>"Well, 'm, glad of the chance t' tell you. Henz and Doctor Howe thought +so well of that little thing of yours that we've put it in +rehearsal,—bring it out Monday week. 'N' 've concluded you can try the +part of Marian in it. Not much in that,—one aria you can make something +of, but begin easy, hey?"</p> + +<p>"I have concluded to give up that scheme, Monsieur."</p> + +<p>"Tut! tut! No such thing. Why, you've a master-talent,—that is, with +cultivation, cultivation. A fine gift, Madam. Belongs to the public. +Why," tapping his yellow teeth with his cane-head, "it's shutting up a +bird in a cage, to smother a voice like yours. Must have training,—yes, +yes, 'll see to that; 'n' there are tricks and bits of stage-effect; but +you'll catch 'em,—soon enough. There's other little matters," with a +furtive glance at my square shoulders and bony figure, "necessary to +success. But you'll understand."</p> + +<p>I saw how anxious the man was that I should accede to the proposal. I +had not overrated my genius, then?</p> + +<p>"If the thing's to be done, let it be done quickly. I'm going to run +back to town to-morrow night, and you'd best go with me, and go in +rehearsal at once. You can break it to your people to-morrow. I'll meet +you in the boat,—that is," with an unwilling hesitation, "if you decide +to go."</p> + +<p>Jacky approached us.</p> + +<p>"I will let you know," I said; and as he walked away, the water began +its dull throb, throb, again, that lasted all night long.</p> + +<p>All night long! Other people may approach the crisis of their fate with +senses and faculties all on guard and alert; but with me, although I +knew the next day would witness my choice for life, I believe that heavy +thud of the water was the most real thought, trying my brain beyond +endurance. I tried to reason coolly in the night about M. Vaux and his +scheme: both vulgar, degrading in outside appearance,—I felt that, to +the quick, keenly enough; but inside lay a career, utterance for +myself,—and I had been dumb and choking so long!</p> + +<p>A beam of light from the cabin-chandelier struck just then sharply +across Doctor Manning's face, where he lay asleep in his berth. There +was an unusual look in it, as Jacky had said, now that I looked closely: +a blueness about the mouth, and a contraction of the nostrils. Was it a +hint of any secret disease, that she had looked so terrified, and even +the boys had kept such a sidelong scrutiny over him all day? I sat up. +If I could go to him, put my hands about his head, cling to him, let my +young strength and life ooze into his to atone for all he had lost in +those old days! There was passion and power of love under my +stiff-muscled fingers and hard calculating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> brain, such as these people +with their hot blood knew nothing of. It <i>was</i> passion, a weak fever of +the flesh. I drew the sheet over me, and lay down again.</p> + +<p>The morning was stiflingly hot. I remember the crowd of porters, drays, +etc., jostling on the wharf: the narrow street: Monsieur passing me, as +we turned into it, and muttering, "By six this afternoon I must know +your decision": Robert's grave, inquiring face, when he first met his +father, and saw his changed look. The rooms he had taken for us were but +partially furnished, carpetless, the sun staring in through dirty +windows, blue and yellow paper on the walls. He went out with Dr. +Manning for a walk; the boys scattered off noisily to the sea-side. I +went to work making a sort of lounge for Teddy to sleep on, out of some +blocks of wood and staves of an old barrel, and so passed the time until +noon. Then I sat down to mend the weekly heap of boys' socks, +half-washed and leather-stained. Out of the window where I sat I looked +down into the muddy back-yard of the boarding-house, where an Irishwoman +was washing and gossiping with the cook cleaning fish over the ash-heap. +<i>This</i> was what Life held for me now, was it? When the door was opened, +a strong whiff of dinner filled the room. Two o'clock came.</p> + +<p>"I will not go down to dinner," I said to Jacqueline, when the cracked +bell rang. "I will go out and find Doctor Manning on the cliffs. I may +have something to say to him."</p> + +<p>But when she was gone, I darned on at the unclean socks. Somehow the +future faced me in my work and surroundings. But I did not think of it +as a whole. The actual dignity and beauty of life, God's truth itself, +may have grown dim to me, behind a faint body and tired fingers; but let +the hard-worked woman who is without that sin throw the first stone at +me. I got up at last, folded the stockings, and put them away; then +pinned on my bonnet and shawl. Teddy was sitting on the stairs, half +asleep. I stopped to kiss him.</p> + +<p>"You'll be back soon, mother?"—hugging me close about the neck.</p> + +<p>"Good bye, Bud! Bring your father his pipe to-night, as he likes you to +do,—and every night."</p> + +<p>I strained him close to my breast again; he had a warm, honest little +heart of his own; he would be such a man as his father. I gasped, set +him down: I dared not kiss him after I thought of that: and went out of +the hall, stumbling over the boarders' hats and greasy oil-cloth. +Without, the air had that yellow stirless calm peculiar to Newport, +which gives to the sea and landscape the effect of those French pictures +glassed in tinted crystal. There were but few passengers on the street. +I wondered if any of them held his fate in his hand as I did mine that +day. Before I reached the cliffs the afternoon was passing away rapidly; +the heated pavements under my feet growing cooler, and barred with long +gray shadows; a sea-breeze blowing tattered sand-colored clouds inland; +the bell of the steamer rang out sharply down at the quiet little wharf. +In half an hour she would sail. M. Vaux was on board, awaiting me. I had +but little time to spare.</p> + +<p>I turned and crept slowly along the road to where the grassy street +opened on the cliffs, and sat down on the brown rocks. I could see my +husband on the sands with Robert, pacing to and fro; the scent of their +cigars almost reached me where I sat. I must see him once more. The bell +of the boat rang again; but I sat still, breaking off bits of the salt +crust from the rock, hardly looking up to see if her steam was up. I was +going. I knew she would not sail until I was on board. And I must see +him again; he would call me Hetty, maybe: that would be something to +remember. It was very quiet. The bare, ghastly cliffs formed a sort of +crescent, on which I sat; far below, the sea rolled in, over the white +sand, in heavy ashen sweeps: in one horn of the crescent the quaint old +town nestled, its smoky breath<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> sleepily giving good-night to the clear +pink air; in the other stood the sullen fort, the flag flapping sharply +against the sky. The picture cut itself vividly on my brain. The two +black figures came slowly towards me, across the sands, seeing me at +last. I would not tell him I was going: I could write from New York: I +thought, my courage giving way. What a hard, just face Robert Manning +had! What money I made should go to the support of my child: Robert +should not think me derelict in every duty. Then I tried to get up to +meet them, but leaned back more heavily on the rocks, twisting my +fingers in a tuft of salt hay that grew there.</p> + +<p>I heard Robert say something about "jaded" and "overworked," as he +looked at me, throwing away his cigar; his father answered in a whisper, +which made the young man's face soften, and when they came near, he +called me "mother," for the first time. Into the face of the man beside +him I did not look: I thought I never could look again. There was a +small rip in the sleeve of his great-coat: I remember I saw it, and +wondered feebly if Jacky would attend to it,—if my child, when she was +a woman, would be careful and tender with her father. Meantime my +husband was talking in his cheerfullest, heartiest voice.</p> + +<p>"Coming here makes me feel as if the old boy-time had come back, Hetty. +Rob and I have been planning out our new life, and the sea and the fresh +air and the very houses seemed to join in the talk, and help me on as +they used to do then. I'll begin all new: just as then. Only now"——</p> + +<p>He put his hand on my shawl with a motion that had infinite meaning and +affection in it. The little steamer at the wharf swayed and rocked. Her +freight was nearly all on deck: I had but a few moments more,—that is, +if I meant to be free.</p> + +<p>"We are going down to the hotel for a few minutes,—business, Hetty," he +said. "Will you wait for us here? or are you afraid to be alone?</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not afraid to be alone. It is better for me."</p> + +<p>"Good bye, then. Come, Rob."</p> + +<p>I did not say good-bye. Even then, I think I did not know what I had +resolved. I thrust my fingers deeper into the wet tuft of grass, heard +the long dash of the breakers on the beach, looked at the square black +figure of Robert Manning as it went slowly up the sandy road into the +street. At the other, taller and more bent, beside it, I did not once +look. I wiped the clammy moisture off my face and throat.</p> + +<p>"It's the woman's flesh of me," I said. "There is better stuff in me +than that. I will go now, and fulfil my calling."</p> + +<p>On the wharf, as I went creeping along, I met Monsieur. He offered me +his fat little arm, with smiles and congratulations, and handed me +hurriedly over the plank on to the deck. In a moment the steamer was +puffing out of harbor.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>I was to play Marian in my own opera. God had given me a power of +head-work, skill for a certain mission, and I was going to perform it. +The vast, vague substance on which I was to act was brought before me +to-night, palpable,—the world, posterity, time; how did I call it? But, +somehow, it was not what I had dreamed of since my babyhood up yonder in +Concord. Nothing was vast or vague. I was looking into a little glass in +a black-painted frame, and saw the same Mrs. Manning, with the same high +cheekbones, the yellow mole on the upper lip, the sorrowful brown eyes: +dressed in tulle now, though, the angular arms and shoulders bare, and +coated with chalk, a pat of rouge laid on each cheek: under the +tulle-body the same old half-sickness; the same throbbing back-tooth +threatening to ache. The room was small, triangular: a striped, reddish +cotton carpet on the floor, a door with a brass handle, my bandbox open +on a chair, a basin with soapy water, soiled towels, two dripping +tallow-candles: in short, a dressing-room in a theatre. Outside, wheels, +pulleys, pasteboard castles, trees, chairs,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> more bony women, more +chalk, more tulle. Monsieur in a greasy green dressing-gown odorous of +tobacco, swearing at a boy with blear eyes,—a scene-shifter. The +orchestra tuning beyond the foot-lights: how vilely the first violin +slurred over that second passage! "Life's Prophecy," I called it; and +that "Vision of Heaven," the trombonist came in always false on the +bass, because, as Monsieur said, he had always two brandy-slings too +much. Beyond was "the world," passive, to be acted upon; the +parquet,—ranged seats of young men with the flash-stamp on them from +their thick noses to the broad-checked trousers; the +dress-circle,—young girls with their eyes and brains full-facing their +attendant sweethearts, and a side-giggle for the stage; crude faces in +the gallery, tamed faces lower down; gray and red and black and +tow-colored heads full of myriad teeming thoughts of business, work, +pleasure, outside of this: treble and tenor notes wandering through +them, dying almost ere born; touching what soul behind the dress and +brain-work? and touching it how? Ah, well! "I am going to fulfil my +mission." I said that, again and again, as I stood waiting. "Now. This +is it. I take it up." But my blood would not be made to thrill.</p> + +<p>"This wart must be covered," said a walking-lady in red paper-muslin, +touching the mole on my lip with Meen Fun. M. Vaux tapped at the +door,—a sly, oily smile on his mouth.</p> + +<p>"We are honored to-night. Be prepared, my dear Madam, for surprises in +your audience. Your husband is in the house,—and his son, Robert +Manning."</p> + +<p>I put up my hands in the vain effort to cover the bare neck and +shoulders,—then, going back into the dressing-room, sat down, without a +word. I remember how the two tallow-candles flared and sputtered, as I +sat staring at them; how on the other side of the brass-handled door the +play went on, the pulleys creaked, and the trombones grated, and the +other women in tulle and chalk capered and sang, and that at last the +stuffy voice of the call-boy outside cried, "Marian, on," and it was my +time to fulfil my mission. I remember how broad a gap the green floor of +the stage made to the shining tin foot-lights; how the thousand brassy, +mocking eyes were centred on the lean figure that moved forward; how I +heard a weak quaver going up, and knew it to be my own voice: I remember +nothing more until the scene was ended: the test and last scene of the +opera it had been: and as the curtain fell, it was stopped by a faint, +dismal hiss that grew slowly louder and more venomous, was mingled with +laughs and jeers from the gallery, and the play was damned. I stood with +my white gauze and bony body and rouge behind a pasteboard flower-vase, +and looked out at the laughing mob of faces. This was the world; I had +done my best head-work for it, and even these plebeian brains had found +it unfit for use, and tossed it aside. I waited there a moment, and then +passing Monsieur, whose puffy face was purple with disappointment and +rage, went into the dressing-room.</p> + +<p>"What wonder?" I heard him demand in French. "It was so coarse a theft! +But I hoped the catch-dresses would pass it off."</p> + +<p>I wrapped a flannel cloak over my airy robes, and went out, down the +crooked back-stairs into the street. I had no money; if I went back to +the hotel where I had been stopping, it would be as a beggar.</p> + +<p>I waited outside of the theatre by an old woman's candy-stand for the +crowd to hustle past, holding myself up by her chair-back. She was +nodding, for it was past midnight, but opened her red eyes to lift a +little child on her knees who had been asleep at her feet.</p> + +<p>"Come, Puss, the play's out, it's time for you an' Granny to be snug at +home."</p> + +<p>I laughed. Why, there was not one of these women or men crowding by, the +very black beggar holding your horse, who had not a home, a child to +touch, to love them,—not one. And I—I had my Self. I had developed +that.</p> + +<p>I pulled the cloak closer about me and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> went down the pavement. The +street was thronged with street-cars stopping for the play-goers, hacks, +and omnibuses; the gas flamed in red and green letters over the +house-fronts; the crowd laughed and swayed and hummed snatches of songs, +as they went by. I saw one or two husbands drawing the wrappings tighter +about their wives' throats, for the air was sharp. My husband had seen +my shoulders to-night,—so had they all, covered with chalk. There were +children, too, cuddling close to their mothers' sides in the carriages. +I wondered if my child would ever know it had a mother. So I went slowly +down the street. I never saw the sky so dark and steely a blue as it was +that night: if there had been one star in it, I think it would have +looked softer, more pitying, somehow, when I looked up. Knowing all that +I had done, I yet cannot but feel a pity for the wretch I was that +night. If the home I had desolated, the man and child I had abandoned, +had chosen their revenge, they could not have asked that the woman's +flesh and soul should rise in me with a hunger so mad as this.</p> + +<p>At the corner of the street, a group from the crowd had stopped at the +door of a drug-shop; they were anxious, curious, whispering back to +those behind them. Some woman fainting, perhaps, or some one ill. I +could not pass the lock of carriages at the crossing, and stopped, +looking into the green light of the window-bottles. In a moment I caught +my own name, "Manning," from a policeman who came out, and a word or two +added. The crowd drew back with a sudden breath of horror; but I passed +them, and went in. It was a large shop: the lustres, marble +soda-fountains, and glittering shelves of bottles dazzled me at first, +but I saw presently two or three men, from whom the crowd had shrunk +away, standing at the far end of the shop. Something lay on the counter +among them,—a large, black figure, the arm hanging down, the feet +crossed. It did not move. I do not know how long I stood there, it might +be hours, or minutes, and it did not move. But I knew, the first moment +I looked at it, that it never would move again. They worked with him, +the three men, not speaking a word. The waistcoat and shirt were open; +there was a single drop of blood on the neck, where they had tried to +open a vein. After a while the physician drew back, and put his hand +gently on the shoulder of the shorter, stouter of the other two men.</p> + +<p>"My friend," he said, compassionately.</p> + +<p>Robert Manning did not seem to hear him. He had knelt on the floor and +hid his face in the hand that hung down still and cold. The druggist, a +pale, little person, drew the doctor aside.</p> + +<p>"What is it, now? Apoplexy?" his face full of pity.</p> + +<p>"No. Brought on by nervous excitement,—heart, you know. Threatened a +long time, his son says. His wife, the woman who"——</p> + +<p>The policeman had been eying my dress under the cloak for some time.</p> + +<p>"Hi! <i>You</i>'d best move on," he whispered. "This a'n't no place for the +likes of you."</p> + +<p>I stood still a moment looking at the brawny black figure lying on the +counter. The old days of Tinder and the paddock,—I don't know why I +thought of them. It did not move: it never would move again. Dead. I had +murdered him. I! I got my fingers in my oily hair, and pulled at it. +"Hetty, Hetty Manning," I said, "good bye! Good bye, Daniel!" I remember +hearing myself laugh as I left the shop-door; then I went down the +street.</p> + +<p>When I was far down the Bowery, an old thought came feebly up in my +brain. It was how the water had choked, choked, all that night long in +the wheel of the boat. When I thought of that, I waited to think. Then I +turned and went to the bay, beyond Castle Garden.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The rain, drip, dripping on a cottage-roof: on branches, too, near at +hand, that rustled and struck now and then against the little +window-shutters, in a fashion just dreary enough to make one nestle +closer into the warm bed, and peep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> out into the shadowy chamber, with +the cozy little fire burning hotly in the grate. Patter, patter: +gurgling down the spouts: slacking for a minute, threatening to stop and +let you sleep in a usual, soundless, vulgar way, as on other nights: +then at it again, drip, drip, more monotonous, cheerfuller in its +dreariness than ever. Thunder, too: growling off in the hills, where the +night and rain found no snug little bed-room to make brighter by their +besieging: greenish-white jets of lightning in the cracks of the +shutters, making the night-lamp on the toilet-table and the fire +suddenly go out and kindle up fiercely again.</p> + +<p>This for a long time: hours or not, why should one try to know? A little +bed, with crimson curtains, cool white pillows: a soft bed, where the +aching limbs rested afresh with every turn. After a while, a +comfortable, dumpling little figure in a loose wrapper, popping out of +some great chair's depths by the fire and stirring some posset on the +hearth: smelling at a medicine-bottle: coming to the bed-side, putting a +fat hand on one's forehead: a start, a nervous kiss, a shaky little +laugh or two, as she fumbles about, saying, "Hush-h!" and a sudden +disappearing behind the curtains. A grave, pale face looking steadily +down, as if afraid to believe, until the dear eyes fill with tears, and +the head, with its old wig, is dropped, and I and God only know what his +soul is saying.</p> + +<p>"My husband!"</p> + +<p>"Hetty!"</p> + +<p>"Is it you?—Daniel?"</p> + +<p>He lifted me in his arms farther up on the pillow, smoothing the +blankets about me, trying to speak, but only choking, in a ridiculous +fashion.</p> + +<p>"And the opera, and the drug-shop, and"——</p> + +<p>I held my hand to my head.</p> + +<p>"The truth is," said Jacky, bobbing out from behind the curtains, her +eyes suspiciously red and shiny, "I'm afraid you've had some bad dreams, +dear. Just take a teaspoonful of this, that's a good soul! You've been +ill, you see. Brain-fever, and what not. The very day we came to +Newport. Uncle Daniel and Robert found you on the cliff."</p> + +<p>"When we came from the hotel, you remember?" still pulling the blanket +up, his lip unsteady.</p> + +<p>"You'll choke her; what a nurse you are, to be sure, Uncle Dan! And the +woman's feet as bare"——</p> + +<p>"There, there, Jacky! I know,"—submissively, twitching at my nightcap, +and then gathering my head into his arms until I could hear how his +heart throbbed under the strong chest. "My wife! Hetty! Hetty!" he +whispered.</p> + +<p>I knew he was thanking God for giving me to him again. I dared not think +of God, or him: God, that had given me another chance.</p> + +<p>I lay there until morning, weak and limp, on his arm, touching it now +and then to be sure it was alive, an actual flesh-and-blood arm,—that I +was not a murderer. Weak as any baby: and it seemed to me—it comes to +me yet as a great truth—that God had let me be born again: that He, who +gave a new life to the thief in his last foul breath, had given me, too, +another chance to try again. Jacky, who was the most arbitrary of +nurses, coiled herself up on the foot of the bed, and kept her unwinking +eyes sharp on us to enforce silence. Never were eyes more healthful and +friendly, I thought feebly. But I tried all the time to press my poor +head in closer to my husband's breast: I was barely free from that +vacuum of death and crime, and in there were the strength and life that +were to save me; I knew that. God, who had brought me to this, alone +knew how I received it: whether it was a true wife that lay on Daniel +Manning's bosom that night; how I loathed the self I had worshipped so +long; how the misused, diseased body and soul were alive with love for +him, craved a week's, a day's life to give themselves utterly to him, to +creep closer to him and the Father that he knew so simply and so well. I +heard him once in the night, when he thought I was asleep, say to +himself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> something of the wife who had been restored to him, who "was +dead and is alive again, was lost and is found." But how true those +words were he can never know.</p> + +<p>I fell asleep towards morning, and when I woke, it was with a clear head +and stronger eye to comprehend my new chance in life. The room had a +pure, fresh, daylight look, snug and tidy; a clear fire crackled on the +clean hearth; Jacky herself had her most invigorating of morning faces, +going off at the least hint of a joke into redness and smiles. It rained +still, but the curtains were drawn back, and I could see through the +gray wet what a pleasant slope of meadow there was outside, clumped over +with horse-chestnuts and sycamores, down to a narrow creek. The water +was fogged over now with drifting mist, but beyond I caught glimpses of +low wooded hills, and far to the left the pale flush of the sea running +in on the sand. My husband was watching me eagerly as I looked out.</p> + +<p>"I do not know where I am, Daniel."</p> + +<p>"No, of course you don't,"—rubbing his forehead, as he always did when +he was especially pleased. "There's so much to tell you, Hetty dear! +We're beginning all new again, you see."</p> + +<p>"You'll not tell a word, until she's had her breakfast," said Jacky, +dogmatically, coming with her white basin of cool water.</p> + +<p>Oh, the remembrance of that plunge of cold on the hot skin, of the +towel's smelling of lavender, of the hard-brushed hair, of the dainty +little tray, with its smoking cup of fragrant, amber tea, and delicatest +slice of crisp toast! Truly, the woman's flesh of me, having been +triumphant so long, goes back with infinite relish to that first meal, +and the two bright faces bent over me. And then came Teddy, slying to +the pillow-side, watching my pale face and thin hands with an awe-struck +gaze, and carrying off the tea and toast to finish by the hearth.</p> + +<p>"You can't see much for the rain, mother," anxiously. "Not the orchard, +nor the stable,—but there <i>is</i> a stable, and hay, and eggs every +morning, only the gray hen's trying to set, if you'll believe it. And +old Mary's in the kitchen, and we've got even Tinder and our old peacock +from the Hudson."</p> + +<p>"Eat your toast now, Captain," said his father, putting his arm about me +again.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Hetty, it's a bit of a farm,—ten or fifteen acres. Our cozery: +yours and mine, dear. It's Rob's surprise,"—with the awkward laugh a +man gives, when, if he were a woman, the tears would come.</p> + +<p>"Rob?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. He had it ready. I knew it before we left New York, but we wanted +to surprise you. The boys all put in a little. They're good boys. I've +hardly deserved it of them,"—pulling at the quilt-fringe. "I've been a +glum, unsociable old dog. I might have made their lives cheerfuller. +They're going West: Bill and John to Chicago, and Jem to St. Louis: just +waiting for you to be better."</p> + +<p>"I am sorry."</p> + +<p>I was sorry. The thought of their earnest, honest, downright faces came +to me now with a new meaning, somehow: I could enter into their life +now: it was an eager affection I was ready to give them, that they could +not understand: I had wakened up, so thirsty for love, and to love.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Rob did it,"—lingering on the name tenderly. "It's a snug home +for us: we'll have to rough it outside a little, but we're not old yet, +Hetty, eh?" turning up my face. "I have my old school in town again. We +have everything we want now, to begin afresh."</p> + +<p>I did not answer; nor, through the day, when Jacky and the boys, one +after another, would say anxiously, as one does to a sick person, "Is +there anything you need, mother?" did I utter a wish. I dared not: I +knew all that I had done: and if God never gave me <i>that</i> gift again, I +never should ask for it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> But I saw them watching me more uneasily, and +towards evening caught part of Jacky's talk with Doctor Manning.</p> + +<p>"I tell you I will. I'll risk the fever," impatiently. "It's that she +wants. I can see it in her eyes. Heaven save you, Uncle Dan, you're not +a woman!"</p> + +<p>And in a moment she brought my baby and laid it in my breast. It was +only when its little hand touched me that I surely knew God had forgiven +me.</p> + +<p>It ceased raining in the evening: the clouds cleared off, red and heavy. +Rob had come up from town, and took his father's place beside me, but he +and Jacky brought their chairs close, so we had a quiet evening all +together. Their way of talking, of politics or religion or even news, +was so healthy and alive, warm-blooded! And I entered into it with so +keen a relish! It was such an earnest, heartsome world I had come into, +out of myself! Once, when Jacqueline was giving me a drink, she said,—</p> + +<p>"I wish you'd tell us what you dreamed in all these days, dear."</p> + +<p>Robert glanced at me keenly.</p> + +<p>"No, Jacky," he said, his face flushing.</p> + +<p>I looked him full in the eyes: from that moment I had a curious reliance +and trust in his shrewd, just, kindly nature, and in his religion, a +something below that. If I were dying, I should be glad if Robert +Manning would pray for me. I should think his prayers would be heard.</p> + +<p>"I will not forget what I dreamed, Robert," I said.</p> + +<p>"No, mother. I know."</p> + +<p>After that, awhile, I was talking to him of the home he had prepared for +his father and me.</p> + +<p>"I wanted you just to start anew, with Teddy and the baby, here," he +said, lightly.</p> + +<p>"And Jacky," I added, looking up at the bright, chubby face.</p> + +<p>It grew suddenly crimson, then colorless, then the tears came. There was +a strange silence.</p> + +<p>"Rob," she whispered, hiding her head sheepishly, "Rob says no."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Rob says no," putting his hand on her crisp curls. "He wants you. +And mother, here, will tell you a woman has no better work in life than +the one she has taken up: to make herself a visible Providence to her +husband and child."</p> + +<p>I kissed Jacky again and again, but I said nothing. He went away just +after that. When he shook hands, I held up the baby to be kissed. He +played with it a minute, and then put it down.</p> + +<p>"God bless the baby," he said, "and its mother," more earnestly.</p> + +<p>Then he and Jacky went out and left me alone with my husband and my +child.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PALINGENESIS.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I lay upon the headland-height, and listened<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the incessant sobbing of the sea<br /></span> +<span class="i4">In caverns under me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And watched the waves, that tossed and fled and glistened,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Until the rolling meadows of amethyst<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Melted away in mist.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then suddenly, as one from sleep, I started;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For round about me all the sunny capes<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Seemed peopled with the shapes<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> +<span class="i0">Of those whom I had known in days departed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Apparelled in the loveliness which gleams<br /></span> +<span class="i4">On faces seen in dreams.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A moment only, and the light and glory<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Faded away, and the disconsolate shore<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Stood lonely as before;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the wild roses of the promontory<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Around me shuddered in the wind, and shed<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Their petals of pale red.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There was an old belief that in the embers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of all things their primordial form exists,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And cunning alchemists<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Could recreate the rose with all its members<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From its own ashes, but without the bloom,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Without the lost perfume.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ah, me! what wonder-working, occult science<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Can from the ashes in our hearts once more<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The rose of youth restore?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What craft of alchemy can bid defiance<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To time and change, and for a single hour<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Renew this phantom-flower?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Oh, give me back," I cried, "the vanished splendors,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The breath of morn, and the exultant strife,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">When the swift stream of life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bounds o'er its rocky channel, and surrenders<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The pond, with all its lilies, for the leap<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Into the unknown deep!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And the sea answered, with a lamentation,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like some old prophet wailing, and it said,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">"Alas! thy youth is dead!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It breathes no more, its heart has no pulsation,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the dark places with the dead of old<br /></span> +<span class="i4">It lies forever cold!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then said I, "From its consecrated cerements<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I will not drag this sacred dust again,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Only to give me pain;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But, still remembering all the lost endearments,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Go on my way, like one who looks before,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And turns to weep no more."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Into what land of harvests, what plantations<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bright with autumnal foliage and the glow<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Of sunsets burning low;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beneath what midnight skies, whose constellations<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Light up the spacious avenues between<br /></span> +<span class="i4">This world and the unseen!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Amid what friendly greetings and caresses,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What households, though not alien, yet not mine,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">What bowers of rest divine;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To what temptations in lone wildernesses,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What famine of the heart, what pain and loss,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The bearing of what cross!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I do not know; nor will I vainly question<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those pages of the mystic book which hold<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The story still untold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But without rash conjecture or suggestion<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Turn its last leaves in reverence and good heed,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Until "The End" I read.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>GLORYING IN THE GOAD.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"Let the wealthy and great<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Roll in splendor and state,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I envy them not, I declare it;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I eat my own lamb,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My own chickens and ham,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I shear my own fleece, and I wear it;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I have lawns, I have bowers,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I have fruits, I have flowers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lark is my morning alarmer;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">So, jolly boys, now.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Here's God speed the plough,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Long life and success to the farmer!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>So sings a certain venerable pitcher its untiring song. A brave pitcher +it was in its day. A well-ordered farm lies along its swelling sides. A +purple man merrily drives his purple team afield. Gold and purple +milkmaids are milking purple and golden cows. Young boys bind the +ripened sheaves, or bear mugs of foaming cider to the busy hay-makers, +with artistic defiance of chronology. There are ploughs and harrows, +hoes and spades, beehives and poultry-houses, all in the best repair, +and all resplendent in purple and gold. Alas! <i>Ilium fuit.</i> The gold is +become dim, the purple is dingy, the lucent whiteness has gone gray; a +very large, brown, zigzag fissure has rent its volcanic path through the +happy home, dividing the fair garden, cutting the plough in two, +narrowly escaping the ploughman; and, indeed, the whole structure is +saved from violent disruption only by the unrelaxing clasp of a string +of blue yarn. Thus passes away the glory of the world!</p> + +<p>Is it not too often typical of the glory of our rural dreams? To live in +the country; to lie on green lawns, or under bowers of roses and +honeysuckle; to watch the procession of the flowers, and bind upon our +brows the sweetest and the fairest; to take largess of all the fruits in +their season; to be entirely independent of the world, dead to its din, +alive only to its beauty; to feed upon butter and honey, and feast upon +strawberries and cream, all found within your own garden-wall; to be +wakened by the lark, and lulled asleep by the cricket; to hear the +tinkling of the cow-bell as you walk, and to smell the new-mown hay: +surely we have found Arcadia at last. Cast away day-book and ledger, +green bag and yardstick; let us go straightway into the country and buy +a farm.</p> + +<p>But before the deeds are actually delivered, before your feet have +finally deserted the pavement to make life-long acquaintance with the +dew, it will be worth while to ascertain whether the pitcher's word is +as good as its bond. If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> its fallen fortunes are indicative of what +yours shall be,—if Arcadia blooms only in its gorgeous bosom, and will +turn into an Arabia Petræa at the first touch of your spade,—better for +you a pitcher of roughest Delft on board of deal than all this pomp and +circumstance of lies.</p> + +<p>Reports of societies are not generally "as interesting as a novel." +Nevertheless, if one will consult the Report of the Commission of +Agriculture for 1862, he will find, among fascinating columns of +figures, bold disquisitions on the midge, a mirage of grapes, pears, and +peaches, and uncomfortable-looking "thoroughbred" cattle, an essay, by +Dr. W.W. Hall of New York city, which may assist him in forming his +plans. It is not necessarily destructive of the most charming theories, +but it is very definite and damnatory as to facts. Among other +unromantic and disagreeable things, it asserts—and proves its +assertions by still more disagreeable, because incontrovertible +statistics,—that, for all the sylvan delights of lawn and bower, and +the exquisite sensation of eating your own hams, the largest class of +patients in insane asylums comes from the "jolly boys" and their wives +and daughters; but better watch a grass-blade struggling up under the +curb-stone of the sidewalk than view the fairest landscape in the world +from behind a grated window. We learn also, that, in spite of his ample +larder, his freedom from envy and carking care, the farmer does not live +so long as the pale clergyman whose white hands he looks upon with only +not contempt; but how sweet soever may be the scent of clover and +buttercup, he little heeds their fragrance who lies beneath them. We are +told that a very large part of our farming population have no breadth of +view; that they cannot enter into a conversation beyond a few comments +on the weather, the crops, the markets, and the neighborhood-news. The +freshness, the beauty, the music and motion, that breathe and stir +around them, can gain no foothold in the unvarying routine of their +lives; but in vain do the heavens spread out their glory, and in vain +the earth unfolds her loveliness, if</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"A primrose by the river's brim<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A yellow primrose is to him,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And it is nothing more."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>To these skeletons is added, perhaps, the causal and certainly the most +common skeleton of all: in this rustic paradise, this home of all the +graces and comforts, the grim spectre Debt stalks to and fro, eating out +the farmer's substance, and giving him in return anxiety, makeshifts, +irascibility, and despair. Three homes out of four, according to this +writer's estimate, suffer from the ravages of debt.</p> + +<p>This is a general, perhaps a national view. We may come a little nearer +home, and find that a closer examination only confirms the conclusions +arrived at by the broader survey. Thoreau, who "has travelled a great +deal in Concord," and whose keen eyes took note there for forty years, +says,—"When I consider my neighbors, the farmers of Concord,... I find +that for the most part they have been toiling twenty, thirty, or forty +years, that they may become the real owners of their farms, which +commonly they have inherited with incumbrances, or else bought with +hired money,... but commonly they have not paid for them yet. It is +true, the incumbrances sometimes outweigh the value of the farm, so that +the farm itself becomes one great incumbrance, and still a man is found +to inherit it, being well acquainted with it, as he says. On applying to +the assessors, I am surprised to learn that they cannot at once name a +dozen in the town who own their farms free and clear. If you would know +the history of these homesteads, inquire at the bank where they are +mortgaged. The man who has actually paid for his farm with labor on it +is so rare that every neighbor can point to him. I doubt if there are +three such men in Concord. What has been said of the merchants,—that a +very large majority, even ninety-seven in a hundred, are sure to +fail,—is equally true of the farmers.... Yet the Middlesex Cattle-Show +goes off here with <i>éclat</i> annually, as if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> all the joints of the +agricultural machine were suent."</p> + +<p>If you do not trust the testimony of books, but will turn to living men, +you will scarcely fare better. One man, whose recreations have been +rural, but his business civic, conducts you through his groves and +summer-houses, his stone barns and his latticed cottages, but tempers +your enthusiasm with the remark, that this fancy farming is sowing +ninepences to reap sixpences. Relinquishing fancy farms, you go to the +practical man swinging his scythe in his hay-field, his shirt-sleeves +rolled above his elbows, and his trousers tucked into his boots. He +shows you the face-walls and the compost-heap, the drains and the +resultant hay-cocks, with measurable pride, but tells you at the same +time that every dollar he has earned on that farm has cost him nine +shillings. This will never do. A third farmer has inherited his farm, +not only without incumbrance, but with money at interest. Under his +hands it waxes fat and flourishing, and sends to market every year its +twelve or fifteen hundred dollars' worth of produce. But you overhear +its owner telling his neighbor that "it's a Cain's business, this +farming: make any man cross enough to kill his brother!" You find this +farmer racked with rheumatism, though in the prime of life,—bent with +the weight of years before his time. He has lost his health just as he +has improved his farm, by working early and late through sun and rain. +You turn to still another farm, whose owner brings the learning of a +college as well as the muscles of a yeoman to the culture of the soil. +His nurseries and orchards are thrifty, his cattle sleek and +comfortable, his yards broad, cleanly, and sunny. His fields wave with +plenty, his granary overflows. Here, surely, you have struck into the +Happy Valley. Here at last Tityrus reposes under the shade of his +broad-spreading beech-trees. On the contrary, you find Tityrus in the +back sitting-room, rolling his eyes in a fine frenzy over a very prose +bucolic on the Condition and Prospects of Sheep-Husbandry, which he is +writing for the "Country Gentleman" at five dollars a page. All the cool +of the day he works on his farm, and all the hot of the day he devotes +to his manuscript; and he avers with a solemnity which carries +conviction, that he and his wife have come to the conclusion that they +are carrying on their farm for the benefit of the hired help! He is +devoted to farming; he is interested in its processes; but the men and +maids get all the profits, and he supports his family by his pen. +Everywhere you find one song with variations. Farmers and farmers' wives +are not in love with their calling. They are not enthusiastic over it. +The "smartest" of the children do not remain at home to take charge of +the farm, unless impelled by a sense of duty to their aged parents, or +lured by some promise of extraordinary recompense. Everywhere the farmer +finds farming to be "a slave's life," "a dog's life," "delve all your +days, and nothin' to show for 't," "hard scrapin' to make both ends +meet." It is so unwieldly a mode of applying means to ends, that, if you +must believe him, every quart of milk costs him six cents, with the +labor thrown in, while you pay the milkman but five cents at your own +door; every dozen eggs which he gathers from his own barn he gathers at +the rate of twenty-five cents a dozen, while you are paying only +twenty-two. And even when both ends do meet, and not only meet, but lap +over, you scarcely find a hearty cheerfulness and sunshine, a liberal +praise and unfeigned ardor, a contagious delight in the soil. "Jolly +boys" in purple blouses may drive ploughs around pitchers, but they are +rarely met on the hill-sides of New England. If we may credit Dr. Hall, +they are quite as rarely seen on the rich, rolling lands toward the +sunset.</p> + +<p>Is this state of things inevitable? Farmers have a very general belief +that it is. They not only plod on in the old way themselves, but they +have no faith in the possible opening-up of any other way. Their sole +hope of bettering their condition lies in abandoning it altogether.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> If +one son is superior to the others, if an only son concentrates upon +himself all the parental affection, they do not plan for him a brilliant +career in their own line; they do not look to him to obtain distinction +by some great agricultural achievement, a discovery of new laws or a new +combination of old laws; all their love and hope find expression in the +determination "not to bring him up to farming." They "don't mean he +shall ever have to work." Hard work and small profits is the story of +their lives and of the lives of their ancestors, and they do not believe +any other story will ever be truly told of the genuine farmer. And when +we say small profits, we wish the phrase to hold all the meaning of +which it is capable. It is hard work and small profits to body and soul; +small profits to heart and brain as well as purse. But every plan which +looks to better things is "notional," "new-fangled," "easier to tell of +than 'tis to do"; and so the farmer goes on his daily beat, with a +shamefaced pride in his independence, fostered by the flattery of his +county-fair orators, yet vituperating his occupation, bemoaning its +hardships, and depreciating its emoluments, stubbornly set in the belief +that he knows all there is to know about farming, and scornful of +whatever attempts to go deeper than his own ploughshare or cut a broader +swath than his own scythe.</p> + +<p>To suggest the possibility that all this is the result of limited +knowledge, and that the most favorable and beneficial change might be +found in a more liberal education and a wider acquaintance with the +facts discovered and the deductions made by science, would be considered +by a bold yeomanry, our country's pride, as an outbreak of +"book-farming" in its most virulent form. "You may bet your hat on one +thing," says the bold yeoman,—"a man may know sunthin', an' be a good +minister an' a tol'able deacon, but he's spiled for farmin'."</p> + +<p>Two words are beginning to be coupled in the newspapers and to float +about in the air, whose juxtaposition is the cause of many a demure +chuckle among the rural population,—"Agricultural College." Separately, +the words command all respect; united, they are a living refutation of +the well-known axiom that "the whole is equal to all its parts." On the +contrary, so far are our farmers from believing this, that, while they +acknowledge each part to be a very serious and important fact, they look +upon the whole as the flimsiest of fallacies.</p> + +<p>"Gov'ment is goin' to build an Agriculteral College. Farmin' an' +learnin' marry an' set up house-keepin'. Guess Uncle Sam'll have to give +'em a hist with a donation-party now 'n' then. Agriculteral College? +Yes, Sir! Well, Sir, if you'll show me a man, Sir, that's a gradooate +from that College, that'll ever be seen with a hoe in his hand, I'll +give him leave to knock my brains out with it! Yes, Sir! An' it'll be +the best use he can put it to, Sir! He'll do less mischief that way 'n +any other! Agriculteral College! Edicated farmers! Yes, Sir, I've seen +'em! Got a grist up in Topsell. Jint-stock farm. The best talent in +Essex County's been a-carryin' on that farm, an' nigh about carried it +off, an' themselves along with it. Yes, Sir, the best talent in Essex +County, an' had the farm given 'em, an' they've sunk a thousan' dollars, +Sir, a'ready! That's what I call a Sinkin'-Fund, Sir! That's to begin +with. Jones is an edicated farmer. He made his cider last fall on +scinetific principles. Well, Sir, I could put an apple in my mouth, an' +swim down Merrimac River, an' have better cider 'n that all the way! +Edicated farmin' 's a very pootty thing, if a man can be at the expense +on't; but when it comes to gittin' a livin', farmin' 's farmin'. +Agriculteral College! Yes, Sir, farmin' 's a hard life, lookin' at the +best side. Soil's light an' runnin' to stones. But this here college +stuff's the poorest kind o' top-dressin' you can give it. Learnin's a +good thing. I've nothin' agin learnin', but 't a'n't the best use you +can make on 't to plough it in. The only way to promote the agriculteral +interests of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> Essex County, Sir, is to keep the farmers jest as they +are. Greek 'n' Latin a'n't state-prison offences, but they're sure death +to pork 'n' potaters. Minute you edicate the farmers they'll be as +uneasy as a toad under a harrow. What kind of a hand would Doctor Hall +or Squire Smith make, to come an' take a farm alongside o' me?"</p> + +<p>This is the way our bold yeoman puts it. Planting himself on the +indisputable facts of his pork and potatoes, he regards one who stands +upon any other ground as a dreamer and a visionary. He forgets that pork +and potatoes are not the only facts in the world. The earth itself is a +larger fact than anything that springs from it. It is the inalienable +inheritance, the sole support of man. Mother and nurse, from the cradle +to the grave, there comes no hour when he can withdraw from her +nourishing bosom. But, by our farmers' showing, it is but a harsh and +niggardly step-mother, opening the fountains of life only under +enforcement. Is this reasonable? Is it reasonable to suppose that the +one calling which is essential to life, the one calling on which every +other depends, should be the Canaan accursed, servant of servants to its +brethren? Is it reasonable to suppose that God gave us this beautiful +round world, source of all our wealth, almoner of every comfort, +possessor and dispenser of all grace and loveliness, yet with such +poison in her veins that they alone are safe who deal with her at a +remove,—she withers the hand that touches her? The ancients believed +better things than these. They reverenced the Mighty Mother, and fabled +a giant's strength to him who craved a blessing by the laying-on of +hands. We know that a curse was pronounced upon the earth, but why +farmers should be so forward to monopolize the curse it is difficult to +conceive. It is generally supposed that all the descendants of Adam are +equally implicated. It is not the farmer alone, but the minister and the +mechanic as well, who is to eat bread in the sweat of his face. One +product of the earth was no more accursed than another. Wheat and barley +and corn are no more under a ban than gold and iron and timber, which +all come from the same bountiful bosom; but while artificers in gold and +iron magnify their office and wax fat, the farmer depreciates his, and +according to his own showing is clothed upon with leanness.</p> + +<p>Surely these things ought not so to be. Looking at this earth as the +divinely prepared dwelling-place of man, and looking at man as divinely +appointed to dress and keep it, to replenish and subdue it, we should +naturally suppose that there would be an obvious and preëminent +adaptation of the one to the other. We should naturally suppose that the +primary, the fundamental occupation of the race would be one which +should not only keep body and soul together, but should be especially +and exactly fitted to develop and strengthen all the powers called into +exercise, and should also be most likely to call into exercise a great +variety of powers to the fashioning of a healthy and beautiful symmetry. +Looking still further at the secondary occupations, we find our views +confirmed. The shoemaker must bend over his lapstone, and he becomes +stooping and hollow-chested. The blacksmith twists the sinews of his +arms to strength, but at the expense of his other members. The +watchmaker trains his eyes to microscopic vision, but his muscles are +small and his skin colorless. A very large majority of the secondary +callings remove men from the open air, often from the sunshine, and +generally train one or a few faculties at the expense of the others. The +artisan carries skill to perfection, the genius towers into sublimity, +but the man suffers. Not so the farmer. His life is not only many-, but +all-sided. His ever-changing employment gives him every variety of +motion and posture. Not a muscle but is pressed into service. His work +lies chiefly out-of-doors. The freedom of earth and sky are his. Every +power of his mind may be brought into play. He is surrounded by +mysteries<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> which the longest life will not give him time enough to +fathom, problems whose solution may furnish employment for the deepest +thought and the most sustained attention, and whose solution is at the +same time a direct and most important contribution to his own ease and +riches. The constant presence of beautiful and ever-shifting scenery +ministers to his taste and his imagination. Nature, in her grandeur, in +her loveliness, in the surpassing beauty of her utilities, is always +spread before him. All her wonderful processes go on beneath his eyes. +The great laboratory is ever open. The furnace-fire is always burning. +Patent to his curious or admiring gaze the transmutation takes place. +The occult principle of life surrounds him, might almost bewilder him, +with manifestations. Bee and bird, fruit and blossom, and the phantom +humanity in beasts, offer all their secrets to his eyes. Every process +is his minister. His mental and material interests lie in one right +line. The sun is his servant. The shower fulfils his behest. The dew +drops silently down to do his work. The fragrance of the apple-orchard +shall turn to gold in his grasp. The beauty of bloom shall fill his home +with plenty. The frost of winter is his treasure-keeper, and the snows +wrap him about with beneficence. With nothing trivial, deceptive, +inflated, has he to do. An unimpeachable sincerity pervades all things. +All things are natural, and all things act after their kind. Is it a +divine decree that all this shall tend to no good? Shall all this pomp +of preparation rightly come to nothing? Do we gather the natural fruits +of circumstance, when the mind travels on to madness, the body goes +prematurely to disease and decay, and the heart shrivels away from love +and is overcast with gloom? Is all the appearance of adaptation false, +and do farmers gain the due emoluments of their position? Not so. It is +their fault that they do not see the life which revels in exuberance +around them. In their minds is no under-draining, no subsoiling. Earth +with all her interests takes unrelaxing hold of their potato-patch, but +they have eyes only for the potato-patch. Accustoming themselves to the +contemplation of little things, considered separately and not as links +in the universal chain, their angle of vision has grown preternaturally +acute. Things they see, but not the relations of things. They dwell on +desert islands. For all the integrity of Nature, they fail to learn +integrity. The honest farmer is no more common than the honest merchant. +He abhors the tricks of trade, he has his standing joke about the +lawyer's conscience: but the load of hay which he sold to the merchant +was heavier by his own weight on the scales than at the merchant's +stable-yard; the lawyer who buys his wood, taught by broad rural +experience, looks closely to the admeasurement; and a trout in the milk +Thoreau counts as very strong circumstantial evidence. The farmer does +not compass sublime swindles like the merchant, nor such sharp practice +as the lawyer; but in small ways he is the peer of either. We do not say +that farmers are any more addicted to their characteristic vices than +the lawyers and merchants are to theirs; but that they have their +peculiarities, like other classes, and that the term <i>honest</i> is as +necessary a prefix to <i>farmer</i> as to any other noun of occupation. We +admit all this, but we believe it is the fault of the farmer, and not of +his circumstances.</p> + +<p>"His fault!" says the farmer, and say many men of whom better things +might be expected. "How can he get wisdom that holdeth the plough, and +that glorieth in the goad, that driveth oxen, and is occupied in their +labors, and whose talk is of bullocks?" How? By "seeking her as silver, +and searching for her as for hid treasures." For remember, O farmer! the +despairing question is from below, the inspiring answer from above. It +is not the Bible, but the Apocrypha, that casts doubt upon agricultural +education. There is wisdom to him that holdeth the plough. Honor and +health and wealth and great-heartedness are to be found<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> in the soil. +Earth is not one huge incumbrance to weigh man down; it is the means by +which he may rise to heavenly heights. Earth has been the mother of +dignity ever since her Maker's eyes looked upon her, and the Maker's +voice pronounced her very good. And "Very Good" is the true verdict. +Ignorance, stupidity, and sin insist upon perpetuating the curse from +which she has been once redeemed; but a blessing lies in her heart for +him who has but the courage to grasp it.</p> + +<p>What analogies have they to prop their conclusions withal, who maintain +the necessary degradation of the soil? Fire, air, and water bow down and +do obeisance to man. They are analyzed and recombined. They are studied +with insatiable curiosity. They receive the absorbed attention of a +lifetime. Daily their secrets are wrested from them. Their likings and +their dislikings are forced into man's service; they are coupled in +strange unions and harnessed to his chariot. Whithersoever he will, they +bear him. They minister to his lowliest needs, they bend to his loftiest +dreams. They have lifted him from the earth whereon he crept, and have +given him the wings of the wind. Swifter than the eagle flies, swift as +the lightnings flash, they run to and fro at his command. Nor has the +limit of their capacities been reached. Nor has man ceased to pry into +the mysteries which lie hidden in their depths. He was once their abject +slave. He is now their crowned king. He will one day be their absolute +monarch.</p> + +<p>But while the three ancient elements are thus wrought into glory and +honor, the fourth sister, Earth, remains a clod. They give gifts to men, +but she only sears him with the brand of servitude. Every bold seeker, +adventuring into their arcana, bears back his treasure-trove; but the +earth only mocks her wooer, and robs him of his strength who sleeps upon +her knees!</p> + +<p>It is easy to point to occurrences which seem to prove this,—to +experiments which seemed fruitless,—to plans adopted only to be laid +aside,—to new modes that were heralded with great flourish of trumpets, +and shuffled ignominiously out through the pantry-door. But every +science and every art has had its empirical age, and every age has its +empiricists. Astrology spoke its great swelling words, made its +cabalistic signs, and passed away to its burial; but astronomy remains +eternal as the heavens. The stars cannot tell a man when he shall die, +and they shine upon the shepherd as brightly as on the sage; but they +have marvellous secrets to whisper to him who watches the long night +through to behold their coming and mark the magic of their ways; and by +so much knowledge unfolded Earth takes her place in the skies. There was +no El Dorado beyond the western sea to bestow eternal youth upon the +Spanish dreamer; but there was a land fairer than all his fancy painted, +to whose light the Gentiles shall yet come, and kings to the brightness +of its rising. The philosopher's stone has never been found which should +transmute all metals to gold; but gold itself is worthless in the +presence of such truths as philosophy reveals. All the way through, no +science has been pushed to barren results. A thousand errors have +branched off from the central truth, and have sometimes been mistaken +for it; a thousand false steps have been made for one in the right +direction; yet the truth is central and indivisible, and men have +pressed on steadily to reach it. Counterfeits do not annihilate the pure +coin. Pretenders do not destroy faith in the rightful prince. Even +failures lead the way to success. Honest, wise, persevering research has +ever been rewarded in full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and +running over. And it is not to be supposed that the one science of the +earth vaster and nobler than all others, the science that ministers most +directly to man's life, shall be the one science to baffle his research +and yield him meagre returns. We do not know what wealth the earth holds +in store for us, and it is our shame and misery that we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> so little +strive to know, so little care to seek. With an ignorance for which our +rich experience leaves us no excuse, we doggedly assume that we have +attained the ultimatum. The earth is to us but an immense pippin covered +all over with the arrogant label, "Seek-no-further."</p> + +<p>If farmers choose to accept this label as their motto, they should also +accept the consequences without complaint. If they choose to live in a +rut, they must not expect to breathe the air which they would find on a +hill. Many readers will remember a passage at arms that occurred in the +legislative assembly of one of our New-England States. A clergyman, +advocating a bill which was to help a certain class of young men in +obtaining education, referred to several persons who had by assistance +become men of note, but who without it would have remained "only +farmers." Another member immediately took umbrage, avowed himself to be +a farmer, and assured the assembly that he should not vote for a bill +which was to educate young men to sneer at him! The bill +failed,—whether from constitutional weakness or from this death-blow we +are not informed, but are left to infer the latter. The repartee was +very good as a repartee, and a respectable degree of Parliamentary skill +was shown in seizing upon a plausible pretext for a foregone conclusion; +but so far as the question was of principle and not of repartee, the +clergyman was right and the farmer was wrong. We may exalt democracy, +and abase aristocracy, and cajole people with specious phrases. +Ignorance and uncouthness may put on the garb of modest merit, and +worthlessness seek to veil itself by an unattractive exterior; but under +never so many layers the truth remains intact. "Only a farmer" expresses +with all-sufficient accuracy the relative position of farmers,—not +their necessary, but their actual position. The occupation which should +be a liberal profession is a most illiberal labor. The eloquence of +Demosthenes cannot change facts. Farming is honorable, just as any other +business is honorable, according to the amount of mind and heart brought +to bear on it. Shoemaking will always be an inferior craft to +statesmanship, because the amount of intellect required is less in the +former than in the latter. The man who aims at the highest culture, both +of his farm and himself, is aiming, whether consciously or not, at the +highest rank, and he shall not stand among mean men; but he who simply +delves in the dirt will find no laurels there. Fine-sounding phrases +cannot give dignity to that which is in itself undignified. No amount of +complaint can elevate prejudice, obstinacy, and routine into +intelligence, generosity, magnanimity. Farmers themselves act upon this +principle with entire unanimity, because it is a law of Nature, and not +an effort of the will. The man upon whose experiments they look with +utter distrust, ill-concealed contempt, and covert ridicule, whose +science seems to them mere nonsense, extravagance, and recklessness, +they at the same time regard with reverence, admiration, and confidence. +They look down upon him as a farmer, but they look up to him as a man. +They have a consciousness that he lives on another plane than theirs. +They are proud and pleased to have his family visit and receive theirs. +They feel that he is of a different order from themselves. And if +farmers persist in keeping education and science away from their farms, +if they will bring only their hard hands to the work, and will leave +their brains to shrivel in their skulls, this state of things must go +on. The best of materials is of no use without will and skill to work +it. Matter is a sorry substance until mind lays hold of it. The world +was not made with tug and sweat, but He spake and it was done, He +commanded, and it stood fast. As the world was made, so must it be +subdued, not by matter clawing at matter, but by the calm dominion of +spirit over matter. Until intellect percolates the soil, the soil will +not part with its hidden hoards. We shall have effort, struggle, wear, +and weariness, but no victory. It is the strife of clod with clod.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p> + +<p>So it is that the men who grieve to bring their minds into play will +never make of their occupation a profession. The people who work mind +and muscle, who turn knowledge into wisdom, shall stand before kings. +Those who</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Keep in uninquiring trust<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The old dull round of things"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>shall be hewers of wood and drawers of water to the end of the days. If +farming is doomed, farmers are doomed. For here is the earth ready-made, +and however much we may dislike it, it is all we have and the best we +shall get. If farming must be mere mechanical labor,—<i>peine forte et +dure</i>,—then there is a point where elevation and improvement must stop, +for there must always exist a class of serfs,—serfs to the soil, slaves +of their own farms; and none are more sure of this than those who have +lived in a farming community, and seen how surely the adventurous +spirits, the active, the energetic, the intellectual, the promising, +turn away from the dismal monotony of the farm and launch out on +currents of freer flow, or, if they remain at home, remain only in +consequence of the continued and earnest expostulations and the fairest +promises of parents, to rock the cradle of their declining years, and +not unfrequently to rock it over.</p> + +<p>But if the founders of our Agricultural College, or if any furtherers of +rural education, propose to themselves to diffuse light (and dispel +darkness) by appealing to farmers,—if they think to correct the evils +of ignorance by furnishing special opportunities to farmers,—if they +flatter themselves that they can establish a college of aims and claims +so moderate that farmers and farmers' boys will not be discouraged by +the time, money, or mind required,—if they design to narrow the crown +that lesser brows may be circled,—they are spending their strength for +nought. No college and no school can be founded so wisely and fitly, +that farmers, as a class, will send their sons to it. Why should they, +believing, as they do, that the district-school already gives them as +much "learnin'" as they need? Boys there can "read, write, and cipher." +They gain knowledge enough to reckon with the hired man, to keep the +tally of the marketing, to compute interest, and to do parish business. +What more do they want? Your college-men will talk about selections and +temperatures, silex and fluorine; but what has all that to do with +planting the ten-acre lot? Timothy and red-top grew before Liebig was +born. A rose by any other name is just as sweet to the agricultural +nose. Farmers who have grown to manhood with full faith in the fixity of +their condition, in the impossibility of its improvement, are not to be +turned right-about-face by a programme. The best patent cultivator could +not root out this main article of their creed. Agricultural colleges may +spread all their blandishments; but farmers will not listen to the voice +of the charmer, charm he never so wisely. The academic roof may be set +low and the academic door flung wide open, and the academic Siren, with +new and deeper meaning, may sweetly</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Sing a song of sixpence, a bag full of rye";<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>but before it reaches the rural ear, it will have transformed itself +into a new rendering of the fatal entomological civility,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Will you walk into my parlor?' said the spider to the fly."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Reasoning is of no avail. Analogy has nothing to take hold of. Farmers +do not grasp the chances already offered them; how should they be +expected to possess themselves of future ones? Able treatises on +breeding, instructive, eloquent, and forcible, are written and printed; +but these men continue to tie up nightly their ill-favored and +lean-fleshed kine, and are weekly dragged to church by loose-jointed +nags wabbling over the road, head between legs. There are yearly +reports, rich in suggestion, well printed, cleverly illustrated, +distributed without cost—to the receivers. They will not read them. +They may glance at the foreign-looking sheep, with folds of wool on his +throat; they will utter a strong idiomatic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> exclamation over the +broad-sided short-horn; but they will not go beyond the limits of their +own township to replenish their stock. They have not time nor money nor +heart for experiments. You prove to them beyond the possibility of +gainsaying that their mode is cumbrous, and, in truth, extravagant; they +will assent to your propositions, admit the force of your arguments, but +inevitably leave your presence with the remark, that, "after all, they +think, like Gran'ma'am Howdy, they'd better go on in the good old +diabolical way,"—and there, accordingly, they go. Their logic is +devious, but it is always ready. It may not be convincing, but it is +conclusive. The major premise is often hidden, but it is as firm as +Fate.</p> + +<p>"Parson Edwards's been round with the temperance-pledge," says one old +farmer to another.</p> + +<p>"Yes," answers the latter. "Came to me. Asked me, says he, 'Mr. +Solomon,' says he, 'have you got any cider in your suller?' 'Yes, Sir,' +says I,—'sixteen barrels, good as ever you see in your life, I don't +care <i>where</i> 't is.' 'Well,' says he, 'Mr. Solomon, my advice to you is, +to go an' tap them barrels, every one on 'em, an' let it run!'"</p> + +<p>"Guess you told him you'd wait a spell, didn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Humph! Let it run! <i>I knew his gran'sir!</i> Meddlin' toad! Advisin' me to +throw my cider away! <span class="smcap">I knew his gran'sir!</span>"</p> + +<p>Whenever any amendment is suggested, some "gran'sir" or other will be +sure to block the way. That he has been two generations dead, or that he +has no apparent connection with the point at issue, may be indisputably +proved, but it does not open the road.</p> + +<p>Nor will the farmer's sons be any more ready to avail themselves of +their college than the farmer's self. As a general thing, they have +either ploughed their own furrow "in the good old diabolical way," and +walk in it as their fathers walked, caring for no other, or they have +acquired so unconquerable a repugnance to the uncongenial toil that they +cannot conceive of any plan or process by which it can be made +tolerable. To elevate farming by placing the lever under the farmers is +to attack a fort where its defences are strongest. But we can apply +socially as well as agriculturally the principle of a rotation of crops. +Poets are not necessarily the sons of poets. We do not draw upon +engineers' families for our supply of engineers. The greatest statesman +of the age may come from the smallest estate in the country. So also is +there no Medo-Persic law compelling the cultivation of our lands by +farmers' sons. An infusion of fresh blood is sometimes the best remedy +for longstanding disease and weakness, especially in social +organizations. The end desired is not the education of any special +existing class, but the establishment of a class fit to receive in trust +special existing interests. We want our country's soil to be +intelligently and beneficially cultivated. We desire that it shall be +rescued from ignorance and from quackery, and placed in the hands of +active intellect and sound sense. We want our farmers to be working-men, +not day-laborers. We want them to be practical farmers, book-farmers, +and gentlemen-farmers in one. The proprietors of the soil stand at the +base of society, and should constitute by themselves an order of +nobility,—but eclectic, not hereditary. Whenever a boy displays a turn +for agriculture, there is a fit subject for agricultural education, a +proper student for an agricultural college, whether his father were +merchant, farmer, policeman, or president. You cannot make a college so +mean that farmers' sons will flock into it, but you can make it so great +that the best of all classes shall press in. Endosmose and exosmose are +the soul of growth; either, alone, would bring death,—death on one side +from exhaustion, on the other from over-fulness. The city is currently +said to draw its best blood from the country. Let the city pour it back +again over field and meadow, turning our wildernesses into gardens. +Country and city will be invigorated by an exchange of +commodities,—the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> one giving of its nature, the other of its culture. +We want no exclusiveness, aristocratic or democratic. We want +intelligent men to develop the capacity of the soil. The problem is, to +vindicate the ways of God to man,—to demonstrate that He spake truth, +when He looked upon the earth which He had made, and pronounced it very +good. It is the duty of this generation to show to the future that +agriculture opens a career, and not a grave, to thought, energy, and +genius. It needs strong arms and stout hearts, but there are bays to be +won and worn. We want farmers who do not look upon their land as a +malicious menial, but who love it and woo it, and delight in enriching +and adorning it. We want men who are enthusiastic,—who will not be put +down by failures, nor disheartened by delay,—men who believe that the +Earth holds in her lap richer stores than gold or silver,—who are not +deceived by all the grovelling that has been laid to her charge, but +know in their inmost souls that she is full of beneficence and power, +and that it needs only to pronounce the "Open Sesame!" to gain +admittance to her treasure-house and possession of her richest gifts. We +want men who are willing to spend and be spent, not for paltry gains or +sordid existence, but for gains that are not paltry and existence that +is not sordid,—for love of truth,—men who attribute the failure of +their experiments, not to the poverty of Nature, but to their own +short-sighted, rough-handed endeavor, and who will simply take heart and +try again,—men who are fully persuaded in their own minds that there +must be, and are fully determined in their own hearts that there shall +be, profit to him that glorieth in the goad.</p> + +<p>It is left for our country to show that manual and mental skill, +strength, exercise, and labor are not incompatible,—that hard hands may +comport with gracious manners,—that one may be a gentleman digging in a +ditch, as well as dancing in a drawing-room. The Old World groans under +her peasant system,—even free England has her Hodge; but we will have +no peasantry here, no Hodges in hobnailed shoes, no stolid perpetual +serfdom to nurse our vanity and pride. The very genius of our nation +makes every man's manhood his most valuable possession. America +professes to believe that no one can with impunity evade the decree, "In +the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." She professes to hold labor +in honor; but she should show her faith by her work. She should display +her children of labor, fairer and fatter than the children of kings and +princes. If they are seen to be decrepit in mind and body before their +time,—if they have less happiness than the Austrian peasant, and less +content than the English clown, and no breadth of vision or liberality +of thought or clear foresight to atone for such deficiency, we shall +have to compass sea and land before we make many intelligent men or +nations proselytes to our faith.</p> + +<p>The time especially has need of men. This hour, and every hour of the +last three years, ought to prove to us beyond cavil that no class can +safely be left in ignorance, least of all the class that holds in its +hands a people's staff of life. Our country needs all the brain, all the +conscience, all the nerve and patience and moral strength, that can be +commanded. Her salvation lies in a yeomanry capable of comprehending the +momentous issues at stake. "More light!" is the dying gasp of a dying +people. Our republican institutions are but half completed. To give +every man the right to vote, without giving him at the same time the +power to vote intelligently, is but questionable service. If such an +arrangement were perpetual, it would be unquestionable disservice. Only +as fast and as far as we keep enlightenment abreast of power are we +seeing that the Republic receives no detriment. Ignorance is the +never-failing foe of freedom, the never-failing ally of despotism. We +have organized and successfully fought a crusade against tyranny; we are +now in the full tide of our crusade against slavery; let us have one +more, organized<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> and efficient, against ignorance, that the fruit of our +former victories be not lost to us for lack of wisdom to use them +aright.</p> + +<p>That the people who suffer most from want of knowledge should disdain it +is but natural. To see the need of teaching, men must be taught. It is +this very ignorance which is the strong buttress against education. +Ignorance propagates itself. It can be subdued only by force or tact, +not by argument. But for men who have attained by the help of their +education whatever reputation they possess to affect to question its +importance is to spurn the ladder by which they have mounted to +eminence. We are sometimes almost tempted to suspect the existence of a +petty jealousy in members of the learned professions. It would seem as +if a small fear were indulged lest a wider diffusion of knowledge and a +more thorough culture among the farming classes should detract from the +supremacy of others. There is certainly, among some writers, a leaning +towards a continuance of present abuses for which it is difficult to +account. The shrewdness of the plain farmer is pitted against the +science of the scholar, to the entire discomfiture of the latter. But +would the plain farmer's shrewdness be at all diminished by educating +the plain farmer? Would his sharp sense be blunted by being expressed +with some partial subjection to grammatical forms? Would his observation +be any less close for being trained? Would his reasoning be any less +profitable by being wisely directed than by running at hap-hazard? Would +it not be more economical to strengthen and polish his powerful weapons, +and give them honest work to do, than to leave them rough and rusty from +disuse, and only brought out at long intervals to hew and hack devices +for walking in darkness? If education is not the foe of legal, +mechanical, polemic, nor forensic acuteness, why should it be hostile to +any?</p> + +<p>No lover of his country, who brings to this view the same clearness and +sense which he takes to political or personal plans, but must hail as an +omen of good the efforts now making throughout the North in behalf of +agriculture and education. It is a cause for proud and grateful +gratulation and congratulation, that our government is so wise and +strong as to look through all the smoke and cloud of warfare, and set +firm in the tumultuous present the foundations of future +greatness,—that, calm and confident, it lays in the midst of the +thunder-storm of battle the corner-stone of the temple of Peace. It is +equally encouraging to see the States from east to west responding to +this movement, consulting with each other, enlisting in the enterprise +their best men, and sending them up and down in the land, and in other +lands, to observe and collate and infer, that the beneficent designs of +Congress may be carried out and carried on in the best possible manner +for the highest good of all. So a free people governs itself. So a free +people discerns its weakness and unfolds its strength. So a true +aristocracy will yet develop a worthy democracy. From such living, +far-seeing patriotism we augur the best results. Mistakes will doubtless +be made; wisdom will not die with this generation; but a beginning is +the sure presage of the end. Hesitation and precipitancy, unseemly delay +and ill-advised action, may retard, but will not prevent, a glorious +consummation. In these colleges we look to see agricultural centres from +which shall radiate new light across our hills and valleys. They will +not at once turn every plough-boy into a philosopher, nor send us +Liebigs to milk the cows; but to every plough-boy and dairyman in the +country they will give a new and a wider horizon. They will bring fresh +and manly incentives into the domain of toil. They will establish in +society a new order of men,—an order whose mere existence will give +heart and hope to the farmer-lad disgusted with his narrow life, yet +unable to relinquish it. They will send out to us men who have learned +and will teach that the plough, the hoe, the rake are implements of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> +profit and honor, as well as of industry. They will show that the hand +and the head may march abreast, and that only so can their full capacity +be tested. Science will be corrected by practice, and practice will be +guided by science. These men will go over the land and quietly set up +their household gods among our old-time farmers. They will gradually +acquire influence, not by loud-voiced rhetoric, but by the silent +eloquence of rich cornfields, heavy-laden orchards, full-uddered kine, +and merry-hearted boys and girls,—by the gentle, but irresistible force +of kindly words, pleasant ways, ready sympathy, a helping hand in +trouble, "sage counsel in cumber,"—by the thousand little devices of +taste and culture and good-fellowship,—by the cheap elegances, the fine +endearments, all the small, sweet courtesies of life. They will approve +the beneficence and the power of the Great Mother; they will demonstrate +to farmers the possibility of large and generous living; they will teach +them to distinguish between the mountebanks of pretended science and the +apostles of that science which alone is truth; they will give to thought +a new direction, to energy a new impulse, to earth a new creation, to +man a new life.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>SAADI.</h2> + + +<p>Whilst the Journal of the Oriental Society attests the presence of good +Semitic and Sanskrit scholars in our colleges, no translation of an +Eastern poet has yet appeared in America. Of the two hundred Persian +bards of whose genius Von Hammer Purgstall has given specimens to +Germany, we have had only some fragments collected in journals and +anthologies. There are signs that this neglect is about to be retrieved. +In the interval, while we wait for translations of our own, we welcome +the announcement of an American edition, if it be only a careful +reprint, of the "Gulistan" of Saadi,—a book which has been current in +Asia and Europe now for six hundred years. Of the "Gulistan or +Rose-Garden" there exist three respectable English translations. That of +Gladwin is to be preferred for its more simple and forcible style. Mr. +Gladwin has not thought fit to turn into rhyme the passages of verse +with which the "Gulistan" is interspersed. It is the less important, +that these verses are seldom more than a metrical repetition of the +sentiment of the preceding paragraph. Mr. Eastwick's metrical renderings +do not make us regret their omission. Mr. James Ross, in an "Essay on +the Life and Genius of Saadi," has searched the works of his author, as +well as outside history, for biographical facts or personal allusions.</p> + +<p>The slowness to import these books into our libraries—mainly owing, no +doubt, to the forbidding difficulty of the original languages—is due +also in part to some repulsion in the genius of races. At first sight, +the Oriental rhetoric does not please our Western taste. Life in the +East wants the complexity of European and American existence; and in the +writing of the primitive nations a certain monotony betrays the poverty +of the landscape, and of social conditions. Every word in Arabic is said +to be derived from the camel, the horse, or the sheep. We fancy we are +soon familiar with all their images. Medschun and Leila, rose and +nightingale, parrots and tulips; mosques and dervishes; desert, caravan, +and robbers; peeps at the harem; bags of gold dinars; slaves, horses, +camels, sabres, shawls, pearls, amber,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> cohol, and henna; insane +compliments to the Sultan, borrowed from the language of prayer; Hebrew +and Gueber legends molten into Arabesque;—'tis a short inventory of +topics and tropes, which incessantly return in Persian poetry. I do not +know but at the first encounter many readers take also an impression of +tawdry rhetoric, an exaggeration, and a taste for scarlet, running to +the borders of the negro-fine,—or if not, yet a pushing of the luxury +of ear and eye where it does not belong, as the Chinese in their +mathematics employ the colors blue and red for algebraic signs, instead +of our pitiless <i>x</i> and <i>y</i>. These blemishes disappear, or diminish, on +better acquaintance. Where there is real merit, we are soon reconciled +to differences of taste. The charge of monotony lies more against the +numerous Western imitations than against the Persians themselves, and +though the torrid, like the arctic zone, puts some limit to variety, it +is least felt in the masters. It is the privilege of genius to play its +game indifferently with few or with many pieces, as Nature draws all her +opulence out of a few elements. Saadi exhibits perpetual variety of +situation and incident, and an equal depth of experience with Cardinal +de Retz in Paris or Doctor Johnson in London. He finds room on his +narrow canvas for the extremes of lot, the play of motives, the rule of +destiny, the lessons of morals, and the portraits of great men. He has +furnished the originals of a multitude of tales and proverbs which are +current in our mouths, and attributed by us to recent writers; as, for +example, the story of "Abraham and the Fire-Worshipper," once claimed +for Doctor Franklin, and afterwards traced to Jeremy Taylor, who +probably found it in Gentius.</p> + +<p>The superlative, so distasteful in the temperate region, has vivacity in +the Eastern speech. In his compliments to the Shah, Saadi says,—"The +incurvated back of the sky became straight with joy at thy birth." "A +tax-gatherer," he says, "fell into a place so dangerous, that, from +fear, a male lion would become a female." Of dunces he says, with a +double superlative,—"If the ass of Christ should go to Mecca, it would +come back an ass still." It is a saying from I know not what poet,—"If +the elegant verses of Dhoair Fariabi fall into thy hands, steal them, +though it were in the sacred temple of Mecca itself." But the wildness +of license appears in poetical praises of the Sultan:—"When his bow +moves, it is already the last day [for his enemies]; whom his onset +singles out, to him is life not appointed; and the ghost of the Holy +Ghost were not sure of its time."</p> + +<p>But when once the works of these poets are made accessible, they must +draw the curiosity of good readers. It is provincial to ignore them. If, +as Mackintosh said, "whatever is popular deserves attention," much more +does that which has fame. The poet stands in strict relation to his +people: he has the over-dose of their nationality. We did not know them, +until they declared their taste by their enthusiastic welcome of his +genius. Foreign criticism might easily neglect him, unless their +applauses showed the high historic importance of his powers. In these +songs and elegies breaks into light the national mind of the Persians +and Arabians. The monotonies which we accuse, accuse our own. We pass +into a new landscape, new costume, new religion, new manners and +customs, under which humanity nestles very comfortably at Shiraz and +Mecca, with good appetite, and with moral and intellectual results that +correspond, point for point, with ours at New York and London. It needs +in every sense a free translation, just as, from geographical position, +the Persians attribute to the east wind what we say of the west.</p> + +<p>Saadi, though he has not the lyric flights of Hafiz, has wit, practical +sense, and just moral sentiments. He has the instinct to teach, and from +every occurrence must draw the moral, like Franklin. He is the poet of +friendship, love, self-devotion, and serenity. There is a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> uniform force +in his page, and, conspicuously, a tone of cheerfulness, which has +almost made his name a synonyme for this grace. The word <i>Saadi</i> means +<i>Fortunate</i>. In him the trait is no result of levity, much less of +convivial habit, but first of a happy nature, to which victory is +habitual, easily shedding mishaps, with sensibility to pleasure, and +with resources against pain. But it also results from the habitual +perception of the beneficent laws that control the world. He inspires in +the reader a good hope. What a contrast between the cynical tone of +Byron and the benevolent wisdom of Saadi!</p> + +<p>Saadi has been longer and better known in the Western nations than any +of his countrymen. By turns, a student, a water-carrier, a traveller, a +soldier fighting against the Christians in the Crusades, a prisoner +employed to dig trenches before Tripoli, and an honored poet in his +protracted old age at home,—his varied and severe experience took away +all provincial tone, and gave him a facility of speaking to all +conditions. But the commanding reason of his wider popularity is his +deeper sense, which, in his treatment, expands the local forms and tints +to a cosmopolitan breadth. Through his Persian dialect he speaks to all +nations, and, like Homer, Shakspeare, Cervantes, and Montaigne, is +perpetually modern.</p> + +<p>To the sprightly, but indolent Persians, conversation is a game of +skill. They wish to measure wit with you, and expect an adroit, a +brilliant, or a profound answer. Many narratives, doubtless, have +suffered in the translation, since a promising anecdote sometimes +heralds a flat speech. But Saadi's replies are seldom vulgar. His wit +answers to the heart of the question, often quite over the scope of the +inquirer. He has also that splendor of expression which alone, without +wealth of thought, sometimes constitutes a poet, and forces us to ponder +the problem of style. In his poem on his old age, he says,—"Saadi's +whole power lies in his sweet words: let this gift remain to me, I care +not what is taken."</p> + +<p>The poet or thinker must always, in a rude nation, be the chief +authority on religion. All questions touching its truth and obligation +will come home to him, at last, for their answer. As he thinks and +speaks will intelligent men believe. Therefore a certain deference must +be shown him by the priests,—a result which conspicuously appears in +the history of Hafiz and Saadi. In common with his countrymen, Saadi +gives prominence to fatalism,—a doctrine which, in Persia, in Arabia, +and in India, has had, in all ages, a dreadful charm. "To all men," says +the Koran, "is their day of death appointed, and they cannot postpone or +advance it one hour. Wilt thou govern the world which God governs? Thy +lot is cast beforehand, and whithersoever it leads, thou must follow." +"Not one is among you," said Mahomet, "to whom is not already appointed +his seat in fire or his seat in bliss."</p> + +<p>But the Sheik's mantle sits loosely on Saadi's shoulders, and I find in +him a pure theism. He asserts the universality of moral laws, and the +perpetual retributions. He celebrates the omnipotence of a virtuous +soul. A certain intimate and avowed piety, obviously in sympathy with +the feeling of his nation, is habitual to him. All the forms of courtesy +and of business in daily life take a religious tinge, as did those of +Europe in the Middle Age.</p> + +<p>With the exception of a few passages, of which we need not stop to give +account, the morality of the "Gulistan" and the "Bostan" is pure, and so +little clogged with the superstition of the country that this does not +interfere with the pleasure of the modern reader: he can easily +translate their ethics into his own. Saadi praises alms, hospitality, +justice, courage, bounty, and humility; he respects the poor, and the +kings who befriend the poor. He admires the royal eminence of the +dervish or religious ascetic. "Hunger is a cloud out of which falls a +rain of eloquence and knowledge: when the belly is empty, the body +becomes spirit; when it is full, the spirit becomes body." He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> praises +humility. "Make thyself dust, to do anything well." "Near Casbin," he +tells us, "a man of the country of Parthia came forth to accost me, +mounted on a tiger. At this sight, such fear seized me that I could not +flee nor move. But he said,—'O Saadi, be not surprised at what thou +seest. Do thou only not withdraw thy neck from the yoke of God, and +nothing shall be able to withdraw its neck from thy yoke.'"</p> + +<p>In a country where there are no libraries and no printing, people must +carry wisdom in sentences. Wonderful is the inconsecutiveness of the +Persian poets. European criticism finds that the unity of a beautiful +whole is everywhere wanting. Not only the story is short, but no two +sentences are joined. In looking through Von Hammer's anthology, culled +from a paradise of poets, the reader feels this painful discontinuity. +'Tis sand without lime,—as if the neighboring desert had <i>saharized</i> +the mind. It was said of Thomson's "Seasons," that the page would read +as well by omitting every alternate line. But the style of Thomson is +glue and bitumen to the loose and irrecoverable ramble of the Oriental +bards. No topic is too remote for their rapid suggestion. The Ghaselle +or Kassida is a chapter of proverbs, or proverbs unchaptered, unthreaded +beads of all colors, sizes, and values. Yet two topics are sure to +return in any and every proximity,—the mistress and the name of the +poet. Out of every ambush these leap on the unwary reader. Saadi, in the +"Gulistan," by the necessity of the narrative, corrects this arid +looseness, which appears, however, in his odes and elegies, as in Hafiz +and Dschami. As for the incessant return of the poet's name,—which +appears to be a sort of registry of copyrights,—the Persians often +relieve this heavy custom by wit and audacious sallies.</p> + +<p>The Persians construct with great intrepidity their mythology and +legends of typical men. Jamschid, who reigned seven hundred years, and +was then driven from his throne, is their favorite example of the turns +of fortune. Karun or Corah, the alchemist, who converted all things to +gold, but perished with his treasures at the word of Moses, is their +Crœsus. Lokman, the Æsop of the East, lived to an enormous age, was +the great-grandson of Noah, etc. Saadi relates, that Lokman, in his last +years, dwelt on the border of a reedy marsh, where he constructed a +cabin, and busied himself with making osier baskets. The Angel of Death +appeared to him, and said,—"Lokman, how is it, that, in three thousand +years that you have lived in the world, you have never known how to +build a house?" Lokman replied,—"O Azrael! one would be a fool, knowing +that you were always at his heels, to set himself at building a house." +Hatem Tai is their type of hospitality, who, when the Greek emperor sent +to pray him to bestow on him his incomparable horse, received the +messenger with honor, and, having no meat in his tent, killed the horse +for his banquet, before he yet knew the object of the visit. Nushirvan +the Just is their Marcus Antoninus, or Washington, to whom every wise +counsel in government is attributed. And the good behavior of rulers is +a point to which Saadi constantly returns. It is one of his maxims, that +the "<i>bons mots</i> of kings are the kings of <i>bons mots</i>." One of these +is,—"At night thou must go in prayer a beggar, if by day thou wilt +carry thyself as a king." Again,—"A king is like a great and massive +wall: as soon as he leans from the perpendicular [of equity], he is near +his ruin." Again,—"You, O king, sit in the place of those who are gone, +and of those who are to come: how can you establish a firm abode between +two non-existences?" Dzoul Noun, of Grand Cairo, said to the Caliph,—"I +have learned that one to whom you have given power in the country treats +the subjects with severity, and permits daily wrongs and violences +there." The Caliph replied,—"There will come a day when I will severely +punish him." "Yes," returned the other, "you will wait until he has +taken all the goods of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> the subjects; then you will bestir yourself, and +snatch them from him, and will fill your treasury. But what good will +that do to your poor and miserable people?" The Caliph was ashamed, and +ordered the instant punishment of the offender.</p> + +<p>It appears, from the anecdotes which Professor Graf has rendered from +the Calcutta manuscripts, that Saadi enjoyed very high respect from the +great in his own time, and from the Sultan of the Mongolian court,—and +that he used very plain dealing with this last, for the redress of +grievances which fell under his notice. These, with other passages, mark +the state of society wherein a shepherd becomes a robber, then a +conqueror, and then sultan. In a rude and religious society, a poet and +traveller is thereby a noble and the associate of princes, a teacher of +religion, a mediator between the people and the prince, and, by his +exceptional position, uses great freedom with the rulers. The growth of +cities and increase of trade rapidly block up this bold access of truth +to the courts, as the narrator of these events in Saadi's life plainly +intimates. "The Sultan, Abake Khan, found great pleasure in the verses. +Truly, at the present time, no learned men or Sheiks would dare to utter +such advice, even to a grocer or a butcher; and hence, also, is the +world in such bad plight as we see."</p> + +<p>The Persians have been called "the French of Asia"; and their superior +intelligence, their esteem for men of learning, their welcome to Western +travellers, and their tolerance of Christian sects in their territory, +as contrasted with Turkish fanaticism, would seem to derive from the +rich culture of this great choir of poets, perpetually reinforced +through five hundred years, which again and again has enabled the +Persians to refine and civilize their conquerors, and to preserve a +national identity. To the expansion of this influence there is no limit; +and we wish that the promised republication may add to the genius of +Saadi a new audience in America.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I hear, from many a little throat,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A warble interrupted long;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I hear the robin's flute-like note,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The bluebird's slenderer song.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Brown meadows and the russet hill,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Not yet the haunt of grazing herds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thickets by the glimmering rill<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Are all alive with birds.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O Choir of Spring, why come so soon?<br /></span> +<span class="i2">On leafless grove and herbless lawn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Warm lie the yellow beams of noon;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Yet winter is not gone.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For frost shall sheet the pools again;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Again the blustering East shall blow,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> +<span class="i0">Whirl a white tempest through the glen,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And load the pines with snow.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yet, haply, from the region where,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Waked by an earlier spring than here,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The blossomed wild-plum scents the air,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ye come in haste and fear.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For there is heard the bugle-blast,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The booming gun, the jarring drum,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on their chargers, spurring fast,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Armed warriors go and come.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There mighty hosts have pitched the camp<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In valleys that were yours till then,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Earth has shuddered to the tramp<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of half a million men.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In groves where once ye used to sing,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In orchards where ye had your birth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A thousand glittering axes swing<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To smite the trees to earth.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ye love the fields by ploughman trod;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">But there, when sprouts the beechen spray,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The soldier only breaks the sod<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To hide the slain away.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Stay, then, beneath our ruder sky;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Heed not the storm-clouds rising black,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor yelling winds that with them fly;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Nor let them fright you back,—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Back to the stifling battle-cloud,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To burning towns that blot the day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And trains of mounting dust that shroud<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The armies on their way.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Stay, for a tint of green shall creep<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Soon o'er the orchard's grassy floor,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And from its bed the crocus peep<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Beside the housewife's door.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Here build, and dread no harsher sound,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">To scare you from the sheltering tree,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than winds that stir the branches round<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And murmur of the bee.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And we will pray, that, ere again<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The flowers of autumn bloom and die,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our generals and their strong-armed men<br /></span> +<span class="i2">May lay their weapons by.<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then may ye warble, unafraid,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where hands, that wear the fetter now,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Free as your wings shall ply the spade,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And guide the peaceful plough.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then, as our conquering hosts return,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">What shouts of jubilee shall break<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From placid vale and mountain stern<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And shore of mighty lake!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And midland plain and ocean-strand<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Shall thunder: "Glory to the brave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Peace to the torn and bleeding land,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And freedom to the slave!"<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10"><span class="smcap">March, 1864.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>WET-WEATHER WORK.</h2> + +<h3>BY A FARMER.</h3> + + +<h4>VII.</h4> + +<p>In these notes upon the Farm-Writers and the Pastorals, I have +endeavored to keep a certain chronologic order; and upon this wet +morning I find myself embayed among those old gentlemen who lived in the +latter part of the eighteenth century. George III. is tottering under +his load of royalty; the French Revolution is all asmoke. Fox and +Sheridan and Burke and the younger Pitt are launching speeches at this +Gallic tempest of blood,—each in his own way. Our American struggle for +liberty has been fought bravely out; and the master of it has retired to +his estates upon the Potomac. There, in his house at Mount Vernon, he +receives one day a copy of the early volumes of Young's "Annals of +Agriculture," with the author's compliments, and the proffer of his +services to execute orders for seeds, implements, cattle, or "anything +else that might contribute to the General's rural amusements."</p> + +<p>The General, in his good old-fashioned way, returns the compliments with +interest, and says, "I will give you the trouble, Sir, of providing and +sending to the care of Wakelin Welch, of London, merchant, the following +articles:—</p> + +<p>"Two of the simplest and best-constructed ploughs for land which is +neither very heavy nor sandy; to be drawn by two horses; to have spare +shares and coulters; and a mould, on which to form new irons, when the +old ones are worn out, or will require repairing. I will take the +liberty to observe, that, some years ago, from a description or a +recommendation thereof which I had somewhere met with, I sent to England +for what was then called the Rotherham or patent plough; and, till it +began to wear and was ruined by a bungling country-smith, that no plough +could have done better work, or appeared to have gone easier with two +horses; but, for want of a mould, which I neglected to order with the +plough, it became useless after the irons which came with it were much +worn.</p> + +<p>"A little of the best kind of cabbage seed for field-culture.</p> + +<p>"Twenty pounds of the best turnip seed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ten bushels of sainfoin seed.</p> + +<p>"Eight bushels of the winter vetches.</p> + +<p>"Two bushels of rye-grass seed.</p> + +<p>"Fifty pounds of hop-clover seed."</p> + +<p>The curious reader may be interested to know that this shipment of +goods, somewhat injured by stowage in the hold of the vessel, reached +Mount Vernon just one week after Washington had left it to preside over +the sittings of the Constitutional Convention. And amidst all the +eagerness of those debates under which the ark of our nationality was +being hammered into shape, this great man of system did not omit to send +to his farm-manager the most minute directions in respect to the +disposition of the newly arrived seeds.</p> + +<p>Of those directions, and of the farm-method at the home of Washington, I +may possibly have something to say at another time: I have named the +circumstance only to show that Arthur Young had a world-wide reputation +as an agriculturist at this day, (1786-7,) although he lived for more +than thirty years beyond it.</p> + +<p>Arthur Young was born at a little village near to Bury St. Edmund's, +(evermore famous as the scene of Pickwickian adventure,) in the year +1741. He had his schooling like other boys, and was for a time in a +counting-room at Lynn, where he plunged into literature at the unfledged +age of seventeen, by writing a tract on the American war; and this he +followed up with several novels, among which was one entitled "The Fair +American."<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> I greatly fear that the book was not even with the title: +it has certainly slipped away from the knowledge of all the +bibliographers.</p> + +<p>At twenty-two, he undertook the management of the farm upon which his +mother was living, and of which the lease was about expiring: here, by +his own account, he spent a great deal more than he ever reaped. A +little later, having come to the dignity of a married man, he leased a +farm in Essex, (Samford Hall,) consisting of some three hundred acres. +This, however, he abandoned in despair very shortly,—giving a +brother-farmer a hundred pounds to take it off his hands. Thereupon he +advertises for another venture, gallops through all the South of England +to examine those offered to his notice, and ends with renting a +hundred-acre farm in Hertfordshire, which proved of "a hungry vitriolic +gravel," where, he says, "for nine years, I occupied the jaws of a +wolf."</p> + +<p>Meantime, however, his pen has not been idle; for, previously to 1773, +he had written and published no less than sixteen octavo volumes +relating mostly to agricultural subjects, besides two ponderous quartos +filled with tabular details of "Experiments on the Cultivation of all +Sorts of Grain and Pulse, both in the Old and New Methods."</p> + +<p>This last was the most pretentious of his books, the result of most +painstaking labor, and by far the most useless and uninteresting; it +passed long ago into the waste-paper shops of London. A very full +synopsis of it, however, may be found in four or five consecutive +numbers of the old "Monthly Review" for 1771.</p> + +<p>The great fault of the book is, (and it is the fault of a good many +books,) it does not prove what the author wants to prove. He had hoped +by a long-continued course of minute experiments (and those detailed in +his book count a thousand, and extend over a period of five years) to +lay down an exact law of procedure for the guidance of his +brother-farmers. But the brother-farmers did not weary themselves over +his tables; or if they did, they found themselves as much muddled as the +experimenter himself. A good rule for dry weather was a bad one for wet; +and what might be advisable for Suffolk would be wrong in Herts. Upon +one occasion, where he shows a loss of nearly three pounds to the acre +on drilled wheat, against a loss<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> of two shillings fourpence on +broadcast-sowing, he observes,—"Reason is so often mistaken in matters +of husbandry, that it is <i>never fully</i> to be trusted, even in deducing +consequences evident from experiment itself." By which we may safely +conclude that the experiment disappointed his expectations. It must be +remembered, however, that Mr. Young was quite youthful and inexperienced +at the time of conducting these trials, and that he possessed none of +that scientific accuracy which characterizes the analysis of +farm-experiments at Rothamstead or at Bechelbron. He says, with a +diverting sincerity, that he was never "absent more than a single week +at a time from the field of his observations without leaving affairs in +charge of a trusty bailiff." He was too full of a constitutional unrest, +and too much wedded to a habit of wide and rapid generalization, to +acquit himself well in the task of laborious and minute observation.</p> + +<p>His "Tours" through the English counties, and his "Letters to Farmers," +were of great service, and were widely read. His "Farmer's Calendar" +became a standard work. He entertained at one time the project of +emigrating to America; but, abandoning this, he enlisted as +Parliamentary reporter for the "Morning Post,"—walking seventeen miles +to his country-home every Saturday evening, and returning afoot every +Monday morning. His energy and industry were immense; his information +upon all subjects connected with agriculture, whether British or +Continental, entirely unmatched. The Empress of Russia sent three lads +to him to be taught the arts of husbandry,—at which, I venture, his +plodding neighbors who "made the ends meet" laughed incontinently. He +had also pupils from France, America, Italy, Poland, Sicily, and +Portugal.</p> + +<p>In 1784 he commenced the publication of his famous "Annals of +Agriculture," which grew to the enormous mass of forty-five volumes, and +in the course of which dukes and princes and kings and republican +generals were his correspondents. At the formation of the Board of +Agriculture, he was named Secretary, with a salary and duties that kept +him mostly in London, where he died at an advanced age in 1820.</p> + +<p>It is a somewhat remarkable fact, that a man so distinguished in +agriculture, so full of information, so earnest in advocacy of unproved +methods of culture, so doggedly industrious, should yet never have +undertaken farming on his own account save at a loss. I attribute this +very much to his zeal for experiments. If he could establish, or +controvert, some popular theory by the loss of his crop, he counted it +no loss, but a gain to husbandry. Such men are benefactors; such men +need salaries; and if any such are afloat with us, unprovided for, I beg +to recommend them for clerkships in the Agricultural Bureau at +Washington; and if the Commissioner shall hit upon one Arthur Young +among the score of his <i>protégés</i>, the country will be better repaid +than it usually is.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The "Practical Farmer," and other books of William Ellis, Hertfordshire, +were in considerable vogue in the days of Young, and receive a little +faint praise from him, while he says that through half his works he is +"a mere old woman."</p> + +<p>I notice that Ellis recommends strongly the ploughing-in of +buckwheat,<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a>—a practice which Washington followed extensively at Mount +Vernon. He tells us that a cow is reckoned in his day to pay a clear +profit of four pounds a year (for butter and cheese); but he adds, +"Certain it is that no one knows what a cow will pay, unless she has her +constant bellyful of requisite meat." And his talk about cider has such +a relishy smack of a "mere old woman" that I venture to quote it.</p> + +<p>"I have drank," he says, "such Pippin Cyder, as I never met with +anywhere, but at Ivinghoe, just under our <i>Chiltern</i> Hills, where their +Soil is partly a chalky Loam: It was made by its Owner, a Farmer, and on +my Recommendation our Minister went with me to prove it, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> gave it +his Approbation. This was made from the Holland Pippin: And of such a +wholesome Nature is the Pippin of any Sort above all others, that I +remember there is a Relation of its wonderful influences, I think it was +in Germany: A Mother and two or three of her Sons having a Trial at Law, +were asked what they eat and drank to obtain such an Age, which was four +or five hundred years that they all made up amongst them; they answered, +chiefly by eating the Apple, and drinking its Juice. And I knew an +eminent, rich Lawyer, almost eighty Years old, who was very much +debilitated through a tedious Sickness, on the telling him this Story, +got Pippins directly, sliced them to the number of a dozen at a Time, +and infused them in Spring-Water, and made it his common Drink, till +Cyder-Time came on; also he fell on planting a number of Pippin-Trees in +order to his enjoying their salubrious Quality, and a fine Plantation +there is at this Day in his Gardens a few miles from me. This Practice +of his drinking the Pippin Liquor and Cyder, answered extraordinary +well, for he lived several Years after, in a pretty good State of +Health."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The next name I come upon, in this rainy-day service, starts a pleasant +picture to my mind,—not offset by a British landscape, but by one of +our own New-England hills. A group of heavy, overgrown chestnuts stand +stragglingly upon a steep ascent of pasture; they are flanked by a wide +reach of velvety turf covering the same swift slope of hill; gray +boulders of granite, scattered here and there, show gleaming spangles of +mica; clumps of pokeweed lift sturdily a massive luxuriance of stems and +a great growth of purple berries; occasional stumps are cushioned over +with mosses, green and gray; and, winding among stumps and rocks, there +comes trending down the green hill-side a comely flock of great, +long-woolled sheep: they nibble at stray clover-blossoms; they lift +their heads and look,—it is only the old dog who is by me,—they know +him; they straggle on. I strew the salt here and there upon a stone; +"Dandie" pretends to sleep; and presently the woolly company is all +around me,—the "Bakewell" flock.</p> + +<p>Robert Bakewell,<a name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a> who gave the name to this race of sheep, (afterward +known as New-Leicesters,) lived at Dishley, upon the highway from +Leicester to Derby, and not very far from that Ashby de la Zouche where +Scott plants the immortal scene of the tournament in "Ivanhoe." He was a +farmer's son, with limited education, and with limited means; yet, by +due attention to crosses, he succeeded in establishing a flock which +gained a world-wide reputation. His first letting of bucks at some +fifteen shillings the season was succeeded in the year 1774 by lettings +at a hundred guineas a head; and there were single animals in his flock +from which he is reported to have received, in the height of his fame, +the sum of twelve hundred pounds.</p> + +<p>Nor was Bakewell less known for his stock of neat-cattle, for his +judicious crosses, and for a gentleness of management by which he +secured the utmost docility. A writer in the "Gentleman's Magazine" of +his date says,—"This docility seemed to run through the herd. At an age +when most of his brethren are either foaming or bellowing with rage and +madness, old 'Comely' had all the gentleness of a lamb, both in his look +and action. He would lick the hand of his feeder; and if any one patted +or scratched him, he would bow himself down almost on his knees."</p> + +<p>The same writer, describing Mr. Bakewell's hall, says,—"The separate +joints and points of each of the more celebrated of his cattle were +preserved in pickle, or hung up there side by side,—showing the +thickness of the flesh and external fat on each, and the smallness of +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> offal. There were also skeletons of the different breeds, that they +might be compared with each other, and the comparative difference +marked."</p> + +<p>Arthur Young, in his "Eastern Tour," says, "All his bulls stand still in +the field to be examined; the way of driving them from one field to +another, or home, is by a little switch; he or his men walk by their +side, and guide them with the stick wherever they please; and they are +accustomed to this method from being calves."</p> + +<p>He left no book for future farmers to maltreat,—not even so much as a +pamphlet; and the sheep that bore his name are now refined by other +crosses, or are supplanted by the long-woolled troop of +"New-Oxfordshire."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>On the way from Leicestershire to London, one passed, in the old +coach-days, through Northampton; and from Northampton it is one of the +most charming of drives for an agriculturist over to the town of +Newport-Pagnell. I lodged there, at the Swan tavern, upon a July night +some twenty years gone; and next morning I rambled over between the +hedge-rows and across meadows to the little village of Weston, where I +lunched at the inn of "Cowper's Oak." The house where the poet had lived +with good Mrs. Unwin was only next door, and its front was quite covered +over with a clambering rose-tree. The pretty waitress of the inn showed +me the way, and a wheezing old man—half gardener and half +butler—introduced me to the rooms where Cowper had passed so many a +dreary hour, and where he had been cheered by the blithe company of +Cousin Lady Hesketh.</p> + +<p>My usher remembered the crazy recluse, and, when we had descended to the +garden, told me how much he, with other village-boys, stood in awe of +him,—and how the poet used to walk up and down the garden-alleys in +dressing-gown and white-tasselled cotton cap, muttering to himself; but +what mutterings some of them were!</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Thy silver locks, once auburn bright,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are still more lovely in my sight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than golden beams of orient light,<br /></span> +<span class="i25">My Mary!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"For could I view nor them nor thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What sight worth seeing could I see?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sun would rise in vain for me,<br /></span> +<span class="i25">My Mary!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Partakers of thy sad decline,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy hands their little force resign,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet, gently pressed, press gently mine,<br /></span> +<span class="i25">My Mary!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Afterward the shuffling old usher turns a key in a green gate, and shows +me into the "Wilderness." Here I come presently upon the Temple,—sadly +shattered,—and upon the urns with their mouldy inscriptions; I wander +through the stately avenue of lindens to the Alcove, and, so true are +the poet's descriptions, I recognize at once the seat of the +Throckmortons, the "Peasant's Nest," the "Rustic Bridge," and far away a +glimpse of the spire of Olney.</p> + +<p>Plainly as I see to-day the farm-flat of Edgewood smoking under the +spring rains below me, I see again the fat meadows that lie along the +sluggish Ouse reeking with the heats of July. And I bethink me of the +bewildered, sensitive poet, shrinking from the world, loving Nature so +dearly, loving friends like a child, loving God with reverence, and yet +with a great fear that is quickened by the harsh hammering of John +Newton's iron Calvinism into a wild turbulence of terror. From this he +seeks escape in the walks of the "Wilderness," and paces moodily up and +down from temple to alcove,—in every shady recess still haunted by "a +fearful looking-for of judgment," and from every sunny bit of turf +clutching fancies by eager handful, to strew over his sweet poem of the +"Task."</p> + +<p>A sweet poem, I repeat, though not a finished or a grand one; but there +is in it such zealous, earnest overflow of country-love that we farmers +must needs welcome it with open hearts.</p> + +<p>I should not like such a man as Cowper for a tenant, where any bargains +were to be made, or any lambs to be killed; nor do I think that the +mere<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> memory of his verse would have put me upon that July walk from +Newport to Weston; but his letters and his sad life, throughout which +trees and flowers were made almost his only confidants, led me to the +scene where that strange marriage with Nature was solemnized. And though +the day was balmy, and the sun fairly golden, the garden and the alley +and the trees and the wilderness were like a widow in her weeds.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Gilbert White, of Selborne, belongs to this epoch; and no lover of the +country or of country-things can pass him by without cordial recognition +and genial praise. There is not so much of incident or of adventure in +his little book as would suffice to pepper the romances of one issue of +a weekly paper in our day. The literary mechanicians would find in him +no artful contrivance of parts and no rhetorical jangle of language. It +is only good Parson White, who, wandering about the fields and the +brook-sides of Selborne, scrutinizes with rare clearness and patience a +thousand miracles of God's providence, in trees, in flowers, in stones, +in birds,—and jots down the story of his scrutiny with such simplicity, +such reverent trust in His power and goodness, such loving fondness for +almost every created thing, that the reading of it charms like Walton's +story of the fishes.</p> + +<p>We Americans, indeed, do not altogether recognize his chaffinches and +his titlarks; his daws and his fern-owl are strange to us; and his +robin-redbreast, though undoubtedly the same which in our nursery-days +flitted around the dead "Children in the Wood," (while tears stood in +our eyes,) and</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i16">"painfully<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Did cover them with leaves,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>is by no means our American redbreast. For one, I wish it were +otherwise; I wish with all my heart that I could identify the old, +pitying, feathered mourners in the British wood with the joyous, +rollicking singer who perches every sunrise, through all the spring, +upon the thatch of the bee-house, within stone's-throw of my window, and +stirs the dewy air with his loud <i>bravura</i>.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding, however, the dissimilarity of species, the studies of +this old naturalist are directed with a nice particularity, and are +colored with an unaffected homeliness, which are very charming; and I +never hear the first whisk of a swallow's wing in summer but I feel an +inclination to take down the booklet of the good old Parson, drop into +my library-chair, and follow up at my leisure all the gyrations and +flutterings and incubations of all the <i>hirundines</i> of Selborne. Every +country-liver should own the book, and be taught from it—nicety of +observation.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>There was another clergyman of a different stamp,—the Reverend John +Trusler of Cobham, Surrey,—who wrote about this time a book on +chronology, a few romances, a book on law, and another upon farming. He +commenced public life as an apothecary; from his drug-shop he went to +the pulpit, thence to book-selling, and finally to book-making. I am +inclined to think that he found the first of these two trades the more +profitable one: it generally is.</p> + +<p>Mr. Trusler introduces his agricultural work by declaring that it +"contains all the knowledge necessary in the plain business of farming, +unencumbered with theory, speculation, or experimental inquiry";—by +which it will be seen that the modesty of the author was largely +overborne by the enterprise of the bookseller. The sole value of his +treatise lies in certain statistical details with regard to the cost and +profits of different crops, prices of food, rates of wages, etc. By his +showing, the profit of an acre of wheat in 1780 was £2 10<i>s</i>; of barley, +£3 3<i>s</i> 6<i>d</i>; of buckwheat, £2 19<i>s</i>; and a farm of one hundred and +fifty acres, judiciously managed, would leave a profit of £379.</p> + +<p>These estimates of farm-profits, however, at all times, are very +deceptive. A man can write up his own balance-sheet, but he cannot make +up his neighbor's. There will be too many screws—or pigs—loose, which +he cannot take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> into the reckoning. The agricultural journals give us +from time to time the most alluring "cash-accounts" of farm-revenue, +which make me regard, for a month or two thereafter, every sober-sided +farmer I meet as a Rasselas,—"choring" and "teaming it" in a Happy +Valley; but shortly I come upon some retired citizen, turned farmer, and +active member of a Horticultural Society, slipping about the doors of +some "Produce and Commission Store" for his winter's stock of +vegetables, butter, and fruits,—and the fact impresses me doubtfully +and painfully. It is not often, unfortunately, that printed +farm-accounts—most of all, model-farm-accounts—will bear close +scrutiny. Sometimes there is delicate reservation of any charge for +personal labor or superintendence; sometimes an equally cheerful +reticence in respect to any interest upon capital; and in nearly all of +them such miniature expression of the cost of labor as gives a very +shaky consistency to the exhibit.</p> + +<p>Farmers, I am aware, are not much given to figures; but outside +"averagers" are; and agricultural writers, if they indulge in figures, +ought to show some decent respect for the proprieties of arithmetic. I +have before me now the "Bi-Monthly Report of the United States +Agricultural Department for January and February, 1864," in the course +of which it is gravely asserted, that, in the event of a certain +suggested tax on tobacco, "the tobacco-grower would find at the end of +the year two hundred and ten percent of his crops unsold." Now I am not +familiar with the tobacco-crop, and still less familiar with the +Washington schemes of taxation; but whatever may be the exigencies of +the former, and whatever may be the enormities of the latter, I find +myself utterly unable to measure, even proximately, the misfortune of a +tobacco-grower who should find himself stranded with two hundred and ten +percent of his crop, after his sales were closed! It is plainly a case +involving a pretty large <i>quid pro quo</i>, if it be not a clear one of +<i>nisi quid</i>.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Sir John Sinclair, so honorably known in connection with British +agriculture, dealt with an estate in Scotland of a hundred thousand +acres. He parcelled this out in manageable farms, advanced money to +needy tenants, and by his liberality and enterprise gave enormous +increase to his rental. He also organized the first valid system for +obtaining agricultural statistics through the clergymen of the different +parishes in Scotland, thus bringing together a vast amount of valuable +information, which was given to the public at intervals between 1790 and +1798. And I notice with interest that the poet Burns was a contributor +to one of these volumes,<a name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a> over the signature of "A Peasant," in which +he gives account of a farmers' library established in his neighborhood, +and adds, in closing,—"A peasant who can read and enjoy such books is +certainly a much superior being to his neighbor, who, perhaps, stalks +beside his team, very little removed, except in shape, from the brutes +he drives."</p> + +<p>There is reason to believe that Sir John Sinclair, at one time,—in the +heat of the French Revolution,—projected emigration to America; and I +find in one of Washington's letters<a name="FNanchor_E_5" id="FNanchor_E_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E_5" class="fnanchor">[E]</a> to him the following allusion to +the scheme:—"To have such a tenant as Sir John Sinclair (however +desirable it might be) is an honor I dare not hope for; and to alienate +any part of the fee-simple estate of Mount Vernon is a measure I am not +inclined to."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Another British cultivator of this period, whose name is associated with +the Mount Vernon estate, was a certain Richard Parkinson of Doncaster, +who wrote "The Experienced Farmer," and who not only proposed at one +time to manage one of the Washington farms, but did actually sail for +America, occupied a place called Orange-Hill, near Baltimore, for a year +or more, travelled through the country, making what sale he could of his +"Experienced Farmer," and on his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> return to England, published "A Tour +in America," which is to be met with here and there upon the top-shelves +of old libraries, and which is not calculated to encourage immigration.</p> + +<p>He sets out by saying,—"The great advantages held out by different +authors, and men travelling from America with commission to sell land, +have deluded persons of all denominations with an idea of becoming +land-owners and independent. They have, however, been most lamentably +disappointed,—particularly the farmers, and all those that have +purchased land; for, notwithstanding the low price at which the American +lands are sold, <i>the poverty of the soil is such</i> as to make it not to +pay for labor; therefore the greater part have brought themselves and +their families to total ruin."</p> + +<p>He is distressed, too, by the independence of the laborers,—being +"often forced to rise in the morning to milk the cows, when the servants +were in bed."</p> + +<p>Among other animals which he took with him, he mentions "two +race-horses, ten blood mares, a bull and cow of the North Devon, a bull +and cow of the no-horned York, a cow (with two calves and in calf again) +of the Holderness, five boar- and seven sow-pigs of four different +kinds."</p> + +<p>On arriving at Norfolk, Virginia, in November, he inquired for hay, and +"was informed that American cattle subsisted on blades and slops, and +that no hay was to be had." He found, also, that "American cows eat +horse-dung as naturally as an English cow eats hay; and as America grows +no grass, the street is the cheapest place to keep them in." This sounds +very much as if it had been excerpted from the scientific column of the +London "Athenæum." Again he says, with a delightful pointedness of +manner,—"No transaction in America reflects any discredit on a man, +unless he loses money by it.... I remember an Englishman, after +repeating all the things that could fill a stranger's mind with trouble +and horror, said, with a very heavy sigh, as he was going out of the +house, 'It is the Devil's own country, to be sure!'"</p> + +<p>The "Times" newspaper never said a prettier word than that!</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Mr. Robert Brown was a worthier man, and, I suspect, a better farmer; he +was one of the earlier types of those East-Lothian men who made their +neighborhood the garden of Scotland. He was also the author of a book on +"Rural Affairs," the editor for fifteen years of the well-known +"Edinburgh Farmers' Magazine," and (if I am not mistaken) communicated +the very valuable article on "Agriculture" to the old "Encyclopædia +Britannica."</p> + +<p>At this period, too, I find an Earl of Dundonald (Archibald Cochrane) +writing upon the relations of chemistry to agriculture,—and a little +later, Richard Kirwan, F.R.S., indulging in vagaries upon the same +broad, and still unsettled, subject.</p> + +<p>Joseph Cradock, a quiet, cultivated gentleman, who had been on terms of +familiarity with Johnson, Garrick, and Goldsmith, published in 1775 his +"Village Memoirs," in which Lancelot Brown has a little fun pointed at +him, under the name of "Layout," the general "undertaker" for gardens. +Sir Uvedale Price, too, a man of somewhat stronger calibre, and of great +taste, (fully demonstrated on his own place of Foxley,) made poor Brown +the target for some well-turned witticisms, and, what was far better, +demonstrated the near relationship which should always exist between the +aims of the landscape-painter and those of the landscape-gardener. I am +inclined to think that Brown was a little unfairly used by these new +writers, and that he had won a success which provoked a great deal of +jealousy. A popularity too great is always dangerous. Sir Uvedale was a +man of strong conservative tendencies, and believed no more in the +levelling of men than in the levelling of hills. He found his love for +the picturesque sated in many of those hoary old avenues which, under +Brown, had been given to the axe. I suspect he would have forgiven the +presence of a clipped yew in a landscape where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> it had thriven for +centuries; the moss of age could give picturesqueness even to formality. +He speaks somewhere of the kindly work of his uncle, who had disposed +his walks so as to be a convenience to the poor people of an adjoining +parish, and adds, with curious <i>naïveté</i>,—"Such attentive kindnesses +are amply repaid by affectionate regard and reverence; and were they +general throughout the kingdom, they would do much more towards guarding +us against democratical opinions than 'twenty thousand soldiers armed in +proof.'"</p> + +<p>Richard Knight (a brother of the distinguished horticulturist) +illustrated the picturesque theory of Price in a passably clever poem, +called "The Landscape," which had not, however, enough of outside merit +to keep it alive. Humphrey Repton, a professional designer of gardens, +whose work is to be found in almost every county of England, took issue +with Price in respect to his picturesque theory,—as became an +independent gardener who would not recognize allegiance to the painters. +But the antagonism was only one of those petty wars about +non-essentials, and significance of terms, into which eager book-makers +are so apt to run.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In the course of one of my earlier Wet-Days I took occasion to allude to +the brave old age that was reached by the classic veterans,—Xenophon, +Cato, and Varro; and now I find among the most eminent British +agriculturists and gardeners of the close of the last century a firm +grip on life that would have matched the hardihood of Cato. Old +Abercrombie of Preston Pans, as we have already seen, reached the age of +eighty. Walpole, though I lay no claim to him as farmer or gardener, +yet, thanks to the walks and garden-work of Strawberry Hill, lived to +the same age. Philip Miller was an octogenarian. Lord Kames was aged +eighty-seven at his death (1782). Arthur Young, though struggling with +blindness in his later years, had accumulated such stock of vitality by +his out-door life as to bridge him well over into the present century: +he died in 1820, aged seventy-nine. Parson Trusler, notwithstanding his +apothecary-schooling, lived to be eighty. In 1826 died Joseph Cradock of +the "Village Memoirs," and a devoted horticulturist, aged eighty-five. +Three years after, (1829,) Sir Uvedale Price bade final adieu to his +delightful seat of Foxley, at the age of eighty-three. Sir John Sinclair +lived fairly into our own time, (1835,) and was eighty-one at his death.</p> + +<p>William Speechley, whom Johnson calls the best gardener of his time, and +who established the first effective system of hot-house culture for +pines in England, died in 1819, aged eighty-six; and in the same year, +William Marshal, a voluminous agricultural writer and active farmer, +died at the age of eighty. And I must mention one more, in Dr. Andrew +Duncan, a Scotch physician, who cultivated his garden with his own +hands,—inscribing over the entrance-gate, "<i>Hinc salus</i>,"—and who was +the founder of the Horticultural Society of Edinburgh. This hale old +doctor died in 1828, at the extreme age of eighty-four; and to the very +last year of his life he never omitted going up to the top of Arthur's +Seat every May-Day morning, to bathe his forehead in the summer's dew.</p> + +<p>As a country-liver, I like to contemplate and to boast of the hoary age +of these veterans. The inscription of good old Dr. Duncan was not +exaggerated. Every man who digs his own garden, and keeps the weeds down +thoroughly, may truthfully place the same writing over the gate,—"<i>Hinc +salus</i>" (wherever he may place his "<i>Hinc pecunia</i>"). Nor is the +comparative safety of active gardening or farming pursuits due entirely +to the vigorous bodily exercise involved, but quite as much, it seems to +me, to that enlivening and freshening influence which must belong to an +intimate and loving and intelligent companionship with Nature. It may be +an animal view of the matter,—but, in estimating the comparative +advantages and disadvantages of a country-life, I think we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> take too +little account of that glow and exhilaration of the blood which come of +every-day dealings with the ground and flowers and trees, and which, as +age approaches, subside into a calm equanimity that looks Death in the +face no more fearingly than if it were a frost. I have gray-haired +neighbors around me who have come to a hardy old age upon their little +farms,—buffeting all storms,—petting the cattle which have come down +to them from ten generations of short-lived kine, gone by,—trailing +ancient vines, that have seen a quarter of a century of life, over their +door-steps,—turning over soil, every cheery season of May, from which +they have already gathered fifty harvests; and I cannot but regard their +serene philosophy, and their quiet, thankful, and Christian enjoyment of +the bounties of Nature, as something quite as much to be envied as the +distinctions of town-craft. I ask myself,—If these old gentlemen had +plunged into the whirlpool of a city five-and-fifty years ago, would +they have been still adrift upon this tide of time, where we are all +serving our apprenticeships?—and if so, would they have worn the same +calm and cheerful equanimity amid the harvests of traffic or the blight +of a panic?—and if not adrift, would they have carried a clearer and +more justifying record to the hearing of the Great Court than they will +carry hence when our village-bell doles out the funeral march for them?</p> + +<p>The rain is beating on my windows; the rain is beating on the plain; a +mist is driving in from the Sound, over which I see only the +spires,—those Christian beacons. And (by these hints, that always fret +the horizon) calling to mind that bit of the best of all prayers, "<i>Lead +us not into temptation</i>," it seems to me that many a country-liver might +transmute it without offence, and in all faith, into words like +these,—"Lead us not into cities." To think for a moment of poor farmer +Burns, with the suppers of Edinburgh, and the orgies of the gentlemen of +the Caledonian hunt, inflaming his imagination there in the wretched +chamber of his low farm-house of Ellisland!</p> + +<p>But all this, down my last half-page, relates to the physical and the +moral aspects of the matter,—aspects which are, surely, richly worthy +of consideration. The question whether country-life and country-pursuits +will bring the intellectual faculties to their strongest bent is quite a +distinct one. There may be opportunity for culture; but opportunity +counts for nothing, except it occur under conditions that prompt to its +employment. The incitement to the largest efforts of which the mind is +capable comes ordinarily from mental attrition,—an attrition for which +the retirement demanded by rural pursuits gives little occasion. Milton +would never have come to his stature among pear-trees,—nor Newton, nor +Burke. They may have made first-rate farmers or horticulturists; they +may have surpassed all about them; but their level of action would have +been a far lower one than that which they actually occupied. There is a +great deal of balderdash written and talked upon this subject, which +ought to have an end; it does not help farming, it does not help the +world,—simply because it is untrue. Rural life offers charming objects +of study; but to most minds it does not offer the promptings for large +intellectual exertion. It ripens healthfully all the receptive +faculties; it disposes to that judicial calmness of mind which is +essential to clearness and directness of vision; but it does not kindle +the heat of large and ambitious endeavor. Hence we often find that a man +who has passed the first half of his life in comparative isolation, +cultivating his resources quietly, unmoved by the disturbances and the +broils of civic life, will, on transfer to public scenes, and stirred by +that emulation which comes of contact with the world, feel all his +faculties lighted with a new glow, and accomplish results which are as +much a wonder to himself as to others. The pent river is at length set +loose,—the barriers broken by the wear of mingled waters, and the force +and the roar of it are amazing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p> + +<p>I have alluded to the poet-farmer Burns,—a capital ploughman, a poor +manager, an intemperate lover, a sad reveller, a stilted letter-writer, +a rare good-fellow, and a poet whose poems will live forever. It is no +wonder he did not succeed as farmer; Moss-giel had an ugly, wet subsoil, +and draining-tiles were as yet not in vogue; but from all the accounts I +can gather, there was never a truer furrow laid than was laid by Robert +Burns in his days of vigor, upon that same damp upland of Moss-giel; his +"fearings" were all true, and his headlands as clear of draggled sod as +if he had used the best "Ruggles, Nourse, and Mason" of our time. Alas +for the daisies! he must have turned over perches of them in his day; +and yet only one has caught the glory of his lamentation!</p> + +<p>Ellisland, where he went later, and where he hoped to redeem his +farm-promise, was not over-fertile; it had been hardly used by scurvy +tenants before him, and was so stony that a rain-storm made a +fresh-rolled field of sown barley look like a paved street. He tells us +this; and we farmers know what it means. But it lay in Nithsdale; and +the beauty of Nithsdale shed a regal splendor on his home. It was the +poet that had chosen the farm, and not the grain-grower.</p> + +<p>Then there were the "callants" coming from Edinburgh, from Dumfries, +from London, from all the world, to have their "crack" with the +peasant-poet, who had sung the "Lass of Ballochmyle." Can this man, +whose tears drip (in verse) for a homeless field-mouse, keep by the +plough, when a half-score of good-fellows are up from Dumfries to see +him, and when John Barleycorn stands frothing in the cupboard?</p> + +<p>Consider, again, that his means, notwithstanding the showy and +short-lived generosity of his Edinburgh friends, enabled him only to +avail himself of the old Scotch plough; his harrow, very likely, had +wooden teeth; he could venture nothing for the clearing of gorse and +broom; he could enter upon no system of drainage, even of the simple +kind recommended by Lord Kames; he had hardly funds to buy the best +quality of seed, and none at all for "liming," or for "wrack" from the +shore. Even the gift of a pretty heifer he repays with a song.</p> + +<p>Besides all this, he was exciseman; and he loved galloping over the +hills in search of recreants, and cozy sittings in the tap of the "Jolly +Beggars" of Mauchline, better than he loved a sight of the stunted +barley of Ellisland.</p> + +<p>No wonder that he left his farm; no wonder that he went to +Dumfries,—shabby as the street might be where he was to live; no +wonder, that, with his mad pride and his impulsive generosity, he died +there, leaving wife and children almost beggars. But, in all charity, +let us remember that it is not alone the poor exciseman who is dead, but +the rare poet, who has intoned a prayer for ten thousand lips,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"That He, who stills the raven's clamorous nest,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And decks the lily fair in flowery pride,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For them and for their little ones provide,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Let no one fancy that Burns was a poor farmer because he was a poet: he +was a poor farmer simply because he gave only his hand to the business, +and none of his brain. He had enough of good sense and of +clear-sightedness to sweep away every agricultural obstacle in his path, +and to make Ellisland "pay well"; but good-fellowship, and the "Jolly +Beggars," and his excise-galloping among the hills by Nithsdale made an +end of the farmer,—and, in due time, made an end of the man.</p> + +<p>Robert Bloomfield was another poet-farmer of these times, but of a much +humbler calibre. I could never give any very large portion of a wet day +to his reading. There is truthfulness of description in him, and a +certain grace of rhythm, but nothing to kindle any glow. The story of +Giles, and of the milking, and of the spotted heifers, may be true +enough; but every day, in my barn-yard,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> I find as true and as lively a +story. The fact is, that the details of farm-life—the muddy boots, the +sweaty workers, the amber-colored pools, the wallowing pigs—are not of +a kind to warrant or to call out any burning imprint of verse. Theme for +this lies in the breezes, the birds, the waving-wooded mountains +(Νηριτον εινοσιφυλλον), the glorious mornings</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>—and for these the poet must soar above the barn-yard and the +house-tops. There is more of the spirit of true poesy in that little +fragment of Jean Ingelow's,<a name="FNanchor_F_6" id="FNanchor_F_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_F_6" class="fnanchor">[F]</a> beginning,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"What change has made the pastures sweet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And reached the daisies at my feet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And cloud that wears a golden hem?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>than in all the verse of Bloomfield, if all of Bloomfield were +compressed into a single song.</p> + +<p>And yet, if we had lived in those days, we should all have subscribed +for the book of the peasant-bard, perhaps have read it,—but, most +infallibly, have given it away to some country-cousin.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>I will not leave the close of the last century without paying my +respects to good Mrs. Barbauld,—not so much for her pleasant "Ode to +Spring," about which there is a sweet odor of the fields, as for her +partnership in those "Evenings at Home" which are associated—I scarce +can remember how—with roaring fires and winter nights in the country; +and not less strongly with the first noisy chorus of the frogs in the +pools, and the first coy uplift of the crocuses and the sweet violets. +There are pots of flowers, and glowing fruit-trees, and country +hill-sides scattered up and down those little stories, which, though my +eye has not lighted on them these twenty odd years past, are still fresh +in my mind, and full of a sweet pastoral fragrance. The sketches may be +very poor, with few artist-like touches in them; it may be only a boyish +caprice by which I cling to them; but what pleasanter or more grateful +whim to cherish than one which brings back all the aroma of childhood in +the country,—floating upon the remnant-patches of a story that is only +half recalled? The cowslips are there; the pansies are there; the +overhanging chestnuts are there; the dusty high-road is there; the +toiling wagons are there; and, betimes, the rain is dripping from the +cottage-eaves—as the rain is dripping to-day.</p> + +<p>And from Mrs. Barbauld I am led away to speak of Miss +Austen,—belonging, it is true, to a little later date, and the tender +memory of her books to an age that had outgrown "Evenings at Home." +Still, the association of her tales is strongest with the country, and +with country-firesides. I sometimes take up one of her works upon an odd +hour even now; and how like finding old-garret clothes—big bonnets and +scant skirts—is the reading of such old-time story! How the +"proprieties" our grandmothers taught us come drifting back upon the +tide of those buckram conventionalities of the "Dashwoods"!<a name="FNanchor_G_7" id="FNanchor_G_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_G_7" class="fnanchor">[G]</a> Ah, +Marianne, how we once loved you! Ah, Sir John, how we once thought you a +profane swearer!—as you really were.</p> + +<p>There are people we know between the covers of Miss Austen: Mrs. +Jennings has a splutter of tease, and crude incivility, and shapeless +tenderness, that you and I see every day;—not so patent and +demonstrative in our friend Mrs. Jones; but the difference is only in +fashion: Mrs. Jennings was in scant petticoats, and Mrs. Jones wears +hoops, thirty springs strong.</p> + +<p>How funny, too, the old love-talk! "My beloved Amanda, the charm of your +angelic features enraptures my regard." It is earnest; but it's not the +way those things are done.</p> + +<p>And what visions such books recall of the days when they were read,—the +girls in pinafores,—the boys in roundabouts,—the elders looking +languishingly on, when the reader comes to tender passages! And was not +a certain Mary<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> Jane another Ellinor? And was not Louisa (who lived in +the two-story white house on the corner) another Marianne,—gushing, +tender? Yes, by George, she was! (that was the form our boyish oaths +took).</p> + +<p>And was not the tall fellow who offered his arm to the girls so gravely, +and saw them home from our evening visits so cavalierly,—was he not +another gay deceiver,—a Lothario, a Willoughby? He could kiss a girl on +the least provocation; he took pay out, for his escort, that way. It was +wonderful,—the fellow's effrontery. It never forsook him. I do not know +about the romance in his family; but he went into the grocery-line, and +has become a contractor now, enormously rich. He offers his arm to +Columbia, who wishes to get home before dark; and takes pay in rifling +her of golden kisses. Yes, by George, he does!</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> By an odd coincidence, I observe that Washington made one +of his first shipments of tobacco (after his marriage with Mrs. Custis) +upon a vessel called "The Fair American." Did the ship possibly give a +name to the novel, or the novel a name to the ship?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> <i>Practical Farmer</i>, by William Ellis. London, 1759.</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> The eminent geologist, Robert Bakewell, who lived many +years later, wrote of the "Influence of the Soil on Wool," and for that +reason, perhaps, is frequently confounded by agricultural writers with +the great breeder.</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> Third volume <i>Statistics</i>, p. 598.</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> Dated December, 1796. Sparks's <i>Life and Letters</i>, Vol. +XII. p. 328.</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> A poetess whose merits, as it seems to me, are, as yet, +only half acknowledged.</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> <i>Sense and Sensibility.</i></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>MEXICO.</h2> + + +<p>Had the question been asked, forty years ago, what country, beside our +own, possesses the greatest natural advantages, and gives the best +promise of future growth and prosperity, very likely the answer would +have been, Mexico, which had then just thrown off the Spanish yoke and +achieved national independence. Cast aside for a moment all modern +ideas, derived from her known weakness and anarchy, and see how great +and manifold those apparent advantages and prospects were.</p> + +<p>Situated where the continent of North America is narrowing from the +immense breadths of the United States and British America to that thread +of communication between continents, the Isthmus of Panama, on the one +side its shores are washed by the waters of the Gulf of Mexico for more +than sixteen hundred miles, and on the other by the tranquil Pacific for +four thousand more. Yet the distance from her great eastern port, Vera +Cruz, to the old Spanish treasure-depot, Acapulco, on the western coast, +was not, as the bird flies, more than three hundred miles: a distance +scarcely greater than that from Boston to New York, and which, with +modern means of transit, might be traversed between sunrise and sunset. +Thus with one hand she seemed ready to grasp the wealth of the Indies, +while with the other she welcomed all the products of European skill. +This wonderful geographical advantage had, indeed, been rendered futile +in the past by the jealous spirit and the exclusive enactments of her +oppressor. But what might not be hoped in the future from a free people, +quickened into fresh life by the breath of liberty?</p> + +<p>Then the marvellous resources of every description which Nature had +crowded into her soil. Perhaps there is not on the whole earth another +strip of country, extending north and south only a thousand miles and +varying in width from one to five hundred miles, where side by side are +all climates and all their products. On the coasts the land is low, hot, +vaporous, and luxuriant,—the native home of the richest tropical +growths. Travel inland but a few leagues, and you rise to a greater +elevation, and find yourself beneath almost Italian skies and inhaling +Italian airs; while all around is a new vegetation,—the vine, the +olive, the tobacco, the banana, itself perhaps the most prolific and +nourishing of all plants, and which, on the space where Indian corn +would sustain but three human lives, will nourish with its free bounty +more than fifty. A few miles more, and you stand on that great plateau, +elevated with but little variation six or seven thousand feet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> above the +level of the sea, and stretching on every side we know not over how many +hundred thousands of square miles. There, under the tropics and beneath +a tropical sun, is a temperate atmosphere, cool, salubrious, and +bracing. There, almost within sight of the deadly miasma of the coast, +is a new climate, which deals kindly even with a European constitution. +There all the great cereals of the North, the wheat, the barley, the +corn, come to their most luxuriant perfection. And so it is literally +true, that, travelling a few hundred miles from Gulf to Ocean, you pass +through more climates and see a wider variety of vegetation than if you +traversed our whole country from the great lakes in the North to the +southernmost cape of Florida. Nay, so striking is this contact of the +zones, that in that table-land itself are, it is said, deep valleys, +where with one glance the eye may behold far up the deep shades of the +pine, while below waves the feathery grace of the palm,—or where one +may walk amid familiar waving grain, and see beneath him, descending in +beautiful gradation, the corn, the olive, the sugar-cane, down to depths +where a torrid clime lavishes its full wealth of verdure.</p> + +<p>Here, too, is the true Ophir; here, the rivers that roll down their +yellow sands. For here are the veins of gold that attracted the Spaniard +with his fatal greed, and the mines of silver that for three hundred +years have been yielding untold treasures, and to-day are as ready as +ever to yield untold treasures more. With such germs of wealth hidden in +her soil, what was needed to make Mexico one of the master-nations but +men? What, to crowd her ports with ships, to make her borders pleasant +with the hum of industry, and to fill her storehouses with its products, +but the same sagacity and energy which have made the sterile hills of +New England populous, and which are now transforming the prairies of the +West into one broad cornfield? Was it surprising, then, that fifty years +ago men were dreaming great things of Mexico?</p> + +<p>And it will not be denied that into men's estimate of her future some +elements of romance entered, to blind their eyes and to distort their +judgment. This was the land of Cortés and Montezuma. Here it was that +the Spaniard, fresh from the conquest of fair Granada, found in the +depths of the New World a barbarian civilization which mocked the pomp +and luxury of the Moor. Here, on these plains, beneath these mountains, +on the bosom of these tranquil lakes, was transacted that marvellous +episode in history, which, on the pages of Prescott, looks like the +creations of the fabled Genii. Here an aboriginal race rose to more than +aboriginal splendor; and here, beneath the conqueror's heel, they sank +to unsounded depths of misery and servitude. He must have a prosaic +nature to whom the memories and associations of such a land do not come +glowing with the warm flush of sentiment and romance.</p> + +<p>There was much, too, in the long and bitter struggle by which this +people were winning their independence, which appealed to the sympathy +of men who had just achieved their own freedom. Very likely, as we read +now the history of that struggle,—as we see how little of any broad and +generous patriotism entered into it,—as we mark how every step was +stained with blood and darkened by cruel passions,—as we behold on +every field the selfish ambition of petty men taking the place of the +self-devotion of great souls, it will not look heroic. But it did once. +Men saw it from afar off. They beheld in it the ancient conflict between +liberty and oppression. It was the time-worn story, of men in poverty, +of men in exile, of men dying for freedom.</p> + +<p>Thus, from one cause or another, from reasons of utility or from reasons +of sentiment and imagination, it is certain that many cherished the +highest hopes for Mexico, and saw before her a long future of rare +prosperity and honor. "It is to Mexico," writes a glowing admirer, "that +we turn and turn again with fond delight. We invoke the reader to ponder +her present position, her capacity for future<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> greatness, the career she +has yet to commence and run. We look toward her, and we see the +day-spring of a glorious national existence arising within her bounds."</p> + +<p>When we look at this picture, drawn by hope and fancy, and then turn to +the reality,—when we see Mexico as she is, the blankest failure of the +century,—when we run over her forty years of anarchy, with its four +constitutions and twenty-seven plans of government, with its bewildering +array of presidents and dictators that come and go until the eye is +wearied and the memory fails to preserve even their names,—when we +behold her the helpless victim of any power that chooses to assail +her,—when, in short, we compare the Mexico that is with the Mexico that +was to be,—we ask ourselves, What are the causes which have made so +many advantages worse than futile?—what fate has ordained that so much +sacrifice and so much blood should be lavished, and in vain? That is the +very question we seek to answer.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>We begin with what is the true foundation of all national fortunes, the +character and social relations of the people. It is the profound remark +of a profound man, that "you can create no national spirit where no +nation is." That is at the root of Mexico's troubles. She is not in any +proper sense a nation. All her sufferings have not as yet moulded her +diverse elements into any real and efficient unity. Modern Mexico, +dating from the Conquest, was founded, not upon social unity, but upon +the widest social divergence. At one end of the scale, high up in luxury +and pride, was the Spanish Conqueror and oppressor. At the other, deep +down as degradation could go, the crushed and cowering descendant of the +native races. Between them the half-bloods, with the vices of both and +the virtues of neither. The Spaniard did all that he could to dig deep +and broad this gulf of separation between the classes, and to make it +perpetual. As if to stamp inequality in biting phrase upon men's speech, +he called the whites people with reason, the Indians people without +reason.</p> + +<p>Look, then, first at the condition of the native races under this +Colonial authority. In the beginning, they were literally slaves, bound +to the withering toil of the mines. Then they became serfs, mere +appendages to estates. And when the progress of light swept away this +institution, and gave them a nominal freedom, still they were in the eye +of the law in a state of perpetual minority. They were simply grown-up +children. They were confined in villages, out of which they could not +go, and into which the white could not come. They were held to be +incapable of making contracts above a sum equal to five of our dollars. +The very men who were set to watch over their interests, by enticing +them into debts which they would not pay, changed their legal freedom +into a peonage, which was actual, and too often life-long, slavery. Says +Chevalier,—"These functionaries acquired for themselves troops of +slaves. They constituted themselves arbitrarily creditors of the Indians +by forcing them to buy, at unreasonable prices, horses, mules, and +clothing. The Indians, never being able to pay, were forced to work for +them, and this obligation to work, or, to speak more clearly, this +servitude, once contracted, was easily made perpetual." Here, then, we +have in Colonial Mexico, at the foundation of the State, the Indian, +whom oppression had made but half a man.</p> + +<p>Just above them were the half-bloods. These were not slaves. They were +not serfs. They were not considered to be children of a larger growth. +It was expressly said of them that they were "rational people." But they +had burdens of their own. Having little social position and less +education, incapable by nature of that sullen patience which kept the +Indian from chafing under his yoke, they were both more unhappy and more +demoralized. The crimes against property, the robberies on the highway, +could for the most part be traced to the half-breeds.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> "Are there any +robbers on this route?" asked Baron Deffandis, as he travelled in the +North of Mexico. "Oh, no!" was the answer; "you have nothing to fear; in +this part of the country there are no rational people,"—the speaker +remaining all unconscious of the bitter satire which was hidden in his +words.</p> + +<p>Above the half-bloods were the Creoles, the children of white parents +and born in the Colony. Even they were doomed to feel the sting of +inferiority. They had no real political liberty, and no place in the +State. No royal trust was ever committed to them. The places of public +emolument were closed against them. All were reserved for Spaniards, +born in Spain. Of fifty-six Mexican viceroys but one was a Creole, and +he a Creole of Peru. It is the boast of a Frenchman, that in his +country, in its most despotic days, the people have always had their +songs, and that their writers have dared to breathe forth their +maledictions upon the oppression which has loaded them with exactions. +But in Spain and her colonies the Inquisition weighed heavily upon free +speech, and enforced upon all the higher subjects of human thought a +silence like the grave. The Creole scarcely knew that there was any +world beyond his horizon, or that there could be a better than his empty +and barren life; or if he did know more, he must keep that knowledge in +the solitude of his own breast. All that the Spaniard vouchsafed to him +was the liberty to achieve wealth, which opened to him no career of +usefulness and distinction. At most, he loaded himself with cheap +decorations, to which there was no answering position of responsibility. +"One is surprised," says a tourist, "to see all the traders turned into +colonels and captains, and to find officers of the militia in full +uniform, and decorated with the badge of the order of Charles III., +seated in their shops, weighing out sugar, coffee, and vanilla." But as +for any real distinction, the Creole had none. These empty titles +sufficed to separate him in feeling yet more from the great mass of his +countrymen, but they did not satisfy those aspirations for real dignity +and freedom which cannot quite die out in any breast.</p> + +<p>We see, then, what a fatal legacy the mother-country left to her +rebellious child: four castes,—the Spaniard, hated by all; the Creole, +proud, hospitable, and brave, but by his very training incapable of +persistent energy; the half-breed, wild and untamable, a natural brigand +and guerrilla; and the Indian, subdued, sad, and patient, yet with a +drop of the fierce and cruel blood of his Aztec progenitor coursing in +his veins.</p> + +<p>The first act in the drama of the Mexican Revolution showed how great an +obstacle to national unity this sentiment of caste was. When the priest +Hidalgo in the year 1810 raised the standard of rebellion, though the +Creole heart was throbbing almost to bursting with the desire for +freedom, yet the Creole population nearly in a body sided with the +Government. Do you ask why? The answer is simple. Hidalgo's followers +were Indians. And all through that prolonged struggle of ten years under +Morelos, Vittoria, Teran, and countless other partisan leaders, even to +that hour when the rebellion was extinguished in its own blood, it was +the Creole who stood between the Spaniard and destruction, and who, +through his fear and jealousy of the native races, was the accomplice in +binding heavier chains on his own limbs. When in 1820 the revolt passed +out of the hand of the Indian into that of the native white, the +struggle was over. The hundred thousand foreigners were impotent, when +they stood alone.</p> + +<p>We do not say that this jealousy and dislike have not been greatly +modified by the lapse of years and by the endurance of common +sufferings. No doubt there has been a great improvement. There would be +small hope for the country, if it were not so. But these feelings have +not by any means been altogether eradicated. An intelligent writer, as +lately as last year, speaking of the difficulties which the Liberal +Government, now overthrown<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> by the French, had to encounter, says that +they were not a little aggravated by the fact that Benito Juarez, its +head, was an Indian. Though he was one of the most remarkable men who +have risen to power, the haughty Creole could not brook the thought that +an Indian should climb from his <i>adobe</i> hut to be the first personage in +the State. Nor is the fire quite quenched in the Indian's breast. Under +a grave taciturnity he hides burning memories. An acute observer of the +native character remarks,—"I have myself frequently heard Indians, when +their ordinary reserve has been overcome by spirituous liquors, declare +that they were the true owners of the soil, and all others foreign +intruders,—and that, if the Creoles could expel the Spaniards, they +themselves had a far better right to expel the Creoles." We say, then, +emphatically, that the first and perhaps the greatest cause of Mexican +anarchy is that the Mexicans are not as yet a people. Their diverse +elements have not as yet been fused into a living and conscious +nationality.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Another striking cause is the popular ignorance. We are coming more and +more to understand that it is not enough to have the shape and thews of +a man,—that, to be fit for freedom, or long to retain it, a people must +have mental and moral intelligence sufficient to teach them +self-control, and to enable them to judge wisely of public men and +public measures. Now in Mexico there is very little of the regulating +force of a just popular sentiment. You never catch the thunder of the +people's voice, before whose majesty base men and base plans must bow. +This destitution is not a matter of chance. It is another fatal legacy +of the mother-country. Spain steadily resisted all generous culture of +her colonists. She did not hesitate to declare that it was not expedient +that learning should become general in America. A viceroy said, with +more bluntness than courtesy, that "in America education ought always to +be confined to the Catechism." Under one pretence or another, a college +established for the instruction of Indians, in the better days of +Spanish domination, was broken, up. No book was permitted to be printed +in Mexico, or to be imported from abroad, without the consent both of +the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. Under this rule the actual +literature of the country was sufficiently dry and barren. A bishop +writes that the deplorable condition of the Indians has produced such +sluggishness of mind and such absolute indifference and apathy, that +they have no feelings either of hope or of fear. And he predicted the +very results, which then were prophecy, but now are history.</p> + +<p>How entire this ignorance was, when the colonial tie was sundered, we +cannot definitely determine. But we have the testimony of one who had +ample opportunity for observation, and who made the most extended +personal inquiries, that, twenty-five years afterwards, only two per +cent. of the Indians, and only twenty per cent. of the whites and +half-breeds, could read and write; and in 1856, actual statistics showed +that but one in thirty-seven attended school. When we consider that in +Massachusetts one in every five and a third of our population enjoys +school-privileges, we shall comprehend how large a portion of the youth +of Mexico are even now growing up in utter ignorance.</p> + +<p>One of the direct results of this popular ignorance is, that the conduct +of affairs has virtually passed out of the hands of the people. To a +considerable extent, it may be affirmed that the strifes which divide +and desolate Mexico do not rise to the dignity of civil wars. They are +not so much the conflicts of a divided people as the disgraceful brawls +of ambitious demagogues and their adherents. Every traveller notes with +astonishment how little these great changes, which ought to stir to its +depths the national heart, ruffle even the surface of society,—how the +great mass sit undisturbed, while events big with importance are +transacted before their eyes,—how a few ambitious<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> leaders, or a few +military chieftains, with their mercenary bands, are permitted to uphold +or betray, to advance or trample under foot, great principles which with +us excite every mind and arouse every heart. We believe it to be +strictly true that a large portion of the Mexican people have not enough +mental and moral activity to take an interest of any kind in these +desolating wars,—much less to exercise that repressing influence by +which the criminal ambition of the few must bow to the rights of the +many. There could not be a worse sign. Popular ignorance, therefore, +leading to popular apathy, must be put down among the influential causes +of Mexican sorrows.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>A third cause is that indifference to blood which appears to be +characteristic of the Mexican people, or at least of that portion of +them who have concerned themselves with public commotions. Some terrible +elements have entered into this Mexican stock. The Spaniard, one of its +sources, has written his name in blood in the history both of the Old +and the New World. Whether hunting out the remnants of the unhappy +Moriscos from the fastnesses of their native hills,—or torturing the +Jews in the dungeons of his Inquisition,—or with lust and murder +filling to the brim the cup of horror and misery for the captive cities +of Holland,—or exterminating, in the pitiless labor of the mines, the +peaceful aborigines of San Domingo,—or with Cortés putting to slaughter +a whole city on mere suspicion,—everywhere the Spaniard has recorded +great deeds with a pen of iron dipped in blood. And the Aztec, the other +source of that stock, had, if we are to credit his conqueror, a cruel +and merciless side to his character, which made him the peer of his +oppressor.</p> + +<p>The Mexican Revolution had its horrible chapters. And impartial truth +demands that we should say that both sides made fearful contributions to +those chapters. Hidalgo, the first popular leader, wrote to his +lieutenant these terrible words:—"If you suspect your prisoners of +entertaining restless or seditious ideas, bury them in oblivion at once +by putting them to death in some secret and solitary place, where their +fate may remain forever unknown." His practical commentary was a +permission to his followers to slay every white whom they could find in +the first stronghold which they stormed, and afterwards many a midnight +execution in the gloomy ravines of the mountains. On the other hand, +Calleja, the King's general, boasts that after the Battle of Aculco he +put to death five thousand insurgents in cold blood. And Iturbide, then +a Government general, writes, under date, "Good-Friday, 1814, In honor +of the day I have just ordered three hundred excommunicated wretches to +be shot":—a missive in which we know not which to admire most, the +hideous brevity, the blasphemy, or the cruelty. One act of noble +clemency stands out in peculiar sweetness from this background of +horror. When Morelos had given to his lieutenant, Bravo, three hundred +of the King's soldiers to be used as a ransom for his father, who was a +prisoner in the hands of the Royalists, and when the viceroy, Venegas, +scornfully rejected the offer, and ordered his victim to immediate +execution, Bravo instantly set at liberty the soldiers:—"For I would +wish," he said, "to put it out of my own power to avenge on them the +death of a parent, lest, in the first moments of grief, the temptation +should prove irresistible." The experiences of the Texan War, whose +massacre of Alamo was the battle-cry of the borderers in all succeeding +conflicts, and whose martyrdom at Goliad, where three hundred and fifty +unarmed prisoners, trusting in the pledged faith of their captors, were +led out in squads and shot, would seem to show that the tendencies of +Mexican leaders and soldiers had not greatly changed in later times. +What can result from such examples but utter carelessness of human life? +But to destroy among any people the sacredness of life is to erase one +of the safeguards of peace and order. The nation which does<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> not shrink +from carnage, which is not ready to sacrifice everything but principle +to avert it, will be the nation of all others to risk everything, honor, +safety, social stability, for a whim. Beyond a doubt, too great +indifference to blood has been a fertile source of unnecessary +agitations, and so of weakness and anarchy.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>We have postponed to this stage of our inquiry the consideration of that +rock upon which the Mexican State has finally split,—party-spirit. +During the forty stormy years of its existence, that ancient conflict, +ever old and ever new, between conservatism and radicalism, has been +going on. A statistician records that Mexico has had twenty-seven new +constitutions, or at least modifications of old ones, or final plans of +settlement. It has been too much the custom to talk of these as though +they were utterly meaningless. They are full of meaning. They mark the +flux and reflux of this great battle. They stand for the victories or +defeats of one or the other of these great principles.</p> + +<p>It is not probable, that, at the outset of the Revolution, the Creoles +had any thought of separating from the mother-country. They professed +the greatest loyalty. And they proved it by unshaken fidelity on many a +bloody field. Their only request was, that some constitutional features +might mitigate the despotism under which they groaned. Even after eleven +years' struggle, what they settled upon was a limited monarchy, with the +King's son at its head,—or, if he refused, then some scion of another +royal house. And even when this project failed, they raised to the +vacant throne their own general, Iturbide. So strong in the beginning +was the element of conservatism, or reaction, as they term it now, in +Mexican affairs.</p> + +<p>In 1823, however, the Liberal party obtained the supremacy, and under +the lead of Santa Aña, who then first came into prominence, drove +Iturbide from the throne, and put into operation a constitution +patterned after our own. It is not too much to say, that, from that day +to the hour when the allied troops landed at Vera Cruz, the conflict +between two parties, two principles, two methods of government, has been +waged with ever increasing bitterness and ever changing fortunes. It is +probable that the Liberals have always been numerically the stronger. +But the reactionary party has had its advantages. The rich and +aristocratic have been with it. To a great extent the army, ever partial +to the iron hand, has given it the support of its great power. And the +Church, which has possessed perhaps one-quarter of the whole wealth of +the country, and whose income has often far exceeded that of the State, +has always plotted for the downfall of the Liberals.</p> + +<p>In 1835 the power of these combined forces was so great that they were +able to overthrow the constitution of 1824, and put into operation a new +one on the plan of centralization. By this plan all federal +representation ceased, and popular freedom was subject to unaccustomed +restraints. The most noteworthy fact connected with this change was the +Texan Rebellion, and consequent upon it our own Mexican War. But of +these we shall speak hereafter. It was not until 1857 that the Liberals +won back all that they had lost,—and more; for they replaced the old +constitution by a new and freer one, and, as if by one stroke to inflict +a final blow upon their adversaries, decreed the confiscation of all +Church property. The Reactionists had at least vitality enough to make a +death-struggle. Leagued with the army, they drove Comonfort from the +presidency, and his party from the city of Mexico. For three years there +were two presidents and two sets of officers of all sorts, and a civil +war. The Liberals, under the Indian Benito Juarez, held Vera Cruz and +the larger part of the country. At the end of this period the Liberal +chieftain, with an unexpected energy, drove the opposing party out of +the city of Mexico, and its leaders into exile, carried into effect the +decree for the confiscation of Church property,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> and wellnigh crushed +out organized resistance.</p> + +<p>Not only, then, did this sorely tried Republic begin its precarious +existence with a people wholly unapt for freedom and embittered by +caste-feeling, but, from the outset, it was so divided by a broad gulf +of political dissension, that the whole body politic has ever since been +in reality cloven asunder.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>We have omitted from their proper place the Texan War and its +consequences, which in their turn have done more than any one cause to +weaken and dishonor Mexico,—not so much because they took away from her +valuable districts as because they advertised to the whole world what +feebleness was behind great apparent power. We tread now upon the embers +of an extinguished controversy. And while around us blaze the lurid +flames of a mightier conflagration, which it helped to kindle, we could +not wish to stir again its ashes. But seeking the causes of the downfall +of Mexico, we can hardly omit the weightiest cause.</p> + +<p>The Texans were, as we all know, a people who came for the most part +from the United States, and who were drawn southward by the combined +influence of a genial climate and liberal gifts of land. These +attractions had but one drawback, and that was of a religious nature. By +the very terms of the gift, all emigrants were, or became, or professed +to become, Roman Catholics. In many cases marriages of long standing +were reconsecrated with Catholic ceremonies, while the children were +baptized at Catholic altars. Until the year 1835 the Texans had been +citizens of Mexico,—the district which they inhabited, together with +Coahuila, making a sovereign state and constituent part of that federal +republic. Though the Texans had thus lived for many years under the +protection of Mexican law, it would not be true to say that they had +done so always cheerfully or even peaceably. There had been much +smothered discontent, and some open violence. The reasons were various. +The vexations, and perhaps oppression, incident to the rapid and violent +changes of the Mexican government, led to much ill feeling, and +engendered controversies not easily put to sleep. The natural +averseness, too, of a people of Anglo-Saxon origin to yield obedience, +however legitimate, to a mixed race like the Mexicans, created +bitterness, which was intensified by the arrogant and reckless temper +characteristic of no small part of the Texan people. Last, but not +least, their irritation at those laws which abolished slavery, and which +from the beginning they had always broken and always meant to break, +would have sundered a far stronger chain than ever bound them to the +land of their adoption. When the centralized constitution of 1835 came +into force, their discontent ripened into open rebellion. In the light +of our own bitter experience, with the inception and growth of our own +civil war open for our instruction, few Northern men will doubt that +this was the infant Secession whose full-grown power we are breasting. +That there were some real grievances we may allow; for, with so many +shifting governments, there could hardly have failed to be some +injustice and some oppressive measures or deeds. That, with the +essential difference of feeling, character, and habits which existed +between the two people, disturbances must sooner or later have arisen, +we may also allow. But, after all, one of the most powerful motives for +rebellion was love of slavery. Mexico stood a bar to the establishment +of that new and powerful Slave State which was the dream not only of the +Texan, but perhaps even more of the statesmen and leaders of the extreme +South. If Mexico became a powerful government, all the more would she be +an insuperable bar to such a project. However much, then, the Texans may +have desired a separate State existence, and however little they may +have liked the establishment of a great central power, their fear was +not so much that the strong government would oppress them as that it +might grow strong enough to force them to cease oppressing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> others. +There were Mexican laws which they never had obeyed, never intended to +obey, and which by the aid of State existence they had always succeeded +in evading. And now, when the progress of events and the strengthening +of the central authority threatened as never before the cherished +institution, like their compeers, they took their stand on the same +battle-ground of State Rights. We repeat, that other influences and real +wrongs no doubt helped them to this conclusion. What was the exact power +of each particular influence no one can tell. But, back of all +influences, a baneful spirit and motive, was the love of slavery and the +desire to perpetuate it. Their independence achieved, the Texans did not +know what to do with it. Few in numbers, burdened with debt, harassed on +the one side by the wild Camanches and Apaches, and on the other by the +Mexican guerrillas, pressed by the British and French governments, who +wished to abolish slavery and establish a protectorate, they sought +annexation to the United States, which, after a severe Congressional +struggle, was accomplished early in the year 1845.</p> + +<p>The farther the lapse of years removes us from the passions and pride of +the hour, perhaps the less reason shall we find for entire satisfaction +with our course, both as regards this act of annexation and the war with +Mexico by which it was succeeded. While the feelings with which we now +contemplate the French aggressions in Mexico show us that there were +other and good reasons besides love of slavery why we might wish to keep +this new and feeble Gulf State out of foreign hands,—while we cannot +fail to regard with admiration the courage and skill with which our +gallant army won its way to the very capital of a hostile State,—while, +too, the progress of events has given us no cause to regret that +sleeping California was given up to the fresh energy of the +Anglo-Saxon,—while we rejoice to believe that this present war will +result in adding to the manifold resources of Texas the crowning +blessing of freedom,—while, in short, we see that what men call +circumstance, but which is God's majestic Providence, is turning our +errors into good,—yet the final verdict of impartial truth must be, +that it was neither in the spirit of wisdom nor of justice that we +strengthened the power which even then waited to slay us, and that in +our pride and impatience we showed too little consideration to that +State at the root of whose greatness we were laying the axe.</p> + +<p>Those who delight in historical parallels will remember that this very +tract, from the Sabine to the Rio Grande, which was included in Texas, +was the same territory which was in controversy between us and Spain at +the beginning of the century,—and that as in 1846 the advance of the +Mexican general across the southern boundary of the controverted +district brought on the Mexican War, so, forty years before, the advance +of an American general across the northern boundary of the same district +brought us to the verge of a Spanish war.</p> + +<p>But whatever any one may think of the nature and justice of the Mexican +War, no one can doubt that its result was the infliction of the severest +of blows upon a sister-republic. And the severity consisted, we repeat, +not so much in the territory which she relinquished as in her entire +loss of prestige among the nations. We took away, indeed, more than +eight hundred thousand square miles. We left her hardly seven hundred +thousand square miles. But had there been any recuperative energy, +perhaps the State, so much more compact in territory, and so little +diminished in population, would have been stronger rather than weaker by +the process.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>We return to our narrative. The spring of 1861 found the Liberal party +triumphant. Never had it seemed so firmly rooted. Never had its +opponents been so cast down. Well does the Scripture say, "Let him that +thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." All through the spring and +summer of 1861, the leaders of the Church party were flitting from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> +Paris to Madrid, and from Madrid to Paris again, weaving what webs of +intrigue, seeking what forms of intervention, none but the arch-plotter +of the Tuileries can tell. There were floating about that summer rumors +of intervention, coming through what avenues, or to whom traceable, +nobody knew. Did any one wish to intervene, there were certainly +ostensible reasons enough. In that long agony of anarchy, Mexico had +inflicted, through one or another of her jarring parties, insults and +injuries, in robberies, in murders, in forced loans, in illegal taxes, +in neglected debts, sufficient to give an apparent justification to any +violence of policy in a foreign power. The British minister, under date +of June 27, 1861, transmitted to Lord John Russell a fearful list of +outrages against English subjects. In that list were included three +murders committed, or permitted, by Government officials, and +twenty-four robberies, forced loans and the like, some of them to the +amount of twenty-five and even sixty thousand dollars. These he styles +"British claims of the small and distressing class." One fact disturbs +the force of this impeachment of the Liberal government. Almost without +exception, these outrages were confessedly the work of the conservative +party, which had just been expelled after an open rebellion of three +years against the legitimate authorities. It was as though England +should enter complaint against our Government for property destroyed by +the Alabama, or for insults and injuries inflicted upon British subjects +in the streets of Richmond. No doubt, the form of law was with her, but +hardly substantial justice. As the French have progressed, we have seen +still stranger anomalies. The leaders of this very conservative party, +who more than all others were responsible for the state of irritation +which produced the conflict, have appeared in the ranks of the French +army, thus acting the part of public prosecutors, and convicting and +condemning innocent people for their own sins.</p> + +<p>But it remained for Juarez himself, driven by necessity, to commit the +act which settled the fortunes of his country. On the 17th of July, +1861, he published a decree announcing that for the term of two years +all payments on debts would be suspended, expressly including foreign +bonds. From that moment Mexico was doomed. The British and French +ministers at once sent in sharp protests. The reply of the Mexican +cabinet-minister is pitiful to read. His excuse is absolute necessity. +The mismanagement of his predecessors has made it impossible that he +should carry on the Government, and at the same time pay its debts. +After some further correspondence, apologetic on the part of Mexico, +sharp and bitter on the part of the foreign ministers, diplomatic +intercourse ceased. The Mexican minister at Paris, in obedience to +orders, sought an interview with M. Thouvenal. He began by saying that +"he was instructed to give the most ample explanations." Whereupon M. +Thouvenal interrupted him, exclaiming, "We will not hear any +explanations; we will receive none"; adding, in great excitement, "We +have fully approved the conduct of M. Saligny. We have issued orders, in +concert with England, that a squadron composed of vessels of both +nations shall exact from the Government of Mexico due satisfaction, and +your Government will learn from our minister and our admiral what are +the claims of France." We have quoted thus fully from official documents +to show that the emergency found France armed and ready, if not glad, to +pursue the quarrel to the end.</p> + +<p>What was that end? As it stood on paper, simply to take possession of +the ports of Mexico, and sequestrate their customs to pay the interest +on foreign debts. This is stated over and over again by every party in +all possible forms of distinctness. By no means is any interference to +be permitted in the internal affairs of that country. In November, 1861, +Lord John Russell writes to the British minister at Mexico in these +unmistakable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> terms:—"You must be careful to observe with strictness +Article Two of the Convention, signed yesterday between Great Britain, +France, and Spain, by which it is provided that no influence shall be +used in the internal affairs of Mexico, calculated to prejudice the +right of the Mexican nation freely to choose its own form of government. +Should any Mexican, or any party in Mexico, ask your advice on such +subjects, you will say that any regular form of government, which shall +protect the lives and properties of natives and foreigners, and shall +not permit British subjects to be attacked or annoyed on account of +their occupation, their rights of property, or their religion, will +secure the moral support of the British Government." The statement of +France was just as clear, only shorter. M. Thouvenal said to Mr. Dayton +that "France could do no more than she had already done, and that was to +assure us of her purpose not to interfere in any way with the internal +government of Mexico; that their sole purpose was to obtain payment of +their claims and reparation for the wrongs and injuries done them." The +language of Spain, if anything, was shortest and clearest of all. She +assured Mr. Schurtz, that, "if Spain did take part in this intervention, +it would be solely for redress of her grievances, and not for the +purpose of imposing new institutions upon Mexico." So it was clear, +after all, that this was nothing but a grand naval excursion for the +collection of just dues from a reluctant or dishonest debtor! Nothing +more! No intention whatever of intruding upon the poor man's castle!</p> + +<p>Was it not surprising, now, that, with everything so transparent, nobody +had any faith? Almost simultaneously, from Mr. Adams at London, from Mr. +Dayton at Paris, from Mr. Schurtz at Madrid, and from Mr. Corwin at +Mexico, came missives, couched in different language, but all conveying +the same lesson: England meant what she said, and France and Spain did +not. All at once, too, the air was full of rumors. The conservative +party was to be restored by force. A monarchy was to be set up. Prince +Maximilian was to be invited to the throne of Mexico. As before, nobody +could trace these rumors to any trustworthy source. But everybody +believed them. And every one of them has proved to be true. About this +time there appeared in Paris a striking book, part history, part +philosophy, part prophecy, entitled, "Mexico, Ancient and Modern," by +Michel Chevalier. What is peculiar about the book, so far as it relates +to present affairs, is, that it says but little in regard to the +collection of dues, much concerning the necessity of reorganizing +Mexico, much as to the duty of France to uphold the interests of the +Latin races, much more concerning the wisdom of establishing a strong +barrier against the ambition of the United States.</p> + +<p>We all know what has actually happened, and that is perhaps all we have +a right to expect while the present Emperor of France is at the helm. +Events have explained these dim rumors and intimations. Vera Cruz and +Tampico taken, France unfolded new and bolder schemes. She insisted upon +marching inland and conquering Mexico, and establishing there a strong +government. Here England and Spain parted from her: the former, +evidently because she always meant what she said; the latter, either +because she, too, meant what she said, or because she found herself +measured with a more acute gamester, with a heavier hand and a sharper +sword than she could boast. France has gone forward. She has stormed +Puebla. The gates of Mexico have been thrown open to her. Her authority +has been extended over many of the States. With the assistance of the +reactionary party she has established a monarchy, and invited Maximilian +to be its head. Never results so exceeded the plan. Whatever else may be +dark, this is clear, that henceforth under the Empire promises mean +nothing,—and that whoever trusts Imperial assurances which war with +Imperial interests does so at his own proper peril.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p> + +<p>From the Emperor's own language, and from this book which he has +permitted to appear, and to which we have alluded, we gather easily the +real motives which have governed his conduct. No doubt, the mere <i>éclat</i> +of having conducted to a successful issue a difficult undertaking, and +by which he would secure anew the respect and pride of the fickle people +over whom he reigns, may have been a minor motive. It is not unlikely, +either, that he has gone much farther than he himself originally +intended,—that the prize was so tempting, when once he had coquetted +with it, that he could not keep his hands off from it. For look again at +Mexico. A country full of noble possibilities. A land which, ruled by a +strong hand and a sagacious mind, may be the fruitful source of all +useful commodities. And if he can keep it, what a giant stride he makes +to girdling the earth with his posts! Count them: France, Martinique, +Vera Cruz, Acapulco, Tahiti, Saigon, his new ports at the mouth of the +Red Sea, Algiers, and France again. Not many links wanting in that +chain! If he cannot girdle the earth in forty minutes, he bids fair to +do it as quickly and as thoroughly as mortal skill and mortal audacity +ever did. And if he can secure all these benefits by open conquest, or, +better yet, by the people's apparently free choice of a government of +which he shall be the sole guardian and administrator, what is there in +his past career to warrant us in the expectation that he will shrink +back from any double-dealing necessary for the achievement of such a +master-stroke?</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>And now what shall we say of this policy as it concerns ourselves, and +especially the welfare and prospects of the Mexican people? We cannot +like it. That is plain. For, suffered to remain unchallenged, it cuts +right through our traditional policy. No mere diplomacy can ever mend +that again. All our fine discourse about the Monroe doctrine is, as +matters stand now, nothing but a flight of rhetoric. Then, in such a +<i>nonchalant</i> way, it puts the curb on any future ambition which we may +cherish southward, that it is still more disagreeable. And besides, it +is such a mingled menace and warning! If this potentate could do, and +would do, such things to feeble Mexico,—if real or fancied interest +demand it, what may he not attempt with us, now that we are not so +stalwart as of old, now that we are bearing upon our shoulders a burden +that would have tasked the fabled Atlas? It is plain that we cannot +look, and ought not to look, with any favor upon this man, or any of his +Western works.</p> + +<p>But how will his policy affect the happiness and prosperity of Mexico? +Will it hold her back from the realization of that dream of greatness +which we all cherished for her once? Or will it send her forward with a +quicker pace to its speedy fulfilment? One feature of this event is +memorable. A conqueror, with bayonet and cannon-ball, has brought to +this people the very boon which forty years ago they craved,—a +monarchy, with an offshoot from European royalty sitting upon its +throne. If Maximilian come to Mexico, he can build his palace on a +corner-stone which Iturbide, Guerrero, and many another patriot leader +who sleeps in a bloody grave, helped to lay. So the pendulum swings +back, be its arc ever so long. A closer examination, however, will show +that this remarkable coincidence is not simply an accident. The +combination which in 1823 swept away the Spanish power and established a +monarchy was not a combination of the free and liberal elements of +Mexican society, but rather of those same aristocratic, ecclesiastical, +and conservative elements which are now in alliance with the French +Emperor, and in deadly hostility to what is democratic or republican in +that distracted land. We cannot doubt, therefore, that, whatever Louis +Napoleon may affirm, that, whatever generalities he may put forth +concerning Mexican reorganization and growth, the purpose of his sway +cannot be the real elevation or freedom of the people. He has espoused +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> interests of that party which seeks to perpetuate among the mass of +the people ignorance, superstition, poverty, and social degradation. +While, therefore, his invasion originated to a very great extent in +injustice and thirst for power, it is not probable that his occupation +of the country will be used with any intention of elevating and blessing +it.</p> + +<p>But God is greater than man. And so it may well happen that the results +of human ambition may be kinder than its purpose. And if Louis Napoleon +gives Mexico rest from change and suffering, that will be something. If +the steel gauntlet crushes out the banditti, and the silken glove +encourages honest toil, then, by the blessing of God, with stable +industry and peace secured to her, and with every good gift blossoming +at her feet, Mexico may yet be trained to take her place among the +galaxy of the nations. And when that hour comes, if come it may, it will +be no power four thousand miles across gulf and sea that will keep her +from her true destiny.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE RIM.</h2> + + +<h3>PART III.—<span class="smcap">Conclusion.</span></h3> + +<p>The boat went cutting through the tide-waves and dashing the spray over +her bows, the wide sea was opening all around them,—the salt wind stung +his brain to keener life. To what horrid fate were they hurrying, she +alone with this maniacal man? Out there beyond, away and away, the +mighty billows tossed in their cruel glee, silvered their crests and +horns in the moonlight, and grew and disappeared like phantoms. Her +heart sank down abysses with every beat,—she covered her face with her +hands in some vain call for miraculous aid.</p> + +<p>Just then another boat came by and took the wind from their sails. +Éloise felt the slackened speed, and looked up. First the figure of a +horseman standing against the sky on the cliff above, as if a portion of +the stone itself, caught her eye; next, the sail sheering by them; then +she was on her feet beside Marlboro'. She reached out her hand to the +tiller; she looked in his face and laughed in her old way. It was hardly +an effort, for all at once her heart had grown light as a bubble.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Marlboro'," she said, in the sweet natural ring of her every-day +tones and without a quiver, "these are the Blue Bluffs close above us."</p> + +<p>The voice, the air, the meaning, made him irresolute. At the same moment +the tiller obeyed her hand, that threw out all its strength, the sails +flapped loosely across their bending brows, they went about, heading for +the little cove of still water.</p> + +<p>"You are right," said he. "That is our home. What fiercely glad wild +dream have I had? Our home!"</p> + +<p>The keel grated on the pebbles,—some one came dashing down the narrow +path, shoved them off, and leaped on board.</p> + +<p>"Now, Marlboro'," said Mr. St. George, "the rudder is mine. A pretty +dance with Death have you been leading Miss Changarnier! How long do you +suppose this cockle-shell could buffet such a sea as is playing outside? +Do you fancy I can countenance such treatment of my ward? Ease that rope +a little, Miss Éloise. Here we go! What will Murray say, Marlboro', when +he sees me come sailing by with you?</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'A-sailing and a-sailing,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My love he left me sad;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">A-sailing and a-sailing,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Let him come and make me glad!'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>sang Mr. St. George, and they went flying up the river.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The south winds blow, the waters flow,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">His sail is in the sun;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though twenty storms between us go,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">His heart and mine are one,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>sang Éloise, in jubilant response at her safety,—and Marlboro', fain to +follow, echoed the air they trolled.</p> + +<p>Up the stream, this way and that, tacking and veering, past the boats +that hung on their oars and cheered them this time lustily themselves, +touching shore,—and the hunters had their boat again. Then all trooping +back across the turf, her hand in his, to the place where Marlboro's +horse waited with pawing hoofs. What a mad evening it had been! And in +the whirl of it Éloise had uttered no word to break her bonds. But +broken they must be;—in what insanity had she riveted them,—set free +this slave of his passion? His bottle-imp—had not her master once said +it?—must grow into a demon that with his wide wings would blacken the +sky. One experience of it was too much. Oh, why had nobody warned her?</p> + +<p>Every one must have a cup of coffee to counteract the damp. Mrs. Arles +had it ready. The horse at the door gave a loud, impatient neigh. The +rider would not wait.</p> + +<p>"You were right, Marlboro'," said, in his significant undertone, Mr. St. +George to him from the other side, as he mounted, while Éloise stood on +the step above. "Success perched on your banners. I should have lost, if +I had tossed."</p> + +<p>"You know it, then? Why, then, of course, it's true. I am half afraid +lest it prove one of my cloud-capped dreams. I shall need no more opium +to-night, I have other magic," said Marlboro',—bent down and would have +kissed the forehead of Éloise, when the horse curvetted, reared, and +galloped off.</p> + +<p>Was she really pledged? then thought Éloise, as the bead of all her +defiant effervescence fell. Was there no loop of escape? Had she so +rashly given all at once? Should she inevitably become the wife of +Marlboro'? Were the chains upon her? Was she doomed? Nobody guessed her +misery, as she reëntered with a <i>fanfare</i> of jests, unless it were the +gay St. George himself.</p> + +<p>"Are you to be congratulated?" asked the low-voiced Mrs. Arles, having +smilingly approached.</p> + +<p>"No, no, indeed!" exclaimed Éloise, in a smothered agony; and Mrs. +Arles, misunderstanding her, supposed it was not finally arranged.</p> + +<p>"What a reckless rider!" cried Miss Murray, looking down the moonlit way +after Marlboro'.</p> + +<p>"It is not the only reckless thing he does," said her brother.</p> + +<p>"No," interpolated Mr. Dean. "The way in which Marlboro' manages his +affairs is too Plutonic. But what a gloss those shining sovereign +manners of his do put upon it all!"</p> + +<p>"Sovereign manners! Don't talk of sovereign manners, unless you mention +Mr. St. George's," said Lottie Humphreys under her breath, and glancing +to see if he could possibly hear with the length of the room between +them. "Mr. St. George puts my heart in a flutter, when he asks will I +have ice or cream."</p> + +<p>"I've no doubt of it," whispered Emma Houghton, with meaning.</p> + +<p>"Sure you're right, Dean?" asked Mr. Humphreys. "I should not like to +have at home the dangerous cattle Marlboro' can put finger on."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps they would be less dangerous, if the fingers were less +weighty."</p> + +<p>"Here's Marlboro's theory, and in the long run it's about the true one, +you must confess.—Shut that door, Kate, my dear.—A cramped stature +does not feel a cramped roof; but raise the stature, and the slave +outgrows his institution, and there's revolt. Eh? There's such a thing +as equally bad extremes. Our old friend Mr. Erne's of late, and St. +George's now,—beg your pardon, St. George,—are both of them just as +bad the other way."</p> + +<p>"You are severe," said St. George, as he set the chessmen.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Our host yonder," continued Mr. Humphreys, in the best of humors, +sipping his coffee, "among his other crotchets, endows his people with +what Nature saw fit to deny to them,—souls. But he's one of those men +autocratic enough to reverse Nature. Indeed,—I am out of all +patience,—the whole place is managed other than I think at all wise."</p> + +<p>"That is to be regretted," said St. George, challenging his adversary.</p> + +<p>"Well, here is an instance, a single instance, trivial enough, but +dragging after it a train as enormous as the Genius drew from the +fisherman's jar. These people are reared to a degree of independence +that will stop no one knows where. They supply the house with poultry, +eggs, and vegetables from their own yards, which the house purchases +with money, or with commodities beyond the usual allowance,—actually +pays for,—do you mark? Any labor of extra hours is always compensated; +there is a system of holidays; the quarters are, so to say, palatial; +and, in fact, a very detrimental policy is pursued,—one that occasions +discontent on all the neighboring plantations. Marlboro' 'd have less +trouble, if St. George had different discipline. It will not do,—I've +told you so, St. George,—I'm older than you,—it will not do. There are +hands on the place who, as their master says, have found their manhood +and felt their slavery: there's one of them now, that coachman Ned. I'd +sell him to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Will Mr. St. George?"</p> + +<p>"He? Oh, no! There's this Quixotic chivalry again! You listen, my dear +fellow? He will let the man purchase his freedom,—if he don't lend him +the money to do it himself! Ha! ha! ha!"</p> + +<p>"But," said Mr. Dean, "I've tried St. George's plan, on his +recommendation, these three or four months, Humphreys,—not wishing to +be illiberal, or have the world outstrip me,—and, so far, I find that +it will do very well,—that it will do admirably."</p> + +<p>"Well, we won't speak of new brooms."</p> + +<p>"Yet there's a great deal of disturbance everywhere about, I hear. You +don't know, perhaps," said Mr. Houghton, in an under-voice, and +nervously drawing up his chair, "that Marlboro' has had his place under +guard these three weeks?"</p> + +<p>"Crowded on all his steam, and now he's sitting on the valve. What a +blessed life it is!" said Mr. Dean.</p> + +<p>"Come, come, Dean, we shall have to look up your record!"</p> + +<p>"Dear me!" said Miss Murray, "why will you talk about it? It's worse +than ghost-stories just before bed. I've heard you gentlemen insinuating +so much together that I fancy every night I hear the great alarm-bell +booming in my dreams."</p> + +<p>"There's no danger of that here."</p> + +<p>"But it would be so terrible anywhere!"</p> + +<p>"Here is Will," said her mother, as the young brother of Laura entered. +"If, my dear friends, we should change the subject for bed-candles"—</p> + +<p>"Check!" said Mr. St. George, rising.</p> + +<p>It was a balmy meridional night, and Éloise, at length alone in her +misery, leaned from her window to breathe the wind that floated in over +the fields, fragrant and gentle. Leaning there, and great resplendent +stars seeming to hang out of heaven close above her, the minutes went +slipping into the hours, and the house-clock struck one, startling her +with its peal, as doubtless it did Miss Murray. Bending her head that +she might not strike the sash, a dark cobweb caught Éloise's eye;—it +was a lace shawl, which the draught had borne through the window, and +caught outside upon the thorny vine. It was too firmly fixed to +disentangle at a touch; she put out her hand, and, taking the stem, +shook the whole blossoming mass, scattering a rain of dew and perfume, +and the filmy thing detached and fluttered to the ground. Without +waiting to think, Éloise hastened down and found an exit. Coming round +beneath the gable, the great dog following with his nose in her hand, +she found herself insphered in a soft light that stole from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> the open +cabinet-casement, but, hoping to escape notice, flitted on after the +lace, with which the breeze was already frolicking. Suddenly the dog +perceived her object and bounded after it. Fear possessed her soul; it +was Laura Murray's; he would rend and mouth the costly thing, which her +whole year's salary, she thought, could not buy, as he would her +handkerchief. She softly called him away; but the dog refused to hear.</p> + +<p>"Rounce!" cried another voice, and Rounce came tumbling and gambolling +back, while Mr. St. George obtained the shawl, and was beside her.</p> + +<p>"So, Miss Changarnier, it was this little thing that brought you out +here after midnight? Never do it again. It is forbidden. Nothing could +be more unsafe."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Mr. St. George; I did not perceive danger."</p> + +<p>As she spoke, and while they paused, there stole upon them the far and +faint pulsation of a bell. It was the tide-bell placed on a distant reef +to swing and ring with the ebb and flow.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Era già l' ora che volge 'l desio<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A' naviganti, e intenerisce 'l cuore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lo dì ch' an detto a' dolci amici a Dio;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"E che lo nuovo peregrin d' amore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Punge, se ode squilla di lontano<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Che paia 'l giorno pianger che si muore,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>murmured Mr. St. George, half lifting the book in which his bitter mood +had sought stinging solace, and where his finger yet kept the place.</p> + +<p>"It is many hours too late for that sweet vesper-bell," said Éloise.</p> + +<p>"Any slow bell at night is like it. The tones of a bell are always +homesick tones to me,—who have no home!"</p> + +<p>"You, Sir!" said Éloise, forgetfully,—half losing sight of her own +burden.</p> + +<p>Mr. St. George, for all response, gazed at her a moment. Was she +entirely plighted to Marlboro'? Could she care for him? How far did that +tacit promise go?</p> + +<p>"Éloise!" he said.</p> + +<p>But suddenly she turned away her head, outstretching a forbidding hand. +Abruptly he bowed and stepped aside, and followed her only at a +distance.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>When Mr. Marlboro' appeared just at breakfast the next morning, with a +color fanned into his cheek by the half-score miles of gallop, Vane came +trotting along behind him.</p> + +<p>"Vane," said Mr. Marlboro', after he had saluted Éloise as warmly as he +dared, "this is your mistress."</p> + +<p>And Éloise felt her fetters close miserably upon her. This had been his +device to know if he had dreamed or not on the night before, to detect +whether his joy were solid truth or mounting laudanum-fumes. But as for +Vane, so soon as his bow was made and homage paid, he fled away round +the corner and lost himself in Hazel's happy arms.</p> + +<p>At dinner that day the ladies rose early, as they were to dress for a +wedding-party that awaited them some miles away. Just as Éloise, who was +the last, passed out of the door which Mr. St. George held open, he +produced from somewhere and placed in her hand a braided trencher of +broad vine and fig-leaves that bore a mass of strange and beautiful +growth. Scarcely had she plunged taper fingers between the scented +layers, when a box with Mr. Marlboro's compliments was delivered, which, +on being laughingly opened, proved to hold rare wreaths of pinky buds +and bells.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Four gray walls and four gray towers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Overlook a space of flowers,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>hummed Lottie; but Mr. St. George was consummately oblivious, and +returned to his friends. Why it fell out, that, when Miss Changarnier +came floating down the staircase again, robed in something thin, white, +and glittering as the hoar-frost itself, the darkness of her hair was +twined neither with the roseate Marlboro' bells, nor yet with the long +acacia-sprays whose golden balls should have expanded and bloomed in the +light and heat till they seemed like fragrant drops of lustre, Miss +Changarnier could best tell for herself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> + +<p>But the wedding passed as weddings do,—to-day cake, to-morrow +crumbs,—and at length the carriages were ordered for The Rim. The +evening had not been without its triumphs to Éloise, however many masks +she wore over her inner depression. St. George had forgotten her till a +late hour, and, conspicuous as Marlboro's <i>devoir</i> had been, her own +acceptance of it had been scarcely less so. Perhaps there was nothing in +the world, of its kind, more beautiful than Éloise Changarnier's +dancing. Fragrances, if they were visible, would float with just such a +dreamy grace from flower to flower. Simple and sensuous, yet airy and +fine, was the spirit of every motion; and with every wave, with every +look, she appealed to the beholder's heart. Swimming down the room on +the slow circles of the indolent languor of the waltz, perfumes fanning +all about her, the wind lifting the curtains and letting in gleams of +amethyst heavens and low-hanging stars, the music pulsing in passionate +throbs,—once only she raised her eyes, and the great beryl jewels +rested on Earl St. George Erne's, as he leaned against the wall with his +supreme indifference of lordly manner; and if he revenged himself with +the swift gleam of that involuntary smile that must never kindle for +her, though it shot its light over brow and lip forever, he never knew +it. An instant afterwards he was beside her, yet he dared not with the +next strain suffer it to be his arm that upheld her, and Éloise sat +where he placed her and danced no more. And then Mrs. Murray came, and +they all took their seats in the carriages: Laura jubilant, but stately; +Lottie eminently dishevelled, and still clutching the crumpled list of +her partners; Master Will with his fists in his eyes, and heavy beneath +a drowsiness from which he soon had enough to waken him; while in Mr. +St. George's deportment to every one there was a shade of the old +sardonic displeasure with which he was occasionally wont to favor his +friends. But Lottie, after a few furlongs, was asleep in somebody's +arms; the rest were, perhaps, living the evening over again in reverie; +the other carriages were far, far ahead, and theirs, which, having been +detained, was the last, trundled on slowly over a bad road. At length +Laura stirred, and exclaimed,—</p> + +<p>"Did you ever hear such divine music, Éloise? Why didn't Mrs. Arles +come, do you know, Mr. Marlboro'?"</p> + +<p>"Does Mrs. Arles go into such general society?" replied Mr. Marlboro'.</p> + +<p>"Can't say. How long she wore black! so long that it has really become +quite gray! Has she been husbanding her charms, or is she husbanding +them now? Don't you shake your fan at me, Éloise Changarnier, or I shall +tell how you said it yourself this very noon!"</p> + +<p>The carriage-top had been thrown open, and at the moment of these words +Miss Changarnier saw Mr. St. George, from his seat on the box beside the +coachman, hastily start and turn, but whether on account of Mrs. Arles, +or at something in the road, she could not discern; for Marlboro's horse +having very singularly fallen lame in the stables that night, she had +heard Mr. St. George muttering something about foul play, as he offered +the other a seat, and she felt that he entertained apprehensions. Had +she seen Marlboro's arm raised quiveringly, while the lash of the +riding-whip fell across the groom's face in a welt, as he dismissed him, +she might have felt also a womanly fear that the apprehensions were not +groundless. For Marlboro', unable to get speech with Éloise one moment +apart from others that day, had fled home in a fury, and had thus, when +his anger cooled, been obliged to ride alone to the place of merry +rendezvous.</p> + +<p>Gradually, now, as they jogged along, Mrs. Murray began nodding here and +there about the carriage, dropping her head very much as if she meant to +drop it for good and all; one by one the others forgot themselves; but +Éloise could see Marlboro' in the opposite corner sitting alert and pale +and sparkling-eyed, and felt that Mr. St. George was watching every +brier on the road-side, beneath his slouching brim. At length the +carriage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> stopped with a jerk just as they reached the little log-bridge +that crossed the creek, and Mr. St. George appeared at the door.</p> + +<p>"You must all alight a moment," he said. "Here is a break-down;—and, +moreover, a log of the bridge has been displaced,"—the last in an aside +to Marlboro'.</p> + +<p>It took but a few moments to repair the road, and to tie up the broken +springs of the coach as they could; but, after a trial, it was found +impossible for all to ride.</p> + +<p>"I will walk," said Éloise, stepping down before any one could arrest +her. "We were all too much crowded. Come with me, Will,—if only, Mr. +St. George, you will take the reins yourself and spare Ned to us?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Mr. St. George, perhaps knowing from old experience that it +would be useless to oppose Éloise, and having no time to lose. "Keep +your place, Will; do you hear? The horses are best used to the customary +driver. That makes it all right."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, St. George, this should be my duty!" exclaimed Marlboro'.</p> + +<p>But, as he sprang up, Mr. St. George's arm barred the way.</p> + +<p>"You have quite enough to do to take care of yourself, Marlboro'!" said +he, thrusting his revolver into the other's hand. "Drive on, Ned. Only +keep us in sight."</p> + +<p>"Mas'r Sin George, Sah," said the stolid Ned, "you are safe enough. +Expect, 'f you want <i>him</i> safe," with supreme contempt, "I'd better get +de go out o' dese yer critters wile dey feel der oats!"</p> + +<p>"Wretched insolence!" murmured Marlboro', still incensed. And in a few +minutes the coach had disappeared round the winding way.</p> + +<p>"So much for Marlboro's theories!" burst forth St. George, in a moment. +"A man's works follow him. Sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind is +too much of a good thing. He has been away so long and so often, there +has been such mismanagement under a long minority, such changes and such +misrule, such a hard hand and such a high hand, that the whole place is +a fester. How dares he prowl round the country so after nightfall? I +wouldn't give a pin for his life this moment, if it weren't for that +white defiance of his that would back him against a whole Ashantee +tribe! If he were the coward that I am, he'd be a better master; but +he's what the poor trash call a damned aristocrat,—which means an +aristocrat past salvation, I take it."</p> + +<p>Éloise laughed to hear the words from Mr. St. George's autocratic lips. +"It is very odd," said she, "that so formidable an aristocracy must +needs underlie so powerful a democracy!"</p> + +<p>The night was clear and deep; great shadows floated down from the +heavens, as if of beings travelling on the winds: one of those perfect +seasons when the powers of the dark seem to be surprised at their work, +although low in the horizon behind lay a glimmer, as if the hour were +soon to bring forth its marvel,—a glimmer which made the whole more +weird, and hung the very spirit of summer nights about them as they +walked.</p> + +<p>"What should you have thought of yourself, Miss Éloise," said Mr. St. +George, "if a year ago, you had seen your image prospected on the canvas +of a dark and lonely highway, extremely late at night, or early in the +morning,—as you choose,—with, for sole companion, a creature who +indulges himself in pipes, porter, and parties, a usurper, a +demagogue,—in fact, one who can be represented only as disreputable? A +very improper young woman?"</p> + +<p>One year ago! The tears sprang to Éloise's eyes. She dared not look up, +but let them fall from the downcast lashes. Yet Mr. St. George saw them.</p> + +<p>"And what is there, so painful in the picture, may I ask?" said he.</p> + +<p>"A year ago my father was alive, Mr. St. George."</p> + +<p>A change came over his face,—pallor like a soft cloud.</p> + +<p>"Yet you are better off than I," he said, with singular unreserve for +him. "It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> is twelve times as long since <i>my</i> father was with <i>me</i>. And +you could hardly have worshipped the one more than I worship the memory +of the other."</p> + +<p>Yet, as if this at least were a sympathy between them, his manner became +for the moment tenderer, and he forgot himself in order to arouse her. +For Éloise was already full of reproach at having made one at so gay a +reunion,—not remembering that all the rest had seriously vowed they +would stay at home, unless she joined them, and that the wedding had +been also that of a dear friend. So Mr. St. George was no longer lofty; +he told her strange legends of the region that somehow she had never +heard, repeated tiny droplets of song that would have lost their +volatile essence in any alembic of translation, pointed out to her all +the signs of the night, for the nonce forgot politics, and gathered +spray after spray of the gorgeous creepers from the way-side, whose +names and natures he knew.</p> + +<p>"How is it," she asked, "that you, whose mind is certainly filled with +things of an apparently vaster scale,—with legislation and war and +finance,—can care for these bubbles, these songs and flowers?"</p> + +<p>"Do you know Homer, Miss Éloise,—Chapman's Homer? Although I'm not sure +but that the old English poet breathes a bloom upon the Greek. Well, I +do not forget, that, when the envoys went to appease the enraged +Æacides, that thunderer in arms,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The quarter of the Myrmidons they reached, and found him set<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Delighted with his solemn harp, which curiously was fret<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With works conceited through the verge; the bawdrick that embraced<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His lofty neck was silver twist; this, when his hand laid waste<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Aëtion's city, he did choose as his especial prize,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, loving sacred music well, made it his exercise."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"That is superb! You must find me the place to-morrow. But Achilles +playing on the harp? I am afraid he will suffer in Will Murray's +estimation."</p> + +<p>"Hush! don't breathe it! Will doesn't know it yet,—perhaps may never +find it out. Do you know, Miss Éloise, as you go flitting along in that +misty dress, with the little scarf dropping from your hair, that you are +like the very soul of a white cloud fallen from above and trailing along +beside me?"</p> + +<p>"I? with my dark skin?" said Éloise, before she thought.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you, Egypt! White, because there combine all colors that are; and +in you—pardon me—there is a universal wealth of tint, be it carnation, +sea-green, black, or cream, so harmonized that one looks a hundred times +before finding it all. You recollect how a great painter produces his +effect of white,—of white sunlight on a stem? He lays the solar +spectrum there, the seven colors of light,—and their union in the +beholder's eye makes the dash of sunshine, the white lustre. Do you +know, in fact, what you remind me of?"</p> + +<p>"No,—how should I?—Hark! what was that?"</p> + +<p>It was the pealing of a bell, the far and faint pulsation of that bell +she had once before heard, as it rang out the changes of the sea, now +above and now below the flashing, falling foam-crests.</p> + +<p>"It is the tide-bell," said Mr. St. George, stiffly; and, with the word, +the previous midnight rose as if by incantation, and she kept her eyes +on the ground. Yet, as they walked, it seemed to Éloise that her +quickened senses detected a hidden rustle and murmur, as if the distant +morasses, the neighboring thickets, were alive. She seemed to be aware +of soft and stealthy soundless foot-falls; shadowy forms, she would have +said, were gliding around them in the night. Cold terror made her heart +stand still. Suddenly all these fears condensed into shape,—two flaming +eyeballs glared in the copse,—a shock, a flash, a smell of powder, just +as she had seized Mr. St. George's arm and snatched him back. Then the +boughs crashed, and the dark shade went leaping away. Terror died in +Éloise's heart. Intrepid rage possessed her. She sprang forward, still +holding him back with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> continued gesture of the light hand on his +arm, and gazed over the bushes, the very incarnation of splendid +fearlessness and defiance. Mr. St. George laughed.</p> + +<p>"Is there nothing that excites your indignation?" she cried. "Could you +not have throttled him?"</p> + +<p>"A flash in the pan," said he, coolly. "However, it might have been +worse. It has blown a breeze through my <i>sombrero</i>,"—taking off the +hat, which the ball had partly twisted around. "It was meant for +Marlboro', Miss Changarnier. I am in his place to-night, you see. You +have misled the rascals. Listen!" he murmured, in a lower tone, beside +her. "There is a freemasonry among these black devils,—doubtless the +tide-bell signals some secret meeting. They are all about us. Here! you +are the last person to be seen. Take this, and hurry on while I wait; +you can walk fast. Go!"</p> + +<p>And the handle of a knife, a great broad blade, produced from some +hidden sheath, was between her fingers.</p> + +<p>But Éloise did not stir.</p> + +<p>"Go!" he repeated, in the same smothered murmur.</p> + +<p>"Place you in such danger? Leave you so?" said Éloise. "Never!"</p> + +<p>"Do as I bid you!" he replied, in a tone as full of cold, unsuppressed +bitterness as a north wind, motioning her away, and moving back.</p> + +<p>The moon behind him, as he stepped, was floating up from the horizon, a +great bubble of glory, whitening the tops of the whole dark landscape, +throwing out in glittering points, like frosted silver-work, the rimy, +dewy tracery of budding boughs, studding each twig with gems, and +pouring light into the high hollow heaven, like vast draughts shed +crystal-clear from some shining drinking-horn. When, then, Mr. St. +George mounted the stump by the way-side and stood there erect, +weaponless and with folded arms, the moonlight upslanted full on face +and form, and made him as distinctly and rigidly visible to all the low +land on either side the road as if he had been some statue set up for a +mile-stone. A little time he remained so. A night-hawk slowly wheeled +from a distant grove, and came dreamily sailing high above his head. +There was an instant's flare that revealed a group of dusky faces in the +swamp below, a report, and the night-hawk plunged downwards and fell at +his feet.</p> + +<p>"Mas'r Sin George," cried a voice, grim with murder ten minutes since, +"we lebe you our card. Good night!"</p> + +<p>Mr. St. George stood there a moment and watched the group till it faded +off from sight in the shadows of that distant cypress-grove, and then +stepped down and found Éloise with clasped hands exactly where he had +left her.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you obey?" he said,—but this time with what a different +voice! "You could not feel your danger! You did not know your risk! +Great God, Éloise"——</p> + +<p>Mr. St. George silenced himself abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Well," he continued, after a few paces, "I convinced the wretches of my +identity. It is quite like life in the Romagna, an hour with the +brigands of the Marches, is it not? It is pleasant to play the hero for +five minutes. But you! They know Marlboro' can be hurt through you. +Truth runs in subtle channels here. Come, hasten! By God! if I had such +people as Marlboro's, I <i>would</i> sell them, and that with a +tan-toasting!—or I'd send them all to the North, that's so fond of +them! Come, hasten!"—and, half dragging her on his arm, he strode +forward, wordless and fierce, till they reached the house.</p> + +<p>I do not know what thoughts whirled through Éloise's dreamless brain +during the rest of that night, nor with what half-trembling resolutions +she arose, nor how much pride she had drowned in a vaster flood. But +when she descended, she found the house ablaze with fearful rumors that +had risen like marsh-lights everywhere out of the ground. All was not +right at Blue Bluffs, they said; some escaping slave—perhaps the +compunctious Vane himself, who knew?—had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> dared to breathe of great +disturbance and of retaliatory examples during the week before, which, +seen in the light of last night's broken bridge and gunshots, struck up +fresh terror. At noon Marlboro' came, but only for a brief stay. There +had been trouble with the creatures on his place, he said, +contemptuously, owing to some conspiracy among them, suspicions and +punishments. He could not account for such a state of affairs, unless +through incendiary emissaries. If further punishments were found +necessary, they should be just within the letter of the law, he vowed in +an angry aside to Mr. Humphreys,—the thing must now be settled once for +all. He would be here again on the next day, no new occurrence detaining +him at home, he said, as calmly as if that covered nothing; and with his +fair hair shining in the sun, and the handsome Vandyck-face laughing +over the shoulder, he rode off in gay heart and knightly guise, +accompanied by Evan Murray and Earl St. George Erne.</p> + +<p>They were all standing on the piazza that night, looking for Mr. St. +George's return ere going to bed. A sudden toll, and then a sharp, quick +ringing, broken by other tolls, burst the air close above them.</p> + +<p>It was the alarm-bell, and Ned the saturnine, rebellious in reason and +loyal in love, stood at the wheel. Mr. Murray, the father, leaped away. +Mr. Humphreys drew his brood within-doors. There was mustering of +weapons, shrieking of children; Miss Houghton fell in hysterics; Mrs. +Arles brought her the camphor, as quietly as she would have done at any +other time; Miss Changarnier stood like the expiatory victim for the +white race. Then came runners, overseers galloped up the avenue, +gentlemen, crackers, and leashed blood-hounds. There followed hurried +words and counter-commands; then part remained, part dashed away on the +road to Blue Bluffs. Nobody thought of sleeping; in the dead of night +the dull tramp of infantry resounded from the distant turnpike, and +later they heard the clang of grounding arms, and by the faint morning +light they saw the forms of the silent sentries stalking stalwart about +them, while, all around, the Erne slaves pursued, some their usual +routine, some the steps of the moment's master or mistress, and others +watched, huddled into frightened groups. Éloise stood leaning against +one side of the long drawing-room window; without knowing it, her +fingers constantly closed around the knife that lay in her belt, and +which she had failed to restore to its owner. All night she kept her +motionless position, looking far out and away to the eastward, till the +dark mass of Blue Bluffs should resolve itself into the azure mist of +castellated height that by daylight ever loomed upon the sea-horizon.</p> + +<p>Hours of suspense and of silence. At length, hurriedly resounding hoofs, +and St. George once more stood among them.</p> + +<p>"A revolt at Blue Bluffs," said he.</p> + +<p>"As I have expected every night this month," said Mr. Dean.</p> + +<p>"They have captured the ringleaders?" demanded Mrs. Arles.</p> + +<p>"What have they done with them?" cried Emma Houghton.</p> + +<p>Every one paused.</p> + +<p>"Never mind," said Mr. St. George, with a terrible hiatus.</p> + +<p>"And where is Mr. Marlboro'?"</p> + +<p>"Where should you expect a man to be who crowds down the steam and sits +on the valve,—who walks on crater-crust? Marlboro',—poor +Marlboro'!—Marlboro' is dead."</p> + +<p>Éloise dropped in a heap upon the floor.</p> + +<p>The women gathered over her and got her away, laid at last upon her +bed,—and then she ordered them all to leave her, which glad enough were +they to do.</p> + +<p>Mr. St. George walked the room in silence then, and finally sitting down +and resting his elbows on the table, remained so a long time,—his +knotted brow hidden by the tightly clasped hands. Nobody got any further +information from him. They must wait till Evan Murray returned with the +officers from the forts. Then he rose.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You are in no danger here," he said to Mr. Murray. "There is a guard +detailed for every adjacent plantation. The affair is altogether +crushed.—I must go just the same," he muttered, and entered his cabinet +alone.</p> + +<p>It was about two hours afterward, that Éloise—with whom, after having +roused herself from the horror of the shock, a feeling of unspeakable +pity, awe, and quaking terror had merged in another of equally +indescribable and cruel relief and freedom—was wakened from the dull +dream that sogged upon her brain in answering the place of two nights' +lost rest, by a servant at the door who brought to her a note. All +confused at the instant of starting, suddenly memory struck out the late +events in letters of fire. Half awake, with her pulse beating in great +shocks all about her wherever a pulse could play, she tore the note open +and read its but half-interpretable hieroglyphs twice before she +comprehended it.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Distasteful as the thought of me may be at such a time, you +must endure it for a moment.</p> + +<p>"I return to you to-day the property of which many months +ago I despoiled you. I leave it in better condition than I +found it, and so well has it met my demands, that, in spite +of all expenditure, you will find the customary income for +the length of time in the cabinet-escritoire untouched.</p> + +<p>"I leave it because it becomes impossible for me to retain +it. I leave it because it becomes impossible for me to live +longer in the house with you, to breathe the air you +breathe, to feel myself growing desperate beneath the sound +of your voice. Because I cannot see you in sorrow for +another. Because self-control can go no farther. I leave it, +Éloise, because I love you!</p> + +<p>"If I cherished one hope, it would not be at this time that +I should tell you my deadly secret. I have none, and +therefore I go.</p></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i1">"<span class="smcap">Earl St. George Erne.</span>"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>A sickly thrill of something like disgust swept over Éloise as she read, +that one could think of anything but the great horrid fact of the hour. +Then she trembled from head to foot, and hid her face with shame and +sobs. "What does it mean?" she cried. "'At such a time'? What time? Oh! +he thinks—can he think?—I love Marlboro'! Will no one keep him? Is he +gone? He leaves because he loves me? Why, if he loves me, I should think +he would stay! Oh, is it true? is it true? St. George, St. George, do +you love me?" Hurriedly she smoothed her hair while she exclaimed, threw +over her shoulders the scarf of blue and silver hanging across the +mirror, and ran down.</p> + +<p>Mr. St. George had that moment left, saying he was absolutely obliged to +depart, but that he hoped his guests would remain the guests of Miss +Changarnier. His luggage was to be sent after him.</p> + +<p>"Which way had he gone? towards Blue Bluffs?"</p> + +<p>"No, the other way."</p> + +<p>Éloise summoned Vane and Hazel to follow her, and, flashing out of the +house, went rapidly down the mazes of the woody avenue, over the fields, +to the nearest place where the road crossed the creek. If Mr. St. George +was on the winding highway, by taking this straight cut she would reach +the creek even before his galloping horse could do so. At length she +paused, stationed Hazel and Vane behind her,—busy enough in themselves, +for Hazel, become happy again, had again become coquette,—and went on +alone. There had been a heavy shower that morning; Éloise stooped and +examined the clayey path that led up from the creek, to see if +footprints had lately been set there, and found nothing. The minutes +dragged away like hours, and when thirty elapsed, she wondered why it +was not growing dark. "He has not come this way!" she exclaimed. "He is +gone! I never shall know where he is!"—and she threw herself down among +the wild, rich growth that half rose and buried her. Gradually, when her +fever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> of sobs had died away, a sound broke on her ear, the sound of a +slow, steady tramp. Was it the beating of her heart?—or was it Earl St. +George? It drew nearer; she dared not rise and see. She heard the splash +of the feet in the water, in the intense light within her brain could +seem to see the dark water strike up and break in showers of prisms. +Then the feet left it, and came up the bank. Should she dare? If she +delayed—Suddenly that apparition tangled in the blue and silver scarf +rose and confronted Mr. St. George.</p> + +<p>The horse knew her, as he swerved, then bent to rub his cheek on her +shoulder; Rounce, who, from stopping to plant his nose deep in every +rose upon his way, had just rushed up breathless, knew her too, and fell +to frolicking about her feet. She stood with both her arms about the +horse's bending neck, with her face half drooping there, and the black, +falling tress curving forward on the cheek.</p> + +<p>"I never loved him!" was what she murmured. "I never meant to marry +him!"</p> + +<p>"Miss Changarnier!" exclaimed Mr. St. George, dismounting, thinking, +perhaps, that trouble made her wild. "Here? To-day? Alone? You must +return at once!"</p> + +<p>"I never, never will return, unless you take me back!" she said, raising +her head, but not daring to raise her quivering glance.</p> + +<p>"Éloise! Éloise! Do you know what you say?"</p> + +<p>She ventured just a glimpse at the dark eyes above her, glowing and +glooming, smiles breaking out of their pain, and then with a little +blind motion the tender face was hidden in his breast.</p> + +<p>Just there a cloud peeled off the sun and went all radiant upon its way, +the silent birds fell into one deep chorus, the locust shot out its +great whirring lance of jubilant sound, the whole forest grew astir and +alive over the glad secret it had learned.</p> + +<p>The sun was setting, when Mr. St. George, leading his horse, on whose +back Éloise was throned, and followed by Hazel and Vane, came into view +of the wondering, waiting, indignant party on the piazza. The party, +fickle as any mob, be it patrician or plebeian, was easily appeased with +such quarry as it found, and changed itself straightway with acclaim +into a bridal party. That night St. George brought in and tried upon the +third finger of the white left-hand a narrow glittering band.</p> + +<p>"Nothing but a wedding-fetter?" he asked. "Yet capable of great things, +that fetter! It holds the famous elixir which sinks two identities in +one; it is the visible sign of a sacrament; it is to be the type of our +souls' union, pure, perfect, and without end"——</p> + +<p>But here, perhaps, the eyes of Éloise silenced him, perhaps the mouth. +And when life settled in its new channel at The Rim, Éloise, wearing at +last her father's name, sat at the head of her husband's table, and Mrs. +Earl St. George Erne herself entertained her guests. They lingered a +little while, with the disinclination that any group finds to separate, +and circumstances had knitted a bond among them all. And then, when +deepening summer ended the renewed cheer, Mrs. Arles put on her +widow's-cap once more, her little foot went into obscurity, and the gold +and ebony riding-whip hung reclaimed above her mantel.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> +<h2>WATCHING.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">In childhood's season fair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On many a balmy, moonless summer night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While wheeled the light-house arms of dark and bright<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Far through the humid air,—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">How patient have I been,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sitting alone, a happy little maid,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Waiting to see, cheery and unafraid,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">My father's boat come in,—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">Close to the water's edge<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Holding a tiny spark, that he might steer<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(So dangerous the landing far and near)<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Safe past the ragged ledge!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">No fears had I, not one.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wild, wide waste of water leagues around<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Washed ceaselessly, there was no human sound,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">And I was all alone.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">But Nature was so kind!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a dear friend I loved the loneliness;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My heart rose glad, as at some sweet caress,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">When passed the wandering wind.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">Yet it was joy to hear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From out the darkness sounds grow clear at last,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of rattling rowlocks, and of creaking mast,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">And voices drawing near.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">"Is't thou, dear father? Say!"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What well-known shout resounded in reply,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As loomed the tall sail, smitten suddenly<br /></span> +<span class="i6">With the great light-house ray!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">I will be patient now,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dear Heavenly Father, waiting here for Thee!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I know the darkness holds Thee! Shall I be<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Afraid, when it is Thou?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">On Thy eternal shore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In pauses, when Life's tide is at its prime,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I hear the everlasting rote of Time<br /></span> +<span class="i6">Beating forevermore!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">Shall I not, then, rejoice?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, never lost or sad should child of Thine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sit weeping, fearing lest there come no sign,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">No whisper of Thy voice!<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> +<h2>ON HORSEBACK INTO OREGON.</h2> + + +<p>After our return from the Yo-Semite Valley, Bierstadt and myself +remained in San Francisco, or its delightful neighborhood, making short +excursions around and across the bay, for more than a fortnight. But +this lotus-eating life soon palled. We burned to see the giant Shasta, +and grew thirsty for the eternal snows of the Cascade Peaks still +farther north. So much of a horseback-ride to the Columbia as brought us +into Oregon I here propose to sketch in brief.</p> + +<p>The rest of our party had become sated with travel and gone home. One +glorious September day we took our saddle-bags, note-books, and +color-boxes, put our horses on board the Sacramento steamer, and, +without other baggage or company of any sort, set out for the Columbia +River and Vancouver's Island.</p> + +<p>At Sacramento, on the next morning after leaving San Francisco, we +shifted our quarters to a smaller and light-draught boat which was to +take us up the shallow river to its head of navigation. This arrangement +was a great economy of time. The country bordering the Upper Sacramento +for two hundred miles from the Californian capital is level and +comparatively tame, so that no artistic advantage would have resulted +from following the bank on horseback. From the little steamer the view +became a perpetual pleasure. About twenty miles above Sacramento we +passed the mouth of Feather River, disgorging coffee-colored mud from +the innumerable gold-diggings along its course, and came into lovely +blue water, pure as the cradling snow-ridges between which it issued. +The immediate margin began to be thickly wooded with overhanging +willows, oaks, and sycamores. These were alive with birds of every +aquatic description. The shag, a large fowl of black and dingy-white +plumage, apparently belonging to the cormorant family, peopled every +dead tree with a live fruit whose weight nearly cracked its branches; +every snag projecting from the river-bed was studded with a row of the +same creatures at mathematically equal intervals, each possessing just +room enough for his favorite pastime of slowly opening his wings to the +utmost, and then shutting them again in solemn rhythm, like a pupil of +Dr. Dio Lewis's or a patient in the Swedish Movement-Cure. The quiet +embayed pools and eddies swarmed with ducks; every sunny bar or level +beach was a stalking-ground for stately cranes, both white and +sand-hill; and garrulous crows kept the air lively, in company with big +California magpies, above our heads.</p> + +<p>The course of the river grew more and more sinuous as we ascended; it +was near the close of the dry season, and there remained none of those +cut-offs which economize distance during the prevalence of the rains. +The Upper Sacramento, especially when softened and rendered illusory by +such a full moon as it was our good-fortune to travel under, perpetually +recalls that loveliest of fairy streams, the higher St. John's, in +Florida. Nothing out of dreams is more peacefully enchanting than the +embowered stretches of clear water rippled into silver arabesque through +a long moonlight night, or the hazy vistas, impurpled by twilight, into +which one swings around the short curves of the Sacramento, amid a +silence that would be absolute but for his own motion, while beyond +either woody margin the great plains spread away untenanted, a waving +wilderness of wild grass and <i>tulé</i>.</p> + +<p>Enjoying the <i>far-niente</i> of a life of such sweet monotone all the more +because it was such a contrast to our rough riding past and future, we +spent two golden days, as many mezzotint twilights, and a pair of silver +nights upon our steamer. On the morning of the third day we reached +Tehama, a dead-and-alive little settlement, seven hours' journey by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> +river-windings from Red Bluffs, the head of navigation, but only ten +miles by land. We had now got in sight of mountains; the ethereal blue +of Lassen's Buttes, rimmed with the opal of perpetual snow, bounded our +view northerly; and as every motive for taking to the saddle now +consisted with our desire for economizing time, we here began our +horseback-ride, reaching Red Bluffs several hours before the steamer.</p> + +<p>Just out of Tehama we struck into a country whose features reminded us +of the wooded tracts between Stockton and Mariposa. After two days of +<i>tulé</i> and wild grass, Nature grew suddenly ennobled in our eyes by +thick and frequent groves of the royal California oak. There was a +feeling of luxury in the change, which none can know who have not had a +surfeit of boundless plains. We bathed our hearts and heads in shadow; +the fever of unbroken light went out of us; our very horses shared in +the relief, and gave themselves up to a sweet somnambulism with which we +had too much sympathy to break it by spurs.</p> + +<p>Red Bluffs we found a place of more apparent stir and enterprise than +any Californian town we had seen, except San Francisco and Sacramento. +There was quite a New-England air about the main street,—so much so +that I have forgotten to call it <i>Plaza</i>, as I ought. This place is the +starting-point for all overland supplies sent between the Sacramento and +Portland. Immense wagons—shaped like the Eastern charcoal-vehicle, but +dwarfing it into insignificance by a size not much inferior to that of a +Mississippi flat-boat—are perpetually leaving the town, drawn by twelve +mules or horses, and in charge of drivers whose magnificent isolation +has individualized them to a degree not exceeded in the most +characteristic coachman of the Weller tribe, or the typical skipper of +the Yankee fishing-smack. There are few finer places to study <i>genre</i> +than the California ranches frequented by the captains of these +"prairie-schooners." At convenient distances for noon halts and nightly +turnings-in, the main freighting-roads of the State are adorned with +gigantic caravanseras offering every accommodation for man and beast, +provided with arcades straddling nearly across the road, under which all +passing wagoners not only may, but must, shelter themselves from the +rigors of rain or sun, and billeted along their fronts with seductive +descriptions of the paradise within, to which few hearts prove obdurate +after being softened by the compulsory magnanimity of the arcade.</p> + +<p>In time there must be a railroad all the way from Sacramento to +Portland. There is not a mile of the distance between Red Bluffs and the +Oregon metropolis where it is not greatly needed already. Nearly the +whole intervening region is exhaustlessly fertile,—one of the finest +fruit-countries in the world,—but so entirely without an economical +avenue for its supplies or outlet for its productions, that many of the +ranchmen who have settled in it feel despondent in the midst of +abundance, and leave hundreds of magnificent orchard-acres paved with +rotting apples which would command a "bit" a pound in the San-Francisco +market, if the freight did not more than consume the profit, and the +length of the journey render the fruit unsalable.</p> + +<p>The first day out from Tehama we made a distance of nearly forty +miles,—part of the way through oak-groves and part over fine breezy +plains, with the noble mountain-chain out of which Lassen's Buttes rise +into the perpetual-snow region continually in sight on the right hand. +The only incident that occurred to us this day, in any other key than +that of pure sensuous delight in the fact of life and motion under such +a spotless sky and in an air that was such breathable elixir, together +with the artistic happiness which flowed down on us from the noble +neighboring mountains, was our discovery early in the afternoon of a +cloud of dust about half a mile ahead, with the forms of a hundred +horsemen dimly looming through it. Such a sight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> sets an old overlander +instinctively fumbling at his holsters; fresh as we were from the +horrors of the desert, we felt our scalps begin to detach themselves +slightly from the cranium. But we rode straight ahead, as our only +method of safety was to wear a bold front, if the cavaliers were, as we +half suspected, a party of Humboldt Indians who had lately taken the +warpath between Lassen's Buttes and the coast. I don't recollect ever +having been better pleased with the look of Uncle Sam's cavalry-uniform +than we were, upon coming up with the squad and finding it a detachment +of our own men sent out to chastise the savages.</p> + +<p>That night we reached a ranch called the "American,"—and certainly its +title was none too ambitious, for it had the whole horizon to itself, +and to all appearance might have been the only house on the continent. +It was a place unvisited of fresh meat and ignorant of gridirons; but we +were tired enough, after the first day of our return to the saddle, to +sleep soundly in a bed of tea-tray dimensions, and under what appeared +to be a casual selection from a hamper of soiled pocket-handkerchiefs, +when we had despatched the first of that long series of suppers on fried +pork and green-serpentine saleratus-biscuits which stretched between us +and the northern edge of Oregon.</p> + +<p>Though the month was September, the heat in the middle of the day upon +the broad rolling plains we now had to traverse was as oppressive as an +Eastern July. During our whole horseback-journey, therefore, we made it +our custom to rise as soon after dawn as possible, breakfast, travel a +stage of fifteen or twenty miles, make a long mid-day halt in some +pleasant nook, and push on twenty miles farther before we unsaddled for +the night. We were just now enabled to make this second stage the most +leisurely and the longest of the two,—for the moon was still in all the +glory of its California brightness and plenitude, and to have travelled +by moonlight between the Sacramento and Mount Shasta is one of the +prominent memories of a lifetime. No patriotic attachment is demanded to +make the Californian say with the Irishman that his country's full-moon +is twice as large and splendid as any other's. Phenomenally, at least, +the bare facts support him.</p> + +<p>At noon of the day on which we left the American Ranch, we came up a +rugged hill into the settlement of Shasta. This town is a mining depot +of some importance, chiefly memorable to us for some excellent pie, made +out of the California apple-melon, in wonderful imitation of the Eastern +green-apple tart, and a charge of five dollars and a half in gold made +by the great Californian Express Company for bringing Bierstadt's +color-box (heavy as a small valise) from Red Bluffs, whither we had let +it go on by boat. Why this should have left a memorable impression on +our minds it would be hard to say; for, although the demand was somewhat +more than the stage employed by the Express Company would have charged +to take either one of us the same distance, accompanied by a heavy +trunk, we should by this time have acquired sufficient familiarity with +extortion from the Company's officials to have paid very quietly a bill +of fifty dollars for the same service, and then dismissed the trifling +matter from our minds. But indignation at swindles is sometimes +cumulative.</p> + +<p>At the town of Shasta we left the main wagon-road,—finding that it +passed a long way from the most important point on our itinerary, the +base of Shasta Peak. By striking across the country six miles to the +small settlement of Buckeye, we intersected a route little travelled, +but far more picturesque, and leading directly to the great object of +our longings. On the way to Buckeye we again encountered the Sacramento, +here dwindled to a narrow mountain-stream, with bold precipitous banks +and a rock bottom, a smooth and deep, but rapid current, and full of +trout and salmon. We crossed it on a rope-ferry, and climbed the steeps +on the other side, but did not leave it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> Thenceforward to Shasta Peak +we were never out of its neighborhood.</p> + +<p>By this <i>détour</i> of ours we came into a country better wooded and +watered than any through which we had been travelling. When the sun left +us, we found the moonlight so seductive that we pushed on late into the +evening,—making our all-night halt at a ranch-man's whose name had been +given us by some passing native, who praised his accommodations +unboundedly, but proved much more of a friend to him than to ourselves. +It is a duty to visit the afflicted. It is a misfortune, not a crime, to +have a wife and six children, the latter all under twelve years of age. +It is a still greater and no less irresponsible calamity to have them +all prostrated by chills-and-fever, yet forbidden to yield to its +depressing influence by the stimulus of several million healthy fleas. +Ignorance, not wilfulness, may be at the causal bottom of a batch of +bread which is half saleratus, and a stew of venerable hens which is +one-third feathers. Nor can we regard it as other than a beneficent +arrangement in the grand scheme of Nature's laws, that a pack of noble +hounds should pass the hours of slumber around our humble casement in +the free indulgence of a liberty distinctly authorized by the sacred +Watts as follows,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>Let</i> dogs delight to bark," etc.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Still, I think public opinion will sustain me in the view that the much +afflicted family were not agreeable to pass the night with.</p> + +<p>This is the place for a useful financial statement. Everything on our +present trip cost a dollar. Bed for one, i. e. one's share of a bed for +two,—supper,—each horse's forage,—breakfast,—every several item, a +dollar. No matter how afflicted the family, saleratusy the bread, loud +the dogs,—nothing was furnished under the dollar. When people happen to +have enough dollars, this becomes comic. It reminded us of the Catskill +Mountain House, where in specie-times everything (after hotel-bills) was +twenty-five cents,—from getting a waiter to look at you, to having the +Falls tipped up for you.</p> + +<p>The day's journey between the afflicted family and Dog Creek, where we +stopped the third night, is such an affluent remembrance of beauty that +I feel glad while I write about it. We started under circumstances +somewhat tedious. Nobody was going toward Mount Shasta with so much as a +pack-mule. The father of the afflicted family labored under the blight +of his surroundings, and after severe thought gave up the task of +attempting to recall when anybody <i>had</i> been going toward Mount Shasta. +It was also too much for him to calculate when anybody would be going. +We paid him his dollars,—wished that his shadow might never be less, +which it couldn't very well, unless the ague can dance on a mathematical +line,—and set out with the color-box carried alternately before us on +our pommels. It had been our <i>bête noire</i> from the time five dollars and +fifty cents ransomed it at Shasta. We now began to wonder whether the +Express Company also had carried it on a pommel,—in which case we +thought we could forgive the Express Company. The morning was sultry, +and as we started our horses forth upon a walk,—for the box could not +stand jolting,—we looked forward to a tiresome day.</p> + +<p>As we went on, Nature seemed determined to kiss us out of the sulks. +Just as we broke into fresh grumbles, which we wanted to indulge, and +our horses into fresh trots, which we desired, but could not tolerate, +we entered some lovely glen, musical with tinkling springs, its walling +banks tapestried with the richest velvet of deep-green grass, brocaded +with spots of leaf-filtered sunshine. When we began to swelter, we came +into the dense shadow of great oaks, or caught the balmiest wind in the +world through aromatic pine and cedar vistas along the crown of some +lofty ridge. It was impossible to be vexed with the step-mother, Fate, +when the fingers of our mother, Nature, were straying through our hair. +To drive away the last elf of ill-humor,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> and make us thenceforth agree +to regard the box as an ornamental appendage which we were good-natured +enough to let each other enjoy by turns. Pitt River, the last fork of +the Upper Sacramento, came glancing into our landscape, the very +perfection of fluent freedom and gladness. Every rod of the journey +along its west bank disclosed a new picture. The misty blue mountains of +the range toward Shasta Peak formed the abiding background of every +view. Steep, fir-battlemented banks of one generic form, but endless +variety in the beauty of the tree forms and groups which rose from their +<i>glacis</i>, mile after mile, framed in some new loveliness of +light-and-shadow-flecked bend, deep sepia-dark pool, singing shallow, or +brawling rapid of the clear stream. Eagles were sailing, like a placid +thought in a large heart, far over our heads in the intimacy of a +spotless sky; the great ground-squirrel flashed like a gray gleam over +the gnarled mossy roots at the side of our narrow dug-way; and in +brilliant blots or darting shafts of Magenta fire, we recognized among +the tree-tops that loveliest bird of the North-American forest, the +great crested woodpecker. Here and there, to introduce a human element, +came cleared spaces by the river's brink, where pointed wands stood +impaling flakes of red salmon-flesh,—the open-air curing-house and +out-door store-room of the Pitt-River Indians. Once in the course of the +day we lighted on a picturesque ragged hut, where the purveyors of this +meat were soaking themselves in full side-hill sunlight,—where little +savages of every degree of gauntness in their limbs, ochriness on their +cheeks, shockiness in their heads, and protuberance in their abdomens, +were gorging themselves to still more hideous ventral +<i>embonpoint</i>,—where white men, lower than the lowest Diggers they +herded with, had forgotten the little they ever knew of civilization, +and stood glaring at us like half-sated Satyrs as we passed. Other bits +of <i>genre</i> hourly came into the picture with pappoose-carrying squaws +who hunted yew-berries along the road-side fringe of woods, youngsters +wearing no attire but a party-colored acorn-basket of deft finger-work, +which they carried loaded on their shoulders, or listlessly trailed +empty at their sides. Dr. Prichard has some hideous pictures of Papuans +and Australians; but if Ethnology were a match-game, we could give him +those two points, and beat him easily by playing a few of the Digger +women whom we saw that day. They reached the ugliness of aboriginal +specimens which we had encountered on the west verge of the Goshoot +country; and if any earthly pilgrimage, short of the mountains of +Nightmare, can reveal <i>their</i> rivals, I should like to get into a prime +state of health and be allowed a peep at them through a spy-glass.</p> + +<p>The condition of the white men who live and make alliances with these +poor creatures is too heart-sickening to print. The law that governs all +associations of culture with barbarism, where the latter is in dynamic +excess, holds rigorously true in California. The higher race recollects +only the cultivated evil of the state whence it fell,—and carrying to +its savage mates subtler means of accomplishing vice than they knew +before, presently gives rise to a combination from which all the +simplicity of the low race is eliminated, and into which enter all the +devils of mature civilization. Nor do these devils come accompanied by a +single grace or angel which softened or restrained crime in the +developed community. The attachment of this region's older settlers for +their savage comrades is something incredible. To enjoy their society +they cheerfully embrace a life as impure, uncleanly, free from all +humanizing influences, as that of the lowest Digger with whom they +consort. Sometimes a strange incongruous romance, like moonlight on a +puddle, lights up these mongrel <i>liaisons</i>, and infuses into them a +burlesque of sentiment. We found one old hunter whose squaw ran away +from him into the mountains at regular six-months' intervals, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> who +invariably spent hundreds of dollars and no end to hardships in hunting +her up and restoring her to his wigwam. Another, who had kept an Indian +seraglio from the time of the earliest gold-discoveries, had repeatedly +been to the nearest legal officer, (two or three days' journey off,) and +besought him, without effect, to marry him to one of his squaws in +Christian fashion. It certainly did seem hard that the poor fellow +should be forbidden to make the only reparation in his power for wrongs +of twelve years' standing; but the æsthetic, naturally enough to those +who have seen Diggers, predominated over the legal and moral in the +judicial mind, and he was finally sent away with an injunction never to +show his face again while "this court continued to know herself" in the +Shasta region.</p> + +<p>As often happens in the discipline of human life, the thorn in the flesh +was withdrawn as soon as we had learned the lesson of bearing it +resignedly. At the last crossing of the Sacramento, we learned from the +ferryman that a providential wagoner was just ahead of us, going +certainly to Dog Creek, and presumably, if we made it an object, all the +way to Strawberry Valley, at the foot of Shasta. The one whose turn it +was not to carry the color-box galloped ahead, and detained the wagoner +until the heavy dragoon had time to come up. With a deep sigh of relief, +we stowed our box in the "prairie-schooner,"—made a contract to have it +packed on mule-back from Dog Creek to Shasta, in consideration of one +among a gross of cheap watches which we had brought for trade with +Indians and Trappers,—and, relieving our horses by the first canter +they had enjoyed that day, sped away with the deep conviction that the +man who first called chrome and white-lead <i>light</i> colors must have been +indulging the subtile irony of a diseased mind.</p> + +<p>The seven miles of our journey from the last Sacramento crossing to Dog +Creek were even grander in their scenery than our morning stage. The +road was a dug-way from one to seven hundred feet above the base of a +winding castellated cliff, here and there cut in rugged sandstone, but +often both walled and buttressed with steep slopes of virgin turf kept +emerald by innumerable trickling springs, ice-cold and crystal-clear, +while here and there it passed through woods as dark as twilight. The +slope on which we travelled formed one side of a valley, green at its +bottom as a New-England meadow, and watered by a picturesque affluent of +the Sacramento. About dark we came to the Dog-Creek Ranch, where we had +such a delicious supper of trout, cooked in the good old Green-Mountain +fashion with an Indian-meal night-gown on, as made us "forget the steps +already trod," followed by a really nice <i>pair</i> of beds, wherein we took +long and ample preparation to "onward urge our way" upon the morrow.</p> + +<p>At Dog Creek we were encamped round about by the largest and most +prosperous Indian tribe that we had seen on our trip. Their bows and +arrows were elegant in shape and color: the former stained in a variety +of patterns, sometimes carved, and wrapped as well as strung with +deer-sinews; the latter headed with nicely cut pieces of a black +obsidian which abounds in the vicinity of Shasta Peak, and which of +itself is an unerring test of the original volcanic character of the +mountain. The quivers of this Dog-Creek tribe were the most beautiful +preparations of whole mink, otter, and sable skins, which I have seen in +Indian hands anywhere on the continent. One of the men had a great cap +made out of an entire grizzly cub-skin, the claws very nicely preserved +and dangling behind, while the head curved forward on top like the crest +of an old Greek helmet. Nowhere did we find neater, more ornamental +berry-baskets, or more carefully worked dishes and basins, than those +woven or scooped and stained by this tribe. In wandering through their +stick-and-bark lodges we found some tolerably good-looking men, far +above the average brutality of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> Diggers, with simple, pleasant +expressions, and not afraid to look one in the eye. In one lodge +crouched a man and woman who without exception were the oldest-looking +people I ever saw. The husband was blind, the wife palsied; but they had +been left in charge of a sprawling family of their fifth generation, +which haste and the warm weather forbade our counting. I gave the old +lady a plug of tobacco, and watched, as she put it up against her +husband's face, to see which of the wrinkles was his mouth; while, on +her filling a pipe and smoking with grunts of evident approbation +directed to myself, I felt pleasant and Biblical, as if I had been doing +a good turn to Methuselah's aunt.</p> + +<p>Only forty miles more stretched between us and Shasta Peak. We had now +reached an elevation where it was visible to us in its full majesty from +the southwestern side. All day, after our leaving Dog Creek, its giant +cone, snow-wrapt half-way to the base, kept surprising us through clefts +in the surrounding crags at the end of long wooded vistas, or on some +clear, treeless height to which we had climbed, forgetting the mountain +in our heat and labor. The country about us was becoming wilder and +wilder: our road was sometimes a mere trail, half obliterated by springs +or traversing rivulets. We now rode in the woods most of the time, and +found the shadow, stillness, and fragrance all delicious. Beside all the +springs we discovered the southernwood of our Eastern gardens growing +wild, its strawberry-scented and maroon-colored buds much larger than +those of our variety, and, though a trifle less intense in their +perfume, still sufficiently sweet to make every nook in which they grew +delicious for yards around. Here and there the woods showed some +symptoms of autumnal change; there were hectic spots now and then on the +maple-leaves; but nothing approaching in loveliness the +forest-euthanasia of our Eastern fall appeared until we had crossed the +boundary of Oregon. Shasta Peak is, by the track, nearly eighty miles +from that line. To-day, just as the sun got down to the tree-tops, the +wooded slope suddenly receded from our left, and towered into one of +those noble crags which all over the continent go by the name of "Castle +Rock," but which include no instance more truly deserving the name than +this bold mass of pinnacles and bastions, bare as a Yo-Semite precipice, +which lifted itself apparently about a thousand feet above the green +<i>glacis</i> of the slope, stern and gray at the base, but etherealized +along its crest and battlement by sunset spendors of red and gold. +Simultaneously with the Castle's appearance, our leafy covert parted +before us, and disclosed in level light, which made its snow opalescent, +and bathed its vast, rugged masses of stone and earth in one inclusive +winy glow, the glorious giant of California which had drawn us hither +through the wilderness. The height of Shasta is variously stated. It is +certainly over sixteen thousand feet, and may likely be nearer eighteen +thousand. The last geological survey pronounced it the highest mountain +in the Nevada range,—a statement taking into account Mount Hood and the +other great peaks of the Cascade system, which itself is but an Oregon +reappearance of the Sierra Nevada. The distance from which Hood, Saint +Helen's, and Rainier could be seen with the naked eye led us afterward +to regard this statement with some doubt; but certainly no peak which we +met in all our large experience of the mountains of the continent ever +compared with Shasta in producing the effect of vast height. All the +others which we have seen, with the exception of Lander's Peak, whether +in the Rocky, the Nevada, the Cascade, or the Pacific Coast range, have +suffered, visually, from modulation through their gradually ascending +tiers of foothills, or by the blending of their outlines with the +neighboring peaks. This is especially so with Pike's Peak, which, +despite its being one of the loftiest mountains in America, has its +proportions most dissatisfyingly disguised, in all but a single point of +view, in the <i>cañon</i> of the Fontaine-qui-Bouille.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> Shasta is a mountain +without mediations. It sits on the verge of a plain, broken for a +hundred miles to the northward only by pigmy volcanic cones heaped +around extinct <i>solfataras</i>. We approached it in the only direction +where there were anything like foothills to climb; but even upon us, on +reaching Strawberry Valley, at its southwestern foot, the wonderful peak +broke with as little feeling of gradual approach as if we had not seen +its head glowing grander and more real out of the blue distance +repeatedly during the last three days. When we first saw the whole of it +distinctly, it seemed to make no compromise with surrounding plains or +ridges, but rose in naked majesty, alone and simple, from the grass of +our valley to its own topmost iridescent ice.</p> + +<p>That view was not accorded to us on our first day out from Dog Creek. It +was nearly dark when we reached the Soda Springs, nine miles south of +Strawberry,—took a draught of the most delicious mineral-water I ever +drank, more piquant than Kissingen, and cold as ice,—resisted the +seductions of a small, premature boy of eight, who issued from the +Springs Ranch to dilate agedly on the tonic properties of the water, the +relaxing virtues of the beds, and the terrors of the grim forest which +lay for us in the black night between there and Strawberry,—and, +clapping spurs to our tired horses, pushed forward with stern +determination to reach Sisson's that evening.</p> + +<p>I think that a darker night than presently lapped us among the thick +evergreens was never travelled in. There were some streaks of blackness +a mile long, in which, literally, I could not see my horse's head. But +we had learned confidence in our animals' sagacity, and walked them, +cheerily whistling to keep each other informed of our whereabouts, +through at least six miles of road utterly unknown to and unseen by us. +It was what Eastern people call very "poky"; but the language addressed +to us by the premature boy had made it a matter of personal self-respect +for us to get to Sisson's that night. With a certain sense of triumph +over that unpleasant and dissuasive child, we saw a lantern gleam from a +corral about ten P. M., and had our interrogative hail of "Sisson's?" +answered in welcome affirmative by Sisson himself.</p> + +<p>At Sisson's, or exploring with him in the neighborhood of Shasta, we +passed one of the most delightful weeks in our diary of travel through +any land. His house was a low, two-story building, which had run like a +verbena in all directions over a grassy level,—putting out a fresh arm +at every new suggestion of domestic convenience, until it had become at +once the most amorphous and the most comfortable dwelling in the +California wilds. His herds were populous and prosperous; only the +merest pretence of fences broke their dream, without affecting their +reality, of limitless pasture. His ranch ostensibly consisted of a few +hundred acres; but Old Shasta was his only surveyor of landmarks, and +his base of supplies was coextensive with the base of the mountain. His +family consisted of an admirably energetic and thrifty wife, who had +accompanied him from Illinois, where he used to be a schoolmaster, and +one pretty little baby-girl indigenous to Strawberry Valley. The +presence of this mother and child in a wilderness which otherwise howled +chiefly with rough sporadic men and equally rough ubiquitous bears, was +a perpetual delight to us, so far from our domestic communications. We +admired Shasta all the more for looking at it over a little, gentle, +pink-and-white baby who lay asleep in its shadow, like a cherub pressed +to the bosom of one of the Djinn. Escaping from the poetical ground, I +may observe, that, between the chief French <i>restaurant</i> of Sacramento +City and the Dennison House in Portland, Oregon, no family whom we +encountered lived in such wholesome and homelike luxury as Sisson's. If +a Society for the Diffusion of Gastronomic Intelligence among the +Heathen is ever founded in California and Oregon, (and how bitterly such +a philanthropic enterprise is needed my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> diary spotted with the +abominable grease of universal <i>frying</i> bears abundant witness,) I hope +that the first tract which it publishes will be a biography of Mrs. +Sisson, the first point insisted on by that tract, "This excellent and +devoted woman used a gridiron." Bless her! how she could broil things! +No man who has not built up his system during a long expedition with +brick after brick of pork fried hard in its own ooze,—who has not +turned all his brain's active phosphorus into phosphate of soda by +alkali-biscuits drawn from the oven in the hot-dough stage,—who has not +drunk his pease-coffee without milk at the tables of repeated Pike +settlers too shiftless to milk one of their fifty kine,—who has not +slept myriads in a bed with <i>Cimex lectularius</i> and his livelier +congener of the saltatory habits,—can imagine what a blissful bay in +the iron-bound coast of bad-living Sisson's seemed to us both in +fruition and retrospection. We occasionally had beef, when Sisson, or +some near neighbor ten miles off, "killed a critter" and distributed it +around; excellent mountain-mutton, flavorous as the Welsh, was not +lacking in its turn; but the great stand-by of our table was venison, +roast, broiled, made into pasties, treated with every variety of +preparation save an oil-soak in the pagan frying-pan of the country. As +for chickens and eggs, it "snewe in Sisson's house" of that sort of +"mete and drinke,"—he was Chaucer's Franklin transported to Shasta. +Cream flowed in upon us like a river; potatoes were stewed in it; it was +the base of chicken-sauce; the sirupy baked pears, whose secret Mrs. +Sisson had inherited from some dim religious ancestor in the New-England +past, were drowned in it; and we took a glass of it with magical shiny +rusk for nine-o'clock supper, just to oil our joints before we relaxed +them in innocent repose. Our rooms were ample, our beds luxurious, our +surroundings the grandest within Nature's bestowal. Our capital host and +hostess became our personal friends; and all that they did for us was so +heartily kind and so cheerily comfortable, that, if we were asked where, +on the whole, we passed the pleasantest, as distinct from the grandest, +week in California, I think we should answer, "At Sisson's, in +Strawberry Valley."</p> + +<p>Sisson was, without exception, the best rifle-shot I ever saw. I have +seen him bring down a hawk soaring as high as I could see it. Before a +target, at any distance usual for such experiments, his aim was +practically unerring. He possessed, in addition, two other prime +qualities of a first-class woodsman,—keen sight for game in covert, and +soft-footedness in stealing on it,—to a degree so unequalled in my +acquaintance that I feel justified in calling him, not only the best +shot, but the best hunter I ever knew. We spent three days in exploring, +sketching, and deer-stalking with him, during all which time he was +never once taken by surprise, but invariably saw his game before it +scented him, and as invariably cracked it over before ourselves, or +another old huntsman with us, had time to say, "Where is it?" Our main +excursion led us about a dozen miles from the house to a lofty ridge, +populous with game, thickly wooded with evergreens, and on its bold +prominences giving us splendid views of Shasta. No height that we could +attain dwarfed the grandeur of the mountain by sinking its base, and no +lateral variation of our standing-points produced any change in its +shape. New delicacies of rock and snow network came out as we shifted, +and the sunlight produced different beauties of color and chiaroscuro in +the glacier-like cradles of its upper ice; but so far as height and form +were concerned, it seemed to have no more parallax than a fixed star. +This fact is of course partly due to its being a nearly regular cone, +but much of it depends on the intrinsic grandeur of a mountain standing +lonely on the plain, full sixty miles in cincture, and in stature nearly +eighteen thousand feet.</p> + +<p>We came back from our expedition with an abundance of venison, a number +of interesting color-studies, and memories of California scenery +surpassed only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> by the Yo-Semite. We had struggled through miles of +<i>chaparral</i>, after which no abatis that I ever saw on the Potomac would +have been any discouragement to us, provided only we had the same +wonderful horses. To get some idea of this peculiarly Californian +institution as we encountered it, imagine a side-hill which would have +given the best horse a hard pull, even had it been bare of undergrowth, +and set this hill as thick as it will hold with <i>manzanita</i> and +burr-oak: the former, as its name implies, like a little apple-tree, +only more viciously gnarled, leathery, and complicated in its boughs +than the most picturesque old russet in a New-England orchard, and +ramifying at once from the root without any main trunk; the latter, an +oak-bush of the same general characteristics, having its swarming +acorn-cups covered with spikes like the chestnut. When these have +interlocked with each other till the earth is invisible and the whole +tract has become a lattice of springes and pitfalls, push a horse +through it three miles up a slope of forty-five degrees, the breast-high +twigs scourging him at every step; and if you get out, as we did, +without a fall or a broken leg to either man or beast, you will not only +have acquired a just idea of the California <i>chaparral</i>, but an +admiration for the California horse which will last you to your +dying-day. To repay us for this struggle, we had found one lake lying in +a precipitous gorge, only twice before visited by white men; while +Bierstadt, always the indefatigable explorer of every party we were in +together, climbed with his color-box to still another lake, of which he +was the first discoverer, and whose lovely lineaments he preserved in +one of the best studies of our trip. Besides these results of our +expedition, we brought away the satisfaction of having leaped our horses +across the Sacramento River. Where it flowed at the bottom of one deep +ravine we had to traverse, it was a foot deep and ten feet wide. The +twig which cracked under my horse's hoof, and fell into the stream as he +sprang over, a month hence might be dashing about in the scud under the +foot of some Pacific whaler, or, still farther off in time, drift into +the harbor of Hong Kong. Rivers always seem to me like the nerves of +Nature: there is no conductor of thought and impression like that little +silver thread which leads out from the ganglion of a deep forest-spring, +to spread, many leagues off, upon the sensory surface of the Oceanic +World. In an earlier article I spoke of the mighty emotions which came +thronging on me at the heads of the Platte and the Colorado: I felt them +only less powerfully when my horse jumped across the Sacramento's +birthplace.</p> + +<p>After a day's rest at Sisson's, we bade the capital fellow and his +excellent wife a good-bye which had more regret in it than we ever felt +before for comrades of a single week's standing, and resumed our +northward journey,—Bierstadt's color-box the fuller by a score of +Shasta studies taken under every possible variety of position, sky, and +time of day.</p> + +<p>The country continued thickly wooded for nearly twenty miles from +Strawberry, and the forest-trail was every now and then drowned out of +sight by streams rushing from the snow of Shasta. When we emerged from +the timber, we found ourselves on a plain opening widely to the north +between diverging ridges, and scattered here and there with black +<i>scoriæ</i> like the slag of a furnace. In some places an attempt had been +made to mend the road with lava, and as it crunched under our horses' +hoofs we could almost imagine ourselves making the circuit of Vesuvius, +so evident was it from the look and feel of things that Pluto has at no +very remote period boiled his dinner-pot on the hob of Shasta Peak.</p> + +<p>The day was fine,—the air more bracing than we had found since leaving +the Yo-Semite. Our week of comparative rest at Sissons had brought our +horses into splendid condition for the road; both we and they were +boiling over with animal spirits; and it was still early in the +afternoon when we rode the fortieth mile of our way into Yreka, on the +full gallop.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> I need not say that we had made other arrangements than +our pommels for the transportation of our heavy baggage to the next +place where we should need it. Sisson, always full of resources, had +taken good care of that for us both.</p> + +<p>Neither to the traveller nor the <i>raconteur</i> is Yreka a place to linger +in. It consists of one long street, with a tolerable brick hotel at one +end, and a kennel of straggling houses swarming with Chinese of ill odor +and worse repute at the other,—intersected by half a dozen narrow +lanes, devoted principally to stables, gambling-shops, and liquor-dens. +I only quote the language of all the inhabitants whom I conversed with, +when I say that such glory as it once held among the northern +mining-towns has entirely departed from it. The discovery of the Boisé +and John-Day mines to the far northeast has attracted away all the +principal gold-seekers who once dug and panned in the vicinity; and if +there ever was a place which had nothing intrinsic to fall back upon, it +is Yreka. We were glad to leave it after one night's rest.</p> + +<p>The day we evacuated it was atmospherically the most glorious that we +enjoyed upon our whole trip. The air had a golden look, as if it not +merely transmitted, but were stained with sunshine. The sky was +spotless, the weather as warm as our mid-June, but without the least +languor. The landscape was that broad plain I have mentioned, with +Shasta on its verge, intersected by low rolling ridges, and broken by +the cones of extinct volcanic spiracles, sometimes grouped, but oftener +isolated. Shasta himself seemed to have gained rather than lost in +majesty by our forty and now steadily increasing miles of distance. +Either from atmospheric effect, or because we now saw a new and more +irregular portion of his crown, the snow upon it became opalescent to a +degree which I have never seen surpassed by any such effect. The light +reflected from it seemed to gleam like a softened flame deep down +beneath some pearly medium, rather than any rebound of sunlight from a +surface.</p> + +<p>The rugged hillocks between which we rode were bare and craggy at their +tops, but all about their base, and far down into the plain, grew +abundance of a plant wonderfully like the heather in its size as well as +in the shape and color of its blossoms. Broad, exquisitely claret-tinted +streaks and patches of this lovely thing softened the landscape +everywhere. We seemed to be travelling in a beautiful confusion of +Nature, where the Scottish Highlands had got together under a California +sky with the Roman Campagna. Throughout this sweet desolation reigned a +visible and audible quiet which made our horses' hoofs seem noisy. +Between Yreka and the Klamath River—a narrow, rapid stream, recalling +some portions of the Housatonic, which we intersected about noon, and +along which we rode for an hour—we met only two or three silent +horsemen and as many eremitic wood-choppers.</p> + +<p>Turning north from the Klamath, we dined at a miserable settlement +called Cottonwood, around which for miles in every direction departed +gold-hunters had burrowed till the ground was a honey-comb, or more +properly a last-year's hornets'-nest, since there was no sign of honey +in the cells, and, from what a most dejected native told us of the +yield, never had been any to speak of.</p> + +<p>Leaving dreary Cottonwood with even greater pleasure than we had felt in +abandoning Yreka, we began ascending the slope toward the Oregon line. +At every mile the country grew lovelier. California seemed determined to +make our last impressions of her tender. The bare, brown rocks became +densely wooded with oaks and evergreens. Late in the afternoon we came +to broad meadows of such refreshing deep-green grass as we had not seen +before since we left the rich farming-lands of the Atlantic side, and +the level golden bars which lay on them between forest-edges made us +homesick with memories of peaceful Eastern lawns at sunset. After +crossing several miles of such meadows, and the quiet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> brooks which ran +through them, we traversed a number of strange low ridges, undulating in +systematic rhythm, like a mountain-chain making a series of false starts +prior to the word "go," reached the true base of the Siskiyou Mountains, +and began our final climb out of the Golden State.</p> + +<p>The road was very uneven, rocky, cut up by rivulets from the higher +ridges, and in most places only a rude dug-way, with a rocky wall on one +side, and a butment of thickly wooded <i>débris</i> steeply descending to a +black brawling torrent on the other. But we did not trouble ourselves +with the road. The wild beauty of the forest absorbed us on either hand; +and we were astonished at the rapid transition which the leaves suddenly +took on, from the dry, burnt look, characteristic of the end of the +California dry season, to autumnal splendors of red and yellow, hardly +rivalled by the numberless varieties of tint in our own October woods. +Just as the sun sank out of sight, we reached a lofty commanding ridge, +stopped to rest, turned around and saw Shasta looming grandly up out of +the valley-twilight, his icy forehead all one mass of gold and ruby +fire. It was one of the grandest mountain-sights I ever looked on: such +a purple hush over the vast level below us; such colossal broad shadows +on the giant's foot; such a wonderful flame on that noble, solitary +head, which, but for the unbroken outlines leading up to it out of the +twilight, might have been only some loftier cloud catching good-night +sun-glimpses at half-way up the firmament. Goodnight from Shasta! Alas, +not only to the sun, but to us! We felt a real pang, as we confessed to +ourselves that we were now looking upon this noblest and serenest, if +not loftiest, of all the mountains in our travel, for the last time in +years,—perhaps the last forever. We gazed wistfully till admonished by +the deepening twilight; then, as Shasta became a shadow on the horizon, +plunged silently into the dense woods again, climbed to the Siskiyou +summit, and, descending through almost jetty darkness, were in Oregon.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>ICE-PERIOD IN AMERICA.</h2> + + +<p>In the autumn of 1846, six years after my visit to Great Britain in +search of glaciers, I sailed for America. When the steamer stopped at +Halifax, eager to set foot on the new continent so full of promise for +me, I sprang on shore and started at a brisk pace for the heights above +the landing. On the first undisturbed ground, after leaving the town, I +was met by the familiar signs, the polished surfaces, the furrows and +scratches, the <i>line-engraving</i> of the glacier, so well known in the Old +World; and I became convinced of what I had already anticipated as the +logical sequence of my previous investigations, that here also this +great agent had been at work, although it was only after a long +residence in America, and repeated investigations of the glacial +phenomena in various parts of the country, that I fully understood the +universality of its action. A detailed description of these appearances +could hardly be more than a monotonous repetition of my statements +respecting their existence in other regions; but the peculiar +configuration of this continent, as compared with the more mountainous +countries of Europe and Asia, has led to some modifications of the same +phenomena here, worthy of special notice.</p> + +<p>Thus far, the traces of ancient glaciers in America have been studied +only east of the Rocky Mountains; little is known<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> of the glaciers still +remaining in the high mountain-ranges dividing the eastern part of the +continent from California, still less respecting any indications of +their former extension. There can be little doubt that such traces +exist, and as soon as the so-called <i>parks</i> between Pike's Peak and Long +Peak are explored, we may hope for information on this point. Indeed, +the investigation may be spoken of as already undertaken; for among the +exploring parties now on their way to that region are some intelligent +observers who will not fail to make this point a subject of special +study. But it is well known that the usual characteristic marks of +glaciers extend over the whole surface of the land in the eastern half +of the continent, from the Atlantic shores to the States west of the +Mississippi, and from the Arctic Sea to the latitude of the Ohio, in its +middle course, while within the range of the Alleghanies they stretch as +far south as Georgia and Alabama. In no other region where these traces +have been observed do they extend over such wide tracts of country in +unbroken continuity, this being of course owing to the level character +of the land itself.</p> + +<p>The continent of North America, east of the Rocky Mountains, is, indeed, +an immense uniform plain, intersected from east to west only by the +ranges of low hills running in the direction of the St. Lawrence and the +Canadian lakes, and from northeast to southwest by the Alleghany range +stretching from Alabama to New England, where it trends towards the +Canadian hills in the ridges known as the Green and White Mountains. +This coast-range has a short slope towards the Atlantic, and a long one +in the direction of the great Mississippi valley. With the exception of +some higher points of the Alleghany range, the surface of this whole +plain is glacier-worn from the Arctic regions to about the fortieth +degree of northern latitude, the glacier-marks trending from north to +south, with occasional slight inclinations to the east or west, +according to the minor inequalities of the surface. There is, however, +no decided modification of their general trend in consequence of the +range of hills intersecting them at right angles for nearly the whole +width of the continent between latitudes forty-six and fifty; indeed, +the Canadian, or, as they are sometimes called, the Laurentian Hills, +formed a no more powerful barrier to the onward progress of the immense +fields of ice covering the continent than did the small hummocks, or +<i>roches moutonnées</i>, in the Swiss valleys to the advance of the Alpine +glaciers. In fact, these low hills may be considered as a succession of +<i>roches moutonnées</i>, trending in a continuous ridge from east to west, +over which the masses of northern ice have moved unimpeded to the +latitude of the Ohio.</p> + +<p>Owing to the absence of high mountain-ranges over this vast expanse of +land, the glacial phenomena of America are not grouped about special +centres of dispersion, or radiating from them, as in Europe. During the +greatest extension of the ice-fields, there were but few prominent peaks +rising above them, and dropping here and there huge boulders on their +surface, to be transported to great distances without losing their rough +angular character. And when the temperature under which these vast +frozen masses had been formed rose again, the wasting ice must have +yielded first on its southern boundary, gradually and uniformly +retreating to the Arctic regions, without breaking up into distinct +glacial regions, separated from one another, each with its local +distribution of erratic boulders and glacier-marks radiating from +circumscribed areas on higher levels, as they occur everywhere in +Europe. It is true that there are a few localities within the Alleghany +range, on the Green and White Mountains, and in parts of Maine, where it +is evident that local glaciers have had a temporary existence; but even +throughout this eastern coast-range the elevation of the mountains is so +slight, and their trend so uniform in a northeasterly and southwesterly +direction through twenty degrees of latitude, that the localization of +the phenomena is less marked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> than in Norway, Great Britain, or +Switzerland. In short, the ice of the great glacial period in America +moved over the continent as one continuous sheet, overriding nearly all +the inequalities of the surface. Thus the peculiar physical character of +the country gives a new aspect to the study of glacial evidences here. +The polished surfaces stretch continuously over hundreds and hundreds of +miles; the rectilinear scratches, grooves, and furrows are unbroken for +great distances; the drift spreads in one vast sheet over the whole +land, consisting of an indiscriminate medley of clays, sands, gravels, +pebbles, boulders of all dimensions, and so uniformly mixed together +that it presents hardly any difference in its composition, whether we +examine it in New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, +Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, in Iowa beyond the Mississippi, in the +more northern Territories, or in Canada.</p> + +<p>In Europe, boulders of large dimensions do not often occur within the +drift, but are usually resting above it with their sharp angles and +rough surfaces unchanged, having travelled evidently upon the glacier +and not under it. But such large boulders, polished and scratched like +the smaller pebbles, are to be found everywhere imbedded in American +drift, while the angular fragments of rock resting above these +triturated masses are comparatively rare.<a name="FNanchor_H_8" id="FNanchor_H_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_H_8" class="fnanchor">[H]</a> It is evident from this +that the ice overtopped the rocky inequalities of the land, and that the +detached fragments remaining beneath the icy covering underwent the same +action from friction and pressure to which the whole mass of drift was +subjected. The distribution of the few angular boulders scattered over +the country no doubt began when some of the higher portions of the land +had emerged from the mass of snow and ice; and they are most frequent in +New England, where the mountain-elevation is greatest.</p> + +<p>The mineralogical character of the loose materials forming the American +drift leaves no doubt that the whole movement, with the exception of a +few local modifications easily accounted for by the lay of the land, was +from north to south, all the fragments not belonging to the localities +where they occur being readily traced to rocks <i>in situ</i> to the north of +their present resting-places. The farther one journeys from their +origin, the more extraordinary does the presence of these boulders +become. It strikes one strangely to find even in New England fragments +of rock from the shores of Lake Superior; but it is still more +impressive to meet with masses of northern rock on the prairies of +Illinois or Iowa. One may follow these boulders to the fortieth degree +of latitude, beyond which they become more and more rare, while the +finer drift alone extends farther south.</p> + +<p>It is not only, however, by tracking the boulders back to their origin +in the North that we ascertain the starting-point of the whole mass; we +have another kind of evidence to this effect, already alluded to in the +description of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> <i>roches moutonnées</i>. Wherever the natural surface of +any hill, having a steep southern slope, is exposed, the marks are +always found to be very distinct on the northern side and entirely +wanting on the southern one, showing, that, as in the case of many of +the <i>roches moutonnées</i> in Switzerland, the mass moved up the northern +slope, forcing its way against it, grinding and furrowing the northern +face of the hill as it moved over it, but bridging the opposite side in +its descent without coming into contact with it.<a name="FNanchor_I_9" id="FNanchor_I_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_I_9" class="fnanchor">[I]</a> This is true, not +only of hills, but of much slighter obstacles which presented themselves +in the path of the ice. Even pebbles imbedded in masses of +pudding-stone, but rising sometimes above the level of the general +surface, often have their northern side polished and scratched, while +the southern one remains untouched.</p> + +<p>Moraines are not wanting to complete the chain of evidence respecting +the ancient existence of glaciers in this country, although we cannot +expect to find them here so frequently as in Europe, where the many +local glaciers in circumscribed valleys afforded special facilities for +the building up of these lateral and transverse walls. Over the broad +expanse of the United States, on the contrary, with such slight +variations of level, the disappearance of the ice at its breaking-up +would naturally be more complete and continuous than in a country +intersected by frequent mountain-chains, where the ice would linger in +the higher valleys long after it had disappeared from the plains below. +Yet it is evident that here also in certain localities the boundary-line +of the ice underwent oscillations, pausing here and there long enough to +collect mounds of the same character as those spanning the valleys of +Switzerland and Great Britain. We have several of these mounds in our +immediate vicinity. The Waverley Oaks, so well known to all lovers of +fine trees in our community, stand on an ancient moraine, and there are +others in the neighborhood of the Blue Hills. In the southeastern parts +of Maine, also, I have observed very well-defined moraines. In Vermont, +the valley of the Winooski River retains ample traces of the local +glacier by which it was formerly filled; and, indeed, throughout the +Alleghany range, in its northeastern as well as its southern extension, +we have various evidences of localized glaciers, which must have +outlived the general ice-period for a longer or shorter time.</p> + +<p>I am unwilling to weary my readers by dwelling upon appearances +identical with those already described; but I may state, for the +guidance of those who wish to investigate these traces for themselves, +that any recently uncovered ledge of rock in our neighborhood, the +surface of which has not been altered by atmospheric agencies, presents +the glacier-worn surfaces with the characteristic <i>striæ</i> and furrows. +These marks may be traced everywhere, even to the sea-shore, not only +down to the water's edge, but beneath it, where-ever the harder rocks +have resisted the action of the tides and retain their original +character. In our granitic regions intersected by innumerable trap +dikes, as, for instance, at Nahant, the smooth surface of many of the +rocks, where sienite and trap have been evenly levelled, shows that the +same inexorable saw, cutting alike through hard and soft materials, has +passed over them. In the hills of pudding-stone in the neighborhood of +Roxbury, we have quartz pebbles cut down to the same level with the +softer paste in which they lie imbedded with pebbles of sandstone, +clay-slate, gneiss, and limestone. In the limestone regions of Western +New York and Northern Ohio, about the neighborhood of Buffalo and +Cleveland, the flat surfaces of the limestone are most uniformly +polished, furrowed, and scratched, the furrows often exhibiting that +<i>staccato</i> grating action described in a former article. I have observed +the same traces in the vicinity of Milwaukee and Iowa City, and we know, +from the accounts given by Arctic travellers of their overland +expeditions, that these peculiar appearances of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> the surface are +characteristic of the rocks in those regions, wherever they are not +disintegrating under the influence of the present atmospheric agents.</p> + +<p>Upon these surfaces, through the whole expanse of the country, rests the +drift, having everywhere the characteristic composition of +glacier-drift, and nowhere that of an aqueous stratified deposit, except +when afterwards remodelled by the action of water. But of this +stratified drift I shall have occasion to speak more in detail +hereafter. There is, however, one circumstance, of frequent occurrence +along our New-England shores, requiring special explanation, because it +is generally misunderstood. Along our sea-shore, and even within the +harbor of Boston, at the base of the harbor-islands, as well as at the +outlet of our larger Atlantic streams, numbers of boulders are found of +considerable size; and this fact is often adduced as showing the power +of water to transport massive fragments of rock to great distances, the +mineralogical character of these boulders being frequently such as to +show that they cannot have originated in the neighborhood of their +present resting-places. But a careful examination of the surrounding +country, and a comparison of the nature and level of the drift on the +mainland with those of the same deposits on the harbor-islands, (a +series of evidence to be given with more detail in a future article,) +suggest a different explanation of these phenomena. The sheet of drift +was once more continuous and extensive than it is now, and the +localities in which we find these crops of boulders are spots where the +tide has eaten into the drift, wearing away the finer materials, or the +paste in which the larger fragments were imbedded, and allowing them to +fall to the bottom, or where the same result has been produced by the +action of rivers cutting their way through the drift, and thus finding +an outlet to the sea. In short, instead of showing the power of currents +to carry along heavy fragments, these stranded boulders prove, on the +contrary, the inability of water to produce any such effect, since it is +evident that the tides washing against the shore, or the rivers rushing +down to the sea, were equally incapable of bearing off the weightier +materials, and allowed them to drop to the bottom, while they readily +swept away the lighter ones. Such localities compare with the +surrounding drift much as the bottom of a gravel-pit which has been +partially worked compares with its banks. Look into any gravel-pit, a +portion of which has already been carted away. At its bottom a number of +larger stones and boulders are usually lying, too heavy for the cart, +and therefore left upon the spot. Fragments of the same size and +character, and equally numerous, will be seen protruding at various +heights from the sides, where they are imbedded in the general mass of +the drift. As soon as the work progresses a little farther, and the +finer materials are removed, these boulders will also drop out, and lie +as thickly scattered over the surface of the ground, as they now do in +that portion of the bottom where the pit has been completely opened and +the gravel removed. We shall see hereafter how these boulders, derived +from the land-drift and scattered along the coast, may be distinguished +from those cast ashore by icebergs.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding the number of facts thus far collected respecting +glacial phenomena in America, certainly forming in their combination a +very strong chain of evidence, the scientific world has, nevertheless, +been slow to admit the possibility of the former existence of glaciers +over such a wide, unbroken expanse of level land. This backwardness is, +no doubt, partly due to the fact, that, as glaciers have hitherto been +studied in mountainous countries, their presence has been supposed to +imply the presence of mountains, this impression being strengthened by +the downward and onward movement of existing glaciers, so long supposed +to be exclusively due to the slopes along which all modern glaciers +advance. Were it true that glaciers move solely or mainly on account of +the sloping bottom on which they rest, and that they can advance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> only +on an inclined plane, all the phenomena concerning drift, polished and +furrowed surfaces, boulders, etc., in America, would hardly justify us +in assuming a moving sheet of ice as their cause. But we have seen that +the phenomena of glaciers, like those of currents, are in great part +meteorological. The Gulf-Stream does not flow toward the English shore +because the ocean-bottom slopes eastward; nor does the cold current of +Baffin's Bay run down-hill when it pours its icy waters southward upon +our northeast coast. Their course is determined by laws of temperature, +and so have we also seen that the motion of glaciers is mainly +determined by conditions of temperature, although, in this case, an +internal mechanical action is combined with external influences; and +while it is true that glaciers, as they now exist, are dependent upon +the shape of the valleys in lofty mountain-chains, yet under different +geographical conditions the same phenomena may be produced over level, +open countries.</p> + +<p>I believe that circumstances similar to those determining the more rapid +advance of the glaciers from higher to lower levels at that point where +the alternate thawing and freezing, the infiltration of water and +consequent expansion of the ice under frost, are greatest, would also +determine the motion of a large body of ice from north to south, since +it would be along its southern limits that these conditions would +prevail; while the great reservoir of snow at the north would correspond +to the upper troughs of the present glaciers, from which their lower +ranges are constantly fed. The change of snow into ice is owing to +alterations of temperature, to partial melting and subsequent freezing, +constantly renewed,—and also to the sinking of the mass upon itself in +consequence of its own weight, the lower portions being thus forced out +by the pressure of the superincumbent ice. Upon an inclined plane the +movement consequent upon these changes will of course be downward; but +what would be the result, if a field of snow many thousand feet thick, +corresponding, except in its greater bulk, to the accumulations by which +the present glaciers are caused, were stretched over an extensive level +surface? The moisture from the upper superficial layers would permeate +the larger mass as it now does the smaller one, trickling down into its +lower portions, while the pressure from above would render the bottom +hard and compact, changing it gradually into ice. If this should take +place under climatic conditions which would keep the whole as a mass in +a frozen state, the pressure from above would force out the lower ice in +every direction beyond its original circumscription, thus enlarging the +area covered by it, while the whole would subside in its bulk. Let us +for a moment assume that such an accumulation of snow takes place around +the northern and southern poles, stretching thence over the northern and +southern hemispheres to latitude forty, and that this field of snow +acquires a thickness of from twelve to fifteen thousand feet. Such a +mass would subside upon itself in consequence of its own weight; it +would be transformed into ice with greater or less rapidity and +completeness, according to the latitude determining the surrounding +climatic influences and the amount of moisture falling upon it as rain +or dew, the alternations of temperature being of course more frequent +and greater along its outer limit. In proportion as, with the rising of +the temperature, these alternations became more general, a packing of +the mass would begin, corresponding to that observed in the glacial +valleys of Switzerland, though here the action would not be intensified +by lateral pressure; an internal movement of the whole mass would be +initiated, and the result could be no other than a uniform advance in a +southerly direction from the Arctic toward the more temperate latitudes +in Europe, Asia, and North America, and from the Antarctic toward South +America, the Cape of Good Hope, and Van Diemen's Land. But we need not +build up a theoretical case in order<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> to form an approximate idea of the +great ice-sheet stretching over the northern part of this continent +during the glacial period. It would seem that man was intended to +decipher the past history of his home, for some remnants or traces of +all its great events are left as a key to the whole. Greenland and the +Arctic regions hold all that remains of the glacial period in North +America. Their shrunken ice-fields, formidable as they seem to us, are +to the frozen masses of that secular winter but as the patches of snow +and ice lingering on the north side of our hills after the spring has +opened; let us expand them in imagination till they extend over half the +continent, and we shall have a sufficiently vivid picture of this frozen +world. And a temperature which would bring the climate of Greenland down +to the fortieth degree of latitude would not only render the field of +ice far more extensive, but thousands of feet thicker than it is at +present. The physical configuration of Greenland also confirms the +possibility of a glacial period in America, for there we have at this +moment a wide expanse of land unbroken by mountains, over which a +uniform sheet of ice moves southward, with occasional variations of its +trend according to the undulations of the surface. The interesting +accounts of Dr. Rink show that in reality Greenland is a miniature +picture of the ice-period. The immense number of icebergs breaking off +and floating southward every summer gives us some idea of the annual +waste and renewal of the ice. How can we doubt, that, when, under the +same latitude, Norway, Sweden, Scotland, England, and Ireland were +covered by sheets of ice many thousand feet in height, the ice-fields of +Greenland must have shared in the same climatic influences, and have +been much thicker and far more extensive than they are at present?</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding the absence of lofty mountain-chains in America, we are +not wholly without the means of measuring the thickness of the +ice-sheet, by comparing it, as in Europe, with some of our highest +elevations. The slopes of the Alleghany range, wherever they have been +examined, are glacier-worn to the very top, with the exception of a few +points; but these points are sufficient to give us data for the +comparison. Mount Washington, for instance, is over six thousand feet +high, and the rough, unpolished surface of its summit, covered with +loose fragments, just below the level of which glacier-marks come to an +end, tells us that it lifted its head alone above the desolate waste of +ice and snow. In this region, then, the thickness of the sheet cannot +have been much less than six thousand feet, and this is in keeping with +the same kind of evidence in other parts of the country; for, wherever +the mountains are much below six thousand feet, the ice seems to have +passed directly over them, while the few peaks rising to that height are +left untouched. And while we can thus sink our plummet from the summit +to the base of Mount Washington and measure the thickness of the mass of +ice, we have a no less accurate indication of its extension in the +undulating line marking the southern termination of the drift. I have +shown that the moraines mark the oscillations of the glaciers in Europe. +Where such accumulations of loose materials took place at its terminus, +there we know the glacier must have held its ground long enough to allow +time for the collection of these <i>débris</i>. In the same way we may trace +the southern border of our ancient ice-sheet on this continent by the +limit of the boulders; beyond that line it evidently did not advance as +a solid mass, since it ceased to transport the heavier materials. But as +soon as the outskirts of the ice began to yield and to flow off as +water, the lighter portions of the drift were swept onward; and hence we +find a sheet of finer drift-deposit, sand and gravel more or less +distinctly stratified, carried to greater or less distances, and fading +into the Southern States, where it mingles with the most recent +river-deposits.</p> + +<p>One naturally asks, What was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> use of this great engine set at work +ages ago to grind, furrow, and knead over, as it were, the surface of +the earth? We have our answer in the fertile soil which spreads over the +temperate regions of the globe. The glacier was God's great plough; and +when the ice vanished from the face of the land, it left it prepared for +the hand of the husbandman. The hard surface of the rocks was ground to +powder, the elements of the soil were mingled in fair proportions, +granite was carried into the lime regions, lime was mingled with the +more arid and unproductive granite districts, and a soil was prepared +fit for the agricultural uses of man. I have been asked whether this +inference was not inconsistent with the fact that a rich vegetation +preceded the ice-period,—a vegetation sufficiently abundant to sustain +the tropical animals then living throughout the temperate regions. But +the vegetation which has succeeded the ice-period is of a different +character, and one that could not have flourished on a soil that would +nourish a more tropical growth. The soil we have now over the temperate +zone is a grain-growing soil,—one especially adapted to those plants +most necessary to the higher domestic and social organizations of the +human race. Therefore I think we may believe that God did not shroud the +world He had made in snow and ice without a purpose, and that this, like +many other operations of His Providence, seemingly destructive and +chaotic in its first effects, is nevertheless a work of beneficence and +order.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In the next article, in order to put the reader in possession of the +glacial question as it stands at present, I shall say something of the +possible causes of this extraordinary accumulation of snow,—though all +such explanations are thus far mere suggestions,—and shall also give +some more precise estimates of the changes of temperature involved in +the history of the glacial period, before proceeding to the +consideration of the effects produced by the breaking-up of the ice, as +shown in our stratified lowland drift, and in our estuaries and +river-terraces.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<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> The greater proportion of large, rounded boulders in the +American drift, as compared with the European, is a singular fact not +fully met by the above explanation; since, while the number of +mountain-peaks rising above the ice in Europe would account for the +frequency of large angular fragments transported upon its surface, there +would seem to be no reason why the drift, carried along by a mass of ice +having the same thickness in both continents, should not contain as many +rounded masses in one as in the other. The facts, however, are as I have +stated them, and the difference may be due partly to the broken +character of the ground over which the drift must have passed in Europe, +subjecting it to a more violent process of friction and grinding than in +America, and partly to the use that has been made of the drift-boulders +during so many centuries for building-purposes in the Old World, the +drift-boulders being naturally taken first, because they are more easily +reached, while the angular ones are frequently perched on almost +inaccessible spots. Indeed, the stone fences in both countries tell us +the use to which many of the rounded boulders have been put, and the +ground in many parts of the United States has already been cleared to a +great extent of its rocky fragments for this and like purposes. In the +course of time they will, no doubt, disappear from the surface of this +country, as they have done from that of Europe.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_I_9" id="Footnote_I_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_I_9"><span class="label">[I]</span></a> Fuller descriptions of these polished hills may be found in +my work on Lake Superior.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS.</h2> + +<h3>BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD.</h3> + + +<h4>VII.</h4> + +<p>While I was preparing my article for the "Atlantic," our friend Bob +Stephens burst in upon us, in some considerable heat, with a newspaper +in his hand.</p> + +<p>"Well, girls, your time is come now! You women have been preaching +heroism and sacrifice to us,—so splendid to go forth and suffer and die +for our country,—and now comes the test of feminine patriotism."</p> + +<p>"Why, what's the matter now?" said Jennie, running eagerly to look over +his shoulder at the paper.</p> + +<p>"No more foreign goods," said he, waving it aloft,—"no more gold +shipped to Europe for silks, laces, jewels, kid gloves, and what-not. +Here it is,—great movement, headed by senators' and generals' wives, +Mrs. General Butler, Mrs. John P. Hale, Mrs. Henry Wilson, and so on, a +long string of them, to buy no more imported articles during the war."</p> + +<p>"But I don't see how it <i>can</i> be done," said Jennie.</p> + +<p>"Why," said I, "do you suppose that 'nothing to wear' is made in +America?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But, dear Mr. Crowfield," said Miss Featherstone, a nice girl, who was +just then one of our family-circle, "there is not, positively, much that +is really fit to use or wear made in America,—<i>is</i> there now? Just +think; how is Marianne to furnish her house here without French papers +and English carpets?—those American papers are so common, and as to +American carpets, everybody knows their colors don't hold; and then, as +to dress, a lady must have gloves, you know,—and everybody knows no +such things are made in America as gloves."</p> + +<p>"I think," I said, "that I have heard of certain fair ladies wishing +that they were men, that they might show with what alacrity they would +sacrifice everything on the altar of their country: life and limb would +be nothing; they would glory in wounds and bruises, they would enjoy +losing a right arm, they wouldn't mind limping about on a lame leg the +rest of their lives, <i>if they were John or Peter</i>, if only they might +serve their dear country."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Bob, "that's female patriotism! Girls are always ready to +jump off from precipices, or throw themselves into abysses, but as to +wearing an unfashionable hat or thread gloves, that they can't do,—not +even for their dear country. No matter whether there's any money left to +pay for the war or not, the dear souls must have twenty yards of silk in +a dress,—it's the fashion, you know."</p> + +<p>"Now, isn't he too bad?" said Marianne. "As if we'd ever been asked to +make these sacrifices and refused! I think I have seen women ready to +give up dress and fashion and everything else, for a good cause."</p> + +<p>"For that matter," said I, "the history of all wars has shown women +ready to sacrifice what is most intimately feminine in times of peril to +their country. The women of Carthage not only gave up their jewels in +the siege of their city, but, in the last extremity, cut off their hair +for bow-strings. The women of Hungary and Poland, in their country's +need, sold their jewels and plate and wore ornaments of iron and lead. +In the time of our own Revolution, our women dressed in plain homespun +and drank herb-tea,—and certainly nothing is more feminine than a cup +of tea. And in this very struggle, the women of the Southern States have +cut up their carpets for blankets, have borne the most humiliating +retrenchments and privations of all kinds without a murmur. So let us +exonerate the female sex of want of patriotism, at any rate."</p> + +<p>"Certainly," said my wife; "and if our Northern women have not +retrenched and made sacrifices, it has been because it has not been +impressed on them that there is any particular call for it. Everything +has seemed to be so prosperous and plentiful in the Northern States, +money has been so abundant and easy to come by, that it has really been +difficult to realize that a dreadful and destructive war was raging. +Only occasionally, after a great battle, when the lists of the killed +and wounded have been sent through the country, have we felt that we +were making a sacrifice. The women who have spent such sums for laces +and jewels and silks have not had it set clearly before them why they +should not do so. The money has been placed freely in their hands, and +the temptation before their eyes."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Jennie, "I am quite sure that there are hundreds who have +been buying foreign goods, who would not do it, if they could see any +connection between their not doing it and the salvation of the country; +but when I go to buy a pair of gloves, I naturally want the best pair I +can find, the pair that will last the longest and look the best, and +these always happen to be French gloves."</p> + +<p>"Then," said Miss Featherstone, "I never could clearly see why people +should confine their patronage and encouragement to works of their own +country. I'm sure the poor manufacturers of England have shown the very +noblest spirit with relation to our cause, and so have the silk-weavers +and artisans of France,—at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> least, so I have heard; why should we not +give them a fair share of encouragement, particularly when they make +things that we are not in circumstances to make, have not the means to +make?"</p> + +<p>"Those are certainly sensible questions," I replied, "and ought to meet +a fair answer, and I should say, that, were our country in a fair +ordinary state of prosperity, there would be no reason why our wealth +should not flow out for the encouragement of well-directed industry in +any part of the world; from this point of view we might look on the +whole world as our country, and cheerfully assist in developing its +wealth and resources. But our country is now in the situation of a +private family whose means are absorbed by an expensive sickness, +involving the life of its head; just now it is all we can do to keep the +family together, all our means are swallowed up by our own domestic +wants, we have nothing to give for the encouragement of other families, +we must exist ourselves, we must get through this crisis and hold our +own, and that we may do it all the family-expenses must be kept within +ourselves as far as possible. If we drain off all the gold of the +country to send to Europe to encourage her worthy artisans, we produce +high prices and distress among equally worthy ones at home, and we +lessen the amount of our resources for maintaining the great struggle +for national existence. The same amount of money which we pay for +foreign luxuries, if passed into the hands of our own manufacturers and +producers, becomes available for the increasing expenses of the war."</p> + +<p>"But, papa," said Jennie, "I understood that a great part of our +Governmental income was derived from the duties on foreign goods and so +I inferred that the more foreign goods were imported the better it would +be."</p> + +<p>"Well, suppose," said I, "that for every hundred thousand dollars we +send out of the country we pay the Government ten thousand; that is +about what our gain as a nation would be;—we send our gold abroad in a +great stream, and give our Government a little driblet."</p> + +<p>"Well, but," said Miss Featherstone, "<i>what can be got in America?</i> +Hardly anything, I believe, except common calicoes."</p> + +<p>"Begging your pardon, my dear lady," said I, "there is where you and +multitudes of others are greatly mistaken. Your partiality for foreign +things has kept you ignorant of what you have at home. Now I am not +blaming the love of foreign things; it is not peculiar to us Americans; +all nations have it. It is a part of the poetry of our nature to love +what comes from afar, and reminds us of lands distant and different from +our own. The English belles seek after French laces; the French beauty +enumerates English laces among her rarities; and the French dandy piques +himself upon an English tailor. We Americans are great travellers, and +few people travel, I fancy, with more real enjoyment than we; our +domestic establishments, as compared with those of the Old World, are +less cumbrous and stately, and so our money is commonly in hand as +pocket-money, to be spent freely and gayly in our tours abroad.</p> + +<p>"We have such bright and pleasant times in every country that we +conceive a kindliness for its belongings. To send to Paris for our +dresses and our shoes and our gloves may not be a mere bit of foppery, +but a reminder of the bright, pleasant hours we have spent in that city +of Boulevards and fountains. Hence it comes, in a way not very blamable, +that many people have been so engrossed with what can be got from abroad +that they have neglected to inquire what can be found at home; they have +supposed, of course, that to get a decent watch they must send to Geneva +or to London,—that to get thoroughly good carpets they must have the +English manufacture,—that a really tasteful wall-paper could be found +only in Paris,—and that flannels and broadcloths could come only from +France, Great Britain, or Germany."</p> + +<p>"Well, isn't it so?" said Miss Featherstone.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> "I certainly have always +thought so; I never heard of American watches, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>"Then," said I, "I'm sure you can't have read an article that you should +have read on the Waltham watches, written by our friend George W. +Curtis, in the "Atlantic" for January of last year. I must refer you to +that to learn that we make in America watches superior to those of +Switzerland or England, bringing into the service machinery and modes of +workmanship unequalled for delicacy and precision; as I said before, you +must get the article and read it, and if some sunny day you could make a +trip to Waltham, and see the establishment, it would greatly assist your +comprehension."</p> + +<p>"Then, as to men's clothing," said Bob, "I know to my entire +satisfaction that many of the most popular cloths for men's wear are +actually American fabrics baptized with French and English names to make +them sell."</p> + +<p>"Which shows," said I, "the use of a general community-movement to +employ American goods. It will change the fashion. The demand will +create the supply. When the leaders of fashion are inquiring for +American instead of French and English fabrics, they will be surprised +to find what nice American articles there are. The work of our own hands +will no more be forced to skulk into the market under French and English +names, and we shall see, what is really true, that an American gentleman +need not look beyond his own country for a wardrobe befitting him. I am +positive that we need not seek broadcloth or other woollen goods from +foreign lands,—that <i>better</i> hats are made in America than in Europe, +and better boots and shoes; and I should be glad to send an American +gentleman to the World's Fair dressed from top to toe in American +manufactures, with an American watch in his pocket, and see if he would +suffer in comparison with the gentlemen of any other country."</p> + +<p>"Then, as to house-furnishing," began my wife, "American carpets are +getting to be every way equal to the English."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said I, "and what is more, the Brussels carpets of England are +woven on looms invented by an American, and bought of him. Our +countryman, Bigelow, went to England to study carpet-weaving in the +English looms,—supposing that all arts were generously open for the +instruction of learners. He was denied the opportunity of studying the +machinery and watching the processes by a short-sighted jealousy. He +immediately sat down with a yard of carpeting, and, patiently +unravelling it, thread by thread, combined and calculated till he +invented the machinery on which the best carpets of the Old and New +World are woven. No pains which such ingenuity and energy can render +effective are spared to make our fabrics equal those of the British +market, and we need only to be disabused of the old prejudice, and to +keep up with the movement of our own country, and find out our own +resources. The fact is, every year improves our fabrics. Our mechanics, +our manufacturers, are working with an energy, a zeal, and a skill that +carry things forward faster than anybody dreams of; and nobody can +predicate the character of American articles, in any department, now, by +their character even five years ago."</p> + +<p>"Well, as to wall-papers," said Miss Featherstone, "there you must +confess the French are and must be unequalled."</p> + +<p>"I do not confess any such thing," said I, hardily. "I grant you that in +that department of paper-hangings which exhibits floral decoration the +French designs and execution are and must be for some time to come far +ahead of all the world,—their drawing of flowers, vines, and foliage +has the accuracy of botanical studies and the grace of finished works of +art, and we cannot as yet pretend in America to do anything equal to it. +But for satin finish, and for a variety of exquisite tints of plain +colors, American papers equal any in the world;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> our gilt papers even +surpass in the heaviness and polish of the gilding those of foreign +countries; and we have also gorgeous velvets. All I have to say is, let +people who are furnishing houses inquire for articles of American +manufacture, and they will be surprised at what they will see. We need +go no farther than our Cambridge glass-works to see that the most dainty +devices of cut-glass, crystal, ground and engraved glass of every color +and pattern, may be had of American workmanship, every way equal to the +best European make, and for half the price. In fact, it would require +very little self-denial to resolve to carpet and paper and furnish a +house entirely from the manufactures of America."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Miss Featherstone, "there is one point you cannot make +out,—gloves; certainly the French have the monopoly of that article."</p> + +<p>"I am not going to ruin my cause by asserting too much," said I. "I +haven't been with nicely dressed women so many years not to speak with +proper respect of Alexander's gloves,—and I confess, honestly, that to +forego them must be a fair, square sacrifice to patriotism. But then, on +the other hand, it is nevertheless true that gloves have long been made +in America and surreptitiously brought into market as French. I have +lately heard that very nice kid gloves are made at Watertown and in +Philadelphia. I have only heard of them, and not seen. A loud demand +might bring forth an unexpected supply from these and other sources. If +the women of America were bent on having gloves made in their own +country, how long would it be before apparatus and factories would +spring into being? Look at the hoop-skirt factories,—women wanted +hoop-skirts,—would have them or die,—and forthwith factories arose, +and hoop-skirts became as the dust of the earth for abundance."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Miss Featherstone, "and, to say the truth, the American +hoop-skirts are the only ones fit to wear. When we were living on the +Champs Élysées, I remember we searched high and low for something like +them, and finally had to send home to America for some."</p> + +<p>"Well," said I, "that shows what I said. Let there be only a hearty call +for an article, and it will come. These spirits of the vasty deep are +not so very far off, after all, as we may imagine, and women's unions +and leagues will lead to inquiries and demands which will as infallibly +bring supplies as a vacuum will create a draught of air."</p> + +<p>"But, at least, there are no ribbons made in America," said Miss +Featherstone.</p> + +<p>"Pardon, my lady, there is a ribbon-factory now in operation in Boston, +and ribbons of every color are made in New York; there is also in the +vicinity of Boston a factory which makes Roman scarfs. This shows that +the faculty of weaving ribbons is not wanting to us Americans, and a +zealous patronage would increase the supply.</p> + +<p>"As to silks and satins, I am not going to pretend that they are to be +found here. It is true, there are silk manufactories, like that of the +Cheneys in Connecticut, where very pretty foulard dress-silks are made, +together with sewing-silk enough to supply a large demand. Enough has +been done to show that silks might be made in America; but at present, +as compared with Europe, we claim neither silks nor thread laces among +our manufactures.</p> + +<p>"But what then? These are not necessaries of life. Ladies can be very +tastefully dressed in other fabrics besides silks. There are many pretty +American dress-goods which the leaders of fashion might make +fashionable; and certainly no leader of fashion could wish to dress for +a nobler object than to aid her country in deadly peril.</p> + +<p>"It is not a life-pledge, not a total abstinence, that is asked,—only a +temporary expedient to meet a stringent crisis. Surely, women whose +exertions in Sanitary Fairs have created an era in the history of the +world will not shrink from so small a sacrifice for so obvious a good.</p> + +<p>"Here is something in which every individual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> woman can help. Every +woman who goes into a shop and asks for American goods renders an +appreciable aid to our cause. She expresses her opinion and her +patriotism; and her voice forms a part of that demand which shall arouse +and develop the resources of her country. We shall learn to know our own +country. We shall learn to respect our own powers,—and every branch of +useful labor will spring and flourish under our well-directed efforts. +We shall come out of our great contest, not bedraggled, ragged, and +poverty-stricken, but developed, instructed, and rich. Then will we +gladly join with other nations in the free interchange of manufactures, +and gratify our eye and taste with what is foreign, while we can in turn +send abroad our own productions in equal ratio."</p> + +<p>"Upon my word," said Miss Featherstone, "I should think it was the +Fourth of July,—but I yield the point. I am convinced; and henceforth +you will see me among the most stringent of the leaguers."</p> + +<p>"Right!" said I.</p> + +<p>And, fair lady-reader, let me hope you will say the same. You can do +something for your country,—it lies right in your hand. Go to the +shops, determined on supplying your family and yourself with American +goods. Insist on having them; raise the question of origin over every +article shown to you. In the Revolutionary times, some of the leading +matrons of New England gave parties where the ladies were dressed in +homespun and drank sage-tea. Fashion makes all things beautiful, and +you, my charming and accomplished friend, can create beauty by creating +fashion. What makes the beauty of half the Cashmere shawls? Not anything +in the shawls themselves, for they look coarse and dingy. It is the +association with style and fashion. Fair lady, give style and fashion to +the products of your own country,—resolve that the money in your hand +shall go to your brave brothers, to your co-Americans, now straining +every nerve to uphold the nation, and cause it to stand high in the +earth. What are you without your country? As Americans you can hope for +no rank but the rank of your native land, no badge of nobility but her +beautiful stars. It rests with this conflict to decide whether those +stars shall be badges of nobility to you and your children in all lands. +Women of America, your country expects every woman to do her duty!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>HAWTHORNE.</h2> + + +<p>It is with a sad pleasure that the readers of this magazine will see in +its pages the first chapter of "The Dolliver Romance," the latest record +of Nathaniel Hawthorne meant for the public eye. The charm of his +description and the sweet flow of his style will lead all who open upon +it to read on to the closing paragraph. With its harmonious cadences the +music of this quaint, mystic overture is suddenly hushed, and we seem to +hear instead the tolling of a bell in the far distance. The procession +of shadowy characters which was gathering in our imaginations about the +ancient man and the little child who come so clearly before our sight +seems to fade away, and in its place a slow-pacing train winds through +the village-road and up the wooded hill-side until it stops at a little +opening among the tall trees. There the bed is made in which he whose +dreams had peopled our common life with shapes and thoughts of beauty +and wonder is to take his rest. This is the end of the first chapter we +have been reading, and of that other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> first chapter in the life of an +Immortal, whose folded pages will be opened, we trust, in the light of a +brighter day.</p> + +<p>It was my fortune to be among the last of the friends who looked upon +Hawthorne's living face. Late in the afternoon of the day before he left +Boston on his last journey I called upon him at the hotel where he was +staying. He had gone out but a moment before. Looking along the street, +I saw a figure at some distance in advance which could only be his,—but +how changed from his former port and figure! There was no mistaking the +long iron-gray locks, the carriage of the head, and the general look of +the natural outlines and movement; but he seemed to have shrunken in all +his dimensions, and faltered along with an uncertain, feeble step, as if +every movement were an effort. I joined him, and we walked together half +an hour, during which time I learned so much of his state of mind and +body as could be got at without worrying him with suggestive +questions,—my object being to form an opinion of his condition, as I +had been requested to do, and to give him some hints that might be +useful to him on his journey.</p> + +<p>His aspect, medically considered, was very unfavorable. There were +persistent local symptoms, referred especially to the stomach,—"boring +pain," distension, difficult digestion, with great wasting of flesh and +strength. He was very gentle, very willing to answer questions, very +docile to such counsel as I offered him, but evidently had no hope of +recovering his health. He spoke as if his work were done, and he should +write no more.</p> + +<p>With all his obvious depression, there was no failing noticeable in his +conversational powers. There was the same backwardness and hesitancy +which in his best days it was hard for him to overcome, so that talking +with him was almost like love-making, and his shy, beautiful soul had to +be wooed from its bashful pudency like an unschooled maiden. The calm +despondency with which he spoke about himself confirmed the unfavorable +opinion suggested by his look and history.</p> + +<p>The journey on which Mr. Hawthorne was setting out, when I saw him, was +undertaken for the benefit of his health. A few weeks earlier he had +left Boston on a similar errand in company with Mr. William D. Ticknor, +who had kindly volunteered to be his companion in a trip which promised +to be of some extent and duration, and from which this faithful friend, +whose generous devotion deserves the most grateful remembrance, hoped to +bring him back restored, or at least made stronger. Death joined the +travellers, but it was not the invalid whom he selected as his victim. +The strong man was taken, and the suffering valetudinarian found himself +charged with those last duties which he was so soon to need at the hands +of others. The fatigue of mind and body thus substituted for the +recreation which he greatly needed must have hastened the course of his +disease, or at least have weakened his powers of resistance to no small +extent.</p> + +<p>Once more, however, in company with his old college-friend and +classmate, Ex-President Pierce, he made the attempt to recover his lost +health by this second journey. My visit to him on the day before his +departure was a somewhat peculiar one, partly of friendship, but partly +also in compliance with the request I have referred to.</p> + +<p>I asked only such questions as were like to afford practical hints as to +the way in which he should manage himself on his journey. It was more +important that he should go away as hopeful as might be than that a +searching examination should point him to the precise part diseased, +condemning him to a forlorn self-knowledge such as the masters of the +art of diagnosis sometimes rashly substitute for the ignorance which is +comparative happiness. Being supposed to remember something of the craft +pleasantly satirized in the chapter before us, I volunteered, not "an +infallible panacea of my own distillation," but some familiar +palliatives which I hoped might relieve the symptoms<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> of which he +complained most. The history of his disease must, I suppose, remain +unwritten, and perhaps it is just as well that it should be so. Men of +sensibility and genius hate to have their infirmities dragged out of +them by the roots in exhaustive series of cross-questionings and +harassing physical explorations, and he who has enlarged the domain of +the human soul may perhaps be spared his contribution to the pathology +of the human body. At least, I was thankful that it was not my duty to +sound all the jarring chords of this sensitive organism, and that a few +cheering words and the prescription of a not ungrateful sedative and +cordial or two could not lay on me the reproach of having given him his +"final bitter taste of this world, perhaps doomed to be a recollected +nauseousness in the next."</p> + +<p>There was nothing in Mr. Hawthorne's aspect that gave warning of so +sudden an end as that which startled us all. It seems probable that he +died by the gentlest of all modes of release, fainting, without the +trouble and confusion of coming back to life,—a way of ending liable to +happen in any disease attended with much debility.</p> + +<p>Mr. Hawthorne died in the town of Plymouth, New Hampshire, on the +nineteenth of May. The moment, and even the hour, could not be told, for +he had passed away without giving any sign of suffering, such as might +call the attention of the friend near him. On Monday, the twenty-third +of May, his body was given back to earth in the place where he had long +lived, and which he had helped to make widely known,—the ancient town +of Concord.</p> + +<p>The day of his burial will always live in the memory of all who shared +in its solemn, grateful duties. All the fair sights and sweet sounds of +the opening season mingled their enchantments as if in homage to the +dead master, who, as a lover of Nature and a student of life, had given +such wealth of poetry to our New-England home, and invested the stern +outlines of Puritan character with the colors of romance. It was the +bridal day of the season, perfect in light as if heaven were looking on, +perfect in air as if Nature herself were sighing for our loss. The +orchards were all in fresh flower,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"One boundless blush, one white-empurpled shower<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of mingled blossoms";—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>the banks were literally blue with violets; the elms were putting out +their tender leaves, just in that passing aspect which Raphael loved to +pencil in the backgrounds of his holy pictures, not as yet printing deep +shadows, but only mottling the sunshine at their feet. The birds were in +full song; the pines were musical with the soft winds they sweetened. +All was in faultless accord, and every heart was filled with the beauty +that flooded the landscape.</p> + +<p>The church where the funeral services were performed was luminous with +the whitest blossoms of the luxuriant spring. A great throng of those +who loved him, of those who honored his genius, of those who held him in +kindly esteem as a neighbor and friend, filled the edifice. Most of +those who were present wished to look once more at the features which +they remembered with the lights and shadows of life's sunshine upon +them. The cold moonbeam of death lay white on the noble forehead and +still, placid features; but they never looked fuller of power than in +this last aspect with which they met the eyes that were turned upon +them.</p> + +<p>In a patch of sunlight, flecked by the shade of tall, murmuring pines, +at the summit of a gently swelling mound where the wild-flowers had +climbed to find the light and the stirring of fresh breezes, the tired +poet was laid beneath the green turf. Poet let us call him, though his +chants were not modulated in the rhythm of verse. The element of poetry +is air: we know the poet by his atmospheric effects, by the blue of his +distances, by the softening of every hard outline he touches, by the +silvery mist in which he veils deformity and clothes what is common so +that it changes to awe-inspiring mystery,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> by the clouds of gold and +purple which are the drapery of his dreams. And surely we have had but +one prose-writer who could be compared with him in aërial perspective, +if we may use the painter's term. If Irving is the Claude of our +unrhymed poetry, Hawthorne is its Poussin.</p> + +<p>This is not the occasion for the analysis and valuation of Hawthorne's +genius. If the reader wishes to see a thoughtful and generous estimate +of his powers, and a just recognition of the singular beauty of his +style, he may turn to the number of this magazine published in May, +1860. The last effort of Hawthorne's creative mind is before him in the +chapter here printed. The hand of the dead master shows itself in every +line. The shapes and scenes he pictures slide at once into our +consciousness, as if they belonged there as much as our own homes and +relatives. That limpid flow of expression, never laboring, never +shallow, never hurried nor uneven nor turbid, but moving on with +tranquil force, clear to the depths of its profoundest thought, shows +itself with all its consummate perfections. Our literature could ill +spare the rich ripe autumn of such a life as Hawthorne's, but he has +left enough to keep his name in remembrance as long as the language in +which he shaped his deep imaginations is spoken by human lips.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>A SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE.</h2> + + +<p>Doctor Dolliver, a worthy personage of extreme antiquity, was aroused +rather prematurely, one summer morning, by the shouts of the child +Pansie, in an adjoining chamber, summoning Old Martha (who performed the +duties of nurse, housekeeper, and kitchen-maid, in the Doctor's +establishment) to take up her little ladyship and dress her. The old +gentleman woke with more than his customary alacrity, and, after taking +a moment to gather his wits about him, pulled aside the faded moreen +curtains of his ancient bed, and thrust his head into a beam of sunshine +that caused him to wink and withdraw it again. This transitory glimpse +of good Dr. Dolliver showed a flannel nightcap, fringed round with stray +locks of silvery white hair, and surmounting a meagre and duskily yellow +visage, which was crossed and criss-crossed with a record of his long +life in wrinkles, faithfully written, no doubt, but with such cramped +chirography of Father Time that the purport was illegible. It seemed +hardly worth while for the patriarch to get out of bed any more, and +bring his forlorn shadow into the summer day that was made for younger +folks. The Doctor, however, was by no means of that opinion, being +considerably encouraged towards the toil of living twenty-four hours +longer by the comparative ease with which he found himself going through +the usually painful process of bestirring his rusty joints, (stiffened +by the very rest and sleep that should have made them pliable,) and +putting them in a condition to bear his weight upon the floor. Nor was +he absolutely disheartened by the idea of those tonsorial, ablutionary, +and personally decorative labors which are apt to become so intolerably +irksome to an old gentleman, after performing them daily and daily for +fifty, sixty, or seventy years, and finding them still as immitigably +recurrent as at first. Dr. Dolliver could nowise account for this happy +condition of his spirits and physical energies, until he remembered +taking an experimental sip of a certain cordial which was long ago +prepared by his grandson and carefully scaled up in a bottle, and had +been reposited in a dark<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> closet among a parcel of effete medicines ever +since that gifted young man's death.</p> + +<p>"It may have wrought effect upon me," thought the Doctor, shaking his +head as he lifted it again from the pillow. "It may be so; for poor +Cornelius oftentimes instilled a strange efficacy into his perilous +drugs. But I will rather believe it to be the operation of God's mercy, +which may have temporarily invigorated my feeble age for little Pansie's +sake."</p> + +<p>A twinge of his familiar rheumatism, as he put his foot out of bed, +taught him that he must not reckon too confidently upon even a day's +respite from the intrusive family of aches and infirmities which, with +their proverbial fidelity to attachments once formed, had long been the +closest acquaintances that the poor old gentleman had in the world. +Nevertheless, he fancied the twinge a little less poignant than those of +yesterday; and, moreover, after stinging him pretty smartly, it passed +gradually off with a thrill, which, in its latter stages, grew to be +almost agreeable. Pain is but pleasure too strongly emphasized. With +cautious movements, and only a groan or two, the good Doctor transferred +himself from the bed to the floor, where he stood awhile, gazing from +one piece of quaint furniture to another, (such as stiff-backed +Mayflower chairs, an oaken chest-of-drawers carved cunningly with shapes +of animals and wreaths of foliage, a table with multitudinous legs, a +family-record in faded embroidery, a shelf of black-bound books, a dirty +heap of gallipots and phials in a dim corner,)—gazing at these things +and steadying himself by the bedpost, while his inert brain, still +partially benumbed with sleep, came slowly into accordance with the +realities about him. The object which most helped to bring Dr. Dolliver +completely to his waking perceptions was one that common observers might +suppose to have been snatched bodily out of his dreams. The same sunbeam +that had dazzled the Doctor between the bed-curtains gleamed on the +weather-beaten gilding which had once adorned this mysterious symbol, +and showed it to be an enormous serpent, twining round a wooden post, +and reaching quite from the floor of the chamber to its ceiling.</p> + +<p>It was evidently a thing that could boast of considerable antiquity, the +dry-rot having eaten out its eyes and gnawed away the tip of its tail; +and it must have stood long exposed to the atmosphere, for a kind of +gray moss had partially overspread its tarnished gilt surface, and a +swallow, or other familiar little bird, in some by-gone summer, seemed +to have built its nest in the yawning and exaggerated mouth. It looked +like a kind of Manichean idol, which might have been elevated on a +pedestal for a century or so, enjoying the worship of its votaries in +the open air, until the impious sect perished from among men,—all save +old Dr. Dolliver, who had set up the monster in his bedchamber for the +convenience of private devotion. But we are unpardonable in suggesting +such a fantasy to the prejudice of our venerable friend, knowing him to +have been as pious and upright a Christian, and with as little of the +serpent in his character, as ever came of Puritan lineage. Not to make a +further mystery about a very simple matter, this bedimmed and rotten +reptile was once the medical emblem or apothecary's sign of the famous +Dr. Swinnerton, who practised physic in the earlier days of New England, +when a head of Æsculapius or Hippocrates would have vexed the souls of +the righteous as savoring of heathendom. The ancient dispenser of drugs +had therefore set up an image of the Brazen Serpent, and followed his +business for many years, with great credit, under this Scriptural +device; and Dr. Dolliver, being the apprentice, pupil, and humble friend +of the learned Swinnerton's old age, had inherited the symbolic snake, +and much other valuable property, by his bequest.</p> + +<p>While the patriarch was putting on his small-clothes, he took care to +stand in the parallelogram of bright sunshine that fell upon the +uncarpeted floor. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> summer warmth was very genial to his system, and +yet made him shiver; his wintry veins rejoiced at it, though the +reviving blood tingled through them with a half painful and only half +pleasurable titillation. For the first few moments after creeping out of +bed, he kept his back to the sunny window and seemed mysteriously shy of +glancing thitherward; but as the June fervor pervaded him more and more +thoroughly, he turned bravely about, and looked forth at a burial-ground +on the corner of which he dwelt. There lay many an old acquaintance, who +had gone to sleep with the flavor of Dr. Dolliver's tinctures and +powders upon his tongue; it was the patient's final bitter taste of this +world, and perhaps doomed to be a recollected nauseousness in the next. +Yesterday, in the chill of his forlorn old age, the Doctor expected soon +to stretch out his weary bones among that quiet community, and might +scarcely have shrunk from the prospect on his own account, except, +indeed, that he dreamily mixed up the infirmities of his present +condition with the repose of the approaching one, being haunted by a +notion that the damp earth, under the grass and dandelions, must needs +be pernicious for his cough and his rheumatism. But, this morning, the +cheerful sunbeams, or the mere taste of his grandson's cordial that he +had taken at bedtime, or the fitful vigor that often sports irreverently +with aged people, had caused an unfrozen drop of youthfulness, somewhere +within him, to expand.</p> + +<p>"Hem! ahem!" quoth the Doctor, hoping with one effort to clear his +throat of the dregs of a ten years' cough. "Matters are not so far gone +with me as I thought. I have known mighty sensible men, when only a +little age-stricken or otherwise out of sorts, to die of mere +faint-heartedness, a great deal sooner than they need."</p> + +<p>He shook his silvery head at his own image in the looking-glass, as if +to impress the apophthegm on that shadowy representative of himself; and +for his part, he determined to pluck up a spirit and live as long as he +possibly could, if it were only for the sake of little Pansie, who stood +as close to one extremity of human life as her great-grandfather to the +other. This child of three years old occupied all the unfossilized +portion of good Dr. Dolliver's heart. Every other interest that he +formerly had, and the entire confraternity of persons whom he once +loved, had long ago departed, and the poor Doctor could not follow them, +because the grasp of Pansie's baby-fingers held him back.</p> + +<p>So he crammed a great silver watch into his fob, and drew on a patchwork +morning-gown of an ancient fashion. Its original material was said to +have been the embroidered front of his own wedding-waistcoat and the +silken skirt of his wife's bridal attire, which his eldest granddaughter +had taken from the carved chest-of-drawers, after poor Bessie, the +beloved of his youth, had been half a century in the grave. Throughout +many of the intervening years, as the garment got ragged, the spinsters +of the old man's family had quilted their duty and affection into it in +the shape of patches upon patches, rose-color, crimson, blue, violet, +and green, and then (as their hopes faded, and their life kept growing +shadier, and their attire took a sombre hue) sober gray and great +fragments of funereal black, until the Doctor could revive the memory of +most things that had befallen him by looking at his patchwork-gown, as +it hung upon a chair. And now it was ragged again, and all the fingers +that should have mended it were cold. It had an Eastern fragrance, too, +a smell of drugs, strong-scented herbs, and spicy gums, gathered from +the many potent infusions that had from time to time been spilt over it; +so that, snuffing him afar off, you might have taken Dr. Dolliver for a +mummy, and could hardly have been undeceived by his shrunken and torpid +aspect, as he crept nearer.</p> + +<p>Wrapt in his odorous and many-colored robe, he took staff in hand and +moved pretty vigorously to the head of the staircase. As it was somewhat +steep, and but dimly lighted, he began cautiously to descend,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> putting +his left hand on the banister, and poking down his long stick to assist +him in making sure of the successive steps; and thus he became a living +illustration of the accuracy of Scripture, where it describes the aged +as being "afraid of that which is high,"—a truth that is often found to +have a sadder purport than its external one. Half-way to the bottom, +however, the Doctor heard the impatient and authoritative tones of +little Pansie,—Queen Pansie, as she might fairly have been styled, in +reference to her position in the household,—calling amain for grandpapa +and breakfast. He was startled into such perilous activity by the +summons, that his heels slid on the stairs, the slippers were shuffled +off his feet, and he saved himself from a tumble only by quickening his +pace, and coming down at almost a run.</p> + +<p>"Mercy on my poor old bones!" mentally exclaimed the Doctor, fancying +himself fractured in fifty places. "Some of them are broken, surely, and +methinks my heart has leaped out of my mouth! What! all right? Well, +well! but Providence is kinder to me than I deserve, prancing down this +steep staircase like a kid of three months old!"</p> + +<p>He bent stiffly to gather up his slippers and fallen staff; and +meanwhile Pansie had heard the tumult of her great-grandfather's +descent, and was pounding against the door of the breakfast-room in her +haste to come at him. The Doctor opened it, and there she stood, a +rather pale and large-eyed little thing, quaint in her aspect, as might +well be the case with a motherless child, dwelling in an uncheerful +house, with no other playmates than a decrepit old man and a kitten, and +no better atmosphere within-doors than the odor of decayed +apothecary's-stuff, nor gayer neighborhood than that of the adjacent +burial-ground, where all her relatives, from her great-grandmother +downward, lay calling to her, "Pansie, Pansie, it is bedtime!" even in +the prime of the summer morning. For those dead womenfolk, especially +her mother and the whole row of maiden aunts and grand-aunts, could not +but be anxious about the child, knowing that little Pansie would be far +safer under a tuft of dandelions than if left alone, as she soon must +be, in this difficult and deceitful world.</p> + +<p>Yet, in spite of the lack of damask roses in her cheeks, she seemed a +healthy child, and certainly showed great capacity of energetic movement +in the impulsive capers with which she welcomed her venerable +progenitor. She shouted out her satisfaction, moreover, (as her custom +was, having never had any over-sensitive auditors about her to tame down +her voice,) till even the Doctor's dull ears were full of the clamor.</p> + +<p>"Pansie, darling," said Dr. Dolliver cheerily, patting her brown hair +with his tremulous fingers, "thou hast put some of thine own friskiness +into poor old grandfather, this fine morning! Dost know, child, that he +came near breaking his neck down-stairs at the sound of thy voice? What +wouldst thou have done then, little Pansie?"</p> + +<p>"Kiss poor grandpapa and make him well!" answered the child, remembering +the Doctor's own mode of cure in similar mishaps to herself. "It shall +do poor grandpapa good!" she added, putting up her mouth to apply the +remedy.</p> + +<p>"Ah, little one, thou hast greater faith in thy medicines than ever I +had in my drugs," replied the patriarch with a giggle, surprised and +delighted at his own readiness of response. "But the kiss is good for my +feeble old heart, Pansie, though it might do little to mend a broken +neck; so give grandpapa another dose, and let us to breakfast."</p> + +<p>In this merry humor they sat down to the table, great-grandpapa and +Pansie side by side, and the kitten, as soon appeared, making a third in +the party. First, she showed her mottled head out of Pansie's lap, +delicately sipping milk from the child's basin without rebuke; then she +took post on the old gentleman's shoulder, purring like a +spinning-wheel,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> trying her claws in the wadding of his dressing-gown, +and still more impressively reminding him of her presence by putting out +a paw to intercept a warmed-over morsel of yesterday's chicken on its +way to the Doctor's mouth. After skilfully achieving this feat, she +scrambled down upon the breakfast-table and began to wash her face and +hands. Evidently, these companions were all three on intimate terms, as +was natural enough, since a great many childish impulses were softly +creeping back on the simple-minded old man; insomuch that, if no worldly +necessities nor painful infirmity had disturbed him, his remnant of life +might have been as cheaply and cheerily enjoyed as the early playtime of +the kitten and the child. Old Dr. Dolliver and his great-grand-daughter +(a ponderous title, which seemed quite to overwhelm the tiny figure of +Pansie) had met one another at the two extremities of the life-circle: +her sunrise served him for a sunset, illuminating his locks of silver +and hers of golden brown with a homogeneous shimmer of twinkling light.</p> + +<p>Little Pansie was the one earthly creature that inherited a drop of the +Dolliver blood. The Doctor's only child, poor Bessie's offspring, had +died the better part of a hundred years before, and his grandchildren, a +numerous and dimly remembered brood, had vanished along his weary track +in their youth, maturity, or incipient age, till, hardly knowing how it +had all happened, he found himself tottering onward with an infant's +small fingers in his nerveless grasp. So mistily did his dead progeny +come and go in the patriarch's decayed recollection, that this solitary +child represented for him the successive babyhoods of the many that had +gone before. The emotions of his early paternity came back to him. She +seemed the baby of a past age oftener than she seemed Pansie. A whole +family of grand-aunts, (one of whom had perished in her cradle, never so +mature as Pansie now, another in her virgin bloom, another in autumnal +maidenhood, yellow and shrivelled, with vinegar in her blood, and still +another, a forlorn widow, whose grief outlasted even its vitality, and +grew to be merely a torpid habit, and was saddest then,)—all their +hitherto forgotten features peeped through the face of the +great-grandchild, and their long inaudible voices sobbed, shouted, or +laughed, in her familiar tones. But it often happened to Dr. Dolliver, +while frolicking amid this throng of ghosts, where the one reality +looked no more vivid than its shadowy sisters,—it often happened that +his eyes filled with tears at a sudden perception of what a sad and +poverty-stricken old man he was, already remote from his own generation, +and bound to stray farther onward as the sole playmate and protector of +a child!</p> + +<p>As Dr. Dolliver, in spite of his advanced epoch of life, is likely to +remain a considerable time longer upon our hands, we deem it expedient +to give a brief sketch of his position, in order that the story may get +onward with the greater freedom when he rises from the breakfast-table. +Deeming it a matter of courtesy, we have allowed him the honorary title +of Doctor, as did all his towns-people and contemporaries, except, +perhaps, one or two formal old physicians, stingy of civil phrases and +over-jealous of their own professional dignity. Nevertheless, these +crusty graduates were technically right in excluding Dr. Dolliver from +their fraternity. He had never received the degree of any medical +school, nor (save it might be for the cure of a toothache, or a child's +rash, or a whitlow on a seamstress's finger, or some such trifling +malady) had he ever been even a practitioner of the awful science with +which his popular designation connected him. Our old friend, in short, +even at his highest social elevation, claimed to be nothing more than an +apothecary, and, in these later and far less prosperous days, scarcely +so much. Since the death of his last surviving grandson, (Pansie's +father, whom he had instructed in all the mysteries of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> science, and +who, being distinguished by an experimental and inventive tendency, was +generally believed to have poisoned himself with an infallible panacea +of his own distillation,)—since that final bereavement, Dr. Dolliver's +once pretty flourishing business had lamentably declined. After a few +months of unavailing struggle, he found it expedient to take down the +Brazen Serpent from the position to which Dr. Swinnerton had originally +elevated it, in front of his shop in the main street, and to retire to +his private dwelling, situated in a by-lane and on the edge of a +burial-ground.</p> + +<p>This house, as well as the Brazen Serpent, some old medical books, and a +drawer full of manuscripts, had come to him by the legacy of Dr. +Swinnerton. The dreariness of the locality had been of small importance +to our friend in his young manhood, when he first led his fair wife over +the threshold, and so long as neither of them had any kinship with the +human dust that rose into little hillocks, and still kept accumulating +beneath their window. But, too soon afterwards, when poor Bessie herself +had gone early to rest there, it is probable that an influence from her +grave may have prematurely calmed and depressed her widowed husband, +taking away much of the energy from what should have been the most +active portion of his life. Thus he never grew rich. His thrifty +townsmen used to tell him, that, in any other man's hands, Dr. +Swinnerton's Brazen Serpent (meaning, I presume, the inherited credit +and good-will of that old worthy's trade) would need but ten years' time +to transmute its brass into gold. In Dr. Dolliver's keeping, as we have +seen, the inauspicious symbol lost the greater part of what superficial +gilding it originally had. Matters had not mended with him in more +advanced life, after he had deposited a further and further portion of +his heart and its affections in each successive one of a long row of +kindred graves; and as he stood over the last of them, holding Pansie by +the hand and looking down upon the coffin of his grandson, it is no +wonder that the old man wept, partly for those gone before, but not so +bitterly as for the little one that stayed behind. Why had not God taken +her with the rest? And then, so hopeless as he was, so destitute of +possibilities of good, his weary frame, his decrepit bones, his dried-up +heart, might have crumbled into dust at once, and have been scattered by +the next wind over all the heaps of earth that were akin to him.</p> + +<p>This intensity of desolation, however, was of too positive a character +to be long sustained by a person of Dr. Dolliver's original gentleness +and simplicity, and now so completely tamed by age and misfortune. Even +before he turned away from the grave, he grew conscious of a slightly +cheering and invigorating effect from the tight grasp of the child's +warm little hand. Feeble as he was, she seemed to adopt him willingly +for her protector. And the Doctor never afterwards shrank from his duty +nor quailed beneath it, but bore himself like a man, striving, amid the +sloth of age and the breaking-up of intellect, to earn the competency +which he had failed to accumulate even in his most vigorous days.</p> + +<p>To the extent of securing a present subsistence for Pansie and himself, +he was successful. After his son's death, when the Brazen Serpent fell +into popular disrepute, a small share of tenacious patronage followed +the old man into his retirement. In his prime, he had been allowed to +possess more skill than usually fell to the share of a Colonial +apothecary, having been regularly apprenticed to Dr. Swinnerton, who, +throughout his long practice, was accustomed personally to concoct the +medicines which he prescribed and dispensed. It was believed, indeed, +that the ancient physician had learned the art at the world-famous +drug-manufactory of Apothecary's Hall, in London, and, as some people +half-malignly whispered, had perfected himself under masters more subtle +than were to be found even there. Unquestionably, in many critical +cases<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> he was known to have employed remedies of mysterious composition +and dangerous potency, which in less skilful hands would have been more +likely to kill than cure. He would willingly, it is said, have taught +his apprentice the secrets of these prescriptions, but the latter, being +of a timid character and delicate conscience, had shrunk from +acquaintance with them. It was probably as the result of the same +scrupulosity that Dr. Dolliver had always declined to enter the medical +profession, in which his old instructor had set him such heroic examples +of adventurous dealing with matters of life and death. Nevertheless, the +aromatic fragrance, so to speak, of the learned Swinnerton's reputation +had clung to our friend through life; and there were elaborate +preparations in the pharmacopœia of that day, requiring such minute +skill and conscientious fidelity in the concocter that the physicians +were still glad to confide them to one in whom these qualities were so +evident.</p> + +<p>Moreover, the grandmothers of the community were kind to him, and +mindful of his perfumes, his rose-water, his cosmetics, tooth-powders, +pomanders, and pomades, the scented memory of which lingered about their +toilet-tables, or came faintly back from the days when they were +beautiful. Among this class of customers there was still a demand for +certain comfortable little nostrums, (delicately sweet and pungent to +the taste, cheering to the spirits, and fragrant in the breath,) the +proper distillation of which was the airiest secret that the mystic +Swinnerton had left behind him. And, besides, these old ladies had +always liked the manners of Dr. Dolliver, and used to speak of his +gentle courtesy behind the counter as having positively been something +to admire; though, of later years, an unrefined, an almost rustic +simplicity, such as belonged to his humble ancestors, appeared to have +taken possession of him, as it often does of prettily mannered men in +their late decay.</p> + +<p>But it resulted from all these favorable circumstances that the Doctor's +marble mortar, though worn with long service and considerably damaged by +a crack that pervaded it, continued to keep up an occasional intimacy +with the pestle; and he still weighed drachms and scruples in his +delicate scales, though it seemed impossible, dealing with such minute +quantities, that his tremulous fingers should not put in too little or +too much, leaving out life with the deficiency or spilling in death with +the surplus. To say the truth, his stanchest friends were beginning to +think that Dr. Dolliver's fits of absence (when his mind appeared +absolutely to depart from him, while his frail old body worked on +mechanically) rendered him not quite trustworthy without a close +supervision of his proceedings. It was impossible, however, to convince +the aged apothecary of the necessity for such vigilance; and if anything +could stir up his gentle temper to wrath, or, as oftener happened, to +tears, it was the attempt (which he was marvellously quick to detect) +thus to interfere with his long-familiar business.</p> + +<p>The public, meanwhile, ceasing to regard Dr. Dolliver in his +professional aspect, had begun to take an interest in him as perhaps +their oldest fellow-citizen. It was he that remembered the Great Fire +and the Great Snow, and that had been a grown-up stripling at the +terrible epoch of Witch-Times, and a child just breeched at the +breaking-out of King Philip's Indian War. He, too, in his school-boy +days, had received a benediction from the patriarchal Governor +Bradstreet, and thus could boast (somewhat as Bishops do of their +unbroken succession from the Apostles) of a transmitted blessing from +the whole company of sainted Pilgrims, among whom the venerable +magistrate had been an honored companion. Viewing their townsman in this +aspect, the people revoked the courteous Doctorate with which they had +heretofore decorated him, and now knew him most familiarly as Grandsir +Dolliver. His white head, his Puritan band, his threadbare garb, (the +fashion of which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> he had ceased to change, half a century ago,) his +gold-headed staff, that had been Dr. Swinnerton's, his shrunken, frosty +figure, and its feeble movement,—all these characteristics had a +wholeness and permanence in the public recognition, like the +meeting-house steeple or the town-pump. All the younger portion of the +inhabitants unconsciously ascribed a sort of aged immortality to +Grandsir Dolliver's infirm and reverend presence. They fancied that he +had been born old, (at least, I remember entertaining some such notions +about age-stricken people, when I myself was young,) and that he could +the better tolerate his aches and incommodities, his dull ears and dim +eyes, his remoteness from human intercourse within the crust of +indurated years, the cold temperature that kept him always shivering and +sad, the heavy burden that invisibly bent down his shoulders,—that all +these intolerable things might bring a kind of enjoyment to Grandsir +Dolliver, as the life-long conditions of his peculiar existence.</p> + +<p>But, alas! it was a terrible mistake. This weight of years had a +perennial novelty for the poor sufferer. He never grew accustomed to it, +but, long as he had now borne the fretful torpor of his waning life, and +patient as he seemed, he still retained an inward consciousness that +these stiffened shoulders, these quailing knees, this cloudiness of +sight and brain, this confused forgetfulness of men and affairs, were +troublesome accidents that did not really belong to him. He possibly +cherished a half-recognized idea that they might pass away. Youth, +however eclipsed for a season, is undoubtedly the proper, permanent, and +genuine condition of man; and if we look closely into this dreary +delusion of growing old, we shall find that it never absolutely succeeds +in laying hold of our innermost convictions. A sombre garment, woven of +life's unrealities, has muffled us from our true self, but within it +smiles the young man whom we knew; the ashes of many perishable things +have fallen upon our youthful fire, but beneath them lurk the seeds of +inextinguishable flame. So powerful is this instinctive faith that men +of simple modes of character are prone to antedate its consummation. And +thus it happened with poor Grandsir Dolliver, who often awoke from an +old man's fitful sleep with a sense that his senile predicament was but +a dream of the past night; and hobbling hastily across the cold floor to +the looking-glass, he would be grievously disappointed at beholding the +white hair, the wrinkles and furrows, the ashen visage and bent form, +the melancholy mask of Age, in which, as he now remembered, some strange +and sad enchantment had involved him for years gone by!</p> + +<p>To other eyes than his own, however, the shrivelled old gentleman looked +as if there were little hope of his throwing off this too artfully +wrought disguise, until, at no distant day, his stooping figure should +be straightened out, his hoary locks be smoothed over his brows, and his +much enduring bones be laid safely away, with a green coverlet spread +over them, beside his Bessie, who doubtless would recognize her youthful +companion in spite of his ugly garniture of decay. He longed to be gazed +at by the loving eyes now closed; he shrank from the hard stare of them +that loved him not. Walking the streets seldom and reluctantly, he felt +a dreary impulse to elude the people's observation, as if with a sense +that he had gone irrevocably out of fashion, and broken his connecting +links with the network of human life; or else it was that +nightmare-feeling which we sometimes have in dreams, when we seem to +find ourselves wandering through a crowded avenue, with the noonday sun +upon us, in some wild extravagance of dress or nudity. He was conscious +of estrangement from his towns-people, but did not always know how nor +wherefore, nor why he should be thus groping through the twilight mist +in solitude. If they spoke loudly to him, with cheery voices, the +greeting translated itself faintly and mournfully to his ears; if they +shook him by the hand, it was as if a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> thick, insensible glove absorbed +the kindly pressure and the warmth. When little Pansie was the companion +of his walk, her childish gayety and freedom did not avail to bring him +into closer relationship with men, but seemed to follow him into that +region of indefinable remoteness, that dismal Fairy-Land of aged fancy, +into which old Grandsir Dolliver had so strangely crept away.</p> + +<p>Yet there were moments, as many persons had noticed, when the +great-grandpapa would suddenly take stronger hues of life. It was as if +his faded figure had been colored over anew, or at least, as he and +Pansie moved along the street, as if a sunbeam had fallen across him, +instead of the gray gloom of an instant before. His chilled +sensibilities had probably been touched and quickened by the warm +contiguity of his little companion through the medium of her hand, as it +stirred within his own, or some inflection of her voice that set his +memory ringing and chiming with forgotten sounds. While that music +lasted, the old man was alive and happy. And there were seasons, it +might be, happier than even these, when Pansie had been kissed and put +to bed, and Grandsir Dolliver sat by his fireside gazing in among the +massive coals, and absorbing their glow into those cavernous abysses +with which all men communicate. Hence come angels or fiends into our +twilight musings, according as we may have peopled them in by-gone +years. Over our friend's face, in the rosy flicker of the fire-gleam, +stole an expression of repose and perfect trust that made him as +beautiful to look at, in his high-backed chair, as the child Pansie on +her pillow; and sometimes the spirits that were watching him beheld a +calm surprise draw slowly over his features and brighten into joy, yet +not go vividly as to break his evening quietude. The gate of heaven had +been kindly left ajar, that this forlorn old creature might catch a +glimpse within. All the night afterwards, he would be semi-conscious of +an intangible bliss diffused through the fitful lapses of an old man's +slumber, and would awake, at early dawn, with a faint thrilling of the +heart-strings, as if there had been music just now wandering over them.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CURRENCY.</h2> + + +<p>It is not only for gold that men labor, fight, and die. One labors long +to perfect an invention; another, to illustrate a theory; a third, to +express a sentiment; a fourth, to acquire real estate. With success, the +first has a machine; the second, a treatise; the third, a poem; the +fourth, a deed. Perhaps no other four persons would willingly expend the +same amount of labor on the same objects; yet this difference of +estimate effects no difference in the objects. Estimation, therefore, or +value, is not a quality of those objects, but a state of mind in +relation to them; accordingly, the poem has value as well as the +machine,—the deed, as well as the wealth it defines. The value of the +deed is, however, widely different from that of the wealth. The value of +the wealth is based on desire, that of the deed on right, though in +neither case exclusively, as, in a general sense, value always involves +both desire and right, and is, therefore, a commercial relation, +resulting from a state of society.</p> + +<p>Men have the sense of right, and the intellect to define it, the will to +defend, and the power to enforce it; and, for the more perfect +development of these capabilities, they have instituted government. The +functions of government are, therefore, the definition, the defence, and +the enforcement of right.</p> + +<p>The exercise of the function of definition<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> led to the invention of two +classes of commercial instrumentalities,—the real, consisting of +weights and measures, and the ideal or representative, consisting of +writing and notation. The exercise of the remaining functions of +government secures the wealth these serve to define. It may, indeed, be +true, in a rude sense, that possession is nine points of the law; but it +is equally true, in a proper sense, that the remaining point is worth +more than the nine; the defence and enforcement of right being an +absolute and well-defined rule of government. In a state of barbarism +men prefer fact to right, for an obvious reason; but as they advance in +science and civilization, as their conceptions become more distinct, +their definitions more exact, their defences more complete, and their +enforcements more powerful, their faith in right increases, and their +esteem increases with their faith, until right becomes of more value +than possession.</p> + +<p>Exchange, whether by barter or sale, is the result of differences of +estimate or value. By barter, the articles exchanged are themselves the +mediums; if, therefore, a given article be generally accepted to that +use, it becomes a common medium; and if it be divided by government into +well-defined quantities, suited and intended for that use, it becomes +money. Money, therefore, in its original form, is a common medium of +barter, that is accepted to that use by authority of law,—a medium +which, considered distinctly from that authority, is simply an article +of merchandise possessing qualities that make it preferable as a means +of barter, and which, for convenience of use, bears the stamp of the +government-inspector, defining the exact quantity contained in each +piece, but which, inasmuch as it is authorized, and partakes of the +nature of law, has ideal qualities that make it the means of sale: these +are, right of use, nomination, and numeration. The ideal qualities of +money serve to establish price, to create money of account, to make +credits possible, and ultimately to produce credit-mediums of exchange, +or bills, which, in a given form, though mere declarations of right to +the wealth they are said to represent, become, in the hands of a +civilized people, a species of currency that, with all its defects, has +proved itself to be the most effectual means both of commerce and of +government.</p> + +<p>Wealth is that which may be used. Value is that by means of which wealth +may be exchanged. A currency, therefore, should consist of +representatives of value,—of representatives, because value, being +ideal, is known only by that means,—of value, because it is only by +differences of estimate or value that exchanges are possible. But, as +these representatives are wholly nominal, and may, therefore, be issued +in any quantity, and as their increase or decrease affects the value of +credits, their issue requires regulation. The quantity of the currency +may be well regulated by finding the rate per head of population during +a favorable state of trade, and by adhering to that invariably.</p> + +<p>That the people of the United States have reached the degree of science +and civilization proper to the creation of such a currency is not yet +evident; but there is reason to believe that they will take the lead in +this as they have in some other actions indicative of advance,—that +they will erelong understand the impropriety of attempting to measure +value by means of merchandise, that is, by a means that is subject to +variations of quantity,—a conclusion that may not appear obvious in +this aspect, but it will be readily understood that in commerce a +variable measure is absurd in theory and intolerable in practice. Yet +this is precisely parallel with using gold, or any other article of +merchandise, as a measure of value.</p> + +<p>The elements of currency are value, a commercial relation derived from +persons, and quantity, a property of things derived heretofore from the +precious metals or their representatives. But this quantity is +inconstant, and to use an inconstant quantity as a measure, is absurd. +The quantity of the currency may, however,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> be rendered constant, both +positively and relatively, by deriving it wholly from persons,—that is, +by giving it an invariable quantitative relation to the population: a +rule that is both simple and easy of practice, because value is already +nominated and numerated, and the population is already sufficiently well +known. The divisions of the currency should be the simplest possible, +that is, binary, and the definitions of the parts should be as simple as +those of coins.</p> + +<p>With regard to the legal-tender currency, so called, it serves well for +temporary use,—much better, indeed, than any of its predecessors; and +as long as its promises are ignored, and as long as its quantity is not +increased faster than the increase of the population, it is practically +a value-currency, resting on its own inherent right of use, with the +exception of the limitation defined by the law of legal tender.</p> + +<p>One of the duties of the National Government is to supply the people +with a currency. That this is to be used is sufficiently obvious; and +that, being intended for use, and authorized by law, it has the right of +use, is equally obvious; there is, therefore, little need of a law of +legal tender to give it that right. Accordingly, however affirmative +such laws may be in form, their intention is not so much to bestow as to +withhold.</p> + +<p>That the currencies of the world have great defects is so well known +that the statement of the fact would be superfluous, except as +introductory to an attempt to ascertain the nature of those defects, and +to propose an adequate remedy,—an attempt suggested by the rapidity +with which the people, profiting by their present tuition, are learning +wisdom by the things which they suffer in the defence and enforcement of +right.</p> + +<p>Of a specie-currency the defect is want of constancy. This defect, +derived from its material element, has a particular and a general +aspect. The particular is the reduction of the quantity of metal in +coins. The Roman money-unit—the <i>as</i>—consisted originally of a pound +of bronze; that of England—the pound sterling—and that of France—the +livre—consisted each of a pound of silver. The first Punic war caused +the pound of bronze to be reduced to two ounces; the second caused its +further reduction to half an ounce; and what now is the weight of the +pound sterling? where now is the livre? and what of coins generally? +Like these individuals, types of the class, they depreciate. The general +aspect is, the occasional reduction of the quantity of coin in +circulation. The merchant, believing it to be more immediately +profitable, exports the coin,—that is, finding the currency to consist +of an article of merchandise that suits his immediate purpose, he treats +it accordingly,—though by so doing he causes a rise of prices where he +buys and a fall where he sells, and to that extent nullifies his own +business-intentions, and deranges those of others. If this derangement +be sufficient, hoarding commences; and as this action multiplies itself, +the currency is soon reduced to its minimum quantity, and business of +every kind with it, until the industry of the country is reduced to a +state of atrophy, until a mere commercial derangement is converted into +an immense loss; because the rise in the value of the currency, due to +its scarcity, causes a corresponding fall in the value of all the wealth +of the country, and thus checks industry and stays production.</p> + +<p>These defects are not pointed out for the purpose of preventing the +adoption of a specie-currency. There is no probability of such a +currency ever prevailing in this country, except in the neighborhood of +the mines, and there only for a time. Much is said about it, as is +usually the case with subjects that are little understood; but the +driblets of specie that may be seen occasionally are not a currency; +neither are those larger quantities held by banks and brokers. Indeed, a +specie-currency in the presence of bank-notes is an impossibility, +because the notes proclaim their own inferiority; consequently, the +specie is retained and the notes circulated. Yet, the operations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> of the +mint are continued, with the avowed object of creating a specie +currency. This practice is, however, of some use. It serves to show that +mind and matter are governed by the same general laws,—that either +being put in motion wilt continue to move in the given direction, though +the original intention may have ceased. That the original intention of +coining has ceased when the use of the precious metals is confined +almost exclusively to ornamentation and security is a plain case.</p> + +<p>The National Government issues coin for currency, and the States create +banks, with the privilege of using the coin as security, and of issuing +in its stead a larger quantity of notes. These, diluted in value to the +extent of the difference, form, with the authority derived from State +laws, a species of currency that, because of its great convenience, +derived from its representative character, has become, notwithstanding +its defects, one of the greatest powers known to man. The defects of a +bank-note currency are, that, being based on specie, it is necessarily +inconstant, and being insufficiently based, it is necessarily insecure.</p> + +<p>The precious metals are desired for three distinct uses,—ornamentation, +security, and currency; they have, therefore, three distinct elements of +value. By the creation of banks a portion of the currency is converted +into security, and another portion undergoes the same change by reason +of the insecurity of bank-notes. Thus, by the influence of banks, the +precious metals are deprived of most of the value they had as currency, +the specie and the notes depreciating together, and maintaining an +equilibrium of value, until the exportation of the former to countries +where its value is not thus impaired becomes profitable. Then, if the +notes continue to depreciate, as is sometimes the case, the equilibrium +is destroyed, and specie commands a premium. This causes the remainder +to be hoarded, so that it then commands an additional premium as +security, in view of the increasing insecurity of bank-notes.</p> + +<p>A result of the inconstancy of a bank-note currency is exhibited in each +of its several states,—as a diluted, as a depreciated, and as an +irredeemable currency; but more especially in this its third state. But +as it is not intended to be redeemed, except to a very limited extent, +and as these several states are proper to it, and differ only in degree, +it will be sufficient to point out the final result or climax. This is +depreciation in relation to specie, because of the demand for that +article, first for exportation, and then for security; and, at the same +time, appreciation in relation to every other article of merchandise, +because of the reduction of its own quantity, necessary to the +restoration of the lost equilibrium,—necessary to the reëstablishment +of its essential element, credit. Thus it appears that the results of a +bank-note currency are similar to those of a specie-currency, but as +much more disastrous as its expansions and contractions are greater and +more sudden.</p> + +<p>To avoid these disasters, it is proposed to issue a national currency +that is constant, and that is therefore a standard measure of value,—an +instrumentality that commerce has never yet been furnished with, though +it is the only one capable of affording to the industry of the country +proper, that is, invariable, encouragement. Not being empirical, it will +make no pretence of furnishing the precious metals at less than the +market-rate, either for exportation or hoarding; but it will have the +effect of reducing them to their true position, that of merchandise, so +that they may be exchanged for the products of other countries with +profit. For the same reason it will not be redeemable. To redeem a +currency is to replace it by another. What other? Specie? That is out of +the question. However desirable specie may be as wealth, as a currency, +except for change, it is a nuisance. Accordingly, merchants prefer a +representative currency, even though its representative character be +somewhat problematical. And government failing to supply a better,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> this +becomes the currency of the country by a species of necessity. In short, +because of its inconveniences and risks, specie is not used as a +currency, and will not be, because, in addition to these obstacles, the +representative currency in use, being without proper regulation, has +increased to such an extent that there is not sufficient coin to replace +it,—a fact that practically settles in the negative the question of the +sufficiency of the precious metals for currency, in addition to their +other use, in a country where civilization has established credit as a +means of trade. Nevertheless, a specie-currency is advocated even by +those who carefully avoid handling it, and who would be the last to +consent to such a reduction of the currency as its exclusive use would +require,—a confusion of mind due to the fact that the difference +between value and wealth is not always distinctly recognized. Moreover, +it is not the function of a currency to be replaced, but to be a means +of payment. This the proposed currency will be by right of use,—a right +inherent in a national currency, and respected as long as the government +respects itself, that is, as long as the people govern wisely.</p> + +<p>A dollar, value-currency, will always buy a dollar's worth of gold, but +it may not always buy the quantity of gold contained in the gold dollar. +How much it will buy depends on the quantitative relation of the +currency to the population,—a relation which, though entirely optional, +should never be changed, because, with whatever change, provided the +proper relation of the parts to the whole be preserved, with little +there will be no lack, and with much, there will be nothing over,—and +because any change of that relation is injurious to commerce, inasmuch +as it produces a corresponding change in the value of credits. And +assuming a change to have been made, a return to the former rate, +instead of being a mitigation, will be a repetition of the injury, +except in regard to credits so extended that they embrace both changes. +If, however, a reduction be insisted on, a suitable mode may be +proposed. Twenty dollars per head gives six hundred millions. Assuming +this quantity to be superabundant, if it be adhered to until the +population reaches forty millions, the rate will be fifteen dollars per +head, which may be assumed to be abundant. If it be adhered to until the +population reaches sixty millions, which it will probably do in one +generation, the rate will be ten dollars per head, which may be assumed +to be convenient; and any attained rate may be continued, or made +constant, by increasing the currency proportionately with the increase +of the population. This mode of reduction, however, is possible with a +national value-currency only. A specie-currency is incapable of +regulation. The same may be said of any currency based on specie. +Indeed, a credit-currency will necessarily collapse under a +superabundant issue, unless its promises be ignored, or unless it be +sustained at the expense of the nation,—an expense which the nation +itself cannot sustain permanently.</p> + +<p>The rate of the currency governs the value of wealth. It is important, +therefore, that government have time to pay its debts before any great +decrease of currency takes place; otherwise, that decrease will be +equivalent to an increase of taxes, without producing a corresponding +decrease of the public debt. For the portion payable in gold it will be +better economy to pay the premium than to reduce the currency +sufficiently to avoid it; because such a reduction will work a +corresponding reduction of the value of all the wealth of the country, a +sum much greater than the debt. It is scarcely necessary to suggest that +the more currency the less taxes, and the greater the ability to pay +them; or that, when the war is over, government will cease to spend +several hundred millions per annum, and the industry this money supports +will require time to rearrange and adapt itself to pacific demands; or +that, if the currency be suddenly and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> largely reduced at such a time, +an accumulation of distress will follow, such as is rarely seen. With +the proposed currency, however, and the proposed mode of reduction, if a +reduction be agreed on, the change from the condition of war to that of +peace may take place without producing the prostration of business so +justly anticipated, because so fully warranted by experience of a +credit-currency, and so earnestly to be deprecated, because so evidently +and so easily avoidable by the adoption of a national currency that is +capable of regulation, and that, being properly regulated, cannot fail.</p> + +<p>Though this currency, like that of bank-notes, is wholly nominal, the +words of which it consists are those of a nation, and represent power. +Accordingly, they give to the currency power to perform its allotted +function; but they give it no other power. Has any other currency any +other power? A specie-currency may be converted into ear-rings, but it +is no longer a currency; it may be buried in iron pots, or locked in +iron safes, but it is not then a currency; it may be exported to foreign +lands, but it is not there a currency until reauthorized. Currencies, +properly speaking, are ideas clothed in words,—the words of a nation, +otherwise called laws. The merchandise attached to a specie-currency is +an evidence of former barbarism,—a remain of the primitive practice of +barter,—an incongruous element, tending to impede rather than to assist +circulation, to destroy rather than to create a currency.</p> + +<p>But is a value-currency possible? It is, to a people enjoying universal +equality before the law, and knowing that every individual has a direct +and immediate interest in it,—knowing that it is a part of the +business-policy of each. And it is only such a people that will dare to +inaugurate, and persevere to sustain it. Nevertheless, as it cannot but +appear problematical to minds that have not given to the subject the +most earnest attention, its adoption will doubtless be most strenuously +opposed, by habits of thought, by modes of action, and by interests, as +ancient, as universal, and apparently as fixed as the race itself. Yet, +as M. Arago justly remarks in one of his biographies addressed to the +French Academy,—"The moral transformations of society are subject to +the laws of continuity; they rise and grow, like the productions of the +earth, by imperceptible gradations. Each century develops, discusses, +and adapts to itself, in some degree, truths—or, if you prefer it, +principles—of which the conception belonged to the preceding century; +this work of the mind usually goes on without being perceived by the +vulgar; but when the day of application arrives, when principles claim +their part in practice, when they aim at penetrating into political +life, the ancient interests, if they have only this same antiquity to +invoke in their favor, become excited, resist, and struggle, and society +is shaken to its foundations. The tableau will be complete, Gentlemen, +when I add, that, in these obstinate conflicts, it is never the +principles that succumb."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p> +<h2>IN MEMORY OF</h2> + +<h3>J. W.—R. W.</h3> + + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">No mystic charm, no mortal art<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Can bid our loved companions stay;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bands that clasp them to our heart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Snap in death's frost and fall apart;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like shadows fading with the day,<br /></span> +<span class="i9">They pass away.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The young are stricken in their pride,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The old, long tottering, faint and fall;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Master and scholar, side by side,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the dark portals silent glide,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That open in life's mouldering wall<br /></span> +<span class="i9">And close on all.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Our friend's, our teacher's task was done,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">When mercy called him from on high;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A little cloud had dimmed the sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The saddening hours had just begun,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And darker days were drawing nigh:<br /></span> +<span class="i9">'Twas time to die.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A whiter soul, a fairer mind,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A life with purer course and aim,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A gentler eye, a voice more kind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We may not look on earth to find.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The love that lingers o'er his name<br /></span> +<span class="i9">Is more than fame.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">These blood-red summers ripen fast;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The sons are older than the sires;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ere yet the tree to earth is cast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sapling falls before the blast;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Life's ashes keep their covered fires,—<br /></span> +<span class="i9">Its flame expires.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Struck by the noiseless, viewless foe,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whose deadlier breath than shot or shell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has laid the best and bravest low,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His boy, all bright in morning's glow,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That high-souled youth he loved so well,<br /></span> +<span class="i9">Untimely fell.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yet still he wore his placid smile,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And, trustful in the cheering creed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That strives all sorrow to beguile,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Walked calmly on his way awhile:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ah, breast that leans on breaking reed<br /></span> +<span class="i9">Must ever bleed!<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So they both left us, sire and son,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With opening leaf, with laden bough:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The youth whose race was just begun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The wearied man whose course was run,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Its record written on his brow,<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Are brothers now.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Brothers!—the music of the sound<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Breathes softly through my closing strain;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The floor we tread is holy ground,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Those gentle spirits hovering round,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">While our fair circle joins again<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Its broken chain.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">MAY 25th, 1864.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>MEYERBEER.</h2> + + +<p>"Thou knowest not the day nor the hour." Scarcely two years ago the +great composer, whose recent death involves so irreparable a loss to the +world of musical art, was accosted, while in a Paris coffee-house, by a +friend recently arrived from Berlin.</p> + +<p>"What do they say of me there?" asked Meyerbeer, after the first +salutations.</p> + +<p>"They say, with regret, that you are just now as reticent as Rossini."</p> + +<p>"Indeed!"</p> + +<p>"Yet, after all, they add that you are busier than Rossini, for he is +doing nothing, and you, at least, have an opera in your portfolio."</p> + +<p>"Ah! I see you are hinting about the 'Africaine'."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I refer to the 'Africaine'."</p> + +<p>"Bah! bah! The Parisians are in a great hurry about it. I am not dead +yet, and some fine day I will astonish them in a way they will +remember."</p> + +<p>Providence decreed that this harmless boast, this careless prediction, +should come to nought. While he was yet working on the "Africaine", the +hand of death interposed, and, at the cold touch, the pen was laid +aside, the music-paper dropped unheeded on the floor, the piano was +silent, and the composer left forever the scene of his labors and his +triumphs. Few men might, at the last hour, be more justified in +pleading, with earnest anxiety,—"Not now!—not now!"</p> + +<p>Biographers already differ about the date of Meyerbeer's birth, some +asserting that it took place in 1791, while the majority agree that the +day was September 5, 1794. Born of a rich family of Jewish bankers, he +was, at an early age, stimulated to honorable exertion by the success in +other pursuits of his brother William, the astronomer, and Michael, the +poet,—successes which, however, at this day, are chiefly remembered +from their association with the name made really famous by the composer. +His parents encouraged the talent of the youth, who, at as early an age +as Mozart himself, manifested plainly the possession of genius; and when +only five years old, the boy was placed under the instruction of Lanska, +a local celebrity of Berlin. Two years later, little Jacob was a fair +performer on the piano-forte, or such an instrument as at that time +served for the Érard, the Chickering, the Steinway of the present day. +He played, as a prodigy, at the most fashionable amateur-concerts given +at the Prussian capital; and a faded old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> copy of a Leipsic paper, which +bears the date of 1803, yet survives the destruction awarded to all old +newspapers, simply because it mentions the youthful prodigy—then nine +years old—as one of the best pianists of his native city.</p> + +<p>One of those charming old musical enthusiasts who nowadays are met with +only in Germany—and but seldom there—about this time visited Berlin. +He heard little Jacob play, and at once predicted that the boy would +"one day become one of the glories of Europe," To take lessons in the +theory of music was the advice of this old enthusiast, the Abbé Vogler.</p> + +<p>So the lad was transferred from the tuition of Lanska to that of Bernard +Anselm Weber, a former pupil of old Vogler, and at that time director of +the orchestra at the Berlin opera; and from this master the boy learned +the art of instrumentation and harmony, to a certain degree at least. +Weber was very fond of his pupil, and sent one of his fugues to Vogler, +to show the old man that he was not the only one able to turn out +accomplished scholars. Two months passed without any answer, and Weber +attributed the silence to jealousy, until, one day, a large roll arrived +at his house. It contained a complete "Treatise on the Fugue," written +entirely by the hand of the old master, and containing also a critical +analysis of little Jacob's work, exposing its errors, adding example to +precept, by contrasting with it a fugue written by the Abbé on the same +theme, and also subjecting the two compositions to a severe and logical +criticism, which only proved the superiority of the masterly hand over +the inexperienced.</p> + +<p>Little Jacob was less mortified by this incident than was his poor +teacher, Weber. He took the manuscript, and, after a faithful study of +its contents, wrote another eight-part fugue, which he sent himself to +Vogler. The result was precisely as he desired: he became a pupil of the +old musician.</p> + +<p>Among the central towns of Germany, few are more pleasing, and, perhaps, +none at all more utterly neglected, than Darmstadt. The capital of a +duchy, it contains a harmless, quiet little court, to which are attached +a court-church and a court-theatre, alternately attracting the attention +of the courtiers. The palace is a quaint old affair, on one side as +precise and finished as a modern Italian villa, but taking its revenge +by indulging on the opposite side in a series of wild irregularities as +incomprehensible as they are picturesque,—old towers, romantic +gateways, broken battlements, running ivies, and gay, green foliage, +uniting, in charming confusion, to form the most pleasing picture in the +dear, lazy old town.</p> + +<p>A year or two ago, the quiet, neglected little Darmstadt came +temporarily to the surface, and was seen of men. The Princess Alice of +England married the heir to the Duchy, and the event aroused (in England +especially) a natural curiosity as to the young lady's future home,—a +curiosity which has since quite died away. Darmstadt, about twenty years +ago, was also somewhat talked of in a distant Northern land; for from +the dull old Ducal palace went forth a pretty, delicate-looking girl, +who is now the wife of Alexander II, and the Empress of all the Russias.</p> + +<p>In the Darmstadt picture-gallery is an old painting of the city as it +was just one century ago,—in 1764. It was a very little and a very +shabby city then. People dressed in the most ridiculous of costumes, and +the picture shows His Serene Highness, arrayed in scarlet and yellow, +getting out of a very clumsy, gilded carriage, amid the adulation of +bowing and wigged courtiers. When Meyerbeer was there, however, +Darmstadt was much as it is to-day,—a city so quiet that you might +almost pitch your tent in the middle of the principal street, and sleep +undisturbed for a week at least.</p> + +<p>The Abbé Vogler was organist of the cathedral, an ugly, clumsy old +building, darkened by wide wooden galleries. Meyerbeer was a Jew, but +his parents were liberal enough to send him to the fireside of a +Christian, and the boy became<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> an inmate of Vogler's house. For two +years he studied faithfully, and by that time was initiated, as he had +never been before, into the mysteries of counterpoint. For several years +after this he remained with Vogler, studying, working, composing, and +enjoying.</p> + +<p>Indeed, the biographer who shall give us a permanent "Life of Meyerbeer" +must recur to the composer's sojourn in Darmstadt as the most romantic +phase of his existence,—when, away from the pleasures and temptations +of a great capital, free from the demands of society, with nothing to +distract his mind from Art, he consecrated his young life to her +service. His few associates of his own age were devoted to the same +cause, and all were certainly inspired by a mutual emulation. But only +one of the little group, besides the subject of this sketch, has left a +name to be remembered,—and that is Carl Maria von Weber. The other two +may have had as noble aspirations, as untiring energy, as passionate +ambitions; but Fate had decreed that Godefroy von Weber and Gänsbacher +should never win the world's applause. Carl Maria and Meyerbeer were the +"cronies" of the little school. They were constantly together; they +built their air-castles with a view to future joint occupancy; they made +their boyish vows of eternal friendship. Among the papers of Weber was +found, after his death, one bearing the title, "Cantata, written by +Weber for the Birthday of Vogler, and set to Music by Meyerbeer." The +words of Weber, it is said, are better than the music of his friend.</p> + +<p>All these boys loved their old master, the Abbé, and knew no greater +pleasure than to enjoy his personal instructions. The duties of each day +were regular, simple, and gladly performed. The Abbé, in his capacity of +priest, began by celebrating a mass, at which Carl Maria von Weber +assisted, as little boys do in these times at every mass throughout the +land. Then, as a <i>maëstro</i>, the Abbé apportioned to each of his pupils +the task for the day,—the <i>Kyrie</i>, the <i>Sanctus</i>, or the <i>Gloria in +Excelsis</i>. Vogler himself joined in the task, and the completed +compositions were sent to the various church-choirs in the Duchy for +performance. In the twilight hours, there were strolls about the quiet +streets of Darmstadt, in the Ducal gardens, or among the tombstones of +an old churchyard in the suburbs of the city. Outside the town there was +really little to attract the pleasure-seeker, for Darmstadt lies in a +flat, cultivated plain, and its surroundings are tame and monotonous. On +Sundays they all went to the cathedral, where there were two organs. The +Abbé played one, and as he finished some masterly voluntary or some +scientific fugue, his pupils would in turn respond on the other +instrument, at times playing fanciful variations, on some theme given +out by their teacher, and again wandering in rich extemporaneous +harmonies over the old yellow keys. Who knows but that, in this way, the +quiet, phlegmatic congregation of the Darmstadt cathedral may have +heard, unheedingly, from the hand of Weber, sweet strains which +afterwards were elaborated in "Oberon" and "Der Freischütz"? or have +listened, with dreamy pleasure, to snatches of melody destined in future +years to be woven by Meyerbeer into the score of "Robert" or the +"Huguenots"?</p> + +<p>Thus the quiet music life at Darmstadt passed on, each of the four boys +living but for their art. Meyerbeer was the foremost in success; for, +when but seventeen years old, he wrote a religious <i>cantata</i>, called +"God and Nature," which, performed before the Duke, secured to him the +title of Composer to the Court. In 1811 a still greater excitement +disturbed the serenity of Meyerbeer's period of study. Vogler closed his +school, and started with his scholars on a tour through the principal +cities of Germany. Each of the young composers carried with him a +portfolio of original compositions, though they were generous enough to +consider a manuscript opera by Meyerbeer, called "The Vow of Jephthah," +as the ablest work, and at Munich<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> aided heartily in preparing it for +the stage. In this critical Bavarian capital Meyerbeer made his first +appeal to public favor as an operatic composer,—and failed. He was not +hissed or ridiculed, but "The Vow of Jephthah" fell coldly on the +audience, and was shortly withdrawn.</p> + +<p>Doubting whether he was destined to succeed as a composer, Meyerbeer +went to Vienna, a city not unfrequently called by musicians Pianopolis, +and there he heard Hummel play the piano. He had already taken a few +lessons of Clementi, but no sooner did he listen to the former master +than he recognized his own inefficiency, and saw work before him. He +determined to unite in himself, as a pianist, the brilliancy of +execution of Clementi, and the charm, the grace, and purity of Hummel's +style. He succeeded, and made his <i>début</i> at a concert at Vienna with +the most flattering applause. At this day the amateur would give much to +hear exactly how such men as Meyerbeer, and Hummel, and Clementi played, +and to compare them with Thalberg, Gottschalk, and Satter. It is +impossible to say in what respects Meyerbeer may have fallen behind or +surpassed these accomplished executants; but certain it is, that, in the +beginning of the present century, and while scarce out of his teens, the +favorite pupil of the Abbé Vogler was the favorite pianist of the Vienna +public.</p> + +<p>Yet, after all his triumphs in the concert-room, he yearned for the +greater triumphs of the stage, and leaving the piano to his renowned +successors, Chopin and Liszt, he turned again to composing. He wrote an +opera called "The Two Caliphs," which, like his previous effort, was +replete with strange harmonies, very sparing in melody, and met with the +same (lack of) success. The celebrated Metternich—an authority in Art +as well as in diplomacy—was present at the production of "The Two +Caliphs," but only once ventured to applaud. The old master, Vogler, and +the dearer friend, Von Weber, still encouraged the young composer with +their approbation, and only blamed a stupid audience that would not +discern the beauties appreciable by their sharper ears.</p> + +<p>Meyerbeer had good sense, and with a modesty perhaps more unusual in a +musician than in any one else, he was disposed rather to blame himself +than the public. A prominent amateur composer of Vienna—Salieri by +name—advised him to go to Italy; and to Venice, as the nearest point, +he hastened without delay.</p> + +<p>In these days of universal travel, when every tourist can talk glibly of +the different theatres and composers of the Old World, it seems almost +incredible that a young man of wealth and taste like Meyerbeer should +not have visited Italy till almost forced to do so. Yet such was the +case. Meyerbeer was a man of one idea, and that idea was music. No +journey which had any other object possessed attractions for him. To the +influences of history, to the grandeur of that land which should not be +named without an almost holy veneration, he was quite indifferent. It +was not the Cæsars that drew him to Italy, nor the Popes, nor the +Raphaels, nor the Michel Angelos,—it was Rossini and the modern opera.</p> + +<p>At that time the composer of "Semiramide" was at the height of his +popularity, and Meyerbeer heard "Tancredi," and for the first time felt +the delicious fascination of Italian melody. He determined to transplant +it into the rugged soil of his own masculine musical science; and three +years after the Rossinian revelation at Venice, his first Italian opera, +"Romilda e Costanza," was produced at that dismal old metropolis of +necromancy, Padua, Signora Pisaroni taking the principal part. It +pleased, as did his next work, "Semiramide Riconosciuta," produced at +Turin, though neither was so successful as his "Emma di Risburgo," first +heard at Venice, and for some time a rival in popularity to "Tancredi."</p> + +<p>At this period Meyerbeer adopted the name of Giacomo,—the Italian +translation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> of Jacob,—which he ever after retained. His true name was +Meyer Liebmann Beer, but he suppressed the Liebmann, because that word +in German, when joined with Beer, could by weak punsters be translated +into "a philanthropic bear"; so he Italianized his pre-nomen, dropped +his middle name, and joined the two other words in one,—the result of +all these liberties in nomenclature being "Giacomo Meyerbeer."</p> + +<p>Thus, doubly armed with an Italian name and an Italian reputation, he +returned to Germany, but was coldly welcomed. Even Weber charged him +with being a renegade to the cause of German Art, and, while "Emma di +Risburgo" was played at one of the Berlin theatres, had "The Two +Caliphs" revived at another. Meyerbeer thus could have heard his two +styles of composition exemplified in the same night. Weber, indeed, +always looked upon Meyerbeer's Italian operas as a sad falling away from +grace, and in a letter written to his brother, Godefroy,—the fourth of +the little group of Darmstadt students,—says,—</p> + +<p>"Meyerbeer has promised on his return to Berlin to write a German opera. +God be praised for it! I appealed strongly to his conscience in the +matter."</p> + +<p>Returning to Italy, Meyerbeer produced "Margherita d' Angiu" at La +Scala, Milan, following it with "L'Esule di Granata"; and then in 1824 +Venice saw and heard the "Crociato." This last opera made the tour of +the world, carried the name of the composer to every place where musical +art was cultivated, and won for Meyerbeer, from the distant Emperor of +Brazil, the decoration of the Cross of the South.</p> + +<p>In Paris alone—Paris, which afterwards made such an idol of the +composer—did the "Crociato" fail to meet with immediate success. In +nonsense and folly it may be truly said of the Parisians that "a little +child shall lead them"; and so it happened on this occasion. In the +admirable quartette of the second act a child is introduced, as in +"Norma," to awaken the sympathies of an untractable tenor papa. This +juvenile, by no means a young Apollo, took not the slightest interest in +the music, and was so indifferent to the publicity of the situation, so +utterly <i>blasé</i>, (and sleepy,) as to yawn during the most affecting +passages. At the first yawn, the audience smiled; the <i>prima donna</i>, +proceeding with her part, exclaimed in tragic Italian, "Restrain thy +tears!"—and the child gaped again for the second time, while the +audience grinned. "Heaven will comfort thee!" shrieked the +singer,—whereat the child gave such a prodigious yawn that the house +burst into laughter, and the vocalist could not finish the piece.</p> + +<p>In 1827 Meyerbeer married, and retired from public life for a while. Two +of the children born to him died, their loss casting so deep a shade on +his soul that for nearly two years he composed only religious music to +words selected from the Book of Psalms, or written by Klopstock. He also +wrote a collection of melodies, among them an elegy entitled "At the +Tomb of Beethoven." But erelong the glorious old instinct for operatic +composition returned. On the seventeenth of September, 1829, M. Lubbert, +then director of the opera, received a letter couched in these terms:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="right">"<i>17 Septembre, 1829</i>.</p> + +<p>"J'ai l'honneur de vous prévenir, Monsieur, que par décision +de ce jour j'ai accordé à M. Meyerbeer, compositeur, ses +entrées à l'Académie Royale de Musique....</p> + +<p class="right">"L'Aide-de-Camp du Roi,</p> + +<p class="right">"Directeur-Général des Beaux-Arts,</p> + +<p class="right">"<span class="smcap">Vicomte de Larochefoucauld.</span>"</p></div> + +<p>And two years later, on the twenty-first of September, 1831, Dr. Véron, +the successor of Lubbert, opened his doors for the first performance of +"Robert le Diable." This wonderful and popular opera was written in +French, to a <i>libretto</i> sent to Berlin by Scribe, and was at first +intended for the Opéra Comique, but its three acts were subsequently +increased to five, and its destination changed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> the Grand Opéra. +Meyerbeer himself had to bear much of the expense of preparing the +stage-appointments, though not to such an extent as on the production of +his "Romilda" in Italy, when he bought the <i>libretto</i>, gave the music +gratis, paid the singers, and provided the costumes.</p> + +<p>Dr. Véron, in his Memoirs, gives an amusing account of the accidents +which attended the first production of "Robert." In the third act, a +chandelier fell, and the <i>prima donna</i> Dorus had a narrow escape from +being hit by the falling glass; after the chorus of demons, a cloud, +rising from the cave to hide the stage, reached a certain elevation, and +then, giving way, tumbled on the boards, nearly striking Taglioni the +dancer, who, as <i>Elena</i>, was extended on her tomb, ready for the next +scene; and in the last act, Nourrit, the <i>Robert</i> of the evening, in the +excitement of the moment, leaped down the trap-door by which Levasseur +(the <i>Bertram</i>) had just disappeared. This last event received different +interpretations. On the stage there was alarm and weeping, because it +was then thought Nourrit in his leap had been killed or maimed; by the +audience it was supposed that the author intended <i>Robert</i> should share +with <i>Bertram</i> the infernal regions; while <i>under</i> the stage Levasseur +greeted the tenor with mingled surprise and disgust:—"<i>Que diable +faites vous ici? Est ce qu'on a changé le dénouement?</i>" Luckily, Nourrit +was unhurt, the curtain was raised again, the singers made their +conventional acknowledgments, and the names of the authors were +announced amid the wildest enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>After that night Meyerbeer had to pay no more money to get his operas on +the stage. The tables were so completely turned that he thenceforth +could command almost any price he chose to ask. To follow his career +more minutely, after this period of his emergence into the bright light +of fame, would be but to recount a story with which almost every one is +familiar.</p> + +<p>The "Huguenots" was the next opera, and it was produced only after +infinite delays; indeed, just before the rehearsal, Madame Meyerbeer +fell ill, and her husband decided to convey her to Italy. He took the +music from the orchestra desks, forfeited a fine of thirty thousand +francs, and a few hours later he and his "Huguenots" were on the way to +Nice. When finally produced at Paris, this opera was as well received as +the "Robert." It appears, that, after the first general rehearsal, +Nourrit, the tenor, found fault with the sublime music of the fourth +act. Meyerbeer returned home in a very unpleasant frame of mind, and +told his troubles to the friend with whom he lodged. "If I only had," +said he, "a few stanzas to arrange as an <i>andante</i> and <i>duo</i>, all would +be right. But I cannot ask Scribe to add more verses." The friend +immediately called a literary acquaintance, Émile Deschamps, who was +playing cards in a neighboring <i>café</i>, explained to him the situation, +and in a few minutes the verses were written. It was about midnight, and +the composer, seating himself at the piano with the words before him, in +a fever of inspiration threw out the splendid <i>duo</i> between <i>Raoul</i> and +<i>Valentine</i> which closes the act, and which always equally enchants +performers and audience; and when this music was performed at the next +rehearsal, the orchestra, players, and vocalists carried the composer in +triumph on the stage to receive their spontaneous plaudits and +congratulations, while Nourrit embraced him with tears of delight.</p> + +<p>Eight years later came another triumph of elaborate Art in "Le +Prophète," a work which is generally underrated by the leading French +critics, though it contains many of the very noblest inspirations of the +genius of Meyerbeer. To this opera followed "L'Ètoile du Nord," and "Le +Pardon de Ploermel," while to these will soon follow "L'Africaine," so +long promised, and in behalf of which the composer was visiting Paris at +the time of his death. The score of the opera has been completed since +1860.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> + +<p>On Friday, the twenty-second of April last, Meyerbeer dined alone at his +residence, his meal being, as usual, very frugal. On Saturday, the +twenty-third of April, he felt unwell, but a physician was not sent for +till the next week, and in the mean time Meyerbeer was busy +superintending the copyists engaged in his house on the score of +"L'Africaine," for which he had, instead of his customary orchestral +introduction, just written a long overture. On the following Sunday, the +first of May, his disorder, which was internal, grew worse, and his +weakness increased so that he became almost irritable about it,—he was +so anxious to continue at the work of the orchestration of his new +opera, and so annoyed by the illness which prevented him. His family +were sent for by telegraph, but were mostly too late to hold converse +with him; for on Sunday night, before they arrived, he turned in his bed +and bade them farewell with a faint smile, as he said, "I now bid you +good-night till to-morrow morning." These were his last words; for when +the morning was come, and daylight peered into the windows of the tall +house at Paris, he was shadowed by the mystery of that night which +awaits a resurrection-morning.</p> + +<p>Among his papers in his travelling-portfolio was found a packet marked, +"To be opened after death," containing directions, written in German, of +which the following is a literal translation:—</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>"I desire the following details to be observed after my decease.</p> + +<p>"I wish to be left lying on my bed, with my face exposed to view, just +as I was previously to my death, for four days, and on the fifth day to +have incisions made in the brachial artery and in the foot. After this, +my body is to be conveyed to Berlin, where I wish to be interred in the +tomb of my dearly beloved mother. Should there be no room, I beg that I +may be laid by the side of my two dear children, who died at a very +early age.</p> + +<p>"Should I happen to die far from those related to me, the same measures +are to be pursued, and two attendants are to watch my body day and night +to see whether I do not give any signs of life.</p> + +<p>"If, owing to any particular circumstances, it is necessary to take me +to a dead-house, I desire, that, according to custom, little bells shall +be fastened to my hands and feet, in order to keep the attendants on the +alert.</p> + +<p>"Having always feared being buried alive, my object in giving the above +directions is to prevent the possibility of any return of life.</p> + +<p>"The will of God be done, and His name sanctified and blessed in heaven +and on earth! Amen!"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>All these directions were complied with; while the funeral +arrangements—in Paris at least—were very theatrical and "Frenchy," +though at Berlin they were conducted with greater dignity. The line of +procession, led by a band playing extracts from Meyerbeer's music, +passed the Opéra Comique and the Grand Opéra, both of which were dressed +in black. Auber was among the pall-bearers, and Gounod among the +mourners. Behind the coffin were carried on a cushion the various +decorations with which sovereigns and societies had decked the composer. +At the Northern Railway station, (also draped in mourning,) orations +were delivered, <i>and applauded</i> by the listeners, and sometimes +interrupted by the impatient steam-whistles of departing trains. An +incident of the funeral was the decoration of the <i>catafalque</i> with a +silver cross: Meyerbeer was a Jew, and the inconsistency was not noticed +till there was barely time to tear away the Christian emblem before the +body of the Israelite composer was laid in its place. That same night, +at the Grand Opéra, the "Huguenots" was performed, and never did Sax, +Gueymard, Faure, and Beisal sing or act with greater effect. After the +fourth act the curtain was raised; and while the orchestra played the +Coronation March from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> "Prophète," the bust of the composer was +crowned with laurel by the performers.</p> + +<p>The family, in accordance with the curious European custom, sent around +to their friends a circular worded as follows:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Sir,—Madame Meyerbeer (widow); Mlles. Cécile and Cornélie +Meyerbeer; the Baron and Baroness De Korf, and Son; M. and +Madame Georges Beer; M. and Madame Jules Beer and Children; +M. and Madame Alexandre Oppenheim; M. and Madame S. de +Haber, Madlle. Laure de Haber; and Madlle. Anna Eberty, have +the honor to announce to you the sad loss they have just +suffered by the death of M. Giacomo Meyerbeer, their +husband, father, father-in-law, grandfather, uncle, and +great-uncle, who died at Paris on the 2nd May, 1864, aged +seventy-two."</p></div> + +<p>Meyerbeer was, up to the last, full of plans for the future, and while +getting "L'Africaine" ready was looking for the <i>libretto</i> of a comic +opera to compose "for amusement," as a repose between grander works. It +is said that he has left another completed opera, on the Biblical story +of Judith and Holofernes; and he also had a vague idea of writing a +grand historical opera on an English subject, the idea having been +suggested by a visit to the Princess Theatre, London, when Charles Kean +was playing, with unusual scenic accessories, Shakspeare's "Henry VIII." +The proposed opera was to have been equally as grand a work as the +"Huguenots," and the peculiarities of old English music—the style of +melody of Locke, Purcell, and Arne—were to have been imitated with that +skill of which Meyerbeer was so eminently a master. He never would write +an oratorio, because he had no hope of excelling Mendelssohn in that +branch of musical art. His last composition was an aria written to +Italian words for a Spanish lady-friend, the Señorita Zapater; and he +was about to arrange the accompaniment for the orchestra when his last +illness came on.</p> + +<p>Personally, Giacomo Meyerbeer had many characteristics which were not +inviting. He was fond of money, yet willing to lavish it whenever Art +demanded the sacrifice. He took snuff, and wore green spectacles, was +careless, often shabby in his dress, and would stroll through the +streets of Paris wearing a wretched hat, inwardly composing music as he +walked along; on grand occasions, however, he would go to the opposite +extreme in matters of toilet, and appear radiant with the numerous +decorations presented to him by the different sovereigns of Europe. He +knew the power of the press, and was not too delicate to invite the +leading critics to elaborate dinners at the Trois Frères the night +before a first performance.</p> + +<p>It is not intended here to enter into a critical or scientific analysis +of Meyerbeer as a composer. As far as the present development of Art +would indicate, his name seems to us destined to go down to posterity +encircled by a fadeless halo of glory; and at the same time we must +remember that there have been other composers who, though now forgotten, +yet in their time and at their death have similarly impressed their +contemporaries. But certain it is, that, in our day and generation, and +at least during the life of every one now existing, the fame of +Meyerbeer will be brilliant indeed, and the music of the "Robert," the +"Huguenots," and the "Prophète" will challenge the admiration and love +of all susceptible to the influence of the grandest and noblest strains +that musical science has yet evoked.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE MAY CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA.</h2> + + +<p>There are few months in the calendar of centuries that will have a more +conspicuous place in history than the month of May, 1864. It will be +remembered on account of the momentous events which have taken place +during the present military operations. It inaugurates one of the +greatest campaigns of history. We who are in it are amazed, not by its +magnitude merely, for there have been larger armies, heavier trains of +artillery, greater preparations, in European warfare,—but we are +overwhelmed by a succession of events unparalleled for rapidity. We +cannot fully comprehend the amount of endurance, the persistency, the +hard marching, the harder fighting, the unwearied, cheerful energy and +effort which have carried the Army of the Potomac from the Rappahannock +to the Chickahominy in thirty days, against the stubborn opposition of +an army of almost equal numbers. There has not been a day of rest, +scarcely an hour of quiet. Morning, noon, and midnight, the booming of +cannon and the rattling of musketry have echoed unceasingly through the +Wilderness, around the hillocks of Spottsylvania, along the banks of the +North Anna, and among the groves of Bethesda Church and Coal Harbor.</p> + +<p>A brief <i>résumé</i> of the campaign, thus far developed, is all that can be +attempted in the space assigned me. I must pass by the efforts of +individuals, as heroic and soul-stirring as those of the old Cavaliers +renowned in story and song, where all the energies of life are centred +in one moment,—the spirited advance of regiments, the onset of +brigades; and the resistless charges of divisions. I can speak only of +the movements of corps, without dwelling upon those scenes which stir +the blood and fire the soul,—the hardihood, the endurance, the cool, +collected, reserved force, abiding the time, the calm facing of death, +the swift advance, the rush, the plunge into the thickest of the fight, +where hundreds of cannon, where fifty thousand muskets, fill the air +with iron hail and leaden rain!</p> + + +<h3>THE GENERAL PLAN.</h3> + +<p>The army wintered between the Rappahannock and the Rapidan. There had +been a reduction and reconstruction of its corps,—an incorporation of +the First and Third with the Fifth and Sixth, with reinforcements added +to the Second. The Second was commanded by Major-General Hancock, the +Fifth by Major-General Warren, the Sixth by Major-General Sedgwick. No +definite statement of the number of men composing the army can be given, +for the campaign is not yet ended; and no aid or comfort, no information +of value to the enemy, can be tendered through the columns of the loyal +"Atlantic."</p> + +<p>These three corps, with three divisions of cavalry commanded by General +Sheridan, composed the Army of the Potomac, commanded by Major-General +Meade. The Ninth Corps, commanded by Major-General Burnside, was added +when the army took up its line of march.</p> + +<p>There was concentration everywhere. General Gillmore, with what troops +could be spared from the department of the South, joined his forces to +those already on the Peninsula and at Suffolk; Sigel had several +thousand in the Shenandoah; Crook and Averell had a small army in +Western Virginia; while at Chattanooga, under Sherman and Thomas, was +gathered a large army of Western troops.</p> + +<p>The <i>dramatis personæ</i> were known to the public, but the part assigned +to each was kept profoundly secret. There was discussion and speculation +whether Burnside, from his encampment at Annapolis, would suddenly take +transports and go to Wilmington, or up the Rappahannock, or the James, +or the York, uniting his forces with Butler's. Would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> Meade move +directly across the Rapidan and attack Lee in front, with every passage, +every hill and ravine enfiladed by Rebel cannon? Or would he move his +right flank along the Blue Ridge, crowding Lee to the seaboard? Would he +not make, rather, a sudden change of base to Fredericksburg? None of the +wise men, military or civil, in their speculations, indicated the line +which General Grant adopted. The public accepted the disaster at +Chancellorsville and the failure at Mine Run as conclusive evidence that +a successful advance across the Rapidan by the middle fords was +impossible, or at least improbable. So well was the secret kept, that, +aside from the corps commanders, none in or out of the army, except the +President and Secretary of War, had information of the line of march +intended.</p> + +<p>We know now how General Burnside marched to Washington, contrary to the +expectations of the public; how his troops passed in review before the +President,—a few veterans, with Roanoke, Newbern, all the seven days +before Richmond, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Vicksburg, and Knoxville on +their tattered ensigns; how they were cheered by the crowd; how, +following them, came a division for the first time shouldering a musket +for their country,—who till a year ago never had a country,—who even +now, although Americans, are not citizens,—disfranchised, yet fighting +for the flag,—beholding now for the first time the careworn, yet +benevolent face of their benefactor, and rending the air with their +hurrahs. There was swinging of hats, waving of handkerchiefs and +banners. They marched to victory or certain death. For them there was no +surrender, after the massacres of Milliken's Bend, Plymouth, and Fort +Pillow.</p> + +<p>We know how Butler went up to White House, and then suddenly down the +York and up the James to Bermuda Hundred. We know of the movements of +Sigel and Crook and Averell,—minor, yet important in the general plan. +We have had the victorious march of Sherman, flanking and defeating +Johnston. All these movements were parts of the well-considered plan of +operations.</p> + +<p>The expedition of General Banks up the Red River was in process of +execution when General Grant was appointed Commander-in-Chief of all the +forces in the field. He sent a messenger recalling it; but, through some +miscarriage or misconception of orders, or from some cause yet +unexplained, the expedition kept on its way, resulting in disaster. The +withdrawal of the gunboats which had been demonstrating off Mobile, and +the departure of troops from the Mississippi, enabled General Johnston +to gather all the forces of the Southwest in front of Sherman. General +Grant designed that General Banks, with troops and flotilla, should +suddenly fall upon Mobile, front and rear. If the works were carried by +assault, then gunboats and transports could appear at Montgomery, +flanking Johnston. It would be the thrusting of a probe deep into the +tenderest and sorest parts of the Confederate body-politic. It would +sever Alabama and Mississippi from the other Rebel States. Or, if +failing in the assault, it would at least compel Johnston to send back +the troops withdrawn, thus making it easy work for Sherman.</p> + +<p>The failure of any part in a concerted movement affects all other parts. +General Banks not appearing at Mobile has retarded Sherman. The failure +of Butler to close the Southern portal, and the defeat of Sigel, who, +instead of knocking loudly at the back-door of the Rebel capital, was +himself knocked back, have enabled Lee to concentrate all his troops +against the Army of the Potomac. Finnegan's troops from Florida, +Beauregard's from Charleston, Pickett's from North Carolina, Buckner's +from Western Virginia, and Breckenridge's from the Shenandoah, at the +close of the month, are fighting against General Grant at Coal Harbor.</p> + +<p>These are the general features of the campaign as a whole; but, separate +and distinct from the movements of all other armies and bodies of men, +are the operations of the Army of the Potomac,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> which has a campaign of +its own,—forever memorable!</p> + + +<h3>LEFT-FLANK MOVEMENTS.</h3> + +<p>There have been four movements by the left flank:—</p> + +<p>From Culpepper to Wilderness.</p> + +<p>From Wilderness to Spottsylvania.</p> + +<p>From Spottsylvania to the North Anna.</p> + +<p>From the North Anna to the Chickahominy.</p> + +<p>It has been a month of marching and fighting,—fighting and +marching,—day and night,—night and day,—winning no great, decisive +victory, nor suffering defeat, yet getting nearer the while to Richmond, +and compelling the enemy to choose new positions or be cut off from his +capital.</p> + +<p>The accompanying diagram will convey to the eye the relative movements +of the two armies,—General Grant moving on the arcs of the circles, as +represented by the dotted lines, and Lee upon the chords of the arcs, as +indicated by the continuous lines.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 314px;"> +<img src="images/image132.jpg" width="314" height="550" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + +<h3>FROM CULPEPPER TO WILDERNESS.</h3> + +<p>On Tuesday afternoon, May 3d, the cavalry broke camp on the Orange and +Alexandria railroad, and moved eastward,—General Gregg's division +toward Ely's Ford, and General Wilson's division towards Germanna Ford, +each having pontoons. At midnight the Second Corps, which had been +encamped east of Culpepper, followed General Gregg. At daylight on the +morning of the 4th of May, the Fifth and Sixth Corps and the reserve +artillery were moving towards Germanna Ford. The supply-train—sixty +miles in length, eight thousand wagons—followed the Second Corps. There +were but these two available roads.</p> + +<p>The enemy was at Orange Court-House, watching, from his elevated lookout +on Clark's Mountain, for the first sign of change. In the light of the +early dawn he saw that the encampments at Culpepper were broken up, +while the dust-cloud hanging over the forest toward the east was the +sure indication of the movement.</p> + +<p>General Lee put his army in instant motion to strike the advancing +columns as they crossed the Rapidan. The movement of Grant was +southeast, that of Lee northeast,—lines of advance which must produce +collision, unless Grant was far enough forward to slip by the angle. +There is reason to believe that General Grant did not intend to fight +Lee at Wilderness, but that it was his design to slip past that point +and swing round by Spottsylvania, and, if possible, get between Lee and +Richmond. He boldly cut loose his connection with Washington, and sailed +out into the unknown and untried, relying upon the ability of his +soldiers to open a new base for supplies whenever needed.</p> + +<p>In this first day's movement he did not uncover Washington. Burnside was +still lying on the north bank of the Rappahannock. It was understood in +the army that the Ninth Corps was to be a reserve to protect the +capital. So, perhaps, Lee understood it. But at nightfall, on the 4th, +the shelter-tents are folded, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> men of the Ninth, with six days' +rations in their haversacks, are on the march along the forest-road, +lighted only by the stars, joining the main army at Germanna Ford on the +morning of the 5th.</p> + +<p>Although the movement of the troops was well timed, and the march made +with great rapidity, the trains were delayed, and it was not possible +for General Grant to swing past the enemy advancing upon his flank.</p> + +<p>Early in the morning of the 5th, Generals Meade and Grant, with their +staffs, after riding five miles from Germanna Ford, halted near the old +mill in the Wilderness. General Sheridan's cavalry had been pushing out +south and west. Aids came back with despatches.</p> + +<p>"They say that Lee intends to fight us here," said General Meade, as he +read them.</p> + +<p>"Very well," was the quiet reply of General Grant.</p> + +<p>The two commanders retire a little from the crowd, and stand by the +road-side in earnest conversation. Grant is of medium stature, yet has a +well-developed <i>physique</i>, sandy whiskers and moustache, blue eyes, +earnest, thoughtful, and far-seeing, a cigar in his mouth, a knife in +one hand, and a stick in the other, which he is whittling to a point. He +whittles slowly towards him. His thoughts are not yet crystallized. His +words are few. Suddenly he commences upon the other end of the stick, +and whittles energetically from him. His mind is made up,—his plan +matured. He is less reticent,—talks freely. He is dressed in plain +blue; and were it not for the three stars upon his shoulder, few would +select him as the Lieutenant-General commanding all the armies of the +Union in the field.</p> + +<p>Meade is tall, thin, a little stooping in the shoulders, quick, +comprehending the situation of affairs in an instant, energetic,—an +officer of excellent executive ability.</p> + + +<h3>THE BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS.</h3> + +<p>At the old Wilderness tavern the Stevensburg plank-road leading +southeast from Germanna Ford crosses the Orange and Fredericksburg +turnpike. Five miles beyond the tavern is Wilderness Church, at the +junction of the Stevensburg with the Orange and Fredericksburg +plank-road. Near by is the Brock road, which leads south to +Spottsylvania Court-House. West of the old tavern, four miles on the +turnpike, is Parker's store. In the early morning, General Ewell's +brigades appeared in line of battle at the store, on both sides of the +turnpike, while General A. P. Hill's corps was found to be pushing +rapidly eastward along the Orange plank-road, to gain the junction of +the roads at Old Church. Longstreet was following Hill.</p> + +<p>The Second Corps, which had crossed at Ely's Ford, was already on the +move towards Spottsylvania. A recall was sent, also orders directing +Hancock to hold the junction of the roads. The Fifth Corps was thrown +out upon the turnpike towards Parker's store. The Sixth was moved up +from the Germanna road, west, into the woods, and placed in position to +cover all approaches to the ford. The Ninth arrived during the day, and +moved into the gap between the Fifth and Second. Divisions were moved to +the right, to the left, and to the centre, during the two days' fight, +but the positions of the corps remained unchanged.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 367px;"> +<img src="images/image133.jpg" width="367" height="450" alt="" title="" /> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p> + +<p>Standing by the old tavern and looking west, you see the line of battle. +At your feet is a brook flowing from the southwest to the northeast, and +there is another smaller stream joining its waters at the crossing of +the roads. Beyond the bridge the turnpike crosses a ridge of land. On +the southern slope is the house of Major Lucy, with a smooth lawn, and +meadows green with the verdure of spring. Beyond the meadows are hills +wooded with oaks, pines, and cedar-thickets. At the right hand of the +turnpike the ridge is closely set with pines and cedars. Farther out it +breaks down into a ravine. Ewell has the western slope, and Warren with +the Fifth Corps the eastern, with the Sixth on his right.</p> + +<p>It is a mixture of tall trees and small underbrush,—dense, almost +impenetrable. There are hills, knolls, dells, dark ravines. It is a +battle-ground for Indians, but one not admitting of the military +movements,—of advance by columns, or lines, as laid down in the books.</p> + +<p>The battle commenced on Thursday afternoon and closed Saturday morning. +It was fierce, terrible, bloody, and yet indecisive. It was one unbroken +roll of musketry. There was a hostile meeting of two hundred thousand +men. There were bayonet-charges, surgings to and fro of the opposing +lines, a meeting and commingling, like waves of the ocean, sudden +upspringings from the underbrush of divisions stealthily advanced. There +was the continuous rattle, the roll deepening into long heavy swells, +the crescendo and the diminuendo of a terrible symphony, rising to +thunder-tones, to crash and uproar indescribable, then dying away to a +ripple, to silence at last!</p> + +<p>Lee hastened from his intrenchments beyond Mine Run to strike Grant a +damaging blow,—to fall upon him while his line was thin and attenuated. +Grant was in column, moving southeast,—Lee in two columns, moving +northeast. These lines show it to the eye:—</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 256px;"> +<img src="images/image134.jpg" width="256" height="254" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>The advance of Lee has its parallel in naval warfare,—in Nelson's lines +of battle at Trafalgar. But there the comparison fails. The advance is +the same,—the result, instead of a victory, a defeat. He fell upon the +Fifth Corps, first at Parker's store, then on the right centre, then on +the left, then upon the Sixth, then upon the Second,—then upon the +whole line, renewing and repeating the assaults. Grant stood throughout +upon the line selected at the beginning of the battle. Lee began the +attack on the 5th, and renewed it at daybreak on the 6th.</p> + +<p>Through all those long hours of conflict, there was patient endurance in +front of the enemy. There were temporary successes and reverses on both +sides. In only a single instance was there permanent advantage to the +enemy, and that he had not the power to improve. It was at the close of +the contest on the 6th. The sun had gone down, and twilight was +deepening into night. The wearied men of Rickett's division of the Sixth +Corps, in the front line of battle on the right, had thrown themselves +upon the ground. Suddenly there was a rush upon their flank. There was +musketry, blinding flashes from cannon, and explosions of shells. The +line which had stood firmly through the day gave way, not because it was +overpowered, but because it was surprised. General Seymour and a portion +of his brigade were taken prisoners. There was a partial panic, which +soon subsided. The second line remained firm, the enemy was driven back, +and the disaster repaired by swinging the Sixth Corps round to a new +position, covered by the reserve artillery. It was the only substantial +advantage gained by Lee during the battle.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p> + +<p>There were indications in the forenoon of Saturday, the 7th, that Lee +was withdrawing his army. A reconnoissance in force made it more +apparent. Orders were issued for the removal of the wounded to +Fredericksburg. At two o'clock in the afternoon the Ninth Corps was on +the march to Spottsylvania. The first step towards Richmond had been +successfully taken. If Grant had not gained what he desired, a position +between Lee and Richmond, Lee on the other hand had utterly failed in +his attempt to crush Grant by a sudden blow upon his flank. He had not +been able, in the language of the President, even to "jostle him from +his chosen line of march."</p> + + +<h3>SPOTTSYLVANIA.</h3> + +<p>At sunrise on the 8th, the Fifth Corps was at Todd's Tavern, four miles +from Spottsylvania, where Gregg had just defeated Fitz Hugh Lee, in a +hard-fought contest on Saturday. The Sixth and Second Corps arrived +during the day. The Ninth moved with the teams through Chancellorsville +farther to the east.</p> + +<p>The natural defences of Spottsylvania are two small streams,—the Po and +the Ny, affluents of the Mattapony. The advance of the Fifth Corps was +checked, three miles west of the Court-House, by Longstreet's and +Ewell's corps, which had left Wilderness on the night of the 6th. The +Sixth came up at five o'clock and joined in the conflict, driving the +enemy from the position he had taken on the north bank of the Ny.</p> + +<p>On Monday morning, the 9th, it was apparent that Lee, having failed on +Grant's flank, had now placed himself squarely in front, with his entire +army.</p> + +<p>One of the great battles of the campaign was fought on Tuesday, the +corps occupying positions as in the diagram:—</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 444px;"> +<img src="images/image135.jpg" width="444" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p> + +<p>The line of battle was formed with the Second Corps on the right, the +Fifth on the right-centre, the Sixth on the left-centre, with the Ninth +nine miles distant, approaching by the Fredericksburg road. There was a +severe engagement in the afternoon, brought on by the advance of the +Second Corps, which pushed across an affluent of the Po, west of the +Court-House. On the left, the Rebels made an attack upon Wilcox's +division of the Ninth, but were repulsed.</p> + +<p>The battle was fought in the forest,—in the marshes along the Ny,—in +ravines,—in pine-thickets, densely shaded with the dark evergreens that +shut out the rays of the noonday sun,—in open fields, where Rebel +batteries had full sweep and play with shell and grape and canister from +intrenched positions on the hills.</p> + +<p>It began in the morning. There was an hour of calm at noon, but at one +o'clock artillery and infantry became engaged all along the line. Grant +was the attacking party. There was no cessation or diminution of effort +during the afternoon. The Rebel outer line of works in the centre was +carried by Upton's brigade of the first division, and Russell's brigade +of the third division of the Sixth Corps. The men of these brigades, +(and among them were the stalwart sons of Vermont,) without firing a +shot, moved steadily to the charge with fixed bayonets; they were cut +through by solid shot, their ranks torn by shells, thinned by constant +volleys of musketry, but, with matchless ardor and unconquerable will, +they went up to the line of earthworks, leaped over them, and gathered a +thousand prisoners; they held the ground, but their valor had carried +them so far beyond their supports that it was deemed prudent to withdraw +them.</p> + +<p>There was some fighting on the 11th. General Lee sent in a flag of truce +for a cessation of hostilities to bury the dead; but the request was not +acceded to by General Grant.</p> + +<p>The early dawn of Thursday, the 12th, beholds the Second Corps in +motion,—not to flank the enemy, but moving, with fixed bayonets, +straight on towards his intrenchments. Barlow's and Birney's divisions +in columns of battalions, doubled on the centre, to give strength and +firmness, lead in the assault. They move silently through the +forest,—through the ravine in front of them,—up to their own +skirmish-line,—past it,—no longer marching, but running now, dashing +on with life and energy and enthusiasm thrilling every nerve. They sweep +away the Rebel picket-line as if it were a cobweb. On,—into the +intrenchments with a hurrah which startles the soldiers of both armies +from their morning slumbers. Major-General Johnson and Brigadier-General +Stewart and three thousand men of Ewell's division are taken prisoners, +eighteen cannon and twenty-two standards captured.</p> + +<p>It is the work of five minutes,—as sudden as the swoop of an eagle. The +uproar of the day began. The second line of the enemy's works was +assaulted; but, exasperated by their losses, the Rebels fought with +great stubbornness. The Ninth Corps was moved up from the left to +support the Second. Longstreet, on the other hand, was brought over to +help Ewell. The Fifth and Sixth became partially engaged. There were +charges and counter-charges. Positions were gained and lost. From +morning till night the contest raged on the right, in the centre, and on +the left, swaying to and fro over the undulations and through the +ravines. It was a battle of fourteen hours' duration,—in severity, in +unflinching determination, in obstinacy and persistency, not exceeded by +any during the war. Between forty and fifty pieces of artillery were at +one time in the hands of General Hancock; but, owing to the difficulties +of removal, and the efforts of the enemy, he could secure only eighteen. +During the day, Grant advanced his lines a mile towards the Court-House, +and repulsed Lee in all his counter-attacks.</p> + +<p>By this success Lee was compelled on Thursday night to withdraw his +troops from the line he had held so tenaciously, and concentrate them in +a smaller semi-circle.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> Lee had the advantage of Johnston. It was +Gettysburg reversed.</p> + +<p>There was constant skirmishing and continuous artillery-firing through +the 13th, and a moving of the army from the north to the east of the +Court-House. A rain-storm set in. The roads became heavy, and a +contemplated movement—a sudden flank-attack—was necessarily abandoned.</p> + +<p>There was a severe skirmish on the 14th, constant picket-firing on the +15th, and on the 16th another engagement all along the line,—not fought +with the fierceness of that of the 12th, but lasting through the +forenoon, and resulting in the taking of a line of rifle-pits from the +enemy.</p> + +<p>On Wednesday, the 18th, there was an assault upon Lee's outer line of +works. Two lines of rifle-pits were carried; but an impassable abatis +prevented farther advance, and after a six hours' struggle the troops +were withdrawn.</p> + +<p>On the afternoon of the 19th Ewell gained the rear of Grant's right +flank, came suddenly upon Tyler's division of heavy artillery, armed as +infantry, just arrived upon the field. Though surprised, they held the +enemy in check, forced him back, and with aid from the Second Corps +compelled him to retreat with great loss. This attack was made to cover +Lee's withdrawal to the North Anna. His troops were already on the +march.</p> + +<p>Grant was swift to follow.</p> + + +<h3>THE NORTH ANNA.</h3> + +<p>It is a two days' march from Spottsylvania to the North Anna. The +crossings of the Mattapony were held by Rebel cavalry, which were +quickly driven. For want of space I am forced to pass over the +operations on that natural line of defence,—the gallant crossing of the +Fifth Corps at Jericho Ford, the irresistible charge of Birney and +Barlow at Taylor's Bridge, the sweeping-in of five hundred prisoners, +the severe engagements lasting three days,—all memorable events, worthy +of prominence in the full history of the campaign.</p> + +<p>Instead of walking over the obstacle, Grant decided to go round it. +Stealing a march upon Lee, he moved suddenly southeast, and crossed the +Pamunky at Hanover Town, opened a new base of supplies at White House, +forcing Lee to fall back on the Chickahominy.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 532px;"> +<img src="images/image137.jpg" width="532" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + +<h3>ON THE CHICKAHOMINY.</h3> + +<p>On Sunday, the 29th, there was one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> of the severest cavalry-engagements +of the war, at Hawes's shop, west of Hanover Town, where Sheridan drove +the Rebels back upon Bethesda Church. The array came into position on +the 30th, its right towards Hanover Court-House. Lee was already in +position, and during the day there was firing all along the line. Each +corps was engaged. The Second Corps by the Shelton House with a +bayonet-charge pushed the enemy from the outer line of works which he +had thrown up, while the Fifth Corps rolled back, with terrible +slaughter, the mass of men which came upon its flank and front at +Bethesda Church. At Coal Harbor, the Sixth, joined by the Eighteenth +Army Corps, under Major-General W. F. Smith, from Bermuda Hundred, met +Longstreet and Breckenridge and troops from Beauregard. Sheridan had +seized this important point,—important because of the junction of +roads,—and held it against cavalry and infantry till the arrival of the +Fifth and Eighteenth. The point secured, a new line of battle was formed +on the 1st of June. The Ninth held the right at Bethesda Church; the +Fifth was south of the church, joining the Eighteenth; the Sixth held +the road from Coal Harbor to Gaines's Mill; while the Second was thrown +out on the left, on the road leading to Despatch Station and the +Chickahominy, as indicated by the diagram (p. 131).</p> + +<p>Such was the position of the army within ten miles of Richmond,—the +line of battle crossing the ground occupied by Stonewall Jackson at the +Battle of Gaines's Mill.</p> + +<p>Sanguinary conflicts have since taken place,—bayonet-charges, desperate +encounters with varying success and reverse,—but the record of the +month has closed. There, face to face, cannon fronting cannon, with less +than two hundred feet between, are the two armies on the 31st of May, at +midnight. Without losing a train of supplies, cutting loose from one +base after another,—from Washington, Belle Plain, and Port Royal +successively,—establishing new depots at pleasure, General Grant has +moved from the Rappahannock to the Chickahominy, against the utmost +efforts of General Lee to turn him back. General Grant believes that the +military power of the Rebels must be broken before the Rebellion can be +crushed. Continued hammering produces abrasion at last, in the toughest +iron. Break the iron pillars, and the edifice tumbles. There is a +manifest weakening of the Rebel army. Longstreet's veterans have lost +their fire; and since the Battles of the Wilderness, the Rebel troops +have had no heart for a bayonet-charge.</p> + +<p>The line of advance taken by General Grant turned the Rebels from +Washington. The country over which the two armies marched is a +desolation. There is no subsistence remaining. The railroads are +destroyed. Lee has no longer the power to invade the North. On the other +hand, General Grant can swing upon the James and isolate the Rebel army +from direct connection with the South. That accomplished, and, sooner or +later,—with Hunter in the Shenandoah, with Union cavalry sweeping down +to Wilmington, Weldon, and Danville, and up to the Blue Ridge, cutting +railroads, burning bridges, destroying supplies of ammunition and +provisions,—the question with Lee must be, not one of earthworks and +cannon and powder and ball, but of subsistence. Plainly, the day is +approaching when the Army of the Potomac, unfortunate at times in the +past, derided, ridiculed, but now triumphant through unparalleled +hardship, endurance, courage, persistency, will plant its banners on the +defences of Richmond, crumble the Rebel army beyond the possibility of +future cohesion, and, in conjunction with the forces in other +departments, crush out the last vestige of the Rebellion.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p> +<h2>REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.</h2> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The American Conflict</i>: A History of the Great Rebellion in +the United States of America, 1860-64. By <span class="smcap">Horace Greeley</span>. +Vol. I. 8vo. pp. 648. Hartford: O. D. Case & Co.</p></div> + +<p>The plan of this work contemplates not only a faithful and complete +historical description of the leading events in the stupendous conflict +now raging between the interests of Slavery and the principles of +Freedom, but an accurate analysis and lucid exposition of the antagonist +ideas which have attained their full development in the present civil +war. With this purpose, the issue of the portion now submitted to the +American public cannot be regarded as premature or unseasonable. If the +time has not arrived for the elaboration of a thorough historic survey +of the mighty struggle which has convulsed the nation to its deepest +heart, there are ample materials for a profound review of the past, and +an instructive exhibition of the moral and intellectual movement, the +pregnant conflict of thought, which has found its ultimate issue in the +bloody death-throes of the battle-field. No nobler theme could tempt the +pen of the philosophic historian. No subject of study could present more +attractive features, or prove of more fruitful import to every +intelligent American thinker.</p> + +<p>Mr. Greeley's position and professional training as a prominent +journalist give him, in many respects, excellent facilities for the +accomplishment of his delicate and by no means easy task. Nor is he less +admirably qualified for its execution by the native bent of his mind, +and his experience as one of the leaders of a great political party. +With an instinctive passion for freedom, a profound faith in social and +humanitary progress, and an ardent devotion to the interests of the +masses, irrespective of artificial and temporary distinctions, he has +long watched the conflict of opinions and the development of ideas with +reference to their bearing on the great American principle of political +justice and individual right. Without following the lead of any special +class of reformers, he has been keenly sensitive to the wrongs and +outrages which, under the semblance of freedom, have blended themselves +with the institutions of the country. His clear-headed sagacity has +enabled him to foresee the perilous consequences of political +inconsistencies. For many years he has anticipated the disastrous +effects of the social anomalies for which our statesmen of all parties +have sought a remedy in compromises and concealment. He has adhered to +the policy of attacking political evils with political weapons. The +institution of Slavery, in his view, was one of the crying wrongs for +which the cure was to be found in the ballot-box. Not so much by +denouncing and exhorting as by giving effect to popular sentiment +through the elections, has he aimed at social regeneration. To this +principle he has steadily adhered throughout his public life. His +political relations have been formed in accordance with this idea. The +character and tendency of parties have been judged by this standard. +Hence the present work is eminently the record of his personal +experience. It presents in vivid outlines and with striking +illustrations the action of political causes with which he has been as +familiar as with the alphabet of his mother-tongue. The principles of +the great rebellion are traced back to the little germs which have since +expanded into a tree of such mighty proportions and of such baleful +character. Few men, we may perhaps safely say no man, among us, could +bring to the composition of a work with this intent such a rich fund of +observation, such intimate knowledge of the practical working of +parties, such true insight into the aims and motives of the conspicuous +American statesmen, such accurate judgment in regard to the leading +measures of governmental policy, combined with such prevailing fairness +of mind, and such a high degree of literary skill and mastership.</p> + +<p>Regarded as a contribution to the historical treasures of which American +literature can boast such rare wealth, Mr. Greeley's work may challenge, +if not perhaps unqualified, sincere and respectful commendation. His +style is eminently his own. Familiar with the best models, he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> follows +none. Although aiming at vigor and popular effect, rather than at +graceful and polished elegance, it shows a remarkable sense of the power +and aptness of words, and an unusual command of the resources of +expression. He does not hesitate at a certain quaintness of phrase which +gives an antique air to many of his sentences; but he is never dull, +never languid, never commonplace, always free, emphatic, and racy. The +purely narrative portions of the volume are truly excellent. In the +immense range of his productions as a journalist, to our thinking, Mr. +Greeley has written nothing better. Compact, sustained, and enlivened +with a choice variety of coloring, the story as it comes from his pen is +uniformly clear even to transparency, and never fails to read with +singular interest, while it abounds in fresh and novel information. He +cannot always resist the temptation to a little episodical pleasantry; +but his humor is never ill-timed, and often mercilessly effective by its +keenness and truth, though for the most part genial and good-natured. +Sometimes, however, we notice a mischievous delight in calling attention +to the dead flies in the apothecary's ointment. The author's sincerity +of conviction and honesty of purpose are apparent on every page of his +work, and give it a sterling, permanent value, irrespective of its other +merits.</p> + +<p>In the selection of his materials, Mr. Greeley has made great use of the +speeches, messages, letters, and other public documents relating to the +different branches of his subject, the essential points of which he +often interweaves into his narrative, though in all suitable cases he +does not scruple to present from them full and copious citations. In +most instances which involve the opinions of his political antagonists, +he has confined himself to the latter method. Impressed with the +difficulty of exhibiting the views of an opponent with fairness and +accuracy, he has wisely preferred to employ the very language of his +original authorities, wherever the exercise of perfect impartiality +might appear too sublime a virtue for our fallen and frail human nature. +In the mutations of opinion, moreover, many persons are apt to forget +that the faith, which they zealously defended but two years ago is at +war with their present creed. The surest guaranty of exact and +satisfactory statements, accordingly, is to fall back on the primitive +authentic platform.</p> + +<p>The subject of compromises, under the Federal Constitution, between the +conflicting interests of the country, occupies, of course, a prominent +place in these pages, and is treated by Mr. Greeley, as we think, with +signal discretion and ability. His views on this point are marked by +candor and moderation, though he is firm and uncompromising in his +hostility to concession for the purpose of conciliating the Slave-Power. +Political compromises, he maintains, though liable to abuse, are the +necessary incidents of all governments, excepting pure and simple +despotisms. Liberty cannot exist without diversity of opinions. Unless +one will is permitted the supremacy over all others, a medium must be +sought between widely differing convictions. If a legislature composed +of two distinct bodies differs with regard to a special appropriation, a +partial concession on each side is often the only practicable mode of +adjustment. When the object is unprecedented, or not essential to the +general efficiency of the public service, such as the construction of a +new railroad, canal, or other public work, the opposition of either +house should suffice for its defeat, or, at least, for its postponement. +Neither branch has a right to demand from the other conformity with its +views on a disputed point as the price of its own concurrence in +measures essential to the existence of the government. Hence the +movement of the United States Senate in 1849, dictating to the House a +certain organization of the Territories, under penalty of defeating the +Civil Appropriation Bill, was totally unjustifiable. But the fact should +never be lost sight of, that differences of opinion often occur on +momentous questions where the rights of each party are equal, and where +an ultimate concurrence in one common line of action is essential. +Without some mutual concession to adverse views, the union of the States +would have been impossible. In cases, moreover, where the Executive is +permitted a veto on legislative measures, a certain deference to his +views is necessary to the practical working of the government. A +compromise, accordingly, is at times indispensable and laudable. But no +valid defence can be made of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> celebrated compromise of 1850. It was +a monstrous corruption in legislation, which not even the great name of +Henry Clay could shield from subsequent opprobrium.</p> + +<p>Still, this compromise was accepted and ratified by a great majority of +the American people, both in the North and in the South. The +announcement that all sectional differences had been adjusted was hailed +with almost universal joy. The terms of settlement were regarded as of +subordinate consequence. The people wanted peace and prosperity, and +were content with driving a lucrative business. They had no disposition +to shed each other's blood in a quarrel concerning the condition of +negroes. The compromise had taken no money from their pockets. It had +imposed upon them no pecuniary burdens. It had exposed them to no +personal dangers. It had rather appeased the terrors of disunion, +increased the facilities for money-making, and opened a brilliant +prospect of national greatness, security, and peace.</p> + +<p>But this same compromise contained the seeds of disunion and civil war. +The extreme State-Rights party in the South resolved not to submit to +it, but to prepare the people for forcible resistance. Still, the time +had not yet come for open demonstrations. The new Fugitive-Slave Law +produced a wide-spread excitement at the North. This was increased by +the frequent cases of brutality which occurred under its execution. The +progress of opinion was rapid and decisive, preparing for the bloody +conflict which commenced with the attack on Fort Sumter.</p> + +<p>The development of events from this cardinal epoch to the defeat of the +Union arms at Ball's Bluff, is traced by Mr. Greeley with a vigorous and +discriminating pen. His comments may not always command conviction, but +they can never fail to win respect. He expresses himself with freedom, +although temperately, in regard to the character of the prominent +military leaders, and subsequent facts have confirmed the sagacity of +his judgment. He holds General Scott to a rigid responsibility for the +inglorious days of Bull Run, which dispelled all lingering illusions as +to his capacity for the conduct of a great war. The Fabian policy of +General McClellan in the campaign of the succeeding winter is ably +discussed. According to Mr. Greeley, this is not to be accounted for by +a constitutional aversion on the part of our young Napoleon to the +shedding of blood,—that is, of other men's; since he was eager to +involve the country in another war by the refusal to surrender Mason and +Slidell. Natural timidity and irresolution no doubt had their influence. +But beyond this was the slowly awakened consciousness that Slavery was +the real assailant of our national existence. General McClellan saw, +that, in order to carry out the policy to which he had been long +committed, in order to save both slavery and the Union, there must be +little fighting and a speedy compromise. It is only on this hypothesis +that his course while in high command, but especially during that long +autumn and winter, admits of a consistent and intelligible explanation.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>The Iliad of Homer faithfully translated into Unrhymed +English Metre.</i> By <span class="smcap">F. W. Newman</span>. London. 1856.</p></div> + +<p>Mr. Newman executed this translation upon the theory that Homer was a +"noble savage"; that his congener would be found in a "lively African +from the Gold-Coast"; that his style of language and thought was to the +age of Pericles what that of the very oldest ballads is to ours; that he +must be rendered, therefore, in English by a ballad-metre and an +antiquated diction. To this capricious and indefensible theory, and to +the translation, so far as founded upon it, Mr. Matthew Arnold seems to +have given the <i>coup de grace</i>. We come, accordingly, not to criticize, +but to bury.</p> + +<p><i>Hic jacet</i>, therefore, what was mortal of Newman's Homer,—a work +executed upon a theory which no art of performance could redeem, while +to that theory it was rather clumsily than skilfully adapted. Yet was it +the work of a scholar so thorough, of a writer so able, of a translator +so faithful to his original, that no error of theory could wholly +vitiate his performance. The pictures of Homer, despite the crudity of +his coloring and the spots and daubs with which his rendering was +conscientiously sprinkled, he brought out more clearly than any had done +before him. His work, therefore, being dead, still lives; its ashes glow +and shine from the urn which contains them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> Its ill-fortune was, that +it was only antiquarian literature from its birth; its good-fortune is, +that it shall never cease to be cherished as such. <i>Honestas mortem +vincit</i>: the high degrees of intellectual sincerity and power conquer +even literary damnation.</p> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>1. <i>On Translating Homer.</i> By <span class="smcap">Matthew Arnold</span>. London.</p> + +<p>2. <i>Last Words.</i> By the Same.</p></div> + +<p>Whoever loves Homer will like these little books. Mr. Arnold is a man of +large and liberal intelligence, well up with his time; he is critically +inspired, yet himself a poet; his thinking, while ample, is singularly +definite; he has an admirable faculty of minding his own business, doing +what he <i>can</i> do, and speaking where he has a right to speak; his style, +while precise and vigorous, has a charm of composure and naturalness; +and he exhibits such a combination of two-edged critical truth and +intrepidity with perfect temper as is rarely seen. In his first volume +he had been Rhadamanthine upon the translation of Mr. Newman. The latter +replied with asperity. In "Last Words" Mr. Arnold responds in a tone so +pure, so manly and gentle, that the volume should be memorable for this +alone, were there nothing else to recommend it. Let us all hasten to +bless the banns between steel-edged truth and perfect amenity.</p> + +<p>Mr. Arnold characterizes Homer as rapid, as plain, direct, and natural +in language, as the same in his thought, and finally as noble, having +the grand manner. A translation must reproduce these features, whatever +it fail to do. Passing existing translations in review, he finds Cowper +slow, Pope artificial, Chapman fanciful, Newman, through the vice of his +theory, ignoble. Some one having pronounced Tennyson eminently Homeric, +Mr. Arnold discusses the relation of the English idyllic to the Ionian +epic poet, and finds him at the opposite pole in respect of simplicity.</p> + +<p>As to a vehicle for the translation of Homer, he gives his voice +decidedly in favor of English hexameter, and tries his own hand at that +measure. His success strikes us as respectable, but not eminent. Blank +verse he thinks too slow in movement, and too much opposed in character. +Mr. Tennyson answers this last by translating a passage from Homer into +blank verse, and shows at least that he can make it run like a +race-horse, and that, too, without sacrifice of fineness or of melody.</p> + +<p>Right or wrong on these matters, and notwithstanding we confess to +certain sympathies with Mr. Newman, we find in Mr. Arnold's books some +of the pleasantest reading we have seen this many a day, and wish that +for every leisure hour of life a companion so intelligent and liberal, +so cultivated and genuine, so manly and mannerly, might await us.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS</h2> + +<h3>RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.</h3> + + +<p>Military Bridges: with Suggestions of New Expedients and Constructions +for crossing Streams and Chasms; including, also, Designs for Trestle +and Truss Bridges for Military Railroads. Adapted especially to the +Wants of the Service in the United States. By Hermann Haupt, A. M., +Civil Engineer, late Chief of Bureau in Charge of the Construction and +Operation of United States Military Railway, Author of "General Theory +of Bridge-Construction," etc. Illustrated by Sixty-Nine Lithographic +Engravings. New York. D. Van Nostrand. 8vo. pp. xx., 310. $6.00.</p> + +<p>The Ear, its Diseases and their Treatment. Illustrated by Engravings. By +Franz Adolph von Moschzisker, M. D., Oculist and Aurist, Author of "A +Guide to Diseases of the Eye, and their Treatment." Philadelphia. Martin +& Randall. 16mo. pp. xxii., 319. $1.50.</p> + +<p>Stories of the Patriarchs. By O. B. Frothingham. Boston. Walker, Wise, & +Co. Square 16 mo. pp. 232. $1.00.</p> + +<p>The Ferry-Boy and the Financier. By A Contributor to the "Atlantic." +Boston. Walker, Wise, & Co. 16mo. pp. 332. $1.25.</p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. +81, July, 1864, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY *** + +***** This file should be named 31838-h.htm or 31838-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/8/3/31838/ + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections.) + + +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 14, No. 81, July, 1864 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: April 1, 2010 [EBook #31838] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY *** + + + + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections.) + + + + + + + +THE + +ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF + +LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOLUME XIV. + +[Illustration] + +BOSTON: + +TICKNOR AND FIELDS, + +135, WASHINGTON STREET. + +LONDON: TRUeBNER AND COMPANY. + +M DCCC LXIV. + +Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by + TICKNOR AND FIELDS, +in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. + +RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +Beer-Drinking, Head-Quarters of _Andrew Ten Broeck_ 185 +Biography, The New School of _Gail Hamilton_ 579 + +Cadmean Madness, The _W. L. Symonds_ 265 +Columbia River, On the _Fitz-Hugh Ludlow_ 703 +Communication _D.A. Wasson_ 424 +Cullet _Jane G. Austin_ 304 +Currency _George S. Lang_ 109 + +Democracy and the Secession War _C. C. Hazewell_ 505 +Dixie, Our Last Day in _Edmund Kirke_ 715 +Dolliver Romance, A Scene from the _Nathaniel Hawthorne_ 101 + +Electric Girl of La Perriere, The _Robert Dale Owen_ 284 +England and America _Prof. Goldwin Smith_ 749 +English Authors in Florence _Miss K. Field_ 660 + +Foreign Relations, Our Recent _G. M. Towle_ 243 + +Glorying in the Goad _Gail Hamilton_ 21 +Gourgues, Dominic de, The Vengeance of _F. Parkman_ 530 + +Halcyon Days _Caroline Chesebro_ 675 +Hawthorne _O. W. Holmes_ 98 +Highland Light, The _H. D. Thoreau_ 649 +House and Home Papers _Harriet Beecher Stowe_ 93, + 230, 434, 565, 689 +How Rome is Governed _Prof. G. W. Greene_ 150 + +Ice and Esquimaux _D. A. Wasson_ 728 +Ice-Period in America _Prof. Louis Agassiz_ 86 +Inanimate Things, The Total Depravity of _Mrs. E. A. Walker_ 357 + +Jones, Paul, and Denis Duval _F. Ingham_ 493 + +Lamb's, Charles, Uncollected Writings _J. E. Babson_ 478, 552 +Leaves from an Officer's Journal _T. W. Higginson_ 521, 740 +Lina 538 +Little Country-Girl, The _Mrs. A. M. Diaz_ 212 +Luigi, The True Story of _Harriet E. Prescott_ 411 + +Mexico _G. Reynolds_ 51 +Meyerbeer _Francis Williams_ 116 + +Night in the Water, A _T. W. Higginson_ 393 + +Oregon, On Horseback into _Fitz-Hugh Ludlow_ 75 + +Paris, Literary Life in "_Spiridion_" 200, 292 +Presidential Election, The Twentieth _C. C. Hazewell_ 633 + +Reade, Charles _Harriet E. Prescott_ 137 +Recamier, Madame _Miss J. M. Luyster_ 446 +Regular and Volunteer Officers _T. W. Higginson_ 348 +Revolution, Finances of the _Prof. G. W. Greene_ 591 +Richmond, Our Visit to _Edmund Kirke_ 372 +Rim, The _Harriet E. Prescott_ 63 + +Saadi _R. W. Emerson_ 33 +San Francisco, Through-Tickets to _Fitz-Hugh Ludlow_ 604 +Sculpture, The Process of _Harriet Hosmer_ 734 +Sea-Hours with a Dyspeptic _Joseph D. Howard_ 617 + +Vendue, On a Late _J. E. Babson_ 406 +Virginia, The May Campaign in "_Carleton_" 124 + +We are a Nation _J. T. Trowbridge_ 769 +Wellfleet Oysterman, The _H. D. Thoreau_ 470 +Wet-Weather Work _Donald G. Mitchell_ 39, 333 +What shall we have for Dinner? _E. E. Hale_ 364 +What will become of Them? _J. T. Trowbridge_ 170, 320 +Wife's Story, The _Author of "Life in the Iron-Mills"_ 1 + + +POETRY. + +Before Vicksburg _G. H. Baker_ 371 +Bridge of Cloud, The _H. W. Longfellow_ 283 +Bryant, To William Cullen _H. T. Tuckerman_ 563 +Bryant's Seventieth Birthday _O. W. Holmes_ 738 + +Concord _H. W. Longfellow_ 169 + +Divina Commedia, On Translating the _H. W. Longfellow_ 688 + +Forgotten _Elisabeth A. C. Akers_ 332 +Friar Jerome's Beautiful Book _T. B. Aldrich_ 195 + +Heart of the War, The _J. G. Holland_ 240 + +In Memory of J. W.--R. W. _O. W. Holmes_ 115 + +Last Rally, The _J. T. Trowbridge_ 589 + +Maskers, The _J. T. Trowbridge_ 303 + +Palingenesis _H. W. Longfellow_ 19 + +Return of the Birds, The _W. C. Bryant_ 37 +Riches 530 +Ride to Camp, The _G. H. Boker_ 404 + +Service _J. T. Trowbridge_ 443 +Summer, The Future 503 +Sweet-Brier 229 + +Tobacconalian Ode, A 672 + +Vanishers, The _J. G. Whittier_ 726 + +Watching 74 +Works and Days _T. W. Parsons_ 491 + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + +Arnold on Translating Homer 136 +Arnold's Last Words 136 +Browning's Dramatis Personae 644 +Carter's Summer Cruise 515 +Dufour's Strategy and Tactics 259 +Farnham's Eliza Woodson 388 +---- Woman and her Era 388 +Greeley's American Conflict 133 +Guizot's Meditations on Christianity 784 +Haupt on Military Bridges 781 +Hazard on Freedom of Mind in Willing 778 +Jennie Juneiana 387 +Kingsley's Roman and Teuton 252 +Marsh's Man and Nature 261 +Mill's Dissertations and Discussions 776 +Newman's Translation of the Iliad 135 +Owen's Wrong of Slavery 517 +Parton's Life and Times of Franklin 383 +Prescott's Azarian 515 +Privations and Sufferings of U.S. Soldiers in Rebel Prisons 777 +Reid's Cliff-Climbers 390 +Tennyson's Enoch Arden 518 +Thoreau's Maine Woods 386 +Trollope's Small House at Allington 254 +Webster's American Dictionary 642 +Wilson's History of the Anti-Slavery Measures of Congress 787 +Youmans's Class-Book of Chemistry 256 + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS 136, 263, 391, 648, 788 + + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. + +VOL. XIV.--JULY, 1864.--NO. LXXXI. + + + + +THE WIFE'S STORY. + + +I will tell you the story of my life, since you ask it; for, though the +meaning of the life of any woman of my character would be the same, I +believe, the facts of mine, being sharp and compressed, may make it, +perhaps, more apparent. It will be enough for me to give you the history +of one day,--that of our first coming to Newport; for it seems to me as +if it held and spoke out plainly whatever gist and significance there +was in all the years for me. I know many people hold the theory, that +once in every life God puts the stuff of which He has made the man or +woman to the test, gives the soul a chance of a conscious fight with +that other Power to win or lose itself, once for all. I do not know: it +seems but just that one should be so left, untrammelled, to choose +between heaven and hell: but who can shake off trammels,--make +themselves naked of their birth and education? I know on that day when +the face of my fate changed, I myself was conscious of no inward +master-struggle: the great Life above and Life below pressed no closer +on me, seemed to wait on no word of mine. It was a busy, vulgar day +enough: each passing moment occupied me thoroughly. I did not look +through them for either God or Death; and as for the deed I did, I had +been drifting to that all my life: it began when I was a pampered, +thin-blooded baby, learning the alphabet from blocks on my mother's lap; +then years followed, succulent to satiety for my hungry brain and +stimulated tastes; a taint of hereditary selfishness played its part, +and so the end came. Yet I know that on that day I entered the gate +through which there is no returning: for, believe me, there are such +ways and gates in life; every day, I see more clearly how far and how +immovably the paths into those other worlds abut into this, and I know +that I, for one, have gone in, and the door is closed behind me. There +is no going back for me into that long-ago time. Only He who led me here +knows how humbly and through what pain I dared to believe this, and dare +to believe that He did lead me,--that it was by no giddy, blear-sighted +free-will of my own that I arrived where I stand to-day. + +It was about eighteen months after my marriage that we came to Newport. +But let me go back a few weeks to one evening when my husband first told +me of the failure of the house in which his property was invested; for +it was then, I think, that the terror and the temptation which had beset +my married life first took a definite shape and hold on me. + +It was a cool September evening, I remember: a saffronish umber stain +behind the low Hudson hills all that was left of the day's fresh and +harvest-scented heat; the trails of black smoke from the boats against +the sky, the close-shut cottages on the other shore, the very red cows +coming slowly up from the meadow-pool, looking lonesome and cold in the +sharp, blue air. In the library, however, there was a glow of warmth and +light, as usual where Doctor Manning sat. He had been opening the +evening's mail, and laid the last letter on the table, taking off his +glasses in his slow, deliberate way. + +"It is as we feared," turning to me. "It's quite gone, Hester, quite. +I'll have to begin at the beginning again. It would have been better I +had not trusted the whole to Knopps,--yes." + +I said nothing: the news was not altogether unexpected. He took off his +wig, and rubbed his head slowly, his eyes fixed on my face with some +anxious, steady inquiry, which his tones did not express. + +"I'll go back to Newport. Rob's there. I'll get a school again. You did +not know I taught there when I was a young man?" + +"No." + +I knew nothing of my husband's youth. Miss Monchard, his ward, who was +in the room, did, however; and after waiting for me a moment to go on, +she said, cheerfully,-- + +"The boys will be men now, Sir. Friends ready waiting. And different +sort of friends from any we have here, eh?" + +He laughed. + +"Yes, Jacky, you're right. Yes. They've all turned out well, even those +Arndts. Jim Arndt used to trot you on his knee on the school-house +steps, when you were a baby. But he _was_ a wild chap. He's in the +sugar-trade, Rob writes me. But they'll always be boys to me, +Jacky,--boys." + +His head dropped, with a smile still on his mouth, and he began +fingering his scanty beard, as was his habit in his fits of silent +musing. Jacqueline looked at him satisfied, then turned to me. I do not +know what she saw upon my face, but she turned hastily away. + +"It's a town with a real character of its own, Newport, Mrs. +Manning,"--trying to make her coarse bass voice gentle. "You'll +understand it better than I. New-York houses, now, even these on the +Hudson, hint at nothing but a satisfied animal necessity. But there, +with the queer dead streets, like a bit of the old-time world, and the +big salt sea"----She began to stammer, as usual, and grow confused. +"It's like looking out of some far-gone, drowsy old day of the Colonies, +and yet feeling life and eternity fresh and near to you." + +I only smiled civilly, by way of answer. Jacqueline always tried me. She +was Western-born, I a New-Englander; and every trait about her, from the +freedom with which she hurled out her opinions to the very setting-down +of her broad foot, jarred on me as a something boorish and reckless. Her +face grew red now. + +"I don't say what I want exactly," she hesitated. "I only hoped you'd +like the town, that it would reconcile----There's crabs there," +desperately turning to Teddy, who was playing a furtive game of marbles +under the table, and grabbing him by the foot. "Come here till I tell +you about the crabs." + +I remember that I got up and went out of the low window on to the porch, +looking down at the quiet dun shadows and the slope of yellowed grass +leading to the river, while Jacky and the boy kept up a hurly-burly +conversation about soldier-crabs that tore each other's legs off, and +purple and pink sea-roses that ate raw meat, and sea-spiders like specks +of blood in the rocks. My husband laughed once or twice, helping Jacky +out with her natural history. I think it was the sound of that cheery, +mellow laugh of his that fermented every bitter drop in my heart, and +brought clearly before me for the first time the idea of the course +which I afterwards followed. I thrust it back then, as if it had been a +sneer of the Devil's at all I held good and pure. What was there in the +world good and pure for me but the man sitting yonder, and the thought +that I was his wife? And yet----I had an unquiet brain, of moderate +power, perhaps, but which had been forced and harried and dragged into +exertion every moment of my life, according to the custom with women in +the States from which I came. Every meanest hint of a talent in me had +been nursed, every taste purged, by the rules of my father's clique of +friends. The chance of this was all over,--had been escaping since my +marriage-day. Now I clearly saw the life opening before me. What would +taste or talent be worth in the coarse struggle we were about to begin +for bread and butter? "Surely, we have lost something beyond money," I +thought, looking behind into the room, where my husband was quietly +going back to the Arndts in quest of food for reflection, and Jacky +prosed on about sea-anemones. I caught a glimpse of my sallow face in +the mirror: it was full of a fierce disgust. Was their indifference to +this loss a mere torpid ignorance of the actual brain- and soul-wants it +would bring on us, or did they really look at life and accept its hard +circumstances from some strange standing-ground of which I knew nothing? +I had not become acclimated to the atmosphere of my husband's family in +the year and a half that I had been his wife. He had been married +before; there were five children, beginning at Robert, the young +preacher at Newport, and ending with Teddy, beating the drum with his +fists yonder on the table; all of them, like their father, Western-born, +with big, square-built frames, and grave, downright-looking faces; +simple-hearted, and much given, the whole party, to bursts of hearty +laughter, and a habit of perpetually joking with each other. There might +be more in them than this, but I had not found it: I doubted much if it +were worth the finding. I came from a town in Massachusetts, where, as +in most New-England villages, there was more mental power than was +needed for the work that was to be done, and which reacted constantly on +itself in a way which my husband called unwholesome; it was no wonder, +therefore, that these people seemed to me but clogs of flesh, the mere +hands by which the manual work of the world's progress was to be +accomplished. I had hinted this to Doctor Manning one day, but he only +replied by the dry, sad smile with which it had become his habit of late +to listen to my speculations. It had cost me no pain thus to label and +set aside his children: but for himself it was different; he was my +husband. He was the only thing in the world which I had never weighed +and valued to estimate how much it was worth to me: some feeling I could +not define had kept me from it until now. But I did it that evening: I +remember how the cool river-air blew in the window-curtain, and I held +it back, looking steadily in at the thick-set, middle-aged figure of the +man sitting there, in the lamp-light, dressed in rough gray: peering at +the leather-colored skin, the nervous features of the square face, at +the scanty fringe of iron-gray whisker, and the curly wig which he had +bought after we were married, thinking to please me, at the brown eyes, +with the gentle reticent look in them belonging to a man or beast who is +thorough "game"; taking the whole countenance as the metre of the man; +going sharply over the salient points of our life together, measuring +myself by him, as if to know--what? to know what it would cost me to +lose him. God be merciful to me, what thought was this? Oh, the wrench +in heart and brain that came then! A man who has done a murder may feel +as I did while I stood for the next half-hour looking at the red lights +of the boats going up and down the Hudson, in the darkening fog. + +After a while Teddy came waddling out on the porch, in his usual uncouth +fashion, and began pulling at my cape. + +"You're getting cold, mother. Come in. Come!" + +I remember how I choked as I tried to answer him, and, patting his +gilt-buttoned coat, took the fat chapped little hands in mine, kissing +them at last. I was so hungry for affection that night! I would have +clung to a dog that had been kind to me. I thought of the first day +Doctor Manning had brought him to me, in this same comical little +jacket, by the way, and the strangely tender tone in which he had +said,--"This is your mother, boy. He's as rough as a bear, Hetty, but he +won't give you trouble or pain. Nothing shall give you pain, if +I"----Then he stopped. I never heard that man make a promise. If he had +come out instead of Teddy on the porch that night, and had spoken once +in the old tone, calling me "Hetty," God knows how different all that +came after would have been. The motherless boy, holding himself up by my +knees, was more sturdy than I that night, and self-reliant: never could +have known, in his most helpless baby-days, the need with which I, an +adult woman, craved a cheering word, and a little petting. + +Jacqueline came behind me and pinned a woollen shawl around my neck, +patting my shoulders in her cozy, comfortable fashion. + +"None of your dark river-fogs at Newport," she laughed. "The sea-air has +the sweep of half the world to gather cold and freshness in, and it +makes even your bones alive. Your very sleep is twice as much sleep +there as anywhere else." + +Jacky's rough voice was like the cuckoo's: it always prophesied pleasant +weather. She went in again now, and sat down on her little sewing-chair. +The low, rolling fogs outside, and the sharp September wind rattling the +bare branches of the orchard-trees and the bushes on the lawn, only made +the solid home-look of comfort within warmer and brighter. There was a +wood-fire kindled on the library-hearth, and its glow picked out red +flushes of light on the heavy brown curtains, and the white bust of +Psyche, and a chubby plaster angel looking down. Jacky, rocking and +sewing, her red mouth pursed up, half whistling, suited the picture, +somehow, I could not but feel, mere lump and matter though she might be. +There was something fresh and spicy about her. I never had been +impressed so justly by her as on that night. Rough, perhaps, but it was +a pure roughness: everything about the girl had been clean since she was +born, you felt, from the paint of the house where she lived to the +prayer her nurse had taught her. Her skin was white and ruddy, her blue +eyes clear and full of honesty, her brown curls crisp and unoiled. She +could not reason, maybe; but she was straightforward and comfortable: +every bone in her roly-poly little figure forgot to be a bone, and went +into easy cushions of dimpled flesh. If ever Jacky died and went into a +more spiritual world, she would be sure to take with her much of the +warmth and spring and vigor of this. She had drawn her chair close to +Doctor Manning's, where the flickering light touched the soft woollen +folds of her dress and the bit of crimson ribbon at her throat. He liked +bright colors, like most men of his age. It was a pretty picture. + +I turned and looked down at the river again, shivering,--trying to think +of the place and all we were leaving. I did not wonder that it cost the +others little to give up the house: it meant but little to them. Doctor +Manning had bought it just before we were married, being then a square +chocolate-colored farm-house, and we had worked our own whims on it to +make it into a home, thrusting out a stout-pillared big porch at one +side, and one or two snug little bay-windows from my sewing-room. There +was a sunny slope of clover down to the river, a dusky old apple and +plum orchard at the left, and Mary's kitchen-garden on the right, with a +purblind old peacock strutting through the paths, showing its green and +gold. Not much in all this: nothing to please Jacky's artist and poet +sense, if she had any. But----I held on to the porch-railings now, +drumming with my fingers, as I thought of it. It was all the childhood +_I_ ever had known. He brought me there the day we were married, and +until August--six months--we had been there alone. I could hear his old +nag Tinder neighing now, in the stable where we used to go every evening +to feed and rub him down: for I went with Daniel, as I called him, then, +everywhere, even to consult his mason or farm-hands. He used to stand +joking with them a minute after the business was over, in an unwonted +fashion for him, and then scramble into the buggy beside me, and drive +off, his fresh, bright eye turned to the landscape as if enjoying it for +the first time. + +"God bless you, Hetty!" he used to say, "this is putting new blood into +my veins." + +Generally, in those long rides, I used to succeed in coaxing him +imperceptibly back to talk of his life in South America,--not only that +I liked to hear this new phase of wild adventuring life, but my own +blood would glow and freshen to see the fierce dare-devil look come back +into the eye, and the shut teeth of the grave, laconic old Doctor. +People did not know the man I had married,--no; and I would draw in +closer to his shaggy coat, and spur him on to his years of trading in +the West, and later in this State. He had a curious epigrammatic way of +talking that I have noticed in a less degree in many Western men: coming +at the marrow and meaning of a scene or person in his narration with a +sheer subtilized common-sense, a tough appreciation of fact beyond +theory, and of its deeper, juster significance, and a dramatic aptness +for expression. Added to all this, my husband's life had been compacted, +crowded with incident; it had saddened and silenced his nature +abnormally; this was the first break: a going back to what he might have +been, such as his children were now. + +"I never talked to any one before, Hetty," he said thoughtfully once, as +we were driving along, after a few moments' silence. "I feel as if I had +got breath, this late in the day, that I never expected, for whatever +thought was in me,--and--whatever love." + +He turned away his face, crimson at this. He was as strangely reticent +and tender on some points as a woman. So seldom he put his love into +words! That time I remember how the tears suddenly blinded me, when I +heard him, and my fingers grew unsteady, holding the reins. I was so +happy and proud. But I said nothing: he would not have liked it. + +Of one time in his life Doctor Manning had never talked to me: of his +earlier youth; when he was married before. He was not a man of whom you +could ask questions; yet I had hinted an inquiry once or twice in his +presence, but only by a change of color and a strange vague restlessness +had he shown that he understood my drift of meaning. Soon after that, +his eldest son, Robert, came to see his father's new wife, and stayed +with us a day or two. He was a short, thickly built young man, with +heavy jaws and black hair and eyes,--keen eyes, I soon felt, that were +weighing and analyzing me as justly, but more shrewdly than ever his +father had done. The night before he went away he came up to the +porch-step where I sat, and said abruptly,-- + +"I am satisfied, and happy to go now." + +"I am glad of that," I said earnestly; for the tenderness of the son to +the father had touched me. + +"Yes. You cannot know the dread I had of seeing you. I knew the risk he +ran in laying his happiness in any woman's hands at his hour of life. +But it was hard he never should know a home and love like other +men,"--his voice unsteady, and with an appealing look. + +"He never shall need it," I said, quietly. + +"You think not?"--his eyes on the ground. "At all events,"--after a +pause,--"he is resting like a child now: it will not be easy to startle +him to any harsh reality, and," looking up, "I hope God may deal with +you, Mrs. Manning, as you deal with my father. Forgive me," as I began +to speak, "you do not know what this is to me. It makes me rough, I +know. I never yet have forgiven the woman that"----His mother? He caught +the look, stopped, pushed his hair back, caught his breath. "One thing +let me say," after a moment's silence. "You do not know my father. If he +wakens to find his wife is not what he thinks her, it will be too late +for me to warn you then. He has been hurt sore and deeply in his life. +Your chance is but once." + +I did not reply to Robert Manning, nor was I offended: there was too +much solemnity in his coarseness. The man's affection for his father was +as part of his life-blood, I believed. + +My husband came to me when he saw Robert go, and loosened my hands from +my face. I clung to him as I never did before. + +"What is this hurt he talks of in your life, Daniel? Will I be enough to +take it out? Will I?" + +He laughed, a low, constrained laugh, holding my shoulders as if I were +a bit of a child. + +"God knows you are enough, Hetty. I never thought He'd send me this. Rob +has been talking to you? He"---- + +"He is bitter." + +"He loves me,--poor Rob!" + +"Tell me of those people that hurt you, as he says." + +It was a prurient, morbid curiosity that had seized me. A sort of shiver +ran over his frame. + +"Eh, what, Hetty?"--in a low voice. "Let that go, let that +go,"--standing silent a moment, looking down. "Why would we bring them +back, and hack over the old dead faults? Had _she_ no pain to bear? We +couldn't find that out to speak for her. But God knows it." + +I might have known how my question would have ended; for, always, he +covered over the ill-doing of others with a nervous haste, with the +charity of a man himself sharply sensitive to pain. + +"It is healthful to go back to past pain," I said, half dissatisfied. + +"Is it so?"--doubtfully, as he turned away with me. "I don't know, +child. Now and then He has to punish us, or cut out a cancer maybe. But +for going back to gloat over the cure or the whip-lash----No; it will +keep us busy enough to find good air and food, every minute for itself"; +and, with a ruddy, genial smile, he had stooped and kissed my forehead. + +A year had passed since that night. I was standing on the same porch, +but I was alone now. My husband sat a few feet from me in his old +easy-chair, but no gulf could have parted us so wide and deeply. Robert +Manning had said I would have but one chance. Well, I had had it, and it +was gone. So I stood there, looking quietly at him and Jacky and the +boy. The child had pushed his father's wig off, and his bare head with +its thin iron-gray hair fell forward on his breast, resting on Teddy's +sleeping cheek. I saw now how broad and sad the forehead was,--the quiet +dignity on the whole face. Yet it had been such a simple-hearted thing +to do,--to buy that wig to please me! One of those little follies the +like of which would never come again. + +I went in and sat down as usual, apart, throwing aside from my neck the +shawl which Jacky had pinned there, loathing anything she had touched, +so real and sharp was the thought about her become, as if the evening's +fog and cold had lent it a venomous life. They had made a quiet cozy +picture before, which had bitterly brought back our first married days, +but it was broken up now. The Doctor's three boys came lumbering in, +with muddy shoes, game-bags, and the usual fiery faces and loud jokes +after their day's sport. Jacky threw down her sewing, and went out to +see the squirrels drawn, and the Doctor smoothed Teddy's hair, looking +after them with a pleased smile. One of the rarest sparkles of our daily +life! It was a year since Doctor Manning had brought his children home. +They filled the house. Musing on the past now, and trying to look at +that year calmly, while I sat by the fire, my husband would fade back in +the picture into an unmeaning lay-figure. Was this my fault? Could I +help it, if God had made me with a different, clearer insight into life +and its uses than these people with their sound beef and muscle, their +uncouth rejoicing in being alive? There was work enough in them: a +broad-fisted grappling with the day's task or obstacle, a drinking of +its pain or success into their slow brains, but nowhere the metre to +note the soul's changes, nor the eye to speculate on them. "No," my +husband had said to me one day, "we Western people have the mass of this +country's appointed work to do, so we are content that God should +underlie the hypotheses. We waste no strength in guesses at the reason +why." + +I remember how intolerably the days of that year dragged even in memory, +as I sat there trying to judge them fairly,--how other years of my life +thrust them aside, persistently, as foreign, alien to me. These others +were to me home,--the thoughts that had held me nearest the divine life: +I went back to them, my eyes wet, and my heart sick under my weak lungs. +The little village of Concord, away up yonder, where I was born,--I was +glad to have been born there: thinking how man not only had learned +there to stand self-poised and found himself God, but Nature herself +seemed there to stop and reflect on her own beauty, and so root deeper +in the inner centre. The slow-dropping river, the thoughtful hills, the +very dust-colored fern that covers its fields, which might grow in +Hades, so breathless and crisp it is, came back to me with a glamour of +quiet that night. The soul had space to grow there! remembering how its +doors of thought stood wider open to welcome truth than anywhere +else on earth. "The only object in life is to grow." It was my +father's,--Margaret Fuller's motto. I had been nursed on it, I might +say. There had been a time when I had dreamed of attaining Margaret's +stature; and as I thought of that, some old subtile flame stirred in me +with a keen delight. New to me, almost; for, since my baby was born, my +soul as well as my body had been weak and nauseated. It had been so +sharp a disappointment! I had intended my child should be reared in New +England: what I had lacked in gifts and opportunities he should possess: +there was not a step of his progress which I had not mapped out. But the +child was a girl, a weazen-faced little mortal, crying night and day +like any other animal. It was an animal, wearing out in me the strength +needed by-and-by for its mental training. I sent it to a nurse in the +country. Her father had met the woman carrying it out to the wagon, and +took it in his arms. "Eh? eh? is it so, little lass?" I heard him say. +For days after that he looked paler, and his face had a quiet, settled +look, as if he had tested the world and was done with it. The days of +Tinder and the paddock and the drives were long gone then. I do not +remember that after this he ever called me Hetty. But he was cheerful as +ever with the boys, and, the week after, Jacky came. + +Why did I think of all this now? Some latent, unconscious jar of thought +brought suddenly before me a scene of many years before, a damp spring +morning in Paris, when I had gone to Rosa Bonheur's studio, just out of +the city, to see her "Horse-Fair": the moist smell of jonquils; the +drifting light clouds above the Seine, like patches of wool; but most, +the peculiar life that seemed to impregnate the place itself, holding +her, as it were, to her own precise niche and work in the world,--the +sharply managed lights, the skins, trappings, her disguises on the +walls, the stables outside, and the finished work before us, instinct +with vigor and an observation as patient as keen. I remembered how some +one had quoted her as saying, "Any woman can be a wife or mother, but +this is my work alone." + +I, too, had my gift: but one. But again the quick shiver of ecstasy ran +through me;--it was my power, my wand with which to touch the world, my +"_Vollmachtsbrief zum Gluecke_": was I to give it unused back to God? I +could sing: not that only; I could compose music,--the highest +soul-utterance. I remember clutching my hands up to my throat, as if +holding safe the power that should release me, suffer me to grow again, +and looking across the oil-lamp on the table at my husband. I _had_ been +called, then,--set apart to a mission; it was a true atom of the +creative power that had fired my brain; my birth had placed me on a +fitting plane of self-development, and I had thrust it all aside--for +what? A mess of weakest pottage,--a little love, silly rides behind +Tinker, petting and paltering such as other women's souls grew imbecile +without. It was the consciousness of this that had grown slowly on me in +the year just gone; I had put my husband from me day by day because of +it; it had reached its intolerable climax to-night. Well, it was fact: +no fancy. My nature was differently built from others: I could look now +at my husband, and see the naked truth about us both. Two middle-aged +people, with inharmonious intellects: tastes and habits jarring at every +step, clenched together only by faith in a vague whim or fever of the +blood called love. Better apart: we were too old for fevers. If I +remained with Doctor Manning, my _role_ was outlined plain to the end: +years of cooking, stitching, scraping together of cents: it was the fate +of thousands of married women without means, to grovel every year nearer +the animal life, to grow niggardly and common. Better apart. + +As I thought that, he laid Teddy down, and came towards me,--the usual +uncertain, anxious half-smile on his face with which he regarded me. + +"I am sure they will all like my old home, now, lads and all. I'm glad +of that. Sure of all but you, Hester. But you say nothing." + +"The loss is great." + +I shut my lips firmly, and leaned back, for he had put his hard hand +gently on my shoulder. It made me turn faint, with some weakness that +must have come down to me from my infant days, so meaningless was it. I +did not hear his answer; for with the same passionate feebleness I +caught the sleeve of his dressing-gown in my fingers, and began +smoothing it. It was the first thing I had ever made for him. I +remembered how proud I was the evening he put it on. He was looking down +steadily at me with his grave, reasonable eyes, and speaking when I +looked up. + +"I have been knocked up and down so perpetually in my own life: that may +be the reason the change did not trouble me as it ought. It makes one +feel as if outside matters were but just the tithes of mint and +cumin,--a hurly-burly like that which I've lived in. I am sorry. I +thought you would grieve least of all, Hester. You are stronger-brained +than we Mannings, eh? I was sure the life meant so much more to you than +food or raiment." + +"What do you mean by the life? Have I found it here, Daniel?" + +"No, Hester?" + +"I want work fit for me," I said, almost fiercely. "God made me for a +good, high purpose." + +"I know," cheerfully. "We'll find it, dear: no man's work is kept back +from him. We'll find it together." + +But under the cheerfulness there was a sad quiet, as of one who has lost +something forever, and tries to hide the loss from himself. There was a +moment's silence, then I got up, and pushed him down into my chair. I +took the gray head in my arms, leaned it on my shoulder, held the thin +bits of hair in my hand. + +"Why, why, child!" + +"Call me Hetty, Daniel. I'd like to think that name belonged to me yet." + +"Surely, dear. Why! but--this is just the old times again, Hetty! You'll +be bringing me my slippers again." + +"Yes, I will." + +I went to the cupboard, and brought them, sitting down on the floor as +he put them on. Another of the old foolish tricks gone long ago. There +was a look on his face which had not been there this many a day. He had +such a credulous heart, so easy to waken into happiness. I took his +wrist in my bony hands, to raise myself; the muscles were like steel, +the cording veins throbbing with health; there was an indescribable rest +in the touch. + +"Daniel," I said, looking him full in the face, "I'd like to have no +mission in God's world. I'd like to give up my soul, and forget +everything but you." + +He did not answer. I think now that he understood me then and before far +better than I dreamed. He only put his hand on mine with an unutterable +tenderness. I could read nothing on his face but a grave common-sense. +Presently he unbuttoned my sleeves and the close collar about my throat +to let the cool damp blow on me. + +"Yes," I said, "it's a fever, Daniel. In the blood. That is all,--with +me. I decided that long ago. It will not last long." And I laughed. + +"Come," he said, quietly. "I am going to write to Rob now, about our +plans. You can help me." + +I followed him, and sat down by the table. "There is something in the +man stronger than the woman," I thought, doggedly, "inside of blood and +muscle." Yet the very galling of that consciousness set me more firmly +in the mind to be again free. + +A month after that we came to Newport. It was not an idle month. Jacky +had proposed a review of my husband's and his sons' clothes, and day +after day I had sat by the window looking out on the sluggish Hudson, a +hank of patent thread about my neck, stitching patches on the stiff, +half-worn trousers. "It becomes us to take care of the pence now," she +would say, and go on with her everlasting whistling, La-la. It rasped on +my brain like the chirp of the partridge outside in the cedar-hedge. +When she would go out of the room sometimes, I would hold my hand to my +head, and wonder if it was for this in reality God had made me. + +Yet I had my own secret. The work of my life, before I was married, had +been the score of an opera. I got it out now by stealth, at night, +putting my pen to it here and there, with the controlled fever with +which a man might lay his hand on a dear dead face, if he knew the touch +would bring it back to life. Was there any waking that dead life of +mine? At that time, in New York, M. Vaux was trying the experiment of an +English opera in one of the minor theatres. I sent the score to him. It +did not trouble me, that, if produced, its first effect would be tried +on an uncultured caste of hearers: if the leaven was pure, what matter +where it began to work? and no poet or artist was ever more sincere in +the belief that the divine power spoke through Him than I. I thought, +that, if I remained with Doctor Manning as his wife, this venture +mattered little: if I shook myself free, and, taking up my mission, came +before the public as a singer, it would open the way for me. For my plan +had grown defined and practical to me now. + +M. Vaux had left his family at Newport after the season was over. I was +to meet him there when we went down, and hear his decision on the score. +I met him one day on Broadway, and hinted my vague desire of making my +voice also available. + +"To sing? did you say sing, Mrs. Manning? go on the stage?"--pawing his +chin with one hand. + +He was a short, puffy little man, with a bullet head at half-cock in the +air, producing a general effect of nostrils on you. + +"Sing, eh?" he mumbled, once or twice. + +Before this I had been Mrs. Manning, throwing off an opera-score as a +careless whim, one of the class to whom he and his like presented arms: +he surveyed me now with the eye of a stock-raiser buying a new mule, and +set the next evening as the time when I should "drop in at his house +and give him a trill or two.--Keeping dark before the old man yet, eh?" +with a wink. I went in the next day, but he declined to pronounce +judgment until we came to Newport. + +I remember my husband met me at the gate when I returned, and lifted me +from the little pony-carriage. + +"I'm so glad my girl is taking her drives again,"--his face in a +glow,--"coming back with the old red cheeks, too. They're a sort of hint +of all the good years coming. We're far off from being old people yet, +Hetty." And so went beside me slowly up the garden-walk, his hands +clasped behind him, stopping to look now and then at his favorite purple +and crimson hollyhocks. + +I looked at him askance, as we went through the evening shadows. There +was something grand in the quiet of the face, growing old with the depth +of sadness and endurance subdued in it: the kindly smile over all. I had +brought the smile there. But it would not be for long: and I remember +how the stalk of gillyflower I held snapped in my hand, and its spicy +odor made me throw it down. I have loathed it ever since. Was my life to +be wasted in calling a smile to an old man's face? My husband and M. +Vaux were different men; but, on the other side, they were gates to me +of different lives: here, a sordid slavery of work; there,--something in +me glowed warm and triumphant,--fame and an accomplished deed in life! + +Surely these mawkish home-ties were fast loosing their hold on me, I +thought, as we went in. I asked no questions as to my husband's plans; +no one spoke to me of them. In the few days before our departure I roped +up chairs, packed china in straw, sorted clothes into trunks, working +harder than the others, and then creeping off alone would hum an air +from the score, thanking God for giving me this thoroughly pure, holy +message to utter in the world. It was the redemption of my soul from +these vulgar taints: it was a sort of mortgage I held on the eternal +truth and life. Yet, when no one told me of their plans, when I saw they +all held some secret back from me, watching me constantly and furtively, +when Jacky buzzed about my husband all day, whispering, laughing, +cooking his favorite omelet for breakfast, bringing his slippers at +night,--it was like so many sharp stings through stupor. "It's the +woman's flesh of me!" I used to say bitterly, when I would have been +glad to meanly creep after them, to cuddle Teddy up in my arms, or to +lean my head on his father's knees. "I can live it down. I have 'a manly +soul.'" For it was part of my creed that Nature was something given us +to be lived down in fulfilling our mission. + +We went by the evening's boat to Newport. I saw M. Vaux in the outer +cabin, as we passed through: he nodded familiarly when Doctor Manning's +back was turned, without removing his cigar. + +It was stifling below, with the smell of frying meat and numerous +breaths. We went on deck, my husband drawing a bench around to shelter +me from the keen wind across the bow, and wrapping my flannel hood +closer to my throat when we drifted out within scent of salt water. It +was a night that waited and listened: the sea silent and threatening, a +few yellow, dogged, low breakers running in at long intervals; now and +then a rasping gurgle of wind from shore, as of one who held his breath; +some thin, brown clouds ragged along the edges of the cold sky, ready +for flight. + +I sat there thinking how well the meaning of the sea suited my soul that +night. It was no work of God's praising Him continually: it was the +eternal protest and outcry against Fate,--chained, helpless, +unappealing. Let the mountains and the sunshine and the green fields +chant an anthem, if they would; but for this solitary sea, with its +inarticulate cry, surely all the pain and impatience of the world's six +thousand years had gone down and found a voice in that. Having thus +cleared to myself the significance of the sea in Nature, I was trying to +define its exact effect upon my own temperament, (a favorite mental +exercise of my father's,) when my husband touched my shoulder. + +"I'll go down and smoke a bit, Hetty dear, and leave you with Jacky. +She's as good guard as a troop of horse." + +Jacky nodded vehemently once or twice from where she stood, followed him +with her eyes as he went down the steps, anxiously, and then stood +gravely silent. She was but a lump of "woman's flesh," that was clear, +and I doubted if there was any soul inside to live it down. Her face was +red and her eyes shining with the sea-wind. She had been at the stern +with the boys, making a riot about the porpoises rolling under the boat; +in the engine-room with Teddy; had tried to drag me to the deck-railing +to watch the unsteady shimmer of some pale-blue sea-weed under the +water, which the wheel threw up in silver flashes, or to see how, before +the sun went down, we floated over almost motionless stretches of pale +tea-colored water, holding, it seemed, little curdling pools of light +far below in their depths on depths of shivering brown and dull red +mosses. + +"Ach-h! I'm glad I'm alive to-night!" she had said, gritting her teeth +in her Dutch fashion. + +But some new demon had possession of her brain now: she stood working +with her shawl uncertainly, a trifle pale, watching me. She came to me +at last, and stood balancing herself first on her heels and then her +toes, biting her lip as if doubtful how to begin. + +"I wish we had the baby along!" came with a gruff burst, finally. "God +bless its little soul! I went out to see it on Saturday. It would do +Uncle Daniel good. He needs something fresh and hearty, +bread-and-butter-like, or a baby. You did not notice him this evening +particularly, Mrs. Manning, eh?" anxiously. + +"No." + +"Nothing----Well, no matter. I'm fanciful, maybe. There's an old saying +in the family about him, some Doctor's prophecy, and it makes me +over-watchful, likely." + +She waited for a question. I asked none. There was a dull throb of pain +in my heart, but I thrust it down. The girl waited a few moments, +debating with herself: I could read the struggle on her face: then she +looked up straight into my eyes, her small white teeth showing +determined as a steel-trap. + +"It's quiet here, Mrs. Manning, and will be for a bit, and there's a +story I'd like to tell you. It would do me good, if it were off my mind. +Perhaps you, too," with a sharp glance. + +"Go on." + +She put her hand into her pocket and pulled out a broken morocco case. + +"Look here. This tells the whole of the story, almost,"--holding it +where the light from the cabin-window fell on it. + +It was the daguerreotype of a woman: one of those faces that grow out of +a torpid, cunning, sensual life; apparently marked, too, by some strange +disease, the skin white, and hanging loose from the flesh. I pushed it +away. Jacqueline polished it with her palm. + +"She was an opium-eater, you see? The eyes have that rigid staring, +like Death looking into life. You pushed it from you, Mrs. +Manning?"--shutting it. "Yet I know a man who cherished that living face +tenderly in his bosom for fifteen long years, and never opened his lips +to say to God once that it was hard to bear: faugh!" and she flung the +case into the water. "I only kept it to show you. She, the foul vampire, +sucked his youth away. I think it was but the husk of life that was left +him when she died;--and we are making that mean and poor enough,"--in a +lower voice. "Yet that man"--more firmly--"has a stronger brain and +fresher heart than you or I are fit to comprehend, Mrs. Manning. One +would think God meant that the last of his life, after that gone, should +be a warm Indian-summer day, opening broad and happily into the life He +is keeping for him,--would you not?" + +"Who is the man?"--my lips growing cold. + +"Your husband." + +"I thought so. You did well to tell me that story." + +She looked from me, her color coming and going. + +"It was hard to do it. You are an older woman than I. But I thought it +was needed." + +I looked up at the hard-set, chubby little face, beyond at the far +yellow night-line of sea, listened to the low choke, choke, of the water +in the wheels. + +"I wish you would leave me. Let me be alone awhile." + +She went to the other end of the deck, where she could keep me in sight. +It was so dull, that throb of the water, playing some old tune that +would not vary! The sea stretched out in such blank, featureless +reaches! + +To nestle down into this man's heart and life! To make his last years +that warm Indian-summer day! I could do it! I! What utter rest there +were in that! + +Yet was this power within me to rot and waste? My nature, all the habit +and teaching of the years gone, dragged me back, held up my Self before +me, bade me look at that. A whiff of tobacco-scented breathing made me +look up. M. Vaux was leaning on the deck-railing, his legs crossed, +surveying me critically through his half-shut eyes. + +"Well, 'm, glad of the chance t' tell you. Henz and Doctor Howe thought +so well of that little thing of yours that we've put it in +rehearsal,--bring it out Monday week. 'N' 've concluded you can try the +part of Marian in it. Not much in that,--one aria you can make something +of, but begin easy, hey?" + +"I have concluded to give up that scheme, Monsieur." + +"Tut! tut! No such thing. Why, you've a master-talent,--that is, with +cultivation, cultivation. A fine gift, Madam. Belongs to the public. +Why," tapping his yellow teeth with his cane-head, "it's shutting up a +bird in a cage, to smother a voice like yours. Must have training,--yes, +yes, 'll see to that; 'n' there are tricks and bits of stage-effect; but +you'll catch 'em,--soon enough. There's other little matters," with a +furtive glance at my square shoulders and bony figure, "necessary to +success. But you'll understand." + +I saw how anxious the man was that I should accede to the proposal. I +had not overrated my genius, then? + +"If the thing's to be done, let it be done quickly. I'm going to run +back to town to-morrow night, and you'd best go with me, and go in +rehearsal at once. You can break it to your people to-morrow. I'll meet +you in the boat,--that is," with an unwilling hesitation, "if you decide +to go." + +Jacky approached us. + +"I will let you know," I said; and as he walked away, the water began +its dull throb, throb, again, that lasted all night long. + +All night long! Other people may approach the crisis of their fate with +senses and faculties all on guard and alert; but with me, although I +knew the next day would witness my choice for life, I believe that heavy +thud of the water was the most real thought, trying my brain beyond +endurance. I tried to reason coolly in the night about M. Vaux and his +scheme: both vulgar, degrading in outside appearance,--I felt that, to +the quick, keenly enough; but inside lay a career, utterance for +myself,--and I had been dumb and choking so long! + +A beam of light from the cabin-chandelier struck just then sharply +across Doctor Manning's face, where he lay asleep in his berth. There +was an unusual look in it, as Jacky had said, now that I looked closely: +a blueness about the mouth, and a contraction of the nostrils. Was it a +hint of any secret disease, that she had looked so terrified, and even +the boys had kept such a sidelong scrutiny over him all day? I sat up. +If I could go to him, put my hands about his head, cling to him, let my +young strength and life ooze into his to atone for all he had lost in +those old days! There was passion and power of love under my +stiff-muscled fingers and hard calculating brain, such as these people +with their hot blood knew nothing of. It _was_ passion, a weak fever of +the flesh. I drew the sheet over me, and lay down again. + +The morning was stiflingly hot. I remember the crowd of porters, drays, +etc., jostling on the wharf: the narrow street: Monsieur passing me, as +we turned into it, and muttering, "By six this afternoon I must know +your decision": Robert's grave, inquiring face, when he first met his +father, and saw his changed look. The rooms he had taken for us were but +partially furnished, carpetless, the sun staring in through dirty +windows, blue and yellow paper on the walls. He went out with Dr. +Manning for a walk; the boys scattered off noisily to the sea-side. I +went to work making a sort of lounge for Teddy to sleep on, out of some +blocks of wood and staves of an old barrel, and so passed the time until +noon. Then I sat down to mend the weekly heap of boys' socks, +half-washed and leather-stained. Out of the window where I sat I looked +down into the muddy back-yard of the boarding-house, where an Irishwoman +was washing and gossiping with the cook cleaning fish over the ash-heap. +_This_ was what Life held for me now, was it? When the door was opened, +a strong whiff of dinner filled the room. Two o'clock came. + +"I will not go down to dinner," I said to Jacqueline, when the cracked +bell rang. "I will go out and find Doctor Manning on the cliffs. I may +have something to say to him." + +But when she was gone, I darned on at the unclean socks. Somehow the +future faced me in my work and surroundings. But I did not think of it +as a whole. The actual dignity and beauty of life, God's truth itself, +may have grown dim to me, behind a faint body and tired fingers; but let +the hard-worked woman who is without that sin throw the first stone at +me. I got up at last, folded the stockings, and put them away; then +pinned on my bonnet and shawl. Teddy was sitting on the stairs, half +asleep. I stopped to kiss him. + +"You'll be back soon, mother?"--hugging me close about the neck. + +"Good bye, Bud! Bring your father his pipe to-night, as he likes you to +do,--and every night." + +I strained him close to my breast again; he had a warm, honest little +heart of his own; he would be such a man as his father. I gasped, set +him down: I dared not kiss him after I thought of that: and went out of +the hall, stumbling over the boarders' hats and greasy oil-cloth. +Without, the air had that yellow stirless calm peculiar to Newport, +which gives to the sea and landscape the effect of those French pictures +glassed in tinted crystal. There were but few passengers on the street. +I wondered if any of them held his fate in his hand as I did mine that +day. Before I reached the cliffs the afternoon was passing away rapidly; +the heated pavements under my feet growing cooler, and barred with long +gray shadows; a sea-breeze blowing tattered sand-colored clouds inland; +the bell of the steamer rang out sharply down at the quiet little wharf. +In half an hour she would sail. M. Vaux was on board, awaiting me. I had +but little time to spare. + +I turned and crept slowly along the road to where the grassy street +opened on the cliffs, and sat down on the brown rocks. I could see my +husband on the sands with Robert, pacing to and fro; the scent of their +cigars almost reached me where I sat. I must see him once more. The bell +of the boat rang again; but I sat still, breaking off bits of the salt +crust from the rock, hardly looking up to see if her steam was up. I was +going. I knew she would not sail until I was on board. And I must see +him again; he would call me Hetty, maybe: that would be something to +remember. It was very quiet. The bare, ghastly cliffs formed a sort of +crescent, on which I sat; far below, the sea rolled in, over the white +sand, in heavy ashen sweeps: in one horn of the crescent the quaint old +town nestled, its smoky breath sleepily giving good-night to the clear +pink air; in the other stood the sullen fort, the flag flapping sharply +against the sky. The picture cut itself vividly on my brain. The two +black figures came slowly towards me, across the sands, seeing me at +last. I would not tell him I was going: I could write from New York: I +thought, my courage giving way. What a hard, just face Robert Manning +had! What money I made should go to the support of my child: Robert +should not think me derelict in every duty. Then I tried to get up to +meet them, but leaned back more heavily on the rocks, twisting my +fingers in a tuft of salt hay that grew there. + +I heard Robert say something about "jaded" and "overworked," as he +looked at me, throwing away his cigar; his father answered in a whisper, +which made the young man's face soften, and when they came near, he +called me "mother," for the first time. Into the face of the man beside +him I did not look: I thought I never could look again. There was a +small rip in the sleeve of his great-coat: I remember I saw it, and +wondered feebly if Jacky would attend to it,--if my child, when she was +a woman, would be careful and tender with her father. Meantime my +husband was talking in his cheerfullest, heartiest voice. + +"Coming here makes me feel as if the old boy-time had come back, Hetty. +Rob and I have been planning out our new life, and the sea and the fresh +air and the very houses seemed to join in the talk, and help me on as +they used to do then. I'll begin all new: just as then. Only now"---- + +He put his hand on my shawl with a motion that had infinite meaning and +affection in it. The little steamer at the wharf swayed and rocked. Her +freight was nearly all on deck: I had but a few moments more,--that is, +if I meant to be free. + +"We are going down to the hotel for a few minutes,--business, Hetty," he +said. "Will you wait for us here? or are you afraid to be alone? + +"No, I'm not afraid to be alone. It is better for me." + +"Good bye, then. Come, Rob." + +I did not say good-bye. Even then, I think I did not know what I had +resolved. I thrust my fingers deeper into the wet tuft of grass, heard +the long dash of the breakers on the beach, looked at the square black +figure of Robert Manning as it went slowly up the sandy road into the +street. At the other, taller and more bent, beside it, I did not once +look. I wiped the clammy moisture off my face and throat. + +"It's the woman's flesh of me," I said. "There is better stuff in me +than that. I will go now, and fulfil my calling." + +On the wharf, as I went creeping along, I met Monsieur. He offered me +his fat little arm, with smiles and congratulations, and handed me +hurriedly over the plank on to the deck. In a moment the steamer was +puffing out of harbor. + + * * * * * + +I was to play Marian in my own opera. God had given me a power of +head-work, skill for a certain mission, and I was going to perform it. +The vast, vague substance on which I was to act was brought before me +to-night, palpable,--the world, posterity, time; how did I call it? But, +somehow, it was not what I had dreamed of since my babyhood up yonder in +Concord. Nothing was vast or vague. I was looking into a little glass in +a black-painted frame, and saw the same Mrs. Manning, with the same high +cheekbones, the yellow mole on the upper lip, the sorrowful brown eyes: +dressed in tulle now, though, the angular arms and shoulders bare, and +coated with chalk, a pat of rouge laid on each cheek: under the +tulle-body the same old half-sickness; the same throbbing back-tooth +threatening to ache. The room was small, triangular: a striped, reddish +cotton carpet on the floor, a door with a brass handle, my bandbox open +on a chair, a basin with soapy water, soiled towels, two dripping +tallow-candles: in short, a dressing-room in a theatre. Outside, wheels, +pulleys, pasteboard castles, trees, chairs, more bony women, more +chalk, more tulle. Monsieur in a greasy green dressing-gown odorous of +tobacco, swearing at a boy with blear eyes,--a scene-shifter. The +orchestra tuning beyond the foot-lights: how vilely the first violin +slurred over that second passage! "Life's Prophecy," I called it; and +that "Vision of Heaven," the trombonist came in always false on the +bass, because, as Monsieur said, he had always two brandy-slings too +much. Beyond was "the world," passive, to be acted upon; the +parquet,--ranged seats of young men with the flash-stamp on them +from their thick noses to the broad-checked trousers; the +dress-circle,--young girls with their eyes and brains full-facing their +attendant sweethearts, and a side-giggle for the stage; crude faces in +the gallery, tamed faces lower down; gray and red and black and +tow-colored heads full of myriad teeming thoughts of business, work, +pleasure, outside of this: treble and tenor notes wandering through +them, dying almost ere born; touching what soul behind the dress and +brain-work? and touching it how? Ah, well! "I am going to fulfil my +mission." I said that, again and again, as I stood waiting. "Now. This +is it. I take it up." But my blood would not be made to thrill. + +"This wart must be covered," said a walking-lady in red paper-muslin, +touching the mole on my lip with Meen Fun. M. Vaux tapped at the +door,--a sly, oily smile on his mouth. + +"We are honored to-night. Be prepared, my dear Madam, for surprises in +your audience. Your husband is in the house,--and his son, Robert +Manning." + +I put up my hands in the vain effort to cover the bare neck and +shoulders,--then, going back into the dressing-room, sat down, without a +word. I remember how the two tallow-candles flared and sputtered, as I +sat staring at them; how on the other side of the brass-handled door the +play went on, the pulleys creaked, and the trombones grated, and the +other women in tulle and chalk capered and sang, and that at last the +stuffy voice of the call-boy outside cried, "Marian, on," and it was my +time to fulfil my mission. I remember how broad a gap the green floor of +the stage made to the shining tin foot-lights; how the thousand brassy, +mocking eyes were centred on the lean figure that moved forward; how I +heard a weak quaver going up, and knew it to be my own voice: I remember +nothing more until the scene was ended: the test and last scene of the +opera it had been: and as the curtain fell, it was stopped by a faint, +dismal hiss that grew slowly louder and more venomous, was mingled with +laughs and jeers from the gallery, and the play was damned. I stood with +my white gauze and bony body and rouge behind a pasteboard flower-vase, +and looked out at the laughing mob of faces. This was the world; I had +done my best head-work for it, and even these plebeian brains had found +it unfit for use, and tossed it aside. I waited there a moment, and then +passing Monsieur, whose puffy face was purple with disappointment and +rage, went into the dressing-room. + +"What wonder?" I heard him demand in French. "It was so coarse a theft! +But I hoped the catch-dresses would pass it off." + +I wrapped a flannel cloak over my airy robes, and went out, down the +crooked back-stairs into the street. I had no money; if I went back to +the hotel where I had been stopping, it would be as a beggar. + +I waited outside of the theatre by an old woman's candy-stand for the +crowd to hustle past, holding myself up by her chair-back. She was +nodding, for it was past midnight, but opened her red eyes to lift a +little child on her knees who had been asleep at her feet. + +"Come, Puss, the play's out, it's time for you an' Granny to be snug at +home." + +I laughed. Why, there was not one of these women or men crowding by, the +very black beggar holding your horse, who had not a home, a child to +touch, to love them,--not one. And I--I had my Self. I had developed +that. + +I pulled the cloak closer about me and went down the pavement. The +street was thronged with street-cars stopping for the play-goers, hacks, +and omnibuses; the gas flamed in red and green letters over the +house-fronts; the crowd laughed and swayed and hummed snatches of songs, +as they went by. I saw one or two husbands drawing the wrappings tighter +about their wives' throats, for the air was sharp. My husband had seen +my shoulders to-night,--so had they all, covered with chalk. There were +children, too, cuddling close to their mothers' sides in the carriages. +I wondered if my child would ever know it had a mother. So I went slowly +down the street. I never saw the sky so dark and steely a blue as it was +that night: if there had been one star in it, I think it would have +looked softer, more pitying, somehow, when I looked up. Knowing all that +I had done, I yet cannot but feel a pity for the wretch I was that +night. If the home I had desolated, the man and child I had abandoned, +had chosen their revenge, they could not have asked that the woman's +flesh and soul should rise in me with a hunger so mad as this. + +At the corner of the street, a group from the crowd had stopped at the +door of a drug-shop; they were anxious, curious, whispering back to +those behind them. Some woman fainting, perhaps, or some one ill. I +could not pass the lock of carriages at the crossing, and stopped, +looking into the green light of the window-bottles. In a moment I caught +my own name, "Manning," from a policeman who came out, and a word or two +added. The crowd drew back with a sudden breath of horror; but I passed +them, and went in. It was a large shop: the lustres, marble +soda-fountains, and glittering shelves of bottles dazzled me at first, +but I saw presently two or three men, from whom the crowd had shrunk +away, standing at the far end of the shop. Something lay on the counter +among them,--a large, black figure, the arm hanging down, the feet +crossed. It did not move. I do not know how long I stood there, it might +be hours, or minutes, and it did not move. But I knew, the first moment +I looked at it, that it never would move again. They worked with him, +the three men, not speaking a word. The waistcoat and shirt were open; +there was a single drop of blood on the neck, where they had tried to +open a vein. After a while the physician drew back, and put his hand +gently on the shoulder of the shorter, stouter of the other two men. + +"My friend," he said, compassionately. + +Robert Manning did not seem to hear him. He had knelt on the floor and +hid his face in the hand that hung down still and cold. The druggist, a +pale, little person, drew the doctor aside. + +"What is it, now? Apoplexy?" his face full of pity. + +"No. Brought on by nervous excitement,--heart, you know. Threatened a +long time, his son says. His wife, the woman who"---- + +The policeman had been eying my dress under the cloak for some time. + +"Hi! _You_'d best move on," he whispered. "This a'n't no place for the +likes of you." + +I stood still a moment looking at the brawny black figure lying on the +counter. The old days of Tinder and the paddock,--I don't know why I +thought of them. It did not move: it never would move again. Dead. I had +murdered him. I! I got my fingers in my oily hair, and pulled at it. +"Hetty, Hetty Manning," I said, "good bye! Good bye, Daniel!" I remember +hearing myself laugh as I left the shop-door; then I went down the +street. + +When I was far down the Bowery, an old thought came feebly up in my +brain. It was how the water had choked, choked, all that night long in +the wheel of the boat. When I thought of that, I waited to think. Then I +turned and went to the bay, beyond Castle Garden. + + * * * * * + +The rain, drip, dripping on a cottage-roof: on branches, too, near at +hand, that rustled and struck now and then against the little +window-shutters, in a fashion just dreary enough to make one nestle +closer into the warm bed, and peep out into the shadowy chamber, with +the cozy little fire burning hotly in the grate. Patter, patter: +gurgling down the spouts: slacking for a minute, threatening to stop and +let you sleep in a usual, soundless, vulgar way, as on other nights: +then at it again, drip, drip, more monotonous, cheerfuller in its +dreariness than ever. Thunder, too: growling off in the hills, where the +night and rain found no snug little bed-room to make brighter by their +besieging: greenish-white jets of lightning in the cracks of the +shutters, making the night-lamp on the toilet-table and the fire +suddenly go out and kindle up fiercely again. + +This for a long time: hours or not, why should one try to know? A little +bed, with crimson curtains, cool white pillows: a soft bed, where the +aching limbs rested afresh with every turn. After a while, a +comfortable, dumpling little figure in a loose wrapper, popping out of +some great chair's depths by the fire and stirring some posset on the +hearth: smelling at a medicine-bottle: coming to the bed-side, putting a +fat hand on one's forehead: a start, a nervous kiss, a shaky little +laugh or two, as she fumbles about, saying, "Hush-h!" and a sudden +disappearing behind the curtains. A grave, pale face looking steadily +down, as if afraid to believe, until the dear eyes fill with tears, and +the head, with its old wig, is dropped, and I and God only know what his +soul is saying. + +"My husband!" + +"Hetty!" + +"Is it you?--Daniel?" + +He lifted me in his arms farther up on the pillow, smoothing the +blankets about me, trying to speak, but only choking, in a ridiculous +fashion. + +"And the opera, and the drug-shop, and"---- + +I held my hand to my head. + +"The truth is," said Jacky, bobbing out from behind the curtains, her +eyes suspiciously red and shiny, "I'm afraid you've had some bad dreams, +dear. Just take a teaspoonful of this, that's a good soul! You've been +ill, you see. Brain-fever, and what not. The very day we came to +Newport. Uncle Daniel and Robert found you on the cliff." + +"When we came from the hotel, you remember?" still pulling the blanket +up, his lip unsteady. + +"You'll choke her; what a nurse you are, to be sure, Uncle Dan! And the +woman's feet as bare"---- + +"There, there, Jacky! I know,"--submissively, twitching at my nightcap, +and then gathering my head into his arms until I could hear how his +heart throbbed under the strong chest. "My wife! Hetty! Hetty!" he +whispered. + +I knew he was thanking God for giving me to him again. I dared not think +of God, or him: God, that had given me another chance. + +I lay there until morning, weak and limp, on his arm, touching it now +and then to be sure it was alive, an actual flesh-and-blood arm,--that I +was not a murderer. Weak as any baby: and it seemed to me--it comes to +me yet as a great truth--that God had let me be born again: that He, who +gave a new life to the thief in his last foul breath, had given me, too, +another chance to try again. Jacky, who was the most arbitrary of +nurses, coiled herself up on the foot of the bed, and kept her unwinking +eyes sharp on us to enforce silence. Never were eyes more healthful and +friendly, I thought feebly. But I tried all the time to press my poor +head in closer to my husband's breast: I was barely free from that +vacuum of death and crime, and in there were the strength and life that +were to save me; I knew that. God, who had brought me to this, alone +knew how I received it: whether it was a true wife that lay on Daniel +Manning's bosom that night; how I loathed the self I had worshipped so +long; how the misused, diseased body and soul were alive with love for +him, craved a week's, a day's life to give themselves utterly to him, to +creep closer to him and the Father that he knew so simply and so well. I +heard him once in the night, when he thought I was asleep, say to +himself something of the wife who had been restored to him, who "was +dead and is alive again, was lost and is found." But how true those +words were he can never know. + +I fell asleep towards morning, and when I woke, it was with a clear head +and stronger eye to comprehend my new chance in life. The room had a +pure, fresh, daylight look, snug and tidy; a clear fire crackled on the +clean hearth; Jacky herself had her most invigorating of morning faces, +going off at the least hint of a joke into redness and smiles. It rained +still, but the curtains were drawn back, and I could see through the +gray wet what a pleasant slope of meadow there was outside, clumped over +with horse-chestnuts and sycamores, down to a narrow creek. The water +was fogged over now with drifting mist, but beyond I caught glimpses of +low wooded hills, and far to the left the pale flush of the sea running +in on the sand. My husband was watching me eagerly as I looked out. + +"I do not know where I am, Daniel." + +"No, of course you don't,"--rubbing his forehead, as he always did when +he was especially pleased. "There's so much to tell you, Hetty dear! +We're beginning all new again, you see." + +"You'll not tell a word, until she's had her breakfast," said Jacky, +dogmatically, coming with her white basin of cool water. + +Oh, the remembrance of that plunge of cold on the hot skin, of the +towel's smelling of lavender, of the hard-brushed hair, of the dainty +little tray, with its smoking cup of fragrant, amber tea, and delicatest +slice of crisp toast! Truly, the woman's flesh of me, having been +triumphant so long, goes back with infinite relish to that first meal, +and the two bright faces bent over me. And then came Teddy, slying to +the pillow-side, watching my pale face and thin hands with an awe-struck +gaze, and carrying off the tea and toast to finish by the hearth. + +"You can't see much for the rain, mother," anxiously. "Not the orchard, +nor the stable,--but there _is_ a stable, and hay, and eggs every +morning, only the gray hen's trying to set, if you'll believe it. And +old Mary's in the kitchen, and we've got even Tinder and our old peacock +from the Hudson." + +"Eat your toast now, Captain," said his father, putting his arm about me +again. + +"Yes, Hetty, it's a bit of a farm,--ten or fifteen acres. Our cozery: +yours and mine, dear. It's Rob's surprise,"--with the awkward laugh a +man gives, when, if he were a woman, the tears would come. + +"Rob?" + +"Yes. He had it ready. I knew it before we left New York, but we wanted +to surprise you. The boys all put in a little. They're good boys. I've +hardly deserved it of them,"--pulling at the quilt-fringe. "I've been a +glum, unsociable old dog. I might have made their lives cheerfuller. +They're going West: Bill and John to Chicago, and Jem to St. Louis: just +waiting for you to be better." + +"I am sorry." + +I was sorry. The thought of their earnest, honest, downright faces came +to me now with a new meaning, somehow: I could enter into their life +now: it was an eager affection I was ready to give them, that they could +not understand: I had wakened up, so thirsty for love, and to love. + +"Yes, Rob did it,"--lingering on the name tenderly. "It's a snug home +for us: we'll have to rough it outside a little, but we're not old yet, +Hetty, eh?" turning up my face. "I have my old school in town again. We +have everything we want now, to begin afresh." + +I did not answer; nor, through the day, when Jacky and the boys, one +after another, would say anxiously, as one does to a sick person, "Is +there anything you need, mother?" did I utter a wish. I dared not: I +knew all that I had done: and if God never gave me _that_ gift again, I +never should ask for it. But I saw them watching me more uneasily, and +towards evening caught part of Jacky's talk with Doctor Manning. + +"I tell you I will. I'll risk the fever," impatiently. "It's that she +wants. I can see it in her eyes. Heaven save you, Uncle Dan, you're not +a woman!" + +And in a moment she brought my baby and laid it in my breast. It was +only when its little hand touched me that I surely knew God had forgiven +me. + +It ceased raining in the evening: the clouds cleared off, red and heavy. +Rob had come up from town, and took his father's place beside me, but he +and Jacky brought their chairs close, so we had a quiet evening all +together. Their way of talking, of politics or religion or even news, +was so healthy and alive, warm-blooded! And I entered into it with so +keen a relish! It was such an earnest, heartsome world I had come into, +out of myself! Once, when Jacqueline was giving me a drink, she said,-- + +"I wish you'd tell us what you dreamed in all these days, dear." + +Robert glanced at me keenly. + +"No, Jacky," he said, his face flushing. + +I looked him full in the eyes: from that moment I had a curious reliance +and trust in his shrewd, just, kindly nature, and in his religion, a +something below that. If I were dying, I should be glad if Robert +Manning would pray for me. I should think his prayers would be heard. + +"I will not forget what I dreamed, Robert," I said. + +"No, mother. I know." + +After that, awhile, I was talking to him of the home he had prepared for +his father and me. + +"I wanted you just to start anew, with Teddy and the baby, here," he +said, lightly. + +"And Jacky," I added, looking up at the bright, chubby face. + +It grew suddenly crimson, then colorless, then the tears came. There was +a strange silence. + +"Rob," she whispered, hiding her head sheepishly, "Rob says no." + +"Yes, Rob says no," putting his hand on her crisp curls. "He wants you. +And mother, here, will tell you a woman has no better work in life than +the one she has taken up: to make herself a visible Providence to her +husband and child." + +I kissed Jacky again and again, but I said nothing. He went away just +after that. When he shook hands, I held up the baby to be kissed. He +played with it a minute, and then put it down. + +"God bless the baby," he said, "and its mother," more earnestly. + +Then he and Jacky went out and left me alone with my husband and my +child. + + + + +PALINGENESIS. + + + I lay upon the headland-height, and listened + To the incessant sobbing of the sea + In caverns under me, + And watched the waves, that tossed and fled and glistened, + Until the rolling meadows of amethyst + Melted away in mist. + + Then suddenly, as one from sleep, I started; + For round about me all the sunny capes + Seemed peopled with the shapes + Of those whom I had known in days departed, + Apparelled in the loveliness which gleams + On faces seen in dreams. + + A moment only, and the light and glory + Faded away, and the disconsolate shore + Stood lonely as before; + And the wild roses of the promontory + Around me shuddered in the wind, and shed + Their petals of pale red. + + There was an old belief that in the embers + Of all things their primordial form exists, + And cunning alchemists + Could recreate the rose with all its members + From its own ashes, but without the bloom, + Without the lost perfume. + + Ah, me! what wonder-working, occult science + Can from the ashes in our hearts once more + The rose of youth restore? + What craft of alchemy can bid defiance + To time and change, and for a single hour + Renew this phantom-flower? + + "Oh, give me back," I cried, "the vanished splendors, + The breath of morn, and the exultant strife, + When the swift stream of life + Bounds o'er its rocky channel, and surrenders + The pond, with all its lilies, for the leap + Into the unknown deep!" + + And the sea answered, with a lamentation, + Like some old prophet wailing, and it said, + "Alas! thy youth is dead! + It breathes no more, its heart has no pulsation, + In the dark places with the dead of old + It lies forever cold!" + + Then said I, "From its consecrated cerements + I will not drag this sacred dust again, + Only to give me pain; + But, still remembering all the lost endearments, + Go on my way, like one who looks before, + And turns to weep no more." + + Into what land of harvests, what plantations + Bright with autumnal foliage and the glow + Of sunsets burning low; + Beneath what midnight skies, whose constellations + Light up the spacious avenues between + This world and the unseen! + + Amid what friendly greetings and caresses, + What households, though not alien, yet not mine, + What bowers of rest divine; + To what temptations in lone wildernesses, + What famine of the heart, what pain and loss, + The bearing of what cross! + + I do not know; nor will I vainly question + Those pages of the mystic book which hold + The story still untold, + But without rash conjecture or suggestion + Turn its last leaves in reverence and good heed, + Until "The End" I read. + + + + +GLORYING IN THE GOAD. + + + "Let the wealthy and great + Roll in splendor and state, + I envy them not, I declare it; + I eat my own lamb, + My own chickens and ham, + I shear my own fleece, and I wear it; + I have lawns, I have bowers, + I have fruits, I have flowers, + The lark is my morning alarmer; + So, jolly boys, now. + Here's God speed the plough, + Long life and success to the farmer!" + +So sings a certain venerable pitcher its untiring song. A brave pitcher +it was in its day. A well-ordered farm lies along its swelling sides. A +purple man merrily drives his purple team afield. Gold and purple +milkmaids are milking purple and golden cows. Young boys bind the +ripened sheaves, or bear mugs of foaming cider to the busy hay-makers, +with artistic defiance of chronology. There are ploughs and harrows, +hoes and spades, beehives and poultry-houses, all in the best repair, +and all resplendent in purple and gold. Alas! _Ilium fuit._ The gold is +become dim, the purple is dingy, the lucent whiteness has gone gray; a +very large, brown, zigzag fissure has rent its volcanic path through the +happy home, dividing the fair garden, cutting the plough in two, +narrowly escaping the ploughman; and, indeed, the whole structure is +saved from violent disruption only by the unrelaxing clasp of a string +of blue yarn. Thus passes away the glory of the world! + +Is it not too often typical of the glory of our rural dreams? To live in +the country; to lie on green lawns, or under bowers of roses and +honeysuckle; to watch the procession of the flowers, and bind upon our +brows the sweetest and the fairest; to take largess of all the fruits in +their season; to be entirely independent of the world, dead to its din, +alive only to its beauty; to feed upon butter and honey, and feast upon +strawberries and cream, all found within your own garden-wall; to be +wakened by the lark, and lulled asleep by the cricket; to hear the +tinkling of the cow-bell as you walk, and to smell the new-mown hay: +surely we have found Arcadia at last. Cast away day-book and ledger, +green bag and yardstick; let us go straightway into the country and buy +a farm. + +But before the deeds are actually delivered, before your feet have +finally deserted the pavement to make life-long acquaintance with the +dew, it will be worth while to ascertain whether the pitcher's word is +as good as its bond. If its fallen fortunes are indicative of what +yours shall be,--if Arcadia blooms only in its gorgeous bosom, and will +turn into an Arabia Petraea at the first touch of your spade,--better for +you a pitcher of roughest Delft on board of deal than all this pomp and +circumstance of lies. + +Reports of societies are not generally "as interesting as a novel." +Nevertheless, if one will consult the Report of the Commission of +Agriculture for 1862, he will find, among fascinating columns of +figures, bold disquisitions on the midge, a mirage of grapes, pears, and +peaches, and uncomfortable-looking "thoroughbred" cattle, an essay, by +Dr. W.W. Hall of New York city, which may assist him in forming his +plans. It is not necessarily destructive of the most charming theories, +but it is very definite and damnatory as to facts. Among other +unromantic and disagreeable things, it asserts--and proves its +assertions by still more disagreeable, because incontrovertible +statistics,--that, for all the sylvan delights of lawn and bower, and +the exquisite sensation of eating your own hams, the largest class of +patients in insane asylums comes from the "jolly boys" and their wives +and daughters; but better watch a grass-blade struggling up under the +curb-stone of the sidewalk than view the fairest landscape in the world +from behind a grated window. We learn also, that, in spite of his ample +larder, his freedom from envy and carking care, the farmer does not live +so long as the pale clergyman whose white hands he looks upon with only +not contempt; but how sweet soever may be the scent of clover and +buttercup, he little heeds their fragrance who lies beneath them. We are +told that a very large part of our farming population have no breadth of +view; that they cannot enter into a conversation beyond a few comments +on the weather, the crops, the markets, and the neighborhood-news. The +freshness, the beauty, the music and motion, that breathe and stir +around them, can gain no foothold in the unvarying routine of their +lives; but in vain do the heavens spread out their glory, and in vain +the earth unfolds her loveliness, if + + "A primrose by the river's brim + A yellow primrose is to him, + And it is nothing more." + +To these skeletons is added, perhaps, the causal and certainly the most +common skeleton of all: in this rustic paradise, this home of all the +graces and comforts, the grim spectre Debt stalks to and fro, eating out +the farmer's substance, and giving him in return anxiety, makeshifts, +irascibility, and despair. Three homes out of four, according to this +writer's estimate, suffer from the ravages of debt. + +This is a general, perhaps a national view. We may come a little nearer +home, and find that a closer examination only confirms the conclusions +arrived at by the broader survey. Thoreau, who "has travelled a great +deal in Concord," and whose keen eyes took note there for forty years, +says,--"When I consider my neighbors, the farmers of Concord,... I find +that for the most part they have been toiling twenty, thirty, or forty +years, that they may become the real owners of their farms, which +commonly they have inherited with incumbrances, or else bought with +hired money,... but commonly they have not paid for them yet. It is +true, the incumbrances sometimes outweigh the value of the farm, so that +the farm itself becomes one great incumbrance, and still a man is found +to inherit it, being well acquainted with it, as he says. On applying to +the assessors, I am surprised to learn that they cannot at once name a +dozen in the town who own their farms free and clear. If you would know +the history of these homesteads, inquire at the bank where they are +mortgaged. The man who has actually paid for his farm with labor on it +is so rare that every neighbor can point to him. I doubt if there are +three such men in Concord. What has been said of the merchants,--that a +very large majority, even ninety-seven in a hundred, are sure to +fail,--is equally true of the farmers.... Yet the Middlesex Cattle-Show +goes off here with _eclat_ annually, as if all the joints of the +agricultural machine were suent." + +If you do not trust the testimony of books, but will turn to living men, +you will scarcely fare better. One man, whose recreations have been +rural, but his business civic, conducts you through his groves and +summer-houses, his stone barns and his latticed cottages, but tempers +your enthusiasm with the remark, that this fancy farming is sowing +ninepences to reap sixpences. Relinquishing fancy farms, you go to the +practical man swinging his scythe in his hay-field, his shirt-sleeves +rolled above his elbows, and his trousers tucked into his boots. He +shows you the face-walls and the compost-heap, the drains and the +resultant hay-cocks, with measurable pride, but tells you at the same +time that every dollar he has earned on that farm has cost him nine +shillings. This will never do. A third farmer has inherited his farm, +not only without incumbrance, but with money at interest. Under his +hands it waxes fat and flourishing, and sends to market every year its +twelve or fifteen hundred dollars' worth of produce. But you overhear +its owner telling his neighbor that "it's a Cain's business, this +farming: make any man cross enough to kill his brother!" You find this +farmer racked with rheumatism, though in the prime of life,--bent with +the weight of years before his time. He has lost his health just as he +has improved his farm, by working early and late through sun and rain. +You turn to still another farm, whose owner brings the learning of a +college as well as the muscles of a yeoman to the culture of the soil. +His nurseries and orchards are thrifty, his cattle sleek and +comfortable, his yards broad, cleanly, and sunny. His fields wave with +plenty, his granary overflows. Here, surely, you have struck into the +Happy Valley. Here at last Tityrus reposes under the shade of his +broad-spreading beech-trees. On the contrary, you find Tityrus in the +back sitting-room, rolling his eyes in a fine frenzy over a very prose +bucolic on the Condition and Prospects of Sheep-Husbandry, which he is +writing for the "Country Gentleman" at five dollars a page. All the cool +of the day he works on his farm, and all the hot of the day he devotes +to his manuscript; and he avers with a solemnity which carries +conviction, that he and his wife have come to the conclusion that they +are carrying on their farm for the benefit of the hired help! He is +devoted to farming; he is interested in its processes; but the men and +maids get all the profits, and he supports his family by his pen. +Everywhere you find one song with variations. Farmers and farmers' wives +are not in love with their calling. They are not enthusiastic over it. +The "smartest" of the children do not remain at home to take charge of +the farm, unless impelled by a sense of duty to their aged parents, or +lured by some promise of extraordinary recompense. Everywhere the farmer +finds farming to be "a slave's life," "a dog's life," "delve all your +days, and nothin' to show for 't," "hard scrapin' to make both ends +meet." It is so unwieldly a mode of applying means to ends, that, if you +must believe him, every quart of milk costs him six cents, with the +labor thrown in, while you pay the milkman but five cents at your own +door; every dozen eggs which he gathers from his own barn he gathers at +the rate of twenty-five cents a dozen, while you are paying only +twenty-two. And even when both ends do meet, and not only meet, but lap +over, you scarcely find a hearty cheerfulness and sunshine, a liberal +praise and unfeigned ardor, a contagious delight in the soil. "Jolly +boys" in purple blouses may drive ploughs around pitchers, but they are +rarely met on the hill-sides of New England. If we may credit Dr. Hall, +they are quite as rarely seen on the rich, rolling lands toward the +sunset. + +Is this state of things inevitable? Farmers have a very general belief +that it is. They not only plod on in the old way themselves, but they +have no faith in the possible opening-up of any other way. Their sole +hope of bettering their condition lies in abandoning it altogether. If +one son is superior to the others, if an only son concentrates upon +himself all the parental affection, they do not plan for him a brilliant +career in their own line; they do not look to him to obtain distinction +by some great agricultural achievement, a discovery of new laws or a new +combination of old laws; all their love and hope find expression in the +determination "not to bring him up to farming." They "don't mean he +shall ever have to work." Hard work and small profits is the story of +their lives and of the lives of their ancestors, and they do not believe +any other story will ever be truly told of the genuine farmer. And when +we say small profits, we wish the phrase to hold all the meaning of +which it is capable. It is hard work and small profits to body and soul; +small profits to heart and brain as well as purse. But every plan which +looks to better things is "notional," "new-fangled," "easier to tell of +than 'tis to do"; and so the farmer goes on his daily beat, with a +shamefaced pride in his independence, fostered by the flattery of his +county-fair orators, yet vituperating his occupation, bemoaning its +hardships, and depreciating its emoluments, stubbornly set in the belief +that he knows all there is to know about farming, and scornful of +whatever attempts to go deeper than his own ploughshare or cut a broader +swath than his own scythe. + +To suggest the possibility that all this is the result of limited +knowledge, and that the most favorable and beneficial change might be +found in a more liberal education and a wider acquaintance with the +facts discovered and the deductions made by science, would be considered +by a bold yeomanry, our country's pride, as an outbreak of +"book-farming" in its most virulent form. "You may bet your hat on one +thing," says the bold yeoman,--"a man may know sunthin', an' be a good +minister an' a tol'able deacon, but he's spiled for farmin'." + +Two words are beginning to be coupled in the newspapers and to float +about in the air, whose juxtaposition is the cause of many a demure +chuckle among the rural population,--"Agricultural College." Separately, +the words command all respect; united, they are a living refutation of +the well-known axiom that "the whole is equal to all its parts." On the +contrary, so far are our farmers from believing this, that, while they +acknowledge each part to be a very serious and important fact, they look +upon the whole as the flimsiest of fallacies. + +"Gov'ment is goin' to build an Agriculteral College. Farmin' an' +learnin' marry an' set up house-keepin'. Guess Uncle Sam'll have to give +'em a hist with a donation-party now 'n' then. Agriculteral College? +Yes, Sir! Well, Sir, if you'll show me a man, Sir, that's a gradooate +from that College, that'll ever be seen with a hoe in his hand, I'll +give him leave to knock my brains out with it! Yes, Sir! An' it'll be +the best use he can put it to, Sir! He'll do less mischief that way 'n +any other! Agriculteral College! Edicated farmers! Yes, Sir, I've seen +'em! Got a grist up in Topsell. Jint-stock farm. The best talent in +Essex County's been a-carryin' on that farm, an' nigh about carried it +off, an' themselves along with it. Yes, Sir, the best talent in Essex +County, an' had the farm given 'em, an' they've sunk a thousan' dollars, +Sir, a'ready! That's what I call a Sinkin'-Fund, Sir! That's to begin +with. Jones is an edicated farmer. He made his cider last fall on +scinetific principles. Well, Sir, I could put an apple in my mouth, an' +swim down Merrimac River, an' have better cider 'n that all the way! +Edicated farmin' 's a very pootty thing, if a man can be at the expense +on't; but when it comes to gittin' a livin', farmin' 's farmin'. +Agriculteral College! Yes, Sir, farmin' 's a hard life, lookin' at the +best side. Soil's light an' runnin' to stones. But this here college +stuff's the poorest kind o' top-dressin' you can give it. Learnin's a +good thing. I've nothin' agin learnin', but 't a'n't the best use you +can make on 't to plough it in. The only way to promote the agriculteral +interests of Essex County, Sir, is to keep the farmers jest as they +are. Greek 'n' Latin a'n't state-prison offences, but they're sure death +to pork 'n' potaters. Minute you edicate the farmers they'll be as +uneasy as a toad under a harrow. What kind of a hand would Doctor Hall +or Squire Smith make, to come an' take a farm alongside o' me?" + +This is the way our bold yeoman puts it. Planting himself on the +indisputable facts of his pork and potatoes, he regards one who stands +upon any other ground as a dreamer and a visionary. He forgets that pork +and potatoes are not the only facts in the world. The earth itself is a +larger fact than anything that springs from it. It is the inalienable +inheritance, the sole support of man. Mother and nurse, from the cradle +to the grave, there comes no hour when he can withdraw from her +nourishing bosom. But, by our farmers' showing, it is but a harsh and +niggardly step-mother, opening the fountains of life only under +enforcement. Is this reasonable? Is it reasonable to suppose that the +one calling which is essential to life, the one calling on which every +other depends, should be the Canaan accursed, servant of servants to its +brethren? Is it reasonable to suppose that God gave us this beautiful +round world, source of all our wealth, almoner of every comfort, +possessor and dispenser of all grace and loveliness, yet with such +poison in her veins that they alone are safe who deal with her at a +remove,--she withers the hand that touches her? The ancients believed +better things than these. They reverenced the Mighty Mother, and fabled +a giant's strength to him who craved a blessing by the laying-on of +hands. We know that a curse was pronounced upon the earth, but why +farmers should be so forward to monopolize the curse it is difficult to +conceive. It is generally supposed that all the descendants of Adam are +equally implicated. It is not the farmer alone, but the minister and the +mechanic as well, who is to eat bread in the sweat of his face. One +product of the earth was no more accursed than another. Wheat and barley +and corn are no more under a ban than gold and iron and timber, which +all come from the same bountiful bosom; but while artificers in gold and +iron magnify their office and wax fat, the farmer depreciates his, and +according to his own showing is clothed upon with leanness. + +Surely these things ought not so to be. Looking at this earth as the +divinely prepared dwelling-place of man, and looking at man as divinely +appointed to dress and keep it, to replenish and subdue it, we should +naturally suppose that there would be an obvious and preeminent +adaptation of the one to the other. We should naturally suppose that the +primary, the fundamental occupation of the race would be one which +should not only keep body and soul together, but should be especially +and exactly fitted to develop and strengthen all the powers called into +exercise, and should also be most likely to call into exercise a great +variety of powers to the fashioning of a healthy and beautiful symmetry. +Looking still further at the secondary occupations, we find our views +confirmed. The shoemaker must bend over his lapstone, and he becomes +stooping and hollow-chested. The blacksmith twists the sinews of his +arms to strength, but at the expense of his other members. The +watchmaker trains his eyes to microscopic vision, but his muscles are +small and his skin colorless. A very large majority of the secondary +callings remove men from the open air, often from the sunshine, and +generally train one or a few faculties at the expense of the others. The +artisan carries skill to perfection, the genius towers into sublimity, +but the man suffers. Not so the farmer. His life is not only many-, but +all-sided. His ever-changing employment gives him every variety of +motion and posture. Not a muscle but is pressed into service. His work +lies chiefly out-of-doors. The freedom of earth and sky are his. Every +power of his mind may be brought into play. He is surrounded by +mysteries which the longest life will not give him time enough to +fathom, problems whose solution may furnish employment for the deepest +thought and the most sustained attention, and whose solution is at the +same time a direct and most important contribution to his own ease and +riches. The constant presence of beautiful and ever-shifting scenery +ministers to his taste and his imagination. Nature, in her grandeur, in +her loveliness, in the surpassing beauty of her utilities, is always +spread before him. All her wonderful processes go on beneath his eyes. +The great laboratory is ever open. The furnace-fire is always burning. +Patent to his curious or admiring gaze the transmutation takes place. +The occult principle of life surrounds him, might almost bewilder him, +with manifestations. Bee and bird, fruit and blossom, and the phantom +humanity in beasts, offer all their secrets to his eyes. Every process +is his minister. His mental and material interests lie in one right +line. The sun is his servant. The shower fulfils his behest. The dew +drops silently down to do his work. The fragrance of the apple-orchard +shall turn to gold in his grasp. The beauty of bloom shall fill his home +with plenty. The frost of winter is his treasure-keeper, and the snows +wrap him about with beneficence. With nothing trivial, deceptive, +inflated, has he to do. An unimpeachable sincerity pervades all things. +All things are natural, and all things act after their kind. Is it a +divine decree that all this shall tend to no good? Shall all this pomp +of preparation rightly come to nothing? Do we gather the natural fruits +of circumstance, when the mind travels on to madness, the body goes +prematurely to disease and decay, and the heart shrivels away from love +and is overcast with gloom? Is all the appearance of adaptation false, +and do farmers gain the due emoluments of their position? Not so. It is +their fault that they do not see the life which revels in exuberance +around them. In their minds is no under-draining, no subsoiling. Earth +with all her interests takes unrelaxing hold of their potato-patch, but +they have eyes only for the potato-patch. Accustoming themselves to the +contemplation of little things, considered separately and not as links +in the universal chain, their angle of vision has grown preternaturally +acute. Things they see, but not the relations of things. They dwell on +desert islands. For all the integrity of Nature, they fail to learn +integrity. The honest farmer is no more common than the honest merchant. +He abhors the tricks of trade, he has his standing joke about the +lawyer's conscience: but the load of hay which he sold to the merchant +was heavier by his own weight on the scales than at the merchant's +stable-yard; the lawyer who buys his wood, taught by broad rural +experience, looks closely to the admeasurement; and a trout in the milk +Thoreau counts as very strong circumstantial evidence. The farmer does +not compass sublime swindles like the merchant, nor such sharp practice +as the lawyer; but in small ways he is the peer of either. We do not say +that farmers are any more addicted to their characteristic vices than +the lawyers and merchants are to theirs; but that they have their +peculiarities, like other classes, and that the term _honest_ is as +necessary a prefix to _farmer_ as to any other noun of occupation. We +admit all this, but we believe it is the fault of the farmer, and not of +his circumstances. + +"His fault!" says the farmer, and say many men of whom better things +might be expected. "How can he get wisdom that holdeth the plough, and +that glorieth in the goad, that driveth oxen, and is occupied in their +labors, and whose talk is of bullocks?" How? By "seeking her as silver, +and searching for her as for hid treasures." For remember, O farmer! the +despairing question is from below, the inspiring answer from above. It +is not the Bible, but the Apocrypha, that casts doubt upon agricultural +education. There is wisdom to him that holdeth the plough. Honor and +health and wealth and great-heartedness are to be found in the soil. +Earth is not one huge incumbrance to weigh man down; it is the means by +which he may rise to heavenly heights. Earth has been the mother of +dignity ever since her Maker's eyes looked upon her, and the Maker's +voice pronounced her very good. And "Very Good" is the true verdict. +Ignorance, stupidity, and sin insist upon perpetuating the curse from +which she has been once redeemed; but a blessing lies in her heart for +him who has but the courage to grasp it. + +What analogies have they to prop their conclusions withal, who maintain +the necessary degradation of the soil? Fire, air, and water bow down and +do obeisance to man. They are analyzed and recombined. They are studied +with insatiable curiosity. They receive the absorbed attention of a +lifetime. Daily their secrets are wrested from them. Their likings and +their dislikings are forced into man's service; they are coupled in +strange unions and harnessed to his chariot. Whithersoever he will, they +bear him. They minister to his lowliest needs, they bend to his loftiest +dreams. They have lifted him from the earth whereon he crept, and have +given him the wings of the wind. Swifter than the eagle flies, swift as +the lightnings flash, they run to and fro at his command. Nor has the +limit of their capacities been reached. Nor has man ceased to pry into +the mysteries which lie hidden in their depths. He was once their abject +slave. He is now their crowned king. He will one day be their absolute +monarch. + +But while the three ancient elements are thus wrought into glory and +honor, the fourth sister, Earth, remains a clod. They give gifts to men, +but she only sears him with the brand of servitude. Every bold seeker, +adventuring into their arcana, bears back his treasure-trove; but the +earth only mocks her wooer, and robs him of his strength who sleeps upon +her knees! + +It is easy to point to occurrences which seem to prove this,--to +experiments which seemed fruitless,--to plans adopted only to be laid +aside,--to new modes that were heralded with great flourish of trumpets, +and shuffled ignominiously out through the pantry-door. But every +science and every art has had its empirical age, and every age has its +empiricists. Astrology spoke its great swelling words, made its +cabalistic signs, and passed away to its burial; but astronomy remains +eternal as the heavens. The stars cannot tell a man when he shall die, +and they shine upon the shepherd as brightly as on the sage; but they +have marvellous secrets to whisper to him who watches the long night +through to behold their coming and mark the magic of their ways; and by +so much knowledge unfolded Earth takes her place in the skies. There was +no El Dorado beyond the western sea to bestow eternal youth upon the +Spanish dreamer; but there was a land fairer than all his fancy painted, +to whose light the Gentiles shall yet come, and kings to the brightness +of its rising. The philosopher's stone has never been found which should +transmute all metals to gold; but gold itself is worthless in the +presence of such truths as philosophy reveals. All the way through, no +science has been pushed to barren results. A thousand errors have +branched off from the central truth, and have sometimes been mistaken +for it; a thousand false steps have been made for one in the right +direction; yet the truth is central and indivisible, and men have +pressed on steadily to reach it. Counterfeits do not annihilate the pure +coin. Pretenders do not destroy faith in the rightful prince. Even +failures lead the way to success. Honest, wise, persevering research has +ever been rewarded in full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and +running over. And it is not to be supposed that the one science of the +earth vaster and nobler than all others, the science that ministers most +directly to man's life, shall be the one science to baffle his research +and yield him meagre returns. We do not know what wealth the earth holds +in store for us, and it is our shame and misery that we so little +strive to know, so little care to seek. With an ignorance for which our +rich experience leaves us no excuse, we doggedly assume that we have +attained the ultimatum. The earth is to us but an immense pippin covered +all over with the arrogant label, "Seek-no-further." + +If farmers choose to accept this label as their motto, they should also +accept the consequences without complaint. If they choose to live in a +rut, they must not expect to breathe the air which they would find on a +hill. Many readers will remember a passage at arms that occurred in the +legislative assembly of one of our New-England States. A clergyman, +advocating a bill which was to help a certain class of young men in +obtaining education, referred to several persons who had by assistance +become men of note, but who without it would have remained "only +farmers." Another member immediately took umbrage, avowed himself to be +a farmer, and assured the assembly that he should not vote for a bill +which was to educate young men to sneer at him! The bill +failed,--whether from constitutional weakness or from this death-blow we +are not informed, but are left to infer the latter. The repartee was +very good as a repartee, and a respectable degree of Parliamentary skill +was shown in seizing upon a plausible pretext for a foregone conclusion; +but so far as the question was of principle and not of repartee, the +clergyman was right and the farmer was wrong. We may exalt democracy, +and abase aristocracy, and cajole people with specious phrases. +Ignorance and uncouthness may put on the garb of modest merit, and +worthlessness seek to veil itself by an unattractive exterior; but under +never so many layers the truth remains intact. "Only a farmer" expresses +with all-sufficient accuracy the relative position of farmers,--not +their necessary, but their actual position. The occupation which should +be a liberal profession is a most illiberal labor. The eloquence of +Demosthenes cannot change facts. Farming is honorable, just as any other +business is honorable, according to the amount of mind and heart brought +to bear on it. Shoemaking will always be an inferior craft to +statesmanship, because the amount of intellect required is less in the +former than in the latter. The man who aims at the highest culture, both +of his farm and himself, is aiming, whether consciously or not, at the +highest rank, and he shall not stand among mean men; but he who simply +delves in the dirt will find no laurels there. Fine-sounding phrases +cannot give dignity to that which is in itself undignified. No amount of +complaint can elevate prejudice, obstinacy, and routine into +intelligence, generosity, magnanimity. Farmers themselves act upon this +principle with entire unanimity, because it is a law of Nature, and not +an effort of the will. The man upon whose experiments they look with +utter distrust, ill-concealed contempt, and covert ridicule, whose +science seems to them mere nonsense, extravagance, and recklessness, +they at the same time regard with reverence, admiration, and confidence. +They look down upon him as a farmer, but they look up to him as a man. +They have a consciousness that he lives on another plane than theirs. +They are proud and pleased to have his family visit and receive theirs. +They feel that he is of a different order from themselves. And if +farmers persist in keeping education and science away from their farms, +if they will bring only their hard hands to the work, and will leave +their brains to shrivel in their skulls, this state of things must go +on. The best of materials is of no use without will and skill to work +it. Matter is a sorry substance until mind lays hold of it. The world +was not made with tug and sweat, but He spake and it was done, He +commanded, and it stood fast. As the world was made, so must it be +subdued, not by matter clawing at matter, but by the calm dominion of +spirit over matter. Until intellect percolates the soil, the soil will +not part with its hidden hoards. We shall have effort, struggle, wear, +and weariness, but no victory. It is the strife of clod with clod. + +So it is that the men who grieve to bring their minds into play will +never make of their occupation a profession. The people who work mind +and muscle, who turn knowledge into wisdom, shall stand before kings. +Those who + + "Keep in uninquiring trust + The old dull round of things" + +shall be hewers of wood and drawers of water to the end of the days. If +farming is doomed, farmers are doomed. For here is the earth ready-made, +and however much we may dislike it, it is all we have and the best we +shall get. If farming must be mere mechanical labor,--_peine forte et +dure_,--then there is a point where elevation and improvement must stop, +for there must always exist a class of serfs,--serfs to the soil, slaves +of their own farms; and none are more sure of this than those who have +lived in a farming community, and seen how surely the adventurous +spirits, the active, the energetic, the intellectual, the promising, +turn away from the dismal monotony of the farm and launch out on +currents of freer flow, or, if they remain at home, remain only in +consequence of the continued and earnest expostulations and the fairest +promises of parents, to rock the cradle of their declining years, and +not unfrequently to rock it over. + +But if the founders of our Agricultural College, or if any furtherers of +rural education, propose to themselves to diffuse light (and dispel +darkness) by appealing to farmers,--if they think to correct the evils +of ignorance by furnishing special opportunities to farmers,--if they +flatter themselves that they can establish a college of aims and claims +so moderate that farmers and farmers' boys will not be discouraged by +the time, money, or mind required,--if they design to narrow the crown +that lesser brows may be circled,--they are spending their strength for +nought. No college and no school can be founded so wisely and fitly, +that farmers, as a class, will send their sons to it. Why should they, +believing, as they do, that the district-school already gives them as +much "learnin'" as they need? Boys there can "read, write, and cipher." +They gain knowledge enough to reckon with the hired man, to keep the +tally of the marketing, to compute interest, and to do parish business. +What more do they want? Your college-men will talk about selections and +temperatures, silex and fluorine; but what has all that to do with +planting the ten-acre lot? Timothy and red-top grew before Liebig was +born. A rose by any other name is just as sweet to the agricultural +nose. Farmers who have grown to manhood with full faith in the fixity of +their condition, in the impossibility of its improvement, are not to be +turned right-about-face by a programme. The best patent cultivator could +not root out this main article of their creed. Agricultural colleges may +spread all their blandishments; but farmers will not listen to the voice +of the charmer, charm he never so wisely. The academic roof may be set +low and the academic door flung wide open, and the academic Siren, with +new and deeper meaning, may sweetly + + "Sing a song of sixpence, a bag full of rye"; + +but before it reaches the rural ear, it will have transformed itself +into a new rendering of the fatal entomological civility,-- + + "'Will you walk into my parlor?' said the spider to the fly." + +Reasoning is of no avail. Analogy has nothing to take hold of. Farmers +do not grasp the chances already offered them; how should they be +expected to possess themselves of future ones? Able treatises on +breeding, instructive, eloquent, and forcible, are written and printed; +but these men continue to tie up nightly their ill-favored and +lean-fleshed kine, and are weekly dragged to church by loose-jointed +nags wabbling over the road, head between legs. There are yearly +reports, rich in suggestion, well printed, cleverly illustrated, +distributed without cost--to the receivers. They will not read them. +They may glance at the foreign-looking sheep, with folds of wool on his +throat; they will utter a strong idiomatic exclamation over the +broad-sided short-horn; but they will not go beyond the limits of their +own township to replenish their stock. They have not time nor money nor +heart for experiments. You prove to them beyond the possibility of +gainsaying that their mode is cumbrous, and, in truth, extravagant; they +will assent to your propositions, admit the force of your arguments, but +inevitably leave your presence with the remark, that, "after all, they +think, like Gran'ma'am Howdy, they'd better go on in the good old +diabolical way,"--and there, accordingly, they go. Their logic is +devious, but it is always ready. It may not be convincing, but it is +conclusive. The major premise is often hidden, but it is as firm as +Fate. + +"Parson Edwards's been round with the temperance-pledge," says one old +farmer to another. + +"Yes," answers the latter. "Came to me. Asked me, says he, 'Mr. +Solomon,' says he, 'have you got any cider in your suller?' 'Yes, Sir,' +says I,--'sixteen barrels, good as ever you see in your life, I don't +care _where_ 't is.' 'Well,' says he, 'Mr. Solomon, my advice to you is, +to go an' tap them barrels, every one on 'em, an' let it run!'" + +"Guess you told him you'd wait a spell, didn't you?" + +"Humph! Let it run! _I knew his gran'sir!_ Meddlin' toad! Advisin' me to +throw my cider away! I KNEW HIS GRAN'SIR!" + +Whenever any amendment is suggested, some "gran'sir" or other will be +sure to block the way. That he has been two generations dead, or that he +has no apparent connection with the point at issue, may be indisputably +proved, but it does not open the road. + +Nor will the farmer's sons be any more ready to avail themselves of +their college than the farmer's self. As a general thing, they have +either ploughed their own furrow "in the good old diabolical way," and +walk in it as their fathers walked, caring for no other, or they have +acquired so unconquerable a repugnance to the uncongenial toil that they +cannot conceive of any plan or process by which it can be made +tolerable. To elevate farming by placing the lever under the farmers is +to attack a fort where its defences are strongest. But we can apply +socially as well as agriculturally the principle of a rotation of crops. +Poets are not necessarily the sons of poets. We do not draw upon +engineers' families for our supply of engineers. The greatest statesman +of the age may come from the smallest estate in the country. So also is +there no Medo-Persic law compelling the cultivation of our lands by +farmers' sons. An infusion of fresh blood is sometimes the best remedy +for longstanding disease and weakness, especially in social +organizations. The end desired is not the education of any special +existing class, but the establishment of a class fit to receive in trust +special existing interests. We want our country's soil to be +intelligently and beneficially cultivated. We desire that it shall be +rescued from ignorance and from quackery, and placed in the hands of +active intellect and sound sense. We want our farmers to be working-men, +not day-laborers. We want them to be practical farmers, book-farmers, +and gentlemen-farmers in one. The proprietors of the soil stand at the +base of society, and should constitute by themselves an order of +nobility,--but eclectic, not hereditary. Whenever a boy displays a turn +for agriculture, there is a fit subject for agricultural education, a +proper student for an agricultural college, whether his father were +merchant, farmer, policeman, or president. You cannot make a college so +mean that farmers' sons will flock into it, but you can make it so great +that the best of all classes shall press in. Endosmose and exosmose are +the soul of growth; either, alone, would bring death,--death on one side +from exhaustion, on the other from over-fulness. The city is currently +said to draw its best blood from the country. Let the city pour it +back again over field and meadow, turning our wildernesses into +gardens. Country and city will be invigorated by an exchange of +commodities,--the one giving of its nature, the other of its culture. +We want no exclusiveness, aristocratic or democratic. We want +intelligent men to develop the capacity of the soil. The problem is, to +vindicate the ways of God to man,--to demonstrate that He spake truth, +when He looked upon the earth which He had made, and pronounced it very +good. It is the duty of this generation to show to the future that +agriculture opens a career, and not a grave, to thought, energy, and +genius. It needs strong arms and stout hearts, but there are bays to be +won and worn. We want farmers who do not look upon their land as a +malicious menial, but who love it and woo it, and delight in enriching +and adorning it. We want men who are enthusiastic,--who will not be put +down by failures, nor disheartened by delay,--men who believe that the +Earth holds in her lap richer stores than gold or silver,--who are not +deceived by all the grovelling that has been laid to her charge, but +know in their inmost souls that she is full of beneficence and power, +and that it needs only to pronounce the "Open Sesame!" to gain +admittance to her treasure-house and possession of her richest gifts. We +want men who are willing to spend and be spent, not for paltry gains or +sordid existence, but for gains that are not paltry and existence that +is not sordid,--for love of truth,--men who attribute the failure of +their experiments, not to the poverty of Nature, but to their own +short-sighted, rough-handed endeavor, and who will simply take heart and +try again,--men who are fully persuaded in their own minds that there +must be, and are fully determined in their own hearts that there shall +be, profit to him that glorieth in the goad. + +It is left for our country to show that manual and mental skill, +strength, exercise, and labor are not incompatible,--that hard hands may +comport with gracious manners,--that one may be a gentleman digging in a +ditch, as well as dancing in a drawing-room. The Old World groans under +her peasant system,--even free England has her Hodge; but we will have +no peasantry here, no Hodges in hobnailed shoes, no stolid perpetual +serfdom to nurse our vanity and pride. The very genius of our nation +makes every man's manhood his most valuable possession. America +professes to believe that no one can with impunity evade the decree, "In +the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." She professes to hold labor +in honor; but she should show her faith by her work. She should display +her children of labor, fairer and fatter than the children of kings and +princes. If they are seen to be decrepit in mind and body before their +time,--if they have less happiness than the Austrian peasant, and less +content than the English clown, and no breadth of vision or liberality +of thought or clear foresight to atone for such deficiency, we shall +have to compass sea and land before we make many intelligent men or +nations proselytes to our faith. + +The time especially has need of men. This hour, and every hour of the +last three years, ought to prove to us beyond cavil that no class can +safely be left in ignorance, least of all the class that holds in its +hands a people's staff of life. Our country needs all the brain, all the +conscience, all the nerve and patience and moral strength, that can be +commanded. Her salvation lies in a yeomanry capable of comprehending the +momentous issues at stake. "More light!" is the dying gasp of a dying +people. Our republican institutions are but half completed. To give +every man the right to vote, without giving him at the same time the +power to vote intelligently, is but questionable service. If such an +arrangement were perpetual, it would be unquestionable disservice. Only +as fast and as far as we keep enlightenment abreast of power are we +seeing that the Republic receives no detriment. Ignorance is the +never-failing foe of freedom, the never-failing ally of despotism. We +have organized and successfully fought a crusade against tyranny; we are +now in the full tide of our crusade against slavery; let us have one +more, organized and efficient, against ignorance, that the fruit of our +former victories be not lost to us for lack of wisdom to use them +aright. + +That the people who suffer most from want of knowledge should disdain it +is but natural. To see the need of teaching, men must be taught. It is +this very ignorance which is the strong buttress against education. +Ignorance propagates itself. It can be subdued only by force or tact, +not by argument. But for men who have attained by the help of their +education whatever reputation they possess to affect to question its +importance is to spurn the ladder by which they have mounted to +eminence. We are sometimes almost tempted to suspect the existence of a +petty jealousy in members of the learned professions. It would seem as +if a small fear were indulged lest a wider diffusion of knowledge and a +more thorough culture among the farming classes should detract from the +supremacy of others. There is certainly, among some writers, a leaning +towards a continuance of present abuses for which it is difficult to +account. The shrewdness of the plain farmer is pitted against the +science of the scholar, to the entire discomfiture of the latter. But +would the plain farmer's shrewdness be at all diminished by educating +the plain farmer? Would his sharp sense be blunted by being expressed +with some partial subjection to grammatical forms? Would his observation +be any less close for being trained? Would his reasoning be any less +profitable by being wisely directed than by running at hap-hazard? Would +it not be more economical to strengthen and polish his powerful weapons, +and give them honest work to do, than to leave them rough and rusty from +disuse, and only brought out at long intervals to hew and hack devices +for walking in darkness? If education is not the foe of legal, +mechanical, polemic, nor forensic acuteness, why should it be hostile to +any? + +No lover of his country, who brings to this view the same clearness and +sense which he takes to political or personal plans, but must hail as an +omen of good the efforts now making throughout the North in behalf of +agriculture and education. It is a cause for proud and grateful +gratulation and congratulation, that our government is so wise and +strong as to look through all the smoke and cloud of warfare, and set +firm in the tumultuous present the foundations of future +greatness,--that, calm and confident, it lays in the midst of the +thunder-storm of battle the corner-stone of the temple of Peace. It is +equally encouraging to see the States from east to west responding to +this movement, consulting with each other, enlisting in the enterprise +their best men, and sending them up and down in the land, and in other +lands, to observe and collate and infer, that the beneficent designs of +Congress may be carried out and carried on in the best possible manner +for the highest good of all. So a free people governs itself. So a free +people discerns its weakness and unfolds its strength. So a true +aristocracy will yet develop a worthy democracy. From such living, +far-seeing patriotism we augur the best results. Mistakes will doubtless +be made; wisdom will not die with this generation; but a beginning is +the sure presage of the end. Hesitation and precipitancy, unseemly delay +and ill-advised action, may retard, but will not prevent, a glorious +consummation. In these colleges we look to see agricultural centres from +which shall radiate new light across our hills and valleys. They will +not at once turn every plough-boy into a philosopher, nor send us +Liebigs to milk the cows; but to every plough-boy and dairyman in the +country they will give a new and a wider horizon. They will bring fresh +and manly incentives into the domain of toil. They will establish in +society a new order of men,--an order whose mere existence will give +heart and hope to the farmer-lad disgusted with his narrow life, yet +unable to relinquish it. They will send out to us men who have learned +and will teach that the plough, the hoe, the rake are implements of +profit and honor, as well as of industry. They will show that the hand +and the head may march abreast, and that only so can their full capacity +be tested. Science will be corrected by practice, and practice will be +guided by science. These men will go over the land and quietly set up +their household gods among our old-time farmers. They will gradually +acquire influence, not by loud-voiced rhetoric, but by the silent +eloquence of rich cornfields, heavy-laden orchards, full-uddered kine, +and merry-hearted boys and girls,--by the gentle, but irresistible force +of kindly words, pleasant ways, ready sympathy, a helping hand in +trouble, "sage counsel in cumber,"--by the thousand little devices of +taste and culture and good-fellowship,--by the cheap elegances, the fine +endearments, all the small, sweet courtesies of life. They will approve +the beneficence and the power of the Great Mother; they will demonstrate +to farmers the possibility of large and generous living; they will teach +them to distinguish between the mountebanks of pretended science and the +apostles of that science which alone is truth; they will give to thought +a new direction, to energy a new impulse, to earth a new creation, to +man a new life. + + + + +SAADI. + + +Whilst the Journal of the Oriental Society attests the presence of good +Semitic and Sanskrit scholars in our colleges, no translation of an +Eastern poet has yet appeared in America. Of the two hundred Persian +bards of whose genius Von Hammer Purgstall has given specimens to +Germany, we have had only some fragments collected in journals and +anthologies. There are signs that this neglect is about to be retrieved. +In the interval, while we wait for translations of our own, we welcome +the announcement of an American edition, if it be only a careful +reprint, of the "Gulistan" of Saadi,--a book which has been current in +Asia and Europe now for six hundred years. Of the "Gulistan or +Rose-Garden" there exist three respectable English translations. That of +Gladwin is to be preferred for its more simple and forcible style. Mr. +Gladwin has not thought fit to turn into rhyme the passages of verse +with which the "Gulistan" is interspersed. It is the less important, +that these verses are seldom more than a metrical repetition of the +sentiment of the preceding paragraph. Mr. Eastwick's metrical renderings +do not make us regret their omission. Mr. James Ross, in an "Essay on +the Life and Genius of Saadi," has searched the works of his author, as +well as outside history, for biographical facts or personal allusions. + +The slowness to import these books into our libraries--mainly owing, no +doubt, to the forbidding difficulty of the original languages--is due +also in part to some repulsion in the genius of races. At first sight, +the Oriental rhetoric does not please our Western taste. Life in the +East wants the complexity of European and American existence; and in the +writing of the primitive nations a certain monotony betrays the poverty +of the landscape, and of social conditions. Every word in Arabic is said +to be derived from the camel, the horse, or the sheep. We fancy we are +soon familiar with all their images. Medschun and Leila, rose and +nightingale, parrots and tulips; mosques and dervishes; desert, caravan, +and robbers; peeps at the harem; bags of gold dinars; slaves, horses, +camels, sabres, shawls, pearls, amber, cohol, and henna; insane +compliments to the Sultan, borrowed from the language of prayer; Hebrew +and Gueber legends molten into Arabesque;--'tis a short inventory of +topics and tropes, which incessantly return in Persian poetry. I do not +know but at the first encounter many readers take also an impression of +tawdry rhetoric, an exaggeration, and a taste for scarlet, running to +the borders of the negro-fine,--or if not, yet a pushing of the luxury +of ear and eye where it does not belong, as the Chinese in their +mathematics employ the colors blue and red for algebraic signs, instead +of our pitiless _x_ and _y_. These blemishes disappear, or diminish, on +better acquaintance. Where there is real merit, we are soon reconciled +to differences of taste. The charge of monotony lies more against the +numerous Western imitations than against the Persians themselves, and +though the torrid, like the arctic zone, puts some limit to variety, it +is least felt in the masters. It is the privilege of genius to play its +game indifferently with few or with many pieces, as Nature draws all her +opulence out of a few elements. Saadi exhibits perpetual variety of +situation and incident, and an equal depth of experience with Cardinal +de Retz in Paris or Doctor Johnson in London. He finds room on his +narrow canvas for the extremes of lot, the play of motives, the rule of +destiny, the lessons of morals, and the portraits of great men. He has +furnished the originals of a multitude of tales and proverbs which are +current in our mouths, and attributed by us to recent writers; as, for +example, the story of "Abraham and the Fire-Worshipper," once claimed +for Doctor Franklin, and afterwards traced to Jeremy Taylor, who +probably found it in Gentius. + +The superlative, so distasteful in the temperate region, has vivacity in +the Eastern speech. In his compliments to the Shah, Saadi says,--"The +incurvated back of the sky became straight with joy at thy birth." "A +tax-gatherer," he says, "fell into a place so dangerous, that, from +fear, a male lion would become a female." Of dunces he says, with a +double superlative,--"If the ass of Christ should go to Mecca, it would +come back an ass still." It is a saying from I know not what poet,--"If +the elegant verses of Dhoair Fariabi fall into thy hands, steal them, +though it were in the sacred temple of Mecca itself." But the wildness +of license appears in poetical praises of the Sultan:--"When his bow +moves, it is already the last day [for his enemies]; whom his onset +singles out, to him is life not appointed; and the ghost of the Holy +Ghost were not sure of its time." + +But when once the works of these poets are made accessible, they must +draw the curiosity of good readers. It is provincial to ignore them. If, +as Mackintosh said, "whatever is popular deserves attention," much more +does that which has fame. The poet stands in strict relation to his +people: he has the over-dose of their nationality. We did not know them, +until they declared their taste by their enthusiastic welcome of his +genius. Foreign criticism might easily neglect him, unless their +applauses showed the high historic importance of his powers. In these +songs and elegies breaks into light the national mind of the Persians +and Arabians. The monotonies which we accuse, accuse our own. We pass +into a new landscape, new costume, new religion, new manners and +customs, under which humanity nestles very comfortably at Shiraz and +Mecca, with good appetite, and with moral and intellectual results that +correspond, point for point, with ours at New York and London. It needs +in every sense a free translation, just as, from geographical position, +the Persians attribute to the east wind what we say of the west. + +Saadi, though he has not the lyric flights of Hafiz, has wit, practical +sense, and just moral sentiments. He has the instinct to teach, and from +every occurrence must draw the moral, like Franklin. He is the poet of +friendship, love, self-devotion, and serenity. There is a uniform force +in his page, and, conspicuously, a tone of cheerfulness, which has +almost made his name a synonyme for this grace. The word _Saadi_ means +_Fortunate_. In him the trait is no result of levity, much less of +convivial habit, but first of a happy nature, to which victory is +habitual, easily shedding mishaps, with sensibility to pleasure, and +with resources against pain. But it also results from the habitual +perception of the beneficent laws that control the world. He inspires in +the reader a good hope. What a contrast between the cynical tone of +Byron and the benevolent wisdom of Saadi! + +Saadi has been longer and better known in the Western nations than any +of his countrymen. By turns, a student, a water-carrier, a traveller, a +soldier fighting against the Christians in the Crusades, a prisoner +employed to dig trenches before Tripoli, and an honored poet in his +protracted old age at home,--his varied and severe experience took away +all provincial tone, and gave him a facility of speaking to all +conditions. But the commanding reason of his wider popularity is his +deeper sense, which, in his treatment, expands the local forms and tints +to a cosmopolitan breadth. Through his Persian dialect he speaks to all +nations, and, like Homer, Shakspeare, Cervantes, and Montaigne, is +perpetually modern. + +To the sprightly, but indolent Persians, conversation is a game of +skill. They wish to measure wit with you, and expect an adroit, a +brilliant, or a profound answer. Many narratives, doubtless, have +suffered in the translation, since a promising anecdote sometimes +heralds a flat speech. But Saadi's replies are seldom vulgar. His wit +answers to the heart of the question, often quite over the scope of the +inquirer. He has also that splendor of expression which alone, without +wealth of thought, sometimes constitutes a poet, and forces us to ponder +the problem of style. In his poem on his old age, he says,--"Saadi's +whole power lies in his sweet words: let this gift remain to me, I care +not what is taken." + +The poet or thinker must always, in a rude nation, be the chief +authority on religion. All questions touching its truth and obligation +will come home to him, at last, for their answer. As he thinks and +speaks will intelligent men believe. Therefore a certain deference must +be shown him by the priests,--a result which conspicuously appears in +the history of Hafiz and Saadi. In common with his countrymen, Saadi +gives prominence to fatalism,--a doctrine which, in Persia, in Arabia, +and in India, has had, in all ages, a dreadful charm. "To all men," says +the Koran, "is their day of death appointed, and they cannot postpone or +advance it one hour. Wilt thou govern the world which God governs? Thy +lot is cast beforehand, and whithersoever it leads, thou must follow." +"Not one is among you," said Mahomet, "to whom is not already appointed +his seat in fire or his seat in bliss." + +But the Sheik's mantle sits loosely on Saadi's shoulders, and I find in +him a pure theism. He asserts the universality of moral laws, and the +perpetual retributions. He celebrates the omnipotence of a virtuous +soul. A certain intimate and avowed piety, obviously in sympathy with +the feeling of his nation, is habitual to him. All the forms of courtesy +and of business in daily life take a religious tinge, as did those of +Europe in the Middle Age. + +With the exception of a few passages, of which we need not stop to give +account, the morality of the "Gulistan" and the "Bostan" is pure, and so +little clogged with the superstition of the country that this does not +interfere with the pleasure of the modern reader: he can easily +translate their ethics into his own. Saadi praises alms, hospitality, +justice, courage, bounty, and humility; he respects the poor, and the +kings who befriend the poor. He admires the royal eminence of the +dervish or religious ascetic. "Hunger is a cloud out of which falls a +rain of eloquence and knowledge: when the belly is empty, the body +becomes spirit; when it is full, the spirit becomes body." He praises +humility. "Make thyself dust, to do anything well." "Near Casbin," he +tells us, "a man of the country of Parthia came forth to accost me, +mounted on a tiger. At this sight, such fear seized me that I could not +flee nor move. But he said,--'O Saadi, be not surprised at what thou +seest. Do thou only not withdraw thy neck from the yoke of God, and +nothing shall be able to withdraw its neck from thy yoke.'" + +In a country where there are no libraries and no printing, people must +carry wisdom in sentences. Wonderful is the inconsecutiveness of the +Persian poets. European criticism finds that the unity of a beautiful +whole is everywhere wanting. Not only the story is short, but no two +sentences are joined. In looking through Von Hammer's anthology, culled +from a paradise of poets, the reader feels this painful discontinuity. +'Tis sand without lime,--as if the neighboring desert had _saharized_ +the mind. It was said of Thomson's "Seasons," that the page would read +as well by omitting every alternate line. But the style of Thomson is +glue and bitumen to the loose and irrecoverable ramble of the Oriental +bards. No topic is too remote for their rapid suggestion. The Ghaselle +or Kassida is a chapter of proverbs, or proverbs unchaptered, unthreaded +beads of all colors, sizes, and values. Yet two topics are sure to +return in any and every proximity,--the mistress and the name of the +poet. Out of every ambush these leap on the unwary reader. Saadi, in the +"Gulistan," by the necessity of the narrative, corrects this arid +looseness, which appears, however, in his odes and elegies, as in Hafiz +and Dschami. As for the incessant return of the poet's name,--which +appears to be a sort of registry of copyrights,--the Persians often +relieve this heavy custom by wit and audacious sallies. + +The Persians construct with great intrepidity their mythology and +legends of typical men. Jamschid, who reigned seven hundred years, and +was then driven from his throne, is their favorite example of the turns +of fortune. Karun or Corah, the alchemist, who converted all things to +gold, but perished with his treasures at the word of Moses, is their +Croesus. Lokman, the AEsop of the East, lived to an enormous age, was +the great-grandson of Noah, etc. Saadi relates, that Lokman, in his last +years, dwelt on the border of a reedy marsh, where he constructed a +cabin, and busied himself with making osier baskets. The Angel of Death +appeared to him, and said,--"Lokman, how is it, that, in three thousand +years that you have lived in the world, you have never known how to +build a house?" Lokman replied,--"O Azrael! one would be a fool, knowing +that you were always at his heels, to set himself at building a house." +Hatem Tai is their type of hospitality, who, when the Greek emperor sent +to pray him to bestow on him his incomparable horse, received the +messenger with honor, and, having no meat in his tent, killed the horse +for his banquet, before he yet knew the object of the visit. Nushirvan +the Just is their Marcus Antoninus, or Washington, to whom every wise +counsel in government is attributed. And the good behavior of rulers is +a point to which Saadi constantly returns. It is one of his maxims, that +the "_bons mots_ of kings are the kings of _bons mots_." One of these +is,--"At night thou must go in prayer a beggar, if by day thou wilt +carry thyself as a king." Again,--"A king is like a great and massive +wall: as soon as he leans from the perpendicular [of equity], he is near +his ruin." Again,--"You, O king, sit in the place of those who are gone, +and of those who are to come: how can you establish a firm abode between +two non-existences?" Dzoul Noun, of Grand Cairo, said to the Caliph,--"I +have learned that one to whom you have given power in the country treats +the subjects with severity, and permits daily wrongs and violences +there." The Caliph replied,--"There will come a day when I will severely +punish him." "Yes," returned the other, "you will wait until he has +taken all the goods of the subjects; then you will bestir yourself, and +snatch them from him, and will fill your treasury. But what good will +that do to your poor and miserable people?" The Caliph was ashamed, and +ordered the instant punishment of the offender. + +It appears, from the anecdotes which Professor Graf has rendered from +the Calcutta manuscripts, that Saadi enjoyed very high respect from the +great in his own time, and from the Sultan of the Mongolian court,--and +that he used very plain dealing with this last, for the redress of +grievances which fell under his notice. These, with other passages, mark +the state of society wherein a shepherd becomes a robber, then a +conqueror, and then sultan. In a rude and religious society, a poet and +traveller is thereby a noble and the associate of princes, a teacher of +religion, a mediator between the people and the prince, and, by his +exceptional position, uses great freedom with the rulers. The growth of +cities and increase of trade rapidly block up this bold access of truth +to the courts, as the narrator of these events in Saadi's life plainly +intimates. "The Sultan, Abake Khan, found great pleasure in the verses. +Truly, at the present time, no learned men or Sheiks would dare to utter +such advice, even to a grocer or a butcher; and hence, also, is the +world in such bad plight as we see." + +The Persians have been called "the French of Asia"; and their superior +intelligence, their esteem for men of learning, their welcome to Western +travellers, and their tolerance of Christian sects in their territory, +as contrasted with Turkish fanaticism, would seem to derive from the +rich culture of this great choir of poets, perpetually reinforced +through five hundred years, which again and again has enabled the +Persians to refine and civilize their conquerors, and to preserve a +national identity. To the expansion of this influence there is no limit; +and we wish that the promised republication may add to the genius of +Saadi a new audience in America. + + + + +THE RETURN OF THE BIRDS. + + + I hear, from many a little throat, + A warble interrupted long; + I hear the robin's flute-like note, + The bluebird's slenderer song. + + Brown meadows and the russet hill, + Not yet the haunt of grazing herds, + And thickets by the glimmering rill + Are all alive with birds. + + O Choir of Spring, why come so soon? + On leafless grove and herbless lawn + Warm lie the yellow beams of noon; + Yet winter is not gone. + + For frost shall sheet the pools again; + Again the blustering East shall blow, + Whirl a white tempest through the glen, + And load the pines with snow. + + Yet, haply, from the region where, + Waked by an earlier spring than here, + The blossomed wild-plum scents the air, + Ye come in haste and fear. + + For there is heard the bugle-blast, + The booming gun, the jarring drum, + And on their chargers, spurring fast, + Armed warriors go and come. + + There mighty hosts have pitched the camp + In valleys that were yours till then, + And Earth has shuddered to the tramp + Of half a million men. + + In groves where once ye used to sing, + In orchards where ye had your birth, + A thousand glittering axes swing + To smite the trees to earth. + + Ye love the fields by ploughman trod; + But there, when sprouts the beechen spray, + The soldier only breaks the sod + To hide the slain away. + + Stay, then, beneath our ruder sky; + Heed not the storm-clouds rising black, + Nor yelling winds that with them fly; + Nor let them fright you back,-- + + Back to the stifling battle-cloud, + To burning towns that blot the day, + And trains of mounting dust that shroud + The armies on their way. + + Stay, for a tint of green shall creep + Soon o'er the orchard's grassy floor, + And from its bed the crocus peep + Beside the housewife's door. + + Here build, and dread no harsher sound, + To scare you from the sheltering tree, + Than winds that stir the branches round + And murmur of the bee. + + And we will pray, that, ere again + The flowers of autumn bloom and die, + Our generals and their strong-armed men + May lay their weapons by. + + Then may ye warble, unafraid, + Where hands, that wear the fetter now, + Free as your wings shall ply the spade, + And guide the peaceful plough. + + Then, as our conquering hosts return, + What shouts of jubilee shall break + From placid vale and mountain stern + And shore of mighty lake! + + And midland plain and ocean-strand + Shall thunder: "Glory to the brave, + Peace to the torn and bleeding land, + And freedom to the slave!" + + MARCH, 1864. + + + + +WET-WEATHER WORK. + +BY A FARMER. + + +VII. + +In these notes upon the Farm-Writers and the Pastorals, I have +endeavored to keep a certain chronologic order; and upon this wet +morning I find myself embayed among those old gentlemen who lived in the +latter part of the eighteenth century. George III. is tottering under +his load of royalty; the French Revolution is all asmoke. Fox and +Sheridan and Burke and the younger Pitt are launching speeches at this +Gallic tempest of blood,--each in his own way. Our American struggle for +liberty has been fought bravely out; and the master of it has retired to +his estates upon the Potomac. There, in his house at Mount Vernon, he +receives one day a copy of the early volumes of Young's "Annals of +Agriculture," with the author's compliments, and the proffer of his +services to execute orders for seeds, implements, cattle, or "anything +else that might contribute to the General's rural amusements." + +The General, in his good old-fashioned way, returns the compliments with +interest, and says, "I will give you the trouble, Sir, of providing and +sending to the care of Wakelin Welch, of London, merchant, the following +articles:-- + +"Two of the simplest and best-constructed ploughs for land which is +neither very heavy nor sandy; to be drawn by two horses; to have spare +shares and coulters; and a mould, on which to form new irons, when the +old ones are worn out, or will require repairing. I will take the +liberty to observe, that, some years ago, from a description or a +recommendation thereof which I had somewhere met with, I sent to England +for what was then called the Rotherham or patent plough; and, till it +began to wear and was ruined by a bungling country-smith, that no plough +could have done better work, or appeared to have gone easier with two +horses; but, for want of a mould, which I neglected to order with the +plough, it became useless after the irons which came with it were much +worn. + +"A little of the best kind of cabbage seed for field-culture. + +"Twenty pounds of the best turnip seed. + +"Ten bushels of sainfoin seed. + +"Eight bushels of the winter vetches. + +"Two bushels of rye-grass seed. + +"Fifty pounds of hop-clover seed." + +The curious reader may be interested to know that this shipment of +goods, somewhat injured by stowage in the hold of the vessel, reached +Mount Vernon just one week after Washington had left it to preside over +the sittings of the Constitutional Convention. And amidst all the +eagerness of those debates under which the ark of our nationality was +being hammered into shape, this great man of system did not omit to send +to his farm-manager the most minute directions in respect to the +disposition of the newly arrived seeds. + +Of those directions, and of the farm-method at the home of Washington, I +may possibly have something to say at another time: I have named the +circumstance only to show that Arthur Young had a world-wide reputation +as an agriculturist at this day, (1786-7,) although he lived for more +than thirty years beyond it. + +Arthur Young was born at a little village near to Bury St. Edmund's, +(evermore famous as the scene of Pickwickian adventure,) in the year +1741. He had his schooling like other boys, and was for a time in a +counting-room at Lynn, where he plunged into literature at the unfledged +age of seventeen, by writing a tract on the American war; and this he +followed up with several novels, among which was one entitled "The Fair +American."[A] I greatly fear that the book was not even with the title: +it has certainly slipped away from the knowledge of all the +bibliographers. + +At twenty-two, he undertook the management of the farm upon which his +mother was living, and of which the lease was about expiring: here, by +his own account, he spent a great deal more than he ever reaped. A +little later, having come to the dignity of a married man, he leased a +farm in Essex, (Samford Hall,) consisting of some three hundred acres. +This, however, he abandoned in despair very shortly,--giving a +brother-farmer a hundred pounds to take it off his hands. Thereupon he +advertises for another venture, gallops through all the South of England +to examine those offered to his notice, and ends with renting a +hundred-acre farm in Hertfordshire, which proved of "a hungry vitriolic +gravel," where, he says, "for nine years, I occupied the jaws of a +wolf." + +Meantime, however, his pen has not been idle; for, previously to 1773, +he had written and published no less than sixteen octavo volumes +relating mostly to agricultural subjects, besides two ponderous quartos +filled with tabular details of "Experiments on the Cultivation of all +Sorts of Grain and Pulse, both in the Old and New Methods." + +This last was the most pretentious of his books, the result of most +painstaking labor, and by far the most useless and uninteresting; it +passed long ago into the waste-paper shops of London. A very full +synopsis of it, however, may be found in four or five consecutive +numbers of the old "Monthly Review" for 1771. + +The great fault of the book is, (and it is the fault of a good many +books,) it does not prove what the author wants to prove. He had hoped +by a long-continued course of minute experiments (and those detailed in +his book count a thousand, and extend over a period of five years) to +lay down an exact law of procedure for the guidance of his +brother-farmers. But the brother-farmers did not weary themselves over +his tables; or if they did, they found themselves as much muddled as the +experimenter himself. A good rule for dry weather was a bad one for wet; +and what might be advisable for Suffolk would be wrong in Herts. Upon +one occasion, where he shows a loss of nearly three pounds to the acre +on drilled wheat, against a loss of two shillings fourpence on +broadcast-sowing, he observes,--"Reason is so often mistaken in matters +of husbandry, that it is _never fully_ to be trusted, even in deducing +consequences evident from experiment itself." By which we may safely +conclude that the experiment disappointed his expectations. It must be +remembered, however, that Mr. Young was quite youthful and inexperienced +at the time of conducting these trials, and that he possessed none of +that scientific accuracy which characterizes the analysis of +farm-experiments at Rothamstead or at Bechelbron. He says, with a +diverting sincerity, that he was never "absent more than a single week +at a time from the field of his observations without leaving affairs in +charge of a trusty bailiff." He was too full of a constitutional unrest, +and too much wedded to a habit of wide and rapid generalization, to +acquit himself well in the task of laborious and minute observation. + +His "Tours" through the English counties, and his "Letters to Farmers," +were of great service, and were widely read. His "Farmer's Calendar" +became a standard work. He entertained at one time the project of +emigrating to America; but, abandoning this, he enlisted as +Parliamentary reporter for the "Morning Post,"--walking seventeen miles +to his country-home every Saturday evening, and returning afoot every +Monday morning. His energy and industry were immense; his information +upon all subjects connected with agriculture, whether British or +Continental, entirely unmatched. The Empress of Russia sent three lads +to him to be taught the arts of husbandry,--at which, I venture, his +plodding neighbors who "made the ends meet" laughed incontinently. He +had also pupils from France, America, Italy, Poland, Sicily, and +Portugal. + +In 1784 he commenced the publication of his famous "Annals of +Agriculture," which grew to the enormous mass of forty-five volumes, and +in the course of which dukes and princes and kings and republican +generals were his correspondents. At the formation of the Board of +Agriculture, he was named Secretary, with a salary and duties that kept +him mostly in London, where he died at an advanced age in 1820. + +It is a somewhat remarkable fact, that a man so distinguished in +agriculture, so full of information, so earnest in advocacy of unproved +methods of culture, so doggedly industrious, should yet never have +undertaken farming on his own account save at a loss. I attribute this +very much to his zeal for experiments. If he could establish, or +controvert, some popular theory by the loss of his crop, he counted it +no loss, but a gain to husbandry. Such men are benefactors; such men +need salaries; and if any such are afloat with us, unprovided for, I beg +to recommend them for clerkships in the Agricultural Bureau at +Washington; and if the Commissioner shall hit upon one Arthur Young +among the score of his _proteges_, the country will be better repaid +than it usually is. + + * * * * * + +The "Practical Farmer," and other books of William Ellis, Hertfordshire, +were in considerable vogue in the days of Young, and receive a little +faint praise from him, while he says that through half his works he is +"a mere old woman." + +I notice that Ellis recommends strongly the ploughing-in of +buckwheat,[B]--a practice which Washington followed extensively at Mount +Vernon. He tells us that a cow is reckoned in his day to pay a clear +profit of four pounds a year (for butter and cheese); but he adds, +"Certain it is that no one knows what a cow will pay, unless she has her +constant bellyful of requisite meat." And his talk about cider has such +a relishy smack of a "mere old woman" that I venture to quote it. + +"I have drank," he says, "such Pippin Cyder, as I never met with +anywhere, but at Ivinghoe, just under our _Chiltern_ Hills, where their +Soil is partly a chalky Loam: It was made by its Owner, a Farmer, and on +my Recommendation our Minister went with me to prove it, and gave it +his Approbation. This was made from the Holland Pippin: And of such a +wholesome Nature is the Pippin of any Sort above all others, that I +remember there is a Relation of its wonderful influences, I think it was +in Germany: A Mother and two or three of her Sons having a Trial at Law, +were asked what they eat and drank to obtain such an Age, which was four +or five hundred years that they all made up amongst them; they answered, +chiefly by eating the Apple, and drinking its Juice. And I knew an +eminent, rich Lawyer, almost eighty Years old, who was very much +debilitated through a tedious Sickness, on the telling him this Story, +got Pippins directly, sliced them to the number of a dozen at a Time, +and infused them in Spring-Water, and made it his common Drink, till +Cyder-Time came on; also he fell on planting a number of Pippin-Trees in +order to his enjoying their salubrious Quality, and a fine Plantation +there is at this Day in his Gardens a few miles from me. This Practice +of his drinking the Pippin Liquor and Cyder, answered extraordinary +well, for he lived several Years after, in a pretty good State of +Health." + + * * * * * + +The next name I come upon, in this rainy-day service, starts a pleasant +picture to my mind,--not offset by a British landscape, but by one of +our own New-England hills. A group of heavy, overgrown chestnuts stand +stragglingly upon a steep ascent of pasture; they are flanked by a wide +reach of velvety turf covering the same swift slope of hill; gray +boulders of granite, scattered here and there, show gleaming spangles of +mica; clumps of pokeweed lift sturdily a massive luxuriance of stems and +a great growth of purple berries; occasional stumps are cushioned over +with mosses, green and gray; and, winding among stumps and rocks, there +comes trending down the green hill-side a comely flock of great, +long-woolled sheep: they nibble at stray clover-blossoms; they lift +their heads and look,--it is only the old dog who is by me,--they know +him; they straggle on. I strew the salt here and there upon a stone; +"Dandie" pretends to sleep; and presently the woolly company is all +around me,--the "Bakewell" flock. + +Robert Bakewell,[C] who gave the name to this race of sheep, (afterward +known as New-Leicesters,) lived at Dishley, upon the highway from +Leicester to Derby, and not very far from that Ashby de la Zouche where +Scott plants the immortal scene of the tournament in "Ivanhoe." He was a +farmer's son, with limited education, and with limited means; yet, by +due attention to crosses, he succeeded in establishing a flock which +gained a world-wide reputation. His first letting of bucks at some +fifteen shillings the season was succeeded in the year 1774 by lettings +at a hundred guineas a head; and there were single animals in his flock +from which he is reported to have received, in the height of his fame, +the sum of twelve hundred pounds. + +Nor was Bakewell less known for his stock of neat-cattle, for his +judicious crosses, and for a gentleness of management by which he +secured the utmost docility. A writer in the "Gentleman's Magazine" of +his date says,--"This docility seemed to run through the herd. At an age +when most of his brethren are either foaming or bellowing with rage and +madness, old 'Comely' had all the gentleness of a lamb, both in his look +and action. He would lick the hand of his feeder; and if any one patted +or scratched him, he would bow himself down almost on his knees." + +The same writer, describing Mr. Bakewell's hall, says,--"The separate +joints and points of each of the more celebrated of his cattle were +preserved in pickle, or hung up there side by side,--showing the +thickness of the flesh and external fat on each, and the smallness of +the offal. There were also skeletons of the different breeds, that they +might be compared with each other, and the comparative difference +marked." + +Arthur Young, in his "Eastern Tour," says, "All his bulls stand still in +the field to be examined; the way of driving them from one field to +another, or home, is by a little switch; he or his men walk by their +side, and guide them with the stick wherever they please; and they are +accustomed to this method from being calves." + +He left no book for future farmers to maltreat,--not even so much as a +pamphlet; and the sheep that bore his name are now refined by other +crosses, or are supplanted by the long-woolled troop of +"New-Oxfordshire." + + * * * * * + +On the way from Leicestershire to London, one passed, in the old +coach-days, through Northampton; and from Northampton it is one of the +most charming of drives for an agriculturist over to the town of +Newport-Pagnell. I lodged there, at the Swan tavern, upon a July night +some twenty years gone; and next morning I rambled over between the +hedge-rows and across meadows to the little village of Weston, where I +lunched at the inn of "Cowper's Oak." The house where the poet had lived +with good Mrs. Unwin was only next door, and its front was quite covered +over with a clambering rose-tree. The pretty waitress of the inn showed +me the way, and a wheezing old man--half gardener and half +butler--introduced me to the rooms where Cowper had passed so many a +dreary hour, and where he had been cheered by the blithe company of +Cousin Lady Hesketh. + +My usher remembered the crazy recluse, and, when we had descended to the +garden, told me how much he, with other village-boys, stood in awe of +him,--and how the poet used to walk up and down the garden-alleys in +dressing-gown and white-tasselled cotton cap, muttering to himself; but +what mutterings some of them were! + + "Thy silver locks, once auburn bright, + Are still more lovely in my sight + Than golden beams of orient light, + My Mary! + + "For could I view nor them nor thee, + What sight worth seeing could I see? + The sun would rise in vain for me, + My Mary! + + "Partakers of thy sad decline, + Thy hands their little force resign, + Yet, gently pressed, press gently mine, + My Mary!" + +Afterward the shuffling old usher turns a key in a green gate, and shows +me into the "Wilderness." Here I come presently upon the Temple,--sadly +shattered,--and upon the urns with their mouldy inscriptions; I wander +through the stately avenue of lindens to the Alcove, and, so true are +the poet's descriptions, I recognize at once the seat of the +Throckmortons, the "Peasant's Nest," the "Rustic Bridge," and far away a +glimpse of the spire of Olney. + +Plainly as I see to-day the farm-flat of Edgewood smoking under the +spring rains below me, I see again the fat meadows that lie along the +sluggish Ouse reeking with the heats of July. And I bethink me of the +bewildered, sensitive poet, shrinking from the world, loving Nature so +dearly, loving friends like a child, loving God with reverence, and yet +with a great fear that is quickened by the harsh hammering of John +Newton's iron Calvinism into a wild turbulence of terror. From this he +seeks escape in the walks of the "Wilderness," and paces moodily up and +down from temple to alcove,--in every shady recess still haunted by "a +fearful looking-for of judgment," and from every sunny bit of turf +clutching fancies by eager handful, to strew over his sweet poem of the +"Task." + +A sweet poem, I repeat, though not a finished or a grand one; but there +is in it such zealous, earnest overflow of country-love that we farmers +must needs welcome it with open hearts. + +I should not like such a man as Cowper for a tenant, where any bargains +were to be made, or any lambs to be killed; nor do I think that the +mere memory of his verse would have put me upon that July walk from +Newport to Weston; but his letters and his sad life, throughout which +trees and flowers were made almost his only confidants, led me to the +scene where that strange marriage with Nature was solemnized. And though +the day was balmy, and the sun fairly golden, the garden and the alley +and the trees and the wilderness were like a widow in her weeds. + + * * * * * + +Gilbert White, of Selborne, belongs to this epoch; and no lover of the +country or of country-things can pass him by without cordial recognition +and genial praise. There is not so much of incident or of adventure in +his little book as would suffice to pepper the romances of one issue of +a weekly paper in our day. The literary mechanicians would find in him +no artful contrivance of parts and no rhetorical jangle of language. It +is only good Parson White, who, wandering about the fields and the +brook-sides of Selborne, scrutinizes with rare clearness and patience a +thousand miracles of God's providence, in trees, in flowers, in stones, +in birds,--and jots down the story of his scrutiny with such simplicity, +such reverent trust in His power and goodness, such loving fondness for +almost every created thing, that the reading of it charms like Walton's +story of the fishes. + +We Americans, indeed, do not altogether recognize his chaffinches and +his titlarks; his daws and his fern-owl are strange to us; and his +robin-redbreast, though undoubtedly the same which in our nursery-days +flitted around the dead "Children in the Wood," (while tears stood in +our eyes,) and + + "painfully + Did cover them with leaves," + +is by no means our American redbreast. For one, I wish it were +otherwise; I wish with all my heart that I could identify the old, +pitying, feathered mourners in the British wood with the joyous, +rollicking singer who perches every sunrise, through all the spring, +upon the thatch of the bee-house, within stone's-throw of my window, and +stirs the dewy air with his loud _bravura_. + +Notwithstanding, however, the dissimilarity of species, the studies of +this old naturalist are directed with a nice particularity, and are +colored with an unaffected homeliness, which are very charming; and I +never hear the first whisk of a swallow's wing in summer but I feel an +inclination to take down the booklet of the good old Parson, drop into +my library-chair, and follow up at my leisure all the gyrations and +flutterings and incubations of all the _hirundines_ of Selborne. Every +country-liver should own the book, and be taught from it--nicety of +observation. + + * * * * * + +There was another clergyman of a different stamp,--the Reverend John +Trusler of Cobham, Surrey,--who wrote about this time a book on +chronology, a few romances, a book on law, and another upon farming. He +commenced public life as an apothecary; from his drug-shop he went to +the pulpit, thence to book-selling, and finally to book-making. I am +inclined to think that he found the first of these two trades the more +profitable one: it generally is. + +Mr. Trusler introduces his agricultural work by declaring that it +"contains all the knowledge necessary in the plain business of farming, +unencumbered with theory, speculation, or experimental inquiry";--by +which it will be seen that the modesty of the author was largely +overborne by the enterprise of the bookseller. The sole value of his +treatise lies in certain statistical details with regard to the cost and +profits of different crops, prices of food, rates of wages, etc. By his +showing, the profit of an acre of wheat in 1780 was L2 10_s_; of barley, +L3 3_s_ 6_d_; of buckwheat, L2 19_s_; and a farm of one hundred and +fifty acres, judiciously managed, would leave a profit of L379. + +These estimates of farm-profits, however, at all times, are very +deceptive. A man can write up his own balance-sheet, but he cannot make +up his neighbor's. There will be too many screws--or pigs--loose, which +he cannot take into the reckoning. The agricultural journals give us +from time to time the most alluring "cash-accounts" of farm-revenue, +which make me regard, for a month or two thereafter, every sober-sided +farmer I meet as a Rasselas,--"choring" and "teaming it" in a Happy +Valley; but shortly I come upon some retired citizen, turned farmer, and +active member of a Horticultural Society, slipping about the doors of +some "Produce and Commission Store" for his winter's stock of +vegetables, butter, and fruits,--and the fact impresses me doubtfully +and painfully. It is not often, unfortunately, that printed +farm-accounts--most of all, model-farm-accounts--will bear close +scrutiny. Sometimes there is delicate reservation of any charge for +personal labor or superintendence; sometimes an equally cheerful +reticence in respect to any interest upon capital; and in nearly all of +them such miniature expression of the cost of labor as gives a very +shaky consistency to the exhibit. + +Farmers, I am aware, are not much given to figures; but outside +"averagers" are; and agricultural writers, if they indulge in figures, +ought to show some decent respect for the proprieties of arithmetic. I +have before me now the "Bi-Monthly Report of the United States +Agricultural Department for January and February, 1864," in the course +of which it is gravely asserted, that, in the event of a certain +suggested tax on tobacco, "the tobacco-grower would find at the end of +the year two hundred and ten percent of his crops unsold." Now I am not +familiar with the tobacco-crop, and still less familiar with the +Washington schemes of taxation; but whatever may be the exigencies of +the former, and whatever may be the enormities of the latter, I find +myself utterly unable to measure, even proximately, the misfortune of a +tobacco-grower who should find himself stranded with two hundred and ten +percent of his crop, after his sales were closed! It is plainly a case +involving a pretty large _quid pro quo_, if it be not a clear one of +_nisi quid_. + + * * * * * + +Sir John Sinclair, so honorably known in connection with British +agriculture, dealt with an estate in Scotland of a hundred thousand +acres. He parcelled this out in manageable farms, advanced money to +needy tenants, and by his liberality and enterprise gave enormous +increase to his rental. He also organized the first valid system for +obtaining agricultural statistics through the clergymen of the different +parishes in Scotland, thus bringing together a vast amount of valuable +information, which was given to the public at intervals between 1790 and +1798. And I notice with interest that the poet Burns was a contributor +to one of these volumes,[D] over the signature of "A Peasant," in which +he gives account of a farmers' library established in his neighborhood, +and adds, in closing,--"A peasant who can read and enjoy such books is +certainly a much superior being to his neighbor, who, perhaps, stalks +beside his team, very little removed, except in shape, from the brutes +he drives." + +There is reason to believe that Sir John Sinclair, at one time,--in the +heat of the French Revolution,--projected emigration to America; and I +find in one of Washington's letters[E] to him the following allusion to +the scheme:--"To have such a tenant as Sir John Sinclair (however +desirable it might be) is an honor I dare not hope for; and to alienate +any part of the fee-simple estate of Mount Vernon is a measure I am not +inclined to." + + * * * * * + +Another British cultivator of this period, whose name is associated with +the Mount Vernon estate, was a certain Richard Parkinson of Doncaster, +who wrote "The Experienced Farmer," and who not only proposed at one +time to manage one of the Washington farms, but did actually sail for +America, occupied a place called Orange-Hill, near Baltimore, for a year +or more, travelled through the country, making what sale he could of his +"Experienced Farmer," and on his return to England, published "A Tour +in America," which is to be met with here and there upon the top-shelves +of old libraries, and which is not calculated to encourage immigration. + +He sets out by saying,--"The great advantages held out by different +authors, and men travelling from America with commission to sell land, +have deluded persons of all denominations with an idea of becoming +land-owners and independent. They have, however, been most lamentably +disappointed,--particularly the farmers, and all those that have +purchased land; for, notwithstanding the low price at which the American +lands are sold, _the poverty of the soil is such_ as to make it not to +pay for labor; therefore the greater part have brought themselves and +their families to total ruin." + +He is distressed, too, by the independence of the laborers,--being +"often forced to rise in the morning to milk the cows, when the servants +were in bed." + +Among other animals which he took with him, he mentions "two +race-horses, ten blood mares, a bull and cow of the North Devon, a bull +and cow of the no-horned York, a cow (with two calves and in calf again) +of the Holderness, five boar- and seven sow-pigs of four different +kinds." + +On arriving at Norfolk, Virginia, in November, he inquired for hay, and +"was informed that American cattle subsisted on blades and slops, and +that no hay was to be had." He found, also, that "American cows eat +horse-dung as naturally as an English cow eats hay; and as America grows +no grass, the street is the cheapest place to keep them in." This sounds +very much as if it had been excerpted from the scientific column of the +London "Athenaeum." Again he says, with a delightful pointedness of +manner,--"No transaction in America reflects any discredit on a man, +unless he loses money by it.... I remember an Englishman, after +repeating all the things that could fill a stranger's mind with trouble +and horror, said, with a very heavy sigh, as he was going out of the +house, 'It is the Devil's own country, to be sure!'" + +The "Times" newspaper never said a prettier word than that! + + * * * * * + +Mr. Robert Brown was a worthier man, and, I suspect, a better farmer; he +was one of the earlier types of those East-Lothian men who made their +neighborhood the garden of Scotland. He was also the author of a book on +"Rural Affairs," the editor for fifteen years of the well-known +"Edinburgh Farmers' Magazine," and (if I am not mistaken) communicated +the very valuable article on "Agriculture" to the old "Encyclopaedia +Britannica." + +At this period, too, I find an Earl of Dundonald (Archibald Cochrane) +writing upon the relations of chemistry to agriculture,--and a little +later, Richard Kirwan, F.R.S., indulging in vagaries upon the same +broad, and still unsettled, subject. + +Joseph Cradock, a quiet, cultivated gentleman, who had been on terms of +familiarity with Johnson, Garrick, and Goldsmith, published in 1775 his +"Village Memoirs," in which Lancelot Brown has a little fun pointed at +him, under the name of "Layout," the general "undertaker" for gardens. +Sir Uvedale Price, too, a man of somewhat stronger calibre, and of great +taste, (fully demonstrated on his own place of Foxley,) made poor Brown +the target for some well-turned witticisms, and, what was far better, +demonstrated the near relationship which should always exist between the +aims of the landscape-painter and those of the landscape-gardener. I am +inclined to think that Brown was a little unfairly used by these new +writers, and that he had won a success which provoked a great deal of +jealousy. A popularity too great is always dangerous. Sir Uvedale was a +man of strong conservative tendencies, and believed no more in the +levelling of men than in the levelling of hills. He found his love for +the picturesque sated in many of those hoary old avenues which, under +Brown, had been given to the axe. I suspect he would have forgiven the +presence of a clipped yew in a landscape where it had thriven for +centuries; the moss of age could give picturesqueness even to formality. +He speaks somewhere of the kindly work of his uncle, who had disposed +his walks so as to be a convenience to the poor people of an adjoining +parish, and adds, with curious _naivete_,--"Such attentive kindnesses +are amply repaid by affectionate regard and reverence; and were they +general throughout the kingdom, they would do much more towards guarding +us against democratical opinions than 'twenty thousand soldiers armed in +proof.'" + +Richard Knight (a brother of the distinguished horticulturist) +illustrated the picturesque theory of Price in a passably clever poem, +called "The Landscape," which had not, however, enough of outside merit +to keep it alive. Humphrey Repton, a professional designer of gardens, +whose work is to be found in almost every county of England, took issue +with Price in respect to his picturesque theory,--as became an +independent gardener who would not recognize allegiance to the painters. +But the antagonism was only one of those petty wars about +non-essentials, and significance of terms, into which eager book-makers +are so apt to run. + + * * * * * + +In the course of one of my earlier Wet-Days I took occasion to allude to +the brave old age that was reached by the classic veterans,--Xenophon, +Cato, and Varro; and now I find among the most eminent British +agriculturists and gardeners of the close of the last century a firm +grip on life that would have matched the hardihood of Cato. Old +Abercrombie of Preston Pans, as we have already seen, reached the age of +eighty. Walpole, though I lay no claim to him as farmer or gardener, +yet, thanks to the walks and garden-work of Strawberry Hill, lived to +the same age. Philip Miller was an octogenarian. Lord Kames was aged +eighty-seven at his death (1782). Arthur Young, though struggling with +blindness in his later years, had accumulated such stock of vitality by +his out-door life as to bridge him well over into the present century: +he died in 1820, aged seventy-nine. Parson Trusler, notwithstanding his +apothecary-schooling, lived to be eighty. In 1826 died Joseph Cradock of +the "Village Memoirs," and a devoted horticulturist, aged eighty-five. +Three years after, (1829,) Sir Uvedale Price bade final adieu to his +delightful seat of Foxley, at the age of eighty-three. Sir John Sinclair +lived fairly into our own time, (1835,) and was eighty-one at his death. + +William Speechley, whom Johnson calls the best gardener of his time, and +who established the first effective system of hot-house culture for +pines in England, died in 1819, aged eighty-six; and in the same year, +William Marshal, a voluminous agricultural writer and active farmer, +died at the age of eighty. And I must mention one more, in Dr. Andrew +Duncan, a Scotch physician, who cultivated his garden with his own +hands,--inscribing over the entrance-gate, "_Hinc salus_,"--and who was +the founder of the Horticultural Society of Edinburgh. This hale old +doctor died in 1828, at the extreme age of eighty-four; and to the very +last year of his life he never omitted going up to the top of Arthur's +Seat every May-Day morning, to bathe his forehead in the summer's dew. + +As a country-liver, I like to contemplate and to boast of the hoary age +of these veterans. The inscription of good old Dr. Duncan was not +exaggerated. Every man who digs his own garden, and keeps the weeds down +thoroughly, may truthfully place the same writing over the gate,--"_Hinc +salus_" (wherever he may place his "_Hinc pecunia_"). Nor is the +comparative safety of active gardening or farming pursuits due entirely +to the vigorous bodily exercise involved, but quite as much, it seems to +me, to that enlivening and freshening influence which must belong to an +intimate and loving and intelligent companionship with Nature. It may be +an animal view of the matter,--but, in estimating the comparative +advantages and disadvantages of a country-life, I think we take too +little account of that glow and exhilaration of the blood which come of +every-day dealings with the ground and flowers and trees, and which, as +age approaches, subside into a calm equanimity that looks Death in the +face no more fearingly than if it were a frost. I have gray-haired +neighbors around me who have come to a hardy old age upon their little +farms,--buffeting all storms,--petting the cattle which have come down +to them from ten generations of short-lived kine, gone by,--trailing +ancient vines, that have seen a quarter of a century of life, over their +door-steps,--turning over soil, every cheery season of May, from which +they have already gathered fifty harvests; and I cannot but regard their +serene philosophy, and their quiet, thankful, and Christian enjoyment of +the bounties of Nature, as something quite as much to be envied as the +distinctions of town-craft. I ask myself,--If these old gentlemen had +plunged into the whirlpool of a city five-and-fifty years ago, would +they have been still adrift upon this tide of time, where we are all +serving our apprenticeships?--and if so, would they have worn the same +calm and cheerful equanimity amid the harvests of traffic or the blight +of a panic?--and if not adrift, would they have carried a clearer and +more justifying record to the hearing of the Great Court than they will +carry hence when our village-bell doles out the funeral march for them? + +The rain is beating on my windows; the rain is beating on the plain; a +mist is driving in from the Sound, over which I see only the +spires,--those Christian beacons. And (by these hints, that always fret +the horizon) calling to mind that bit of the best of all prayers, "_Lead +us not into temptation_," it seems to me that many a country-liver might +transmute it without offence, and in all faith, into words like +these,--"Lead us not into cities." To think for a moment of poor farmer +Burns, with the suppers of Edinburgh, and the orgies of the gentlemen of +the Caledonian hunt, inflaming his imagination there in the wretched +chamber of his low farm-house of Ellisland! + +But all this, down my last half-page, relates to the physical and the +moral aspects of the matter,--aspects which are, surely, richly worthy +of consideration. The question whether country-life and country-pursuits +will bring the intellectual faculties to their strongest bent is quite a +distinct one. There may be opportunity for culture; but opportunity +counts for nothing, except it occur under conditions that prompt to its +employment. The incitement to the largest efforts of which the mind is +capable comes ordinarily from mental attrition,--an attrition for which +the retirement demanded by rural pursuits gives little occasion. Milton +would never have come to his stature among pear-trees,--nor Newton, nor +Burke. They may have made first-rate farmers or horticulturists; they +may have surpassed all about them; but their level of action would have +been a far lower one than that which they actually occupied. There is a +great deal of balderdash written and talked upon this subject, which +ought to have an end; it does not help farming, it does not help the +world,--simply because it is untrue. Rural life offers charming objects +of study; but to most minds it does not offer the promptings for large +intellectual exertion. It ripens healthfully all the receptive +faculties; it disposes to that judicial calmness of mind which is +essential to clearness and directness of vision; but it does not kindle +the heat of large and ambitious endeavor. Hence we often find that a man +who has passed the first half of his life in comparative isolation, +cultivating his resources quietly, unmoved by the disturbances and the +broils of civic life, will, on transfer to public scenes, and stirred by +that emulation which comes of contact with the world, feel all his +faculties lighted with a new glow, and accomplish results which are as +much a wonder to himself as to others. The pent river is at length set +loose,--the barriers broken by the wear of mingled waters, and the force +and the roar of it are amazing. + +I have alluded to the poet-farmer Burns,--a capital ploughman, a poor +manager, an intemperate lover, a sad reveller, a stilted letter-writer, +a rare good-fellow, and a poet whose poems will live forever. It is no +wonder he did not succeed as farmer; Moss-giel had an ugly, wet subsoil, +and draining-tiles were as yet not in vogue; but from all the accounts I +can gather, there was never a truer furrow laid than was laid by Robert +Burns in his days of vigor, upon that same damp upland of Moss-giel; his +"fearings" were all true, and his headlands as clear of draggled sod as +if he had used the best "Ruggles, Nourse, and Mason" of our time. Alas +for the daisies! he must have turned over perches of them in his day; +and yet only one has caught the glory of his lamentation! + +Ellisland, where he went later, and where he hoped to redeem his +farm-promise, was not over-fertile; it had been hardly used by scurvy +tenants before him, and was so stony that a rain-storm made a +fresh-rolled field of sown barley look like a paved street. He tells us +this; and we farmers know what it means. But it lay in Nithsdale; and +the beauty of Nithsdale shed a regal splendor on his home. It was the +poet that had chosen the farm, and not the grain-grower. + +Then there were the "callants" coming from Edinburgh, from Dumfries, +from London, from all the world, to have their "crack" with the +peasant-poet, who had sung the "Lass of Ballochmyle." Can this man, +whose tears drip (in verse) for a homeless field-mouse, keep by the +plough, when a half-score of good-fellows are up from Dumfries to see +him, and when John Barleycorn stands frothing in the cupboard? + +Consider, again, that his means, notwithstanding the showy and +short-lived generosity of his Edinburgh friends, enabled him only to +avail himself of the old Scotch plough; his harrow, very likely, had +wooden teeth; he could venture nothing for the clearing of gorse and +broom; he could enter upon no system of drainage, even of the simple +kind recommended by Lord Kames; he had hardly funds to buy the best +quality of seed, and none at all for "liming," or for "wrack" from the +shore. Even the gift of a pretty heifer he repays with a song. + +Besides all this, he was exciseman; and he loved galloping over the +hills in search of recreants, and cozy sittings in the tap of the "Jolly +Beggars" of Mauchline, better than he loved a sight of the stunted +barley of Ellisland. + +No wonder that he left his farm; no wonder that he went to +Dumfries,--shabby as the street might be where he was to live; no +wonder, that, with his mad pride and his impulsive generosity, he died +there, leaving wife and children almost beggars. But, in all charity, +let us remember that it is not alone the poor exciseman who is dead, but +the rare poet, who has intoned a prayer for ten thousand lips,-- + + "That He, who stills the raven's clamorous nest, + And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, + Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, + For them and for their little ones provide, + But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside." + +Let no one fancy that Burns was a poor farmer because he was a poet: he +was a poor farmer simply because he gave only his hand to the business, +and none of his brain. He had enough of good sense and of +clear-sightedness to sweep away every agricultural obstacle in his path, +and to make Ellisland "pay well"; but good-fellowship, and the "Jolly +Beggars," and his excise-galloping among the hills by Nithsdale made an +end of the farmer,--and, in due time, made an end of the man. + +Robert Bloomfield was another poet-farmer of these times, but of a much +humbler calibre. I could never give any very large portion of a wet day +to his reading. There is truthfulness of description in him, and a +certain grace of rhythm, but nothing to kindle any glow. The story of +Giles, and of the milking, and of the spotted heifers, may be true +enough; but every day, in my barn-yard, I find as true and as lively a +story. The fact is, that the details of farm-life--the muddy boots, the +sweaty workers, the amber-colored pools, the wallowing pigs--are not of +a kind to warrant or to call out any burning imprint of verse. Theme for +this lies in the breezes, the birds, the waving-wooded mountains +([Greek: Neriton einosiphyllon]), the glorious mornings + + "Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy," + +--and for these the poet must soar above the barn-yard and the +house-tops. There is more of the spirit of true poesy in that little +fragment of Jean Ingelow's,[F] beginning,-- + + "What change has made the pastures sweet, + And reached the daisies at my feet, + And cloud that wears a golden hem?" + +than in all the verse of Bloomfield, if all of Bloomfield were +compressed into a single song. + +And yet, if we had lived in those days, we should all have subscribed +for the book of the peasant-bard, perhaps have read it,--but, most +infallibly, have given it away to some country-cousin. + + * * * * * + +I will not leave the close of the last century without paying my +respects to good Mrs. Barbauld,--not so much for her pleasant "Ode to +Spring," about which there is a sweet odor of the fields, as for her +partnership in those "Evenings at Home" which are associated--I scarce +can remember how--with roaring fires and winter nights in the country; +and not less strongly with the first noisy chorus of the frogs in the +pools, and the first coy uplift of the crocuses and the sweet violets. +There are pots of flowers, and glowing fruit-trees, and country +hill-sides scattered up and down those little stories, which, though my +eye has not lighted on them these twenty odd years past, are still fresh +in my mind, and full of a sweet pastoral fragrance. The sketches may be +very poor, with few artist-like touches in them; it may be only a boyish +caprice by which I cling to them; but what pleasanter or more grateful +whim to cherish than one which brings back all the aroma of childhood in +the country,--floating upon the remnant-patches of a story that is only +half recalled? The cowslips are there; the pansies are there; the +overhanging chestnuts are there; the dusty high-road is there; the +toiling wagons are there; and, betimes, the rain is dripping from the +cottage-eaves--as the rain is dripping to-day. + +And from Mrs. Barbauld I am led away to speak of Miss +Austen,--belonging, it is true, to a little later date, and the tender +memory of her books to an age that had outgrown "Evenings at Home." +Still, the association of her tales is strongest with the country, and +with country-firesides. I sometimes take up one of her works upon an odd +hour even now; and how like finding old-garret clothes--big bonnets and +scant skirts--is the reading of such old-time story! How the +"proprieties" our grandmothers taught us come drifting back upon the +tide of those buckram conventionalities of the "Dashwoods"![G] Ah, +Marianne, how we once loved you! Ah, Sir John, how we once thought you a +profane swearer!--as you really were. + +There are people we know between the covers of Miss Austen: Mrs. +Jennings has a splutter of tease, and crude incivility, and shapeless +tenderness, that you and I see every day;--not so patent and +demonstrative in our friend Mrs. Jones; but the difference is only in +fashion: Mrs. Jennings was in scant petticoats, and Mrs. Jones wears +hoops, thirty springs strong. + +How funny, too, the old love-talk! "My beloved Amanda, the charm of your +angelic features enraptures my regard." It is earnest; but it's not the +way those things are done. + +And what visions such books recall of the days when they were read,--the +girls in pinafores,--the boys in roundabouts,--the elders looking +languishingly on, when the reader comes to tender passages! And was not +a certain Mary Jane another Ellinor? And was not Louisa (who lived in +the two-story white house on the corner) another Marianne,--gushing, +tender? Yes, by George, she was! (that was the form our boyish oaths +took). + +And was not the tall fellow who offered his arm to the girls so gravely, +and saw them home from our evening visits so cavalierly,--was he not +another gay deceiver,--a Lothario, a Willoughby? He could kiss a girl on +the least provocation; he took pay out, for his escort, that way. It was +wonderful,--the fellow's effrontery. It never forsook him. I do not know +about the romance in his family; but he went into the grocery-line, and +has become a contractor now, enormously rich. He offers his arm to +Columbia, who wishes to get home before dark; and takes pay in rifling +her of golden kisses. Yes, by George, he does! + +FOOTNOTES: + +[A] By an odd coincidence, I observe that Washington made one of his +first shipments of tobacco (after his marriage with Mrs. Custis) upon a +vessel called "The Fair American." Did the ship possibly give a name to +the novel, or the novel a name to the ship? + +[B] _Practical Farmer_, by William Ellis. London, 1759. + +[C] The eminent geologist, Robert Bakewell, who lived many years later, +wrote of the "Influence of the Soil on Wool," and for that reason, +perhaps, is frequently confounded by agricultural writers with the great +breeder. + +[D] Third volume _Statistics_, p. 598. + +[E] Dated December, 1796. Sparks's _Life and Letters_, Vol. XII. p. 328. + +[F] A poetess whose merits, as it seems to me, are, as yet, only half +acknowledged. + +[G] _Sense and Sensibility._ + + + + +MEXICO. + + +Had the question been asked, forty years ago, what country, beside our +own, possesses the greatest natural advantages, and gives the best +promise of future growth and prosperity, very likely the answer would +have been, Mexico, which had then just thrown off the Spanish yoke and +achieved national independence. Cast aside for a moment all modern +ideas, derived from her known weakness and anarchy, and see how great +and manifold those apparent advantages and prospects were. + +Situated where the continent of North America is narrowing from the +immense breadths of the United States and British America to that thread +of communication between continents, the Isthmus of Panama, on the one +side its shores are washed by the waters of the Gulf of Mexico for more +than sixteen hundred miles, and on the other by the tranquil Pacific for +four thousand more. Yet the distance from her great eastern port, Vera +Cruz, to the old Spanish treasure-depot, Acapulco, on the western coast, +was not, as the bird flies, more than three hundred miles: a distance +scarcely greater than that from Boston to New York, and which, with +modern means of transit, might be traversed between sunrise and sunset. +Thus with one hand she seemed ready to grasp the wealth of the Indies, +while with the other she welcomed all the products of European skill. +This wonderful geographical advantage had, indeed, been rendered futile +in the past by the jealous spirit and the exclusive enactments of her +oppressor. But what might not be hoped in the future from a free people, +quickened into fresh life by the breath of liberty? + +Then the marvellous resources of every description which Nature had +crowded into her soil. Perhaps there is not on the whole earth another +strip of country, extending north and south only a thousand miles and +varying in width from one to five hundred miles, where side by side are +all climates and all their products. On the coasts the land is low, hot, +vaporous, and luxuriant,--the native home of the richest tropical +growths. Travel inland but a few leagues, and you rise to a greater +elevation, and find yourself beneath almost Italian skies and inhaling +Italian airs; while all around is a new vegetation,--the vine, the +olive, the tobacco, the banana, itself perhaps the most prolific and +nourishing of all plants, and which, on the space where Indian corn +would sustain but three human lives, will nourish with its free bounty +more than fifty. A few miles more, and you stand on that great plateau, +elevated with but little variation six or seven thousand feet above the +level of the sea, and stretching on every side we know not over how many +hundred thousands of square miles. There, under the tropics and beneath +a tropical sun, is a temperate atmosphere, cool, salubrious, and +bracing. There, almost within sight of the deadly miasma of the coast, +is a new climate, which deals kindly even with a European constitution. +There all the great cereals of the North, the wheat, the barley, the +corn, come to their most luxuriant perfection. And so it is literally +true, that, travelling a few hundred miles from Gulf to Ocean, you pass +through more climates and see a wider variety of vegetation than if you +traversed our whole country from the great lakes in the North to the +southernmost cape of Florida. Nay, so striking is this contact of the +zones, that in that table-land itself are, it is said, deep valleys, +where with one glance the eye may behold far up the deep shades of the +pine, while below waves the feathery grace of the palm,--or where one +may walk amid familiar waving grain, and see beneath him, descending in +beautiful gradation, the corn, the olive, the sugar-cane, down to depths +where a torrid clime lavishes its full wealth of verdure. + +Here, too, is the true Ophir; here, the rivers that roll down their +yellow sands. For here are the veins of gold that attracted the Spaniard +with his fatal greed, and the mines of silver that for three hundred +years have been yielding untold treasures, and to-day are as ready as +ever to yield untold treasures more. With such germs of wealth hidden in +her soil, what was needed to make Mexico one of the master-nations but +men? What, to crowd her ports with ships, to make her borders pleasant +with the hum of industry, and to fill her storehouses with its products, +but the same sagacity and energy which have made the sterile hills of +New England populous, and which are now transforming the prairies of the +West into one broad cornfield? Was it surprising, then, that fifty years +ago men were dreaming great things of Mexico? + +And it will not be denied that into men's estimate of her future some +elements of romance entered, to blind their eyes and to distort their +judgment. This was the land of Cortes and Montezuma. Here it was that +the Spaniard, fresh from the conquest of fair Granada, found in the +depths of the New World a barbarian civilization which mocked the pomp +and luxury of the Moor. Here, on these plains, beneath these mountains, +on the bosom of these tranquil lakes, was transacted that marvellous +episode in history, which, on the pages of Prescott, looks like the +creations of the fabled Genii. Here an aboriginal race rose to more than +aboriginal splendor; and here, beneath the conqueror's heel, they sank +to unsounded depths of misery and servitude. He must have a prosaic +nature to whom the memories and associations of such a land do not come +glowing with the warm flush of sentiment and romance. + +There was much, too, in the long and bitter struggle by which this +people were winning their independence, which appealed to the sympathy +of men who had just achieved their own freedom. Very likely, as we read +now the history of that struggle,--as we see how little of any broad and +generous patriotism entered into it,--as we mark how every step was +stained with blood and darkened by cruel passions,--as we behold on +every field the selfish ambition of petty men taking the place of the +self-devotion of great souls, it will not look heroic. But it did once. +Men saw it from afar off. They beheld in it the ancient conflict between +liberty and oppression. It was the time-worn story, of men in poverty, +of men in exile, of men dying for freedom. + +Thus, from one cause or another, from reasons of utility or from reasons +of sentiment and imagination, it is certain that many cherished the +highest hopes for Mexico, and saw before her a long future of rare +prosperity and honor. "It is to Mexico," writes a glowing admirer, "that +we turn and turn again with fond delight. We invoke the reader to ponder +her present position, her capacity for future greatness, the career she +has yet to commence and run. We look toward her, and we see the +day-spring of a glorious national existence arising within her bounds." + +When we look at this picture, drawn by hope and fancy, and then turn to +the reality,--when we see Mexico as she is, the blankest failure of the +century,--when we run over her forty years of anarchy, with its four +constitutions and twenty-seven plans of government, with its bewildering +array of presidents and dictators that come and go until the eye is +wearied and the memory fails to preserve even their names,--when we +behold her the helpless victim of any power that chooses to assail +her,--when, in short, we compare the Mexico that is with the Mexico that +was to be,--we ask ourselves, What are the causes which have made so +many advantages worse than futile?--what fate has ordained that so much +sacrifice and so much blood should be lavished, and in vain? That is the +very question we seek to answer. + + * * * * * + +We begin with what is the true foundation of all national fortunes, the +character and social relations of the people. It is the profound remark +of a profound man, that "you can create no national spirit where no +nation is." That is at the root of Mexico's troubles. She is not in any +proper sense a nation. All her sufferings have not as yet moulded her +diverse elements into any real and efficient unity. Modern Mexico, +dating from the Conquest, was founded, not upon social unity, but upon +the widest social divergence. At one end of the scale, high up in luxury +and pride, was the Spanish Conqueror and oppressor. At the other, deep +down as degradation could go, the crushed and cowering descendant of the +native races. Between them the half-bloods, with the vices of both and +the virtues of neither. The Spaniard did all that he could to dig deep +and broad this gulf of separation between the classes, and to make it +perpetual. As if to stamp inequality in biting phrase upon men's speech, +he called the whites people with reason, the Indians people without +reason. + +Look, then, first at the condition of the native races under this +Colonial authority. In the beginning, they were literally slaves, bound +to the withering toil of the mines. Then they became serfs, mere +appendages to estates. And when the progress of light swept away this +institution, and gave them a nominal freedom, still they were in the eye +of the law in a state of perpetual minority. They were simply grown-up +children. They were confined in villages, out of which they could not +go, and into which the white could not come. They were held to be +incapable of making contracts above a sum equal to five of our dollars. +The very men who were set to watch over their interests, by enticing +them into debts which they would not pay, changed their legal freedom +into a peonage, which was actual, and too often life-long, slavery. Says +Chevalier,--"These functionaries acquired for themselves troops of +slaves. They constituted themselves arbitrarily creditors of the Indians +by forcing them to buy, at unreasonable prices, horses, mules, and +clothing. The Indians, never being able to pay, were forced to work for +them, and this obligation to work, or, to speak more clearly, this +servitude, once contracted, was easily made perpetual." Here, then, we +have in Colonial Mexico, at the foundation of the State, the Indian, +whom oppression had made but half a man. + +Just above them were the half-bloods. These were not slaves. They were +not serfs. They were not considered to be children of a larger growth. +It was expressly said of them that they were "rational people." But they +had burdens of their own. Having little social position and less +education, incapable by nature of that sullen patience which kept the +Indian from chafing under his yoke, they were both more unhappy and more +demoralized. The crimes against property, the robberies on the highway, +could for the most part be traced to the half-breeds. "Are there any +robbers on this route?" asked Baron Deffandis, as he travelled in the +North of Mexico. "Oh, no!" was the answer; "you have nothing to fear; in +this part of the country there are no rational people,"--the speaker +remaining all unconscious of the bitter satire which was hidden in his +words. + +Above the half-bloods were the Creoles, the children of white parents +and born in the Colony. Even they were doomed to feel the sting of +inferiority. They had no real political liberty, and no place in the +State. No royal trust was ever committed to them. The places of public +emolument were closed against them. All were reserved for Spaniards, +born in Spain. Of fifty-six Mexican viceroys but one was a Creole, and +he a Creole of Peru. It is the boast of a Frenchman, that in his +country, in its most despotic days, the people have always had their +songs, and that their writers have dared to breathe forth their +maledictions upon the oppression which has loaded them with exactions. +But in Spain and her colonies the Inquisition weighed heavily upon free +speech, and enforced upon all the higher subjects of human thought a +silence like the grave. The Creole scarcely knew that there was any +world beyond his horizon, or that there could be a better than his empty +and barren life; or if he did know more, he must keep that knowledge in +the solitude of his own breast. All that the Spaniard vouchsafed to him +was the liberty to achieve wealth, which opened to him no career of +usefulness and distinction. At most, he loaded himself with cheap +decorations, to which there was no answering position of responsibility. +"One is surprised," says a tourist, "to see all the traders turned into +colonels and captains, and to find officers of the militia in full +uniform, and decorated with the badge of the order of Charles III., +seated in their shops, weighing out sugar, coffee, and vanilla." But as +for any real distinction, the Creole had none. These empty titles +sufficed to separate him in feeling yet more from the great mass of his +countrymen, but they did not satisfy those aspirations for real dignity +and freedom which cannot quite die out in any breast. + +We see, then, what a fatal legacy the mother-country left to her +rebellious child: four castes,--the Spaniard, hated by all; the Creole, +proud, hospitable, and brave, but by his very training incapable of +persistent energy; the half-breed, wild and untamable, a natural brigand +and guerrilla; and the Indian, subdued, sad, and patient, yet with a +drop of the fierce and cruel blood of his Aztec progenitor coursing in +his veins. + +The first act in the drama of the Mexican Revolution showed how great an +obstacle to national unity this sentiment of caste was. When the priest +Hidalgo in the year 1810 raised the standard of rebellion, though the +Creole heart was throbbing almost to bursting with the desire for +freedom, yet the Creole population nearly in a body sided with the +Government. Do you ask why? The answer is simple. Hidalgo's followers +were Indians. And all through that prolonged struggle of ten years under +Morelos, Vittoria, Teran, and countless other partisan leaders, even to +that hour when the rebellion was extinguished in its own blood, it was +the Creole who stood between the Spaniard and destruction, and who, +through his fear and jealousy of the native races, was the accomplice in +binding heavier chains on his own limbs. When in 1820 the revolt passed +out of the hand of the Indian into that of the native white, the +struggle was over. The hundred thousand foreigners were impotent, when +they stood alone. + +We do not say that this jealousy and dislike have not been greatly +modified by the lapse of years and by the endurance of common +sufferings. No doubt there has been a great improvement. There would be +small hope for the country, if it were not so. But these feelings have +not by any means been altogether eradicated. An intelligent writer, as +lately as last year, speaking of the difficulties which the Liberal +Government, now overthrown by the French, had to encounter, says that +they were not a little aggravated by the fact that Benito Juarez, its +head, was an Indian. Though he was one of the most remarkable men who +have risen to power, the haughty Creole could not brook the thought that +an Indian should climb from his _adobe_ hut to be the first personage in +the State. Nor is the fire quite quenched in the Indian's breast. Under +a grave taciturnity he hides burning memories. An acute observer of the +native character remarks,--"I have myself frequently heard Indians, when +their ordinary reserve has been overcome by spirituous liquors, declare +that they were the true owners of the soil, and all others foreign +intruders,--and that, if the Creoles could expel the Spaniards, they +themselves had a far better right to expel the Creoles." We say, then, +emphatically, that the first and perhaps the greatest cause of Mexican +anarchy is that the Mexicans are not as yet a people. Their diverse +elements have not as yet been fused into a living and conscious +nationality. + + * * * * * + +Another striking cause is the popular ignorance. We are coming more and +more to understand that it is not enough to have the shape and thews of +a man,--that, to be fit for freedom, or long to retain it, a people must +have mental and moral intelligence sufficient to teach them +self-control, and to enable them to judge wisely of public men and +public measures. Now in Mexico there is very little of the regulating +force of a just popular sentiment. You never catch the thunder of the +people's voice, before whose majesty base men and base plans must bow. +This destitution is not a matter of chance. It is another fatal legacy +of the mother-country. Spain steadily resisted all generous culture of +her colonists. She did not hesitate to declare that it was not expedient +that learning should become general in America. A viceroy said, with +more bluntness than courtesy, that "in America education ought always to +be confined to the Catechism." Under one pretence or another, a college +established for the instruction of Indians, in the better days of +Spanish domination, was broken, up. No book was permitted to be printed +in Mexico, or to be imported from abroad, without the consent both of +the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. Under this rule the actual +literature of the country was sufficiently dry and barren. A bishop +writes that the deplorable condition of the Indians has produced such +sluggishness of mind and such absolute indifference and apathy, that +they have no feelings either of hope or of fear. And he predicted the +very results, which then were prophecy, but now are history. + +How entire this ignorance was, when the colonial tie was sundered, we +cannot definitely determine. But we have the testimony of one who had +ample opportunity for observation, and who made the most extended +personal inquiries, that, twenty-five years afterwards, only two per +cent. of the Indians, and only twenty per cent. of the whites and +half-breeds, could read and write; and in 1856, actual statistics showed +that but one in thirty-seven attended school. When we consider that in +Massachusetts one in every five and a third of our population enjoys +school-privileges, we shall comprehend how large a portion of the youth +of Mexico are even now growing up in utter ignorance. + +One of the direct results of this popular ignorance is, that the conduct +of affairs has virtually passed out of the hands of the people. To a +considerable extent, it may be affirmed that the strifes which divide +and desolate Mexico do not rise to the dignity of civil wars. They are +not so much the conflicts of a divided people as the disgraceful brawls +of ambitious demagogues and their adherents. Every traveller notes with +astonishment how little these great changes, which ought to stir to its +depths the national heart, ruffle even the surface of society,--how the +great mass sit undisturbed, while events big with importance are +transacted before their eyes,--how a few ambitious leaders, or a few +military chieftains, with their mercenary bands, are permitted to uphold +or betray, to advance or trample under foot, great principles which with +us excite every mind and arouse every heart. We believe it to be +strictly true that a large portion of the Mexican people have not enough +mental and moral activity to take an interest of any kind in these +desolating wars,--much less to exercise that repressing influence by +which the criminal ambition of the few must bow to the rights of the +many. There could not be a worse sign. Popular ignorance, therefore, +leading to popular apathy, must be put down among the influential causes +of Mexican sorrows. + + * * * * * + +A third cause is that indifference to blood which appears to be +characteristic of the Mexican people, or at least of that portion of +them who have concerned themselves with public commotions. Some terrible +elements have entered into this Mexican stock. The Spaniard, one of its +sources, has written his name in blood in the history both of the Old +and the New World. Whether hunting out the remnants of the unhappy +Moriscos from the fastnesses of their native hills,--or torturing the +Jews in the dungeons of his Inquisition,--or with lust and murder +filling to the brim the cup of horror and misery for the captive cities +of Holland,--or exterminating, in the pitiless labor of the mines, the +peaceful aborigines of San Domingo,--or with Cortes putting to slaughter +a whole city on mere suspicion,--everywhere the Spaniard has recorded +great deeds with a pen of iron dipped in blood. And the Aztec, the other +source of that stock, had, if we are to credit his conqueror, a cruel +and merciless side to his character, which made him the peer of his +oppressor. + +The Mexican Revolution had its horrible chapters. And impartial truth +demands that we should say that both sides made fearful contributions to +those chapters. Hidalgo, the first popular leader, wrote to his +lieutenant these terrible words:--"If you suspect your prisoners of +entertaining restless or seditious ideas, bury them in oblivion at once +by putting them to death in some secret and solitary place, where their +fate may remain forever unknown." His practical commentary was a +permission to his followers to slay every white whom they could find in +the first stronghold which they stormed, and afterwards many a midnight +execution in the gloomy ravines of the mountains. On the other hand, +Calleja, the King's general, boasts that after the Battle of Aculco he +put to death five thousand insurgents in cold blood. And Iturbide, then +a Government general, writes, under date, "Good-Friday, 1814, In honor +of the day I have just ordered three hundred excommunicated wretches to +be shot":--a missive in which we know not which to admire most, the +hideous brevity, the blasphemy, or the cruelty. One act of noble +clemency stands out in peculiar sweetness from this background of +horror. When Morelos had given to his lieutenant, Bravo, three hundred +of the King's soldiers to be used as a ransom for his father, who was a +prisoner in the hands of the Royalists, and when the viceroy, Venegas, +scornfully rejected the offer, and ordered his victim to immediate +execution, Bravo instantly set at liberty the soldiers:--"For I would +wish," he said, "to put it out of my own power to avenge on them the +death of a parent, lest, in the first moments of grief, the temptation +should prove irresistible." The experiences of the Texan War, whose +massacre of Alamo was the battle-cry of the borderers in all succeeding +conflicts, and whose martyrdom at Goliad, where three hundred and fifty +unarmed prisoners, trusting in the pledged faith of their captors, were +led out in squads and shot, would seem to show that the tendencies of +Mexican leaders and soldiers had not greatly changed in later times. +What can result from such examples but utter carelessness of human life? +But to destroy among any people the sacredness of life is to erase one +of the safeguards of peace and order. The nation which does not shrink +from carnage, which is not ready to sacrifice everything but principle +to avert it, will be the nation of all others to risk everything, honor, +safety, social stability, for a whim. Beyond a doubt, too great +indifference to blood has been a fertile source of unnecessary +agitations, and so of weakness and anarchy. + + * * * * * + +We have postponed to this stage of our inquiry the consideration of that +rock upon which the Mexican State has finally split,--party-spirit. +During the forty stormy years of its existence, that ancient conflict, +ever old and ever new, between conservatism and radicalism, has been +going on. A statistician records that Mexico has had twenty-seven new +constitutions, or at least modifications of old ones, or final plans of +settlement. It has been too much the custom to talk of these as though +they were utterly meaningless. They are full of meaning. They mark the +flux and reflux of this great battle. They stand for the victories or +defeats of one or the other of these great principles. + +It is not probable, that, at the outset of the Revolution, the Creoles +had any thought of separating from the mother-country. They professed +the greatest loyalty. And they proved it by unshaken fidelity on many a +bloody field. Their only request was, that some constitutional features +might mitigate the despotism under which they groaned. Even after eleven +years' struggle, what they settled upon was a limited monarchy, with the +King's son at its head,--or, if he refused, then some scion of another +royal house. And even when this project failed, they raised to the +vacant throne their own general, Iturbide. So strong in the beginning +was the element of conservatism, or reaction, as they term it now, in +Mexican affairs. + +In 1823, however, the Liberal party obtained the supremacy, and under +the lead of Santa Ana, who then first came into prominence, drove +Iturbide from the throne, and put into operation a constitution +patterned after our own. It is not too much to say, that, from that day +to the hour when the allied troops landed at Vera Cruz, the conflict +between two parties, two principles, two methods of government, has been +waged with ever increasing bitterness and ever changing fortunes. It is +probable that the Liberals have always been numerically the stronger. +But the reactionary party has had its advantages. The rich and +aristocratic have been with it. To a great extent the army, ever partial +to the iron hand, has given it the support of its great power. And the +Church, which has possessed perhaps one-quarter of the whole wealth of +the country, and whose income has often far exceeded that of the State, +has always plotted for the downfall of the Liberals. + +In 1835 the power of these combined forces was so great that they were +able to overthrow the constitution of 1824, and put into operation a new +one on the plan of centralization. By this plan all federal +representation ceased, and popular freedom was subject to unaccustomed +restraints. The most noteworthy fact connected with this change was the +Texan Rebellion, and consequent upon it our own Mexican War. But of +these we shall speak hereafter. It was not until 1857 that the Liberals +won back all that they had lost,--and more; for they replaced the old +constitution by a new and freer one, and, as if by one stroke to inflict +a final blow upon their adversaries, decreed the confiscation of all +Church property. The Reactionists had at least vitality enough to make a +death-struggle. Leagued with the army, they drove Comonfort from the +presidency, and his party from the city of Mexico. For three years there +were two presidents and two sets of officers of all sorts, and a civil +war. The Liberals, under the Indian Benito Juarez, held Vera Cruz and +the larger part of the country. At the end of this period the Liberal +chieftain, with an unexpected energy, drove the opposing party out of +the city of Mexico, and its leaders into exile, carried into effect the +decree for the confiscation of Church property, and wellnigh crushed +out organized resistance. + +Not only, then, did this sorely tried Republic begin its precarious +existence with a people wholly unapt for freedom and embittered by +caste-feeling, but, from the outset, it was so divided by a broad gulf +of political dissension, that the whole body politic has ever since been +in reality cloven asunder. + + * * * * * + +We have omitted from their proper place the Texan War and its +consequences, which in their turn have done more than any one cause to +weaken and dishonor Mexico,--not so much because they took away from her +valuable districts as because they advertised to the whole world what +feebleness was behind great apparent power. We tread now upon the embers +of an extinguished controversy. And while around us blaze the lurid +flames of a mightier conflagration, which it helped to kindle, we could +not wish to stir again its ashes. But seeking the causes of the downfall +of Mexico, we can hardly omit the weightiest cause. + +The Texans were, as we all know, a people who came for the most part +from the United States, and who were drawn southward by the combined +influence of a genial climate and liberal gifts of land. These +attractions had but one drawback, and that was of a religious nature. By +the very terms of the gift, all emigrants were, or became, or professed +to become, Roman Catholics. In many cases marriages of long standing +were reconsecrated with Catholic ceremonies, while the children were +baptized at Catholic altars. Until the year 1835 the Texans had been +citizens of Mexico,--the district which they inhabited, together with +Coahuila, making a sovereign state and constituent part of that federal +republic. Though the Texans had thus lived for many years under the +protection of Mexican law, it would not be true to say that they had +done so always cheerfully or even peaceably. There had been much +smothered discontent, and some open violence. The reasons were various. +The vexations, and perhaps oppression, incident to the rapid and violent +changes of the Mexican government, led to much ill feeling, and +engendered controversies not easily put to sleep. The natural +averseness, too, of a people of Anglo-Saxon origin to yield obedience, +however legitimate, to a mixed race like the Mexicans, created +bitterness, which was intensified by the arrogant and reckless temper +characteristic of no small part of the Texan people. Last, but not +least, their irritation at those laws which abolished slavery, and which +from the beginning they had always broken and always meant to break, +would have sundered a far stronger chain than ever bound them to the +land of their adoption. When the centralized constitution of 1835 came +into force, their discontent ripened into open rebellion. In the light +of our own bitter experience, with the inception and growth of our own +civil war open for our instruction, few Northern men will doubt that +this was the infant Secession whose full-grown power we are breasting. +That there were some real grievances we may allow; for, with so many +shifting governments, there could hardly have failed to be some +injustice and some oppressive measures or deeds. That, with the +essential difference of feeling, character, and habits which existed +between the two people, disturbances must sooner or later have arisen, +we may also allow. But, after all, one of the most powerful motives for +rebellion was love of slavery. Mexico stood a bar to the establishment +of that new and powerful Slave State which was the dream not only of the +Texan, but perhaps even more of the statesmen and leaders of the extreme +South. If Mexico became a powerful government, all the more would she be +an insuperable bar to such a project. However much, then, the Texans may +have desired a separate State existence, and however little they may +have liked the establishment of a great central power, their fear was +not so much that the strong government would oppress them as that it +might grow strong enough to force them to cease oppressing others. +There were Mexican laws which they never had obeyed, never intended to +obey, and which by the aid of State existence they had always succeeded +in evading. And now, when the progress of events and the strengthening +of the central authority threatened as never before the cherished +institution, like their compeers, they took their stand on the same +battle-ground of State Rights. We repeat, that other influences and real +wrongs no doubt helped them to this conclusion. What was the exact power +of each particular influence no one can tell. But, back of all +influences, a baneful spirit and motive, was the love of slavery and the +desire to perpetuate it. Their independence achieved, the Texans did not +know what to do with it. Few in numbers, burdened with debt, harassed on +the one side by the wild Camanches and Apaches, and on the other by the +Mexican guerrillas, pressed by the British and French governments, who +wished to abolish slavery and establish a protectorate, they sought +annexation to the United States, which, after a severe Congressional +struggle, was accomplished early in the year 1845. + +The farther the lapse of years removes us from the passions and pride of +the hour, perhaps the less reason shall we find for entire satisfaction +with our course, both as regards this act of annexation and the war with +Mexico by which it was succeeded. While the feelings with which we now +contemplate the French aggressions in Mexico show us that there were +other and good reasons besides love of slavery why we might wish to keep +this new and feeble Gulf State out of foreign hands,--while we cannot +fail to regard with admiration the courage and skill with which our +gallant army won its way to the very capital of a hostile State,--while, +too, the progress of events has given us no cause to regret that +sleeping California was given up to the fresh energy of the +Anglo-Saxon,--while we rejoice to believe that this present war will +result in adding to the manifold resources of Texas the crowning +blessing of freedom,--while, in short, we see that what men call +circumstance, but which is God's majestic Providence, is turning our +errors into good,--yet the final verdict of impartial truth must be, +that it was neither in the spirit of wisdom nor of justice that we +strengthened the power which even then waited to slay us, and that in +our pride and impatience we showed too little consideration to that +State at the root of whose greatness we were laying the axe. + +Those who delight in historical parallels will remember that this very +tract, from the Sabine to the Rio Grande, which was included in Texas, +was the same territory which was in controversy between us and Spain at +the beginning of the century,--and that as in 1846 the advance of the +Mexican general across the southern boundary of the controverted +district brought on the Mexican War, so, forty years before, the advance +of an American general across the northern boundary of the same district +brought us to the verge of a Spanish war. + +But whatever any one may think of the nature and justice of the Mexican +War, no one can doubt that its result was the infliction of the severest +of blows upon a sister-republic. And the severity consisted, we repeat, +not so much in the territory which she relinquished as in her entire +loss of prestige among the nations. We took away, indeed, more than +eight hundred thousand square miles. We left her hardly seven hundred +thousand square miles. But had there been any recuperative energy, +perhaps the State, so much more compact in territory, and so little +diminished in population, would have been stronger rather than weaker by +the process. + + * * * * * + +We return to our narrative. The spring of 1861 found the Liberal party +triumphant. Never had it seemed so firmly rooted. Never had its +opponents been so cast down. Well does the Scripture say, "Let him that +thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." All through the spring and +summer of 1861, the leaders of the Church party were flitting from +Paris to Madrid, and from Madrid to Paris again, weaving what webs of +intrigue, seeking what forms of intervention, none but the arch-plotter +of the Tuileries can tell. There were floating about that summer rumors +of intervention, coming through what avenues, or to whom traceable, +nobody knew. Did any one wish to intervene, there were certainly +ostensible reasons enough. In that long agony of anarchy, Mexico had +inflicted, through one or another of her jarring parties, insults and +injuries, in robberies, in murders, in forced loans, in illegal taxes, +in neglected debts, sufficient to give an apparent justification to any +violence of policy in a foreign power. The British minister, under date +of June 27, 1861, transmitted to Lord John Russell a fearful list of +outrages against English subjects. In that list were included three +murders committed, or permitted, by Government officials, and +twenty-four robberies, forced loans and the like, some of them to the +amount of twenty-five and even sixty thousand dollars. These he styles +"British claims of the small and distressing class." One fact disturbs +the force of this impeachment of the Liberal government. Almost without +exception, these outrages were confessedly the work of the conservative +party, which had just been expelled after an open rebellion of three +years against the legitimate authorities. It was as though England +should enter complaint against our Government for property destroyed by +the Alabama, or for insults and injuries inflicted upon British subjects +in the streets of Richmond. No doubt, the form of law was with her, but +hardly substantial justice. As the French have progressed, we have seen +still stranger anomalies. The leaders of this very conservative party, +who more than all others were responsible for the state of irritation +which produced the conflict, have appeared in the ranks of the French +army, thus acting the part of public prosecutors, and convicting and +condemning innocent people for their own sins. + +But it remained for Juarez himself, driven by necessity, to commit the +act which settled the fortunes of his country. On the 17th of July, +1861, he published a decree announcing that for the term of two years +all payments on debts would be suspended, expressly including foreign +bonds. From that moment Mexico was doomed. The British and French +ministers at once sent in sharp protests. The reply of the Mexican +cabinet-minister is pitiful to read. His excuse is absolute necessity. +The mismanagement of his predecessors has made it impossible that he +should carry on the Government, and at the same time pay its debts. +After some further correspondence, apologetic on the part of Mexico, +sharp and bitter on the part of the foreign ministers, diplomatic +intercourse ceased. The Mexican minister at Paris, in obedience to +orders, sought an interview with M. Thouvenal. He began by saying that +"he was instructed to give the most ample explanations." Whereupon M. +Thouvenal interrupted him, exclaiming, "We will not hear any +explanations; we will receive none"; adding, in great excitement, "We +have fully approved the conduct of M. Saligny. We have issued orders, in +concert with England, that a squadron composed of vessels of both +nations shall exact from the Government of Mexico due satisfaction, and +your Government will learn from our minister and our admiral what are +the claims of France." We have quoted thus fully from official documents +to show that the emergency found France armed and ready, if not glad, to +pursue the quarrel to the end. + +What was that end? As it stood on paper, simply to take possession of +the ports of Mexico, and sequestrate their customs to pay the interest +on foreign debts. This is stated over and over again by every party in +all possible forms of distinctness. By no means is any interference to +be permitted in the internal affairs of that country. In November, 1861, +Lord John Russell writes to the British minister at Mexico in these +unmistakable terms:--"You must be careful to observe with strictness +Article Two of the Convention, signed yesterday between Great Britain, +France, and Spain, by which it is provided that no influence shall be +used in the internal affairs of Mexico, calculated to prejudice the +right of the Mexican nation freely to choose its own form of government. +Should any Mexican, or any party in Mexico, ask your advice on such +subjects, you will say that any regular form of government, which shall +protect the lives and properties of natives and foreigners, and shall +not permit British subjects to be attacked or annoyed on account of +their occupation, their rights of property, or their religion, will +secure the moral support of the British Government." The statement of +France was just as clear, only shorter. M. Thouvenal said to Mr. Dayton +that "France could do no more than she had already done, and that was to +assure us of her purpose not to interfere in any way with the internal +government of Mexico; that their sole purpose was to obtain payment of +their claims and reparation for the wrongs and injuries done them." The +language of Spain, if anything, was shortest and clearest of all. She +assured Mr. Schurtz, that, "if Spain did take part in this intervention, +it would be solely for redress of her grievances, and not for the +purpose of imposing new institutions upon Mexico." So it was clear, +after all, that this was nothing but a grand naval excursion for the +collection of just dues from a reluctant or dishonest debtor! Nothing +more! No intention whatever of intruding upon the poor man's castle! + +Was it not surprising, now, that, with everything so transparent, nobody +had any faith? Almost simultaneously, from Mr. Adams at London, from Mr. +Dayton at Paris, from Mr. Schurtz at Madrid, and from Mr. Corwin at +Mexico, came missives, couched in different language, but all conveying +the same lesson: England meant what she said, and France and Spain did +not. All at once, too, the air was full of rumors. The conservative +party was to be restored by force. A monarchy was to be set up. Prince +Maximilian was to be invited to the throne of Mexico. As before, nobody +could trace these rumors to any trustworthy source. But everybody +believed them. And every one of them has proved to be true. About this +time there appeared in Paris a striking book, part history, part +philosophy, part prophecy, entitled, "Mexico, Ancient and Modern," by +Michel Chevalier. What is peculiar about the book, so far as it relates +to present affairs, is, that it says but little in regard to the +collection of dues, much concerning the necessity of reorganizing +Mexico, much as to the duty of France to uphold the interests of the +Latin races, much more concerning the wisdom of establishing a strong +barrier against the ambition of the United States. + +We all know what has actually happened, and that is perhaps all we have +a right to expect while the present Emperor of France is at the helm. +Events have explained these dim rumors and intimations. Vera Cruz and +Tampico taken, France unfolded new and bolder schemes. She insisted upon +marching inland and conquering Mexico, and establishing there a strong +government. Here England and Spain parted from her: the former, +evidently because she always meant what she said; the latter, either +because she, too, meant what she said, or because she found herself +measured with a more acute gamester, with a heavier hand and a sharper +sword than she could boast. France has gone forward. She has stormed +Puebla. The gates of Mexico have been thrown open to her. Her authority +has been extended over many of the States. With the assistance of the +reactionary party she has established a monarchy, and invited Maximilian +to be its head. Never results so exceeded the plan. Whatever else may be +dark, this is clear, that henceforth under the Empire promises mean +nothing,--and that whoever trusts Imperial assurances which war with +Imperial interests does so at his own proper peril. + +From the Emperor's own language, and from this book which he has +permitted to appear, and to which we have alluded, we gather easily the +real motives which have governed his conduct. No doubt, the mere _eclat_ +of having conducted to a successful issue a difficult undertaking, and +by which he would secure anew the respect and pride of the fickle people +over whom he reigns, may have been a minor motive. It is not unlikely, +either, that he has gone much farther than he himself originally +intended,--that the prize was so tempting, when once he had coquetted +with it, that he could not keep his hands off from it. For look again at +Mexico. A country full of noble possibilities. A land which, ruled by a +strong hand and a sagacious mind, may be the fruitful source of all +useful commodities. And if he can keep it, what a giant stride he makes +to girdling the earth with his posts! Count them: France, Martinique, +Vera Cruz, Acapulco, Tahiti, Saigon, his new ports at the mouth of the +Red Sea, Algiers, and France again. Not many links wanting in that +chain! If he cannot girdle the earth in forty minutes, he bids fair to +do it as quickly and as thoroughly as mortal skill and mortal audacity +ever did. And if he can secure all these benefits by open conquest, or, +better yet, by the people's apparently free choice of a government of +which he shall be the sole guardian and administrator, what is there in +his past career to warrant us in the expectation that he will shrink +back from any double-dealing necessary for the achievement of such a +master-stroke? + + * * * * * + +And now what shall we say of this policy as it concerns ourselves, and +especially the welfare and prospects of the Mexican people? We cannot +like it. That is plain. For, suffered to remain unchallenged, it cuts +right through our traditional policy. No mere diplomacy can ever mend +that again. All our fine discourse about the Monroe doctrine is, as +matters stand now, nothing but a flight of rhetoric. Then, in such a +_nonchalant_ way, it puts the curb on any future ambition which we may +cherish southward, that it is still more disagreeable. And besides, it +is such a mingled menace and warning! If this potentate could do, and +would do, such things to feeble Mexico,--if real or fancied interest +demand it, what may he not attempt with us, now that we are not so +stalwart as of old, now that we are bearing upon our shoulders a burden +that would have tasked the fabled Atlas? It is plain that we cannot +look, and ought not to look, with any favor upon this man, or any of his +Western works. + +But how will his policy affect the happiness and prosperity of Mexico? +Will it hold her back from the realization of that dream of greatness +which we all cherished for her once? Or will it send her forward with a +quicker pace to its speedy fulfilment? One feature of this event is +memorable. A conqueror, with bayonet and cannon-ball, has brought to +this people the very boon which forty years ago they craved,--a +monarchy, with an offshoot from European royalty sitting upon its +throne. If Maximilian come to Mexico, he can build his palace on a +corner-stone which Iturbide, Guerrero, and many another patriot leader +who sleeps in a bloody grave, helped to lay. So the pendulum swings +back, be its arc ever so long. A closer examination, however, will show +that this remarkable coincidence is not simply an accident. The +combination which in 1823 swept away the Spanish power and established a +monarchy was not a combination of the free and liberal elements of +Mexican society, but rather of those same aristocratic, ecclesiastical, +and conservative elements which are now in alliance with the French +Emperor, and in deadly hostility to what is democratic or republican in +that distracted land. We cannot doubt, therefore, that, whatever Louis +Napoleon may affirm, that, whatever generalities he may put forth +concerning Mexican reorganization and growth, the purpose of his sway +cannot be the real elevation or freedom of the people. He has espoused +the interests of that party which seeks to perpetuate among the mass of +the people ignorance, superstition, poverty, and social degradation. +While, therefore, his invasion originated to a very great extent in +injustice and thirst for power, it is not probable that his occupation +of the country will be used with any intention of elevating and blessing +it. + +But God is greater than man. And so it may well happen that the results +of human ambition may be kinder than its purpose. And if Louis Napoleon +gives Mexico rest from change and suffering, that will be something. If +the steel gauntlet crushes out the banditti, and the silken glove +encourages honest toil, then, by the blessing of God, with stable +industry and peace secured to her, and with every good gift blossoming +at her feet, Mexico may yet be trained to take her place among the +galaxy of the nations. And when that hour comes, if come it may, it will +be no power four thousand miles across gulf and sea that will keep her +from her true destiny. + + + + +THE RIM. + + +PART III.--CONCLUSION. + +The boat went cutting through the tide-waves and dashing the spray over +her bows, the wide sea was opening all around them,--the salt wind stung +his brain to keener life. To what horrid fate were they hurrying, she +alone with this maniacal man? Out there beyond, away and away, the +mighty billows tossed in their cruel glee, silvered their crests and +horns in the moonlight, and grew and disappeared like phantoms. Her +heart sank down abysses with every beat,--she covered her face with her +hands in some vain call for miraculous aid. + +Just then another boat came by and took the wind from their sails. +Eloise felt the slackened speed, and looked up. First the figure of a +horseman standing against the sky on the cliff above, as if a portion of +the stone itself, caught her eye; next, the sail sheering by them; then +she was on her feet beside Marlboro'. She reached out her hand to the +tiller; she looked in his face and laughed in her old way. It was hardly +an effort, for all at once her heart had grown light as a bubble. + +"Mr. Marlboro'," she said, in the sweet natural ring of her every-day +tones and without a quiver, "these are the Blue Bluffs close above us." + +The voice, the air, the meaning, made him irresolute. At the same moment +the tiller obeyed her hand, that threw out all its strength, the sails +flapped loosely across their bending brows, they went about, heading for +the little cove of still water. + +"You are right," said he. "That is our home. What fiercely glad wild +dream have I had? Our home!" + +The keel grated on the pebbles,--some one came dashing down the narrow +path, shoved them off, and leaped on board. + +"Now, Marlboro'," said Mr. St. George, "the rudder is mine. A pretty +dance with Death have you been leading Miss Changarnier! How long do you +suppose this cockle-shell could buffet such a sea as is playing outside? +Do you fancy I can countenance such treatment of my ward? Ease that rope +a little, Miss Eloise. Here we go! What will Murray say, Marlboro', when +he sees me come sailing by with you? + + "'A-sailing and a-sailing, + My love he left me sad; + A-sailing and a-sailing, + Let him come and make me glad!'" + +sang Mr. St. George, and they went flying up the river. + + "The south winds blow, the waters flow, + His sail is in the sun; + Though twenty storms between us go, + His heart and mine are one," + +sang Eloise, in jubilant response at her safety,--and Marlboro', fain to +follow, echoed the air they trolled. + +Up the stream, this way and that, tacking and veering, past the boats +that hung on their oars and cheered them this time lustily themselves, +touching shore,--and the hunters had their boat again. Then all trooping +back across the turf, her hand in his, to the place where Marlboro's +horse waited with pawing hoofs. What a mad evening it had been! And in +the whirl of it Eloise had uttered no word to break her bonds. But +broken they must be;--in what insanity had she riveted them,--set free +this slave of his passion? His bottle-imp--had not her master once said +it?--must grow into a demon that with his wide wings would blacken the +sky. One experience of it was too much. Oh, why had nobody warned her? + +Every one must have a cup of coffee to counteract the damp. Mrs. Arles +had it ready. The horse at the door gave a loud, impatient neigh. The +rider would not wait. + +"You were right, Marlboro'," said, in his significant undertone, Mr. St. +George to him from the other side, as he mounted, while Eloise stood on +the step above. "Success perched on your banners. I should have lost, if +I had tossed." + +"You know it, then? Why, then, of course, it's true. I am half afraid +lest it prove one of my cloud-capped dreams. I shall need no more opium +to-night, I have other magic," said Marlboro',--bent down and would have +kissed the forehead of Eloise, when the horse curvetted, reared, and +galloped off. + +Was she really pledged? then thought Eloise, as the bead of all her +defiant effervescence fell. Was there no loop of escape? Had she so +rashly given all at once? Should she inevitably become the wife of +Marlboro'? Were the chains upon her? Was she doomed? Nobody guessed her +misery, as she reentered with a _fanfare_ of jests, unless it were the +gay St. George himself. + +"Are you to be congratulated?" asked the low-voiced Mrs. Arles, having +smilingly approached. + +"No, no, indeed!" exclaimed Eloise, in a smothered agony; and Mrs. +Arles, misunderstanding her, supposed it was not finally arranged. + +"What a reckless rider!" cried Miss Murray, looking down the moonlit way +after Marlboro'. + +"It is not the only reckless thing he does," said her brother. + +"No," interpolated Mr. Dean. "The way in which Marlboro' manages his +affairs is too Plutonic. But what a gloss those shining sovereign +manners of his do put upon it all!" + +"Sovereign manners! Don't talk of sovereign manners, unless you mention +Mr. St. George's," said Lottie Humphreys under her breath, and glancing +to see if he could possibly hear with the length of the room between +them. "Mr. St. George puts my heart in a flutter, when he asks will I +have ice or cream." + +"I've no doubt of it," whispered Emma Houghton, with meaning. + +"Sure you're right, Dean?" asked Mr. Humphreys. "I should not like to +have at home the dangerous cattle Marlboro' can put finger on." + +"Perhaps they would be less dangerous, if the fingers were less +weighty." + +"Here's Marlboro's theory, and in the long run it's about the true one, +you must confess.--Shut that door, Kate, my dear.--A cramped stature +does not feel a cramped roof; but raise the stature, and the slave +outgrows his institution, and there's revolt. Eh? There's such a thing +as equally bad extremes. Our old friend Mr. Erne's of late, and St. +George's now,--beg your pardon, St. George,--are both of them just as +bad the other way." + +"You are severe," said St. George, as he set the chessmen. + +"Our host yonder," continued Mr. Humphreys, in the best of humors, +sipping his coffee, "among his other crotchets, endows his people with +what Nature saw fit to deny to them,--souls. But he's one of those men +autocratic enough to reverse Nature. Indeed,--I am out of all +patience,--the whole place is managed other than I think at all wise." + +"That is to be regretted," said St. George, challenging his adversary. + +"Well, here is an instance, a single instance, trivial enough, but +dragging after it a train as enormous as the Genius drew from the +fisherman's jar. These people are reared to a degree of independence +that will stop no one knows where. They supply the house with poultry, +eggs, and vegetables from their own yards, which the house purchases +with money, or with commodities beyond the usual allowance,--actually +pays for,--do you mark? Any labor of extra hours is always compensated; +there is a system of holidays; the quarters are, so to say, palatial; +and, in fact, a very detrimental policy is pursued,--one that occasions +discontent on all the neighboring plantations. Marlboro' 'd have less +trouble, if St. George had different discipline. It will not do,--I've +told you so, St. George,--I'm older than you,--it will not do. There are +hands on the place who, as their master says, have found their manhood +and felt their slavery: there's one of them now, that coachman Ned. I'd +sell him to-morrow." + +"Will Mr. St. George?" + +"He? Oh, no! There's this Quixotic chivalry again! You listen, my dear +fellow? He will let the man purchase his freedom,--if he don't lend him +the money to do it himself! Ha! ha! ha!" + +"But," said Mr. Dean, "I've tried St. George's plan, on his +recommendation, these three or four months, Humphreys,--not wishing to +be illiberal, or have the world outstrip me,--and, so far, I find that +it will do very well,--that it will do admirably." + +"Well, we won't speak of new brooms." + +"Yet there's a great deal of disturbance everywhere about, I hear. You +don't know, perhaps," said Mr. Houghton, in an under-voice, and +nervously drawing up his chair, "that Marlboro' has had his place under +guard these three weeks?" + +"Crowded on all his steam, and now he's sitting on the valve. What a +blessed life it is!" said Mr. Dean. + +"Come, come, Dean, we shall have to look up your record!" + +"Dear me!" said Miss Murray, "why will you talk about it? It's worse +than ghost-stories just before bed. I've heard you gentlemen insinuating +so much together that I fancy every night I hear the great alarm-bell +booming in my dreams." + +"There's no danger of that here." + +"But it would be so terrible anywhere!" + +"Here is Will," said her mother, as the young brother of Laura entered. +"If, my dear friends, we should change the subject for bed-candles"-- + +"Check!" said Mr. St. George, rising. + +It was a balmy meridional night, and Eloise, at length alone in her +misery, leaned from her window to breathe the wind that floated in over +the fields, fragrant and gentle. Leaning there, and great resplendent +stars seeming to hang out of heaven close above her, the minutes went +slipping into the hours, and the house-clock struck one, startling her +with its peal, as doubtless it did Miss Murray. Bending her head that +she might not strike the sash, a dark cobweb caught Eloise's eye;--it +was a lace shawl, which the draught had borne through the window, and +caught outside upon the thorny vine. It was too firmly fixed to +disentangle at a touch; she put out her hand, and, taking the stem, +shook the whole blossoming mass, scattering a rain of dew and perfume, +and the filmy thing detached and fluttered to the ground. Without +waiting to think, Eloise hastened down and found an exit. Coming round +beneath the gable, the great dog following with his nose in her hand, +she found herself insphered in a soft light that stole from the open +cabinet-casement, but, hoping to escape notice, flitted on after the +lace, with which the breeze was already frolicking. Suddenly the dog +perceived her object and bounded after it. Fear possessed her soul; it +was Laura Murray's; he would rend and mouth the costly thing, which her +whole year's salary, she thought, could not buy, as he would her +handkerchief. She softly called him away; but the dog refused to hear. + +"Rounce!" cried another voice, and Rounce came tumbling and gambolling +back, while Mr. St. George obtained the shawl, and was beside her. + +"So, Miss Changarnier, it was this little thing that brought you out +here after midnight? Never do it again. It is forbidden. Nothing could +be more unsafe." + +"Thank you, Mr. St. George; I did not perceive danger." + +As she spoke, and while they paused, there stole upon them the far and +faint pulsation of a bell. It was the tide-bell placed on a distant reef +to swing and ring with the ebb and flow. + + "Era gia l' ora che volge 'l desio + A' naviganti, e intenerisce 'l cuore + Lo di ch' an detto a' dolci amici a Dio; + + "E che lo nuovo peregrin d' amore + Punge, se ode squilla di lontano + Che paia 'l giorno pianger che si muore," + +murmured Mr. St. George, half lifting the book in which his bitter mood +had sought stinging solace, and where his finger yet kept the place. + +"It is many hours too late for that sweet vesper-bell," said Eloise. + +"Any slow bell at night is like it. The tones of a bell are always +homesick tones to me,--who have no home!" + +"You, Sir!" said Eloise, forgetfully,--half losing sight of her own +burden. + +Mr. St. George, for all response, gazed at her a moment. Was she +entirely plighted to Marlboro'? Could she care for him? How far did that +tacit promise go? + +"Eloise!" he said. + +But suddenly she turned away her head, outstretching a forbidding hand. +Abruptly he bowed and stepped aside, and followed her only at a +distance. + + * * * * * + +When Mr. Marlboro' appeared just at breakfast the next morning, with a +color fanned into his cheek by the half-score miles of gallop, Vane came +trotting along behind him. + +"Vane," said Mr. Marlboro', after he had saluted Eloise as warmly as he +dared, "this is your mistress." + +And Eloise felt her fetters close miserably upon her. This had been his +device to know if he had dreamed or not on the night before, to detect +whether his joy were solid truth or mounting laudanum-fumes. But as for +Vane, so soon as his bow was made and homage paid, he fled away round +the corner and lost himself in Hazel's happy arms. + +At dinner that day the ladies rose early, as they were to dress for a +wedding-party that awaited them some miles away. Just as Eloise, who was +the last, passed out of the door which Mr. St. George held open, he +produced from somewhere and placed in her hand a braided trencher of +broad vine and fig-leaves that bore a mass of strange and beautiful +growth. Scarcely had she plunged taper fingers between the scented +layers, when a box with Mr. Marlboro's compliments was delivered, which, +on being laughingly opened, proved to hold rare wreaths of pinky buds +and bells. + + "Four gray walls and four gray towers + Overlook a space of flowers," + +hummed Lottie; but Mr. St. George was consummately oblivious, and +returned to his friends. Why it fell out, that, when Miss Changarnier +came floating down the staircase again, robed in something thin, white, +and glittering as the hoar-frost itself, the darkness of her hair was +twined neither with the roseate Marlboro' bells, nor yet with the long +acacia-sprays whose golden balls should have expanded and bloomed in the +light and heat till they seemed like fragrant drops of lustre, Miss +Changarnier could best tell for herself. + +But the wedding passed as weddings do,--to-day cake, to-morrow +crumbs,--and at length the carriages were ordered for The Rim. The +evening had not been without its triumphs to Eloise, however many masks +she wore over her inner depression. St. George had forgotten her till a +late hour, and, conspicuous as Marlboro's _devoir_ had been, her own +acceptance of it had been scarcely less so. Perhaps there was nothing in +the world, of its kind, more beautiful than Eloise Changarnier's +dancing. Fragrances, if they were visible, would float with just such a +dreamy grace from flower to flower. Simple and sensuous, yet airy and +fine, was the spirit of every motion; and with every wave, with every +look, she appealed to the beholder's heart. Swimming down the room on +the slow circles of the indolent languor of the waltz, perfumes fanning +all about her, the wind lifting the curtains and letting in gleams of +amethyst heavens and low-hanging stars, the music pulsing in passionate +throbs,--once only she raised her eyes, and the great beryl jewels +rested on Earl St. George Erne's, as he leaned against the wall with his +supreme indifference of lordly manner; and if he revenged himself with +the swift gleam of that involuntary smile that must never kindle for +her, though it shot its light over brow and lip forever, he never knew +it. An instant afterwards he was beside her, yet he dared not with the +next strain suffer it to be his arm that upheld her, and Eloise sat +where he placed her and danced no more. And then Mrs. Murray came, and +they all took their seats in the carriages: Laura jubilant, but stately; +Lottie eminently dishevelled, and still clutching the crumpled list of +her partners; Master Will with his fists in his eyes, and heavy beneath +a drowsiness from which he soon had enough to waken him; while in Mr. +St. George's deportment to every one there was a shade of the old +sardonic displeasure with which he was occasionally wont to favor his +friends. But Lottie, after a few furlongs, was asleep in somebody's +arms; the rest were, perhaps, living the evening over again in reverie; +the other carriages were far, far ahead, and theirs, which, having been +detained, was the last, trundled on slowly over a bad road. At length +Laura stirred, and exclaimed,-- + +"Did you ever hear such divine music, Eloise? Why didn't Mrs. Arles +come, do you know, Mr. Marlboro'?" + +"Does Mrs. Arles go into such general society?" replied Mr. Marlboro'. + +"Can't say. How long she wore black! so long that it has really become +quite gray! Has she been husbanding her charms, or is she husbanding +them now? Don't you shake your fan at me, Eloise Changarnier, or I shall +tell how you said it yourself this very noon!" + +The carriage-top had been thrown open, and at the moment of these words +Miss Changarnier saw Mr. St. George, from his seat on the box beside the +coachman, hastily start and turn, but whether on account of Mrs. Arles, +or at something in the road, she could not discern; for Marlboro's horse +having very singularly fallen lame in the stables that night, she had +heard Mr. St. George muttering something about foul play, as he offered +the other a seat, and she felt that he entertained apprehensions. Had +she seen Marlboro's arm raised quiveringly, while the lash of the +riding-whip fell across the groom's face in a welt, as he dismissed him, +she might have felt also a womanly fear that the apprehensions were not +groundless. For Marlboro', unable to get speech with Eloise one moment +apart from others that day, had fled home in a fury, and had thus, when +his anger cooled, been obliged to ride alone to the place of merry +rendezvous. + +Gradually, now, as they jogged along, Mrs. Murray began nodding here and +there about the carriage, dropping her head very much as if she meant to +drop it for good and all; one by one the others forgot themselves; but +Eloise could see Marlboro' in the opposite corner sitting alert and pale +and sparkling-eyed, and felt that Mr. St. George was watching every +brier on the road-side, beneath his slouching brim. At length the +carriage stopped with a jerk just as they reached the little log-bridge +that crossed the creek, and Mr. St. George appeared at the door. + +"You must all alight a moment," he said. "Here is a break-down;--and, +moreover, a log of the bridge has been displaced,"--the last in an aside +to Marlboro'. + +It took but a few moments to repair the road, and to tie up the broken +springs of the coach as they could; but, after a trial, it was found +impossible for all to ride. + +"I will walk," said Eloise, stepping down before any one could arrest +her. "We were all too much crowded. Come with me, Will,--if only, Mr. +St. George, you will take the reins yourself and spare Ned to us?" + +"No," said Mr. St. George, perhaps knowing from old experience that it +would be useless to oppose Eloise, and having no time to lose. "Keep +your place, Will; do you hear? The horses are best used to the customary +driver. That makes it all right." + +"Certainly, St. George, this should be my duty!" exclaimed Marlboro'. + +But, as he sprang up, Mr. St. George's arm barred the way. + +"You have quite enough to do to take care of yourself, Marlboro'!" said +he, thrusting his revolver into the other's hand. "Drive on, Ned. Only +keep us in sight." + +"Mas'r Sin George, Sah," said the stolid Ned, "you are safe enough. +Expect, 'f you want _him_ safe," with supreme contempt, "I'd better get +de go out o' dese yer critters wile dey feel der oats!" + +"Wretched insolence!" murmured Marlboro', still incensed. And in a few +minutes the coach had disappeared round the winding way. + +"So much for Marlboro's theories!" burst forth St. George, in a moment. +"A man's works follow him. Sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind is +too much of a good thing. He has been away so long and so often, there +has been such mismanagement under a long minority, such changes and such +misrule, such a hard hand and such a high hand, that the whole place is +a fester. How dares he prowl round the country so after nightfall? I +wouldn't give a pin for his life this moment, if it weren't for that +white defiance of his that would back him against a whole Ashantee +tribe! If he were the coward that I am, he'd be a better master; but +he's what the poor trash call a damned aristocrat,--which means an +aristocrat past salvation, I take it." + +Eloise laughed to hear the words from Mr. St. George's autocratic lips. +"It is very odd," said she, "that so formidable an aristocracy must +needs underlie so powerful a democracy!" + +The night was clear and deep; great shadows floated down from the +heavens, as if of beings travelling on the winds: one of those perfect +seasons when the powers of the dark seem to be surprised at their work, +although low in the horizon behind lay a glimmer, as if the hour were +soon to bring forth its marvel,--a glimmer which made the whole more +weird, and hung the very spirit of summer nights about them as they +walked. + +"What should you have thought of yourself, Miss Eloise," said Mr. St. +George, "if a year ago, you had seen your image prospected on the canvas +of a dark and lonely highway, extremely late at night, or early in the +morning,--as you choose,--with, for sole companion, a creature who +indulges himself in pipes, porter, and parties, a usurper, a +demagogue,--in fact, one who can be represented only as disreputable? A +very improper young woman?" + +One year ago! The tears sprang to Eloise's eyes. She dared not look up, +but let them fall from the downcast lashes. Yet Mr. St. George saw them. + +"And what is there, so painful in the picture, may I ask?" said he. + +"A year ago my father was alive, Mr. St. George." + +A change came over his face,--pallor like a soft cloud. + +"Yet you are better off than I," he said, with singular unreserve for +him. "It is twelve times as long since _my_ father was with _me_. And +you could hardly have worshipped the one more than I worship the memory +of the other." + +Yet, as if this at least were a sympathy between them, his manner became +for the moment tenderer, and he forgot himself in order to arouse her. +For Eloise was already full of reproach at having made one at so gay a +reunion,--not remembering that all the rest had seriously vowed they +would stay at home, unless she joined them, and that the wedding had +been also that of a dear friend. So Mr. St. George was no longer lofty; +he told her strange legends of the region that somehow she had never +heard, repeated tiny droplets of song that would have lost their +volatile essence in any alembic of translation, pointed out to her all +the signs of the night, for the nonce forgot politics, and gathered +spray after spray of the gorgeous creepers from the way-side, whose +names and natures he knew. + +"How is it," she asked, "that you, whose mind is certainly filled with +things of an apparently vaster scale,--with legislation and war and +finance,--can care for these bubbles, these songs and flowers?" + +"Do you know Homer, Miss Eloise,--Chapman's Homer? Although I'm not sure +but that the old English poet breathes a bloom upon the Greek. Well, I +do not forget, that, when the envoys went to appease the enraged +AEacides, that thunderer in arms,-- + + "The quarter of the Myrmidons they reached, and found him set + Delighted with his solemn harp, which curiously was fret + With works conceited through the verge; the bawdrick that embraced + His lofty neck was silver twist; this, when his hand laid waste + Aetion's city, he did choose as his especial prize, + And, loving sacred music well, made it his exercise." + +"That is superb! You must find me the place to-morrow. But Achilles +playing on the harp? I am afraid he will suffer in Will Murray's +estimation." + +"Hush! don't breathe it! Will doesn't know it yet,--perhaps may never +find it out. Do you know, Miss Eloise, as you go flitting along in that +misty dress, with the little scarf dropping from your hair, that you are +like the very soul of a white cloud fallen from above and trailing along +beside me?" + +"I? with my dark skin?" said Eloise, before she thought. + +"Yes, you, Egypt! White, because there combine all colors that are; and +in you--pardon me--there is a universal wealth of tint, be it carnation, +sea-green, black, or cream, so harmonized that one looks a hundred times +before finding it all. You recollect how a great painter produces his +effect of white,--of white sunlight on a stem? He lays the solar +spectrum there, the seven colors of light,--and their union in the +beholder's eye makes the dash of sunshine, the white lustre. Do you +know, in fact, what you remind me of?" + +"No,--how should I?--Hark! what was that?" + +It was the pealing of a bell, the far and faint pulsation of that bell +she had once before heard, as it rang out the changes of the sea, now +above and now below the flashing, falling foam-crests. + +"It is the tide-bell," said Mr. St. George, stiffly; and, with the word, +the previous midnight rose as if by incantation, and she kept her eyes +on the ground. Yet, as they walked, it seemed to Eloise that her +quickened senses detected a hidden rustle and murmur, as if the distant +morasses, the neighboring thickets, were alive. She seemed to be aware +of soft and stealthy soundless foot-falls; shadowy forms, she would have +said, were gliding around them in the night. Cold terror made her heart +stand still. Suddenly all these fears condensed into shape,--two flaming +eyeballs glared in the copse,--a shock, a flash, a smell of powder, just +as she had seized Mr. St. George's arm and snatched him back. Then the +boughs crashed, and the dark shade went leaping away. Terror died in +Eloise's heart. Intrepid rage possessed her. She sprang forward, still +holding him back with the continued gesture of the light hand on his +arm, and gazed over the bushes, the very incarnation of splendid +fearlessness and defiance. Mr. St. George laughed. + +"Is there nothing that excites your indignation?" she cried. "Could you +not have throttled him?" + +"A flash in the pan," said he, coolly. "However, it might have been +worse. It has blown a breeze through my _sombrero_,"--taking off the +hat, which the ball had partly twisted around. "It was meant for +Marlboro', Miss Changarnier. I am in his place to-night, you see. You +have misled the rascals. Listen!" he murmured, in a lower tone, beside +her. "There is a freemasonry among these black devils,--doubtless the +tide-bell signals some secret meeting. They are all about us. Here! you +are the last person to be seen. Take this, and hurry on while I wait; +you can walk fast. Go!" + +And the handle of a knife, a great broad blade, produced from some +hidden sheath, was between her fingers. + +But Eloise did not stir. + +"Go!" he repeated, in the same smothered murmur. + +"Place you in such danger? Leave you so?" said Eloise. "Never!" + +"Do as I bid you!" he replied, in a tone as full of cold, unsuppressed +bitterness as a north wind, motioning her away, and moving back. + +The moon behind him, as he stepped, was floating up from the horizon, a +great bubble of glory, whitening the tops of the whole dark landscape, +throwing out in glittering points, like frosted silver-work, the rimy, +dewy tracery of budding boughs, studding each twig with gems, and +pouring light into the high hollow heaven, like vast draughts shed +crystal-clear from some shining drinking-horn. When, then, Mr. St. +George mounted the stump by the way-side and stood there erect, +weaponless and with folded arms, the moonlight upslanted full on face +and form, and made him as distinctly and rigidly visible to all the low +land on either side the road as if he had been some statue set up for a +mile-stone. A little time he remained so. A night-hawk slowly wheeled +from a distant grove, and came dreamily sailing high above his head. +There was an instant's flare that revealed a group of dusky faces in the +swamp below, a report, and the night-hawk plunged downwards and fell at +his feet. + +"Mas'r Sin George," cried a voice, grim with murder ten minutes since, +"we lebe you our card. Good night!" + +Mr. St. George stood there a moment and watched the group till it faded +off from sight in the shadows of that distant cypress-grove, and then +stepped down and found Eloise with clasped hands exactly where he had +left her. + +"Why didn't you obey?" he said,--but this time with what a different +voice! "You could not feel your danger! You did not know your risk! +Great God, Eloise"---- + +Mr. St. George silenced himself abruptly. + +"Well," he continued, after a few paces, "I convinced the wretches of my +identity. It is quite like life in the Romagna, an hour with the +brigands of the Marches, is it not? It is pleasant to play the hero for +five minutes. But you! They know Marlboro' can be hurt through you. +Truth runs in subtle channels here. Come, hasten! By God! if I had such +people as Marlboro's, I _would_ sell them, and that with a +tan-toasting!--or I'd send them all to the North, that's so fond of +them! Come, hasten!"--and, half dragging her on his arm, he strode +forward, wordless and fierce, till they reached the house. + +I do not know what thoughts whirled through Eloise's dreamless brain +during the rest of that night, nor with what half-trembling resolutions +she arose, nor how much pride she had drowned in a vaster flood. But +when she descended, she found the house ablaze with fearful rumors that +had risen like marsh-lights everywhere out of the ground. All was not +right at Blue Bluffs, they said; some escaping slave--perhaps the +compunctious Vane himself, who knew?--had dared to breathe of great +disturbance and of retaliatory examples during the week before, which, +seen in the light of last night's broken bridge and gunshots, struck up +fresh terror. At noon Marlboro' came, but only for a brief stay. There +had been trouble with the creatures on his place, he said, +contemptuously, owing to some conspiracy among them, suspicions and +punishments. He could not account for such a state of affairs, unless +through incendiary emissaries. If further punishments were found +necessary, they should be just within the letter of the law, he vowed in +an angry aside to Mr. Humphreys,--the thing must now be settled once for +all. He would be here again on the next day, no new occurrence detaining +him at home, he said, as calmly as if that covered nothing; and with his +fair hair shining in the sun, and the handsome Vandyck-face laughing +over the shoulder, he rode off in gay heart and knightly guise, +accompanied by Evan Murray and Earl St. George Erne. + +They were all standing on the piazza that night, looking for Mr. St. +George's return ere going to bed. A sudden toll, and then a sharp, quick +ringing, broken by other tolls, burst the air close above them. + +It was the alarm-bell, and Ned the saturnine, rebellious in reason and +loyal in love, stood at the wheel. Mr. Murray, the father, leaped away. +Mr. Humphreys drew his brood within-doors. There was mustering of +weapons, shrieking of children; Miss Houghton fell in hysterics; Mrs. +Arles brought her the camphor, as quietly as she would have done at any +other time; Miss Changarnier stood like the expiatory victim for the +white race. Then came runners, overseers galloped up the avenue, +gentlemen, crackers, and leashed blood-hounds. There followed hurried +words and counter-commands; then part remained, part dashed away on the +road to Blue Bluffs. Nobody thought of sleeping; in the dead of night +the dull tramp of infantry resounded from the distant turnpike, and +later they heard the clang of grounding arms, and by the faint morning +light they saw the forms of the silent sentries stalking stalwart about +them, while, all around, the Erne slaves pursued, some their usual +routine, some the steps of the moment's master or mistress, and others +watched, huddled into frightened groups. Eloise stood leaning against +one side of the long drawing-room window; without knowing it, her +fingers constantly closed around the knife that lay in her belt, and +which she had failed to restore to its owner. All night she kept her +motionless position, looking far out and away to the eastward, till the +dark mass of Blue Bluffs should resolve itself into the azure mist of +castellated height that by daylight ever loomed upon the sea-horizon. + +Hours of suspense and of silence. At length, hurriedly resounding hoofs, +and St. George once more stood among them. + +"A revolt at Blue Bluffs," said he. + +"As I have expected every night this month," said Mr. Dean. + +"They have captured the ringleaders?" demanded Mrs. Arles. + +"What have they done with them?" cried Emma Houghton. + +Every one paused. + +"Never mind," said Mr. St. George, with a terrible hiatus. + +"And where is Mr. Marlboro'?" + +"Where should you expect a man to be who crowds down the steam and sits +on the valve,--who walks on crater-crust? Marlboro',--poor +Marlboro'!--Marlboro' is dead." + +Eloise dropped in a heap upon the floor. + +The women gathered over her and got her away, laid at last upon her +bed,--and then she ordered them all to leave her, which glad enough were +they to do. + +Mr. St. George walked the room in silence then, and finally sitting down +and resting his elbows on the table, remained so a long time,--his +knotted brow hidden by the tightly clasped hands. Nobody got any further +information from him. They must wait till Evan Murray returned with the +officers from the forts. Then he rose. + +"You are in no danger here," he said to Mr. Murray. "There is a guard +detailed for every adjacent plantation. The affair is altogether +crushed.--I must go just the same," he muttered, and entered his cabinet +alone. + +It was about two hours afterward, that Eloise--with whom, after having +roused herself from the horror of the shock, a feeling of unspeakable +pity, awe, and quaking terror had merged in another of equally +indescribable and cruel relief and freedom--was wakened from the dull +dream that sogged upon her brain in answering the place of two nights' +lost rest, by a servant at the door who brought to her a note. All +confused at the instant of starting, suddenly memory struck out the late +events in letters of fire. Half awake, with her pulse beating in great +shocks all about her wherever a pulse could play, she tore the note open +and read its but half-interpretable hieroglyphs twice before she +comprehended it. + + "Distasteful as the thought of me may be at such a time, you + must endure it for a moment. + + "I return to you to-day the property of which many months + ago I despoiled you. I leave it in better condition than I + found it, and so well has it met my demands, that, in spite + of all expenditure, you will find the customary income for + the length of time in the cabinet-escritoire untouched. + + "I leave it because it becomes impossible for me to retain + it. I leave it because it becomes impossible for me to live + longer in the house with you, to breathe the air you + breathe, to feel myself growing desperate beneath the sound + of your voice. Because I cannot see you in sorrow for + another. Because self-control can go no farther. I leave it, + Eloise, because I love you! + + "If I cherished one hope, it would not be at this time that + I should tell you my deadly secret. I have none, and + therefore I go. + + "EARL ST. GEORGE ERNE." + +A sickly thrill of something like disgust swept over Eloise as she read, +that one could think of anything but the great horrid fact of the hour. +Then she trembled from head to foot, and hid her face with shame and +sobs. "What does it mean?" she cried. "'At such a time'? What time? Oh! +he thinks--can he think?--I love Marlboro'! Will no one keep him? Is he +gone? He leaves because he loves me? Why, if he loves me, I should think +he would stay! Oh, is it true? is it true? St. George, St. George, do +you love me?" Hurriedly she smoothed her hair while she exclaimed, threw +over her shoulders the scarf of blue and silver hanging across the +mirror, and ran down. + +Mr. St. George had that moment left, saying he was absolutely obliged to +depart, but that he hoped his guests would remain the guests of Miss +Changarnier. His luggage was to be sent after him. + +"Which way had he gone? towards Blue Bluffs?" + +"No, the other way." + +Eloise summoned Vane and Hazel to follow her, and, flashing out of the +house, went rapidly down the mazes of the woody avenue, over the fields, +to the nearest place where the road crossed the creek. If Mr. St. George +was on the winding highway, by taking this straight cut she would reach +the creek even before his galloping horse could do so. At length she +paused, stationed Hazel and Vane behind her,--busy enough in themselves, +for Hazel, become happy again, had again become coquette,--and went on +alone. There had been a heavy shower that morning; Eloise stooped and +examined the clayey path that led up from the creek, to see if +footprints had lately been set there, and found nothing. The minutes +dragged away like hours, and when thirty elapsed, she wondered why it +was not growing dark. "He has not come this way!" she exclaimed. "He is +gone! I never shall know where he is!"--and she threw herself down among +the wild, rich growth that half rose and buried her. Gradually, when her +fever of sobs had died away, a sound broke on her ear, the sound of a +slow, steady tramp. Was it the beating of her heart?--or was it Earl St. +George? It drew nearer; she dared not rise and see. She heard the splash +of the feet in the water, in the intense light within her brain could +seem to see the dark water strike up and break in showers of prisms. +Then the feet left it, and came up the bank. Should she dare? If she +delayed--Suddenly that apparition tangled in the blue and silver scarf +rose and confronted Mr. St. George. + +The horse knew her, as he swerved, then bent to rub his cheek on her +shoulder; Rounce, who, from stopping to plant his nose deep in every +rose upon his way, had just rushed up breathless, knew her too, and fell +to frolicking about her feet. She stood with both her arms about the +horse's bending neck, with her face half drooping there, and the black, +falling tress curving forward on the cheek. + +"I never loved him!" was what she murmured. "I never meant to marry +him!" + +"Miss Changarnier!" exclaimed Mr. St. George, dismounting, thinking, +perhaps, that trouble made her wild. "Here? To-day? Alone? You must +return at once!" + +"I never, never will return, unless you take me back!" she said, raising +her head, but not daring to raise her quivering glance. + +"Eloise! Eloise! Do you know what you say?" + +She ventured just a glimpse at the dark eyes above her, glowing and +glooming, smiles breaking out of their pain, and then with a little +blind motion the tender face was hidden in his breast. + +Just there a cloud peeled off the sun and went all radiant upon its way, +the silent birds fell into one deep chorus, the locust shot out its +great whirring lance of jubilant sound, the whole forest grew astir and +alive over the glad secret it had learned. + +The sun was setting, when Mr. St. George, leading his horse, on whose +back Eloise was throned, and followed by Hazel and Vane, came into view +of the wondering, waiting, indignant party on the piazza. The party, +fickle as any mob, be it patrician or plebeian, was easily appeased with +such quarry as it found, and changed itself straightway with acclaim +into a bridal party. That night St. George brought in and tried upon the +third finger of the white left-hand a narrow glittering band. + +"Nothing but a wedding-fetter?" he asked. "Yet capable of great things, +that fetter! It holds the famous elixir which sinks two identities in +one; it is the visible sign of a sacrament; it is to be the type of our +souls' union, pure, perfect, and without end"---- + +But here, perhaps, the eyes of Eloise silenced him, perhaps the mouth. +And when life settled in its new channel at The Rim, Eloise, wearing at +last her father's name, sat at the head of her husband's table, and Mrs. +Earl St. George Erne herself entertained her guests. They lingered a +little while, with the disinclination that any group finds to separate, +and circumstances had knitted a bond among them all. And then, when +deepening summer ended the renewed cheer, Mrs. Arles put on her +widow's-cap once more, her little foot went into obscurity, and the gold +and ebony riding-whip hung reclaimed above her mantel. + + + + +WATCHING. + + + In childhood's season fair, + On many a balmy, moonless summer night, + While wheeled the light-house arms of dark and bright + Far through the humid air,-- + + How patient have I been, + Sitting alone, a happy little maid, + Waiting to see, cheery and unafraid, + My father's boat come in,-- + + Close to the water's edge + Holding a tiny spark, that he might steer + (So dangerous the landing far and near) + Safe past the ragged ledge! + + No fears had I, not one. + The wild, wide waste of water leagues around + Washed ceaselessly, there was no human sound, + And I was all alone. + + But Nature was so kind! + Like a dear friend I loved the loneliness; + My heart rose glad, as at some sweet caress, + When passed the wandering wind. + + Yet it was joy to hear + From out the darkness sounds grow clear at last, + Of rattling rowlocks, and of creaking mast, + And voices drawing near. + + "Is't thou, dear father? Say!" + What well-known shout resounded in reply, + As loomed the tall sail, smitten suddenly + With the great light-house ray! + + I will be patient now, + Dear Heavenly Father, waiting here for Thee! + I know the darkness holds Thee! Shall I be + Afraid, when it is Thou? + + On Thy eternal shore, + In pauses, when Life's tide is at its prime, + I hear the everlasting rote of Time + Beating forevermore! + + Shall I not, then, rejoice? + Oh, never lost or sad should child of Thine + Sit weeping, fearing lest there come no sign, + No whisper of Thy voice! + + + + +ON HORSEBACK INTO OREGON. + + +After our return from the Yo-Semite Valley, Bierstadt and myself +remained in San Francisco, or its delightful neighborhood, making short +excursions around and across the bay, for more than a fortnight. But +this lotus-eating life soon palled. We burned to see the giant Shasta, +and grew thirsty for the eternal snows of the Cascade Peaks still +farther north. So much of a horseback-ride to the Columbia as brought us +into Oregon I here propose to sketch in brief. + +The rest of our party had become sated with travel and gone home. One +glorious September day we took our saddle-bags, note-books, and +color-boxes, put our horses on board the Sacramento steamer, and, +without other baggage or company of any sort, set out for the Columbia +River and Vancouver's Island. + +At Sacramento, on the next morning after leaving San Francisco, we +shifted our quarters to a smaller and light-draught boat which was to +take us up the shallow river to its head of navigation. This arrangement +was a great economy of time. The country bordering the Upper Sacramento +for two hundred miles from the Californian capital is level and +comparatively tame, so that no artistic advantage would have resulted +from following the bank on horseback. From the little steamer the view +became a perpetual pleasure. About twenty miles above Sacramento we +passed the mouth of Feather River, disgorging coffee-colored mud from +the innumerable gold-diggings along its course, and came into lovely +blue water, pure as the cradling snow-ridges between which it issued. +The immediate margin began to be thickly wooded with overhanging +willows, oaks, and sycamores. These were alive with birds of every +aquatic description. The shag, a large fowl of black and dingy-white +plumage, apparently belonging to the cormorant family, peopled every +dead tree with a live fruit whose weight nearly cracked its branches; +every snag projecting from the river-bed was studded with a row of the +same creatures at mathematically equal intervals, each possessing just +room enough for his favorite pastime of slowly opening his wings to the +utmost, and then shutting them again in solemn rhythm, like a pupil of +Dr. Dio Lewis's or a patient in the Swedish Movement-Cure. The quiet +embayed pools and eddies swarmed with ducks; every sunny bar or level +beach was a stalking-ground for stately cranes, both white and +sand-hill; and garrulous crows kept the air lively, in company with big +California magpies, above our heads. + +The course of the river grew more and more sinuous as we ascended; it +was near the close of the dry season, and there remained none of those +cut-offs which economize distance during the prevalence of the rains. +The Upper Sacramento, especially when softened and rendered illusory by +such a full moon as it was our good-fortune to travel under, perpetually +recalls that loveliest of fairy streams, the higher St. John's, in +Florida. Nothing out of dreams is more peacefully enchanting than the +embowered stretches of clear water rippled into silver arabesque through +a long moonlight night, or the hazy vistas, impurpled by twilight, into +which one swings around the short curves of the Sacramento, amid a +silence that would be absolute but for his own motion, while beyond +either woody margin the great plains spread away untenanted, a waving +wilderness of wild grass and _tule_. + +Enjoying the _far-niente_ of a life of such sweet monotone all the more +because it was such a contrast to our rough riding past and future, we +spent two golden days, as many mezzotint twilights, and a pair of silver +nights upon our steamer. On the morning of the third day we reached +Tehama, a dead-and-alive little settlement, seven hours' journey by the +river-windings from Red Bluffs, the head of navigation, but only ten +miles by land. We had now got in sight of mountains; the ethereal blue +of Lassen's Buttes, rimmed with the opal of perpetual snow, bounded our +view northerly; and as every motive for taking to the saddle now +consisted with our desire for economizing time, we here began our +horseback-ride, reaching Red Bluffs several hours before the steamer. + +Just out of Tehama we struck into a country whose features reminded us +of the wooded tracts between Stockton and Mariposa. After two days of +_tule_ and wild grass, Nature grew suddenly ennobled in our eyes by +thick and frequent groves of the royal California oak. There was a +feeling of luxury in the change, which none can know who have not had a +surfeit of boundless plains. We bathed our hearts and heads in shadow; +the fever of unbroken light went out of us; our very horses shared in +the relief, and gave themselves up to a sweet somnambulism with which we +had too much sympathy to break it by spurs. + +Red Bluffs we found a place of more apparent stir and enterprise than +any Californian town we had seen, except San Francisco and Sacramento. +There was quite a New-England air about the main street,--so much so +that I have forgotten to call it _Plaza_, as I ought. This place is the +starting-point for all overland supplies sent between the Sacramento and +Portland. Immense wagons--shaped like the Eastern charcoal-vehicle, but +dwarfing it into insignificance by a size not much inferior to that of a +Mississippi flat-boat--are perpetually leaving the town, drawn by twelve +mules or horses, and in charge of drivers whose magnificent isolation +has individualized them to a degree not exceeded in the most +characteristic coachman of the Weller tribe, or the typical skipper of +the Yankee fishing-smack. There are few finer places to study _genre_ +than the California ranches frequented by the captains of these +"prairie-schooners." At convenient distances for noon halts and nightly +turnings-in, the main freighting-roads of the State are adorned with +gigantic caravanseras offering every accommodation for man and beast, +provided with arcades straddling nearly across the road, under which all +passing wagoners not only may, but must, shelter themselves from the +rigors of rain or sun, and billeted along their fronts with seductive +descriptions of the paradise within, to which few hearts prove obdurate +after being softened by the compulsory magnanimity of the arcade. + +In time there must be a railroad all the way from Sacramento to +Portland. There is not a mile of the distance between Red Bluffs and the +Oregon metropolis where it is not greatly needed already. Nearly the +whole intervening region is exhaustlessly fertile,--one of the finest +fruit-countries in the world,--but so entirely without an economical +avenue for its supplies or outlet for its productions, that many of the +ranchmen who have settled in it feel despondent in the midst of +abundance, and leave hundreds of magnificent orchard-acres paved with +rotting apples which would command a "bit" a pound in the San-Francisco +market, if the freight did not more than consume the profit, and the +length of the journey render the fruit unsalable. + +The first day out from Tehama we made a distance of nearly forty +miles,--part of the way through oak-groves and part over fine breezy +plains, with the noble mountain-chain out of which Lassen's Buttes rise +into the perpetual-snow region continually in sight on the right hand. +The only incident that occurred to us this day, in any other key than +that of pure sensuous delight in the fact of life and motion under such +a spotless sky and in an air that was such breathable elixir, together +with the artistic happiness which flowed down on us from the noble +neighboring mountains, was our discovery early in the afternoon of a +cloud of dust about half a mile ahead, with the forms of a hundred +horsemen dimly looming through it. Such a sight sets an old overlander +instinctively fumbling at his holsters; fresh as we were from the +horrors of the desert, we felt our scalps begin to detach themselves +slightly from the cranium. But we rode straight ahead, as our only +method of safety was to wear a bold front, if the cavaliers were, as we +half suspected, a party of Humboldt Indians who had lately taken the +warpath between Lassen's Buttes and the coast. I don't recollect ever +having been better pleased with the look of Uncle Sam's cavalry-uniform +than we were, upon coming up with the squad and finding it a detachment +of our own men sent out to chastise the savages. + +That night we reached a ranch called the "American,"--and certainly its +title was none too ambitious, for it had the whole horizon to itself, +and to all appearance might have been the only house on the continent. +It was a place unvisited of fresh meat and ignorant of gridirons; but we +were tired enough, after the first day of our return to the saddle, to +sleep soundly in a bed of tea-tray dimensions, and under what appeared +to be a casual selection from a hamper of soiled pocket-handkerchiefs, +when we had despatched the first of that long series of suppers on fried +pork and green-serpentine saleratus-biscuits which stretched between us +and the northern edge of Oregon. + +Though the month was September, the heat in the middle of the day upon +the broad rolling plains we now had to traverse was as oppressive as an +Eastern July. During our whole horseback-journey, therefore, we made it +our custom to rise as soon after dawn as possible, breakfast, travel a +stage of fifteen or twenty miles, make a long mid-day halt in some +pleasant nook, and push on twenty miles farther before we unsaddled for +the night. We were just now enabled to make this second stage the most +leisurely and the longest of the two,--for the moon was still in all the +glory of its California brightness and plenitude, and to have travelled +by moonlight between the Sacramento and Mount Shasta is one of the +prominent memories of a lifetime. No patriotic attachment is demanded to +make the Californian say with the Irishman that his country's full-moon +is twice as large and splendid as any other's. Phenomenally, at least, +the bare facts support him. + +At noon of the day on which we left the American Ranch, we came up a +rugged hill into the settlement of Shasta. This town is a mining depot +of some importance, chiefly memorable to us for some excellent pie, made +out of the California apple-melon, in wonderful imitation of the Eastern +green-apple tart, and a charge of five dollars and a half in gold made +by the great Californian Express Company for bringing Bierstadt's +color-box (heavy as a small valise) from Red Bluffs, whither we had let +it go on by boat. Why this should have left a memorable impression on +our minds it would be hard to say; for, although the demand was somewhat +more than the stage employed by the Express Company would have charged +to take either one of us the same distance, accompanied by a heavy +trunk, we should by this time have acquired sufficient familiarity with +extortion from the Company's officials to have paid very quietly a bill +of fifty dollars for the same service, and then dismissed the trifling +matter from our minds. But indignation at swindles is sometimes +cumulative. + +At the town of Shasta we left the main wagon-road,--finding that it +passed a long way from the most important point on our itinerary, the +base of Shasta Peak. By striking across the country six miles to the +small settlement of Buckeye, we intersected a route little travelled, +but far more picturesque, and leading directly to the great object of +our longings. On the way to Buckeye we again encountered the Sacramento, +here dwindled to a narrow mountain-stream, with bold precipitous banks +and a rock bottom, a smooth and deep, but rapid current, and full of +trout and salmon. We crossed it on a rope-ferry, and climbed the steeps +on the other side, but did not leave it. Thenceforward to Shasta Peak +we were never out of its neighborhood. + +By this _detour_ of ours we came into a country better wooded and +watered than any through which we had been travelling. When the sun left +us, we found the moonlight so seductive that we pushed on late into the +evening,--making our all-night halt at a ranch-man's whose name had been +given us by some passing native, who praised his accommodations +unboundedly, but proved much more of a friend to him than to ourselves. +It is a duty to visit the afflicted. It is a misfortune, not a crime, to +have a wife and six children, the latter all under twelve years of age. +It is a still greater and no less irresponsible calamity to have them +all prostrated by chills-and-fever, yet forbidden to yield to its +depressing influence by the stimulus of several million healthy fleas. +Ignorance, not wilfulness, may be at the causal bottom of a batch of +bread which is half saleratus, and a stew of venerable hens which is +one-third feathers. Nor can we regard it as other than a beneficent +arrangement in the grand scheme of Nature's laws, that a pack of noble +hounds should pass the hours of slumber around our humble casement in +the free indulgence of a liberty distinctly authorized by the sacred +Watts as follows,-- + + "_Let_ dogs delight to bark," etc. + +Still, I think public opinion will sustain me in the view that the much +afflicted family were not agreeable to pass the night with. + +This is the place for a useful financial statement. Everything on our +present trip cost a dollar. Bed for one, i. e. one's share of a bed for +two,--supper,--each horse's forage,--breakfast,--every several item, a +dollar. No matter how afflicted the family, saleratusy the bread, loud +the dogs,--nothing was furnished under the dollar. When people happen to +have enough dollars, this becomes comic. It reminded us of the Catskill +Mountain House, where in specie-times everything (after hotel-bills) was +twenty-five cents,--from getting a waiter to look at you, to having the +Falls tipped up for you. + +The day's journey between the afflicted family and Dog Creek, where we +stopped the third night, is such an affluent remembrance of beauty that +I feel glad while I write about it. We started under circumstances +somewhat tedious. Nobody was going toward Mount Shasta with so much as a +pack-mule. The father of the afflicted family labored under the blight +of his surroundings, and after severe thought gave up the task of +attempting to recall when anybody _had_ been going toward Mount Shasta. +It was also too much for him to calculate when anybody would be going. +We paid him his dollars,--wished that his shadow might never be less, +which it couldn't very well, unless the ague can dance on a mathematical +line,--and set out with the color-box carried alternately before us on +our pommels. It had been our _bete noire_ from the time five dollars and +fifty cents ransomed it at Shasta. We now began to wonder whether the +Express Company also had carried it on a pommel,--in which case we +thought we could forgive the Express Company. The morning was sultry, +and as we started our horses forth upon a walk,--for the box could not +stand jolting,--we looked forward to a tiresome day. + +As we went on, Nature seemed determined to kiss us out of the sulks. +Just as we broke into fresh grumbles, which we wanted to indulge, and +our horses into fresh trots, which we desired, but could not tolerate, +we entered some lovely glen, musical with tinkling springs, its walling +banks tapestried with the richest velvet of deep-green grass, brocaded +with spots of leaf-filtered sunshine. When we began to swelter, we came +into the dense shadow of great oaks, or caught the balmiest wind in the +world through aromatic pine and cedar vistas along the crown of some +lofty ridge. It was impossible to be vexed with the step-mother, Fate, +when the fingers of our mother, Nature, were straying through our hair. +To drive away the last elf of ill-humor, and make us thenceforth agree +to regard the box as an ornamental appendage which we were good-natured +enough to let each other enjoy by turns. Pitt River, the last fork of +the Upper Sacramento, came glancing into our landscape, the very +perfection of fluent freedom and gladness. Every rod of the journey +along its west bank disclosed a new picture. The misty blue mountains of +the range toward Shasta Peak formed the abiding background of every +view. Steep, fir-battlemented banks of one generic form, but endless +variety in the beauty of the tree forms and groups which rose from their +_glacis_, mile after mile, framed in some new loveliness of +light-and-shadow-flecked bend, deep sepia-dark pool, singing shallow, or +brawling rapid of the clear stream. Eagles were sailing, like a placid +thought in a large heart, far over our heads in the intimacy of a +spotless sky; the great ground-squirrel flashed like a gray gleam over +the gnarled mossy roots at the side of our narrow dug-way; and in +brilliant blots or darting shafts of Magenta fire, we recognized among +the tree-tops that loveliest bird of the North-American forest, the +great crested woodpecker. Here and there, to introduce a human element, +came cleared spaces by the river's brink, where pointed wands stood +impaling flakes of red salmon-flesh,--the open-air curing-house and +out-door store-room of the Pitt-River Indians. Once in the course of the +day we lighted on a picturesque ragged hut, where the purveyors of this +meat were soaking themselves in full side-hill sunlight,--where little +savages of every degree of gauntness in their limbs, ochriness on their +cheeks, shockiness in their heads, and protuberance in their +abdomens, were gorging themselves to still more hideous ventral +_embonpoint_,--where white men, lower than the lowest Diggers they +herded with, had forgotten the little they ever knew of civilization, +and stood glaring at us like half-sated Satyrs as we passed. Other bits +of _genre_ hourly came into the picture with pappoose-carrying squaws +who hunted yew-berries along the road-side fringe of woods, youngsters +wearing no attire but a party-colored acorn-basket of deft finger-work, +which they carried loaded on their shoulders, or listlessly trailed +empty at their sides. Dr. Prichard has some hideous pictures of Papuans +and Australians; but if Ethnology were a match-game, we could give him +those two points, and beat him easily by playing a few of the Digger +women whom we saw that day. They reached the ugliness of aboriginal +specimens which we had encountered on the west verge of the Goshoot +country; and if any earthly pilgrimage, short of the mountains of +Nightmare, can reveal _their_ rivals, I should like to get into a prime +state of health and be allowed a peep at them through a spy-glass. + +The condition of the white men who live and make alliances with these +poor creatures is too heart-sickening to print. The law that governs all +associations of culture with barbarism, where the latter is in dynamic +excess, holds rigorously true in California. The higher race recollects +only the cultivated evil of the state whence it fell,--and carrying to +its savage mates subtler means of accomplishing vice than they knew +before, presently gives rise to a combination from which all the +simplicity of the low race is eliminated, and into which enter all the +devils of mature civilization. Nor do these devils come accompanied by a +single grace or angel which softened or restrained crime in the +developed community. The attachment of this region's older settlers for +their savage comrades is something incredible. To enjoy their society +they cheerfully embrace a life as impure, uncleanly, free from all +humanizing influences, as that of the lowest Digger with whom they +consort. Sometimes a strange incongruous romance, like moonlight on a +puddle, lights up these mongrel _liaisons_, and infuses into them a +burlesque of sentiment. We found one old hunter whose squaw ran away +from him into the mountains at regular six-months' intervals, and who +invariably spent hundreds of dollars and no end to hardships in hunting +her up and restoring her to his wigwam. Another, who had kept an Indian +seraglio from the time of the earliest gold-discoveries, had repeatedly +been to the nearest legal officer, (two or three days' journey off,) and +besought him, without effect, to marry him to one of his squaws in +Christian fashion. It certainly did seem hard that the poor fellow +should be forbidden to make the only reparation in his power for wrongs +of twelve years' standing; but the aesthetic, naturally enough to those +who have seen Diggers, predominated over the legal and moral in the +judicial mind, and he was finally sent away with an injunction never to +show his face again while "this court continued to know herself" in the +Shasta region. + +As often happens in the discipline of human life, the thorn in the flesh +was withdrawn as soon as we had learned the lesson of bearing it +resignedly. At the last crossing of the Sacramento, we learned from the +ferryman that a providential wagoner was just ahead of us, going +certainly to Dog Creek, and presumably, if we made it an object, all the +way to Strawberry Valley, at the foot of Shasta. The one whose turn it +was not to carry the color-box galloped ahead, and detained the wagoner +until the heavy dragoon had time to come up. With a deep sigh of relief, +we stowed our box in the "prairie-schooner,"--made a contract to have it +packed on mule-back from Dog Creek to Shasta, in consideration of one +among a gross of cheap watches which we had brought for trade with +Indians and Trappers,--and, relieving our horses by the first canter +they had enjoyed that day, sped away with the deep conviction that the +man who first called chrome and white-lead _light_ colors must have been +indulging the subtile irony of a diseased mind. + +The seven miles of our journey from the last Sacramento crossing to Dog +Creek were even grander in their scenery than our morning stage. The +road was a dug-way from one to seven hundred feet above the base of a +winding castellated cliff, here and there cut in rugged sandstone, but +often both walled and buttressed with steep slopes of virgin turf kept +emerald by innumerable trickling springs, ice-cold and crystal-clear, +while here and there it passed through woods as dark as twilight. The +slope on which we travelled formed one side of a valley, green at its +bottom as a New-England meadow, and watered by a picturesque affluent of +the Sacramento. About dark we came to the Dog-Creek Ranch, where we had +such a delicious supper of trout, cooked in the good old Green-Mountain +fashion with an Indian-meal night-gown on, as made us "forget the steps +already trod," followed by a really nice _pair_ of beds, wherein we took +long and ample preparation to "onward urge our way" upon the morrow. + +At Dog Creek we were encamped round about by the largest and most +prosperous Indian tribe that we had seen on our trip. Their bows and +arrows were elegant in shape and color: the former stained in a variety +of patterns, sometimes carved, and wrapped as well as strung with +deer-sinews; the latter headed with nicely cut pieces of a black +obsidian which abounds in the vicinity of Shasta Peak, and which of +itself is an unerring test of the original volcanic character of the +mountain. The quivers of this Dog-Creek tribe were the most beautiful +preparations of whole mink, otter, and sable skins, which I have seen in +Indian hands anywhere on the continent. One of the men had a great cap +made out of an entire grizzly cub-skin, the claws very nicely preserved +and dangling behind, while the head curved forward on top like the crest +of an old Greek helmet. Nowhere did we find neater, more ornamental +berry-baskets, or more carefully worked dishes and basins, than those +woven or scooped and stained by this tribe. In wandering through their +stick-and-bark lodges we found some tolerably good-looking men, far +above the average brutality of the Diggers, with simple, pleasant +expressions, and not afraid to look one in the eye. In one lodge +crouched a man and woman who without exception were the oldest-looking +people I ever saw. The husband was blind, the wife palsied; but they had +been left in charge of a sprawling family of their fifth generation, +which haste and the warm weather forbade our counting. I gave the old +lady a plug of tobacco, and watched, as she put it up against her +husband's face, to see which of the wrinkles was his mouth; while, on +her filling a pipe and smoking with grunts of evident approbation +directed to myself, I felt pleasant and Biblical, as if I had been doing +a good turn to Methuselah's aunt. + +Only forty miles more stretched between us and Shasta Peak. We had now +reached an elevation where it was visible to us in its full majesty from +the southwestern side. All day, after our leaving Dog Creek, its giant +cone, snow-wrapt half-way to the base, kept surprising us through clefts +in the surrounding crags at the end of long wooded vistas, or on some +clear, treeless height to which we had climbed, forgetting the mountain +in our heat and labor. The country about us was becoming wilder and +wilder: our road was sometimes a mere trail, half obliterated by springs +or traversing rivulets. We now rode in the woods most of the time, and +found the shadow, stillness, and fragrance all delicious. Beside all the +springs we discovered the southernwood of our Eastern gardens growing +wild, its strawberry-scented and maroon-colored buds much larger than +those of our variety, and, though a trifle less intense in their +perfume, still sufficiently sweet to make every nook in which they grew +delicious for yards around. Here and there the woods showed some +symptoms of autumnal change; there were hectic spots now and then on the +maple-leaves; but nothing approaching in loveliness the +forest-euthanasia of our Eastern fall appeared until we had crossed the +boundary of Oregon. Shasta Peak is, by the track, nearly eighty miles +from that line. To-day, just as the sun got down to the tree-tops, the +wooded slope suddenly receded from our left, and towered into one of +those noble crags which all over the continent go by the name of "Castle +Rock," but which include no instance more truly deserving the name than +this bold mass of pinnacles and bastions, bare as a Yo-Semite precipice, +which lifted itself apparently about a thousand feet above the green +_glacis_ of the slope, stern and gray at the base, but etherealized +along its crest and battlement by sunset spendors of red and gold. +Simultaneously with the Castle's appearance, our leafy covert parted +before us, and disclosed in level light, which made its snow opalescent, +and bathed its vast, rugged masses of stone and earth in one inclusive +winy glow, the glorious giant of California which had drawn us hither +through the wilderness. The height of Shasta is variously stated. It is +certainly over sixteen thousand feet, and may likely be nearer eighteen +thousand. The last geological survey pronounced it the highest mountain +in the Nevada range,--a statement taking into account Mount Hood and the +other great peaks of the Cascade system, which itself is but an Oregon +reappearance of the Sierra Nevada. The distance from which Hood, Saint +Helen's, and Rainier could be seen with the naked eye led us afterward +to regard this statement with some doubt; but certainly no peak which we +met in all our large experience of the mountains of the continent ever +compared with Shasta in producing the effect of vast height. All the +others which we have seen, with the exception of Lander's Peak, whether +in the Rocky, the Nevada, the Cascade, or the Pacific Coast range, have +suffered, visually, from modulation through their gradually ascending +tiers of foothills, or by the blending of their outlines with the +neighboring peaks. This is especially so with Pike's Peak, which, +despite its being one of the loftiest mountains in America, has its +proportions most dissatisfyingly disguised, in all but a single point of +view, in the _canon_ of the Fontaine-qui-Bouille. Shasta is a mountain +without mediations. It sits on the verge of a plain, broken for a +hundred miles to the northward only by pigmy volcanic cones heaped +around extinct _solfataras_. We approached it in the only direction +where there were anything like foothills to climb; but even upon us, on +reaching Strawberry Valley, at its southwestern foot, the wonderful peak +broke with as little feeling of gradual approach as if we had not seen +its head glowing grander and more real out of the blue distance +repeatedly during the last three days. When we first saw the whole of it +distinctly, it seemed to make no compromise with surrounding plains or +ridges, but rose in naked majesty, alone and simple, from the grass of +our valley to its own topmost iridescent ice. + +That view was not accorded to us on our first day out from Dog Creek. It +was nearly dark when we reached the Soda Springs, nine miles south of +Strawberry,--took a draught of the most delicious mineral-water I ever +drank, more piquant than Kissingen, and cold as ice,--resisted the +seductions of a small, premature boy of eight, who issued from the +Springs Ranch to dilate agedly on the tonic properties of the water, the +relaxing virtues of the beds, and the terrors of the grim forest which +lay for us in the black night between there and Strawberry,--and, +clapping spurs to our tired horses, pushed forward with stern +determination to reach Sisson's that evening. + +I think that a darker night than presently lapped us among the thick +evergreens was never travelled in. There were some streaks of blackness +a mile long, in which, literally, I could not see my horse's head. But +we had learned confidence in our animals' sagacity, and walked them, +cheerily whistling to keep each other informed of our whereabouts, +through at least six miles of road utterly unknown to and unseen by us. +It was what Eastern people call very "poky"; but the language addressed +to us by the premature boy had made it a matter of personal self-respect +for us to get to Sisson's that night. With a certain sense of triumph +over that unpleasant and dissuasive child, we saw a lantern gleam from a +corral about ten P. M., and had our interrogative hail of "Sisson's?" +answered in welcome affirmative by Sisson himself. + +At Sisson's, or exploring with him in the neighborhood of Shasta, we +passed one of the most delightful weeks in our diary of travel through +any land. His house was a low, two-story building, which had run like a +verbena in all directions over a grassy level,--putting out a fresh arm +at every new suggestion of domestic convenience, until it had become at +once the most amorphous and the most comfortable dwelling in the +California wilds. His herds were populous and prosperous; only the +merest pretence of fences broke their dream, without affecting their +reality, of limitless pasture. His ranch ostensibly consisted of a few +hundred acres; but Old Shasta was his only surveyor of landmarks, and +his base of supplies was coextensive with the base of the mountain. His +family consisted of an admirably energetic and thrifty wife, who had +accompanied him from Illinois, where he used to be a schoolmaster, and +one pretty little baby-girl indigenous to Strawberry Valley. The +presence of this mother and child in a wilderness which otherwise howled +chiefly with rough sporadic men and equally rough ubiquitous bears, was +a perpetual delight to us, so far from our domestic communications. We +admired Shasta all the more for looking at it over a little, gentle, +pink-and-white baby who lay asleep in its shadow, like a cherub pressed +to the bosom of one of the Djinn. Escaping from the poetical ground, I +may observe, that, between the chief French _restaurant_ of Sacramento +City and the Dennison House in Portland, Oregon, no family whom we +encountered lived in such wholesome and homelike luxury as Sisson's. If +a Society for the Diffusion of Gastronomic Intelligence among the +Heathen is ever founded in California and Oregon, (and how bitterly such +a philanthropic enterprise is needed my diary spotted with the +abominable grease of universal _frying_ bears abundant witness,) I hope +that the first tract which it publishes will be a biography of Mrs. +Sisson, the first point insisted on by that tract, "This excellent and +devoted woman used a gridiron." Bless her! how she could broil things! +No man who has not built up his system during a long expedition with +brick after brick of pork fried hard in its own ooze,--who has not +turned all his brain's active phosphorus into phosphate of soda by +alkali-biscuits drawn from the oven in the hot-dough stage,--who has not +drunk his pease-coffee without milk at the tables of repeated Pike +settlers too shiftless to milk one of their fifty kine,--who has not +slept myriads in a bed with _Cimex lectularius_ and his livelier +congener of the saltatory habits,--can imagine what a blissful bay in +the iron-bound coast of bad-living Sisson's seemed to us both in +fruition and retrospection. We occasionally had beef, when Sisson, or +some near neighbor ten miles off, "killed a critter" and distributed it +around; excellent mountain-mutton, flavorous as the Welsh, was not +lacking in its turn; but the great stand-by of our table was venison, +roast, broiled, made into pasties, treated with every variety of +preparation save an oil-soak in the pagan frying-pan of the country. As +for chickens and eggs, it "snewe in Sisson's house" of that sort of +"mete and drinke,"--he was Chaucer's Franklin transported to Shasta. +Cream flowed in upon us like a river; potatoes were stewed in it; it was +the base of chicken-sauce; the sirupy baked pears, whose secret Mrs. +Sisson had inherited from some dim religious ancestor in the New-England +past, were drowned in it; and we took a glass of it with magical shiny +rusk for nine-o'clock supper, just to oil our joints before we relaxed +them in innocent repose. Our rooms were ample, our beds luxurious, our +surroundings the grandest within Nature's bestowal. Our capital host and +hostess became our personal friends; and all that they did for us was so +heartily kind and so cheerily comfortable, that, if we were asked where, +on the whole, we passed the pleasantest, as distinct from the grandest, +week in California, I think we should answer, "At Sisson's, in +Strawberry Valley." + +Sisson was, without exception, the best rifle-shot I ever saw. I have +seen him bring down a hawk soaring as high as I could see it. Before a +target, at any distance usual for such experiments, his aim was +practically unerring. He possessed, in addition, two other prime +qualities of a first-class woodsman,--keen sight for game in covert, and +soft-footedness in stealing on it,--to a degree so unequalled in my +acquaintance that I feel justified in calling him, not only the best +shot, but the best hunter I ever knew. We spent three days in exploring, +sketching, and deer-stalking with him, during all which time he was +never once taken by surprise, but invariably saw his game before it +scented him, and as invariably cracked it over before ourselves, or +another old huntsman with us, had time to say, "Where is it?" Our main +excursion led us about a dozen miles from the house to a lofty ridge, +populous with game, thickly wooded with evergreens, and on its bold +prominences giving us splendid views of Shasta. No height that we could +attain dwarfed the grandeur of the mountain by sinking its base, and no +lateral variation of our standing-points produced any change in its +shape. New delicacies of rock and snow network came out as we shifted, +and the sunlight produced different beauties of color and chiaroscuro in +the glacier-like cradles of its upper ice; but so far as height and form +were concerned, it seemed to have no more parallax than a fixed star. +This fact is of course partly due to its being a nearly regular cone, +but much of it depends on the intrinsic grandeur of a mountain standing +lonely on the plain, full sixty miles in cincture, and in stature nearly +eighteen thousand feet. + +We came back from our expedition with an abundance of venison, a number +of interesting color-studies, and memories of California scenery +surpassed only by the Yo-Semite. We had struggled through miles of +_chaparral_, after which no abatis that I ever saw on the Potomac would +have been any discouragement to us, provided only we had the same +wonderful horses. To get some idea of this peculiarly Californian +institution as we encountered it, imagine a side-hill which would have +given the best horse a hard pull, even had it been bare of undergrowth, +and set this hill as thick as it will hold with _manzanita_ and +burr-oak: the former, as its name implies, like a little apple-tree, +only more viciously gnarled, leathery, and complicated in its boughs +than the most picturesque old russet in a New-England orchard, and +ramifying at once from the root without any main trunk; the latter, an +oak-bush of the same general characteristics, having its swarming +acorn-cups covered with spikes like the chestnut. When these have +interlocked with each other till the earth is invisible and the whole +tract has become a lattice of springes and pitfalls, push a horse +through it three miles up a slope of forty-five degrees, the breast-high +twigs scourging him at every step; and if you get out, as we did, +without a fall or a broken leg to either man or beast, you will not only +have acquired a just idea of the California _chaparral_, but an +admiration for the California horse which will last you to your +dying-day. To repay us for this struggle, we had found one lake lying in +a precipitous gorge, only twice before visited by white men; while +Bierstadt, always the indefatigable explorer of every party we were in +together, climbed with his color-box to still another lake, of which he +was the first discoverer, and whose lovely lineaments he preserved in +one of the best studies of our trip. Besides these results of our +expedition, we brought away the satisfaction of having leaped our horses +across the Sacramento River. Where it flowed at the bottom of one deep +ravine we had to traverse, it was a foot deep and ten feet wide. The +twig which cracked under my horse's hoof, and fell into the stream as he +sprang over, a month hence might be dashing about in the scud under the +foot of some Pacific whaler, or, still farther off in time, drift into +the harbor of Hong Kong. Rivers always seem to me like the nerves of +Nature: there is no conductor of thought and impression like that little +silver thread which leads out from the ganglion of a deep forest-spring, +to spread, many leagues off, upon the sensory surface of the Oceanic +World. In an earlier article I spoke of the mighty emotions which came +thronging on me at the heads of the Platte and the Colorado: I felt them +only less powerfully when my horse jumped across the Sacramento's +birthplace. + +After a day's rest at Sisson's, we bade the capital fellow and his +excellent wife a good-bye which had more regret in it than we ever felt +before for comrades of a single week's standing, and resumed our +northward journey,--Bierstadt's color-box the fuller by a score of +Shasta studies taken under every possible variety of position, sky, and +time of day. + +The country continued thickly wooded for nearly twenty miles from +Strawberry, and the forest-trail was every now and then drowned out of +sight by streams rushing from the snow of Shasta. When we emerged from +the timber, we found ourselves on a plain opening widely to the north +between diverging ridges, and scattered here and there with black +_scoriae_ like the slag of a furnace. In some places an attempt had been +made to mend the road with lava, and as it crunched under our horses' +hoofs we could almost imagine ourselves making the circuit of Vesuvius, +so evident was it from the look and feel of things that Pluto has at no +very remote period boiled his dinner-pot on the hob of Shasta Peak. + +The day was fine,--the air more bracing than we had found since leaving +the Yo-Semite. Our week of comparative rest at Sissons had brought our +horses into splendid condition for the road; both we and they were +boiling over with animal spirits; and it was still early in the +afternoon when we rode the fortieth mile of our way into Yreka, on the +full gallop. I need not say that we had made other arrangements than +our pommels for the transportation of our heavy baggage to the next +place where we should need it. Sisson, always full of resources, had +taken good care of that for us both. + +Neither to the traveller nor the _raconteur_ is Yreka a place to linger +in. It consists of one long street, with a tolerable brick hotel at one +end, and a kennel of straggling houses swarming with Chinese of ill odor +and worse repute at the other,--intersected by half a dozen narrow +lanes, devoted principally to stables, gambling-shops, and liquor-dens. +I only quote the language of all the inhabitants whom I conversed with, +when I say that such glory as it once held among the northern +mining-towns has entirely departed from it. The discovery of the Boise +and John-Day mines to the far northeast has attracted away all the +principal gold-seekers who once dug and panned in the vicinity; and if +there ever was a place which had nothing intrinsic to fall back upon, it +is Yreka. We were glad to leave it after one night's rest. + +The day we evacuated it was atmospherically the most glorious that we +enjoyed upon our whole trip. The air had a golden look, as if it not +merely transmitted, but were stained with sunshine. The sky was +spotless, the weather as warm as our mid-June, but without the least +languor. The landscape was that broad plain I have mentioned, with +Shasta on its verge, intersected by low rolling ridges, and broken by +the cones of extinct volcanic spiracles, sometimes grouped, but oftener +isolated. Shasta himself seemed to have gained rather than lost in +majesty by our forty and now steadily increasing miles of distance. +Either from atmospheric effect, or because we now saw a new and more +irregular portion of his crown, the snow upon it became opalescent to a +degree which I have never seen surpassed by any such effect. The light +reflected from it seemed to gleam like a softened flame deep down +beneath some pearly medium, rather than any rebound of sunlight from a +surface. + +The rugged hillocks between which we rode were bare and craggy at their +tops, but all about their base, and far down into the plain, grew +abundance of a plant wonderfully like the heather in its size as well as +in the shape and color of its blossoms. Broad, exquisitely claret-tinted +streaks and patches of this lovely thing softened the landscape +everywhere. We seemed to be travelling in a beautiful confusion of +Nature, where the Scottish Highlands had got together under a California +sky with the Roman Campagna. Throughout this sweet desolation reigned a +visible and audible quiet which made our horses' hoofs seem noisy. +Between Yreka and the Klamath River--a narrow, rapid stream, recalling +some portions of the Housatonic, which we intersected about noon, and +along which we rode for an hour--we met only two or three silent +horsemen and as many eremitic wood-choppers. + +Turning north from the Klamath, we dined at a miserable settlement +called Cottonwood, around which for miles in every direction departed +gold-hunters had burrowed till the ground was a honey-comb, or more +properly a last-year's hornets'-nest, since there was no sign of honey +in the cells, and, from what a most dejected native told us of the +yield, never had been any to speak of. + +Leaving dreary Cottonwood with even greater pleasure than we had felt in +abandoning Yreka, we began ascending the slope toward the Oregon line. +At every mile the country grew lovelier. California seemed determined to +make our last impressions of her tender. The bare, brown rocks became +densely wooded with oaks and evergreens. Late in the afternoon we came +to broad meadows of such refreshing deep-green grass as we had not seen +before since we left the rich farming-lands of the Atlantic side, and +the level golden bars which lay on them between forest-edges made us +homesick with memories of peaceful Eastern lawns at sunset. After +crossing several miles of such meadows, and the quiet brooks which ran +through them, we traversed a number of strange low ridges, undulating in +systematic rhythm, like a mountain-chain making a series of false starts +prior to the word "go," reached the true base of the Siskiyou Mountains, +and began our final climb out of the Golden State. + +The road was very uneven, rocky, cut up by rivulets from the higher +ridges, and in most places only a rude dug-way, with a rocky wall on one +side, and a butment of thickly wooded _debris_ steeply descending to a +black brawling torrent on the other. But we did not trouble ourselves +with the road. The wild beauty of the forest absorbed us on either hand; +and we were astonished at the rapid transition which the leaves suddenly +took on, from the dry, burnt look, characteristic of the end of the +California dry season, to autumnal splendors of red and yellow, hardly +rivalled by the numberless varieties of tint in our own October woods. +Just as the sun sank out of sight, we reached a lofty commanding ridge, +stopped to rest, turned around and saw Shasta looming grandly up out of +the valley-twilight, his icy forehead all one mass of gold and ruby +fire. It was one of the grandest mountain-sights I ever looked on: such +a purple hush over the vast level below us; such colossal broad shadows +on the giant's foot; such a wonderful flame on that noble, solitary +head, which, but for the unbroken outlines leading up to it out of the +twilight, might have been only some loftier cloud catching good-night +sun-glimpses at half-way up the firmament. Goodnight from Shasta! Alas, +not only to the sun, but to us! We felt a real pang, as we confessed to +ourselves that we were now looking upon this noblest and serenest, if +not loftiest, of all the mountains in our travel, for the last time in +years,--perhaps the last forever. We gazed wistfully till admonished by +the deepening twilight; then, as Shasta became a shadow on the horizon, +plunged silently into the dense woods again, climbed to the Siskiyou +summit, and, descending through almost jetty darkness, were in Oregon. + + + + +ICE-PERIOD IN AMERICA. + + +In the autumn of 1846, six years after my visit to Great Britain in +search of glaciers, I sailed for America. When the steamer stopped at +Halifax, eager to set foot on the new continent so full of promise for +me, I sprang on shore and started at a brisk pace for the heights above +the landing. On the first undisturbed ground, after leaving the town, I +was met by the familiar signs, the polished surfaces, the furrows and +scratches, the _line-engraving_ of the glacier, so well known in the Old +World; and I became convinced of what I had already anticipated as the +logical sequence of my previous investigations, that here also this +great agent had been at work, although it was only after a long +residence in America, and repeated investigations of the glacial +phenomena in various parts of the country, that I fully understood the +universality of its action. A detailed description of these appearances +could hardly be more than a monotonous repetition of my statements +respecting their existence in other regions; but the peculiar +configuration of this continent, as compared with the more mountainous +countries of Europe and Asia, has led to some modifications of the same +phenomena here, worthy of special notice. + +Thus far, the traces of ancient glaciers in America have been studied +only east of the Rocky Mountains; little is known of the glaciers still +remaining in the high mountain-ranges dividing the eastern part of the +continent from California, still less respecting any indications of +their former extension. There can be little doubt that such traces +exist, and as soon as the so-called _parks_ between Pike's Peak and Long +Peak are explored, we may hope for information on this point. Indeed, +the investigation may be spoken of as already undertaken; for among the +exploring parties now on their way to that region are some intelligent +observers who will not fail to make this point a subject of special +study. But it is well known that the usual characteristic marks of +glaciers extend over the whole surface of the land in the eastern half +of the continent, from the Atlantic shores to the States west of the +Mississippi, and from the Arctic Sea to the latitude of the Ohio, in its +middle course, while within the range of the Alleghanies they stretch as +far south as Georgia and Alabama. In no other region where these traces +have been observed do they extend over such wide tracts of country in +unbroken continuity, this being of course owing to the level character +of the land itself. + +The continent of North America, east of the Rocky Mountains, is, indeed, +an immense uniform plain, intersected from east to west only by the +ranges of low hills running in the direction of the St. Lawrence and the +Canadian lakes, and from northeast to southwest by the Alleghany range +stretching from Alabama to New England, where it trends towards the +Canadian hills in the ridges known as the Green and White Mountains. +This coast-range has a short slope towards the Atlantic, and a long one +in the direction of the great Mississippi valley. With the exception of +some higher points of the Alleghany range, the surface of this whole +plain is glacier-worn from the Arctic regions to about the fortieth +degree of northern latitude, the glacier-marks trending from north to +south, with occasional slight inclinations to the east or west, +according to the minor inequalities of the surface. There is, however, +no decided modification of their general trend in consequence of the +range of hills intersecting them at right angles for nearly the whole +width of the continent between latitudes forty-six and fifty; indeed, +the Canadian, or, as they are sometimes called, the Laurentian Hills, +formed a no more powerful barrier to the onward progress of the immense +fields of ice covering the continent than did the small hummocks, or +_roches moutonnees_, in the Swiss valleys to the advance of the Alpine +glaciers. In fact, these low hills may be considered as a succession of +_roches moutonnees_, trending in a continuous ridge from east to west, +over which the masses of northern ice have moved unimpeded to the +latitude of the Ohio. + +Owing to the absence of high mountain-ranges over this vast expanse of +land, the glacial phenomena of America are not grouped about special +centres of dispersion, or radiating from them, as in Europe. During the +greatest extension of the ice-fields, there were but few prominent peaks +rising above them, and dropping here and there huge boulders on their +surface, to be transported to great distances without losing their rough +angular character. And when the temperature under which these vast +frozen masses had been formed rose again, the wasting ice must have +yielded first on its southern boundary, gradually and uniformly +retreating to the Arctic regions, without breaking up into distinct +glacial regions, separated from one another, each with its local +distribution of erratic boulders and glacier-marks radiating from +circumscribed areas on higher levels, as they occur everywhere in +Europe. It is true that there are a few localities within the Alleghany +range, on the Green and White Mountains, and in parts of Maine, where it +is evident that local glaciers have had a temporary existence; but even +throughout this eastern coast-range the elevation of the mountains is so +slight, and their trend so uniform in a northeasterly and southwesterly +direction through twenty degrees of latitude, that the localization of +the phenomena is less marked than in Norway, Great Britain, or +Switzerland. In short, the ice of the great glacial period in America +moved over the continent as one continuous sheet, overriding nearly all +the inequalities of the surface. Thus the peculiar physical character of +the country gives a new aspect to the study of glacial evidences here. +The polished surfaces stretch continuously over hundreds and hundreds of +miles; the rectilinear scratches, grooves, and furrows are unbroken for +great distances; the drift spreads in one vast sheet over the whole +land, consisting of an indiscriminate medley of clays, sands, gravels, +pebbles, boulders of all dimensions, and so uniformly mixed together +that it presents hardly any difference in its composition, whether we +examine it in New England, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, +Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, in Iowa beyond the Mississippi, in the +more northern Territories, or in Canada. + +In Europe, boulders of large dimensions do not often occur within the +drift, but are usually resting above it with their sharp angles and +rough surfaces unchanged, having travelled evidently upon the glacier +and not under it. But such large boulders, polished and scratched like +the smaller pebbles, are to be found everywhere imbedded in American +drift, while the angular fragments of rock resting above these +triturated masses are comparatively rare.[H] It is evident from this +that the ice overtopped the rocky inequalities of the land, and that the +detached fragments remaining beneath the icy covering underwent the same +action from friction and pressure to which the whole mass of drift was +subjected. The distribution of the few angular boulders scattered over +the country no doubt began when some of the higher portions of the land +had emerged from the mass of snow and ice; and they are most frequent in +New England, where the mountain-elevation is greatest. + +The mineralogical character of the loose materials forming the American +drift leaves no doubt that the whole movement, with the exception of a +few local modifications easily accounted for by the lay of the land, was +from north to south, all the fragments not belonging to the localities +where they occur being readily traced to rocks _in situ_ to the north of +their present resting-places. The farther one journeys from their +origin, the more extraordinary does the presence of these boulders +become. It strikes one strangely to find even in New England fragments +of rock from the shores of Lake Superior; but it is still more +impressive to meet with masses of northern rock on the prairies of +Illinois or Iowa. One may follow these boulders to the fortieth degree +of latitude, beyond which they become more and more rare, while the +finer drift alone extends farther south. + +It is not only, however, by tracking the boulders back to their origin +in the North that we ascertain the starting-point of the whole mass; we +have another kind of evidence to this effect, already alluded to in the +description of the _roches moutonnees_. Wherever the natural surface of +any hill, having a steep southern slope, is exposed, the marks are +always found to be very distinct on the northern side and entirely +wanting on the southern one, showing, that, as in the case of many of +the _roches moutonnees_ in Switzerland, the mass moved up the northern +slope, forcing its way against it, grinding and furrowing the northern +face of the hill as it moved over it, but bridging the opposite side in +its descent without coming into contact with it.[I] This is true, not +only of hills, but of much slighter obstacles which presented themselves +in the path of the ice. Even pebbles imbedded in masses of +pudding-stone, but rising sometimes above the level of the general +surface, often have their northern side polished and scratched, while +the southern one remains untouched. + +Moraines are not wanting to complete the chain of evidence respecting +the ancient existence of glaciers in this country, although we cannot +expect to find them here so frequently as in Europe, where the many +local glaciers in circumscribed valleys afforded special facilities for +the building up of these lateral and transverse walls. Over the broad +expanse of the United States, on the contrary, with such slight +variations of level, the disappearance of the ice at its breaking-up +would naturally be more complete and continuous than in a country +intersected by frequent mountain-chains, where the ice would linger in +the higher valleys long after it had disappeared from the plains below. +Yet it is evident that here also in certain localities the boundary-line +of the ice underwent oscillations, pausing here and there long enough to +collect mounds of the same character as those spanning the valleys of +Switzerland and Great Britain. We have several of these mounds in our +immediate vicinity. The Waverley Oaks, so well known to all lovers of +fine trees in our community, stand on an ancient moraine, and there are +others in the neighborhood of the Blue Hills. In the southeastern parts +of Maine, also, I have observed very well-defined moraines. In Vermont, +the valley of the Winooski River retains ample traces of the local +glacier by which it was formerly filled; and, indeed, throughout the +Alleghany range, in its northeastern as well as its southern extension, +we have various evidences of localized glaciers, which must have +outlived the general ice-period for a longer or shorter time. + +I am unwilling to weary my readers by dwelling upon appearances +identical with those already described; but I may state, for the +guidance of those who wish to investigate these traces for themselves, +that any recently uncovered ledge of rock in our neighborhood, the +surface of which has not been altered by atmospheric agencies, presents +the glacier-worn surfaces with the characteristic _striae_ and furrows. +These marks may be traced everywhere, even to the sea-shore, not only +down to the water's edge, but beneath it, where-ever the harder rocks +have resisted the action of the tides and retain their original +character. In our granitic regions intersected by innumerable trap +dikes, as, for instance, at Nahant, the smooth surface of many of the +rocks, where sienite and trap have been evenly levelled, shows that the +same inexorable saw, cutting alike through hard and soft materials, has +passed over them. In the hills of pudding-stone in the neighborhood of +Roxbury, we have quartz pebbles cut down to the same level with the +softer paste in which they lie imbedded with pebbles of sandstone, +clay-slate, gneiss, and limestone. In the limestone regions of Western +New York and Northern Ohio, about the neighborhood of Buffalo and +Cleveland, the flat surfaces of the limestone are most uniformly +polished, furrowed, and scratched, the furrows often exhibiting that +_staccato_ grating action described in a former article. I have observed +the same traces in the vicinity of Milwaukee and Iowa City, and we know, +from the accounts given by Arctic travellers of their overland +expeditions, that these peculiar appearances of the surface are +characteristic of the rocks in those regions, wherever they are not +disintegrating under the influence of the present atmospheric agents. + +Upon these surfaces, through the whole expanse of the country, rests the +drift, having everywhere the characteristic composition of +glacier-drift, and nowhere that of an aqueous stratified deposit, except +when afterwards remodelled by the action of water. But of this +stratified drift I shall have occasion to speak more in detail +hereafter. There is, however, one circumstance, of frequent occurrence +along our New-England shores, requiring special explanation, because it +is generally misunderstood. Along our sea-shore, and even within the +harbor of Boston, at the base of the harbor-islands, as well as at the +outlet of our larger Atlantic streams, numbers of boulders are found of +considerable size; and this fact is often adduced as showing the power +of water to transport massive fragments of rock to great distances, the +mineralogical character of these boulders being frequently such as to +show that they cannot have originated in the neighborhood of their +present resting-places. But a careful examination of the surrounding +country, and a comparison of the nature and level of the drift on the +mainland with those of the same deposits on the harbor-islands, (a +series of evidence to be given with more detail in a future article,) +suggest a different explanation of these phenomena. The sheet of drift +was once more continuous and extensive than it is now, and the +localities in which we find these crops of boulders are spots where the +tide has eaten into the drift, wearing away the finer materials, or the +paste in which the larger fragments were imbedded, and allowing them to +fall to the bottom, or where the same result has been produced by the +action of rivers cutting their way through the drift, and thus finding +an outlet to the sea. In short, instead of showing the power of currents +to carry along heavy fragments, these stranded boulders prove, on the +contrary, the inability of water to produce any such effect, since it is +evident that the tides washing against the shore, or the rivers rushing +down to the sea, were equally incapable of bearing off the weightier +materials, and allowed them to drop to the bottom, while they readily +swept away the lighter ones. Such localities compare with the +surrounding drift much as the bottom of a gravel-pit which has been +partially worked compares with its banks. Look into any gravel-pit, a +portion of which has already been carted away. At its bottom a number of +larger stones and boulders are usually lying, too heavy for the cart, +and therefore left upon the spot. Fragments of the same size and +character, and equally numerous, will be seen protruding at various +heights from the sides, where they are imbedded in the general mass of +the drift. As soon as the work progresses a little farther, and the +finer materials are removed, these boulders will also drop out, and lie +as thickly scattered over the surface of the ground, as they now do in +that portion of the bottom where the pit has been completely opened and +the gravel removed. We shall see hereafter how these boulders, derived +from the land-drift and scattered along the coast, may be distinguished +from those cast ashore by icebergs. + +Notwithstanding the number of facts thus far collected respecting +glacial phenomena in America, certainly forming in their combination a +very strong chain of evidence, the scientific world has, nevertheless, +been slow to admit the possibility of the former existence of glaciers +over such a wide, unbroken expanse of level land. This backwardness is, +no doubt, partly due to the fact, that, as glaciers have hitherto been +studied in mountainous countries, their presence has been supposed to +imply the presence of mountains, this impression being strengthened by +the downward and onward movement of existing glaciers, so long supposed +to be exclusively due to the slopes along which all modern glaciers +advance. Were it true that glaciers move solely or mainly on account of +the sloping bottom on which they rest, and that they can advance only +on an inclined plane, all the phenomena concerning drift, polished and +furrowed surfaces, boulders, etc., in America, would hardly justify us +in assuming a moving sheet of ice as their cause. But we have seen that +the phenomena of glaciers, like those of currents, are in great part +meteorological. The Gulf-Stream does not flow toward the English shore +because the ocean-bottom slopes eastward; nor does the cold current of +Baffin's Bay run down-hill when it pours its icy waters southward upon +our northeast coast. Their course is determined by laws of temperature, +and so have we also seen that the motion of glaciers is mainly +determined by conditions of temperature, although, in this case, an +internal mechanical action is combined with external influences; and +while it is true that glaciers, as they now exist, are dependent upon +the shape of the valleys in lofty mountain-chains, yet under different +geographical conditions the same phenomena may be produced over level, +open countries. + +I believe that circumstances similar to those determining the more rapid +advance of the glaciers from higher to lower levels at that point where +the alternate thawing and freezing, the infiltration of water and +consequent expansion of the ice under frost, are greatest, would also +determine the motion of a large body of ice from north to south, since +it would be along its southern limits that these conditions would +prevail; while the great reservoir of snow at the north would correspond +to the upper troughs of the present glaciers, from which their lower +ranges are constantly fed. The change of snow into ice is owing to +alterations of temperature, to partial melting and subsequent freezing, +constantly renewed,--and also to the sinking of the mass upon itself in +consequence of its own weight, the lower portions being thus forced out +by the pressure of the superincumbent ice. Upon an inclined plane the +movement consequent upon these changes will of course be downward; but +what would be the result, if a field of snow many thousand feet thick, +corresponding, except in its greater bulk, to the accumulations by which +the present glaciers are caused, were stretched over an extensive level +surface? The moisture from the upper superficial layers would permeate +the larger mass as it now does the smaller one, trickling down into its +lower portions, while the pressure from above would render the bottom +hard and compact, changing it gradually into ice. If this should take +place under climatic conditions which would keep the whole as a mass in +a frozen state, the pressure from above would force out the lower ice in +every direction beyond its original circumscription, thus enlarging the +area covered by it, while the whole would subside in its bulk. Let us +for a moment assume that such an accumulation of snow takes place around +the northern and southern poles, stretching thence over the northern and +southern hemispheres to latitude forty, and that this field of snow +acquires a thickness of from twelve to fifteen thousand feet. Such a +mass would subside upon itself in consequence of its own weight; it +would be transformed into ice with greater or less rapidity and +completeness, according to the latitude determining the surrounding +climatic influences and the amount of moisture falling upon it as rain +or dew, the alternations of temperature being of course more frequent +and greater along its outer limit. In proportion as, with the rising of +the temperature, these alternations became more general, a packing of +the mass would begin, corresponding to that observed in the glacial +valleys of Switzerland, though here the action would not be intensified +by lateral pressure; an internal movement of the whole mass would be +initiated, and the result could be no other than a uniform advance in a +southerly direction from the Arctic toward the more temperate latitudes +in Europe, Asia, and North America, and from the Antarctic toward South +America, the Cape of Good Hope, and Van Diemen's Land. But we need not +build up a theoretical case in order to form an approximate idea of the +great ice-sheet stretching over the northern part of this continent +during the glacial period. It would seem that man was intended to +decipher the past history of his home, for some remnants or traces of +all its great events are left as a key to the whole. Greenland and the +Arctic regions hold all that remains of the glacial period in North +America. Their shrunken ice-fields, formidable as they seem to us, are +to the frozen masses of that secular winter but as the patches of snow +and ice lingering on the north side of our hills after the spring has +opened; let us expand them in imagination till they extend over half the +continent, and we shall have a sufficiently vivid picture of this frozen +world. And a temperature which would bring the climate of Greenland down +to the fortieth degree of latitude would not only render the field of +ice far more extensive, but thousands of feet thicker than it is at +present. The physical configuration of Greenland also confirms the +possibility of a glacial period in America, for there we have at this +moment a wide expanse of land unbroken by mountains, over which a +uniform sheet of ice moves southward, with occasional variations of its +trend according to the undulations of the surface. The interesting +accounts of Dr. Rink show that in reality Greenland is a miniature +picture of the ice-period. The immense number of icebergs breaking off +and floating southward every summer gives us some idea of the annual +waste and renewal of the ice. How can we doubt, that, when, under the +same latitude, Norway, Sweden, Scotland, England, and Ireland were +covered by sheets of ice many thousand feet in height, the ice-fields of +Greenland must have shared in the same climatic influences, and have +been much thicker and far more extensive than they are at present? + +Notwithstanding the absence of lofty mountain-chains in America, we are +not wholly without the means of measuring the thickness of the +ice-sheet, by comparing it, as in Europe, with some of our highest +elevations. The slopes of the Alleghany range, wherever they have been +examined, are glacier-worn to the very top, with the exception of a few +points; but these points are sufficient to give us data for the +comparison. Mount Washington, for instance, is over six thousand feet +high, and the rough, unpolished surface of its summit, covered with +loose fragments, just below the level of which glacier-marks come to an +end, tells us that it lifted its head alone above the desolate waste of +ice and snow. In this region, then, the thickness of the sheet cannot +have been much less than six thousand feet, and this is in keeping with +the same kind of evidence in other parts of the country; for, wherever +the mountains are much below six thousand feet, the ice seems to have +passed directly over them, while the few peaks rising to that height are +left untouched. And while we can thus sink our plummet from the summit +to the base of Mount Washington and measure the thickness of the mass of +ice, we have a no less accurate indication of its extension in the +undulating line marking the southern termination of the drift. I have +shown that the moraines mark the oscillations of the glaciers in Europe. +Where such accumulations of loose materials took place at its terminus, +there we know the glacier must have held its ground long enough to allow +time for the collection of these _debris_. In the same way we may trace +the southern border of our ancient ice-sheet on this continent by the +limit of the boulders; beyond that line it evidently did not advance as +a solid mass, since it ceased to transport the heavier materials. But as +soon as the outskirts of the ice began to yield and to flow off as +water, the lighter portions of the drift were swept onward; and hence we +find a sheet of finer drift-deposit, sand and gravel more or less +distinctly stratified, carried to greater or less distances, and fading +into the Southern States, where it mingles with the most recent +river-deposits. + +One naturally asks, What was the use of this great engine set at work +ages ago to grind, furrow, and knead over, as it were, the surface of +the earth? We have our answer in the fertile soil which spreads over the +temperate regions of the globe. The glacier was God's great plough; and +when the ice vanished from the face of the land, it left it prepared for +the hand of the husbandman. The hard surface of the rocks was ground to +powder, the elements of the soil were mingled in fair proportions, +granite was carried into the lime regions, lime was mingled with the +more arid and unproductive granite districts, and a soil was prepared +fit for the agricultural uses of man. I have been asked whether this +inference was not inconsistent with the fact that a rich vegetation +preceded the ice-period,--a vegetation sufficiently abundant to sustain +the tropical animals then living throughout the temperate regions. But +the vegetation which has succeeded the ice-period is of a different +character, and one that could not have flourished on a soil that would +nourish a more tropical growth. The soil we have now over the temperate +zone is a grain-growing soil,--one especially adapted to those plants +most necessary to the higher domestic and social organizations of the +human race. Therefore I think we may believe that God did not shroud the +world He had made in snow and ice without a purpose, and that this, like +many other operations of His Providence, seemingly destructive and +chaotic in its first effects, is nevertheless a work of beneficence and +order. + + * * * * * + +In the next article, in order to put the reader in possession of the +glacial question as it stands at present, I shall say something of the +possible causes of this extraordinary accumulation of snow,--though all +such explanations are thus far mere suggestions,--and shall also give +some more precise estimates of the changes of temperature involved in +the history of the glacial period, before proceeding to the +consideration of the effects produced by the breaking-up of the ice, as +shown in our stratified lowland drift, and in our estuaries and +river-terraces. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[H] The greater proportion of large, rounded boulders in the American +drift, as compared with the European, is a singular fact not fully met +by the above explanation; since, while the number of mountain-peaks +rising above the ice in Europe would account for the frequency of large +angular fragments transported upon its surface, there would seem to be +no reason why the drift, carried along by a mass of ice having the same +thickness in both continents, should not contain as many rounded masses +in one as in the other. The facts, however, are as I have stated them, +and the difference may be due partly to the broken character of the +ground over which the drift must have passed in Europe, subjecting it to +a more violent process of friction and grinding than in America, and +partly to the use that has been made of the drift-boulders during so +many centuries for building-purposes in the Old World, the +drift-boulders being naturally taken first, because they are more easily +reached, while the angular ones are frequently perched on almost +inaccessible spots. Indeed, the stone fences in both countries tell us +the use to which many of the rounded boulders have been put, and the +ground in many parts of the United States has already been cleared to a +great extent of its rocky fragments for this and like purposes. In the +course of time they will, no doubt, disappear from the surface of this +country, as they have done from that of Europe. + +[I] Fuller descriptions of these polished hills may be found in my work +on Lake Superior. + + + + +HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS. + +BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD. + + +VII. + +While I was preparing my article for the "Atlantic," our friend Bob +Stephens burst in upon us, in some considerable heat, with a newspaper +in his hand. + +"Well, girls, your time is come now! You women have been preaching +heroism and sacrifice to us,--so splendid to go forth and suffer and die +for our country,--and now comes the test of feminine patriotism." + +"Why, what's the matter now?" said Jennie, running eagerly to look over +his shoulder at the paper. + +"No more foreign goods," said he, waving it aloft,--"no more gold +shipped to Europe for silks, laces, jewels, kid gloves, and what-not. +Here it is,--great movement, headed by senators' and generals' wives, +Mrs. General Butler, Mrs. John P. Hale, Mrs. Henry Wilson, and so on, a +long string of them, to buy no more imported articles during the war." + +"But I don't see how it _can_ be done," said Jennie. + +"Why," said I, "do you suppose that 'nothing to wear' is made in +America?" + +"But, dear Mr. Crowfield," said Miss Featherstone, a nice girl, who was +just then one of our family-circle, "there is not, positively, much that +is really fit to use or wear made in America,--_is_ there now? Just +think; how is Marianne to furnish her house here without French papers +and English carpets?--those American papers are so common, and as to +American carpets, everybody knows their colors don't hold; and then, as +to dress, a lady must have gloves, you know,--and everybody knows no +such things are made in America as gloves." + +"I think," I said, "that I have heard of certain fair ladies wishing +that they were men, that they might show with what alacrity they would +sacrifice everything on the altar of their country: life and limb would +be nothing; they would glory in wounds and bruises, they would enjoy +losing a right arm, they wouldn't mind limping about on a lame leg the +rest of their lives, _if they were John or Peter_, if only they might +serve their dear country." + +"Yes," said Bob, "that's female patriotism! Girls are always ready to +jump off from precipices, or throw themselves into abysses, but as to +wearing an unfashionable hat or thread gloves, that they can't do,--not +even for their dear country. No matter whether there's any money left to +pay for the war or not, the dear souls must have twenty yards of silk in +a dress,--it's the fashion, you know." + +"Now, isn't he too bad?" said Marianne. "As if we'd ever been asked to +make these sacrifices and refused! I think I have seen women ready to +give up dress and fashion and everything else, for a good cause." + +"For that matter," said I, "the history of all wars has shown women +ready to sacrifice what is most intimately feminine in times of peril to +their country. The women of Carthage not only gave up their jewels in +the siege of their city, but, in the last extremity, cut off their hair +for bow-strings. The women of Hungary and Poland, in their country's +need, sold their jewels and plate and wore ornaments of iron and lead. +In the time of our own Revolution, our women dressed in plain homespun +and drank herb-tea,--and certainly nothing is more feminine than a cup +of tea. And in this very struggle, the women of the Southern States have +cut up their carpets for blankets, have borne the most humiliating +retrenchments and privations of all kinds without a murmur. So let us +exonerate the female sex of want of patriotism, at any rate." + +"Certainly," said my wife; "and if our Northern women have not +retrenched and made sacrifices, it has been because it has not been +impressed on them that there is any particular call for it. Everything +has seemed to be so prosperous and plentiful in the Northern States, +money has been so abundant and easy to come by, that it has really been +difficult to realize that a dreadful and destructive war was raging. +Only occasionally, after a great battle, when the lists of the killed +and wounded have been sent through the country, have we felt that we +were making a sacrifice. The women who have spent such sums for laces +and jewels and silks have not had it set clearly before them why they +should not do so. The money has been placed freely in their hands, and +the temptation before their eyes." + +"Yes," said Jennie, "I am quite sure that there are hundreds who have +been buying foreign goods, who would not do it, if they could see any +connection between their not doing it and the salvation of the country; +but when I go to buy a pair of gloves, I naturally want the best pair I +can find, the pair that will last the longest and look the best, and +these always happen to be French gloves." + +"Then," said Miss Featherstone, "I never could clearly see why people +should confine their patronage and encouragement to works of their own +country. I'm sure the poor manufacturers of England have shown the very +noblest spirit with relation to our cause, and so have the silk-weavers +and artisans of France,--at least, so I have heard; why should we not +give them a fair share of encouragement, particularly when they make +things that we are not in circumstances to make, have not the means to +make?" + +"Those are certainly sensible questions," I replied, "and ought to meet +a fair answer, and I should say, that, were our country in a fair +ordinary state of prosperity, there would be no reason why our wealth +should not flow out for the encouragement of well-directed industry in +any part of the world; from this point of view we might look on the +whole world as our country, and cheerfully assist in developing its +wealth and resources. But our country is now in the situation of a +private family whose means are absorbed by an expensive sickness, +involving the life of its head; just now it is all we can do to keep the +family together, all our means are swallowed up by our own domestic +wants, we have nothing to give for the encouragement of other families, +we must exist ourselves, we must get through this crisis and hold our +own, and that we may do it all the family-expenses must be kept within +ourselves as far as possible. If we drain off all the gold of the +country to send to Europe to encourage her worthy artisans, we produce +high prices and distress among equally worthy ones at home, and we +lessen the amount of our resources for maintaining the great struggle +for national existence. The same amount of money which we pay for +foreign luxuries, if passed into the hands of our own manufacturers and +producers, becomes available for the increasing expenses of the war." + +"But, papa," said Jennie, "I understood that a great part of our +Governmental income was derived from the duties on foreign goods and so +I inferred that the more foreign goods were imported the better it would +be." + +"Well, suppose," said I, "that for every hundred thousand dollars we +send out of the country we pay the Government ten thousand; that is +about what our gain as a nation would be;--we send our gold abroad in a +great stream, and give our Government a little driblet." + +"Well, but," said Miss Featherstone, "_what can be got in America?_ +Hardly anything, I believe, except common calicoes." + +"Begging your pardon, my dear lady," said I, "there is where you and +multitudes of others are greatly mistaken. Your partiality for foreign +things has kept you ignorant of what you have at home. Now I am not +blaming the love of foreign things; it is not peculiar to us Americans; +all nations have it. It is a part of the poetry of our nature to love +what comes from afar, and reminds us of lands distant and different from +our own. The English belles seek after French laces; the French beauty +enumerates English laces among her rarities; and the French dandy piques +himself upon an English tailor. We Americans are great travellers, and +few people travel, I fancy, with more real enjoyment than we; our +domestic establishments, as compared with those of the Old World, are +less cumbrous and stately, and so our money is commonly in hand as +pocket-money, to be spent freely and gayly in our tours abroad. + +"We have such bright and pleasant times in every country that we +conceive a kindliness for its belongings. To send to Paris for our +dresses and our shoes and our gloves may not be a mere bit of foppery, +but a reminder of the bright, pleasant hours we have spent in that city +of Boulevards and fountains. Hence it comes, in a way not very blamable, +that many people have been so engrossed with what can be got from abroad +that they have neglected to inquire what can be found at home; they have +supposed, of course, that to get a decent watch they must send to Geneva +or to London,--that to get thoroughly good carpets they must have the +English manufacture,--that a really tasteful wall-paper could be found +only in Paris,--and that flannels and broadcloths could come only from +France, Great Britain, or Germany." + +"Well, isn't it so?" said Miss Featherstone. "I certainly have always +thought so; I never heard of American watches, I'm sure." + +"Then," said I, "I'm sure you can't have read an article that you should +have read on the Waltham watches, written by our friend George W. +Curtis, in the "Atlantic" for January of last year. I must refer you to +that to learn that we make in America watches superior to those of +Switzerland or England, bringing into the service machinery and modes of +workmanship unequalled for delicacy and precision; as I said before, you +must get the article and read it, and if some sunny day you could make a +trip to Waltham, and see the establishment, it would greatly assist your +comprehension." + +"Then, as to men's clothing," said Bob, "I know to my entire +satisfaction that many of the most popular cloths for men's wear are +actually American fabrics baptized with French and English names to make +them sell." + +"Which shows," said I, "the use of a general community-movement to +employ American goods. It will change the fashion. The demand will +create the supply. When the leaders of fashion are inquiring for +American instead of French and English fabrics, they will be surprised +to find what nice American articles there are. The work of our own hands +will no more be forced to skulk into the market under French and English +names, and we shall see, what is really true, that an American gentleman +need not look beyond his own country for a wardrobe befitting him. I am +positive that we need not seek broadcloth or other woollen goods from +foreign lands,--that _better_ hats are made in America than in Europe, +and better boots and shoes; and I should be glad to send an American +gentleman to the World's Fair dressed from top to toe in American +manufactures, with an American watch in his pocket, and see if he would +suffer in comparison with the gentlemen of any other country." + +"Then, as to house-furnishing," began my wife, "American carpets are +getting to be every way equal to the English." + +"Yes," said I, "and what is more, the Brussels carpets of England are +woven on looms invented by an American, and bought of him. Our +countryman, Bigelow, went to England to study carpet-weaving in the +English looms,--supposing that all arts were generously open for the +instruction of learners. He was denied the opportunity of studying the +machinery and watching the processes by a short-sighted jealousy. He +immediately sat down with a yard of carpeting, and, patiently +unravelling it, thread by thread, combined and calculated till he +invented the machinery on which the best carpets of the Old and New +World are woven. No pains which such ingenuity and energy can render +effective are spared to make our fabrics equal those of the British +market, and we need only to be disabused of the old prejudice, and to +keep up with the movement of our own country, and find out our own +resources. The fact is, every year improves our fabrics. Our mechanics, +our manufacturers, are working with an energy, a zeal, and a skill that +carry things forward faster than anybody dreams of; and nobody can +predicate the character of American articles, in any department, now, by +their character even five years ago." + +"Well, as to wall-papers," said Miss Featherstone, "there you must +confess the French are and must be unequalled." + +"I do not confess any such thing," said I, hardily. "I grant you that in +that department of paper-hangings which exhibits floral decoration the +French designs and execution are and must be for some time to come far +ahead of all the world,--their drawing of flowers, vines, and foliage +has the accuracy of botanical studies and the grace of finished works of +art, and we cannot as yet pretend in America to do anything equal to it. +But for satin finish, and for a variety of exquisite tints of plain +colors, American papers equal any in the world; our gilt papers even +surpass in the heaviness and polish of the gilding those of foreign +countries; and we have also gorgeous velvets. All I have to say is, let +people who are furnishing houses inquire for articles of American +manufacture, and they will be surprised at what they will see. We need +go no farther than our Cambridge glass-works to see that the most dainty +devices of cut-glass, crystal, ground and engraved glass of every color +and pattern, may be had of American workmanship, every way equal to the +best European make, and for half the price. In fact, it would require +very little self-denial to resolve to carpet and paper and furnish a +house entirely from the manufactures of America." + +"Well," said Miss Featherstone, "there is one point you cannot make +out,--gloves; certainly the French have the monopoly of that article." + +"I am not going to ruin my cause by asserting too much," said I. "I +haven't been with nicely dressed women so many years not to speak with +proper respect of Alexander's gloves,--and I confess, honestly, that to +forego them must be a fair, square sacrifice to patriotism. But then, on +the other hand, it is nevertheless true that gloves have long been made +in America and surreptitiously brought into market as French. I have +lately heard that very nice kid gloves are made at Watertown and in +Philadelphia. I have only heard of them, and not seen. A loud demand +might bring forth an unexpected supply from these and other sources. If +the women of America were bent on having gloves made in their own +country, how long would it be before apparatus and factories would +spring into being? Look at the hoop-skirt factories,--women wanted +hoop-skirts,--would have them or die,--and forthwith factories arose, +and hoop-skirts became as the dust of the earth for abundance." + +"Yes," said Miss Featherstone, "and, to say the truth, the American +hoop-skirts are the only ones fit to wear. When we were living on the +Champs Elysees, I remember we searched high and low for something like +them, and finally had to send home to America for some." + +"Well," said I, "that shows what I said. Let there be only a hearty call +for an article, and it will come. These spirits of the vasty deep are +not so very far off, after all, as we may imagine, and women's unions +and leagues will lead to inquiries and demands which will as infallibly +bring supplies as a vacuum will create a draught of air." + +"But, at least, there are no ribbons made in America," said Miss +Featherstone. + +"Pardon, my lady, there is a ribbon-factory now in operation in Boston, +and ribbons of every color are made in New York; there is also in the +vicinity of Boston a factory which makes Roman scarfs. This shows that +the faculty of weaving ribbons is not wanting to us Americans, and a +zealous patronage would increase the supply. + +"As to silks and satins, I am not going to pretend that they are to be +found here. It is true, there are silk manufactories, like that of the +Cheneys in Connecticut, where very pretty foulard dress-silks are made, +together with sewing-silk enough to supply a large demand. Enough has +been done to show that silks might be made in America; but at present, +as compared with Europe, we claim neither silks nor thread laces among +our manufactures. + +"But what then? These are not necessaries of life. Ladies can be very +tastefully dressed in other fabrics besides silks. There are many pretty +American dress-goods which the leaders of fashion might make +fashionable; and certainly no leader of fashion could wish to dress for +a nobler object than to aid her country in deadly peril. + +"It is not a life-pledge, not a total abstinence, that is asked,--only a +temporary expedient to meet a stringent crisis. Surely, women whose +exertions in Sanitary Fairs have created an era in the history of the +world will not shrink from so small a sacrifice for so obvious a good. + +"Here is something in which every individual woman can help. Every +woman who goes into a shop and asks for American goods renders an +appreciable aid to our cause. She expresses her opinion and her +patriotism; and her voice forms a part of that demand which shall arouse +and develop the resources of her country. We shall learn to know our own +country. We shall learn to respect our own powers,--and every branch of +useful labor will spring and flourish under our well-directed efforts. +We shall come out of our great contest, not bedraggled, ragged, and +poverty-stricken, but developed, instructed, and rich. Then will we +gladly join with other nations in the free interchange of manufactures, +and gratify our eye and taste with what is foreign, while we can in turn +send abroad our own productions in equal ratio." + +"Upon my word," said Miss Featherstone, "I should think it was the +Fourth of July,--but I yield the point. I am convinced; and henceforth +you will see me among the most stringent of the leaguers." + +"Right!" said I. + +And, fair lady-reader, let me hope you will say the same. You can do +something for your country,--it lies right in your hand. Go to the +shops, determined on supplying your family and yourself with American +goods. Insist on having them; raise the question of origin over every +article shown to you. In the Revolutionary times, some of the leading +matrons of New England gave parties where the ladies were dressed in +homespun and drank sage-tea. Fashion makes all things beautiful, and +you, my charming and accomplished friend, can create beauty by creating +fashion. What makes the beauty of half the Cashmere shawls? Not anything +in the shawls themselves, for they look coarse and dingy. It is the +association with style and fashion. Fair lady, give style and fashion to +the products of your own country,--resolve that the money in your hand +shall go to your brave brothers, to your co-Americans, now straining +every nerve to uphold the nation, and cause it to stand high in the +earth. What are you without your country? As Americans you can hope for +no rank but the rank of your native land, no badge of nobility but her +beautiful stars. It rests with this conflict to decide whether those +stars shall be badges of nobility to you and your children in all lands. +Women of America, your country expects every woman to do her duty! + + + + +HAWTHORNE. + + +It is with a sad pleasure that the readers of this magazine will see in +its pages the first chapter of "The Dolliver Romance," the latest record +of Nathaniel Hawthorne meant for the public eye. The charm of his +description and the sweet flow of his style will lead all who open upon +it to read on to the closing paragraph. With its harmonious cadences the +music of this quaint, mystic overture is suddenly hushed, and we seem to +hear instead the tolling of a bell in the far distance. The procession +of shadowy characters which was gathering in our imaginations about the +ancient man and the little child who come so clearly before our sight +seems to fade away, and in its place a slow-pacing train winds through +the village-road and up the wooded hill-side until it stops at a little +opening among the tall trees. There the bed is made in which he whose +dreams had peopled our common life with shapes and thoughts of beauty +and wonder is to take his rest. This is the end of the first chapter we +have been reading, and of that other first chapter in the life of an +Immortal, whose folded pages will be opened, we trust, in the light of a +brighter day. + +It was my fortune to be among the last of the friends who looked upon +Hawthorne's living face. Late in the afternoon of the day before he left +Boston on his last journey I called upon him at the hotel where he was +staying. He had gone out but a moment before. Looking along the street, +I saw a figure at some distance in advance which could only be his,--but +how changed from his former port and figure! There was no mistaking the +long iron-gray locks, the carriage of the head, and the general look of +the natural outlines and movement; but he seemed to have shrunken in all +his dimensions, and faltered along with an uncertain, feeble step, as if +every movement were an effort. I joined him, and we walked together half +an hour, during which time I learned so much of his state of mind and +body as could be got at without worrying him with suggestive +questions,--my object being to form an opinion of his condition, as I +had been requested to do, and to give him some hints that might be +useful to him on his journey. + +His aspect, medically considered, was very unfavorable. There were +persistent local symptoms, referred especially to the stomach,--"boring +pain," distension, difficult digestion, with great wasting of flesh and +strength. He was very gentle, very willing to answer questions, very +docile to such counsel as I offered him, but evidently had no hope of +recovering his health. He spoke as if his work were done, and he should +write no more. + +With all his obvious depression, there was no failing noticeable in his +conversational powers. There was the same backwardness and hesitancy +which in his best days it was hard for him to overcome, so that talking +with him was almost like love-making, and his shy, beautiful soul had to +be wooed from its bashful pudency like an unschooled maiden. The calm +despondency with which he spoke about himself confirmed the unfavorable +opinion suggested by his look and history. + +The journey on which Mr. Hawthorne was setting out, when I saw him, was +undertaken for the benefit of his health. A few weeks earlier he had +left Boston on a similar errand in company with Mr. William D. Ticknor, +who had kindly volunteered to be his companion in a trip which promised +to be of some extent and duration, and from which this faithful friend, +whose generous devotion deserves the most grateful remembrance, hoped to +bring him back restored, or at least made stronger. Death joined the +travellers, but it was not the invalid whom he selected as his victim. +The strong man was taken, and the suffering valetudinarian found himself +charged with those last duties which he was so soon to need at the hands +of others. The fatigue of mind and body thus substituted for the +recreation which he greatly needed must have hastened the course of his +disease, or at least have weakened his powers of resistance to no small +extent. + +Once more, however, in company with his old college-friend and +classmate, Ex-President Pierce, he made the attempt to recover his lost +health by this second journey. My visit to him on the day before his +departure was a somewhat peculiar one, partly of friendship, but partly +also in compliance with the request I have referred to. + +I asked only such questions as were like to afford practical hints as to +the way in which he should manage himself on his journey. It was more +important that he should go away as hopeful as might be than that a +searching examination should point him to the precise part diseased, +condemning him to a forlorn self-knowledge such as the masters of the +art of diagnosis sometimes rashly substitute for the ignorance which is +comparative happiness. Being supposed to remember something of the craft +pleasantly satirized in the chapter before us, I volunteered, not "an +infallible panacea of my own distillation," but some familiar +palliatives which I hoped might relieve the symptoms of which he +complained most. The history of his disease must, I suppose, remain +unwritten, and perhaps it is just as well that it should be so. Men of +sensibility and genius hate to have their infirmities dragged out of +them by the roots in exhaustive series of cross-questionings and +harassing physical explorations, and he who has enlarged the domain of +the human soul may perhaps be spared his contribution to the pathology +of the human body. At least, I was thankful that it was not my duty to +sound all the jarring chords of this sensitive organism, and that a few +cheering words and the prescription of a not ungrateful sedative and +cordial or two could not lay on me the reproach of having given him his +"final bitter taste of this world, perhaps doomed to be a recollected +nauseousness in the next." + +There was nothing in Mr. Hawthorne's aspect that gave warning of so +sudden an end as that which startled us all. It seems probable that he +died by the gentlest of all modes of release, fainting, without the +trouble and confusion of coming back to life,--a way of ending liable to +happen in any disease attended with much debility. + +Mr. Hawthorne died in the town of Plymouth, New Hampshire, on the +nineteenth of May. The moment, and even the hour, could not be told, for +he had passed away without giving any sign of suffering, such as might +call the attention of the friend near him. On Monday, the twenty-third +of May, his body was given back to earth in the place where he had long +lived, and which he had helped to make widely known,--the ancient town +of Concord. + +The day of his burial will always live in the memory of all who shared +in its solemn, grateful duties. All the fair sights and sweet sounds of +the opening season mingled their enchantments as if in homage to the +dead master, who, as a lover of Nature and a student of life, had given +such wealth of poetry to our New-England home, and invested the stern +outlines of Puritan character with the colors of romance. It was the +bridal day of the season, perfect in light as if heaven were looking on, +perfect in air as if Nature herself were sighing for our loss. The +orchards were all in fresh flower,-- + + "One boundless blush, one white-empurpled shower + Of mingled blossoms";-- + +the banks were literally blue with violets; the elms were putting out +their tender leaves, just in that passing aspect which Raphael loved to +pencil in the backgrounds of his holy pictures, not as yet printing deep +shadows, but only mottling the sunshine at their feet. The birds were in +full song; the pines were musical with the soft winds they sweetened. +All was in faultless accord, and every heart was filled with the beauty +that flooded the landscape. + +The church where the funeral services were performed was luminous with +the whitest blossoms of the luxuriant spring. A great throng of those +who loved him, of those who honored his genius, of those who held him in +kindly esteem as a neighbor and friend, filled the edifice. Most of +those who were present wished to look once more at the features which +they remembered with the lights and shadows of life's sunshine upon +them. The cold moonbeam of death lay white on the noble forehead and +still, placid features; but they never looked fuller of power than in +this last aspect with which they met the eyes that were turned upon +them. + +In a patch of sunlight, flecked by the shade of tall, murmuring pines, +at the summit of a gently swelling mound where the wild-flowers had +climbed to find the light and the stirring of fresh breezes, the tired +poet was laid beneath the green turf. Poet let us call him, though his +chants were not modulated in the rhythm of verse. The element of poetry +is air: we know the poet by his atmospheric effects, by the blue of his +distances, by the softening of every hard outline he touches, by the +silvery mist in which he veils deformity and clothes what is common so +that it changes to awe-inspiring mystery, by the clouds of gold and +purple which are the drapery of his dreams. And surely we have had but +one prose-writer who could be compared with him in aerial perspective, +if we may use the painter's term. If Irving is the Claude of our +unrhymed poetry, Hawthorne is its Poussin. + +This is not the occasion for the analysis and valuation of Hawthorne's +genius. If the reader wishes to see a thoughtful and generous estimate +of his powers, and a just recognition of the singular beauty of his +style, he may turn to the number of this magazine published in May, +1860. The last effort of Hawthorne's creative mind is before him in the +chapter here printed. The hand of the dead master shows itself in every +line. The shapes and scenes he pictures slide at once into our +consciousness, as if they belonged there as much as our own homes and +relatives. That limpid flow of expression, never laboring, never +shallow, never hurried nor uneven nor turbid, but moving on with +tranquil force, clear to the depths of its profoundest thought, shows +itself with all its consummate perfections. Our literature could ill +spare the rich ripe autumn of such a life as Hawthorne's, but he has +left enough to keep his name in remembrance as long as the language in +which he shaped his deep imaginations is spoken by human lips. + + + + +A SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE. + + +Doctor Dolliver, a worthy personage of extreme antiquity, was aroused +rather prematurely, one summer morning, by the shouts of the child +Pansie, in an adjoining chamber, summoning Old Martha (who performed the +duties of nurse, housekeeper, and kitchen-maid, in the Doctor's +establishment) to take up her little ladyship and dress her. The old +gentleman woke with more than his customary alacrity, and, after taking +a moment to gather his wits about him, pulled aside the faded moreen +curtains of his ancient bed, and thrust his head into a beam of sunshine +that caused him to wink and withdraw it again. This transitory glimpse +of good Dr. Dolliver showed a flannel nightcap, fringed round with stray +locks of silvery white hair, and surmounting a meagre and duskily yellow +visage, which was crossed and criss-crossed with a record of his long +life in wrinkles, faithfully written, no doubt, but with such cramped +chirography of Father Time that the purport was illegible. It seemed +hardly worth while for the patriarch to get out of bed any more, and +bring his forlorn shadow into the summer day that was made for younger +folks. The Doctor, however, was by no means of that opinion, being +considerably encouraged towards the toil of living twenty-four hours +longer by the comparative ease with which he found himself going through +the usually painful process of bestirring his rusty joints, (stiffened +by the very rest and sleep that should have made them pliable,) and +putting them in a condition to bear his weight upon the floor. Nor was +he absolutely disheartened by the idea of those tonsorial, ablutionary, +and personally decorative labors which are apt to become so intolerably +irksome to an old gentleman, after performing them daily and daily for +fifty, sixty, or seventy years, and finding them still as immitigably +recurrent as at first. Dr. Dolliver could nowise account for this happy +condition of his spirits and physical energies, until he remembered +taking an experimental sip of a certain cordial which was long ago +prepared by his grandson and carefully scaled up in a bottle, and had +been reposited in a dark closet among a parcel of effete medicines ever +since that gifted young man's death. + +"It may have wrought effect upon me," thought the Doctor, shaking his +head as he lifted it again from the pillow. "It may be so; for poor +Cornelius oftentimes instilled a strange efficacy into his perilous +drugs. But I will rather believe it to be the operation of God's mercy, +which may have temporarily invigorated my feeble age for little Pansie's +sake." + +A twinge of his familiar rheumatism, as he put his foot out of bed, +taught him that he must not reckon too confidently upon even a day's +respite from the intrusive family of aches and infirmities which, with +their proverbial fidelity to attachments once formed, had long been the +closest acquaintances that the poor old gentleman had in the world. +Nevertheless, he fancied the twinge a little less poignant than those of +yesterday; and, moreover, after stinging him pretty smartly, it passed +gradually off with a thrill, which, in its latter stages, grew to be +almost agreeable. Pain is but pleasure too strongly emphasized. With +cautious movements, and only a groan or two, the good Doctor transferred +himself from the bed to the floor, where he stood awhile, gazing from +one piece of quaint furniture to another, (such as stiff-backed +Mayflower chairs, an oaken chest-of-drawers carved cunningly with shapes +of animals and wreaths of foliage, a table with multitudinous legs, a +family-record in faded embroidery, a shelf of black-bound books, a dirty +heap of gallipots and phials in a dim corner,)--gazing at these things +and steadying himself by the bedpost, while his inert brain, still +partially benumbed with sleep, came slowly into accordance with the +realities about him. The object which most helped to bring Dr. Dolliver +completely to his waking perceptions was one that common observers might +suppose to have been snatched bodily out of his dreams. The same sunbeam +that had dazzled the Doctor between the bed-curtains gleamed on the +weather-beaten gilding which had once adorned this mysterious symbol, +and showed it to be an enormous serpent, twining round a wooden post, +and reaching quite from the floor of the chamber to its ceiling. + +It was evidently a thing that could boast of considerable antiquity, the +dry-rot having eaten out its eyes and gnawed away the tip of its tail; +and it must have stood long exposed to the atmosphere, for a kind of +gray moss had partially overspread its tarnished gilt surface, and a +swallow, or other familiar little bird, in some by-gone summer, seemed +to have built its nest in the yawning and exaggerated mouth. It looked +like a kind of Manichean idol, which might have been elevated on a +pedestal for a century or so, enjoying the worship of its votaries in +the open air, until the impious sect perished from among men,--all save +old Dr. Dolliver, who had set up the monster in his bedchamber for the +convenience of private devotion. But we are unpardonable in suggesting +such a fantasy to the prejudice of our venerable friend, knowing him to +have been as pious and upright a Christian, and with as little of the +serpent in his character, as ever came of Puritan lineage. Not to make a +further mystery about a very simple matter, this bedimmed and rotten +reptile was once the medical emblem or apothecary's sign of the famous +Dr. Swinnerton, who practised physic in the earlier days of New England, +when a head of AEsculapius or Hippocrates would have vexed the souls of +the righteous as savoring of heathendom. The ancient dispenser of drugs +had therefore set up an image of the Brazen Serpent, and followed his +business for many years, with great credit, under this Scriptural +device; and Dr. Dolliver, being the apprentice, pupil, and humble friend +of the learned Swinnerton's old age, had inherited the symbolic snake, +and much other valuable property, by his bequest. + +While the patriarch was putting on his small-clothes, he took care to +stand in the parallelogram of bright sunshine that fell upon the +uncarpeted floor. The summer warmth was very genial to his system, and +yet made him shiver; his wintry veins rejoiced at it, though the +reviving blood tingled through them with a half painful and only half +pleasurable titillation. For the first few moments after creeping out of +bed, he kept his back to the sunny window and seemed mysteriously shy of +glancing thitherward; but as the June fervor pervaded him more and more +thoroughly, he turned bravely about, and looked forth at a burial-ground +on the corner of which he dwelt. There lay many an old acquaintance, who +had gone to sleep with the flavor of Dr. Dolliver's tinctures and +powders upon his tongue; it was the patient's final bitter taste of this +world, and perhaps doomed to be a recollected nauseousness in the next. +Yesterday, in the chill of his forlorn old age, the Doctor expected soon +to stretch out his weary bones among that quiet community, and might +scarcely have shrunk from the prospect on his own account, except, +indeed, that he dreamily mixed up the infirmities of his present +condition with the repose of the approaching one, being haunted by a +notion that the damp earth, under the grass and dandelions, must needs +be pernicious for his cough and his rheumatism. But, this morning, the +cheerful sunbeams, or the mere taste of his grandson's cordial that he +had taken at bedtime, or the fitful vigor that often sports irreverently +with aged people, had caused an unfrozen drop of youthfulness, somewhere +within him, to expand. + +"Hem! ahem!" quoth the Doctor, hoping with one effort to clear his +throat of the dregs of a ten years' cough. "Matters are not so far gone +with me as I thought. I have known mighty sensible men, when only a +little age-stricken or otherwise out of sorts, to die of mere +faint-heartedness, a great deal sooner than they need." + +He shook his silvery head at his own image in the looking-glass, as if +to impress the apophthegm on that shadowy representative of himself; and +for his part, he determined to pluck up a spirit and live as long as he +possibly could, if it were only for the sake of little Pansie, who stood +as close to one extremity of human life as her great-grandfather to the +other. This child of three years old occupied all the unfossilized +portion of good Dr. Dolliver's heart. Every other interest that he +formerly had, and the entire confraternity of persons whom he once +loved, had long ago departed, and the poor Doctor could not follow them, +because the grasp of Pansie's baby-fingers held him back. + +So he crammed a great silver watch into his fob, and drew on a patchwork +morning-gown of an ancient fashion. Its original material was said to +have been the embroidered front of his own wedding-waistcoat and the +silken skirt of his wife's bridal attire, which his eldest granddaughter +had taken from the carved chest-of-drawers, after poor Bessie, the +beloved of his youth, had been half a century in the grave. Throughout +many of the intervening years, as the garment got ragged, the spinsters +of the old man's family had quilted their duty and affection into it in +the shape of patches upon patches, rose-color, crimson, blue, violet, +and green, and then (as their hopes faded, and their life kept growing +shadier, and their attire took a sombre hue) sober gray and great +fragments of funereal black, until the Doctor could revive the memory of +most things that had befallen him by looking at his patchwork-gown, as +it hung upon a chair. And now it was ragged again, and all the fingers +that should have mended it were cold. It had an Eastern fragrance, too, +a smell of drugs, strong-scented herbs, and spicy gums, gathered from +the many potent infusions that had from time to time been spilt over it; +so that, snuffing him afar off, you might have taken Dr. Dolliver for a +mummy, and could hardly have been undeceived by his shrunken and torpid +aspect, as he crept nearer. + +Wrapt in his odorous and many-colored robe, he took staff in hand and +moved pretty vigorously to the head of the staircase. As it was somewhat +steep, and but dimly lighted, he began cautiously to descend, putting +his left hand on the banister, and poking down his long stick to assist +him in making sure of the successive steps; and thus he became a living +illustration of the accuracy of Scripture, where it describes the aged +as being "afraid of that which is high,"--a truth that is often found to +have a sadder purport than its external one. Half-way to the bottom, +however, the Doctor heard the impatient and authoritative tones of +little Pansie,--Queen Pansie, as she might fairly have been styled, in +reference to her position in the household,--calling amain for grandpapa +and breakfast. He was startled into such perilous activity by the +summons, that his heels slid on the stairs, the slippers were shuffled +off his feet, and he saved himself from a tumble only by quickening his +pace, and coming down at almost a run. + +"Mercy on my poor old bones!" mentally exclaimed the Doctor, fancying +himself fractured in fifty places. "Some of them are broken, surely, and +methinks my heart has leaped out of my mouth! What! all right? Well, +well! but Providence is kinder to me than I deserve, prancing down this +steep staircase like a kid of three months old!" + +He bent stiffly to gather up his slippers and fallen staff; and +meanwhile Pansie had heard the tumult of her great-grandfather's +descent, and was pounding against the door of the breakfast-room in her +haste to come at him. The Doctor opened it, and there she stood, a +rather pale and large-eyed little thing, quaint in her aspect, as might +well be the case with a motherless child, dwelling in an uncheerful +house, with no other playmates than a decrepit old man and a kitten, and +no better atmosphere within-doors than the odor of decayed +apothecary's-stuff, nor gayer neighborhood than that of the adjacent +burial-ground, where all her relatives, from her great-grandmother +downward, lay calling to her, "Pansie, Pansie, it is bedtime!" even in +the prime of the summer morning. For those dead womenfolk, especially +her mother and the whole row of maiden aunts and grand-aunts, could not +but be anxious about the child, knowing that little Pansie would be far +safer under a tuft of dandelions than if left alone, as she soon must +be, in this difficult and deceitful world. + +Yet, in spite of the lack of damask roses in her cheeks, she seemed a +healthy child, and certainly showed great capacity of energetic movement +in the impulsive capers with which she welcomed her venerable +progenitor. She shouted out her satisfaction, moreover, (as her custom +was, having never had any over-sensitive auditors about her to tame down +her voice,) till even the Doctor's dull ears were full of the clamor. + +"Pansie, darling," said Dr. Dolliver cheerily, patting her brown hair +with his tremulous fingers, "thou hast put some of thine own friskiness +into poor old grandfather, this fine morning! Dost know, child, that he +came near breaking his neck down-stairs at the sound of thy voice? What +wouldst thou have done then, little Pansie?" + +"Kiss poor grandpapa and make him well!" answered the child, remembering +the Doctor's own mode of cure in similar mishaps to herself. "It shall +do poor grandpapa good!" she added, putting up her mouth to apply the +remedy. + +"Ah, little one, thou hast greater faith in thy medicines than ever I +had in my drugs," replied the patriarch with a giggle, surprised and +delighted at his own readiness of response. "But the kiss is good for my +feeble old heart, Pansie, though it might do little to mend a broken +neck; so give grandpapa another dose, and let us to breakfast." + +In this merry humor they sat down to the table, great-grandpapa and +Pansie side by side, and the kitten, as soon appeared, making a third in +the party. First, she showed her mottled head out of Pansie's lap, +delicately sipping milk from the child's basin without rebuke; then she +took post on the old gentleman's shoulder, purring like a +spinning-wheel, trying her claws in the wadding of his dressing-gown, +and still more impressively reminding him of her presence by putting out +a paw to intercept a warmed-over morsel of yesterday's chicken on its +way to the Doctor's mouth. After skilfully achieving this feat, she +scrambled down upon the breakfast-table and began to wash her face and +hands. Evidently, these companions were all three on intimate terms, as +was natural enough, since a great many childish impulses were softly +creeping back on the simple-minded old man; insomuch that, if no worldly +necessities nor painful infirmity had disturbed him, his remnant of life +might have been as cheaply and cheerily enjoyed as the early playtime of +the kitten and the child. Old Dr. Dolliver and his great-grand-daughter +(a ponderous title, which seemed quite to overwhelm the tiny figure of +Pansie) had met one another at the two extremities of the life-circle: +her sunrise served him for a sunset, illuminating his locks of silver +and hers of golden brown with a homogeneous shimmer of twinkling light. + +Little Pansie was the one earthly creature that inherited a drop of the +Dolliver blood. The Doctor's only child, poor Bessie's offspring, had +died the better part of a hundred years before, and his grandchildren, a +numerous and dimly remembered brood, had vanished along his weary track +in their youth, maturity, or incipient age, till, hardly knowing how it +had all happened, he found himself tottering onward with an infant's +small fingers in his nerveless grasp. So mistily did his dead progeny +come and go in the patriarch's decayed recollection, that this solitary +child represented for him the successive babyhoods of the many that had +gone before. The emotions of his early paternity came back to him. She +seemed the baby of a past age oftener than she seemed Pansie. A whole +family of grand-aunts, (one of whom had perished in her cradle, never so +mature as Pansie now, another in her virgin bloom, another in autumnal +maidenhood, yellow and shrivelled, with vinegar in her blood, and still +another, a forlorn widow, whose grief outlasted even its vitality, and +grew to be merely a torpid habit, and was saddest then,)--all their +hitherto forgotten features peeped through the face of the +great-grandchild, and their long inaudible voices sobbed, shouted, or +laughed, in her familiar tones. But it often happened to Dr. Dolliver, +while frolicking amid this throng of ghosts, where the one reality +looked no more vivid than its shadowy sisters,--it often happened that +his eyes filled with tears at a sudden perception of what a sad and +poverty-stricken old man he was, already remote from his own generation, +and bound to stray farther onward as the sole playmate and protector of +a child! + +As Dr. Dolliver, in spite of his advanced epoch of life, is likely to +remain a considerable time longer upon our hands, we deem it expedient +to give a brief sketch of his position, in order that the story may get +onward with the greater freedom when he rises from the breakfast-table. +Deeming it a matter of courtesy, we have allowed him the honorary title +of Doctor, as did all his towns-people and contemporaries, except, +perhaps, one or two formal old physicians, stingy of civil phrases and +over-jealous of their own professional dignity. Nevertheless, these +crusty graduates were technically right in excluding Dr. Dolliver from +their fraternity. He had never received the degree of any medical +school, nor (save it might be for the cure of a toothache, or a child's +rash, or a whitlow on a seamstress's finger, or some such trifling +malady) had he ever been even a practitioner of the awful science with +which his popular designation connected him. Our old friend, in short, +even at his highest social elevation, claimed to be nothing more than an +apothecary, and, in these later and far less prosperous days, scarcely +so much. Since the death of his last surviving grandson, (Pansie's +father, whom he had instructed in all the mysteries of his science, and +who, being distinguished by an experimental and inventive tendency, was +generally believed to have poisoned himself with an infallible panacea +of his own distillation,)--since that final bereavement, Dr. Dolliver's +once pretty flourishing business had lamentably declined. After a few +months of unavailing struggle, he found it expedient to take down the +Brazen Serpent from the position to which Dr. Swinnerton had originally +elevated it, in front of his shop in the main street, and to retire to +his private dwelling, situated in a by-lane and on the edge of a +burial-ground. + +This house, as well as the Brazen Serpent, some old medical books, and a +drawer full of manuscripts, had come to him by the legacy of Dr. +Swinnerton. The dreariness of the locality had been of small importance +to our friend in his young manhood, when he first led his fair wife over +the threshold, and so long as neither of them had any kinship with the +human dust that rose into little hillocks, and still kept accumulating +beneath their window. But, too soon afterwards, when poor Bessie herself +had gone early to rest there, it is probable that an influence from her +grave may have prematurely calmed and depressed her widowed husband, +taking away much of the energy from what should have been the most +active portion of his life. Thus he never grew rich. His thrifty +townsmen used to tell him, that, in any other man's hands, Dr. +Swinnerton's Brazen Serpent (meaning, I presume, the inherited credit +and good-will of that old worthy's trade) would need but ten years' time +to transmute its brass into gold. In Dr. Dolliver's keeping, as we have +seen, the inauspicious symbol lost the greater part of what superficial +gilding it originally had. Matters had not mended with him in more +advanced life, after he had deposited a further and further portion of +his heart and its affections in each successive one of a long row of +kindred graves; and as he stood over the last of them, holding Pansie by +the hand and looking down upon the coffin of his grandson, it is no +wonder that the old man wept, partly for those gone before, but not so +bitterly as for the little one that stayed behind. Why had not God taken +her with the rest? And then, so hopeless as he was, so destitute of +possibilities of good, his weary frame, his decrepit bones, his dried-up +heart, might have crumbled into dust at once, and have been scattered by +the next wind over all the heaps of earth that were akin to him. + +This intensity of desolation, however, was of too positive a character +to be long sustained by a person of Dr. Dolliver's original gentleness +and simplicity, and now so completely tamed by age and misfortune. Even +before he turned away from the grave, he grew conscious of a slightly +cheering and invigorating effect from the tight grasp of the child's +warm little hand. Feeble as he was, she seemed to adopt him willingly +for her protector. And the Doctor never afterwards shrank from his duty +nor quailed beneath it, but bore himself like a man, striving, amid the +sloth of age and the breaking-up of intellect, to earn the competency +which he had failed to accumulate even in his most vigorous days. + +To the extent of securing a present subsistence for Pansie and himself, +he was successful. After his son's death, when the Brazen Serpent fell +into popular disrepute, a small share of tenacious patronage followed +the old man into his retirement. In his prime, he had been allowed to +possess more skill than usually fell to the share of a Colonial +apothecary, having been regularly apprenticed to Dr. Swinnerton, who, +throughout his long practice, was accustomed personally to concoct the +medicines which he prescribed and dispensed. It was believed, indeed, +that the ancient physician had learned the art at the world-famous +drug-manufactory of Apothecary's Hall, in London, and, as some people +half-malignly whispered, had perfected himself under masters more subtle +than were to be found even there. Unquestionably, in many critical +cases he was known to have employed remedies of mysterious composition +and dangerous potency, which in less skilful hands would have been more +likely to kill than cure. He would willingly, it is said, have taught +his apprentice the secrets of these prescriptions, but the latter, being +of a timid character and delicate conscience, had shrunk from +acquaintance with them. It was probably as the result of the same +scrupulosity that Dr. Dolliver had always declined to enter the medical +profession, in which his old instructor had set him such heroic examples +of adventurous dealing with matters of life and death. Nevertheless, the +aromatic fragrance, so to speak, of the learned Swinnerton's reputation +had clung to our friend through life; and there were elaborate +preparations in the pharmacopoeia of that day, requiring such minute +skill and conscientious fidelity in the concocter that the physicians +were still glad to confide them to one in whom these qualities were so +evident. + +Moreover, the grandmothers of the community were kind to him, and +mindful of his perfumes, his rose-water, his cosmetics, tooth-powders, +pomanders, and pomades, the scented memory of which lingered about their +toilet-tables, or came faintly back from the days when they were +beautiful. Among this class of customers there was still a demand for +certain comfortable little nostrums, (delicately sweet and pungent to +the taste, cheering to the spirits, and fragrant in the breath,) the +proper distillation of which was the airiest secret that the mystic +Swinnerton had left behind him. And, besides, these old ladies had +always liked the manners of Dr. Dolliver, and used to speak of his +gentle courtesy behind the counter as having positively been something +to admire; though, of later years, an unrefined, an almost rustic +simplicity, such as belonged to his humble ancestors, appeared to have +taken possession of him, as it often does of prettily mannered men in +their late decay. + +But it resulted from all these favorable circumstances that the Doctor's +marble mortar, though worn with long service and considerably damaged by +a crack that pervaded it, continued to keep up an occasional intimacy +with the pestle; and he still weighed drachms and scruples in his +delicate scales, though it seemed impossible, dealing with such minute +quantities, that his tremulous fingers should not put in too little or +too much, leaving out life with the deficiency or spilling in death with +the surplus. To say the truth, his stanchest friends were beginning to +think that Dr. Dolliver's fits of absence (when his mind appeared +absolutely to depart from him, while his frail old body worked on +mechanically) rendered him not quite trustworthy without a close +supervision of his proceedings. It was impossible, however, to convince +the aged apothecary of the necessity for such vigilance; and if anything +could stir up his gentle temper to wrath, or, as oftener happened, to +tears, it was the attempt (which he was marvellously quick to detect) +thus to interfere with his long-familiar business. + +The public, meanwhile, ceasing to regard Dr. Dolliver in his +professional aspect, had begun to take an interest in him as perhaps +their oldest fellow-citizen. It was he that remembered the Great Fire +and the Great Snow, and that had been a grown-up stripling at the +terrible epoch of Witch-Times, and a child just breeched at the +breaking-out of King Philip's Indian War. He, too, in his school-boy +days, had received a benediction from the patriarchal Governor +Bradstreet, and thus could boast (somewhat as Bishops do of their +unbroken succession from the Apostles) of a transmitted blessing from +the whole company of sainted Pilgrims, among whom the venerable +magistrate had been an honored companion. Viewing their townsman in this +aspect, the people revoked the courteous Doctorate with which they had +heretofore decorated him, and now knew him most familiarly as Grandsir +Dolliver. His white head, his Puritan band, his threadbare garb, (the +fashion of which he had ceased to change, half a century ago,) his +gold-headed staff, that had been Dr. Swinnerton's, his shrunken, frosty +figure, and its feeble movement,--all these characteristics had a +wholeness and permanence in the public recognition, like the +meeting-house steeple or the town-pump. All the younger portion of the +inhabitants unconsciously ascribed a sort of aged immortality to +Grandsir Dolliver's infirm and reverend presence. They fancied that he +had been born old, (at least, I remember entertaining some such notions +about age-stricken people, when I myself was young,) and that he could +the better tolerate his aches and incommodities, his dull ears and dim +eyes, his remoteness from human intercourse within the crust of +indurated years, the cold temperature that kept him always shivering and +sad, the heavy burden that invisibly bent down his shoulders,--that all +these intolerable things might bring a kind of enjoyment to Grandsir +Dolliver, as the life-long conditions of his peculiar existence. + +But, alas! it was a terrible mistake. This weight of years had a +perennial novelty for the poor sufferer. He never grew accustomed to it, +but, long as he had now borne the fretful torpor of his waning life, and +patient as he seemed, he still retained an inward consciousness that +these stiffened shoulders, these quailing knees, this cloudiness of +sight and brain, this confused forgetfulness of men and affairs, were +troublesome accidents that did not really belong to him. He possibly +cherished a half-recognized idea that they might pass away. Youth, +however eclipsed for a season, is undoubtedly the proper, permanent, and +genuine condition of man; and if we look closely into this dreary +delusion of growing old, we shall find that it never absolutely succeeds +in laying hold of our innermost convictions. A sombre garment, woven of +life's unrealities, has muffled us from our true self, but within it +smiles the young man whom we knew; the ashes of many perishable things +have fallen upon our youthful fire, but beneath them lurk the seeds of +inextinguishable flame. So powerful is this instinctive faith that men +of simple modes of character are prone to antedate its consummation. And +thus it happened with poor Grandsir Dolliver, who often awoke from an +old man's fitful sleep with a sense that his senile predicament was but +a dream of the past night; and hobbling hastily across the cold floor to +the looking-glass, he would be grievously disappointed at beholding the +white hair, the wrinkles and furrows, the ashen visage and bent form, +the melancholy mask of Age, in which, as he now remembered, some strange +and sad enchantment had involved him for years gone by! + +To other eyes than his own, however, the shrivelled old gentleman looked +as if there were little hope of his throwing off this too artfully +wrought disguise, until, at no distant day, his stooping figure should +be straightened out, his hoary locks be smoothed over his brows, and his +much enduring bones be laid safely away, with a green coverlet spread +over them, beside his Bessie, who doubtless would recognize her youthful +companion in spite of his ugly garniture of decay. He longed to be gazed +at by the loving eyes now closed; he shrank from the hard stare of them +that loved him not. Walking the streets seldom and reluctantly, he felt +a dreary impulse to elude the people's observation, as if with a sense +that he had gone irrevocably out of fashion, and broken his connecting +links with the network of human life; or else it was that +nightmare-feeling which we sometimes have in dreams, when we seem to +find ourselves wandering through a crowded avenue, with the noonday sun +upon us, in some wild extravagance of dress or nudity. He was conscious +of estrangement from his towns-people, but did not always know how nor +wherefore, nor why he should be thus groping through the twilight mist +in solitude. If they spoke loudly to him, with cheery voices, the +greeting translated itself faintly and mournfully to his ears; if they +shook him by the hand, it was as if a thick, insensible glove absorbed +the kindly pressure and the warmth. When little Pansie was the companion +of his walk, her childish gayety and freedom did not avail to bring him +into closer relationship with men, but seemed to follow him into that +region of indefinable remoteness, that dismal Fairy-Land of aged fancy, +into which old Grandsir Dolliver had so strangely crept away. + +Yet there were moments, as many persons had noticed, when the +great-grandpapa would suddenly take stronger hues of life. It was as if +his faded figure had been colored over anew, or at least, as he and +Pansie moved along the street, as if a sunbeam had fallen across him, +instead of the gray gloom of an instant before. His chilled +sensibilities had probably been touched and quickened by the warm +contiguity of his little companion through the medium of her hand, as it +stirred within his own, or some inflection of her voice that set his +memory ringing and chiming with forgotten sounds. While that music +lasted, the old man was alive and happy. And there were seasons, it +might be, happier than even these, when Pansie had been kissed and put +to bed, and Grandsir Dolliver sat by his fireside gazing in among the +massive coals, and absorbing their glow into those cavernous abysses +with which all men communicate. Hence come angels or fiends into our +twilight musings, according as we may have peopled them in by-gone +years. Over our friend's face, in the rosy flicker of the fire-gleam, +stole an expression of repose and perfect trust that made him as +beautiful to look at, in his high-backed chair, as the child Pansie on +her pillow; and sometimes the spirits that were watching him beheld a +calm surprise draw slowly over his features and brighten into joy, yet +not go vividly as to break his evening quietude. The gate of heaven had +been kindly left ajar, that this forlorn old creature might catch a +glimpse within. All the night afterwards, he would be semi-conscious of +an intangible bliss diffused through the fitful lapses of an old man's +slumber, and would awake, at early dawn, with a faint thrilling of the +heart-strings, as if there had been music just now wandering over them. + + + + +CURRENCY. + + +It is not only for gold that men labor, fight, and die. One labors long +to perfect an invention; another, to illustrate a theory; a third, to +express a sentiment; a fourth, to acquire real estate. With success, the +first has a machine; the second, a treatise; the third, a poem; the +fourth, a deed. Perhaps no other four persons would willingly expend the +same amount of labor on the same objects; yet this difference of +estimate effects no difference in the objects. Estimation, therefore, or +value, is not a quality of those objects, but a state of mind in +relation to them; accordingly, the poem has value as well as the +machine,--the deed, as well as the wealth it defines. The value of the +deed is, however, widely different from that of the wealth. The value of +the wealth is based on desire, that of the deed on right, though in +neither case exclusively, as, in a general sense, value always involves +both desire and right, and is, therefore, a commercial relation, +resulting from a state of society. + +Men have the sense of right, and the intellect to define it, the will to +defend, and the power to enforce it; and, for the more perfect +development of these capabilities, they have instituted government. The +functions of government are, therefore, the definition, the defence, and +the enforcement of right. + +The exercise of the function of definition led to the invention of two +classes of commercial instrumentalities,--the real, consisting of +weights and measures, and the ideal or representative, consisting of +writing and notation. The exercise of the remaining functions of +government secures the wealth these serve to define. It may, indeed, be +true, in a rude sense, that possession is nine points of the law; but it +is equally true, in a proper sense, that the remaining point is worth +more than the nine; the defence and enforcement of right being an +absolute and well-defined rule of government. In a state of barbarism +men prefer fact to right, for an obvious reason; but as they advance in +science and civilization, as their conceptions become more distinct, +their definitions more exact, their defences more complete, and their +enforcements more powerful, their faith in right increases, and their +esteem increases with their faith, until right becomes of more value +than possession. + +Exchange, whether by barter or sale, is the result of differences of +estimate or value. By barter, the articles exchanged are themselves the +mediums; if, therefore, a given article be generally accepted to that +use, it becomes a common medium; and if it be divided by government into +well-defined quantities, suited and intended for that use, it becomes +money. Money, therefore, in its original form, is a common medium of +barter, that is accepted to that use by authority of law,--a medium +which, considered distinctly from that authority, is simply an article +of merchandise possessing qualities that make it preferable as a means +of barter, and which, for convenience of use, bears the stamp of the +government-inspector, defining the exact quantity contained in each +piece, but which, inasmuch as it is authorized, and partakes of the +nature of law, has ideal qualities that make it the means of sale: these +are, right of use, nomination, and numeration. The ideal qualities of +money serve to establish price, to create money of account, to make +credits possible, and ultimately to produce credit-mediums of exchange, +or bills, which, in a given form, though mere declarations of right to +the wealth they are said to represent, become, in the hands of a +civilized people, a species of currency that, with all its defects, has +proved itself to be the most effectual means both of commerce and of +government. + +Wealth is that which may be used. Value is that by means of which wealth +may be exchanged. A currency, therefore, should consist of +representatives of value,--of representatives, because value, being +ideal, is known only by that means,--of value, because it is only by +differences of estimate or value that exchanges are possible. But, as +these representatives are wholly nominal, and may, therefore, be issued +in any quantity, and as their increase or decrease affects the value of +credits, their issue requires regulation. The quantity of the currency +may be well regulated by finding the rate per head of population during +a favorable state of trade, and by adhering to that invariably. + +That the people of the United States have reached the degree of science +and civilization proper to the creation of such a currency is not yet +evident; but there is reason to believe that they will take the lead in +this as they have in some other actions indicative of advance,--that +they will erelong understand the impropriety of attempting to measure +value by means of merchandise, that is, by a means that is subject to +variations of quantity,--a conclusion that may not appear obvious in +this aspect, but it will be readily understood that in commerce a +variable measure is absurd in theory and intolerable in practice. Yet +this is precisely parallel with using gold, or any other article of +merchandise, as a measure of value. + +The elements of currency are value, a commercial relation derived from +persons, and quantity, a property of things derived heretofore from the +precious metals or their representatives. But this quantity is +inconstant, and to use an inconstant quantity as a measure, is absurd. +The quantity of the currency may, however, be rendered constant, both +positively and relatively, by deriving it wholly from persons,--that is, +by giving it an invariable quantitative relation to the population: a +rule that is both simple and easy of practice, because value is already +nominated and numerated, and the population is already sufficiently well +known. The divisions of the currency should be the simplest possible, +that is, binary, and the definitions of the parts should be as simple as +those of coins. + +With regard to the legal-tender currency, so called, it serves well for +temporary use,--much better, indeed, than any of its predecessors; and +as long as its promises are ignored, and as long as its quantity is not +increased faster than the increase of the population, it is practically +a value-currency, resting on its own inherent right of use, with the +exception of the limitation defined by the law of legal tender. + +One of the duties of the National Government is to supply the people +with a currency. That this is to be used is sufficiently obvious; and +that, being intended for use, and authorized by law, it has the right of +use, is equally obvious; there is, therefore, little need of a law of +legal tender to give it that right. Accordingly, however affirmative +such laws may be in form, their intention is not so much to bestow as to +withhold. + +That the currencies of the world have great defects is so well known +that the statement of the fact would be superfluous, except as +introductory to an attempt to ascertain the nature of those defects, and +to propose an adequate remedy,--an attempt suggested by the rapidity +with which the people, profiting by their present tuition, are learning +wisdom by the things which they suffer in the defence and enforcement of +right. + +Of a specie-currency the defect is want of constancy. This defect, +derived from its material element, has a particular and a general +aspect. The particular is the reduction of the quantity of metal in +coins. The Roman money-unit--the _as_--consisted originally of a pound +of bronze; that of England--the pound sterling--and that of France--the +livre--consisted each of a pound of silver. The first Punic war caused +the pound of bronze to be reduced to two ounces; the second caused its +further reduction to half an ounce; and what now is the weight of the +pound sterling? where now is the livre? and what of coins generally? +Like these individuals, types of the class, they depreciate. The general +aspect is, the occasional reduction of the quantity of coin in +circulation. The merchant, believing it to be more immediately +profitable, exports the coin,--that is, finding the currency to consist +of an article of merchandise that suits his immediate purpose, he treats +it accordingly,--though by so doing he causes a rise of prices where he +buys and a fall where he sells, and to that extent nullifies his own +business-intentions, and deranges those of others. If this derangement +be sufficient, hoarding commences; and as this action multiplies itself, +the currency is soon reduced to its minimum quantity, and business of +every kind with it, until the industry of the country is reduced to a +state of atrophy, until a mere commercial derangement is converted into +an immense loss; because the rise in the value of the currency, due to +its scarcity, causes a corresponding fall in the value of all the wealth +of the country, and thus checks industry and stays production. + +These defects are not pointed out for the purpose of preventing the +adoption of a specie-currency. There is no probability of such a +currency ever prevailing in this country, except in the neighborhood of +the mines, and there only for a time. Much is said about it, as is +usually the case with subjects that are little understood; but the +driblets of specie that may be seen occasionally are not a currency; +neither are those larger quantities held by banks and brokers. Indeed, a +specie-currency in the presence of bank-notes is an impossibility, +because the notes proclaim their own inferiority; consequently, the +specie is retained and the notes circulated. Yet, the operations of the +mint are continued, with the avowed object of creating a specie +currency. This practice is, however, of some use. It serves to show that +mind and matter are governed by the same general laws,--that either +being put in motion wilt continue to move in the given direction, though +the original intention may have ceased. That the original intention of +coining has ceased when the use of the precious metals is confined +almost exclusively to ornamentation and security is a plain case. + +The National Government issues coin for currency, and the States create +banks, with the privilege of using the coin as security, and of issuing +in its stead a larger quantity of notes. These, diluted in value to the +extent of the difference, form, with the authority derived from State +laws, a species of currency that, because of its great convenience, +derived from its representative character, has become, notwithstanding +its defects, one of the greatest powers known to man. The defects of a +bank-note currency are, that, being based on specie, it is necessarily +inconstant, and being insufficiently based, it is necessarily insecure. + +The precious metals are desired for three distinct uses,--ornamentation, +security, and currency; they have, therefore, three distinct elements of +value. By the creation of banks a portion of the currency is converted +into security, and another portion undergoes the same change by reason +of the insecurity of bank-notes. Thus, by the influence of banks, the +precious metals are deprived of most of the value they had as currency, +the specie and the notes depreciating together, and maintaining an +equilibrium of value, until the exportation of the former to countries +where its value is not thus impaired becomes profitable. Then, if the +notes continue to depreciate, as is sometimes the case, the equilibrium +is destroyed, and specie commands a premium. This causes the remainder +to be hoarded, so that it then commands an additional premium as +security, in view of the increasing insecurity of bank-notes. + +A result of the inconstancy of a bank-note currency is exhibited in each +of its several states,--as a diluted, as a depreciated, and as an +irredeemable currency; but more especially in this its third state. But +as it is not intended to be redeemed, except to a very limited extent, +and as these several states are proper to it, and differ only in degree, +it will be sufficient to point out the final result or climax. This is +depreciation in relation to specie, because of the demand for that +article, first for exportation, and then for security; and, at the same +time, appreciation in relation to every other article of merchandise, +because of the reduction of its own quantity, necessary to the +restoration of the lost equilibrium,--necessary to the reestablishment +of its essential element, credit. Thus it appears that the results of a +bank-note currency are similar to those of a specie-currency, but as +much more disastrous as its expansions and contractions are greater and +more sudden. + +To avoid these disasters, it is proposed to issue a national currency +that is constant, and that is therefore a standard measure of value,--an +instrumentality that commerce has never yet been furnished with, though +it is the only one capable of affording to the industry of the country +proper, that is, invariable, encouragement. Not being empirical, it will +make no pretence of furnishing the precious metals at less than the +market-rate, either for exportation or hoarding; but it will have the +effect of reducing them to their true position, that of merchandise, so +that they may be exchanged for the products of other countries with +profit. For the same reason it will not be redeemable. To redeem a +currency is to replace it by another. What other? Specie? That is out of +the question. However desirable specie may be as wealth, as a currency, +except for change, it is a nuisance. Accordingly, merchants prefer a +representative currency, even though its representative character be +somewhat problematical. And government failing to supply a better, this +becomes the currency of the country by a species of necessity. In short, +because of its inconveniences and risks, specie is not used as a +currency, and will not be, because, in addition to these obstacles, the +representative currency in use, being without proper regulation, has +increased to such an extent that there is not sufficient coin to replace +it,--a fact that practically settles in the negative the question of the +sufficiency of the precious metals for currency, in addition to their +other use, in a country where civilization has established credit as a +means of trade. Nevertheless, a specie-currency is advocated even by +those who carefully avoid handling it, and who would be the last to +consent to such a reduction of the currency as its exclusive use would +require,--a confusion of mind due to the fact that the difference +between value and wealth is not always distinctly recognized. Moreover, +it is not the function of a currency to be replaced, but to be a means +of payment. This the proposed currency will be by right of use,--a right +inherent in a national currency, and respected as long as the government +respects itself, that is, as long as the people govern wisely. + +A dollar, value-currency, will always buy a dollar's worth of gold, but +it may not always buy the quantity of gold contained in the gold dollar. +How much it will buy depends on the quantitative relation of the +currency to the population,--a relation which, though entirely optional, +should never be changed, because, with whatever change, provided the +proper relation of the parts to the whole be preserved, with little +there will be no lack, and with much, there will be nothing over,--and +because any change of that relation is injurious to commerce, inasmuch +as it produces a corresponding change in the value of credits. And +assuming a change to have been made, a return to the former rate, +instead of being a mitigation, will be a repetition of the injury, +except in regard to credits so extended that they embrace both changes. +If, however, a reduction be insisted on, a suitable mode may be +proposed. Twenty dollars per head gives six hundred millions. Assuming +this quantity to be superabundant, if it be adhered to until the +population reaches forty millions, the rate will be fifteen dollars per +head, which may be assumed to be abundant. If it be adhered to until the +population reaches sixty millions, which it will probably do in one +generation, the rate will be ten dollars per head, which may be assumed +to be convenient; and any attained rate may be continued, or made +constant, by increasing the currency proportionately with the increase +of the population. This mode of reduction, however, is possible with a +national value-currency only. A specie-currency is incapable of +regulation. The same may be said of any currency based on specie. +Indeed, a credit-currency will necessarily collapse under a +superabundant issue, unless its promises be ignored, or unless it be +sustained at the expense of the nation,--an expense which the nation +itself cannot sustain permanently. + +The rate of the currency governs the value of wealth. It is important, +therefore, that government have time to pay its debts before any great +decrease of currency takes place; otherwise, that decrease will be +equivalent to an increase of taxes, without producing a corresponding +decrease of the public debt. For the portion payable in gold it will be +better economy to pay the premium than to reduce the currency +sufficiently to avoid it; because such a reduction will work a +corresponding reduction of the value of all the wealth of the country, a +sum much greater than the debt. It is scarcely necessary to suggest that +the more currency the less taxes, and the greater the ability to pay +them; or that, when the war is over, government will cease to spend +several hundred millions per annum, and the industry this money supports +will require time to rearrange and adapt itself to pacific demands; or +that, if the currency be suddenly and largely reduced at such a time, +an accumulation of distress will follow, such as is rarely seen. With +the proposed currency, however, and the proposed mode of reduction, if a +reduction be agreed on, the change from the condition of war to that of +peace may take place without producing the prostration of business so +justly anticipated, because so fully warranted by experience of a +credit-currency, and so earnestly to be deprecated, because so evidently +and so easily avoidable by the adoption of a national currency that is +capable of regulation, and that, being properly regulated, cannot fail. + +Though this currency, like that of bank-notes, is wholly nominal, the +words of which it consists are those of a nation, and represent power. +Accordingly, they give to the currency power to perform its allotted +function; but they give it no other power. Has any other currency any +other power? A specie-currency may be converted into ear-rings, but it +is no longer a currency; it may be buried in iron pots, or locked in +iron safes, but it is not then a currency; it may be exported to foreign +lands, but it is not there a currency until reauthorized. Currencies, +properly speaking, are ideas clothed in words,--the words of a nation, +otherwise called laws. The merchandise attached to a specie-currency is +an evidence of former barbarism,--a remain of the primitive practice of +barter,--an incongruous element, tending to impede rather than to assist +circulation, to destroy rather than to create a currency. + +But is a value-currency possible? It is, to a people enjoying universal +equality before the law, and knowing that every individual has a direct +and immediate interest in it,--knowing that it is a part of the +business-policy of each. And it is only such a people that will dare to +inaugurate, and persevere to sustain it. Nevertheless, as it cannot but +appear problematical to minds that have not given to the subject the +most earnest attention, its adoption will doubtless be most strenuously +opposed, by habits of thought, by modes of action, and by interests, as +ancient, as universal, and apparently as fixed as the race itself. Yet, +as M. Arago justly remarks in one of his biographies addressed to the +French Academy,--"The moral transformations of society are subject to +the laws of continuity; they rise and grow, like the productions of the +earth, by imperceptible gradations. Each century develops, discusses, +and adapts to itself, in some degree, truths--or, if you prefer it, +principles--of which the conception belonged to the preceding century; +this work of the mind usually goes on without being perceived by the +vulgar; but when the day of application arrives, when principles claim +their part in practice, when they aim at penetrating into political +life, the ancient interests, if they have only this same antiquity to +invoke in their favor, become excited, resist, and struggle, and society +is shaken to its foundations. The tableau will be complete, Gentlemen, +when I add, that, in these obstinate conflicts, it is never the +principles that succumb." + + + + +IN MEMORY OF + +J. W.--R. W. + + + No mystic charm, no mortal art + Can bid our loved companions stay; + The bands that clasp them to our heart + Snap in death's frost and fall apart; + Like shadows fading with the day, + They pass away. + + The young are stricken in their pride, + The old, long tottering, faint and fall; + Master and scholar, side by side, + Through the dark portals silent glide, + That open in life's mouldering wall + And close on all. + + Our friend's, our teacher's task was done, + When mercy called him from on high; + A little cloud had dimmed the sun, + The saddening hours had just begun, + And darker days were drawing nigh: + 'Twas time to die. + + A whiter soul, a fairer mind, + A life with purer course and aim, + A gentler eye, a voice more kind, + We may not look on earth to find. + The love that lingers o'er his name + Is more than fame. + + These blood-red summers ripen fast; + The sons are older than the sires; + Ere yet the tree to earth is cast, + The sapling falls before the blast; + Life's ashes keep their covered fires,-- + Its flame expires. + + Struck by the noiseless, viewless foe, + Whose deadlier breath than shot or shell + Has laid the best and bravest low, + His boy, all bright in morning's glow, + That high-souled youth he loved so well, + Untimely fell. + + Yet still he wore his placid smile, + And, trustful in the cheering creed + That strives all sorrow to beguile, + Walked calmly on his way awhile: + Ah, breast that leans on breaking reed + Must ever bleed! + + So they both left us, sire and son, + With opening leaf, with laden bough: + The youth whose race was just begun, + The wearied man whose course was run, + Its record written on his brow, + Are brothers now. + + Brothers!--the music of the sound + Breathes softly through my closing strain; + The floor we tread is holy ground, + Those gentle spirits hovering round, + While our fair circle joins again + Its broken chain. + + MAY 25th, 1864. + + + + +MEYERBEER. + + +"Thou knowest not the day nor the hour." Scarcely two years ago the +great composer, whose recent death involves so irreparable a loss to the +world of musical art, was accosted, while in a Paris coffee-house, by a +friend recently arrived from Berlin. + +"What do they say of me there?" asked Meyerbeer, after the first +salutations. + +"They say, with regret, that you are just now as reticent as Rossini." + +"Indeed!" + +"Yet, after all, they add that you are busier than Rossini, for he is +doing nothing, and you, at least, have an opera in your portfolio." + +"Ah! I see you are hinting about the 'Africaine'." + +"Yes, I refer to the 'Africaine'." + +"Bah! bah! The Parisians are in a great hurry about it. I am not dead +yet, and some fine day I will astonish them in a way they will +remember." + +Providence decreed that this harmless boast, this careless prediction, +should come to nought. While he was yet working on the "Africaine", the +hand of death interposed, and, at the cold touch, the pen was laid +aside, the music-paper dropped unheeded on the floor, the piano was +silent, and the composer left forever the scene of his labors and his +triumphs. Few men might, at the last hour, be more justified in +pleading, with earnest anxiety,--"Not now!--not now!" + +Biographers already differ about the date of Meyerbeer's birth, some +asserting that it took place in 1791, while the majority agree that the +day was September 5, 1794. Born of a rich family of Jewish bankers, he +was, at an early age, stimulated to honorable exertion by the success in +other pursuits of his brother William, the astronomer, and Michael, the +poet,--successes which, however, at this day, are chiefly remembered +from their association with the name made really famous by the composer. +His parents encouraged the talent of the youth, who, at as early an age +as Mozart himself, manifested plainly the possession of genius; and when +only five years old, the boy was placed under the instruction of Lanska, +a local celebrity of Berlin. Two years later, little Jacob was a fair +performer on the piano-forte, or such an instrument as at that time +served for the Erard, the Chickering, the Steinway of the present day. +He played, as a prodigy, at the most fashionable amateur-concerts given +at the Prussian capital; and a faded old copy of a Leipsic paper, which +bears the date of 1803, yet survives the destruction awarded to all old +newspapers, simply because it mentions the youthful prodigy--then nine +years old--as one of the best pianists of his native city. + +One of those charming old musical enthusiasts who nowadays are met with +only in Germany--and but seldom there--about this time visited Berlin. +He heard little Jacob play, and at once predicted that the boy would +"one day become one of the glories of Europe," To take lessons in the +theory of music was the advice of this old enthusiast, the Abbe Vogler. + +So the lad was transferred from the tuition of Lanska to that of Bernard +Anselm Weber, a former pupil of old Vogler, and at that time director of +the orchestra at the Berlin opera; and from this master the boy learned +the art of instrumentation and harmony, to a certain degree at least. +Weber was very fond of his pupil, and sent one of his fugues to Vogler, +to show the old man that he was not the only one able to turn out +accomplished scholars. Two months passed without any answer, and Weber +attributed the silence to jealousy, until, one day, a large roll arrived +at his house. It contained a complete "Treatise on the Fugue," written +entirely by the hand of the old master, and containing also a critical +analysis of little Jacob's work, exposing its errors, adding example to +precept, by contrasting with it a fugue written by the Abbe on the same +theme, and also subjecting the two compositions to a severe and logical +criticism, which only proved the superiority of the masterly hand over +the inexperienced. + +Little Jacob was less mortified by this incident than was his poor +teacher, Weber. He took the manuscript, and, after a faithful study of +its contents, wrote another eight-part fugue, which he sent himself to +Vogler. The result was precisely as he desired: he became a pupil of the +old musician. + +Among the central towns of Germany, few are more pleasing, and, perhaps, +none at all more utterly neglected, than Darmstadt. The capital of a +duchy, it contains a harmless, quiet little court, to which are attached +a court-church and a court-theatre, alternately attracting the attention +of the courtiers. The palace is a quaint old affair, on one side as +precise and finished as a modern Italian villa, but taking its revenge +by indulging on the opposite side in a series of wild irregularities as +incomprehensible as they are picturesque,--old towers, romantic +gateways, broken battlements, running ivies, and gay, green foliage, +uniting, in charming confusion, to form the most pleasing picture in the +dear, lazy old town. + +A year or two ago, the quiet, neglected little Darmstadt came +temporarily to the surface, and was seen of men. The Princess Alice of +England married the heir to the Duchy, and the event aroused (in England +especially) a natural curiosity as to the young lady's future home,--a +curiosity which has since quite died away. Darmstadt, about twenty years +ago, was also somewhat talked of in a distant Northern land; for from +the dull old Ducal palace went forth a pretty, delicate-looking girl, +who is now the wife of Alexander II, and the Empress of all the Russias. + +In the Darmstadt picture-gallery is an old painting of the city as it +was just one century ago,--in 1764. It was a very little and a very +shabby city then. People dressed in the most ridiculous of costumes, and +the picture shows His Serene Highness, arrayed in scarlet and yellow, +getting out of a very clumsy, gilded carriage, amid the adulation of +bowing and wigged courtiers. When Meyerbeer was there, however, +Darmstadt was much as it is to-day,--a city so quiet that you might +almost pitch your tent in the middle of the principal street, and sleep +undisturbed for a week at least. + +The Abbe Vogler was organist of the cathedral, an ugly, clumsy old +building, darkened by wide wooden galleries. Meyerbeer was a Jew, but +his parents were liberal enough to send him to the fireside of a +Christian, and the boy became an inmate of Vogler's house. For two +years he studied faithfully, and by that time was initiated, as he had +never been before, into the mysteries of counterpoint. For several years +after this he remained with Vogler, studying, working, composing, and +enjoying. + +Indeed, the biographer who shall give us a permanent "Life of Meyerbeer" +must recur to the composer's sojourn in Darmstadt as the most romantic +phase of his existence,--when, away from the pleasures and temptations +of a great capital, free from the demands of society, with nothing to +distract his mind from Art, he consecrated his young life to her +service. His few associates of his own age were devoted to the same +cause, and all were certainly inspired by a mutual emulation. But only +one of the little group, besides the subject of this sketch, has left a +name to be remembered,--and that is Carl Maria von Weber. The other two +may have had as noble aspirations, as untiring energy, as passionate +ambitions; but Fate had decreed that Godefroy von Weber and Gaensbacher +should never win the world's applause. Carl Maria and Meyerbeer were the +"cronies" of the little school. They were constantly together; they +built their air-castles with a view to future joint occupancy; they made +their boyish vows of eternal friendship. Among the papers of Weber was +found, after his death, one bearing the title, "Cantata, written by +Weber for the Birthday of Vogler, and set to Music by Meyerbeer." The +words of Weber, it is said, are better than the music of his friend. + +All these boys loved their old master, the Abbe, and knew no greater +pleasure than to enjoy his personal instructions. The duties of each day +were regular, simple, and gladly performed. The Abbe, in his capacity of +priest, began by celebrating a mass, at which Carl Maria von Weber +assisted, as little boys do in these times at every mass throughout the +land. Then, as a _maestro_, the Abbe apportioned to each of his pupils +the task for the day,--the _Kyrie_, the _Sanctus_, or the _Gloria in +Excelsis_. Vogler himself joined in the task, and the completed +compositions were sent to the various church-choirs in the Duchy for +performance. In the twilight hours, there were strolls about the quiet +streets of Darmstadt, in the Ducal gardens, or among the tombstones of +an old churchyard in the suburbs of the city. Outside the town there was +really little to attract the pleasure-seeker, for Darmstadt lies in a +flat, cultivated plain, and its surroundings are tame and monotonous. On +Sundays they all went to the cathedral, where there were two organs. The +Abbe played one, and as he finished some masterly voluntary or some +scientific fugue, his pupils would in turn respond on the other +instrument, at times playing fanciful variations, on some theme given +out by their teacher, and again wandering in rich extemporaneous +harmonies over the old yellow keys. Who knows but that, in this way, the +quiet, phlegmatic congregation of the Darmstadt cathedral may have +heard, unheedingly, from the hand of Weber, sweet strains which +afterwards were elaborated in "Oberon" and "Der Freischuetz"? or have +listened, with dreamy pleasure, to snatches of melody destined in future +years to be woven by Meyerbeer into the score of "Robert" or the +"Huguenots"? + +Thus the quiet music life at Darmstadt passed on, each of the four boys +living but for their art. Meyerbeer was the foremost in success; for, +when but seventeen years old, he wrote a religious _cantata_, called +"God and Nature," which, performed before the Duke, secured to him the +title of Composer to the Court. In 1811 a still greater excitement +disturbed the serenity of Meyerbeer's period of study. Vogler closed his +school, and started with his scholars on a tour through the principal +cities of Germany. Each of the young composers carried with him a +portfolio of original compositions, though they were generous enough to +consider a manuscript opera by Meyerbeer, called "The Vow of Jephthah," +as the ablest work, and at Munich aided heartily in preparing it for +the stage. In this critical Bavarian capital Meyerbeer made his first +appeal to public favor as an operatic composer,--and failed. He was not +hissed or ridiculed, but "The Vow of Jephthah" fell coldly on the +audience, and was shortly withdrawn. + +Doubting whether he was destined to succeed as a composer, Meyerbeer +went to Vienna, a city not unfrequently called by musicians Pianopolis, +and there he heard Hummel play the piano. He had already taken a few +lessons of Clementi, but no sooner did he listen to the former master +than he recognized his own inefficiency, and saw work before him. He +determined to unite in himself, as a pianist, the brilliancy of +execution of Clementi, and the charm, the grace, and purity of Hummel's +style. He succeeded, and made his _debut_ at a concert at Vienna with +the most flattering applause. At this day the amateur would give much to +hear exactly how such men as Meyerbeer, and Hummel, and Clementi played, +and to compare them with Thalberg, Gottschalk, and Satter. It is +impossible to say in what respects Meyerbeer may have fallen behind or +surpassed these accomplished executants; but certain it is, that, in the +beginning of the present century, and while scarce out of his teens, the +favorite pupil of the Abbe Vogler was the favorite pianist of the Vienna +public. + +Yet, after all his triumphs in the concert-room, he yearned for the +greater triumphs of the stage, and leaving the piano to his renowned +successors, Chopin and Liszt, he turned again to composing. He wrote an +opera called "The Two Caliphs," which, like his previous effort, was +replete with strange harmonies, very sparing in melody, and met with the +same (lack of) success. The celebrated Metternich--an authority in Art +as well as in diplomacy--was present at the production of "The Two +Caliphs," but only once ventured to applaud. The old master, Vogler, and +the dearer friend, Von Weber, still encouraged the young composer with +their approbation, and only blamed a stupid audience that would not +discern the beauties appreciable by their sharper ears. + +Meyerbeer had good sense, and with a modesty perhaps more unusual in a +musician than in any one else, he was disposed rather to blame himself +than the public. A prominent amateur composer of Vienna--Salieri by +name--advised him to go to Italy; and to Venice, as the nearest point, +he hastened without delay. + +In these days of universal travel, when every tourist can talk glibly of +the different theatres and composers of the Old World, it seems almost +incredible that a young man of wealth and taste like Meyerbeer should +not have visited Italy till almost forced to do so. Yet such was the +case. Meyerbeer was a man of one idea, and that idea was music. No +journey which had any other object possessed attractions for him. To the +influences of history, to the grandeur of that land which should not be +named without an almost holy veneration, he was quite indifferent. It +was not the Caesars that drew him to Italy, nor the Popes, nor the +Raphaels, nor the Michel Angelos,--it was Rossini and the modern opera. + +At that time the composer of "Semiramide" was at the height of his +popularity, and Meyerbeer heard "Tancredi," and for the first time felt +the delicious fascination of Italian melody. He determined to transplant +it into the rugged soil of his own masculine musical science; and three +years after the Rossinian revelation at Venice, his first Italian opera, +"Romilda e Costanza," was produced at that dismal old metropolis of +necromancy, Padua, Signora Pisaroni taking the principal part. It +pleased, as did his next work, "Semiramide Riconosciuta," produced at +Turin, though neither was so successful as his "Emma di Risburgo," first +heard at Venice, and for some time a rival in popularity to "Tancredi." + +At this period Meyerbeer adopted the name of Giacomo,--the Italian +translation of Jacob,--which he ever after retained. His true name was +Meyer Liebmann Beer, but he suppressed the Liebmann, because that word +in German, when joined with Beer, could by weak punsters be translated +into "a philanthropic bear"; so he Italianized his pre-nomen, dropped +his middle name, and joined the two other words in one,--the result of +all these liberties in nomenclature being "Giacomo Meyerbeer." + +Thus, doubly armed with an Italian name and an Italian reputation, he +returned to Germany, but was coldly welcomed. Even Weber charged him +with being a renegade to the cause of German Art, and, while "Emma di +Risburgo" was played at one of the Berlin theatres, had "The Two +Caliphs" revived at another. Meyerbeer thus could have heard his two +styles of composition exemplified in the same night. Weber, indeed, +always looked upon Meyerbeer's Italian operas as a sad falling away from +grace, and in a letter written to his brother, Godefroy,--the fourth of +the little group of Darmstadt students,--says,-- + +"Meyerbeer has promised on his return to Berlin to write a German opera. +God be praised for it! I appealed strongly to his conscience in the +matter." + +Returning to Italy, Meyerbeer produced "Margherita d' Angiu" at La +Scala, Milan, following it with "L'Esule di Granata"; and then in 1824 +Venice saw and heard the "Crociato." This last opera made the tour of +the world, carried the name of the composer to every place where musical +art was cultivated, and won for Meyerbeer, from the distant Emperor of +Brazil, the decoration of the Cross of the South. + +In Paris alone--Paris, which afterwards made such an idol of the +composer--did the "Crociato" fail to meet with immediate success. In +nonsense and folly it may be truly said of the Parisians that "a little +child shall lead them"; and so it happened on this occasion. In the +admirable quartette of the second act a child is introduced, as in +"Norma," to awaken the sympathies of an untractable tenor papa. This +juvenile, by no means a young Apollo, took not the slightest interest in +the music, and was so indifferent to the publicity of the situation, so +utterly _blase_, (and sleepy,) as to yawn during the most affecting +passages. At the first yawn, the audience smiled; the _prima donna_, +proceeding with her part, exclaimed in tragic Italian, "Restrain thy +tears!"--and the child gaped again for the second time, while the +audience grinned. "Heaven will comfort thee!" shrieked the +singer,--whereat the child gave such a prodigious yawn that the house +burst into laughter, and the vocalist could not finish the piece. + +In 1827 Meyerbeer married, and retired from public life for a while. Two +of the children born to him died, their loss casting so deep a shade on +his soul that for nearly two years he composed only religious music to +words selected from the Book of Psalms, or written by Klopstock. He also +wrote a collection of melodies, among them an elegy entitled "At the +Tomb of Beethoven." But erelong the glorious old instinct for operatic +composition returned. On the seventeenth of September, 1829, M. Lubbert, +then director of the opera, received a letter couched in these terms:-- + + "_17 Septembre, 1829_. + + "J'ai l'honneur de vous prevenir, Monsieur, que par decision + de ce jour j'ai accorde a M. Meyerbeer, compositeur, ses + entrees a l'Academie Royale de Musique.... + + "L'Aide-de-Camp du Roi, + + "Directeur-General des Beaux-Arts, + + "VICOMTE DE LAROCHEFOUCAULD." + +And two years later, on the twenty-first of September, 1831, Dr. Veron, +the successor of Lubbert, opened his doors for the first performance of +"Robert le Diable." This wonderful and popular opera was written in +French, to a _libretto_ sent to Berlin by Scribe, and was at first +intended for the Opera Comique, but its three acts were subsequently +increased to five, and its destination changed to the Grand Opera. +Meyerbeer himself had to bear much of the expense of preparing the +stage-appointments, though not to such an extent as on the production of +his "Romilda" in Italy, when he bought the _libretto_, gave the music +gratis, paid the singers, and provided the costumes. + +Dr. Veron, in his Memoirs, gives an amusing account of the accidents +which attended the first production of "Robert." In the third act, a +chandelier fell, and the _prima donna_ Dorus had a narrow escape from +being hit by the falling glass; after the chorus of demons, a cloud, +rising from the cave to hide the stage, reached a certain elevation, and +then, giving way, tumbled on the boards, nearly striking Taglioni the +dancer, who, as _Elena_, was extended on her tomb, ready for the next +scene; and in the last act, Nourrit, the _Robert_ of the evening, in the +excitement of the moment, leaped down the trap-door by which Levasseur +(the _Bertram_) had just disappeared. This last event received different +interpretations. On the stage there was alarm and weeping, because it +was then thought Nourrit in his leap had been killed or maimed; by the +audience it was supposed that the author intended _Robert_ should share +with _Bertram_ the infernal regions; while _under_ the stage Levasseur +greeted the tenor with mingled surprise and disgust:--"_Que diable +faites vous ici? Est ce qu'on a change le denouement?_" Luckily, Nourrit +was unhurt, the curtain was raised again, the singers made their +conventional acknowledgments, and the names of the authors were +announced amid the wildest enthusiasm. + +After that night Meyerbeer had to pay no more money to get his operas on +the stage. The tables were so completely turned that he thenceforth +could command almost any price he chose to ask. To follow his career +more minutely, after this period of his emergence into the bright light +of fame, would be but to recount a story with which almost every one is +familiar. + +The "Huguenots" was the next opera, and it was produced only after +infinite delays; indeed, just before the rehearsal, Madame Meyerbeer +fell ill, and her husband decided to convey her to Italy. He took the +music from the orchestra desks, forfeited a fine of thirty thousand +francs, and a few hours later he and his "Huguenots" were on the way to +Nice. When finally produced at Paris, this opera was as well received as +the "Robert." It appears, that, after the first general rehearsal, +Nourrit, the tenor, found fault with the sublime music of the fourth +act. Meyerbeer returned home in a very unpleasant frame of mind, and +told his troubles to the friend with whom he lodged. "If I only had," +said he, "a few stanzas to arrange as an _andante_ and _duo_, all would +be right. But I cannot ask Scribe to add more verses." The friend +immediately called a literary acquaintance, Emile Deschamps, who was +playing cards in a neighboring _cafe_, explained to him the situation, +and in a few minutes the verses were written. It was about midnight, and +the composer, seating himself at the piano with the words before him, in +a fever of inspiration threw out the splendid _duo_ between _Raoul_ and +_Valentine_ which closes the act, and which always equally enchants +performers and audience; and when this music was performed at the next +rehearsal, the orchestra, players, and vocalists carried the composer in +triumph on the stage to receive their spontaneous plaudits and +congratulations, while Nourrit embraced him with tears of delight. + +Eight years later came another triumph of elaborate Art in "Le +Prophete," a work which is generally underrated by the leading French +critics, though it contains many of the very noblest inspirations of the +genius of Meyerbeer. To this opera followed "L'Etoile du Nord," and "Le +Pardon de Ploermel," while to these will soon follow "L'Africaine," so +long promised, and in behalf of which the composer was visiting Paris at +the time of his death. The score of the opera has been completed since +1860. + +On Friday, the twenty-second of April last, Meyerbeer dined alone at his +residence, his meal being, as usual, very frugal. On Saturday, the +twenty-third of April, he felt unwell, but a physician was not sent for +till the next week, and in the mean time Meyerbeer was busy +superintending the copyists engaged in his house on the score of +"L'Africaine," for which he had, instead of his customary orchestral +introduction, just written a long overture. On the following Sunday, the +first of May, his disorder, which was internal, grew worse, and his +weakness increased so that he became almost irritable about it,--he was +so anxious to continue at the work of the orchestration of his new +opera, and so annoyed by the illness which prevented him. His family +were sent for by telegraph, but were mostly too late to hold converse +with him; for on Sunday night, before they arrived, he turned in his bed +and bade them farewell with a faint smile, as he said, "I now bid you +good-night till to-morrow morning." These were his last words; for when +the morning was come, and daylight peered into the windows of the tall +house at Paris, he was shadowed by the mystery of that night which +awaits a resurrection-morning. + +Among his papers in his travelling-portfolio was found a packet marked, +"To be opened after death," containing directions, written in German, of +which the following is a literal translation:-- + + * * * * * + +"I desire the following details to be observed after my decease. + +"I wish to be left lying on my bed, with my face exposed to view, just +as I was previously to my death, for four days, and on the fifth day to +have incisions made in the brachial artery and in the foot. After this, +my body is to be conveyed to Berlin, where I wish to be interred in the +tomb of my dearly beloved mother. Should there be no room, I beg that I +may be laid by the side of my two dear children, who died at a very +early age. + +"Should I happen to die far from those related to me, the same measures +are to be pursued, and two attendants are to watch my body day and night +to see whether I do not give any signs of life. + +"If, owing to any particular circumstances, it is necessary to take me +to a dead-house, I desire, that, according to custom, little bells shall +be fastened to my hands and feet, in order to keep the attendants on the +alert. + +"Having always feared being buried alive, my object in giving the above +directions is to prevent the possibility of any return of life. + +"The will of God be done, and His name sanctified and blessed in heaven +and on earth! Amen!" + + * * * * * + +All these directions were complied with; while the funeral +arrangements--in Paris at least--were very theatrical and "Frenchy," +though at Berlin they were conducted with greater dignity. The line of +procession, led by a band playing extracts from Meyerbeer's music, +passed the Opera Comique and the Grand Opera, both of which were dressed +in black. Auber was among the pall-bearers, and Gounod among the +mourners. Behind the coffin were carried on a cushion the various +decorations with which sovereigns and societies had decked the composer. +At the Northern Railway station, (also draped in mourning,) orations +were delivered, _and applauded_ by the listeners, and sometimes +interrupted by the impatient steam-whistles of departing trains. An +incident of the funeral was the decoration of the _catafalque_ with a +silver cross: Meyerbeer was a Jew, and the inconsistency was not noticed +till there was barely time to tear away the Christian emblem before the +body of the Israelite composer was laid in its place. That same night, +at the Grand Opera, the "Huguenots" was performed, and never did Sax, +Gueymard, Faure, and Beisal sing or act with greater effect. After the +fourth act the curtain was raised; and while the orchestra played the +Coronation March from the "Prophete," the bust of the composer was +crowned with laurel by the performers. + +The family, in accordance with the curious European custom, sent around +to their friends a circular worded as follows:-- + + "Sir,--Madame Meyerbeer (widow); Mlles. Cecile and Cornelie + Meyerbeer; the Baron and Baroness De Korf, and Son; M. and + Madame Georges Beer; M. and Madame Jules Beer and Children; + M. and Madame Alexandre Oppenheim; M. and Madame S. de + Haber, Madlle. Laure de Haber; and Madlle. Anna Eberty, have + the honor to announce to you the sad loss they have just + suffered by the death of M. Giacomo Meyerbeer, their + husband, father, father-in-law, grandfather, uncle, and + great-uncle, who died at Paris on the 2nd May, 1864, aged + seventy-two." + +Meyerbeer was, up to the last, full of plans for the future, and while +getting "L'Africaine" ready was looking for the _libretto_ of a comic +opera to compose "for amusement," as a repose between grander works. It +is said that he has left another completed opera, on the Biblical story +of Judith and Holofernes; and he also had a vague idea of writing a +grand historical opera on an English subject, the idea having been +suggested by a visit to the Princess Theatre, London, when Charles Kean +was playing, with unusual scenic accessories, Shakspeare's "Henry VIII." +The proposed opera was to have been equally as grand a work as the +"Huguenots," and the peculiarities of old English music--the style of +melody of Locke, Purcell, and Arne--were to have been imitated with that +skill of which Meyerbeer was so eminently a master. He never would write +an oratorio, because he had no hope of excelling Mendelssohn in that +branch of musical art. His last composition was an aria written to +Italian words for a Spanish lady-friend, the Senorita Zapater; and he +was about to arrange the accompaniment for the orchestra when his last +illness came on. + +Personally, Giacomo Meyerbeer had many characteristics which were not +inviting. He was fond of money, yet willing to lavish it whenever Art +demanded the sacrifice. He took snuff, and wore green spectacles, was +careless, often shabby in his dress, and would stroll through the +streets of Paris wearing a wretched hat, inwardly composing music as he +walked along; on grand occasions, however, he would go to the opposite +extreme in matters of toilet, and appear radiant with the numerous +decorations presented to him by the different sovereigns of Europe. He +knew the power of the press, and was not too delicate to invite the +leading critics to elaborate dinners at the Trois Freres the night +before a first performance. + +It is not intended here to enter into a critical or scientific analysis +of Meyerbeer as a composer. As far as the present development of Art +would indicate, his name seems to us destined to go down to posterity +encircled by a fadeless halo of glory; and at the same time we must +remember that there have been other composers who, though now forgotten, +yet in their time and at their death have similarly impressed their +contemporaries. But certain it is, that, in our day and generation, and +at least during the life of every one now existing, the fame of +Meyerbeer will be brilliant indeed, and the music of the "Robert," the +"Huguenots," and the "Prophete" will challenge the admiration and love +of all susceptible to the influence of the grandest and noblest strains +that musical science has yet evoked. + + + + +THE MAY CAMPAIGN IN VIRGINIA. + + +There are few months in the calendar of centuries that will have a more +conspicuous place in history than the month of May, 1864. It will be +remembered on account of the momentous events which have taken place +during the present military operations. It inaugurates one of the +greatest campaigns of history. We who are in it are amazed, not by its +magnitude merely, for there have been larger armies, heavier trains of +artillery, greater preparations, in European warfare,--but we are +overwhelmed by a succession of events unparalleled for rapidity. We +cannot fully comprehend the amount of endurance, the persistency, the +hard marching, the harder fighting, the unwearied, cheerful energy and +effort which have carried the Army of the Potomac from the Rappahannock +to the Chickahominy in thirty days, against the stubborn opposition of +an army of almost equal numbers. There has not been a day of rest, +scarcely an hour of quiet. Morning, noon, and midnight, the booming of +cannon and the rattling of musketry have echoed unceasingly through the +Wilderness, around the hillocks of Spottsylvania, along the banks of the +North Anna, and among the groves of Bethesda Church and Coal Harbor. + +A brief _resume_ of the campaign, thus far developed, is all that can be +attempted in the space assigned me. I must pass by the efforts of +individuals, as heroic and soul-stirring as those of the old Cavaliers +renowned in story and song, where all the energies of life are centred +in one moment,--the spirited advance of regiments, the onset of +brigades; and the resistless charges of divisions. I can speak only of +the movements of corps, without dwelling upon those scenes which stir +the blood and fire the soul,--the hardihood, the endurance, the cool, +collected, reserved force, abiding the time, the calm facing of death, +the swift advance, the rush, the plunge into the thickest of the fight, +where hundreds of cannon, where fifty thousand muskets, fill the air +with iron hail and leaden rain! + + +THE GENERAL PLAN. + +The army wintered between the Rappahannock and the Rapidan. There had +been a reduction and reconstruction of its corps,--an incorporation of +the First and Third with the Fifth and Sixth, with reinforcements added +to the Second. The Second was commanded by Major-General Hancock, the +Fifth by Major-General Warren, the Sixth by Major-General Sedgwick. No +definite statement of the number of men composing the army can be given, +for the campaign is not yet ended; and no aid or comfort, no information +of value to the enemy, can be tendered through the columns of the loyal +"Atlantic." + +These three corps, with three divisions of cavalry commanded by General +Sheridan, composed the Army of the Potomac, commanded by Major-General +Meade. The Ninth Corps, commanded by Major-General Burnside, was added +when the army took up its line of march. + +There was concentration everywhere. General Gillmore, with what troops +could be spared from the department of the South, joined his forces to +those already on the Peninsula and at Suffolk; Sigel had several +thousand in the Shenandoah; Crook and Averell had a small army in +Western Virginia; while at Chattanooga, under Sherman and Thomas, was +gathered a large army of Western troops. + +The _dramatis personae_ were known to the public, but the part assigned +to each was kept profoundly secret. There was discussion and speculation +whether Burnside, from his encampment at Annapolis, would suddenly take +transports and go to Wilmington, or up the Rappahannock, or the James, +or the York, uniting his forces with Butler's. Would Meade move +directly across the Rapidan and attack Lee in front, with every passage, +every hill and ravine enfiladed by Rebel cannon? Or would he move his +right flank along the Blue Ridge, crowding Lee to the seaboard? Would he +not make, rather, a sudden change of base to Fredericksburg? None of the +wise men, military or civil, in their speculations, indicated the line +which General Grant adopted. The public accepted the disaster at +Chancellorsville and the failure at Mine Run as conclusive evidence that +a successful advance across the Rapidan by the middle fords was +impossible, or at least improbable. So well was the secret kept, that, +aside from the corps commanders, none in or out of the army, except the +President and Secretary of War, had information of the line of march +intended. + +We know now how General Burnside marched to Washington, contrary to the +expectations of the public; how his troops passed in review before the +President,--a few veterans, with Roanoke, Newbern, all the seven days +before Richmond, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Vicksburg, and Knoxville on +their tattered ensigns; how they were cheered by the crowd; how, +following them, came a division for the first time shouldering a musket +for their country,--who till a year ago never had a country,--who even +now, although Americans, are not citizens,--disfranchised, yet fighting +for the flag,--beholding now for the first time the careworn, yet +benevolent face of their benefactor, and rending the air with their +hurrahs. There was swinging of hats, waving of handkerchiefs and +banners. They marched to victory or certain death. For them there was no +surrender, after the massacres of Milliken's Bend, Plymouth, and Fort +Pillow. + +We know how Butler went up to White House, and then suddenly down the +York and up the James to Bermuda Hundred. We know of the movements of +Sigel and Crook and Averell,--minor, yet important in the general plan. +We have had the victorious march of Sherman, flanking and defeating +Johnston. All these movements were parts of the well-considered plan of +operations. + +The expedition of General Banks up the Red River was in process of +execution when General Grant was appointed Commander-in-Chief of all the +forces in the field. He sent a messenger recalling it; but, through some +miscarriage or misconception of orders, or from some cause yet +unexplained, the expedition kept on its way, resulting in disaster. The +withdrawal of the gunboats which had been demonstrating off Mobile, and +the departure of troops from the Mississippi, enabled General Johnston +to gather all the forces of the Southwest in front of Sherman. General +Grant designed that General Banks, with troops and flotilla, should +suddenly fall upon Mobile, front and rear. If the works were carried by +assault, then gunboats and transports could appear at Montgomery, +flanking Johnston. It would be the thrusting of a probe deep into the +tenderest and sorest parts of the Confederate body-politic. It would +sever Alabama and Mississippi from the other Rebel States. Or, if +failing in the assault, it would at least compel Johnston to send back +the troops withdrawn, thus making it easy work for Sherman. + +The failure of any part in a concerted movement affects all other parts. +General Banks not appearing at Mobile has retarded Sherman. The failure +of Butler to close the Southern portal, and the defeat of Sigel, who, +instead of knocking loudly at the back-door of the Rebel capital, was +himself knocked back, have enabled Lee to concentrate all his troops +against the Army of the Potomac. Finnegan's troops from Florida, +Beauregard's from Charleston, Pickett's from North Carolina, Buckner's +from Western Virginia, and Breckenridge's from the Shenandoah, at the +close of the month, are fighting against General Grant at Coal Harbor. + +These are the general features of the campaign as a whole; but, separate +and distinct from the movements of all other armies and bodies of men, +are the operations of the Army of the Potomac, which has a campaign of +its own,--forever memorable! + + +LEFT-FLANK MOVEMENTS. + +There have been four movements by the left flank:-- + +From Culpepper to Wilderness. + +From Wilderness to Spottsylvania. + +From Spottsylvania to the North Anna. + +From the North Anna to the Chickahominy. + +It has been a month of marching and fighting,--fighting and +marching,--day and night,--night and day,--winning no great, decisive +victory, nor suffering defeat, yet getting nearer the while to Richmond, +and compelling the enemy to choose new positions or be cut off from his +capital. + +The accompanying diagram will convey to the eye the relative movements +of the two armies,--General Grant moving on the arcs of the circles, as +represented by the dotted lines, and Lee upon the chords of the arcs, as +indicated by the continuous lines. + +[ILLUSTRATION: + + C. Culpepper. + O. Orange Court-House. + W. Wilderness. + S. Spottsylvania. + N. A. North Anna. + C. H. Coal Harbor. + E. Richmond.] + + +FROM CULPEPPER TO WILDERNESS. + +On Tuesday afternoon, May 3d, the cavalry broke camp on the Orange and +Alexandria railroad, and moved eastward,--General Gregg's division +toward Ely's Ford, and General Wilson's division towards Germanna Ford, +each having pontoons. At midnight the Second Corps, which had been +encamped east of Culpepper, followed General Gregg. At daylight on the +morning of the 4th of May, the Fifth and Sixth Corps and the reserve +artillery were moving towards Germanna Ford. The supply-train--sixty +miles in length, eight thousand wagons--followed the Second Corps. There +were but these two available roads. + +The enemy was at Orange Court-House, watching, from his elevated lookout +on Clark's Mountain, for the first sign of change. In the light of the +early dawn he saw that the encampments at Culpepper were broken up, +while the dust-cloud hanging over the forest toward the east was the +sure indication of the movement. + +General Lee put his army in instant motion to strike the advancing +columns as they crossed the Rapidan. The movement of Grant was +southeast, that of Lee northeast,--lines of advance which must produce +collision, unless Grant was far enough forward to slip by the angle. +There is reason to believe that General Grant did not intend to fight +Lee at Wilderness, but that it was his design to slip past that point +and swing round by Spottsylvania, and, if possible, get between Lee and +Richmond. He boldly cut loose his connection with Washington, and sailed +out into the unknown and untried, relying upon the ability of his +soldiers to open a new base for supplies whenever needed. + +In this first day's movement he did not uncover Washington. Burnside was +still lying on the north bank of the Rappahannock. It was understood in +the army that the Ninth Corps was to be a reserve to protect the +capital. So, perhaps, Lee understood it. But at nightfall, on the 4th, +the shelter-tents are folded, and the men of the Ninth, with six days' +rations in their haversacks, are on the march along the forest-road, +lighted only by the stars, joining the main army at Germanna Ford on the +morning of the 5th. + +Although the movement of the troops was well timed, and the march made +with great rapidity, the trains were delayed, and it was not possible +for General Grant to swing past the enemy advancing upon his flank. + +Early in the morning of the 5th, Generals Meade and Grant, with their +staffs, after riding five miles from Germanna Ford, halted near the old +mill in the Wilderness. General Sheridan's cavalry had been pushing out +south and west. Aids came back with despatches. + +"They say that Lee intends to fight us here," said General Meade, as he +read them. + +"Very well," was the quiet reply of General Grant. + +The two commanders retire a little from the crowd, and stand by the +road-side in earnest conversation. Grant is of medium stature, yet has a +well-developed _physique_, sandy whiskers and moustache, blue eyes, +earnest, thoughtful, and far-seeing, a cigar in his mouth, a knife in +one hand, and a stick in the other, which he is whittling to a point. He +whittles slowly towards him. His thoughts are not yet crystallized. His +words are few. Suddenly he commences upon the other end of the stick, +and whittles energetically from him. His mind is made up,--his plan +matured. He is less reticent,--talks freely. He is dressed in plain +blue; and were it not for the three stars upon his shoulder, few would +select him as the Lieutenant-General commanding all the armies of the +Union in the field. + +Meade is tall, thin, a little stooping in the shoulders, quick, +comprehending the situation of affairs in an instant, energetic,--an +officer of excellent executive ability. + + +THE BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS. + +At the old Wilderness tavern the Stevensburg plank-road leading +southeast from Germanna Ford crosses the Orange and Fredericksburg +turnpike. Five miles beyond the tavern is Wilderness Church, at the +junction of the Stevensburg with the Orange and Fredericksburg +plank-road. Near by is the Brock road, which leads south to +Spottsylvania Court-House. West of the old tavern, four miles on the +turnpike, is Parker's store. In the early morning, General Ewell's +brigades appeared in line of battle at the store, on both sides of the +turnpike, while General A. P. Hill's corps was found to be pushing +rapidly eastward along the Orange plank-road, to gain the junction of +the roads at Old Church. Longstreet was following Hill. + +The Second Corps, which had crossed at Ely's Ford, was already on the +move towards Spottsylvania. A recall was sent, also orders directing +Hancock to hold the junction of the roads. The Fifth Corps was thrown +out upon the turnpike towards Parker's store. The Sixth was moved up +from the Germanna road, west, into the woods, and placed in position to +cover all approaches to the ford. The Ninth arrived during the day, and +moved into the gap between the Fifth and Second. Divisions were moved to +the right, to the left, and to the centre, during the two days' fight, +but the positions of the corps remained unchanged. + +[Illustration: + + 2. Second Corps. + 5. Fifth Corps. + 6. Sixth Corps. + 9. Ninth Corps. + T. Old Tavern. + C. Old Church. + P. Parker's Store. + == Rebel Lines.] + +Standing by the old tavern and looking west, you see the line of battle. +At your feet is a brook flowing from the southwest to the northeast, and +there is another smaller stream joining its waters at the crossing of +the roads. Beyond the bridge the turnpike crosses a ridge of land. On +the southern slope is the house of Major Lucy, with a smooth lawn, and +meadows green with the verdure of spring. Beyond the meadows are hills +wooded with oaks, pines, and cedar-thickets. At the right hand of the +turnpike the ridge is closely set with pines and cedars. Farther out it +breaks down into a ravine. Ewell has the western slope, and Warren with +the Fifth Corps the eastern, with the Sixth on his right. + +It is a mixture of tall trees and small underbrush,--dense, almost +impenetrable. There are hills, knolls, dells, dark ravines. It is a +battle-ground for Indians, but one not admitting of the military +movements,--of advance by columns, or lines, as laid down in the books. + +The battle commenced on Thursday afternoon and closed Saturday morning. +It was fierce, terrible, bloody, and yet indecisive. It was one unbroken +roll of musketry. There was a hostile meeting of two hundred thousand +men. There were bayonet-charges, surgings to and fro of the opposing +lines, a meeting and commingling, like waves of the ocean, sudden +upspringings from the underbrush of divisions stealthily advanced. There +was the continuous rattle, the roll deepening into long heavy swells, +the crescendo and the diminuendo of a terrible symphony, rising to +thunder-tones, to crash and uproar indescribable, then dying away to a +ripple, to silence at last! + +Lee hastened from his intrenchments beyond Mine Run to strike Grant a +damaging blow,--to fall upon him while his line was thin and attenuated. +Grant was in column, moving southeast,--Lee in two columns, moving +northeast. These lines show it to the eye:-- + +[Illustration] + +The advance of Lee has its parallel in naval warfare,--in Nelson's lines +of battle at Trafalgar. But there the comparison fails. The advance is +the same,--the result, instead of a victory, a defeat. He fell upon the +Fifth Corps, first at Parker's store, then on the right centre, then on +the left, then upon the Sixth, then upon the Second,--then upon the +whole line, renewing and repeating the assaults. Grant stood throughout +upon the line selected at the beginning of the battle. Lee began the +attack on the 5th, and renewed it at daybreak on the 6th. + +Through all those long hours of conflict, there was patient endurance in +front of the enemy. There were temporary successes and reverses on both +sides. In only a single instance was there permanent advantage to the +enemy, and that he had not the power to improve. It was at the close of +the contest on the 6th. The sun had gone down, and twilight was +deepening into night. The wearied men of Rickett's division of the Sixth +Corps, in the front line of battle on the right, had thrown themselves +upon the ground. Suddenly there was a rush upon their flank. There was +musketry, blinding flashes from cannon, and explosions of shells. The +line which had stood firmly through the day gave way, not because it was +overpowered, but because it was surprised. General Seymour and a portion +of his brigade were taken prisoners. There was a partial panic, which +soon subsided. The second line remained firm, the enemy was driven back, +and the disaster repaired by swinging the Sixth Corps round to a new +position, covered by the reserve artillery. It was the only substantial +advantage gained by Lee during the battle. + +There were indications in the forenoon of Saturday, the 7th, that Lee +was withdrawing his army. A reconnoissance in force made it more +apparent. Orders were issued for the removal of the wounded to +Fredericksburg. At two o'clock in the afternoon the Ninth Corps was on +the march to Spottsylvania. The first step towards Richmond had been +successfully taken. If Grant had not gained what he desired, a position +between Lee and Richmond, Lee on the other hand had utterly failed in +his attempt to crush Grant by a sudden blow upon his flank. He had not +been able, in the language of the President, even to "jostle him from +his chosen line of march." + + +SPOTTSYLVANIA. + +At sunrise on the 8th, the Fifth Corps was at Todd's Tavern, four miles +from Spottsylvania, where Gregg had just defeated Fitz Hugh Lee, in a +hard-fought contest on Saturday. The Sixth and Second Corps arrived +during the day. The Ninth moved with the teams through Chancellorsville +farther to the east. + +The natural defences of Spottsylvania are two small streams,--the Po and +the Ny, affluents of the Mattapony. The advance of the Fifth Corps was +checked, three miles west of the Court-House, by Longstreet's and +Ewell's corps, which had left Wilderness on the night of the 6th. The +Sixth came up at five o'clock and joined in the conflict, driving the +enemy from the position he had taken on the north bank of the Ny. + +On Monday morning, the 9th, it was apparent that Lee, having failed on +Grant's flank, had now placed himself squarely in front, with his entire +army. + +One of the great battles of the campaign was fought on Tuesday, the +corps occupying positions as in the diagram:-- + +[Illustration: + + A. Catharpen Road. + B. Brock Road. + C. Pine-Grove Road. + D. Fredericksburg Road. + E. Bowling-Green Road. + F. Richmond Road. + _L_. Longstreet. + _E_. Ewell. + _H_. Hill. + 2, 5, 6, 9. Corps positions, 9th May. + ............ Position of Grant, 17th May.] + +The line of battle was formed with the Second Corps on the right, the +Fifth on the right-centre, the Sixth on the left-centre, with the Ninth +nine miles distant, approaching by the Fredericksburg road. There was a +severe engagement in the afternoon, brought on by the advance of the +Second Corps, which pushed across an affluent of the Po, west of the +Court-House. On the left, the Rebels made an attack upon Wilcox's +division of the Ninth, but were repulsed. + +The battle was fought in the forest,--in the marshes along the Ny,--in +ravines,--in pine-thickets, densely shaded with the dark evergreens that +shut out the rays of the noonday sun,--in open fields, where Rebel +batteries had full sweep and play with shell and grape and canister from +intrenched positions on the hills. + +It began in the morning. There was an hour of calm at noon, but at one +o'clock artillery and infantry became engaged all along the line. Grant +was the attacking party. There was no cessation or diminution of effort +during the afternoon. The Rebel outer line of works in the centre was +carried by Upton's brigade of the first division, and Russell's brigade +of the third division of the Sixth Corps. The men of these brigades, +(and among them were the stalwart sons of Vermont,) without firing a +shot, moved steadily to the charge with fixed bayonets; they were cut +through by solid shot, their ranks torn by shells, thinned by constant +volleys of musketry, but, with matchless ardor and unconquerable will, +they went up to the line of earthworks, leaped over them, and gathered a +thousand prisoners; they held the ground, but their valor had carried +them so far beyond their supports that it was deemed prudent to withdraw +them. + +There was some fighting on the 11th. General Lee sent in a flag of truce +for a cessation of hostilities to bury the dead; but the request was not +acceded to by General Grant. + +The early dawn of Thursday, the 12th, beholds the Second Corps in +motion,--not to flank the enemy, but moving, with fixed bayonets, +straight on towards his intrenchments. Barlow's and Birney's divisions +in columns of battalions, doubled on the centre, to give strength and +firmness, lead in the assault. They move silently through the +forest,--through the ravine in front of them,--up to their own +skirmish-line,--past it,--no longer marching, but running now, dashing +on with life and energy and enthusiasm thrilling every nerve. They sweep +away the Rebel picket-line as if it were a cobweb. On,--into the +intrenchments with a hurrah which startles the soldiers of both armies +from their morning slumbers. Major-General Johnson and Brigadier-General +Stewart and three thousand men of Ewell's division are taken prisoners, +eighteen cannon and twenty-two standards captured. + +It is the work of five minutes,--as sudden as the swoop of an eagle. The +uproar of the day began. The second line of the enemy's works was +assaulted; but, exasperated by their losses, the Rebels fought with +great stubbornness. The Ninth Corps was moved up from the left to +support the Second. Longstreet, on the other hand, was brought over to +help Ewell. The Fifth and Sixth became partially engaged. There were +charges and counter-charges. Positions were gained and lost. From +morning till night the contest raged on the right, in the centre, and on +the left, swaying to and fro over the undulations and through the +ravines. It was a battle of fourteen hours' duration,--in severity, in +unflinching determination, in obstinacy and persistency, not exceeded by +any during the war. Between forty and fifty pieces of artillery were at +one time in the hands of General Hancock; but, owing to the difficulties +of removal, and the efforts of the enemy, he could secure only eighteen. +During the day, Grant advanced his lines a mile towards the Court-House, +and repulsed Lee in all his counter-attacks. + +By this success Lee was compelled on Thursday night to withdraw his +troops from the line he had held so tenaciously, and concentrate them in +a smaller semi-circle. Lee had the advantage of Johnston. It was +Gettysburg reversed. + +There was constant skirmishing and continuous artillery-firing through +the 13th, and a moving of the army from the north to the east of the +Court-House. A rain-storm set in. The roads became heavy, and a +contemplated movement--a sudden flank-attack--was necessarily abandoned. + +There was a severe skirmish on the 14th, constant picket-firing on the +15th, and on the 16th another engagement all along the line,--not fought +with the fierceness of that of the 12th, but lasting through the +forenoon, and resulting in the taking of a line of rifle-pits from the +enemy. + +On Wednesday, the 18th, there was an assault upon Lee's outer line of +works. Two lines of rifle-pits were carried; but an impassable abatis +prevented farther advance, and after a six hours' struggle the troops +were withdrawn. + +On the afternoon of the 19th Ewell gained the rear of Grant's right +flank, came suddenly upon Tyler's division of heavy artillery, armed as +infantry, just arrived upon the field. Though surprised, they held the +enemy in check, forced him back, and with aid from the Second Corps +compelled him to retreat with great loss. This attack was made to cover +Lee's withdrawal to the North Anna. His troops were already on the +march. + +Grant was swift to follow. + + +THE NORTH ANNA. + +It is a two days' march from Spottsylvania to the North Anna. The +crossings of the Mattapony were held by Rebel cavalry, which were +quickly driven. For want of space I am forced to pass over the +operations on that natural line of defence,--the gallant crossing of the +Fifth Corps at Jericho Ford, the irresistible charge of Birney and +Barlow at Taylor's Bridge, the sweeping-in of five hundred prisoners, +the severe engagements lasting three days,--all memorable events, worthy +of prominence in the full history of the campaign. + +Instead of walking over the obstacle, Grant decided to go round it. +Stealing a march upon Lee, he moved suddenly southeast, and crossed the +Pamunky at Hanover Town, opened a new base of supplies at White House, +forcing Lee to fall back on the Chickahominy. + +[ILLUSTRATION: + + 2, 5, 6, 9, 18. Corps. + B. Bethesda Church. + C. H. Coal Harbor. + G. Gaines's Mill. + R. Richmond.] + + +ON THE CHICKAHOMINY. + +On Sunday, the 29th, there was one of the severest cavalry-engagements +of the war, at Hawes's shop, west of Hanover Town, where Sheridan drove +the Rebels back upon Bethesda Church. The array came into position on +the 30th, its right towards Hanover Court-House. Lee was already in +position, and during the day there was firing all along the line. Each +corps was engaged. The Second Corps by the Shelton House with a +bayonet-charge pushed the enemy from the outer line of works which he +had thrown up, while the Fifth Corps rolled back, with terrible +slaughter, the mass of men which came upon its flank and front at +Bethesda Church. At Coal Harbor, the Sixth, joined by the Eighteenth +Army Corps, under Major-General W. F. Smith, from Bermuda Hundred, met +Longstreet and Breckenridge and troops from Beauregard. Sheridan had +seized this important point,--important because of the junction of +roads,--and held it against cavalry and infantry till the arrival of the +Fifth and Eighteenth. The point secured, a new line of battle was formed +on the 1st of June. The Ninth held the right at Bethesda Church; the +Fifth was south of the church, joining the Eighteenth; the Sixth held +the road from Coal Harbor to Gaines's Mill; while the Second was thrown +out on the left, on the road leading to Despatch Station and the +Chickahominy, as indicated by the diagram (p. 131). + +Such was the position of the army within ten miles of Richmond,--the +line of battle crossing the ground occupied by Stonewall Jackson at the +Battle of Gaines's Mill. + +Sanguinary conflicts have since taken place,--bayonet-charges, desperate +encounters with varying success and reverse,--but the record of the +month has closed. There, face to face, cannon fronting cannon, with less +than two hundred feet between, are the two armies on the 31st of May, at +midnight. Without losing a train of supplies, cutting loose from one +base after another,--from Washington, Belle Plain, and Port Royal +successively,--establishing new depots at pleasure, General Grant has +moved from the Rappahannock to the Chickahominy, against the utmost +efforts of General Lee to turn him back. General Grant believes that the +military power of the Rebels must be broken before the Rebellion can be +crushed. Continued hammering produces abrasion at last, in the toughest +iron. Break the iron pillars, and the edifice tumbles. There is a +manifest weakening of the Rebel army. Longstreet's veterans have lost +their fire; and since the Battles of the Wilderness, the Rebel troops +have had no heart for a bayonet-charge. + +The line of advance taken by General Grant turned the Rebels from +Washington. The country over which the two armies marched is a +desolation. There is no subsistence remaining. The railroads are +destroyed. Lee has no longer the power to invade the North. On the other +hand, General Grant can swing upon the James and isolate the Rebel army +from direct connection with the South. That accomplished, and, sooner or +later,--with Hunter in the Shenandoah, with Union cavalry sweeping down +to Wilmington, Weldon, and Danville, and up to the Blue Ridge, cutting +railroads, burning bridges, destroying supplies of ammunition and +provisions,--the question with Lee must be, not one of earthworks and +cannon and powder and ball, but of subsistence. Plainly, the day is +approaching when the Army of the Potomac, unfortunate at times in the +past, derided, ridiculed, but now triumphant through unparalleled +hardship, endurance, courage, persistency, will plant its banners on the +defences of Richmond, crumble the Rebel army beyond the possibility of +future cohesion, and, in conjunction with the forces in other +departments, crush out the last vestige of the Rebellion. + + + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + + _The American Conflict_: A History of the Great Rebellion in + the United States of America, 1860-64. By HORACE GREELEY. + Vol. I. 8vo. pp. 648. Hartford: O. D. Case & Co. + +The plan of this work contemplates not only a faithful and complete +historical description of the leading events in the stupendous conflict +now raging between the interests of Slavery and the principles of +Freedom, but an accurate analysis and lucid exposition of the antagonist +ideas which have attained their full development in the present civil +war. With this purpose, the issue of the portion now submitted to the +American public cannot be regarded as premature or unseasonable. If the +time has not arrived for the elaboration of a thorough historic survey +of the mighty struggle which has convulsed the nation to its deepest +heart, there are ample materials for a profound review of the past, and +an instructive exhibition of the moral and intellectual movement, the +pregnant conflict of thought, which has found its ultimate issue in the +bloody death-throes of the battle-field. No nobler theme could tempt the +pen of the philosophic historian. No subject of study could present more +attractive features, or prove of more fruitful import to every +intelligent American thinker. + +Mr. Greeley's position and professional training as a prominent +journalist give him, in many respects, excellent facilities for the +accomplishment of his delicate and by no means easy task. Nor is he less +admirably qualified for its execution by the native bent of his mind, +and his experience as one of the leaders of a great political party. +With an instinctive passion for freedom, a profound faith in social and +humanitary progress, and an ardent devotion to the interests of the +masses, irrespective of artificial and temporary distinctions, he has +long watched the conflict of opinions and the development of ideas with +reference to their bearing on the great American principle of political +justice and individual right. Without following the lead of any special +class of reformers, he has been keenly sensitive to the wrongs and +outrages which, under the semblance of freedom, have blended themselves +with the institutions of the country. His clear-headed sagacity has +enabled him to foresee the perilous consequences of political +inconsistencies. For many years he has anticipated the disastrous +effects of the social anomalies for which our statesmen of all parties +have sought a remedy in compromises and concealment. He has adhered to +the policy of attacking political evils with political weapons. The +institution of Slavery, in his view, was one of the crying wrongs for +which the cure was to be found in the ballot-box. Not so much by +denouncing and exhorting as by giving effect to popular sentiment +through the elections, has he aimed at social regeneration. To this +principle he has steadily adhered throughout his public life. His +political relations have been formed in accordance with this idea. The +character and tendency of parties have been judged by this standard. +Hence the present work is eminently the record of his personal +experience. It presents in vivid outlines and with striking +illustrations the action of political causes with which he has been as +familiar as with the alphabet of his mother-tongue. The principles of +the great rebellion are traced back to the little germs which have since +expanded into a tree of such mighty proportions and of such baleful +character. Few men, we may perhaps safely say no man, among us, could +bring to the composition of a work with this intent such a rich fund of +observation, such intimate knowledge of the practical working of +parties, such true insight into the aims and motives of the conspicuous +American statesmen, such accurate judgment in regard to the leading +measures of governmental policy, combined with such prevailing fairness +of mind, and such a high degree of literary skill and mastership. + +Regarded as a contribution to the historical treasures of which American +literature can boast such rare wealth, Mr. Greeley's work may challenge, +if not perhaps unqualified, sincere and respectful commendation. His +style is eminently his own. Familiar with the best models, he follows +none. Although aiming at vigor and popular effect, rather than at +graceful and polished elegance, it shows a remarkable sense of the power +and aptness of words, and an unusual command of the resources of +expression. He does not hesitate at a certain quaintness of phrase which +gives an antique air to many of his sentences; but he is never dull, +never languid, never commonplace, always free, emphatic, and racy. The +purely narrative portions of the volume are truly excellent. In the +immense range of his productions as a journalist, to our thinking, Mr. +Greeley has written nothing better. Compact, sustained, and enlivened +with a choice variety of coloring, the story as it comes from his pen is +uniformly clear even to transparency, and never fails to read with +singular interest, while it abounds in fresh and novel information. He +cannot always resist the temptation to a little episodical pleasantry; +but his humor is never ill-timed, and often mercilessly effective by its +keenness and truth, though for the most part genial and good-natured. +Sometimes, however, we notice a mischievous delight in calling attention +to the dead flies in the apothecary's ointment. The author's sincerity +of conviction and honesty of purpose are apparent on every page of his +work, and give it a sterling, permanent value, irrespective of its other +merits. + +In the selection of his materials, Mr. Greeley has made great use of the +speeches, messages, letters, and other public documents relating to the +different branches of his subject, the essential points of which he +often interweaves into his narrative, though in all suitable cases he +does not scruple to present from them full and copious citations. In +most instances which involve the opinions of his political antagonists, +he has confined himself to the latter method. Impressed with the +difficulty of exhibiting the views of an opponent with fairness and +accuracy, he has wisely preferred to employ the very language of his +original authorities, wherever the exercise of perfect impartiality +might appear too sublime a virtue for our fallen and frail human nature. +In the mutations of opinion, moreover, many persons are apt to forget +that the faith, which they zealously defended but two years ago is at +war with their present creed. The surest guaranty of exact and +satisfactory statements, accordingly, is to fall back on the primitive +authentic platform. + +The subject of compromises, under the Federal Constitution, between the +conflicting interests of the country, occupies, of course, a prominent +place in these pages, and is treated by Mr. Greeley, as we think, with +signal discretion and ability. His views on this point are marked by +candor and moderation, though he is firm and uncompromising in his +hostility to concession for the purpose of conciliating the Slave-Power. +Political compromises, he maintains, though liable to abuse, are the +necessary incidents of all governments, excepting pure and simple +despotisms. Liberty cannot exist without diversity of opinions. Unless +one will is permitted the supremacy over all others, a medium must be +sought between widely differing convictions. If a legislature composed +of two distinct bodies differs with regard to a special appropriation, a +partial concession on each side is often the only practicable mode of +adjustment. When the object is unprecedented, or not essential to the +general efficiency of the public service, such as the construction of a +new railroad, canal, or other public work, the opposition of either +house should suffice for its defeat, or, at least, for its postponement. +Neither branch has a right to demand from the other conformity with its +views on a disputed point as the price of its own concurrence in +measures essential to the existence of the government. Hence the +movement of the United States Senate in 1849, dictating to the House a +certain organization of the Territories, under penalty of defeating the +Civil Appropriation Bill, was totally unjustifiable. But the fact should +never be lost sight of, that differences of opinion often occur on +momentous questions where the rights of each party are equal, and where +an ultimate concurrence in one common line of action is essential. +Without some mutual concession to adverse views, the union of the States +would have been impossible. In cases, moreover, where the Executive is +permitted a veto on legislative measures, a certain deference to his +views is necessary to the practical working of the government. A +compromise, accordingly, is at times indispensable and laudable. But no +valid defence can be made of the celebrated compromise of 1850. It was +a monstrous corruption in legislation, which not even the great name of +Henry Clay could shield from subsequent opprobrium. + +Still, this compromise was accepted and ratified by a great majority of +the American people, both in the North and in the South. The +announcement that all sectional differences had been adjusted was hailed +with almost universal joy. The terms of settlement were regarded as of +subordinate consequence. The people wanted peace and prosperity, and +were content with driving a lucrative business. They had no disposition +to shed each other's blood in a quarrel concerning the condition of +negroes. The compromise had taken no money from their pockets. It had +imposed upon them no pecuniary burdens. It had exposed them to no +personal dangers. It had rather appeased the terrors of disunion, +increased the facilities for money-making, and opened a brilliant +prospect of national greatness, security, and peace. + +But this same compromise contained the seeds of disunion and civil war. +The extreme State-Rights party in the South resolved not to submit to +it, but to prepare the people for forcible resistance. Still, the time +had not yet come for open demonstrations. The new Fugitive-Slave Law +produced a wide-spread excitement at the North. This was increased by +the frequent cases of brutality which occurred under its execution. The +progress of opinion was rapid and decisive, preparing for the bloody +conflict which commenced with the attack on Fort Sumter. + +The development of events from this cardinal epoch to the defeat of the +Union arms at Ball's Bluff, is traced by Mr. Greeley with a vigorous and +discriminating pen. His comments may not always command conviction, but +they can never fail to win respect. He expresses himself with freedom, +although temperately, in regard to the character of the prominent +military leaders, and subsequent facts have confirmed the sagacity of +his judgment. He holds General Scott to a rigid responsibility for the +inglorious days of Bull Run, which dispelled all lingering illusions as +to his capacity for the conduct of a great war. The Fabian policy of +General McClellan in the campaign of the succeeding winter is ably +discussed. According to Mr. Greeley, this is not to be accounted for by +a constitutional aversion on the part of our young Napoleon to the +shedding of blood,--that is, of other men's; since he was eager to +involve the country in another war by the refusal to surrender Mason and +Slidell. Natural timidity and irresolution no doubt had their influence. +But beyond this was the slowly awakened consciousness that Slavery was +the real assailant of our national existence. General McClellan saw, +that, in order to carry out the policy to which he had been long +committed, in order to save both slavery and the Union, there must be +little fighting and a speedy compromise. It is only on this hypothesis +that his course while in high command, but especially during that long +autumn and winter, admits of a consistent and intelligible explanation. + + + _The Iliad of Homer faithfully translated into Unrhymed + English Metre._ By F. W. NEWMAN. London. 1856. + +Mr. Newman executed this translation upon the theory that Homer was a +"noble savage"; that his congener would be found in a "lively African +from the Gold-Coast"; that his style of language and thought was to the +age of Pericles what that of the very oldest ballads is to ours; that he +must be rendered, therefore, in English by a ballad-metre and an +antiquated diction. To this capricious and indefensible theory, and to +the translation, so far as founded upon it, Mr. Matthew Arnold seems to +have given the _coup de grace_. We come, accordingly, not to criticize, +but to bury. + +_Hic jacet_, therefore, what was mortal of Newman's Homer,--a work +executed upon a theory which no art of performance could redeem, while +to that theory it was rather clumsily than skilfully adapted. Yet was it +the work of a scholar so thorough, of a writer so able, of a translator +so faithful to his original, that no error of theory could wholly +vitiate his performance. The pictures of Homer, despite the crudity of +his coloring and the spots and daubs with which his rendering was +conscientiously sprinkled, he brought out more clearly than any had done +before him. His work, therefore, being dead, still lives; its ashes glow +and shine from the urn which contains them. Its ill-fortune was, that +it was only antiquarian literature from its birth; its good-fortune is, +that it shall never cease to be cherished as such. _Honestas mortem +vincit_: the high degrees of intellectual sincerity and power conquer +even literary damnation. + + + 1. _On Translating Homer._ By MATTHEW ARNOLD. London. + + 2. _Last Words._ By the Same. + +Whoever loves Homer will like these little books. Mr. Arnold is a man of +large and liberal intelligence, well up with his time; he is critically +inspired, yet himself a poet; his thinking, while ample, is singularly +definite; he has an admirable faculty of minding his own business, doing +what he _can_ do, and speaking where he has a right to speak; his style, +while precise and vigorous, has a charm of composure and naturalness; +and he exhibits such a combination of two-edged critical truth and +intrepidity with perfect temper as is rarely seen. In his first volume +he had been Rhadamanthine upon the translation of Mr. Newman. The latter +replied with asperity. In "Last Words" Mr. Arnold responds in a tone so +pure, so manly and gentle, that the volume should be memorable for this +alone, were there nothing else to recommend it. Let us all hasten to +bless the banns between steel-edged truth and perfect amenity. + +Mr. Arnold characterizes Homer as rapid, as plain, direct, and natural +in language, as the same in his thought, and finally as noble, having +the grand manner. A translation must reproduce these features, whatever +it fail to do. Passing existing translations in review, he finds Cowper +slow, Pope artificial, Chapman fanciful, Newman, through the vice of his +theory, ignoble. Some one having pronounced Tennyson eminently Homeric, +Mr. Arnold discusses the relation of the English idyllic to the Ionian +epic poet, and finds him at the opposite pole in respect of simplicity. + +As to a vehicle for the translation of Homer, he gives his voice +decidedly in favor of English hexameter, and tries his own hand at that +measure. His success strikes us as respectable, but not eminent. Blank +verse he thinks too slow in movement, and too much opposed in character. +Mr. Tennyson answers this last by translating a passage from Homer into +blank verse, and shows at least that he can make it run like a +race-horse, and that, too, without sacrifice of fineness or of melody. + +Right or wrong on these matters, and notwithstanding we confess to +certain sympathies with Mr. Newman, we find in Mr. Arnold's books some +of the pleasantest reading we have seen this many a day, and wish that +for every leisure hour of life a companion so intelligent and liberal, +so cultivated and genuine, so manly and mannerly, might await us. + + + + +RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS + +RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + + +Military Bridges: with Suggestions of New Expedients and Constructions +for crossing Streams and Chasms; including, also, Designs for Trestle +and Truss Bridges for Military Railroads. Adapted especially to the +Wants of the Service in the United States. By Hermann Haupt, A. M., +Civil Engineer, late Chief of Bureau in Charge of the Construction and +Operation of United States Military Railway, Author of "General Theory +of Bridge-Construction," etc. Illustrated by Sixty-Nine Lithographic +Engravings. New York. D. Van Nostrand. 8vo. pp. xx., 310. $6.00. + +The Ear, its Diseases and their Treatment. Illustrated by Engravings. By +Franz Adolph von Moschzisker, M. D., Oculist and Aurist, Author of "A +Guide to Diseases of the Eye, and their Treatment." Philadelphia. Martin +& Randall. 16mo. pp. xxii., 319. $1.50. + +Stories of the Patriarchs. By O. B. Frothingham. Boston. Walker, Wise, & +Co. Square 16 mo. pp. 232. $1.00. + +The Ferry-Boy and the Financier. By A Contributor to the "Atlantic." +Boston. Walker, Wise, & Co. 16mo. pp. 332. $1.25. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. +81, July, 1864, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY *** + +***** This file should be named 31838.txt or 31838.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/8/3/31838/ + +Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by Cornell University Digital Collections.) + + +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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