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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/35980-0.txt b/35980-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3ae5633 --- /dev/null +++ b/35980-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4274 @@ +Project Gutenberg's From the Easy Chair, series 2, by George William Curtis + +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: From the Easy Chair, series 2 + +Author: George William Curtis + +Release Date: April 27, 2011 [EBook #35980] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM THE EASY CHAIR, SERIES 2 *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif, Broward County Libraries and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +[Illustration: frontispiece] + + + + +FROM THE +EASY CHAIR + +BY + +GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS + +SECOND SERIES + +[Illustration: colophon] + +NEW YORK + +HARPER AND BROTHERS + +MDCCCXCIV + +Copyright, 1893, by HARPER & BROTHERS. + +Copyright, 1894, by HARPER & BROTHERS. + +_All rights reserved._ + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + + THE NEW YEAR 1 + THE PUBLIC SCOLD 10 + NATIONAL NOMINATING CONVENTION 16 + BRYANT'S COUNTRY 23 + _The Game of Newport_ 31 + THE LECTURE LYCEUM 39 + TWEED 47 + COMMENCEMENT 60 + THE STREETS OF NEW YORK 69 + THE MORALITY OF DANCING 76 + THE HOG FAMILY 81 + THE ENLIGHTENED OBSERVER 88 + RALPH WALDO EMERSON 94 + HENRY WARD BEECHER 110 + THE GOLDEN AGE 119 + SPRING PICTURES 126 + PROPER AND IMPROPER 130 + BELINDA AND THE VULGAR 137 + DECAYED GENTILITY 142 + THE PHARISEE 149 + LADY MAVOURNEEN ON HER TRAVELS 155 + GENERAL SHERMAN 162 + THE AMERICAN GIRL 166 + ANNUS MIRABILIS 174 + STATUES IN CENTRAL PARK 186 + THE GRAND TOUR 193 + "EASY DOES IT, GUVNER" 203 + SISTE, VIATOR 208 + CHRISTENDOM _vs._ CHRISTIANITY 216 + FRANCIS GEORGE SHAW 222 + + + + +THE NEW YEAR. + + +IN Germany on _Sylvesterabend_--the eve of Saint Sylvester, the last +night of the year--you shall wake and hear a chorus of voices singing +hymns, like the English waits at Christmas or the Italian _pifferari_. +In the deep silence, and to one awakening, the music has a penetrating +and indefinable pathos, the pathos that Richter remarked in all music, +and which our own Parsons has hinted delicately-- + + "Strange was the music that over me stole, + For 'twas born of old sadness that lives in my + soul." + +There is something of the same feeling in the melody of college songs +heard at a little distance on awakening in the night before +Commencement. The songs are familiar, but they have an appealing +melancholy unknown before. Their dying cadences murmur like a muffled +peal heralding the visionary procession that is passing out of the +enchanted realm of youth forever. So the voices of Sylvester's Eve chant +the requiem of the year that is dead. So much more of life, of +opportunity, of achievement, passed; so much nearer age, decline, the +mystery of the end. The music swells in rich and lingering strains. It +is a moment of exaltation, of purification. The chords are dying; the +hymn is ending; it ends. The voices are stilled. It is the benediction +of Saint Sylvester: + + "She died and left to me ... + The memory of what has been, + And nevermore will be." + +But this is the midnight refrain--The King is dead! With the earliest +ray of daylight the exulting strain begins--Live the King! The bells are +ringing; the children are shouting; there are gifts and greetings, good +wishes and gladness. "Happy New Year! happy New Year!" It is the day of +hope and a fresh beginning. Old debts shall be forgiven; old feuds +forgotten; old friendships revived. To-day shall be better than +yesterday. The good vows shall be kept. A blessing shall be wrung from +the fleet angel Opportunity. There shall be more patience, more courage, +more faith; the dream shall become life; to-day shall wear the glamour +of to-morrow. Ring out the old, ring in the new! + +Charles Lamb says that no one ever regarded the first of January with +indifference; no one, that is to say, of the new style. But a +fellow-pilgrim of the old style, before Pope Gregory retrenched those +ten days in October, three hundred years ago, or the British Parliament +those eleven days in September, a hundred and thirty-five years ago, +took no thought of the first of January. It was a date of no +significance. To have mused and moralized upon that day more than upon +any other would have exposed him to the mischance against which Rufus +Choate asked his daughter to defend him at the opera: "Tell me, my dear, +when to applaud, lest unwittingly I dilate with the wrong emotion." The +Pope and the Parliament played havoc with the date of the proper annual +emotion. Moreover, if a man should happen to think of it, every day is a +new-year's day. If we propose a prospect or a retrospect we can stand +tiptoe on the top of every day, yes, and of every hour, in the year. +Good-morning is but a daily greeting of Happy New Year. + +But these smooth generalizations and truisms do not disturb the charm of +regularly recurring times and seasons. That the fifth of October, or any +day in any month, actually begins a new year, does not give to that date +the significance and the feeling of the first of January. Our +fellow-pilgrim of the old style must look out for himself. He may have +begun his year in March, and a blustering birth it was. But we are +children of the new style, and the first of January is our New Year. +That is our day of remembrance, our feast of hope, the first page of our +fresh calendar of good resolutions, the day of underscoring and emphasis +of the swift lapse of life. "A few more of them, and then--" whispers +the mentor, who is not deceived by the jolly compliments of the season, +and the sober significance of the whisper is plain enough. "Eheu! +Posthume," sang the old Roman. "This world and the next, and all's +over!" said airy Tom Lackwit to the afflicted widow. + +The relentless punctuality, the unwearied urgency, of old Time, who +turns his hour-glass with such a sonorous ring on New-Year's Day, seems +sometimes a little wanting in the best breeding. It furnishes so +unnecessary a register. The slow whitening and thinning of the hair; the +gradual incision of wrinkles; the queer antics of the sight, which holds +the newspaper at farther and farther removes, until at last it is forced +to succumb to glasses; the abated pace in walking; the dexterous +avoidance of stone walls in country rambles; the harmless frauds lurking +in the expressed reasons for frequent pauses in climbing a hill to turn +and see the landscape--frauds which the tears of my Uncle Toby's good +angel promptly wash away; the general and gradual adjustment to greater +repose--all these surely are adequate reminders and signs of the +sovereignty of Time. Why should he be greedy of more? Why thump and +rattle at the door, as it were, on the first of January, and bawl out to +the whole world that we are a year older, and that makes--! + +It is disagreeably unnecessary. Why should not the old fellow do his +duty quietly, and tell off another year without such an outrageous +uproar? Does he think it so pleasant to hear his increasing +tally--forty, five, fifty, five, sixty, five? Peace! peace! Why not have +it understood that the tally beyond--well, say fifty, is a gross +impertinence? Let something be left to the imagination. Besides, what is +the use of wigs and hair-dye and padding, and what not coloring and +enamelling, and other juvenescent procedures of the feminine arcana, if +annual proclamation of impertinent dates and facts is to be made? + +The worst of it is that it is a positive interference with the just play +of the fundamental truth that age is not justly measurable by the mere +lapse of time. Some people are never young, others defy age. This, +indeed, is due to temperament. But that is not all. Those gray hairs and +wrinkles, that eyesight of less keenness, that disinclination to leap +walls, and those fraudulent halts to survey the rearward landscape, are +enemies whose assaults are by no means regular. They come at very +different times to different people. Adolphus at sixty despises +spectacles. Triptolemus at thirty is bald. The hair of Horatius at +sixty-five is as affluent as Hyperion's, and as dark without unguents as +the raven's plume. Let facts speak to a candid world. Why should that +graybeard Paul Pry called Time blare through a speaking-trumpet that the +brave Valentine-- + + "As wild his thoughts and gay of wing + As Eden's garden bird"-- + +is just as old as old, toothless, tottering, decrepit Orson? + +Every well-regulated citizen of the world is interested, and more +vitally interested with every closing year, that upon the point of age +all men shall be left to their merits, and shall not be measured +arbitrarily by that Procrustean standard of years. It is notorious that +men grow wiser every year, and it is observable that the more years they +have, the more they look with doubt and questioning upon the Family +Record. Those leaves of births following the doubtful books of +Scripture, registered with such painful and needless particularity of +dates, partake of the doubtfulness of their neighborhood. They are mere +intercalations, new books of the Apocrypha. Yet they often cause young +fellows of seventy to be accused and convicted of being old men. + +Since, then, we cannot stop the flight of Time, let him pass. But he +must not calumniate as he passes. He must not be allowed to stigmatize +vigor and health and freshness of feeling and the young heart and the +agile foot as old merely because of a certain number of years. This is +the season of good resolutions. The new year begins in a snow-storm of +white vows. So be it. But let our whitest vow be, after that for a +whiter life, that age shall no longer be measured by this arbitrary +standard of years, and that those deceitful and practical octogenarians +of thirty shall not escape as young merely because they have not yet +shown the strength to carry threescore and ten with jocund elasticity. + +Then Happy New Year shall not mean Good-night, but Good-morrow. + + + + +THE PUBLIC SCOLD. + + +The Easy Chair was lately asked whether it thought the office of public +scold an agreeable one. There was a certain tartness in the question, as +if its real purpose was to learn from the Easy Chair whether _It_ +enjoyed that position, and upon looking further it appeared that the +question had been suggested by a remark of the Easy Chair's to the +effect that a certain class of our fellow-creatures seemed to be +disposed to do their duty in a manner that might be improved. But what +is an Easy Chair but a kind of _censor morum!_ Would the kind critic of +its conduct have it say to the gentleman whose hands are soiled that +they are as pure as the morning, and to the tactless dame who makes all +her neighbors uncomfortable that her manners are charming? + +Probably this is really what the critic meant, for he continued by +saying that it is so much better to dilate upon what is pleasant than to +discuss the unpleasant aspects of life. That is true. It was the +principle of the Vicar of Bray. That reverend gentleman always avoided +friction. He was a chip of the Polonius block. The cloud was a camel or +a whale, according to the fancy of his companion. The good vicar looked +askance at Rome under Henry and Edward, and told his beads piously under +Mary, and upon reflection eschewed the mass-house under Elizabeth. He +dilated upon the pleasant aspects of affairs. We can imagine him saying +to Ridley in the time of Mary, "My dear bishop, why think yourself wiser +than your time?" and a little later to Parker, Elizabeth's Archbishop +(Ridley having been burned in the meanwhile), "My dear archbishop, Rome, +I see, is much too stringent." The Vicar of Bray was not a scold. He +was, according to the abused text, all things to all men. + +Yet his profession, our censor must remember, was a scolding +profession--at least in the sense in which the word is often used. His +duty was to admonish and exhort, to adjure his flock to quit the error +of their ways. Perhaps he was a poor illustration of it. Perhaps, true +to his temperament rather than to his profession, instead of urging +repentance because the kingdom was at hand, he was accustomed to say: +"Brethren, I observe that you lie and steal and slander your neighbors a +good deal. But in such a world as this what is to be expected? We are +all poor, weak, fallible things. Which of us can hope to strike twelve +every time? Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. We +must all beware of hypocrisy, dear brethren, and of pretending to be +better than our neighbors. You remember the Pharisee who thanked God +that he was not as other men. Let him be a warning against the sin of +presumption. There is the beautiful lesson of the beam and the mote. We +must not forget it. We are all miserable sinners, and therefore we must +not twit each other with sinning. We ought to tell the truth, my +friends. But we don't. We all lie. Let us therefore not scold each +other, since we are all equally wicked. But let us avoid Phariseeism and +all that assumption of superior virtue which is implied in saying to a +foul-mouthed brother that he ought to speak cleanly. Beware of +Phariseeism as of the unpardonable sin. Scold not, dear brethren, but +talk of the things which are pleasant, and instead of rebuking the liar, +commend his goodness to the poor, and instead of silencing the +backbiter, praise his subscription to the soup kitchen. For what says +Dr. Watts? + + "'Let dogs delight to bark and bite.' + +Dogs naturally scold, but we, brethren, we have the gift of avoidance, +and, O liars, thieves, and slanderers, let us live together in peace, +and say nothing about falsehood, stealing, and calumny." + +This was probably the tenor of the sermons of the Vicar of Bray, and +this was the way that he strove to save souls. But Fénelon and John Knox +and Edwards and Whitefield and Wesley and Channing and St. Paul, each in +his own way, said, "Thou art the man," and rebuked both the sin and the +sinner. Yet all of them were very human and very fallible, and all came +very short of the ideal of duty. To point out a defect in a picture, or +to exhort the artist to avoid it, is not to declare yourself an +incomparable artist. To demand honesty in public affairs is not to +proclaim yourself a saint. To say that school-teachers should be +thorough and use their common-sense as well as a text-book is not to +scold them. Romilly was not a scold because he denounced the unjust +criminal laws, nor John Howard because he rebuked the inhumanity of +prisons, nor John the Baptist because he exhorted men to repent. + +The poets rebuke our lives by the fair ideals that they draw, but they +do not scold. If a man preaches a little sermon illustrating the way in +which men in a certain profession, let us say, shirk their duty, and +somebody cries out, "Don't scold so!" the preacher may safely exclaim, +"Fellow-sinner, thou art the man." But the best illustration is closer +at hand. If the Easy Chair reproves certain fellow-sinners for +remissness in doing their duty, and for that offence is a scold, what is +the censor who scolds the Easy Chair for scolding? Let us avoid +Phariseeism, brethren, and the assumption of superior virtue. + + + + +NATIONAL NOMINATING CONVENTION. + + +It was a wise newspaper that recently advised every American who could +do so to see a national nominating convention. It is a spectacle visible +in no other country, and the most exciting political spectacle in this. +It is the arena in which the prolonged and passionate strife of +countless ambitions, intrigues, interests, and conspiracies is decided; +and it is the more exciting because, with every effort to predetermine +the result, the result is still at the mercy of chance. The action of +the convention is a lottery. Suddenly, at the decisive moment, an +unexpected combination, an impulse, a whim, like an overwhelming tidal +wave, sweeps away all plans and calculations, and the result is as +complete as it is unanticipated. + +Even the device of a two-thirds vote to make a nomination valid does +not avail to secure the real preference of the party which the +convention represents. The two-thirds rule, as it is called, was +designed to baffle the fundamental democratic principle, which is the +rule of the majority. When that is abandoned, the proportion selected is +purely arbitrary. It may as well be nine tenths as two thirds. But even +such a dam will not resist the swelling waters of feeling in a +convention. The French say that it is the unexpected that happens, but +in a national convention it is the unforeseen which is anticipated. The +palpitating multitude, which has been stimulating its own excitement, +confronts every doubtful moment with an air which says plainly, "Now +it's coming." + +There is always a preliminary contest of various cities before the +national party committee to decide where the convention shall be held. +Local orators with honeyed persuasion dazzle the committee with +statistics of the superior convenience, accommodation, beauty, +healthfulness, resources, facilities, and whatever else their good +genius may suggest, of the city for which each one of them contends. The +convention is held in the largest hall, or in a building erected for the +purpose, like the Wigwam in Chicago in 1860. The convention itself is +composed of about nine hundred state delegates, their seats designated +by a flag with the name of the state placed by the seat of the chairman +of the delegation. The alternates are also seated. + +Every convention is full of distinguished leaders and members of the +party, and as any of them appears, either entering or rising to speak, +they are greeted with great applause. If the temporary chairman be an +eminent party chief or an eloquent popular orator, his address touches +the springs of emotion and arouses hearty enthusiasm. But the friends of +the leading candidates deprecate the mention of names until the +candidates are presented by the chosen orator. The reason is that the +applause of the convention is one of the counters in the game. There are +hired _claques_ in the conventions which keep up a humming cry which is +a substitute for applause, and which is sometimes continued for a +quarter of an hour. The longer the hum, the more popular the candidate. + +Forgetfulness or ignorance of the value of applause under such +circumstances reveals the comparative popularity of candidates in the +eager mass of delegates and spectators. In one convention the permanent +president in his address, but without any sinister purpose, or indeed +any other purpose than kindling the convention, mentioned successively, +and, of course, with impartial compliment, the name of every candidate +who was known to be on the list. Involuntarily he thus tested the +feeling of the convention. The galleries also swelled the acclaim, but +in the galleries the _claque_ is shrewdly distributed, and in critical +moments the approval or disapproval of the turbulent galleries +undoubtedly impresses the delegates, and recalls the galleries of the +French convention a hundred years ago. + +There are occasional skirmishes of debate upon motions or resolutions, +but the first great interest of the regular proceedings is the report +of the platform committee. It is a tradition of conventions that the +platform should be accepted as reported, both to gain the prestige of +perfect unanimity and to escape "tinkering," which may lead to endless +discussion and discordant feeling. But when the motion is made to +proceed to the nomination of candidates, the excitement is intense. The +orators are usually carefully selected, not alone as eloquent speakers, +but as men of weight and influence, and of what at the moment is more +indispensable than everything else--tact. The speeches are made with the +fundamental understanding that, however glowing and elaborate the praise +of the candidate may be, there shall be an explicit assurance that +whatever the merits of any candidate, the candidate who shall be +nominated by the convention will receive the universal and enthusiastic +support of the party. + +On one occasion, when this fundamental rule was forgotten by an ardent +orator, who, in the warmth of his devotion to his candidate, declared +that no other man was so certain to draw out the whole party vote in +the state for which he spoke, a hurricane of hisses from the convention +and the galleries silenced him, and the friends of his candidate were +instantly aware that a fatal injury had befallen him. In another +convention the orator who nominated one of the candidates was so +exasperated by what he felt to be the treachery to his candidate of a +conspicuous friend of another that his denunciation of the traitor was +held to be a covert assault upon the traitor's candidate, and again a +tempest of universal hissing overwhelmed the luckless orator and his +candidate. + +The announcement by states of the first formal vote for candidates is +made in impressive silence, followed by immense applause. But the second +ballot is more significant; and whenever upon any ballot the +announcement of a vote is seen by the tally to decide the nomination, +the feeling culminates in an indescribable tumult of frenzied +acclamation, and the convention generally adjourns to consider the +Vice-Presidency. But the interest in its work is at an end, and it is +astounding to see the happy-go-lucky Providence which presides over the +selection of the officer who has thrice become the President of the +United States. + +In the history of national conventions there is no more touching +incident than that of Mr. Seward awaiting at his home in Auburn the +result of the balloting at the convention of 1860, which nominated Mr. +Lincoln. By what is called the logic of the situation Mr. Seward's +nomination was assured, and no disappointment could have been greater +than the selection of another. How bitter it was was not suspected until +his life was recently published! But he encountered the shock with his +usual equanimity, and before the election he had made the most +extraordinary series of speeches for his party which the annals of any +campaign record. + +The journal's advice was sound. See a national convention if you can. + + + + +BRYANT'S COUNTRY. + + +The traveller in western Massachusetts, reaching some quiet village upon +the hills, which seems to him singularly lonely and remote, often finds +some little incident in its annals which connects it with the great +world. Coming to Goshen, a solitary little town wholly unknown to most +of our readers, he is conscious of the height, of the purity of the air, +and the peacefulness of the wooded landscape, and far below, towards the +east, he sees the undulating line of Holyoke, and on some fortunate day +may catch the gleam of the placid Connecticut winding through broad +meadows and between Tom and Holyoke to the Sound. + +The little town itself is a grassy street, with a meeting-house and a +hotel, which has a desolate air of mistaken enterprise declining into +disappointment, with long anticipation of a crowd of summer pilgrims, +who might well turn their steps hither, but who have never come. Beyond +the village street upon the same plateau is the great Goshen reservoir, +which lies hushed in grim repose over the town of Williamsburg, a few +miles below, the town which was overwhelmed some years ago by the +bursting of the Mill River dam. Such events are the tragedies of the +hills, which become traditions told in the village store, and investing +with dignity, as the years pass, the villagers who recall the direful +day. + +Among the traditions of Goshen is that of the passage of some of the +soldiers of Burgoyne on their march from Saratoga to Cambridge. When the +brilliant British general swept down Lake Champlain to the Hudson, +capturing Ticonderoga as he came, it was feared in these hills that he +would march triumphantly from Albany to Boston. There was a general +rally of all able-bodied men to the rescue; and as they marched away +from their fields ripe for the harvest the prospect was dismal, until +the able-bodied women marched into the fields and gathered and housed +the crops. The British invaders reached Goshen, indeed, on their march +from Albany to Boston, but only as prisoners of war. + +All this peaceful neighborhood was originally granted by the State to +the heirs of soldiers in the early New England wars. Goshen and its +neighbor Chesterfield, another city set upon a hill six or seven miles +to the south, were grants to the descendants of soldiers in the +Narragansett expedition of King Philip's war. From Goshen the +Chesterfield meeting-house can be seen against the southern horizon, and +the road lies through high pastures and lonely farms to the pleasant +town. When you climb its hill and look around, you see a cluster of +hospitable houses, around which the neatly kept grounds give an air of +refinement to the whole village, which is steeped in rural tranquillity. + +The broad hills slope westward towards the valley of the Westfield, and +beyond lie the shaggy sides of the Cummington range. Chesterfield has +its special tradition of Lafayette passing the night in its old tavern, +on his way from Albany to Boston, in 1824. It is a characteristic +representative of the hill towns, so still that the air seems drowsy as +in Rip Van Winkle's village. But such tranquil towns, in which a moving +figure is half spectral and almost a surprise, were the beginnings of +the nation. From these sequestered springs the mighty river flows. + +Chesterfield has not half the population that it counted seventy years +ago. The whole town now reports scarcely seven hundred persons. Yet, +with all the old spirit, it invited its neighbors in Hampshire County to +come and dine on one of the loveliest of summer days this year. It was +the annual festival of the Hill-side Agricultural Society, and fully a +thousand people filled the friendly town. The feast was spread upon +tables on a green space beside the old house in which Lafayette slept, +and under a bower of leafy white birch boughs. The magnates of the +county were all present, and it was whispered privately that there were +private whisperings among eminent politicians, who, however, with the +non-political, or the political of the wrong side, talked cheerfully of +the charming day and the promising crops. Politics is the breath of our +patriotic nostrils, and it was a stimulating thought that while we were +listening to the humorous but well-merited praises of Strawberry Hill +pork, some of our bland companions were saving their bacon in other +ways; and while we dreamed of crisp sausages and savory ham, were +contriving Senators and Councillors, and even a Governor himself. + +The simple courtesy and universal intelligence were of the old New +England, nor less so the composure and ease with which speaker after +speaker mounted the bench on which he sat, and in what he said, and the +way in which he said it, showed that he was a graduate of the town +meeting. The pastor of Goshen, asked to speak of some of the more noted +citizens of the neighboring towns, might well have occupied with so +fruitful a text all the hours until sunset. But with exemplary +discretion he mentioned but a few, and among them some that surprised a +New-Yorker, who had not known, but might have guessed, that Gideon Lee, +former Mayor of the city, and Luther Bradish, Lieutenant-Governor of the +State, came from the little town upon the Cummington hills opposite, +where Bryant studied law. + +The whole region before us, indeed, was especially Bryant's. Upon the +slope yonder he was born, and we could see the house in which as a boy +he lived. "Thanatopsis" was the hymn of his meditations among those +solitary woods. There, upon the nearer hill, high over Plainfield, where +he wrote the poem the "Water-fowl," forever floating in the twilight +heavens-- + + "Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue + Thy solitary way." + +We were looking upon the cradle of American literature. Here its first +enduring poem was written. The poet himself never escaped the spell of +the hills. The child was father of the man. Bryant in the city was +always the grave and unchanged genius of New England. The city did not +wear off the rusticity of his manner. His air was reserved and remote, +and he was still wrapped in the seclusion of the hills. It is in such +scenes and among such people on such a day that the power of these hills +and their influence upon our national life and literature are perceived. + +These hidden springs have overflowed the prairies of the West; and how +much of the wealth and prosperity, the energy, industry, and +enlightenment of New York have trickled down from them, you may hear, if +you doubt, every year on Forefathers' Day at the New England dinner in +New Amsterdam. As there is altogether too much glory to be adequately +celebrated in one day, another has been added, to accommodate the Yankee +city of Brooklyn, and it is not the fault of the sons of New England if +on those two days the whole continent does not hear the melodious +thunder of their eloquence proclaiming that New England always led, is +leading still, and will lead forever, the triumphal procession of +American progress. + +Supported by such a history it is a natural boast. There is, however, +one inexorable condition. To do what New England has done, New England +must be what she has been. + + + + +THE GAME OF NEWPORT. + + +There is nothing more delightful than the gravity with which the game of +Newport is played. To assist at one of the solemn "functions" like a +coach parade is not unlike attendance upon a function of the ancient +Church in Rome. On a true Newport afternoon, as soft and sweet and +luminous an air as can be breathed, Newport, in every kind of stately +and comfortable and light and graceful carriage, with the finest horses +and the most loftily disdainful of coachmen, proceeds down the avenue to +behold the stately procession along the ocean drive. + +Of its kind there is no more beautiful drive in the world. The shore +winds among rocks which are massed, a shrewd-eyed traveller said, as on +the shores of Greece. The bold character of the coast of Rhode Island +and its picturesque effects are wholly unknown upon its neighbor Long +Island. The endless reach of sand and the monotony of the vast level +land on Long Island have a certain vague charm as of a sea-shore +becoming or about to become picturesque. But that point is fully reached +by its northern neighbors of the New England coast, and the ocean drive +in Newport is in itself incomparable. + +For its company on the day of a great social function it is quite as +incomparable. Hyde Park, the Bois, the Cascine, the Prater, show no such +sumptuous display. If the street boy were a philosopher, he would say, +probably, as he watched the spectacle, "My eyes! money plays here for +all it is worth." The American street boy of every degree is not +supposed to need any stronger impression of the value of money than he +already possesses. But Newport is the great school for that instruction, +and it is open free to the whole world. Money elsewhere has the same +instincts and desires. But in a city, in winter, its sports and effects, +however splendid, are divided and hidden. In summer Newport they are +concentrated under most fortunate conditions and proceed in the open +air. + +It is all the more striking because money has built its summer city +close by and just above one of the oldest and most historic of our +cities. It has improvised its magnificence and mad profusion upon the +outskirts of simplicity and moderation are observant, for all their +plainness. When they were asked what effect the new town produced upon +the old, whether the rollicking city on the hill harmed or helped the +plodding seaport, they answered: "Until CrÅ“sus and Midas came, it was +beneficial. But they have ruined Newport." + +Perhaps not, however. The Newport on the hill of to-day is the +legitimate offspring of the earlier summer retreat. That was a group of +the select who came to Newport to enjoy themselves for the summer. They +were well-to-do, some of them. But not many dwelt in cottages. The +multitude lived in hotels. They danced, they dined, they drove, they +sauntered. It was the green tree. It was less money enjoying itself as +more money enjoys itself now. The gossip, the flirting, the display were +not of another kind, they were the same as to-day, but the scale was +more limited. Mrs. Candour, Mrs. Malaprop, Sir Benjamin Backbite, and +the brothers Surface were already there. The standards of conduct, the +ideals of honor, were not essentially different. + +A generation ago Sir Benjamin bowed and danced and supped at Mrs. +Malaprop's ball with all the gay world of that time, which is now in +wigs, caps, turbans, or heaven; and the next day, dining with Mrs. +Candour, Sir Benjamin told, with infinite relish and to the great +amusement of the table, the story of his hostess's verbal trips and +stumbles. It did not seem to be conduct essentially base, because this +sparkling summer realm by the sea is like Charles Lamb's conception of +the artificial comedy of the eighteenth century: "I confess, for myself, +that, with no great delinquencies to answer for, I am glad for a season +to take an airing beyond the diocese of the strict conscience--not to +live always in the precincts of the law courts--but now and then, for a +dream-while or so, to imagine a world with no meddling restrictions, to +get into recesses whither the hunter cannot follow me-- + + "'secret shades + Of wooded Ida's inmost grove, + While yet there was no fear of Jove.'" + +To take permanent lodgings beyond the diocese of the strict conscience, +however, is a critical enterprise. If you take a house in Capua, you +must needs breathe the Capuan air. The magnetic rock in Sindbad's story +drew out the nails of the ships that ventured too near. Old Mithridates +fed on poisons until they "became a kind of nutriment," as Dr. +Rappaccini fed his daughter, until, too late, he discovered that she was +doomed. The graybeards who drive out to see the coach parade, and recall +the days, before the ocean drive, when the rocks beyond Lily Pond were a +glimmering land of Beulah, may prattle of the golden age of Newport as +of a happy past in which the graybeards were born. But will they +seriously contend that the age of CrÅ“sus and Midas is not the golden +age of Newport? + +While they are gossiping, the coaches approach. They have been through +the town, and are driving out by the Fort road; and as they appear, the +vast throng of carriages which have driven out to meet them pull to the +side of the road to allow a free course. A multitude of spectators +awaiting a festal procession, which at last is coming, naturally +suggests applause. But there is profound silence. There is no cheer for +every spectator to catch up and pass on. The first coach is at hand, and +gravely passes at a deliberate pace, and the great world in carriages +gravely looks on. The second coach deliberately follows, and is surveyed +with equal gravity. The next perhaps will strike a spark of applause. +But the next passes deliberately amid a silence profound. One friend, +perhaps, in the stately procession gravely nods to another gravely +gazing from a carriage. The "function" proceeds. Far out at sea the +white sails flash, and the summer surf breaks gently along the shore. +Every coach rolls slowly by. The moment for cheering has not yet +arrived. Indeed, it does not arrive before the pageant has passed, and +the reviewing carriages are turning and following on in its wake. It is +truly a solemn function. Graybeard recalls nothing like it for multitude +and display in the old drives on "beach days" along the beach in what he +calls the golden age. But does he doubt that old Newport would have done +it gladly if it could have done it? + +If the ghost of Heliogabalus haunts the villa'd shore, it is with no +hope of resuming the imperial crown. His court merely makes a pretty +summer spectacle when the opera ends. The coach and the stately equipage +and the flashing splendor of busy idleness are the pageant which is +kindly displayed gratis for the passengers in the omnibus, for the +pedestrians and the nurses. They sit and stroll and stare at their ease +while the gay play proceeds before their eyes. Nowhere more constantly +than in the summer Newport does the remark of the little child watching +the march of the soldiers recur--"Mamma, how good they are to make such +a show!" + + + + +THE LECTURE LYCEUM. + + +The Utica _Herald_ in a pleasant article recently recalled the lecture +lyceum of a quarter of a century ago. It was then what is called a +power. It greatly influenced public opinion. Its spirit was indicated by +the reply of Wendell Phillips to an invitation which asked him his terms +and his subject. He answered that for a literary lecture he should +expect a hundred dollars, but he would deliver an antislavery address +for nothing, and pay his own expenses. The lecturers who were most +sought at that time were almost without exception men of very strong +convictions upon the great question which, however evaded and +dexterously hidden, was the vital thought of the country; and every +successive week from November to April, in the largest cities and the +smallest cities, along the belt of country from the Kennebec through +New England and New York westward through Ohio and the Northwest to the +Mississippi, before thousands of the most intelligent American citizens, +this band of lecturers advanced, like a well-ordered platoon of +sharp-shooters, and delivered their destructive volley at what they felt +to be the common enemy. + +Edward Everett, "the monarch of the platform," as Mr. Edward Parker +called him in his book upon American contemporary orators, during part +of this same time was making a tour through much of the same region with +his oration upon Washington, for the benefit of the fund for the +purchase of Mount Vernon, and he was also writing the Mount Vernon +papers for the _Ledger_, in one of which he gave an entertaining +description of a night in a sleeping-car, when those itinerant +bedchambers had but recently taken to the road. Mr. Everett's +conservative temperament made his oration a kind of corrective of the +influence of the great tendency of the lyceum lecture. But patriotic as +his purpose undoubtedly was, his effort to stem the rapidly rising tide +of public sentiment was like the protests of Governor Hutchinson and the +Colonial conservatives against the fervid revolutionary appeals of Otis +and Adams and Quincy. Other popular speakers of the same sympathy as +that of Mr. Everett found themselves out of tune with the lyceum +audience, and were but meteors flashing across the stage, whose light +was lost in the steady and increasing glow of the group of men who were +identified with the great day of the lyceum lecture. These men were not +all like Wendell Phillips, open leaders of a specific agitation, nor +were these lectures always ostensibly upon what are called public +questions. But the influence of the lecturers was unmistakable. They +were all men known to be in the strongest sympathy with the most +advanced feeling of the agitation. It was the plain spirit and tone and +drift of those lectures, an occasional allusion and the necessary +application of the remarks, however general, to the actual situation, +rather than any deliberate discussion of the question itself, which +characterized the lyceum of that day. There was sometimes an attempted +reaction against this tendency. In Philadelphia it was discovered that +colored persons were not admitted to the Musical Fund Hall, in which the +lectures had been given. The leading lecturers instantly informed the +committee that they declined to speak in the hall so long as the +restriction continued. In Albany the reactionary sentiment in the Young +Men's Association succeeded in electing a lecture committee which was +resolved upon a purely "literary" course, and which would not invite the +usual lecturers. The result was an independent course, under the +auspices of dissatisfied members of the association, in which the +rejected lecturers spoke in the largest hall in the city, and the signal +triumph of the seceders lay in the immense audience which assembled in +contrast to the attenuated attendance upon the regular course. + +The singular success of the lyceum lecture of that time was due, +undoubtedly, to two causes--the simultaneous appearance of a remarkable +group of orators, and their profound sympathy with the question which +absorbed the public mind. The weekly lecture was not merely a display of +oratory, not only an amusing recreation, but it brought wit and +accomplishment and eloquence to strengthen the public feeling and arouse +the public conscience, and to confirm the earnest spirit which was +universal, and which forecast the great events and the noble elevation +of the public mind that followed. Emerson, Wendell Phillips, Gough, +Beecher, Chapin, Starr King, Theodore Parker, could of themselves carry +any course of lectures, and each in his own way was thoroughly in accord +with the truest American life of that time. The situation and the +condition of the public mind would not have availed, indeed, without the +happy chance of such orators to create the lyceum, but with that chance +the lyceum of that day was as remarkable a continuous display of various +and effective eloquence as has been ever known. + +If the faithful diary of any lecturer who went the grand rounds +twenty-five years ago, from Maine to the Mississippi, could be +published, it would be full of the most amusing stories. The lecturers +all had them to tell, and they were all men of a singularly fine +perception of humor. James T. Fields, the publisher in Boston, was the +friend of all the lyceum orators, and towards the close of his life he +was himself a popular and attractive lecturer upon literary subjects. +His little cell or private office in the old corner book-store in Boston +was an exchange of lecturers for that neighborhood, which teemed with +lyceums, and no similar space has ever heard fresher stories better +told, or has ever echoed with gayer laughter. + +It was the pleasant company in that little retreat which first heard, +the day after it occurred, the tale of the belated lecturer who, +hurrying from the cars in a carriage to the hall in Boston, long beyond +the hour, dinnerless, and with no chance to dress, opened his +travelling-bag, and proceeded, to the consternation of the lady who had +taken a seat in the same carriage, and whose pardon he politely and +briefly invoked, to change his collar and his coat. As he began to pull +off his coat, having pulled off his collar, his amazed and terrified +fellow-passenger began to pull at the door, and to call loudly upon the +driver, who was furiously whipping his horses into a pace that increased +both the noise of the carriage and the conviction of the terrified lady +that she was the victim of some dreadful conspiracy, or the hapless +victim of a maniac. The maniac's earnest but interjectional explanation +as he proceeded in his toilet, begging his companion to be pacified, as +he was merely going to lecture, was an unintelligible asseveration, +which only made his madness more indisputable and awful, and what might +have befallen the poor lady, if the carriage had not suddenly stopped at +the hall, and the lecturer, in his clean collar and black coat, had not +begged her pardon for frightening her, with a fervor that frightened her +all the more, and disappeared from the vehicle with his travelling-bag, +shawl, and umbrella, he was not prepared to say. But the tale, as he +told it the next morning with infinite humor in Fields's corner, was +received, as he ruefully admitted, with louder shouts of laughter than +had greeted the brightest witticisms of his lecture. + +Fields is gone, and his old friend and neighbor Whipple, who was one of +the earliest of the noted lyceum lecturers. The old corner in the old +corner book-store is gone, and with it have vanished many of the happy +company that gathered there, not only of orators, but of famous authors. +The lyceum of the last generation is gone, but it is not surprising that +those who recall with the Utica _Herald_ its golden prime should cherish +a kindly and regretful feeling for an institution which was so +peculiarly American, and which served so well the true American spirit +and American life. + + + + +TWEED. + + +There are many persons who wonder why Tweed did not evade justice by +forfeiting his bail. He had every chance to escape, they say; why did he +stay? His chief confederates are safe in Europe, where he might easily +have been, yet he was foolish enough to take the risk of a trial, and he +is imprisoned, probably for the rest of his life. The explanation, +however, is very obvious. He did not believe there was any risk. Tweed +was the most striking illustration of a very common faith--belief in the +Almighty Dollar. He is the victim of a most touching fidelity to the +great principle which every good American will surely be the last to +flout. His creed was very simple: it was that money would buy +everything, and he reposed upon his belief with the sweet security of +the Mussulman who sees by faith a heaven of houris. Certainly his +confidence was not surprising. He had proved his creed. He had seen +money work miracles. He had seen himself, a man of no cleverness and of +no advantages, rising swiftly by means of it from insignificant poverty +to the control of a great party. It had made him master of one of the +great cities of the world. It had secured for him Governors, +Legislatures, councils, and legal and executive authorities of every +kind. He invested in land and judges. He bought dogs and lawyers. He +silenced the press with a golden muzzle, and money made his will law. + +Here was a man who wanted nothing that money could not buy: was it +strange that he had unbounded faith in it? Every form of virtue was to +him mere affectation, a more or less ingenious and tenacious "strike" +for money. If a man spoke of honesty, patriotism, self-respect, the +public welfare, public opinion, truth, justice, right, Tweed smiled at +the fine phrases in which the auctioneer, anxious to sell himself, +cried, "Going! going!" Argument, reason, decency--they were meaningless +to him. If an opponent held out, he simply asked, "How much?" The world +was a market. Life was a bargain. He felt himself with pride to be the +largest operator in his way, as Vanderbilt in his, or Stewart in his. + +In Albany he had the finest quarters at the Delavan, and when he came +into the great dining-room at dinner-time, and looked at all the tables +thronged with members of the Legislature and the lobby, he had a +benignant, paternal expression, as of a patriarch pleased to see his +retainers happy. It was a magnificent rendering of Fagin and his pupils. +You could imagine him trotting up and down in the character of an +unsuspicious old gentleman with his handkerchief hanging out of his +pocket, that his scholars might show their skill in prigging a wipe. He +knew which of that cheerful company was the Artful Dodger and which +Charley Bates. And he never doubted that he could buy every man in the +room if he were willing to pay the price. So at the Capitol, where sits +the Legislature of a noble commonwealth of four millions of souls, he +moved about with an air of fat good-nature, like the chief shepherd of +the flock. If he stood at the door of the Assembly looking in, it is +easy to fancy him saying to himself, The State pays these men two or +three hundred dollars for four months' service; I will give them better +wages. He did not doubt that it was a fair transaction. What is the +State? It is only four millions of people, he thought, who are all +trying to be rich--struggling, cheating, by hook or by crook, every man +for himself, and the devil take the hindmost, to be rich. These men +would be fools not to take my money. And he smiled his fat smile, and +paid liberally for all that was in market. + +There were some papers, whose price he could not ascertain, which +persisted in speaking ill of him and his pals. If the fools did not know +their own interest enough to be content with a good price--say, of +corporation advertising--they must be silenced. The conceit of virtue +must not be pushed too far. So one day his Legislature passed a bill +virtually giving his judges power to imprison editors at their +pleasure. But virtue--that is, in the Tweed theory of life, obstinacy in +holding out for a higher price--mustered such a really respectable +protest that the public project of coercion failed, and private methods +were tried. Tweed had no doubt that reputation could be bought as well +as power. Peter Cooper builds an institute for the education of the +poor, does he? You mean, said Tweed, a monument to his own glory. He +pays a certain number of thousands of dollars for the reputation of +philanthropy. And Mr. Stewart builds a working-woman's palace. Ah! And +Mr. Astor founds a library. Indeed! And they are benevolent gentlemen +and benefactors of their kind? Not at all. They merely invest money in a +certain kind of fame. That pleases their taste, as fast horses and +yachts and pictures please the taste of other people. I will show you +how 'tis done, says the faithful believer in the Dollar. And he gives +fifty thousand dollars to the poor just as winter is beginning. "Let the +cavillers say what they will," exclaim a myriad voices, "that shows a +good heart." Tweed, as it were, tips a wink. I told you how it was +done, he seems to say: what is there that money will not buy? + +Is it surprising that such a man did not try to evade justice? Justice +in his view was a commodity like legislative honor, like newspaper +independence, like the reputation of benevolence. The reform movement +was to him a sudden and confusing flurry, in which strikers, to whose +terms he would not yield, had somehow gained a momentary advantage. He +had perhaps made a mistake in not buying them at their own price. +Success had possibly put him off his guard. He was sure that if an +indictment were found, that would be the end of it, and he had no +feeling of shame. His friend Fisk had shown what lawyers were made of, +and he himself would buy lawyers and judges, sheriffs and juries. He +knew that the one thing that in a needy and greedy world cannot fail is +money. He came to his first trial, and the jury disagreed: naturally, +for he had bought some of them. The evidence is, of course, moral only, +but it is conclusive. If justice, facetiously so called, wanted another +bout, he would "come up smiling." There was no trick or quibble that +lawyers could devise for which he had not made munificent preparation, +even to asserting that the judge who obstinately refused to name a price +was disqualified from sitting at the trial. Money had never failed +before; it certainly would not at this last pinch. + +But it did, and the bewilderment and consternation of this simple +devotee were pitiful. He had but one article in his faith, and that was +now destroyed. He had staked everything upon the certainty of the +Almighty Dollar, and he had lost. But there was something not less +noticeable than his unquestioning faith. It was that his faith was so +generally held. For what gave the universal and intense interest to the +Tweed trial? Here was a common thief, except in the amount of his theft, +of whose guilt nobody had any doubt, against whom, as the judge said, +the evidence was a mathematical demonstration, and his conviction was +hailed as a kind of national deliverance and vindication of human +justice. There was but one reason for this, and it was the feeling that +money would free him. Of course it was known that the judge could not be +bought, nor the Attorney-General, nor the prosecution. Tweed might as +well have offered to buy the moral law. But public knowledge ended +there. And in the degree of the universality of the belief that somehow, +by actual bribery, or by legal quirk or shift or sham, money would buy +him off, is the value of the lesson of his conviction, which is that the +utmost power of money fails before firm, sagacious, and intelligent +honesty. There is not a saloon in New York in which the Tweed contempt +of honorable motives is the sole faith which has not had an astounding +revelation, and learned that money is not omnipotent. + +Those saloons have learned one other thing--that stealing is the same +crime, whether it be the theft of public or of private property. The +Robin Hood jollity that surrounded Tweed, his familiar name, the "Boss," +the laughing stories that were told of him, showed that he was held in +very different estimation from an ordinary thief. The baser newspapers +evidently regarded him as the French nobleman regarded himself who was +firmly convinced that the Almighty would think twice before condemning +such a gentleman as he. So when Tweed went to the Tombs the same feeling +attended him. The officers could not believe that it was really meant so +rich a man, who had lived in so fine a house, and had spent money so +profusely, should be treated as a common offender. The wretch who steals +a loaf to feed his starving children must have short shrift, and Black +Maria despatches him at the earliest moment. But a "statesman" who +steals millions of dollars from the people--really the law must think +twice before handling him impolitely! A day or two after he had been +taken to jail, on his way to the penitentiary, the papers said, as if he +had been a beloved prisoner of state whom cruel governments might +torture, but whom the people would still honor: "A great many +improvements have been made in his cell by his friends, and it has now +quite a cosey, comfortable appearance. The floor is covered with a +carpet of a dark green ground. The walls are hung with dark green cloth, +and the panes in the windows, opening on Centre Street, which were +cracked and broken a few days ago, have been newly glazed. In the centre +of the room is a large round table, at which the 'Boss' takes his three +regular meals, served up in the best manner from the prison restaurant. +There is a luxurious leather-covered lounge in one corner, and five +chairs, including a large, comfortable rocking-chair. Besides these few +articles of furniture are a wash-stand and a book-case. The prisoner is +plentifully supplied with reading matter; and as for creature comforts, +the solicitude of his friends and relatives leaves nothing to be desired +except liberty. Crowds of people have called to see him for the past two +days, but none were admitted without passes from the Commissioners." + +This feeling was akin to that which inspires the proverb and the +practice that "all's fair at the Custom-house." When Robin Hood stepped +politely to the door of my Lord Bishop's carriage and requested him to +alight under the greenwood tree, and proceeded to rifle the carriage of +all the treasure that his lordship was conveying, he was not felt to be +a common thief. Far from it; he was the people's tax-gatherer in green. +He scattered with a free hand among the poor the money which the rich +man could lose without feeling it. Nobody suffered. My Lord Bishop was +admonished that he had the poor always with him, and the poor rejoiced +in his involuntary largess. So "the boys" thought of Tweed. While the +"Boss" was king there was always money about, as they said; and when did +Robin Hood himself ever bestow fifty thousand dollars in a lump upon the +poor? Besides, who could say that he was robbed? The rich could not feel +it; and was any poor orphan defrauded by him, any poor widow pinched, +any honest laborer burdened? + +Yes, they were. It was public money that he stole. And what is public +money? It is the taxes. And who pay the taxes--the rich? No, the poor, +the producers. They come out of the rent of the tenement-house; out of +the price of tea and sugar and coal; out of the pittance of the widow +and orphan, and the small wages of the laborer. It was from the poor who +cowered gratefully over the coal that he gave them that he stole the +coal. His confederate, Sweeny, planted hyacinths in the city parks, and +for every flower some poor soul was pinched. Gay Robin Hood strips the +baron, and the poor bless him as he flings them the gold. Then the baron +goes home to his castle and wrings teeth out of the jaws of Isaac of +York, to force him to give money. Then Isaac of York advances at a more +ruinous rate than yesterday the interest upon the money he lends. So +when Tweed steals from the public treasury he picks every private +pocket. Every stroke of his hammer, if he hammers stone with other +thieves, refreshes in the public mind these familiar truths. It is +humiliating that the conviction of an evident offender in a court of law +should be a cause of public congratulation. But, on the other hand, it +is cheering that shameless crime intrenched in every way, and defying +the course of law, should by that course be quietly convicted and surely +punished. + + + + +COMMENCEMENT. + + +It is a changed college world since Nat. Willis's Philip Slingsby was +the hero of many a maiden's dream, and the stories of Willis reflected +the modest gayety of the society of his time. Nahant was then a summer +resort of importance, and had not become, as one of its denizens said in +later years, only "cold Boston." Willis's heroes, like Byron's, were +largely himself, and it was but a thin veil that covered in them persons +familiar in the society that he knew, and incidents drawn from his own +experience. + +He was the college hero of his time. But his Scripture poems, which had +great vogue and were printed in all the "classbooks" and "readers," and +his "Burial of Arnold," a young and brilliant Senior at Yale, and his +bright and blithe "Saturday Afternoon," are quite passed out of current +knowledge. They are not the kind of verse which is produced in college +now. Their Byronic sentimentality is not to the taste of the college +club and Greek Letter Society man of to-day; and Charles Coldstream, who +looks on listlessly at the college athletic games, leaves enthusiasm to +"the Fresh," and has "really never read those things of Willis's." + +Yet the dominant emotions of Commencement this year were very much what +they were when Philip Slingsby dared the waltz, and even the more +emancipated belles shuddered a little as they slid into the charmed +circle. Youth and hope and the passion which "is not all a dream" are +forever renewed, and if the fashion changes, the substance remains. In +the crowded church at Commencement this year, with the gay dresses and +the flowers and the music and the soft summer air breathing in at the +open doors and windows, there are still palpitating bosoms, and a color +that comes and goes, and glances that meet and mingle--"read the +language of those wandering eye-beams--the heart knoweth." + +It was "Nat. Willis" yesterday, in a high-collared coat and an ample +cravat such as Brummel wore, and even D'Orsay. It is a quaint and a +droll costume, as you see it in those old _Fraser_ pictures of English +authors "'tis sixty years since." But in that guise it is you, sir, of +to-day, and if your oration is spoken to one auditor, in all that lovely +throng in the gallery, whose heart answers "pity Zekle" to your pitapat, +do you think that the divine Una's grandmother was never young, and that +the droll high-collared coats did not cover hearts as sensitive and +hopes as high as the faultless summer attire of Nameless, Jun., class of +'90? The actors change, but the spectacle is the same. Even the members +of the reverend and venerable the corporation, those bald and +white-haired worthies who seem vaguely always to have been sitting +unchanged in the front pews, like those austere senators of Rome of whom +the tradition tells us that they sat motionless although the invader +came--even they are living monuments, and on their hearts, as on +tablets, the story of the wandering eye-beams is engraved. + +There is not one of the young heroes of the Commencement hour whom those +elders do not scan with knowledge. These wise young judges carry no +secrets which the elders do not share. Is it a strange world that of +Willis and his Philip Slingsby? It is the world of the moment and of +this Commencement. + +But there is something else in Commencement besides this romance of +feeling and tradition. It is the celebration of the intellectual life. +The eloquence, indeed, is sometimes rather copious. An oration in the +morning before one literary society; in the afternoon before another; +and a sermon in the evening before the Missionary Association, is good +measure heaped up and running over. There is some jealousy also even in +academic groves. In the older day, if the Melpomene had its oration in +the morning and the Euterpe in the afternoon, and you read on the +following Sunday, scrawled on the blank page of the hymn-book in the +pew, "Words, words, words, oration of Cicero," and "Genius, eloquence, +common-sense, oration of Demosthenes," you knew that you read the +comment upon the rival orator of a Melpomenean or a Euterpean, as the +case might be. But if the orator was not always wise or eloquent, there +were also discourses which have profoundly influenced the lives of those +who heard or read them, giving a direction and inspiring a fidelity +which, like Wordsworth's thoughts of his past years, breed perpetual +benediction. + +It is a recollection blended of many feelings, that which the recurring +Commencement brings to the alumnus. But the deep and permanent charm is +the consciousness of the infinite worth and consolation of letters. +Theoretically the college course was a series of years devoted to making +acquaintance with the treasures of human genius. Possibly there was in +fact some divergence from the theory. But that was the opportunity. The +gates were set ajar, and if the neophyte did not choose to enter, he +lost--as the teacher said to his pupil who went fishing rather than to +hear Webster's eulogy on Adams and Jefferson--he lost what he can never +regain. + +Is there some fatality which makes the pen that treats of Commencement +hortatory and didactic? Is there some secret charm which still allies +the college to the pulpit, so that to talk about it is presently to +begin to preach? The Easy Chair asks because it feels that it is about +to take the sacerdotal tone, and remind the youth who is leaving or +entering college that, like every other epoch in life, college is an +opportunity. It is what you make it. Fate, as the older times would have +said--life, as we prefer to say--gives us a chance. But the improvement +of it we give ourselves. The tragedy of the refrain, "Too late, too +late; ye cannot enter now," is that of the man who, in our simple +phrase, wasted his college years. The tender spell of Whittier's "Maud +Muller" lies in its saddest words of tongue or pen. But the memory of +what might have been is so profoundly pathetic because it might not have +been, and we were the arbiters of fate and did not choose to turn +upward. + +Kind sir of the college, who lend to the preacher of the moment your +listening ear, the preacher himself may be a wearisome chaplain, but you +are the young judge of the summer afternoon, smelling the meadows sweet +with hay, and stopping at the cool spring where Maud Muller hands you +the refreshing draught. Do you follow the allegory, and see in that maid +what really she is? To you she is a maiden who rakes the hay; to Numa +she was Egeria by the other fountain. It is a sweet illusion, for the +maid is not Egeria nor Maud Muller, but under those gentle forms she is +the nymph of opportunity. Woo her and win her, and all the happiness +that might have been will be yours. + +There is nothing more touching than the inability of the chooser to +comprehend the choice. Why did not the judge yield to the soft +persuasion of that simple loveliness? Why did he not embrace the +opportunity, and fold his happiness to his heart? Well, sir, that is +always the question. But if he did not know that in that fair figure +opportunity stood before him, you do know it. Don't be satisfied to hum +"in court an old love tune." You remember the legend of the Sibyl's +books. Was it interpreted to you in the class-room? Do you interpret it +to yourself? + +The most inspiring tradition in every college is not that of the boat or +the ball, of copious gold and flowing wine, of Milo or Sardanapalus or +Midas; it is not that of the "dig" or the "prig," of Dryasdust or +Casaubon; but it is that of the youth, by whatever name he was called in +your college, who did not, like the judge, "closing his heart," ride +on--who knew that four such years as yours in college would never +return, and that they offered him the golden keys which, polished by his +labor, would open the heaped treasures of genius in all ages and lands. +It is he who in taking the keys did not grudge the labor, and to whose +life those treasures have been wide open. + +No, the inspiring personal tradition of college was not the pleasant +Philip Slingsby; it was rather Philip Sidney, who rode with the best +and was a man in every manly enterprise, but who had so used his +opportunities in study and affairs that Hubert Languet, most +accomplished of scholars, called him friend, and William of Orange +called him master. + + + + +THE STREETS OF NEW YORK. + + +Even the Pan-Americans protest that the streets of New York are dirty. +It is very comical, but it is true, that all our marvellous prosperity, +our genius of invention, our quickness of wit, and profusion of +resource; all our patriotism and pride, our great traditions of liberty +and heroism, our free soil, free speech, and free press; and all the +force and intelligence of our free government--cannot keep the streets +of New York clean. Miss Edwards, the most courteous and friendly of +visitors, is compelled to say: "I found on all sides nothing but holes +of mud, gutters, and dirt piles, an endless rush and a block of street +traffic. There are so many dangers and the state of the highways is such +as to make it incomprehensible to English people that enterprising +Americans would long endure it." + +Miss Edwards is familiar with the dirt of Egypt, which is universal and +intolerable, but even that does not mollify or alleviate the awful +impression of dirty New York. Then a Pan-American, perhaps from Bogota, +from Callao, from Lima, from Santiago, from Buenos Ayres, from Rio de +Janeiro, from Guayaquil--cities in which we had not supposed impeccable +highways to be--politely flagellates us, and ignominiously discrowns +Broadway. "It was impossible not to notice the deplorable condition of +the streets. Our carriages plunged terribly into the holes which at +frequent intervals were met with, and the wheels at every turn sent +whirls of mud, which compelled the passers-by to keep at a respectful +distance." + +We may indeed reply that this is the fling of a Pan-American. And who, +forsooth, is a Pan-American? Is he the superior--nay, does he presume to +be the peer--of a North American? Are we not notoriously the greatest +nation in the world? Does not our population reduplicate incalculably? +Have we not carried civilization from sea to sea? Have we not the +largest lakes, the longest rivers, the broadest prairies, the greatest +cataract, in the world? And shall the minions of monarchies and the +pigmies of tuppenny temporary republics snap their ridiculous fingers at +us, and presume to say that the streets of New York are dirty? The idea +is preposterous. It is contemptible. Moreover, it is insulting, and the +streets of New York are-- + +It is plain sailing--or slipping, as chance may determine whether we go +in the water or the mud--so far, but it is a little difficult to end +that sentence in the same key. Let us try another, possibly a little +less perfervid. The population of the United States is some sixty +millions. Taken altogether they form undoubtedly the most intelligent +community, with the highest average well-being, in the world. They are +self-governing down to aldermen and coroners. More than in any country +at any time in history, the will of the majority of the adult male +population determines the government. The city of New York is one of the +three or four chief cities of the world. It is confessedly the +metropolis of this blessed and absolutely self-governing country, and +the streets of New York can't be kept clean. + +Is there any possible method of describing the unquestionable greatness +and undoubted glory of the country, its resplendent history and its +miraculous achievements, in an ascending and cumulative series of +epithets and epigrams which shall end truthfully in the resounding +allegation, "and the streets of New York are kept clean"? Indeed, is not +this little joker worse than that of the thimble? Does he not grin at us +from every pile of mud, and laugh out of every hole, and snicker and +sneer on every side of the unremoved and apparently irremovable dirt and +disorder? + +It is absurd, as the boys say, to "blame" this situation upon somebody +else--some street commissioner, or scavenger, or other officer, or +employé. Nobody is ever guilty of misrule in this country but the +rulers, and the rulers are the people. The citizens of New York elect +the city officers who are to do the city work which the citizens pay +for. They give some of those officers authority to dismiss others who +are derelict in their duty, and the governor can deal with the chief +officers who do not obey the command of the people. If the taxes are +outrageously heavy, if the money is squandered, if the streets are dirty +and city government a farce, nobody is to blame but the citizens. They +have as good a government as they choose, and the kind of government +they desire. + +Then they desire dirty streets? Certainly. That is to say, they don't +desire clean streets strongly enough to secure them. Then popular +government has failed in cities? Rather there are some things in cities +in which popular government is not especially interested. If there are +two hundred and fifty thousand voters in the city of New York, how many +of them really care enough for clean streets and proper municipal +administration to spend time and trouble to secure them? + +Consider the lilies of the field--that is to say, look at the aldermen +and the municipal officers, the representatives in the State +Legislature and in Congress that the city of New York elects. Do they +represent what we call its intelligence and character? Yet undeniably +they are representatives of the majority of the voters, and if that +majority be corrupt or stupid, it is either because there are more +knaves and fools than intelligent and honest citizens among the voters, +or because such citizens do not care to take the trouble to vote and to +be represented; in which case the Aldermen and Co. that we see are, +morally speaking, true representatives of the city. The minions of +monarchies and the pigmies of tuppenny temporary republics, as they bump +and wallow and flounder, bespattered and contemptuous, through the +streets of New York, may truly say that they are such streets as the +citizens desire, because if the people desired clean streets, unless +popular government be a failure, they would have them. If the mayor did +not appoint officers who would clean the streets, they would require the +governor to deal with the mayor. + +Does it necessarily follow, because popular government is, upon the +whole, the best government, that the governing people desire all good +things that government can supply? Liberty they want, and equality, and +fair play; but do they, because they are self-governing, desire +beautiful buildings and clean streets? Might not a good-natured despot +of fine taste and sanitary enlightenment and a sense of order give his +dominions nobler public works and a better municipal administration than +a republic which is neither tuppenny nor temporary, but in which there +is easy and indolent indifference to public beauty and public order? + +"Above all," said the English bishop to the young catechumen, "don't +mistake zeal for knowledge." Above all, says the good genius of America, +don't confound national bumptiousness with patriotism. + + + + +THE MORALITY OF DANCING. + + +The gravity of the discussion of the morality of dancing is exceedingly +amusing. The dancing of young people is as natural and instinctive as +their laughing and singing, and the old Easy Chairs about the wall might +as wisely quarrel with the song of the bobolink in the fields as with +the dance upon the floor. But the grave censors who condemn it must be +heard. There is reason in the way in which they often put their +objections. Excitement, late hours, exposure of health, all these are +bad. But, on the other hand, exercise, cheerfulness, friendly +conversation, all these are good. The zealous censors confound uses and +abuses. The Easy Chair has seen a worthy temperance apostle ingulfing +cups of coffee in the pauses of an exhortation to abstinence, until it +marvelled at the capacity of the apostolic stomach. Could there be no +intemperance in coffee-drinking? But was coffee not to be drunk? The +Easy Chair has seen such frantic gobbling at a railway eating-room that +it could only gaze in wonder at the sottish and, so to speak, drunken +eating. But is food not to be eaten? The Easy Chair has seen little +children, extravagantly dressed and decorated, dancing in great hotel +parlors on hot summer nights at an hour when they should all have been +sound asleep in their beds, while their parents should have been soundly +chastised for not putting them there. But is the dancing of young +persons therefore wrong? + +This is probably to the censorial mind nothing but the base compromise +and sophistry of "moderate drinking." But nevertheless most of the evils +of this kind are perversions of good things. There are a great many +young and ignorant parents who become impatient with the incessant +activity and restlessness of their children. They condemn them to sit +still in a chair and make no noise. Dear madame, it is nature's +intention that the child shall be restless, to develop his limbs. You +apply to him rules that are fit and easy for us who are old, and whom +nature equally admonishes to sit still in chairs. Our little Procrustean +beds are merely furniture that tortures. The desire of youth for +enjoyment is as worthy as its desire for knowledge, for truth, for +excellence. And it is the spirit, not the method, of enjoyments which +are not obviously wrong, that is chiefly to be regarded. A good man asks +whether he could go from dancing to console a dying bed. But could he go +from skating, or reading _Pickwick_, or from heartily laughing, to +console a dying friend? Would it not, even in his own view, depend +wholly upon the mood in which he was doing it? + +Let him select an act which he would approve. Let him be reading a +serious book, or thinking in his study, or going upon a visit of charity +when he is summoned, and he would say that he could go with perfect +composure and the utmost propriety. But how if he were peevish as he +read the serious book, or if he were thinking angrily in his study, or +if he were mentally reproaching the duty that drew him from his +comfortable room to pay a visit of charity, could he then more properly +hasten to console the dying than if he had been cheerfully dancing, his +mind full of pleasant thoughts and the delight of the music and the +measured movement? It is not the thing that he is doing, but the spirit +in which he is doing it, that should be considered. + +How different a view of the pleasant recreation of dancing may be taken +by an intellectual man, from that of one who thinks the waltz a device +of Satan, is shown by a passage of De Quincey, the beginning of which +the Easy Chair will quote, and which will find an echo in many a memory: +"And in itself, of all the scenes which this world offers, none is to me +so profoundly interesting, none (I say deliberately) so affecting, as +the spectacle of men and women floating through the mazes of a dance; +under these conditions, however, that the music shall be rich and +festal, the execution of the dancers perfect, and the dance itself of a +character to admit of free, fluent, and continuous action. And whenever +the music happens not to be of a light, trivial character, but charged +with the spirit of festal pleasure, and the performers in the dance so +far skilful as to betray no awkwardness verging on the ludicrous, I +believe that many persons feel as I feel in such circumstances, viz., +derive from the spectacle the very grandest form of passionate sadness +which can belong to any spectacle whatsoever." + + + + +THE HOG FAMILY. + + +It is a good sign of the times that the crusade against the large and +omnipresent family of Hog which the Easy Chair long ago preached has +been vigorously renewed. Public manners are a common interest. The +private conduct of the most famous personages is of small concern beyond +their domestic circle. But the conduct of the person in the next room at +a hotel, or in the next seat in a railroad car, is of great interest to +us. Yet the remedy is not obvious. Even if we should propose a school of +manners, it is not certain that the pupils for whom it would be +especially designed would attend. + +If a fellow-guest at the Grand Hotel of the Universe comes in at two in +the morning, and going humming along the corridor to his room, flings +his boot down upon the floor at his door with a resounding blow that +awakens all neighboring sleepers, you may cover him with expletives, and +consign him in imagination to a hundred direful dooms, but nevertheless +he goes unpunished. Or you may suddenly confront him in all the majesty +of nocturnal dishabille, and admonish him severely of the wicked +selfishness of his ways. But the probability is that you will have +either an extremely amused audience, who will "guy" your appearance +without mercy, or receive a surly rejoinder in the form of a boot or a +volley of vituperation. In any event, the school of manners will not be +honored by the exercises. + +Yet the Hog family is not American, nor is it by any means peculiar to +this country. The Lady Mavourneen who said with enthusiasm that she +could travel without insult from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and that +every American of the other sex seemed to make himself her protector, +said only what is generally true of the American. He is naturally +courteous and invincibly good-natured. Indeed, it is his good-nature +which has permitted the family Hog to develop to such proportions. A man +enters a hotel "as if it belonged to him." Will he not be forced to pay +for his accommodation--and roundly? Shall he not take his ease in his +inn? Is he not willing to settle for all the food, drink, comfort, +trouble, that he may require or occasion? Shall he put himself out for +others? If number one does not look out for itself, who will look out +for it? + +And to all this Jonathan good-naturedly assents. If number one takes +more than his share of the sofa, Jonathan moves up. If number one puts +his feet on a chair, Jonathan does not stare. If number one still more +grossly demonstrates his porcine lineage, Jonathan dislikes to make +trouble--until number one comes to despise those whom he insults, and +plainly expects every circle to bow to the sovereignty of selfishness. +This is a fatal form of good-nature, but it has a not unkindly origin. +It springs from a social condition in which everybody is expected to +help everybody else, because everybody needs help as in a frontier +community. Indeed, in many a rural neighborhood still, this spirit of +lending a hand is supreme. Everybody expects to submit to inconvenience, +because he knows that he will require others to submit. + +But these refinements of mutual dependence must not be allowed to +justify the outrages of selfishness. The passenger in the boat or the +train who occupies more than his seat, who sits in one chair, covers +another with his feet, and a third with his bundles, and smokes, and +widely squirts tobacco juice around him until his vicinity is not "a +little heaven," but another kind of "h" below, is a public pest and +general nuisance, for whose punishment there should be a common law of +procedure. But this can be found only where there is a common contempt +and resolution which will deprive him of his ill-gotten seats in the +first place, and make him feel, in the second, the general scorn of his +neighbors. + +But as we are told constantly and correctly that we are a reading +people, it is through reading that the members of the family which is +_hostis humani generis_ will learn that they are the most detestable and +detested of the great families of the race. You, sir, whose eyes are +skimming this page, and who never give your seat to a woman in the +elevated car "on principle"--the principle being either that a woman +ought not to get into a crowded car, knowing that she will put gentlemen +to inconvenience; or that the company ought to forbid the entry of more +passengers than there are seats; or that first come should be first +served; or that number one, having paid for a seat, has a right to +occupy it; or whatever other form the "principle" may assume--you are +one of the host against whom the crusade is pushed. Thou art the--well, +for the sake of euphony we will say man, but it is not man that is in +the mind of your censors. + +Or you, madam, who enter the railroad car with an air of right, and a +look of reproval at every man who does not spring to his feet, and who +settle yourself into the seat offered you without the least recognition +of the courtesy that offers it--for you it would be well if the urbane +mentor of another day were still here, who, having given his seat to a +dashing young woman who seemed unconscious of his presence, looked at +her until she impatiently demanded if he wanted anything, and he +responding, said, blandly, "Yes, madam; I want to hear you say thank +you." + +Both this sir and madam may learn from the daily papers as from this +page that even in a car where they recognize no acquaintance a cloud of +witnesses around hold them in full survey, and whatever the fashion or +richness of their garments, and however supercilious their air, perceive +at once whether they belong to the family of ladies and gentlemen, or to +that of Charles Lamb's "Mr. H." Thackeray's hero could not have been +more aghast to see his divine Ottilia consume with gusto the oysters +which were no longer fresh than Romeo to learn by his Juliet's question +to that urbane mentor of other years that his mistress must be of kin to +the unmentionable family. + +The next time those boots are flung down in the reverberating hotel +corridor there will be no harm in remarking to the clerk the next +morning in the crowded office that it is not necessary for you to look +upon the register to know that one of the Hog family arrived during the +night. + + + + +THE ENLIGHTENED OBSERVER. + + +The Enlightened Observer from Europe who is studying American +institutions asked the Easy Chair the other day what was meant by the +statement that a candidate for a high elective office had opened +headquarters in the neighborhood of a nominating convention. The +Enlightened Observer said that he had always supposed that such +conventions were assemblies which nominated persons whose public +services and personal ability and character had distinguished them among +their fellow-citizens, and shown them to be especially fitted for the +offices which were to be filled. "Am I mistaken," he asked, "in +supposing that to be the theory of your institutions?" + +The Easy Chair could not say that he was, and conceded that such was the +theory. + +"In other words," continued the Enlightened Observer, "a republic +secures good government because it intrusts the government not to the +chance of birth, which may give to Oliver Cromwell a son Richard, and +make the heir of Alexander the Great an Alexander the Little, but +because it calls to its great offices of every degree those citizens who +have demonstrated their peculiar fitness." + +"That is certainly the theory of our republican institutions," returned +the Easy Chair. + +"Well?" said the Enlightened Observer. + +"Well?" echoed the Easy Chair. + +"Yes, but why, then, does a candidate open headquarters?" + +"Yes, certainly. Why--that is--it is to make himself known." + +"But the theory seems to assume that he is known already. Is it that he +performs public services at the headquarters, or exhibits there his +character and abilities? Is not the time a little limited and the space +somewhat inconvenient for such demonstrations? I am at a little loss. I +can see that the personal appearance and manners of a candidate might be +displayed favorably at a headquarters, and that, in a charming phrase of +your country, he might dispense a generous hospitality in a hotel +parlor, but how can he display his fitness for a high office in such +narrow quarters as headquarters must be? Am I to understand that when +Mr. John Jay was selected as a candidate for the Governorship of New +York he had repaired previously to the place of nomination and had +opened headquarters? Did General Washington pursue a similar course? If +the services and character of a candidate have commended him to public +favor and designated him as a suitable officer, why is not that enough?" + +"Undoubtedly," answered the Easy Chair, "why isn't it? But I am afraid +that you have not pursued your enlightened observations quite far +enough, or you would have learned that in this country a kind providence +is supposed to help those who help themselves, and that those who +expect to have Governorships and Senatorships and other large and highly +flavored political morsels offered to them on golden salvers and on +bended knees will be seriously disappointed." + +"I see," said, courteously, the Enlightened Observer, "that my excellent +friend the Easy Chair is pleased to speak in metaphor. If I may +penetrate it, he is declaring that great places are to be won like +precious prizes, and do not drop into idle hands like fruit overripe. +But if I may hold him to the point, is it not the theory of your +institutions that it is services and character and ability that win the +precious political prizes, and surely such qualities and services cannot +be described as idle hands? I agree that providence helps those who help +themselves, but who helps himself more than he who helps the entire +community? And how does he help the community who opens headquarters to +secure a prize for himself? Moreover, have I not heard that office +should pursue the man, and not the man the office? Yet what is opening +headquarters but pursuing office, as a hound a hare?" + +The Easy Chair was obliged to suggest that there was no harm in knowing +"the boys," and in showing the affability of a simple citizen "without +airs," and making the acquaintance of important political personages, +all of which the Enlightened Observer conceded, but still politely +insisted that knowing the boys and showing affability and refraining +from lofty demeanor did not demonstrate fitness for great place, and was +a loss of proper personal dignity that ought not to be required of any +one who had really approved himself as a suitable officer. He concluded +that he might not have mistaken the theory, but he had certainly not +apprehended the practice of our institutions. + +"But surely," said the Easy Chair, "'tis but a small price to pay." + +"True," said the Enlightened Observer, "it is a very small price; but I +had not supposed that in the republic office was sold at any price. I +thought that the good Santa Claus of public approval dropped it as a +Christmas gift into the stocking of the most deserving. It seems, +however, to be rather a raisin in snap-dragon--the prize of the toughest +fingers." + + + + +RALPH WALDO EMERSON. + + +"The beauty of Israel has fallen in its high place," said the voice of +Emerson's friend and neighbor, Judge Hoar, trembling and almost hushed +in emotion, and everybody who heard felt the singular felicity of the +words. The plain little country church was crowded, and a vast throng +stood outside in the peaceful April sunshine. Before the pulpit--the +eyes forever closed, the voice forever silent--lay the man whose aspect +of sweet and majestic serenity Death had not touched, and which recalled +his own words: "Even the corpse that has lain in the chambers has added +a solemn ornament to the house." It was the man who was beloved of his +neighbors and honored by the world, whose modest counsel in grave +affairs guided the village, and whose thought led the thought of +Christendom. "He belonged to all men, but he is peculiarly ours," said +Judge Hoar truly, speaking for the quiet historic town of which +Emerson's grandfather had been the minister, and in which he lived +during the larger part of his life, and to which his memory will lend an +imperishable charm. + +Concord when he first knew it was already famous. A hundred years ago, +at the bridge over the placid river, the Middlesex farmers, hastening as +minute men from all the neighboring country, had obeyed the first +military summons to fire upon the king's regulars; and the red-coated +regulars, turning, had begun, amid the blazing patriot volley of twenty +miles, their long retreat to Yorktown and over the sea. At the point +where the highway by which the soldiers marched enters the village, +under the hill along whose ridge the hurrying countrymen pressed to cut +off the soldiers' retreat, lived for more than forty years the scholar +who belongs to Concord as Shakespeare belongs to Stratford. + +"Nature," said Emerson in his first book, written in the old Manse at +Concord, which Hawthorne afterwards inhabited, and which he has so +beautifully commemorated--"Nature stretcheth out her arms to embrace +man: only let his thoughts be of equal greatness. Willingly does she +follow his steps with the rose and the violet, and bend her lines of +grandeur and grace to the decoration of her darling child. Only let his +thoughts be of equal scope, and the frame will suit the picture. A +virtuous man is in unison with her works, and makes the central figure +of the visible sphere. Homer, Pindar, Socrates, Phocion, associate +themselves fitly in our memory with the geography and climate of Greece. +The visible heavens and the earth sympathize with Jesus. And in common +life whoever has seen a person of powerful character and happy genius +will have remarked how easily he took all things along with him, the +persons, the opinions, and the day, and nature became auxiliary to a +man." So is Emerson associated with the tranquil landscape of the old +Middlesex town--the gentle hills, the long sweep of meadowland, the +winding river, the woodland, and the pastures under the ample sky. The +broad horizon and rural repose were the fitting home of the lofty and +beneficent genius whose life and word perpetually illustrated the +supreme worth and beauty of truth, purity, and morality. Whoever saw him +there or elsewhere, saw the "sweet and virtuous soul" which George +Herbert likened to seasoned timber that never gives. + +The sincerity and serenity of Emerson's character were unsurpassed. The +freshness and glow of his interest in life were perennial. With a sober +tenderness of regret he said to a friend who congratulated him upon his +seventieth birthday, "Yet it is a little sad to me, for I count to-day +the end of youth." In no other sense than the lapse of years, however, +was it true. That auroral freshness of soul which is the distinctive +charm of youth lingered when even memory somewhat failed. "How long it +is since I have seen you!" he said at Longfellow's funeral to a friend +whom he had accosted just before. But he said it with all that +heartiness of sympathy and expectation which, in the golden prime of +his life, when he was in many ways the most striking and original figure +in his country, made him greet every comer as if he expected to hear +from him a wiser word than had yet been spoken. A youth, fascinated by +this simple graciousness of manner, declared that Emerson greeted the +most ordinary persons like a King of Spain receiving an ambassador from +the Great Mogul. The expectancy of his manner implied that every man had +some message to deliver, and he bent himself to hear. + +But his shrewdness of perception was exquisite. He did not take dross +because he hoped for gold. His reproof was as sure and incisive as the +stroke of a delicate Damascus blade. When a young man, hearing Emerson +say that everybody ought to read Plato, followed his advice, and read, +he thought, with the audacity of youth, that he detected faults in +Plato, and wrote an essay to set them forth. He asked Emerson to read +it, and when he returned it to the youth, Emerson said, pleasantly, "My +boy, when you strike at the king, you must kill him." One day he sat at +dinner with a distinguished company of statesmen. He was by far the most +famous man at the table; but he modestly followed the conversation, +turning from each guest who spoke, to the next, with the old sweet +gravity of earnest expectation. When all the notable company had gone, a +guest who remained said to him: "I saw you talking with the English +Minister. He is a brilliant man, and I hope that you found him +agreeable." "A very pleasant gentleman," replied Emerson; "but he does +not represent the England that I know." + +Despite this sharp apprehension, however, Emerson was sometimes unable +to find any charm in writings which have apparently taken a permanent +place in literature. He could see nothing interesting or valuable in +Shelley. "When I read Shelley," he once said, "I am like a man who +thinks that he sees gold at the bottom of a stream. He reaches for it, +but his hands come up cold, with a little common sand in them." The +waywardness and disorder of Shelley's life may have troubled him. But +this would not have affected his intellectual judgment. His acute +intellect was supremely independent and absolutely courageous. "He must +embrace solitude as a bride," he said of the scholar; "he must have his +glees and his glooms alone." When as a young man he quietly closed his +pulpit door, and declined to preach any more, because he no longer felt +any value in certain religious rites, there was no protest, nor +ostentation, nor newspaper "sensation." It was simply the closing of a +book that he had read, and the amazement and censure and grief of others +could not possibly persuade him to do, or to say, or to affect, the +thing that was not true. Emerson's moral and intellectual integrity was +transparently simple, but it was sublime. It was not expressed in stormy +self-assertion nor cynical contempt. It spoke in tranquil and beautiful +affirmation, perfectly courteous, but absolutely sincere. + +But no man more charitably and diligently sought to understand others, +and to be just to what was obscure and foreign to him. He listened +patiently to music. But it did not charm him. He was punctual in the +duties of a citizen. But he had no proper political tastes. Yet for the +true politics, the application of the moral law to the control of public +affairs, no man was more perceptive or uncompromising. He was always on +the right side of great public questions. His hospitable sympathy +entertained every good cause, and in all our antislavery literature +there is no nobler or more permanent work than his address upon the +anniversary of West India emancipation in 1844. The only cloud that ever +arose upon his regard for Carlyle was his displeasure with Carlyle's +contemptuous and cynical sneers at our civil war. He was deeply +impatient of doubtful and half-hearted Americans during the war. "They +call themselves gentlemen, I believe," he said of certain persons, and +in a tone which showed that his lofty and patriotic honor instinctively +and utterly repudiated the pinchbeck claims of educated feebleness to +bear "the grand old name of gentleman." + +Those who recall Emerson when he was a clergyman in Boston remember a +singular spiritual beauty in the man, and an indescribable charm of +manner in his public speech. But apparently he impressed his earlier +associates with the purity and refinement of his mind and life, his +lofty intellectual tastes and sympathy, and his literary accomplishment, +rather than by the peculiar force of a genius which was to give the most +powerful spiritual impulse of the generation to American thought. This +is the more singular because there was always something breezy and +heroic in his tone, which might have led to the suspicion of the fact +that he was from the first a fond reader of Plutarch, from whose "Lives" +he draws so many illustrations. As in a mountain walk the traveller is +suddenly aware of wafts of perfumed air, now of the wild-grape blossom, +now of the azalea or sweet-brier, so the strain of Emerson suggests his +sympathy with Plutarch and Montaigne, the Oriental poets and the +Platonists. + +But no one could describe accurately his "system" of philosophy, nor +fit him into a "school" of poetry. He was content to call himself a +scholar, and no name was more significant and precious to him. He +shunned notoriety, but he had the instinctive desire of every artist and +of all genius for an audience. When a friend asked him of a young man +whose literary talent had seemed to him to promise great achievement, +Emerson said: "He does nothing; and I doubted his genius when I saw that +he did not seek a hearing." When his own first slight volume, "Nature," +was published, they were but a few, a very few, who perceived in it the +ripe and beautiful work of a master in literature and thought. The +richness and originality and picturesque simplicity of this book, its +subtle perception, its tone of jubilant power, and the soft glimmering +light of lofty imagination which irradiates every page, do not lose by +familiarity, and are as charming, although of course not so surprising, +as when they first took captive the readers of nearly fifty years ago. +With the eagerness of classification which characterizes many active +minds, Emerson was immediately labelled a Berkeleyan, an idealist, and a +mystic. But he eluded the precise classification as noiselessly and +surely as a cloud changes its form. Astonishment, satire, indignation, +contradiction, spent themselves in vain. Like a rose-tree in June, which +blossoms sweetly whether the air be chilly or sunny, his thought quietly +flowered into exquisite expression. You might like it or leave it. But +the rose would be still a rose. + +There was a fashion of calling Emerson obscure. But there is no style in +literature of more poetic precision than his. It is full of surprises of +beauty and aptness. His central doctrine of the identity of men, the +grandeur of every man's opportunity, and the essential poetry of the +circumstances of common life, was a living faith. "The great man," he +said, "makes the great thing." "In the sighing of these woods; in the +quiet of these gray fields; in the cool breeze that sings out of these +Northern mountains; in the workmen, the boys, the maidens you meet; in +the hopes of the morning, the ennui of noon, and sauntering of the +afternoon; in the disquieting comparisons; in the regrets at want of +vigor; in the great idea and the puny execution--behold Charles the +Fifth's day; another, yet the same; behold Chatham's, Hampden's, +Bayard's, Alfred's, Scipio's, Pericles's day--day of all that are born +of women. The difference of circumstance is merely costume. I am tasting +the self-same life--its sweetness, its greatness, its pain--which I so +admire in other men." The temptation to complete the splendid passage is +almost irresistible. But in every page you are drawn on as in a stately +symphony of winning music. + +This passage is from the Dartmouth College address, and it has all the +flowing cadence of a discourse written to be spoken. Yet Emerson had +little of the orator's temperament save the desire of an audience, and +an earnestness which was pure and not passionate. But no orator in the +country has exercised a deeper or more permanent influence. His +discourses were but essays, but their thought was so noble, their form +so symmetrical, their tone so lofty, and they were spoken with such +alluring rhythm, that they threw over young minds a spell which no other +eloquence could command. Emerson himself was very susceptible to the +power of fine oratory. No man ever praised more warmly the charm of +Everett in his earlier day. When Webster delivered his eulogy upon Adams +and Jefferson in Faneuil Hall, Emerson was teaching in Cambridge, and +Richard H. Dana, Jun., was one of his pupils. The day before Webster +spoke, the teacher announced that there would be no school upon the +morrow, and he earnestly exhorted his pupils not to lose the memorable +opportunity of hearing the great orator. Dana was of an age to prefer +fishing to oratory, and strolled off with his line to the river, where +he passed the day. When school was resumed, Mr. Emerson with sympathetic +interest asked him if he had heard Webster. The fisher, half ashamed, +reluctantly owned his absence. Emerson looked at him with regret and +almost pain, and said to him, gravely: "My boy, I am very sorry; you +have lost what you can never recover, and what you will regret to the +last day of your life." + +But those who heard his own Divinity School address, or the Cambridge or +Dartmouth oration, or the Emancipation address, would not exchange that +recollection even to have heard the Olympian orator in Faneuil Hall. +"Tell me," said a Senator famous for his oratory, to a friend in +Washington, "what do you call eloquence? Repeat to me an eloquent +passage." The friend quoted from Emerson the unequalled passage from the +Dartmouth College address in which the scholar appeals to the young men +to be true to the ideals of their youth--a passage which no generous +youth can read to-day without deep emotion and a thrill of high resolve. +The Senator listened with an air of perplexed incredulity. "Do you call +that eloquent? Now see what I call eloquence," and he declaimed a +glowing piece of rhetoric with ardent feeling. It was a passage from +Charles Sprague's Fourth-of-July oration in Boston sixty years ago. But +effective as it was, his friend reminded the Senator that if the test of +eloquence be glow of feeling and splendor and sincerity of expression, +with an inner power of appeal which searches the heart and moulds the +life, no really greater results in this country could be traced to any +speech than to that of Emerson, who read the greater part of his essays +as addresses, and who sometimes reached a lyrical strain which not the +magnificent Burke nor any other great orator surpasses. + +--To talk of Emerson, even if the talker were not of the circle of his +intimate friends, is to raise the flood-gate of happy and inspiring +recollections. It is one of the tenderest of the thoughts that hover +around his memory, as the low winds sigh through the pine-trees over his +grave, that, as with Longfellow, there are no excuses to be made for +grotesque eccentricities of genius, nor for a life at any point unworthy +of so great a soul. He said of his friend Thoreau, who is buried near +him, that he was like the Alpine climber who gathers the edelweiss, the +flower that blooms at the very edge of the glacier. He too lived at +those pure heights, and taught us how to tread them undazzled and +undismayed. Happy teacher, whose long and lovely life illustrated the +dignity and excellence of the truth, old as the morning and as ever +fresh, that fidelity to the divine law written upon the conscience is +the only safe law of life for every man. Noble and beneficent preacher, +who, in a sense that the pensive Goldsmith did not intend, + + "Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way." + + + + +HENRY WARD BEECHER. + + +For forty years Mr. Beecher had been minister of Plymouth Church when on +a Sunday morning suddenly came the news that his ministry and probably +his life were ended; and he died a day or two afterwards. The preacher +and the church were more widely known than any others in the Union, and +during all his pastorate he was one of the most conspicuous figures in +the country. He was undoubtedly also one of the most famous preachers of +his time and of the English race, and the death of Wendell Phillips left +him the most eminent of American orators. There have been popular +preachers during Mr. Beecher's career, like Moffit and other +revivalists, and there are always eloquent and scholarly orators in the +American pulpit. The tradition of Summerfield presents a beautiful +youth and a captivating speaker. The charm of Channing was profound and +indescribable. But Beecher recalls Whitefield more than any other +renowned preacher. Like Whitefield, he was what is known as a man of the +people; a man of strong virility, of exuberant vitality, of quick +sympathy, of an abounding humor, of a rapid play of poetic imagination, +of great fluency of speech; an emotional nature overflowing in ardent +expression, of strong convictions, of complete self-confidence; but also +not sensitive, nor critical, nor judicial; a hearty, joyous nature, +touching ordinary human life at every point, and responsive to every +generous moral impulse. + +Mr. Beecher was not a pioneer, nor a leader of forlorn hopes, but of the +main column of the army. He marched just ahead of the advance, and +touched with his elbows those who moved forward with him. He liked to +feel the warmth of their breath upon his cheek, and the magnetism of +their neighborhood. He spoke for them as they could not speak for +themselves. He liked the crowd. The hum and throb of multitudinous life +inspired and cheered him. He was at home in streets and towns; with a +bright jest for every comer; a happy quip and repartee; with an eye and +a heart for the unfortunate and forlorn, and a ready rebuke for +insolence and injustice. He had nothing of the recluse or scholarly +habit; no fastidious taste. He was fond of pictures and music and all +forms of art, without especial aesthetic accomplishment; a man of cheery +presence, of cordial address; with a willing word for the reporter, +chaffing the interviewer; jumping on the street-car in motion; yet +always seemly, and always, despite his slouched hat and careless dress, +undeniably clerical, but with no undue professional sense of dignity or +decorum. + +In the pulpit, or, more truly, upon the platform--for whether preaching, +or lecturing, or speaking at table or upon the stump, he seemed to be +always upon the platform--he inculcated right living rather than +traditional doctrine. He was a soldier of the church militant, but his +warfare was with human wrong and misery, and false theories of life, +and low aims and poor ambitions. He aimed to build up righteousness of +life, and in the ardor of the strife he liked to pause and wink, and let +fly a bright-tipped, winged word at the opponent, against whom he bore +no kind of malice. He hated the wrong, but not the wrong-doer. Ardent +and impulsive, his generous emotions often overwhelmed his judgment; and +in politics, although the most popular of stump-orators, and never +happier or more truly himself than in a political speech, in which, with +the instinct of a born fighter, he "drank delight of battle," yet he +sometimes amazed and confounded his friends, who, however, could not +doubt his sincerity nor question his purpose. + +The great cloud that fell upon his life seemed also to darken the +country. The grief and consternation showed how strong a hold he had +upon the national mind and heart, which indeed was never so firm as at +the very moment that his good name seemed to be obscured. It was the +most tremendous ordeal to which any public man of his peculiar +character and quality of eminence has ever been exposed in this +country. The most remarkable fact in it all was the way in which he +endured it. The blacker the cloud appeared to be, the more sturdy was +his stern defiance, and for weeks of seemingly accumulating and +insurmountable obstruction he faced unflinchingly a possible doom the +mere prospect of which might well have withered a brave heart conscious +of innocence. That the cloud ever wholly disappeared cannot be said, in +view of the tone of the press even as he lay dead in his house. But that +he could never have maintained his position as he did if he had not been +generally acquitted in the public mind seems to be indisputable. If the +relation of his later life to the country was somewhat changed, the +result was due to the decline of confidence in what had been believed to +be his strongest quality, supreme good sense and sound judgment, rather +than to doubt of his moral integrity. + +No man lived more in the public eye and for the public than Mr. Beecher. +In his speeches and sermons and writings he took the public into his +confidence with a freedom that was characteristic and natural in him, +but which would have been extraordinary in any other man. He could not +pass through the street without universal recognition, and no man in the +two cities was so well known to everybody as he. At public meetings and +at dinners where he was to speak, he came late amid smiling and +expectant applause, and with the air of saying, "Where MacGregor sits, +there is the head of the table." He had the right to that air, for +wherever he was to speak he was the chief orator. But he was no niggard +of generous praise and sympathy, and no man spoke with more fervent +eulogy and eloquent approval of other men. Doubtless, like an actor or +singer, the long habit of receiving applause had made it pleasant to +him, and as is the fact with all extempore speaking, the greater the +applause the higher the eloquence of his strain. It is a reciprocal +action. Of Mr. Beecher's later platform speeches, the most remarkable +was his political address at the Brooklyn Rink in 1884, which was +delivered amid a storm of enthusiasm, while in the delivery he was +himself wrought to the highest feeling. + +His power over the emotions of an audience was unsurpassed in this +country probably since Patrick Henry. Thomas Corwin and Sergeant +Prentiss perhaps were as great masters of humor and patriotic appeal +upon the stump; but Beecher added to these a pathos and sentiment and +poetic tone in which the others did not excel. He had not the fine, +glittering, incisive touch of Wendell Phillips's fatal sarcasm and +vituperation. Phillips stood quietly and played his polished rapier with +a flexible wrist, but its point was deadly; Beecher smote, and crushed. +One was the deft Saladin with his chased and curving cimeter, the other +was Richard with his heavy battle-axe. In the great controversy in which +both were engaged, upon the same side, indeed, but under different +banners and wearing different colors, Beecher and Phillips, amid a +chorus of eloquence, were the two chief voices. Garrison was not +distinctively an orator, while Phillips was the especial and +distinctive orator of the cause, and his fame as a public man belongs to +that cause alone. But Beecher had many interests and relations, and his +oratory had other strains. They were friends always, and Phillips spoke +often in Plymouth Church, and uttered many a glowing word of his +fellow-laborer. + +When these words are published the freshness of the impression of +Beecher's death will have passed, and from every part of the country his +eulogy will have been spoken. The universal emotion, the warmth and +tenor of the tributes, will have shown how eminent a figure he was, and +that his death is felt to be a national loss. One of the papers +described him as the last of a great generation, and Senator Cullom, +speaking of Logan in the crowded Brooklyn Academy on the evening of +Beecher's death, called a roll of illustrious names, of which his was +the latest, and among which it surely belongs. His profession was the +preaching of peace and good-will. But how often he must have felt that +his Master came not to bring peace, but a sword! His buoyant +temperament, his perfect health, his love of nature and of man, of +children and flowers, of the changing sky and landscape, his abounding +sympathy, his rich and sensitive humor, made his life joyous and often +happy. But it was none the less a stormy life, ending at last, amid the +sorrow of a country, in happy rest and the good fame of a great orator +for human welfare. + + + + +THE GOLDEN AGE. + + +In this country we are inclined to believe that the epoch that followed +the Revolution was one of the utmost purity and simplicity. But it was +one of the "fathers" who said to a friend upon the adjournment of the +first Congress, "Do you suppose such a set of rascals will ever assemble +again?" In his diary John Adams appeals to the calmer mind and juster +judgment of the coming age--meaning that in which we live, and from +which we look wistfully back to old John Adams's cocked hat and +knee-breeches as the symbols of a nobler time. + +Then there is Fisher Ames, one of the famous orators and conspicuous +leaders of the beginning of the century, who, studying his country at +the time to which we recur as the age of high purpose and lofty men, +bewails the sordidness, selfishness, and degradation around him. "Of +course," he says, seventy years ago, "the single passion that engrosses +us, the only avenue to consideration and importance in our society, is +the accumulation of property: our inclinations cling to gold, and are +bedded in it as deeply as that precious ore in the mine.... As +experience evinces that popularity--in other words, consideration and +power--is to be procured by the meanest of mankind, the meanest in +spirit and understanding, and in the worst of ways, it is obvious that +at present the incitement to genius is next to nothing." + +We might suppose that we were listening to a contemporary cynic; and +whoever reads the history of the politics of that time will find that +"the better days of the republic" were very like the days in which we +deplore their disappearance. When Mr. Ames died, Mr. John Quincy Adams +wrote a review of his works, in which, with the equanimity and +moderation of the golden age, he remarks, "It is a melancholy +contemplation of human nature to see a mind so highly cultivated and so +richly gifted as that of Mr. Ames soured and exasperated into the very +ravings of a bedlamite." He then proceeds to speak of those who, without +believing Mr. Ames's "absurd and inconsistent political creed," are +selfishly eager for its propagation, being "choice spirits, amounting to +at most six hundred" (their name was the Essex Junto!), and who hold +that "the porcelain must rule over the earthenware, the blind and sordid +multitude must put themselves, bound hand and foot, into the custody of +the lynx-eyed, seraphic souls of the six hundred, and then all together +must go and _squat_ for protection under the hundred hands of the +British Briareus." + +To this gentle strain Mr. John Lowell replied in a similar vein, +beginning by speaking of the malignity of Mr. Adams's sarcasm, and of +his following Mr. Ames to the grave with crocodile tears, informing him +that he had no need to assail Mr. Ames's friends with all the venom of +an infuriated partisan, because he had already obtained his reward for +"ratting" from the Federalists, and this act of gratitude to his +benefactors was unnecessary. Mr. Lowell ends his reply by saying that +in the course of a short political life Mr. Adams had received more than +seventy thousand dollars from the public, and that while no man pitied +Mr. Ames, "Mr. Adams is an object of sincere commiseration with many a +man of high and honorable feelings, while it is to be doubted whether he +is the object of envy to any man on earth." + +These are glimpses of the golden age, of that "better day" of the +republic with which our own is so often and so injuriously contrasted. +Indeed, there is no finer cordial for despondency than a glance at the +paradise that hovers behind our retreating steps. The mountain traveller +turns and sees a lovely vision floating in the sky. + + "How faintly flushed, how phantom-fair, + Was Monte Rosa, hanging there-- + A thousand shadowy-pencil'd valleys, + And snowy dells in a golden air." + +Good lack! he cries, are those the crags and precipices along which I +slid and stumbled in terror of my life? The hanging gardens of the +past, the halcyon epoch of our history, the lost paradise of our +fathers, are all crags and precipices along which the race and our +country have stumbled and slid. If any man is disposed to think that he +has fallen upon evil times, let him open his history. It is a marvellous +tonic. + +Does he think republics ungrateful? Look at Mr. Motley's vivid portrait +of John of Barneveld. When he was seventy-two years old he writes from +his prison to his wife and family: "I receive at this moment the very +heavy and sorrowful tidings that I, an old man, for all my services done +well and faithfully to the fatherland for so many years ... must prepare +myself to die to-morrow." Does he think irreligion undermining society? +Look into Smiles's "Huguenots in France after the Revocation of the +Edict of Nantes." For attending Huguenot meetings men were captured by +soldiers and sentenced to the galleys, mostly for life. They were +chained by the neck with murderers and other criminals, and were +quartered in Paris in the dungeon of the Chateau de la Tournelle. Thick +iron collars were attached by iron chains to the beams. The collar was +closed around the prisoner's neck, and riveted with blows of a hammer +upon an anvil. Twenty men in pairs were chained to each beam. They could +not sleep lying; they could not sleep sitting or standing up straight, +for the beam was too high for the one and too low for the other. This +was done in the name of religion. The age of Louis the Fourteenth is +called one of the great epochs of the world. It was an age in which the +king's mistress persuaded him to slaughter and banish hundreds of +thousands of his subjects because of their religious faith, and the +great preachers of his church applauded, and the Holy Father approved, +and even Madame de Sévigné, whose letters some young ladies at Newport +and Saratoga are diligently reading, and sighing for the good old witty +times in which she lived, wrote of the most innocent and most devoted +men: "Hanging is quite a refreshment to me. They have just taken +twenty-four or thirty of these men, and are going to throw them off." + +The golden age is not yesterday or to-morrow, but to-day. It is the age +in which we live, not that in which somebody else lived. The trouble, +vexation, corruption, weakness, selfishness, meanness, which dismay us +and tempt us to despair are the old lions that have always beset the +path. No man is born out of time; and what man living to-day, who is not +pinched with poverty or disease, would have lived a thousand years ago? +If our politics seem mean and our men small, how does Alfred's time +seem, or the glory of Athens, or the court of Louis the Fourteenth, or +Luther's Germany? What did Jefferson think of Hamilton, or the _Aurora_ +say of Washington? + + + + +SPRING PICTURES. + + +ON a late beautiful spring afternoon the Easy Chair +rolled itself into the suburbs for a stroll. There were everywhere the +signs of the advance of a great city and the pathetic forlornness of the +municipal frontier. Pleasant country-houses, spacious, rambling, with +broad piazzas and gardens and lawns, had been apparently suddenly +overtaken by streets and stone sidewalks and lamps. There were the +rattle and shriek of the incessant railway trains near by. Tall factory +chimneys smoked and machinery hummed and steam-whistles blew all around +the quiet old houses. The contrast gave them a kind of conscious life. +They seemed to be aware of the incongruity of their character with the +new neighborhood. They had a helpless air, as if nothing remained but +submission to division into regular building lots and the absolute +extinction of rural seclusion and charm. There was the impression of a +faint and futile struggle between city and country, in which, indeed, +for a moment the excellence of each was lost, but the result of which +was not doubtful. + +As the Easy Chair pushed on, it saw in fancy the old pastoral peace and +retirement of the places when they were indeed in the country. It +recalled the noted men of that older day who sought here relaxation and +repose. There was the placid river, on which no restless steamer foamed, +but only silent sloops drifted or careened. Yonder were the leafy coves +under the wooded and rocky banks, from which the Indian had but recently +paddled his canoe. No railroad harmed the virgin shyness of the shore. +It was El Dorado, Arcadia, the land of Goshen. It was the home of peace, +of plenty, of content. + +Such a poet, such a painter, is idealizing memory on a spring afternoon +in the suburbs. It seemed so gross a wrong that sidewalks and gas lamps +and factory chimneys and steam-whistles should invade and devastate the +tranquil fields that indignant imagination filled them as fact with all +the fancies that tranquil fields suggest. Doubtless in the closets of +those quiet houses there were the bones of plenty of old skeletons. +Those spacious, sunny rooms were the scenes of the familiar domestic +tragedies against which not the most romantic of country-houses can shut +the door. Up those steps have swayed and hesitated the doubtful feet of +the oldest son, heir of precious hopes and child of fervent prayers, +hesitating and lingering at hours long past midnight, watched for and +waited for by the mother's heart that breaks but does not falter. In +that broad hall, on the brightest of May mornings, the daughter of the +house has stood, radiant as the day, and crowned with orange blossoms. +There have met the hopes and joys of youth, the tears and blessings and +farewells of older years. The pretty pageant filled the house, and faded +slowly and utterly away. The old house has known, too, the solemn shadow +that falls on every house. It seems to regretful memory the abode of +unchanging delight. But from that door the slow procession moved, and +those whose hospitable smile and word had hallowed every room returned +no more. They are gone, the bride, the parent, the friend; "they are all +gone, the old familiar faces," the age, the society, the politics, the +interests. They are all gone. Why should not the house go too? + +It was early spring, and the Easy Chair, looking up, saw half a dozen +kites flying in the air. A little further, and laughing girls were +skipping rope. Boys were spinning peg-tops and playing marbles and +driving hoops. The boys and girls who lived in the quiet old +country-house did the same a hundred years ago. They flew kites and +drove hoops, and that little bride skipped rope and carried dolls. The +age, the society, the politics, the interests, were very different. They +are, indeed, all changed. But tops are changeless, marbles are immortal, +and so are boys and girls. They know nothing of the old house over which +the Easy Chair becomes pensive. They belong to the new time, which +demands its demolition. + + + + +PROPER AND IMPROPER. + + +LONGFELLOW has commemorated in a beautiful sonnet the +delightful evenings of Mrs. Kemble's readings; and certainly it was a +singular pleasure to see and to hear her. Her historic name associated +her with her uncle John and her aunt Mrs. Siddons, and she had always +the port of one conscious of a famous lineage. She used to say, with a +half-humorous, half-proud emphasis, that she belonged to her majesty's +players, and in her presence it was easy to believe that her majesty's +players were an important body in the state. Her power of identification +with the various characters in the plays, and the skill with which she +maintained the individuality throughout, were always remarkable, and the +symmetry and completeness of the whole performance left nothing to be +criticised. The only observation that suggested itself might be that +the stage traditions were evident in her rendering. But that, in turn, +only suggested the further question whether the traditions were not +worthy of respect. Dramatic and histrionic forms of art, like all +others, are but representations of nature under certain conditions and +limitations. They are not an imitation, a fac-simile, and every man will +be at odds with any work of art in any kind who does not bear this in +mind. + +The spectator complains of unnaturalness upon the stage; the substance +of his feeling is that people do not talk and act so in ordinary life. +That is true; but if the theatre should show us men and women doing upon +the stage what they do in ordinary life, the theatre would be no more +attractive than the street or the parlor. It is not the spectacle of +ordinary life that we expect to see in the theatre. It is a view of +human life and nature under ideal conditions, and it is as irrelevant to +require that the player shall seem to us like the man with whom we have +been transacting business as that he should speak plain prose instead +of blank verse. If Mrs. Kemble had read the words of Rosalind or of +Portia, of Shylock or Mercutio, as if they were neighbors of hers and +people whom we were in the habit of meeting, the effect would have been +ludicrous. When she came in--the Fanny Kemble of Talfourd and of the +wild enthusiasm of the grandfathers of to-day, ripened into the comely +and queenly woman--and seated herself at the little table on which the +great volume lay open, she was the magician who was to open to us the +realm of faery, the world of imagination, not to take us back into the +familiar scenes of the world of New York or Chicago. The spell was +resistless. The deep, rich, melodious voice flowed out like an enchanted +singing river, along which we glided seeing visions and dreaming dreams. +To sit and listen to her was like sitting and watching Titian laying on +the canvas the gorgeous tints which before our eyes took on the forms of +men and angels. A rarer, a more refined delight, which of us has known? +Did it ever occur to us that Mrs. Kemble was doing anything improper, +anything unwomanly? In the wonderful picture of Portia that "her voice's +music" drew, was there anything a little repulsive, a little unfeminine? + +This question was suggested to the Easy Chair by the remark of one of +the most devoted and delighted of all the listeners at those readings, +that he was very sorry to see that the University of London had decided +to admit women to all its degrees upon precisely equal terms with men. +The secret reason of the regret, of course, is the feeling that there +would be something unwomanly in the act of competing for a degree which +would open the pursuit of professions--especially the medical +profession--which are usually and often exclusively cultivated by men. + +Yet, when pressed, the Easy Chair's interlocutor admitted that there was +nothing more essentially unfeminine in the practice of medicine by a +woman than in the recitation of Shakespeare for the entertainment of a +miscellaneous crowd. It is a question of habit, not of instinct, nor of +principle, nor of reason. When the old Greek and Oriental idea of +absolute seclusion and subordination is abandoned, a woman's reading +from Shakespeare for the pleasure of the public is an action not +different in kind from her practising medicine or serving on a school +committee. This generation, however, is more used to the one than to the +other. It is a habit, nothing more. + +Charles Lamb regrets in one of his later essays that "we have no +_rationale_ of sauces, or theory of mixed flavors; as to show why +cabbage is reprehensible with roast beef, laudable with bacon; why the +haunch of mutton seeks the alliance of currant jelly, the shoulder +civilly declineth it; why loin of veal (a pretty problem), being itself +unctuous, seeketh the adventitious lubricity of melted butter; and why +the same part in pork, not more oleaginous, abhorreth from it; ... why +oysters in death rise up against the contamination of brown sugar, while +they are posthumously amorous of vinegar; why the sour mango and the +sweet jam by turns court and are accepted by the compilable mutton +hash--she not yet decidedly declaring for either. We are as yet but in +the empirical stage of cookery." + +It is not in cookery alone that this mystery is still unsolved. Why, for +instance, should it seem a womanly use of Heaven's gift that Jenny Lind +should sing for the pleasure of a thousand men, and something strange +and unfeminine that Portia should plead with eloquence in a court to +save a hapless woman from prison or the cord? Why is it fitting that +Mrs. Kemble should professionally read Shakespeare, and "queer" that she +should professionally attend women in peril and sickness? Do we not +naturally and logically glide into the part of the citation from Lamb +that we just now omitted?--"why salmon (a strong sapor _per se_) +fortifieth its condition with the mighty lobster sauce, whose embraces +are fatal to the delicater relish of the turbot." Must we not say that +we are as yet but in the rudimentary knowledge of what is and is not +feminine? + +When the example of the London University is not singular, but when all +opportunities are opened equally to all talent and vocation, when it is +not forbidden a woman to do any honorable work for which she is by +nature and by study and training properly equipped, unless the laws of +nature fail, will any greater catastrophe befall, will there be any more +signal reversion of the order of things, than if cabbage should come at +last to be eaten with roast beef, and currant jelly cement an alliance +with the mutton's shoulder? + + + + +BELINDA AND THE VULGAR. + + +IT is perhaps because the Easy Chair sometimes discusses +questions of behavior that it is occasionally asked to express an +opinion upon more difficult social points. Thus it was lately requested +to say whether it did not think that the great want of our society is a +social standard. The inquiry was made by the lovely Belinda, who was +charmingly dressed for a select party, and the Easy Chair was obliged to +own that it did not at once comprehend the scope of the inquiry, and to +seek an explanation. As Belinda proceeded to elucidate her meaning it +seemed to be tolerably plain that she was contemplating some kind of +rank, or visible and recognized distinction, which should separate +"society" from what is not society, and it was impossible not to feel +that, however high the dividing line, and however small the circle +which it enclosed, she was herself included within it. + +The Easy Chair thereupon described to her a conversation which it held +long ago with a distinguished man upon English social life and the +advantages of an aristocracy. The distinguished man's views were very +much like those which are set forth in Disraeli's "Sibyl" and +"Coningsby," and which were known forty years ago as those of Young +England. They proposed a national life blended of feudal romance and +modern philanthropy. There was to be a gracious nobility of very blue +blood which had been clarified in the veins of the Plantagenets, who +were to live in stately castles in the midst of superb demesnes, and to +be exceedingly good to their tenants and retainers, for whom there were +to be May-poles, and flitches of bacon at Christmas, and greased poles +to climb at appropriate times, and sacks to run races in, and who were +to be visited at their neat little cottages, when they were ill, by the +ladies from the castle, and who were to be industrious and obedient and +humble and grateful, and, above all things, to know their place. The +nobility were to own the land, and govern the country, and live in +splendid idleness, and the happy peasantry were to do all the work, and +bow respectfully when the nobility passed by, and go to bed when the +curfew tolled, and to make no trouble. + +This was the Young England programme, and the Arcadia of the Disraeli +novel. And this also showed its familiar features in the talk of the +distinguished man as he bewailed the social bareness of American life +and descanted upon the charm of an ancient and well-ordered society. But +when the Easy Chair mischievously asked him whether he did not think +that he might tire of the greased pole, and the dance upon the lawn, and +the gracious patronage, and the respectful gratitude, the amusing +bewilderment of the distinguished man showed that in his admiration of +the society that he described he assumed always that he was to belong to +the class that lived in the stately castles and benignly condescended to +the humble cottagers. His view, therefore, was very simple. It was +merely that he should like to live in splendid idleness, steeped in +luxury, and surrounded by respectful servants. + +Belinda listened to this story, of which the Easy Chair made no +application, with a slight blush; and to the polite inquiry, what kind +of social standard she contemplated, she responded that she meant a +certain fixed line which should exclude the vulgar. But she was +immediately silent, as if reflecting upon a difficult proposition, and +did not answer when she was asked what she thought would be the +consequence of removing the vulgar from the circles which she considered +most select. + +Her benevolent attention invited further question, especially as at the +same moment a lady entered the room who bore one of the most noted +family names in the country, and most familiar in fashionable annals, a +family which delights to trace its lineage to a royal source. This proud +dame had married her daughter as if by main force to a coroneted lord of +hereditary acres. It was a familiar fact of the society in which she +was a conspicuous figure, and it was impossible not to ask: "Can there +be anything more coarsely vulgar than to sell a daughter for money and a +title to a man for whom she does not care; and shall we begin to erect +the social standard by expelling the vulgar offender?" + +Belinda was still silent, and the brilliant rooms began to fill and +murmur with a gay company. Among them came the loud and diamonded Mrs. +Smasher, to whose unparalleled fêtes even Belinda would be almost +willing to request a card. The Smasher lineage is not renowned or regal; +the Smasher mind is imperfectly educated; the Smasher manners are those +of the suddenly rich who are not also suddenly refined. + +"Is any conceivable vulgarity greater than the Smasher vulgarity, O +Belinda; and shall we continue these exercises by expelling also this +essentially vulgar person?" + +Belinda was still silent. She has remained silent even to this day. + + + + +DECAYED GENTILITY. + + +DECAYED gentility has great interest for the +novel-reader, and the man and woman who "have seen better days" are +familiar figures in actual life. Hampton Court is regarded by some +travellers with pensive regard as a kind of almshouse for this class of +the indigent, and institutions nearer home are described with a +deferential courtesy and avoidance as homes for decayed gentlewomen. It +cannot be pleasant to the persons themselves to be so described, but the +founders of such places have perhaps a comfortable sense of reflected +honor, as if the impulse to provide a retreat of the kind were of itself +a sign of "very gentility." Despite the plaintive little plea which the +description itself urges for this decayed class of our fellow-beings, +the people who "have seen better days" are not generally an engaging +multitude. A person whose chief distinction is that he was once more +prosperous than he is now seems to renounce any present claim upon +consideration, and to offer his inability as a ground of regard. It is +an appeal to pity, but pity of old has a disagreeable relative. + +The pathos of the appeal lies, first, in the sense of contrast, and then +in the spiritual rather than the material poverty which it discloses. +The lady who lets lodgings, and whose air and the allusions of whose +conversation constantly suggest that she has seen better days, is a +person who is mastered by circumstances, and therefore does not compel +respect. But a woman who is the perfectly self-respecting lady fulfils +simply the duty of the moment with no conscious appeal for sympathy; and +if by chance you discover that she has been more prosperous, the fact +that she has not the conceit of it strengthens your regard. For it is no +personal credit to have been more prosperous. As your landlady shows you +the convenience of the room, she lets fall that her father the Bishop, +or her uncle the Senator, or her lamented cousin the millionaire would +be deeply grieved if he could know that his kinswoman was actually +letting lodgings. + +"Then, madam, you have seen better days?" + +"Ah, sir--" + +But how is it personally creditable to the good woman that her uncle was +honorable and her cousin rich? She recalls the circumstances of others +at the expense of her own character. The lodger wishes to hire rooms +upon their own merits. He resents the bribery of pity to take them. If +they are a little stuffy, they certainly seem no airier because his +landlady once sat upon a crimson sofa and read novels all day long. If +some philanthropist builds a retreat to which she can retire gratis, and +pass her declining years in regretful recollection of the crimson sofa, +so let it be. Such a retreat may be dedicated to sentimental repining. +But a woman of spirit and character never becomes a decayed gentlewoman, +however destitute she may be. + +This refusal to succumb to circumstances and to make the best of it, +which is all that can be asked, is charmingly sketched in Lamb's Captain +Jackson. The Captain's frugal table had the air of a feast, such was the +magic of his cheerfulness. His plain cheese was served like Stilton or +Roquefort, and slipping a shred of it upon his guest's plate, he +contented himself with the rind, gayly declaring that the nearer the +bone the sweeter the meat. Poverty was no pleasanter to him than to the +rest of us. But had he gone to the almshouse he would not have +complained, and in no word or sigh of his would you have discovered that +he had seen better days. + +The family of Captain Jackson is by no means extinct. The other day the +Easy Chair met one of them in Broadway--an elderly gentleman in a +well-brushed, exceedingly threadbare suit, moving briskly along the +pavement. His greeting was alert and courteous. There was a little chat +of the day's news, a gay jest or two, and then good-morning. Half a +century ago this was a young man about town, the heir of a fortune, a +youth of "family" who dressed and drove and dined and danced like the +golden youth of to-day. When the first Italian opera troupe came, he was +nightly behind the scenes. In the circle of Knickerbocker wits he was +one. He wrote verses, and had a kind of literary name. His portrait was +published in a weekly paper. He sat at the good tables. His name was +Fortunio. + +Everything is gone but the cheerful spirit. Nobody knows exactly how he +lives, but only that it is in extreme poverty. But he preserves the tone +of prosperity. He writes notes in a beautiful and graceful hand upon +very cheap paper. "You remember our conversation the other morning about +'Anstey's Bath Guide'; and if you will look in your _Fraser_ for this +month, you will find that I was right." Here is the assumption that +every gentleman takes _Fraser_, and that your correspondent may have +dipped into his before you have looked at yours. Doubtless he had seen +it--at some reading-room, perhaps, or on Brentano's counter. + +One day we had spoken of a famous author. A little while afterwards came +a comely package containing an old and choice work of his, and a note: +"Dear Easy Chair,--I thought it might be a pleasure to you to own this +rather uncommon copy of an author whom you evidently admire, and which +it is a pleasure to my shelves to spare." What a fine air of elegant +leisure in a library! But the "shelves" were a few remnant books, +probably worthless to sell, but affording the friendly soul true +satisfaction in giving. Fortunio is not a decayed gentleman. His +gentility, in the best sense, is in full vigor. Everything but that, +indeed, is decayed. But there is no unmanly moping about better days, +although in few men's lives could there be a sharper contrast between +the past and the present. + +This cheerful steadiness is largely due to temperament, but it is not +therefore beyond those who have not the same temperament. Character can +emulate it. "It's bad enough to be poor," said one of the Captain +Jackson family, "but it's a great deal worse to be sulky too." It is +very easy, indeed, for prosperity to preach resignation to adversity, +and to urge it to bear up bravely. But it is a true gospel, although it +be easy to preach. Pure Lacrima Christi is as precious when poured from +a glass of Murano as from a pewter mug. + + + + +THE PHARISEE. + + +THERE is no more beautiful and impressive passage in the +New Testament than that which contrasts the Pharisee thanking God that +he is not as other men are and the Publican who asks mercy as a sinner. +But there is no passage, also, which has been more ingeniously +perverted, and it is exceedingly amusing to hear Jeremy Diddler or +Robert Macaire or Dick Turpin railing at honest and industrious men as +Pharisees because they prefer honesty and industry to knavery. + +The taste for honesty and sobriety seems natural and simple enough, and +the qualities themselves quite as valuable as those of Diddler, or even +of Jonathan Wild the Great. But Jonathan will have none of them. They +are Pharisaic impertinences. They are impracticable and visionary +speculations, which assume heaven while yet we stand upon the green +earth; and Mr. Wild, who assures us that he does not desire to pass +himself off as better than other men, declares, with the noble candor +which distinguishes him, that simple, downright dishonesty is good +enough for him. He does not, indeed, choose that precise word, but he +conveys that precise idea. + +'Tis a good trick, and it is generally sure of applause. But it is only +another version of a familiar maxim, that when you have no argument, you +must abuse the plaintiff's attorney. As a matter of fact, your client +did steal the handkerchief, or forge the name, or fire the barn. But I +ask you, gentlemen of the jury--you may well say--and I appeal to all +good citizens, is not this ostentation of superior virtue, this fine air +of moral indignation toward my client simply because he happened to slip +his hand into the wrong pocket, a little suspicious? Are we angels? I +ask your honor is this work-a-day world the celestial seat and the Mount +of Vision, and is a man so very much better than his fellows merely +because he rolls up his sanctimonious eyes with the Pharisee and thanks +God that he is holier than other men? Nay, gentlemen, have we not in +this sublime and immortal parable a Divine warning against this +Phariseeism which denounces the slides and slips of our common frail +humanity? I ask you, gentlemen, by your verdict not to place a premium +upon that most odious of all repulsive arrogancies--Phariseeism. + +But it is upon the political platform that the gibes and sneers at +Phariseeism are intended to be most stinging. The Honorable Jonathan +Wild the Great comes out strong, as his henchmen truly declare, against +his political opponents. With one vast comprehensive sneer he brands +them as Pharisees, as if he were snorting consuming fire. It is not +surprising, because they have had their eye upon Jonathan. They have +seen him in bad company. They have caught him "conveying" public +treasure. They know all about him, and he knows that they know all about +him. He called himself Tweed, and he made a mesh of statutes to +legalize robbery. But how good he was to the poor! How he distributed +coal to the chilly! How he planted pinks and daisies in the City Hall +Park, and made the Battery to bloom as the rose! How he received wedding +gifts for his daughter from our best citizens; and how generously they +subscribed to erect his statue to commemorate that bright flower of the +State! And now a sneaking, mousing gang of would-be archangels prate +about common honesty, and demand that public hands shall be clean hands! +Fellow-citizens, Jonathan Wild is a man of the people. He doesn't +pretend to be higher and purer and better than other men. He didn't +graduate at a college, indeed, and he never read the Iliad in the +original Greek. No, fellow-citizens, there is no cambric handkerchief +and oh-de-cologne about him. He is just one of the boys. He whoops it up +with the plain people, and, thank God, whatever he is, he is not a +Pharisee. + +The argument is ingenious. It does not deny that he is a thief. It only +insists that those who assert it are Pharisees--and Pharisees are so +odious that it is much better to scoff at them than to punish Mr. Wild. +There was a good old countryman who had been early taught to take men as +they are, which means to consider them liars and rascals. One day a +neighbor remarked to him that he thought that the old man had lost the +money with which he bought voters, because, he said, while they take +your money, the other side take their votes. "The deuce they do!" said +the old countryman. "Yes," said the other; "and you will find, in the +long-run, that political honesty is the best political policy." "You +think so, do you?" was the reply. "Well, do you know that you're a +blanked metaphysical Pharisee?" + +It is obvious that when the advocacy of common honesty in any relation +of life is savagely and scornfully decried as Phariseeism, it is because +somebody's withers are wrung. It is a plea of guilty. It is the cry of +Squeers when the picture of Dotheboys Hall was displayed to the world: +"I didn't do it." If a man demands honesty in politics, and it is +retorted, "You're a Pharisee," it is because the dishonesty cannot be +denied or disproved, and the retort is therefore a summons to all honest +men to look out for thieves. + +To deride the demand for decency is to concede that anything but +indecency is impracticable. If it be only Pharisees who insist that +sugar shall not be sanded, that milk shall not be swill-fed, that coffee +shall not be chiccory, that nutmegs shall not be wood, that cloth shall +not be shoddy, that employés of the government shall not be forced to +pay for their places, that public officers shall be honest, and that +government shall not be venal, it is pleasant to think how many +intelligent, upright, industrious, and practical Americans are +Pharisaical. + + + + +LADY MAVOURNEEN ON HER TRAVELS. + + +THE passenger in the crowded street railway car is often +disturbed by the conscious absorption of his masculine neighbors in +their newspapers when a woman enters and looks for a seat. If she be +young and pretty, there are apparently seats enough, however great the +crowd, and even if a man is slow to rise, he may yet, with Mr. Readywit, +exhort his son sitting upon his knee to get up and give the lady his +seat. The impatient passenger, in his indignation at the want of +courtesy upon the part of others, sometimes forgets, indeed, to rise +himself. But there is always some Nathan comfortably seated farther away +whose amused look says to the impatient but stationary David, "Thou art +the man." + +It would be very unfair to generalize from this frequent situation that +the American is uncourteous. On the contrary, he is the most truly +polite man among men of all nations. Lady Mavourneen, who is familiar +with the society and the manners of many countries, and who has been +always accustomed to hear Americans in Europe described everywhere and +with pungent emphasis as "those Americans," was amazed upon coming here +to find universal courtesy. "In the street or at the railway station," +she said, "if I ask anybody any question, I receive the most prompt and +polite reply. Everybody is at my service, not with much bowing or +flourishing, but heartily and honestly. I have never seen such universal +courtesy." When she was asked whether she had observed the absorption of +the street-car passengers in their newspapers, she smiled and said that +she had never been obliged to stand, because some one was sure to rise. +But in Paris she said that often as she was passing to a seat Monsieur +Crapeaud, raising his hat politely, and saying, warmly, _Pardon!_ +pressed by and secured the seat. + +Lady Mavourneen, who tells a little story with great humor, described a +scene in a crowded church in Paris. An apparent lady was disturbing +everybody by pushing along toward a distant chair in the row, when Lady +Mavourneen arose to allow her to pass more easily, and the apparent lady +immediately slipped into my lady's chair, and held it fast, saying only, +in reply to her earnest remonstrance: "Madame, you left the chair; I +took it. You have lost it. Voilà !" A vagabond of this kind took the seat +of a gentleman who had risen to help a lady off a street car. When the +gentleman returned he mentioned to the interloper that it was his seat. +The interloper shrugged his shoulders, remarked that it was an empty +seat when he took it, and that he should continue to occupy it. "If you +don't get out of that seat, I'll take you out," was the rejoinder of the +gentleman, whose shoulders were broad. The squatter scowled and +abdicated. + +Lady Mavourneen found, what every lady will find, that she could travel +everywhere in "the States" alone, with entire safety and surrounded by +the utmost courtesy. The word "lady" with which she will be accosted by +hackmen and porters and conductors is spoken with kindly respect, and +even if some person in a lady's garb thrusts herself into the cue of +passengers slowly advancing to the window of the ticket office to buy +tickets, there may be sour looks and amazed stares, but she will +generally have her way. So great is our courtesy that we honor the +counterfeit claim. The source of the most serious objection to the +demand of suffrage for women is the secret apprehension that men will +lose their sincere deference, and treat women as they treat other men, +thus robbing life of the tender romance of chivalric courtesy. Emerson +says of the successful lover and his mistress, "She was heaven, while he +pursued her as a star; can she be heaven if she stoops to such an one as +he?" + +Yet, while this feeling is frequent, and seems to many very plausible, +it is the true respect of the American for women which is the real +strength of this very movement. The European sentiment for woman is +still somewhat mediæval. She is still the goddess of the troubadours and +the minnesingers, but a goddess who is treated as the South-sea +Islanders treat their gods, beating them when they are not propitious. +To the American she is Wordsworth's "Phantom of Delight" seen upon +nearer view, and it is idle to prattle about her "sphere," as if she did +not instinctively know it more truly than men. The universal courtesy +which Lady Mavourneen remarked is essential respect and kindliness of +feeling, which no more permits a man to gild his selfishness with a +"Pardon" and a touching of his hat than it permits him to strike a +woman. + +Yet although courtesy is essentially in the heart, and is kind feeling +rather than respectful manner, it is not worth while to despise the +manner. If we must choose between the good heart and suavity of address, +between Boythorne and Lovelace, of course we shall choose Boythorne. But +why not both? Why not the _mens sana in corpore sano?_ In "The Iron +Pen," Longfellow says: + + "And in words not idle and vain + I shall answer and thank you again + For the gift, and the grace of the gift, + O beautiful Helen of Maine!" + +It is not only the gift, it is the grace in giving which completes the +charm. + +The young American of to-day puffs his cigarette in the face of his +partner on the balcony, in the boat, or in the wagon, and smiles at the +frilled Lothario of yesterday bowing in his flowered coat and paying +stately compliments as stiff as her brocade to the dame whom he +addresses. The youth is right in saying that the flowered coat and the +stately compliment were the dress and the speech of an old sinner. But +he would be right also if he remembered that familiarity breeds +contempt, and that he may wisely distrust his feeling for any woman who +does not put him upon his good behavior. The courtesy which Lady +Mavourneen observed in the railway station and in the street was plain, +but it was genuine. Respect naturally produces courtesy. Good manners +are the cultivation of natural courtesy: the gift and the grace of the +gift. + +This was the chief remembrance, and it was a unique and precious +treasure, which Lady Mavourneen carried back to Europe from America. + + + + +GENERAL SHERMAN. + + +NONE of his great contemporaries was universally beloved +more than General Sherman, perhaps none so much. The rare happiness was +his not only of becoming famous by taking a great part in a great +historic achievement, but of the complete enjoyment of fame. His later +years forecast the future. He saw not only that his name would be +remembered, but remembered with personal affection. Very few men have +been able to foresee this, and very few more clearly than Sherman. It is +due not to achievement alone, but to personal quality blended with +achievement. + +In his last years he was wholly withdrawn from public affairs, and with +extraordinary tact, although constantly in the public eye and mind, and +although the sense of his historic personality, so to speak, was +constant, he refrained from declarations upon pending public questions, +and the remarks of his interviews were not devoted to subjects of +general controversy. This was doubtless the result of his accurate +apprehension of his relation to the country. He had been educated by it, +and had served it as a soldier. He had strong convictions and was frank +of speech, but he belonged to all. He could not well be a common +partisan. He was apparently untouched by political ambition. If he had +felt its spur at all, he was happily able to prefer the general +permanent affectionate popular regard to the fierce enthusiasm of a +political campaign and the passionate ardor of partisanship. + +Whatever the reason, he held aloof. Perhaps at one moment, had he +assented, his name might have been caught up in a vast and tumultuous +political convention, and to a burning and skilful appeal to patriotism +and the still glowing memories of the war a palpitating party might have +responded, and made him its leader. But if others doubted and hesitated +he did not. He comprehended the situation as in a comprehensive and +far-extending military movement. He knew himself, and he refused. The +opportunity for which the most illustrious and the most famous of +Americans have longed and labored and pined offered itself to him, +unsought, unwished, and he smiled it away. + +Among the chief figures of the epoch of the war probably Lincoln and +Sherman were the most individual and original. The most romantic and +picturesque of the many renowned events of that time was the march to +the sea. It has already a distinctive character, like that of the Greeks +in Xenophon's story of the ten thousand. When the news of its successful +issue reached this part of the country, it served to show the simple and +honest patriotism of one of the more unfortunate of the Union generals. +Burnside, after the explosion of the mine at Petersburg, had been +relieved, and was staying with a company of friends at a country-house +on Narragansett Bay. The company were all sitting one morning upon the +spacious piazza, when a messenger rode up and announced Sherman's +success. Burnside's delight was enthusiastic. All thought of himself +vanished. The good cause only was in his mind and heart, and, running to +his wife, he joyfully kissed her, saying, "I know that the company feels +as I do, and will forgive me." + +It was the feeling of a soldier as simple and true-hearted and +patriotic, but not so fortunate, as Sherman; and it was the same candor +and manly sweetness of nature that softened Sherman's voice whenever he +spoke of the soldiers of the war to whom fate had seemed to be unkind. +He is gone, the last of the old familiar figures, some of his old foes +bearing him tenderly to the grave. And are not Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, +Sheridan, Porter, Seward, Chase, Stanton, Sumner, and their fellows, +historic figures worthy to rank with the elder Revolutionary group dear +to all Americans? + + + + +THE AMERICAN GIRL. + + +A PLEASING and constant topic of English writers is the +American girl. One of the later commentators says of her, "American +girls have shown they can receive, travel, and live without chaperons, +escorts, or husbands, and are fast developing a bright, clear, +intelligent, self-reliant, courageous, and refreshing variety of the +human race." And again, "Even if in future years the slender Yankee +belle is hidden behind the ampler beauty of the English matron, we may +still hear from her lips the wit and shrewdness, the acute accent, the +intelligent question, and the rapid repartee that proclaim her original +nationality." The "society" pictures in the papers and magazines +represent the dismay of the British matron with marriageable daughters +as she surveys the avatar of the American divinity and rival. The +essential differences of society in the two countries are at once +suggested, and the alarm of the watchful parent is justified. + +The charm of Miss Austen's novels is their acknowledged fidelity of +portraiture of the society with which they deal. They are miniatures, +but the likeness is wrought with exquisite skill of detail, and as the +American reader reflects he perceives that the great object of the game +which they describe is eligible marriage. Indeed the motive of the novel +in general is love and marriage. We open the book, we are at once +introduced to Paul, and presently to Virginia, and we proceed over the +pages until we hear the approaching beat of the Wedding March, which in +fact we have heard from the first page, and we know that the end is at +hand. But in the English novel of society, although the theme be +marriage, it is not necessarily love. If that were essential, a host of +rival fair ones with golden locks would bring no pang to the maternal +bosom, because she would know that love will find out the one among the +thousand. + +The passages that we have quoted apparently describe by contrast, which +is a fact which does not seem to have occurred to the writer. Doubtless +at heart he is loyal to the English girl, and does not admit even in +debate that her supremacy of maidenhood can be disputed. When he says +that American girls have shown that they can receive, travel, and live +without chaperons, escorts, or husbands, he seems to mean that they have +shown this distinctively as compared with other girls. When he adds that +they are fast developing a bright, clear, intelligent, self-reliant, +courageous, and refreshing variety of the human race, can he mean that +those words describe a new variety of girl, and that it is not perfectly +familiar in England? So in the other passage, when, supposing the +American girl transformed into the British matron, he remarks, with +evident admiration, "we may still hear from her lips the wit and +shrewdness, the acute accent, the intelligent question, and the rapid +repartee that proclaim her original nationality," would he have us +understand that these are not the characteristics of the British matron +of to-day? Or does he intimate only that the coming of the Americans +will but enlarge the number of these delightful ladies? + +The writer certainly seems to describe by contrast, but he has wisely +left a little cloud in which to envelop his retreat in case of +emergency. Certainly we need not press him. Whatever he may think or say +of the English girl, he has spoken well and truly of her American +sister. His description applies to the girl who grows up amid the +average conditions of American life, the girl who is portrayed in her +more jejune condition in Henry James's Daisy Miller. The two chief +qualities of that young woman, as represented by the shrewd and subtle +artist, are self-respect and self-reliance. The perplexity of the +phenomenon to the foreign reader lies in the fact that she does what the +European girl without self-respect does. + +A distinguished writer in New York, no longer living, once said to the +Easy Chair, with an air of consternation: "Do you know that the best +girls in New York go without escort to the matinées at the Academy? +Goodness knows what will be the end of it!" The good man was seriously +troubled. He seemed to apprehend that the young woman who could go to a +matinée without an escort would probably run off with a circus troupe, +and presently ride--in a very short skirt--bare-backed horses in the +ring. He evidently felt that the young women whom he had seen were in +grave danger of losing maidenly reserve, and that their conduct betrayed +a want of refinement of feeling. The secret of his alarm lay in the fact +that the social conventions of foreign society had acquired in his mind +the force of rules of morality. He shared the feelings of the delightful +lady who remarked that in her opinion it was immodest to go abroad +without gloves. Nothing is more common than this confusion of mind, and +one of the advantages of genuinely American society is that it +dissipates such illusions. The Lady Mavourneen, who was familiar with +the finest society both in France and England, said that the respect +shown to women in this country was so sincere and universal that she +should not hesitate to cross the continent alone. Why, then, should the +Easy Chair's friend have been troubled that young women went unattended +to the concert at the Academy? Every man there would have been their +instant defender against insult. But they went, and they were allowed to +go, because the insult was more improbable than fire, while the defence +was sure. + +In what is called distinctively society in large cities there is a great +deal of the feeling evinced by the observer at the Academy. There is +abundant regard for misplaced conventions. Young women in Vienna and +Paris who go unattended are generally working-women or another class, +and as working-women are not respected by Lovelace and Lothario, they +are exposed to insult. To avoid the chance of insult, therefore, a young +woman must have an escort in a partially civilized city like Paris or +Vienna. But no presumption lies against any woman in America. Her +self-respect and self-reliance are unquestioned, and American women, +old and young, are perpetually passing in railway trains by day and +night from one part of the country to another, unsuspected and +unsuspecting. + +In a country where social classes are not permanent or rigidly defined, +as hitherto in America they have not been, the daughter as well as the +son of the house contemplates the possibility of self-support. In such a +country the harem view of the sphere and occupation of woman, however +modified, wholly disappears. The word "obey" gradually vanishes from the +marriage service, or is smoothed away by interpretation. The ideal of +woman changes, and, as we think in America, improves. All the excellent +qualities which the London writer attributes to the American girl spring +from this change, from social conditions which foster self-respect and +self-reliance. The demand of the suffrage, the rise of the woman's +college, the challenge to the great universities to lift up their gates +that woman may come in, show no decline of the feminine ideal of woman, +but its transformation from the fancy of a goddess or a toy into the +old Scriptural conception of the helpmeet. + +The British matron, as she scrutinizes what she may hold to be an +invader of her realm, will not find that in any feminine quality or +grace, even to the most exquisite taste in dress, or delicate charm of +manner, or essential refinement of mind, Pocahontas defers to Boadicea. +Where the American imitates the English or any other, as when the +English girl affects the French, she must suffer from the inevitable +inferiority of all imitation. When her self-reliance is boisterous, or +without tact and fine perception, Daisy Miller will be as crude and +distasteful as Lady Clara Vere de Vere is heartless and cruel. But +Rosalind and Viola and Beatrice, and Tennyson's Eleanore and Adeline and +Margaret, meet in the American a sister of the same lineage as their +own, bred in an atmosphere most fortunate and fair. + + + + +ANNUS MIRABILIS. + + +This year, the centenary of the opening of our national constitutional +epoch, will be a Washington year. As on a saint's day there is a special +service in his honor, so through all this year there will be especial +remembrance of Washington, and natural self-congratulation that in him +we have a glory beyond that of other nations. The last striking tribute +to him is also most timely, for it is that of Mr. Bryce in his "American +Commonwealth," whose publication happily coincided with the opening of +this _annus mirabilis_. He says, in speaking of Hamilton's death, "One +cannot note the disappearance of this brilliant figure, to Europeans the +most interesting in the earlier history of the republic, without the +remark that his countrymen seem to have never, either in his lifetime or +afterward, duly recognized his splendid gifts." The explanation of this +seeming want of appreciation is, however, very characteristic, for it +lies in the instinctive American regard for morality. + +Mr. Bryce touches it when he proceeds: "Washington, indeed, is a far +more perfect character. Washington stands alone and unapproachable, like +a snow-peak rising above its fellows into the clear air of morning, with +a dignity, constancy, and purity which have made him the ideal type of +civic virtue to succeeding generations. No greater benefit could have +befallen the republic than to have such a type set from the first before +the eye and mind of the people." That benefit is incalculable, and it +will be acknowledged with every form of stately ceremonial and of +eloquent enthusiasm during this year. + +The great event of 1789 was Washington's inauguration as President, and +it is the most important event in the annals of the city. The +cosmopolitan character of the city from its settlement and in the early +time of the little town, when it was said that more than a dozen +different languages were spoken in its streets, down to the present, +when it is the third or fourth city in size upon the globe, has always +checked the sentiment of local pride which is so great a force in the +development of a community. Among all the original States New York has +seemed to care least for its significant events and its great men. That +the Revolution was tactically largely a contest for the control of the +Hudson, that the contest culminated at Saratoga, and that the new +national order which resulted from the Revolution began in the city of +New York, are facts which are known, indeed, but which have not grown +into a proud tradition universally cherished and constantly repeated and +celebrated like similar great events in New England. + +This year, however, the last event, Washington's inauguration, will be +the occasion of a great national observance. The President and cabinet, +Senators and Representatives and judges, distinguished delegates from +every State, will attend, and there will be religious and oratorical +exercises and civil and military display. One fact, indeed, invests such +a celebration with especial triumph. It is that while the government +which was organized a hundred years ago was unprecedented in form and +wholly untried in the experience of states, and while it was regarded +with interest but with incredulity as essentially unequal to the great +shocks of fate to which other states have succumbed, it has passed, +within the century, not only unshaken but strengthened, through the most +tremendous and prolonged ordeal to which such a government could be +submitted. + +Chief among its extraordinary good fortunes at its organization was that +of the presence of a man without whom at that time its establishment +would have been hardly possible. The French Minister at the time of the +inauguration wrote home to his government that it was the universal +confidence in Washington which secured assent to the Constitution. John +Lamb, who was unfriendly to the Constitution, told Hamilton in Wall +Street that only his faith in Washington overcame his repugnance to it. +The hour had plainly come for union, but except for the man it is +probable that union would not then have been effected. + +The value of Washington to his country transcends that of any other man +to any land. Take him from the Revolution, and all the fervor of the +Sons of Liberty would seem to have been a wasted flame. Take him from +the constitutional epoch, and the essential condition of union, personal +confidence in a leader, would have been wanting. Franklin, when the work +of the Constitutional Convention was completed, said that until then he +had not been sure whether the sun depicted above the President's chair +was a rising or a setting sun, but now his doubt was solved. Yet it was +not the symbolic figure above the chair, it was the man within it, which +should have forecast the great result to that sagacious mind. + +From the moment that independence was secured no man in America saw +more clearly the necessity of national union, or defined more wisely +and distinctly the reasons for it. He is the chief illustration in a +popular government of a great leader who was not also a great orator. +Perhaps that fact gave a solid force to his influence by depriving all +his expressions of a rhetorical character, and preserving in them +throughout a simplicity and moderation which deepened the impression of +his comprehensive sagacity. He was felt as both an inspiring and a +sustaining power in the preliminary movement for union, and by natural +selection he was both President of the Convention and the head of the +government which it instituted. John Adams was Vice-President, and +Hamilton and Jefferson were in the cabinet. After Washington himself, +they were the three most eminent figures in the country. But it is not +possible to conceive any one of them organizing and establishing the new +system without controversy which would have rent it asunder. + +Indeed this year commemorates the auspicious beginning of the most +arduous task which devolved upon Washington, and which transcends that +to which any other man in history has been called. Yet how little in his +performance of that task his countrymen would change! During the course +of the century they have been divided largely upon views of the +Constitution and upon principles of administration, and have engaged in +a long and momentous civil war, but they would certainly not desire that +any chief act of Washington's administration should have been other than +it was. He acted without precedent, but with the calm majesty of +rectitude, and although the serpent of party spirit struck at him as he +retired, no honest partisan to-day either distrusts his motives or +doubts his wisdom. + +It is a benignant fortune that so great a celebration as that of this +year is an act of homage to so great a man. It was his happiness to know +the affectionate reverence in which he was held. The memoirs and letters +of the time show that Washington's was not a tardy and posthumous +greatness, but that those who knew him best honored him most, and that +America was conscious of the worth of her chief citizen. One of the most +striking contemporary personal tributes to him is that of John Bernard, +the English actor, who was in this country at the close of the last +century, and who met Washington near the end of his life, by chance and +without knowing him, near Mount Vernon. + +Bernard had paid a visit to a friend upon the banks of the Potomac, and +was returning upon horseback to Alexandria behind a chaise which seemed +to be in difficulties, and was presently upset. The actor hastened to +the rescue simultaneously with another horseman, and after some +exertions they succeeded in placing the occupants of the chaise--a man +and woman, who were fortunately not injured--again upon their way. After +their departure Bernard's companion politely offered to dust his coat, +and in returning the favor Bernard made a close survey of his +companion. + + "He was a tall, erect, well-made man, evidently advanced in years, + but who seemed to have retained all the vigor and elasticity + resulting from a life of temperance and exercise. His dress was a + blue coat buttoned to his chin and buckskin breeches. Though the + instant he took off his hat I could not avoid the recognition of + familiar lineaments--which, indeed, I was in the habit of seeing on + every sign-post and on every fire-place--still I failed to identify + him." + +Washington recognized Bernard as the actor whom he had "had the pleasure +of seeing perform" in Philadelphia during the previous winter, and after +some pleasant chat an invitation to ride with him to Mount Vernon, only +a mile distant, revealed to Bernard the name of his companion. He was +profoundly impressed, and upon reaching Mount Vernon they found that +Mrs. Washington was indisposed, and the General ordered refreshments +into a little parlor looking upon the Potomac. + +At some length his guest describes the commanding presence of +Washington, in which "a feeling of awe and veneration stole over you." +During a conversation of an hour and a half "he touched on every topic +that I brought before him with an even current of good sense, if he +embellished it with little wit or verbal elegance." + + "When I mentioned to him the difference I perceived between the + inhabitants of New England and of the Southern States, he remarked: + 'I esteem those people greatly; they are the stamina of the Union, + and its greatest benefactors. They are continually spreading + themselves, too, to settle and enlighten less favored quarters. Dr. + Franklin is a New-Englander.' When I remarked that his observations + were flattering to my country, he replied, with great good-humor: + 'Yes, yes, Mr. Bernard, but I consider your country the cradle of + free principles, not their arm-chair. Liberty in England is a sort + of idol; people are bred up in the belief and love of it, but see + little of its doings. They walk about freely, but then it is + between high walls; and the error of its government was in + supposing that after a portion of their subjects had crossed the + sea to live upon a common, they would permit their friends at home + to build up those walls about them.' + + "A black coming in at this moment with a jug of spring-water, I + could not repress a smile, which the General at once interpreted. + 'This may seem a contradiction,' he continued, 'but I think you + must perceive that it is neither a crime nor an absurdity. When we + profess, as our fundamental principle, that liberty is the + inalienable right of every man, we do not include madmen or idiots; + liberty in their hands would become a scourge. Till the mind of the + slave has been educated to perceive what are the obligations of a + state of freedom, and not to confound a man's with a brute's, the + gift would insure its abuse. We might as well be asked to pull down + our old warehouses before trade has increased to demand enlarged + new ones. Both houses and slaves were bequeathed to us by + Europeans, and time alone can change them--an event, sir, which, + you may believe me, no man desires more heartily than I do. Not + only do I pray for it on the score of human dignity, but I can + clearly foresee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can + perpetuate the existence of our Union, by consolidating it in a + common bond of principle.'" + +At the end of a century which has vindicated his view so nobly and so +completely it is pleasant to read these words, and in this new and vivid +glimpse of our Washington to find only a stronger title to our +veneration. Bernard recalls the words of De Chastellux: + + "The great characteristic of Washington is the perfect union which + seems to subsist between his moral and physical qualities, so that + the selection of one would enable you to judge of all the rest. If + you are presented with medals of Trajan or Cæsar, the features will + lead you to inquire the proportions of their persons; but if you + should discover in a heap of ruins the leg or arm of an antique + Apollo, you would not be curious about the other parts, but content + yourself with the assurance that they were all conformable to those + of a god." + + + + +STATUES IN CENTRAL PARK IN 1889. + + +The Easy Chair recently spoke of the statue of Longfellow which has been +erected in the city of Portland, where he was born, and "Charter Oak," +writing from Connecticut, asks why there is as yet no statue of +Washington Irving in Central Park, the beautiful sylvan resort of his +native city of New York. It is a question which the Easy Chair has +already asked, and which must constantly suggest itself in the spacious +public grounds which are becoming the most comprehensive of Walhallas. +The London _Times_ calls Westminster Abbey "our Walhalla," meaning that +of England only. But the pleasure-ground of New York is truly a +Pantheon. It is dedicated to all the gods except its own. With unwonted +metropolitan modesty the city honors especially those who are not +children of New York. + +Webster is there, but not John Jay; Shakespeare and Scott and Burns and +Dante and Halleck even, but not Irving. It is grotesque that a space set +apart in New York for recreation, and decorated with marbles and bronzes +commemorating illustrious men, and among them authors and statesmen, +should still lack a fitting memorial of the greatest statesman and the +greatest author who were born in the city. Webster's famous panegyric of +Jay, that when the ermine of the Chief-Justiceship fell upon his +shoulders it touched nothing that was not as pure as itself, suggests +that a statue of John Jay might be of peculiar service as an object of +admonitory meditation in the bowery seclusion of a city that more +recently contemplated a statue to Tweed. In Couture's picture of the +"Decadence of the Romans," behind the luxurious and voluptuous groups of +intoxicated revellers in the foreground stand in sad severity the +statues of the elder Romans surveying the scene. In the lofty aspect of +Jay, filling with calm dignity the seclusion of some winding walk, would +there be felt amazement and reproof? Is it to escape the sculptured +rebuke of contrast with the civic heroes of to-day that it is not seen, +and that the eye of the student who reflects that the city of New York +has contributed few very great names to our history seeks in vain the +statue of John Jay in Central Park? + +Irving has every claim to this especial distinction. It is his kindly +genius which made the annals of New Amsterdam the first work of our +creative literature, and which invested the great river of New York with +imperishable romance. Undoubtedly he wrote those annals in characters of +rollicking fun, and even over the heroism of the doughty Peter +Stuyvesant he has cast a humorous halo. But not all our authors combined +are so identified with New York as Irving. His earlier squib of +"Salmagundi" treats "the town" with an arch memory of the Spectator +loitering in London, and his spell was such that in a later day Dennett, +in the _Nation_, happily nicknamed the work of the talent which he had +quickened the Knickerbocker literature. + +The same genius in a tenderer mood colored the shores of the Hudson with +the softest hues of legend. The banks at Tarrytown stretching backward +to Sleepy Hollow, the broad water of the Tappan Zee, the airy heights of +the summer Katskill, were mere landscape, pleasing scenery only, until +Irving suffused them with the rosy light of story, and gave them the +human association which is the crowning charm of landscape. In many a +scene a hundred mountain ranges survey the lower land far reaching to +the ocean. The scene is grand, but nameless, bare of tradition, and +forgotten. But where + + "The mountains look on Marathon, + And Marathon looks on the sea," + +the eye and the heart are enchanted with the story of Greece and its +heroic human associations. + +In the first century of our literature, which is ending, very few of our +authors have laid this legendary spell upon American scenes as Irving +did upon the Hudson. They have not much endeared the country to the +popular imagination, like Burns and Scott in Scotland, where every hill +and stream and bird and flower is reflected individually and fondly in +tale and song. The Easy Chair once met at Niagara a young Scotchman who +had come straight from his native land, and at every turn and glimpse +upon Goat Island and along the banks of the river he fairly bubbled and +murmured with the music of Burns and the other poets about Scottish +streams and scenes, of which he was reminded at every step. So in his +"Poems of Places" Longfellow reveals the charm which literature imparts +to scenery--a charm which he illustrates in his "Nuremberg" and "Belfry +at Bruges," and in his "Lost Youth," with its beautiful pictures of +Portland, a poem which probably gives to a larger number of persons a +more distinct and pleasing interest in that delightful city than +anything else connected with it. + +Irving is the magician who has cast this glamour upon New York, the +roaring mart of trade, the humming hive of industry. He shows us in +these crowded and hurried streets the leisurely forms of old Dutch +burghers, their comely wives and buxom daughters, and their tranquil +existence. Upon this very spot, which thus becomes a palimpsest, one +life over-writing another, he awakens a romantic interest which gives it +an endless fascination. He is thus a universal benefactor. + +His Rip Van Winkle, indolent but kindly vagabond that he is, asserts the +charm of a loitering life in the woods and fields, against all the +tremendous energy and lucrative devotion to dollars, the overpowering +crowd and crushing competition, of the whirring emporium. It is not +necessary to defend poor Rip, or justify him as a moral exemplar. Pax, +good Zeal-in-the-land Busy! But how soothing, as we mop our brows in the +ardent struggle, and waste our lives in the furious accumulation of the +means of living, to behold that figure stretched by the brook, or +pleasing the children, or sauntering homeward at sunset! Other figures +allure us, but still he holds his place. The new writers create their +worlds. The new standards, another literary spirit, a fresh impulse, +appear all around us. But still Rip Van Winkle lounges idly by, an +unwasted figure of the imagination, the first distinct creation of our +literature, the constant, unconscious satirist of our life. + +The edicts of Fortune are caprices. Halleck, who sang of Marco Bozzaris, +has his statue in the Park. Bryant still awaits his, and Irving, first +of all, is without his memorial. The Germans have justly honored +Humboldt in our Walhalla, the Scotch have commemorated Burns, the +Italians have given to it Mazzini. The Puritan Pilgrim, ancestor of +distinctive America, New England in bronze, is properly there. But +where, asked the thoughtful child, reading the epitaphs in the +graveyard, where be the bad people buried? Those whom the statues recall +are all well and wisely honored in this most cosmopolitan of countries +and of cities. But where, amid Germans and Italians and Scotchmen and +great New-Englanders--where be the New-Yorkers? + + + + +THE GRAND TOUR. + + +Nobody could have written this book--a London Review recently said of +Longfellow's "Hyperion"--who could have reached the Rhine in a few +hours. It needed the ocean, thought the critic, to make the Rhine and +Switzerland remote and romantic to the poet. But he forgot "Childe +Harold," a book written by an Englishman, which has given to the Rhine +and Italy a more romantic glamour for John Bull upon his travels than +any book he reads. It is not the distance, it is the imagination +susceptible to association which is the secret. + +The traveller of to-day is not likely to be affected as his father was +by the melancholy melody of Byron; but it is an interesting illustration +of the power of his genius that Byron has imposed his interpretation of +so many scenes upon the mind of the modern English and American +observer. His view makes Italy, as Sir Thomas Lawrence's portrait of +John Kemble made Hamlet. If we stand in the Capitol and look at the +Dying Gladiator, we must also see "his young barbarians all at play" +upon the Danube. If at Terni we see the Velino "cleave the wave-worn +precipice," the Byronic lines murmur along our lips. As we step into the +gondola and glide gently upon the Grand Canal, memory keeps time to the +measure of the dipping oar with the words whose charm is unexhausted: + + "In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, + And silent rows the songless gondolier." + +At "a tomb in Arqua," at "Clarens, sweet Clarens," we are still led, +like Dante, by the singing guide. The Guide-book is full of him. The +travel-books are full of him. He is familiar almost to commonplace. Who +comes to "Belgium's capital" for the first time without listening for +"the sound of revelry"? Who goes to the field of Waterloo remembering +"the unreturning brave," and does not sigh, + + "And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves." + +Sitting quietly here in a great land which looks to the future, not to +the past, it is pleasant to think of the throngs of travellers who have +gone hence for a summer wandering in Europe. Yet so intense is the +delight of European travel, so freshly remembered is it when almost +another generation of travellers are ready to begin their journey, that +the patriarch who goes to the wharf to say farewell to the newer +voyagers looks at them with tenderness and pity, and there is even a +sadness in his congratulations, not because they are sailing away, but +because he cannot believe that they will find what he found, nor +possibly enjoy what he enjoyed. These newer voyagers will see a France +and a Switzerland and an Italy; they will eat oranges at Sorrento, and +gaze upon the Mediterranean from Capri, and hear the fisher's song at +Amalfi: but they will not hear and see through the enchantment of +lapsed years. + +In his lively book of travelling letters Dr. Bellows says that he went +up the Nile in a steamer of seventy berths. An ancient mariner of the +Nile cannot comprehend it. In a steamer? With paddles or screws whisking +the water? And steam blowing off? Making innumerable miles a day? The +round trip to Philæ in two weeks, or a week? But how could you see +Egypt, or feel it? That slow floating southward upon white wings; the +sinking deeper and farther from the world we knew; the sense of infinite +strangeness and distance; the weeks passing with no sign of accustomed +life; slowly, one by one, the temples, the tombs; in the still days the +crew dragging the boat along and singing the wild minor refrain; a +voyage of wonder and of dreams--is that Egypt to be seen in a steamer? +It is useless to say that you may go in the old way if you choose. You +cannot go in the old way, because it is no longer what it was, if there +be a newer. You may drive from London to Oxford. But is that going by +the old English stage-coach when it was the only way, when the guard +wound his horn, and the cherry-nosed coachman threw down the ribbons at +each relay, and the neat inns stood smiling with open doors, and +tra-la-la sped the nimble team by the park gate and the hawthorn hedge? +You may go by sloop from New York to Albany. But is that now the +romantic Hudson voyage which it was when it could be made in no other +way? + +No sensible ancient mariner will quarrel with all this, nor desire to +banish the steamer of seventy berths from the Nile. When he shakes a +farewell hand with the youth who are going to run up to Rome by train, +and are _not_ going to stop at a certain point upon the Campagna, and +run forward to the top of a hill whence they can see far away upon the +horizon the faintly outlined dome of St. Peter's--and who are _not_ +going from Leghorn to Florence through the grape harvest, their carriage +heaped with the luscious clusters, but are to whiz through Tuscany in +an hour or so, the regret in his tone is not personal or selfish, it is +for a whole order of things passed away. + +Such an ancient mariner would, however, be indeed sorry if he supposed +that anybody suspected him of a very common and very odious kind of +remark, against which he kindly warns all the throngs of travellers of +whom mention has been made. The remark in question may be called the +capping remark. Thus one traveller says to another--as Marco Polo to +George Sandys-- + +"You went to Jerusalem?" + +"Yes." + +"And to Jericho?" + +"Yes." + +"And to the Jordan?" + +"Yes." + +"Did you see the white stone on the bottom near where the river flows +into the Dead Sea?" + +"Well--let me see! I don't exactly seem to remember that I did precisely +see that." + +"Ah!" replies Marco Polo. + +It is a very brief sound, but being interpreted it means, "Then, my +dear George Sandys, you might just as well not have seen the Jordan at +all." Not that the white stone was famous or worth seeing, but that +Marco Polo wished to "rub in" upon George Sandys's mind the conviction +that he, Polo, had seen more than he, Sandys, in the same direction. + +This capping process sometimes leads to very droll results. Young Green +heard Gray and Brown comparing their notes of travel. Each was naturally +anxious to have seen and done rather more than the other; but it +appeared that each had been in about the same places, and had had very +much the same experience. + +"Lago Maggiore is a lovely sheet of water," remarked Gray. + +"Truly exquisite," replied Brown. + +"And Isola Bella is most beautiful," suggested Gray. + +"Dear me! dear me!" approvingly assented Brown. + +"How high is the statue of San Carlo Borromeo?" asked Gray. + +"About sixty feet," answered Brown. + +"It's a wonderful prospect from his eye," said Gray. + +"Whose eye?" asked Brown. + +"San Carlo Borromeo's," replied Gray, whose mind instantly suspected +that he had caught the adversary, and who followed up his advantage +vigorously and suddenly. "Of course you went up San Carlo?" + +"Up San Carlo? You mean the church at--" + +"Oh no! the statue on Lago Maggiore." + +"Went up the statue! what do you mean?" snapped Brown, foreseeing +discomfiture. + +"Oh! I thought you probably knew," retorted the triumphant Gray, "that +the statue is hollow." + +"Oh! ah! yes!" returned Brown, indifferently. + +"And you didn't go up?" pressed Gray. + +"Not exactly," feebly rejoined Brown. + +"Nor sit in his nose?" continued Gray. + +"Not exactly," muttered Brown. + +"Nor look out of his eyes?" said Gray. + +"I thought I wouldn't," murmured Brown, in full retreat. + +"Oh!" smiled Gray, with the air of David holding the head of Goliath by +the hair, and displaying it to mankind--"oh!" + +Young Green heard all this, and he resolved that whatever he did not do +when he went to Europe, he would at all hazards sit in the nose of San +Carlo Borromeo. The next year he came to Lago Maggiore. He saw the +statue. He remembered the conversation and his high resolve, and he +essayed the deed. It was fearful. He tore his hands; he tore his +clothes; he was half suffocated; and, wedging himself into the nose, he +stuck fast, and was only rescued at the peril of his life. When he told +Gray afterward, and reminded him of the colloquy with Brown, that +experienced traveller laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. "My +dear Green," said he, "I never went up the confounded thing; but it was +necessary to take Brown down somehow, and I employed the good saint for +the purpose." He laughed again to tears; but Mr. Green soberly resolved +that he would eschew the capping talk of travel. And he chose the wiser +course. + +The truth is that Green should not trust too much the tales, nor indeed +the regrets, of the ancient mariners. + + "For travellers tell no idle tales, + But fools at home believe them." + +Certainly when this one remarks that he feels in saying farewell that +young Green will never see the Europe that he saw, he has not the +remotest idea of dimming his bright hope nor of asserting an advantage. +What is it, indeed, but a way of saying that he is no longer the same +man he was? If he were, what would be the gain of travel? It is not only +an enlargement of the scenery of the mind, not only a richer and more +various memory that he has acquired, but a riper experience. He has +grown wiser; and perhaps all that he feels when he shakes Green's +parting hand is that Green is not so wise as he will one day be. + + + + +"EASY DOES IT, GUVNER." + + +Dickens's Rogue Riderhood, who says "Easy does it, guvner," was a very +practical man. But there is no motto which is more susceptible of +perversion. Mr. Seward said the same thing in his last great speech. "I +early learned from Jefferson that in politics we must do what we can, +not what we would." It is not only plausible, but it is true. Yet its +truth can be most readily abused to defeat everything for which it is +urged. + + "'I weep for you,' the walrus said; + 'I deeply sympathize.' + With tears and sobs he sorted out + Those of the largest size, + Holding his pocket-handkerchief + Before his streaming eyes." + +It was necessary that the walrus should eat, and it was very sad that +the oysters should satisfy the necessity. But it is obvious that wicked +walruses who have no intention whatever of not eating oysters would sob +aloud with heart-rending vehemence as proof of a virtue which they do +not possess. The foes of progress are always anxious that its friends +should go easily. "Easy does it, guvner." But meanwhile they are +anything but easy in obstructing. In the race, the sly gentleman who +bets on Tom whispers confidentially to the jockey who rides Jerry that +he had better "go easy." The friends of the saloon hope that the true +friends of temperance are aware that the only way of success is to avoid +fanaticism. But they omit to hide their bodies as well as their heads, +for they are unsparing fanatics on their own behalf. + +When Gustavus, in deference to his dear Griselda, promised to begin to +reform the baleful habit of smoking, his Griselda was jocund as the +dawn. But at the end of a week she did not observe that there were fewer +cigars consumed, and she pleasantly asked him if the good resolution had +escaped his memory. "By no means," he answered; "quite the contrary. +But you remember what Rogue Riderhood said, 'Easy does it, guvner.' We +must move warily upon the intrenched enemy, dearest Grizzle. Remember +that Rome was not built in a day." Griselda remembered faithfully. But +still the cigars continued, and upon a further gentle remonstrance +Gustavus rejoined: "Certainly; but we must be reasonable. There are many +steps, my dear Griselda. In siege operations the great masters of war +approach by parallels, after making ample and thorough preparation. That +is what I am doing. I am beginning to prepare to begin. Easy does it, +you know. Don't forget Rome." + +Still Gustavus smoked, and still Griselda waited, and at the end of six +months she asked with a smile how far he had advanced in abandoning the +habit of smoking. "Dear Grizzle," he answered, "you remember the weeds +that sprang up and soon withered because they had no depth of soil. I +wish my reform of this naughty habit to be well rooted, that it may long +endure. None of your spasmodic virtue, your superficial goodness, for +me! Great reforms, even in personal habits, my dear Mrs. Gustavus, +cannot be accomplished in a day. Even Rome was not built in that time. I +am working for great results, to which all my tastes and habits must +conform. I must lay the foundations broad and deep. Easy does it, my +rose-bud." + +Gustavus continues to smoke, and Easy continues to do it. But there is +another saying quite as wise as that of Rogue Riderhood, which exhorts +him who puts his hand to the plough not to look back. The trouble with +Riderhood's apothegm is that it supplies an endless excuse for not doing +it. If the habit is too strong, and will not budge, you can soothe your +conscience and make the most plausible of pleas by insisting that human +nature and long custom and uniform tradition and the honest doubt +whether smoking is, after all, injurious, must all be carefully +considered. That is what Dickens also calls the great art of how not to +do it. "My son, if you wish a thing done, do it yourself; if not, send," +said the wise father; and the pioneers, the men without whose one idea +and uncompromising energy and conciliation nothing would be +accomplished, say with Sumner. "There is but one side," and with Cato, +"_Delenda est Carthago_." + +It is true that everything cannot be done at once, but something must be +done all the time; and you will observe that it is not when the work is +advancing, but when it stops or goes backward, that we hear the familiar +wisdom of the Rogue that Easy does it. That is what makes it a +suspicious saying, "What are you doing, sir?" thundered the master to +the boy. "Nothing, sir," replied the frightened pupil. "Just as I +thought, sir. Don't you know that your business is to do something?" +When a man says "Easy does it," he may be doing all that he can but the +immense probability, the almost absolute certainty, is that he is doing +nothing, or, like the amiable Gustavus, he is "beginning to prepare to +begin." + + + + +SISTE, VIATOR. + + +It is still very difficult to discover where the bad people are buried. +The cemeteries are still symbolically white with monuments to the +departed. Shylock and Ralph Nickleby are still, upon their tombstones, +the most respected of deceased citizens. Here lies Clytemnestra, a model +of the wifely virtues, whom an inconsolable spouse deplores. Beneath +this marble, in the tranquil hope of a joyful resurrection, repose the +remains of Iago, who kept the noiseless tenor of his way. Beyond sleeps +Solomon, most faithful of husbands; and under this turf of buttercups +and daisies lie Paris and Lovelace, _arcades ambo_, too early lost. 'Tis +pathetic to reflect how much worthier is the world under-ground than +that which still cumbers its surface; and if we, whose lives are +indifferent honest, had only had the good fortune to die a century ago, +our memories would by this time have been upon our tombstones a very +odor of sanctity to the sense of the age which knows us, perhaps, but +too well. + +In one of his terrible inscriptions suggested for the monuments of the +Georges, Thackeray says, "He left an example for youth and for age to +avoid. He never did well by man or by woman." Has there been only one +such George in the world? And if more, and in every age, in what +cemetery have you found their epitaphs? Catiline was a fascinating and +accomplished man. He had many followers, and if his political views and +projects were open to differences of opinion, he was certainly +well-mannered. Has there been but one Catiline in history? Or is he +confined wholly to a public sphere? Cicero described him as "a corrupter +of youth," and no one has denied it. Where is Catiline buried? If you +sought his grave by that epitaph, where would you find it? Is there no +corrupter of youth now? Have there been none within the last century? +None, if you may trust the epitaphs. How long will you abuse our +patience, O Catiline, and be annually buried, like Cato the Censor, with +crosses of white camellias laid upon your coffin, and wreaths of +immortelles hung upon the weeping effigy of Virtue which guards your +sleep? + +But because a man was brutal and coarse and cruel in his life, must we +needs insist upon it when he is gone? When Mawworm leaves us, must we +write upon his grave, he lying below defenceless, "_Hic jacet_ a +hypocrite"? When old Sathanas departs to a sphere of light and truth, +shall we carve upon his monument, "Father of lies"? Is it manly? Shall +we have no mercy? Do we really know any man; and shall charity be +forgotten? To be human is to be frail; and is not the fact that we must +die at all, of which the grave is proof, itself sufficient comment upon +our weakness? Here lies Colonel Newcome--tender, generous, noble, +child-like heart! Shall we add that he was credulous and ignorant? Dear +Uncle Toby is in the next grave. Shall we shout in marble, "_Siste, +viator_, contemplate his foibles"? Sacred to the memory of Samuel +Pickwick. Is the inscription incomplete if we do not chisel beneath it, +"A wind-bag pricked by Death"? + +Epitaphs are written more forcibly than upon tombstones. When old +Silenus dies, and the white camellias and the lilies-of-the-valley and +the rose-buds are strewn upon his bier, and the "universally lamented" +is cut upon the monument, the satire is pathetic, but it is slight. But +when the bloated old debauchee is cautiously and forgivingly praised in +the papers, and everybody solemnly pretends not to know what everybody +knows that everybody else does know, it is a sign not of charity, but of +public demoralization. Catiline corrupts youth by his example. Then his +own offences bring him to a sudden end, and the newspapers speak of him +so deprecatingly, so gingerly, that as a good man being dead yet +speaketh, so a bad man being dead yet corrupteth. His evil influence is +not suffered to perish with him, but it is cherished and extended and +confirmed, and his death, like his life, demoralizes. + +Dick Turpin no longer rides in jack-boots upon Hounslow Heath, stopping +my Lord Bishop and the Right Honorable the Earl of Garter; and no longer +stands at the dock, the hero of St. Giles's; and goes no longer to the +gallows in a blaze of glory, with a huge nosegay in his button-hole. +Richard Turpin is a very different fellow in his costume of to-day, but +he is the same Dick of the jack-boots and the heath, this vulgar robber +who smirks and is called smart. He drives a fine equipage, and lives +luxuriously, and keeps a harem, and frequents Wall Street, and beats +everybody in the game of making money, and spending it profusely and +splendidly. He dazzles the eyes of the widow's son, and bewilders his +mind. The boy sees the money with which Richard surrounds himself by +means which honorable men despise. He hears him called good-humoredly a +great rascal, and sees that he buys judges, and steals vast properties, +and procures laws to protect him. The boy hears that all men are +fallible, and that some men are no worse than other men, and that money +is a fine thing, and honor and truth and respect and all the rest of it +are very well, but see what power, what pleasure, what luxury Turpin +commands! Then the poor boy rushes for the same prizes, and fails, and +ends in disgrace, the jail, suicide. And Dick Turpin tosses a hundred +dollars to the boy's mother, and a generous press exclaims, "Not a model +man, perhaps; but what noble generosity! The friend of the widow and the +orphan! When he dies, how many poor homes will be darkened with grief!" +Yes, and the hundred dollars probably pays the widow for her boy. + +It is not difficult to be generous with the money of others. A year ago +it was announced that Greed had given forty or fifty thousand dollars to +the poor. "There," said the admirers of Turpin, "you may say what you +will of Greed. He, too, is not a polished man; he is not a scholar nor a +dainty gentleman; but he is one of the people; he is large-hearted and +generous. Who else has given fifty thousand dollars to the poor?" Yes, +and who else has stolen five millions? The politest gentlemen of the +highway were notoriously gallant. The Marquis of Goutytoe they compelled +to descend from his carriage, and sent the trudging market-woman home in +it. They eased the pockets of the Spanish ambassador, and threw a +doubloon to the leper hiding behind the hedge. It was a cheap +munificence. So was Greed's. It was not _his_ fifty thousand dollars, +the giving of which caused such a burst of good feeling, and the +exclamation, "There now!" It was only a little of the millions that were +not his. He gave it to the poor dwellers in tenement-houses, and it was +said that there was no wretched hovel to which he did not send a load of +coal or a barrel of flour during the winter months. But he took them +first from those wretched dens. Somebody paid the taxes that he stole, +and it is the poor who at last pay taxes. Where be the bad people +buried? When Turpin dies, we have Greed's opinion of him and his ways +gravely paraded in a newspaper. Madame Brinvilliers's opinion of +Lucrezia Borgia would be edifying reading! + +Shall we have no charity, then? and when a man lies dead and +defenceless, shall not warfare cease? Warfare may cease; but should +death condone all offences? The malignant lover who denounced his rival +to the Inquisition, and in the very moment of his rival's death by fire +himself fell dead--shall we write over him, _De mortuis?_ Shall we +Romans, whose sons he corrupted, go dumb and sorrowing behind the corpse +of Catiline? When a bad man dies, let us say that he was bad. Although +he was very rich and very splendid, shall we remember only that he gave +in charity one quarter of one per cent. upon the amount of his thefts? +The Italian brigand chief, when his band had slaughtered the travellers, +said, "There are twelve of us, and we will share equally; but the first +equal share shall be for the mother of God." When we tell his story, +shall we see only that share? + + + + +CHRISTENDOM vs. CHRISTIANITY. + + +IT is remarkable that what is called the practical sense +of Christendom virtually rejects the Christian ideals as impracticable. +Its highest ideal is obedience to the Divine will, and its instinct, +therefore, should represent the religious man as the perfection of +vigorous manhood. The more manly, the finer the bloom of health, the +sounder the body for the sound and purified mind, the truer and more +satisfactory the type, the more symmetrically revealed the Christian +man. This is the simple and natural ideal among living men of unthwarted +and normal Christian excellence. + +But so little is this the fact that the oldest traditions of Christian +art depict the founder of Christianity Himself not as a blooming man, +not as a figure of the inward and outward health that proceeds +inevitably from complete and absolute conformity to the Divine will, but +as a wan and wasted personality plainly worsted by the world. This +conception extends to the constant and organized control of the Church, +and the general feeling of Christendom regards the ministers of its +religion either as official personages or as excluded from actual +knowledge of life; not masters of the arena, but professionally unfit to +cope with the world. + +It may, indeed, be said that the traditions of Christian art show a +misapprehension of the essential character of the Christian faith. But +however that may be, it is certainly true that these traditions do not +misrepresent the general conception of Christianity which is professed +by those who practically reject its ideals. Here goes Solomon Gunnybags +to Christian worship on Sunday morning. He "abashiates" himself in his +pew, and his confession that he is a miserable sinner is so sonorous and +impressive that the hearer sighs sympathetically with Solomon's +consciousness of the enormous burden of wrong-doing that he carries. + +Now what is Solomon doing in his pew? He is solemnly professing +confidence in and reverence for certain principles of faith and conduct, +not only as lofty in themselves, but as absolutely essential to his +soul's salvation. Then, unless the whole universe is a farce, and +religion and the soul impostures, they are the most practical and +practicable of all possible principles, because otherwise the soul's +salvation could not be made by beneficent Omnipotence dependent upon +fidelity to them. But if some attendant spirit should say to Solomon +Gunnybags, as he walks home with the happy consciousness of duty done, +"Solomon, the golden rule and the Christian religion forbid you to +'unload' upon David the stock that you believe to be very shaky," he +would unquestionably feel, if he did not say: "Stuff! Every man for +himself. Of course Christianity is an excellent thing, but it doesn't +mean that." Gunnybags does not expressly repudiate Christian principle +as unpractical; he only believes it to be so. + +The fundamental doctrine of the Christian life is love. The Christian +millennium is peace. But it is Christendom that maintains the vast +standing armies; and when the International Peace Congress meets in +London and proposes disarmament, the good-natured reply of Christendom +is, "Well--yes--perhaps--some time," with a smile of amused incredulity, +as when a child seriously asks for the moon. Yet this is Christendom, +and the Christian principles are entirely familiar, and every Sunday and +saint's day in all the Christian churches we protest that the practice +of them is essential to our soul's salvation. Then we wipe our eyes, and +smile kindly upon any one who really insists that we should offer the +other cheek, and forgive seventy times seven. Oh no, we say; that is an +eccentric view. No man in this world--that is, in Christendom--can +afford to allow himself to be imposed upon. If we don't look out for +number one, who will take charge of that precious numeral? + +So it is that on some bright July day, looking in imagination upon the +respectable Universal Peace Congress in the Hôtel Métropole in London, +and hearing the Bishop of Durham offer a resolution for international +arbitration, and denouncing the folly, the waste, the woe and wickedness +and wrong of war, we hear also, not the immediate and instinctive assent +of Christendom, but its wistful prayer and half-despairing hope that +some time Christianity may be found to be practicable, and something +more than a pretty dream. Yet is there anything more certain than that +the Christendom which actually rejects the Christian ideals and +principles as impracticable, denounces most savagely those who +practically illustrate them, even if they theoretically reject them? + +The moral of this little sermon is altogether Christian, for it is +charity. Since Christendom is in practice so universally unchristian, +and holds its own fundamental principles in such practical contempt, +every member of that vast fraternity should be very modest in judging +others. Could there be a more radically unchristian figure in human +history than Torquemada? If Christianity be what it declares itself to +be, the least throb of sound Christian feeling in his bosom would have +held his hand. The Inquisition, the fierceness of sects, the religious +wars, offensive wars of any kind, are possible only among Christians who +hold Christianity to be impracticable. + +Yet when the Easy Chair saw a gentle lady going to morning prayers on a +happy saint's day, and heard through the open window the murmuring music +of the promise when two or three are gathered together, and marked +during all the day and in daily conduct the unselfishness, the sympathy, +the courtesy, the kindly care of old and young, the faithful doing of +duty, the nameless charm of lofty character, the Christian ideal was no +longer the mirage of an unreached and unattainable oasis in the desert; +it was already come down to earth; it was here, a little heaven below. + + + + +FRANCIS GEORGE SHAW. + +1882. + + +IN beginning his tender and charming paper upon +Washington Irving and Macaulay, Thackeray recalls the beautiful story of +which he was so fond, of Sir Walter Scott's last words to his son-in-law +Lockhart: "Be a good man, my dear; be a good man." It was a soft +autumnal day. The windows were wide open. The low sound of the rippling +Tweed stole into the chamber. The most renowned and the most widely +beloved of living men lay dying, after a career of admiration and +adulation, and of gratified ambition almost unexampled, and in the clear +and serene light of the moment that shows things as they are, the one +lesson and moral garnered by that marvellous life is spoken in the +simple words, "Be a good man, my dear." ... + +There are men whose simplicity and dignity and strength and purity of +character, whose sound judgment and supreme common-sense, dispose of +sophistry and artifice in all relations and pursuits, as surely and +completely as the sun dries the dew. They are gentlemen, because they +know other men only as men, touching electrically whatever of manhood +there may be in them, and whose contact is a silent and consuming rebuke +of pretence and falsehood. Whatever his own advantage or attraction or +position or grace, the man of this quality takes hold of the reality in +other men, man meeting man, as when the grave William of Orange, in his +plain serge coat, met the brilliant Philip Sidney in his gold-flowered +doublet, and neither was troubled by the clothes of the other. + +Such a man lately died. The mingled strength and simplicity and +sweetness of his nature, the lofty sense of justice, the tranquil and +complete devotion to duty, the large and humane sympathy, not lost in +vague philanthropic feeling, but mindful of every detail of relief--the +sound and steady judgment, the noble independence of thought and perfect +courage of conviction, the blended manliness and modesty of a life which +was unstained, and of a character which seemed without a flaw, all +belonged to what we call the ideal man. + +Passing from college to the counting-room of a great commercial +business, his sagacity, energy, and executive power were all brought +into successful action. He went to Europe and to the West Indies, but +much of the spirit of trade and many of its practices were uncongenial +to him, and he quietly withdrew, despite wonder and affectionate +remonstrance, to lead his own life in his own way. By taste and +temperament an out-door man, he made his home in the rural neighborhood +of Boston, busy with country cares and various studies, but interested +chiefly in helping other men. He was allied by sympathy more than by +much previous actual association with the founders of Brook Farm. But +when they chose the site for their enterprise not far from his house, +he was soon in the pleasantest relations with the leaders, for their +spirit and purpose were in harmony with his own. He was a parishioner +and warm personal friend of Theodore Parker, who lived near him, and his +keen common-sense and mastery of practical affairs were most useful to +Parker as to Ripley. Indeed, the hospitality of such a man for every +generous endeavor and for all new and humane ideas was a happy augury +for the philanthropic pioneers, because it seemed to promise the final +approval and adhesion to their cause of the most conservative and +substantial sentiment of the community. + +Such a man was, of course, an abolitionist in the days when the name was +as repugnant to what is called "society" as the name Christian was to +the Jewish Sanhedrim or Methodist to the English Establishment a century +and a half ago. He generously aided the cause, which seemed to him that +of practical Christianity and of American patriotism, and he held most +friendly relations with its chief representatives, who were ostracized +and denounced. But his sympathy was not an abstract regard for man +rather than for men, and his interest in the effort to help a race and +to forecast a happier social organization did not dull his heart or +close his hand to the necessities of his neighbor. His life, indeed, was +a prolonged charity, but a charity directed by a singularly calm and +shrewd judgment. His exhaustless generosity was not the sport of wayward +impulse. It was not a well-meaning weakness, but a wise force which +helped others to help themselves, but knew also when such self-help was +impossible. + +Yet the strength and reserve and independence of his character were such +that the man was never lost in the reformer. His fine nature +instinctively asserted his own individuality. He quietly shunned the +wearisome artificiality of society, but he did not merge his own home in +the general home of his friends and neighbors at Brook Farm, and his +house was always a glimpse of the social refinement and grace, the +mental and moral charm, to which the dreams of social regeneration and +the elaborate fancies of Fourier pointed--fancies which greatly +interested him as hints of a happier social order. + +Long absence with his family in Europe, and a long and final residence +upon Staten Island, only matured and developed the man, in whom not only +was there no guile, but in whom even the most intimate eye could not +note a fault. Clarendon might have studied from him his portrait of +Falkland: "his inimitable sweetness of, and delight in, conversation; +his flowing and obliging humanity; his goodness to mankind; and his +primitive simplicity and integrity of life." Disinclined to public life +of every kind, he was yet full of the highest public spirit, and it was +but natural that his only son should have been selected by Governor +Andrew to command the first colored regiment that marched from +Massachusetts in the war. In his young person all that was best in the +New England youth of his time, all the strength of the elder colonial +and Revolutionary day, blended with all the grace and tenderness and +gentleness of its modern life, the stern old Puritan softened into a +humaner Bayard, was typified. It was the flower of Essex that two +hundred years ago was withered in the fatal Indian ambush in the +Deerfield Meadows. It was the flower of New England that fell upon a +hundred redder fields within a score of years. + +But no sorrow could fatally chill a faith which was reflected in the +perpetual summer of the father's presence and temperament. The frank +urbanity of his greeting, the hearty grasp of his hand, the lofty +simplicity of his courtesy, were but the signs of that unwasting +freshness of sympathy which held him true to the ideals and aims of +earlier life. His helping hand reached invisibly into a hundred homes, +and upheld a hundred faltering lives. But, besides this, as president of +the Freedman's Aid Association his administrative skill and his wise +benevolence enabled him to bear a most effective part in the great +settlement of the war. His invincible modesty and scorn of ostentation +veiled his beneficent activities, public and private. But nothing could +veil the pure and steadfast and unwearying devotion to the well-being of +other men. Kindly but firmly he protected his own seclusion, and he +permitted no man, in Emerson's phrase, to devastate his day. The +freshness of feeling which keeps the heart young was unwasted to the +end. His full life brimming purely to the sea reflected heaven as +clearly when at last it mingled with the main as when it ran a limpid +rivulet from its spring. Young and old, man and boy, he was still the +simplest, noblest, most devoted, best. How truly he was the man that +every thoughtful man secretly wishes he might be, those only know who +knew Francis George Shaw. + + +THE END. + + +HARPER'S AMERICAN ESSAYISTS. + +16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.00 each. + +PICTURE AND TEXT. By HENRY JAMES. With Portrait and Illustrations. + +AMERICANISMS AND BRITICISMS, With Other Essays on Other Isms. By BRANDER +MATTHEWS. With Portrait. + +FROM THE BOOKS OF LAURENCE HUTTON. With Portrait. + +CONCERNING ALL OF US. By THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. With Portrait. + +FROM THE EASY CHAIR. By GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. With Portrait. + +OTHER ESSAYS FROM THE EASY CHAIR. By GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. With +Portrait. + +AS WE WERE SAYING. By CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. With Portrait and +Illustrations. + +CRITICISM AND FICTION. By WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS. With Portrait. + +PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. + +==> _The above works are for sale by all +booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers, postage prepaid, to any +part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price_. + +By GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. + +FROM THE EASY CHAIR. With Portrait. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.00. + +OTHER ESSAYS FROM THE EASY CHAIR. With Portrait. 16mo, Cloth, +Ornamental, $1.00. + +PRUE AND I. Illustrated Edition. 8vo, Illuminated Silk, $3.50. Also +12mo, Cloth, Gilt Tops, $1.50. + +LOTUS-EATING. A Summer Book. Illustrated by KENSETT. 12mo, Cloth, Gilt +Tops, $1.50. + +NILE NOTES OF A HOWADJI. 12mo, Cloth, Gilt Tops, $1.50. + +THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 12mo, Cloth, Gilt Tops, $1.50. + +THE POTIPHAR PAPERS. Illustrated by HOPPIN. 12mo, Cloth, Gilt Tops, +$1.50. + +TRUMPS. A Novel. Illustrated by HOPPIN. 12mo, Cloth, Gilt Tops, $2.00. + +JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. Illustrated. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, 50 cents. + +WENDELL PHILLIPS. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/35980-0.zip b/35980-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ba012d3 --- /dev/null +++ b/35980-0.zip diff --git a/35980-8.txt b/35980-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7b3e8cf --- /dev/null +++ b/35980-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4274 @@ +Project Gutenberg's From the Easy Chair, series 2, by George William Curtis + +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: From the Easy Chair, series 2 + +Author: George William Curtis + +Release Date: April 27, 2011 [EBook #35980] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM THE EASY CHAIR, SERIES 2 *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif, Broward County Libraries and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +[Illustration: frontispiece] + + + + +FROM THE +EASY CHAIR + +BY + +GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS + +SECOND SERIES + +[Illustration: colophon] + +NEW YORK + +HARPER AND BROTHERS + +MDCCCXCIV + +Copyright, 1893, by HARPER & BROTHERS. + +Copyright, 1894, by HARPER & BROTHERS. + +_All rights reserved._ + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + + THE NEW YEAR 1 + THE PUBLIC SCOLD 10 + NATIONAL NOMINATING CONVENTION 16 + BRYANT'S COUNTRY 23 + _The Game of Newport_ 31 + THE LECTURE LYCEUM 39 + TWEED 47 + COMMENCEMENT 60 + THE STREETS OF NEW YORK 69 + THE MORALITY OF DANCING 76 + THE HOG FAMILY 81 + THE ENLIGHTENED OBSERVER 88 + RALPH WALDO EMERSON 94 + HENRY WARD BEECHER 110 + THE GOLDEN AGE 119 + SPRING PICTURES 126 + PROPER AND IMPROPER 130 + BELINDA AND THE VULGAR 137 + DECAYED GENTILITY 142 + THE PHARISEE 149 + LADY MAVOURNEEN ON HER TRAVELS 155 + GENERAL SHERMAN 162 + THE AMERICAN GIRL 166 + ANNUS MIRABILIS 174 + STATUES IN CENTRAL PARK 186 + THE GRAND TOUR 193 + "EASY DOES IT, GUVNER" 203 + SISTE, VIATOR 208 + CHRISTENDOM _vs._ CHRISTIANITY 216 + FRANCIS GEORGE SHAW 222 + + + + +THE NEW YEAR. + + +IN Germany on _Sylvesterabend_--the eve of Saint Sylvester, the last +night of the year--you shall wake and hear a chorus of voices singing +hymns, like the English waits at Christmas or the Italian _pifferari_. +In the deep silence, and to one awakening, the music has a penetrating +and indefinable pathos, the pathos that Richter remarked in all music, +and which our own Parsons has hinted delicately-- + + "Strange was the music that over me stole, + For 'twas born of old sadness that lives in my + soul." + +There is something of the same feeling in the melody of college songs +heard at a little distance on awakening in the night before +Commencement. The songs are familiar, but they have an appealing +melancholy unknown before. Their dying cadences murmur like a muffled +peal heralding the visionary procession that is passing out of the +enchanted realm of youth forever. So the voices of Sylvester's Eve chant +the requiem of the year that is dead. So much more of life, of +opportunity, of achievement, passed; so much nearer age, decline, the +mystery of the end. The music swells in rich and lingering strains. It +is a moment of exaltation, of purification. The chords are dying; the +hymn is ending; it ends. The voices are stilled. It is the benediction +of Saint Sylvester: + + "She died and left to me ... + The memory of what has been, + And nevermore will be." + +But this is the midnight refrain--The King is dead! With the earliest +ray of daylight the exulting strain begins--Live the King! The bells are +ringing; the children are shouting; there are gifts and greetings, good +wishes and gladness. "Happy New Year! happy New Year!" It is the day of +hope and a fresh beginning. Old debts shall be forgiven; old feuds +forgotten; old friendships revived. To-day shall be better than +yesterday. The good vows shall be kept. A blessing shall be wrung from +the fleet angel Opportunity. There shall be more patience, more courage, +more faith; the dream shall become life; to-day shall wear the glamour +of to-morrow. Ring out the old, ring in the new! + +Charles Lamb says that no one ever regarded the first of January with +indifference; no one, that is to say, of the new style. But a +fellow-pilgrim of the old style, before Pope Gregory retrenched those +ten days in October, three hundred years ago, or the British Parliament +those eleven days in September, a hundred and thirty-five years ago, +took no thought of the first of January. It was a date of no +significance. To have mused and moralized upon that day more than upon +any other would have exposed him to the mischance against which Rufus +Choate asked his daughter to defend him at the opera: "Tell me, my dear, +when to applaud, lest unwittingly I dilate with the wrong emotion." The +Pope and the Parliament played havoc with the date of the proper annual +emotion. Moreover, if a man should happen to think of it, every day is a +new-year's day. If we propose a prospect or a retrospect we can stand +tiptoe on the top of every day, yes, and of every hour, in the year. +Good-morning is but a daily greeting of Happy New Year. + +But these smooth generalizations and truisms do not disturb the charm of +regularly recurring times and seasons. That the fifth of October, or any +day in any month, actually begins a new year, does not give to that date +the significance and the feeling of the first of January. Our +fellow-pilgrim of the old style must look out for himself. He may have +begun his year in March, and a blustering birth it was. But we are +children of the new style, and the first of January is our New Year. +That is our day of remembrance, our feast of hope, the first page of our +fresh calendar of good resolutions, the day of underscoring and emphasis +of the swift lapse of life. "A few more of them, and then--" whispers +the mentor, who is not deceived by the jolly compliments of the season, +and the sober significance of the whisper is plain enough. "Eheu! +Posthume," sang the old Roman. "This world and the next, and all's +over!" said airy Tom Lackwit to the afflicted widow. + +The relentless punctuality, the unwearied urgency, of old Time, who +turns his hour-glass with such a sonorous ring on New-Year's Day, seems +sometimes a little wanting in the best breeding. It furnishes so +unnecessary a register. The slow whitening and thinning of the hair; the +gradual incision of wrinkles; the queer antics of the sight, which holds +the newspaper at farther and farther removes, until at last it is forced +to succumb to glasses; the abated pace in walking; the dexterous +avoidance of stone walls in country rambles; the harmless frauds lurking +in the expressed reasons for frequent pauses in climbing a hill to turn +and see the landscape--frauds which the tears of my Uncle Toby's good +angel promptly wash away; the general and gradual adjustment to greater +repose--all these surely are adequate reminders and signs of the +sovereignty of Time. Why should he be greedy of more? Why thump and +rattle at the door, as it were, on the first of January, and bawl out to +the whole world that we are a year older, and that makes--! + +It is disagreeably unnecessary. Why should not the old fellow do his +duty quietly, and tell off another year without such an outrageous +uproar? Does he think it so pleasant to hear his increasing +tally--forty, five, fifty, five, sixty, five? Peace! peace! Why not have +it understood that the tally beyond--well, say fifty, is a gross +impertinence? Let something be left to the imagination. Besides, what is +the use of wigs and hair-dye and padding, and what not coloring and +enamelling, and other juvenescent procedures of the feminine arcana, if +annual proclamation of impertinent dates and facts is to be made? + +The worst of it is that it is a positive interference with the just play +of the fundamental truth that age is not justly measurable by the mere +lapse of time. Some people are never young, others defy age. This, +indeed, is due to temperament. But that is not all. Those gray hairs and +wrinkles, that eyesight of less keenness, that disinclination to leap +walls, and those fraudulent halts to survey the rearward landscape, are +enemies whose assaults are by no means regular. They come at very +different times to different people. Adolphus at sixty despises +spectacles. Triptolemus at thirty is bald. The hair of Horatius at +sixty-five is as affluent as Hyperion's, and as dark without unguents as +the raven's plume. Let facts speak to a candid world. Why should that +graybeard Paul Pry called Time blare through a speaking-trumpet that the +brave Valentine-- + + "As wild his thoughts and gay of wing + As Eden's garden bird"-- + +is just as old as old, toothless, tottering, decrepit Orson? + +Every well-regulated citizen of the world is interested, and more +vitally interested with every closing year, that upon the point of age +all men shall be left to their merits, and shall not be measured +arbitrarily by that Procrustean standard of years. It is notorious that +men grow wiser every year, and it is observable that the more years they +have, the more they look with doubt and questioning upon the Family +Record. Those leaves of births following the doubtful books of +Scripture, registered with such painful and needless particularity of +dates, partake of the doubtfulness of their neighborhood. They are mere +intercalations, new books of the Apocrypha. Yet they often cause young +fellows of seventy to be accused and convicted of being old men. + +Since, then, we cannot stop the flight of Time, let him pass. But he +must not calumniate as he passes. He must not be allowed to stigmatize +vigor and health and freshness of feeling and the young heart and the +agile foot as old merely because of a certain number of years. This is +the season of good resolutions. The new year begins in a snow-storm of +white vows. So be it. But let our whitest vow be, after that for a +whiter life, that age shall no longer be measured by this arbitrary +standard of years, and that those deceitful and practical octogenarians +of thirty shall not escape as young merely because they have not yet +shown the strength to carry threescore and ten with jocund elasticity. + +Then Happy New Year shall not mean Good-night, but Good-morrow. + + + + +THE PUBLIC SCOLD. + + +The Easy Chair was lately asked whether it thought the office of public +scold an agreeable one. There was a certain tartness in the question, as +if its real purpose was to learn from the Easy Chair whether _It_ +enjoyed that position, and upon looking further it appeared that the +question had been suggested by a remark of the Easy Chair's to the +effect that a certain class of our fellow-creatures seemed to be +disposed to do their duty in a manner that might be improved. But what +is an Easy Chair but a kind of _censor morum!_ Would the kind critic of +its conduct have it say to the gentleman whose hands are soiled that +they are as pure as the morning, and to the tactless dame who makes all +her neighbors uncomfortable that her manners are charming? + +Probably this is really what the critic meant, for he continued by +saying that it is so much better to dilate upon what is pleasant than to +discuss the unpleasant aspects of life. That is true. It was the +principle of the Vicar of Bray. That reverend gentleman always avoided +friction. He was a chip of the Polonius block. The cloud was a camel or +a whale, according to the fancy of his companion. The good vicar looked +askance at Rome under Henry and Edward, and told his beads piously under +Mary, and upon reflection eschewed the mass-house under Elizabeth. He +dilated upon the pleasant aspects of affairs. We can imagine him saying +to Ridley in the time of Mary, "My dear bishop, why think yourself wiser +than your time?" and a little later to Parker, Elizabeth's Archbishop +(Ridley having been burned in the meanwhile), "My dear archbishop, Rome, +I see, is much too stringent." The Vicar of Bray was not a scold. He +was, according to the abused text, all things to all men. + +Yet his profession, our censor must remember, was a scolding +profession--at least in the sense in which the word is often used. His +duty was to admonish and exhort, to adjure his flock to quit the error +of their ways. Perhaps he was a poor illustration of it. Perhaps, true +to his temperament rather than to his profession, instead of urging +repentance because the kingdom was at hand, he was accustomed to say: +"Brethren, I observe that you lie and steal and slander your neighbors a +good deal. But in such a world as this what is to be expected? We are +all poor, weak, fallible things. Which of us can hope to strike twelve +every time? Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. We +must all beware of hypocrisy, dear brethren, and of pretending to be +better than our neighbors. You remember the Pharisee who thanked God +that he was not as other men. Let him be a warning against the sin of +presumption. There is the beautiful lesson of the beam and the mote. We +must not forget it. We are all miserable sinners, and therefore we must +not twit each other with sinning. We ought to tell the truth, my +friends. But we don't. We all lie. Let us therefore not scold each +other, since we are all equally wicked. But let us avoid Phariseeism and +all that assumption of superior virtue which is implied in saying to a +foul-mouthed brother that he ought to speak cleanly. Beware of +Phariseeism as of the unpardonable sin. Scold not, dear brethren, but +talk of the things which are pleasant, and instead of rebuking the liar, +commend his goodness to the poor, and instead of silencing the +backbiter, praise his subscription to the soup kitchen. For what says +Dr. Watts? + + "'Let dogs delight to bark and bite.' + +Dogs naturally scold, but we, brethren, we have the gift of avoidance, +and, O liars, thieves, and slanderers, let us live together in peace, +and say nothing about falsehood, stealing, and calumny." + +This was probably the tenor of the sermons of the Vicar of Bray, and +this was the way that he strove to save souls. But Fénelon and John Knox +and Edwards and Whitefield and Wesley and Channing and St. Paul, each in +his own way, said, "Thou art the man," and rebuked both the sin and the +sinner. Yet all of them were very human and very fallible, and all came +very short of the ideal of duty. To point out a defect in a picture, or +to exhort the artist to avoid it, is not to declare yourself an +incomparable artist. To demand honesty in public affairs is not to +proclaim yourself a saint. To say that school-teachers should be +thorough and use their common-sense as well as a text-book is not to +scold them. Romilly was not a scold because he denounced the unjust +criminal laws, nor John Howard because he rebuked the inhumanity of +prisons, nor John the Baptist because he exhorted men to repent. + +The poets rebuke our lives by the fair ideals that they draw, but they +do not scold. If a man preaches a little sermon illustrating the way in +which men in a certain profession, let us say, shirk their duty, and +somebody cries out, "Don't scold so!" the preacher may safely exclaim, +"Fellow-sinner, thou art the man." But the best illustration is closer +at hand. If the Easy Chair reproves certain fellow-sinners for +remissness in doing their duty, and for that offence is a scold, what is +the censor who scolds the Easy Chair for scolding? Let us avoid +Phariseeism, brethren, and the assumption of superior virtue. + + + + +NATIONAL NOMINATING CONVENTION. + + +It was a wise newspaper that recently advised every American who could +do so to see a national nominating convention. It is a spectacle visible +in no other country, and the most exciting political spectacle in this. +It is the arena in which the prolonged and passionate strife of +countless ambitions, intrigues, interests, and conspiracies is decided; +and it is the more exciting because, with every effort to predetermine +the result, the result is still at the mercy of chance. The action of +the convention is a lottery. Suddenly, at the decisive moment, an +unexpected combination, an impulse, a whim, like an overwhelming tidal +wave, sweeps away all plans and calculations, and the result is as +complete as it is unanticipated. + +Even the device of a two-thirds vote to make a nomination valid does +not avail to secure the real preference of the party which the +convention represents. The two-thirds rule, as it is called, was +designed to baffle the fundamental democratic principle, which is the +rule of the majority. When that is abandoned, the proportion selected is +purely arbitrary. It may as well be nine tenths as two thirds. But even +such a dam will not resist the swelling waters of feeling in a +convention. The French say that it is the unexpected that happens, but +in a national convention it is the unforeseen which is anticipated. The +palpitating multitude, which has been stimulating its own excitement, +confronts every doubtful moment with an air which says plainly, "Now +it's coming." + +There is always a preliminary contest of various cities before the +national party committee to decide where the convention shall be held. +Local orators with honeyed persuasion dazzle the committee with +statistics of the superior convenience, accommodation, beauty, +healthfulness, resources, facilities, and whatever else their good +genius may suggest, of the city for which each one of them contends. The +convention is held in the largest hall, or in a building erected for the +purpose, like the Wigwam in Chicago in 1860. The convention itself is +composed of about nine hundred state delegates, their seats designated +by a flag with the name of the state placed by the seat of the chairman +of the delegation. The alternates are also seated. + +Every convention is full of distinguished leaders and members of the +party, and as any of them appears, either entering or rising to speak, +they are greeted with great applause. If the temporary chairman be an +eminent party chief or an eloquent popular orator, his address touches +the springs of emotion and arouses hearty enthusiasm. But the friends of +the leading candidates deprecate the mention of names until the +candidates are presented by the chosen orator. The reason is that the +applause of the convention is one of the counters in the game. There are +hired _claques_ in the conventions which keep up a humming cry which is +a substitute for applause, and which is sometimes continued for a +quarter of an hour. The longer the hum, the more popular the candidate. + +Forgetfulness or ignorance of the value of applause under such +circumstances reveals the comparative popularity of candidates in the +eager mass of delegates and spectators. In one convention the permanent +president in his address, but without any sinister purpose, or indeed +any other purpose than kindling the convention, mentioned successively, +and, of course, with impartial compliment, the name of every candidate +who was known to be on the list. Involuntarily he thus tested the +feeling of the convention. The galleries also swelled the acclaim, but +in the galleries the _claque_ is shrewdly distributed, and in critical +moments the approval or disapproval of the turbulent galleries +undoubtedly impresses the delegates, and recalls the galleries of the +French convention a hundred years ago. + +There are occasional skirmishes of debate upon motions or resolutions, +but the first great interest of the regular proceedings is the report +of the platform committee. It is a tradition of conventions that the +platform should be accepted as reported, both to gain the prestige of +perfect unanimity and to escape "tinkering," which may lead to endless +discussion and discordant feeling. But when the motion is made to +proceed to the nomination of candidates, the excitement is intense. The +orators are usually carefully selected, not alone as eloquent speakers, +but as men of weight and influence, and of what at the moment is more +indispensable than everything else--tact. The speeches are made with the +fundamental understanding that, however glowing and elaborate the praise +of the candidate may be, there shall be an explicit assurance that +whatever the merits of any candidate, the candidate who shall be +nominated by the convention will receive the universal and enthusiastic +support of the party. + +On one occasion, when this fundamental rule was forgotten by an ardent +orator, who, in the warmth of his devotion to his candidate, declared +that no other man was so certain to draw out the whole party vote in +the state for which he spoke, a hurricane of hisses from the convention +and the galleries silenced him, and the friends of his candidate were +instantly aware that a fatal injury had befallen him. In another +convention the orator who nominated one of the candidates was so +exasperated by what he felt to be the treachery to his candidate of a +conspicuous friend of another that his denunciation of the traitor was +held to be a covert assault upon the traitor's candidate, and again a +tempest of universal hissing overwhelmed the luckless orator and his +candidate. + +The announcement by states of the first formal vote for candidates is +made in impressive silence, followed by immense applause. But the second +ballot is more significant; and whenever upon any ballot the +announcement of a vote is seen by the tally to decide the nomination, +the feeling culminates in an indescribable tumult of frenzied +acclamation, and the convention generally adjourns to consider the +Vice-Presidency. But the interest in its work is at an end, and it is +astounding to see the happy-go-lucky Providence which presides over the +selection of the officer who has thrice become the President of the +United States. + +In the history of national conventions there is no more touching +incident than that of Mr. Seward awaiting at his home in Auburn the +result of the balloting at the convention of 1860, which nominated Mr. +Lincoln. By what is called the logic of the situation Mr. Seward's +nomination was assured, and no disappointment could have been greater +than the selection of another. How bitter it was was not suspected until +his life was recently published! But he encountered the shock with his +usual equanimity, and before the election he had made the most +extraordinary series of speeches for his party which the annals of any +campaign record. + +The journal's advice was sound. See a national convention if you can. + + + + +BRYANT'S COUNTRY. + + +The traveller in western Massachusetts, reaching some quiet village upon +the hills, which seems to him singularly lonely and remote, often finds +some little incident in its annals which connects it with the great +world. Coming to Goshen, a solitary little town wholly unknown to most +of our readers, he is conscious of the height, of the purity of the air, +and the peacefulness of the wooded landscape, and far below, towards the +east, he sees the undulating line of Holyoke, and on some fortunate day +may catch the gleam of the placid Connecticut winding through broad +meadows and between Tom and Holyoke to the Sound. + +The little town itself is a grassy street, with a meeting-house and a +hotel, which has a desolate air of mistaken enterprise declining into +disappointment, with long anticipation of a crowd of summer pilgrims, +who might well turn their steps hither, but who have never come. Beyond +the village street upon the same plateau is the great Goshen reservoir, +which lies hushed in grim repose over the town of Williamsburg, a few +miles below, the town which was overwhelmed some years ago by the +bursting of the Mill River dam. Such events are the tragedies of the +hills, which become traditions told in the village store, and investing +with dignity, as the years pass, the villagers who recall the direful +day. + +Among the traditions of Goshen is that of the passage of some of the +soldiers of Burgoyne on their march from Saratoga to Cambridge. When the +brilliant British general swept down Lake Champlain to the Hudson, +capturing Ticonderoga as he came, it was feared in these hills that he +would march triumphantly from Albany to Boston. There was a general +rally of all able-bodied men to the rescue; and as they marched away +from their fields ripe for the harvest the prospect was dismal, until +the able-bodied women marched into the fields and gathered and housed +the crops. The British invaders reached Goshen, indeed, on their march +from Albany to Boston, but only as prisoners of war. + +All this peaceful neighborhood was originally granted by the State to +the heirs of soldiers in the early New England wars. Goshen and its +neighbor Chesterfield, another city set upon a hill six or seven miles +to the south, were grants to the descendants of soldiers in the +Narragansett expedition of King Philip's war. From Goshen the +Chesterfield meeting-house can be seen against the southern horizon, and +the road lies through high pastures and lonely farms to the pleasant +town. When you climb its hill and look around, you see a cluster of +hospitable houses, around which the neatly kept grounds give an air of +refinement to the whole village, which is steeped in rural tranquillity. + +The broad hills slope westward towards the valley of the Westfield, and +beyond lie the shaggy sides of the Cummington range. Chesterfield has +its special tradition of Lafayette passing the night in its old tavern, +on his way from Albany to Boston, in 1824. It is a characteristic +representative of the hill towns, so still that the air seems drowsy as +in Rip Van Winkle's village. But such tranquil towns, in which a moving +figure is half spectral and almost a surprise, were the beginnings of +the nation. From these sequestered springs the mighty river flows. + +Chesterfield has not half the population that it counted seventy years +ago. The whole town now reports scarcely seven hundred persons. Yet, +with all the old spirit, it invited its neighbors in Hampshire County to +come and dine on one of the loveliest of summer days this year. It was +the annual festival of the Hill-side Agricultural Society, and fully a +thousand people filled the friendly town. The feast was spread upon +tables on a green space beside the old house in which Lafayette slept, +and under a bower of leafy white birch boughs. The magnates of the +county were all present, and it was whispered privately that there were +private whisperings among eminent politicians, who, however, with the +non-political, or the political of the wrong side, talked cheerfully of +the charming day and the promising crops. Politics is the breath of our +patriotic nostrils, and it was a stimulating thought that while we were +listening to the humorous but well-merited praises of Strawberry Hill +pork, some of our bland companions were saving their bacon in other +ways; and while we dreamed of crisp sausages and savory ham, were +contriving Senators and Councillors, and even a Governor himself. + +The simple courtesy and universal intelligence were of the old New +England, nor less so the composure and ease with which speaker after +speaker mounted the bench on which he sat, and in what he said, and the +way in which he said it, showed that he was a graduate of the town +meeting. The pastor of Goshen, asked to speak of some of the more noted +citizens of the neighboring towns, might well have occupied with so +fruitful a text all the hours until sunset. But with exemplary +discretion he mentioned but a few, and among them some that surprised a +New-Yorker, who had not known, but might have guessed, that Gideon Lee, +former Mayor of the city, and Luther Bradish, Lieutenant-Governor of the +State, came from the little town upon the Cummington hills opposite, +where Bryant studied law. + +The whole region before us, indeed, was especially Bryant's. Upon the +slope yonder he was born, and we could see the house in which as a boy +he lived. "Thanatopsis" was the hymn of his meditations among those +solitary woods. There, upon the nearer hill, high over Plainfield, where +he wrote the poem the "Water-fowl," forever floating in the twilight +heavens-- + + "Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue + Thy solitary way." + +We were looking upon the cradle of American literature. Here its first +enduring poem was written. The poet himself never escaped the spell of +the hills. The child was father of the man. Bryant in the city was +always the grave and unchanged genius of New England. The city did not +wear off the rusticity of his manner. His air was reserved and remote, +and he was still wrapped in the seclusion of the hills. It is in such +scenes and among such people on such a day that the power of these hills +and their influence upon our national life and literature are perceived. + +These hidden springs have overflowed the prairies of the West; and how +much of the wealth and prosperity, the energy, industry, and +enlightenment of New York have trickled down from them, you may hear, if +you doubt, every year on Forefathers' Day at the New England dinner in +New Amsterdam. As there is altogether too much glory to be adequately +celebrated in one day, another has been added, to accommodate the Yankee +city of Brooklyn, and it is not the fault of the sons of New England if +on those two days the whole continent does not hear the melodious +thunder of their eloquence proclaiming that New England always led, is +leading still, and will lead forever, the triumphal procession of +American progress. + +Supported by such a history it is a natural boast. There is, however, +one inexorable condition. To do what New England has done, New England +must be what she has been. + + + + +THE GAME OF NEWPORT. + + +There is nothing more delightful than the gravity with which the game of +Newport is played. To assist at one of the solemn "functions" like a +coach parade is not unlike attendance upon a function of the ancient +Church in Rome. On a true Newport afternoon, as soft and sweet and +luminous an air as can be breathed, Newport, in every kind of stately +and comfortable and light and graceful carriage, with the finest horses +and the most loftily disdainful of coachmen, proceeds down the avenue to +behold the stately procession along the ocean drive. + +Of its kind there is no more beautiful drive in the world. The shore +winds among rocks which are massed, a shrewd-eyed traveller said, as on +the shores of Greece. The bold character of the coast of Rhode Island +and its picturesque effects are wholly unknown upon its neighbor Long +Island. The endless reach of sand and the monotony of the vast level +land on Long Island have a certain vague charm as of a sea-shore +becoming or about to become picturesque. But that point is fully reached +by its northern neighbors of the New England coast, and the ocean drive +in Newport is in itself incomparable. + +For its company on the day of a great social function it is quite as +incomparable. Hyde Park, the Bois, the Cascine, the Prater, show no such +sumptuous display. If the street boy were a philosopher, he would say, +probably, as he watched the spectacle, "My eyes! money plays here for +all it is worth." The American street boy of every degree is not +supposed to need any stronger impression of the value of money than he +already possesses. But Newport is the great school for that instruction, +and it is open free to the whole world. Money elsewhere has the same +instincts and desires. But in a city, in winter, its sports and effects, +however splendid, are divided and hidden. In summer Newport they are +concentrated under most fortunate conditions and proceed in the open +air. + +It is all the more striking because money has built its summer city +close by and just above one of the oldest and most historic of our +cities. It has improvised its magnificence and mad profusion upon the +outskirts of simplicity and moderation are observant, for all their +plainness. When they were asked what effect the new town produced upon +the old, whether the rollicking city on the hill harmed or helped the +plodding seaport, they answered: "Until Croesus and Midas came, it was +beneficial. But they have ruined Newport." + +Perhaps not, however. The Newport on the hill of to-day is the +legitimate offspring of the earlier summer retreat. That was a group of +the select who came to Newport to enjoy themselves for the summer. They +were well-to-do, some of them. But not many dwelt in cottages. The +multitude lived in hotels. They danced, they dined, they drove, they +sauntered. It was the green tree. It was less money enjoying itself as +more money enjoys itself now. The gossip, the flirting, the display were +not of another kind, they were the same as to-day, but the scale was +more limited. Mrs. Candour, Mrs. Malaprop, Sir Benjamin Backbite, and +the brothers Surface were already there. The standards of conduct, the +ideals of honor, were not essentially different. + +A generation ago Sir Benjamin bowed and danced and supped at Mrs. +Malaprop's ball with all the gay world of that time, which is now in +wigs, caps, turbans, or heaven; and the next day, dining with Mrs. +Candour, Sir Benjamin told, with infinite relish and to the great +amusement of the table, the story of his hostess's verbal trips and +stumbles. It did not seem to be conduct essentially base, because this +sparkling summer realm by the sea is like Charles Lamb's conception of +the artificial comedy of the eighteenth century: "I confess, for myself, +that, with no great delinquencies to answer for, I am glad for a season +to take an airing beyond the diocese of the strict conscience--not to +live always in the precincts of the law courts--but now and then, for a +dream-while or so, to imagine a world with no meddling restrictions, to +get into recesses whither the hunter cannot follow me-- + + "'secret shades + Of wooded Ida's inmost grove, + While yet there was no fear of Jove.'" + +To take permanent lodgings beyond the diocese of the strict conscience, +however, is a critical enterprise. If you take a house in Capua, you +must needs breathe the Capuan air. The magnetic rock in Sindbad's story +drew out the nails of the ships that ventured too near. Old Mithridates +fed on poisons until they "became a kind of nutriment," as Dr. +Rappaccini fed his daughter, until, too late, he discovered that she was +doomed. The graybeards who drive out to see the coach parade, and recall +the days, before the ocean drive, when the rocks beyond Lily Pond were a +glimmering land of Beulah, may prattle of the golden age of Newport as +of a happy past in which the graybeards were born. But will they +seriously contend that the age of Croesus and Midas is not the golden +age of Newport? + +While they are gossiping, the coaches approach. They have been through +the town, and are driving out by the Fort road; and as they appear, the +vast throng of carriages which have driven out to meet them pull to the +side of the road to allow a free course. A multitude of spectators +awaiting a festal procession, which at last is coming, naturally +suggests applause. But there is profound silence. There is no cheer for +every spectator to catch up and pass on. The first coach is at hand, and +gravely passes at a deliberate pace, and the great world in carriages +gravely looks on. The second coach deliberately follows, and is surveyed +with equal gravity. The next perhaps will strike a spark of applause. +But the next passes deliberately amid a silence profound. One friend, +perhaps, in the stately procession gravely nods to another gravely +gazing from a carriage. The "function" proceeds. Far out at sea the +white sails flash, and the summer surf breaks gently along the shore. +Every coach rolls slowly by. The moment for cheering has not yet +arrived. Indeed, it does not arrive before the pageant has passed, and +the reviewing carriages are turning and following on in its wake. It is +truly a solemn function. Graybeard recalls nothing like it for multitude +and display in the old drives on "beach days" along the beach in what he +calls the golden age. But does he doubt that old Newport would have done +it gladly if it could have done it? + +If the ghost of Heliogabalus haunts the villa'd shore, it is with no +hope of resuming the imperial crown. His court merely makes a pretty +summer spectacle when the opera ends. The coach and the stately equipage +and the flashing splendor of busy idleness are the pageant which is +kindly displayed gratis for the passengers in the omnibus, for the +pedestrians and the nurses. They sit and stroll and stare at their ease +while the gay play proceeds before their eyes. Nowhere more constantly +than in the summer Newport does the remark of the little child watching +the march of the soldiers recur--"Mamma, how good they are to make such +a show!" + + + + +THE LECTURE LYCEUM. + + +The Utica _Herald_ in a pleasant article recently recalled the lecture +lyceum of a quarter of a century ago. It was then what is called a +power. It greatly influenced public opinion. Its spirit was indicated by +the reply of Wendell Phillips to an invitation which asked him his terms +and his subject. He answered that for a literary lecture he should +expect a hundred dollars, but he would deliver an antislavery address +for nothing, and pay his own expenses. The lecturers who were most +sought at that time were almost without exception men of very strong +convictions upon the great question which, however evaded and +dexterously hidden, was the vital thought of the country; and every +successive week from November to April, in the largest cities and the +smallest cities, along the belt of country from the Kennebec through +New England and New York westward through Ohio and the Northwest to the +Mississippi, before thousands of the most intelligent American citizens, +this band of lecturers advanced, like a well-ordered platoon of +sharp-shooters, and delivered their destructive volley at what they felt +to be the common enemy. + +Edward Everett, "the monarch of the platform," as Mr. Edward Parker +called him in his book upon American contemporary orators, during part +of this same time was making a tour through much of the same region with +his oration upon Washington, for the benefit of the fund for the +purchase of Mount Vernon, and he was also writing the Mount Vernon +papers for the _Ledger_, in one of which he gave an entertaining +description of a night in a sleeping-car, when those itinerant +bedchambers had but recently taken to the road. Mr. Everett's +conservative temperament made his oration a kind of corrective of the +influence of the great tendency of the lyceum lecture. But patriotic as +his purpose undoubtedly was, his effort to stem the rapidly rising tide +of public sentiment was like the protests of Governor Hutchinson and the +Colonial conservatives against the fervid revolutionary appeals of Otis +and Adams and Quincy. Other popular speakers of the same sympathy as +that of Mr. Everett found themselves out of tune with the lyceum +audience, and were but meteors flashing across the stage, whose light +was lost in the steady and increasing glow of the group of men who were +identified with the great day of the lyceum lecture. These men were not +all like Wendell Phillips, open leaders of a specific agitation, nor +were these lectures always ostensibly upon what are called public +questions. But the influence of the lecturers was unmistakable. They +were all men known to be in the strongest sympathy with the most +advanced feeling of the agitation. It was the plain spirit and tone and +drift of those lectures, an occasional allusion and the necessary +application of the remarks, however general, to the actual situation, +rather than any deliberate discussion of the question itself, which +characterized the lyceum of that day. There was sometimes an attempted +reaction against this tendency. In Philadelphia it was discovered that +colored persons were not admitted to the Musical Fund Hall, in which the +lectures had been given. The leading lecturers instantly informed the +committee that they declined to speak in the hall so long as the +restriction continued. In Albany the reactionary sentiment in the Young +Men's Association succeeded in electing a lecture committee which was +resolved upon a purely "literary" course, and which would not invite the +usual lecturers. The result was an independent course, under the +auspices of dissatisfied members of the association, in which the +rejected lecturers spoke in the largest hall in the city, and the signal +triumph of the seceders lay in the immense audience which assembled in +contrast to the attenuated attendance upon the regular course. + +The singular success of the lyceum lecture of that time was due, +undoubtedly, to two causes--the simultaneous appearance of a remarkable +group of orators, and their profound sympathy with the question which +absorbed the public mind. The weekly lecture was not merely a display of +oratory, not only an amusing recreation, but it brought wit and +accomplishment and eloquence to strengthen the public feeling and arouse +the public conscience, and to confirm the earnest spirit which was +universal, and which forecast the great events and the noble elevation +of the public mind that followed. Emerson, Wendell Phillips, Gough, +Beecher, Chapin, Starr King, Theodore Parker, could of themselves carry +any course of lectures, and each in his own way was thoroughly in accord +with the truest American life of that time. The situation and the +condition of the public mind would not have availed, indeed, without the +happy chance of such orators to create the lyceum, but with that chance +the lyceum of that day was as remarkable a continuous display of various +and effective eloquence as has been ever known. + +If the faithful diary of any lecturer who went the grand rounds +twenty-five years ago, from Maine to the Mississippi, could be +published, it would be full of the most amusing stories. The lecturers +all had them to tell, and they were all men of a singularly fine +perception of humor. James T. Fields, the publisher in Boston, was the +friend of all the lyceum orators, and towards the close of his life he +was himself a popular and attractive lecturer upon literary subjects. +His little cell or private office in the old corner book-store in Boston +was an exchange of lecturers for that neighborhood, which teemed with +lyceums, and no similar space has ever heard fresher stories better +told, or has ever echoed with gayer laughter. + +It was the pleasant company in that little retreat which first heard, +the day after it occurred, the tale of the belated lecturer who, +hurrying from the cars in a carriage to the hall in Boston, long beyond +the hour, dinnerless, and with no chance to dress, opened his +travelling-bag, and proceeded, to the consternation of the lady who had +taken a seat in the same carriage, and whose pardon he politely and +briefly invoked, to change his collar and his coat. As he began to pull +off his coat, having pulled off his collar, his amazed and terrified +fellow-passenger began to pull at the door, and to call loudly upon the +driver, who was furiously whipping his horses into a pace that increased +both the noise of the carriage and the conviction of the terrified lady +that she was the victim of some dreadful conspiracy, or the hapless +victim of a maniac. The maniac's earnest but interjectional explanation +as he proceeded in his toilet, begging his companion to be pacified, as +he was merely going to lecture, was an unintelligible asseveration, +which only made his madness more indisputable and awful, and what might +have befallen the poor lady, if the carriage had not suddenly stopped at +the hall, and the lecturer, in his clean collar and black coat, had not +begged her pardon for frightening her, with a fervor that frightened her +all the more, and disappeared from the vehicle with his travelling-bag, +shawl, and umbrella, he was not prepared to say. But the tale, as he +told it the next morning with infinite humor in Fields's corner, was +received, as he ruefully admitted, with louder shouts of laughter than +had greeted the brightest witticisms of his lecture. + +Fields is gone, and his old friend and neighbor Whipple, who was one of +the earliest of the noted lyceum lecturers. The old corner in the old +corner book-store is gone, and with it have vanished many of the happy +company that gathered there, not only of orators, but of famous authors. +The lyceum of the last generation is gone, but it is not surprising that +those who recall with the Utica _Herald_ its golden prime should cherish +a kindly and regretful feeling for an institution which was so +peculiarly American, and which served so well the true American spirit +and American life. + + + + +TWEED. + + +There are many persons who wonder why Tweed did not evade justice by +forfeiting his bail. He had every chance to escape, they say; why did he +stay? His chief confederates are safe in Europe, where he might easily +have been, yet he was foolish enough to take the risk of a trial, and he +is imprisoned, probably for the rest of his life. The explanation, +however, is very obvious. He did not believe there was any risk. Tweed +was the most striking illustration of a very common faith--belief in the +Almighty Dollar. He is the victim of a most touching fidelity to the +great principle which every good American will surely be the last to +flout. His creed was very simple: it was that money would buy +everything, and he reposed upon his belief with the sweet security of +the Mussulman who sees by faith a heaven of houris. Certainly his +confidence was not surprising. He had proved his creed. He had seen +money work miracles. He had seen himself, a man of no cleverness and of +no advantages, rising swiftly by means of it from insignificant poverty +to the control of a great party. It had made him master of one of the +great cities of the world. It had secured for him Governors, +Legislatures, councils, and legal and executive authorities of every +kind. He invested in land and judges. He bought dogs and lawyers. He +silenced the press with a golden muzzle, and money made his will law. + +Here was a man who wanted nothing that money could not buy: was it +strange that he had unbounded faith in it? Every form of virtue was to +him mere affectation, a more or less ingenious and tenacious "strike" +for money. If a man spoke of honesty, patriotism, self-respect, the +public welfare, public opinion, truth, justice, right, Tweed smiled at +the fine phrases in which the auctioneer, anxious to sell himself, +cried, "Going! going!" Argument, reason, decency--they were meaningless +to him. If an opponent held out, he simply asked, "How much?" The world +was a market. Life was a bargain. He felt himself with pride to be the +largest operator in his way, as Vanderbilt in his, or Stewart in his. + +In Albany he had the finest quarters at the Delavan, and when he came +into the great dining-room at dinner-time, and looked at all the tables +thronged with members of the Legislature and the lobby, he had a +benignant, paternal expression, as of a patriarch pleased to see his +retainers happy. It was a magnificent rendering of Fagin and his pupils. +You could imagine him trotting up and down in the character of an +unsuspicious old gentleman with his handkerchief hanging out of his +pocket, that his scholars might show their skill in prigging a wipe. He +knew which of that cheerful company was the Artful Dodger and which +Charley Bates. And he never doubted that he could buy every man in the +room if he were willing to pay the price. So at the Capitol, where sits +the Legislature of a noble commonwealth of four millions of souls, he +moved about with an air of fat good-nature, like the chief shepherd of +the flock. If he stood at the door of the Assembly looking in, it is +easy to fancy him saying to himself, The State pays these men two or +three hundred dollars for four months' service; I will give them better +wages. He did not doubt that it was a fair transaction. What is the +State? It is only four millions of people, he thought, who are all +trying to be rich--struggling, cheating, by hook or by crook, every man +for himself, and the devil take the hindmost, to be rich. These men +would be fools not to take my money. And he smiled his fat smile, and +paid liberally for all that was in market. + +There were some papers, whose price he could not ascertain, which +persisted in speaking ill of him and his pals. If the fools did not know +their own interest enough to be content with a good price--say, of +corporation advertising--they must be silenced. The conceit of virtue +must not be pushed too far. So one day his Legislature passed a bill +virtually giving his judges power to imprison editors at their +pleasure. But virtue--that is, in the Tweed theory of life, obstinacy in +holding out for a higher price--mustered such a really respectable +protest that the public project of coercion failed, and private methods +were tried. Tweed had no doubt that reputation could be bought as well +as power. Peter Cooper builds an institute for the education of the +poor, does he? You mean, said Tweed, a monument to his own glory. He +pays a certain number of thousands of dollars for the reputation of +philanthropy. And Mr. Stewart builds a working-woman's palace. Ah! And +Mr. Astor founds a library. Indeed! And they are benevolent gentlemen +and benefactors of their kind? Not at all. They merely invest money in a +certain kind of fame. That pleases their taste, as fast horses and +yachts and pictures please the taste of other people. I will show you +how 'tis done, says the faithful believer in the Dollar. And he gives +fifty thousand dollars to the poor just as winter is beginning. "Let the +cavillers say what they will," exclaim a myriad voices, "that shows a +good heart." Tweed, as it were, tips a wink. I told you how it was +done, he seems to say: what is there that money will not buy? + +Is it surprising that such a man did not try to evade justice? Justice +in his view was a commodity like legislative honor, like newspaper +independence, like the reputation of benevolence. The reform movement +was to him a sudden and confusing flurry, in which strikers, to whose +terms he would not yield, had somehow gained a momentary advantage. He +had perhaps made a mistake in not buying them at their own price. +Success had possibly put him off his guard. He was sure that if an +indictment were found, that would be the end of it, and he had no +feeling of shame. His friend Fisk had shown what lawyers were made of, +and he himself would buy lawyers and judges, sheriffs and juries. He +knew that the one thing that in a needy and greedy world cannot fail is +money. He came to his first trial, and the jury disagreed: naturally, +for he had bought some of them. The evidence is, of course, moral only, +but it is conclusive. If justice, facetiously so called, wanted another +bout, he would "come up smiling." There was no trick or quibble that +lawyers could devise for which he had not made munificent preparation, +even to asserting that the judge who obstinately refused to name a price +was disqualified from sitting at the trial. Money had never failed +before; it certainly would not at this last pinch. + +But it did, and the bewilderment and consternation of this simple +devotee were pitiful. He had but one article in his faith, and that was +now destroyed. He had staked everything upon the certainty of the +Almighty Dollar, and he had lost. But there was something not less +noticeable than his unquestioning faith. It was that his faith was so +generally held. For what gave the universal and intense interest to the +Tweed trial? Here was a common thief, except in the amount of his theft, +of whose guilt nobody had any doubt, against whom, as the judge said, +the evidence was a mathematical demonstration, and his conviction was +hailed as a kind of national deliverance and vindication of human +justice. There was but one reason for this, and it was the feeling that +money would free him. Of course it was known that the judge could not be +bought, nor the Attorney-General, nor the prosecution. Tweed might as +well have offered to buy the moral law. But public knowledge ended +there. And in the degree of the universality of the belief that somehow, +by actual bribery, or by legal quirk or shift or sham, money would buy +him off, is the value of the lesson of his conviction, which is that the +utmost power of money fails before firm, sagacious, and intelligent +honesty. There is not a saloon in New York in which the Tweed contempt +of honorable motives is the sole faith which has not had an astounding +revelation, and learned that money is not omnipotent. + +Those saloons have learned one other thing--that stealing is the same +crime, whether it be the theft of public or of private property. The +Robin Hood jollity that surrounded Tweed, his familiar name, the "Boss," +the laughing stories that were told of him, showed that he was held in +very different estimation from an ordinary thief. The baser newspapers +evidently regarded him as the French nobleman regarded himself who was +firmly convinced that the Almighty would think twice before condemning +such a gentleman as he. So when Tweed went to the Tombs the same feeling +attended him. The officers could not believe that it was really meant so +rich a man, who had lived in so fine a house, and had spent money so +profusely, should be treated as a common offender. The wretch who steals +a loaf to feed his starving children must have short shrift, and Black +Maria despatches him at the earliest moment. But a "statesman" who +steals millions of dollars from the people--really the law must think +twice before handling him impolitely! A day or two after he had been +taken to jail, on his way to the penitentiary, the papers said, as if he +had been a beloved prisoner of state whom cruel governments might +torture, but whom the people would still honor: "A great many +improvements have been made in his cell by his friends, and it has now +quite a cosey, comfortable appearance. The floor is covered with a +carpet of a dark green ground. The walls are hung with dark green cloth, +and the panes in the windows, opening on Centre Street, which were +cracked and broken a few days ago, have been newly glazed. In the centre +of the room is a large round table, at which the 'Boss' takes his three +regular meals, served up in the best manner from the prison restaurant. +There is a luxurious leather-covered lounge in one corner, and five +chairs, including a large, comfortable rocking-chair. Besides these few +articles of furniture are a wash-stand and a book-case. The prisoner is +plentifully supplied with reading matter; and as for creature comforts, +the solicitude of his friends and relatives leaves nothing to be desired +except liberty. Crowds of people have called to see him for the past two +days, but none were admitted without passes from the Commissioners." + +This feeling was akin to that which inspires the proverb and the +practice that "all's fair at the Custom-house." When Robin Hood stepped +politely to the door of my Lord Bishop's carriage and requested him to +alight under the greenwood tree, and proceeded to rifle the carriage of +all the treasure that his lordship was conveying, he was not felt to be +a common thief. Far from it; he was the people's tax-gatherer in green. +He scattered with a free hand among the poor the money which the rich +man could lose without feeling it. Nobody suffered. My Lord Bishop was +admonished that he had the poor always with him, and the poor rejoiced +in his involuntary largess. So "the boys" thought of Tweed. While the +"Boss" was king there was always money about, as they said; and when did +Robin Hood himself ever bestow fifty thousand dollars in a lump upon the +poor? Besides, who could say that he was robbed? The rich could not feel +it; and was any poor orphan defrauded by him, any poor widow pinched, +any honest laborer burdened? + +Yes, they were. It was public money that he stole. And what is public +money? It is the taxes. And who pay the taxes--the rich? No, the poor, +the producers. They come out of the rent of the tenement-house; out of +the price of tea and sugar and coal; out of the pittance of the widow +and orphan, and the small wages of the laborer. It was from the poor who +cowered gratefully over the coal that he gave them that he stole the +coal. His confederate, Sweeny, planted hyacinths in the city parks, and +for every flower some poor soul was pinched. Gay Robin Hood strips the +baron, and the poor bless him as he flings them the gold. Then the baron +goes home to his castle and wrings teeth out of the jaws of Isaac of +York, to force him to give money. Then Isaac of York advances at a more +ruinous rate than yesterday the interest upon the money he lends. So +when Tweed steals from the public treasury he picks every private +pocket. Every stroke of his hammer, if he hammers stone with other +thieves, refreshes in the public mind these familiar truths. It is +humiliating that the conviction of an evident offender in a court of law +should be a cause of public congratulation. But, on the other hand, it +is cheering that shameless crime intrenched in every way, and defying +the course of law, should by that course be quietly convicted and surely +punished. + + + + +COMMENCEMENT. + + +It is a changed college world since Nat. Willis's Philip Slingsby was +the hero of many a maiden's dream, and the stories of Willis reflected +the modest gayety of the society of his time. Nahant was then a summer +resort of importance, and had not become, as one of its denizens said in +later years, only "cold Boston." Willis's heroes, like Byron's, were +largely himself, and it was but a thin veil that covered in them persons +familiar in the society that he knew, and incidents drawn from his own +experience. + +He was the college hero of his time. But his Scripture poems, which had +great vogue and were printed in all the "classbooks" and "readers," and +his "Burial of Arnold," a young and brilliant Senior at Yale, and his +bright and blithe "Saturday Afternoon," are quite passed out of current +knowledge. They are not the kind of verse which is produced in college +now. Their Byronic sentimentality is not to the taste of the college +club and Greek Letter Society man of to-day; and Charles Coldstream, who +looks on listlessly at the college athletic games, leaves enthusiasm to +"the Fresh," and has "really never read those things of Willis's." + +Yet the dominant emotions of Commencement this year were very much what +they were when Philip Slingsby dared the waltz, and even the more +emancipated belles shuddered a little as they slid into the charmed +circle. Youth and hope and the passion which "is not all a dream" are +forever renewed, and if the fashion changes, the substance remains. In +the crowded church at Commencement this year, with the gay dresses and +the flowers and the music and the soft summer air breathing in at the +open doors and windows, there are still palpitating bosoms, and a color +that comes and goes, and glances that meet and mingle--"read the +language of those wandering eye-beams--the heart knoweth." + +It was "Nat. Willis" yesterday, in a high-collared coat and an ample +cravat such as Brummel wore, and even D'Orsay. It is a quaint and a +droll costume, as you see it in those old _Fraser_ pictures of English +authors "'tis sixty years since." But in that guise it is you, sir, of +to-day, and if your oration is spoken to one auditor, in all that lovely +throng in the gallery, whose heart answers "pity Zekle" to your pitapat, +do you think that the divine Una's grandmother was never young, and that +the droll high-collared coats did not cover hearts as sensitive and +hopes as high as the faultless summer attire of Nameless, Jun., class of +'90? The actors change, but the spectacle is the same. Even the members +of the reverend and venerable the corporation, those bald and +white-haired worthies who seem vaguely always to have been sitting +unchanged in the front pews, like those austere senators of Rome of whom +the tradition tells us that they sat motionless although the invader +came--even they are living monuments, and on their hearts, as on +tablets, the story of the wandering eye-beams is engraved. + +There is not one of the young heroes of the Commencement hour whom those +elders do not scan with knowledge. These wise young judges carry no +secrets which the elders do not share. Is it a strange world that of +Willis and his Philip Slingsby? It is the world of the moment and of +this Commencement. + +But there is something else in Commencement besides this romance of +feeling and tradition. It is the celebration of the intellectual life. +The eloquence, indeed, is sometimes rather copious. An oration in the +morning before one literary society; in the afternoon before another; +and a sermon in the evening before the Missionary Association, is good +measure heaped up and running over. There is some jealousy also even in +academic groves. In the older day, if the Melpomene had its oration in +the morning and the Euterpe in the afternoon, and you read on the +following Sunday, scrawled on the blank page of the hymn-book in the +pew, "Words, words, words, oration of Cicero," and "Genius, eloquence, +common-sense, oration of Demosthenes," you knew that you read the +comment upon the rival orator of a Melpomenean or a Euterpean, as the +case might be. But if the orator was not always wise or eloquent, there +were also discourses which have profoundly influenced the lives of those +who heard or read them, giving a direction and inspiring a fidelity +which, like Wordsworth's thoughts of his past years, breed perpetual +benediction. + +It is a recollection blended of many feelings, that which the recurring +Commencement brings to the alumnus. But the deep and permanent charm is +the consciousness of the infinite worth and consolation of letters. +Theoretically the college course was a series of years devoted to making +acquaintance with the treasures of human genius. Possibly there was in +fact some divergence from the theory. But that was the opportunity. The +gates were set ajar, and if the neophyte did not choose to enter, he +lost--as the teacher said to his pupil who went fishing rather than to +hear Webster's eulogy on Adams and Jefferson--he lost what he can never +regain. + +Is there some fatality which makes the pen that treats of Commencement +hortatory and didactic? Is there some secret charm which still allies +the college to the pulpit, so that to talk about it is presently to +begin to preach? The Easy Chair asks because it feels that it is about +to take the sacerdotal tone, and remind the youth who is leaving or +entering college that, like every other epoch in life, college is an +opportunity. It is what you make it. Fate, as the older times would have +said--life, as we prefer to say--gives us a chance. But the improvement +of it we give ourselves. The tragedy of the refrain, "Too late, too +late; ye cannot enter now," is that of the man who, in our simple +phrase, wasted his college years. The tender spell of Whittier's "Maud +Muller" lies in its saddest words of tongue or pen. But the memory of +what might have been is so profoundly pathetic because it might not have +been, and we were the arbiters of fate and did not choose to turn +upward. + +Kind sir of the college, who lend to the preacher of the moment your +listening ear, the preacher himself may be a wearisome chaplain, but you +are the young judge of the summer afternoon, smelling the meadows sweet +with hay, and stopping at the cool spring where Maud Muller hands you +the refreshing draught. Do you follow the allegory, and see in that maid +what really she is? To you she is a maiden who rakes the hay; to Numa +she was Egeria by the other fountain. It is a sweet illusion, for the +maid is not Egeria nor Maud Muller, but under those gentle forms she is +the nymph of opportunity. Woo her and win her, and all the happiness +that might have been will be yours. + +There is nothing more touching than the inability of the chooser to +comprehend the choice. Why did not the judge yield to the soft +persuasion of that simple loveliness? Why did he not embrace the +opportunity, and fold his happiness to his heart? Well, sir, that is +always the question. But if he did not know that in that fair figure +opportunity stood before him, you do know it. Don't be satisfied to hum +"in court an old love tune." You remember the legend of the Sibyl's +books. Was it interpreted to you in the class-room? Do you interpret it +to yourself? + +The most inspiring tradition in every college is not that of the boat or +the ball, of copious gold and flowing wine, of Milo or Sardanapalus or +Midas; it is not that of the "dig" or the "prig," of Dryasdust or +Casaubon; but it is that of the youth, by whatever name he was called in +your college, who did not, like the judge, "closing his heart," ride +on--who knew that four such years as yours in college would never +return, and that they offered him the golden keys which, polished by his +labor, would open the heaped treasures of genius in all ages and lands. +It is he who in taking the keys did not grudge the labor, and to whose +life those treasures have been wide open. + +No, the inspiring personal tradition of college was not the pleasant +Philip Slingsby; it was rather Philip Sidney, who rode with the best +and was a man in every manly enterprise, but who had so used his +opportunities in study and affairs that Hubert Languet, most +accomplished of scholars, called him friend, and William of Orange +called him master. + + + + +THE STREETS OF NEW YORK. + + +Even the Pan-Americans protest that the streets of New York are dirty. +It is very comical, but it is true, that all our marvellous prosperity, +our genius of invention, our quickness of wit, and profusion of +resource; all our patriotism and pride, our great traditions of liberty +and heroism, our free soil, free speech, and free press; and all the +force and intelligence of our free government--cannot keep the streets +of New York clean. Miss Edwards, the most courteous and friendly of +visitors, is compelled to say: "I found on all sides nothing but holes +of mud, gutters, and dirt piles, an endless rush and a block of street +traffic. There are so many dangers and the state of the highways is such +as to make it incomprehensible to English people that enterprising +Americans would long endure it." + +Miss Edwards is familiar with the dirt of Egypt, which is universal and +intolerable, but even that does not mollify or alleviate the awful +impression of dirty New York. Then a Pan-American, perhaps from Bogota, +from Callao, from Lima, from Santiago, from Buenos Ayres, from Rio de +Janeiro, from Guayaquil--cities in which we had not supposed impeccable +highways to be--politely flagellates us, and ignominiously discrowns +Broadway. "It was impossible not to notice the deplorable condition of +the streets. Our carriages plunged terribly into the holes which at +frequent intervals were met with, and the wheels at every turn sent +whirls of mud, which compelled the passers-by to keep at a respectful +distance." + +We may indeed reply that this is the fling of a Pan-American. And who, +forsooth, is a Pan-American? Is he the superior--nay, does he presume to +be the peer--of a North American? Are we not notoriously the greatest +nation in the world? Does not our population reduplicate incalculably? +Have we not carried civilization from sea to sea? Have we not the +largest lakes, the longest rivers, the broadest prairies, the greatest +cataract, in the world? And shall the minions of monarchies and the +pigmies of tuppenny temporary republics snap their ridiculous fingers at +us, and presume to say that the streets of New York are dirty? The idea +is preposterous. It is contemptible. Moreover, it is insulting, and the +streets of New York are-- + +It is plain sailing--or slipping, as chance may determine whether we go +in the water or the mud--so far, but it is a little difficult to end +that sentence in the same key. Let us try another, possibly a little +less perfervid. The population of the United States is some sixty +millions. Taken altogether they form undoubtedly the most intelligent +community, with the highest average well-being, in the world. They are +self-governing down to aldermen and coroners. More than in any country +at any time in history, the will of the majority of the adult male +population determines the government. The city of New York is one of the +three or four chief cities of the world. It is confessedly the +metropolis of this blessed and absolutely self-governing country, and +the streets of New York can't be kept clean. + +Is there any possible method of describing the unquestionable greatness +and undoubted glory of the country, its resplendent history and its +miraculous achievements, in an ascending and cumulative series of +epithets and epigrams which shall end truthfully in the resounding +allegation, "and the streets of New York are kept clean"? Indeed, is not +this little joker worse than that of the thimble? Does he not grin at us +from every pile of mud, and laugh out of every hole, and snicker and +sneer on every side of the unremoved and apparently irremovable dirt and +disorder? + +It is absurd, as the boys say, to "blame" this situation upon somebody +else--some street commissioner, or scavenger, or other officer, or +employé. Nobody is ever guilty of misrule in this country but the +rulers, and the rulers are the people. The citizens of New York elect +the city officers who are to do the city work which the citizens pay +for. They give some of those officers authority to dismiss others who +are derelict in their duty, and the governor can deal with the chief +officers who do not obey the command of the people. If the taxes are +outrageously heavy, if the money is squandered, if the streets are dirty +and city government a farce, nobody is to blame but the citizens. They +have as good a government as they choose, and the kind of government +they desire. + +Then they desire dirty streets? Certainly. That is to say, they don't +desire clean streets strongly enough to secure them. Then popular +government has failed in cities? Rather there are some things in cities +in which popular government is not especially interested. If there are +two hundred and fifty thousand voters in the city of New York, how many +of them really care enough for clean streets and proper municipal +administration to spend time and trouble to secure them? + +Consider the lilies of the field--that is to say, look at the aldermen +and the municipal officers, the representatives in the State +Legislature and in Congress that the city of New York elects. Do they +represent what we call its intelligence and character? Yet undeniably +they are representatives of the majority of the voters, and if that +majority be corrupt or stupid, it is either because there are more +knaves and fools than intelligent and honest citizens among the voters, +or because such citizens do not care to take the trouble to vote and to +be represented; in which case the Aldermen and Co. that we see are, +morally speaking, true representatives of the city. The minions of +monarchies and the pigmies of tuppenny temporary republics, as they bump +and wallow and flounder, bespattered and contemptuous, through the +streets of New York, may truly say that they are such streets as the +citizens desire, because if the people desired clean streets, unless +popular government be a failure, they would have them. If the mayor did +not appoint officers who would clean the streets, they would require the +governor to deal with the mayor. + +Does it necessarily follow, because popular government is, upon the +whole, the best government, that the governing people desire all good +things that government can supply? Liberty they want, and equality, and +fair play; but do they, because they are self-governing, desire +beautiful buildings and clean streets? Might not a good-natured despot +of fine taste and sanitary enlightenment and a sense of order give his +dominions nobler public works and a better municipal administration than +a republic which is neither tuppenny nor temporary, but in which there +is easy and indolent indifference to public beauty and public order? + +"Above all," said the English bishop to the young catechumen, "don't +mistake zeal for knowledge." Above all, says the good genius of America, +don't confound national bumptiousness with patriotism. + + + + +THE MORALITY OF DANCING. + + +The gravity of the discussion of the morality of dancing is exceedingly +amusing. The dancing of young people is as natural and instinctive as +their laughing and singing, and the old Easy Chairs about the wall might +as wisely quarrel with the song of the bobolink in the fields as with +the dance upon the floor. But the grave censors who condemn it must be +heard. There is reason in the way in which they often put their +objections. Excitement, late hours, exposure of health, all these are +bad. But, on the other hand, exercise, cheerfulness, friendly +conversation, all these are good. The zealous censors confound uses and +abuses. The Easy Chair has seen a worthy temperance apostle ingulfing +cups of coffee in the pauses of an exhortation to abstinence, until it +marvelled at the capacity of the apostolic stomach. Could there be no +intemperance in coffee-drinking? But was coffee not to be drunk? The +Easy Chair has seen such frantic gobbling at a railway eating-room that +it could only gaze in wonder at the sottish and, so to speak, drunken +eating. But is food not to be eaten? The Easy Chair has seen little +children, extravagantly dressed and decorated, dancing in great hotel +parlors on hot summer nights at an hour when they should all have been +sound asleep in their beds, while their parents should have been soundly +chastised for not putting them there. But is the dancing of young +persons therefore wrong? + +This is probably to the censorial mind nothing but the base compromise +and sophistry of "moderate drinking." But nevertheless most of the evils +of this kind are perversions of good things. There are a great many +young and ignorant parents who become impatient with the incessant +activity and restlessness of their children. They condemn them to sit +still in a chair and make no noise. Dear madame, it is nature's +intention that the child shall be restless, to develop his limbs. You +apply to him rules that are fit and easy for us who are old, and whom +nature equally admonishes to sit still in chairs. Our little Procrustean +beds are merely furniture that tortures. The desire of youth for +enjoyment is as worthy as its desire for knowledge, for truth, for +excellence. And it is the spirit, not the method, of enjoyments which +are not obviously wrong, that is chiefly to be regarded. A good man asks +whether he could go from dancing to console a dying bed. But could he go +from skating, or reading _Pickwick_, or from heartily laughing, to +console a dying friend? Would it not, even in his own view, depend +wholly upon the mood in which he was doing it? + +Let him select an act which he would approve. Let him be reading a +serious book, or thinking in his study, or going upon a visit of charity +when he is summoned, and he would say that he could go with perfect +composure and the utmost propriety. But how if he were peevish as he +read the serious book, or if he were thinking angrily in his study, or +if he were mentally reproaching the duty that drew him from his +comfortable room to pay a visit of charity, could he then more properly +hasten to console the dying than if he had been cheerfully dancing, his +mind full of pleasant thoughts and the delight of the music and the +measured movement? It is not the thing that he is doing, but the spirit +in which he is doing it, that should be considered. + +How different a view of the pleasant recreation of dancing may be taken +by an intellectual man, from that of one who thinks the waltz a device +of Satan, is shown by a passage of De Quincey, the beginning of which +the Easy Chair will quote, and which will find an echo in many a memory: +"And in itself, of all the scenes which this world offers, none is to me +so profoundly interesting, none (I say deliberately) so affecting, as +the spectacle of men and women floating through the mazes of a dance; +under these conditions, however, that the music shall be rich and +festal, the execution of the dancers perfect, and the dance itself of a +character to admit of free, fluent, and continuous action. And whenever +the music happens not to be of a light, trivial character, but charged +with the spirit of festal pleasure, and the performers in the dance so +far skilful as to betray no awkwardness verging on the ludicrous, I +believe that many persons feel as I feel in such circumstances, viz., +derive from the spectacle the very grandest form of passionate sadness +which can belong to any spectacle whatsoever." + + + + +THE HOG FAMILY. + + +It is a good sign of the times that the crusade against the large and +omnipresent family of Hog which the Easy Chair long ago preached has +been vigorously renewed. Public manners are a common interest. The +private conduct of the most famous personages is of small concern beyond +their domestic circle. But the conduct of the person in the next room at +a hotel, or in the next seat in a railroad car, is of great interest to +us. Yet the remedy is not obvious. Even if we should propose a school of +manners, it is not certain that the pupils for whom it would be +especially designed would attend. + +If a fellow-guest at the Grand Hotel of the Universe comes in at two in +the morning, and going humming along the corridor to his room, flings +his boot down upon the floor at his door with a resounding blow that +awakens all neighboring sleepers, you may cover him with expletives, and +consign him in imagination to a hundred direful dooms, but nevertheless +he goes unpunished. Or you may suddenly confront him in all the majesty +of nocturnal dishabille, and admonish him severely of the wicked +selfishness of his ways. But the probability is that you will have +either an extremely amused audience, who will "guy" your appearance +without mercy, or receive a surly rejoinder in the form of a boot or a +volley of vituperation. In any event, the school of manners will not be +honored by the exercises. + +Yet the Hog family is not American, nor is it by any means peculiar to +this country. The Lady Mavourneen who said with enthusiasm that she +could travel without insult from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and that +every American of the other sex seemed to make himself her protector, +said only what is generally true of the American. He is naturally +courteous and invincibly good-natured. Indeed, it is his good-nature +which has permitted the family Hog to develop to such proportions. A man +enters a hotel "as if it belonged to him." Will he not be forced to pay +for his accommodation--and roundly? Shall he not take his ease in his +inn? Is he not willing to settle for all the food, drink, comfort, +trouble, that he may require or occasion? Shall he put himself out for +others? If number one does not look out for itself, who will look out +for it? + +And to all this Jonathan good-naturedly assents. If number one takes +more than his share of the sofa, Jonathan moves up. If number one puts +his feet on a chair, Jonathan does not stare. If number one still more +grossly demonstrates his porcine lineage, Jonathan dislikes to make +trouble--until number one comes to despise those whom he insults, and +plainly expects every circle to bow to the sovereignty of selfishness. +This is a fatal form of good-nature, but it has a not unkindly origin. +It springs from a social condition in which everybody is expected to +help everybody else, because everybody needs help as in a frontier +community. Indeed, in many a rural neighborhood still, this spirit of +lending a hand is supreme. Everybody expects to submit to inconvenience, +because he knows that he will require others to submit. + +But these refinements of mutual dependence must not be allowed to +justify the outrages of selfishness. The passenger in the boat or the +train who occupies more than his seat, who sits in one chair, covers +another with his feet, and a third with his bundles, and smokes, and +widely squirts tobacco juice around him until his vicinity is not "a +little heaven," but another kind of "h" below, is a public pest and +general nuisance, for whose punishment there should be a common law of +procedure. But this can be found only where there is a common contempt +and resolution which will deprive him of his ill-gotten seats in the +first place, and make him feel, in the second, the general scorn of his +neighbors. + +But as we are told constantly and correctly that we are a reading +people, it is through reading that the members of the family which is +_hostis humani generis_ will learn that they are the most detestable and +detested of the great families of the race. You, sir, whose eyes are +skimming this page, and who never give your seat to a woman in the +elevated car "on principle"--the principle being either that a woman +ought not to get into a crowded car, knowing that she will put gentlemen +to inconvenience; or that the company ought to forbid the entry of more +passengers than there are seats; or that first come should be first +served; or that number one, having paid for a seat, has a right to +occupy it; or whatever other form the "principle" may assume--you are +one of the host against whom the crusade is pushed. Thou art the--well, +for the sake of euphony we will say man, but it is not man that is in +the mind of your censors. + +Or you, madam, who enter the railroad car with an air of right, and a +look of reproval at every man who does not spring to his feet, and who +settle yourself into the seat offered you without the least recognition +of the courtesy that offers it--for you it would be well if the urbane +mentor of another day were still here, who, having given his seat to a +dashing young woman who seemed unconscious of his presence, looked at +her until she impatiently demanded if he wanted anything, and he +responding, said, blandly, "Yes, madam; I want to hear you say thank +you." + +Both this sir and madam may learn from the daily papers as from this +page that even in a car where they recognize no acquaintance a cloud of +witnesses around hold them in full survey, and whatever the fashion or +richness of their garments, and however supercilious their air, perceive +at once whether they belong to the family of ladies and gentlemen, or to +that of Charles Lamb's "Mr. H." Thackeray's hero could not have been +more aghast to see his divine Ottilia consume with gusto the oysters +which were no longer fresh than Romeo to learn by his Juliet's question +to that urbane mentor of other years that his mistress must be of kin to +the unmentionable family. + +The next time those boots are flung down in the reverberating hotel +corridor there will be no harm in remarking to the clerk the next +morning in the crowded office that it is not necessary for you to look +upon the register to know that one of the Hog family arrived during the +night. + + + + +THE ENLIGHTENED OBSERVER. + + +The Enlightened Observer from Europe who is studying American +institutions asked the Easy Chair the other day what was meant by the +statement that a candidate for a high elective office had opened +headquarters in the neighborhood of a nominating convention. The +Enlightened Observer said that he had always supposed that such +conventions were assemblies which nominated persons whose public +services and personal ability and character had distinguished them among +their fellow-citizens, and shown them to be especially fitted for the +offices which were to be filled. "Am I mistaken," he asked, "in +supposing that to be the theory of your institutions?" + +The Easy Chair could not say that he was, and conceded that such was the +theory. + +"In other words," continued the Enlightened Observer, "a republic +secures good government because it intrusts the government not to the +chance of birth, which may give to Oliver Cromwell a son Richard, and +make the heir of Alexander the Great an Alexander the Little, but +because it calls to its great offices of every degree those citizens who +have demonstrated their peculiar fitness." + +"That is certainly the theory of our republican institutions," returned +the Easy Chair. + +"Well?" said the Enlightened Observer. + +"Well?" echoed the Easy Chair. + +"Yes, but why, then, does a candidate open headquarters?" + +"Yes, certainly. Why--that is--it is to make himself known." + +"But the theory seems to assume that he is known already. Is it that he +performs public services at the headquarters, or exhibits there his +character and abilities? Is not the time a little limited and the space +somewhat inconvenient for such demonstrations? I am at a little loss. I +can see that the personal appearance and manners of a candidate might be +displayed favorably at a headquarters, and that, in a charming phrase of +your country, he might dispense a generous hospitality in a hotel +parlor, but how can he display his fitness for a high office in such +narrow quarters as headquarters must be? Am I to understand that when +Mr. John Jay was selected as a candidate for the Governorship of New +York he had repaired previously to the place of nomination and had +opened headquarters? Did General Washington pursue a similar course? If +the services and character of a candidate have commended him to public +favor and designated him as a suitable officer, why is not that enough?" + +"Undoubtedly," answered the Easy Chair, "why isn't it? But I am afraid +that you have not pursued your enlightened observations quite far +enough, or you would have learned that in this country a kind providence +is supposed to help those who help themselves, and that those who +expect to have Governorships and Senatorships and other large and highly +flavored political morsels offered to them on golden salvers and on +bended knees will be seriously disappointed." + +"I see," said, courteously, the Enlightened Observer, "that my excellent +friend the Easy Chair is pleased to speak in metaphor. If I may +penetrate it, he is declaring that great places are to be won like +precious prizes, and do not drop into idle hands like fruit overripe. +But if I may hold him to the point, is it not the theory of your +institutions that it is services and character and ability that win the +precious political prizes, and surely such qualities and services cannot +be described as idle hands? I agree that providence helps those who help +themselves, but who helps himself more than he who helps the entire +community? And how does he help the community who opens headquarters to +secure a prize for himself? Moreover, have I not heard that office +should pursue the man, and not the man the office? Yet what is opening +headquarters but pursuing office, as a hound a hare?" + +The Easy Chair was obliged to suggest that there was no harm in knowing +"the boys," and in showing the affability of a simple citizen "without +airs," and making the acquaintance of important political personages, +all of which the Enlightened Observer conceded, but still politely +insisted that knowing the boys and showing affability and refraining +from lofty demeanor did not demonstrate fitness for great place, and was +a loss of proper personal dignity that ought not to be required of any +one who had really approved himself as a suitable officer. He concluded +that he might not have mistaken the theory, but he had certainly not +apprehended the practice of our institutions. + +"But surely," said the Easy Chair, "'tis but a small price to pay." + +"True," said the Enlightened Observer, "it is a very small price; but I +had not supposed that in the republic office was sold at any price. I +thought that the good Santa Claus of public approval dropped it as a +Christmas gift into the stocking of the most deserving. It seems, +however, to be rather a raisin in snap-dragon--the prize of the toughest +fingers." + + + + +RALPH WALDO EMERSON. + + +"The beauty of Israel has fallen in its high place," said the voice of +Emerson's friend and neighbor, Judge Hoar, trembling and almost hushed +in emotion, and everybody who heard felt the singular felicity of the +words. The plain little country church was crowded, and a vast throng +stood outside in the peaceful April sunshine. Before the pulpit--the +eyes forever closed, the voice forever silent--lay the man whose aspect +of sweet and majestic serenity Death had not touched, and which recalled +his own words: "Even the corpse that has lain in the chambers has added +a solemn ornament to the house." It was the man who was beloved of his +neighbors and honored by the world, whose modest counsel in grave +affairs guided the village, and whose thought led the thought of +Christendom. "He belonged to all men, but he is peculiarly ours," said +Judge Hoar truly, speaking for the quiet historic town of which +Emerson's grandfather had been the minister, and in which he lived +during the larger part of his life, and to which his memory will lend an +imperishable charm. + +Concord when he first knew it was already famous. A hundred years ago, +at the bridge over the placid river, the Middlesex farmers, hastening as +minute men from all the neighboring country, had obeyed the first +military summons to fire upon the king's regulars; and the red-coated +regulars, turning, had begun, amid the blazing patriot volley of twenty +miles, their long retreat to Yorktown and over the sea. At the point +where the highway by which the soldiers marched enters the village, +under the hill along whose ridge the hurrying countrymen pressed to cut +off the soldiers' retreat, lived for more than forty years the scholar +who belongs to Concord as Shakespeare belongs to Stratford. + +"Nature," said Emerson in his first book, written in the old Manse at +Concord, which Hawthorne afterwards inhabited, and which he has so +beautifully commemorated--"Nature stretcheth out her arms to embrace +man: only let his thoughts be of equal greatness. Willingly does she +follow his steps with the rose and the violet, and bend her lines of +grandeur and grace to the decoration of her darling child. Only let his +thoughts be of equal scope, and the frame will suit the picture. A +virtuous man is in unison with her works, and makes the central figure +of the visible sphere. Homer, Pindar, Socrates, Phocion, associate +themselves fitly in our memory with the geography and climate of Greece. +The visible heavens and the earth sympathize with Jesus. And in common +life whoever has seen a person of powerful character and happy genius +will have remarked how easily he took all things along with him, the +persons, the opinions, and the day, and nature became auxiliary to a +man." So is Emerson associated with the tranquil landscape of the old +Middlesex town--the gentle hills, the long sweep of meadowland, the +winding river, the woodland, and the pastures under the ample sky. The +broad horizon and rural repose were the fitting home of the lofty and +beneficent genius whose life and word perpetually illustrated the +supreme worth and beauty of truth, purity, and morality. Whoever saw him +there or elsewhere, saw the "sweet and virtuous soul" which George +Herbert likened to seasoned timber that never gives. + +The sincerity and serenity of Emerson's character were unsurpassed. The +freshness and glow of his interest in life were perennial. With a sober +tenderness of regret he said to a friend who congratulated him upon his +seventieth birthday, "Yet it is a little sad to me, for I count to-day +the end of youth." In no other sense than the lapse of years, however, +was it true. That auroral freshness of soul which is the distinctive +charm of youth lingered when even memory somewhat failed. "How long it +is since I have seen you!" he said at Longfellow's funeral to a friend +whom he had accosted just before. But he said it with all that +heartiness of sympathy and expectation which, in the golden prime of +his life, when he was in many ways the most striking and original figure +in his country, made him greet every comer as if he expected to hear +from him a wiser word than had yet been spoken. A youth, fascinated by +this simple graciousness of manner, declared that Emerson greeted the +most ordinary persons like a King of Spain receiving an ambassador from +the Great Mogul. The expectancy of his manner implied that every man had +some message to deliver, and he bent himself to hear. + +But his shrewdness of perception was exquisite. He did not take dross +because he hoped for gold. His reproof was as sure and incisive as the +stroke of a delicate Damascus blade. When a young man, hearing Emerson +say that everybody ought to read Plato, followed his advice, and read, +he thought, with the audacity of youth, that he detected faults in +Plato, and wrote an essay to set them forth. He asked Emerson to read +it, and when he returned it to the youth, Emerson said, pleasantly, "My +boy, when you strike at the king, you must kill him." One day he sat at +dinner with a distinguished company of statesmen. He was by far the most +famous man at the table; but he modestly followed the conversation, +turning from each guest who spoke, to the next, with the old sweet +gravity of earnest expectation. When all the notable company had gone, a +guest who remained said to him: "I saw you talking with the English +Minister. He is a brilliant man, and I hope that you found him +agreeable." "A very pleasant gentleman," replied Emerson; "but he does +not represent the England that I know." + +Despite this sharp apprehension, however, Emerson was sometimes unable +to find any charm in writings which have apparently taken a permanent +place in literature. He could see nothing interesting or valuable in +Shelley. "When I read Shelley," he once said, "I am like a man who +thinks that he sees gold at the bottom of a stream. He reaches for it, +but his hands come up cold, with a little common sand in them." The +waywardness and disorder of Shelley's life may have troubled him. But +this would not have affected his intellectual judgment. His acute +intellect was supremely independent and absolutely courageous. "He must +embrace solitude as a bride," he said of the scholar; "he must have his +glees and his glooms alone." When as a young man he quietly closed his +pulpit door, and declined to preach any more, because he no longer felt +any value in certain religious rites, there was no protest, nor +ostentation, nor newspaper "sensation." It was simply the closing of a +book that he had read, and the amazement and censure and grief of others +could not possibly persuade him to do, or to say, or to affect, the +thing that was not true. Emerson's moral and intellectual integrity was +transparently simple, but it was sublime. It was not expressed in stormy +self-assertion nor cynical contempt. It spoke in tranquil and beautiful +affirmation, perfectly courteous, but absolutely sincere. + +But no man more charitably and diligently sought to understand others, +and to be just to what was obscure and foreign to him. He listened +patiently to music. But it did not charm him. He was punctual in the +duties of a citizen. But he had no proper political tastes. Yet for the +true politics, the application of the moral law to the control of public +affairs, no man was more perceptive or uncompromising. He was always on +the right side of great public questions. His hospitable sympathy +entertained every good cause, and in all our antislavery literature +there is no nobler or more permanent work than his address upon the +anniversary of West India emancipation in 1844. The only cloud that ever +arose upon his regard for Carlyle was his displeasure with Carlyle's +contemptuous and cynical sneers at our civil war. He was deeply +impatient of doubtful and half-hearted Americans during the war. "They +call themselves gentlemen, I believe," he said of certain persons, and +in a tone which showed that his lofty and patriotic honor instinctively +and utterly repudiated the pinchbeck claims of educated feebleness to +bear "the grand old name of gentleman." + +Those who recall Emerson when he was a clergyman in Boston remember a +singular spiritual beauty in the man, and an indescribable charm of +manner in his public speech. But apparently he impressed his earlier +associates with the purity and refinement of his mind and life, his +lofty intellectual tastes and sympathy, and his literary accomplishment, +rather than by the peculiar force of a genius which was to give the most +powerful spiritual impulse of the generation to American thought. This +is the more singular because there was always something breezy and +heroic in his tone, which might have led to the suspicion of the fact +that he was from the first a fond reader of Plutarch, from whose "Lives" +he draws so many illustrations. As in a mountain walk the traveller is +suddenly aware of wafts of perfumed air, now of the wild-grape blossom, +now of the azalea or sweet-brier, so the strain of Emerson suggests his +sympathy with Plutarch and Montaigne, the Oriental poets and the +Platonists. + +But no one could describe accurately his "system" of philosophy, nor +fit him into a "school" of poetry. He was content to call himself a +scholar, and no name was more significant and precious to him. He +shunned notoriety, but he had the instinctive desire of every artist and +of all genius for an audience. When a friend asked him of a young man +whose literary talent had seemed to him to promise great achievement, +Emerson said: "He does nothing; and I doubted his genius when I saw that +he did not seek a hearing." When his own first slight volume, "Nature," +was published, they were but a few, a very few, who perceived in it the +ripe and beautiful work of a master in literature and thought. The +richness and originality and picturesque simplicity of this book, its +subtle perception, its tone of jubilant power, and the soft glimmering +light of lofty imagination which irradiates every page, do not lose by +familiarity, and are as charming, although of course not so surprising, +as when they first took captive the readers of nearly fifty years ago. +With the eagerness of classification which characterizes many active +minds, Emerson was immediately labelled a Berkeleyan, an idealist, and a +mystic. But he eluded the precise classification as noiselessly and +surely as a cloud changes its form. Astonishment, satire, indignation, +contradiction, spent themselves in vain. Like a rose-tree in June, which +blossoms sweetly whether the air be chilly or sunny, his thought quietly +flowered into exquisite expression. You might like it or leave it. But +the rose would be still a rose. + +There was a fashion of calling Emerson obscure. But there is no style in +literature of more poetic precision than his. It is full of surprises of +beauty and aptness. His central doctrine of the identity of men, the +grandeur of every man's opportunity, and the essential poetry of the +circumstances of common life, was a living faith. "The great man," he +said, "makes the great thing." "In the sighing of these woods; in the +quiet of these gray fields; in the cool breeze that sings out of these +Northern mountains; in the workmen, the boys, the maidens you meet; in +the hopes of the morning, the ennui of noon, and sauntering of the +afternoon; in the disquieting comparisons; in the regrets at want of +vigor; in the great idea and the puny execution--behold Charles the +Fifth's day; another, yet the same; behold Chatham's, Hampden's, +Bayard's, Alfred's, Scipio's, Pericles's day--day of all that are born +of women. The difference of circumstance is merely costume. I am tasting +the self-same life--its sweetness, its greatness, its pain--which I so +admire in other men." The temptation to complete the splendid passage is +almost irresistible. But in every page you are drawn on as in a stately +symphony of winning music. + +This passage is from the Dartmouth College address, and it has all the +flowing cadence of a discourse written to be spoken. Yet Emerson had +little of the orator's temperament save the desire of an audience, and +an earnestness which was pure and not passionate. But no orator in the +country has exercised a deeper or more permanent influence. His +discourses were but essays, but their thought was so noble, their form +so symmetrical, their tone so lofty, and they were spoken with such +alluring rhythm, that they threw over young minds a spell which no other +eloquence could command. Emerson himself was very susceptible to the +power of fine oratory. No man ever praised more warmly the charm of +Everett in his earlier day. When Webster delivered his eulogy upon Adams +and Jefferson in Faneuil Hall, Emerson was teaching in Cambridge, and +Richard H. Dana, Jun., was one of his pupils. The day before Webster +spoke, the teacher announced that there would be no school upon the +morrow, and he earnestly exhorted his pupils not to lose the memorable +opportunity of hearing the great orator. Dana was of an age to prefer +fishing to oratory, and strolled off with his line to the river, where +he passed the day. When school was resumed, Mr. Emerson with sympathetic +interest asked him if he had heard Webster. The fisher, half ashamed, +reluctantly owned his absence. Emerson looked at him with regret and +almost pain, and said to him, gravely: "My boy, I am very sorry; you +have lost what you can never recover, and what you will regret to the +last day of your life." + +But those who heard his own Divinity School address, or the Cambridge or +Dartmouth oration, or the Emancipation address, would not exchange that +recollection even to have heard the Olympian orator in Faneuil Hall. +"Tell me," said a Senator famous for his oratory, to a friend in +Washington, "what do you call eloquence? Repeat to me an eloquent +passage." The friend quoted from Emerson the unequalled passage from the +Dartmouth College address in which the scholar appeals to the young men +to be true to the ideals of their youth--a passage which no generous +youth can read to-day without deep emotion and a thrill of high resolve. +The Senator listened with an air of perplexed incredulity. "Do you call +that eloquent? Now see what I call eloquence," and he declaimed a +glowing piece of rhetoric with ardent feeling. It was a passage from +Charles Sprague's Fourth-of-July oration in Boston sixty years ago. But +effective as it was, his friend reminded the Senator that if the test of +eloquence be glow of feeling and splendor and sincerity of expression, +with an inner power of appeal which searches the heart and moulds the +life, no really greater results in this country could be traced to any +speech than to that of Emerson, who read the greater part of his essays +as addresses, and who sometimes reached a lyrical strain which not the +magnificent Burke nor any other great orator surpasses. + +--To talk of Emerson, even if the talker were not of the circle of his +intimate friends, is to raise the flood-gate of happy and inspiring +recollections. It is one of the tenderest of the thoughts that hover +around his memory, as the low winds sigh through the pine-trees over his +grave, that, as with Longfellow, there are no excuses to be made for +grotesque eccentricities of genius, nor for a life at any point unworthy +of so great a soul. He said of his friend Thoreau, who is buried near +him, that he was like the Alpine climber who gathers the edelweiss, the +flower that blooms at the very edge of the glacier. He too lived at +those pure heights, and taught us how to tread them undazzled and +undismayed. Happy teacher, whose long and lovely life illustrated the +dignity and excellence of the truth, old as the morning and as ever +fresh, that fidelity to the divine law written upon the conscience is +the only safe law of life for every man. Noble and beneficent preacher, +who, in a sense that the pensive Goldsmith did not intend, + + "Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way." + + + + +HENRY WARD BEECHER. + + +For forty years Mr. Beecher had been minister of Plymouth Church when on +a Sunday morning suddenly came the news that his ministry and probably +his life were ended; and he died a day or two afterwards. The preacher +and the church were more widely known than any others in the Union, and +during all his pastorate he was one of the most conspicuous figures in +the country. He was undoubtedly also one of the most famous preachers of +his time and of the English race, and the death of Wendell Phillips left +him the most eminent of American orators. There have been popular +preachers during Mr. Beecher's career, like Moffit and other +revivalists, and there are always eloquent and scholarly orators in the +American pulpit. The tradition of Summerfield presents a beautiful +youth and a captivating speaker. The charm of Channing was profound and +indescribable. But Beecher recalls Whitefield more than any other +renowned preacher. Like Whitefield, he was what is known as a man of the +people; a man of strong virility, of exuberant vitality, of quick +sympathy, of an abounding humor, of a rapid play of poetic imagination, +of great fluency of speech; an emotional nature overflowing in ardent +expression, of strong convictions, of complete self-confidence; but also +not sensitive, nor critical, nor judicial; a hearty, joyous nature, +touching ordinary human life at every point, and responsive to every +generous moral impulse. + +Mr. Beecher was not a pioneer, nor a leader of forlorn hopes, but of the +main column of the army. He marched just ahead of the advance, and +touched with his elbows those who moved forward with him. He liked to +feel the warmth of their breath upon his cheek, and the magnetism of +their neighborhood. He spoke for them as they could not speak for +themselves. He liked the crowd. The hum and throb of multitudinous life +inspired and cheered him. He was at home in streets and towns; with a +bright jest for every comer; a happy quip and repartee; with an eye and +a heart for the unfortunate and forlorn, and a ready rebuke for +insolence and injustice. He had nothing of the recluse or scholarly +habit; no fastidious taste. He was fond of pictures and music and all +forms of art, without especial aesthetic accomplishment; a man of cheery +presence, of cordial address; with a willing word for the reporter, +chaffing the interviewer; jumping on the street-car in motion; yet +always seemly, and always, despite his slouched hat and careless dress, +undeniably clerical, but with no undue professional sense of dignity or +decorum. + +In the pulpit, or, more truly, upon the platform--for whether preaching, +or lecturing, or speaking at table or upon the stump, he seemed to be +always upon the platform--he inculcated right living rather than +traditional doctrine. He was a soldier of the church militant, but his +warfare was with human wrong and misery, and false theories of life, +and low aims and poor ambitions. He aimed to build up righteousness of +life, and in the ardor of the strife he liked to pause and wink, and let +fly a bright-tipped, winged word at the opponent, against whom he bore +no kind of malice. He hated the wrong, but not the wrong-doer. Ardent +and impulsive, his generous emotions often overwhelmed his judgment; and +in politics, although the most popular of stump-orators, and never +happier or more truly himself than in a political speech, in which, with +the instinct of a born fighter, he "drank delight of battle," yet he +sometimes amazed and confounded his friends, who, however, could not +doubt his sincerity nor question his purpose. + +The great cloud that fell upon his life seemed also to darken the +country. The grief and consternation showed how strong a hold he had +upon the national mind and heart, which indeed was never so firm as at +the very moment that his good name seemed to be obscured. It was the +most tremendous ordeal to which any public man of his peculiar +character and quality of eminence has ever been exposed in this +country. The most remarkable fact in it all was the way in which he +endured it. The blacker the cloud appeared to be, the more sturdy was +his stern defiance, and for weeks of seemingly accumulating and +insurmountable obstruction he faced unflinchingly a possible doom the +mere prospect of which might well have withered a brave heart conscious +of innocence. That the cloud ever wholly disappeared cannot be said, in +view of the tone of the press even as he lay dead in his house. But that +he could never have maintained his position as he did if he had not been +generally acquitted in the public mind seems to be indisputable. If the +relation of his later life to the country was somewhat changed, the +result was due to the decline of confidence in what had been believed to +be his strongest quality, supreme good sense and sound judgment, rather +than to doubt of his moral integrity. + +No man lived more in the public eye and for the public than Mr. Beecher. +In his speeches and sermons and writings he took the public into his +confidence with a freedom that was characteristic and natural in him, +but which would have been extraordinary in any other man. He could not +pass through the street without universal recognition, and no man in the +two cities was so well known to everybody as he. At public meetings and +at dinners where he was to speak, he came late amid smiling and +expectant applause, and with the air of saying, "Where MacGregor sits, +there is the head of the table." He had the right to that air, for +wherever he was to speak he was the chief orator. But he was no niggard +of generous praise and sympathy, and no man spoke with more fervent +eulogy and eloquent approval of other men. Doubtless, like an actor or +singer, the long habit of receiving applause had made it pleasant to +him, and as is the fact with all extempore speaking, the greater the +applause the higher the eloquence of his strain. It is a reciprocal +action. Of Mr. Beecher's later platform speeches, the most remarkable +was his political address at the Brooklyn Rink in 1884, which was +delivered amid a storm of enthusiasm, while in the delivery he was +himself wrought to the highest feeling. + +His power over the emotions of an audience was unsurpassed in this +country probably since Patrick Henry. Thomas Corwin and Sergeant +Prentiss perhaps were as great masters of humor and patriotic appeal +upon the stump; but Beecher added to these a pathos and sentiment and +poetic tone in which the others did not excel. He had not the fine, +glittering, incisive touch of Wendell Phillips's fatal sarcasm and +vituperation. Phillips stood quietly and played his polished rapier with +a flexible wrist, but its point was deadly; Beecher smote, and crushed. +One was the deft Saladin with his chased and curving cimeter, the other +was Richard with his heavy battle-axe. In the great controversy in which +both were engaged, upon the same side, indeed, but under different +banners and wearing different colors, Beecher and Phillips, amid a +chorus of eloquence, were the two chief voices. Garrison was not +distinctively an orator, while Phillips was the especial and +distinctive orator of the cause, and his fame as a public man belongs to +that cause alone. But Beecher had many interests and relations, and his +oratory had other strains. They were friends always, and Phillips spoke +often in Plymouth Church, and uttered many a glowing word of his +fellow-laborer. + +When these words are published the freshness of the impression of +Beecher's death will have passed, and from every part of the country his +eulogy will have been spoken. The universal emotion, the warmth and +tenor of the tributes, will have shown how eminent a figure he was, and +that his death is felt to be a national loss. One of the papers +described him as the last of a great generation, and Senator Cullom, +speaking of Logan in the crowded Brooklyn Academy on the evening of +Beecher's death, called a roll of illustrious names, of which his was +the latest, and among which it surely belongs. His profession was the +preaching of peace and good-will. But how often he must have felt that +his Master came not to bring peace, but a sword! His buoyant +temperament, his perfect health, his love of nature and of man, of +children and flowers, of the changing sky and landscape, his abounding +sympathy, his rich and sensitive humor, made his life joyous and often +happy. But it was none the less a stormy life, ending at last, amid the +sorrow of a country, in happy rest and the good fame of a great orator +for human welfare. + + + + +THE GOLDEN AGE. + + +In this country we are inclined to believe that the epoch that followed +the Revolution was one of the utmost purity and simplicity. But it was +one of the "fathers" who said to a friend upon the adjournment of the +first Congress, "Do you suppose such a set of rascals will ever assemble +again?" In his diary John Adams appeals to the calmer mind and juster +judgment of the coming age--meaning that in which we live, and from +which we look wistfully back to old John Adams's cocked hat and +knee-breeches as the symbols of a nobler time. + +Then there is Fisher Ames, one of the famous orators and conspicuous +leaders of the beginning of the century, who, studying his country at +the time to which we recur as the age of high purpose and lofty men, +bewails the sordidness, selfishness, and degradation around him. "Of +course," he says, seventy years ago, "the single passion that engrosses +us, the only avenue to consideration and importance in our society, is +the accumulation of property: our inclinations cling to gold, and are +bedded in it as deeply as that precious ore in the mine.... As +experience evinces that popularity--in other words, consideration and +power--is to be procured by the meanest of mankind, the meanest in +spirit and understanding, and in the worst of ways, it is obvious that +at present the incitement to genius is next to nothing." + +We might suppose that we were listening to a contemporary cynic; and +whoever reads the history of the politics of that time will find that +"the better days of the republic" were very like the days in which we +deplore their disappearance. When Mr. Ames died, Mr. John Quincy Adams +wrote a review of his works, in which, with the equanimity and +moderation of the golden age, he remarks, "It is a melancholy +contemplation of human nature to see a mind so highly cultivated and so +richly gifted as that of Mr. Ames soured and exasperated into the very +ravings of a bedlamite." He then proceeds to speak of those who, without +believing Mr. Ames's "absurd and inconsistent political creed," are +selfishly eager for its propagation, being "choice spirits, amounting to +at most six hundred" (their name was the Essex Junto!), and who hold +that "the porcelain must rule over the earthenware, the blind and sordid +multitude must put themselves, bound hand and foot, into the custody of +the lynx-eyed, seraphic souls of the six hundred, and then all together +must go and _squat_ for protection under the hundred hands of the +British Briareus." + +To this gentle strain Mr. John Lowell replied in a similar vein, +beginning by speaking of the malignity of Mr. Adams's sarcasm, and of +his following Mr. Ames to the grave with crocodile tears, informing him +that he had no need to assail Mr. Ames's friends with all the venom of +an infuriated partisan, because he had already obtained his reward for +"ratting" from the Federalists, and this act of gratitude to his +benefactors was unnecessary. Mr. Lowell ends his reply by saying that +in the course of a short political life Mr. Adams had received more than +seventy thousand dollars from the public, and that while no man pitied +Mr. Ames, "Mr. Adams is an object of sincere commiseration with many a +man of high and honorable feelings, while it is to be doubted whether he +is the object of envy to any man on earth." + +These are glimpses of the golden age, of that "better day" of the +republic with which our own is so often and so injuriously contrasted. +Indeed, there is no finer cordial for despondency than a glance at the +paradise that hovers behind our retreating steps. The mountain traveller +turns and sees a lovely vision floating in the sky. + + "How faintly flushed, how phantom-fair, + Was Monte Rosa, hanging there-- + A thousand shadowy-pencil'd valleys, + And snowy dells in a golden air." + +Good lack! he cries, are those the crags and precipices along which I +slid and stumbled in terror of my life? The hanging gardens of the +past, the halcyon epoch of our history, the lost paradise of our +fathers, are all crags and precipices along which the race and our +country have stumbled and slid. If any man is disposed to think that he +has fallen upon evil times, let him open his history. It is a marvellous +tonic. + +Does he think republics ungrateful? Look at Mr. Motley's vivid portrait +of John of Barneveld. When he was seventy-two years old he writes from +his prison to his wife and family: "I receive at this moment the very +heavy and sorrowful tidings that I, an old man, for all my services done +well and faithfully to the fatherland for so many years ... must prepare +myself to die to-morrow." Does he think irreligion undermining society? +Look into Smiles's "Huguenots in France after the Revocation of the +Edict of Nantes." For attending Huguenot meetings men were captured by +soldiers and sentenced to the galleys, mostly for life. They were +chained by the neck with murderers and other criminals, and were +quartered in Paris in the dungeon of the Chateau de la Tournelle. Thick +iron collars were attached by iron chains to the beams. The collar was +closed around the prisoner's neck, and riveted with blows of a hammer +upon an anvil. Twenty men in pairs were chained to each beam. They could +not sleep lying; they could not sleep sitting or standing up straight, +for the beam was too high for the one and too low for the other. This +was done in the name of religion. The age of Louis the Fourteenth is +called one of the great epochs of the world. It was an age in which the +king's mistress persuaded him to slaughter and banish hundreds of +thousands of his subjects because of their religious faith, and the +great preachers of his church applauded, and the Holy Father approved, +and even Madame de Sévigné, whose letters some young ladies at Newport +and Saratoga are diligently reading, and sighing for the good old witty +times in which she lived, wrote of the most innocent and most devoted +men: "Hanging is quite a refreshment to me. They have just taken +twenty-four or thirty of these men, and are going to throw them off." + +The golden age is not yesterday or to-morrow, but to-day. It is the age +in which we live, not that in which somebody else lived. The trouble, +vexation, corruption, weakness, selfishness, meanness, which dismay us +and tempt us to despair are the old lions that have always beset the +path. No man is born out of time; and what man living to-day, who is not +pinched with poverty or disease, would have lived a thousand years ago? +If our politics seem mean and our men small, how does Alfred's time +seem, or the glory of Athens, or the court of Louis the Fourteenth, or +Luther's Germany? What did Jefferson think of Hamilton, or the _Aurora_ +say of Washington? + + + + +SPRING PICTURES. + + +ON a late beautiful spring afternoon the Easy Chair +rolled itself into the suburbs for a stroll. There were everywhere the +signs of the advance of a great city and the pathetic forlornness of the +municipal frontier. Pleasant country-houses, spacious, rambling, with +broad piazzas and gardens and lawns, had been apparently suddenly +overtaken by streets and stone sidewalks and lamps. There were the +rattle and shriek of the incessant railway trains near by. Tall factory +chimneys smoked and machinery hummed and steam-whistles blew all around +the quiet old houses. The contrast gave them a kind of conscious life. +They seemed to be aware of the incongruity of their character with the +new neighborhood. They had a helpless air, as if nothing remained but +submission to division into regular building lots and the absolute +extinction of rural seclusion and charm. There was the impression of a +faint and futile struggle between city and country, in which, indeed, +for a moment the excellence of each was lost, but the result of which +was not doubtful. + +As the Easy Chair pushed on, it saw in fancy the old pastoral peace and +retirement of the places when they were indeed in the country. It +recalled the noted men of that older day who sought here relaxation and +repose. There was the placid river, on which no restless steamer foamed, +but only silent sloops drifted or careened. Yonder were the leafy coves +under the wooded and rocky banks, from which the Indian had but recently +paddled his canoe. No railroad harmed the virgin shyness of the shore. +It was El Dorado, Arcadia, the land of Goshen. It was the home of peace, +of plenty, of content. + +Such a poet, such a painter, is idealizing memory on a spring afternoon +in the suburbs. It seemed so gross a wrong that sidewalks and gas lamps +and factory chimneys and steam-whistles should invade and devastate the +tranquil fields that indignant imagination filled them as fact with all +the fancies that tranquil fields suggest. Doubtless in the closets of +those quiet houses there were the bones of plenty of old skeletons. +Those spacious, sunny rooms were the scenes of the familiar domestic +tragedies against which not the most romantic of country-houses can shut +the door. Up those steps have swayed and hesitated the doubtful feet of +the oldest son, heir of precious hopes and child of fervent prayers, +hesitating and lingering at hours long past midnight, watched for and +waited for by the mother's heart that breaks but does not falter. In +that broad hall, on the brightest of May mornings, the daughter of the +house has stood, radiant as the day, and crowned with orange blossoms. +There have met the hopes and joys of youth, the tears and blessings and +farewells of older years. The pretty pageant filled the house, and faded +slowly and utterly away. The old house has known, too, the solemn shadow +that falls on every house. It seems to regretful memory the abode of +unchanging delight. But from that door the slow procession moved, and +those whose hospitable smile and word had hallowed every room returned +no more. They are gone, the bride, the parent, the friend; "they are all +gone, the old familiar faces," the age, the society, the politics, the +interests. They are all gone. Why should not the house go too? + +It was early spring, and the Easy Chair, looking up, saw half a dozen +kites flying in the air. A little further, and laughing girls were +skipping rope. Boys were spinning peg-tops and playing marbles and +driving hoops. The boys and girls who lived in the quiet old +country-house did the same a hundred years ago. They flew kites and +drove hoops, and that little bride skipped rope and carried dolls. The +age, the society, the politics, the interests, were very different. They +are, indeed, all changed. But tops are changeless, marbles are immortal, +and so are boys and girls. They know nothing of the old house over which +the Easy Chair becomes pensive. They belong to the new time, which +demands its demolition. + + + + +PROPER AND IMPROPER. + + +LONGFELLOW has commemorated in a beautiful sonnet the +delightful evenings of Mrs. Kemble's readings; and certainly it was a +singular pleasure to see and to hear her. Her historic name associated +her with her uncle John and her aunt Mrs. Siddons, and she had always +the port of one conscious of a famous lineage. She used to say, with a +half-humorous, half-proud emphasis, that she belonged to her majesty's +players, and in her presence it was easy to believe that her majesty's +players were an important body in the state. Her power of identification +with the various characters in the plays, and the skill with which she +maintained the individuality throughout, were always remarkable, and the +symmetry and completeness of the whole performance left nothing to be +criticised. The only observation that suggested itself might be that +the stage traditions were evident in her rendering. But that, in turn, +only suggested the further question whether the traditions were not +worthy of respect. Dramatic and histrionic forms of art, like all +others, are but representations of nature under certain conditions and +limitations. They are not an imitation, a fac-simile, and every man will +be at odds with any work of art in any kind who does not bear this in +mind. + +The spectator complains of unnaturalness upon the stage; the substance +of his feeling is that people do not talk and act so in ordinary life. +That is true; but if the theatre should show us men and women doing upon +the stage what they do in ordinary life, the theatre would be no more +attractive than the street or the parlor. It is not the spectacle of +ordinary life that we expect to see in the theatre. It is a view of +human life and nature under ideal conditions, and it is as irrelevant to +require that the player shall seem to us like the man with whom we have +been transacting business as that he should speak plain prose instead +of blank verse. If Mrs. Kemble had read the words of Rosalind or of +Portia, of Shylock or Mercutio, as if they were neighbors of hers and +people whom we were in the habit of meeting, the effect would have been +ludicrous. When she came in--the Fanny Kemble of Talfourd and of the +wild enthusiasm of the grandfathers of to-day, ripened into the comely +and queenly woman--and seated herself at the little table on which the +great volume lay open, she was the magician who was to open to us the +realm of faery, the world of imagination, not to take us back into the +familiar scenes of the world of New York or Chicago. The spell was +resistless. The deep, rich, melodious voice flowed out like an enchanted +singing river, along which we glided seeing visions and dreaming dreams. +To sit and listen to her was like sitting and watching Titian laying on +the canvas the gorgeous tints which before our eyes took on the forms of +men and angels. A rarer, a more refined delight, which of us has known? +Did it ever occur to us that Mrs. Kemble was doing anything improper, +anything unwomanly? In the wonderful picture of Portia that "her voice's +music" drew, was there anything a little repulsive, a little unfeminine? + +This question was suggested to the Easy Chair by the remark of one of +the most devoted and delighted of all the listeners at those readings, +that he was very sorry to see that the University of London had decided +to admit women to all its degrees upon precisely equal terms with men. +The secret reason of the regret, of course, is the feeling that there +would be something unwomanly in the act of competing for a degree which +would open the pursuit of professions--especially the medical +profession--which are usually and often exclusively cultivated by men. + +Yet, when pressed, the Easy Chair's interlocutor admitted that there was +nothing more essentially unfeminine in the practice of medicine by a +woman than in the recitation of Shakespeare for the entertainment of a +miscellaneous crowd. It is a question of habit, not of instinct, nor of +principle, nor of reason. When the old Greek and Oriental idea of +absolute seclusion and subordination is abandoned, a woman's reading +from Shakespeare for the pleasure of the public is an action not +different in kind from her practising medicine or serving on a school +committee. This generation, however, is more used to the one than to the +other. It is a habit, nothing more. + +Charles Lamb regrets in one of his later essays that "we have no +_rationale_ of sauces, or theory of mixed flavors; as to show why +cabbage is reprehensible with roast beef, laudable with bacon; why the +haunch of mutton seeks the alliance of currant jelly, the shoulder +civilly declineth it; why loin of veal (a pretty problem), being itself +unctuous, seeketh the adventitious lubricity of melted butter; and why +the same part in pork, not more oleaginous, abhorreth from it; ... why +oysters in death rise up against the contamination of brown sugar, while +they are posthumously amorous of vinegar; why the sour mango and the +sweet jam by turns court and are accepted by the compilable mutton +hash--she not yet decidedly declaring for either. We are as yet but in +the empirical stage of cookery." + +It is not in cookery alone that this mystery is still unsolved. Why, for +instance, should it seem a womanly use of Heaven's gift that Jenny Lind +should sing for the pleasure of a thousand men, and something strange +and unfeminine that Portia should plead with eloquence in a court to +save a hapless woman from prison or the cord? Why is it fitting that +Mrs. Kemble should professionally read Shakespeare, and "queer" that she +should professionally attend women in peril and sickness? Do we not +naturally and logically glide into the part of the citation from Lamb +that we just now omitted?--"why salmon (a strong sapor _per se_) +fortifieth its condition with the mighty lobster sauce, whose embraces +are fatal to the delicater relish of the turbot." Must we not say that +we are as yet but in the rudimentary knowledge of what is and is not +feminine? + +When the example of the London University is not singular, but when all +opportunities are opened equally to all talent and vocation, when it is +not forbidden a woman to do any honorable work for which she is by +nature and by study and training properly equipped, unless the laws of +nature fail, will any greater catastrophe befall, will there be any more +signal reversion of the order of things, than if cabbage should come at +last to be eaten with roast beef, and currant jelly cement an alliance +with the mutton's shoulder? + + + + +BELINDA AND THE VULGAR. + + +IT is perhaps because the Easy Chair sometimes discusses +questions of behavior that it is occasionally asked to express an +opinion upon more difficult social points. Thus it was lately requested +to say whether it did not think that the great want of our society is a +social standard. The inquiry was made by the lovely Belinda, who was +charmingly dressed for a select party, and the Easy Chair was obliged to +own that it did not at once comprehend the scope of the inquiry, and to +seek an explanation. As Belinda proceeded to elucidate her meaning it +seemed to be tolerably plain that she was contemplating some kind of +rank, or visible and recognized distinction, which should separate +"society" from what is not society, and it was impossible not to feel +that, however high the dividing line, and however small the circle +which it enclosed, she was herself included within it. + +The Easy Chair thereupon described to her a conversation which it held +long ago with a distinguished man upon English social life and the +advantages of an aristocracy. The distinguished man's views were very +much like those which are set forth in Disraeli's "Sibyl" and +"Coningsby," and which were known forty years ago as those of Young +England. They proposed a national life blended of feudal romance and +modern philanthropy. There was to be a gracious nobility of very blue +blood which had been clarified in the veins of the Plantagenets, who +were to live in stately castles in the midst of superb demesnes, and to +be exceedingly good to their tenants and retainers, for whom there were +to be May-poles, and flitches of bacon at Christmas, and greased poles +to climb at appropriate times, and sacks to run races in, and who were +to be visited at their neat little cottages, when they were ill, by the +ladies from the castle, and who were to be industrious and obedient and +humble and grateful, and, above all things, to know their place. The +nobility were to own the land, and govern the country, and live in +splendid idleness, and the happy peasantry were to do all the work, and +bow respectfully when the nobility passed by, and go to bed when the +curfew tolled, and to make no trouble. + +This was the Young England programme, and the Arcadia of the Disraeli +novel. And this also showed its familiar features in the talk of the +distinguished man as he bewailed the social bareness of American life +and descanted upon the charm of an ancient and well-ordered society. But +when the Easy Chair mischievously asked him whether he did not think +that he might tire of the greased pole, and the dance upon the lawn, and +the gracious patronage, and the respectful gratitude, the amusing +bewilderment of the distinguished man showed that in his admiration of +the society that he described he assumed always that he was to belong to +the class that lived in the stately castles and benignly condescended to +the humble cottagers. His view, therefore, was very simple. It was +merely that he should like to live in splendid idleness, steeped in +luxury, and surrounded by respectful servants. + +Belinda listened to this story, of which the Easy Chair made no +application, with a slight blush; and to the polite inquiry, what kind +of social standard she contemplated, she responded that she meant a +certain fixed line which should exclude the vulgar. But she was +immediately silent, as if reflecting upon a difficult proposition, and +did not answer when she was asked what she thought would be the +consequence of removing the vulgar from the circles which she considered +most select. + +Her benevolent attention invited further question, especially as at the +same moment a lady entered the room who bore one of the most noted +family names in the country, and most familiar in fashionable annals, a +family which delights to trace its lineage to a royal source. This proud +dame had married her daughter as if by main force to a coroneted lord of +hereditary acres. It was a familiar fact of the society in which she +was a conspicuous figure, and it was impossible not to ask: "Can there +be anything more coarsely vulgar than to sell a daughter for money and a +title to a man for whom she does not care; and shall we begin to erect +the social standard by expelling the vulgar offender?" + +Belinda was still silent, and the brilliant rooms began to fill and +murmur with a gay company. Among them came the loud and diamonded Mrs. +Smasher, to whose unparalleled fêtes even Belinda would be almost +willing to request a card. The Smasher lineage is not renowned or regal; +the Smasher mind is imperfectly educated; the Smasher manners are those +of the suddenly rich who are not also suddenly refined. + +"Is any conceivable vulgarity greater than the Smasher vulgarity, O +Belinda; and shall we continue these exercises by expelling also this +essentially vulgar person?" + +Belinda was still silent. She has remained silent even to this day. + + + + +DECAYED GENTILITY. + + +DECAYED gentility has great interest for the +novel-reader, and the man and woman who "have seen better days" are +familiar figures in actual life. Hampton Court is regarded by some +travellers with pensive regard as a kind of almshouse for this class of +the indigent, and institutions nearer home are described with a +deferential courtesy and avoidance as homes for decayed gentlewomen. It +cannot be pleasant to the persons themselves to be so described, but the +founders of such places have perhaps a comfortable sense of reflected +honor, as if the impulse to provide a retreat of the kind were of itself +a sign of "very gentility." Despite the plaintive little plea which the +description itself urges for this decayed class of our fellow-beings, +the people who "have seen better days" are not generally an engaging +multitude. A person whose chief distinction is that he was once more +prosperous than he is now seems to renounce any present claim upon +consideration, and to offer his inability as a ground of regard. It is +an appeal to pity, but pity of old has a disagreeable relative. + +The pathos of the appeal lies, first, in the sense of contrast, and then +in the spiritual rather than the material poverty which it discloses. +The lady who lets lodgings, and whose air and the allusions of whose +conversation constantly suggest that she has seen better days, is a +person who is mastered by circumstances, and therefore does not compel +respect. But a woman who is the perfectly self-respecting lady fulfils +simply the duty of the moment with no conscious appeal for sympathy; and +if by chance you discover that she has been more prosperous, the fact +that she has not the conceit of it strengthens your regard. For it is no +personal credit to have been more prosperous. As your landlady shows you +the convenience of the room, she lets fall that her father the Bishop, +or her uncle the Senator, or her lamented cousin the millionaire would +be deeply grieved if he could know that his kinswoman was actually +letting lodgings. + +"Then, madam, you have seen better days?" + +"Ah, sir--" + +But how is it personally creditable to the good woman that her uncle was +honorable and her cousin rich? She recalls the circumstances of others +at the expense of her own character. The lodger wishes to hire rooms +upon their own merits. He resents the bribery of pity to take them. If +they are a little stuffy, they certainly seem no airier because his +landlady once sat upon a crimson sofa and read novels all day long. If +some philanthropist builds a retreat to which she can retire gratis, and +pass her declining years in regretful recollection of the crimson sofa, +so let it be. Such a retreat may be dedicated to sentimental repining. +But a woman of spirit and character never becomes a decayed gentlewoman, +however destitute she may be. + +This refusal to succumb to circumstances and to make the best of it, +which is all that can be asked, is charmingly sketched in Lamb's Captain +Jackson. The Captain's frugal table had the air of a feast, such was the +magic of his cheerfulness. His plain cheese was served like Stilton or +Roquefort, and slipping a shred of it upon his guest's plate, he +contented himself with the rind, gayly declaring that the nearer the +bone the sweeter the meat. Poverty was no pleasanter to him than to the +rest of us. But had he gone to the almshouse he would not have +complained, and in no word or sigh of his would you have discovered that +he had seen better days. + +The family of Captain Jackson is by no means extinct. The other day the +Easy Chair met one of them in Broadway--an elderly gentleman in a +well-brushed, exceedingly threadbare suit, moving briskly along the +pavement. His greeting was alert and courteous. There was a little chat +of the day's news, a gay jest or two, and then good-morning. Half a +century ago this was a young man about town, the heir of a fortune, a +youth of "family" who dressed and drove and dined and danced like the +golden youth of to-day. When the first Italian opera troupe came, he was +nightly behind the scenes. In the circle of Knickerbocker wits he was +one. He wrote verses, and had a kind of literary name. His portrait was +published in a weekly paper. He sat at the good tables. His name was +Fortunio. + +Everything is gone but the cheerful spirit. Nobody knows exactly how he +lives, but only that it is in extreme poverty. But he preserves the tone +of prosperity. He writes notes in a beautiful and graceful hand upon +very cheap paper. "You remember our conversation the other morning about +'Anstey's Bath Guide'; and if you will look in your _Fraser_ for this +month, you will find that I was right." Here is the assumption that +every gentleman takes _Fraser_, and that your correspondent may have +dipped into his before you have looked at yours. Doubtless he had seen +it--at some reading-room, perhaps, or on Brentano's counter. + +One day we had spoken of a famous author. A little while afterwards came +a comely package containing an old and choice work of his, and a note: +"Dear Easy Chair,--I thought it might be a pleasure to you to own this +rather uncommon copy of an author whom you evidently admire, and which +it is a pleasure to my shelves to spare." What a fine air of elegant +leisure in a library! But the "shelves" were a few remnant books, +probably worthless to sell, but affording the friendly soul true +satisfaction in giving. Fortunio is not a decayed gentleman. His +gentility, in the best sense, is in full vigor. Everything but that, +indeed, is decayed. But there is no unmanly moping about better days, +although in few men's lives could there be a sharper contrast between +the past and the present. + +This cheerful steadiness is largely due to temperament, but it is not +therefore beyond those who have not the same temperament. Character can +emulate it. "It's bad enough to be poor," said one of the Captain +Jackson family, "but it's a great deal worse to be sulky too." It is +very easy, indeed, for prosperity to preach resignation to adversity, +and to urge it to bear up bravely. But it is a true gospel, although it +be easy to preach. Pure Lacrima Christi is as precious when poured from +a glass of Murano as from a pewter mug. + + + + +THE PHARISEE. + + +THERE is no more beautiful and impressive passage in the +New Testament than that which contrasts the Pharisee thanking God that +he is not as other men are and the Publican who asks mercy as a sinner. +But there is no passage, also, which has been more ingeniously +perverted, and it is exceedingly amusing to hear Jeremy Diddler or +Robert Macaire or Dick Turpin railing at honest and industrious men as +Pharisees because they prefer honesty and industry to knavery. + +The taste for honesty and sobriety seems natural and simple enough, and +the qualities themselves quite as valuable as those of Diddler, or even +of Jonathan Wild the Great. But Jonathan will have none of them. They +are Pharisaic impertinences. They are impracticable and visionary +speculations, which assume heaven while yet we stand upon the green +earth; and Mr. Wild, who assures us that he does not desire to pass +himself off as better than other men, declares, with the noble candor +which distinguishes him, that simple, downright dishonesty is good +enough for him. He does not, indeed, choose that precise word, but he +conveys that precise idea. + +'Tis a good trick, and it is generally sure of applause. But it is only +another version of a familiar maxim, that when you have no argument, you +must abuse the plaintiff's attorney. As a matter of fact, your client +did steal the handkerchief, or forge the name, or fire the barn. But I +ask you, gentlemen of the jury--you may well say--and I appeal to all +good citizens, is not this ostentation of superior virtue, this fine air +of moral indignation toward my client simply because he happened to slip +his hand into the wrong pocket, a little suspicious? Are we angels? I +ask your honor is this work-a-day world the celestial seat and the Mount +of Vision, and is a man so very much better than his fellows merely +because he rolls up his sanctimonious eyes with the Pharisee and thanks +God that he is holier than other men? Nay, gentlemen, have we not in +this sublime and immortal parable a Divine warning against this +Phariseeism which denounces the slides and slips of our common frail +humanity? I ask you, gentlemen, by your verdict not to place a premium +upon that most odious of all repulsive arrogancies--Phariseeism. + +But it is upon the political platform that the gibes and sneers at +Phariseeism are intended to be most stinging. The Honorable Jonathan +Wild the Great comes out strong, as his henchmen truly declare, against +his political opponents. With one vast comprehensive sneer he brands +them as Pharisees, as if he were snorting consuming fire. It is not +surprising, because they have had their eye upon Jonathan. They have +seen him in bad company. They have caught him "conveying" public +treasure. They know all about him, and he knows that they know all about +him. He called himself Tweed, and he made a mesh of statutes to +legalize robbery. But how good he was to the poor! How he distributed +coal to the chilly! How he planted pinks and daisies in the City Hall +Park, and made the Battery to bloom as the rose! How he received wedding +gifts for his daughter from our best citizens; and how generously they +subscribed to erect his statue to commemorate that bright flower of the +State! And now a sneaking, mousing gang of would-be archangels prate +about common honesty, and demand that public hands shall be clean hands! +Fellow-citizens, Jonathan Wild is a man of the people. He doesn't +pretend to be higher and purer and better than other men. He didn't +graduate at a college, indeed, and he never read the Iliad in the +original Greek. No, fellow-citizens, there is no cambric handkerchief +and oh-de-cologne about him. He is just one of the boys. He whoops it up +with the plain people, and, thank God, whatever he is, he is not a +Pharisee. + +The argument is ingenious. It does not deny that he is a thief. It only +insists that those who assert it are Pharisees--and Pharisees are so +odious that it is much better to scoff at them than to punish Mr. Wild. +There was a good old countryman who had been early taught to take men as +they are, which means to consider them liars and rascals. One day a +neighbor remarked to him that he thought that the old man had lost the +money with which he bought voters, because, he said, while they take +your money, the other side take their votes. "The deuce they do!" said +the old countryman. "Yes," said the other; "and you will find, in the +long-run, that political honesty is the best political policy." "You +think so, do you?" was the reply. "Well, do you know that you're a +blanked metaphysical Pharisee?" + +It is obvious that when the advocacy of common honesty in any relation +of life is savagely and scornfully decried as Phariseeism, it is because +somebody's withers are wrung. It is a plea of guilty. It is the cry of +Squeers when the picture of Dotheboys Hall was displayed to the world: +"I didn't do it." If a man demands honesty in politics, and it is +retorted, "You're a Pharisee," it is because the dishonesty cannot be +denied or disproved, and the retort is therefore a summons to all honest +men to look out for thieves. + +To deride the demand for decency is to concede that anything but +indecency is impracticable. If it be only Pharisees who insist that +sugar shall not be sanded, that milk shall not be swill-fed, that coffee +shall not be chiccory, that nutmegs shall not be wood, that cloth shall +not be shoddy, that employés of the government shall not be forced to +pay for their places, that public officers shall be honest, and that +government shall not be venal, it is pleasant to think how many +intelligent, upright, industrious, and practical Americans are +Pharisaical. + + + + +LADY MAVOURNEEN ON HER TRAVELS. + + +THE passenger in the crowded street railway car is often +disturbed by the conscious absorption of his masculine neighbors in +their newspapers when a woman enters and looks for a seat. If she be +young and pretty, there are apparently seats enough, however great the +crowd, and even if a man is slow to rise, he may yet, with Mr. Readywit, +exhort his son sitting upon his knee to get up and give the lady his +seat. The impatient passenger, in his indignation at the want of +courtesy upon the part of others, sometimes forgets, indeed, to rise +himself. But there is always some Nathan comfortably seated farther away +whose amused look says to the impatient but stationary David, "Thou art +the man." + +It would be very unfair to generalize from this frequent situation that +the American is uncourteous. On the contrary, he is the most truly +polite man among men of all nations. Lady Mavourneen, who is familiar +with the society and the manners of many countries, and who has been +always accustomed to hear Americans in Europe described everywhere and +with pungent emphasis as "those Americans," was amazed upon coming here +to find universal courtesy. "In the street or at the railway station," +she said, "if I ask anybody any question, I receive the most prompt and +polite reply. Everybody is at my service, not with much bowing or +flourishing, but heartily and honestly. I have never seen such universal +courtesy." When she was asked whether she had observed the absorption of +the street-car passengers in their newspapers, she smiled and said that +she had never been obliged to stand, because some one was sure to rise. +But in Paris she said that often as she was passing to a seat Monsieur +Crapeaud, raising his hat politely, and saying, warmly, _Pardon!_ +pressed by and secured the seat. + +Lady Mavourneen, who tells a little story with great humor, described a +scene in a crowded church in Paris. An apparent lady was disturbing +everybody by pushing along toward a distant chair in the row, when Lady +Mavourneen arose to allow her to pass more easily, and the apparent lady +immediately slipped into my lady's chair, and held it fast, saying only, +in reply to her earnest remonstrance: "Madame, you left the chair; I +took it. You have lost it. Voilà!" A vagabond of this kind took the seat +of a gentleman who had risen to help a lady off a street car. When the +gentleman returned he mentioned to the interloper that it was his seat. +The interloper shrugged his shoulders, remarked that it was an empty +seat when he took it, and that he should continue to occupy it. "If you +don't get out of that seat, I'll take you out," was the rejoinder of the +gentleman, whose shoulders were broad. The squatter scowled and +abdicated. + +Lady Mavourneen found, what every lady will find, that she could travel +everywhere in "the States" alone, with entire safety and surrounded by +the utmost courtesy. The word "lady" with which she will be accosted by +hackmen and porters and conductors is spoken with kindly respect, and +even if some person in a lady's garb thrusts herself into the cue of +passengers slowly advancing to the window of the ticket office to buy +tickets, there may be sour looks and amazed stares, but she will +generally have her way. So great is our courtesy that we honor the +counterfeit claim. The source of the most serious objection to the +demand of suffrage for women is the secret apprehension that men will +lose their sincere deference, and treat women as they treat other men, +thus robbing life of the tender romance of chivalric courtesy. Emerson +says of the successful lover and his mistress, "She was heaven, while he +pursued her as a star; can she be heaven if she stoops to such an one as +he?" + +Yet, while this feeling is frequent, and seems to many very plausible, +it is the true respect of the American for women which is the real +strength of this very movement. The European sentiment for woman is +still somewhat mediæval. She is still the goddess of the troubadours and +the minnesingers, but a goddess who is treated as the South-sea +Islanders treat their gods, beating them when they are not propitious. +To the American she is Wordsworth's "Phantom of Delight" seen upon +nearer view, and it is idle to prattle about her "sphere," as if she did +not instinctively know it more truly than men. The universal courtesy +which Lady Mavourneen remarked is essential respect and kindliness of +feeling, which no more permits a man to gild his selfishness with a +"Pardon" and a touching of his hat than it permits him to strike a +woman. + +Yet although courtesy is essentially in the heart, and is kind feeling +rather than respectful manner, it is not worth while to despise the +manner. If we must choose between the good heart and suavity of address, +between Boythorne and Lovelace, of course we shall choose Boythorne. But +why not both? Why not the _mens sana in corpore sano?_ In "The Iron +Pen," Longfellow says: + + "And in words not idle and vain + I shall answer and thank you again + For the gift, and the grace of the gift, + O beautiful Helen of Maine!" + +It is not only the gift, it is the grace in giving which completes the +charm. + +The young American of to-day puffs his cigarette in the face of his +partner on the balcony, in the boat, or in the wagon, and smiles at the +frilled Lothario of yesterday bowing in his flowered coat and paying +stately compliments as stiff as her brocade to the dame whom he +addresses. The youth is right in saying that the flowered coat and the +stately compliment were the dress and the speech of an old sinner. But +he would be right also if he remembered that familiarity breeds +contempt, and that he may wisely distrust his feeling for any woman who +does not put him upon his good behavior. The courtesy which Lady +Mavourneen observed in the railway station and in the street was plain, +but it was genuine. Respect naturally produces courtesy. Good manners +are the cultivation of natural courtesy: the gift and the grace of the +gift. + +This was the chief remembrance, and it was a unique and precious +treasure, which Lady Mavourneen carried back to Europe from America. + + + + +GENERAL SHERMAN. + + +NONE of his great contemporaries was universally beloved +more than General Sherman, perhaps none so much. The rare happiness was +his not only of becoming famous by taking a great part in a great +historic achievement, but of the complete enjoyment of fame. His later +years forecast the future. He saw not only that his name would be +remembered, but remembered with personal affection. Very few men have +been able to foresee this, and very few more clearly than Sherman. It is +due not to achievement alone, but to personal quality blended with +achievement. + +In his last years he was wholly withdrawn from public affairs, and with +extraordinary tact, although constantly in the public eye and mind, and +although the sense of his historic personality, so to speak, was +constant, he refrained from declarations upon pending public questions, +and the remarks of his interviews were not devoted to subjects of +general controversy. This was doubtless the result of his accurate +apprehension of his relation to the country. He had been educated by it, +and had served it as a soldier. He had strong convictions and was frank +of speech, but he belonged to all. He could not well be a common +partisan. He was apparently untouched by political ambition. If he had +felt its spur at all, he was happily able to prefer the general +permanent affectionate popular regard to the fierce enthusiasm of a +political campaign and the passionate ardor of partisanship. + +Whatever the reason, he held aloof. Perhaps at one moment, had he +assented, his name might have been caught up in a vast and tumultuous +political convention, and to a burning and skilful appeal to patriotism +and the still glowing memories of the war a palpitating party might have +responded, and made him its leader. But if others doubted and hesitated +he did not. He comprehended the situation as in a comprehensive and +far-extending military movement. He knew himself, and he refused. The +opportunity for which the most illustrious and the most famous of +Americans have longed and labored and pined offered itself to him, +unsought, unwished, and he smiled it away. + +Among the chief figures of the epoch of the war probably Lincoln and +Sherman were the most individual and original. The most romantic and +picturesque of the many renowned events of that time was the march to +the sea. It has already a distinctive character, like that of the Greeks +in Xenophon's story of the ten thousand. When the news of its successful +issue reached this part of the country, it served to show the simple and +honest patriotism of one of the more unfortunate of the Union generals. +Burnside, after the explosion of the mine at Petersburg, had been +relieved, and was staying with a company of friends at a country-house +on Narragansett Bay. The company were all sitting one morning upon the +spacious piazza, when a messenger rode up and announced Sherman's +success. Burnside's delight was enthusiastic. All thought of himself +vanished. The good cause only was in his mind and heart, and, running to +his wife, he joyfully kissed her, saying, "I know that the company feels +as I do, and will forgive me." + +It was the feeling of a soldier as simple and true-hearted and +patriotic, but not so fortunate, as Sherman; and it was the same candor +and manly sweetness of nature that softened Sherman's voice whenever he +spoke of the soldiers of the war to whom fate had seemed to be unkind. +He is gone, the last of the old familiar figures, some of his old foes +bearing him tenderly to the grave. And are not Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, +Sheridan, Porter, Seward, Chase, Stanton, Sumner, and their fellows, +historic figures worthy to rank with the elder Revolutionary group dear +to all Americans? + + + + +THE AMERICAN GIRL. + + +A PLEASING and constant topic of English writers is the +American girl. One of the later commentators says of her, "American +girls have shown they can receive, travel, and live without chaperons, +escorts, or husbands, and are fast developing a bright, clear, +intelligent, self-reliant, courageous, and refreshing variety of the +human race." And again, "Even if in future years the slender Yankee +belle is hidden behind the ampler beauty of the English matron, we may +still hear from her lips the wit and shrewdness, the acute accent, the +intelligent question, and the rapid repartee that proclaim her original +nationality." The "society" pictures in the papers and magazines +represent the dismay of the British matron with marriageable daughters +as she surveys the avatar of the American divinity and rival. The +essential differences of society in the two countries are at once +suggested, and the alarm of the watchful parent is justified. + +The charm of Miss Austen's novels is their acknowledged fidelity of +portraiture of the society with which they deal. They are miniatures, +but the likeness is wrought with exquisite skill of detail, and as the +American reader reflects he perceives that the great object of the game +which they describe is eligible marriage. Indeed the motive of the novel +in general is love and marriage. We open the book, we are at once +introduced to Paul, and presently to Virginia, and we proceed over the +pages until we hear the approaching beat of the Wedding March, which in +fact we have heard from the first page, and we know that the end is at +hand. But in the English novel of society, although the theme be +marriage, it is not necessarily love. If that were essential, a host of +rival fair ones with golden locks would bring no pang to the maternal +bosom, because she would know that love will find out the one among the +thousand. + +The passages that we have quoted apparently describe by contrast, which +is a fact which does not seem to have occurred to the writer. Doubtless +at heart he is loyal to the English girl, and does not admit even in +debate that her supremacy of maidenhood can be disputed. When he says +that American girls have shown that they can receive, travel, and live +without chaperons, escorts, or husbands, he seems to mean that they have +shown this distinctively as compared with other girls. When he adds that +they are fast developing a bright, clear, intelligent, self-reliant, +courageous, and refreshing variety of the human race, can he mean that +those words describe a new variety of girl, and that it is not perfectly +familiar in England? So in the other passage, when, supposing the +American girl transformed into the British matron, he remarks, with +evident admiration, "we may still hear from her lips the wit and +shrewdness, the acute accent, the intelligent question, and the rapid +repartee that proclaim her original nationality," would he have us +understand that these are not the characteristics of the British matron +of to-day? Or does he intimate only that the coming of the Americans +will but enlarge the number of these delightful ladies? + +The writer certainly seems to describe by contrast, but he has wisely +left a little cloud in which to envelop his retreat in case of +emergency. Certainly we need not press him. Whatever he may think or say +of the English girl, he has spoken well and truly of her American +sister. His description applies to the girl who grows up amid the +average conditions of American life, the girl who is portrayed in her +more jejune condition in Henry James's Daisy Miller. The two chief +qualities of that young woman, as represented by the shrewd and subtle +artist, are self-respect and self-reliance. The perplexity of the +phenomenon to the foreign reader lies in the fact that she does what the +European girl without self-respect does. + +A distinguished writer in New York, no longer living, once said to the +Easy Chair, with an air of consternation: "Do you know that the best +girls in New York go without escort to the matinées at the Academy? +Goodness knows what will be the end of it!" The good man was seriously +troubled. He seemed to apprehend that the young woman who could go to a +matinée without an escort would probably run off with a circus troupe, +and presently ride--in a very short skirt--bare-backed horses in the +ring. He evidently felt that the young women whom he had seen were in +grave danger of losing maidenly reserve, and that their conduct betrayed +a want of refinement of feeling. The secret of his alarm lay in the fact +that the social conventions of foreign society had acquired in his mind +the force of rules of morality. He shared the feelings of the delightful +lady who remarked that in her opinion it was immodest to go abroad +without gloves. Nothing is more common than this confusion of mind, and +one of the advantages of genuinely American society is that it +dissipates such illusions. The Lady Mavourneen, who was familiar with +the finest society both in France and England, said that the respect +shown to women in this country was so sincere and universal that she +should not hesitate to cross the continent alone. Why, then, should the +Easy Chair's friend have been troubled that young women went unattended +to the concert at the Academy? Every man there would have been their +instant defender against insult. But they went, and they were allowed to +go, because the insult was more improbable than fire, while the defence +was sure. + +In what is called distinctively society in large cities there is a great +deal of the feeling evinced by the observer at the Academy. There is +abundant regard for misplaced conventions. Young women in Vienna and +Paris who go unattended are generally working-women or another class, +and as working-women are not respected by Lovelace and Lothario, they +are exposed to insult. To avoid the chance of insult, therefore, a young +woman must have an escort in a partially civilized city like Paris or +Vienna. But no presumption lies against any woman in America. Her +self-respect and self-reliance are unquestioned, and American women, +old and young, are perpetually passing in railway trains by day and +night from one part of the country to another, unsuspected and +unsuspecting. + +In a country where social classes are not permanent or rigidly defined, +as hitherto in America they have not been, the daughter as well as the +son of the house contemplates the possibility of self-support. In such a +country the harem view of the sphere and occupation of woman, however +modified, wholly disappears. The word "obey" gradually vanishes from the +marriage service, or is smoothed away by interpretation. The ideal of +woman changes, and, as we think in America, improves. All the excellent +qualities which the London writer attributes to the American girl spring +from this change, from social conditions which foster self-respect and +self-reliance. The demand of the suffrage, the rise of the woman's +college, the challenge to the great universities to lift up their gates +that woman may come in, show no decline of the feminine ideal of woman, +but its transformation from the fancy of a goddess or a toy into the +old Scriptural conception of the helpmeet. + +The British matron, as she scrutinizes what she may hold to be an +invader of her realm, will not find that in any feminine quality or +grace, even to the most exquisite taste in dress, or delicate charm of +manner, or essential refinement of mind, Pocahontas defers to Boadicea. +Where the American imitates the English or any other, as when the +English girl affects the French, she must suffer from the inevitable +inferiority of all imitation. When her self-reliance is boisterous, or +without tact and fine perception, Daisy Miller will be as crude and +distasteful as Lady Clara Vere de Vere is heartless and cruel. But +Rosalind and Viola and Beatrice, and Tennyson's Eleanore and Adeline and +Margaret, meet in the American a sister of the same lineage as their +own, bred in an atmosphere most fortunate and fair. + + + + +ANNUS MIRABILIS. + + +This year, the centenary of the opening of our national constitutional +epoch, will be a Washington year. As on a saint's day there is a special +service in his honor, so through all this year there will be especial +remembrance of Washington, and natural self-congratulation that in him +we have a glory beyond that of other nations. The last striking tribute +to him is also most timely, for it is that of Mr. Bryce in his "American +Commonwealth," whose publication happily coincided with the opening of +this _annus mirabilis_. He says, in speaking of Hamilton's death, "One +cannot note the disappearance of this brilliant figure, to Europeans the +most interesting in the earlier history of the republic, without the +remark that his countrymen seem to have never, either in his lifetime or +afterward, duly recognized his splendid gifts." The explanation of this +seeming want of appreciation is, however, very characteristic, for it +lies in the instinctive American regard for morality. + +Mr. Bryce touches it when he proceeds: "Washington, indeed, is a far +more perfect character. Washington stands alone and unapproachable, like +a snow-peak rising above its fellows into the clear air of morning, with +a dignity, constancy, and purity which have made him the ideal type of +civic virtue to succeeding generations. No greater benefit could have +befallen the republic than to have such a type set from the first before +the eye and mind of the people." That benefit is incalculable, and it +will be acknowledged with every form of stately ceremonial and of +eloquent enthusiasm during this year. + +The great event of 1789 was Washington's inauguration as President, and +it is the most important event in the annals of the city. The +cosmopolitan character of the city from its settlement and in the early +time of the little town, when it was said that more than a dozen +different languages were spoken in its streets, down to the present, +when it is the third or fourth city in size upon the globe, has always +checked the sentiment of local pride which is so great a force in the +development of a community. Among all the original States New York has +seemed to care least for its significant events and its great men. That +the Revolution was tactically largely a contest for the control of the +Hudson, that the contest culminated at Saratoga, and that the new +national order which resulted from the Revolution began in the city of +New York, are facts which are known, indeed, but which have not grown +into a proud tradition universally cherished and constantly repeated and +celebrated like similar great events in New England. + +This year, however, the last event, Washington's inauguration, will be +the occasion of a great national observance. The President and cabinet, +Senators and Representatives and judges, distinguished delegates from +every State, will attend, and there will be religious and oratorical +exercises and civil and military display. One fact, indeed, invests such +a celebration with especial triumph. It is that while the government +which was organized a hundred years ago was unprecedented in form and +wholly untried in the experience of states, and while it was regarded +with interest but with incredulity as essentially unequal to the great +shocks of fate to which other states have succumbed, it has passed, +within the century, not only unshaken but strengthened, through the most +tremendous and prolonged ordeal to which such a government could be +submitted. + +Chief among its extraordinary good fortunes at its organization was that +of the presence of a man without whom at that time its establishment +would have been hardly possible. The French Minister at the time of the +inauguration wrote home to his government that it was the universal +confidence in Washington which secured assent to the Constitution. John +Lamb, who was unfriendly to the Constitution, told Hamilton in Wall +Street that only his faith in Washington overcame his repugnance to it. +The hour had plainly come for union, but except for the man it is +probable that union would not then have been effected. + +The value of Washington to his country transcends that of any other man +to any land. Take him from the Revolution, and all the fervor of the +Sons of Liberty would seem to have been a wasted flame. Take him from +the constitutional epoch, and the essential condition of union, personal +confidence in a leader, would have been wanting. Franklin, when the work +of the Constitutional Convention was completed, said that until then he +had not been sure whether the sun depicted above the President's chair +was a rising or a setting sun, but now his doubt was solved. Yet it was +not the symbolic figure above the chair, it was the man within it, which +should have forecast the great result to that sagacious mind. + +From the moment that independence was secured no man in America saw +more clearly the necessity of national union, or defined more wisely +and distinctly the reasons for it. He is the chief illustration in a +popular government of a great leader who was not also a great orator. +Perhaps that fact gave a solid force to his influence by depriving all +his expressions of a rhetorical character, and preserving in them +throughout a simplicity and moderation which deepened the impression of +his comprehensive sagacity. He was felt as both an inspiring and a +sustaining power in the preliminary movement for union, and by natural +selection he was both President of the Convention and the head of the +government which it instituted. John Adams was Vice-President, and +Hamilton and Jefferson were in the cabinet. After Washington himself, +they were the three most eminent figures in the country. But it is not +possible to conceive any one of them organizing and establishing the new +system without controversy which would have rent it asunder. + +Indeed this year commemorates the auspicious beginning of the most +arduous task which devolved upon Washington, and which transcends that +to which any other man in history has been called. Yet how little in his +performance of that task his countrymen would change! During the course +of the century they have been divided largely upon views of the +Constitution and upon principles of administration, and have engaged in +a long and momentous civil war, but they would certainly not desire that +any chief act of Washington's administration should have been other than +it was. He acted without precedent, but with the calm majesty of +rectitude, and although the serpent of party spirit struck at him as he +retired, no honest partisan to-day either distrusts his motives or +doubts his wisdom. + +It is a benignant fortune that so great a celebration as that of this +year is an act of homage to so great a man. It was his happiness to know +the affectionate reverence in which he was held. The memoirs and letters +of the time show that Washington's was not a tardy and posthumous +greatness, but that those who knew him best honored him most, and that +America was conscious of the worth of her chief citizen. One of the most +striking contemporary personal tributes to him is that of John Bernard, +the English actor, who was in this country at the close of the last +century, and who met Washington near the end of his life, by chance and +without knowing him, near Mount Vernon. + +Bernard had paid a visit to a friend upon the banks of the Potomac, and +was returning upon horseback to Alexandria behind a chaise which seemed +to be in difficulties, and was presently upset. The actor hastened to +the rescue simultaneously with another horseman, and after some +exertions they succeeded in placing the occupants of the chaise--a man +and woman, who were fortunately not injured--again upon their way. After +their departure Bernard's companion politely offered to dust his coat, +and in returning the favor Bernard made a close survey of his +companion. + + "He was a tall, erect, well-made man, evidently advanced in years, + but who seemed to have retained all the vigor and elasticity + resulting from a life of temperance and exercise. His dress was a + blue coat buttoned to his chin and buckskin breeches. Though the + instant he took off his hat I could not avoid the recognition of + familiar lineaments--which, indeed, I was in the habit of seeing on + every sign-post and on every fire-place--still I failed to identify + him." + +Washington recognized Bernard as the actor whom he had "had the pleasure +of seeing perform" in Philadelphia during the previous winter, and after +some pleasant chat an invitation to ride with him to Mount Vernon, only +a mile distant, revealed to Bernard the name of his companion. He was +profoundly impressed, and upon reaching Mount Vernon they found that +Mrs. Washington was indisposed, and the General ordered refreshments +into a little parlor looking upon the Potomac. + +At some length his guest describes the commanding presence of +Washington, in which "a feeling of awe and veneration stole over you." +During a conversation of an hour and a half "he touched on every topic +that I brought before him with an even current of good sense, if he +embellished it with little wit or verbal elegance." + + "When I mentioned to him the difference I perceived between the + inhabitants of New England and of the Southern States, he remarked: + 'I esteem those people greatly; they are the stamina of the Union, + and its greatest benefactors. They are continually spreading + themselves, too, to settle and enlighten less favored quarters. Dr. + Franklin is a New-Englander.' When I remarked that his observations + were flattering to my country, he replied, with great good-humor: + 'Yes, yes, Mr. Bernard, but I consider your country the cradle of + free principles, not their arm-chair. Liberty in England is a sort + of idol; people are bred up in the belief and love of it, but see + little of its doings. They walk about freely, but then it is + between high walls; and the error of its government was in + supposing that after a portion of their subjects had crossed the + sea to live upon a common, they would permit their friends at home + to build up those walls about them.' + + "A black coming in at this moment with a jug of spring-water, I + could not repress a smile, which the General at once interpreted. + 'This may seem a contradiction,' he continued, 'but I think you + must perceive that it is neither a crime nor an absurdity. When we + profess, as our fundamental principle, that liberty is the + inalienable right of every man, we do not include madmen or idiots; + liberty in their hands would become a scourge. Till the mind of the + slave has been educated to perceive what are the obligations of a + state of freedom, and not to confound a man's with a brute's, the + gift would insure its abuse. We might as well be asked to pull down + our old warehouses before trade has increased to demand enlarged + new ones. Both houses and slaves were bequeathed to us by + Europeans, and time alone can change them--an event, sir, which, + you may believe me, no man desires more heartily than I do. Not + only do I pray for it on the score of human dignity, but I can + clearly foresee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can + perpetuate the existence of our Union, by consolidating it in a + common bond of principle.'" + +At the end of a century which has vindicated his view so nobly and so +completely it is pleasant to read these words, and in this new and vivid +glimpse of our Washington to find only a stronger title to our +veneration. Bernard recalls the words of De Chastellux: + + "The great characteristic of Washington is the perfect union which + seems to subsist between his moral and physical qualities, so that + the selection of one would enable you to judge of all the rest. If + you are presented with medals of Trajan or Cæsar, the features will + lead you to inquire the proportions of their persons; but if you + should discover in a heap of ruins the leg or arm of an antique + Apollo, you would not be curious about the other parts, but content + yourself with the assurance that they were all conformable to those + of a god." + + + + +STATUES IN CENTRAL PARK IN 1889. + + +The Easy Chair recently spoke of the statue of Longfellow which has been +erected in the city of Portland, where he was born, and "Charter Oak," +writing from Connecticut, asks why there is as yet no statue of +Washington Irving in Central Park, the beautiful sylvan resort of his +native city of New York. It is a question which the Easy Chair has +already asked, and which must constantly suggest itself in the spacious +public grounds which are becoming the most comprehensive of Walhallas. +The London _Times_ calls Westminster Abbey "our Walhalla," meaning that +of England only. But the pleasure-ground of New York is truly a +Pantheon. It is dedicated to all the gods except its own. With unwonted +metropolitan modesty the city honors especially those who are not +children of New York. + +Webster is there, but not John Jay; Shakespeare and Scott and Burns and +Dante and Halleck even, but not Irving. It is grotesque that a space set +apart in New York for recreation, and decorated with marbles and bronzes +commemorating illustrious men, and among them authors and statesmen, +should still lack a fitting memorial of the greatest statesman and the +greatest author who were born in the city. Webster's famous panegyric of +Jay, that when the ermine of the Chief-Justiceship fell upon his +shoulders it touched nothing that was not as pure as itself, suggests +that a statue of John Jay might be of peculiar service as an object of +admonitory meditation in the bowery seclusion of a city that more +recently contemplated a statue to Tweed. In Couture's picture of the +"Decadence of the Romans," behind the luxurious and voluptuous groups of +intoxicated revellers in the foreground stand in sad severity the +statues of the elder Romans surveying the scene. In the lofty aspect of +Jay, filling with calm dignity the seclusion of some winding walk, would +there be felt amazement and reproof? Is it to escape the sculptured +rebuke of contrast with the civic heroes of to-day that it is not seen, +and that the eye of the student who reflects that the city of New York +has contributed few very great names to our history seeks in vain the +statue of John Jay in Central Park? + +Irving has every claim to this especial distinction. It is his kindly +genius which made the annals of New Amsterdam the first work of our +creative literature, and which invested the great river of New York with +imperishable romance. Undoubtedly he wrote those annals in characters of +rollicking fun, and even over the heroism of the doughty Peter +Stuyvesant he has cast a humorous halo. But not all our authors combined +are so identified with New York as Irving. His earlier squib of +"Salmagundi" treats "the town" with an arch memory of the Spectator +loitering in London, and his spell was such that in a later day Dennett, +in the _Nation_, happily nicknamed the work of the talent which he had +quickened the Knickerbocker literature. + +The same genius in a tenderer mood colored the shores of the Hudson with +the softest hues of legend. The banks at Tarrytown stretching backward +to Sleepy Hollow, the broad water of the Tappan Zee, the airy heights of +the summer Katskill, were mere landscape, pleasing scenery only, until +Irving suffused them with the rosy light of story, and gave them the +human association which is the crowning charm of landscape. In many a +scene a hundred mountain ranges survey the lower land far reaching to +the ocean. The scene is grand, but nameless, bare of tradition, and +forgotten. But where + + "The mountains look on Marathon, + And Marathon looks on the sea," + +the eye and the heart are enchanted with the story of Greece and its +heroic human associations. + +In the first century of our literature, which is ending, very few of our +authors have laid this legendary spell upon American scenes as Irving +did upon the Hudson. They have not much endeared the country to the +popular imagination, like Burns and Scott in Scotland, where every hill +and stream and bird and flower is reflected individually and fondly in +tale and song. The Easy Chair once met at Niagara a young Scotchman who +had come straight from his native land, and at every turn and glimpse +upon Goat Island and along the banks of the river he fairly bubbled and +murmured with the music of Burns and the other poets about Scottish +streams and scenes, of which he was reminded at every step. So in his +"Poems of Places" Longfellow reveals the charm which literature imparts +to scenery--a charm which he illustrates in his "Nuremberg" and "Belfry +at Bruges," and in his "Lost Youth," with its beautiful pictures of +Portland, a poem which probably gives to a larger number of persons a +more distinct and pleasing interest in that delightful city than +anything else connected with it. + +Irving is the magician who has cast this glamour upon New York, the +roaring mart of trade, the humming hive of industry. He shows us in +these crowded and hurried streets the leisurely forms of old Dutch +burghers, their comely wives and buxom daughters, and their tranquil +existence. Upon this very spot, which thus becomes a palimpsest, one +life over-writing another, he awakens a romantic interest which gives it +an endless fascination. He is thus a universal benefactor. + +His Rip Van Winkle, indolent but kindly vagabond that he is, asserts the +charm of a loitering life in the woods and fields, against all the +tremendous energy and lucrative devotion to dollars, the overpowering +crowd and crushing competition, of the whirring emporium. It is not +necessary to defend poor Rip, or justify him as a moral exemplar. Pax, +good Zeal-in-the-land Busy! But how soothing, as we mop our brows in the +ardent struggle, and waste our lives in the furious accumulation of the +means of living, to behold that figure stretched by the brook, or +pleasing the children, or sauntering homeward at sunset! Other figures +allure us, but still he holds his place. The new writers create their +worlds. The new standards, another literary spirit, a fresh impulse, +appear all around us. But still Rip Van Winkle lounges idly by, an +unwasted figure of the imagination, the first distinct creation of our +literature, the constant, unconscious satirist of our life. + +The edicts of Fortune are caprices. Halleck, who sang of Marco Bozzaris, +has his statue in the Park. Bryant still awaits his, and Irving, first +of all, is without his memorial. The Germans have justly honored +Humboldt in our Walhalla, the Scotch have commemorated Burns, the +Italians have given to it Mazzini. The Puritan Pilgrim, ancestor of +distinctive America, New England in bronze, is properly there. But +where, asked the thoughtful child, reading the epitaphs in the +graveyard, where be the bad people buried? Those whom the statues recall +are all well and wisely honored in this most cosmopolitan of countries +and of cities. But where, amid Germans and Italians and Scotchmen and +great New-Englanders--where be the New-Yorkers? + + + + +THE GRAND TOUR. + + +Nobody could have written this book--a London Review recently said of +Longfellow's "Hyperion"--who could have reached the Rhine in a few +hours. It needed the ocean, thought the critic, to make the Rhine and +Switzerland remote and romantic to the poet. But he forgot "Childe +Harold," a book written by an Englishman, which has given to the Rhine +and Italy a more romantic glamour for John Bull upon his travels than +any book he reads. It is not the distance, it is the imagination +susceptible to association which is the secret. + +The traveller of to-day is not likely to be affected as his father was +by the melancholy melody of Byron; but it is an interesting illustration +of the power of his genius that Byron has imposed his interpretation of +so many scenes upon the mind of the modern English and American +observer. His view makes Italy, as Sir Thomas Lawrence's portrait of +John Kemble made Hamlet. If we stand in the Capitol and look at the +Dying Gladiator, we must also see "his young barbarians all at play" +upon the Danube. If at Terni we see the Velino "cleave the wave-worn +precipice," the Byronic lines murmur along our lips. As we step into the +gondola and glide gently upon the Grand Canal, memory keeps time to the +measure of the dipping oar with the words whose charm is unexhausted: + + "In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, + And silent rows the songless gondolier." + +At "a tomb in Arqua," at "Clarens, sweet Clarens," we are still led, +like Dante, by the singing guide. The Guide-book is full of him. The +travel-books are full of him. He is familiar almost to commonplace. Who +comes to "Belgium's capital" for the first time without listening for +"the sound of revelry"? Who goes to the field of Waterloo remembering +"the unreturning brave," and does not sigh, + + "And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves." + +Sitting quietly here in a great land which looks to the future, not to +the past, it is pleasant to think of the throngs of travellers who have +gone hence for a summer wandering in Europe. Yet so intense is the +delight of European travel, so freshly remembered is it when almost +another generation of travellers are ready to begin their journey, that +the patriarch who goes to the wharf to say farewell to the newer +voyagers looks at them with tenderness and pity, and there is even a +sadness in his congratulations, not because they are sailing away, but +because he cannot believe that they will find what he found, nor +possibly enjoy what he enjoyed. These newer voyagers will see a France +and a Switzerland and an Italy; they will eat oranges at Sorrento, and +gaze upon the Mediterranean from Capri, and hear the fisher's song at +Amalfi: but they will not hear and see through the enchantment of +lapsed years. + +In his lively book of travelling letters Dr. Bellows says that he went +up the Nile in a steamer of seventy berths. An ancient mariner of the +Nile cannot comprehend it. In a steamer? With paddles or screws whisking +the water? And steam blowing off? Making innumerable miles a day? The +round trip to Philæ in two weeks, or a week? But how could you see +Egypt, or feel it? That slow floating southward upon white wings; the +sinking deeper and farther from the world we knew; the sense of infinite +strangeness and distance; the weeks passing with no sign of accustomed +life; slowly, one by one, the temples, the tombs; in the still days the +crew dragging the boat along and singing the wild minor refrain; a +voyage of wonder and of dreams--is that Egypt to be seen in a steamer? +It is useless to say that you may go in the old way if you choose. You +cannot go in the old way, because it is no longer what it was, if there +be a newer. You may drive from London to Oxford. But is that going by +the old English stage-coach when it was the only way, when the guard +wound his horn, and the cherry-nosed coachman threw down the ribbons at +each relay, and the neat inns stood smiling with open doors, and +tra-la-la sped the nimble team by the park gate and the hawthorn hedge? +You may go by sloop from New York to Albany. But is that now the +romantic Hudson voyage which it was when it could be made in no other +way? + +No sensible ancient mariner will quarrel with all this, nor desire to +banish the steamer of seventy berths from the Nile. When he shakes a +farewell hand with the youth who are going to run up to Rome by train, +and are _not_ going to stop at a certain point upon the Campagna, and +run forward to the top of a hill whence they can see far away upon the +horizon the faintly outlined dome of St. Peter's--and who are _not_ +going from Leghorn to Florence through the grape harvest, their carriage +heaped with the luscious clusters, but are to whiz through Tuscany in +an hour or so, the regret in his tone is not personal or selfish, it is +for a whole order of things passed away. + +Such an ancient mariner would, however, be indeed sorry if he supposed +that anybody suspected him of a very common and very odious kind of +remark, against which he kindly warns all the throngs of travellers of +whom mention has been made. The remark in question may be called the +capping remark. Thus one traveller says to another--as Marco Polo to +George Sandys-- + +"You went to Jerusalem?" + +"Yes." + +"And to Jericho?" + +"Yes." + +"And to the Jordan?" + +"Yes." + +"Did you see the white stone on the bottom near where the river flows +into the Dead Sea?" + +"Well--let me see! I don't exactly seem to remember that I did precisely +see that." + +"Ah!" replies Marco Polo. + +It is a very brief sound, but being interpreted it means, "Then, my +dear George Sandys, you might just as well not have seen the Jordan at +all." Not that the white stone was famous or worth seeing, but that +Marco Polo wished to "rub in" upon George Sandys's mind the conviction +that he, Polo, had seen more than he, Sandys, in the same direction. + +This capping process sometimes leads to very droll results. Young Green +heard Gray and Brown comparing their notes of travel. Each was naturally +anxious to have seen and done rather more than the other; but it +appeared that each had been in about the same places, and had had very +much the same experience. + +"Lago Maggiore is a lovely sheet of water," remarked Gray. + +"Truly exquisite," replied Brown. + +"And Isola Bella is most beautiful," suggested Gray. + +"Dear me! dear me!" approvingly assented Brown. + +"How high is the statue of San Carlo Borromeo?" asked Gray. + +"About sixty feet," answered Brown. + +"It's a wonderful prospect from his eye," said Gray. + +"Whose eye?" asked Brown. + +"San Carlo Borromeo's," replied Gray, whose mind instantly suspected +that he had caught the adversary, and who followed up his advantage +vigorously and suddenly. "Of course you went up San Carlo?" + +"Up San Carlo? You mean the church at--" + +"Oh no! the statue on Lago Maggiore." + +"Went up the statue! what do you mean?" snapped Brown, foreseeing +discomfiture. + +"Oh! I thought you probably knew," retorted the triumphant Gray, "that +the statue is hollow." + +"Oh! ah! yes!" returned Brown, indifferently. + +"And you didn't go up?" pressed Gray. + +"Not exactly," feebly rejoined Brown. + +"Nor sit in his nose?" continued Gray. + +"Not exactly," muttered Brown. + +"Nor look out of his eyes?" said Gray. + +"I thought I wouldn't," murmured Brown, in full retreat. + +"Oh!" smiled Gray, with the air of David holding the head of Goliath by +the hair, and displaying it to mankind--"oh!" + +Young Green heard all this, and he resolved that whatever he did not do +when he went to Europe, he would at all hazards sit in the nose of San +Carlo Borromeo. The next year he came to Lago Maggiore. He saw the +statue. He remembered the conversation and his high resolve, and he +essayed the deed. It was fearful. He tore his hands; he tore his +clothes; he was half suffocated; and, wedging himself into the nose, he +stuck fast, and was only rescued at the peril of his life. When he told +Gray afterward, and reminded him of the colloquy with Brown, that +experienced traveller laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. "My +dear Green," said he, "I never went up the confounded thing; but it was +necessary to take Brown down somehow, and I employed the good saint for +the purpose." He laughed again to tears; but Mr. Green soberly resolved +that he would eschew the capping talk of travel. And he chose the wiser +course. + +The truth is that Green should not trust too much the tales, nor indeed +the regrets, of the ancient mariners. + + "For travellers tell no idle tales, + But fools at home believe them." + +Certainly when this one remarks that he feels in saying farewell that +young Green will never see the Europe that he saw, he has not the +remotest idea of dimming his bright hope nor of asserting an advantage. +What is it, indeed, but a way of saying that he is no longer the same +man he was? If he were, what would be the gain of travel? It is not only +an enlargement of the scenery of the mind, not only a richer and more +various memory that he has acquired, but a riper experience. He has +grown wiser; and perhaps all that he feels when he shakes Green's +parting hand is that Green is not so wise as he will one day be. + + + + +"EASY DOES IT, GUVNER." + + +Dickens's Rogue Riderhood, who says "Easy does it, guvner," was a very +practical man. But there is no motto which is more susceptible of +perversion. Mr. Seward said the same thing in his last great speech. "I +early learned from Jefferson that in politics we must do what we can, +not what we would." It is not only plausible, but it is true. Yet its +truth can be most readily abused to defeat everything for which it is +urged. + + "'I weep for you,' the walrus said; + 'I deeply sympathize.' + With tears and sobs he sorted out + Those of the largest size, + Holding his pocket-handkerchief + Before his streaming eyes." + +It was necessary that the walrus should eat, and it was very sad that +the oysters should satisfy the necessity. But it is obvious that wicked +walruses who have no intention whatever of not eating oysters would sob +aloud with heart-rending vehemence as proof of a virtue which they do +not possess. The foes of progress are always anxious that its friends +should go easily. "Easy does it, guvner." But meanwhile they are +anything but easy in obstructing. In the race, the sly gentleman who +bets on Tom whispers confidentially to the jockey who rides Jerry that +he had better "go easy." The friends of the saloon hope that the true +friends of temperance are aware that the only way of success is to avoid +fanaticism. But they omit to hide their bodies as well as their heads, +for they are unsparing fanatics on their own behalf. + +When Gustavus, in deference to his dear Griselda, promised to begin to +reform the baleful habit of smoking, his Griselda was jocund as the +dawn. But at the end of a week she did not observe that there were fewer +cigars consumed, and she pleasantly asked him if the good resolution had +escaped his memory. "By no means," he answered; "quite the contrary. +But you remember what Rogue Riderhood said, 'Easy does it, guvner.' We +must move warily upon the intrenched enemy, dearest Grizzle. Remember +that Rome was not built in a day." Griselda remembered faithfully. But +still the cigars continued, and upon a further gentle remonstrance +Gustavus rejoined: "Certainly; but we must be reasonable. There are many +steps, my dear Griselda. In siege operations the great masters of war +approach by parallels, after making ample and thorough preparation. That +is what I am doing. I am beginning to prepare to begin. Easy does it, +you know. Don't forget Rome." + +Still Gustavus smoked, and still Griselda waited, and at the end of six +months she asked with a smile how far he had advanced in abandoning the +habit of smoking. "Dear Grizzle," he answered, "you remember the weeds +that sprang up and soon withered because they had no depth of soil. I +wish my reform of this naughty habit to be well rooted, that it may long +endure. None of your spasmodic virtue, your superficial goodness, for +me! Great reforms, even in personal habits, my dear Mrs. Gustavus, +cannot be accomplished in a day. Even Rome was not built in that time. I +am working for great results, to which all my tastes and habits must +conform. I must lay the foundations broad and deep. Easy does it, my +rose-bud." + +Gustavus continues to smoke, and Easy continues to do it. But there is +another saying quite as wise as that of Rogue Riderhood, which exhorts +him who puts his hand to the plough not to look back. The trouble with +Riderhood's apothegm is that it supplies an endless excuse for not doing +it. If the habit is too strong, and will not budge, you can soothe your +conscience and make the most plausible of pleas by insisting that human +nature and long custom and uniform tradition and the honest doubt +whether smoking is, after all, injurious, must all be carefully +considered. That is what Dickens also calls the great art of how not to +do it. "My son, if you wish a thing done, do it yourself; if not, send," +said the wise father; and the pioneers, the men without whose one idea +and uncompromising energy and conciliation nothing would be +accomplished, say with Sumner. "There is but one side," and with Cato, +"_Delenda est Carthago_." + +It is true that everything cannot be done at once, but something must be +done all the time; and you will observe that it is not when the work is +advancing, but when it stops or goes backward, that we hear the familiar +wisdom of the Rogue that Easy does it. That is what makes it a +suspicious saying, "What are you doing, sir?" thundered the master to +the boy. "Nothing, sir," replied the frightened pupil. "Just as I +thought, sir. Don't you know that your business is to do something?" +When a man says "Easy does it," he may be doing all that he can but the +immense probability, the almost absolute certainty, is that he is doing +nothing, or, like the amiable Gustavus, he is "beginning to prepare to +begin." + + + + +SISTE, VIATOR. + + +It is still very difficult to discover where the bad people are buried. +The cemeteries are still symbolically white with monuments to the +departed. Shylock and Ralph Nickleby are still, upon their tombstones, +the most respected of deceased citizens. Here lies Clytemnestra, a model +of the wifely virtues, whom an inconsolable spouse deplores. Beneath +this marble, in the tranquil hope of a joyful resurrection, repose the +remains of Iago, who kept the noiseless tenor of his way. Beyond sleeps +Solomon, most faithful of husbands; and under this turf of buttercups +and daisies lie Paris and Lovelace, _arcades ambo_, too early lost. 'Tis +pathetic to reflect how much worthier is the world under-ground than +that which still cumbers its surface; and if we, whose lives are +indifferent honest, had only had the good fortune to die a century ago, +our memories would by this time have been upon our tombstones a very +odor of sanctity to the sense of the age which knows us, perhaps, but +too well. + +In one of his terrible inscriptions suggested for the monuments of the +Georges, Thackeray says, "He left an example for youth and for age to +avoid. He never did well by man or by woman." Has there been only one +such George in the world? And if more, and in every age, in what +cemetery have you found their epitaphs? Catiline was a fascinating and +accomplished man. He had many followers, and if his political views and +projects were open to differences of opinion, he was certainly +well-mannered. Has there been but one Catiline in history? Or is he +confined wholly to a public sphere? Cicero described him as "a corrupter +of youth," and no one has denied it. Where is Catiline buried? If you +sought his grave by that epitaph, where would you find it? Is there no +corrupter of youth now? Have there been none within the last century? +None, if you may trust the epitaphs. How long will you abuse our +patience, O Catiline, and be annually buried, like Cato the Censor, with +crosses of white camellias laid upon your coffin, and wreaths of +immortelles hung upon the weeping effigy of Virtue which guards your +sleep? + +But because a man was brutal and coarse and cruel in his life, must we +needs insist upon it when he is gone? When Mawworm leaves us, must we +write upon his grave, he lying below defenceless, "_Hic jacet_ a +hypocrite"? When old Sathanas departs to a sphere of light and truth, +shall we carve upon his monument, "Father of lies"? Is it manly? Shall +we have no mercy? Do we really know any man; and shall charity be +forgotten? To be human is to be frail; and is not the fact that we must +die at all, of which the grave is proof, itself sufficient comment upon +our weakness? Here lies Colonel Newcome--tender, generous, noble, +child-like heart! Shall we add that he was credulous and ignorant? Dear +Uncle Toby is in the next grave. Shall we shout in marble, "_Siste, +viator_, contemplate his foibles"? Sacred to the memory of Samuel +Pickwick. Is the inscription incomplete if we do not chisel beneath it, +"A wind-bag pricked by Death"? + +Epitaphs are written more forcibly than upon tombstones. When old +Silenus dies, and the white camellias and the lilies-of-the-valley and +the rose-buds are strewn upon his bier, and the "universally lamented" +is cut upon the monument, the satire is pathetic, but it is slight. But +when the bloated old debauchee is cautiously and forgivingly praised in +the papers, and everybody solemnly pretends not to know what everybody +knows that everybody else does know, it is a sign not of charity, but of +public demoralization. Catiline corrupts youth by his example. Then his +own offences bring him to a sudden end, and the newspapers speak of him +so deprecatingly, so gingerly, that as a good man being dead yet +speaketh, so a bad man being dead yet corrupteth. His evil influence is +not suffered to perish with him, but it is cherished and extended and +confirmed, and his death, like his life, demoralizes. + +Dick Turpin no longer rides in jack-boots upon Hounslow Heath, stopping +my Lord Bishop and the Right Honorable the Earl of Garter; and no longer +stands at the dock, the hero of St. Giles's; and goes no longer to the +gallows in a blaze of glory, with a huge nosegay in his button-hole. +Richard Turpin is a very different fellow in his costume of to-day, but +he is the same Dick of the jack-boots and the heath, this vulgar robber +who smirks and is called smart. He drives a fine equipage, and lives +luxuriously, and keeps a harem, and frequents Wall Street, and beats +everybody in the game of making money, and spending it profusely and +splendidly. He dazzles the eyes of the widow's son, and bewilders his +mind. The boy sees the money with which Richard surrounds himself by +means which honorable men despise. He hears him called good-humoredly a +great rascal, and sees that he buys judges, and steals vast properties, +and procures laws to protect him. The boy hears that all men are +fallible, and that some men are no worse than other men, and that money +is a fine thing, and honor and truth and respect and all the rest of it +are very well, but see what power, what pleasure, what luxury Turpin +commands! Then the poor boy rushes for the same prizes, and fails, and +ends in disgrace, the jail, suicide. And Dick Turpin tosses a hundred +dollars to the boy's mother, and a generous press exclaims, "Not a model +man, perhaps; but what noble generosity! The friend of the widow and the +orphan! When he dies, how many poor homes will be darkened with grief!" +Yes, and the hundred dollars probably pays the widow for her boy. + +It is not difficult to be generous with the money of others. A year ago +it was announced that Greed had given forty or fifty thousand dollars to +the poor. "There," said the admirers of Turpin, "you may say what you +will of Greed. He, too, is not a polished man; he is not a scholar nor a +dainty gentleman; but he is one of the people; he is large-hearted and +generous. Who else has given fifty thousand dollars to the poor?" Yes, +and who else has stolen five millions? The politest gentlemen of the +highway were notoriously gallant. The Marquis of Goutytoe they compelled +to descend from his carriage, and sent the trudging market-woman home in +it. They eased the pockets of the Spanish ambassador, and threw a +doubloon to the leper hiding behind the hedge. It was a cheap +munificence. So was Greed's. It was not _his_ fifty thousand dollars, +the giving of which caused such a burst of good feeling, and the +exclamation, "There now!" It was only a little of the millions that were +not his. He gave it to the poor dwellers in tenement-houses, and it was +said that there was no wretched hovel to which he did not send a load of +coal or a barrel of flour during the winter months. But he took them +first from those wretched dens. Somebody paid the taxes that he stole, +and it is the poor who at last pay taxes. Where be the bad people +buried? When Turpin dies, we have Greed's opinion of him and his ways +gravely paraded in a newspaper. Madame Brinvilliers's opinion of +Lucrezia Borgia would be edifying reading! + +Shall we have no charity, then? and when a man lies dead and +defenceless, shall not warfare cease? Warfare may cease; but should +death condone all offences? The malignant lover who denounced his rival +to the Inquisition, and in the very moment of his rival's death by fire +himself fell dead--shall we write over him, _De mortuis?_ Shall we +Romans, whose sons he corrupted, go dumb and sorrowing behind the corpse +of Catiline? When a bad man dies, let us say that he was bad. Although +he was very rich and very splendid, shall we remember only that he gave +in charity one quarter of one per cent. upon the amount of his thefts? +The Italian brigand chief, when his band had slaughtered the travellers, +said, "There are twelve of us, and we will share equally; but the first +equal share shall be for the mother of God." When we tell his story, +shall we see only that share? + + + + +CHRISTENDOM vs. CHRISTIANITY. + + +IT is remarkable that what is called the practical sense +of Christendom virtually rejects the Christian ideals as impracticable. +Its highest ideal is obedience to the Divine will, and its instinct, +therefore, should represent the religious man as the perfection of +vigorous manhood. The more manly, the finer the bloom of health, the +sounder the body for the sound and purified mind, the truer and more +satisfactory the type, the more symmetrically revealed the Christian +man. This is the simple and natural ideal among living men of unthwarted +and normal Christian excellence. + +But so little is this the fact that the oldest traditions of Christian +art depict the founder of Christianity Himself not as a blooming man, +not as a figure of the inward and outward health that proceeds +inevitably from complete and absolute conformity to the Divine will, but +as a wan and wasted personality plainly worsted by the world. This +conception extends to the constant and organized control of the Church, +and the general feeling of Christendom regards the ministers of its +religion either as official personages or as excluded from actual +knowledge of life; not masters of the arena, but professionally unfit to +cope with the world. + +It may, indeed, be said that the traditions of Christian art show a +misapprehension of the essential character of the Christian faith. But +however that may be, it is certainly true that these traditions do not +misrepresent the general conception of Christianity which is professed +by those who practically reject its ideals. Here goes Solomon Gunnybags +to Christian worship on Sunday morning. He "abashiates" himself in his +pew, and his confession that he is a miserable sinner is so sonorous and +impressive that the hearer sighs sympathetically with Solomon's +consciousness of the enormous burden of wrong-doing that he carries. + +Now what is Solomon doing in his pew? He is solemnly professing +confidence in and reverence for certain principles of faith and conduct, +not only as lofty in themselves, but as absolutely essential to his +soul's salvation. Then, unless the whole universe is a farce, and +religion and the soul impostures, they are the most practical and +practicable of all possible principles, because otherwise the soul's +salvation could not be made by beneficent Omnipotence dependent upon +fidelity to them. But if some attendant spirit should say to Solomon +Gunnybags, as he walks home with the happy consciousness of duty done, +"Solomon, the golden rule and the Christian religion forbid you to +'unload' upon David the stock that you believe to be very shaky," he +would unquestionably feel, if he did not say: "Stuff! Every man for +himself. Of course Christianity is an excellent thing, but it doesn't +mean that." Gunnybags does not expressly repudiate Christian principle +as unpractical; he only believes it to be so. + +The fundamental doctrine of the Christian life is love. The Christian +millennium is peace. But it is Christendom that maintains the vast +standing armies; and when the International Peace Congress meets in +London and proposes disarmament, the good-natured reply of Christendom +is, "Well--yes--perhaps--some time," with a smile of amused incredulity, +as when a child seriously asks for the moon. Yet this is Christendom, +and the Christian principles are entirely familiar, and every Sunday and +saint's day in all the Christian churches we protest that the practice +of them is essential to our soul's salvation. Then we wipe our eyes, and +smile kindly upon any one who really insists that we should offer the +other cheek, and forgive seventy times seven. Oh no, we say; that is an +eccentric view. No man in this world--that is, in Christendom--can +afford to allow himself to be imposed upon. If we don't look out for +number one, who will take charge of that precious numeral? + +So it is that on some bright July day, looking in imagination upon the +respectable Universal Peace Congress in the Hôtel Métropole in London, +and hearing the Bishop of Durham offer a resolution for international +arbitration, and denouncing the folly, the waste, the woe and wickedness +and wrong of war, we hear also, not the immediate and instinctive assent +of Christendom, but its wistful prayer and half-despairing hope that +some time Christianity may be found to be practicable, and something +more than a pretty dream. Yet is there anything more certain than that +the Christendom which actually rejects the Christian ideals and +principles as impracticable, denounces most savagely those who +practically illustrate them, even if they theoretically reject them? + +The moral of this little sermon is altogether Christian, for it is +charity. Since Christendom is in practice so universally unchristian, +and holds its own fundamental principles in such practical contempt, +every member of that vast fraternity should be very modest in judging +others. Could there be a more radically unchristian figure in human +history than Torquemada? If Christianity be what it declares itself to +be, the least throb of sound Christian feeling in his bosom would have +held his hand. The Inquisition, the fierceness of sects, the religious +wars, offensive wars of any kind, are possible only among Christians who +hold Christianity to be impracticable. + +Yet when the Easy Chair saw a gentle lady going to morning prayers on a +happy saint's day, and heard through the open window the murmuring music +of the promise when two or three are gathered together, and marked +during all the day and in daily conduct the unselfishness, the sympathy, +the courtesy, the kindly care of old and young, the faithful doing of +duty, the nameless charm of lofty character, the Christian ideal was no +longer the mirage of an unreached and unattainable oasis in the desert; +it was already come down to earth; it was here, a little heaven below. + + + + +FRANCIS GEORGE SHAW. + +1882. + + +IN beginning his tender and charming paper upon +Washington Irving and Macaulay, Thackeray recalls the beautiful story of +which he was so fond, of Sir Walter Scott's last words to his son-in-law +Lockhart: "Be a good man, my dear; be a good man." It was a soft +autumnal day. The windows were wide open. The low sound of the rippling +Tweed stole into the chamber. The most renowned and the most widely +beloved of living men lay dying, after a career of admiration and +adulation, and of gratified ambition almost unexampled, and in the clear +and serene light of the moment that shows things as they are, the one +lesson and moral garnered by that marvellous life is spoken in the +simple words, "Be a good man, my dear." ... + +There are men whose simplicity and dignity and strength and purity of +character, whose sound judgment and supreme common-sense, dispose of +sophistry and artifice in all relations and pursuits, as surely and +completely as the sun dries the dew. They are gentlemen, because they +know other men only as men, touching electrically whatever of manhood +there may be in them, and whose contact is a silent and consuming rebuke +of pretence and falsehood. Whatever his own advantage or attraction or +position or grace, the man of this quality takes hold of the reality in +other men, man meeting man, as when the grave William of Orange, in his +plain serge coat, met the brilliant Philip Sidney in his gold-flowered +doublet, and neither was troubled by the clothes of the other. + +Such a man lately died. The mingled strength and simplicity and +sweetness of his nature, the lofty sense of justice, the tranquil and +complete devotion to duty, the large and humane sympathy, not lost in +vague philanthropic feeling, but mindful of every detail of relief--the +sound and steady judgment, the noble independence of thought and perfect +courage of conviction, the blended manliness and modesty of a life which +was unstained, and of a character which seemed without a flaw, all +belonged to what we call the ideal man. + +Passing from college to the counting-room of a great commercial +business, his sagacity, energy, and executive power were all brought +into successful action. He went to Europe and to the West Indies, but +much of the spirit of trade and many of its practices were uncongenial +to him, and he quietly withdrew, despite wonder and affectionate +remonstrance, to lead his own life in his own way. By taste and +temperament an out-door man, he made his home in the rural neighborhood +of Boston, busy with country cares and various studies, but interested +chiefly in helping other men. He was allied by sympathy more than by +much previous actual association with the founders of Brook Farm. But +when they chose the site for their enterprise not far from his house, +he was soon in the pleasantest relations with the leaders, for their +spirit and purpose were in harmony with his own. He was a parishioner +and warm personal friend of Theodore Parker, who lived near him, and his +keen common-sense and mastery of practical affairs were most useful to +Parker as to Ripley. Indeed, the hospitality of such a man for every +generous endeavor and for all new and humane ideas was a happy augury +for the philanthropic pioneers, because it seemed to promise the final +approval and adhesion to their cause of the most conservative and +substantial sentiment of the community. + +Such a man was, of course, an abolitionist in the days when the name was +as repugnant to what is called "society" as the name Christian was to +the Jewish Sanhedrim or Methodist to the English Establishment a century +and a half ago. He generously aided the cause, which seemed to him that +of practical Christianity and of American patriotism, and he held most +friendly relations with its chief representatives, who were ostracized +and denounced. But his sympathy was not an abstract regard for man +rather than for men, and his interest in the effort to help a race and +to forecast a happier social organization did not dull his heart or +close his hand to the necessities of his neighbor. His life, indeed, was +a prolonged charity, but a charity directed by a singularly calm and +shrewd judgment. His exhaustless generosity was not the sport of wayward +impulse. It was not a well-meaning weakness, but a wise force which +helped others to help themselves, but knew also when such self-help was +impossible. + +Yet the strength and reserve and independence of his character were such +that the man was never lost in the reformer. His fine nature +instinctively asserted his own individuality. He quietly shunned the +wearisome artificiality of society, but he did not merge his own home in +the general home of his friends and neighbors at Brook Farm, and his +house was always a glimpse of the social refinement and grace, the +mental and moral charm, to which the dreams of social regeneration and +the elaborate fancies of Fourier pointed--fancies which greatly +interested him as hints of a happier social order. + +Long absence with his family in Europe, and a long and final residence +upon Staten Island, only matured and developed the man, in whom not only +was there no guile, but in whom even the most intimate eye could not +note a fault. Clarendon might have studied from him his portrait of +Falkland: "his inimitable sweetness of, and delight in, conversation; +his flowing and obliging humanity; his goodness to mankind; and his +primitive simplicity and integrity of life." Disinclined to public life +of every kind, he was yet full of the highest public spirit, and it was +but natural that his only son should have been selected by Governor +Andrew to command the first colored regiment that marched from +Massachusetts in the war. In his young person all that was best in the +New England youth of his time, all the strength of the elder colonial +and Revolutionary day, blended with all the grace and tenderness and +gentleness of its modern life, the stern old Puritan softened into a +humaner Bayard, was typified. It was the flower of Essex that two +hundred years ago was withered in the fatal Indian ambush in the +Deerfield Meadows. It was the flower of New England that fell upon a +hundred redder fields within a score of years. + +But no sorrow could fatally chill a faith which was reflected in the +perpetual summer of the father's presence and temperament. The frank +urbanity of his greeting, the hearty grasp of his hand, the lofty +simplicity of his courtesy, were but the signs of that unwasting +freshness of sympathy which held him true to the ideals and aims of +earlier life. His helping hand reached invisibly into a hundred homes, +and upheld a hundred faltering lives. But, besides this, as president of +the Freedman's Aid Association his administrative skill and his wise +benevolence enabled him to bear a most effective part in the great +settlement of the war. His invincible modesty and scorn of ostentation +veiled his beneficent activities, public and private. But nothing could +veil the pure and steadfast and unwearying devotion to the well-being of +other men. Kindly but firmly he protected his own seclusion, and he +permitted no man, in Emerson's phrase, to devastate his day. The +freshness of feeling which keeps the heart young was unwasted to the +end. His full life brimming purely to the sea reflected heaven as +clearly when at last it mingled with the main as when it ran a limpid +rivulet from its spring. Young and old, man and boy, he was still the +simplest, noblest, most devoted, best. How truly he was the man that +every thoughtful man secretly wishes he might be, those only know who +knew Francis George Shaw. + + +THE END. + + +HARPER'S AMERICAN ESSAYISTS. + +16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.00 each. + +PICTURE AND TEXT. By HENRY JAMES. With Portrait and Illustrations. + +AMERICANISMS AND BRITICISMS, With Other Essays on Other Isms. By BRANDER +MATTHEWS. With Portrait. + +FROM THE BOOKS OF LAURENCE HUTTON. With Portrait. + +CONCERNING ALL OF US. By THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. With Portrait. + +FROM THE EASY CHAIR. By GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. With Portrait. + +OTHER ESSAYS FROM THE EASY CHAIR. By GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. With +Portrait. + +AS WE WERE SAYING. By CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. With Portrait and +Illustrations. + +CRITICISM AND FICTION. By WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS. With Portrait. + +PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. + +==> _The above works are for sale by all +booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers, postage prepaid, to any +part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price_. + +By GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. + +FROM THE EASY CHAIR. With Portrait. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.00. + +OTHER ESSAYS FROM THE EASY CHAIR. With Portrait. 16mo, Cloth, +Ornamental, $1.00. + +PRUE AND I. Illustrated Edition. 8vo, Illuminated Silk, $3.50. Also +12mo, Cloth, Gilt Tops, $1.50. + +LOTUS-EATING. A Summer Book. Illustrated by KENSETT. 12mo, Cloth, Gilt +Tops, $1.50. + +NILE NOTES OF A HOWADJI. 12mo, Cloth, Gilt Tops, $1.50. + +THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 12mo, Cloth, Gilt Tops, $1.50. + +THE POTIPHAR PAPERS. Illustrated by HOPPIN. 12mo, Cloth, Gilt Tops, +$1.50. + +TRUMPS. A Novel. 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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: From the Easy Chair, series 2 + +Author: George William Curtis + +Release Date: April 27, 2011 [EBook #35980] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM THE EASY CHAIR, SERIES 2 *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif, Broward County Libraries and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 414px;"> +<a href="images/frontispiece.jpg"> +<img src="images/frontispiece_sml.jpg" width="414" height="581" alt="frontispiece" title="" /></a> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 415px;"> +<a href="images/frontispiece_1.jpg"> +<img src="images/frontispiece_1_sml.jpg" width="415" height="87" alt="signature of the author" title="" /></a> +</div> + +<h1><small>F R O M T H E</small><br /> +E A S Y C H A I R</h1> + +<p class="cb">BY<br /> +<big>GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS</big><br /><br /> +<small>SECOND SERIES</small></p> + +<p class="cb"><small>NEW YORK</small><br /> +HARPER AND BROTHERS<br /> +<small>MDCCCXCIV</small></p> + +<p class="c"><br /> + +<br /> +<small>Copyright, 1893, by HARPER & BROTHERS.<br /> +——<br /> +Copyright, 1894, by HARPER & BROTHERS.<br /> +——<br /> +<i>All rights reserved.</i></small></p> + +<h3><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h3> + +<p class="cb">—————</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="contents"> + +<tr><td colspan="2" align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">The New Year</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_001">1</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">The Public Scold</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_010">10</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">National Nominating Convention</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_016">16</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">Bryant's Country</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_023">23</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap"><i>The Game of Newport</i></td><td align="right"><a href="#page_031">31</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">The Lecture Lyceum</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_039">39</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">Tweed</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_047">47</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">Commencement</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_060">60</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">The Streets of New York</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_069">69</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">The Morality of Dancing</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_076">76</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">The Hog Family</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_081">81</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">The Enlightened Observer</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_088">88</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">Ralph Waldo Emerson</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_094">94</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">Henry Ward Beecher</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_110">110</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">The Golden Age</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_119">119</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">Spring Pictures</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_126">126</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">Proper and Improper</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_130">130</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">Belinda and the Vulgar</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_137">137</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">Decayed Gentility</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_142">142</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">The Pharisee</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_149">149</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">Lady Mavourneen on Her Travels </td><td align="right"><a href="#page_155">155</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">General Sherman</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_162">162</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">The American Girl</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_166">166</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">Annus Mirabilis</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_174">174</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">Statues in Central Park</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_186">186</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">The Grand Tour</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_193">193</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">"Easy Does It, Guvner"</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_203">203</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">Siste, Viator</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_208">208</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">Christendom <i>vs.</i> Christianity</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_216">216</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td class="smcap">Francis George Shaw</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_222">222</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="THE_NEW_YEAR" id="THE_NEW_YEAR"></a>THE NEW YEAR.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_I.png" +width="100" +height="103" +alt="I" +title="I" /></span>N Germany on <i>Sylvesterabend</i>—the eve of Saint Sylvester, the last +night of the year—you shall wake and hear a chorus of voices singing +hymns, like the English waits at Christmas or the Italian <i>pifferari</i>. +In the deep silence, and to one awakening, the music has a penetrating +and indefinable pathos, the pathos that Richter remarked in all music, +and which our own Parsons has hinted delicately—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left">"Strange was the music that over me stole,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> For 'twas born of old sadness that lives in my soul."</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>There is something of the same feeling in the melody of college songs +heard at a little distance on awakening in the night before +Commencement. The songs are familiar, but they have an appealing +melancholy unknown before. Their dying<a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a> cadences murmur like a muffled +peal heralding the visionary procession that is passing out of the +enchanted realm of youth forever. So the voices of Sylvester's Eve chant +the requiem of the year that is dead. So much more of life, of +opportunity, of achievement, passed; so much nearer age, decline, the +mystery of the end. The music swells in rich and lingering strains. It +is a moment of exaltation, of purification. The chords are dying; the +hymn is ending; it ends. The voices are stilled. It is the benediction +of Saint Sylvester:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left">"She died and left to me ...</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> The memory of what has been,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> And nevermore will be."</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>But this is the midnight refrain—The King is dead! With the earliest +ray of daylight the exulting strain begins—Live the King! The bells are +ringing; the children are shouting; there are gifts and greetings, good +wishes and gladness. "Happy New Year! happy New Year!" It is the day of +hope and a fresh beginning. Old debts shall be forgiven; old<a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a> feuds +forgotten; old friendships revived. To-day shall be better than +yesterday. The good vows shall be kept. A blessing shall be wrung from +the fleet angel Opportunity. There shall be more patience, more courage, +more faith; the dream shall become life; to-day shall wear the glamour +of to-morrow. Ring out the old, ring in the new!</p> + +<p>Charles Lamb says that no one ever regarded the first of January with +indifference; no one, that is to say, of the new style. But a +fellow-pilgrim of the old style, before Pope Gregory retrenched those +ten days in October, three hundred years ago, or the British Parliament +those eleven days in September, a hundred and thirty-five years ago, +took no thought of the first of January. It was a date of no +significance. To have mused and moralized upon that day more than upon +any other would have exposed him to the mischance against which Rufus +Choate asked his daughter to defend him at the opera: "Tell me, my dear, +when to applaud, lest unwittingly I dilate with the wrong emotion." The +Pope and the Parliament<a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a> played havoc with the date of the proper annual +emotion. Moreover, if a man should happen to think of it, every day is a +new-year's day. If we propose a prospect or a retrospect we can stand +tiptoe on the top of every day, yes, and of every hour, in the year. +Good-morning is but a daily greeting of Happy New Year.</p> + +<p>But these smooth generalizations and truisms do not disturb the charm of +regularly recurring times and seasons. That the fifth of October, or any +day in any month, actually begins a new year, does not give to that date +the significance and the feeling of the first of January. Our +fellow-pilgrim of the old style must look out for himself. He may have +begun his year in March, and a blustering birth it was. But we are +children of the new style, and the first of January is our New Year. +That is our day of remembrance, our feast of hope, the first page of our +fresh calendar of good resolutions, the day of underscoring and emphasis +of the swift lapse of life. "A few more of them, and then—" whispers +the mentor, who is<a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a> not deceived by the jolly compliments of the season, +and the sober significance of the whisper is plain enough. "Eheu! +Posthume," sang the old Roman. "This world and the next, and all's +over!" said airy Tom Lackwit to the afflicted widow.</p> + +<p>The relentless punctuality, the unwearied urgency, of old Time, who +turns his hour-glass with such a sonorous ring on New-Year's Day, seems +sometimes a little wanting in the best breeding. It furnishes so +unnecessary a register. The slow whitening and thinning of the hair; the +gradual incision of wrinkles; the queer antics of the sight, which holds +the newspaper at farther and farther removes, until at last it is forced +to succumb to glasses; the abated pace in walking; the dexterous +avoidance of stone walls in country rambles; the harmless frauds lurking +in the expressed reasons for frequent pauses in climbing a hill to turn +and see the landscape—frauds which the tears of my Uncle Toby's good +angel promptly wash away; the general and gradual adjustment to greater +repose—all these surely are adequate reminders<a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a> and signs of the +sovereignty of Time. Why should he be greedy of more? Why thump and +rattle at the door, as it were, on the first of January, and bawl out to +the whole world that we are a year older, and that makes—!</p> + +<p>It is disagreeably unnecessary. Why should not the old fellow do his +duty quietly, and tell off another year without such an outrageous +uproar? Does he think it so pleasant to hear his increasing +tally—forty, five, fifty, five, sixty, five? Peace! peace! Why not have +it understood that the tally beyond—well, say fifty, is a gross +impertinence? Let something be left to the imagination. Besides, what is +the use of wigs and hair-dye and padding, and what not coloring and +enamelling, and other juvenescent procedures of the feminine arcana, if +annual proclamation of impertinent dates and facts is to be made?</p> + +<p>The worst of it is that it is a positive interference with the just play +of the fundamental truth that age is not justly measurable by the mere +lapse of time. Some people are never young, others defy<a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a> age. This, +indeed, is due to temperament. But that is not all. Those gray hairs and +wrinkles, that eyesight of less keenness, that disinclination to leap +walls, and those fraudulent halts to survey the rearward landscape, are +enemies whose assaults are by no means regular. They come at very +different times to different people. Adolphus at sixty despises +spectacles. Triptolemus at thirty is bald. The hair of Horatius at +sixty-five is as affluent as Hyperion's, and as dark without unguents as +the raven's plume. Let facts speak to a candid world. Why should that +graybeard Paul Pry called Time blare through a speaking-trumpet that the +brave Valentine—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left">"As wild his thoughts and gay of wing</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> As Eden's garden bird"—</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">is just as old as old, toothless, tottering, decrepit Orson?</p> + +<p>Every well-regulated citizen of the world is interested, and more +vitally interested with every closing year, that upon the point of age +all men shall be left to their merits, and shall not be<a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a> measured +arbitrarily by that Procrustean standard of years. It is notorious that +men grow wiser every year, and it is observable that the more years they +have, the more they look with doubt and questioning upon the Family +Record. Those leaves of births following the doubtful books of +Scripture, registered with such painful and needless particularity of +dates, partake of the doubtfulness of their neighborhood. They are mere +intercalations, new books of the Apocrypha. Yet they often cause young +fellows of seventy to be accused and convicted of being old men.</p> + +<p>Since, then, we cannot stop the flight of Time, let him pass. But he +must not calumniate as he passes. He must not be allowed to stigmatize +vigor and health and freshness of feeling and the young heart and the +agile foot as old merely because of a certain number of years. This is +the season of good resolutions. The new year begins in a snow-storm of +white vows. So be it. But let our whitest vow be, after that for a +whiter life, that age shall no longer be measured<a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a> by this arbitrary +standard of years, and that those deceitful and practical octogenarians +of thirty shall not escape as young merely because they have not yet +shown the strength to carry threescore and ten with jocund elasticity.</p> + +<p>Then Happy New Year shall not mean Good-night, but Good-morrow.<a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="THE_PUBLIC_SCOLD" id="THE_PUBLIC_SCOLD"></a>THE PUBLIC SCOLD.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_T.png" +width="100" +height="105" +alt="T" +title="T" /></span>HE Easy Chair was lately asked whether it thought the office of public +scold an agreeable one. There was a certain tartness in the question, as +if its real purpose was to learn from the Easy Chair whether <i>It</i> +enjoyed that position, and upon looking further it appeared that the +question had been suggested by a remark of the Easy Chair's to the +effect that a certain class of our fellow-creatures seemed to be +disposed to do their duty in a manner that might be improved. But what +is an Easy Chair but a kind of <i>censor morum!</i> Would the kind critic of +its conduct have it say to the gentleman whose hands are soiled that +they are as pure as the morning, and to the tactless dame who makes all +her neighbors uncomfortable that her manners are charming?</p> + +<p>Probably this is really what the critic<a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a> meant, for he continued by +saying that it is so much better to dilate upon what is pleasant than to +discuss the unpleasant aspects of life. That is true. It was the +principle of the Vicar of Bray. That reverend gentleman always avoided +friction. He was a chip of the Polonius block. The cloud was a camel or +a whale, according to the fancy of his companion. The good vicar looked +askance at Rome under Henry and Edward, and told his beads piously under +Mary, and upon reflection eschewed the mass-house under Elizabeth. He +dilated upon the pleasant aspects of affairs. We can imagine him saying +to Ridley in the time of Mary, "My dear bishop, why think yourself wiser +than your time?" and a little later to Parker, Elizabeth's Archbishop +(Ridley having been burned in the meanwhile), "My dear archbishop, Rome, +I see, is much too stringent." The Vicar of Bray was not a scold. He +was, according to the abused text, all things to all men.</p> + +<p>Yet his profession, our censor must remember, was a scolding +profession—at<a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a> least in the sense in which the word is often used. His +duty was to admonish and exhort, to adjure his flock to quit the error +of their ways. Perhaps he was a poor illustration of it. Perhaps, true +to his temperament rather than to his profession, instead of urging +repentance because the kingdom was at hand, he was accustomed to say: +"Brethren, I observe that you lie and steal and slander your neighbors a +good deal. But in such a world as this what is to be expected? We are +all poor, weak, fallible things. Which of us can hope to strike twelve +every time? Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. We +must all beware of hypocrisy, dear brethren, and of pretending to be +better than our neighbors. You remember the Pharisee who thanked God +that he was not as other men. Let him be a warning against the sin of +presumption. There is the beautiful lesson of the beam and the mote. We +must not forget it. We are all miserable sinners, and therefore we must +not twit each other with sinning. We ought to tell the truth, my +friends.<a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a> But we don't. We all lie. Let us therefore not scold each +other, since we are all equally wicked. But let us avoid Phariseeism and +all that assumption of superior virtue which is implied in saying to a +foul-mouthed brother that he ought to speak cleanly. Beware of +Phariseeism as of the unpardonable sin. Scold not, dear brethren, but +talk of the things which are pleasant, and instead of rebuking the liar, +commend his goodness to the poor, and instead of silencing the +backbiter, praise his subscription to the soup kitchen. For what says +Dr. Watts?</p> + +<p class="c">"'Let dogs delight to bark and bite.'</p> + +<p>Dogs naturally scold, but we, brethren, we have the gift of avoidance, +and, O liars, thieves, and slanderers, let us live together in peace, +and say nothing about falsehood, stealing, and calumny."</p> + +<p>This was probably the tenor of the sermons of the Vicar of Bray, and +this was the way that he strove to save souls. But Fénelon and John Knox +and Edwards and Whitefield and Wesley and Channing and St. Paul, each in +his own way, said,<a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a> "Thou art the man," and rebuked both the sin and the +sinner. Yet all of them were very human and very fallible, and all came +very short of the ideal of duty. To point out a defect in a picture, or +to exhort the artist to avoid it, is not to declare yourself an +incomparable artist. To demand honesty in public affairs is not to +proclaim yourself a saint. To say that school-teachers should be +thorough and use their common-sense as well as a text-book is not to +scold them. Romilly was not a scold because he denounced the unjust +criminal laws, nor John Howard because he rebuked the inhumanity of +prisons, nor John the Baptist because he exhorted men to repent.</p> + +<p>The poets rebuke our lives by the fair ideals that they draw, but they +do not scold. If a man preaches a little sermon illustrating the way in +which men in a certain profession, let us say, shirk their duty, and +somebody cries out, "Don't scold so!" the preacher may safely exclaim, +"Fellow-sinner, thou art the man." But the best illustration is closer +at hand.<a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a> If the Easy Chair reproves certain fellow-sinners for +remissness in doing their duty, and for that offence is a scold, what is +the censor who scolds the Easy Chair for scolding? Let us avoid +Phariseeism, brethren, and the assumption of superior virtue.<a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="NATIONAL_NOMINATING_CONVENTION" id="NATIONAL_NOMINATING_CONVENTION"></a>NATIONAL NOMINATING CONVENTION.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_I.png" +width="100" +height="103" +alt="I" +title="I" /></span>T was a wise newspaper that recently advised every American who could +do so to see a national nominating convention. It is a spectacle visible +in no other country, and the most exciting political spectacle in this. +It is the arena in which the prolonged and passionate strife of +countless ambitions, intrigues, interests, and conspiracies is decided; +and it is the more exciting because, with every effort to predetermine +the result, the result is still at the mercy of chance. The action of +the convention is a lottery. Suddenly, at the decisive moment, an +unexpected combination, an impulse, a whim, like an overwhelming tidal +wave, sweeps away all plans and calculations, and the result is as +complete as it is unanticipated.</p> + +<p>Even the device of a two-thirds vote to<a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a> make a nomination valid does +not avail to secure the real preference of the party which the +convention represents. The two-thirds rule, as it is called, was +designed to baffle the fundamental democratic principle, which is the +rule of the majority. When that is abandoned, the proportion selected is +purely arbitrary. It may as well be nine tenths as two thirds. But even +such a dam will not resist the swelling waters of feeling in a +convention. The French say that it is the unexpected that happens, but +in a national convention it is the unforeseen which is anticipated. The +palpitating multitude, which has been stimulating its own excitement, +confronts every doubtful moment with an air which says plainly, "Now +it's coming."</p> + +<p>There is always a preliminary contest of various cities before the +national party committee to decide where the convention shall be held. +Local orators with honeyed persuasion dazzle the committee with +statistics of the superior convenience, accommodation, beauty, +healthfulness, resources, facilities, and whatever<a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a> else their good +genius may suggest, of the city for which each one of them contends. The +convention is held in the largest hall, or in a building erected for the +purpose, like the Wigwam in Chicago in 1860. The convention itself is +composed of about nine hundred state delegates, their seats designated +by a flag with the name of the state placed by the seat of the chairman +of the delegation. The alternates are also seated.</p> + +<p>Every convention is full of distinguished leaders and members of the +party, and as any of them appears, either entering or rising to speak, +they are greeted with great applause. If the temporary chairman be an +eminent party chief or an eloquent popular orator, his address touches +the springs of emotion and arouses hearty enthusiasm. But the friends of +the leading candidates deprecate the mention of names until the +candidates are presented by the chosen orator. The reason is that the +applause of the convention is one of the counters in the game. There are +hired <i>claques</i> in the conventions which keep up a humming cry which is +a substitute<a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a> for applause, and which is sometimes continued for a +quarter of an hour. The longer the hum, the more popular the candidate.</p> + +<p>Forgetfulness or ignorance of the value of applause under such +circumstances reveals the comparative popularity of candidates in the +eager mass of delegates and spectators. In one convention the permanent +president in his address, but without any sinister purpose, or indeed +any other purpose than kindling the convention, mentioned successively, +and, of course, with impartial compliment, the name of every candidate +who was known to be on the list. Involuntarily he thus tested the +feeling of the convention. The galleries also swelled the acclaim, but +in the galleries the <i>claque</i> is shrewdly distributed, and in critical +moments the approval or disapproval of the turbulent galleries +undoubtedly impresses the delegates, and recalls the galleries of the +French convention a hundred years ago.</p> + +<p>There are occasional skirmishes of debate upon motions or resolutions, +but the first great interest of the regular proceedings<a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a> is the report +of the platform committee. It is a tradition of conventions that the +platform should be accepted as reported, both to gain the prestige of +perfect unanimity and to escape "tinkering," which may lead to endless +discussion and discordant feeling. But when the motion is made to +proceed to the nomination of candidates, the excitement is intense. The +orators are usually carefully selected, not alone as eloquent speakers, +but as men of weight and influence, and of what at the moment is more +indispensable than everything else—tact. The speeches are made with the +fundamental understanding that, however glowing and elaborate the praise +of the candidate may be, there shall be an explicit assurance that +whatever the merits of any candidate, the candidate who shall be +nominated by the convention will receive the universal and enthusiastic +support of the party.</p> + +<p>On one occasion, when this fundamental rule was forgotten by an ardent +orator, who, in the warmth of his devotion to his candidate, declared +that no other<a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a> man was so certain to draw out the whole party vote in +the state for which he spoke, a hurricane of hisses from the convention +and the galleries silenced him, and the friends of his candidate were +instantly aware that a fatal injury had befallen him. In another +convention the orator who nominated one of the candidates was so +exasperated by what he felt to be the treachery to his candidate of a +conspicuous friend of another that his denunciation of the traitor was +held to be a covert assault upon the traitor's candidate, and again a +tempest of universal hissing overwhelmed the luckless orator and his +candidate.</p> + +<p>The announcement by states of the first formal vote for candidates is +made in impressive silence, followed by immense applause. But the second +ballot is more significant; and whenever upon any ballot the +announcement of a vote is seen by the tally to decide the nomination, +the feeling culminates in an indescribable tumult of frenzied +acclamation, and the convention generally adjourns to consider the +Vice-Presidency. But the<a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a> interest in its work is at an end, and it is +astounding to see the happy-go-lucky Providence which presides over the +selection of the officer who has thrice become the President of the +United States.</p> + +<p>In the history of national conventions there is no more touching +incident than that of Mr. Seward awaiting at his home in Auburn the +result of the balloting at the convention of 1860, which nominated Mr. +Lincoln. By what is called the logic of the situation Mr. Seward's +nomination was assured, and no disappointment could have been greater +than the selection of another. How bitter it was was not suspected until +his life was recently published! But he encountered the shock with his +usual equanimity, and before the election he had made the most +extraordinary series of speeches for his party which the annals of any +campaign record.</p> + +<p>The journal's advice was sound. See a national convention if you can.<a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="BRYANTS_COUNTRY" id="BRYANTS_COUNTRY"></a>BRYANT'S COUNTRY.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_T.png" +width="100" +height="105" +alt="T" +title="T" /></span>HE traveller in western Massachusetts, reaching some quiet village upon +the hills, which seems to him singularly lonely and remote, often finds +some little incident in its annals which connects it with the great +world. Coming to Goshen, a solitary little town wholly unknown to most +of our readers, he is conscious of the height, of the purity of the air, +and the peacefulness of the wooded landscape, and far below, towards the +east, he sees the undulating line of Holyoke, and on some fortunate day +may catch the gleam of the placid Connecticut winding through broad +meadows and between Tom and Holyoke to the Sound.</p> + +<p>The little town itself is a grassy street, with a meeting-house and a +hotel, which has a desolate air of mistaken enterprise declining into +disappointment, with long<a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a> anticipation of a crowd of summer pilgrims, +who might well turn their steps hither, but who have never come. Beyond +the village street upon the same plateau is the great Goshen reservoir, +which lies hushed in grim repose over the town of Williamsburg, a few +miles below, the town which was overwhelmed some years ago by the +bursting of the Mill River dam. Such events are the tragedies of the +hills, which become traditions told in the village store, and investing +with dignity, as the years pass, the villagers who recall the direful +day.</p> + +<p>Among the traditions of Goshen is that of the passage of some of the +soldiers of Burgoyne on their march from Saratoga to Cambridge. When the +brilliant British general swept down Lake Champlain to the Hudson, +capturing Ticonderoga as he came, it was feared in these hills that he +would march triumphantly from Albany to Boston. There was a general +rally of all able-bodied men to the rescue; and as they marched away +from their fields ripe for the harvest the prospect was dismal, until +the<a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a> able-bodied women marched into the fields and gathered and housed +the crops. The British invaders reached Goshen, indeed, on their march +from Albany to Boston, but only as prisoners of war.</p> + +<p>All this peaceful neighborhood was originally granted by the State to +the heirs of soldiers in the early New England wars. Goshen and its +neighbor Chesterfield, another city set upon a hill six or seven miles +to the south, were grants to the descendants of soldiers in the +Narragansett expedition of King Philip's war. From Goshen the +Chesterfield meeting-house can be seen against the southern horizon, and +the road lies through high pastures and lonely farms to the pleasant +town. When you climb its hill and look around, you see a cluster of +hospitable houses, around which the neatly kept grounds give an air of +refinement to the whole village, which is steeped in rural tranquillity.</p> + +<p>The broad hills slope westward towards the valley of the Westfield, and +beyond lie the shaggy sides of the Cummington range. Chesterfield has +its special tradition<a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a> of Lafayette passing the night in its old tavern, +on his way from Albany to Boston, in 1824. It is a characteristic +representative of the hill towns, so still that the air seems drowsy as +in Rip Van Winkle's village. But such tranquil towns, in which a moving +figure is half spectral and almost a surprise, were the beginnings of +the nation. From these sequestered springs the mighty river flows.</p> + +<p>Chesterfield has not half the population that it counted seventy years +ago. The whole town now reports scarcely seven hundred persons. Yet, +with all the old spirit, it invited its neighbors in Hampshire County to +come and dine on one of the loveliest of summer days this year. It was +the annual festival of the Hill-side Agricultural Society, and fully a +thousand people filled the friendly town. The feast was spread upon +tables on a green space beside the old house in which Lafayette slept, +and under a bower of leafy white birch boughs. The magnates of the +county were all present, and it was whispered privately that there were<a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a> +private whisperings among eminent politicians, who, however, with the +non-political, or the political of the wrong side, talked cheerfully of +the charming day and the promising crops. Politics is the breath of our +patriotic nostrils, and it was a stimulating thought that while we were +listening to the humorous but well-merited praises of Strawberry Hill +pork, some of our bland companions were saving their bacon in other +ways; and while we dreamed of crisp sausages and savory ham, were +contriving Senators and Councillors, and even a Governor himself.</p> + +<p>The simple courtesy and universal intelligence were of the old New +England, nor less so the composure and ease with which speaker after +speaker mounted the bench on which he sat, and in what he said, and the +way in which he said it, showed that he was a graduate of the town +meeting. The pastor of Goshen, asked to speak of some of the more noted +citizens of the neighboring towns, might well have occupied with so +fruitful a text all the hours until sunset. But with exemplary +discretion he mentioned<a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a> but a few, and among them some that surprised a +New-Yorker, who had not known, but might have guessed, that Gideon Lee, +former Mayor of the city, and Luther Bradish, Lieutenant-Governor of the +State, came from the little town upon the Cummington hills opposite, +where Bryant studied law.</p> + +<p>The whole region before us, indeed, was especially Bryant's. Upon the +slope yonder he was born, and we could see the house in which as a boy +he lived. "Thanatopsis" was the hymn of his meditations among those +solitary woods. There, upon the nearer hill, high over Plainfield, where +he wrote the poem the "Water-fowl," forever floating in the twilight +heavens—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left">"Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Thy solitary way."</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>We were looking upon the cradle of American literature. Here its first +enduring poem was written. The poet himself never escaped the spell of +the hills. The child was father of the man. Bryant in the city was +always the grave<a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a> and unchanged genius of New England. The city did not +wear off the rusticity of his manner. His air was reserved and remote, +and he was still wrapped in the seclusion of the hills. It is in such +scenes and among such people on such a day that the power of these hills +and their influence upon our national life and literature are perceived.</p> + +<p>These hidden springs have overflowed the prairies of the West; and how +much of the wealth and prosperity, the energy, industry, and +enlightenment of New York have trickled down from them, you may hear, if +you doubt, every year on Forefathers' Day at the New England dinner in +New Amsterdam. As there is altogether too much glory to be adequately +celebrated in one day, another has been added, to accommodate the Yankee +city of Brooklyn, and it is not the fault of the sons of New England if +on those two days the whole continent does not hear the melodious +thunder of their eloquence proclaiming that New England always led, is +leading still, and will lead forever, the triumphal procession of +American progress.<a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a></p> + +<p>Supported by such a history it is a natural boast. There is, however, +one inexorable condition. To do what New England has done, New England +must be what she has been.<a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="THE_GAME_OF_NEWPORT" id="THE_GAME_OF_NEWPORT"></a>THE GAME OF NEWPORT.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_T.png" +width="100" +height="105" +alt="T" +title="T" /></span>HERE is nothing more delightful than the gravity with which the game of +Newport is played. To assist at one of the solemn "functions" like a +coach parade is not unlike attendance upon a function of the ancient +Church in Rome. On a true Newport afternoon, as soft and sweet and +luminous an air as can be breathed, Newport, in every kind of stately +and comfortable and light and graceful carriage, with the finest horses +and the most loftily disdainful of coachmen, proceeds down the avenue to +behold the stately procession along the ocean drive.</p> + +<p>Of its kind there is no more beautiful drive in the world. The shore +winds among rocks which are massed, a shrewd-eyed traveller said, as on +the shores of Greece. The bold character of the coast of Rhode Island +and its picturesque effects<a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a> are wholly unknown upon its neighbor Long +Island. The endless reach of sand and the monotony of the vast level +land on Long Island have a certain vague charm as of a sea-shore +becoming or about to become picturesque. But that point is fully reached +by its northern neighbors of the New England coast, and the ocean drive +in Newport is in itself incomparable.</p> + +<p>For its company on the day of a great social function it is quite as +incomparable. Hyde Park, the Bois, the Cascine, the Prater, show no such +sumptuous display. If the street boy were a philosopher, he would say, +probably, as he watched the spectacle, "My eyes! money plays here for +all it is worth." The American street boy of every degree is not +supposed to need any stronger impression of the value of money than he +already possesses. But Newport is the great school for that instruction, +and it is open free to the whole world. Money elsewhere has the same +instincts and desires. But in a city, in winter, its sports and effects, +however splendid, are divided<a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a> and hidden. In summer Newport they are +concentrated under most fortunate conditions and proceed in the open +air.</p> + +<p>It is all the more striking because money has built its summer city +close by and just above one of the oldest and most historic of our +cities. It has improvised its magnificence and mad profusion upon the +outskirts of simplicity and moderation are observant, for all their +plainness. When they were asked what effect the new town produced upon +the old, whether the rollicking city on the hill harmed or helped the +plodding seaport, they answered: "Until Crœsus and Midas came, it was +beneficial. But they have ruined Newport."</p> + +<p>Perhaps not, however. The Newport on the hill of to-day is the +legitimate offspring of the earlier summer retreat. That was a group of +the select who came to Newport to enjoy themselves for the summer. They +were well-to-do, some of them. But not many dwelt in cottages. The +multitude lived in hotels. They<a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a> danced, they dined, they drove, they +sauntered. It was the green tree. It was less money enjoying itself as +more money enjoys itself now. The gossip, the flirting, the display were +not of another kind, they were the same as to-day, but the scale was +more limited. Mrs. Candour, Mrs. Malaprop, Sir Benjamin Backbite, and +the brothers Surface were already there. The standards of conduct, the +ideals of honor, were not essentially different.</p> + +<p>A generation ago Sir Benjamin bowed and danced and supped at Mrs. +Malaprop's ball with all the gay world of that time, which is now in +wigs, caps, turbans, or heaven; and the next day, dining with Mrs. +Candour, Sir Benjamin told, with infinite relish and to the great +amusement of the table, the story of his hostess's verbal trips and +stumbles. It did not seem to be conduct essentially base, because this +sparkling summer realm by the sea is like Charles Lamb's conception of +the artificial comedy of the eighteenth century: "I confess, for myself, +that, with no great delinquencies to answer for, I am glad for a season<a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a> +to take an airing beyond the diocese of the strict conscience—not to +live always in the precincts of the law courts—but now and then, for a +dream-while or so, to imagine a world with no meddling restrictions, to +get into recesses whither the hunter cannot follow me—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 7em;">"'secret shades</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Of wooded Ida's inmost grove</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">While yet there was no fear of Jove.'"</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>To take permanent lodgings beyond the diocese of the strict conscience, +however, is a critical enterprise. If you take a house in Capua, you +must needs breathe the Capuan air. The magnetic rock in Sindbad's story +drew out the nails of the ships that ventured too near. Old Mithridates +fed on poisons until they "became a kind of nutriment," as Dr. +Rappaccini fed his daughter, until, too late, he discovered that she was +doomed. The graybeards who drive out to see the coach parade, and recall +the days, before the ocean drive, when the rocks beyond Lily Pond were a +glimmering land of Beulah, may prattle of the golden age of Newport<a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a> as +of a happy past in which the graybeards were born. But will they +seriously contend that the age of Crœsus and Midas is not the golden +age of Newport?</p> + +<p>While they are gossiping, the coaches approach. They have been through +the town, and are driving out by the Fort road; and as they appear, the +vast throng of carriages which have driven out to meet them pull to the +side of the road to allow a free course. A multitude of spectators +awaiting a festal procession, which at last is coming, naturally +suggests applause. But there is profound silence. There is no cheer for +every spectator to catch up and pass on. The first coach is at hand, and +gravely passes at a deliberate pace, and the great world in carriages +gravely looks on. The second coach deliberately follows, and is surveyed +with equal gravity. The next perhaps will strike a spark of applause. +But the next passes deliberately amid a silence profound. One friend, +perhaps, in the stately procession gravely nods to another gravely +gazing from a<a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a> carriage. The "function" proceeds. Far out at sea the +white sails flash, and the summer surf breaks gently along the shore. +Every coach rolls slowly by. The moment for cheering has not yet +arrived. Indeed, it does not arrive before the pageant has passed, and +the reviewing carriages are turning and following on in its wake. It is +truly a solemn function. Graybeard recalls nothing like it for multitude +and display in the old drives on "beach days" along the beach in what he +calls the golden age. But does he doubt that old Newport would have done +it gladly if it could have done it?</p> + +<p>If the ghost of Heliogabalus haunts the villa'd shore, it is with no +hope of resuming the imperial crown. His court merely makes a pretty +summer spectacle when the opera ends. The coach and the stately equipage +and the flashing splendor of busy idleness are the pageant which is +kindly displayed gratis for the passengers in the omnibus, for the +pedestrians and the nurses. They sit and stroll and stare at their ease +while the gay play proceeds before their eyes. Nowhere more constantly<a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a> +than in the summer Newport does the remark of the little child watching +the march of the soldiers recur—"Mamma, how good they are to make such +a show!"<a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="THE_LECTURE_LYCEUM" id="THE_LECTURE_LYCEUM"></a>THE LECTURE LYCEUM.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_T.png" +width="100" +height="105" +alt="T" +title="T" /></span>HE Utica <i>Herald</i> in a pleasant article recently recalled the lecture +lyceum of a quarter of a century ago. It was then what is called a +power. It greatly influenced public opinion. Its spirit was indicated by +the reply of Wendell Phillips to an invitation which asked him his terms +and his subject. He answered that for a literary lecture he should +expect a hundred dollars, but he would deliver an antislavery address +for nothing, and pay his own expenses. The lecturers who were most +sought at that time were almost without exception men of very strong +convictions upon the great question which, however evaded and +dexterously hidden, was the vital thought of the country; and every +successive week from November to April, in the largest cities and the +smallest cities, along the belt of country from the Kennebec through +New<a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a> England and New York westward through Ohio and the Northwest to the +Mississippi, before thousands of the most intelligent American citizens, +this band of lecturers advanced, like a well-ordered platoon of +sharp-shooters, and delivered their destructive volley at what they felt +to be the common enemy.</p> + +<p>Edward Everett, "the monarch of the platform," as Mr. Edward Parker +called him in his book upon American contemporary orators, during part +of this same time was making a tour through much of the same region with +his oration upon Washington, for the benefit of the fund for the +purchase of Mount Vernon, and he was also writing the Mount Vernon +papers for the <i>Ledger</i>, in one of which he gave an entertaining +description of a night in a sleeping-car, when those itinerant +bedchambers had but recently taken to the road. Mr. Everett's +conservative temperament made his oration a kind of corrective of the +influence of the great tendency of the lyceum lecture. But patriotic as +his purpose undoubtedly was, his effort to stem the rapidly rising tide<a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a> +of public sentiment was like the protests of Governor Hutchinson and the +Colonial conservatives against the fervid revolutionary appeals of Otis +and Adams and Quincy. Other popular speakers of the same sympathy as +that of Mr. Everett found themselves out of tune with the lyceum +audience, and were but meteors flashing across the stage, whose light +was lost in the steady and increasing glow of the group of men who were +identified with the great day of the lyceum lecture. These men were not +all like Wendell Phillips, open leaders of a specific agitation, nor +were these lectures always ostensibly upon what are called public +questions. But the influence of the lecturers was unmistakable. They +were all men known to be in the strongest sympathy with the most +advanced feeling of the agitation. It was the plain spirit and tone and +drift of those lectures, an occasional allusion and the necessary +application of the remarks, however general, to the actual situation, +rather than any deliberate discussion of the question itself, which +characterized the lyceum of that<a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a> day. There was sometimes an attempted +reaction against this tendency. In Philadelphia it was discovered that +colored persons were not admitted to the Musical Fund Hall, in which the +lectures had been given. The leading lecturers instantly informed the +committee that they declined to speak in the hall so long as the +restriction continued. In Albany the reactionary sentiment in the Young +Men's Association succeeded in electing a lecture committee which was +resolved upon a purely "literary" course, and which would not invite the +usual lecturers. The result was an independent course, under the +auspices of dissatisfied members of the association, in which the +rejected lecturers spoke in the largest hall in the city, and the signal +triumph of the seceders lay in the immense audience which assembled in +contrast to the attenuated attendance upon the regular course.</p> + +<p>The singular success of the lyceum lecture of that time was due, +undoubtedly, to two causes—the simultaneous appearance of a remarkable +group of orators, and their profound sympathy with<a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a> the question which +absorbed the public mind. The weekly lecture was not merely a display of +oratory, not only an amusing recreation, but it brought wit and +accomplishment and eloquence to strengthen the public feeling and arouse +the public conscience, and to confirm the earnest spirit which was +universal, and which forecast the great events and the noble elevation +of the public mind that followed. Emerson, Wendell Phillips, Gough, +Beecher, Chapin, Starr King, Theodore Parker, could of themselves carry +any course of lectures, and each in his own way was thoroughly in accord +with the truest American life of that time. The situation and the +condition of the public mind would not have availed, indeed, without the +happy chance of such orators to create the lyceum, but with that chance +the lyceum of that day was as remarkable a continuous display of various +and effective eloquence as has been ever known.</p> + +<p>If the faithful diary of any lecturer who went the grand rounds +twenty-five years ago, from Maine to the Mississippi, could<a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a> be +published, it would be full of the most amusing stories. The lecturers +all had them to tell, and they were all men of a singularly fine +perception of humor. James T. Fields, the publisher in Boston, was the +friend of all the lyceum orators, and towards the close of his life he +was himself a popular and attractive lecturer upon literary subjects. +His little cell or private office in the old corner book-store in Boston +was an exchange of lecturers for that neighborhood, which teemed with +lyceums, and no similar space has ever heard fresher stories better +told, or has ever echoed with gayer laughter.</p> + +<p>It was the pleasant company in that little retreat which first heard, +the day after it occurred, the tale of the belated lecturer who, +hurrying from the cars in a carriage to the hall in Boston, long beyond +the hour, dinnerless, and with no chance to dress, opened his +travelling-bag, and proceeded, to the consternation of the lady who had +taken a seat in the same carriage, and whose pardon he politely and +briefly invoked, to change his collar and his coat. As he began to pull<a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a> +off his coat, having pulled off his collar, his amazed and terrified +fellow-passenger began to pull at the door, and to call loudly upon the +driver, who was furiously whipping his horses into a pace that increased +both the noise of the carriage and the conviction of the terrified lady +that she was the victim of some dreadful conspiracy, or the hapless +victim of a maniac. The maniac's earnest but interjectional explanation +as he proceeded in his toilet, begging his companion to be pacified, as +he was merely going to lecture, was an unintelligible asseveration, +which only made his madness more indisputable and awful, and what might +have befallen the poor lady, if the carriage had not suddenly stopped at +the hall, and the lecturer, in his clean collar and black coat, had not +begged her pardon for frightening her, with a fervor that frightened her +all the more, and disappeared from the vehicle with his travelling-bag, +shawl, and umbrella, he was not prepared to say. But the tale, as he +told it the next morning with infinite humor in Fields's corner, was +received, as he ruefully admitted, with<a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a> louder shouts of laughter than +had greeted the brightest witticisms of his lecture.</p> + +<p>Fields is gone, and his old friend and neighbor Whipple, who was one of +the earliest of the noted lyceum lecturers. The old corner in the old +corner book-store is gone, and with it have vanished many of the happy +company that gathered there, not only of orators, but of famous authors. +The lyceum of the last generation is gone, but it is not surprising that +those who recall with the Utica <i>Herald</i> its golden prime should cherish +a kindly and regretful feeling for an institution which was so +peculiarly American, and which served so well the true American spirit +and American life.<a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="TWEED" id="TWEED"></a>TWEED.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_T.png" +width="100" +height="105" +alt="T" +title="T" /></span>HERE are many persons who wonder why Tweed did not evade justice by +forfeiting his bail. He had every chance to escape, they say; why did he +stay? His chief confederates are safe in Europe, where he might easily +have been, yet he was foolish enough to take the risk of a trial, and he +is imprisoned, probably for the rest of his life. The explanation, +however, is very obvious. He did not believe there was any risk. Tweed +was the most striking illustration of a very common faith—belief in the +Almighty Dollar. He is the victim of a most touching fidelity to the +great principle which every good American will surely be the last to +flout. His creed was very simple: it was that money would buy +everything, and he reposed upon his belief with the sweet security of +the Mussulman who sees by faith a heaven<a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a> of houris. Certainly his +confidence was not surprising. He had proved his creed. He had seen +money work miracles. He had seen himself, a man of no cleverness and of +no advantages, rising swiftly by means of it from insignificant poverty +to the control of a great party. It had made him master of one of the +great cities of the world. It had secured for him Governors, +Legislatures, councils, and legal and executive authorities of every +kind. He invested in land and judges. He bought dogs and lawyers. He +silenced the press with a golden muzzle, and money made his will law.</p> + +<p>Here was a man who wanted nothing that money could not buy: was it +strange that he had unbounded faith in it? Every form of virtue was to +him mere affectation, a more or less ingenious and tenacious "strike" +for money. If a man spoke of honesty, patriotism, self-respect, the +public welfare, public opinion, truth, justice, right, Tweed smiled at +the fine phrases in which the auctioneer, anxious to sell himself, +cried, "Going! going!" Argument, reason, decency—they were<a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a> meaningless +to him. If an opponent held out, he simply asked, "How much?" The world +was a market. Life was a bargain. He felt himself with pride to be the +largest operator in his way, as Vanderbilt in his, or Stewart in his.</p> + +<p>In Albany he had the finest quarters at the Delavan, and when he came +into the great dining-room at dinner-time, and looked at all the tables +thronged with members of the Legislature and the lobby, he had a +benignant, paternal expression, as of a patriarch pleased to see his +retainers happy. It was a magnificent rendering of Fagin and his pupils. +You could imagine him trotting up and down in the character of an +unsuspicious old gentleman with his handkerchief hanging out of his +pocket, that his scholars might show their skill in prigging a wipe. He +knew which of that cheerful company was the Artful Dodger and which +Charley Bates. And he never doubted that he could buy every man in the +room if he were willing to pay the price. So at the Capitol, where sits +the Legislature of a noble commonwealth of four millions of<a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a> souls, he +moved about with an air of fat good-nature, like the chief shepherd of +the flock. If he stood at the door of the Assembly looking in, it is +easy to fancy him saying to himself, The State pays these men two or +three hundred dollars for four months' service; I will give them better +wages. He did not doubt that it was a fair transaction. What is the +State? It is only four millions of people, he thought, who are all +trying to be rich—struggling, cheating, by hook or by crook, every man +for himself, and the devil take the hindmost, to be rich. These men +would be fools not to take my money. And he smiled his fat smile, and +paid liberally for all that was in market.</p> + +<p>There were some papers, whose price he could not ascertain, which +persisted in speaking ill of him and his pals. If the fools did not know +their own interest enough to be content with a good price—say, of +corporation advertising—they must be silenced. The conceit of virtue +must not be pushed too far. So one day his Legislature passed a bill +virtually giving his judges power to imprison editors at<a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a> their +pleasure. But virtue—that is, in the Tweed theory of life, obstinacy in +holding out for a higher price—mustered such a really respectable +protest that the public project of coercion failed, and private methods +were tried. Tweed had no doubt that reputation could be bought as well +as power. Peter Cooper builds an institute for the education of the +poor, does he? You mean, said Tweed, a monument to his own glory. He +pays a certain number of thousands of dollars for the reputation of +philanthropy. And Mr. Stewart builds a working-woman's palace. Ah! And +Mr. Astor founds a library. Indeed! And they are benevolent gentlemen +and benefactors of their kind? Not at all. They merely invest money in a +certain kind of fame. That pleases their taste, as fast horses and +yachts and pictures please the taste of other people. I will show you +how 'tis done, says the faithful believer in the Dollar. And he gives +fifty thousand dollars to the poor just as winter is beginning. "Let the +cavillers say what they will," exclaim a myriad voices, "that shows a +good<a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a> heart." Tweed, as it were, tips a wink. I told you how it was +done, he seems to say: what is there that money will not buy?</p> + +<p>Is it surprising that such a man did not try to evade justice? Justice +in his view was a commodity like legislative honor, like newspaper +independence, like the reputation of benevolence. The reform movement +was to him a sudden and confusing flurry, in which strikers, to whose +terms he would not yield, had somehow gained a momentary advantage. He +had perhaps made a mistake in not buying them at their own price. +Success had possibly put him off his guard. He was sure that if an +indictment were found, that would be the end of it, and he had no +feeling of shame. His friend Fisk had shown what lawyers were made of, +and he himself would buy lawyers and judges, sheriffs and juries. He +knew that the one thing that in a needy and greedy world cannot fail is +money. He came to his first trial, and the jury disagreed: naturally, +for he had bought some of them. The evidence is, of course, moral only,<a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a> +but it is conclusive. If justice, facetiously so called, wanted another +bout, he would "come up smiling." There was no trick or quibble that +lawyers could devise for which he had not made munificent preparation, +even to asserting that the judge who obstinately refused to name a price +was disqualified from sitting at the trial. Money had never failed +before; it certainly would not at this last pinch.</p> + +<p>But it did, and the bewilderment and consternation of this simple +devotee were pitiful. He had but one article in his faith, and that was +now destroyed. He had staked everything upon the certainty of the +Almighty Dollar, and he had lost. But there was something not less +noticeable than his unquestioning faith. It was that his faith was so +generally held. For what gave the universal and intense interest to the +Tweed trial? Here was a common thief, except in the amount of his theft, +of whose guilt nobody had any doubt, against whom, as the judge said, +the evidence was a mathematical demonstration, and his conviction was +hailed as a kind of national deliverance and vindication<a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a> of human +justice. There was but one reason for this, and it was the feeling that +money would free him. Of course it was known that the judge could not be +bought, nor the Attorney-General, nor the prosecution. Tweed might as +well have offered to buy the moral law. But public knowledge ended +there. And in the degree of the universality of the belief that somehow, +by actual bribery, or by legal quirk or shift or sham, money would buy +him off, is the value of the lesson of his conviction, which is that the +utmost power of money fails before firm, sagacious, and intelligent +honesty. There is not a saloon in New York in which the Tweed contempt +of honorable motives is the sole faith which has not had an astounding +revelation, and learned that money is not omnipotent.</p> + +<p>Those saloons have learned one other thing—that stealing is the same +crime, whether it be the theft of public or of private property. The +Robin Hood jollity that surrounded Tweed, his familiar name, the "Boss," +the laughing stories that were told of him, showed that he was<a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a> held in +very different estimation from an ordinary thief. The baser newspapers +evidently regarded him as the French nobleman regarded himself who was +firmly convinced that the Almighty would think twice before condemning +such a gentleman as he. So when Tweed went to the Tombs the same feeling +attended him. The officers could not believe that it was really meant so +rich a man, who had lived in so fine a house, and had spent money so +profusely, should be treated as a common offender. The wretch who steals +a loaf to feed his starving children must have short shrift, and Black +Maria despatches him at the earliest moment. But a "statesman" who +steals millions of dollars from the people—really the law must think +twice before handling him impolitely! A day or two after he had been +taken to jail, on his way to the penitentiary, the papers said, as if he +had been a beloved prisoner of state whom cruel governments might +torture, but whom the people would still honor: "A great many +improvements have been made in his cell by his friends, and it has now +quite a<a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a> cosey, comfortable appearance. The floor is covered with a +carpet of a dark green ground. The walls are hung with dark green cloth, +and the panes in the windows, opening on Centre Street, which were +cracked and broken a few days ago, have been newly glazed. In the centre +of the room is a large round table, at which the 'Boss' takes his three +regular meals, served up in the best manner from the prison restaurant. +There is a luxurious leather-covered lounge in one corner, and five +chairs, including a large, comfortable rocking-chair. Besides these few +articles of furniture are a wash-stand and a book-case. The prisoner is +plentifully supplied with reading matter; and as for creature comforts, +the solicitude of his friends and relatives leaves nothing to be desired +except liberty. Crowds of people have called to see him for the past two +days, but none were admitted without passes from the Commissioners."</p> + +<p>This feeling was akin to that which inspires the proverb and the +practice that "all's fair at the Custom-house." When Robin Hood stepped +politely to the door<a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a> of my Lord Bishop's carriage and requested him to +alight under the greenwood tree, and proceeded to rifle the carriage of +all the treasure that his lordship was conveying, he was not felt to be +a common thief. Far from it; he was the people's tax-gatherer in green. +He scattered with a free hand among the poor the money which the rich +man could lose without feeling it. Nobody suffered. My Lord Bishop was +admonished that he had the poor always with him, and the poor rejoiced +in his involuntary largess. So "the boys" thought of Tweed. While the +"Boss" was king there was always money about, as they said; and when did +Robin Hood himself ever bestow fifty thousand dollars in a lump upon the +poor? Besides, who could say that he was robbed? The rich could not feel +it; and was any poor orphan defrauded by him, any poor widow pinched, +any honest laborer burdened?</p> + +<p>Yes, they were. It was public money that he stole. And what is public +money? It is the taxes. And who pay the taxes—the rich? No, the poor, +the producers.<a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a> They come out of the rent of the tenement-house; out of +the price of tea and sugar and coal; out of the pittance of the widow +and orphan, and the small wages of the laborer. It was from the poor who +cowered gratefully over the coal that he gave them that he stole the +coal. His confederate, Sweeny, planted hyacinths in the city parks, and +for every flower some poor soul was pinched. Gay Robin Hood strips the +baron, and the poor bless him as he flings them the gold. Then the baron +goes home to his castle and wrings teeth out of the jaws of Isaac of +York, to force him to give money. Then Isaac of York advances at a more +ruinous rate than yesterday the interest upon the money he lends. So +when Tweed steals from the public treasury he picks every private +pocket. Every stroke of his hammer, if he hammers stone with other +thieves, refreshes in the public mind these familiar truths. It is +humiliating that the conviction of an evident offender in a court of law +should be a cause of public congratulation. But, on the other hand, it +is cheering that shameless<a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a> crime intrenched in every way, and defying +the course of law, should by that course be quietly convicted and surely +punished.<a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="COMMENCEMENT" id="COMMENCEMENT"></a>COMMENCEMENT.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_I.png" +width="100" +height="103" +alt="I" +title="I" /></span>T is a changed college world since Nat. Willis's Philip Slingsby was +the hero of many a maiden's dream, and the stories of Willis reflected +the modest gayety of the society of his time. Nahant was then a summer +resort of importance, and had not become, as one of its denizens said in +later years, only "cold Boston." Willis's heroes, like Byron's, were +largely himself, and it was but a thin veil that covered in them persons +familiar in the society that he knew, and incidents drawn from his own +experience.</p> + +<p>He was the college hero of his time. But his Scripture poems, which had +great vogue and were printed in all the "classbooks" and "readers," and +his "Burial of Arnold," a young and brilliant Senior at Yale, and his +bright and blithe "Saturday Afternoon," are quite passed out of<a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a> current +knowledge. They are not the kind of verse which is produced in college +now. Their Byronic sentimentality is not to the taste of the college +club and Greek Letter Society man of to-day; and Charles Coldstream, who +looks on listlessly at the college athletic games, leaves enthusiasm to +"the Fresh," and has "really never read those things of Willis's."</p> + +<p>Yet the dominant emotions of Commencement this year were very much what +they were when Philip Slingsby dared the waltz, and even the more +emancipated belles shuddered a little as they slid into the charmed +circle. Youth and hope and the passion which "is not all a dream" are +forever renewed, and if the fashion changes, the substance remains. In +the crowded church at Commencement this year, with the gay dresses and +the flowers and the music and the soft summer air breathing in at the +open doors and windows, there are still palpitating bosoms, and a color +that comes and goes, and glances that meet and mingle—"read the +language of<a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a> those wandering eye-beams—the heart knoweth."</p> + +<p>It was "Nat. Willis" yesterday, in a high-collared coat and an ample +cravat such as Brummel wore, and even D'Orsay. It is a quaint and a +droll costume, as you see it in those old <i>Fraser</i> pictures of English +authors "'tis sixty years since." But in that guise it is you, sir, of +to-day, and if your oration is spoken to one auditor, in all that lovely +throng in the gallery, whose heart answers "pity Zekle" to your pitapat, +do you think that the divine Una's grandmother was never young, and that +the droll high-collared coats did not cover hearts as sensitive and +hopes as high as the faultless summer attire of Nameless, Jun., class of +'90? The actors change, but the spectacle is the same. Even the members +of the reverend and venerable the corporation, those bald and +white-haired worthies who seem vaguely always to have been sitting +unchanged in the front pews, like those austere senators of Rome of whom +the tradition tells us that they sat motionless although the invader +came—even they are living monuments,<a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a> and on their hearts, as on +tablets, the story of the wandering eye-beams is engraved.</p> + +<p>There is not one of the young heroes of the Commencement hour whom those +elders do not scan with knowledge. These wise young judges carry no +secrets which the elders do not share. Is it a strange world that of +Willis and his Philip Slingsby? It is the world of the moment and of +this Commencement.</p> + +<p>But there is something else in Commencement besides this romance of +feeling and tradition. It is the celebration of the intellectual life. +The eloquence, indeed, is sometimes rather copious. An oration in the +morning before one literary society; in the afternoon before another; +and a sermon in the evening before the Missionary Association, is good +measure heaped up and running over. There is some jealousy also even in +academic groves. In the older day, if the Melpomene had its oration in +the morning and the Euterpe in the afternoon, and you read on the +following Sunday, scrawled on the blank page of the hymn-book in the +pew,<a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a> "Words, words, words, oration of Cicero," and "Genius, eloquence, +common-sense, oration of Demosthenes," you knew that you read the +comment upon the rival orator of a Melpomenean or a Euterpean, as the +case might be. But if the orator was not always wise or eloquent, there +were also discourses which have profoundly influenced the lives of those +who heard or read them, giving a direction and inspiring a fidelity +which, like Wordsworth's thoughts of his past years, breed perpetual +benediction.</p> + +<p>It is a recollection blended of many feelings, that which the recurring +Commencement brings to the alumnus. But the deep and permanent charm is +the consciousness of the infinite worth and consolation of letters. +Theoretically the college course was a series of years devoted to making +acquaintance with the treasures of human genius. Possibly there was in +fact some divergence from the theory. But that was the opportunity. The +gates were set ajar, and if the neophyte did not choose to enter, he +lost—as the teacher said to his pupil who went<a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a> fishing rather than to +hear Webster's eulogy on Adams and Jefferson—he lost what he can never +regain.</p> + +<p>Is there some fatality which makes the pen that treats of Commencement +hortatory and didactic? Is there some secret charm which still allies +the college to the pulpit, so that to talk about it is presently to +begin to preach? The Easy Chair asks because it feels that it is about +to take the sacerdotal tone, and remind the youth who is leaving or +entering college that, like every other epoch in life, college is an +opportunity. It is what you make it. Fate, as the older times would have +said—life, as we prefer to say—gives us a chance. But the improvement +of it we give ourselves. The tragedy of the refrain, "Too late, too +late; ye cannot enter now," is that of the man who, in our simple +phrase, wasted his college years. The tender spell of Whittier's "Maud +Muller" lies in its saddest words of tongue or pen. But the memory of +what might have been is so profoundly pathetic because it might not have +been, and we were the arbiters<a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a> of fate and did not choose to turn +upward.</p> + +<p>Kind sir of the college, who lend to the preacher of the moment your +listening ear, the preacher himself may be a wearisome chaplain, but you +are the young judge of the summer afternoon, smelling the meadows sweet +with hay, and stopping at the cool spring where Maud Muller hands you +the refreshing draught. Do you follow the allegory, and see in that maid +what really she is? To you she is a maiden who rakes the hay; to Numa +she was Egeria by the other fountain. It is a sweet illusion, for the +maid is not Egeria nor Maud Muller, but under those gentle forms she is +the nymph of opportunity. Woo her and win her, and all the happiness +that might have been will be yours.</p> + +<p>There is nothing more touching than the inability of the chooser to +comprehend the choice. Why did not the judge yield to the soft +persuasion of that simple loveliness? Why did he not embrace the +opportunity, and fold his happiness to his heart? Well, sir, that is +always the<a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a> question. But if he did not know that in that fair figure +opportunity stood before him, you do know it. Don't be satisfied to hum +"in court an old love tune." You remember the legend of the Sibyl's +books. Was it interpreted to you in the class-room? Do you interpret it +to yourself?</p> + +<p>The most inspiring tradition in every college is not that of the boat or +the ball, of copious gold and flowing wine, of Milo or Sardanapalus or +Midas; it is not that of the "dig" or the "prig," of Dryasdust or +Casaubon; but it is that of the youth, by whatever name he was called in +your college, who did not, like the judge, "closing his heart," ride +on—who knew that four such years as yours in college would never +return, and that they offered him the golden keys which, polished by his +labor, would open the heaped treasures of genius in all ages and lands. +It is he who in taking the keys did not grudge the labor, and to whose +life those treasures have been wide open.</p> + +<p>No, the inspiring personal tradition of college was not the pleasant +Philip Slingsby;<a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a> it was rather Philip Sidney, who rode with the best +and was a man in every manly enterprise, but who had so used his +opportunities in study and affairs that Hubert Languet, most +accomplished of scholars, called him friend, and William of Orange +called him master.<a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="THE_STREETS_OF_NEW_YORK" id="THE_STREETS_OF_NEW_YORK"></a>THE STREETS OF NEW YORK.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_E.png" +width="100" +height="102" +alt="E" +title="E" /></span>VEN the Pan-Americans protest that the streets of New York are dirty. +It is very comical, but it is true, that all our marvellous prosperity, +our genius of invention, our quickness of wit, and profusion of +resource; all our patriotism and pride, our great traditions of liberty +and heroism, our free soil, free speech, and free press; and all the +force and intelligence of our free government—cannot keep the streets +of New York clean. Miss Edwards, the most courteous and friendly of +visitors, is compelled to say: "I found on all sides nothing but holes +of mud, gutters, and dirt piles, an endless rush and a block of street +traffic. There are so many dangers and the state of the highways is such +as to make it incomprehensible to English people that enterprising +Americans would long endure it."<a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a></p> + +<p>Miss Edwards is familiar with the dirt of Egypt, which is universal and +intolerable, but even that does not mollify or alleviate the awful +impression of dirty New York. Then a Pan-American, perhaps from Bogota, +from Callao, from Lima, from Santiago, from Buenos Ayres, from Rio de +Janeiro, from Guayaquil—cities in which we had not supposed impeccable +highways to be—politely flagellates us, and ignominiously discrowns +Broadway. "It was impossible not to notice the deplorable condition of +the streets. Our carriages plunged terribly into the holes which at +frequent intervals were met with, and the wheels at every turn sent +whirls of mud, which compelled the passers-by to keep at a respectful +distance."</p> + +<p>We may indeed reply that this is the fling of a Pan-American. And who, +forsooth, is a Pan-American? Is he the superior—nay, does he presume to +be the peer—of a North American? Are we not notoriously the greatest +nation in the world? Does not our population reduplicate incalculably? +Have we not carried civilization from sea to sea? Have<a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a> we not the +largest lakes, the longest rivers, the broadest prairies, the greatest +cataract, in the world? And shall the minions of monarchies and the +pigmies of tuppenny temporary republics snap their ridiculous fingers at +us, and presume to say that the streets of New York are dirty? The idea +is preposterous. It is contemptible. Moreover, it is insulting, and the +streets of New York are—</p> + +<p>It is plain sailing—or slipping, as chance may determine whether we go +in the water or the mud—so far, but it is a little difficult to end +that sentence in the same key. Let us try another, possibly a little +less perfervid. The population of the United States is some sixty +millions. Taken altogether they form undoubtedly the most intelligent +community, with the highest average well-being, in the world. They are +self-governing down to aldermen and coroners. More than in any country +at any time in history, the will of the majority of the adult male +population determines the government. The city of New York is one of the +three or four chief cities of the world. It is confessedly<a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a> the +metropolis of this blessed and absolutely self-governing country, and +the streets of New York can't be kept clean.</p> + +<p>Is there any possible method of describing the unquestionable greatness +and undoubted glory of the country, its resplendent history and its +miraculous achievements, in an ascending and cumulative series of +epithets and epigrams which shall end truthfully in the resounding +allegation, "and the streets of New York are kept clean"? Indeed, is not +this little joker worse than that of the thimble? Does he not grin at us +from every pile of mud, and laugh out of every hole, and snicker and +sneer on every side of the unremoved and apparently irremovable dirt and +disorder?</p> + +<p>It is absurd, as the boys say, to "blame" this situation upon somebody +else—some street commissioner, or scavenger, or other officer, or +employé. Nobody is ever guilty of misrule in this country but the +rulers, and the rulers are the people. The citizens of New York elect +the city officers who are to do the city work which<a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a> the citizens pay +for. They give some of those officers authority to dismiss others who +are derelict in their duty, and the governor can deal with the chief +officers who do not obey the command of the people. If the taxes are +outrageously heavy, if the money is squandered, if the streets are dirty +and city government a farce, nobody is to blame but the citizens. They +have as good a government as they choose, and the kind of government +they desire.</p> + +<p>Then they desire dirty streets? Certainly. That is to say, they don't +desire clean streets strongly enough to secure them. Then popular +government has failed in cities? Rather there are some things in cities +in which popular government is not especially interested. If there are +two hundred and fifty thousand voters in the city of New York, how many +of them really care enough for clean streets and proper municipal +administration to spend time and trouble to secure them?</p> + +<p>Consider the lilies of the field—that is to say, look at the aldermen +and the<a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a> municipal officers, the representatives in the State +Legislature and in Congress that the city of New York elects. Do they +represent what we call its intelligence and character? Yet undeniably +they are representatives of the majority of the voters, and if that +majority be corrupt or stupid, it is either because there are more +knaves and fools than intelligent and honest citizens among the voters, +or because such citizens do not care to take the trouble to vote and to +be represented; in which case the Aldermen and Co. that we see are, +morally speaking, true representatives of the city. The minions of +monarchies and the pigmies of tuppenny temporary republics, as they bump +and wallow and flounder, bespattered and contemptuous, through the +streets of New York, may truly say that they are such streets as the +citizens desire, because if the people desired clean streets, unless +popular government be a failure, they would have them. If the mayor did +not appoint officers who would clean the streets, they would require the +governor to deal with the mayor.<a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a></p> + +<p>Does it necessarily follow, because popular government is, upon the +whole, the best government, that the governing people desire all good +things that government can supply? Liberty they want, and equality, and +fair play; but do they, because they are self-governing, desire +beautiful buildings and clean streets? Might not a good-natured despot +of fine taste and sanitary enlightenment and a sense of order give his +dominions nobler public works and a better municipal administration than +a republic which is neither tuppenny nor temporary, but in which there +is easy and indolent indifference to public beauty and public order?</p> + +<p>"Above all," said the English bishop to the young catechumen, "don't +mistake zeal for knowledge." Above all, says the good genius of America, +don't confound national bumptiousness with patriotism.<a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="THE_MORALITY_OF_DANCING" id="THE_MORALITY_OF_DANCING"></a>THE MORALITY OF DANCING.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_T.png" +width="100" +height="105" +alt="T" +title="T" /></span>HE gravity of the discussion of the morality of dancing is exceedingly +amusing. The dancing of young people is as natural and instinctive as +their laughing and singing, and the old Easy Chairs about the wall might +as wisely quarrel with the song of the bobolink in the fields as with +the dance upon the floor. But the grave censors who condemn it must be +heard. There is reason in the way in which they often put their +objections. Excitement, late hours, exposure of health, all these are +bad. But, on the other hand, exercise, cheerfulness, friendly +conversation, all these are good. The zealous censors confound uses and +abuses. The Easy Chair has seen a worthy temperance apostle ingulfing +cups of coffee in the pauses of an exhortation to abstinence, until it +marvelled at the capacity of the apostolic stomach. Could<a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a> there be no +intemperance in coffee-drinking? But was coffee not to be drunk? The +Easy Chair has seen such frantic gobbling at a railway eating-room that +it could only gaze in wonder at the sottish and, so to speak, drunken +eating. But is food not to be eaten? The Easy Chair has seen little +children, extravagantly dressed and decorated, dancing in great hotel +parlors on hot summer nights at an hour when they should all have been +sound asleep in their beds, while their parents should have been soundly +chastised for not putting them there. But is the dancing of young +persons therefore wrong?</p> + +<p>This is probably to the censorial mind nothing but the base compromise +and sophistry of "moderate drinking." But nevertheless most of the evils +of this kind are perversions of good things. There are a great many +young and ignorant parents who become impatient with the incessant +activity and restlessness of their children. They condemn them to sit +still in a chair and make no noise. Dear madame, it is nature's +intention that the child<a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a> shall be restless, to develop his limbs. You +apply to him rules that are fit and easy for us who are old, and whom +nature equally admonishes to sit still in chairs. Our little Procrustean +beds are merely furniture that tortures. The desire of youth for +enjoyment is as worthy as its desire for knowledge, for truth, for +excellence. And it is the spirit, not the method, of enjoyments which +are not obviously wrong, that is chiefly to be regarded. A good man asks +whether he could go from dancing to console a dying bed. But could he go +from skating, or reading <i>Pickwick</i>, or from heartily laughing, to +console a dying friend? Would it not, even in his own view, depend +wholly upon the mood in which he was doing it?</p> + +<p>Let him select an act which he would approve. Let him be reading a +serious book, or thinking in his study, or going upon a visit of charity +when he is summoned, and he would say that he could go with perfect +composure and the utmost propriety. But how if he were peevish as he +read the serious book, or if he were thinking angrily in his study, or +if<a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a> he were mentally reproaching the duty that drew him from his +comfortable room to pay a visit of charity, could he then more properly +hasten to console the dying than if he had been cheerfully dancing, his +mind full of pleasant thoughts and the delight of the music and the +measured movement? It is not the thing that he is doing, but the spirit +in which he is doing it, that should be considered.</p> + +<p>How different a view of the pleasant recreation of dancing may be taken +by an intellectual man, from that of one who thinks the waltz a device +of Satan, is shown by a passage of De Quincey, the beginning of which +the Easy Chair will quote, and which will find an echo in many a memory: +"And in itself, of all the scenes which this world offers, none is to me +so profoundly interesting, none (I say deliberately) so affecting, as +the spectacle of men and women floating through the mazes of a dance; +under these conditions, however, that the music shall be rich and +festal, the execution of the dancers perfect, and the dance itself of a +character to admit of free, fluent, and<a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a> continuous action. And whenever +the music happens not to be of a light, trivial character, but charged +with the spirit of festal pleasure, and the performers in the dance so +far skilful as to betray no awkwardness verging on the ludicrous, I +believe that many persons feel as I feel in such circumstances, viz., +derive from the spectacle the very grandest form of passionate sadness +which can belong to any spectacle whatsoever."<a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="THE_HOG_FAMILY" id="THE_HOG_FAMILY"></a>THE HOG FAMILY.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_I.png" +width="100" +height="103" +alt="I" +title="I" /></span>T is a good sign of the times that the crusade against the large and +omnipresent family of Hog which the Easy Chair long ago preached has +been vigorously renewed. Public manners are a common interest. The +private conduct of the most famous personages is of small concern beyond +their domestic circle. But the conduct of the person in the next room at +a hotel, or in the next seat in a railroad car, is of great interest to +us. Yet the remedy is not obvious. Even if we should propose a school of +manners, it is not certain that the pupils for whom it would be +especially designed would attend.</p> + +<p>If a fellow-guest at the Grand Hotel of the Universe comes in at two in +the morning, and going humming along the corridor to his room, flings +his boot<a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a> down upon the floor at his door with a resounding blow that +awakens all neighboring sleepers, you may cover him with expletives, and +consign him in imagination to a hundred direful dooms, but nevertheless +he goes unpunished. Or you may suddenly confront him in all the majesty +of nocturnal dishabille, and admonish him severely of the wicked +selfishness of his ways. But the probability is that you will have +either an extremely amused audience, who will "guy" your appearance +without mercy, or receive a surly rejoinder in the form of a boot or a +volley of vituperation. In any event, the school of manners will not be +honored by the exercises.</p> + +<p>Yet the Hog family is not American, nor is it by any means peculiar to +this country. The Lady Mavourneen who said with enthusiasm that she +could travel without insult from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and that +every American of the other sex seemed to make himself her protector, +said only what is generally true of the American. He is naturally +courteous and invincibly good-natured.<a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a> Indeed, it is his good-nature +which has permitted the family Hog to develop to such proportions. A man +enters a hotel "as if it belonged to him." Will he not be forced to pay +for his accommodation—and roundly? Shall he not take his ease in his +inn? Is he not willing to settle for all the food, drink, comfort, +trouble, that he may require or occasion? Shall he put himself out for +others? If number one does not look out for itself, who will look out +for it?</p> + +<p>And to all this Jonathan good-naturedly assents. If number one takes +more than his share of the sofa, Jonathan moves up. If number one puts +his feet on a chair, Jonathan does not stare. If number one still more +grossly demonstrates his porcine lineage, Jonathan dislikes to make +trouble—until number one comes to despise those whom he insults, and +plainly expects every circle to bow to the sovereignty of selfishness. +This is a fatal form of good-nature, but it has a not unkindly origin. +It springs from a social condition in which everybody is expected to +help everybody else, because everybody<a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a> needs help as in a frontier +community. Indeed, in many a rural neighborhood still, this spirit of +lending a hand is supreme. Everybody expects to submit to inconvenience, +because he knows that he will require others to submit.</p> + +<p>But these refinements of mutual dependence must not be allowed to +justify the outrages of selfishness. The passenger in the boat or the +train who occupies more than his seat, who sits in one chair, covers +another with his feet, and a third with his bundles, and smokes, and +widely squirts tobacco juice around him until his vicinity is not "a +little heaven," but another kind of "h" below, is a public pest and +general nuisance, for whose punishment there should be a common law of +procedure. But this can be found only where there is a common contempt +and resolution which will deprive him of his ill-gotten seats in the +first place, and make him feel, in the second, the general scorn of his +neighbors.</p> + +<p>But as we are told constantly and correctly that we are a reading +people, it is through reading that the members of the<a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a> family which is +<i>hostis humani generis</i> will learn that they are the most detestable and +detested of the great families of the race. You, sir, whose eyes are +skimming this page, and who never give your seat to a woman in the +elevated car "on principle"—the principle being either that a woman +ought not to get into a crowded car, knowing that she will put gentlemen +to inconvenience; or that the company ought to forbid the entry of more +passengers than there are seats; or that first come should be first +served; or that number one, having paid for a seat, has a right to +occupy it; or whatever other form the "principle" may assume—you are +one of the host against whom the crusade is pushed. Thou art the—well, +for the sake of euphony we will say man, but it is not man that is in +the mind of your censors.</p> + +<p>Or you, madam, who enter the railroad car with an air of right, and a +look of reproval at every man who does not spring to his feet, and who +settle yourself into the seat offered you without the least recognition +of the courtesy that offers it—<a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a>for you it would be well if the urbane +mentor of another day were still here, who, having given his seat to a +dashing young woman who seemed unconscious of his presence, looked at +her until she impatiently demanded if he wanted anything, and he +responding, said, blandly, "Yes, madam; I want to hear you say thank +you."</p> + +<p>Both this sir and madam may learn from the daily papers as from this +page that even in a car where they recognize no acquaintance a cloud of +witnesses around hold them in full survey, and whatever the fashion or +richness of their garments, and however supercilious their air, perceive +at once whether they belong to the family of ladies and gentlemen, or to +that of Charles Lamb's "Mr. H." Thackeray's hero could not have been +more aghast to see his divine Ottilia consume with gusto the oysters +which were no longer fresh than Romeo to learn by his Juliet's question +to that urbane mentor of other years that his mistress must be of kin to +the unmentionable family.</p> + +<p>The next time those boots are flung<a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a> down in the reverberating hotel +corridor there will be no harm in remarking to the clerk the next +morning in the crowded office that it is not necessary for you to look +upon the register to know that one of the Hog family arrived during the +night.<a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="THE_ENLIGHTENED_OBSERVER" id="THE_ENLIGHTENED_OBSERVER"></a>THE ENLIGHTENED OBSERVER.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_T.png" +width="100" +height="105" +alt="T" +title="T" /></span>HE Enlightened Observer from Europe who is studying American +institutions asked the Easy Chair the other day what was meant by the +statement that a candidate for a high elective office had opened +headquarters in the neighborhood of a nominating convention. The +Enlightened Observer said that he had always supposed that such +conventions were assemblies which nominated persons whose public +services and personal ability and character had distinguished them among +their fellow-citizens, and shown them to be especially fitted for the +offices which were to be filled. "Am I mistaken," he asked, "in +supposing that to be the theory of your institutions?"</p> + +<p>The Easy Chair could not say that he was, and conceded that such was the +theory.<a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a></p> + +<p>"In other words," continued the Enlightened Observer, "a republic +secures good government because it intrusts the government not to the +chance of birth, which may give to Oliver Cromwell a son Richard, and +make the heir of Alexander the Great an Alexander the Little, but +because it calls to its great offices of every degree those citizens who +have demonstrated their peculiar fitness."</p> + +<p>"That is certainly the theory of our republican institutions," returned +the Easy Chair.</p> + +<p>"Well?" said the Enlightened Observer.</p> + +<p>"Well?" echoed the Easy Chair.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but why, then, does a candidate open headquarters?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, certainly. Why—that is—it is to make himself known."</p> + +<p>"But the theory seems to assume that he is known already. Is it that he +performs public services at the headquarters, or exhibits there his +character and abilities? Is not the time a little limited and the space +somewhat inconvenient for<a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a> such demonstrations? I am at a little loss. I +can see that the personal appearance and manners of a candidate might be +displayed favorably at a headquarters, and that, in a charming phrase of +your country, he might dispense a generous hospitality in a hotel +parlor, but how can he display his fitness for a high office in such +narrow quarters as headquarters must be? Am I to understand that when +Mr. John Jay was selected as a candidate for the Governorship of New +York he had repaired previously to the place of nomination and had +opened headquarters? Did General Washington pursue a similar course? If +the services and character of a candidate have commended him to public +favor and designated him as a suitable officer, why is not that enough?"</p> + +<p>"Undoubtedly," answered the Easy Chair, "why isn't it? But I am afraid +that you have not pursued your enlightened observations quite far +enough, or you would have learned that in this country a kind providence +is supposed to help those who help themselves, and<a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a> that those who +expect to have Governorships and Senatorships and other large and highly +flavored political morsels offered to them on golden salvers and on +bended knees will be seriously disappointed."</p> + +<p>"I see," said, courteously, the Enlightened Observer, "that my excellent +friend the Easy Chair is pleased to speak in metaphor. If I may +penetrate it, he is declaring that great places are to be won like +precious prizes, and do not drop into idle hands like fruit overripe. +But if I may hold him to the point, is it not the theory of your +institutions that it is services and character and ability that win the +precious political prizes, and surely such qualities and services cannot +be described as idle hands? I agree that providence helps those who help +themselves, but who helps himself more than he who helps the entire +community? And how does he help the community who opens headquarters to +secure a prize for himself? Moreover, have I not heard that office +should pursue the man, and not the man the office? Yet what is opening +headquarters<a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a> but pursuing office, as a hound a hare?"</p> + +<p>The Easy Chair was obliged to suggest that there was no harm in knowing +"the boys," and in showing the affability of a simple citizen "without +airs," and making the acquaintance of important political personages, +all of which the Enlightened Observer conceded, but still politely +insisted that knowing the boys and showing affability and refraining +from lofty demeanor did not demonstrate fitness for great place, and was +a loss of proper personal dignity that ought not to be required of any +one who had really approved himself as a suitable officer. He concluded +that he might not have mistaken the theory, but he had certainly not +apprehended the practice of our institutions.</p> + +<p>"But surely," said the Easy Chair, "'tis but a small price to pay."</p> + +<p>"True," said the Enlightened Observer, "it is a very small price; but I +had not supposed that in the republic office was sold at any price. I +thought that the good Santa Claus of public approval<a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a> dropped it as a +Christmas gift into the stocking of the most deserving. It seems, +however, to be rather a raisin in snap-dragon—the prize of the toughest +fingers."<a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="RALPH_WALDO_EMERSON" id="RALPH_WALDO_EMERSON"></a>RALPH WALDO EMERSON.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_T.png" +width="100" +height="105" +alt="T" +title="T" /></span>HE beauty of Israel has fallen in its high place," said the voice of +Emerson's friend and neighbor, Judge Hoar, trembling and almost hushed +in emotion, and everybody who heard felt the singular felicity of the +words. The plain little country church was crowded, and a vast throng +stood outside in the peaceful April sunshine. Before the pulpit—the +eyes forever closed, the voice forever silent—lay the man whose aspect +of sweet and majestic serenity Death had not touched, and which recalled +his own words: "Even the corpse that has lain in the chambers has added +a solemn ornament to the house." It was the man who was beloved of his +neighbors and honored by the world, whose modest counsel in grave +affairs guided the village, and whose thought led the thought of +Christendom. "He belonged<a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a> to all men, but he is peculiarly ours," said +Judge Hoar truly, speaking for the quiet historic town of which +Emerson's grandfather had been the minister, and in which he lived +during the larger part of his life, and to which his memory will lend an +imperishable charm.</p> + +<p>Concord when he first knew it was already famous. A hundred years ago, +at the bridge over the placid river, the Middlesex farmers, hastening as +minute men from all the neighboring country, had obeyed the first +military summons to fire upon the king's regulars; and the red-coated +regulars, turning, had begun, amid the blazing patriot volley of twenty +miles, their long retreat to Yorktown and over the sea. At the point +where the highway by which the soldiers marched enters the village, +under the hill along whose ridge the hurrying countrymen pressed to cut +off the soldiers' retreat, lived for more than forty years the scholar +who belongs to Concord as Shakespeare belongs to Stratford.</p> + +<p>"Nature," said Emerson in his first book, written in the old Manse at +Concord,<a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a> which Hawthorne afterwards inhabited, and which he has so +beautifully commemorated—"Nature stretcheth out her arms to embrace +man: only let his thoughts be of equal greatness. Willingly does she +follow his steps with the rose and the violet, and bend her lines of +grandeur and grace to the decoration of her darling child. Only let his +thoughts be of equal scope, and the frame will suit the picture. A +virtuous man is in unison with her works, and makes the central figure +of the visible sphere. Homer, Pindar, Socrates, Phocion, associate +themselves fitly in our memory with the geography and climate of Greece. +The visible heavens and the earth sympathize with Jesus. And in common +life whoever has seen a person of powerful character and happy genius +will have remarked how easily he took all things along with him, the +persons, the opinions, and the day, and nature became auxiliary to a +man." So is Emerson associated with the tranquil landscape of the old +Middlesex town—the gentle hills, the long sweep of meadowland, the +winding river, the woodland,<a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a> and the pastures under the ample sky. The +broad horizon and rural repose were the fitting home of the lofty and +beneficent genius whose life and word perpetually illustrated the +supreme worth and beauty of truth, purity, and morality. Whoever saw him +there or elsewhere, saw the "sweet and virtuous soul" which George +Herbert likened to seasoned timber that never gives.</p> + +<p>The sincerity and serenity of Emerson's character were unsurpassed. The +freshness and glow of his interest in life were perennial. With a sober +tenderness of regret he said to a friend who congratulated him upon his +seventieth birthday, "Yet it is a little sad to me, for I count to-day +the end of youth." In no other sense than the lapse of years, however, +was it true. That auroral freshness of soul which is the distinctive +charm of youth lingered when even memory somewhat failed. "How long it +is since I have seen you!" he said at Longfellow's funeral to a friend +whom he had accosted just before. But he said it with all that +heartiness of sympathy and expectation<a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a> which, in the golden prime of +his life, when he was in many ways the most striking and original figure +in his country, made him greet every comer as if he expected to hear +from him a wiser word than had yet been spoken. A youth, fascinated by +this simple graciousness of manner, declared that Emerson greeted the +most ordinary persons like a King of Spain receiving an ambassador from +the Great Mogul. The expectancy of his manner implied that every man had +some message to deliver, and he bent himself to hear.</p> + +<p>But his shrewdness of perception was exquisite. He did not take dross +because he hoped for gold. His reproof was as sure and incisive as the +stroke of a delicate Damascus blade. When a young man, hearing Emerson +say that everybody ought to read Plato, followed his advice, and read, +he thought, with the audacity of youth, that he detected faults in +Plato, and wrote an essay to set them forth. He asked Emerson to read +it, and when he returned it to the youth, Emerson said, pleasantly, "My +boy, when you<a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a> strike at the king, you must kill him." One day he sat at +dinner with a distinguished company of statesmen. He was by far the most +famous man at the table; but he modestly followed the conversation, +turning from each guest who spoke, to the next, with the old sweet +gravity of earnest expectation. When all the notable company had gone, a +guest who remained said to him: "I saw you talking with the English +Minister. He is a brilliant man, and I hope that you found him +agreeable." "A very pleasant gentleman," replied Emerson; "but he does +not represent the England that I know."</p> + +<p>Despite this sharp apprehension, however, Emerson was sometimes unable +to find any charm in writings which have apparently taken a permanent +place in literature. He could see nothing interesting or valuable in +Shelley. "When I read Shelley," he once said, "I am like a man who +thinks that he sees gold at the bottom of a stream. He reaches for it, +but his hands come up cold, with a little common sand in them." The +waywardness and disorder of Shelley's life may<a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a> have troubled him. But +this would not have affected his intellectual judgment. His acute +intellect was supremely independent and absolutely courageous. "He must +embrace solitude as a bride," he said of the scholar; "he must have his +glees and his glooms alone." When as a young man he quietly closed his +pulpit door, and declined to preach any more, because he no longer felt +any value in certain religious rites, there was no protest, nor +ostentation, nor newspaper "sensation." It was simply the closing of a +book that he had read, and the amazement and censure and grief of others +could not possibly persuade him to do, or to say, or to affect, the +thing that was not true. Emerson's moral and intellectual integrity was +transparently simple, but it was sublime. It was not expressed in stormy +self-assertion nor cynical contempt. It spoke in tranquil and beautiful +affirmation, perfectly courteous, but absolutely sincere.</p> + +<p>But no man more charitably and diligently sought to understand others, +and to be just to what was obscure and foreign<a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a> to him. He listened +patiently to music. But it did not charm him. He was punctual in the +duties of a citizen. But he had no proper political tastes. Yet for the +true politics, the application of the moral law to the control of public +affairs, no man was more perceptive or uncompromising. He was always on +the right side of great public questions. His hospitable sympathy +entertained every good cause, and in all our antislavery literature +there is no nobler or more permanent work than his address upon the +anniversary of West India emancipation in 1844. The only cloud that ever +arose upon his regard for Carlyle was his displeasure with Carlyle's +contemptuous and cynical sneers at our civil war. He was deeply +impatient of doubtful and half-hearted Americans during the war. "They +call themselves gentlemen, I believe," he said of certain persons, and +in a tone which showed that his lofty and patriotic honor instinctively +and utterly repudiated the pinchbeck claims of educated feebleness to +bear "the grand old name of gentleman."<a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a></p> + +<p>Those who recall Emerson when he was a clergyman in Boston remember a +singular spiritual beauty in the man, and an indescribable charm of +manner in his public speech. But apparently he impressed his earlier +associates with the purity and refinement of his mind and life, his +lofty intellectual tastes and sympathy, and his literary accomplishment, +rather than by the peculiar force of a genius which was to give the most +powerful spiritual impulse of the generation to American thought. This +is the more singular because there was always something breezy and +heroic in his tone, which might have led to the suspicion of the fact +that he was from the first a fond reader of Plutarch, from whose "Lives" +he draws so many illustrations. As in a mountain walk the traveller is +suddenly aware of wafts of perfumed air, now of the wild-grape blossom, +now of the azalea or sweet-brier, so the strain of Emerson suggests his +sympathy with Plutarch and Montaigne, the Oriental poets and the +Platonists.</p> + +<p>But no one could describe accurately<a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a> his "system" of philosophy, nor +fit him into a "school" of poetry. He was content to call himself a +scholar, and no name was more significant and precious to him. He +shunned notoriety, but he had the instinctive desire of every artist and +of all genius for an audience. When a friend asked him of a young man +whose literary talent had seemed to him to promise great achievement, +Emerson said: "He does nothing; and I doubted his genius when I saw that +he did not seek a hearing." When his own first slight volume, "Nature," +was published, they were but a few, a very few, who perceived in it the +ripe and beautiful work of a master in literature and thought. The +richness and originality and picturesque simplicity of this book, its +subtle perception, its tone of jubilant power, and the soft glimmering +light of lofty imagination which irradiates every page, do not lose by +familiarity, and are as charming, although of course not so surprising, +as when they first took captive the readers of nearly fifty years ago. +With the eagerness of classification which characterizes<a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a> many active +minds, Emerson was immediately labelled a Berkeleyan, an idealist, and a +mystic. But he eluded the precise classification as noiselessly and +surely as a cloud changes its form. Astonishment, satire, indignation, +contradiction, spent themselves in vain. Like a rose-tree in June, which +blossoms sweetly whether the air be chilly or sunny, his thought quietly +flowered into exquisite expression. You might like it or leave it. But +the rose would be still a rose.</p> + +<p>There was a fashion of calling Emerson obscure. But there is no style in +literature of more poetic precision than his. It is full of surprises of +beauty and aptness. His central doctrine of the identity of men, the +grandeur of every man's opportunity, and the essential poetry of the +circumstances of common life, was a living faith. "The great man," he +said, "makes the great thing." "In the sighing of these woods; in the +quiet of these gray fields; in the cool breeze that sings out of these +Northern mountains; in the workmen, the boys, the maidens you meet; in +the hopes of<a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a> the morning, the ennui of noon, and sauntering of the +afternoon; in the disquieting comparisons; in the regrets at want of +vigor; in the great idea and the puny execution—behold Charles the +Fifth's day; another, yet the same; behold Chatham's, Hampden's, +Bayard's, Alfred's, Scipio's, Pericles's day—day of all that are born +of women. The difference of circumstance is merely costume. I am tasting +the self-same life—its sweetness, its greatness, its pain—which I so +admire in other men." The temptation to complete the splendid passage is +almost irresistible. But in every page you are drawn on as in a stately +symphony of winning music.</p> + +<p>This passage is from the Dartmouth College address, and it has all the +flowing cadence of a discourse written to be spoken. Yet Emerson had +little of the orator's temperament save the desire of an audience, and +an earnestness which was pure and not passionate. But no orator in the +country has exercised a deeper or more permanent influence. His +discourses were but essays, but their<a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a> thought was so noble, their form +so symmetrical, their tone so lofty, and they were spoken with such +alluring rhythm, that they threw over young minds a spell which no other +eloquence could command. Emerson himself was very susceptible to the +power of fine oratory. No man ever praised more warmly the charm of +Everett in his earlier day. When Webster delivered his eulogy upon Adams +and Jefferson in Faneuil Hall, Emerson was teaching in Cambridge, and +Richard H. Dana, Jun., was one of his pupils. The day before Webster +spoke, the teacher announced that there would be no school upon the +morrow, and he earnestly exhorted his pupils not to lose the memorable +opportunity of hearing the great orator. Dana was of an age to prefer +fishing to oratory, and strolled off with his line to the river, where +he passed the day. When school was resumed, Mr. Emerson with sympathetic +interest asked him if he had heard Webster. The fisher, half ashamed, +reluctantly owned his absence. Emerson looked at him with regret and<a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a> +almost pain, and said to him, gravely: "My boy, I am very sorry; you +have lost what you can never recover, and what you will regret to the +last day of your life."</p> + +<p>But those who heard his own Divinity School address, or the Cambridge or +Dartmouth oration, or the Emancipation address, would not exchange that +recollection even to have heard the Olympian orator in Faneuil Hall. +"Tell me," said a Senator famous for his oratory, to a friend in +Washington, "what do you call eloquence? Repeat to me an eloquent +passage." The friend quoted from Emerson the unequalled passage from the +Dartmouth College address in which the scholar appeals to the young men +to be true to the ideals of their youth—a passage which no generous +youth can read to-day without deep emotion and a thrill of high resolve. +The Senator listened with an air of perplexed incredulity. "Do you call +that eloquent? Now see what I call eloquence," and he declaimed a +glowing piece of rhetoric with ardent feeling. It was a passage from +Charles<a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a> Sprague's Fourth-of-July oration in Boston sixty years ago. But +effective as it was, his friend reminded the Senator that if the test of +eloquence be glow of feeling and splendor and sincerity of expression, +with an inner power of appeal which searches the heart and moulds the +life, no really greater results in this country could be traced to any +speech than to that of Emerson, who read the greater part of his essays +as addresses, and who sometimes reached a lyrical strain which not the +magnificent Burke nor any other great orator surpasses.</p> + +<p>—To talk of Emerson, even if the talker were not of the circle of his +intimate friends, is to raise the flood-gate of happy and inspiring +recollections. It is one of the tenderest of the thoughts that hover +around his memory, as the low winds sigh through the pine-trees over his +grave, that, as with Longfellow, there are no excuses to be made for +grotesque eccentricities of genius, nor for a life at any point unworthy +of so great a soul. He said of his friend Thoreau, who is buried near +him, that he was like the<a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a> Alpine climber who gathers the edelweiss, the +flower that blooms at the very edge of the glacier. He too lived at +those pure heights, and taught us how to tread them undazzled and +undismayed. Happy teacher, whose long and lovely life illustrated the +dignity and excellence of the truth, old as the morning and as ever +fresh, that fidelity to the divine law written upon the conscience is +the only safe law of life for every man. Noble and beneficent preacher, +who, in a sense that the pensive Goldsmith did not intend,</p> + +<p class="c">"Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way."</p> + +<p><a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="HENRY_WARD_BEECHER" id="HENRY_WARD_BEECHER"></a>HENRY WARD BEECHER.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_F.png" +width="100" +height="101" +alt="F" +title="F" /></span>OR forty years Mr. Beecher had been minister of Plymouth Church when on +a Sunday morning suddenly came the news that his ministry and probably +his life were ended; and he died a day or two afterwards. The preacher +and the church were more widely known than any others in the Union, and +during all his pastorate he was one of the most conspicuous figures in +the country. He was undoubtedly also one of the most famous preachers of +his time and of the English race, and the death of Wendell Phillips left +him the most eminent of American orators. There have been popular +preachers during Mr. Beecher's career, like Moffit and other +revivalists, and there are always eloquent and scholarly orators in the +American pulpit. The tradition of Summerfield presents a beautiful +youth<a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a> and a captivating speaker. The charm of Channing was profound and +indescribable. But Beecher recalls Whitefield more than any other +renowned preacher. Like Whitefield, he was what is known as a man of the +people; a man of strong virility, of exuberant vitality, of quick +sympathy, of an abounding humor, of a rapid play of poetic imagination, +of great fluency of speech; an emotional nature overflowing in ardent +expression, of strong convictions, of complete self-confidence; but also +not sensitive, nor critical, nor judicial; a hearty, joyous nature, +touching ordinary human life at every point, and responsive to every +generous moral impulse.</p> + +<p>Mr. Beecher was not a pioneer, nor a leader of forlorn hopes, but of the +main column of the army. He marched just ahead of the advance, and +touched with his elbows those who moved forward with him. He liked to +feel the warmth of their breath upon his cheek, and the magnetism of +their neighborhood. He spoke for them as they could not speak for +themselves. He liked the crowd.<a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a> The hum and throb of multitudinous life +inspired and cheered him. He was at home in streets and towns; with a +bright jest for every comer; a happy quip and repartee; with an eye and +a heart for the unfortunate and forlorn, and a ready rebuke for +insolence and injustice. He had nothing of the recluse or scholarly +habit; no fastidious taste. He was fond of pictures and music and all +forms of art, without especial aesthetic accomplishment; a man of cheery +presence, of cordial address; with a willing word for the reporter, +chaffing the interviewer; jumping on the street-car in motion; yet +always seemly, and always, despite his slouched hat and careless dress, +undeniably clerical, but with no undue professional sense of dignity or +decorum.</p> + +<p>In the pulpit, or, more truly, upon the platform—for whether preaching, +or lecturing, or speaking at table or upon the stump, he seemed to be +always upon the platform—he inculcated right living rather than +traditional doctrine. He was a soldier of the church militant, but his +warfare was with human wrong and misery,<a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a> and false theories of life, +and low aims and poor ambitions. He aimed to build up righteousness of +life, and in the ardor of the strife he liked to pause and wink, and let +fly a bright-tipped, winged word at the opponent, against whom he bore +no kind of malice. He hated the wrong, but not the wrong-doer. Ardent +and impulsive, his generous emotions often overwhelmed his judgment; and +in politics, although the most popular of stump-orators, and never +happier or more truly himself than in a political speech, in which, with +the instinct of a born fighter, he "drank delight of battle," yet he +sometimes amazed and confounded his friends, who, however, could not +doubt his sincerity nor question his purpose.</p> + +<p>The great cloud that fell upon his life seemed also to darken the +country. The grief and consternation showed how strong a hold he had +upon the national mind and heart, which indeed was never so firm as at +the very moment that his good name seemed to be obscured. It was the +most tremendous ordeal to which any public man of his peculiar +character<a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a> and quality of eminence has ever been exposed in this +country. The most remarkable fact in it all was the way in which he +endured it. The blacker the cloud appeared to be, the more sturdy was +his stern defiance, and for weeks of seemingly accumulating and +insurmountable obstruction he faced unflinchingly a possible doom the +mere prospect of which might well have withered a brave heart conscious +of innocence. That the cloud ever wholly disappeared cannot be said, in +view of the tone of the press even as he lay dead in his house. But that +he could never have maintained his position as he did if he had not been +generally acquitted in the public mind seems to be indisputable. If the +relation of his later life to the country was somewhat changed, the +result was due to the decline of confidence in what had been believed to +be his strongest quality, supreme good sense and sound judgment, rather +than to doubt of his moral integrity.</p> + +<p>No man lived more in the public eye and for the public than Mr. Beecher. +In his speeches and sermons and writings<a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a> he took the public into his +confidence with a freedom that was characteristic and natural in him, +but which would have been extraordinary in any other man. He could not +pass through the street without universal recognition, and no man in the +two cities was so well known to everybody as he. At public meetings and +at dinners where he was to speak, he came late amid smiling and +expectant applause, and with the air of saying, "Where MacGregor sits, +there is the head of the table." He had the right to that air, for +wherever he was to speak he was the chief orator. But he was no niggard +of generous praise and sympathy, and no man spoke with more fervent +eulogy and eloquent approval of other men. Doubtless, like an actor or +singer, the long habit of receiving applause had made it pleasant to +him, and as is the fact with all extempore speaking, the greater the +applause the higher the eloquence of his strain. It is a reciprocal +action. Of Mr. Beecher's later platform speeches, the most remarkable +was his political address at the Brooklyn Rink<a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a> in 1884, which was +delivered amid a storm of enthusiasm, while in the delivery he was +himself wrought to the highest feeling.</p> + +<p>His power over the emotions of an audience was unsurpassed in this +country probably since Patrick Henry. Thomas Corwin and Sergeant +Prentiss perhaps were as great masters of humor and patriotic appeal +upon the stump; but Beecher added to these a pathos and sentiment and +poetic tone in which the others did not excel. He had not the fine, +glittering, incisive touch of Wendell Phillips's fatal sarcasm and +vituperation. Phillips stood quietly and played his polished rapier with +a flexible wrist, but its point was deadly; Beecher smote, and crushed. +One was the deft Saladin with his chased and curving cimeter, the other +was Richard with his heavy battle-axe. In the great controversy in which +both were engaged, upon the same side, indeed, but under different +banners and wearing different colors, Beecher and Phillips, amid a +chorus of eloquence, were the two chief voices. Garrison was not +distinctively<a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a> an orator, while Phillips was the especial and +distinctive orator of the cause, and his fame as a public man belongs to +that cause alone. But Beecher had many interests and relations, and his +oratory had other strains. They were friends always, and Phillips spoke +often in Plymouth Church, and uttered many a glowing word of his +fellow-laborer.</p> + +<p>When these words are published the freshness of the impression of +Beecher's death will have passed, and from every part of the country his +eulogy will have been spoken. The universal emotion, the warmth and +tenor of the tributes, will have shown how eminent a figure he was, and +that his death is felt to be a national loss. One of the papers +described him as the last of a great generation, and Senator Cullom, +speaking of Logan in the crowded Brooklyn Academy on the evening of +Beecher's death, called a roll of illustrious names, of which his was +the latest, and among which it surely belongs. His profession was the +preaching of peace and good-will. But how often he must have felt that +his<a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a> Master came not to bring peace, but a sword! His buoyant +temperament, his perfect health, his love of nature and of man, of +children and flowers, of the changing sky and landscape, his abounding +sympathy, his rich and sensitive humor, made his life joyous and often +happy. But it was none the less a stormy life, ending at last, amid the +sorrow of a country, in happy rest and the good fame of a great orator +for human welfare.<a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="THE_GOLDEN_AGE" id="THE_GOLDEN_AGE"></a>THE GOLDEN AGE.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_I.png" +width="100" +height="103" +alt="I" +title="I" /></span>N this country we are inclined to believe that the epoch that followed +the Revolution was one of the utmost purity and simplicity. But it was +one of the "fathers" who said to a friend upon the adjournment of the +first Congress, "Do you suppose such a set of rascals will ever assemble +again?" In his diary John Adams appeals to the calmer mind and juster +judgment of the coming age—meaning that in which we live, and from +which we look wistfully back to old John Adams's cocked hat and +knee-breeches as the symbols of a nobler time.</p> + +<p>Then there is Fisher Ames, one of the famous orators and conspicuous +leaders of the beginning of the century, who, studying his country at +the time to which we recur as the age of high purpose and lofty men, +bewails the sordidness, selfishness, and degradation around him. "Of<a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a> +course," he says, seventy years ago, "the single passion that engrosses +us, the only avenue to consideration and importance in our society, is +the accumulation of property: our inclinations cling to gold, and are +bedded in it as deeply as that precious ore in the mine.... As +experience evinces that popularity—in other words, consideration and +power—is to be procured by the meanest of mankind, the meanest in +spirit and understanding, and in the worst of ways, it is obvious that +at present the incitement to genius is next to nothing."</p> + +<p>We might suppose that we were listening to a contemporary cynic; and +whoever reads the history of the politics of that time will find that +"the better days of the republic" were very like the days in which we +deplore their disappearance. When Mr. Ames died, Mr. John Quincy Adams +wrote a review of his works, in which, with the equanimity and +moderation of the golden age, he remarks, "It is a melancholy +contemplation of human nature to see a mind so highly cultivated and so +richly gifted as that of Mr. Ames<a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a> soured and exasperated into the very +ravings of a bedlamite." He then proceeds to speak of those who, without +believing Mr. Ames's "absurd and inconsistent political creed," are +selfishly eager for its propagation, being "choice spirits, amounting to +at most six hundred" (their name was the Essex Junto!), and who hold +that "the porcelain must rule over the earthenware, the blind and sordid +multitude must put themselves, bound hand and foot, into the custody of +the lynx-eyed, seraphic souls of the six hundred, and then all together +must go and <i>squat</i> for protection under the hundred hands of the +British Briareus."</p> + +<p>To this gentle strain Mr. John Lowell replied in a similar vein, +beginning by speaking of the malignity of Mr. Adams's sarcasm, and of +his following Mr. Ames to the grave with crocodile tears, informing him +that he had no need to assail Mr. Ames's friends with all the venom of +an infuriated partisan, because he had already obtained his reward for +"ratting" from the Federalists, and this act of gratitude to his +benefactors was unnecessary.<a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a> Mr. Lowell ends his reply by saying that +in the course of a short political life Mr. Adams had received more than +seventy thousand dollars from the public, and that while no man pitied +Mr. Ames, "Mr. Adams is an object of sincere commiseration with many a +man of high and honorable feelings, while it is to be doubted whether he +is the object of envy to any man on earth."</p> + +<p>These are glimpses of the golden age, of that "better day" of the +republic with which our own is so often and so injuriously contrasted. +Indeed, there is no finer cordial for despondency than a glance at the +paradise that hovers behind our retreating steps. The mountain traveller +turns and sees a lovely vision floating in the sky.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left">"How faintly flushed, how phantom-fair,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Was Monte Rosa, hanging there—</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> A thousand shadowy-pencil'd valleys,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> And snowy dells in a golden air."</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Good lack! he cries, are those the crags and precipices along which I +slid and <a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a>stumbled in terror of my life? The hanging gardens of the +past, the halcyon epoch of our history, the lost paradise of our +fathers, are all crags and precipices along which the race and our +country have stumbled and slid. If any man is disposed to think that he +has fallen upon evil times, let him open his history. It is a marvellous +tonic.</p> + +<p>Does he think republics ungrateful? Look at Mr. Motley's vivid portrait +of John of Barneveld. When he was seventy-two years old he writes from +his prison to his wife and family: "I receive at this moment the very +heavy and sorrowful tidings that I, an old man, for all my services done +well and faithfully to the fatherland for so many years ... must prepare +myself to die to-morrow." Does he think irreligion undermining society? +Look into Smiles's "Huguenots in France after the Revocation of the +Edict of Nantes." For attending Huguenot meetings men were captured by +soldiers and sentenced to the galleys, mostly for life. They were +chained by the neck with murderers and other criminals, and were +quartered in Paris in the dungeon<a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a> of the Chateau de la Tournelle. Thick +iron collars were attached by iron chains to the beams. The collar was +closed around the prisoner's neck, and riveted with blows of a hammer +upon an anvil. Twenty men in pairs were chained to each beam. They could +not sleep lying; they could not sleep sitting or standing up straight, +for the beam was too high for the one and too low for the other. This +was done in the name of religion. The age of Louis the Fourteenth is +called one of the great epochs of the world. It was an age in which the +king's mistress persuaded him to slaughter and banish hundreds of +thousands of his subjects because of their religious faith, and the +great preachers of his church applauded, and the Holy Father approved, +and even Madame de Sévigné, whose letters some young ladies at Newport +and Saratoga are diligently reading, and sighing for the good old witty +times in which she lived, wrote of the most innocent and most devoted +men: "Hanging is quite a refreshment to me. They have just taken +twenty-four or<a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a> thirty of these men, and are going to throw them off."</p> + +<p>The golden age is not yesterday or to-morrow, but to-day. It is the age +in which we live, not that in which somebody else lived. The trouble, +vexation, corruption, weakness, selfishness, meanness, which dismay us +and tempt us to despair are the old lions that have always beset the +path. No man is born out of time; and what man living to-day, who is not +pinched with poverty or disease, would have lived a thousand years ago? +If our politics seem mean and our men small, how does Alfred's time +seem, or the glory of Athens, or the court of Louis the Fourteenth, or +Luther's Germany? What did Jefferson think of Hamilton, or the <i>Aurora</i> +say of Washington?<a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="SPRING_PICTURES" id="SPRING_PICTURES"></a>SPRING PICTURES.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_O.png" +width="100" +height="101" +alt="O" +title="O" /></span>N a late beautiful spring afternoon the Easy Chair +rolled itself into the suburbs for a stroll. There were everywhere the +signs of the advance of a great city and the pathetic forlornness of the +municipal frontier. Pleasant country-houses, spacious, rambling, with +broad piazzas and gardens and lawns, had been apparently suddenly +overtaken by streets and stone sidewalks and lamps. There were the +rattle and shriek of the incessant railway trains near by. Tall factory +chimneys smoked and machinery hummed and steam-whistles blew all around +the quiet old houses. The contrast gave them a kind of conscious life. +They seemed to be aware of the incongruity of their character with the +new neighborhood. They had a helpless air, as if nothing remained but +submission to division into regular building<a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a> lots and the absolute +extinction of rural seclusion and charm. There was the impression of a +faint and futile struggle between city and country, in which, indeed, +for a moment the excellence of each was lost, but the result of which +was not doubtful.</p> + +<p>As the Easy Chair pushed on, it saw in fancy the old pastoral peace and +retirement of the places when they were indeed in the country. It +recalled the noted men of that older day who sought here relaxation and +repose. There was the placid river, on which no restless steamer foamed, +but only silent sloops drifted or careened. Yonder were the leafy coves +under the wooded and rocky banks, from which the Indian had but recently +paddled his canoe. No railroad harmed the virgin shyness of the shore. +It was El Dorado, Arcadia, the land of Goshen. It was the home of peace, +of plenty, of content.</p> + +<p>Such a poet, such a painter, is idealizing memory on a spring afternoon +in the suburbs. It seemed so gross a wrong that sidewalks and gas lamps +and factory chimneys and steam-whistles should invade<a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a> and devastate the +tranquil fields that indignant imagination filled them as fact with all +the fancies that tranquil fields suggest. Doubtless in the closets of +those quiet houses there were the bones of plenty of old skeletons. +Those spacious, sunny rooms were the scenes of the familiar domestic +tragedies against which not the most romantic of country-houses can shut +the door. Up those steps have swayed and hesitated the doubtful feet of +the oldest son, heir of precious hopes and child of fervent prayers, +hesitating and lingering at hours long past midnight, watched for and +waited for by the mother's heart that breaks but does not falter. In +that broad hall, on the brightest of May mornings, the daughter of the +house has stood, radiant as the day, and crowned with orange blossoms. +There have met the hopes and joys of youth, the tears and blessings and +farewells of older years. The pretty pageant filled the house, and faded +slowly and utterly away. The old house has known, too, the solemn shadow +that falls on every house. It seems to regretful memory the<a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a> abode of +unchanging delight. But from that door the slow procession moved, and +those whose hospitable smile and word had hallowed every room returned +no more. They are gone, the bride, the parent, the friend; "they are all +gone, the old familiar faces," the age, the society, the politics, the +interests. They are all gone. Why should not the house go too?</p> + +<p>It was early spring, and the Easy Chair, looking up, saw half a dozen +kites flying in the air. A little further, and laughing girls were +skipping rope. Boys were spinning peg-tops and playing marbles and +driving hoops. The boys and girls who lived in the quiet old +country-house did the same a hundred years ago. They flew kites and +drove hoops, and that little bride skipped rope and carried dolls. The +age, the society, the politics, the interests, were very different. They +are, indeed, all changed. But tops are changeless, marbles are immortal, +and so are boys and girls. They know nothing of the old house over which +the Easy Chair becomes pensive. They belong to the new time, which +demands its demolition.<a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="PROPER_AND_IMPROPER" id="PROPER_AND_IMPROPER"></a>PROPER AND IMPROPER.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_L.png" +width="100" +height="103" +alt="L" +title="L" /></span>ONGFELLOW has commemorated in a beautiful sonnet the +delightful evenings of Mrs. Kemble's readings; and certainly it was a +singular pleasure to see and to hear her. Her historic name associated +her with her uncle John and her aunt Mrs. Siddons, and she had always +the port of one conscious of a famous lineage. She used to say, with a +half-humorous, half-proud emphasis, that she belonged to her majesty's +players, and in her presence it was easy to believe that her majesty's +players were an important body in the state. Her power of identification +with the various characters in the plays, and the skill with which she +maintained the individuality throughout, were always remarkable, and the +symmetry and completeness of the whole performance left nothing to be +criticised. The only observation that<a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a> suggested itself might be that +the stage traditions were evident in her rendering. But that, in turn, +only suggested the further question whether the traditions were not +worthy of respect. Dramatic and histrionic forms of art, like all +others, are but representations of nature under certain conditions and +limitations. They are not an imitation, a fac-simile, and every man will +be at odds with any work of art in any kind who does not bear this in +mind.</p> + +<p>The spectator complains of unnaturalness upon the stage; the substance +of his feeling is that people do not talk and act so in ordinary life. +That is true; but if the theatre should show us men and women doing upon +the stage what they do in ordinary life, the theatre would be no more +attractive than the street or the parlor. It is not the spectacle of +ordinary life that we expect to see in the theatre. It is a view of +human life and nature under ideal conditions, and it is as irrelevant to +require that the player shall seem to us like the man with whom we have +been transacting business as that he<a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a> should speak plain prose instead +of blank verse. If Mrs. Kemble had read the words of Rosalind or of +Portia, of Shylock or Mercutio, as if they were neighbors of hers and +people whom we were in the habit of meeting, the effect would have been +ludicrous. When she came in—the Fanny Kemble of Talfourd and of the +wild enthusiasm of the grandfathers of to-day, ripened into the comely +and queenly woman—and seated herself at the little table on which the +great volume lay open, she was the magician who was to open to us the +realm of faery, the world of imagination, not to take us back into the +familiar scenes of the world of New York or Chicago. The spell was +resistless. The deep, rich, melodious voice flowed out like an enchanted +singing river, along which we glided seeing visions and dreaming dreams. +To sit and listen to her was like sitting and watching Titian laying on +the canvas the gorgeous tints which before our eyes took on the forms of +men and angels. A rarer, a more refined delight, which of us has known? +Did it ever occur to us<a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a> that Mrs. Kemble was doing anything improper, +anything unwomanly? In the wonderful picture of Portia that "her voice's +music" drew, was there anything a little repulsive, a little unfeminine?</p> + +<p>This question was suggested to the Easy Chair by the remark of one of +the most devoted and delighted of all the listeners at those readings, +that he was very sorry to see that the University of London had decided +to admit women to all its degrees upon precisely equal terms with men. +The secret reason of the regret, of course, is the feeling that there +would be something unwomanly in the act of competing for a degree which +would open the pursuit of professions—especially the medical +profession—which are usually and often exclusively cultivated by men.</p> + +<p>Yet, when pressed, the Easy Chair's interlocutor admitted that there was +nothing more essentially unfeminine in the practice of medicine by a +woman than in the recitation of Shakespeare for the entertainment of a +miscellaneous crowd. It is a question of habit, not of<a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a> instinct, nor of +principle, nor of reason. When the old Greek and Oriental idea of +absolute seclusion and subordination is abandoned, a woman's reading +from Shakespeare for the pleasure of the public is an action not +different in kind from her practising medicine or serving on a school +committee. This generation, however, is more used to the one than to the +other. It is a habit, nothing more.</p> + +<p>Charles Lamb regrets in one of his later essays that "we have no +<i>rationale</i> of sauces, or theory of mixed flavors; as to show why +cabbage is reprehensible with roast beef, laudable with bacon; why the +haunch of mutton seeks the alliance of currant jelly, the shoulder +civilly declineth it; why loin of veal (a pretty problem), being itself +unctuous, seeketh the adventitious lubricity of melted butter; and why +the same part in pork, not more oleaginous, abhorreth from it; ... why +oysters in death rise up against the contamination of brown sugar, while +they are posthumously amorous of vinegar; why the sour mango and the +sweet jam<a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a> by turns court and are accepted by the compilable mutton +hash—she not yet decidedly declaring for either. We are as yet but in +the empirical stage of cookery."</p> + +<p>It is not in cookery alone that this mystery is still unsolved. Why, for +instance, should it seem a womanly use of Heaven's gift that Jenny Lind +should sing for the pleasure of a thousand men, and something strange +and unfeminine that Portia should plead with eloquence in a court to +save a hapless woman from prison or the cord? Why is it fitting that +Mrs. Kemble should professionally read Shakespeare, and "queer" that she +should professionally attend women in peril and sickness? Do we not +naturally and logically glide into the part of the citation from Lamb +that we just now omitted?—"why salmon (a strong sapor <i>per se</i>) +fortifieth its condition with the mighty lobster sauce, whose embraces +are fatal to the delicater relish of the turbot." Must we not say that +we are as yet but in the rudimentary knowledge of <a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a>what is and is not +feminine?</p> + +<p>When the example of the London University is not singular, but when all +opportunities are opened equally to all talent and vocation, when it is +not forbidden a woman to do any honorable work for which she is by +nature and by study and training properly equipped, unless the laws of +nature fail, will any greater catastrophe befall, will there be any more +signal reversion of the order of things, than if cabbage should come at +last to be eaten with roast beef, and currant jelly cement an alliance +with the mutton's shoulder?<a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="BELINDA_AND_THE_VULGAR" id="BELINDA_AND_THE_VULGAR"></a>BELINDA AND THE VULGAR.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_I.png" +width="100" +height="103" +alt="I" +title="I" /></span>T is perhaps because the Easy Chair sometimes discusses +questions of behavior that it is occasionally asked to express an +opinion upon more difficult social points. Thus it was lately requested +to say whether it did not think that the great want of our society is a +social standard. The inquiry was made by the lovely Belinda, who was +charmingly dressed for a select party, and the Easy Chair was obliged to +own that it did not at once comprehend the scope of the inquiry, and to +seek an explanation. As Belinda proceeded to elucidate her meaning it +seemed to be tolerably plain that she was contemplating some kind of +rank, or visible and recognized distinction, which should separate +"society" from what is not society, and it was impossible not to feel +that, however high the dividing line, and however small<a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a> the circle +which it enclosed, she was herself included within it.</p> + +<p>The Easy Chair thereupon described to her a conversation which it held +long ago with a distinguished man upon English social life and the +advantages of an aristocracy. The distinguished man's views were very +much like those which are set forth in Disraeli's "Sibyl" and +"Coningsby," and which were known forty years ago as those of Young +England. They proposed a national life blended of feudal romance and +modern philanthropy. There was to be a gracious nobility of very blue +blood which had been clarified in the veins of the Plantagenets, who +were to live in stately castles in the midst of superb demesnes, and to +be exceedingly good to their tenants and retainers, for whom there were +to be May-poles, and flitches of bacon at Christmas, and greased poles +to climb at appropriate times, and sacks to run races in, and who were +to be visited at their neat little cottages, when they were ill, by the +ladies from the castle, and who were to be industrious and obedient and +humble and grateful,<a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a> and, above all things, to know their place. The +nobility were to own the land, and govern the country, and live in +splendid idleness, and the happy peasantry were to do all the work, and +bow respectfully when the nobility passed by, and go to bed when the +curfew tolled, and to make no trouble.</p> + +<p>This was the Young England programme, and the Arcadia of the Disraeli +novel. And this also showed its familiar features in the talk of the +distinguished man as he bewailed the social bareness of American life +and descanted upon the charm of an ancient and well-ordered society. But +when the Easy Chair mischievously asked him whether he did not think +that he might tire of the greased pole, and the dance upon the lawn, and +the gracious patronage, and the respectful gratitude, the amusing +bewilderment of the distinguished man showed that in his admiration of +the society that he described he assumed always that he was to belong to +the class that lived in the stately castles and benignly condescended to +the humble cottagers. His<a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a> view, therefore, was very simple. It was +merely that he should like to live in splendid idleness, steeped in +luxury, and surrounded by respectful servants.</p> + +<p>Belinda listened to this story, of which the Easy Chair made no +application, with a slight blush; and to the polite inquiry, what kind +of social standard she contemplated, she responded that she meant a +certain fixed line which should exclude the vulgar. But she was +immediately silent, as if reflecting upon a difficult proposition, and +did not answer when she was asked what she thought would be the +consequence of removing the vulgar from the circles which she considered +most select.</p> + +<p>Her benevolent attention invited further question, especially as at the +same moment a lady entered the room who bore one of the most noted +family names in the country, and most familiar in fashionable annals, a +family which delights to trace its lineage to a royal source. This proud +dame had married her daughter as if by main force to a coroneted lord of +hereditary acres. It was<a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a> a familiar fact of the society in which she +was a conspicuous figure, and it was impossible not to ask: "Can there +be anything more coarsely vulgar than to sell a daughter for money and a +title to a man for whom she does not care; and shall we begin to erect +the social standard by expelling the vulgar offender?"</p> + +<p>Belinda was still silent, and the brilliant rooms began to fill and +murmur with a gay company. Among them came the loud and diamonded Mrs. +Smasher, to whose unparalleled fêtes even Belinda would be almost +willing to request a card. The Smasher lineage is not renowned or regal; +the Smasher mind is imperfectly educated; the Smasher manners are those +of the suddenly rich who are not also suddenly refined.</p> + +<p>"Is any conceivable vulgarity greater than the Smasher vulgarity, O +Belinda; and shall we continue these exercises by expelling also this +essentially vulgar person?"</p> + +<p>Belinda was still silent. She has remained silent even to this day.<a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="DECAYED_GENTILITY" id="DECAYED_GENTILITY"></a>DECAYED GENTILITY.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_D.png" +width="100" +height="101" +alt="D" +title="D" /></span>ECAYED gentility has great interest for the +novel-reader, and the man and woman who "have seen better days" are +familiar figures in actual life. Hampton Court is regarded by some +travellers with pensive regard as a kind of almshouse for this class of +the indigent, and institutions nearer home are described with a +deferential courtesy and avoidance as homes for decayed gentlewomen. It +cannot be pleasant to the persons themselves to be so described, but the +founders of such places have perhaps a comfortable sense of reflected +honor, as if the impulse to provide a retreat of the kind were of itself +a sign of "very gentility." Despite the plaintive little plea which the +description itself urges for this decayed class of our fellow-beings, +the people who "have seen better days" are<a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a> not generally an engaging +multitude. A person whose chief distinction is that he was once more +prosperous than he is now seems to renounce any present claim upon +consideration, and to offer his inability as a ground of regard. It is +an appeal to pity, but pity of old has a disagreeable relative.</p> + +<p>The pathos of the appeal lies, first, in the sense of contrast, and then +in the spiritual rather than the material poverty which it discloses. +The lady who lets lodgings, and whose air and the allusions of whose +conversation constantly suggest that she has seen better days, is a +person who is mastered by circumstances, and therefore does not compel +respect. But a woman who is the perfectly self-respecting lady fulfils +simply the duty of the moment with no conscious appeal for sympathy; and +if by chance you discover that she has been more prosperous, the fact +that she has not the conceit of it strengthens your regard. For it is no +personal credit to have been more prosperous. As your landlady shows you +the convenience of the room, she lets fall<a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a> that her father the Bishop, +or her uncle the Senator, or her lamented cousin the millionaire would +be deeply grieved if he could know that his kinswoman was actually +letting lodgings.</p> + +<p>"Then, madam, you have seen better days?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, sir—"</p> + +<p>But how is it personally creditable to the good woman that her uncle was +honorable and her cousin rich? She recalls the circumstances of others +at the expense of her own character. The lodger wishes to hire rooms +upon their own merits. He resents the bribery of pity to take them. If +they are a little stuffy, they certainly seem no airier because his +landlady once sat upon a crimson sofa and read novels all day long. If +some philanthropist builds a retreat to which she can retire gratis, and +pass her declining years in regretful recollection of the crimson sofa, +so let it be. Such a retreat may be dedicated to sentimental repining. +But a woman of spirit and character never becomes a decayed gentlewoman, +however destitute she may be.<a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a></p> + +<p>This refusal to succumb to circumstances and to make the best of it, +which is all that can be asked, is charmingly sketched in Lamb's Captain +Jackson. The Captain's frugal table had the air of a feast, such was the +magic of his cheerfulness. His plain cheese was served like Stilton or +Roquefort, and slipping a shred of it upon his guest's plate, he +contented himself with the rind, gayly declaring that the nearer the +bone the sweeter the meat. Poverty was no pleasanter to him than to the +rest of us. But had he gone to the almshouse he would not have +complained, and in no word or sigh of his would you have discovered that +he had seen better days.</p> + +<p>The family of Captain Jackson is by no means extinct. The other day the +Easy Chair met one of them in Broadway—an elderly gentleman in a +well-brushed, exceedingly threadbare suit, moving briskly along the +pavement. His greeting was alert and courteous. There was a little chat +of the day's news, a gay jest or two, and then good-morning. Half a +century ago this was a young<a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a> man about town, the heir of a fortune, a +youth of "family" who dressed and drove and dined and danced like the +golden youth of to-day. When the first Italian opera troupe came, he was +nightly behind the scenes. In the circle of Knickerbocker wits he was +one. He wrote verses, and had a kind of literary name. His portrait was +published in a weekly paper. He sat at the good tables. His name was +Fortunio.</p> + +<p>Everything is gone but the cheerful spirit. Nobody knows exactly how he +lives, but only that it is in extreme poverty. But he preserves the tone +of prosperity. He writes notes in a beautiful and graceful hand upon +very cheap paper. "You remember our conversation the other morning about +'Anstey's Bath Guide'; and if you will look in your <i>Fraser</i> for this +month, you will find that I was right." Here is the assumption that +every gentleman takes <i>Fraser</i>, and that your correspondent may have +dipped into his before you have looked at yours. Doubtless he had seen +it—at some reading-room, perhaps, or on Brentano's counter.<a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a></p> + +<p>One day we had spoken of a famous author. A little while afterwards came +a comely package containing an old and choice work of his, and a note: +"Dear Easy Chair,—I thought it might be a pleasure to you to own this +rather uncommon copy of an author whom you evidently admire, and which +it is a pleasure to my shelves to spare." What a fine air of elegant +leisure in a library! But the "shelves" were a few remnant books, +probably worthless to sell, but affording the friendly soul true +satisfaction in giving. Fortunio is not a decayed gentleman. His +gentility, in the best sense, is in full vigor. Everything but that, +indeed, is decayed. But there is no unmanly moping about better days, +although in few men's lives could there be a sharper contrast between +the past and the present.</p> + +<p>This cheerful steadiness is largely due to temperament, but it is not +therefore beyond those who have not the same temperament. Character can +emulate it. "It's bad enough to be poor," said one of the Captain +Jackson family, "but it's a<a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a> great deal worse to be sulky too." It is +very easy, indeed, for prosperity to preach resignation to adversity, +and to urge it to bear up bravely. But it is a true gospel, although it +be easy to preach. Pure Lacrima Christi is as precious when poured from +a glass of Murano as from a pewter mug.<a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="THE_PHARISEE" id="THE_PHARISEE"></a>THE PHARISEE.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_T.png" +width="100" +height="105" +alt="T" +title="T" /></span>HERE is no more beautiful and impressive passage in the +New Testament than that which contrasts the Pharisee thanking God that +he is not as other men are and the Publican who asks mercy as a sinner. +But there is no passage, also, which has been more ingeniously +perverted, and it is exceedingly amusing to hear Jeremy Diddler or +Robert Macaire or Dick Turpin railing at honest and industrious men as +Pharisees because they prefer honesty and industry to knavery.</p> + +<p>The taste for honesty and sobriety seems natural and simple enough, and +the qualities themselves quite as valuable as those of Diddler, or even +of Jonathan Wild the Great. But Jonathan will have none of them. They +are Pharisaic impertinences. They are impracticable and visionary +speculations, which assume<a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a> heaven while yet we stand upon the green +earth; and Mr. Wild, who assures us that he does not desire to pass +himself off as better than other men, declares, with the noble candor +which distinguishes him, that simple, downright dishonesty is good +enough for him. He does not, indeed, choose that precise word, but he +conveys that precise idea.</p> + +<p>'Tis a good trick, and it is generally sure of applause. But it is only +another version of a familiar maxim, that when you have no argument, you +must abuse the plaintiff's attorney. As a matter of fact, your client +did steal the handkerchief, or forge the name, or fire the barn. But I +ask you, gentlemen of the jury—you may well say—and I appeal to all +good citizens, is not this ostentation of superior virtue, this fine air +of moral indignation toward my client simply because he happened to slip +his hand into the wrong pocket, a little suspicious? Are we angels? I +ask your honor is this work-a-day world the celestial seat and the Mount +of Vision, and is a man so very much better than his fellows merely<a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a> +because he rolls up his sanctimonious eyes with the Pharisee and thanks +God that he is holier than other men? Nay, gentlemen, have we not in +this sublime and immortal parable a Divine warning against this +Phariseeism which denounces the slides and slips of our common frail +humanity? I ask you, gentlemen, by your verdict not to place a premium +upon that most odious of all repulsive arrogancies—Phariseeism.</p> + +<p>But it is upon the political platform that the gibes and sneers at +Phariseeism are intended to be most stinging. The Honorable Jonathan +Wild the Great comes out strong, as his henchmen truly declare, against +his political opponents. With one vast comprehensive sneer he brands +them as Pharisees, as if he were snorting consuming fire. It is not +surprising, because they have had their eye upon Jonathan. They have +seen him in bad company. They have caught him "conveying" public +treasure. They know all about him, and he knows that they know all about +him. He called himself Tweed, and he made a mesh of<a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a> statutes to +legalize robbery. But how good he was to the poor! How he distributed +coal to the chilly! How he planted pinks and daisies in the City Hall +Park, and made the Battery to bloom as the rose! How he received wedding +gifts for his daughter from our best citizens; and how generously they +subscribed to erect his statue to commemorate that bright flower of the +State! And now a sneaking, mousing gang of would-be archangels prate +about common honesty, and demand that public hands shall be clean hands! +Fellow-citizens, Jonathan Wild is a man of the people. He doesn't +pretend to be higher and purer and better than other men. He didn't +graduate at a college, indeed, and he never read the Iliad in the +original Greek. No, fellow-citizens, there is no cambric handkerchief +and oh-de-cologne about him. He is just one of the boys. He whoops it up +with the plain people, and, thank God, whatever he is, he is not a +Pharisee.</p> + +<p>The argument is ingenious. It does not deny that he is a thief. It only +insists<a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a> that those who assert it are Pharisees—and Pharisees are so +odious that it is much better to scoff at them than to punish Mr. Wild. +There was a good old countryman who had been early taught to take men as +they are, which means to consider them liars and rascals. One day a +neighbor remarked to him that he thought that the old man had lost the +money with which he bought voters, because, he said, while they take +your money, the other side take their votes. "The deuce they do!" said +the old countryman. "Yes," said the other; "and you will find, in the +long-run, that political honesty is the best political policy." "You +think so, do you?" was the reply. "Well, do you know that you're a +blanked metaphysical Pharisee?"</p> + +<p>It is obvious that when the advocacy of common honesty in any relation +of life is savagely and scornfully decried as Phariseeism, it is because +somebody's withers are wrung. It is a plea of guilty. It is the cry of +Squeers when the picture of Dotheboys Hall was displayed to the world: +"I didn't do it." If a man demands<a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a> honesty in politics, and it is +retorted, "You're a Pharisee," it is because the dishonesty cannot be +denied or disproved, and the retort is therefore a summons to all honest +men to look out for thieves.</p> + +<p>To deride the demand for decency is to concede that anything but +indecency is impracticable. If it be only Pharisees who insist that +sugar shall not be sanded, that milk shall not be swill-fed, that coffee +shall not be chiccory, that nutmegs shall not be wood, that cloth shall +not be shoddy, that employés of the government shall not be forced to +pay for their places, that public officers shall be honest, and that +government shall not be venal, it is pleasant to think how many +intelligent, upright, industrious, and practical Americans are +Pharisaical.<a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="LADY_MAVOURNEEN_ON_HER_TRAVELS" id="LADY_MAVOURNEEN_ON_HER_TRAVELS"></a>LADY MAVOURNEEN ON HER TRAVELS.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_T.png" +width="100" +height="105" +alt="T" +title="T" /></span>HE passenger in the crowded street railway car is often +disturbed by the conscious absorption of his masculine neighbors in +their newspapers when a woman enters and looks for a seat. If she be +young and pretty, there are apparently seats enough, however great the +crowd, and even if a man is slow to rise, he may yet, with Mr. Readywit, +exhort his son sitting upon his knee to get up and give the lady his +seat. The impatient passenger, in his indignation at the want of +courtesy upon the part of others, sometimes forgets, indeed, to rise +himself. But there is always some Nathan comfortably seated farther away +whose amused look says to the impatient but stationary David, "Thou art +the man."</p> + +<p>It would be very unfair to generalize<a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a> from this frequent situation that +the American is uncourteous. On the contrary, he is the most truly +polite man among men of all nations. Lady Mavourneen, who is familiar +with the society and the manners of many countries, and who has been +always accustomed to hear Americans in Europe described everywhere and +with pungent emphasis as "those Americans," was amazed upon coming here +to find universal courtesy. "In the street or at the railway station," +she said, "if I ask anybody any question, I receive the most prompt and +polite reply. Everybody is at my service, not with much bowing or +flourishing, but heartily and honestly. I have never seen such universal +courtesy." When she was asked whether she had observed the absorption of +the street-car passengers in their newspapers, she smiled and said that +she had never been obliged to stand, because some one was sure to rise. +But in Paris she said that often as she was passing to a seat Monsieur +Crapeaud, raising his hat politely, and saying, warmly, <i>Pardon!</i> +pressed by and secured the seat.<a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a></p> + +<p>Lady Mavourneen, who tells a little story with great humor, described a +scene in a crowded church in Paris. An apparent lady was disturbing +everybody by pushing along toward a distant chair in the row, when Lady +Mavourneen arose to allow her to pass more easily, and the apparent lady +immediately slipped into my lady's chair, and held it fast, saying only, +in reply to her earnest remonstrance: "Madame, you left the chair; I +took it. You have lost it. Voilà!" A vagabond of this kind took the seat +of a gentleman who had risen to help a lady off a street car. When the +gentleman returned he mentioned to the interloper that it was his seat. +The interloper shrugged his shoulders, remarked that it was an empty +seat when he took it, and that he should continue to occupy it. "If you +don't get out of that seat, I'll take you out," was the rejoinder of the +gentleman, whose shoulders were broad. The squatter scowled and +abdicated.</p> + +<p>Lady Mavourneen found, what every lady will find, that she could travel<a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a> +everywhere in "the States" alone, with entire safety and surrounded by +the utmost courtesy. The word "lady" with which she will be accosted by +hackmen and porters and conductors is spoken with kindly respect, and +even if some person in a lady's garb thrusts herself into the cue of +passengers slowly advancing to the window of the ticket office to buy +tickets, there may be sour looks and amazed stares, but she will +generally have her way. So great is our courtesy that we honor the +counterfeit claim. The source of the most serious objection to the +demand of suffrage for women is the secret apprehension that men will +lose their sincere deference, and treat women as they treat other men, +thus robbing life of the tender romance of chivalric courtesy. Emerson +says of the successful lover and his mistress, "She was heaven, while he +pursued her as a star; can she be heaven if she stoops to such an one as +he?"</p> + +<p>Yet, while this feeling is frequent, and seems to many very plausible, +it is the true respect of the American for women<a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a> which is the real +strength of this very movement. The European sentiment for woman is +still somewhat mediæval. She is still the goddess of the troubadours and +the minnesingers, but a goddess who is treated as the South-sea +Islanders treat their gods, beating them when they are not propitious. +To the American she is Wordsworth's "Phantom of Delight" seen upon +nearer view, and it is idle to prattle about her "sphere," as if she did +not instinctively know it more truly than men. The universal courtesy +which Lady Mavourneen remarked is essential respect and kindliness of +feeling, which no more permits a man to gild his selfishness with a +"Pardon" and a touching of his hat than it permits him to strike a +woman.</p> + +<p>Yet although courtesy is essentially in the heart, and is kind feeling +rather than respectful manner, it is not worth while to despise the +manner. If we must choose between the good heart and suavity of address, +between Boythorne and Lovelace, of course we shall choose Boythorne. But +why not both?<a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a> Why not the <i>mens sana in corpore sano?</i> In "The Iron +Pen," Longfellow says:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left">"And in words not idle and vain</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> I shall answer and thank you again</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> For the gift, and the grace of the gift,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> O beautiful Helen of Maine!"</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>It is not only the gift, it is the grace in giving which completes the +charm.</p> + +<p>The young American of to-day puffs his cigarette in the face of his +partner on the balcony, in the boat, or in the wagon, and smiles at the +frilled Lothario of yesterday bowing in his flowered coat and paying +stately compliments as stiff as her brocade to the dame whom he +addresses. The youth is right in saying that the flowered coat and the +stately compliment were the dress and the speech of an old sinner. But +he would be right also if he remembered that familiarity breeds +contempt, and that he may wisely distrust his feeling for any woman who +does not put him upon his good behavior. The courtesy which Lady +Mavourneen observed in the railway station and in the street was plain, +but it was genuine.<a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a> Respect naturally produces courtesy. Good manners +are the cultivation of natural courtesy: the gift and the grace of the +gift.</p> + +<p>This was the chief remembrance, and it was a unique and precious +treasure, which Lady Mavourneen carried back to Europe from America.<a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="GENERAL_SHERMAN" id="GENERAL_SHERMAN"></a>GENERAL SHERMAN.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_N.png" +width="100" +height="103" +alt="N" +title="N" /></span>ONE of his great contemporaries was universally beloved +more than General Sherman, perhaps none so much. The rare happiness was +his not only of becoming famous by taking a great part in a great +historic achievement, but of the complete enjoyment of fame. His later +years forecast the future. He saw not only that his name would be +remembered, but remembered with personal affection. Very few men have +been able to foresee this, and very few more clearly than Sherman. It is +due not to achievement alone, but to personal quality blended with +achievement.</p> + +<p>In his last years he was wholly withdrawn from public affairs, and with +extraordinary tact, although constantly in the public eye and mind, and +although the sense of his historic personality, so<a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a> to speak, was +constant, he refrained from declarations upon pending public questions, +and the remarks of his interviews were not devoted to subjects of +general controversy. This was doubtless the result of his accurate +apprehension of his relation to the country. He had been educated by it, +and had served it as a soldier. He had strong convictions and was frank +of speech, but he belonged to all. He could not well be a common +partisan. He was apparently untouched by political ambition. If he had +felt its spur at all, he was happily able to prefer the general +permanent affectionate popular regard to the fierce enthusiasm of a +political campaign and the passionate ardor of partisanship.</p> + +<p>Whatever the reason, he held aloof. Perhaps at one moment, had he +assented, his name might have been caught up in a vast and tumultuous +political convention, and to a burning and skilful appeal to patriotism +and the still glowing memories of the war a palpitating party might have +responded, and made him its leader. But if others doubted and hesitated +he<a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a> did not. He comprehended the situation as in a comprehensive and +far-extending military movement. He knew himself, and he refused. The +opportunity for which the most illustrious and the most famous of +Americans have longed and labored and pined offered itself to him, +unsought, unwished, and he smiled it away.</p> + +<p>Among the chief figures of the epoch of the war probably Lincoln and +Sherman were the most individual and original. The most romantic and +picturesque of the many renowned events of that time was the march to +the sea. It has already a distinctive character, like that of the Greeks +in Xenophon's story of the ten thousand. When the news of its successful +issue reached this part of the country, it served to show the simple and +honest patriotism of one of the more unfortunate of the Union generals. +Burnside, after the explosion of the mine at Petersburg, had been +relieved, and was staying with a company of friends at a country-house +on Narragansett Bay. The company were all sitting one morning<a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a> upon the +spacious piazza, when a messenger rode up and announced Sherman's +success. Burnside's delight was enthusiastic. All thought of himself +vanished. The good cause only was in his mind and heart, and, running to +his wife, he joyfully kissed her, saying, "I know that the company feels +as I do, and will forgive me."</p> + +<p>It was the feeling of a soldier as simple and true-hearted and +patriotic, but not so fortunate, as Sherman; and it was the same candor +and manly sweetness of nature that softened Sherman's voice whenever he +spoke of the soldiers of the war to whom fate had seemed to be unkind. +He is gone, the last of the old familiar figures, some of his old foes +bearing him tenderly to the grave. And are not Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, +Sheridan, Porter, Seward, Chase, Stanton, Sumner, and their fellows, +historic figures worthy to rank with the elder Revolutionary group dear +to all Americans?<a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="THE_AMERICAN_GIRL" id="THE_AMERICAN_GIRL"></a>THE AMERICAN GIRL.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_A.png" +width="100" +height="98" +alt="A" +title="A" /></span> PLEASING and constant topic of English writers is the +American girl. One of the later commentators says of her, "American +girls have shown they can receive, travel, and live without chaperons, +escorts, or husbands, and are fast developing a bright, clear, +intelligent, self-reliant, courageous, and refreshing variety of the +human race." And again, "Even if in future years the slender Yankee +belle is hidden behind the ampler beauty of the English matron, we may +still hear from her lips the wit and shrewdness, the acute accent, the +intelligent question, and the rapid repartee that proclaim her original +nationality." The "society" pictures in the papers and magazines +represent the dismay of the British matron with marriageable daughters +as she surveys the avatar of the American divinity and rival.<a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a> The +essential differences of society in the two countries are at once +suggested, and the alarm of the watchful parent is justified.</p> + +<p>The charm of Miss Austen's novels is their acknowledged fidelity of +portraiture of the society with which they deal. They are miniatures, +but the likeness is wrought with exquisite skill of detail, and as the +American reader reflects he perceives that the great object of the game +which they describe is eligible marriage. Indeed the motive of the novel +in general is love and marriage. We open the book, we are at once +introduced to Paul, and presently to Virginia, and we proceed over the +pages until we hear the approaching beat of the Wedding March, which in +fact we have heard from the first page, and we know that the end is at +hand. But in the English novel of society, although the theme be +marriage, it is not necessarily love. If that were essential, a host of +rival fair ones with golden locks would bring no pang to the maternal +bosom, because she would know that love will find out the one among the +thousand.<a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a></p> + +<p>The passages that we have quoted apparently describe by contrast, which +is a fact which does not seem to have occurred to the writer. Doubtless +at heart he is loyal to the English girl, and does not admit even in +debate that her supremacy of maidenhood can be disputed. When he says +that American girls have shown that they can receive, travel, and live +without chaperons, escorts, or husbands, he seems to mean that they have +shown this distinctively as compared with other girls. When he adds that +they are fast developing a bright, clear, intelligent, self-reliant, +courageous, and refreshing variety of the human race, can he mean that +those words describe a new variety of girl, and that it is not perfectly +familiar in England? So in the other passage, when, supposing the +American girl transformed into the British matron, he remarks, with +evident admiration, "we may still hear from her lips the wit and +shrewdness, the acute accent, the intelligent question, and the rapid +repartee that proclaim her original nationality," would he have us +understand that these<a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a> are not the characteristics of the British matron +of to-day? Or does he intimate only that the coming of the Americans +will but enlarge the number of these delightful ladies?</p> + +<p>The writer certainly seems to describe by contrast, but he has wisely +left a little cloud in which to envelop his retreat in case of +emergency. Certainly we need not press him. Whatever he may think or say +of the English girl, he has spoken well and truly of her American +sister. His description applies to the girl who grows up amid the +average conditions of American life, the girl who is portrayed in her +more jejune condition in Henry James's Daisy Miller. The two chief +qualities of that young woman, as represented by the shrewd and subtle +artist, are self-respect and self-reliance. The perplexity of the +phenomenon to the foreign reader lies in the fact that she does what the +European girl without self-respect does.</p> + +<p>A distinguished writer in New York, no longer living, once said to the +Easy Chair, with an air of consternation: "Do you<a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a> know that the best +girls in New York go without escort to the matinées at the Academy? +Goodness knows what will be the end of it!" The good man was seriously +troubled. He seemed to apprehend that the young woman who could go to a +matinée without an escort would probably run off with a circus troupe, +and presently ride—in a very short skirt—bare-backed horses in the +ring. He evidently felt that the young women whom he had seen were in +grave danger of losing maidenly reserve, and that their conduct betrayed +a want of refinement of feeling. The secret of his alarm lay in the fact +that the social conventions of foreign society had acquired in his mind +the force of rules of morality. He shared the feelings of the delightful +lady who remarked that in her opinion it was immodest to go abroad +without gloves. Nothing is more common than this confusion of mind, and +one of the advantages of genuinely American society is that it +dissipates such illusions. The Lady Mavourneen, who was familiar with +the finest society both in France and England, said that the respect<a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a> +shown to women in this country was so sincere and universal that she +should not hesitate to cross the continent alone. Why, then, should the +Easy Chair's friend have been troubled that young women went unattended +to the concert at the Academy? Every man there would have been their +instant defender against insult. But they went, and they were allowed to +go, because the insult was more improbable than fire, while the defence +was sure.</p> + +<p>In what is called distinctively society in large cities there is a great +deal of the feeling evinced by the observer at the Academy. There is +abundant regard for misplaced conventions. Young women in Vienna and +Paris who go unattended are generally working-women or another class, +and as working-women are not respected by Lovelace and Lothario, they +are exposed to insult. To avoid the chance of insult, therefore, a young +woman must have an escort in a partially civilized city like Paris or +Vienna. But no presumption lies against any woman in America. Her +self-respect and self-reliance are unquestioned, and American<a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a> women, +old and young, are perpetually passing in railway trains by day and +night from one part of the country to another, unsuspected and +unsuspecting.</p> + +<p>In a country where social classes are not permanent or rigidly defined, +as hitherto in America they have not been, the daughter as well as the +son of the house contemplates the possibility of self-support. In such a +country the harem view of the sphere and occupation of woman, however +modified, wholly disappears. The word "obey" gradually vanishes from the +marriage service, or is smoothed away by interpretation. The ideal of +woman changes, and, as we think in America, improves. All the excellent +qualities which the London writer attributes to the American girl spring +from this change, from social conditions which foster self-respect and +self-reliance. The demand of the suffrage, the rise of the woman's +college, the challenge to the great universities to lift up their gates +that woman may come in, show no decline of the feminine ideal of woman, +but its transformation from the fancy of a goddess or a<a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a> toy into the +old Scriptural conception of the helpmeet.</p> + +<p>The British matron, as she scrutinizes what she may hold to be an +invader of her realm, will not find that in any feminine quality or +grace, even to the most exquisite taste in dress, or delicate charm of +manner, or essential refinement of mind, Pocahontas defers to Boadicea. +Where the American imitates the English or any other, as when the +English girl affects the French, she must suffer from the inevitable +inferiority of all imitation. When her self-reliance is boisterous, or +without tact and fine perception, Daisy Miller will be as crude and +distasteful as Lady Clara Vere de Vere is heartless and cruel. But +Rosalind and Viola and Beatrice, and Tennyson's Eleanore and Adeline and +Margaret, meet in the American a sister of the same lineage as their +own, bred in an atmosphere most fortunate and fair.<a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="ANNUS_MIRABILIS" id="ANNUS_MIRABILIS"></a>ANNUS MIRABILIS.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_T.png" +width="100" +height="105" +alt="T" +title="T" /></span>HIS year, the centenary of the opening of our national constitutional +epoch, will be a Washington year. As on a saint's day there is a special +service in his honor, so through all this year there will be especial +remembrance of Washington, and natural self-congratulation that in him +we have a glory beyond that of other nations. The last striking tribute +to him is also most timely, for it is that of Mr. Bryce in his "American +Commonwealth," whose publication happily coincided with the opening of +this <i>annus mirabilis</i>. He says, in speaking of Hamilton's death, "One +cannot note the disappearance of this brilliant figure, to Europeans the +most interesting in the earlier history of the republic, without the +remark that his countrymen seem to have never, either in his lifetime or +afterward, duly recognized<a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a> his splendid gifts." The explanation of this +seeming want of appreciation is, however, very characteristic, for it +lies in the instinctive American regard for morality.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bryce touches it when he proceeds: "Washington, indeed, is a far +more perfect character. Washington stands alone and unapproachable, like +a snow-peak rising above its fellows into the clear air of morning, with +a dignity, constancy, and purity which have made him the ideal type of +civic virtue to succeeding generations. No greater benefit could have +befallen the republic than to have such a type set from the first before +the eye and mind of the people." That benefit is incalculable, and it +will be acknowledged with every form of stately ceremonial and of +eloquent enthusiasm during this year.</p> + +<p>The great event of 1789 was Washington's inauguration as President, and +it is the most important event in the annals of the city. The +cosmopolitan character of the city from its settlement and in the early +time of the little town,<a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a> when it was said that more than a dozen +different languages were spoken in its streets, down to the present, +when it is the third or fourth city in size upon the globe, has always +checked the sentiment of local pride which is so great a force in the +development of a community. Among all the original States New York has +seemed to care least for its significant events and its great men. That +the Revolution was tactically largely a contest for the control of the +Hudson, that the contest culminated at Saratoga, and that the new +national order which resulted from the Revolution began in the city of +New York, are facts which are known, indeed, but which have not grown +into a proud tradition universally cherished and constantly repeated and +celebrated like similar great events in New England.</p> + +<p>This year, however, the last event, Washington's inauguration, will be +the occasion of a great national observance. The President and cabinet, +Senators and Representatives and judges, distinguished delegates from +every State, will attend,<a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a> and there will be religious and oratorical +exercises and civil and military display. One fact, indeed, invests such +a celebration with especial triumph. It is that while the government +which was organized a hundred years ago was unprecedented in form and +wholly untried in the experience of states, and while it was regarded +with interest but with incredulity as essentially unequal to the great +shocks of fate to which other states have succumbed, it has passed, +within the century, not only unshaken but strengthened, through the most +tremendous and prolonged ordeal to which such a government could be +submitted.</p> + +<p>Chief among its extraordinary good fortunes at its organization was that +of the presence of a man without whom at that time its establishment +would have been hardly possible. The French Minister at the time of the +inauguration wrote home to his government that it was the universal +confidence in Washington which secured assent to the Constitution. John +Lamb, who was unfriendly to the Constitution, told Hamilton in<a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a> Wall +Street that only his faith in Washington overcame his repugnance to it. +The hour had plainly come for union, but except for the man it is +probable that union would not then have been effected.</p> + +<p>The value of Washington to his country transcends that of any other man +to any land. Take him from the Revolution, and all the fervor of the +Sons of Liberty would seem to have been a wasted flame. Take him from +the constitutional epoch, and the essential condition of union, personal +confidence in a leader, would have been wanting. Franklin, when the work +of the Constitutional Convention was completed, said that until then he +had not been sure whether the sun depicted above the President's chair +was a rising or a setting sun, but now his doubt was solved. Yet it was +not the symbolic figure above the chair, it was the man within it, which +should have forecast the great result to that sagacious mind.</p> + +<p>From the moment that independence was secured no man in America saw +more<a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a> clearly the necessity of national union, or defined more wisely +and distinctly the reasons for it. He is the chief illustration in a +popular government of a great leader who was not also a great orator. +Perhaps that fact gave a solid force to his influence by depriving all +his expressions of a rhetorical character, and preserving in them +throughout a simplicity and moderation which deepened the impression of +his comprehensive sagacity. He was felt as both an inspiring and a +sustaining power in the preliminary movement for union, and by natural +selection he was both President of the Convention and the head of the +government which it instituted. John Adams was Vice-President, and +Hamilton and Jefferson were in the cabinet. After Washington himself, +they were the three most eminent figures in the country. But it is not +possible to conceive any one of them organizing and establishing the new +system without controversy which would have rent it asunder.</p> + +<p>Indeed this year commemorates the<a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a> auspicious beginning of the most +arduous task which devolved upon Washington, and which transcends that +to which any other man in history has been called. Yet how little in his +performance of that task his countrymen would change! During the course +of the century they have been divided largely upon views of the +Constitution and upon principles of administration, and have engaged in +a long and momentous civil war, but they would certainly not desire that +any chief act of Washington's administration should have been other than +it was. He acted without precedent, but with the calm majesty of +rectitude, and although the serpent of party spirit struck at him as he +retired, no honest partisan to-day either distrusts his motives or +doubts his wisdom.</p> + +<p>It is a benignant fortune that so great a celebration as that of this +year is an act of homage to so great a man. It was his happiness to know +the affectionate reverence in which he was held. The memoirs and letters +of the time<a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a> show that Washington's was not a tardy and posthumous +greatness, but that those who knew him best honored him most, and that +America was conscious of the worth of her chief citizen. One of the most +striking contemporary personal tributes to him is that of John Bernard, +the English actor, who was in this country at the close of the last +century, and who met Washington near the end of his life, by chance and +without knowing him, near Mount Vernon.</p> + +<p>Bernard had paid a visit to a friend upon the banks of the Potomac, and +was returning upon horseback to Alexandria behind a chaise which seemed +to be in difficulties, and was presently upset. The actor hastened to +the rescue simultaneously with another horseman, and after some +exertions they succeeded in placing the occupants of the chaise—a man +and woman, who were fortunately not injured—again upon their way. After +their departure Bernard's companion politely offered to dust his coat, +and in returning the favor Bernard made a close survey of his +companion.<a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"He was a tall, erect, well-made man, evidently advanced in years, +but who seemed to have retained all the vigor and elasticity +resulting from a life of temperance and exercise. His dress was a +blue coat buttoned to his chin and buckskin breeches. Though the +instant he took off his hat I could not avoid the recognition of +familiar lineaments—which, indeed, I was in the habit of seeing on +every sign-post and on every fire-place—still I failed to identify +him."</p></div> + +<p>Washington recognized Bernard as the actor whom he had "had the pleasure +of seeing perform" in Philadelphia during the previous winter, and after +some pleasant chat an invitation to ride with him to Mount Vernon, only +a mile distant, revealed to Bernard the name of his companion. He was +profoundly impressed, and upon reaching Mount Vernon they found that +Mrs. Washington was indisposed, and the General ordered refreshments +into a little parlor looking upon the Potomac.</p> + +<p>At some length his guest describes the commanding presence of +Washington, in which "a feeling of awe and veneration stole over you." +During a conversation<a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a> of an hour and a half "he touched on every topic +that I brought before him with an even current of good sense, if he +embellished it with little wit or verbal elegance."</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"When I mentioned to him the difference I perceived between the +inhabitants of New England and of the Southern States, he remarked: +'I esteem those people greatly; they are the stamina of the Union, +and its greatest benefactors. They are continually spreading +themselves, too, to settle and enlighten less favored quarters. Dr. +Franklin is a New-Englander.' When I remarked that his observations +were flattering to my country, he replied, with great good-humor: +'Yes, yes, Mr. Bernard, but I consider your country the cradle of +free principles, not their arm-chair. Liberty in England is a sort +of idol; people are bred up in the belief and love of it, but see +little of its doings. They walk about freely, but then it is +between high walls; and the error of its government was in +supposing that after a portion of their subjects had crossed the +sea to live upon a common, they would permit their friends at home +to build up those walls about them.'</p> + +<p>"A black coming in at this moment with a jug of spring-water, I +could not repress a smile, which the General at once interpreted. +'This<a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a> may seem a contradiction,' he continued, 'but I think you +must perceive that it is neither a crime nor an absurdity. When we +profess, as our fundamental principle, that liberty is the +inalienable right of every man, we do not include madmen or idiots; +liberty in their hands would become a scourge. Till the mind of the +slave has been educated to perceive what are the obligations of a +state of freedom, and not to confound a man's with a brute's, the +gift would insure its abuse. We might as well be asked to pull down +our old warehouses before trade has increased to demand enlarged +new ones. Both houses and slaves were bequeathed to us by +Europeans, and time alone can change them—an event, sir, which, +you may believe me, no man desires more heartily than I do. Not +only do I pray for it on the score of human dignity, but I can +clearly foresee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can +perpetuate the existence of our Union, by consolidating it in a +common bond of principle.'"</p></div> + +<p>At the end of a century which has vindicated his view so nobly and so +completely it is pleasant to read these words, and in this new and vivid +glimpse of our Washington to find only a stronger title to our +veneration. Bernard recalls the words of De Chastellux:<a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The great characteristic of Washington is the perfect union which +seems to subsist between his moral and physical qualities, so that +the selection of one would enable you to judge of all the rest. If +you are presented with medals of Trajan or Cæsar, the features will +lead you to inquire the proportions of their persons; but if you +should discover in a heap of ruins the leg or arm of an antique +Apollo, you would not be curious about the other parts, but content +yourself with the assurance that they were all conformable to those +of a god."</p></div> + +<p><a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="STATUES_IN_CENTRAL_PARK_IN_1889" id="STATUES_IN_CENTRAL_PARK_IN_1889"></a>STATUES IN CENTRAL PARK<br /> +<small>IN 1889.</small></h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_T.png" +width="100" +height="105" +alt="T" +title="T" /></span>HE Easy Chair recently spoke of the statue of Longfellow which has been +erected in the city of Portland, where he was born, and "Charter Oak," +writing from Connecticut, asks why there is as yet no statue of +Washington Irving in Central Park, the beautiful sylvan resort of his +native city of New York. It is a question which the Easy Chair has +already asked, and which must constantly suggest itself in the spacious +public grounds which are becoming the most comprehensive of Walhallas. +The London <i>Times</i> calls Westminster Abbey "our Walhalla," meaning that +of England only. But the pleasure-ground of New York is truly a +Pantheon. It is dedicated to all the gods except its own. With unwonted +metropolitan modesty the city honors especially those who are not +children of New York.<a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a></p> + +<p>Webster is there, but not John Jay; Shakespeare and Scott and Burns and +Dante and Halleck even, but not Irving. It is grotesque that a space set +apart in New York for recreation, and decorated with marbles and bronzes +commemorating illustrious men, and among them authors and statesmen, +should still lack a fitting memorial of the greatest statesman and the +greatest author who were born in the city. Webster's famous panegyric of +Jay, that when the ermine of the Chief-Justiceship fell upon his +shoulders it touched nothing that was not as pure as itself, suggests +that a statue of John Jay might be of peculiar service as an object of +admonitory meditation in the bowery seclusion of a city that more +recently contemplated a statue to Tweed. In Couture's picture of the +"Decadence of the Romans," behind the luxurious and voluptuous groups of +intoxicated revellers in the foreground stand in sad severity the +statues of the elder Romans surveying the scene. In the lofty aspect of +Jay, filling with calm dignity the seclusion of some winding walk, would +there<a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a> be felt amazement and reproof? Is it to escape the sculptured +rebuke of contrast with the civic heroes of to-day that it is not seen, +and that the eye of the student who reflects that the city of New York +has contributed few very great names to our history seeks in vain the +statue of John Jay in Central Park?</p> + +<p>Irving has every claim to this especial distinction. It is his kindly +genius which made the annals of New Amsterdam the first work of our +creative literature, and which invested the great river of New York with +imperishable romance. Undoubtedly he wrote those annals in characters of +rollicking fun, and even over the heroism of the doughty Peter +Stuyvesant he has cast a humorous halo. But not all our authors combined +are so identified with New York as Irving. His earlier squib of +"Salmagundi" treats "the town" with an arch memory of the Spectator +loitering in London, and his spell was such that in a later day Dennett, +in the <i>Nation</i>, happily nicknamed the work of the talent which he had +quickened the Knickerbocker literature.<a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a></p> + +<p>The same genius in a tenderer mood colored the shores of the Hudson with +the softest hues of legend. The banks at Tarrytown stretching backward +to Sleepy Hollow, the broad water of the Tappan Zee, the airy heights of +the summer Katskill, were mere landscape, pleasing scenery only, until +Irving suffused them with the rosy light of story, and gave them the +human association which is the crowning charm of landscape. In many a +scene a hundred mountain ranges survey the lower land far reaching to +the ocean. The scene is grand, but nameless, bare of tradition, and +forgotten. But where</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left">"The mountains look on Marathon,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> And Marathon looks on the sea,"</td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">the eye and the heart are enchanted with the story of Greece and its +heroic human associations.</p> + +<p>In the first century of our literature, which is ending, very few of our +authors have laid this legendary spell upon American scenes as Irving +did upon the Hudson. They have not much endeared the<a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a> country to the +popular imagination, like Burns and Scott in Scotland, where every hill +and stream and bird and flower is reflected individually and fondly in +tale and song. The Easy Chair once met at Niagara a young Scotchman who +had come straight from his native land, and at every turn and glimpse +upon Goat Island and along the banks of the river he fairly bubbled and +murmured with the music of Burns and the other poets about Scottish +streams and scenes, of which he was reminded at every step. So in his +"Poems of Places" Longfellow reveals the charm which literature imparts +to scenery—a charm which he illustrates in his "Nuremberg" and "Belfry +at Bruges," and in his "Lost Youth," with its beautiful pictures of +Portland, a poem which probably gives to a larger number of persons a +more distinct and pleasing interest in that delightful city than +anything else connected with it.</p> + +<p>Irving is the magician who has cast this glamour upon New York, the +roaring mart of trade, the humming hive of industry. He shows us in +these crowded<a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a> and hurried streets the leisurely forms of old Dutch +burghers, their comely wives and buxom daughters, and their tranquil +existence. Upon this very spot, which thus becomes a palimpsest, one +life over-writing another, he awakens a romantic interest which gives it +an endless fascination. He is thus a universal benefactor.</p> + +<p>His Rip Van Winkle, indolent but kindly vagabond that he is, asserts the +charm of a loitering life in the woods and fields, against all the +tremendous energy and lucrative devotion to dollars, the overpowering +crowd and crushing competition, of the whirring emporium. It is not +necessary to defend poor Rip, or justify him as a moral exemplar. Pax, +good Zeal-in-the-land Busy! But how soothing, as we mop our brows in the +ardent struggle, and waste our lives in the furious accumulation of the +means of living, to behold that figure stretched by the brook, or +pleasing the children, or sauntering homeward at sunset! Other figures +allure us, but still he holds his place. The new writers create their<a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a> +worlds. The new standards, another literary spirit, a fresh impulse, +appear all around us. But still Rip Van Winkle lounges idly by, an +unwasted figure of the imagination, the first distinct creation of our +literature, the constant, unconscious satirist of our life.</p> + +<p>The edicts of Fortune are caprices. Halleck, who sang of Marco Bozzaris, +has his statue in the Park. Bryant still awaits his, and Irving, first +of all, is without his memorial. The Germans have justly honored +Humboldt in our Walhalla, the Scotch have commemorated Burns, the +Italians have given to it Mazzini. The Puritan Pilgrim, ancestor of +distinctive America, New England in bronze, is properly there. But +where, asked the thoughtful child, reading the epitaphs in the +graveyard, where be the bad people buried? Those whom the statues recall +are all well and wisely honored in this most cosmopolitan of countries +and of cities. But where, amid Germans and Italians and Scotchmen and +great New-Englanders—where be the New-Yorkers?<a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="THE_GRAND_TOUR" id="THE_GRAND_TOUR"></a>THE GRAND TOUR.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_N.png" +width="100" +height="103" +alt="N" +title="N" /></span>OBODY could have written this book—a London Review recently said of +Longfellow's "Hyperion"—who could have reached the Rhine in a few +hours. It needed the ocean, thought the critic, to make the Rhine and +Switzerland remote and romantic to the poet. But he forgot "Childe +Harold," a book written by an Englishman, which has given to the Rhine +and Italy a more romantic glamour for John Bull upon his travels than +any book he reads. It is not the distance, it is the imagination +susceptible to association which is the secret.</p> + +<p>The traveller of to-day is not likely to be affected as his father was +by the melancholy melody of Byron; but it is an interesting illustration +of the power of his genius that Byron has imposed his interpretation of +so many scenes upon<a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a> the mind of the modern English and American +observer. His view makes Italy, as Sir Thomas Lawrence's portrait of +John Kemble made Hamlet. If we stand in the Capitol and look at the +Dying Gladiator, we must also see "his young barbarians all at play" +upon the Danube. If at Terni we see the Velino "cleave the wave-worn +precipice," the Byronic lines murmur along our lips. As we step into the +gondola and glide gently upon the Grand Canal, memory keeps time to the +measure of the dipping oar with the words whose charm is unexhausted:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left">"In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> And silent rows the songless gondolier."</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>At "a tomb in Arqua," at "Clarens, sweet Clarens," we are still led, +like Dante, by the singing guide. The Guide-book is full of him. The +travel-books are full of him. He is familiar almost to commonplace. Who +comes to "Belgium's capital" for the first time without listening for +"the sound of revelry"? Who goes to the field of Waterloo remembering<a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a> +"the unreturning brave," and does not sigh,</p> + +<p class="c">"And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves."</p> + +<p>Sitting quietly here in a great land which looks to the future, not to +the past, it is pleasant to think of the throngs of travellers who have +gone hence for a summer wandering in Europe. Yet so intense is the +delight of European travel, so freshly remembered is it when almost +another generation of travellers are ready to begin their journey, that +the patriarch who goes to the wharf to say farewell to the newer +voyagers looks at them with tenderness and pity, and there is even a +sadness in his congratulations, not because they are sailing away, but +because he cannot believe that they will find what he found, nor +possibly enjoy what he enjoyed. These newer voyagers will see a France +and a Switzerland and an Italy; they will eat oranges at Sorrento, and +gaze upon the Mediterranean from Capri, and hear the fisher's song at +Amalfi: but<a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a> they will not hear and see through the enchantment of +lapsed years.</p> + +<p>In his lively book of travelling letters Dr. Bellows says that he went +up the Nile in a steamer of seventy berths. An ancient mariner of the +Nile cannot comprehend it. In a steamer? With paddles or screws whisking +the water? And steam blowing off? Making innumerable miles a day? The +round trip to Philæ in two weeks, or a week? But how could you see +Egypt, or feel it? That slow floating southward upon white wings; the +sinking deeper and farther from the world we knew; the sense of infinite +strangeness and distance; the weeks passing with no sign of accustomed +life; slowly, one by one, the temples, the tombs; in the still days the +crew dragging the boat along and singing the wild minor refrain; a +voyage of wonder and of dreams—is that Egypt to be seen in a steamer? +It is useless to say that you may go in the old way if you choose. You +cannot go in the old way, because it is no longer what it was, if there +be a newer. You may drive from<a name="page_197" id="page_197"></a> London to Oxford. But is that going by +the old English stage-coach when it was the only way, when the guard +wound his horn, and the cherry-nosed coachman threw down the ribbons at +each relay, and the neat inns stood smiling with open doors, and +tra-la-la sped the nimble team by the park gate and the hawthorn hedge? +You may go by sloop from New York to Albany. But is that now the +romantic Hudson voyage which it was when it could be made in no other +way?</p> + +<p>No sensible ancient mariner will quarrel with all this, nor desire to +banish the steamer of seventy berths from the Nile. When he shakes a +farewell hand with the youth who are going to run up to Rome by train, +and are <i>not</i> going to stop at a certain point upon the Campagna, and +run forward to the top of a hill whence they can see far away upon the +horizon the faintly outlined dome of St. Peter's—and who are <i>not</i> +going from Leghorn to Florence through the grape harvest, their carriage +heaped with the luscious clusters, but are to whiz through<a name="page_198" id="page_198"></a> Tuscany in +an hour or so, the regret in his tone is not personal or selfish, it is +for a whole order of things passed away.</p> + +<p>Such an ancient mariner would, however, be indeed sorry if he supposed +that anybody suspected him of a very common and very odious kind of +remark, against which he kindly warns all the throngs of travellers of +whom mention has been made. The remark in question may be called the +capping remark. Thus one traveller says to another—as Marco Polo to +George Sandys—</p> + +<p>"You went to Jerusalem?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And to Jericho?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And to the Jordan?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Did you see the white stone on the bottom near where the river flows +into the Dead Sea?"</p> + +<p>"Well—let me see! I don't exactly seem to remember that I did precisely +see that."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" replies Marco Polo.</p> + +<p>It is a very brief sound, but being<a name="page_199" id="page_199"></a> interpreted it means, "Then, my +dear George Sandys, you might just as well not have seen the Jordan at +all." Not that the white stone was famous or worth seeing, but that +Marco Polo wished to "rub in" upon George Sandys's mind the conviction +that he, Polo, had seen more than he, Sandys, in the same direction.</p> + +<p>This capping process sometimes leads to very droll results. Young Green +heard Gray and Brown comparing their notes of travel. Each was naturally +anxious to have seen and done rather more than the other; but it +appeared that each had been in about the same places, and had had very +much the same experience.</p> + +<p>"Lago Maggiore is a lovely sheet of water," remarked Gray.</p> + +<p>"Truly exquisite," replied Brown.</p> + +<p>"And Isola Bella is most beautiful," suggested Gray.</p> + +<p>"Dear me! dear me!" approvingly assented Brown.</p> + +<p>"How high is the statue of San Carlo Borromeo?" asked Gray.</p> + +<p>"About sixty feet," answered Brown.<a name="page_200" id="page_200"></a></p> + +<p>"It's a wonderful prospect from his eye," said Gray.</p> + +<p>"Whose eye?" asked Brown.</p> + +<p>"San Carlo Borromeo's," replied Gray, whose mind instantly suspected +that he had caught the adversary, and who followed up his advantage +vigorously and suddenly. "Of course you went up San Carlo?"</p> + +<p>"Up San Carlo? You mean the church at—"</p> + +<p>"Oh no! the statue on Lago Maggiore."</p> + +<p>"Went up the statue! what do you mean?" snapped Brown, foreseeing +discomfiture.</p> + +<p>"Oh! I thought you probably knew," retorted the triumphant Gray, "that +the statue is hollow."</p> + +<p>"Oh! ah! yes!" returned Brown, indifferently.</p> + +<p>"And you didn't go up?" pressed Gray.</p> + +<p>"Not exactly," feebly rejoined Brown.</p> + +<p>"Nor sit in his nose?" continued Gray.</p> + +<p>"Not exactly," muttered Brown.<a name="page_201" id="page_201"></a></p> + +<p>"Nor look out of his eyes?" said Gray.</p> + +<p>"I thought I wouldn't," murmured Brown, in full retreat.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" smiled Gray, with the air of David holding the head of Goliath by +the hair, and displaying it to mankind—"oh!"</p> + +<p>Young Green heard all this, and he resolved that whatever he did not do +when he went to Europe, he would at all hazards sit in the nose of San +Carlo Borromeo. The next year he came to Lago Maggiore. He saw the +statue. He remembered the conversation and his high resolve, and he +essayed the deed. It was fearful. He tore his hands; he tore his +clothes; he was half suffocated; and, wedging himself into the nose, he +stuck fast, and was only rescued at the peril of his life. When he told +Gray afterward, and reminded him of the colloquy with Brown, that +experienced traveller laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. "My +dear Green," said he, "I never went up the confounded thing; but it was +necessary to take Brown down somehow, and I employed the good saint for +the purpose." He laughed again<a name="page_202" id="page_202"></a> to tears; but Mr. Green soberly resolved +that he would eschew the capping talk of travel. And he chose the wiser +course.</p> + +<p>The truth is that Green should not trust too much the tales, nor indeed +the regrets, of the ancient mariners.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left">"For travellers tell no idle tales,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> But fools at home believe them."</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>Certainly when this one remarks that he feels in saying farewell that +young Green will never see the Europe that he saw, he has not the +remotest idea of dimming his bright hope nor of asserting an advantage. +What is it, indeed, but a way of saying that he is no longer the same +man he was? If he were, what would be the gain of travel? It is not only +an enlargement of the scenery of the mind, not only a richer and more +various memory that he has acquired, but a riper experience. He has +grown wiser; and perhaps all that he feels when he shakes Green's +parting hand is that Green is not so wise as he will one day be.<a name="page_203" id="page_203"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="EASY_DOES_IT_GUVNER" id="EASY_DOES_IT_GUVNER"></a>"EASY DOES IT, GUVNER."</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_D.png" +width="100" +height="101" +alt="D" +title="D" /></span>ICKENS'S Rogue Riderhood, who says "Easy does it, guvner," was a very +practical man. But there is no motto which is more susceptible of +perversion. Mr. Seward said the same thing in his last great speech. "I +early learned from Jefferson that in politics we must do what we can, +not what we would." It is not only plausible, but it is true. Yet its +truth can be most readily abused to defeat everything for which it is +urged.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left">"'I weep for you,' the walrus said;</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> 'I deeply sympathize.'</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> With tears and sobs he sorted out</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Those of the largest size,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Holding his pocket-handkerchief</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Before his streaming eyes."</td></tr> +</table> + +<p>It was necessary that the walrus should eat, and it was very sad that +the oysters<a name="page_204" id="page_204"></a> should satisfy the necessity. But it is obvious that wicked +walruses who have no intention whatever of not eating oysters would sob +aloud with heart-rending vehemence as proof of a virtue which they do +not possess. The foes of progress are always anxious that its friends +should go easily. "Easy does it, guvner." But meanwhile they are +anything but easy in obstructing. In the race, the sly gentleman who +bets on Tom whispers confidentially to the jockey who rides Jerry that +he had better "go easy." The friends of the saloon hope that the true +friends of temperance are aware that the only way of success is to avoid +fanaticism. But they omit to hide their bodies as well as their heads, +for they are unsparing fanatics on their own behalf.</p> + +<p>When Gustavus, in deference to his dear Griselda, promised to begin to +reform the baleful habit of smoking, his Griselda was jocund as the +dawn. But at the end of a week she did not observe that there were fewer +cigars consumed, and she pleasantly asked him if the good resolution had +escaped his memory. "By<a name="page_205" id="page_205"></a> no means," he answered; "quite the contrary. +But you remember what Rogue Riderhood said, 'Easy does it, guvner.' We +must move warily upon the intrenched enemy, dearest Grizzle. Remember +that Rome was not built in a day." Griselda remembered faithfully. But +still the cigars continued, and upon a further gentle remonstrance +Gustavus rejoined: "Certainly; but we must be reasonable. There are many +steps, my dear Griselda. In siege operations the great masters of war +approach by parallels, after making ample and thorough preparation. That +is what I am doing. I am beginning to prepare to begin. Easy does it, +you know. Don't forget Rome."</p> + +<p>Still Gustavus smoked, and still Griselda waited, and at the end of six +months she asked with a smile how far he had advanced in abandoning the +habit of smoking. "Dear Grizzle," he answered, "you remember the weeds +that sprang up and soon withered because they had no depth of soil. I +wish my reform of this naughty habit to be well rooted, that it may long +endure. None of your spasmodic<a name="page_206" id="page_206"></a> virtue, your superficial goodness, for +me! Great reforms, even in personal habits, my dear Mrs. Gustavus, +cannot be accomplished in a day. Even Rome was not built in that time. I +am working for great results, to which all my tastes and habits must +conform. I must lay the foundations broad and deep. Easy does it, my +rose-bud."</p> + +<p>Gustavus continues to smoke, and Easy continues to do it. But there is +another saying quite as wise as that of Rogue Riderhood, which exhorts +him who puts his hand to the plough not to look back. The trouble with +Riderhood's apothegm is that it supplies an endless excuse for not doing +it. If the habit is too strong, and will not budge, you can soothe your +conscience and make the most plausible of pleas by insisting that human +nature and long custom and uniform tradition and the honest doubt +whether smoking is, after all, injurious, must all be carefully +considered. That is what Dickens also calls the great art of how not to +do it. "My son, if you wish a thing done, do it yourself; if not, send," +said the<a name="page_207" id="page_207"></a> wise father; and the pioneers, the men without whose one idea +and uncompromising energy and conciliation nothing would be +accomplished, say with Sumner. "There is but one side," and with Cato, +"<i>Delenda est Carthago</i>."</p> + +<p>It is true that everything cannot be done at once, but something must be +done all the time; and you will observe that it is not when the work is +advancing, but when it stops or goes backward, that we hear the familiar +wisdom of the Rogue that Easy does it. That is what makes it a +suspicious saying, "What are you doing, sir?" thundered the master to +the boy. "Nothing, sir," replied the frightened pupil. "Just as I +thought, sir. Don't you know that your business is to do something?" +When a man says "Easy does it," he may be doing all that he can but the +immense probability, the almost absolute certainty, is that he is doing +nothing, or, like the amiable Gustavus, he is "beginning to prepare to +begin."<a name="page_208" id="page_208"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="SISTE_VIATOR" id="SISTE_VIATOR"></a>SISTE, VIATOR.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_I.png" +width="100" +height="103" +alt="I" +title="I" /></span>T is still very difficult to discover where the bad people are buried. +The cemeteries are still symbolically white with monuments to the +departed. Shylock and Ralph Nickleby are still, upon their tombstones, +the most respected of deceased citizens. Here lies Clytemnestra, a model +of the wifely virtues, whom an inconsolable spouse deplores. Beneath +this marble, in the tranquil hope of a joyful resurrection, repose the +remains of Iago, who kept the noiseless tenor of his way. Beyond sleeps +Solomon, most faithful of husbands; and under this turf of buttercups +and daisies lie Paris and Lovelace, <i>arcades ambo</i>, too early lost. 'Tis +pathetic to reflect how much worthier is the world under-ground than +that which still cumbers its surface; and if we, whose lives are +indifferent honest, had only had the good fortune<a name="page_209" id="page_209"></a> to die a century ago, +our memories would by this time have been upon our tombstones a very +odor of sanctity to the sense of the age which knows us, perhaps, but +too well.</p> + +<p>In one of his terrible inscriptions suggested for the monuments of the +Georges, Thackeray says, "He left an example for youth and for age to +avoid. He never did well by man or by woman." Has there been only one +such George in the world? And if more, and in every age, in what +cemetery have you found their epitaphs? Catiline was a fascinating and +accomplished man. He had many followers, and if his political views and +projects were open to differences of opinion, he was certainly +well-mannered. Has there been but one Catiline in history? Or is he +confined wholly to a public sphere? Cicero described him as "a corrupter +of youth," and no one has denied it. Where is Catiline buried? If you +sought his grave by that epitaph, where would you find it? Is there no +corrupter of youth now? Have there been none within the last century? +None,<a name="page_210" id="page_210"></a> if you may trust the epitaphs. How long will you abuse our +patience, O Catiline, and be annually buried, like Cato the Censor, with +crosses of white camellias laid upon your coffin, and wreaths of +immortelles hung upon the weeping effigy of Virtue which guards your +sleep?</p> + +<p>But because a man was brutal and coarse and cruel in his life, must we +needs insist upon it when he is gone? When Mawworm leaves us, must we +write upon his grave, he lying below defenceless, "<i>Hic jacet</i> a +hypocrite"? When old Sathanas departs to a sphere of light and truth, +shall we carve upon his monument, "Father of lies"? Is it manly? Shall +we have no mercy? Do we really know any man; and shall charity be +forgotten? To be human is to be frail; and is not the fact that we must +die at all, of which the grave is proof, itself sufficient comment upon +our weakness? Here lies Colonel Newcome—tender, generous, noble, +child-like heart! Shall we add that he was credulous and ignorant? Dear +Uncle Toby is in the next grave. Shall we shout in marble, "<i>Siste, +viator</i>,<a name="page_211" id="page_211"></a> contemplate his foibles"? Sacred to the memory of Samuel +Pickwick. Is the inscription incomplete if we do not chisel beneath it, +"A wind-bag pricked by Death"?</p> + +<p>Epitaphs are written more forcibly than upon tombstones. When old +Silenus dies, and the white camellias and the lilies-of-the-valley and +the rose-buds are strewn upon his bier, and the "universally lamented" +is cut upon the monument, the satire is pathetic, but it is slight. But +when the bloated old debauchee is cautiously and forgivingly praised in +the papers, and everybody solemnly pretends not to know what everybody +knows that everybody else does know, it is a sign not of charity, but of +public demoralization. Catiline corrupts youth by his example. Then his +own offences bring him to a sudden end, and the newspapers speak of him +so deprecatingly, so gingerly, that as a good man being dead yet +speaketh, so a bad man being dead yet corrupteth. His evil influence is +not suffered to perish with him, but it is cherished and extended and<a name="page_212" id="page_212"></a> +confirmed, and his death, like his life, demoralizes.</p> + +<p>Dick Turpin no longer rides in jack-boots upon Hounslow Heath, stopping +my Lord Bishop and the Right Honorable the Earl of Garter; and no longer +stands at the dock, the hero of St. Giles's; and goes no longer to the +gallows in a blaze of glory, with a huge nosegay in his button-hole. +Richard Turpin is a very different fellow in his costume of to-day, but +he is the same Dick of the jack-boots and the heath, this vulgar robber +who smirks and is called smart. He drives a fine equipage, and lives +luxuriously, and keeps a harem, and frequents Wall Street, and beats +everybody in the game of making money, and spending it profusely and +splendidly. He dazzles the eyes of the widow's son, and bewilders his +mind. The boy sees the money with which Richard surrounds himself by +means which honorable men despise. He hears him called good-humoredly a +great rascal, and sees that he buys judges, and steals vast properties, +and procures laws to protect him. The boy hears that all<a name="page_213" id="page_213"></a> men are +fallible, and that some men are no worse than other men, and that money +is a fine thing, and honor and truth and respect and all the rest of it +are very well, but see what power, what pleasure, what luxury Turpin +commands! Then the poor boy rushes for the same prizes, and fails, and +ends in disgrace, the jail, suicide. And Dick Turpin tosses a hundred +dollars to the boy's mother, and a generous press exclaims, "Not a model +man, perhaps; but what noble generosity! The friend of the widow and the +orphan! When he dies, how many poor homes will be darkened with grief!" +Yes, and the hundred dollars probably pays the widow for her boy.</p> + +<p>It is not difficult to be generous with the money of others. A year ago +it was announced that Greed had given forty or fifty thousand dollars to +the poor. "There," said the admirers of Turpin, "you may say what you +will of Greed. He, too, is not a polished man; he is not a scholar nor a +dainty gentleman; but he is one of the people; he is large-hearted and +generous. Who else has given fifty<a name="page_214" id="page_214"></a> thousand dollars to the poor?" Yes, +and who else has stolen five millions? The politest gentlemen of the +highway were notoriously gallant. The Marquis of Goutytoe they compelled +to descend from his carriage, and sent the trudging market-woman home in +it. They eased the pockets of the Spanish ambassador, and threw a +doubloon to the leper hiding behind the hedge. It was a cheap +munificence. So was Greed's. It was not <i>his</i> fifty thousand dollars, +the giving of which caused such a burst of good feeling, and the +exclamation, "There now!" It was only a little of the millions that were +not his. He gave it to the poor dwellers in tenement-houses, and it was +said that there was no wretched hovel to which he did not send a load of +coal or a barrel of flour during the winter months. But he took them +first from those wretched dens. Somebody paid the taxes that he stole, +and it is the poor who at last pay taxes. Where be the bad people +buried? When Turpin dies, we have Greed's opinion of him and his ways +gravely paraded in a newspaper. Madame Brinvilliers's opinion<a name="page_215" id="page_215"></a> of +Lucrezia Borgia would be edifying reading!</p> + +<p>Shall we have no charity, then? and when a man lies dead and +defenceless, shall not warfare cease? Warfare may cease; but should +death condone all offences? The malignant lover who denounced his rival +to the Inquisition, and in the very moment of his rival's death by fire +himself fell dead—shall we write over him, <i>De mortuis?</i> Shall we +Romans, whose sons he corrupted, go dumb and sorrowing behind the corpse +of Catiline? When a bad man dies, let us say that he was bad. Although +he was very rich and very splendid, shall we remember only that he gave +in charity one quarter of one per cent. upon the amount of his thefts? +The Italian brigand chief, when his band had slaughtered the travellers, +said, "There are twelve of us, and we will share equally; but the first +equal share shall be for the mother of God." When we tell his story, +shall we see only that share?<a name="page_216" id="page_216"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="CHRISTENDOM_vs_CHRISTIANITY" id="CHRISTENDOM_vs_CHRISTIANITY"></a>CHRISTENDOM vs. CHRISTIANITY.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_I.png" +width="100" +height="103" +alt="I" +title="I" /></span>T is remarkable that what is called the practical sense +of Christendom virtually rejects the Christian ideals as impracticable. +Its highest ideal is obedience to the Divine will, and its instinct, +therefore, should represent the religious man as the perfection of +vigorous manhood. The more manly, the finer the bloom of health, the +sounder the body for the sound and purified mind, the truer and more +satisfactory the type, the more symmetrically revealed the Christian +man. This is the simple and natural ideal among living men of unthwarted +and normal Christian excellence.</p> + +<p>But so little is this the fact that the oldest traditions of Christian +art depict the founder of Christianity Himself not as a blooming man, +not as a figure of the inward and outward health that proceeds<a name="page_217" id="page_217"></a> +inevitably from complete and absolute conformity to the Divine will, but +as a wan and wasted personality plainly worsted by the world. This +conception extends to the constant and organized control of the Church, +and the general feeling of Christendom regards the ministers of its +religion either as official personages or as excluded from actual +knowledge of life; not masters of the arena, but professionally unfit to +cope with the world.</p> + +<p>It may, indeed, be said that the traditions of Christian art show a +misapprehension of the essential character of the Christian faith. But +however that may be, it is certainly true that these traditions do not +misrepresent the general conception of Christianity which is professed +by those who practically reject its ideals. Here goes Solomon Gunnybags +to Christian worship on Sunday morning. He "abashiates" himself in his +pew, and his confession that he is a miserable sinner is so sonorous and +impressive that the hearer sighs sympathetically with Solomon's +consciousness of the<a name="page_218" id="page_218"></a> enormous burden of wrong-doing that he carries.</p> + +<p>Now what is Solomon doing in his pew? He is solemnly professing +confidence in and reverence for certain principles of faith and conduct, +not only as lofty in themselves, but as absolutely essential to his +soul's salvation. Then, unless the whole universe is a farce, and +religion and the soul impostures, they are the most practical and +practicable of all possible principles, because otherwise the soul's +salvation could not be made by beneficent Omnipotence dependent upon +fidelity to them. But if some attendant spirit should say to Solomon +Gunnybags, as he walks home with the happy consciousness of duty done, +"Solomon, the golden rule and the Christian religion forbid you to +'unload' upon David the stock that you believe to be very shaky," he +would unquestionably feel, if he did not say: "Stuff! Every man for +himself. Of course Christianity is an excellent thing, but it doesn't +mean that." Gunnybags does not expressly repudiate Christian principle<a name="page_219" id="page_219"></a> +as unpractical; he only believes it to be so.</p> + +<p>The fundamental doctrine of the Christian life is love. The Christian +millennium is peace. But it is Christendom that maintains the vast +standing armies; and when the International Peace Congress meets in +London and proposes disarmament, the good-natured reply of Christendom +is, "Well—yes—perhaps—some time," with a smile of amused incredulity, +as when a child seriously asks for the moon. Yet this is Christendom, +and the Christian principles are entirely familiar, and every Sunday and +saint's day in all the Christian churches we protest that the practice +of them is essential to our soul's salvation. Then we wipe our eyes, and +smile kindly upon any one who really insists that we should offer the +other cheek, and forgive seventy times seven. Oh no, we say; that is an +eccentric view. No man in this world—that is, in Christendom—can +afford to allow himself to be imposed upon. If we don't look out for +number one, who will take charge of that precious numeral?<a name="page_220" id="page_220"></a></p> + +<p>So it is that on some bright July day, looking in imagination upon the +respectable Universal Peace Congress in the Hôtel Métropole in London, +and hearing the Bishop of Durham offer a resolution for international +arbitration, and denouncing the folly, the waste, the woe and wickedness +and wrong of war, we hear also, not the immediate and instinctive assent +of Christendom, but its wistful prayer and half-despairing hope that +some time Christianity may be found to be practicable, and something +more than a pretty dream. Yet is there anything more certain than that +the Christendom which actually rejects the Christian ideals and +principles as impracticable, denounces most savagely those who +practically illustrate them, even if they theoretically reject them?</p> + +<p>The moral of this little sermon is altogether Christian, for it is +charity. Since Christendom is in practice so universally unchristian, +and holds its own fundamental principles in such practical contempt, +every member of that vast fraternity should be very modest in judging<a name="page_221" id="page_221"></a> +others. Could there be a more radically unchristian figure in human +history than Torquemada? If Christianity be what it declares itself to +be, the least throb of sound Christian feeling in his bosom would have +held his hand. The Inquisition, the fierceness of sects, the religious +wars, offensive wars of any kind, are possible only among Christians who +hold Christianity to be impracticable.</p> + +<p>Yet when the Easy Chair saw a gentle lady going to morning prayers on a +happy saint's day, and heard through the open window the murmuring music +of the promise when two or three are gathered together, and marked +during all the day and in daily conduct the unselfishness, the sympathy, +the courtesy, the kindly care of old and young, the faithful doing of +duty, the nameless charm of lofty character, the Christian ideal was no +longer the mirage of an unreached and unattainable oasis in the desert; +it was already come down to earth; it was here, a little heaven below.<a name="page_222" id="page_222"></a></p> + +<h3><a name="FRANCIS_GEORGE_SHAW" id="FRANCIS_GEORGE_SHAW"></a>FRANCIS GEORGE SHAW.<br /><br /> +1882.</h3> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra"> +<img src="images/ill_I.png" +width="100" +height="103" +alt="I" +title="I" /></span>N beginning his tender and charming paper upon +Washington Irving and Macaulay, Thackeray recalls the beautiful story of +which he was so fond, of Sir Walter Scott's last words to his son-in-law +Lockhart: "Be a good man, my dear; be a good man." It was a soft +autumnal day. The windows were wide open. The low sound of the rippling +Tweed stole into the chamber. The most renowned and the most widely +beloved of living men lay dying, after a career of admiration and +adulation, and of gratified ambition almost unexampled, and in the clear +and serene light of the moment that shows things as they are, the one +lesson and moral garnered by that marvellous life is spoken in the +<a name="page_223" id="page_223"></a>simple words, "Be a good man, my dear." ...</p> + +<p>There are men whose simplicity and dignity and strength and purity of +character, whose sound judgment and supreme common-sense, dispose of +sophistry and artifice in all relations and pursuits, as surely and +completely as the sun dries the dew. They are gentlemen, because they +know other men only as men, touching electrically whatever of manhood +there may be in them, and whose contact is a silent and consuming rebuke +of pretence and falsehood. Whatever his own advantage or attraction or +position or grace, the man of this quality takes hold of the reality in +other men, man meeting man, as when the grave William of Orange, in his +plain serge coat, met the brilliant Philip Sidney in his gold-flowered +doublet, and neither was troubled by the clothes of the other.</p> + +<p>Such a man lately died. The mingled strength and simplicity and +sweetness of his nature, the lofty sense of justice, the tranquil and +complete devotion to duty, the large and humane sympathy, not lost in +vague philanthropic feeling, but mindful<a name="page_224" id="page_224"></a> of every detail of relief—the +sound and steady judgment, the noble independence of thought and perfect +courage of conviction, the blended manliness and modesty of a life which +was unstained, and of a character which seemed without a flaw, all +belonged to what we call the ideal man.</p> + +<p>Passing from college to the counting-room of a great commercial +business, his sagacity, energy, and executive power were all brought +into successful action. He went to Europe and to the West Indies, but +much of the spirit of trade and many of its practices were uncongenial +to him, and he quietly withdrew, despite wonder and affectionate +remonstrance, to lead his own life in his own way. By taste and +temperament an out-door man, he made his home in the rural neighborhood +of Boston, busy with country cares and various studies, but interested +chiefly in helping other men. He was allied by sympathy more than by +much previous actual association with the founders of Brook Farm. But +when they chose the site for their enterprise not far from his<a name="page_225" id="page_225"></a> house, +he was soon in the pleasantest relations with the leaders, for their +spirit and purpose were in harmony with his own. He was a parishioner +and warm personal friend of Theodore Parker, who lived near him, and his +keen common-sense and mastery of practical affairs were most useful to +Parker as to Ripley. Indeed, the hospitality of such a man for every +generous endeavor and for all new and humane ideas was a happy augury +for the philanthropic pioneers, because it seemed to promise the final +approval and adhesion to their cause of the most conservative and +substantial sentiment of the community.</p> + +<p>Such a man was, of course, an abolitionist in the days when the name was +as repugnant to what is called "society" as the name Christian was to +the Jewish Sanhedrim or Methodist to the English Establishment a century +and a half ago. He generously aided the cause, which seemed to him that +of practical Christianity and of American patriotism, and he held most +friendly relations with its chief representatives, who were ostracized<a name="page_226" id="page_226"></a> +and denounced. But his sympathy was not an abstract regard for man +rather than for men, and his interest in the effort to help a race and +to forecast a happier social organization did not dull his heart or +close his hand to the necessities of his neighbor. His life, indeed, was +a prolonged charity, but a charity directed by a singularly calm and +shrewd judgment. His exhaustless generosity was not the sport of wayward +impulse. It was not a well-meaning weakness, but a wise force which +helped others to help themselves, but knew also when such self-help was +impossible.</p> + +<p>Yet the strength and reserve and independence of his character were such +that the man was never lost in the reformer. His fine nature +instinctively asserted his own individuality. He quietly shunned the +wearisome artificiality of society, but he did not merge his own home in +the general home of his friends and neighbors at Brook Farm, and his +house was always a glimpse of the social refinement and grace, the +mental and moral charm, to which the dreams of social regeneration<a name="page_227" id="page_227"></a> and +the elaborate fancies of Fourier pointed—fancies which greatly +interested him as hints of a happier social order.</p> + +<p>Long absence with his family in Europe, and a long and final residence +upon Staten Island, only matured and developed the man, in whom not only +was there no guile, but in whom even the most intimate eye could not +note a fault. Clarendon might have studied from him his portrait of +Falkland: "his inimitable sweetness of, and delight in, conversation; +his flowing and obliging humanity; his goodness to mankind; and his +primitive simplicity and integrity of life." Disinclined to public life +of every kind, he was yet full of the highest public spirit, and it was +but natural that his only son should have been selected by Governor +Andrew to command the first colored regiment that marched from +Massachusetts in the war. In his young person all that was best in the +New England youth of his time, all the strength of the elder colonial +and Revolutionary day, blended with all the grace and tenderness and +gentleness of<a name="page_228" id="page_228"></a> its modern life, the stern old Puritan softened into a +humaner Bayard, was typified. It was the flower of Essex that two +hundred years ago was withered in the fatal Indian ambush in the +Deerfield Meadows. It was the flower of New England that fell upon a +hundred redder fields within a score of years.</p> + +<p>But no sorrow could fatally chill a faith which was reflected in the +perpetual summer of the father's presence and temperament. The frank +urbanity of his greeting, the hearty grasp of his hand, the lofty +simplicity of his courtesy, were but the signs of that unwasting +freshness of sympathy which held him true to the ideals and aims of +earlier life. His helping hand reached invisibly into a hundred homes, +and upheld a hundred faltering lives. But, besides this, as president of +the Freedman's Aid Association his administrative skill and his wise +benevolence enabled him to bear a most effective part in the great +settlement of the war. His invincible modesty and scorn of ostentation +veiled his beneficent activities,<a name="page_229" id="page_229"></a> public and private. But nothing could +veil the pure and steadfast and unwearying devotion to the well-being of +other men. Kindly but firmly he protected his own seclusion, and he +permitted no man, in Emerson's phrase, to devastate his day. The +freshness of feeling which keeps the heart young was unwasted to the +end. His full life brimming purely to the sea reflected heaven as +clearly when at last it mingled with the main as when it ran a limpid +rivulet from its spring. Young and old, man and boy, he was still the +simplest, noblest, most devoted, best. How truly he was the man that +every thoughtful man secretly wishes he might be, those only know who +knew Francis George Shaw.</p> + +<p class="c"><br /><br /> +THE END.</p> + +<p><a name="page_237" id="page_237"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_231" id="page_231"></a></p> + +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<p class="c">HARPER'S AMERICAN ESSAYISTS.</p> + +<p class="c"><small>16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.00 each.</small></p> + +<p class="hang">PICTURE AND TEXT. By <span class="smcap">Henry James</span>. With Portrait and Illustrations.</p> + +<p class="hang">AMERICANISMS AND BRITICISMS, With Other Essays on Other Isms. By <span class="smcap">Brander +Matthews</span>. With Portrait.</p> + +<p class="hang">FROM THE BOOKS OF LAURENCE HUTTON. With Portrait.</p> + +<p class="hang">CONCERNING ALL OF US. By <span class="smcap">Thomas Wentworth Higginson</span>. With Portrait.</p> + +<p class="hang">FROM THE EASY CHAIR. By <span class="smcap">George William Curtis</span>. With Portrait.</p> + +<p class="hang">OTHER ESSAYS FROM THE EASY CHAIR. By <span class="smcap">George William Curtis</span>. With +Portrait.</p> + +<p class="hang">AS WE WERE SAYING. By <span class="smcap">Charles Dudley Warner</span>. With Portrait and +Illustrations.</p> + +<p class="hang">CRITICISM AND FICTION. By <span class="smcap">William Dean Howells</span>. 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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: From the Easy Chair, series 2 + +Author: George William Curtis + +Release Date: April 27, 2011 [EBook #35980] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM THE EASY CHAIR, SERIES 2 *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif, Broward County Libraries and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +[Illustration: frontispiece] + + + + +FROM THE +EASY CHAIR + +BY + +GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS + +SECOND SERIES + +[Illustration: colophon] + +NEW YORK + +HARPER AND BROTHERS + +MDCCCXCIV + +Copyright, 1893, by HARPER & BROTHERS. + +Copyright, 1894, by HARPER & BROTHERS. + +_All rights reserved._ + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + + THE NEW YEAR 1 + THE PUBLIC SCOLD 10 + NATIONAL NOMINATING CONVENTION 16 + BRYANT'S COUNTRY 23 + _The Game of Newport_ 31 + THE LECTURE LYCEUM 39 + TWEED 47 + COMMENCEMENT 60 + THE STREETS OF NEW YORK 69 + THE MORALITY OF DANCING 76 + THE HOG FAMILY 81 + THE ENLIGHTENED OBSERVER 88 + RALPH WALDO EMERSON 94 + HENRY WARD BEECHER 110 + THE GOLDEN AGE 119 + SPRING PICTURES 126 + PROPER AND IMPROPER 130 + BELINDA AND THE VULGAR 137 + DECAYED GENTILITY 142 + THE PHARISEE 149 + LADY MAVOURNEEN ON HER TRAVELS 155 + GENERAL SHERMAN 162 + THE AMERICAN GIRL 166 + ANNUS MIRABILIS 174 + STATUES IN CENTRAL PARK 186 + THE GRAND TOUR 193 + "EASY DOES IT, GUVNER" 203 + SISTE, VIATOR 208 + CHRISTENDOM _vs._ CHRISTIANITY 216 + FRANCIS GEORGE SHAW 222 + + + + +THE NEW YEAR. + + +IN Germany on _Sylvesterabend_--the eve of Saint Sylvester, the last +night of the year--you shall wake and hear a chorus of voices singing +hymns, like the English waits at Christmas or the Italian _pifferari_. +In the deep silence, and to one awakening, the music has a penetrating +and indefinable pathos, the pathos that Richter remarked in all music, +and which our own Parsons has hinted delicately-- + + "Strange was the music that over me stole, + For 'twas born of old sadness that lives in my + soul." + +There is something of the same feeling in the melody of college songs +heard at a little distance on awakening in the night before +Commencement. The songs are familiar, but they have an appealing +melancholy unknown before. Their dying cadences murmur like a muffled +peal heralding the visionary procession that is passing out of the +enchanted realm of youth forever. So the voices of Sylvester's Eve chant +the requiem of the year that is dead. So much more of life, of +opportunity, of achievement, passed; so much nearer age, decline, the +mystery of the end. The music swells in rich and lingering strains. It +is a moment of exaltation, of purification. The chords are dying; the +hymn is ending; it ends. The voices are stilled. It is the benediction +of Saint Sylvester: + + "She died and left to me ... + The memory of what has been, + And nevermore will be." + +But this is the midnight refrain--The King is dead! With the earliest +ray of daylight the exulting strain begins--Live the King! The bells are +ringing; the children are shouting; there are gifts and greetings, good +wishes and gladness. "Happy New Year! happy New Year!" It is the day of +hope and a fresh beginning. Old debts shall be forgiven; old feuds +forgotten; old friendships revived. To-day shall be better than +yesterday. The good vows shall be kept. A blessing shall be wrung from +the fleet angel Opportunity. There shall be more patience, more courage, +more faith; the dream shall become life; to-day shall wear the glamour +of to-morrow. Ring out the old, ring in the new! + +Charles Lamb says that no one ever regarded the first of January with +indifference; no one, that is to say, of the new style. But a +fellow-pilgrim of the old style, before Pope Gregory retrenched those +ten days in October, three hundred years ago, or the British Parliament +those eleven days in September, a hundred and thirty-five years ago, +took no thought of the first of January. It was a date of no +significance. To have mused and moralized upon that day more than upon +any other would have exposed him to the mischance against which Rufus +Choate asked his daughter to defend him at the opera: "Tell me, my dear, +when to applaud, lest unwittingly I dilate with the wrong emotion." The +Pope and the Parliament played havoc with the date of the proper annual +emotion. Moreover, if a man should happen to think of it, every day is a +new-year's day. If we propose a prospect or a retrospect we can stand +tiptoe on the top of every day, yes, and of every hour, in the year. +Good-morning is but a daily greeting of Happy New Year. + +But these smooth generalizations and truisms do not disturb the charm of +regularly recurring times and seasons. That the fifth of October, or any +day in any month, actually begins a new year, does not give to that date +the significance and the feeling of the first of January. Our +fellow-pilgrim of the old style must look out for himself. He may have +begun his year in March, and a blustering birth it was. But we are +children of the new style, and the first of January is our New Year. +That is our day of remembrance, our feast of hope, the first page of our +fresh calendar of good resolutions, the day of underscoring and emphasis +of the swift lapse of life. "A few more of them, and then--" whispers +the mentor, who is not deceived by the jolly compliments of the season, +and the sober significance of the whisper is plain enough. "Eheu! +Posthume," sang the old Roman. "This world and the next, and all's +over!" said airy Tom Lackwit to the afflicted widow. + +The relentless punctuality, the unwearied urgency, of old Time, who +turns his hour-glass with such a sonorous ring on New-Year's Day, seems +sometimes a little wanting in the best breeding. It furnishes so +unnecessary a register. The slow whitening and thinning of the hair; the +gradual incision of wrinkles; the queer antics of the sight, which holds +the newspaper at farther and farther removes, until at last it is forced +to succumb to glasses; the abated pace in walking; the dexterous +avoidance of stone walls in country rambles; the harmless frauds lurking +in the expressed reasons for frequent pauses in climbing a hill to turn +and see the landscape--frauds which the tears of my Uncle Toby's good +angel promptly wash away; the general and gradual adjustment to greater +repose--all these surely are adequate reminders and signs of the +sovereignty of Time. Why should he be greedy of more? Why thump and +rattle at the door, as it were, on the first of January, and bawl out to +the whole world that we are a year older, and that makes--! + +It is disagreeably unnecessary. Why should not the old fellow do his +duty quietly, and tell off another year without such an outrageous +uproar? Does he think it so pleasant to hear his increasing +tally--forty, five, fifty, five, sixty, five? Peace! peace! Why not have +it understood that the tally beyond--well, say fifty, is a gross +impertinence? Let something be left to the imagination. Besides, what is +the use of wigs and hair-dye and padding, and what not coloring and +enamelling, and other juvenescent procedures of the feminine arcana, if +annual proclamation of impertinent dates and facts is to be made? + +The worst of it is that it is a positive interference with the just play +of the fundamental truth that age is not justly measurable by the mere +lapse of time. Some people are never young, others defy age. This, +indeed, is due to temperament. But that is not all. Those gray hairs and +wrinkles, that eyesight of less keenness, that disinclination to leap +walls, and those fraudulent halts to survey the rearward landscape, are +enemies whose assaults are by no means regular. They come at very +different times to different people. Adolphus at sixty despises +spectacles. Triptolemus at thirty is bald. The hair of Horatius at +sixty-five is as affluent as Hyperion's, and as dark without unguents as +the raven's plume. Let facts speak to a candid world. Why should that +graybeard Paul Pry called Time blare through a speaking-trumpet that the +brave Valentine-- + + "As wild his thoughts and gay of wing + As Eden's garden bird"-- + +is just as old as old, toothless, tottering, decrepit Orson? + +Every well-regulated citizen of the world is interested, and more +vitally interested with every closing year, that upon the point of age +all men shall be left to their merits, and shall not be measured +arbitrarily by that Procrustean standard of years. It is notorious that +men grow wiser every year, and it is observable that the more years they +have, the more they look with doubt and questioning upon the Family +Record. Those leaves of births following the doubtful books of +Scripture, registered with such painful and needless particularity of +dates, partake of the doubtfulness of their neighborhood. They are mere +intercalations, new books of the Apocrypha. Yet they often cause young +fellows of seventy to be accused and convicted of being old men. + +Since, then, we cannot stop the flight of Time, let him pass. But he +must not calumniate as he passes. He must not be allowed to stigmatize +vigor and health and freshness of feeling and the young heart and the +agile foot as old merely because of a certain number of years. This is +the season of good resolutions. The new year begins in a snow-storm of +white vows. So be it. But let our whitest vow be, after that for a +whiter life, that age shall no longer be measured by this arbitrary +standard of years, and that those deceitful and practical octogenarians +of thirty shall not escape as young merely because they have not yet +shown the strength to carry threescore and ten with jocund elasticity. + +Then Happy New Year shall not mean Good-night, but Good-morrow. + + + + +THE PUBLIC SCOLD. + + +The Easy Chair was lately asked whether it thought the office of public +scold an agreeable one. There was a certain tartness in the question, as +if its real purpose was to learn from the Easy Chair whether _It_ +enjoyed that position, and upon looking further it appeared that the +question had been suggested by a remark of the Easy Chair's to the +effect that a certain class of our fellow-creatures seemed to be +disposed to do their duty in a manner that might be improved. But what +is an Easy Chair but a kind of _censor morum!_ Would the kind critic of +its conduct have it say to the gentleman whose hands are soiled that +they are as pure as the morning, and to the tactless dame who makes all +her neighbors uncomfortable that her manners are charming? + +Probably this is really what the critic meant, for he continued by +saying that it is so much better to dilate upon what is pleasant than to +discuss the unpleasant aspects of life. That is true. It was the +principle of the Vicar of Bray. That reverend gentleman always avoided +friction. He was a chip of the Polonius block. The cloud was a camel or +a whale, according to the fancy of his companion. The good vicar looked +askance at Rome under Henry and Edward, and told his beads piously under +Mary, and upon reflection eschewed the mass-house under Elizabeth. He +dilated upon the pleasant aspects of affairs. We can imagine him saying +to Ridley in the time of Mary, "My dear bishop, why think yourself wiser +than your time?" and a little later to Parker, Elizabeth's Archbishop +(Ridley having been burned in the meanwhile), "My dear archbishop, Rome, +I see, is much too stringent." The Vicar of Bray was not a scold. He +was, according to the abused text, all things to all men. + +Yet his profession, our censor must remember, was a scolding +profession--at least in the sense in which the word is often used. His +duty was to admonish and exhort, to adjure his flock to quit the error +of their ways. Perhaps he was a poor illustration of it. Perhaps, true +to his temperament rather than to his profession, instead of urging +repentance because the kingdom was at hand, he was accustomed to say: +"Brethren, I observe that you lie and steal and slander your neighbors a +good deal. But in such a world as this what is to be expected? We are +all poor, weak, fallible things. Which of us can hope to strike twelve +every time? Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. We +must all beware of hypocrisy, dear brethren, and of pretending to be +better than our neighbors. You remember the Pharisee who thanked God +that he was not as other men. Let him be a warning against the sin of +presumption. There is the beautiful lesson of the beam and the mote. We +must not forget it. We are all miserable sinners, and therefore we must +not twit each other with sinning. We ought to tell the truth, my +friends. But we don't. We all lie. Let us therefore not scold each +other, since we are all equally wicked. But let us avoid Phariseeism and +all that assumption of superior virtue which is implied in saying to a +foul-mouthed brother that he ought to speak cleanly. Beware of +Phariseeism as of the unpardonable sin. Scold not, dear brethren, but +talk of the things which are pleasant, and instead of rebuking the liar, +commend his goodness to the poor, and instead of silencing the +backbiter, praise his subscription to the soup kitchen. For what says +Dr. Watts? + + "'Let dogs delight to bark and bite.' + +Dogs naturally scold, but we, brethren, we have the gift of avoidance, +and, O liars, thieves, and slanderers, let us live together in peace, +and say nothing about falsehood, stealing, and calumny." + +This was probably the tenor of the sermons of the Vicar of Bray, and +this was the way that he strove to save souls. But Fenelon and John Knox +and Edwards and Whitefield and Wesley and Channing and St. Paul, each in +his own way, said, "Thou art the man," and rebuked both the sin and the +sinner. Yet all of them were very human and very fallible, and all came +very short of the ideal of duty. To point out a defect in a picture, or +to exhort the artist to avoid it, is not to declare yourself an +incomparable artist. To demand honesty in public affairs is not to +proclaim yourself a saint. To say that school-teachers should be +thorough and use their common-sense as well as a text-book is not to +scold them. Romilly was not a scold because he denounced the unjust +criminal laws, nor John Howard because he rebuked the inhumanity of +prisons, nor John the Baptist because he exhorted men to repent. + +The poets rebuke our lives by the fair ideals that they draw, but they +do not scold. If a man preaches a little sermon illustrating the way in +which men in a certain profession, let us say, shirk their duty, and +somebody cries out, "Don't scold so!" the preacher may safely exclaim, +"Fellow-sinner, thou art the man." But the best illustration is closer +at hand. If the Easy Chair reproves certain fellow-sinners for +remissness in doing their duty, and for that offence is a scold, what is +the censor who scolds the Easy Chair for scolding? Let us avoid +Phariseeism, brethren, and the assumption of superior virtue. + + + + +NATIONAL NOMINATING CONVENTION. + + +It was a wise newspaper that recently advised every American who could +do so to see a national nominating convention. It is a spectacle visible +in no other country, and the most exciting political spectacle in this. +It is the arena in which the prolonged and passionate strife of +countless ambitions, intrigues, interests, and conspiracies is decided; +and it is the more exciting because, with every effort to predetermine +the result, the result is still at the mercy of chance. The action of +the convention is a lottery. Suddenly, at the decisive moment, an +unexpected combination, an impulse, a whim, like an overwhelming tidal +wave, sweeps away all plans and calculations, and the result is as +complete as it is unanticipated. + +Even the device of a two-thirds vote to make a nomination valid does +not avail to secure the real preference of the party which the +convention represents. The two-thirds rule, as it is called, was +designed to baffle the fundamental democratic principle, which is the +rule of the majority. When that is abandoned, the proportion selected is +purely arbitrary. It may as well be nine tenths as two thirds. But even +such a dam will not resist the swelling waters of feeling in a +convention. The French say that it is the unexpected that happens, but +in a national convention it is the unforeseen which is anticipated. The +palpitating multitude, which has been stimulating its own excitement, +confronts every doubtful moment with an air which says plainly, "Now +it's coming." + +There is always a preliminary contest of various cities before the +national party committee to decide where the convention shall be held. +Local orators with honeyed persuasion dazzle the committee with +statistics of the superior convenience, accommodation, beauty, +healthfulness, resources, facilities, and whatever else their good +genius may suggest, of the city for which each one of them contends. The +convention is held in the largest hall, or in a building erected for the +purpose, like the Wigwam in Chicago in 1860. The convention itself is +composed of about nine hundred state delegates, their seats designated +by a flag with the name of the state placed by the seat of the chairman +of the delegation. The alternates are also seated. + +Every convention is full of distinguished leaders and members of the +party, and as any of them appears, either entering or rising to speak, +they are greeted with great applause. If the temporary chairman be an +eminent party chief or an eloquent popular orator, his address touches +the springs of emotion and arouses hearty enthusiasm. But the friends of +the leading candidates deprecate the mention of names until the +candidates are presented by the chosen orator. The reason is that the +applause of the convention is one of the counters in the game. There are +hired _claques_ in the conventions which keep up a humming cry which is +a substitute for applause, and which is sometimes continued for a +quarter of an hour. The longer the hum, the more popular the candidate. + +Forgetfulness or ignorance of the value of applause under such +circumstances reveals the comparative popularity of candidates in the +eager mass of delegates and spectators. In one convention the permanent +president in his address, but without any sinister purpose, or indeed +any other purpose than kindling the convention, mentioned successively, +and, of course, with impartial compliment, the name of every candidate +who was known to be on the list. Involuntarily he thus tested the +feeling of the convention. The galleries also swelled the acclaim, but +in the galleries the _claque_ is shrewdly distributed, and in critical +moments the approval or disapproval of the turbulent galleries +undoubtedly impresses the delegates, and recalls the galleries of the +French convention a hundred years ago. + +There are occasional skirmishes of debate upon motions or resolutions, +but the first great interest of the regular proceedings is the report +of the platform committee. It is a tradition of conventions that the +platform should be accepted as reported, both to gain the prestige of +perfect unanimity and to escape "tinkering," which may lead to endless +discussion and discordant feeling. But when the motion is made to +proceed to the nomination of candidates, the excitement is intense. The +orators are usually carefully selected, not alone as eloquent speakers, +but as men of weight and influence, and of what at the moment is more +indispensable than everything else--tact. The speeches are made with the +fundamental understanding that, however glowing and elaborate the praise +of the candidate may be, there shall be an explicit assurance that +whatever the merits of any candidate, the candidate who shall be +nominated by the convention will receive the universal and enthusiastic +support of the party. + +On one occasion, when this fundamental rule was forgotten by an ardent +orator, who, in the warmth of his devotion to his candidate, declared +that no other man was so certain to draw out the whole party vote in +the state for which he spoke, a hurricane of hisses from the convention +and the galleries silenced him, and the friends of his candidate were +instantly aware that a fatal injury had befallen him. In another +convention the orator who nominated one of the candidates was so +exasperated by what he felt to be the treachery to his candidate of a +conspicuous friend of another that his denunciation of the traitor was +held to be a covert assault upon the traitor's candidate, and again a +tempest of universal hissing overwhelmed the luckless orator and his +candidate. + +The announcement by states of the first formal vote for candidates is +made in impressive silence, followed by immense applause. But the second +ballot is more significant; and whenever upon any ballot the +announcement of a vote is seen by the tally to decide the nomination, +the feeling culminates in an indescribable tumult of frenzied +acclamation, and the convention generally adjourns to consider the +Vice-Presidency. But the interest in its work is at an end, and it is +astounding to see the happy-go-lucky Providence which presides over the +selection of the officer who has thrice become the President of the +United States. + +In the history of national conventions there is no more touching +incident than that of Mr. Seward awaiting at his home in Auburn the +result of the balloting at the convention of 1860, which nominated Mr. +Lincoln. By what is called the logic of the situation Mr. Seward's +nomination was assured, and no disappointment could have been greater +than the selection of another. How bitter it was was not suspected until +his life was recently published! But he encountered the shock with his +usual equanimity, and before the election he had made the most +extraordinary series of speeches for his party which the annals of any +campaign record. + +The journal's advice was sound. See a national convention if you can. + + + + +BRYANT'S COUNTRY. + + +The traveller in western Massachusetts, reaching some quiet village upon +the hills, which seems to him singularly lonely and remote, often finds +some little incident in its annals which connects it with the great +world. Coming to Goshen, a solitary little town wholly unknown to most +of our readers, he is conscious of the height, of the purity of the air, +and the peacefulness of the wooded landscape, and far below, towards the +east, he sees the undulating line of Holyoke, and on some fortunate day +may catch the gleam of the placid Connecticut winding through broad +meadows and between Tom and Holyoke to the Sound. + +The little town itself is a grassy street, with a meeting-house and a +hotel, which has a desolate air of mistaken enterprise declining into +disappointment, with long anticipation of a crowd of summer pilgrims, +who might well turn their steps hither, but who have never come. Beyond +the village street upon the same plateau is the great Goshen reservoir, +which lies hushed in grim repose over the town of Williamsburg, a few +miles below, the town which was overwhelmed some years ago by the +bursting of the Mill River dam. Such events are the tragedies of the +hills, which become traditions told in the village store, and investing +with dignity, as the years pass, the villagers who recall the direful +day. + +Among the traditions of Goshen is that of the passage of some of the +soldiers of Burgoyne on their march from Saratoga to Cambridge. When the +brilliant British general swept down Lake Champlain to the Hudson, +capturing Ticonderoga as he came, it was feared in these hills that he +would march triumphantly from Albany to Boston. There was a general +rally of all able-bodied men to the rescue; and as they marched away +from their fields ripe for the harvest the prospect was dismal, until +the able-bodied women marched into the fields and gathered and housed +the crops. The British invaders reached Goshen, indeed, on their march +from Albany to Boston, but only as prisoners of war. + +All this peaceful neighborhood was originally granted by the State to +the heirs of soldiers in the early New England wars. Goshen and its +neighbor Chesterfield, another city set upon a hill six or seven miles +to the south, were grants to the descendants of soldiers in the +Narragansett expedition of King Philip's war. From Goshen the +Chesterfield meeting-house can be seen against the southern horizon, and +the road lies through high pastures and lonely farms to the pleasant +town. When you climb its hill and look around, you see a cluster of +hospitable houses, around which the neatly kept grounds give an air of +refinement to the whole village, which is steeped in rural tranquillity. + +The broad hills slope westward towards the valley of the Westfield, and +beyond lie the shaggy sides of the Cummington range. Chesterfield has +its special tradition of Lafayette passing the night in its old tavern, +on his way from Albany to Boston, in 1824. It is a characteristic +representative of the hill towns, so still that the air seems drowsy as +in Rip Van Winkle's village. But such tranquil towns, in which a moving +figure is half spectral and almost a surprise, were the beginnings of +the nation. From these sequestered springs the mighty river flows. + +Chesterfield has not half the population that it counted seventy years +ago. The whole town now reports scarcely seven hundred persons. Yet, +with all the old spirit, it invited its neighbors in Hampshire County to +come and dine on one of the loveliest of summer days this year. It was +the annual festival of the Hill-side Agricultural Society, and fully a +thousand people filled the friendly town. The feast was spread upon +tables on a green space beside the old house in which Lafayette slept, +and under a bower of leafy white birch boughs. The magnates of the +county were all present, and it was whispered privately that there were +private whisperings among eminent politicians, who, however, with the +non-political, or the political of the wrong side, talked cheerfully of +the charming day and the promising crops. Politics is the breath of our +patriotic nostrils, and it was a stimulating thought that while we were +listening to the humorous but well-merited praises of Strawberry Hill +pork, some of our bland companions were saving their bacon in other +ways; and while we dreamed of crisp sausages and savory ham, were +contriving Senators and Councillors, and even a Governor himself. + +The simple courtesy and universal intelligence were of the old New +England, nor less so the composure and ease with which speaker after +speaker mounted the bench on which he sat, and in what he said, and the +way in which he said it, showed that he was a graduate of the town +meeting. The pastor of Goshen, asked to speak of some of the more noted +citizens of the neighboring towns, might well have occupied with so +fruitful a text all the hours until sunset. But with exemplary +discretion he mentioned but a few, and among them some that surprised a +New-Yorker, who had not known, but might have guessed, that Gideon Lee, +former Mayor of the city, and Luther Bradish, Lieutenant-Governor of the +State, came from the little town upon the Cummington hills opposite, +where Bryant studied law. + +The whole region before us, indeed, was especially Bryant's. Upon the +slope yonder he was born, and we could see the house in which as a boy +he lived. "Thanatopsis" was the hymn of his meditations among those +solitary woods. There, upon the nearer hill, high over Plainfield, where +he wrote the poem the "Water-fowl," forever floating in the twilight +heavens-- + + "Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue + Thy solitary way." + +We were looking upon the cradle of American literature. Here its first +enduring poem was written. The poet himself never escaped the spell of +the hills. The child was father of the man. Bryant in the city was +always the grave and unchanged genius of New England. The city did not +wear off the rusticity of his manner. His air was reserved and remote, +and he was still wrapped in the seclusion of the hills. It is in such +scenes and among such people on such a day that the power of these hills +and their influence upon our national life and literature are perceived. + +These hidden springs have overflowed the prairies of the West; and how +much of the wealth and prosperity, the energy, industry, and +enlightenment of New York have trickled down from them, you may hear, if +you doubt, every year on Forefathers' Day at the New England dinner in +New Amsterdam. As there is altogether too much glory to be adequately +celebrated in one day, another has been added, to accommodate the Yankee +city of Brooklyn, and it is not the fault of the sons of New England if +on those two days the whole continent does not hear the melodious +thunder of their eloquence proclaiming that New England always led, is +leading still, and will lead forever, the triumphal procession of +American progress. + +Supported by such a history it is a natural boast. There is, however, +one inexorable condition. To do what New England has done, New England +must be what she has been. + + + + +THE GAME OF NEWPORT. + + +There is nothing more delightful than the gravity with which the game of +Newport is played. To assist at one of the solemn "functions" like a +coach parade is not unlike attendance upon a function of the ancient +Church in Rome. On a true Newport afternoon, as soft and sweet and +luminous an air as can be breathed, Newport, in every kind of stately +and comfortable and light and graceful carriage, with the finest horses +and the most loftily disdainful of coachmen, proceeds down the avenue to +behold the stately procession along the ocean drive. + +Of its kind there is no more beautiful drive in the world. The shore +winds among rocks which are massed, a shrewd-eyed traveller said, as on +the shores of Greece. The bold character of the coast of Rhode Island +and its picturesque effects are wholly unknown upon its neighbor Long +Island. The endless reach of sand and the monotony of the vast level +land on Long Island have a certain vague charm as of a sea-shore +becoming or about to become picturesque. But that point is fully reached +by its northern neighbors of the New England coast, and the ocean drive +in Newport is in itself incomparable. + +For its company on the day of a great social function it is quite as +incomparable. Hyde Park, the Bois, the Cascine, the Prater, show no such +sumptuous display. If the street boy were a philosopher, he would say, +probably, as he watched the spectacle, "My eyes! money plays here for +all it is worth." The American street boy of every degree is not +supposed to need any stronger impression of the value of money than he +already possesses. But Newport is the great school for that instruction, +and it is open free to the whole world. Money elsewhere has the same +instincts and desires. But in a city, in winter, its sports and effects, +however splendid, are divided and hidden. In summer Newport they are +concentrated under most fortunate conditions and proceed in the open +air. + +It is all the more striking because money has built its summer city +close by and just above one of the oldest and most historic of our +cities. It has improvised its magnificence and mad profusion upon the +outskirts of simplicity and moderation are observant, for all their +plainness. When they were asked what effect the new town produced upon +the old, whether the rollicking city on the hill harmed or helped the +plodding seaport, they answered: "Until Croesus and Midas came, it was +beneficial. But they have ruined Newport." + +Perhaps not, however. The Newport on the hill of to-day is the +legitimate offspring of the earlier summer retreat. That was a group of +the select who came to Newport to enjoy themselves for the summer. They +were well-to-do, some of them. But not many dwelt in cottages. The +multitude lived in hotels. They danced, they dined, they drove, they +sauntered. It was the green tree. It was less money enjoying itself as +more money enjoys itself now. The gossip, the flirting, the display were +not of another kind, they were the same as to-day, but the scale was +more limited. Mrs. Candour, Mrs. Malaprop, Sir Benjamin Backbite, and +the brothers Surface were already there. The standards of conduct, the +ideals of honor, were not essentially different. + +A generation ago Sir Benjamin bowed and danced and supped at Mrs. +Malaprop's ball with all the gay world of that time, which is now in +wigs, caps, turbans, or heaven; and the next day, dining with Mrs. +Candour, Sir Benjamin told, with infinite relish and to the great +amusement of the table, the story of his hostess's verbal trips and +stumbles. It did not seem to be conduct essentially base, because this +sparkling summer realm by the sea is like Charles Lamb's conception of +the artificial comedy of the eighteenth century: "I confess, for myself, +that, with no great delinquencies to answer for, I am glad for a season +to take an airing beyond the diocese of the strict conscience--not to +live always in the precincts of the law courts--but now and then, for a +dream-while or so, to imagine a world with no meddling restrictions, to +get into recesses whither the hunter cannot follow me-- + + "'secret shades + Of wooded Ida's inmost grove, + While yet there was no fear of Jove.'" + +To take permanent lodgings beyond the diocese of the strict conscience, +however, is a critical enterprise. If you take a house in Capua, you +must needs breathe the Capuan air. The magnetic rock in Sindbad's story +drew out the nails of the ships that ventured too near. Old Mithridates +fed on poisons until they "became a kind of nutriment," as Dr. +Rappaccini fed his daughter, until, too late, he discovered that she was +doomed. The graybeards who drive out to see the coach parade, and recall +the days, before the ocean drive, when the rocks beyond Lily Pond were a +glimmering land of Beulah, may prattle of the golden age of Newport as +of a happy past in which the graybeards were born. But will they +seriously contend that the age of Croesus and Midas is not the golden +age of Newport? + +While they are gossiping, the coaches approach. They have been through +the town, and are driving out by the Fort road; and as they appear, the +vast throng of carriages which have driven out to meet them pull to the +side of the road to allow a free course. A multitude of spectators +awaiting a festal procession, which at last is coming, naturally +suggests applause. But there is profound silence. There is no cheer for +every spectator to catch up and pass on. The first coach is at hand, and +gravely passes at a deliberate pace, and the great world in carriages +gravely looks on. The second coach deliberately follows, and is surveyed +with equal gravity. The next perhaps will strike a spark of applause. +But the next passes deliberately amid a silence profound. One friend, +perhaps, in the stately procession gravely nods to another gravely +gazing from a carriage. The "function" proceeds. Far out at sea the +white sails flash, and the summer surf breaks gently along the shore. +Every coach rolls slowly by. The moment for cheering has not yet +arrived. Indeed, it does not arrive before the pageant has passed, and +the reviewing carriages are turning and following on in its wake. It is +truly a solemn function. Graybeard recalls nothing like it for multitude +and display in the old drives on "beach days" along the beach in what he +calls the golden age. But does he doubt that old Newport would have done +it gladly if it could have done it? + +If the ghost of Heliogabalus haunts the villa'd shore, it is with no +hope of resuming the imperial crown. His court merely makes a pretty +summer spectacle when the opera ends. The coach and the stately equipage +and the flashing splendor of busy idleness are the pageant which is +kindly displayed gratis for the passengers in the omnibus, for the +pedestrians and the nurses. They sit and stroll and stare at their ease +while the gay play proceeds before their eyes. Nowhere more constantly +than in the summer Newport does the remark of the little child watching +the march of the soldiers recur--"Mamma, how good they are to make such +a show!" + + + + +THE LECTURE LYCEUM. + + +The Utica _Herald_ in a pleasant article recently recalled the lecture +lyceum of a quarter of a century ago. It was then what is called a +power. It greatly influenced public opinion. Its spirit was indicated by +the reply of Wendell Phillips to an invitation which asked him his terms +and his subject. He answered that for a literary lecture he should +expect a hundred dollars, but he would deliver an antislavery address +for nothing, and pay his own expenses. The lecturers who were most +sought at that time were almost without exception men of very strong +convictions upon the great question which, however evaded and +dexterously hidden, was the vital thought of the country; and every +successive week from November to April, in the largest cities and the +smallest cities, along the belt of country from the Kennebec through +New England and New York westward through Ohio and the Northwest to the +Mississippi, before thousands of the most intelligent American citizens, +this band of lecturers advanced, like a well-ordered platoon of +sharp-shooters, and delivered their destructive volley at what they felt +to be the common enemy. + +Edward Everett, "the monarch of the platform," as Mr. Edward Parker +called him in his book upon American contemporary orators, during part +of this same time was making a tour through much of the same region with +his oration upon Washington, for the benefit of the fund for the +purchase of Mount Vernon, and he was also writing the Mount Vernon +papers for the _Ledger_, in one of which he gave an entertaining +description of a night in a sleeping-car, when those itinerant +bedchambers had but recently taken to the road. Mr. Everett's +conservative temperament made his oration a kind of corrective of the +influence of the great tendency of the lyceum lecture. But patriotic as +his purpose undoubtedly was, his effort to stem the rapidly rising tide +of public sentiment was like the protests of Governor Hutchinson and the +Colonial conservatives against the fervid revolutionary appeals of Otis +and Adams and Quincy. Other popular speakers of the same sympathy as +that of Mr. Everett found themselves out of tune with the lyceum +audience, and were but meteors flashing across the stage, whose light +was lost in the steady and increasing glow of the group of men who were +identified with the great day of the lyceum lecture. These men were not +all like Wendell Phillips, open leaders of a specific agitation, nor +were these lectures always ostensibly upon what are called public +questions. But the influence of the lecturers was unmistakable. They +were all men known to be in the strongest sympathy with the most +advanced feeling of the agitation. It was the plain spirit and tone and +drift of those lectures, an occasional allusion and the necessary +application of the remarks, however general, to the actual situation, +rather than any deliberate discussion of the question itself, which +characterized the lyceum of that day. There was sometimes an attempted +reaction against this tendency. In Philadelphia it was discovered that +colored persons were not admitted to the Musical Fund Hall, in which the +lectures had been given. The leading lecturers instantly informed the +committee that they declined to speak in the hall so long as the +restriction continued. In Albany the reactionary sentiment in the Young +Men's Association succeeded in electing a lecture committee which was +resolved upon a purely "literary" course, and which would not invite the +usual lecturers. The result was an independent course, under the +auspices of dissatisfied members of the association, in which the +rejected lecturers spoke in the largest hall in the city, and the signal +triumph of the seceders lay in the immense audience which assembled in +contrast to the attenuated attendance upon the regular course. + +The singular success of the lyceum lecture of that time was due, +undoubtedly, to two causes--the simultaneous appearance of a remarkable +group of orators, and their profound sympathy with the question which +absorbed the public mind. The weekly lecture was not merely a display of +oratory, not only an amusing recreation, but it brought wit and +accomplishment and eloquence to strengthen the public feeling and arouse +the public conscience, and to confirm the earnest spirit which was +universal, and which forecast the great events and the noble elevation +of the public mind that followed. Emerson, Wendell Phillips, Gough, +Beecher, Chapin, Starr King, Theodore Parker, could of themselves carry +any course of lectures, and each in his own way was thoroughly in accord +with the truest American life of that time. The situation and the +condition of the public mind would not have availed, indeed, without the +happy chance of such orators to create the lyceum, but with that chance +the lyceum of that day was as remarkable a continuous display of various +and effective eloquence as has been ever known. + +If the faithful diary of any lecturer who went the grand rounds +twenty-five years ago, from Maine to the Mississippi, could be +published, it would be full of the most amusing stories. The lecturers +all had them to tell, and they were all men of a singularly fine +perception of humor. James T. Fields, the publisher in Boston, was the +friend of all the lyceum orators, and towards the close of his life he +was himself a popular and attractive lecturer upon literary subjects. +His little cell or private office in the old corner book-store in Boston +was an exchange of lecturers for that neighborhood, which teemed with +lyceums, and no similar space has ever heard fresher stories better +told, or has ever echoed with gayer laughter. + +It was the pleasant company in that little retreat which first heard, +the day after it occurred, the tale of the belated lecturer who, +hurrying from the cars in a carriage to the hall in Boston, long beyond +the hour, dinnerless, and with no chance to dress, opened his +travelling-bag, and proceeded, to the consternation of the lady who had +taken a seat in the same carriage, and whose pardon he politely and +briefly invoked, to change his collar and his coat. As he began to pull +off his coat, having pulled off his collar, his amazed and terrified +fellow-passenger began to pull at the door, and to call loudly upon the +driver, who was furiously whipping his horses into a pace that increased +both the noise of the carriage and the conviction of the terrified lady +that she was the victim of some dreadful conspiracy, or the hapless +victim of a maniac. The maniac's earnest but interjectional explanation +as he proceeded in his toilet, begging his companion to be pacified, as +he was merely going to lecture, was an unintelligible asseveration, +which only made his madness more indisputable and awful, and what might +have befallen the poor lady, if the carriage had not suddenly stopped at +the hall, and the lecturer, in his clean collar and black coat, had not +begged her pardon for frightening her, with a fervor that frightened her +all the more, and disappeared from the vehicle with his travelling-bag, +shawl, and umbrella, he was not prepared to say. But the tale, as he +told it the next morning with infinite humor in Fields's corner, was +received, as he ruefully admitted, with louder shouts of laughter than +had greeted the brightest witticisms of his lecture. + +Fields is gone, and his old friend and neighbor Whipple, who was one of +the earliest of the noted lyceum lecturers. The old corner in the old +corner book-store is gone, and with it have vanished many of the happy +company that gathered there, not only of orators, but of famous authors. +The lyceum of the last generation is gone, but it is not surprising that +those who recall with the Utica _Herald_ its golden prime should cherish +a kindly and regretful feeling for an institution which was so +peculiarly American, and which served so well the true American spirit +and American life. + + + + +TWEED. + + +There are many persons who wonder why Tweed did not evade justice by +forfeiting his bail. He had every chance to escape, they say; why did he +stay? His chief confederates are safe in Europe, where he might easily +have been, yet he was foolish enough to take the risk of a trial, and he +is imprisoned, probably for the rest of his life. The explanation, +however, is very obvious. He did not believe there was any risk. Tweed +was the most striking illustration of a very common faith--belief in the +Almighty Dollar. He is the victim of a most touching fidelity to the +great principle which every good American will surely be the last to +flout. His creed was very simple: it was that money would buy +everything, and he reposed upon his belief with the sweet security of +the Mussulman who sees by faith a heaven of houris. Certainly his +confidence was not surprising. He had proved his creed. He had seen +money work miracles. He had seen himself, a man of no cleverness and of +no advantages, rising swiftly by means of it from insignificant poverty +to the control of a great party. It had made him master of one of the +great cities of the world. It had secured for him Governors, +Legislatures, councils, and legal and executive authorities of every +kind. He invested in land and judges. He bought dogs and lawyers. He +silenced the press with a golden muzzle, and money made his will law. + +Here was a man who wanted nothing that money could not buy: was it +strange that he had unbounded faith in it? Every form of virtue was to +him mere affectation, a more or less ingenious and tenacious "strike" +for money. If a man spoke of honesty, patriotism, self-respect, the +public welfare, public opinion, truth, justice, right, Tweed smiled at +the fine phrases in which the auctioneer, anxious to sell himself, +cried, "Going! going!" Argument, reason, decency--they were meaningless +to him. If an opponent held out, he simply asked, "How much?" The world +was a market. Life was a bargain. He felt himself with pride to be the +largest operator in his way, as Vanderbilt in his, or Stewart in his. + +In Albany he had the finest quarters at the Delavan, and when he came +into the great dining-room at dinner-time, and looked at all the tables +thronged with members of the Legislature and the lobby, he had a +benignant, paternal expression, as of a patriarch pleased to see his +retainers happy. It was a magnificent rendering of Fagin and his pupils. +You could imagine him trotting up and down in the character of an +unsuspicious old gentleman with his handkerchief hanging out of his +pocket, that his scholars might show their skill in prigging a wipe. He +knew which of that cheerful company was the Artful Dodger and which +Charley Bates. And he never doubted that he could buy every man in the +room if he were willing to pay the price. So at the Capitol, where sits +the Legislature of a noble commonwealth of four millions of souls, he +moved about with an air of fat good-nature, like the chief shepherd of +the flock. If he stood at the door of the Assembly looking in, it is +easy to fancy him saying to himself, The State pays these men two or +three hundred dollars for four months' service; I will give them better +wages. He did not doubt that it was a fair transaction. What is the +State? It is only four millions of people, he thought, who are all +trying to be rich--struggling, cheating, by hook or by crook, every man +for himself, and the devil take the hindmost, to be rich. These men +would be fools not to take my money. And he smiled his fat smile, and +paid liberally for all that was in market. + +There were some papers, whose price he could not ascertain, which +persisted in speaking ill of him and his pals. If the fools did not know +their own interest enough to be content with a good price--say, of +corporation advertising--they must be silenced. The conceit of virtue +must not be pushed too far. So one day his Legislature passed a bill +virtually giving his judges power to imprison editors at their +pleasure. But virtue--that is, in the Tweed theory of life, obstinacy in +holding out for a higher price--mustered such a really respectable +protest that the public project of coercion failed, and private methods +were tried. Tweed had no doubt that reputation could be bought as well +as power. Peter Cooper builds an institute for the education of the +poor, does he? You mean, said Tweed, a monument to his own glory. He +pays a certain number of thousands of dollars for the reputation of +philanthropy. And Mr. Stewart builds a working-woman's palace. Ah! And +Mr. Astor founds a library. Indeed! And they are benevolent gentlemen +and benefactors of their kind? Not at all. They merely invest money in a +certain kind of fame. That pleases their taste, as fast horses and +yachts and pictures please the taste of other people. I will show you +how 'tis done, says the faithful believer in the Dollar. And he gives +fifty thousand dollars to the poor just as winter is beginning. "Let the +cavillers say what they will," exclaim a myriad voices, "that shows a +good heart." Tweed, as it were, tips a wink. I told you how it was +done, he seems to say: what is there that money will not buy? + +Is it surprising that such a man did not try to evade justice? Justice +in his view was a commodity like legislative honor, like newspaper +independence, like the reputation of benevolence. The reform movement +was to him a sudden and confusing flurry, in which strikers, to whose +terms he would not yield, had somehow gained a momentary advantage. He +had perhaps made a mistake in not buying them at their own price. +Success had possibly put him off his guard. He was sure that if an +indictment were found, that would be the end of it, and he had no +feeling of shame. His friend Fisk had shown what lawyers were made of, +and he himself would buy lawyers and judges, sheriffs and juries. He +knew that the one thing that in a needy and greedy world cannot fail is +money. He came to his first trial, and the jury disagreed: naturally, +for he had bought some of them. The evidence is, of course, moral only, +but it is conclusive. If justice, facetiously so called, wanted another +bout, he would "come up smiling." There was no trick or quibble that +lawyers could devise for which he had not made munificent preparation, +even to asserting that the judge who obstinately refused to name a price +was disqualified from sitting at the trial. Money had never failed +before; it certainly would not at this last pinch. + +But it did, and the bewilderment and consternation of this simple +devotee were pitiful. He had but one article in his faith, and that was +now destroyed. He had staked everything upon the certainty of the +Almighty Dollar, and he had lost. But there was something not less +noticeable than his unquestioning faith. It was that his faith was so +generally held. For what gave the universal and intense interest to the +Tweed trial? Here was a common thief, except in the amount of his theft, +of whose guilt nobody had any doubt, against whom, as the judge said, +the evidence was a mathematical demonstration, and his conviction was +hailed as a kind of national deliverance and vindication of human +justice. There was but one reason for this, and it was the feeling that +money would free him. Of course it was known that the judge could not be +bought, nor the Attorney-General, nor the prosecution. Tweed might as +well have offered to buy the moral law. But public knowledge ended +there. And in the degree of the universality of the belief that somehow, +by actual bribery, or by legal quirk or shift or sham, money would buy +him off, is the value of the lesson of his conviction, which is that the +utmost power of money fails before firm, sagacious, and intelligent +honesty. There is not a saloon in New York in which the Tweed contempt +of honorable motives is the sole faith which has not had an astounding +revelation, and learned that money is not omnipotent. + +Those saloons have learned one other thing--that stealing is the same +crime, whether it be the theft of public or of private property. The +Robin Hood jollity that surrounded Tweed, his familiar name, the "Boss," +the laughing stories that were told of him, showed that he was held in +very different estimation from an ordinary thief. The baser newspapers +evidently regarded him as the French nobleman regarded himself who was +firmly convinced that the Almighty would think twice before condemning +such a gentleman as he. So when Tweed went to the Tombs the same feeling +attended him. The officers could not believe that it was really meant so +rich a man, who had lived in so fine a house, and had spent money so +profusely, should be treated as a common offender. The wretch who steals +a loaf to feed his starving children must have short shrift, and Black +Maria despatches him at the earliest moment. But a "statesman" who +steals millions of dollars from the people--really the law must think +twice before handling him impolitely! A day or two after he had been +taken to jail, on his way to the penitentiary, the papers said, as if he +had been a beloved prisoner of state whom cruel governments might +torture, but whom the people would still honor: "A great many +improvements have been made in his cell by his friends, and it has now +quite a cosey, comfortable appearance. The floor is covered with a +carpet of a dark green ground. The walls are hung with dark green cloth, +and the panes in the windows, opening on Centre Street, which were +cracked and broken a few days ago, have been newly glazed. In the centre +of the room is a large round table, at which the 'Boss' takes his three +regular meals, served up in the best manner from the prison restaurant. +There is a luxurious leather-covered lounge in one corner, and five +chairs, including a large, comfortable rocking-chair. Besides these few +articles of furniture are a wash-stand and a book-case. The prisoner is +plentifully supplied with reading matter; and as for creature comforts, +the solicitude of his friends and relatives leaves nothing to be desired +except liberty. Crowds of people have called to see him for the past two +days, but none were admitted without passes from the Commissioners." + +This feeling was akin to that which inspires the proverb and the +practice that "all's fair at the Custom-house." When Robin Hood stepped +politely to the door of my Lord Bishop's carriage and requested him to +alight under the greenwood tree, and proceeded to rifle the carriage of +all the treasure that his lordship was conveying, he was not felt to be +a common thief. Far from it; he was the people's tax-gatherer in green. +He scattered with a free hand among the poor the money which the rich +man could lose without feeling it. Nobody suffered. My Lord Bishop was +admonished that he had the poor always with him, and the poor rejoiced +in his involuntary largess. So "the boys" thought of Tweed. While the +"Boss" was king there was always money about, as they said; and when did +Robin Hood himself ever bestow fifty thousand dollars in a lump upon the +poor? Besides, who could say that he was robbed? The rich could not feel +it; and was any poor orphan defrauded by him, any poor widow pinched, +any honest laborer burdened? + +Yes, they were. It was public money that he stole. And what is public +money? It is the taxes. And who pay the taxes--the rich? No, the poor, +the producers. They come out of the rent of the tenement-house; out of +the price of tea and sugar and coal; out of the pittance of the widow +and orphan, and the small wages of the laborer. It was from the poor who +cowered gratefully over the coal that he gave them that he stole the +coal. His confederate, Sweeny, planted hyacinths in the city parks, and +for every flower some poor soul was pinched. Gay Robin Hood strips the +baron, and the poor bless him as he flings them the gold. Then the baron +goes home to his castle and wrings teeth out of the jaws of Isaac of +York, to force him to give money. Then Isaac of York advances at a more +ruinous rate than yesterday the interest upon the money he lends. So +when Tweed steals from the public treasury he picks every private +pocket. Every stroke of his hammer, if he hammers stone with other +thieves, refreshes in the public mind these familiar truths. It is +humiliating that the conviction of an evident offender in a court of law +should be a cause of public congratulation. But, on the other hand, it +is cheering that shameless crime intrenched in every way, and defying +the course of law, should by that course be quietly convicted and surely +punished. + + + + +COMMENCEMENT. + + +It is a changed college world since Nat. Willis's Philip Slingsby was +the hero of many a maiden's dream, and the stories of Willis reflected +the modest gayety of the society of his time. Nahant was then a summer +resort of importance, and had not become, as one of its denizens said in +later years, only "cold Boston." Willis's heroes, like Byron's, were +largely himself, and it was but a thin veil that covered in them persons +familiar in the society that he knew, and incidents drawn from his own +experience. + +He was the college hero of his time. But his Scripture poems, which had +great vogue and were printed in all the "classbooks" and "readers," and +his "Burial of Arnold," a young and brilliant Senior at Yale, and his +bright and blithe "Saturday Afternoon," are quite passed out of current +knowledge. They are not the kind of verse which is produced in college +now. Their Byronic sentimentality is not to the taste of the college +club and Greek Letter Society man of to-day; and Charles Coldstream, who +looks on listlessly at the college athletic games, leaves enthusiasm to +"the Fresh," and has "really never read those things of Willis's." + +Yet the dominant emotions of Commencement this year were very much what +they were when Philip Slingsby dared the waltz, and even the more +emancipated belles shuddered a little as they slid into the charmed +circle. Youth and hope and the passion which "is not all a dream" are +forever renewed, and if the fashion changes, the substance remains. In +the crowded church at Commencement this year, with the gay dresses and +the flowers and the music and the soft summer air breathing in at the +open doors and windows, there are still palpitating bosoms, and a color +that comes and goes, and glances that meet and mingle--"read the +language of those wandering eye-beams--the heart knoweth." + +It was "Nat. Willis" yesterday, in a high-collared coat and an ample +cravat such as Brummel wore, and even D'Orsay. It is a quaint and a +droll costume, as you see it in those old _Fraser_ pictures of English +authors "'tis sixty years since." But in that guise it is you, sir, of +to-day, and if your oration is spoken to one auditor, in all that lovely +throng in the gallery, whose heart answers "pity Zekle" to your pitapat, +do you think that the divine Una's grandmother was never young, and that +the droll high-collared coats did not cover hearts as sensitive and +hopes as high as the faultless summer attire of Nameless, Jun., class of +'90? The actors change, but the spectacle is the same. Even the members +of the reverend and venerable the corporation, those bald and +white-haired worthies who seem vaguely always to have been sitting +unchanged in the front pews, like those austere senators of Rome of whom +the tradition tells us that they sat motionless although the invader +came--even they are living monuments, and on their hearts, as on +tablets, the story of the wandering eye-beams is engraved. + +There is not one of the young heroes of the Commencement hour whom those +elders do not scan with knowledge. These wise young judges carry no +secrets which the elders do not share. Is it a strange world that of +Willis and his Philip Slingsby? It is the world of the moment and of +this Commencement. + +But there is something else in Commencement besides this romance of +feeling and tradition. It is the celebration of the intellectual life. +The eloquence, indeed, is sometimes rather copious. An oration in the +morning before one literary society; in the afternoon before another; +and a sermon in the evening before the Missionary Association, is good +measure heaped up and running over. There is some jealousy also even in +academic groves. In the older day, if the Melpomene had its oration in +the morning and the Euterpe in the afternoon, and you read on the +following Sunday, scrawled on the blank page of the hymn-book in the +pew, "Words, words, words, oration of Cicero," and "Genius, eloquence, +common-sense, oration of Demosthenes," you knew that you read the +comment upon the rival orator of a Melpomenean or a Euterpean, as the +case might be. But if the orator was not always wise or eloquent, there +were also discourses which have profoundly influenced the lives of those +who heard or read them, giving a direction and inspiring a fidelity +which, like Wordsworth's thoughts of his past years, breed perpetual +benediction. + +It is a recollection blended of many feelings, that which the recurring +Commencement brings to the alumnus. But the deep and permanent charm is +the consciousness of the infinite worth and consolation of letters. +Theoretically the college course was a series of years devoted to making +acquaintance with the treasures of human genius. Possibly there was in +fact some divergence from the theory. But that was the opportunity. The +gates were set ajar, and if the neophyte did not choose to enter, he +lost--as the teacher said to his pupil who went fishing rather than to +hear Webster's eulogy on Adams and Jefferson--he lost what he can never +regain. + +Is there some fatality which makes the pen that treats of Commencement +hortatory and didactic? Is there some secret charm which still allies +the college to the pulpit, so that to talk about it is presently to +begin to preach? The Easy Chair asks because it feels that it is about +to take the sacerdotal tone, and remind the youth who is leaving or +entering college that, like every other epoch in life, college is an +opportunity. It is what you make it. Fate, as the older times would have +said--life, as we prefer to say--gives us a chance. But the improvement +of it we give ourselves. The tragedy of the refrain, "Too late, too +late; ye cannot enter now," is that of the man who, in our simple +phrase, wasted his college years. The tender spell of Whittier's "Maud +Muller" lies in its saddest words of tongue or pen. But the memory of +what might have been is so profoundly pathetic because it might not have +been, and we were the arbiters of fate and did not choose to turn +upward. + +Kind sir of the college, who lend to the preacher of the moment your +listening ear, the preacher himself may be a wearisome chaplain, but you +are the young judge of the summer afternoon, smelling the meadows sweet +with hay, and stopping at the cool spring where Maud Muller hands you +the refreshing draught. Do you follow the allegory, and see in that maid +what really she is? To you she is a maiden who rakes the hay; to Numa +she was Egeria by the other fountain. It is a sweet illusion, for the +maid is not Egeria nor Maud Muller, but under those gentle forms she is +the nymph of opportunity. Woo her and win her, and all the happiness +that might have been will be yours. + +There is nothing more touching than the inability of the chooser to +comprehend the choice. Why did not the judge yield to the soft +persuasion of that simple loveliness? Why did he not embrace the +opportunity, and fold his happiness to his heart? Well, sir, that is +always the question. But if he did not know that in that fair figure +opportunity stood before him, you do know it. Don't be satisfied to hum +"in court an old love tune." You remember the legend of the Sibyl's +books. Was it interpreted to you in the class-room? Do you interpret it +to yourself? + +The most inspiring tradition in every college is not that of the boat or +the ball, of copious gold and flowing wine, of Milo or Sardanapalus or +Midas; it is not that of the "dig" or the "prig," of Dryasdust or +Casaubon; but it is that of the youth, by whatever name he was called in +your college, who did not, like the judge, "closing his heart," ride +on--who knew that four such years as yours in college would never +return, and that they offered him the golden keys which, polished by his +labor, would open the heaped treasures of genius in all ages and lands. +It is he who in taking the keys did not grudge the labor, and to whose +life those treasures have been wide open. + +No, the inspiring personal tradition of college was not the pleasant +Philip Slingsby; it was rather Philip Sidney, who rode with the best +and was a man in every manly enterprise, but who had so used his +opportunities in study and affairs that Hubert Languet, most +accomplished of scholars, called him friend, and William of Orange +called him master. + + + + +THE STREETS OF NEW YORK. + + +Even the Pan-Americans protest that the streets of New York are dirty. +It is very comical, but it is true, that all our marvellous prosperity, +our genius of invention, our quickness of wit, and profusion of +resource; all our patriotism and pride, our great traditions of liberty +and heroism, our free soil, free speech, and free press; and all the +force and intelligence of our free government--cannot keep the streets +of New York clean. Miss Edwards, the most courteous and friendly of +visitors, is compelled to say: "I found on all sides nothing but holes +of mud, gutters, and dirt piles, an endless rush and a block of street +traffic. There are so many dangers and the state of the highways is such +as to make it incomprehensible to English people that enterprising +Americans would long endure it." + +Miss Edwards is familiar with the dirt of Egypt, which is universal and +intolerable, but even that does not mollify or alleviate the awful +impression of dirty New York. Then a Pan-American, perhaps from Bogota, +from Callao, from Lima, from Santiago, from Buenos Ayres, from Rio de +Janeiro, from Guayaquil--cities in which we had not supposed impeccable +highways to be--politely flagellates us, and ignominiously discrowns +Broadway. "It was impossible not to notice the deplorable condition of +the streets. Our carriages plunged terribly into the holes which at +frequent intervals were met with, and the wheels at every turn sent +whirls of mud, which compelled the passers-by to keep at a respectful +distance." + +We may indeed reply that this is the fling of a Pan-American. And who, +forsooth, is a Pan-American? Is he the superior--nay, does he presume to +be the peer--of a North American? Are we not notoriously the greatest +nation in the world? Does not our population reduplicate incalculably? +Have we not carried civilization from sea to sea? Have we not the +largest lakes, the longest rivers, the broadest prairies, the greatest +cataract, in the world? And shall the minions of monarchies and the +pigmies of tuppenny temporary republics snap their ridiculous fingers at +us, and presume to say that the streets of New York are dirty? The idea +is preposterous. It is contemptible. Moreover, it is insulting, and the +streets of New York are-- + +It is plain sailing--or slipping, as chance may determine whether we go +in the water or the mud--so far, but it is a little difficult to end +that sentence in the same key. Let us try another, possibly a little +less perfervid. The population of the United States is some sixty +millions. Taken altogether they form undoubtedly the most intelligent +community, with the highest average well-being, in the world. They are +self-governing down to aldermen and coroners. More than in any country +at any time in history, the will of the majority of the adult male +population determines the government. The city of New York is one of the +three or four chief cities of the world. It is confessedly the +metropolis of this blessed and absolutely self-governing country, and +the streets of New York can't be kept clean. + +Is there any possible method of describing the unquestionable greatness +and undoubted glory of the country, its resplendent history and its +miraculous achievements, in an ascending and cumulative series of +epithets and epigrams which shall end truthfully in the resounding +allegation, "and the streets of New York are kept clean"? Indeed, is not +this little joker worse than that of the thimble? Does he not grin at us +from every pile of mud, and laugh out of every hole, and snicker and +sneer on every side of the unremoved and apparently irremovable dirt and +disorder? + +It is absurd, as the boys say, to "blame" this situation upon somebody +else--some street commissioner, or scavenger, or other officer, or +employe. Nobody is ever guilty of misrule in this country but the +rulers, and the rulers are the people. The citizens of New York elect +the city officers who are to do the city work which the citizens pay +for. They give some of those officers authority to dismiss others who +are derelict in their duty, and the governor can deal with the chief +officers who do not obey the command of the people. If the taxes are +outrageously heavy, if the money is squandered, if the streets are dirty +and city government a farce, nobody is to blame but the citizens. They +have as good a government as they choose, and the kind of government +they desire. + +Then they desire dirty streets? Certainly. That is to say, they don't +desire clean streets strongly enough to secure them. Then popular +government has failed in cities? Rather there are some things in cities +in which popular government is not especially interested. If there are +two hundred and fifty thousand voters in the city of New York, how many +of them really care enough for clean streets and proper municipal +administration to spend time and trouble to secure them? + +Consider the lilies of the field--that is to say, look at the aldermen +and the municipal officers, the representatives in the State +Legislature and in Congress that the city of New York elects. Do they +represent what we call its intelligence and character? Yet undeniably +they are representatives of the majority of the voters, and if that +majority be corrupt or stupid, it is either because there are more +knaves and fools than intelligent and honest citizens among the voters, +or because such citizens do not care to take the trouble to vote and to +be represented; in which case the Aldermen and Co. that we see are, +morally speaking, true representatives of the city. The minions of +monarchies and the pigmies of tuppenny temporary republics, as they bump +and wallow and flounder, bespattered and contemptuous, through the +streets of New York, may truly say that they are such streets as the +citizens desire, because if the people desired clean streets, unless +popular government be a failure, they would have them. If the mayor did +not appoint officers who would clean the streets, they would require the +governor to deal with the mayor. + +Does it necessarily follow, because popular government is, upon the +whole, the best government, that the governing people desire all good +things that government can supply? Liberty they want, and equality, and +fair play; but do they, because they are self-governing, desire +beautiful buildings and clean streets? Might not a good-natured despot +of fine taste and sanitary enlightenment and a sense of order give his +dominions nobler public works and a better municipal administration than +a republic which is neither tuppenny nor temporary, but in which there +is easy and indolent indifference to public beauty and public order? + +"Above all," said the English bishop to the young catechumen, "don't +mistake zeal for knowledge." Above all, says the good genius of America, +don't confound national bumptiousness with patriotism. + + + + +THE MORALITY OF DANCING. + + +The gravity of the discussion of the morality of dancing is exceedingly +amusing. The dancing of young people is as natural and instinctive as +their laughing and singing, and the old Easy Chairs about the wall might +as wisely quarrel with the song of the bobolink in the fields as with +the dance upon the floor. But the grave censors who condemn it must be +heard. There is reason in the way in which they often put their +objections. Excitement, late hours, exposure of health, all these are +bad. But, on the other hand, exercise, cheerfulness, friendly +conversation, all these are good. The zealous censors confound uses and +abuses. The Easy Chair has seen a worthy temperance apostle ingulfing +cups of coffee in the pauses of an exhortation to abstinence, until it +marvelled at the capacity of the apostolic stomach. Could there be no +intemperance in coffee-drinking? But was coffee not to be drunk? The +Easy Chair has seen such frantic gobbling at a railway eating-room that +it could only gaze in wonder at the sottish and, so to speak, drunken +eating. But is food not to be eaten? The Easy Chair has seen little +children, extravagantly dressed and decorated, dancing in great hotel +parlors on hot summer nights at an hour when they should all have been +sound asleep in their beds, while their parents should have been soundly +chastised for not putting them there. But is the dancing of young +persons therefore wrong? + +This is probably to the censorial mind nothing but the base compromise +and sophistry of "moderate drinking." But nevertheless most of the evils +of this kind are perversions of good things. There are a great many +young and ignorant parents who become impatient with the incessant +activity and restlessness of their children. They condemn them to sit +still in a chair and make no noise. Dear madame, it is nature's +intention that the child shall be restless, to develop his limbs. You +apply to him rules that are fit and easy for us who are old, and whom +nature equally admonishes to sit still in chairs. Our little Procrustean +beds are merely furniture that tortures. The desire of youth for +enjoyment is as worthy as its desire for knowledge, for truth, for +excellence. And it is the spirit, not the method, of enjoyments which +are not obviously wrong, that is chiefly to be regarded. A good man asks +whether he could go from dancing to console a dying bed. But could he go +from skating, or reading _Pickwick_, or from heartily laughing, to +console a dying friend? Would it not, even in his own view, depend +wholly upon the mood in which he was doing it? + +Let him select an act which he would approve. Let him be reading a +serious book, or thinking in his study, or going upon a visit of charity +when he is summoned, and he would say that he could go with perfect +composure and the utmost propriety. But how if he were peevish as he +read the serious book, or if he were thinking angrily in his study, or +if he were mentally reproaching the duty that drew him from his +comfortable room to pay a visit of charity, could he then more properly +hasten to console the dying than if he had been cheerfully dancing, his +mind full of pleasant thoughts and the delight of the music and the +measured movement? It is not the thing that he is doing, but the spirit +in which he is doing it, that should be considered. + +How different a view of the pleasant recreation of dancing may be taken +by an intellectual man, from that of one who thinks the waltz a device +of Satan, is shown by a passage of De Quincey, the beginning of which +the Easy Chair will quote, and which will find an echo in many a memory: +"And in itself, of all the scenes which this world offers, none is to me +so profoundly interesting, none (I say deliberately) so affecting, as +the spectacle of men and women floating through the mazes of a dance; +under these conditions, however, that the music shall be rich and +festal, the execution of the dancers perfect, and the dance itself of a +character to admit of free, fluent, and continuous action. And whenever +the music happens not to be of a light, trivial character, but charged +with the spirit of festal pleasure, and the performers in the dance so +far skilful as to betray no awkwardness verging on the ludicrous, I +believe that many persons feel as I feel in such circumstances, viz., +derive from the spectacle the very grandest form of passionate sadness +which can belong to any spectacle whatsoever." + + + + +THE HOG FAMILY. + + +It is a good sign of the times that the crusade against the large and +omnipresent family of Hog which the Easy Chair long ago preached has +been vigorously renewed. Public manners are a common interest. The +private conduct of the most famous personages is of small concern beyond +their domestic circle. But the conduct of the person in the next room at +a hotel, or in the next seat in a railroad car, is of great interest to +us. Yet the remedy is not obvious. Even if we should propose a school of +manners, it is not certain that the pupils for whom it would be +especially designed would attend. + +If a fellow-guest at the Grand Hotel of the Universe comes in at two in +the morning, and going humming along the corridor to his room, flings +his boot down upon the floor at his door with a resounding blow that +awakens all neighboring sleepers, you may cover him with expletives, and +consign him in imagination to a hundred direful dooms, but nevertheless +he goes unpunished. Or you may suddenly confront him in all the majesty +of nocturnal dishabille, and admonish him severely of the wicked +selfishness of his ways. But the probability is that you will have +either an extremely amused audience, who will "guy" your appearance +without mercy, or receive a surly rejoinder in the form of a boot or a +volley of vituperation. In any event, the school of manners will not be +honored by the exercises. + +Yet the Hog family is not American, nor is it by any means peculiar to +this country. The Lady Mavourneen who said with enthusiasm that she +could travel without insult from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and that +every American of the other sex seemed to make himself her protector, +said only what is generally true of the American. He is naturally +courteous and invincibly good-natured. Indeed, it is his good-nature +which has permitted the family Hog to develop to such proportions. A man +enters a hotel "as if it belonged to him." Will he not be forced to pay +for his accommodation--and roundly? Shall he not take his ease in his +inn? Is he not willing to settle for all the food, drink, comfort, +trouble, that he may require or occasion? Shall he put himself out for +others? If number one does not look out for itself, who will look out +for it? + +And to all this Jonathan good-naturedly assents. If number one takes +more than his share of the sofa, Jonathan moves up. If number one puts +his feet on a chair, Jonathan does not stare. If number one still more +grossly demonstrates his porcine lineage, Jonathan dislikes to make +trouble--until number one comes to despise those whom he insults, and +plainly expects every circle to bow to the sovereignty of selfishness. +This is a fatal form of good-nature, but it has a not unkindly origin. +It springs from a social condition in which everybody is expected to +help everybody else, because everybody needs help as in a frontier +community. Indeed, in many a rural neighborhood still, this spirit of +lending a hand is supreme. Everybody expects to submit to inconvenience, +because he knows that he will require others to submit. + +But these refinements of mutual dependence must not be allowed to +justify the outrages of selfishness. The passenger in the boat or the +train who occupies more than his seat, who sits in one chair, covers +another with his feet, and a third with his bundles, and smokes, and +widely squirts tobacco juice around him until his vicinity is not "a +little heaven," but another kind of "h" below, is a public pest and +general nuisance, for whose punishment there should be a common law of +procedure. But this can be found only where there is a common contempt +and resolution which will deprive him of his ill-gotten seats in the +first place, and make him feel, in the second, the general scorn of his +neighbors. + +But as we are told constantly and correctly that we are a reading +people, it is through reading that the members of the family which is +_hostis humani generis_ will learn that they are the most detestable and +detested of the great families of the race. You, sir, whose eyes are +skimming this page, and who never give your seat to a woman in the +elevated car "on principle"--the principle being either that a woman +ought not to get into a crowded car, knowing that she will put gentlemen +to inconvenience; or that the company ought to forbid the entry of more +passengers than there are seats; or that first come should be first +served; or that number one, having paid for a seat, has a right to +occupy it; or whatever other form the "principle" may assume--you are +one of the host against whom the crusade is pushed. Thou art the--well, +for the sake of euphony we will say man, but it is not man that is in +the mind of your censors. + +Or you, madam, who enter the railroad car with an air of right, and a +look of reproval at every man who does not spring to his feet, and who +settle yourself into the seat offered you without the least recognition +of the courtesy that offers it--for you it would be well if the urbane +mentor of another day were still here, who, having given his seat to a +dashing young woman who seemed unconscious of his presence, looked at +her until she impatiently demanded if he wanted anything, and he +responding, said, blandly, "Yes, madam; I want to hear you say thank +you." + +Both this sir and madam may learn from the daily papers as from this +page that even in a car where they recognize no acquaintance a cloud of +witnesses around hold them in full survey, and whatever the fashion or +richness of their garments, and however supercilious their air, perceive +at once whether they belong to the family of ladies and gentlemen, or to +that of Charles Lamb's "Mr. H." Thackeray's hero could not have been +more aghast to see his divine Ottilia consume with gusto the oysters +which were no longer fresh than Romeo to learn by his Juliet's question +to that urbane mentor of other years that his mistress must be of kin to +the unmentionable family. + +The next time those boots are flung down in the reverberating hotel +corridor there will be no harm in remarking to the clerk the next +morning in the crowded office that it is not necessary for you to look +upon the register to know that one of the Hog family arrived during the +night. + + + + +THE ENLIGHTENED OBSERVER. + + +The Enlightened Observer from Europe who is studying American +institutions asked the Easy Chair the other day what was meant by the +statement that a candidate for a high elective office had opened +headquarters in the neighborhood of a nominating convention. The +Enlightened Observer said that he had always supposed that such +conventions were assemblies which nominated persons whose public +services and personal ability and character had distinguished them among +their fellow-citizens, and shown them to be especially fitted for the +offices which were to be filled. "Am I mistaken," he asked, "in +supposing that to be the theory of your institutions?" + +The Easy Chair could not say that he was, and conceded that such was the +theory. + +"In other words," continued the Enlightened Observer, "a republic +secures good government because it intrusts the government not to the +chance of birth, which may give to Oliver Cromwell a son Richard, and +make the heir of Alexander the Great an Alexander the Little, but +because it calls to its great offices of every degree those citizens who +have demonstrated their peculiar fitness." + +"That is certainly the theory of our republican institutions," returned +the Easy Chair. + +"Well?" said the Enlightened Observer. + +"Well?" echoed the Easy Chair. + +"Yes, but why, then, does a candidate open headquarters?" + +"Yes, certainly. Why--that is--it is to make himself known." + +"But the theory seems to assume that he is known already. Is it that he +performs public services at the headquarters, or exhibits there his +character and abilities? Is not the time a little limited and the space +somewhat inconvenient for such demonstrations? I am at a little loss. I +can see that the personal appearance and manners of a candidate might be +displayed favorably at a headquarters, and that, in a charming phrase of +your country, he might dispense a generous hospitality in a hotel +parlor, but how can he display his fitness for a high office in such +narrow quarters as headquarters must be? Am I to understand that when +Mr. John Jay was selected as a candidate for the Governorship of New +York he had repaired previously to the place of nomination and had +opened headquarters? Did General Washington pursue a similar course? If +the services and character of a candidate have commended him to public +favor and designated him as a suitable officer, why is not that enough?" + +"Undoubtedly," answered the Easy Chair, "why isn't it? But I am afraid +that you have not pursued your enlightened observations quite far +enough, or you would have learned that in this country a kind providence +is supposed to help those who help themselves, and that those who +expect to have Governorships and Senatorships and other large and highly +flavored political morsels offered to them on golden salvers and on +bended knees will be seriously disappointed." + +"I see," said, courteously, the Enlightened Observer, "that my excellent +friend the Easy Chair is pleased to speak in metaphor. If I may +penetrate it, he is declaring that great places are to be won like +precious prizes, and do not drop into idle hands like fruit overripe. +But if I may hold him to the point, is it not the theory of your +institutions that it is services and character and ability that win the +precious political prizes, and surely such qualities and services cannot +be described as idle hands? I agree that providence helps those who help +themselves, but who helps himself more than he who helps the entire +community? And how does he help the community who opens headquarters to +secure a prize for himself? Moreover, have I not heard that office +should pursue the man, and not the man the office? Yet what is opening +headquarters but pursuing office, as a hound a hare?" + +The Easy Chair was obliged to suggest that there was no harm in knowing +"the boys," and in showing the affability of a simple citizen "without +airs," and making the acquaintance of important political personages, +all of which the Enlightened Observer conceded, but still politely +insisted that knowing the boys and showing affability and refraining +from lofty demeanor did not demonstrate fitness for great place, and was +a loss of proper personal dignity that ought not to be required of any +one who had really approved himself as a suitable officer. He concluded +that he might not have mistaken the theory, but he had certainly not +apprehended the practice of our institutions. + +"But surely," said the Easy Chair, "'tis but a small price to pay." + +"True," said the Enlightened Observer, "it is a very small price; but I +had not supposed that in the republic office was sold at any price. I +thought that the good Santa Claus of public approval dropped it as a +Christmas gift into the stocking of the most deserving. It seems, +however, to be rather a raisin in snap-dragon--the prize of the toughest +fingers." + + + + +RALPH WALDO EMERSON. + + +"The beauty of Israel has fallen in its high place," said the voice of +Emerson's friend and neighbor, Judge Hoar, trembling and almost hushed +in emotion, and everybody who heard felt the singular felicity of the +words. The plain little country church was crowded, and a vast throng +stood outside in the peaceful April sunshine. Before the pulpit--the +eyes forever closed, the voice forever silent--lay the man whose aspect +of sweet and majestic serenity Death had not touched, and which recalled +his own words: "Even the corpse that has lain in the chambers has added +a solemn ornament to the house." It was the man who was beloved of his +neighbors and honored by the world, whose modest counsel in grave +affairs guided the village, and whose thought led the thought of +Christendom. "He belonged to all men, but he is peculiarly ours," said +Judge Hoar truly, speaking for the quiet historic town of which +Emerson's grandfather had been the minister, and in which he lived +during the larger part of his life, and to which his memory will lend an +imperishable charm. + +Concord when he first knew it was already famous. A hundred years ago, +at the bridge over the placid river, the Middlesex farmers, hastening as +minute men from all the neighboring country, had obeyed the first +military summons to fire upon the king's regulars; and the red-coated +regulars, turning, had begun, amid the blazing patriot volley of twenty +miles, their long retreat to Yorktown and over the sea. At the point +where the highway by which the soldiers marched enters the village, +under the hill along whose ridge the hurrying countrymen pressed to cut +off the soldiers' retreat, lived for more than forty years the scholar +who belongs to Concord as Shakespeare belongs to Stratford. + +"Nature," said Emerson in his first book, written in the old Manse at +Concord, which Hawthorne afterwards inhabited, and which he has so +beautifully commemorated--"Nature stretcheth out her arms to embrace +man: only let his thoughts be of equal greatness. Willingly does she +follow his steps with the rose and the violet, and bend her lines of +grandeur and grace to the decoration of her darling child. Only let his +thoughts be of equal scope, and the frame will suit the picture. A +virtuous man is in unison with her works, and makes the central figure +of the visible sphere. Homer, Pindar, Socrates, Phocion, associate +themselves fitly in our memory with the geography and climate of Greece. +The visible heavens and the earth sympathize with Jesus. And in common +life whoever has seen a person of powerful character and happy genius +will have remarked how easily he took all things along with him, the +persons, the opinions, and the day, and nature became auxiliary to a +man." So is Emerson associated with the tranquil landscape of the old +Middlesex town--the gentle hills, the long sweep of meadowland, the +winding river, the woodland, and the pastures under the ample sky. The +broad horizon and rural repose were the fitting home of the lofty and +beneficent genius whose life and word perpetually illustrated the +supreme worth and beauty of truth, purity, and morality. Whoever saw him +there or elsewhere, saw the "sweet and virtuous soul" which George +Herbert likened to seasoned timber that never gives. + +The sincerity and serenity of Emerson's character were unsurpassed. The +freshness and glow of his interest in life were perennial. With a sober +tenderness of regret he said to a friend who congratulated him upon his +seventieth birthday, "Yet it is a little sad to me, for I count to-day +the end of youth." In no other sense than the lapse of years, however, +was it true. That auroral freshness of soul which is the distinctive +charm of youth lingered when even memory somewhat failed. "How long it +is since I have seen you!" he said at Longfellow's funeral to a friend +whom he had accosted just before. But he said it with all that +heartiness of sympathy and expectation which, in the golden prime of +his life, when he was in many ways the most striking and original figure +in his country, made him greet every comer as if he expected to hear +from him a wiser word than had yet been spoken. A youth, fascinated by +this simple graciousness of manner, declared that Emerson greeted the +most ordinary persons like a King of Spain receiving an ambassador from +the Great Mogul. The expectancy of his manner implied that every man had +some message to deliver, and he bent himself to hear. + +But his shrewdness of perception was exquisite. He did not take dross +because he hoped for gold. His reproof was as sure and incisive as the +stroke of a delicate Damascus blade. When a young man, hearing Emerson +say that everybody ought to read Plato, followed his advice, and read, +he thought, with the audacity of youth, that he detected faults in +Plato, and wrote an essay to set them forth. He asked Emerson to read +it, and when he returned it to the youth, Emerson said, pleasantly, "My +boy, when you strike at the king, you must kill him." One day he sat at +dinner with a distinguished company of statesmen. He was by far the most +famous man at the table; but he modestly followed the conversation, +turning from each guest who spoke, to the next, with the old sweet +gravity of earnest expectation. When all the notable company had gone, a +guest who remained said to him: "I saw you talking with the English +Minister. He is a brilliant man, and I hope that you found him +agreeable." "A very pleasant gentleman," replied Emerson; "but he does +not represent the England that I know." + +Despite this sharp apprehension, however, Emerson was sometimes unable +to find any charm in writings which have apparently taken a permanent +place in literature. He could see nothing interesting or valuable in +Shelley. "When I read Shelley," he once said, "I am like a man who +thinks that he sees gold at the bottom of a stream. He reaches for it, +but his hands come up cold, with a little common sand in them." The +waywardness and disorder of Shelley's life may have troubled him. But +this would not have affected his intellectual judgment. His acute +intellect was supremely independent and absolutely courageous. "He must +embrace solitude as a bride," he said of the scholar; "he must have his +glees and his glooms alone." When as a young man he quietly closed his +pulpit door, and declined to preach any more, because he no longer felt +any value in certain religious rites, there was no protest, nor +ostentation, nor newspaper "sensation." It was simply the closing of a +book that he had read, and the amazement and censure and grief of others +could not possibly persuade him to do, or to say, or to affect, the +thing that was not true. Emerson's moral and intellectual integrity was +transparently simple, but it was sublime. It was not expressed in stormy +self-assertion nor cynical contempt. It spoke in tranquil and beautiful +affirmation, perfectly courteous, but absolutely sincere. + +But no man more charitably and diligently sought to understand others, +and to be just to what was obscure and foreign to him. He listened +patiently to music. But it did not charm him. He was punctual in the +duties of a citizen. But he had no proper political tastes. Yet for the +true politics, the application of the moral law to the control of public +affairs, no man was more perceptive or uncompromising. He was always on +the right side of great public questions. His hospitable sympathy +entertained every good cause, and in all our antislavery literature +there is no nobler or more permanent work than his address upon the +anniversary of West India emancipation in 1844. The only cloud that ever +arose upon his regard for Carlyle was his displeasure with Carlyle's +contemptuous and cynical sneers at our civil war. He was deeply +impatient of doubtful and half-hearted Americans during the war. "They +call themselves gentlemen, I believe," he said of certain persons, and +in a tone which showed that his lofty and patriotic honor instinctively +and utterly repudiated the pinchbeck claims of educated feebleness to +bear "the grand old name of gentleman." + +Those who recall Emerson when he was a clergyman in Boston remember a +singular spiritual beauty in the man, and an indescribable charm of +manner in his public speech. But apparently he impressed his earlier +associates with the purity and refinement of his mind and life, his +lofty intellectual tastes and sympathy, and his literary accomplishment, +rather than by the peculiar force of a genius which was to give the most +powerful spiritual impulse of the generation to American thought. This +is the more singular because there was always something breezy and +heroic in his tone, which might have led to the suspicion of the fact +that he was from the first a fond reader of Plutarch, from whose "Lives" +he draws so many illustrations. As in a mountain walk the traveller is +suddenly aware of wafts of perfumed air, now of the wild-grape blossom, +now of the azalea or sweet-brier, so the strain of Emerson suggests his +sympathy with Plutarch and Montaigne, the Oriental poets and the +Platonists. + +But no one could describe accurately his "system" of philosophy, nor +fit him into a "school" of poetry. He was content to call himself a +scholar, and no name was more significant and precious to him. He +shunned notoriety, but he had the instinctive desire of every artist and +of all genius for an audience. When a friend asked him of a young man +whose literary talent had seemed to him to promise great achievement, +Emerson said: "He does nothing; and I doubted his genius when I saw that +he did not seek a hearing." When his own first slight volume, "Nature," +was published, they were but a few, a very few, who perceived in it the +ripe and beautiful work of a master in literature and thought. The +richness and originality and picturesque simplicity of this book, its +subtle perception, its tone of jubilant power, and the soft glimmering +light of lofty imagination which irradiates every page, do not lose by +familiarity, and are as charming, although of course not so surprising, +as when they first took captive the readers of nearly fifty years ago. +With the eagerness of classification which characterizes many active +minds, Emerson was immediately labelled a Berkeleyan, an idealist, and a +mystic. But he eluded the precise classification as noiselessly and +surely as a cloud changes its form. Astonishment, satire, indignation, +contradiction, spent themselves in vain. Like a rose-tree in June, which +blossoms sweetly whether the air be chilly or sunny, his thought quietly +flowered into exquisite expression. You might like it or leave it. But +the rose would be still a rose. + +There was a fashion of calling Emerson obscure. But there is no style in +literature of more poetic precision than his. It is full of surprises of +beauty and aptness. His central doctrine of the identity of men, the +grandeur of every man's opportunity, and the essential poetry of the +circumstances of common life, was a living faith. "The great man," he +said, "makes the great thing." "In the sighing of these woods; in the +quiet of these gray fields; in the cool breeze that sings out of these +Northern mountains; in the workmen, the boys, the maidens you meet; in +the hopes of the morning, the ennui of noon, and sauntering of the +afternoon; in the disquieting comparisons; in the regrets at want of +vigor; in the great idea and the puny execution--behold Charles the +Fifth's day; another, yet the same; behold Chatham's, Hampden's, +Bayard's, Alfred's, Scipio's, Pericles's day--day of all that are born +of women. The difference of circumstance is merely costume. I am tasting +the self-same life--its sweetness, its greatness, its pain--which I so +admire in other men." The temptation to complete the splendid passage is +almost irresistible. But in every page you are drawn on as in a stately +symphony of winning music. + +This passage is from the Dartmouth College address, and it has all the +flowing cadence of a discourse written to be spoken. Yet Emerson had +little of the orator's temperament save the desire of an audience, and +an earnestness which was pure and not passionate. But no orator in the +country has exercised a deeper or more permanent influence. His +discourses were but essays, but their thought was so noble, their form +so symmetrical, their tone so lofty, and they were spoken with such +alluring rhythm, that they threw over young minds a spell which no other +eloquence could command. Emerson himself was very susceptible to the +power of fine oratory. No man ever praised more warmly the charm of +Everett in his earlier day. When Webster delivered his eulogy upon Adams +and Jefferson in Faneuil Hall, Emerson was teaching in Cambridge, and +Richard H. Dana, Jun., was one of his pupils. The day before Webster +spoke, the teacher announced that there would be no school upon the +morrow, and he earnestly exhorted his pupils not to lose the memorable +opportunity of hearing the great orator. Dana was of an age to prefer +fishing to oratory, and strolled off with his line to the river, where +he passed the day. When school was resumed, Mr. Emerson with sympathetic +interest asked him if he had heard Webster. The fisher, half ashamed, +reluctantly owned his absence. Emerson looked at him with regret and +almost pain, and said to him, gravely: "My boy, I am very sorry; you +have lost what you can never recover, and what you will regret to the +last day of your life." + +But those who heard his own Divinity School address, or the Cambridge or +Dartmouth oration, or the Emancipation address, would not exchange that +recollection even to have heard the Olympian orator in Faneuil Hall. +"Tell me," said a Senator famous for his oratory, to a friend in +Washington, "what do you call eloquence? Repeat to me an eloquent +passage." The friend quoted from Emerson the unequalled passage from the +Dartmouth College address in which the scholar appeals to the young men +to be true to the ideals of their youth--a passage which no generous +youth can read to-day without deep emotion and a thrill of high resolve. +The Senator listened with an air of perplexed incredulity. "Do you call +that eloquent? Now see what I call eloquence," and he declaimed a +glowing piece of rhetoric with ardent feeling. It was a passage from +Charles Sprague's Fourth-of-July oration in Boston sixty years ago. But +effective as it was, his friend reminded the Senator that if the test of +eloquence be glow of feeling and splendor and sincerity of expression, +with an inner power of appeal which searches the heart and moulds the +life, no really greater results in this country could be traced to any +speech than to that of Emerson, who read the greater part of his essays +as addresses, and who sometimes reached a lyrical strain which not the +magnificent Burke nor any other great orator surpasses. + +--To talk of Emerson, even if the talker were not of the circle of his +intimate friends, is to raise the flood-gate of happy and inspiring +recollections. It is one of the tenderest of the thoughts that hover +around his memory, as the low winds sigh through the pine-trees over his +grave, that, as with Longfellow, there are no excuses to be made for +grotesque eccentricities of genius, nor for a life at any point unworthy +of so great a soul. He said of his friend Thoreau, who is buried near +him, that he was like the Alpine climber who gathers the edelweiss, the +flower that blooms at the very edge of the glacier. He too lived at +those pure heights, and taught us how to tread them undazzled and +undismayed. Happy teacher, whose long and lovely life illustrated the +dignity and excellence of the truth, old as the morning and as ever +fresh, that fidelity to the divine law written upon the conscience is +the only safe law of life for every man. Noble and beneficent preacher, +who, in a sense that the pensive Goldsmith did not intend, + + "Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way." + + + + +HENRY WARD BEECHER. + + +For forty years Mr. Beecher had been minister of Plymouth Church when on +a Sunday morning suddenly came the news that his ministry and probably +his life were ended; and he died a day or two afterwards. The preacher +and the church were more widely known than any others in the Union, and +during all his pastorate he was one of the most conspicuous figures in +the country. He was undoubtedly also one of the most famous preachers of +his time and of the English race, and the death of Wendell Phillips left +him the most eminent of American orators. There have been popular +preachers during Mr. Beecher's career, like Moffit and other +revivalists, and there are always eloquent and scholarly orators in the +American pulpit. The tradition of Summerfield presents a beautiful +youth and a captivating speaker. The charm of Channing was profound and +indescribable. But Beecher recalls Whitefield more than any other +renowned preacher. Like Whitefield, he was what is known as a man of the +people; a man of strong virility, of exuberant vitality, of quick +sympathy, of an abounding humor, of a rapid play of poetic imagination, +of great fluency of speech; an emotional nature overflowing in ardent +expression, of strong convictions, of complete self-confidence; but also +not sensitive, nor critical, nor judicial; a hearty, joyous nature, +touching ordinary human life at every point, and responsive to every +generous moral impulse. + +Mr. Beecher was not a pioneer, nor a leader of forlorn hopes, but of the +main column of the army. He marched just ahead of the advance, and +touched with his elbows those who moved forward with him. He liked to +feel the warmth of their breath upon his cheek, and the magnetism of +their neighborhood. He spoke for them as they could not speak for +themselves. He liked the crowd. The hum and throb of multitudinous life +inspired and cheered him. He was at home in streets and towns; with a +bright jest for every comer; a happy quip and repartee; with an eye and +a heart for the unfortunate and forlorn, and a ready rebuke for +insolence and injustice. He had nothing of the recluse or scholarly +habit; no fastidious taste. He was fond of pictures and music and all +forms of art, without especial aesthetic accomplishment; a man of cheery +presence, of cordial address; with a willing word for the reporter, +chaffing the interviewer; jumping on the street-car in motion; yet +always seemly, and always, despite his slouched hat and careless dress, +undeniably clerical, but with no undue professional sense of dignity or +decorum. + +In the pulpit, or, more truly, upon the platform--for whether preaching, +or lecturing, or speaking at table or upon the stump, he seemed to be +always upon the platform--he inculcated right living rather than +traditional doctrine. He was a soldier of the church militant, but his +warfare was with human wrong and misery, and false theories of life, +and low aims and poor ambitions. He aimed to build up righteousness of +life, and in the ardor of the strife he liked to pause and wink, and let +fly a bright-tipped, winged word at the opponent, against whom he bore +no kind of malice. He hated the wrong, but not the wrong-doer. Ardent +and impulsive, his generous emotions often overwhelmed his judgment; and +in politics, although the most popular of stump-orators, and never +happier or more truly himself than in a political speech, in which, with +the instinct of a born fighter, he "drank delight of battle," yet he +sometimes amazed and confounded his friends, who, however, could not +doubt his sincerity nor question his purpose. + +The great cloud that fell upon his life seemed also to darken the +country. The grief and consternation showed how strong a hold he had +upon the national mind and heart, which indeed was never so firm as at +the very moment that his good name seemed to be obscured. It was the +most tremendous ordeal to which any public man of his peculiar +character and quality of eminence has ever been exposed in this +country. The most remarkable fact in it all was the way in which he +endured it. The blacker the cloud appeared to be, the more sturdy was +his stern defiance, and for weeks of seemingly accumulating and +insurmountable obstruction he faced unflinchingly a possible doom the +mere prospect of which might well have withered a brave heart conscious +of innocence. That the cloud ever wholly disappeared cannot be said, in +view of the tone of the press even as he lay dead in his house. But that +he could never have maintained his position as he did if he had not been +generally acquitted in the public mind seems to be indisputable. If the +relation of his later life to the country was somewhat changed, the +result was due to the decline of confidence in what had been believed to +be his strongest quality, supreme good sense and sound judgment, rather +than to doubt of his moral integrity. + +No man lived more in the public eye and for the public than Mr. Beecher. +In his speeches and sermons and writings he took the public into his +confidence with a freedom that was characteristic and natural in him, +but which would have been extraordinary in any other man. He could not +pass through the street without universal recognition, and no man in the +two cities was so well known to everybody as he. At public meetings and +at dinners where he was to speak, he came late amid smiling and +expectant applause, and with the air of saying, "Where MacGregor sits, +there is the head of the table." He had the right to that air, for +wherever he was to speak he was the chief orator. But he was no niggard +of generous praise and sympathy, and no man spoke with more fervent +eulogy and eloquent approval of other men. Doubtless, like an actor or +singer, the long habit of receiving applause had made it pleasant to +him, and as is the fact with all extempore speaking, the greater the +applause the higher the eloquence of his strain. It is a reciprocal +action. Of Mr. Beecher's later platform speeches, the most remarkable +was his political address at the Brooklyn Rink in 1884, which was +delivered amid a storm of enthusiasm, while in the delivery he was +himself wrought to the highest feeling. + +His power over the emotions of an audience was unsurpassed in this +country probably since Patrick Henry. Thomas Corwin and Sergeant +Prentiss perhaps were as great masters of humor and patriotic appeal +upon the stump; but Beecher added to these a pathos and sentiment and +poetic tone in which the others did not excel. He had not the fine, +glittering, incisive touch of Wendell Phillips's fatal sarcasm and +vituperation. Phillips stood quietly and played his polished rapier with +a flexible wrist, but its point was deadly; Beecher smote, and crushed. +One was the deft Saladin with his chased and curving cimeter, the other +was Richard with his heavy battle-axe. In the great controversy in which +both were engaged, upon the same side, indeed, but under different +banners and wearing different colors, Beecher and Phillips, amid a +chorus of eloquence, were the two chief voices. Garrison was not +distinctively an orator, while Phillips was the especial and +distinctive orator of the cause, and his fame as a public man belongs to +that cause alone. But Beecher had many interests and relations, and his +oratory had other strains. They were friends always, and Phillips spoke +often in Plymouth Church, and uttered many a glowing word of his +fellow-laborer. + +When these words are published the freshness of the impression of +Beecher's death will have passed, and from every part of the country his +eulogy will have been spoken. The universal emotion, the warmth and +tenor of the tributes, will have shown how eminent a figure he was, and +that his death is felt to be a national loss. One of the papers +described him as the last of a great generation, and Senator Cullom, +speaking of Logan in the crowded Brooklyn Academy on the evening of +Beecher's death, called a roll of illustrious names, of which his was +the latest, and among which it surely belongs. His profession was the +preaching of peace and good-will. But how often he must have felt that +his Master came not to bring peace, but a sword! His buoyant +temperament, his perfect health, his love of nature and of man, of +children and flowers, of the changing sky and landscape, his abounding +sympathy, his rich and sensitive humor, made his life joyous and often +happy. But it was none the less a stormy life, ending at last, amid the +sorrow of a country, in happy rest and the good fame of a great orator +for human welfare. + + + + +THE GOLDEN AGE. + + +In this country we are inclined to believe that the epoch that followed +the Revolution was one of the utmost purity and simplicity. But it was +one of the "fathers" who said to a friend upon the adjournment of the +first Congress, "Do you suppose such a set of rascals will ever assemble +again?" In his diary John Adams appeals to the calmer mind and juster +judgment of the coming age--meaning that in which we live, and from +which we look wistfully back to old John Adams's cocked hat and +knee-breeches as the symbols of a nobler time. + +Then there is Fisher Ames, one of the famous orators and conspicuous +leaders of the beginning of the century, who, studying his country at +the time to which we recur as the age of high purpose and lofty men, +bewails the sordidness, selfishness, and degradation around him. "Of +course," he says, seventy years ago, "the single passion that engrosses +us, the only avenue to consideration and importance in our society, is +the accumulation of property: our inclinations cling to gold, and are +bedded in it as deeply as that precious ore in the mine.... As +experience evinces that popularity--in other words, consideration and +power--is to be procured by the meanest of mankind, the meanest in +spirit and understanding, and in the worst of ways, it is obvious that +at present the incitement to genius is next to nothing." + +We might suppose that we were listening to a contemporary cynic; and +whoever reads the history of the politics of that time will find that +"the better days of the republic" were very like the days in which we +deplore their disappearance. When Mr. Ames died, Mr. John Quincy Adams +wrote a review of his works, in which, with the equanimity and +moderation of the golden age, he remarks, "It is a melancholy +contemplation of human nature to see a mind so highly cultivated and so +richly gifted as that of Mr. Ames soured and exasperated into the very +ravings of a bedlamite." He then proceeds to speak of those who, without +believing Mr. Ames's "absurd and inconsistent political creed," are +selfishly eager for its propagation, being "choice spirits, amounting to +at most six hundred" (their name was the Essex Junto!), and who hold +that "the porcelain must rule over the earthenware, the blind and sordid +multitude must put themselves, bound hand and foot, into the custody of +the lynx-eyed, seraphic souls of the six hundred, and then all together +must go and _squat_ for protection under the hundred hands of the +British Briareus." + +To this gentle strain Mr. John Lowell replied in a similar vein, +beginning by speaking of the malignity of Mr. Adams's sarcasm, and of +his following Mr. Ames to the grave with crocodile tears, informing him +that he had no need to assail Mr. Ames's friends with all the venom of +an infuriated partisan, because he had already obtained his reward for +"ratting" from the Federalists, and this act of gratitude to his +benefactors was unnecessary. Mr. Lowell ends his reply by saying that +in the course of a short political life Mr. Adams had received more than +seventy thousand dollars from the public, and that while no man pitied +Mr. Ames, "Mr. Adams is an object of sincere commiseration with many a +man of high and honorable feelings, while it is to be doubted whether he +is the object of envy to any man on earth." + +These are glimpses of the golden age, of that "better day" of the +republic with which our own is so often and so injuriously contrasted. +Indeed, there is no finer cordial for despondency than a glance at the +paradise that hovers behind our retreating steps. The mountain traveller +turns and sees a lovely vision floating in the sky. + + "How faintly flushed, how phantom-fair, + Was Monte Rosa, hanging there-- + A thousand shadowy-pencil'd valleys, + And snowy dells in a golden air." + +Good lack! he cries, are those the crags and precipices along which I +slid and stumbled in terror of my life? The hanging gardens of the +past, the halcyon epoch of our history, the lost paradise of our +fathers, are all crags and precipices along which the race and our +country have stumbled and slid. If any man is disposed to think that he +has fallen upon evil times, let him open his history. It is a marvellous +tonic. + +Does he think republics ungrateful? Look at Mr. Motley's vivid portrait +of John of Barneveld. When he was seventy-two years old he writes from +his prison to his wife and family: "I receive at this moment the very +heavy and sorrowful tidings that I, an old man, for all my services done +well and faithfully to the fatherland for so many years ... must prepare +myself to die to-morrow." Does he think irreligion undermining society? +Look into Smiles's "Huguenots in France after the Revocation of the +Edict of Nantes." For attending Huguenot meetings men were captured by +soldiers and sentenced to the galleys, mostly for life. They were +chained by the neck with murderers and other criminals, and were +quartered in Paris in the dungeon of the Chateau de la Tournelle. Thick +iron collars were attached by iron chains to the beams. The collar was +closed around the prisoner's neck, and riveted with blows of a hammer +upon an anvil. Twenty men in pairs were chained to each beam. They could +not sleep lying; they could not sleep sitting or standing up straight, +for the beam was too high for the one and too low for the other. This +was done in the name of religion. The age of Louis the Fourteenth is +called one of the great epochs of the world. It was an age in which the +king's mistress persuaded him to slaughter and banish hundreds of +thousands of his subjects because of their religious faith, and the +great preachers of his church applauded, and the Holy Father approved, +and even Madame de Sevigne, whose letters some young ladies at Newport +and Saratoga are diligently reading, and sighing for the good old witty +times in which she lived, wrote of the most innocent and most devoted +men: "Hanging is quite a refreshment to me. They have just taken +twenty-four or thirty of these men, and are going to throw them off." + +The golden age is not yesterday or to-morrow, but to-day. It is the age +in which we live, not that in which somebody else lived. The trouble, +vexation, corruption, weakness, selfishness, meanness, which dismay us +and tempt us to despair are the old lions that have always beset the +path. No man is born out of time; and what man living to-day, who is not +pinched with poverty or disease, would have lived a thousand years ago? +If our politics seem mean and our men small, how does Alfred's time +seem, or the glory of Athens, or the court of Louis the Fourteenth, or +Luther's Germany? What did Jefferson think of Hamilton, or the _Aurora_ +say of Washington? + + + + +SPRING PICTURES. + + +ON a late beautiful spring afternoon the Easy Chair +rolled itself into the suburbs for a stroll. There were everywhere the +signs of the advance of a great city and the pathetic forlornness of the +municipal frontier. Pleasant country-houses, spacious, rambling, with +broad piazzas and gardens and lawns, had been apparently suddenly +overtaken by streets and stone sidewalks and lamps. There were the +rattle and shriek of the incessant railway trains near by. Tall factory +chimneys smoked and machinery hummed and steam-whistles blew all around +the quiet old houses. The contrast gave them a kind of conscious life. +They seemed to be aware of the incongruity of their character with the +new neighborhood. They had a helpless air, as if nothing remained but +submission to division into regular building lots and the absolute +extinction of rural seclusion and charm. There was the impression of a +faint and futile struggle between city and country, in which, indeed, +for a moment the excellence of each was lost, but the result of which +was not doubtful. + +As the Easy Chair pushed on, it saw in fancy the old pastoral peace and +retirement of the places when they were indeed in the country. It +recalled the noted men of that older day who sought here relaxation and +repose. There was the placid river, on which no restless steamer foamed, +but only silent sloops drifted or careened. Yonder were the leafy coves +under the wooded and rocky banks, from which the Indian had but recently +paddled his canoe. No railroad harmed the virgin shyness of the shore. +It was El Dorado, Arcadia, the land of Goshen. It was the home of peace, +of plenty, of content. + +Such a poet, such a painter, is idealizing memory on a spring afternoon +in the suburbs. It seemed so gross a wrong that sidewalks and gas lamps +and factory chimneys and steam-whistles should invade and devastate the +tranquil fields that indignant imagination filled them as fact with all +the fancies that tranquil fields suggest. Doubtless in the closets of +those quiet houses there were the bones of plenty of old skeletons. +Those spacious, sunny rooms were the scenes of the familiar domestic +tragedies against which not the most romantic of country-houses can shut +the door. Up those steps have swayed and hesitated the doubtful feet of +the oldest son, heir of precious hopes and child of fervent prayers, +hesitating and lingering at hours long past midnight, watched for and +waited for by the mother's heart that breaks but does not falter. In +that broad hall, on the brightest of May mornings, the daughter of the +house has stood, radiant as the day, and crowned with orange blossoms. +There have met the hopes and joys of youth, the tears and blessings and +farewells of older years. The pretty pageant filled the house, and faded +slowly and utterly away. The old house has known, too, the solemn shadow +that falls on every house. It seems to regretful memory the abode of +unchanging delight. But from that door the slow procession moved, and +those whose hospitable smile and word had hallowed every room returned +no more. They are gone, the bride, the parent, the friend; "they are all +gone, the old familiar faces," the age, the society, the politics, the +interests. They are all gone. Why should not the house go too? + +It was early spring, and the Easy Chair, looking up, saw half a dozen +kites flying in the air. A little further, and laughing girls were +skipping rope. Boys were spinning peg-tops and playing marbles and +driving hoops. The boys and girls who lived in the quiet old +country-house did the same a hundred years ago. They flew kites and +drove hoops, and that little bride skipped rope and carried dolls. The +age, the society, the politics, the interests, were very different. They +are, indeed, all changed. But tops are changeless, marbles are immortal, +and so are boys and girls. They know nothing of the old house over which +the Easy Chair becomes pensive. They belong to the new time, which +demands its demolition. + + + + +PROPER AND IMPROPER. + + +LONGFELLOW has commemorated in a beautiful sonnet the +delightful evenings of Mrs. Kemble's readings; and certainly it was a +singular pleasure to see and to hear her. Her historic name associated +her with her uncle John and her aunt Mrs. Siddons, and she had always +the port of one conscious of a famous lineage. She used to say, with a +half-humorous, half-proud emphasis, that she belonged to her majesty's +players, and in her presence it was easy to believe that her majesty's +players were an important body in the state. Her power of identification +with the various characters in the plays, and the skill with which she +maintained the individuality throughout, were always remarkable, and the +symmetry and completeness of the whole performance left nothing to be +criticised. The only observation that suggested itself might be that +the stage traditions were evident in her rendering. But that, in turn, +only suggested the further question whether the traditions were not +worthy of respect. Dramatic and histrionic forms of art, like all +others, are but representations of nature under certain conditions and +limitations. They are not an imitation, a fac-simile, and every man will +be at odds with any work of art in any kind who does not bear this in +mind. + +The spectator complains of unnaturalness upon the stage; the substance +of his feeling is that people do not talk and act so in ordinary life. +That is true; but if the theatre should show us men and women doing upon +the stage what they do in ordinary life, the theatre would be no more +attractive than the street or the parlor. It is not the spectacle of +ordinary life that we expect to see in the theatre. It is a view of +human life and nature under ideal conditions, and it is as irrelevant to +require that the player shall seem to us like the man with whom we have +been transacting business as that he should speak plain prose instead +of blank verse. If Mrs. Kemble had read the words of Rosalind or of +Portia, of Shylock or Mercutio, as if they were neighbors of hers and +people whom we were in the habit of meeting, the effect would have been +ludicrous. When she came in--the Fanny Kemble of Talfourd and of the +wild enthusiasm of the grandfathers of to-day, ripened into the comely +and queenly woman--and seated herself at the little table on which the +great volume lay open, she was the magician who was to open to us the +realm of faery, the world of imagination, not to take us back into the +familiar scenes of the world of New York or Chicago. The spell was +resistless. The deep, rich, melodious voice flowed out like an enchanted +singing river, along which we glided seeing visions and dreaming dreams. +To sit and listen to her was like sitting and watching Titian laying on +the canvas the gorgeous tints which before our eyes took on the forms of +men and angels. A rarer, a more refined delight, which of us has known? +Did it ever occur to us that Mrs. Kemble was doing anything improper, +anything unwomanly? In the wonderful picture of Portia that "her voice's +music" drew, was there anything a little repulsive, a little unfeminine? + +This question was suggested to the Easy Chair by the remark of one of +the most devoted and delighted of all the listeners at those readings, +that he was very sorry to see that the University of London had decided +to admit women to all its degrees upon precisely equal terms with men. +The secret reason of the regret, of course, is the feeling that there +would be something unwomanly in the act of competing for a degree which +would open the pursuit of professions--especially the medical +profession--which are usually and often exclusively cultivated by men. + +Yet, when pressed, the Easy Chair's interlocutor admitted that there was +nothing more essentially unfeminine in the practice of medicine by a +woman than in the recitation of Shakespeare for the entertainment of a +miscellaneous crowd. It is a question of habit, not of instinct, nor of +principle, nor of reason. When the old Greek and Oriental idea of +absolute seclusion and subordination is abandoned, a woman's reading +from Shakespeare for the pleasure of the public is an action not +different in kind from her practising medicine or serving on a school +committee. This generation, however, is more used to the one than to the +other. It is a habit, nothing more. + +Charles Lamb regrets in one of his later essays that "we have no +_rationale_ of sauces, or theory of mixed flavors; as to show why +cabbage is reprehensible with roast beef, laudable with bacon; why the +haunch of mutton seeks the alliance of currant jelly, the shoulder +civilly declineth it; why loin of veal (a pretty problem), being itself +unctuous, seeketh the adventitious lubricity of melted butter; and why +the same part in pork, not more oleaginous, abhorreth from it; ... why +oysters in death rise up against the contamination of brown sugar, while +they are posthumously amorous of vinegar; why the sour mango and the +sweet jam by turns court and are accepted by the compilable mutton +hash--she not yet decidedly declaring for either. We are as yet but in +the empirical stage of cookery." + +It is not in cookery alone that this mystery is still unsolved. Why, for +instance, should it seem a womanly use of Heaven's gift that Jenny Lind +should sing for the pleasure of a thousand men, and something strange +and unfeminine that Portia should plead with eloquence in a court to +save a hapless woman from prison or the cord? Why is it fitting that +Mrs. Kemble should professionally read Shakespeare, and "queer" that she +should professionally attend women in peril and sickness? Do we not +naturally and logically glide into the part of the citation from Lamb +that we just now omitted?--"why salmon (a strong sapor _per se_) +fortifieth its condition with the mighty lobster sauce, whose embraces +are fatal to the delicater relish of the turbot." Must we not say that +we are as yet but in the rudimentary knowledge of what is and is not +feminine? + +When the example of the London University is not singular, but when all +opportunities are opened equally to all talent and vocation, when it is +not forbidden a woman to do any honorable work for which she is by +nature and by study and training properly equipped, unless the laws of +nature fail, will any greater catastrophe befall, will there be any more +signal reversion of the order of things, than if cabbage should come at +last to be eaten with roast beef, and currant jelly cement an alliance +with the mutton's shoulder? + + + + +BELINDA AND THE VULGAR. + + +IT is perhaps because the Easy Chair sometimes discusses +questions of behavior that it is occasionally asked to express an +opinion upon more difficult social points. Thus it was lately requested +to say whether it did not think that the great want of our society is a +social standard. The inquiry was made by the lovely Belinda, who was +charmingly dressed for a select party, and the Easy Chair was obliged to +own that it did not at once comprehend the scope of the inquiry, and to +seek an explanation. As Belinda proceeded to elucidate her meaning it +seemed to be tolerably plain that she was contemplating some kind of +rank, or visible and recognized distinction, which should separate +"society" from what is not society, and it was impossible not to feel +that, however high the dividing line, and however small the circle +which it enclosed, she was herself included within it. + +The Easy Chair thereupon described to her a conversation which it held +long ago with a distinguished man upon English social life and the +advantages of an aristocracy. The distinguished man's views were very +much like those which are set forth in Disraeli's "Sibyl" and +"Coningsby," and which were known forty years ago as those of Young +England. They proposed a national life blended of feudal romance and +modern philanthropy. There was to be a gracious nobility of very blue +blood which had been clarified in the veins of the Plantagenets, who +were to live in stately castles in the midst of superb demesnes, and to +be exceedingly good to their tenants and retainers, for whom there were +to be May-poles, and flitches of bacon at Christmas, and greased poles +to climb at appropriate times, and sacks to run races in, and who were +to be visited at their neat little cottages, when they were ill, by the +ladies from the castle, and who were to be industrious and obedient and +humble and grateful, and, above all things, to know their place. The +nobility were to own the land, and govern the country, and live in +splendid idleness, and the happy peasantry were to do all the work, and +bow respectfully when the nobility passed by, and go to bed when the +curfew tolled, and to make no trouble. + +This was the Young England programme, and the Arcadia of the Disraeli +novel. And this also showed its familiar features in the talk of the +distinguished man as he bewailed the social bareness of American life +and descanted upon the charm of an ancient and well-ordered society. But +when the Easy Chair mischievously asked him whether he did not think +that he might tire of the greased pole, and the dance upon the lawn, and +the gracious patronage, and the respectful gratitude, the amusing +bewilderment of the distinguished man showed that in his admiration of +the society that he described he assumed always that he was to belong to +the class that lived in the stately castles and benignly condescended to +the humble cottagers. His view, therefore, was very simple. It was +merely that he should like to live in splendid idleness, steeped in +luxury, and surrounded by respectful servants. + +Belinda listened to this story, of which the Easy Chair made no +application, with a slight blush; and to the polite inquiry, what kind +of social standard she contemplated, she responded that she meant a +certain fixed line which should exclude the vulgar. But she was +immediately silent, as if reflecting upon a difficult proposition, and +did not answer when she was asked what she thought would be the +consequence of removing the vulgar from the circles which she considered +most select. + +Her benevolent attention invited further question, especially as at the +same moment a lady entered the room who bore one of the most noted +family names in the country, and most familiar in fashionable annals, a +family which delights to trace its lineage to a royal source. This proud +dame had married her daughter as if by main force to a coroneted lord of +hereditary acres. It was a familiar fact of the society in which she +was a conspicuous figure, and it was impossible not to ask: "Can there +be anything more coarsely vulgar than to sell a daughter for money and a +title to a man for whom she does not care; and shall we begin to erect +the social standard by expelling the vulgar offender?" + +Belinda was still silent, and the brilliant rooms began to fill and +murmur with a gay company. Among them came the loud and diamonded Mrs. +Smasher, to whose unparalleled fetes even Belinda would be almost +willing to request a card. The Smasher lineage is not renowned or regal; +the Smasher mind is imperfectly educated; the Smasher manners are those +of the suddenly rich who are not also suddenly refined. + +"Is any conceivable vulgarity greater than the Smasher vulgarity, O +Belinda; and shall we continue these exercises by expelling also this +essentially vulgar person?" + +Belinda was still silent. She has remained silent even to this day. + + + + +DECAYED GENTILITY. + + +DECAYED gentility has great interest for the +novel-reader, and the man and woman who "have seen better days" are +familiar figures in actual life. Hampton Court is regarded by some +travellers with pensive regard as a kind of almshouse for this class of +the indigent, and institutions nearer home are described with a +deferential courtesy and avoidance as homes for decayed gentlewomen. It +cannot be pleasant to the persons themselves to be so described, but the +founders of such places have perhaps a comfortable sense of reflected +honor, as if the impulse to provide a retreat of the kind were of itself +a sign of "very gentility." Despite the plaintive little plea which the +description itself urges for this decayed class of our fellow-beings, +the people who "have seen better days" are not generally an engaging +multitude. A person whose chief distinction is that he was once more +prosperous than he is now seems to renounce any present claim upon +consideration, and to offer his inability as a ground of regard. It is +an appeal to pity, but pity of old has a disagreeable relative. + +The pathos of the appeal lies, first, in the sense of contrast, and then +in the spiritual rather than the material poverty which it discloses. +The lady who lets lodgings, and whose air and the allusions of whose +conversation constantly suggest that she has seen better days, is a +person who is mastered by circumstances, and therefore does not compel +respect. But a woman who is the perfectly self-respecting lady fulfils +simply the duty of the moment with no conscious appeal for sympathy; and +if by chance you discover that she has been more prosperous, the fact +that she has not the conceit of it strengthens your regard. For it is no +personal credit to have been more prosperous. As your landlady shows you +the convenience of the room, she lets fall that her father the Bishop, +or her uncle the Senator, or her lamented cousin the millionaire would +be deeply grieved if he could know that his kinswoman was actually +letting lodgings. + +"Then, madam, you have seen better days?" + +"Ah, sir--" + +But how is it personally creditable to the good woman that her uncle was +honorable and her cousin rich? She recalls the circumstances of others +at the expense of her own character. The lodger wishes to hire rooms +upon their own merits. He resents the bribery of pity to take them. If +they are a little stuffy, they certainly seem no airier because his +landlady once sat upon a crimson sofa and read novels all day long. If +some philanthropist builds a retreat to which she can retire gratis, and +pass her declining years in regretful recollection of the crimson sofa, +so let it be. Such a retreat may be dedicated to sentimental repining. +But a woman of spirit and character never becomes a decayed gentlewoman, +however destitute she may be. + +This refusal to succumb to circumstances and to make the best of it, +which is all that can be asked, is charmingly sketched in Lamb's Captain +Jackson. The Captain's frugal table had the air of a feast, such was the +magic of his cheerfulness. His plain cheese was served like Stilton or +Roquefort, and slipping a shred of it upon his guest's plate, he +contented himself with the rind, gayly declaring that the nearer the +bone the sweeter the meat. Poverty was no pleasanter to him than to the +rest of us. But had he gone to the almshouse he would not have +complained, and in no word or sigh of his would you have discovered that +he had seen better days. + +The family of Captain Jackson is by no means extinct. The other day the +Easy Chair met one of them in Broadway--an elderly gentleman in a +well-brushed, exceedingly threadbare suit, moving briskly along the +pavement. His greeting was alert and courteous. There was a little chat +of the day's news, a gay jest or two, and then good-morning. Half a +century ago this was a young man about town, the heir of a fortune, a +youth of "family" who dressed and drove and dined and danced like the +golden youth of to-day. When the first Italian opera troupe came, he was +nightly behind the scenes. In the circle of Knickerbocker wits he was +one. He wrote verses, and had a kind of literary name. His portrait was +published in a weekly paper. He sat at the good tables. His name was +Fortunio. + +Everything is gone but the cheerful spirit. Nobody knows exactly how he +lives, but only that it is in extreme poverty. But he preserves the tone +of prosperity. He writes notes in a beautiful and graceful hand upon +very cheap paper. "You remember our conversation the other morning about +'Anstey's Bath Guide'; and if you will look in your _Fraser_ for this +month, you will find that I was right." Here is the assumption that +every gentleman takes _Fraser_, and that your correspondent may have +dipped into his before you have looked at yours. Doubtless he had seen +it--at some reading-room, perhaps, or on Brentano's counter. + +One day we had spoken of a famous author. A little while afterwards came +a comely package containing an old and choice work of his, and a note: +"Dear Easy Chair,--I thought it might be a pleasure to you to own this +rather uncommon copy of an author whom you evidently admire, and which +it is a pleasure to my shelves to spare." What a fine air of elegant +leisure in a library! But the "shelves" were a few remnant books, +probably worthless to sell, but affording the friendly soul true +satisfaction in giving. Fortunio is not a decayed gentleman. His +gentility, in the best sense, is in full vigor. Everything but that, +indeed, is decayed. But there is no unmanly moping about better days, +although in few men's lives could there be a sharper contrast between +the past and the present. + +This cheerful steadiness is largely due to temperament, but it is not +therefore beyond those who have not the same temperament. Character can +emulate it. "It's bad enough to be poor," said one of the Captain +Jackson family, "but it's a great deal worse to be sulky too." It is +very easy, indeed, for prosperity to preach resignation to adversity, +and to urge it to bear up bravely. But it is a true gospel, although it +be easy to preach. Pure Lacrima Christi is as precious when poured from +a glass of Murano as from a pewter mug. + + + + +THE PHARISEE. + + +THERE is no more beautiful and impressive passage in the +New Testament than that which contrasts the Pharisee thanking God that +he is not as other men are and the Publican who asks mercy as a sinner. +But there is no passage, also, which has been more ingeniously +perverted, and it is exceedingly amusing to hear Jeremy Diddler or +Robert Macaire or Dick Turpin railing at honest and industrious men as +Pharisees because they prefer honesty and industry to knavery. + +The taste for honesty and sobriety seems natural and simple enough, and +the qualities themselves quite as valuable as those of Diddler, or even +of Jonathan Wild the Great. But Jonathan will have none of them. They +are Pharisaic impertinences. They are impracticable and visionary +speculations, which assume heaven while yet we stand upon the green +earth; and Mr. Wild, who assures us that he does not desire to pass +himself off as better than other men, declares, with the noble candor +which distinguishes him, that simple, downright dishonesty is good +enough for him. He does not, indeed, choose that precise word, but he +conveys that precise idea. + +'Tis a good trick, and it is generally sure of applause. But it is only +another version of a familiar maxim, that when you have no argument, you +must abuse the plaintiff's attorney. As a matter of fact, your client +did steal the handkerchief, or forge the name, or fire the barn. But I +ask you, gentlemen of the jury--you may well say--and I appeal to all +good citizens, is not this ostentation of superior virtue, this fine air +of moral indignation toward my client simply because he happened to slip +his hand into the wrong pocket, a little suspicious? Are we angels? I +ask your honor is this work-a-day world the celestial seat and the Mount +of Vision, and is a man so very much better than his fellows merely +because he rolls up his sanctimonious eyes with the Pharisee and thanks +God that he is holier than other men? Nay, gentlemen, have we not in +this sublime and immortal parable a Divine warning against this +Phariseeism which denounces the slides and slips of our common frail +humanity? I ask you, gentlemen, by your verdict not to place a premium +upon that most odious of all repulsive arrogancies--Phariseeism. + +But it is upon the political platform that the gibes and sneers at +Phariseeism are intended to be most stinging. The Honorable Jonathan +Wild the Great comes out strong, as his henchmen truly declare, against +his political opponents. With one vast comprehensive sneer he brands +them as Pharisees, as if he were snorting consuming fire. It is not +surprising, because they have had their eye upon Jonathan. They have +seen him in bad company. They have caught him "conveying" public +treasure. They know all about him, and he knows that they know all about +him. He called himself Tweed, and he made a mesh of statutes to +legalize robbery. But how good he was to the poor! How he distributed +coal to the chilly! How he planted pinks and daisies in the City Hall +Park, and made the Battery to bloom as the rose! How he received wedding +gifts for his daughter from our best citizens; and how generously they +subscribed to erect his statue to commemorate that bright flower of the +State! And now a sneaking, mousing gang of would-be archangels prate +about common honesty, and demand that public hands shall be clean hands! +Fellow-citizens, Jonathan Wild is a man of the people. He doesn't +pretend to be higher and purer and better than other men. He didn't +graduate at a college, indeed, and he never read the Iliad in the +original Greek. No, fellow-citizens, there is no cambric handkerchief +and oh-de-cologne about him. He is just one of the boys. He whoops it up +with the plain people, and, thank God, whatever he is, he is not a +Pharisee. + +The argument is ingenious. It does not deny that he is a thief. It only +insists that those who assert it are Pharisees--and Pharisees are so +odious that it is much better to scoff at them than to punish Mr. Wild. +There was a good old countryman who had been early taught to take men as +they are, which means to consider them liars and rascals. One day a +neighbor remarked to him that he thought that the old man had lost the +money with which he bought voters, because, he said, while they take +your money, the other side take their votes. "The deuce they do!" said +the old countryman. "Yes," said the other; "and you will find, in the +long-run, that political honesty is the best political policy." "You +think so, do you?" was the reply. "Well, do you know that you're a +blanked metaphysical Pharisee?" + +It is obvious that when the advocacy of common honesty in any relation +of life is savagely and scornfully decried as Phariseeism, it is because +somebody's withers are wrung. It is a plea of guilty. It is the cry of +Squeers when the picture of Dotheboys Hall was displayed to the world: +"I didn't do it." If a man demands honesty in politics, and it is +retorted, "You're a Pharisee," it is because the dishonesty cannot be +denied or disproved, and the retort is therefore a summons to all honest +men to look out for thieves. + +To deride the demand for decency is to concede that anything but +indecency is impracticable. If it be only Pharisees who insist that +sugar shall not be sanded, that milk shall not be swill-fed, that coffee +shall not be chiccory, that nutmegs shall not be wood, that cloth shall +not be shoddy, that employes of the government shall not be forced to +pay for their places, that public officers shall be honest, and that +government shall not be venal, it is pleasant to think how many +intelligent, upright, industrious, and practical Americans are +Pharisaical. + + + + +LADY MAVOURNEEN ON HER TRAVELS. + + +THE passenger in the crowded street railway car is often +disturbed by the conscious absorption of his masculine neighbors in +their newspapers when a woman enters and looks for a seat. If she be +young and pretty, there are apparently seats enough, however great the +crowd, and even if a man is slow to rise, he may yet, with Mr. Readywit, +exhort his son sitting upon his knee to get up and give the lady his +seat. The impatient passenger, in his indignation at the want of +courtesy upon the part of others, sometimes forgets, indeed, to rise +himself. But there is always some Nathan comfortably seated farther away +whose amused look says to the impatient but stationary David, "Thou art +the man." + +It would be very unfair to generalize from this frequent situation that +the American is uncourteous. On the contrary, he is the most truly +polite man among men of all nations. Lady Mavourneen, who is familiar +with the society and the manners of many countries, and who has been +always accustomed to hear Americans in Europe described everywhere and +with pungent emphasis as "those Americans," was amazed upon coming here +to find universal courtesy. "In the street or at the railway station," +she said, "if I ask anybody any question, I receive the most prompt and +polite reply. Everybody is at my service, not with much bowing or +flourishing, but heartily and honestly. I have never seen such universal +courtesy." When she was asked whether she had observed the absorption of +the street-car passengers in their newspapers, she smiled and said that +she had never been obliged to stand, because some one was sure to rise. +But in Paris she said that often as she was passing to a seat Monsieur +Crapeaud, raising his hat politely, and saying, warmly, _Pardon!_ +pressed by and secured the seat. + +Lady Mavourneen, who tells a little story with great humor, described a +scene in a crowded church in Paris. An apparent lady was disturbing +everybody by pushing along toward a distant chair in the row, when Lady +Mavourneen arose to allow her to pass more easily, and the apparent lady +immediately slipped into my lady's chair, and held it fast, saying only, +in reply to her earnest remonstrance: "Madame, you left the chair; I +took it. You have lost it. Voila!" A vagabond of this kind took the seat +of a gentleman who had risen to help a lady off a street car. When the +gentleman returned he mentioned to the interloper that it was his seat. +The interloper shrugged his shoulders, remarked that it was an empty +seat when he took it, and that he should continue to occupy it. "If you +don't get out of that seat, I'll take you out," was the rejoinder of the +gentleman, whose shoulders were broad. The squatter scowled and +abdicated. + +Lady Mavourneen found, what every lady will find, that she could travel +everywhere in "the States" alone, with entire safety and surrounded by +the utmost courtesy. The word "lady" with which she will be accosted by +hackmen and porters and conductors is spoken with kindly respect, and +even if some person in a lady's garb thrusts herself into the cue of +passengers slowly advancing to the window of the ticket office to buy +tickets, there may be sour looks and amazed stares, but she will +generally have her way. So great is our courtesy that we honor the +counterfeit claim. The source of the most serious objection to the +demand of suffrage for women is the secret apprehension that men will +lose their sincere deference, and treat women as they treat other men, +thus robbing life of the tender romance of chivalric courtesy. Emerson +says of the successful lover and his mistress, "She was heaven, while he +pursued her as a star; can she be heaven if she stoops to such an one as +he?" + +Yet, while this feeling is frequent, and seems to many very plausible, +it is the true respect of the American for women which is the real +strength of this very movement. The European sentiment for woman is +still somewhat mediaeval. She is still the goddess of the troubadours and +the minnesingers, but a goddess who is treated as the South-sea +Islanders treat their gods, beating them when they are not propitious. +To the American she is Wordsworth's "Phantom of Delight" seen upon +nearer view, and it is idle to prattle about her "sphere," as if she did +not instinctively know it more truly than men. The universal courtesy +which Lady Mavourneen remarked is essential respect and kindliness of +feeling, which no more permits a man to gild his selfishness with a +"Pardon" and a touching of his hat than it permits him to strike a +woman. + +Yet although courtesy is essentially in the heart, and is kind feeling +rather than respectful manner, it is not worth while to despise the +manner. If we must choose between the good heart and suavity of address, +between Boythorne and Lovelace, of course we shall choose Boythorne. But +why not both? Why not the _mens sana in corpore sano?_ In "The Iron +Pen," Longfellow says: + + "And in words not idle and vain + I shall answer and thank you again + For the gift, and the grace of the gift, + O beautiful Helen of Maine!" + +It is not only the gift, it is the grace in giving which completes the +charm. + +The young American of to-day puffs his cigarette in the face of his +partner on the balcony, in the boat, or in the wagon, and smiles at the +frilled Lothario of yesterday bowing in his flowered coat and paying +stately compliments as stiff as her brocade to the dame whom he +addresses. The youth is right in saying that the flowered coat and the +stately compliment were the dress and the speech of an old sinner. But +he would be right also if he remembered that familiarity breeds +contempt, and that he may wisely distrust his feeling for any woman who +does not put him upon his good behavior. The courtesy which Lady +Mavourneen observed in the railway station and in the street was plain, +but it was genuine. Respect naturally produces courtesy. Good manners +are the cultivation of natural courtesy: the gift and the grace of the +gift. + +This was the chief remembrance, and it was a unique and precious +treasure, which Lady Mavourneen carried back to Europe from America. + + + + +GENERAL SHERMAN. + + +NONE of his great contemporaries was universally beloved +more than General Sherman, perhaps none so much. The rare happiness was +his not only of becoming famous by taking a great part in a great +historic achievement, but of the complete enjoyment of fame. His later +years forecast the future. He saw not only that his name would be +remembered, but remembered with personal affection. Very few men have +been able to foresee this, and very few more clearly than Sherman. It is +due not to achievement alone, but to personal quality blended with +achievement. + +In his last years he was wholly withdrawn from public affairs, and with +extraordinary tact, although constantly in the public eye and mind, and +although the sense of his historic personality, so to speak, was +constant, he refrained from declarations upon pending public questions, +and the remarks of his interviews were not devoted to subjects of +general controversy. This was doubtless the result of his accurate +apprehension of his relation to the country. He had been educated by it, +and had served it as a soldier. He had strong convictions and was frank +of speech, but he belonged to all. He could not well be a common +partisan. He was apparently untouched by political ambition. If he had +felt its spur at all, he was happily able to prefer the general +permanent affectionate popular regard to the fierce enthusiasm of a +political campaign and the passionate ardor of partisanship. + +Whatever the reason, he held aloof. Perhaps at one moment, had he +assented, his name might have been caught up in a vast and tumultuous +political convention, and to a burning and skilful appeal to patriotism +and the still glowing memories of the war a palpitating party might have +responded, and made him its leader. But if others doubted and hesitated +he did not. He comprehended the situation as in a comprehensive and +far-extending military movement. He knew himself, and he refused. The +opportunity for which the most illustrious and the most famous of +Americans have longed and labored and pined offered itself to him, +unsought, unwished, and he smiled it away. + +Among the chief figures of the epoch of the war probably Lincoln and +Sherman were the most individual and original. The most romantic and +picturesque of the many renowned events of that time was the march to +the sea. It has already a distinctive character, like that of the Greeks +in Xenophon's story of the ten thousand. When the news of its successful +issue reached this part of the country, it served to show the simple and +honest patriotism of one of the more unfortunate of the Union generals. +Burnside, after the explosion of the mine at Petersburg, had been +relieved, and was staying with a company of friends at a country-house +on Narragansett Bay. The company were all sitting one morning upon the +spacious piazza, when a messenger rode up and announced Sherman's +success. Burnside's delight was enthusiastic. All thought of himself +vanished. The good cause only was in his mind and heart, and, running to +his wife, he joyfully kissed her, saying, "I know that the company feels +as I do, and will forgive me." + +It was the feeling of a soldier as simple and true-hearted and +patriotic, but not so fortunate, as Sherman; and it was the same candor +and manly sweetness of nature that softened Sherman's voice whenever he +spoke of the soldiers of the war to whom fate had seemed to be unkind. +He is gone, the last of the old familiar figures, some of his old foes +bearing him tenderly to the grave. And are not Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, +Sheridan, Porter, Seward, Chase, Stanton, Sumner, and their fellows, +historic figures worthy to rank with the elder Revolutionary group dear +to all Americans? + + + + +THE AMERICAN GIRL. + + +A PLEASING and constant topic of English writers is the +American girl. One of the later commentators says of her, "American +girls have shown they can receive, travel, and live without chaperons, +escorts, or husbands, and are fast developing a bright, clear, +intelligent, self-reliant, courageous, and refreshing variety of the +human race." And again, "Even if in future years the slender Yankee +belle is hidden behind the ampler beauty of the English matron, we may +still hear from her lips the wit and shrewdness, the acute accent, the +intelligent question, and the rapid repartee that proclaim her original +nationality." The "society" pictures in the papers and magazines +represent the dismay of the British matron with marriageable daughters +as she surveys the avatar of the American divinity and rival. The +essential differences of society in the two countries are at once +suggested, and the alarm of the watchful parent is justified. + +The charm of Miss Austen's novels is their acknowledged fidelity of +portraiture of the society with which they deal. They are miniatures, +but the likeness is wrought with exquisite skill of detail, and as the +American reader reflects he perceives that the great object of the game +which they describe is eligible marriage. Indeed the motive of the novel +in general is love and marriage. We open the book, we are at once +introduced to Paul, and presently to Virginia, and we proceed over the +pages until we hear the approaching beat of the Wedding March, which in +fact we have heard from the first page, and we know that the end is at +hand. But in the English novel of society, although the theme be +marriage, it is not necessarily love. If that were essential, a host of +rival fair ones with golden locks would bring no pang to the maternal +bosom, because she would know that love will find out the one among the +thousand. + +The passages that we have quoted apparently describe by contrast, which +is a fact which does not seem to have occurred to the writer. Doubtless +at heart he is loyal to the English girl, and does not admit even in +debate that her supremacy of maidenhood can be disputed. When he says +that American girls have shown that they can receive, travel, and live +without chaperons, escorts, or husbands, he seems to mean that they have +shown this distinctively as compared with other girls. When he adds that +they are fast developing a bright, clear, intelligent, self-reliant, +courageous, and refreshing variety of the human race, can he mean that +those words describe a new variety of girl, and that it is not perfectly +familiar in England? So in the other passage, when, supposing the +American girl transformed into the British matron, he remarks, with +evident admiration, "we may still hear from her lips the wit and +shrewdness, the acute accent, the intelligent question, and the rapid +repartee that proclaim her original nationality," would he have us +understand that these are not the characteristics of the British matron +of to-day? Or does he intimate only that the coming of the Americans +will but enlarge the number of these delightful ladies? + +The writer certainly seems to describe by contrast, but he has wisely +left a little cloud in which to envelop his retreat in case of +emergency. Certainly we need not press him. Whatever he may think or say +of the English girl, he has spoken well and truly of her American +sister. His description applies to the girl who grows up amid the +average conditions of American life, the girl who is portrayed in her +more jejune condition in Henry James's Daisy Miller. The two chief +qualities of that young woman, as represented by the shrewd and subtle +artist, are self-respect and self-reliance. The perplexity of the +phenomenon to the foreign reader lies in the fact that she does what the +European girl without self-respect does. + +A distinguished writer in New York, no longer living, once said to the +Easy Chair, with an air of consternation: "Do you know that the best +girls in New York go without escort to the matinees at the Academy? +Goodness knows what will be the end of it!" The good man was seriously +troubled. He seemed to apprehend that the young woman who could go to a +matinee without an escort would probably run off with a circus troupe, +and presently ride--in a very short skirt--bare-backed horses in the +ring. He evidently felt that the young women whom he had seen were in +grave danger of losing maidenly reserve, and that their conduct betrayed +a want of refinement of feeling. The secret of his alarm lay in the fact +that the social conventions of foreign society had acquired in his mind +the force of rules of morality. He shared the feelings of the delightful +lady who remarked that in her opinion it was immodest to go abroad +without gloves. Nothing is more common than this confusion of mind, and +one of the advantages of genuinely American society is that it +dissipates such illusions. The Lady Mavourneen, who was familiar with +the finest society both in France and England, said that the respect +shown to women in this country was so sincere and universal that she +should not hesitate to cross the continent alone. Why, then, should the +Easy Chair's friend have been troubled that young women went unattended +to the concert at the Academy? Every man there would have been their +instant defender against insult. But they went, and they were allowed to +go, because the insult was more improbable than fire, while the defence +was sure. + +In what is called distinctively society in large cities there is a great +deal of the feeling evinced by the observer at the Academy. There is +abundant regard for misplaced conventions. Young women in Vienna and +Paris who go unattended are generally working-women or another class, +and as working-women are not respected by Lovelace and Lothario, they +are exposed to insult. To avoid the chance of insult, therefore, a young +woman must have an escort in a partially civilized city like Paris or +Vienna. But no presumption lies against any woman in America. Her +self-respect and self-reliance are unquestioned, and American women, +old and young, are perpetually passing in railway trains by day and +night from one part of the country to another, unsuspected and +unsuspecting. + +In a country where social classes are not permanent or rigidly defined, +as hitherto in America they have not been, the daughter as well as the +son of the house contemplates the possibility of self-support. In such a +country the harem view of the sphere and occupation of woman, however +modified, wholly disappears. The word "obey" gradually vanishes from the +marriage service, or is smoothed away by interpretation. The ideal of +woman changes, and, as we think in America, improves. All the excellent +qualities which the London writer attributes to the American girl spring +from this change, from social conditions which foster self-respect and +self-reliance. The demand of the suffrage, the rise of the woman's +college, the challenge to the great universities to lift up their gates +that woman may come in, show no decline of the feminine ideal of woman, +but its transformation from the fancy of a goddess or a toy into the +old Scriptural conception of the helpmeet. + +The British matron, as she scrutinizes what she may hold to be an +invader of her realm, will not find that in any feminine quality or +grace, even to the most exquisite taste in dress, or delicate charm of +manner, or essential refinement of mind, Pocahontas defers to Boadicea. +Where the American imitates the English or any other, as when the +English girl affects the French, she must suffer from the inevitable +inferiority of all imitation. When her self-reliance is boisterous, or +without tact and fine perception, Daisy Miller will be as crude and +distasteful as Lady Clara Vere de Vere is heartless and cruel. But +Rosalind and Viola and Beatrice, and Tennyson's Eleanore and Adeline and +Margaret, meet in the American a sister of the same lineage as their +own, bred in an atmosphere most fortunate and fair. + + + + +ANNUS MIRABILIS. + + +This year, the centenary of the opening of our national constitutional +epoch, will be a Washington year. As on a saint's day there is a special +service in his honor, so through all this year there will be especial +remembrance of Washington, and natural self-congratulation that in him +we have a glory beyond that of other nations. The last striking tribute +to him is also most timely, for it is that of Mr. Bryce in his "American +Commonwealth," whose publication happily coincided with the opening of +this _annus mirabilis_. He says, in speaking of Hamilton's death, "One +cannot note the disappearance of this brilliant figure, to Europeans the +most interesting in the earlier history of the republic, without the +remark that his countrymen seem to have never, either in his lifetime or +afterward, duly recognized his splendid gifts." The explanation of this +seeming want of appreciation is, however, very characteristic, for it +lies in the instinctive American regard for morality. + +Mr. Bryce touches it when he proceeds: "Washington, indeed, is a far +more perfect character. Washington stands alone and unapproachable, like +a snow-peak rising above its fellows into the clear air of morning, with +a dignity, constancy, and purity which have made him the ideal type of +civic virtue to succeeding generations. No greater benefit could have +befallen the republic than to have such a type set from the first before +the eye and mind of the people." That benefit is incalculable, and it +will be acknowledged with every form of stately ceremonial and of +eloquent enthusiasm during this year. + +The great event of 1789 was Washington's inauguration as President, and +it is the most important event in the annals of the city. The +cosmopolitan character of the city from its settlement and in the early +time of the little town, when it was said that more than a dozen +different languages were spoken in its streets, down to the present, +when it is the third or fourth city in size upon the globe, has always +checked the sentiment of local pride which is so great a force in the +development of a community. Among all the original States New York has +seemed to care least for its significant events and its great men. That +the Revolution was tactically largely a contest for the control of the +Hudson, that the contest culminated at Saratoga, and that the new +national order which resulted from the Revolution began in the city of +New York, are facts which are known, indeed, but which have not grown +into a proud tradition universally cherished and constantly repeated and +celebrated like similar great events in New England. + +This year, however, the last event, Washington's inauguration, will be +the occasion of a great national observance. The President and cabinet, +Senators and Representatives and judges, distinguished delegates from +every State, will attend, and there will be religious and oratorical +exercises and civil and military display. One fact, indeed, invests such +a celebration with especial triumph. It is that while the government +which was organized a hundred years ago was unprecedented in form and +wholly untried in the experience of states, and while it was regarded +with interest but with incredulity as essentially unequal to the great +shocks of fate to which other states have succumbed, it has passed, +within the century, not only unshaken but strengthened, through the most +tremendous and prolonged ordeal to which such a government could be +submitted. + +Chief among its extraordinary good fortunes at its organization was that +of the presence of a man without whom at that time its establishment +would have been hardly possible. The French Minister at the time of the +inauguration wrote home to his government that it was the universal +confidence in Washington which secured assent to the Constitution. John +Lamb, who was unfriendly to the Constitution, told Hamilton in Wall +Street that only his faith in Washington overcame his repugnance to it. +The hour had plainly come for union, but except for the man it is +probable that union would not then have been effected. + +The value of Washington to his country transcends that of any other man +to any land. Take him from the Revolution, and all the fervor of the +Sons of Liberty would seem to have been a wasted flame. Take him from +the constitutional epoch, and the essential condition of union, personal +confidence in a leader, would have been wanting. Franklin, when the work +of the Constitutional Convention was completed, said that until then he +had not been sure whether the sun depicted above the President's chair +was a rising or a setting sun, but now his doubt was solved. Yet it was +not the symbolic figure above the chair, it was the man within it, which +should have forecast the great result to that sagacious mind. + +From the moment that independence was secured no man in America saw +more clearly the necessity of national union, or defined more wisely +and distinctly the reasons for it. He is the chief illustration in a +popular government of a great leader who was not also a great orator. +Perhaps that fact gave a solid force to his influence by depriving all +his expressions of a rhetorical character, and preserving in them +throughout a simplicity and moderation which deepened the impression of +his comprehensive sagacity. He was felt as both an inspiring and a +sustaining power in the preliminary movement for union, and by natural +selection he was both President of the Convention and the head of the +government which it instituted. John Adams was Vice-President, and +Hamilton and Jefferson were in the cabinet. After Washington himself, +they were the three most eminent figures in the country. But it is not +possible to conceive any one of them organizing and establishing the new +system without controversy which would have rent it asunder. + +Indeed this year commemorates the auspicious beginning of the most +arduous task which devolved upon Washington, and which transcends that +to which any other man in history has been called. Yet how little in his +performance of that task his countrymen would change! During the course +of the century they have been divided largely upon views of the +Constitution and upon principles of administration, and have engaged in +a long and momentous civil war, but they would certainly not desire that +any chief act of Washington's administration should have been other than +it was. He acted without precedent, but with the calm majesty of +rectitude, and although the serpent of party spirit struck at him as he +retired, no honest partisan to-day either distrusts his motives or +doubts his wisdom. + +It is a benignant fortune that so great a celebration as that of this +year is an act of homage to so great a man. It was his happiness to know +the affectionate reverence in which he was held. The memoirs and letters +of the time show that Washington's was not a tardy and posthumous +greatness, but that those who knew him best honored him most, and that +America was conscious of the worth of her chief citizen. One of the most +striking contemporary personal tributes to him is that of John Bernard, +the English actor, who was in this country at the close of the last +century, and who met Washington near the end of his life, by chance and +without knowing him, near Mount Vernon. + +Bernard had paid a visit to a friend upon the banks of the Potomac, and +was returning upon horseback to Alexandria behind a chaise which seemed +to be in difficulties, and was presently upset. The actor hastened to +the rescue simultaneously with another horseman, and after some +exertions they succeeded in placing the occupants of the chaise--a man +and woman, who were fortunately not injured--again upon their way. After +their departure Bernard's companion politely offered to dust his coat, +and in returning the favor Bernard made a close survey of his +companion. + + "He was a tall, erect, well-made man, evidently advanced in years, + but who seemed to have retained all the vigor and elasticity + resulting from a life of temperance and exercise. His dress was a + blue coat buttoned to his chin and buckskin breeches. Though the + instant he took off his hat I could not avoid the recognition of + familiar lineaments--which, indeed, I was in the habit of seeing on + every sign-post and on every fire-place--still I failed to identify + him." + +Washington recognized Bernard as the actor whom he had "had the pleasure +of seeing perform" in Philadelphia during the previous winter, and after +some pleasant chat an invitation to ride with him to Mount Vernon, only +a mile distant, revealed to Bernard the name of his companion. He was +profoundly impressed, and upon reaching Mount Vernon they found that +Mrs. Washington was indisposed, and the General ordered refreshments +into a little parlor looking upon the Potomac. + +At some length his guest describes the commanding presence of +Washington, in which "a feeling of awe and veneration stole over you." +During a conversation of an hour and a half "he touched on every topic +that I brought before him with an even current of good sense, if he +embellished it with little wit or verbal elegance." + + "When I mentioned to him the difference I perceived between the + inhabitants of New England and of the Southern States, he remarked: + 'I esteem those people greatly; they are the stamina of the Union, + and its greatest benefactors. They are continually spreading + themselves, too, to settle and enlighten less favored quarters. Dr. + Franklin is a New-Englander.' When I remarked that his observations + were flattering to my country, he replied, with great good-humor: + 'Yes, yes, Mr. Bernard, but I consider your country the cradle of + free principles, not their arm-chair. Liberty in England is a sort + of idol; people are bred up in the belief and love of it, but see + little of its doings. They walk about freely, but then it is + between high walls; and the error of its government was in + supposing that after a portion of their subjects had crossed the + sea to live upon a common, they would permit their friends at home + to build up those walls about them.' + + "A black coming in at this moment with a jug of spring-water, I + could not repress a smile, which the General at once interpreted. + 'This may seem a contradiction,' he continued, 'but I think you + must perceive that it is neither a crime nor an absurdity. When we + profess, as our fundamental principle, that liberty is the + inalienable right of every man, we do not include madmen or idiots; + liberty in their hands would become a scourge. Till the mind of the + slave has been educated to perceive what are the obligations of a + state of freedom, and not to confound a man's with a brute's, the + gift would insure its abuse. We might as well be asked to pull down + our old warehouses before trade has increased to demand enlarged + new ones. Both houses and slaves were bequeathed to us by + Europeans, and time alone can change them--an event, sir, which, + you may believe me, no man desires more heartily than I do. Not + only do I pray for it on the score of human dignity, but I can + clearly foresee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can + perpetuate the existence of our Union, by consolidating it in a + common bond of principle.'" + +At the end of a century which has vindicated his view so nobly and so +completely it is pleasant to read these words, and in this new and vivid +glimpse of our Washington to find only a stronger title to our +veneration. Bernard recalls the words of De Chastellux: + + "The great characteristic of Washington is the perfect union which + seems to subsist between his moral and physical qualities, so that + the selection of one would enable you to judge of all the rest. If + you are presented with medals of Trajan or Caesar, the features will + lead you to inquire the proportions of their persons; but if you + should discover in a heap of ruins the leg or arm of an antique + Apollo, you would not be curious about the other parts, but content + yourself with the assurance that they were all conformable to those + of a god." + + + + +STATUES IN CENTRAL PARK IN 1889. + + +The Easy Chair recently spoke of the statue of Longfellow which has been +erected in the city of Portland, where he was born, and "Charter Oak," +writing from Connecticut, asks why there is as yet no statue of +Washington Irving in Central Park, the beautiful sylvan resort of his +native city of New York. It is a question which the Easy Chair has +already asked, and which must constantly suggest itself in the spacious +public grounds which are becoming the most comprehensive of Walhallas. +The London _Times_ calls Westminster Abbey "our Walhalla," meaning that +of England only. But the pleasure-ground of New York is truly a +Pantheon. It is dedicated to all the gods except its own. With unwonted +metropolitan modesty the city honors especially those who are not +children of New York. + +Webster is there, but not John Jay; Shakespeare and Scott and Burns and +Dante and Halleck even, but not Irving. It is grotesque that a space set +apart in New York for recreation, and decorated with marbles and bronzes +commemorating illustrious men, and among them authors and statesmen, +should still lack a fitting memorial of the greatest statesman and the +greatest author who were born in the city. Webster's famous panegyric of +Jay, that when the ermine of the Chief-Justiceship fell upon his +shoulders it touched nothing that was not as pure as itself, suggests +that a statue of John Jay might be of peculiar service as an object of +admonitory meditation in the bowery seclusion of a city that more +recently contemplated a statue to Tweed. In Couture's picture of the +"Decadence of the Romans," behind the luxurious and voluptuous groups of +intoxicated revellers in the foreground stand in sad severity the +statues of the elder Romans surveying the scene. In the lofty aspect of +Jay, filling with calm dignity the seclusion of some winding walk, would +there be felt amazement and reproof? Is it to escape the sculptured +rebuke of contrast with the civic heroes of to-day that it is not seen, +and that the eye of the student who reflects that the city of New York +has contributed few very great names to our history seeks in vain the +statue of John Jay in Central Park? + +Irving has every claim to this especial distinction. It is his kindly +genius which made the annals of New Amsterdam the first work of our +creative literature, and which invested the great river of New York with +imperishable romance. Undoubtedly he wrote those annals in characters of +rollicking fun, and even over the heroism of the doughty Peter +Stuyvesant he has cast a humorous halo. But not all our authors combined +are so identified with New York as Irving. His earlier squib of +"Salmagundi" treats "the town" with an arch memory of the Spectator +loitering in London, and his spell was such that in a later day Dennett, +in the _Nation_, happily nicknamed the work of the talent which he had +quickened the Knickerbocker literature. + +The same genius in a tenderer mood colored the shores of the Hudson with +the softest hues of legend. The banks at Tarrytown stretching backward +to Sleepy Hollow, the broad water of the Tappan Zee, the airy heights of +the summer Katskill, were mere landscape, pleasing scenery only, until +Irving suffused them with the rosy light of story, and gave them the +human association which is the crowning charm of landscape. In many a +scene a hundred mountain ranges survey the lower land far reaching to +the ocean. The scene is grand, but nameless, bare of tradition, and +forgotten. But where + + "The mountains look on Marathon, + And Marathon looks on the sea," + +the eye and the heart are enchanted with the story of Greece and its +heroic human associations. + +In the first century of our literature, which is ending, very few of our +authors have laid this legendary spell upon American scenes as Irving +did upon the Hudson. They have not much endeared the country to the +popular imagination, like Burns and Scott in Scotland, where every hill +and stream and bird and flower is reflected individually and fondly in +tale and song. The Easy Chair once met at Niagara a young Scotchman who +had come straight from his native land, and at every turn and glimpse +upon Goat Island and along the banks of the river he fairly bubbled and +murmured with the music of Burns and the other poets about Scottish +streams and scenes, of which he was reminded at every step. So in his +"Poems of Places" Longfellow reveals the charm which literature imparts +to scenery--a charm which he illustrates in his "Nuremberg" and "Belfry +at Bruges," and in his "Lost Youth," with its beautiful pictures of +Portland, a poem which probably gives to a larger number of persons a +more distinct and pleasing interest in that delightful city than +anything else connected with it. + +Irving is the magician who has cast this glamour upon New York, the +roaring mart of trade, the humming hive of industry. He shows us in +these crowded and hurried streets the leisurely forms of old Dutch +burghers, their comely wives and buxom daughters, and their tranquil +existence. Upon this very spot, which thus becomes a palimpsest, one +life over-writing another, he awakens a romantic interest which gives it +an endless fascination. He is thus a universal benefactor. + +His Rip Van Winkle, indolent but kindly vagabond that he is, asserts the +charm of a loitering life in the woods and fields, against all the +tremendous energy and lucrative devotion to dollars, the overpowering +crowd and crushing competition, of the whirring emporium. It is not +necessary to defend poor Rip, or justify him as a moral exemplar. Pax, +good Zeal-in-the-land Busy! But how soothing, as we mop our brows in the +ardent struggle, and waste our lives in the furious accumulation of the +means of living, to behold that figure stretched by the brook, or +pleasing the children, or sauntering homeward at sunset! Other figures +allure us, but still he holds his place. The new writers create their +worlds. The new standards, another literary spirit, a fresh impulse, +appear all around us. But still Rip Van Winkle lounges idly by, an +unwasted figure of the imagination, the first distinct creation of our +literature, the constant, unconscious satirist of our life. + +The edicts of Fortune are caprices. Halleck, who sang of Marco Bozzaris, +has his statue in the Park. Bryant still awaits his, and Irving, first +of all, is without his memorial. The Germans have justly honored +Humboldt in our Walhalla, the Scotch have commemorated Burns, the +Italians have given to it Mazzini. The Puritan Pilgrim, ancestor of +distinctive America, New England in bronze, is properly there. But +where, asked the thoughtful child, reading the epitaphs in the +graveyard, where be the bad people buried? Those whom the statues recall +are all well and wisely honored in this most cosmopolitan of countries +and of cities. But where, amid Germans and Italians and Scotchmen and +great New-Englanders--where be the New-Yorkers? + + + + +THE GRAND TOUR. + + +Nobody could have written this book--a London Review recently said of +Longfellow's "Hyperion"--who could have reached the Rhine in a few +hours. It needed the ocean, thought the critic, to make the Rhine and +Switzerland remote and romantic to the poet. But he forgot "Childe +Harold," a book written by an Englishman, which has given to the Rhine +and Italy a more romantic glamour for John Bull upon his travels than +any book he reads. It is not the distance, it is the imagination +susceptible to association which is the secret. + +The traveller of to-day is not likely to be affected as his father was +by the melancholy melody of Byron; but it is an interesting illustration +of the power of his genius that Byron has imposed his interpretation of +so many scenes upon the mind of the modern English and American +observer. His view makes Italy, as Sir Thomas Lawrence's portrait of +John Kemble made Hamlet. If we stand in the Capitol and look at the +Dying Gladiator, we must also see "his young barbarians all at play" +upon the Danube. If at Terni we see the Velino "cleave the wave-worn +precipice," the Byronic lines murmur along our lips. As we step into the +gondola and glide gently upon the Grand Canal, memory keeps time to the +measure of the dipping oar with the words whose charm is unexhausted: + + "In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, + And silent rows the songless gondolier." + +At "a tomb in Arqua," at "Clarens, sweet Clarens," we are still led, +like Dante, by the singing guide. The Guide-book is full of him. The +travel-books are full of him. He is familiar almost to commonplace. Who +comes to "Belgium's capital" for the first time without listening for +"the sound of revelry"? Who goes to the field of Waterloo remembering +"the unreturning brave," and does not sigh, + + "And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves." + +Sitting quietly here in a great land which looks to the future, not to +the past, it is pleasant to think of the throngs of travellers who have +gone hence for a summer wandering in Europe. Yet so intense is the +delight of European travel, so freshly remembered is it when almost +another generation of travellers are ready to begin their journey, that +the patriarch who goes to the wharf to say farewell to the newer +voyagers looks at them with tenderness and pity, and there is even a +sadness in his congratulations, not because they are sailing away, but +because he cannot believe that they will find what he found, nor +possibly enjoy what he enjoyed. These newer voyagers will see a France +and a Switzerland and an Italy; they will eat oranges at Sorrento, and +gaze upon the Mediterranean from Capri, and hear the fisher's song at +Amalfi: but they will not hear and see through the enchantment of +lapsed years. + +In his lively book of travelling letters Dr. Bellows says that he went +up the Nile in a steamer of seventy berths. An ancient mariner of the +Nile cannot comprehend it. In a steamer? With paddles or screws whisking +the water? And steam blowing off? Making innumerable miles a day? The +round trip to Philae in two weeks, or a week? But how could you see +Egypt, or feel it? That slow floating southward upon white wings; the +sinking deeper and farther from the world we knew; the sense of infinite +strangeness and distance; the weeks passing with no sign of accustomed +life; slowly, one by one, the temples, the tombs; in the still days the +crew dragging the boat along and singing the wild minor refrain; a +voyage of wonder and of dreams--is that Egypt to be seen in a steamer? +It is useless to say that you may go in the old way if you choose. You +cannot go in the old way, because it is no longer what it was, if there +be a newer. You may drive from London to Oxford. But is that going by +the old English stage-coach when it was the only way, when the guard +wound his horn, and the cherry-nosed coachman threw down the ribbons at +each relay, and the neat inns stood smiling with open doors, and +tra-la-la sped the nimble team by the park gate and the hawthorn hedge? +You may go by sloop from New York to Albany. But is that now the +romantic Hudson voyage which it was when it could be made in no other +way? + +No sensible ancient mariner will quarrel with all this, nor desire to +banish the steamer of seventy berths from the Nile. When he shakes a +farewell hand with the youth who are going to run up to Rome by train, +and are _not_ going to stop at a certain point upon the Campagna, and +run forward to the top of a hill whence they can see far away upon the +horizon the faintly outlined dome of St. Peter's--and who are _not_ +going from Leghorn to Florence through the grape harvest, their carriage +heaped with the luscious clusters, but are to whiz through Tuscany in +an hour or so, the regret in his tone is not personal or selfish, it is +for a whole order of things passed away. + +Such an ancient mariner would, however, be indeed sorry if he supposed +that anybody suspected him of a very common and very odious kind of +remark, against which he kindly warns all the throngs of travellers of +whom mention has been made. The remark in question may be called the +capping remark. Thus one traveller says to another--as Marco Polo to +George Sandys-- + +"You went to Jerusalem?" + +"Yes." + +"And to Jericho?" + +"Yes." + +"And to the Jordan?" + +"Yes." + +"Did you see the white stone on the bottom near where the river flows +into the Dead Sea?" + +"Well--let me see! I don't exactly seem to remember that I did precisely +see that." + +"Ah!" replies Marco Polo. + +It is a very brief sound, but being interpreted it means, "Then, my +dear George Sandys, you might just as well not have seen the Jordan at +all." Not that the white stone was famous or worth seeing, but that +Marco Polo wished to "rub in" upon George Sandys's mind the conviction +that he, Polo, had seen more than he, Sandys, in the same direction. + +This capping process sometimes leads to very droll results. Young Green +heard Gray and Brown comparing their notes of travel. Each was naturally +anxious to have seen and done rather more than the other; but it +appeared that each had been in about the same places, and had had very +much the same experience. + +"Lago Maggiore is a lovely sheet of water," remarked Gray. + +"Truly exquisite," replied Brown. + +"And Isola Bella is most beautiful," suggested Gray. + +"Dear me! dear me!" approvingly assented Brown. + +"How high is the statue of San Carlo Borromeo?" asked Gray. + +"About sixty feet," answered Brown. + +"It's a wonderful prospect from his eye," said Gray. + +"Whose eye?" asked Brown. + +"San Carlo Borromeo's," replied Gray, whose mind instantly suspected +that he had caught the adversary, and who followed up his advantage +vigorously and suddenly. "Of course you went up San Carlo?" + +"Up San Carlo? You mean the church at--" + +"Oh no! the statue on Lago Maggiore." + +"Went up the statue! what do you mean?" snapped Brown, foreseeing +discomfiture. + +"Oh! I thought you probably knew," retorted the triumphant Gray, "that +the statue is hollow." + +"Oh! ah! yes!" returned Brown, indifferently. + +"And you didn't go up?" pressed Gray. + +"Not exactly," feebly rejoined Brown. + +"Nor sit in his nose?" continued Gray. + +"Not exactly," muttered Brown. + +"Nor look out of his eyes?" said Gray. + +"I thought I wouldn't," murmured Brown, in full retreat. + +"Oh!" smiled Gray, with the air of David holding the head of Goliath by +the hair, and displaying it to mankind--"oh!" + +Young Green heard all this, and he resolved that whatever he did not do +when he went to Europe, he would at all hazards sit in the nose of San +Carlo Borromeo. The next year he came to Lago Maggiore. He saw the +statue. He remembered the conversation and his high resolve, and he +essayed the deed. It was fearful. He tore his hands; he tore his +clothes; he was half suffocated; and, wedging himself into the nose, he +stuck fast, and was only rescued at the peril of his life. When he told +Gray afterward, and reminded him of the colloquy with Brown, that +experienced traveller laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. "My +dear Green," said he, "I never went up the confounded thing; but it was +necessary to take Brown down somehow, and I employed the good saint for +the purpose." He laughed again to tears; but Mr. Green soberly resolved +that he would eschew the capping talk of travel. And he chose the wiser +course. + +The truth is that Green should not trust too much the tales, nor indeed +the regrets, of the ancient mariners. + + "For travellers tell no idle tales, + But fools at home believe them." + +Certainly when this one remarks that he feels in saying farewell that +young Green will never see the Europe that he saw, he has not the +remotest idea of dimming his bright hope nor of asserting an advantage. +What is it, indeed, but a way of saying that he is no longer the same +man he was? If he were, what would be the gain of travel? It is not only +an enlargement of the scenery of the mind, not only a richer and more +various memory that he has acquired, but a riper experience. He has +grown wiser; and perhaps all that he feels when he shakes Green's +parting hand is that Green is not so wise as he will one day be. + + + + +"EASY DOES IT, GUVNER." + + +Dickens's Rogue Riderhood, who says "Easy does it, guvner," was a very +practical man. But there is no motto which is more susceptible of +perversion. Mr. Seward said the same thing in his last great speech. "I +early learned from Jefferson that in politics we must do what we can, +not what we would." It is not only plausible, but it is true. Yet its +truth can be most readily abused to defeat everything for which it is +urged. + + "'I weep for you,' the walrus said; + 'I deeply sympathize.' + With tears and sobs he sorted out + Those of the largest size, + Holding his pocket-handkerchief + Before his streaming eyes." + +It was necessary that the walrus should eat, and it was very sad that +the oysters should satisfy the necessity. But it is obvious that wicked +walruses who have no intention whatever of not eating oysters would sob +aloud with heart-rending vehemence as proof of a virtue which they do +not possess. The foes of progress are always anxious that its friends +should go easily. "Easy does it, guvner." But meanwhile they are +anything but easy in obstructing. In the race, the sly gentleman who +bets on Tom whispers confidentially to the jockey who rides Jerry that +he had better "go easy." The friends of the saloon hope that the true +friends of temperance are aware that the only way of success is to avoid +fanaticism. But they omit to hide their bodies as well as their heads, +for they are unsparing fanatics on their own behalf. + +When Gustavus, in deference to his dear Griselda, promised to begin to +reform the baleful habit of smoking, his Griselda was jocund as the +dawn. But at the end of a week she did not observe that there were fewer +cigars consumed, and she pleasantly asked him if the good resolution had +escaped his memory. "By no means," he answered; "quite the contrary. +But you remember what Rogue Riderhood said, 'Easy does it, guvner.' We +must move warily upon the intrenched enemy, dearest Grizzle. Remember +that Rome was not built in a day." Griselda remembered faithfully. But +still the cigars continued, and upon a further gentle remonstrance +Gustavus rejoined: "Certainly; but we must be reasonable. There are many +steps, my dear Griselda. In siege operations the great masters of war +approach by parallels, after making ample and thorough preparation. That +is what I am doing. I am beginning to prepare to begin. Easy does it, +you know. Don't forget Rome." + +Still Gustavus smoked, and still Griselda waited, and at the end of six +months she asked with a smile how far he had advanced in abandoning the +habit of smoking. "Dear Grizzle," he answered, "you remember the weeds +that sprang up and soon withered because they had no depth of soil. I +wish my reform of this naughty habit to be well rooted, that it may long +endure. None of your spasmodic virtue, your superficial goodness, for +me! Great reforms, even in personal habits, my dear Mrs. Gustavus, +cannot be accomplished in a day. Even Rome was not built in that time. I +am working for great results, to which all my tastes and habits must +conform. I must lay the foundations broad and deep. Easy does it, my +rose-bud." + +Gustavus continues to smoke, and Easy continues to do it. But there is +another saying quite as wise as that of Rogue Riderhood, which exhorts +him who puts his hand to the plough not to look back. The trouble with +Riderhood's apothegm is that it supplies an endless excuse for not doing +it. If the habit is too strong, and will not budge, you can soothe your +conscience and make the most plausible of pleas by insisting that human +nature and long custom and uniform tradition and the honest doubt +whether smoking is, after all, injurious, must all be carefully +considered. That is what Dickens also calls the great art of how not to +do it. "My son, if you wish a thing done, do it yourself; if not, send," +said the wise father; and the pioneers, the men without whose one idea +and uncompromising energy and conciliation nothing would be +accomplished, say with Sumner. "There is but one side," and with Cato, +"_Delenda est Carthago_." + +It is true that everything cannot be done at once, but something must be +done all the time; and you will observe that it is not when the work is +advancing, but when it stops or goes backward, that we hear the familiar +wisdom of the Rogue that Easy does it. That is what makes it a +suspicious saying, "What are you doing, sir?" thundered the master to +the boy. "Nothing, sir," replied the frightened pupil. "Just as I +thought, sir. Don't you know that your business is to do something?" +When a man says "Easy does it," he may be doing all that he can but the +immense probability, the almost absolute certainty, is that he is doing +nothing, or, like the amiable Gustavus, he is "beginning to prepare to +begin." + + + + +SISTE, VIATOR. + + +It is still very difficult to discover where the bad people are buried. +The cemeteries are still symbolically white with monuments to the +departed. Shylock and Ralph Nickleby are still, upon their tombstones, +the most respected of deceased citizens. Here lies Clytemnestra, a model +of the wifely virtues, whom an inconsolable spouse deplores. Beneath +this marble, in the tranquil hope of a joyful resurrection, repose the +remains of Iago, who kept the noiseless tenor of his way. Beyond sleeps +Solomon, most faithful of husbands; and under this turf of buttercups +and daisies lie Paris and Lovelace, _arcades ambo_, too early lost. 'Tis +pathetic to reflect how much worthier is the world under-ground than +that which still cumbers its surface; and if we, whose lives are +indifferent honest, had only had the good fortune to die a century ago, +our memories would by this time have been upon our tombstones a very +odor of sanctity to the sense of the age which knows us, perhaps, but +too well. + +In one of his terrible inscriptions suggested for the monuments of the +Georges, Thackeray says, "He left an example for youth and for age to +avoid. He never did well by man or by woman." Has there been only one +such George in the world? And if more, and in every age, in what +cemetery have you found their epitaphs? Catiline was a fascinating and +accomplished man. He had many followers, and if his political views and +projects were open to differences of opinion, he was certainly +well-mannered. Has there been but one Catiline in history? Or is he +confined wholly to a public sphere? Cicero described him as "a corrupter +of youth," and no one has denied it. Where is Catiline buried? If you +sought his grave by that epitaph, where would you find it? Is there no +corrupter of youth now? Have there been none within the last century? +None, if you may trust the epitaphs. How long will you abuse our +patience, O Catiline, and be annually buried, like Cato the Censor, with +crosses of white camellias laid upon your coffin, and wreaths of +immortelles hung upon the weeping effigy of Virtue which guards your +sleep? + +But because a man was brutal and coarse and cruel in his life, must we +needs insist upon it when he is gone? When Mawworm leaves us, must we +write upon his grave, he lying below defenceless, "_Hic jacet_ a +hypocrite"? When old Sathanas departs to a sphere of light and truth, +shall we carve upon his monument, "Father of lies"? Is it manly? Shall +we have no mercy? Do we really know any man; and shall charity be +forgotten? To be human is to be frail; and is not the fact that we must +die at all, of which the grave is proof, itself sufficient comment upon +our weakness? Here lies Colonel Newcome--tender, generous, noble, +child-like heart! Shall we add that he was credulous and ignorant? Dear +Uncle Toby is in the next grave. Shall we shout in marble, "_Siste, +viator_, contemplate his foibles"? Sacred to the memory of Samuel +Pickwick. Is the inscription incomplete if we do not chisel beneath it, +"A wind-bag pricked by Death"? + +Epitaphs are written more forcibly than upon tombstones. When old +Silenus dies, and the white camellias and the lilies-of-the-valley and +the rose-buds are strewn upon his bier, and the "universally lamented" +is cut upon the monument, the satire is pathetic, but it is slight. But +when the bloated old debauchee is cautiously and forgivingly praised in +the papers, and everybody solemnly pretends not to know what everybody +knows that everybody else does know, it is a sign not of charity, but of +public demoralization. Catiline corrupts youth by his example. Then his +own offences bring him to a sudden end, and the newspapers speak of him +so deprecatingly, so gingerly, that as a good man being dead yet +speaketh, so a bad man being dead yet corrupteth. His evil influence is +not suffered to perish with him, but it is cherished and extended and +confirmed, and his death, like his life, demoralizes. + +Dick Turpin no longer rides in jack-boots upon Hounslow Heath, stopping +my Lord Bishop and the Right Honorable the Earl of Garter; and no longer +stands at the dock, the hero of St. Giles's; and goes no longer to the +gallows in a blaze of glory, with a huge nosegay in his button-hole. +Richard Turpin is a very different fellow in his costume of to-day, but +he is the same Dick of the jack-boots and the heath, this vulgar robber +who smirks and is called smart. He drives a fine equipage, and lives +luxuriously, and keeps a harem, and frequents Wall Street, and beats +everybody in the game of making money, and spending it profusely and +splendidly. He dazzles the eyes of the widow's son, and bewilders his +mind. The boy sees the money with which Richard surrounds himself by +means which honorable men despise. He hears him called good-humoredly a +great rascal, and sees that he buys judges, and steals vast properties, +and procures laws to protect him. The boy hears that all men are +fallible, and that some men are no worse than other men, and that money +is a fine thing, and honor and truth and respect and all the rest of it +are very well, but see what power, what pleasure, what luxury Turpin +commands! Then the poor boy rushes for the same prizes, and fails, and +ends in disgrace, the jail, suicide. And Dick Turpin tosses a hundred +dollars to the boy's mother, and a generous press exclaims, "Not a model +man, perhaps; but what noble generosity! The friend of the widow and the +orphan! When he dies, how many poor homes will be darkened with grief!" +Yes, and the hundred dollars probably pays the widow for her boy. + +It is not difficult to be generous with the money of others. A year ago +it was announced that Greed had given forty or fifty thousand dollars to +the poor. "There," said the admirers of Turpin, "you may say what you +will of Greed. He, too, is not a polished man; he is not a scholar nor a +dainty gentleman; but he is one of the people; he is large-hearted and +generous. Who else has given fifty thousand dollars to the poor?" Yes, +and who else has stolen five millions? The politest gentlemen of the +highway were notoriously gallant. The Marquis of Goutytoe they compelled +to descend from his carriage, and sent the trudging market-woman home in +it. They eased the pockets of the Spanish ambassador, and threw a +doubloon to the leper hiding behind the hedge. It was a cheap +munificence. So was Greed's. It was not _his_ fifty thousand dollars, +the giving of which caused such a burst of good feeling, and the +exclamation, "There now!" It was only a little of the millions that were +not his. He gave it to the poor dwellers in tenement-houses, and it was +said that there was no wretched hovel to which he did not send a load of +coal or a barrel of flour during the winter months. But he took them +first from those wretched dens. Somebody paid the taxes that he stole, +and it is the poor who at last pay taxes. Where be the bad people +buried? When Turpin dies, we have Greed's opinion of him and his ways +gravely paraded in a newspaper. Madame Brinvilliers's opinion of +Lucrezia Borgia would be edifying reading! + +Shall we have no charity, then? and when a man lies dead and +defenceless, shall not warfare cease? Warfare may cease; but should +death condone all offences? The malignant lover who denounced his rival +to the Inquisition, and in the very moment of his rival's death by fire +himself fell dead--shall we write over him, _De mortuis?_ Shall we +Romans, whose sons he corrupted, go dumb and sorrowing behind the corpse +of Catiline? When a bad man dies, let us say that he was bad. Although +he was very rich and very splendid, shall we remember only that he gave +in charity one quarter of one per cent. upon the amount of his thefts? +The Italian brigand chief, when his band had slaughtered the travellers, +said, "There are twelve of us, and we will share equally; but the first +equal share shall be for the mother of God." When we tell his story, +shall we see only that share? + + + + +CHRISTENDOM vs. CHRISTIANITY. + + +IT is remarkable that what is called the practical sense +of Christendom virtually rejects the Christian ideals as impracticable. +Its highest ideal is obedience to the Divine will, and its instinct, +therefore, should represent the religious man as the perfection of +vigorous manhood. The more manly, the finer the bloom of health, the +sounder the body for the sound and purified mind, the truer and more +satisfactory the type, the more symmetrically revealed the Christian +man. This is the simple and natural ideal among living men of unthwarted +and normal Christian excellence. + +But so little is this the fact that the oldest traditions of Christian +art depict the founder of Christianity Himself not as a blooming man, +not as a figure of the inward and outward health that proceeds +inevitably from complete and absolute conformity to the Divine will, but +as a wan and wasted personality plainly worsted by the world. This +conception extends to the constant and organized control of the Church, +and the general feeling of Christendom regards the ministers of its +religion either as official personages or as excluded from actual +knowledge of life; not masters of the arena, but professionally unfit to +cope with the world. + +It may, indeed, be said that the traditions of Christian art show a +misapprehension of the essential character of the Christian faith. But +however that may be, it is certainly true that these traditions do not +misrepresent the general conception of Christianity which is professed +by those who practically reject its ideals. Here goes Solomon Gunnybags +to Christian worship on Sunday morning. He "abashiates" himself in his +pew, and his confession that he is a miserable sinner is so sonorous and +impressive that the hearer sighs sympathetically with Solomon's +consciousness of the enormous burden of wrong-doing that he carries. + +Now what is Solomon doing in his pew? He is solemnly professing +confidence in and reverence for certain principles of faith and conduct, +not only as lofty in themselves, but as absolutely essential to his +soul's salvation. Then, unless the whole universe is a farce, and +religion and the soul impostures, they are the most practical and +practicable of all possible principles, because otherwise the soul's +salvation could not be made by beneficent Omnipotence dependent upon +fidelity to them. But if some attendant spirit should say to Solomon +Gunnybags, as he walks home with the happy consciousness of duty done, +"Solomon, the golden rule and the Christian religion forbid you to +'unload' upon David the stock that you believe to be very shaky," he +would unquestionably feel, if he did not say: "Stuff! Every man for +himself. Of course Christianity is an excellent thing, but it doesn't +mean that." Gunnybags does not expressly repudiate Christian principle +as unpractical; he only believes it to be so. + +The fundamental doctrine of the Christian life is love. The Christian +millennium is peace. But it is Christendom that maintains the vast +standing armies; and when the International Peace Congress meets in +London and proposes disarmament, the good-natured reply of Christendom +is, "Well--yes--perhaps--some time," with a smile of amused incredulity, +as when a child seriously asks for the moon. Yet this is Christendom, +and the Christian principles are entirely familiar, and every Sunday and +saint's day in all the Christian churches we protest that the practice +of them is essential to our soul's salvation. Then we wipe our eyes, and +smile kindly upon any one who really insists that we should offer the +other cheek, and forgive seventy times seven. Oh no, we say; that is an +eccentric view. No man in this world--that is, in Christendom--can +afford to allow himself to be imposed upon. If we don't look out for +number one, who will take charge of that precious numeral? + +So it is that on some bright July day, looking in imagination upon the +respectable Universal Peace Congress in the Hotel Metropole in London, +and hearing the Bishop of Durham offer a resolution for international +arbitration, and denouncing the folly, the waste, the woe and wickedness +and wrong of war, we hear also, not the immediate and instinctive assent +of Christendom, but its wistful prayer and half-despairing hope that +some time Christianity may be found to be practicable, and something +more than a pretty dream. Yet is there anything more certain than that +the Christendom which actually rejects the Christian ideals and +principles as impracticable, denounces most savagely those who +practically illustrate them, even if they theoretically reject them? + +The moral of this little sermon is altogether Christian, for it is +charity. Since Christendom is in practice so universally unchristian, +and holds its own fundamental principles in such practical contempt, +every member of that vast fraternity should be very modest in judging +others. Could there be a more radically unchristian figure in human +history than Torquemada? If Christianity be what it declares itself to +be, the least throb of sound Christian feeling in his bosom would have +held his hand. The Inquisition, the fierceness of sects, the religious +wars, offensive wars of any kind, are possible only among Christians who +hold Christianity to be impracticable. + +Yet when the Easy Chair saw a gentle lady going to morning prayers on a +happy saint's day, and heard through the open window the murmuring music +of the promise when two or three are gathered together, and marked +during all the day and in daily conduct the unselfishness, the sympathy, +the courtesy, the kindly care of old and young, the faithful doing of +duty, the nameless charm of lofty character, the Christian ideal was no +longer the mirage of an unreached and unattainable oasis in the desert; +it was already come down to earth; it was here, a little heaven below. + + + + +FRANCIS GEORGE SHAW. + +1882. + + +IN beginning his tender and charming paper upon +Washington Irving and Macaulay, Thackeray recalls the beautiful story of +which he was so fond, of Sir Walter Scott's last words to his son-in-law +Lockhart: "Be a good man, my dear; be a good man." It was a soft +autumnal day. The windows were wide open. The low sound of the rippling +Tweed stole into the chamber. The most renowned and the most widely +beloved of living men lay dying, after a career of admiration and +adulation, and of gratified ambition almost unexampled, and in the clear +and serene light of the moment that shows things as they are, the one +lesson and moral garnered by that marvellous life is spoken in the +simple words, "Be a good man, my dear." ... + +There are men whose simplicity and dignity and strength and purity of +character, whose sound judgment and supreme common-sense, dispose of +sophistry and artifice in all relations and pursuits, as surely and +completely as the sun dries the dew. They are gentlemen, because they +know other men only as men, touching electrically whatever of manhood +there may be in them, and whose contact is a silent and consuming rebuke +of pretence and falsehood. Whatever his own advantage or attraction or +position or grace, the man of this quality takes hold of the reality in +other men, man meeting man, as when the grave William of Orange, in his +plain serge coat, met the brilliant Philip Sidney in his gold-flowered +doublet, and neither was troubled by the clothes of the other. + +Such a man lately died. The mingled strength and simplicity and +sweetness of his nature, the lofty sense of justice, the tranquil and +complete devotion to duty, the large and humane sympathy, not lost in +vague philanthropic feeling, but mindful of every detail of relief--the +sound and steady judgment, the noble independence of thought and perfect +courage of conviction, the blended manliness and modesty of a life which +was unstained, and of a character which seemed without a flaw, all +belonged to what we call the ideal man. + +Passing from college to the counting-room of a great commercial +business, his sagacity, energy, and executive power were all brought +into successful action. He went to Europe and to the West Indies, but +much of the spirit of trade and many of its practices were uncongenial +to him, and he quietly withdrew, despite wonder and affectionate +remonstrance, to lead his own life in his own way. By taste and +temperament an out-door man, he made his home in the rural neighborhood +of Boston, busy with country cares and various studies, but interested +chiefly in helping other men. He was allied by sympathy more than by +much previous actual association with the founders of Brook Farm. But +when they chose the site for their enterprise not far from his house, +he was soon in the pleasantest relations with the leaders, for their +spirit and purpose were in harmony with his own. He was a parishioner +and warm personal friend of Theodore Parker, who lived near him, and his +keen common-sense and mastery of practical affairs were most useful to +Parker as to Ripley. Indeed, the hospitality of such a man for every +generous endeavor and for all new and humane ideas was a happy augury +for the philanthropic pioneers, because it seemed to promise the final +approval and adhesion to their cause of the most conservative and +substantial sentiment of the community. + +Such a man was, of course, an abolitionist in the days when the name was +as repugnant to what is called "society" as the name Christian was to +the Jewish Sanhedrim or Methodist to the English Establishment a century +and a half ago. He generously aided the cause, which seemed to him that +of practical Christianity and of American patriotism, and he held most +friendly relations with its chief representatives, who were ostracized +and denounced. But his sympathy was not an abstract regard for man +rather than for men, and his interest in the effort to help a race and +to forecast a happier social organization did not dull his heart or +close his hand to the necessities of his neighbor. His life, indeed, was +a prolonged charity, but a charity directed by a singularly calm and +shrewd judgment. His exhaustless generosity was not the sport of wayward +impulse. It was not a well-meaning weakness, but a wise force which +helped others to help themselves, but knew also when such self-help was +impossible. + +Yet the strength and reserve and independence of his character were such +that the man was never lost in the reformer. His fine nature +instinctively asserted his own individuality. He quietly shunned the +wearisome artificiality of society, but he did not merge his own home in +the general home of his friends and neighbors at Brook Farm, and his +house was always a glimpse of the social refinement and grace, the +mental and moral charm, to which the dreams of social regeneration and +the elaborate fancies of Fourier pointed--fancies which greatly +interested him as hints of a happier social order. + +Long absence with his family in Europe, and a long and final residence +upon Staten Island, only matured and developed the man, in whom not only +was there no guile, but in whom even the most intimate eye could not +note a fault. Clarendon might have studied from him his portrait of +Falkland: "his inimitable sweetness of, and delight in, conversation; +his flowing and obliging humanity; his goodness to mankind; and his +primitive simplicity and integrity of life." Disinclined to public life +of every kind, he was yet full of the highest public spirit, and it was +but natural that his only son should have been selected by Governor +Andrew to command the first colored regiment that marched from +Massachusetts in the war. In his young person all that was best in the +New England youth of his time, all the strength of the elder colonial +and Revolutionary day, blended with all the grace and tenderness and +gentleness of its modern life, the stern old Puritan softened into a +humaner Bayard, was typified. It was the flower of Essex that two +hundred years ago was withered in the fatal Indian ambush in the +Deerfield Meadows. It was the flower of New England that fell upon a +hundred redder fields within a score of years. + +But no sorrow could fatally chill a faith which was reflected in the +perpetual summer of the father's presence and temperament. The frank +urbanity of his greeting, the hearty grasp of his hand, the lofty +simplicity of his courtesy, were but the signs of that unwasting +freshness of sympathy which held him true to the ideals and aims of +earlier life. His helping hand reached invisibly into a hundred homes, +and upheld a hundred faltering lives. But, besides this, as president of +the Freedman's Aid Association his administrative skill and his wise +benevolence enabled him to bear a most effective part in the great +settlement of the war. His invincible modesty and scorn of ostentation +veiled his beneficent activities, public and private. But nothing could +veil the pure and steadfast and unwearying devotion to the well-being of +other men. Kindly but firmly he protected his own seclusion, and he +permitted no man, in Emerson's phrase, to devastate his day. The +freshness of feeling which keeps the heart young was unwasted to the +end. His full life brimming purely to the sea reflected heaven as +clearly when at last it mingled with the main as when it ran a limpid +rivulet from its spring. Young and old, man and boy, he was still the +simplest, noblest, most devoted, best. How truly he was the man that +every thoughtful man secretly wishes he might be, those only know who +knew Francis George Shaw. + + +THE END. + + +HARPER'S AMERICAN ESSAYISTS. + +16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.00 each. + +PICTURE AND TEXT. By HENRY JAMES. With Portrait and Illustrations. + +AMERICANISMS AND BRITICISMS, With Other Essays on Other Isms. By BRANDER +MATTHEWS. With Portrait. + +FROM THE BOOKS OF LAURENCE HUTTON. With Portrait. + +CONCERNING ALL OF US. By THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. With Portrait. + +FROM THE EASY CHAIR. By GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. With Portrait. + +OTHER ESSAYS FROM THE EASY CHAIR. By GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. With +Portrait. + +AS WE WERE SAYING. By CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. With Portrait and +Illustrations. + +CRITICISM AND FICTION. By WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS. With Portrait. + +PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. + +==> _The above works are for sale by all +booksellers, or will be sent by the publishers, postage prepaid, to any +part of the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price_. + +By GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. + +FROM THE EASY CHAIR. With Portrait. 16mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.00. + +OTHER ESSAYS FROM THE EASY CHAIR. With Portrait. 16mo, Cloth, +Ornamental, $1.00. + +PRUE AND I. Illustrated Edition. 8vo, Illuminated Silk, $3.50. Also +12mo, Cloth, Gilt Tops, $1.50. + +LOTUS-EATING. A Summer Book. Illustrated by KENSETT. 12mo, Cloth, Gilt +Tops, $1.50. + +NILE NOTES OF A HOWADJI. 12mo, Cloth, Gilt Tops, $1.50. + +THE HOWADJI IN SYRIA. 12mo, Cloth, Gilt Tops, $1.50. + +THE POTIPHAR PAPERS. Illustrated by HOPPIN. 12mo, Cloth, Gilt Tops, +$1.50. + +TRUMPS. A Novel. 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