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diff --git a/38270.txt b/38270.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..448d286 --- /dev/null +++ b/38270.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8601 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 120, +October, 1867., by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 120, October, 1867. + +Author: Various + +Release Date: December 11, 2011 [EBook #38270] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, OCTOBER 1867 *** + + + + +Produced by Jana Srna, Josephine Paolucci and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries.) + + + + + + + +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. + +_A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics._ + +VOL. XX.--OCTOBER, 1867.--NO. CXX. + +Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by TICKNOR AND +FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of +Massachusetts. + + + + +THE GUARDIAN ANGEL. + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +MINE AND COUNTERMINE. + +What the nature of the telegram was which had produced such an effect on +the feelings and plans of Mr. William Murray Bradshaw nobody especially +interested knew but himself. We may conjecture that it announced some fact, +which had leaked out a little prematurely, relating to the issue of the +great land-case in which the firm was interested. However that might be, +Mr. Bradshaw no sooner heard that Myrtle had suddenly left the city for +Oxbow Village,--for what reason he puzzled himself to guess,--than he +determined to follow her at once, and take up the conversation he had begun +at the party where it left off. And as the young poet had received his +quietus for the present at the publisher's, and as Master Gridley had +nothing specially to detain him, they too returned at about the same time, +and our old acquaintances were once more together within the familiar +precincts where we have been accustomed to see them. + +Master Gridley did not like playing the part of a spy, but it must be +remembered that he was an old college officer, and had something of the +detective's sagacity, and a certain cunning derived from the habit of +keeping an eye on mischievous students. If any underhand contrivance was at +work, involving the welfare of any one in whom he was interested, he was a +dangerous person for the plotters, for he had plenty of time to attend to +them, and would be apt to take a kind of pleasure in matching his wits +against another crafty person's,--such a one, for instance, as Mr. +Macchiavelli Bradshaw. + +Perhaps he caught some words of that gentleman's conversation at the party; +at any rate, he could not fail to observe his manner. When he found that +the young man had followed Myrtle back to the village, he suspected +something more than a coincidence. When he learned that he was assiduously +visiting The Poplars, and that he was in close communication with Miss +Cynthia Badlam, he felt sure that he was pressing the siege of Myrtle's +heart. But that there was some difficulty in the way was equally clear to +him, for he ascertained, through channels which the attentive reader will +soon have means of conjecturing, that Myrtle had seen him but once in the +week following his return, and that in the presence of her dragons. She had +various excuses when he called,--headaches, perhaps, among the rest, as +these are staple articles on such occasions. But Master Gridley knew his +man too well to think that slight obstacles would prevent his going forward +to effect his purpose. + +"I think he will get her, if he holds on," the old man said to himself, +"and he won't let go in a hurry. If there were any real love about it--but +surely he is incapable of such a human weakness as the tender passion. What +does all this sudden concentration upon the girl mean? He knows something +about her that we don't know,--that must be it. What did he hide that paper +for a year ago and more? Could that have anything to do with his pursuit of +Myrtle Hazard to-day?" + +Master Gridley paused as he asked this question of himself, for a luminous +idea had struck him. Consulting daily with Cynthia Badlam, was he? Could +there be a conspiracy between these two persons to conceal some important +fact, or to keep something back until it would be for their common interest +to have it made known? + +Now Mistress Kitty Fagan was devoted, heart and soul, to Myrtle Hazard, and +ever since she had received the young girl from Mr. Gridley's hands, when +he brought her back safe and sound after her memorable adventure, had +considered him as Myrtle's best friend and natural protector. These simple +creatures, whose thoughts are not taken up, like those of educated people, +with the care of a great museum of dead phrases, are very quick to see the +live facts which are going on about them. Mr. Gridley had met her, more or +less accidentally, several times of late, and inquired very particularly +about Myrtle, and how she got along at the house since her return, and +whether she was getting over her headaches, and how they treated her in the +family. + +"Bliss your heart, Mr. Gridley," Kitty said to him, on one of these +occasions, "it 's ahltogither changed intirely. Sure Miss Myrtle does jist +iverythin' she likes, an' Miss Withers niver middles with her at ahl, +excip' jist to roll up her eyes an' look as if she was the hid-moorner at a +funeril whiniver Miss Myrtle says she wants to do this or that, or to go +here or there. It's Miss Badlam that 's ahlwiz after her, an' a-watchin' +her,--she thinks she 's cunnin'er than a cat, but there 's other folks that +'s got eyes an' ears as good as hers. It's that Mr. Bridshaw that's a +puttin' his head together with Miss Badlam for somethin' or other, an' I +don't believe there 's no good in it,--for what does the fox an' the cat be +a whisperin' about, as if they was thaves an' incind'ries, if there ain't +no mischief hatchin'?" + +"Why, Kitty," he said, "what mischief do you think is going on, and who is +to be harmed?" + +"O Mr. Gridley," she answered, "if there ain't somebody to be chated +somehow, then I don' know an honest man and woman from two rogues. An' have +n't I heard Miss Myrtle's name whispered as if there was somethin' goin' on +agin' her, an' they was afraid the tahk would go out through the doors, an' +up through the chimbley? I don't want to tell no tales, Mr. Gridley, nor to +hurt no honest body, for I 'm a poor woman, Mr. Gridley; but I comes of +dacent folks, an' I vallies my repitation an' character as much as if I was +dressed in silks and satins instead of this mane old gown, savin' your +presence, which is the best I 've got, an' niver a dollar to buy another. +But if iver I hears a word, Mr. Gridley, that manes any kind of a mischief +to Miss Myrtle,--the Lard bliss her soul an' keep ahl the divils away from +her!--I 'll be runnin' straight down here to tell ye ahl about it,--be +right sure o' that, Mr. Gridley." + +"Nothing must happen to Myrtle," he said, "that we can help. If you see +anything more that looks wrong, you had better come down here at once, and +let me know, as you say you will. _At once_, you understand. And, Kitty, I +am a little particular about the dress of people who come to see me, so +that if you would just take the trouble to get you a tidy pattern of +gingham or calico, or whatever you like of that sort for a gown, you would +please me; and perhaps this little trifle will be a convenience to you when +you come to pay for it." + +Kitty thanked him with all the national accompaniments, and trotted off to +the store, where Mr. Gifted Hopkins displayed the native amiability of his +temper by tumbling down everything in the shape of ginghams and calicos +they had on the shelves, without a murmur at the taste of his customer, who +found it hard to get a pattern sufficiently emphatic for her taste. She +succeeded at last, and laid down a five-dollar bill as if she were as used +to the pleasing figure on its face as to the sight of her own five digits. + +Master Byles Gridley had struck a spade deeper than he knew into his first +countermine, for Kitty had none of those delicate scruples about the means +of obtaining information which might have embarrassed a diplomatist of +higher degree. + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +MR. BRADSHAW CALLS ON MISS BADLAM. + +"Is Miss Hazard in, Kitty?" + +"Indade she 's in, Mr. Bridshaw, but she won't see nobody." + +"What 's the meaning of that, Kitty? Here is the third time within three +days you 've told me I could n't see her. She saw Mr. Gridley yesterday, I +know; why won't she see me to-day?" + +"Y' must ask Miss Myrtle what the rason is,--it 's none o' my business, Mr. +Bridshaw. That 's the order she give me." + +"Is Miss Badlam in?" + +"Indade she 's in, Mr. Bridshaw, an' I 'll go cahl her." + +"Bedad," said Kitty Fagan to herself, "the cat an' the fox is goin' to +have another o' thim big tahks togither, an' sure the old hole for the +stove-pipe has niver been stopped up yet." + +Mr. Bradshaw and Miss Cynthia went into the parlor together, and Mistress +Kitty retired to her kitchen. There was a deep closet belonging to this +apartment, separated by a partition from the parlor. There was a round hole +high up in this partition through which a stove-pipe had once passed. +Mistress Kitty placed a stool just under this opening, upon which, as on a +pedestal, she posed herself with great precaution in the attitude of the +goddess of other people's secrets, that is to say, with her head a little +on one side, so as to bring her liveliest ear close to the opening. The +conversation which took place in the hearing of the invisible third party +began in a singularly free-and-easy manner on Mr. Bradshaw's part. + +"What the d is the reason I can't see Myrtle, Cynthia?" + +"That's more than I can tell you, Mr. Bradshaw. I can watch her goings on, +but I can't account for her tantrums." + +"You say she has had some of her old nervous whims,--has the doctor been to +see her?" + +"No indeed. She has kept to herself a good deal, but I don't think there's +anything in particular the matter with her. She looks well enough, only she +seems a little queer,--as girls do that have taken a fancy into their heads +that they 're in love, you know,--absent-minded,--does n't seem to be +interested in things as you would expect after being away so long." + +Mr. Bradshaw looked as if this did not please him particularly. If he was +the object of her thoughts she would not avoid him, surely. + +"Have you kept your eye on her steadily?" + +"I don't believe there is an hour we can't account for,--Kitty and I +between us." + +"Are you sure you can depend on Kitty?" + +["Depind on Kitty, is it? O, an' to be sure ye can depind on Kitty to kape +watch at the stove-pipe hole, an' to tell all y'r plottin's an' contrivin's +to them that 'll get the cheese out o' y'r mousetrap for ye before ye catch +any poor cratur in it." This was the inaudible comment of the unseen third +party.] + +"Of course I can depend on her as far as I trust her. All she knows is that +she must look out for the girl to see that she does not run away or do +herself a mischief. The Biddies don't know much, but they know enough to +keep a watch on the--" + +"Chickens." Mr. Bradshaw playfully finished the sentence for Miss Cynthia. + +["An' on the foxes, an' the cats, an' the wazels, and the hen-hahks, an' +ahl the other bastes," added the invisible witness, in unheard soliloquy.] + +"I ain't sure whether she's quite as stupid as she looks," said the +suspicious young lawyer. "There's a little cunning twinkle in her eye +sometimes that makes me think she might be up to a trick on occasion. Does +she ever listen about to hear what people are saying?" + +"Don't trouble yourself about Kitty Fagan, for pity's sake, Mr. Bradshaw. +The Biddies are all alike, and they 're all as stupid as owls, except when +you tell 'em just what to do, and how to do it. A pack of priest-ridden +fools!" + +The hot Celtic blood in Kitty Fagan's heart gave a leap. The stout muscles +gave an involuntary jerk. The substantial frame felt the thrill all +through, and the rickety stool on which she was standing creaked sharply +under its burden. + +Murray Bradshaw started. He got up and opened softly all the doors leading +from the room, one after another, and looked out. + +"I thought I heard a noise as if somebody was moving, Cynthia. It's just as +well to keep our own matters to ourselves." + +"If you wait till this old house keeps still, Mr. Bradshaw, you might as +well wait till the river has run by. It's as full of rats and mice as an +old cheese is of mites. There's a hundred old rats in this house, and +that's what you hear." + +["An' one old cat; that's what _I_ hear." Third party.] + +"I told you, Cynthia, I must be off on this business to-morrow. I want to +know that everything is safe before I go. And, besides, I have got +something to say to you that's important,--very important, mind you." + +He got up once more and opened every door softly and looked out. He fixed +his eye suspiciously on a large sofa at the other side of the room, and +went, looking half ashamed of his extreme precaution, and peeped under it, +to see if there was any one hidden there to listen. Then he came back and +drew his chair close up to the table at which Miss Badlam had seated +herself. The conversation which followed was in a low tone, and a portion +of it must be given in another place in the words of the third party. The +beginning of it we are able to supply in this connection. + +"Look here, Cynthia; you know what I am going for. It's all right, I feel +sure, for I have had private means of finding out. It's a sure thing; but I +must go once more to see that the other fellows don't try any trick on us. +You understand what is for my advantage is for yours, and, if I go wrong, +you go overboard with me. Now I must leave the--you know--behind me. I +can't leave it in the house or the office: they might burn up. I won't have +it about me when I am travelling. Draw your chair a little more this way. +Now listen." + +["Indade I will," said the third party to herself. The reader will find out +in due time whether she listened to any purpose or not.] + + * * * * * + +In the mean time Myrtle, who for some reason was rather nervous and +restless, had found a pair of half-finished slippers which she had left +behind her. The color came into her cheeks when she remembered the state of +mind she was in when she was working on them for the Rev. Mr. Stoker. She +recollected Master Gridley's mistake about their destination, and +determined to follow the hint he had given. It would please him better if +she sent them to good Father Pemberton, she felt sure, than if he should +get them himself. So she enlarged them somewhat, (for the old man did not +pinch his feet, as the younger clergyman was in the habit of doing, and +was, besides, of portly dimensions, as the old orthodox three-deckers were +apt to be,) and worked E. P. very handsomely into the pattern, and sent +them to him with her love and respect, to his great delight; for old +ministers do not have quite so many tokens of affection from fair hands as +younger ones. + +What made Myrtle nervous and restless? Why had she quitted the city so +abruptly, and fled to her old home, leaving all the gayeties behind her +which had so attracted and dazzled her? + +She had not betrayed herself at the third meeting with the young man who +stood in such an extraordinary relation to her,--who had actually given her +life from his own breath,--as when she met him for the second time. Whether +his introduction to her at the party, just at the instant when Murray +Bradshaw was about to make a declaration, saved her from being in another +moment the promised bride of that young gentleman, or not, we will not be +so rash as to say. It looked, certainly, as if he was in a fair way to +carry his point; but perhaps she would have hesitated, or shrunk back, when +the great question came to stare her in the face. + +She was excited, at any rate, by the conversation, so that, when Clement +was presented to her, her thoughts could not at once be all called away +from her other admirer, and she was saved from all danger of that sudden +disturbance which had followed their second meeting. Whatever impression he +made upon her developed itself gradually,--still, she felt strangely drawn +towards him. It was not simply in his good looks, in his good manners, in +his conversation, that she found this attraction, but there was a singular +fascination which she felt might be dangerous to her peace, without +explaining it to herself in words. She could hardly be in love with this +young artist; she knew that his affections were plighted to another,--a +fact which keeps most young women from indulging unruly fancies; yet her +mind was possessed by his image to such an extent that it left little room +for that of Mr. William Murray Bradshaw. + +Myrtle Hazard had been just ready to enter on a career of worldly vanity +and ambition. It is hard to blame her, for we know how she came by the +tendency. She had every quality, too, which fitted her to shine in the gay +world; and the general law is, that those who have the power have the +instinct to use it. We do not suppose that the bracelet on her arm was an +amulet, but it was a symbol. It reminded her of her descent; it kept alive +the desire to live over the joys and excitements of a bygone generation. If +she had accepted Murray Bradshaw, she would have pledged herself to a +worldly life. If she had refused him, it would perhaps have given her a +taste of power that might have turned her into a coquette. This new +impression saved her for the time. She had come back to her nest in the +village like a frightened bird; her heart was throbbing, her nerves were +thrilling, her dreams were agitated; she wanted to be quiet, and could not +listen to the flatteries or entreaties of her old lover. + +It was a strong will and a subtle intellect that had arrayed their force +and skill against the ill-defended citadel of Myrtle's heart. Murray +Bradshaw was perfectly determined, and not to be kept back by any trivial +hindrances, such as her present unwillingness to accept him, or even her +repugnance to him, if a freak of the moment had carried her so far. It was +a settled thing: Myrtle Hazard must become Mrs. Bradshaw; and nobody could +deny that, if he gave her his name, they had a chance, at least, for a +brilliant future. + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +MISTRESS KITTY FAGAN CALLS ON MASTER BYLES GRIDLEY. + +"I'd like to go down to the store this marnin', Miss Withers, plase. Sure I +'ve niver a shoe to my fut, only jist these two that I 've got on, an' one +other pair, and thim is so full of holes that whin I 'm standin' in 'em I +'m outside of 'em intirely." + +"You can go, Kitty," Miss Silence answered, funereally. + +Thereupon Kitty Fagan proceeded to array herself in her most tidy apparel, +including a pair of shoes not exactly answering to her description, and set +out straight for the house of the Widow Hopkins. Arrived at that +respectable mansion, she inquired for Mr. Gridley, and was informed that he +was at home. Had a message for him,--could she see him in his study? She +could if she would wait a little while. Mr. Gridley was busy just at this +minute. Sit down, Kitty, and warm yourself at the cooking-stove. + +Mistress Kitty accepted Mrs. Hopkins's hospitable offer, and presently +began orienting herself, and getting ready to make herself agreeable. The +kind-hearted Mrs. Hopkins had gathered about her several other pensioners +besides the twins. These two little people, it may be here mentioned, were +just taking a morning airing in charge of Susan Posey, who strolled along +in company with Gifted Hopkins on his way to "the store." + +Mistress Kitty soon began the conversational blandishments so natural to +her good-humored race. "It's a little blarney that 'll jist suit th' old +lady," she said to herself, as she made her first conciliatory advance. + +"An' sure an' its a beautiful kitten you 've got there, Mrs. Hopkins. An' +it's a splindid mouser she is, I 'll be bound. Does n't she look as if she +'d clane the house out o' them little bastes,--bad luck to 'em!" + +Mrs. Hopkins looked benignantly upon the more than middle-aged tabby, +slumbering as if she had never known an enemy, and turned smiling to +Mistress Kitty. "Why, bless your heart, Kitty, our old puss would n't know +a mouse by sight, if you showed her one. If I was a mouse, I 'd as lieves +have a nest in one of that old cat's ears as anywhere else. You could n't +find a safer place for one." + +"Indade, an' to be sure she 's too big an' too handsome a pussy to be after +wastin' her time on them little bastes. It 's that little tarrier dog of +yours, Mrs. Hopkins, that will be after worryin' the mice an' the rats, an' +the thaves too, I 'll warrant. Is n't he a fust-rate-lookin' watch-dog, an' +a rig'lar rat-hound?" + +Mrs. Hopkins looked at the little short-legged and short-winded animal of +miscellaneous extraction with an expression of contempt and affection, +mingled about half and half. "_Worry_ 'em! If they wanted to _sleep_, I +rather guess he would worry 'em! If barkin' would do their job for 'em, +nary a mouse nor rat would board free gratis in my house as they do now. +Noisy little good-for-nothing tike,--ain't you, Fret?" + +Mistress Kitty was put back a little by two such signal failures. There was +another chance, however, to make her point, which she presently availed +herself of,--feeling pretty sure this time that she should effect a +lodgement. Mrs. Hopkins's parrot had been observing Kitty, first with one +eye and then with the other, evidently preparing to make a remark, but +awkward with a stranger. "That's a beautiful par't y've got there," Kitty +said, buoyant with the certainty that she was on safe ground this time; +"and tahks like a book, I 'll be bound. Poll! Poll! Poor Poll!" + +She put forth her hand to caress the intelligent and affable bird, which, +instead of responding as expected, "squawked," as our phonetic language has +it, and, opening a beak imitated from a tooth-drawing instrument of the +good old days, made a shrewd nip at Kitty's forefinger. She drew it back +with a jerk. + +"An' is that the way your par't tahks, Mrs. Hopkins?" + +"Talks, bless you, Kitty! why, that parrot has n't said a word this ten +year. He used to say Poor Poll! when we first had him, but he found it was +easier to squawk, and that 's all he ever does now-a-days,--except bite +once in a while." + +"Well, an' to be sure," Kitty answered, radiant as she rose from her +defeats, "if you 'll kape a cat that does n't know a mouse when she sees +it, an' a dog that only barks for his livin', and a par't that only squawks +an' bites an' niver spakes a word, ye must be the best-hearted woman that +'s alive, an' bliss ye, if ye was only a good Catholic, the Holy Father 'd +make a saint of ye in less than no time." + +So Mistress Kitty Fagan got in her bit of Celtic flattery, in spite of her +three successive discomfitures. + +"You may come up now, Kitty," said Mr. Gridley, over the stairs. He had +just finished and sealed a letter. + +"Well, Kitty, how are things going on up at The Poplars? And how does our +young lady seem to be of late?" + +"Whisht! whisht! your honor." + +Mr. Bradshaw's lessons had not been thrown away on his attentive listener. +She opened every door in the room, "by your lave," as she said. She looked +all over the walls to see if there was any old stove-pipe hole or other +avenue to eye or ear. Then she went, in her excess of caution, to the +window. She saw nothing noteworthy except Mr. Gifted Hopkins and the charge +he convoyed, large and small, in the distance. The whole living fleet was +stationary for the moment, he leaning on the fence with his cheek on his +hand, in one of the attitudes of the late Lord Byron; she, very near him, +listening, apparently, in the pose of _Mignon aspirant au ciel_, as +rendered by Carlo Dolce Scheffer. + +Kitty came back, apparently satisfied, and stood close to Mr. Gridley, who +told her to sit down, which she did, first making a catch at her apron to +dust the chair with, and then remembering that she had left that part of +her costume at home.--Automatic movements, curious. + +Mistress Kitty began telling in an undertone of the meeting between Mr. +Bradshaw and Miss Badlam, and of the arrangements she made for herself as +the reporter of the occasion. She then repeated to him, in her own way, +that part of the conversation which has been already laid before the +reader. There is no need of going over the whole of this again in Kitty's +version, but we may fit what followed into the joints of what has been +already told. + +"He cahled her Cynthy, d' ye see, Mr. Gridley, an' tahked to her jist as +asy as if they was two rogues, and she knowed it as well as he did. An' so, +says he, I 'm goin' away, says he, an' I 'm goin to be gahn siveral days, +or perhaps longer, says he, an' you 'd better kape it, says he." + +"Keep _what_, Kitty? What was it he wanted her to keep?" said Mr. Gridley, +who no longer doubted that he was on the trail of a plot, and meant to +follow it. He was getting impatient with the "says he's" with which Kitty +double-leaded her discourse. + +"An' to be sure ain't I tellin' you, Mr. Gridley, jist as fast as my breath +will let me? An' so, says he, you 'd better kape it, says he, mixed up with +your other paaepers, says he," (Mr. Gridley started,) "an' thin we can find +it in the garret, says he, whinever we want it, says he. An' if it ahl goes +right out there, says he, it won't be lahng before we shall want to find +it, says he. And I can dipind on you, says he, for we 're both in the same +boat, says he, an' you knows what I knows, says he, an' I knows what you +knows, says he. And thin he taks a stack o' papers out of his pocket, an' +he pulls out one of 'em, an' he says to her, says he, that 's the paper, +says he, an' if you die, says he, niver lose sight of that day or night, +says he, for its life an' dith to both of us, says he. An' then he asks her +if she has n't got one o' them paaepers--what is 't they cahls +'em?--divilops, or some sich kind of a name--that they wraps up their +letters in; an' she says no, she has n't got none that 's big enough to +hold it. So he says, give me a shate o' paaeper says he. An' thin he takes +the paaeper that she give him, an' he folds it up like one o' +them--divilops, if that 's the name of 'em; and then he pulls a stick o' +salin'-wax out of his pocket, an' a stamp, an' he takes the paaeper an' puts +it into th' other paaeper, along with the rest of the paaepers, an' thin he +folds th' other paaeper over the paaepers, and thin he lights a candle, an' +he milts the salin'-wax, and he sales up the paaeper that was outside th' +other paaepers, an' he writes on the back of the paaeper, and thin he hands +it to Miss Badlam." + +"Did you see the paper that he showed her before he fastened it up with the +others, Kitty?" + +"I did see it, indade, Mr. Gridley, and it's the truth I 'm tellin' ye." + +"Did you happen to notice anything about it, Kitty." + +"I did, indade, Mr. Gridley. It was a longish kind of a paaeper, and there +was some blotches of ink on the back of it,--an' they looked like a face +without any mouth, for, says I, there 's two spots for the eyes, says I, +and there 's a spot for the nose, says I, and there 's niver a spot for the +mouth, says I." + +This was the substance of what Master Byles Gridley got out of Kitty Fagan. +It was enough,--yes, it was too much. There was some deep-laid plot between +Murray Bradshaw and Cynthia Badlam, involving the interests of some of the +persons connected with the late Malachi Withers; for that the paper +described by Kitty was the same that he had seen the young man conceal in +the _Corpus Juris Civilis_, it was impossible to doubt. If it had been a +single spot on the back of it, or two, he might have doubted. But three +large spots--"blotches" she had called them, disposed thus +...--would not have happened to be on two different papers, +in all human probability. + +After grave consultation of all his mental faculties in committee of the +whole, he arrived at the following conclusion,--that Miss Cynthia Badlam +was the depositary of a secret involving interests which he felt it his +business to defend, and of a document which was fraudulently withheld and +meant to be used for some unfair purpose. And most assuredly, Master +Gridley said to himself, he held a master-key, which, just so certainly as +he could make up his mind to use it, would open any secret in the keeping +of Miss Cynthia Badlam. + +He proceeded, therefore, without delay, to get ready for a visit to that +lady, at The Poplars. He meant to go thoroughly armed, for he was a very +provident old gentleman. His weapons were not exactly of the kind which a +house-breaker would provide himself with, but of a somewhat peculiar +nature. + +Weapon number one was a slip of paper with a date and a few words written +upon it. "I think this will fetch the document," he said to himself, "if it +comes to the worst.--Not if I can help it,--not if I can help it. But if I +cannot get at the heart of this thing otherwise, why, I must come to this. +Poor woman!--Poor woman!" + +Weapon number two was a small phial containing spirits of hartshorn, _sal +volatile_, very strong, that would stab through the nostrils, like a +stiletto, deep into the gray kernels that lie in the core of the brain. +Excellent in cases of sudden syncope or fainting, such as sometimes require +the opening of windows, the dashing on of cold water, the cutting of stays, +perhaps, with a scene of more or less tumultuous perturbation and afflux of +clamorous womanhood. + +So armed, Byles Gridley, A. M., champion of unprotected innocence, grasped +his ivory-handled cane and sallied forth on his way to The Poplars. + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +MASTER BYLES GRIDLEY CALLS ON MISS CYNTHIA BADLAM. + +Miss Cynthia Badlam was seated in a small parlor which she was accustomed +to consider her own during her long residences at The Poplars. The entry +stove warmed it but imperfectly, and she looked pinched and cold, for the +evenings were still pretty sharp, and the old house let in the chill +blasts, as old houses are in the habit of doing. She was sitting at her +table with a little trunk open before her. She had taken some papers from +it, which she was looking over, when a knock at her door announced a +visitor, and Master Byles Gridley entered the parlor. + +As he came into the room, she gathered the papers together and replaced +them in the trunk, which she locked, throwing an unfinished piece of +needlework over it, putting the key in her pocket, and gathering herself up +for company. Something of all this Master Gridley saw through his round +spectacles, but seemed not to see, and took his seat like a visitor making +a call of politeness. + +A visitor at such an hour, of the male sex, without special provocation, +without social pretext, was an event in the life of the desolate spinster. +Could it be--No, it could not--and yet--and yet! Miss Cynthia threw back +the rather common-looking but comfortable shawl which covered her +shoulders, and showed her quite presentable figure, arrayed with a still +lingering thought of that remote contingency which might yet offer itself +at some unexpected moment; she adjusted the carefully plaited cap, which +was not yet of the _lasciate ogni speranza_ pattern, and as she obeyed +these instincts of her sex, she smiled a welcome to the respectable, +learned, and independent bachelor. Mr. Gridley had a frosty but kindly age +before him, with a score or so of years to run, which it was after all not +strange to fancy might be rendered more cheerful by the companionship of a +well-conserved and amiably disposed woman,--if any such should happen to +fall in his way. + +That smile came very near disconcerting the plot of Master Byles Gridley. +He had come on an inquisitor's errand, his heart secure, as he thought, +against all blandishments, his will steeled to break down all resistance. +He had come armed with an instrument of torture worse than the thumb-screw, +worse than the pulleys which attempt the miracle of adding a cubit to the +stature, worse than the brazier of live coals brought close to the naked +soles of the feet,--an instrument which, instead of trifling with the +nerves, would clutch all the nerve-_centres_ and the heart itself in its +gripe, and hold them until it got its answer, if the white lips had life +enough left to shape one. And here was this unfortunate maiden lady smiling +at him, setting her limited attractions in their best light, pleading with +him in that natural language which makes any contumacious bachelor feel as +guilty as Cain before any single woman. If Mr. Gridley had been alone, he +would have taken a good sniff at his own bottle of _sal volatile_; for his +kind heart sunk within him as he thought of the errand upon which he had +come. It would not do to leave the subject of his vivisection under any +illusion as to the nature of his designs. + +"Good evening, Miss Badlam," he said, "I have come to visit you on a matter +of business." + +What was the internal panorama which had unrolled itself at the instant of +his entrance, and which rolled up as suddenly at the sound of his serious +voice and the look of his grave features? It cannot be reproduced, though +pages were given to it; for some of the pictures were near, and some were +distant; some were clearly seen, and some were only hinted; some were not +recognized in the intellect at all, and yet they were implied, as it were, +behind the others. Many times we have all found ourselves glad or sorry, +and yet we could not tell what thought it was that reflected the sunbeam or +cast the shadow. Look into Cynthia's suddenly exalted consciousness and see +the picture, actual and potential, unroll itself in all its details of the +natural, the ridiculous, the selfish, the pitiful, the human. Glimpses, +hints, echoes, suggestions, involving tender sentiments hitherto unknown, +we may suppose, to that unclaimed sister's breast,--pleasant excitement of +receiving congratulations from suddenly cordial friends; the fussy delights +of buying furniture and shopping for new dresses,--(it seemed as if she +could hear herself saying, "_Heavy_ silks,--_best_ goods, if you +please,")--with delectable thumping down of flat-sided pieces of calico, +cambric, "rep," and other stuffs, and rhythmic evolution of measured yards, +followed by sharp snip of scissors, and that cry of rending tissues dearer +to woman's ear than any earthly sound until she hears the voice of her own +first-born,--(much of this potentially, remember,)--thoughts of a +comfortable settlement, an imposing social condition, a cheerful household, +and by and by an Indian summer of serene widowhood,--all these, and +infinite other involved possibilities had mapped themselves in one long +swift flash before Cynthia's inward eye, and all vanished as the old man +spoke those few words. The look on his face, and the tone of his cold +speech, had instantly swept them all away, like a tea-set sliding in a +single crash from a slippery tray. + +What could be the "business" on which he had come to her with that solemn +face? she asked herself, as she returned his greeting and offered him a +chair. She was conscious of a slight tremor as she put this question to her +own intelligence. + +"Are we like to be alone and undisturbed?" Mr. Gridley asked. It was a +strange question,--men do act strangely sometimes. She hardly knew whether +to turn red or white. + +"Yes, there is nobody like to come in at present," she answered. She did +not know what to make of it. What was coming next,--a declaration, or an +accusation of murder? + +"My business," Mr. Gridley said, very gravely, "relates to this. I wish to +inspect papers which I have reason to believe exist, and which have +reference to the affairs of the late Malachi Withers. Can you help me to +get sight of any of these papers not to be found at the Registry of Deeds +or the Probate Office?" + +"Excuse me, Mr. Gridley, but may I ask you what particular concern you have +with the affairs of my relative, Cousin Malachi Withers, that's been dead +and buried these half-dozen years?" + +"Perhaps it would take some time to answer that question fully, Miss +Badlam. Some of these affairs do concern those I am interested in, if not +myself directly." + +"May I ask who the person or persons may be on whose account you wish to +look at papers belonging to my late relative, Malachi Withers?" + +"You can ask me almost anything, Miss Badlam, but I should really be very +much obliged if you would answer my question first. Can you help me to get +a sight of any papers relating to the estate of Malachi Withers, not to be +found at the Registry of Deeds or the Probate Office,--any of which you may +happen to have any private and particular knowledge?" + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Gridley; but I don't understand why you come to me +with such questions. Lawyer Penhallow is the proper person, I should think, +to go to. He and his partner that was--Mr. Wibird, you know--settled the +estate, and he has got the papers, I suppose, if there are any, that ain't +to be found at the offices you mention." + +Mr. Gridley moved his chair a little, so as to bring Miss Badlam's face a +little more squarely in view. + +"Does Mr. William Murray Bradshaw know anything about any papers, such as I +am referring to, that may have been sent to the office?" + +The lady felt a little moisture stealing through all her pores, and at the +same time a certain dryness of the vocal organs, so that her answer came in +a slightly altered tone which neither of them could help noticing. + +"You had better ask Mr. William Murray Bradshaw yourself about that," she +answered. She felt the hook now, and her spines were rising, partly with +apprehension, partly with irritation. + +"Has that young gentleman ever delivered into your hands any papers +relating to the affairs of the late Malachi Withers, for your safe +keeping?" + +"What do you mean by asking me these questions, Mr. Gridley? I don't choose +to be catechised about Murray Bradshaw's business. Go to him, if you +please, if you want to find out about it." + +"Excuse my persistence, Miss Badlam, but I must prevail upon you to answer +my question. Has Mr. William Murray Bradshaw ever delivered into your hands +any papers relating to the affairs of the late Malachi Withers, for your +safe keeping?" + +"Do you suppose I am going to answer such questions as you are putting me +because you repeat them over, Mr. Gridley? Indeed I sha' n't. Ask him, if +you please, whatever you wish to know about his doings." + +She drew herself up and looked savagely at him. She had talked herself into +her courage. There was a color in her cheeks and a sparkle in her eye; she +looked dangerous as a cobra. + +"Miss Cynthia Badlam," Master Gridley said, very deliberately, "I am afraid +we do not entirely understand each other. You must answer my question +precisely, categorically, point-blank, and on the instant. Will you do this +at once, or will you compel me to show you the absolute necessity of your +doing it, at the expense of pain to both of us? Six words from me will make +you answer all my questions." + +"You can't say six words, nor sixty, Mr. Gridley, that will make me answer +one question I do not choose to. I defy you!" + +"I will not _say_ one, Miss Cynthia Badlam. There are some things one does +not like to speak in words. But I will show you a scrap of paper, +containing just six words and a date,--not one more nor one less. You shall +read them. Then I will burn the paper in the flame of your lamp. As soon +after that as you feel ready, I will ask the same question again." + +Master Gridley took out from his pocket-book a scrap of paper, and handed +it to Cynthia Badlam. Her hand shook as she received it, for she was +frightened as well as enraged, and she saw that Mr. Gridley was in earnest +and knew what he was doing. + +She read the six words, he looking at her steadily all the time, and +watching her as if he had just given her a drop of prussic acid. + +No cry. No sound from her lips. She stared as if half stunned for one +moment, then turned her head and glared at Mr. Gridley as if she would have +murdered him if she dared. In another instant her face whitened, the scrap +of paper fluttered to the floor, and she would have followed it but for the +support of both Mr. Gridley's arms. He disengaged one of them presently, +and felt in his pocket for the _sal volatile_. It served him excellently +well, and stung her back again to her senses very quickly. All her defiant +aspect had gone. + +"Look!" he said, as he lighted the scrap of paper in the flame. "You +understand me, and you see that I must be answered the next time I ask my +question." + +She opened her lips as if to speak. It was as when a bell is rung in a +vacuum,--no words came from them,--only a faint gasping sound, an effort at +speech. She was caught tight in the heart-screw. + +"Don't hurry yourself, Miss Cynthia," he said, with a certain relenting +tenderness of manner. "Here, take another sniff of the smelling-salts. Be +calm, be quiet,--I am well disposed towards you,--I don't like to give you +trouble. There, now, I must have the answer to that question; but take your +time,--take your time." + +"Give me some water,--some water!" she said, in a strange hoarse whisper. +There was a pitcher of water and a tumbler on an old marble sideboard near +by. He filled the tumbler, and Cynthia emptied it as if she had just been +taken from the rack, and could have swallowed a bucketful. + +"What do you want to know?" she asked. + +"I wish to know all that you can tell me about a certain paper, or certain +papers, which I have reason to believe Mr. William Murray Bradshaw +committed to your keeping." + +"There is only one paper of any consequence. Do you want to make him kill +me? or do you want to make me kill myself?" + +"Neither, Miss Cynthia, neither. I wish to see that paper, but not for any +bad purpose. Don't you think, on the whole, you have pretty good reason to +trust me? I am a very quiet man, Miss Cynthia. Don't be afraid of me; only +do what I ask,--it will be a great deal better for you in the end." + +She thrust her trembling hand into her pocket, and took out the key of the +little trunk. She drew the trunk towards her, put the key in the lock, and +opened it. It seemed like pressing a knife into her own bosom and turning +the blade. That little trunk held all the records of her life the forlorn +spinster most cherished;--a few letters that came nearer to love-letters +than any others she had ever received; an album, with flowers of the +summers of 1840 and 1841 fading between its leaves; two papers containing +locks of hair, half of a broken ring, and other insignificant mementos +which had their meaning, doubtless, to her,--such a collection as is often +priceless to one human heart, and passed by as worthless in the +auctioneer's inventory. She took the papers out mechanically, and laid them +on the table. Among them was an oblong packet, sealed with what appeared to +be the office-seal of Messrs. Penhallow and Bradshaw. + +"Will you allow me to take that envelope containing papers, Miss Badlam?" +Mr. Gridley asked, with a suavity and courtesy in his tone and manner that +showed how he felt for her sex and her helpless position. + +She seemed to obey his will as if she had none of her own left. She passed +the envelope to him, and stared at him vacantly while he examined it. He +read on the back of the package: "_Withers Estate_--old papers--of no +account apparently. Examine hereafter." + +"May I ask when, where, and of whom you obtained these papers, Miss +Badlam?" + +"Have pity on me, Mr. Gridley,--have pity on me. I am a lost woman if you +do not. Spare me! for God's sake, spare me! There will no wrong come of all +this, if you will but wait a little while. The paper will come to light +when it is wanted, and all will be right. But do not make me answer any +more questions, and let me keep this paper. O Mr. Gridley! I am in the +power of a dreadful man--" + +"You mean Mr. William Murray Bradshaw?" + +"I mean him." + +"Has there not been some understanding between you that he should become +the approved suitor of Miss Myrtle Hazard?" + +Cynthia wrung her hands and rocked herself backward and forward in her +misery, but answered not a word. What _could_ she answer, if she had +plotted with this "dreadful man" against a young and innocent girl, to +deliver her over into his hands, at the risk of all her earthly hopes and +happiness? + +Master Gridley waited long and patiently for any answer she might have the +force to make. As she made none, he took upon himself to settle the whole +matter without further torture of his helpless victim. + +"This package must go into the hands of the parties who had the settlement +of the estate of the late Malachi Withers. Mr. Penhallow is the survivor of +the two gentlemen to whom that business was intrusted.--How long is Mr. +William Murray Bradshaw like to be away?" + +"Perhaps a few days,--perhaps weeks,--and then he will come back and kill +me,--or--or--worse! Don't take that paper, Mr. Gridley,--he isn't like you; +you wouldn't--but he would--he would send me to everlasting misery to gain +his own end, or to save himself. And yet he is n't every way bad, and if he +did marry Myrtle she 'd think there never was such a man,--for he can talk +her heart out of her, and the wicked in him lies very deep and won't ever +come out, perhaps, if the world goes right with him." The last part of this +sentence showed how Cynthia talked with her own conscience; all her mental +and moral machinery lay open before the calm eyes of Master Byles Gridley. + +His thoughts wandered a moment from the business before him; he had just +got a new study of human nature, which in spite of himself would be shaping +itself into an axiom for an imagined new edition of "Thoughts on the +Universe,"--something like this,--_The greatest saint may be a sinner that +never got down to "hard pan."_--It was not the time to be framing axioms. + +"Poh! poh!" he said to himself; "what are you about, making phrases, when +you have got a piece of work like this in hand?" Then to Cynthia, with +great gentleness and kindness of manner: "Have no fear about any +consequences to yourself. Mr. Penhallow must see that paper,--I mean those +papers. You shall not be a loser nor a sufferer if you do your duty now in +these premises." + +Master Gridley, treating her, as far as circumstances permitted, like a +gentleman, had shown no intention of taking the papers either stealthily or +violently. It must be with her consent. He had laid the package down upon +the table, waiting for her to give him leave to take it. But just as he +spoke these last words, Cynthia, whose eye had been glancing furtively at +it while he was thinking out his axiom, and taking her bearings to it +pretty carefully, stretched her hand out, and, seizing the package, thrust +it into the sanctuary of her bosom. + +"Mr. Penhallow must see those papers, Miss Cynthia Badlam," Mr. Gridley +repeated calmly. "If he says they or any of them can be returned to your +keeping, well and good. But see them he must, for they have his office seal +and belong in his custody, and, as you see by the writing on the back, they +have not been examined. Now there may be something among them which is of +immediate importance to the relatives of the late deceased Malachi Withers, +and therefore they must be forthwith submitted to the inspection of the +surviving partner of the firm of Wibird and Penhallow. This I propose to +do, with your consent, this evening. It is now twenty-five minutes past +eight by the true time, as my watch has it. At half past eight exactly I +shall have the honor of bidding you good evening, Miss Cynthia Badlam, +whether you give me those papers or not. I shall go to the office of Jacob +Penhallow, Esquire, and there make one of two communications to him; to +wit, these papers and the facts connected therewith, or another statement, +the nature of which you may perhaps conjecture." + +There is no need of our speculating as to what Mr. Byles Gridley, an +honorable and humane man, would have done, or what would have been the +nature of that communication which he offered as an alternative to the +perplexed woman. He had not at any rate miscalculated the strength of his +appeal, which Cynthia interpreted as he expected. She bore the heart-screw +about two minutes. Then she took the package from her bosom, and gave it +with averted face to Master Byles Gridley, who, on receiving it, made her a +formal but not unkindly bow, and bade her good evening. + +"One would think it had been lying out in the dew," he said, as he left the +house and walked towards Mr. Penhallow's residence. + + + + +THEMISTOCLES. + + + So! Ye drag me, men of Athens, + Hither to your council-hall, + Armed with judges and informers, + That your doom on me may fall,-- + Doom that Athens oft hath levelled + On her noblest sons of yore,-- + Doom that made her foes triumphant, + And each heart that loved her sore. + Oft, as I have seen her heroes + Brought to this ignoble end, + Have I pondered,--when should Fortune + To my lips the cup commend? + + + Read the foul indictment, falsehood + After falsehood rolling on; + Far away my thoughts shall wander, + Thinking of the moments gone, + When with tears and prayers ye dragged me + Hither to your council-hall, + Young and old, and wives and children, + Echoing one despairing call,-- + "Speak some word of comfort, Archon, + Ere the Persian dig our grave! + Speak, Themistocles, and save us,-- + Thou alone hast power to save!" + + + Is it over? Let me hear it,-- + Let me hear once more the end,-- + "For Themistocles betrays us, + And is sworn the Persian's friend--" + No, not that! Take back the falsehood! + Curse the hand that wrote the lie; + Charge what deadly crime it lists you, + 'Tis no dreadful thing to die. + But shall all my free devotion, + All my care for Athens' weal, + Turn to treason and corruption, + Stamped with such a lying seal? + Was 't for Persia then I led you + Up to proud Athena's height,-- + Bade you view this barren country, + And the sea to left and right,-- + Bade you leave your plain and mountain,-- + Save to dig their shining ore,-- + Bade you grasp the ocean's sceptre, + Spoil the wealth of every shore, + Spread your white sails to the breezes, + Unrestrained like them and free, + Lords of no contracted city, + But the monarchs of the sea! + + Persia's friend! Have ye forgotten + How the lord of Persia came, + Bridging seas, and cleaving mountains, + With the terrors of his name,-- + How he burst through Tempe's portal, + Trod the dauntless Spartan down, + Dragged the vile Boeotian captive, + Dared e'en Delphi's sacred crown? + And the craven wail of terror + Rang through Athens' every street; + Then ye came and begged for counsel, + Kneeling, clinging to my feet. + Then I bade you leave your city, + Leave your temples and your halls, + Trusting, as the god gave answer, + To your country's wooden walls. + And the Persian, entering proudly, + Found a city of the dead; + Athens' corpse his only victim, + Her immortal soul had fled! + + Was 't for Persia in the council + With your false allies I toiled, + Bade the Spartan, "Strike, but hear me," + Ere my country should be spoiled? + Or that all that night their galleys + In the narrow strait I kept? + For we felt the Persian closing, + And no son of Athens slept. + But when broke the golden dawning + O'er Pentelicus afar, + Rose the glad Hellenic paean, + Bursting with the morning star. + For we saw the Persian squadrons + Ship on ship in thousands pour, + And we knew the pass was narrow + 'Twixt the island and the shore. + Calmly, as no foe were near us, + All our morning tasks we wrought, + Lying there in silent order, + As though fight we never fought. + But we grasped our oars all eager + Till the tough pine burned each hand, + Watching till the steersman's signal + For the onset gave command. + Then we smote the sea together, + And our galleys onward flew, + While from all the Hellenic navy, + As we dashed along the blue, + Pealed one loud, triumphant war-cry,-- + "Now, ye sons of Hellas, come, + Conquer freedom for your country, + Freedom each one for his home, + Freedom for your wives and children, + For the altars where ye bow, + For your fathers' honored ashes, + For them all ye 're fighting now!"[1] + + On the mountain height the tyrant + Bade them set his golden throne, + And in pitch of pride surveyed them,-- + All the fleet he called his own,-- + Heard the war-cry far resounding, + Heard the oars' responsive dash, + And the shock of squadrons smiting + Beak to beak with sudden clash,-- + Saw them locked in wild confusion, + Prow on prow and keel on keel,-- + Heard the thundering crash of timbers, + And the ring of clanging steel,-- + Saw his ponderous ships entangled + In the close and narrow strait, + And our light-winged galleys darting + Boldly in the jaws of fate,-- + Saw the mad disorder seize them, + As we grappled fast each prow, + Leaped like tigers on the bulwarks, + Hurled them to the depths below,-- + Saw his bravest on the island + Slaughtered down in deadly fight, + Whom he fondly placed to crush us, + If perchance we turned to flight,-- + Saw one last despairing struggle,-- + Then the shout that all was lost, + And his matchless navy turning, + Fleeing from the hated coast,-- + Saw them stranded on the island, + Rent and shattered on the main,-- + Heard the shrieks of myriads wounded, + Saw the heaps of thousands slain, + While the sea was red with carnage, + And the air with shouts was wild, + "Woe to Persia's slaves and tyrant! + Hail to Athens, ocean's child!" + + No, ye have not all forgotten, + All your hearts have not grown cold, + When of Athens' countless triumphs, + This, the noblest tale, is told. + + Oft perchance my acts have wronged you, + But ye dare not charge me this, + That the Persian is my master, + When ye think of Salamis. + More I might; but it sufficeth,-- + Here I wait the word of doom; + Strike! But think that I, the culprit, + Raised your city from the tomb. + + *....*....*....* + + Guilty! Well! The fate of others + Now at length descends on me; + Envy strikes the loftiest ever, + As the lightning on the tree. + Banished! Athens aye hath willed it + For her truest souls of yore; + Now I know thee, Aristides, + As I never knew before. + O forgive me, gallant rival, + If I e'er have wrought thee ill; + Think but of the glorious morning + When we stood on yonder hill, + When Miltiades arrayed us + In the central ranks to stand, + When we charged adown the mountain + On the motley Persian band, + When the shouting wings swept forward, + And we stood, like sea-cliffs fast, + Smiling to behold the nations + Break in foam upon us cast; + When we chased them to the galleys, + Slaughtered thousands by the wave, + Sent them back in rout to Susa, + Heaped the mound above our brave, + And forever through the ages + Sounds our glory, rolling on, + For Miltiades and Athens, + For ourselves and Marathon. + + Men of Athens! By your sentence + I am banished from your state; + Humbly to that doom I bow me, + And I leave you to your fate. + Not to me thine awful ending, + Athens, shall the years unfold; + Long shall night have closed these eyelids + Ere that ruin men behold. + Still, when I am long forgotten, + Shall thy haughty sway extend, + Isles and cities, lords and kingdoms, + Forced to court, to sue, to bend, + As, from year to year increasing, + Still thy marts new wealth enclose, + And thy far-resplendent treasures + Dazzle e'en thy fiercest foes. + Wider ports and swifter navies, + Broader fields and richer mines, + Deadlier fights and braver armies, + Statelier halls and fairer shrines, + Loftier accents poured in council, + Nobler thoughts in sweeter song, + Loud proclaim the crown of Hellas + Doth of right to thee belong; + Till thy heart be drunk with glory, + And thy brain be crazed with power, + And the gods o'erhear thy boasting + In some mad, triumphant hour. + + Then, when one by one thy subjects + Turn and beard thee in despair, + Calling Sparta to the rescue, + In thy death and spoil to share,-- + When thy vines and groves lie desert, + And within thy crowded wall + Pest and famine slay thy chosen, + Slay the foremost chief of all,-- + When thy armies throng the dungeons, + And thy shipwrecks heap the strand,-- + When thine ancient strain of heroes + Gives no more the proud command, + But thy wisest heads turn faithless, + And thy truest hearts grow dull, + Making all thy counsel folly, + All thy desperate valor null,-- + When each fond and mad endeavor, + Clutching at thy fallen crown, + Deeper in the roaring whirlpool + Of perdition sucks thee down, + When at last thy foes surround thee, + Dig the trench, and hem thee in,-- + When the dreadful word is spoken, + Which to whisper were a sin,-- + When at length, in vile subjection, + Unto Sparta thou shalt sue, + Swearing thou wilt humbly serve her, + Will she but thy life renew,-- + In that hour of keenest torture, + When thy star is sunk in night, + Think!--but not of me, whose valor + Thou so foully didst requite;-- + Think not of thine outraged heroes, + But of her who banished these, + Think of Athens, false and fickle, + Think not of Themistocles. + + But if e'er, in after ages, + Once again thy star _should_ rise,-- + If some noble son _should_ save thee, + Like a god that left the skies, + If thy shackles should be broken, + And thou leap to new renown, + Then remember me, my darling, + City of the violet crown! + Then shall endless shouts of triumph + Sound the glories of thy name, + And the songs of generations + All thy matchless gifts proclaim; + Then be every wrong forgotten, + Then be every debt repaid, + And the wreath of every hero + On Athena's altar laid. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] The foregoing description is nearly a translation from the _Persae_ of +AEschylus. + + + + +BEN JONSON. + + +Authors are apt to be popularly considered as physically a feeble folk,--as +timid, nervous, dyspeptic rhymers or prosers, unfitted to grapple with the +rough realities of life. We shall endeavor, in the following pages, to +present our readers with the image of one calculated to reverse this +impression,--the image of a stalwart man of letters, who lived two +centuries and a half ago, in the greatest age of English literature,--who +undeniably had brawny fists as well as forgetive faculties,--one who could +handle a club as readily as a pen, hit his mark with a bullet as surely as +with a word, and, a sort of cross between the bully and the bard, could +shoulder his way through a crowd of prize-fighters to take his seat among +the tuneful company of immortal poets. This man, Ben Jonson, commonly +stands next to Shakespeare in a consideration of the dramatic literature of +the age of Elizabeth; and certainly, if the "thousand-souled" Shakespeare +may be said to represent mankind, Ben as unmistakably stands for +English-kind. He is "Saxon" England in epitome,--John Bull passing from a +name into a man,--a proud, strong, tough, solid, domineering individual, +whose intellect and personality cannot be severed, even in thought, from +his body and personal appearance. Ben's mind, indeed, was rooted in Ben's +character; and his character took symbolic form in his physical frame. He +seemed built up, mentally as well as bodily, out of beef and sack, mutton +and Canary; or, to say the least, was a joint product of the English mind +and the English larder, of the fat as well as the thought of the land, of +the soil as well as the soul of England. The moment we attempt to estimate +his eminence as a dramatist, he disturbs the equanimity of our judgment by +tumbling head-foremost into the imagination as a big, bluff, burly, and +quarrelsome man, with "a mountain belly and a rocky face." He is a very +pleasant boon companion as long as we make our idea of his importance agree +with his own; but the instant we attempt to dissect his intellectual +pretensions, the living animal becomes a dangerous subject,--his +countenance flames, his great hands double up, his thick lips begin to +twitch with impending invective; and while the critic's impression of him +is thus all the more vivid, he is checked in its expression by a very +natural fear of the consequences. There is no safety but in taking this +rowdy leviathan of letters at his own valuation; and the relation of +critics towards him is as perilous as that of the juries towards the Irish +advocate, who had an unpleasant habit of challenging them to personal +combat whenever they brought in a verdict against any of his clients. There +is, in fact, such a vast animal force in old Ben's self-assertion, that he +bullies posterity as he bullied his contemporaries; and while we admit his +claims to rank next to Shakespeare among the dramatists of his age, we beg +our readers to understand that we do it under intimidation. + +The qualities of this bold, racy, and brawny egotist can be best conveyed +in a biographical form. He was born in 1574, the grandson of a gentleman +who, for his religion, lost his estate, and for a time his liberty, in +Queen Mary's time, and the son of a clergyman in humble circumstances, who +died about a month before his "rare" offspring was born. His mother, +shortly after the death of her husband, married a master-bricklayer. Ben, +who as a boy doubtless exhibited brightness of intellect and audacity of +spirit, seems to have attracted the attention of Camden, who placed him in +Westminster School, of which he was master. Ben there displayed so warm a +love of learning, and so much capacity in rapidly acquiring it, that, at +the age of sixteen, he is said to have been removed to the University of +Cambridge, though he stated to Drummond, long afterwards, that he was +"master of arts in both the Universities, by their favor, not his studie." +His ambition at this time, if we may believe some of his biographers, was +to be a clergyman; and had it been gratified, he would probably have +blustered his way to a bishopric, and proved himself one of the most +arrogant, learned, and pugnacious disputants of the English Church +Militant,--perhaps have furnished the type of that peculiar religionist +compounded of bully, pedant, and bigot which Warburton was afterwards, from +the lack of models, compelled to originate. But after residing a few months +at the University, Ben, deserted by his friends and destitute of money, +found it impossible to carry out his design; and he returned disappointed +to his mother's house. As she could not support him in idleness, the +stout-hearted student adopted the most obvious means of earning his daily +bread, and for a short time followed the occupation of his father-in-law, +going to the work of bricklaying, according to the tradition, with a trowel +in one hand, but with a Horace in the other. His enemies among the +dramatists did not forget this when he became famous, but meanly sneered at +him as "the lime-and-mortar poet." When we reflect that in the aristocratic +age of good Queen Bess, play-writing, even the writing of Hamlets and +Alchymists, was, if we may trust Dr. Farmer, hardly considered "a +creditable employ," we may form some judgment of the position of the +working classes, when a mechanic was thus deemed to have no rights which a +playwright "was bound to respect." + +We have no means of deciding whether or not Ben was foolish enough to look +upon his trade as degrading; that it was distasteful we know from the fact +that he soon exchanged the trowel for the sword; and we hear no more of his +dealing with bricks, if we may except his questionable habit of sometimes +carrying too many of them in his hat. At the age of eighteen he ran away to +the Continent, and enlisted as a volunteer in the English army in Flanders, +fully intending, doubtless, that, as fate seemed against his being a Homer +or an Aristotle, to try if fortune would not make him an Alexander or a +Hannibal. As ill-luck would have it, however, his abundant vitality had +little scope in martial exercise. He does not appear to have been in any +general engagement, though he signalized his personal prowess in a manner +which he was determined should not be forgotten through any diffidence of +his own. Boastful as he was brave, he was never weary of bragging how he +had encountered one of the enemy, fought with him in presence of both +armies, killed him, and triumphantly "taken _opima spolia_ from him." + +After serving one campaign, our Ajax-Thersites returned, at the age of +nineteen, to England, bringing with him, according to Gifford, "the +reputation of a brave man, a smattering of Dutch, and an empty purse." To +these accomplishments he probably added that of drinking; for, as "our army +in Flanders" ever drank terribly as well as "swore terribly," it may be +supposed that Ben there laid, deep and wide, the foundation of his +bacchanalian habits. Arrived in London, and thrown on his own resources for +support, he turned naturally to the stage, and became an actor in a minor +play-house, called the Green Curtain. Though he was through life a good +reader, and though at this time he was not afflicted with the scurvy, which +eventually so punched his face as to make one of his satirists compare it, +with witty malice, to the cover of a warming-pan, he still never rose to +any eminence as an actor. He had not been long at the Green Curtain when a +quarrel with one of his fellow performers led to a duel, in which Jonson +killed his antagonist, was arrested on a charge of murder, and, in his own +phrase, was brought "almost at the gallowes,"--an unpleasant proximity +which he hastened to increase by relieving the weariness of imprisonment in +discussions on religion with a Popish priest, also a prisoner, and by being +converted to Romanism. As the zealous professors of the old faith had +passed, in Elizabeth's time, from persecutors into martyrs, Ben, the +descendant of one of Queen Mary's victims, evinced more than his usual +worldly prudence in seizing this occasion to join their company, as he +could reasonably hope that, if he escaped hanging on the charge of +homicide, he still might contrive to be beheaded on a charge of treason. +In regard, however, to the original cause of his imprisonment, it would +seem that, on investigation, it was found the duel had been forced upon +him, that his antagonist had taken the precaution of bringing into the +field a sword ten inches longer than his own, and thus, far from intending +to be the victim of murder, had not unsagaciously counted on committing it. +Jonson was released; but, apparently vexed at this propitious turn to his +fortunes, instead of casting about for some means of subsistence, he almost +immediately married a woman as poor as himself,--a wife whom he afterwards +curtly described as "a shrew, yet honest." A shrew, indeed! As if Mrs. +Jonson must not often have had just occasion to use her tongue tartly!--as +if her redoubtable Ben did not often need its acrid admonitions! They seem +to have lived together until 1613, when they separated. + +Absolute necessity now drove Jonson again to the stage, probably both as +actor and writer. He began his dramatic career, as Shakespeare began his, +by doing job-work for the managers; that is, by altering, recasting, and +making additions to old plays. At last, in 1596, in his twenty-second year, +he placed himself at a bound among the famous dramatists of the time, by +the production, at the Rose Theatre, of his comedy of "Every Man in his +Humor." Two years afterwards, having in the mean time been altered and +improved, it was, through the influence of Shakespeare, accepted by the +players of the Blackfriars' Theatre, Shakespeare himself acting the +characterless part of the Elder Knowell. + +Among the writers of the Elizabethan age, an age in which, for a wonder, +there seemed to be a glut of genius, Ben is prominent more for racy +originality of personal character, weight or understanding, and quickness +of fancy, than for creativeness of imagination. His first play, "Every Man +in his Humor," indicates to a great extent the quality and the kind of +power with which he was endowed. His prominent characteristic was +will,--will carried to self-will, and sometimes to self-exaggeration almost +furious. His understanding was solid, strong, penetrating, even broad, and +it was well furnished with matter derived both from experience and books; +but, dominated by a personality so fretful and fierce, it was impelled to +look at men and things, not in their relations to each other, but in their +relations to Ben. He had reached that ideal of stormy conceit in which, +according to Emerson, the egotist declares, "Difference from me is the +measure of absurdity." Even the imaginary characters he delineated as a +dramatist were all bound, as by tough cords, to the will that gave them +being, lacked that joyous freedom and careless grace of movement which +rightfully belonged to them as denizens of an ideal world, and had to obey +their master Ben, as puppets obey the show-man. His power of external +observation was pitilessly keen and searching, and it was accompanied by a +rich, though somewhat coarse and insolent vein of humor; but his egotism +commonly directed his observation to what was below, rather than above +himself, and gave to his humor a scornful, rather than a genial tone. He +huffs even in his hilarity; his fun is never infectious; and his very +laughter is an assertion of superior wisdom. He has none of that humanizing +humor which, in Shakespeare, makes us like the vagabonds we laugh at, and +which insures for Dogberry and Nick Bottom, Autolychus and Falstaff, warmer +friends among readers than many great historic dignities of the state and +the camp can command. + +In regard to the materials of the dramatist, Jonson, in his vagrant career, +had seen human nature under many aspects; but he had surveyed it neither +with the eye of reason, nor the eye of imagination. His mind fastened on +the hard actualities of observation, without passing to what they implied +or suggested. Deficient thus in philosophic insight and poetic insight, his +shrewd, contemptuous glance rarely penetrated beneath the manners and +eccentricities of men. His attention was arrested, not by character, but by +prominent peculiarities of character,--peculiarities which almost +transformed character into caricature. To use his own phrase, he delineated +humors rather than persons, that is, individuals under the influence of +some dominant affectation, or whim, or conceit, or passion, that drew into +itself, colored, and mastered the whole nature,--"an acorn," as Sir Thomas +Browne phrases it, "in their young brows, which grew to an oak in their old +heads." He thus inverts the true process of characterization. Instead of +seeing the trait as an offshoot of the individual, he individualizes the +trait. Every man is _in_ his humor, instead of every humor being in its +man. In order that there should be no misconception of his purpose, he +named his chief characters after their predominant qualities, as Morose, +Surly, Sir Amorous La Fool, Sir Politic Would Be, Sir Epicure Mammon, and +the like; and, apprehensive even then that his whole precious meaning would +not be taken in, he appended to his _dramatis personae_ further explanations +of their respective natures. + +This distrust of the power of language to lodge a notion in another brain +is especially English; but Ben, of all writers, seems to have been most +impressed with the necessity of pounding an idea into the perceptions of +his countrymen. His mode resembles the attempt of that honest Briton, who +thus delivered his judgment on the French nation: "I hate a Frenchman, sir. +Every Frenchman is either a puppy or a rascal, sir." And then, fearful that +he had not been sufficiently explicit, he added, "Do you take my idea?" + +With all abatements, however, the comedy of "Every Man in his Humor" is a +remarkable effort, considered as the production of a young man of +twenty-three. The two most striking characters are Kitely and Captain +Bobadil. Give Jonson, indeed, a peculiarity to start with, and he worked it +out with logical exactness. So intense was his conception of it, that he +clothed it in flesh and blood, gave it a substantial existence, and +sometimes succeeded in forcing it into literature as a permanent character. + +Bobadil, especially, is one of Ben's masterpieces. He is the most colossal +coward and braggart of the comic stage. He can swear by nothing less +terrible than "by the body of Caesar," or "by the foot of Pharaoh," when his +oath is not something more terrific still, namely, "by my valor"! Every +schoolboy knows the celebrated passage in which the boasting Captain offers +to settle the affairs of Europe by associating with himself twenty other +Bobadils, as cunning i' the fence as himself, and challenging an army of +forty thousand men, twenty at a time, and killing the whole in a certain +number of days. Leaving out the cowardice, we may say there was something +of Bobadil in Jonson himself; and it may be shrewdly suspected that his +conceit of destroying an army in this fashion came into his head in the +exultation of feeling which followed his own successful exploit, in the +presence of both armies, when he was a soldier in Flanders. Old John Dennis +described genius "as a furious joy and pride of school at the conception of +an extraordinary hint." Ben had this "furious joy and pride," not only in +the conception of extraordinary hints, but in the doing of extraordinary +things. + +Jonson followed up his success by producing the plays of "Every Man out of +his Humor," and "Cynthia's Revels," dramatic satires on the manners, +follies, affectations, and vices of the city and the court. One good result +of Jonson's egotism was, that it made him afraid of nothing. He openly +appeared among the dramatists of his day as a reformer, and, poor as he +was, refused to pander to popular tastes, whether those tastes took the +direction of ribaldry, or blasphemy, or bombast. He had courage, morality, +earnestness; but then his courage was so blustering, his morality so +irascible, and his devotion to his own ideas of art so exclusive, that he +was constantly defying and insulting the persons he proposed to teach. +Other dramatists said to the audience, "Please to applaud this"; but Ben +said, "Now, you fools, we shall see if you have sense enough to applaud +this!" The stage, to be sure, was to be exalted and improved, but it was to +be done by his own works, and the glory of literature was to be associated +with the glory of Master Benjamin. This conceit, by making him insensible +to Shakespeare's influence, made him next to Shakespeare perhaps the most +original dramatist of the time. He differed from his brother dramatists not +in degree, but in kind. He felt it was not for him to imitate, but to +produce models for imitation; not for him to catch the spirit of the age, +but to originate a better. In short, he felt and taught belief in Ben; and, +high as posterity rates the literature of the age of Elizabeth, it would be +supposed from his prologues and epilogues that he conceived his fat person +to have fallen on evil days. + +In "Every Man out of his Humor" and "Cynthia's Revels," he is in a raging +passion throughout. His verse groans with the weight of his wrath. "My +soul," he exclaims, + + "Was never ground into such oily colors + To flatter vice and daub iniquity. + But with an armed and resolved hand + I 'll strip the ragged follies of the time + Naked as at their birth, + ... and with a whip of steel + Print wounding lashes on their iron ribs." + +But though he exhausts the whole rhetoric of railing, invective, contempt, +and scorn, we yet find it difficult to feel any of the indignation he +labors to excite. Admiration, however, cannot be refused to Jonson's prose +style in these as in his other plays. It is terse, sharp, swift, +biting,--every word a die that stamps its object in a second. Occasionally +the author's veins, to use his own apt expression, seem to "run +quicksilver," and "every phrase comes forth steeped in the very brine of +conceit, and sparkles like salt in fire." Yet, though we have whole scenes +in which there is brightness in every sentence, the result of the whole is +something like dulness, as the object of the whole is to exalt himself and +depress others. But in these plays, in strange contrast with their general +character, we have a few specimens of that sweetness of sentiment, +refinement of fancy, and indefinite beauty of imagination, which, occupying +some secluded corner of his large brain, seemed to exist apart from his +ordinary powers and passions. Among these, the most exquisite is this Hymn +to Diana, which partakes of the serenity of the moonlight, whose goddess it +invokes. + + "Queen and huntress chaste and fair, + Now the sun is laid to sleep, + Seated in thy silver chair, + State in wonted manner keep. + Hesperus entreats thy light, + Goddess excellently bright! + + "Earth, let not thy envious shade + Dare itself to interpose; + Cynthia's shining orb was made + Heaven to clear when day did close. + Bless us, then, with wished sight, + Goddess excellently bright. + + "Lay thy bow of pearl apart, + And thy crystal-gleaming quiver; + Give unto the flying hart + Space to breathe how short soever,-- + Thou that mak'st a day of night, + Goddess excellently bright." + +If, as Jonson's adversaries maliciously asserted, "every line of his poetry +cost him a cup of sack," we must, even in our more temperate days, pardon +him the eighteen cups which, in this melodious lyric, went into his mouth +as sack, but, by some precious chemistry, came out through his pen as +pearls. + +It was inevitable that the imperious attitude Jonson had assumed, and the +insolent pungency of his satire, should rouse the wrath of the classes he +lampooned, and the enmity of the poets he ridiculed and decried. Among +those who conceived themselves assailed, or who felt insulted by his +arrogant tone, were two dramatists, Thomas Dekkar and John Marston. They +soon recriminated; and as Ben was better fitted by nature to dispense than +to endure scorn and derision, he in 1601 produced "The Poetaster," the +object of which was to silence forever, not only Dekkar and Marston, but +all other impudent doubters of his infallibility. The humor of the thing +is, that, in this elaborate attempt to convict his adversaries of calumny +in taxing him with self-love and arrogance, he ostentatiously exhibits the +very qualities he disclaims. He keeps no terms with those who profess +disbelief in Ben. They are "play-dressers and plagiaries," "fools or +jerking pedants," "buffoon barking wits," tickling "base vulgar ears with +beggarly and barren trash," while his are + + "The high raptures of a happy Muse, + Borne on the wings of her immortal thought, + That kicks at earth with a disdainful heel, + And beats at heaven's gate with her bright hoofs." + +Dekkar retorted in a play called "Satiromastrix; or, the Untrussing of the +Humorous Poet"; but, though the scurrility is brilliantly bitter, it is +less efficient and hearted than Jonson's. This literary controversy, +conducted in acted plays, had to the public of that day a zest similar to +that we should enjoy if the editors of two opposing political newspapers +should meet in a hall filled with their subscribers, and fling their +thundering editorials in person at each other's heads. The theatre-goers +seem to have declared for Dekkar and Marston; and Ben, disgusted with such +a proof of their incapacity of judgment, sulked and growled in his den, and +for two years gave nothing to the stage. He had, however, found a patron, +who enabled him to do this without undergoing the famine of insufficient +meat, and the still more dreadful drought of insufficient drink; for, in a +gossiping diary of the period, covering these two years, we are informed, +"B. J. now lives with one Townsend, and scorns the world." While, however, +pleasantly engaged in this characteristic occupation, for which he had a +natural genius, he was meditating a play which he thought would demonstrate +to all judging spirits his possession equally of the acquirements of the +scholar and the talents of the dramatist. In the conclusion of the +Apologetic Dialogue which accompanies "The Poetaster," he had hinted his +purpose in these energetic lines:-- + + "Once I 'll say,-- + To strike the ears of Time in these fresh strains, + As shall, beside the cunning of their ground, + Give cause to some of wonder, some despite, + And more despair to imitate their sound. + I that spend half my nights and all my days + Here in a cell, to get a dark, pale face, + To come forth with the ivy and the bays, + And in this age can hope no better grace,-- + Leave me! There 's something come into my thought, + That must and shall be sung high and aloof, + Safe from the wolf's black jaw, and the dull ass's hoof!" + +Accordingly, in 1603, he produced his weighty tragedy of "Sejanus," at +Shakespeare's theatre, The Globe,--Shakespeare himself acting one of the +inferior parts. Think of Shakespeare laboriously committing to memory the +blank verse of Jonson! + +Though "Sejanus" failed of theatrical success, its wealth of classic +knowledge and solid thought made it the best of all answers to his +opponents. It was as if they had questioned his capacity to build a ship, +and he had confuted them with a man-of-war. To be sure, they might +reiterate their old charge of "filching by translation," for the text of +"Sejanus" is a mosaic; but it was one of Jonson's maxims that he deserved +as much honor for what he made his own by _Jonsonizing_ the classics as for +what he originated. Indeed, in his dealings with the great poets and +historians of Rome, whose language and whose spirit he had patiently +mastered, he acted the part, not of the pickpocket, but of the conqueror. +He did not meanly crib and pilfer in the territories of the ancients: he +rather pillaged, or, in our American phrase, "annexed" them. "He has done +his robberies so openly," says Dryden, "that one sees he fears not to be +taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch, and what would be +theft in any other poet is only victory in him." + +One incident connected with the bringing out of "Sejanus" should not be +omitted. Jonson told Drummond that the Earl of Northampton had a mortal +enmity to him "for beating, on a St. George's day, one of his attenders"; +and he adds, that Northampton had him "called before the Councell for his +Sejanus," and accused him there both of "Poperie and treason." + +Jonson's relations with Shakespeare seem always to have been friendly; and +about this time we hear of them as associate members of the greatest of +literary and the greatest of convivial clubs,--the club instituted by Sir +Walter Raleigh, and known to all times as the "Mermaid," so called from the +tavern in which the meetings were held. Various, however, as were the +genius and accomplishments it included, it lacked one phase of ability +which has deprived us of all participation in its wit and wisdom. It could +boast of Shakespeare, and Jonson, and Raleigh, and Camden, and Beaumont, +and Selden, but, alas! it had no Boswell to record its words, + + "So nimble, and so full of subtile flame." + +There are traditions of "wit-combats" between Shakespeare and Jonson; and +doubtless there was many a discussion between them touching the different +principles on which their dramas were composed; and then Ben, astride his +high horse of the classics, probably blustered and harangued, and +graciously informed the world's greatest poet that he sometimes wanted art +and sometimes sense, and candidly advised him to check the fatal rapidity +and perilous combinations of his imagination,--while Shakespeare smilingly +listened, and occasionally put in an ironic word, deprecating such austere +criticism of a playwright like himself, who accommodated his art to the +humors of the mob that crowded the "round O" of The Globe. There can be no +question that Shakespeare saw Ben through and through, but he was not a man +to be intolerant of foibles, and probably enjoyed the hectoring egotism of +his friend as much as he appreciated his real merits. As for Ben, the +transcendent genius of his brother dramatist pierced through even the thick +hide of his self-sufficiency. "I did honor him," he finely says, "this side +of idolatry, as much as any other man." + +On the accession of James of Scotland to the English throne, Jonson was +employed by the court and city to design a splendid pageant for the +monarch's reception; and, with that absence of vindictiveness which +somewhat atoned for his arrogance, he gave his recent enemy, Dekkar, three +fifths of the job. About the same time he was reconciled to Marston; and in +1605 assisted him and Chapman in a comedy called "Eastward Hoe!" One +passage in this, reflecting on the Scotch, gave mortal offence to James's +greedy countrymen, who invaded England in his train, and were ravenous and +clamorous for the spoils of office. Captain Seagul, in the play, praises +what was then the new settlement of Virginia, as "a place without +sergeants, or courtiers, or lawyers, or intelligencers, only a few +industrious Scots perhaps, who indeed are dispersed over the whole earth. +But as for them, there are no greater friends to Englishmen and England, +when they are out on 't, in the world, than they are; and, for my own part, +I would a hundred thousand of them were there, for we are all one +countrymen now, ye know, and we should find ten times more comfort of them +there than we do here." This bitter taunt, which probably made the theatre +roar with applause, was so represented to the king, that Marston and +Chapman were arrested and imprisoned. Jonson nobly insisted on sharing +their fate; and as he had powerful friends at court, and was esteemed by +James himself, his course may have saved his friends from disgraceful +mutilations. A report was circulated that the noses and ears of all three +were to be slit and Jonson tells us, that, in an entertainment he gave to +Camden, Selden, and other friends after his liberation, his old mother +exhibited a paper full of "lustie strong poison," which she said she +intended to have mixed _in his drink_, in case the threat of such a +shameful punishment had been officially announced. The phrase "his drink" +is very characteristic; and, whatever liquid was meant, we may be sure that +it was not water, and that the good lady would have daily had numerous +opportunities to mix the poison with it. + +The five years which succeeded his imprisonment carried Jonson to the +height of his prosperity and glory. During this period he produced the +three great comedies on which his fame as a dramatist rests,--"The Fox," +"The Silent Woman," and "The Alchymist,"--and also many of the most +beautiful of those Masques, performed at court, in which the ingenuity, +delicacy, richness, and elevation of his fancy found fittest expression. +His social position was probably superior to Shakespeare's. He was really +the Court Poet long before 1616, when he received the office, with a +pension of a hundred marks. We have Clarendon's testimony to the fact that +"his conversation was very good, and with men of the best note." Among his +friends occurs the great name of Bacon. + +In 1618, when "Ben Jonson" had come to be familiar words on the lips of all +educated men in the island, he made his celebrated journey on foot to +Scotland, and was hospitably entertained by the nobility and gentry around +Edinburgh. Taylor, the water poet, in his "Pennylesse Pilgrimage" to +Scotland, has this amiable reference to him. "At Leith," he says, "I found +my long approved and assured good friend, Master Benjamin Jonson, at one +Master John Stuart's house. I thank him for his great kindness; for, at my +taking leave of him, he gave me a piece of gold of two-and-twenty +shillings' value, to drink his health in England." One object of Jonson's +journey was to visit Drummond of Hawthornden. He passed three or four weeks +with Drummond at Hawthornden, and poured out his mind to him without +reserve or stint. The finical and fastidious poet was somewhat startled at +this irruption of his burly guest into his dainty solitude; took notes of +his free conversation, especially when he decried his contemporaries; and +further carried out the rites of hospitality by adding a caustic, though +keen, summary of his qualities of character. Thus, according to his dear +friend's charitable analysis, Ben "was a great lover and praiser of +himself; a contemner and scorner of others; given rather to losse a friend +than a jest; jealous of every word and action of those about him +(especiallie after drink, which is one of the elements in which he liveth); +a dissembler of ill parts which raigne in him, a bragger of some good that +he wanteth; thinketh nothing well bot what either he himself or some of his +friends and countrymen have said or done; he is passionately kynde and +angry; careless either to gaine or keep; vindictive, but, if he be well +answered, at himself." It is not much to the credit of Jonson's insight, +that, after flooding his pensively taciturn host with his boisterous and +dogmatic talk, he parted with him under the impression that he was leaving +an assured friend. Ah! your demure listeners to your unguarded +conversation,--they are the ones that give the fatal stabs! + +A literal transcript of Drummond's original notes of Jonson's +conversations, made by Sir Robert Sibbald about the year 1710, has been +published in the collections of the Shakespeare Society. This is a more +extended report than that included in Drummond's works, though still not so +full as the reader might desire. The stoutness of Ben's character is felt +in every utterance. Thus he tells Drummond that "he never esteemed of a man +for the name of a lord,"--a sentiment which he had expressed more +impressively in his published epigram on Burleigh:-- + + "Cecil, the grave, the wise, the great, the good, + What is there more that can ennoble blood?" + +He had, it seems, "a minde to be a churchman, and, so he might have favour +to make one sermon to the King, he careth not what thereafter sould befall +him; for he would not flatter though he saw Death." Queen Elizabeth is the +mark of a most scandalous imputation, and the mildest of Ben's remarks +respecting her is that she "never saw herself, after she became old, in a +true glass; they painted her, _and sometymes would vermilion_ her nose." +"Of all styles," he said, "he most loved to be named Honest, and hath of +that one hundreth letters so naming him." His judgments on other poets were +insolently magisterial. "Spenser's stanzas pleased him not, nor his +matter"; Samuel Daniel was a good honest man, but no poet; Donne, though +"the first poet in the world in some things," for "not keeping of accent, +deserved hanging"; Abram Fraunce, "in his English hexameters, was a foole"; +Sharpham, Day, and Dekkar were all rogues; Francis Beaumont "loved too much +himself and his own verses." Some biographical items in the record of these +conversations are of interest. It seems that the first day of every new +year the Earl of Pembroke sent him twenty pounds "to buy bookes." By all +his plays he never gained two hundred pounds. "Sundry tymes he hath +devoured his bookes," that is, sold them to supply himself with +necessaries. When he was imprisoned for killing his brother actor in a +duel, in the Queen's time, "his judges could get nothing of him to all +their demands but I and No. They placed two damn'd villains, to catch +advantage of him, with him, but he was advertised by his keeper"; and he +added, as if the revenge was as terrible as the offence, "of the spies he +hath ane epigrame." He told a few personal stories to Drummond, calculated +to moderate our wonder that Mrs. Jonson was a shrew; and, as they were +boastingly told, we must suppose that his manners were not so austere as +his verse. But perhaps the most characteristic image he has left of +himself, through these conversations, is this: "He hath consumed a whole +night in lying looking to his great toe, about which he hath seen Tartars +and Turks, Romans and Carthaginians, feight in his imagination." + +Jonson's fortunes seem to have suffered little abatement until the death of +King James, in 1625. Then declining popularity and declining health +combined their malice to break the veteran down; and the remaining twelve +years of his life were passed in doing battle with those relentless enemies +of poets,--want and disease. The orange--or rather the lemon--was squeezed, +and both court and public seemed disposed to throw away the peel. In the +epilogue to his play of "The New Inn," brought out in 1630, the old tone of +defiance is gone. He touchingly appeals to the audience as one who is "sick +and sad"; but, with a noble humility, he begs they will refer none of the +defects of the work to mental decay. + + "All that his weak and faltering tongue doth crave + Is that you not refer it to his brain; + That 's yet unhurt, although set round with pain." + +The audience were insensible to this appeal. They found the play dull, and +hooted it from the stage. Perhaps, after having been bullied so long, they +took delight in having Ben "on the hip." Charles the First, however, who up +to this time seems to have neglected his father's favorite, now generously +sent him a hundred pounds to cheer him in his misfortunes; and shortly +after he raised his salary, as Court Poet, from a hundred marks to a +hundred pounds, adding, in compliment to Jonson's known tastes, a tierce of +Canary,--a wine of which he was so fond as to be nicknamed, in ironical +reference to a corpulence which rather assimilated him to the ox, "a Canary +bird." It is to this period, we suppose, we must refer his testimony to his +own obesity in his "Epistle to my Lady Coventry." + + "So you have gained a Servant and a Muse: + The first of which I fear you will refuse, + And you may justly; being a tardy, cold, + Unprofitable chattel, fat and old, + Laden with belly, and doth hardly approach + His friends, but to break chairs or crack a coach. + His weight is twenty stone, within two pound; + And that 's made up, as doth the purse abound." + +As his life declined, it does not appear that his disposition was +essentially modified. There are two characteristic references to him in his +old age, which prove that Ben, attacked by palsy and dropsy, with a +reputation perceptibly waning, was Ben still. One is from Sir John +Suckling's pleasantly malicious "Session of the Poets":-- + + "The first that broke silence was good old Ben, + Prepared before with Canary wine, + And he told them plainly he deserved the bays, + For his were called works where others were but plays. + + *....*....*....* + + Apollo stopped him there, and bade him not go on; + 'T was merit, he said, and not presumption, + Must carry 't; at which Ben turned about, + And in great choler offered to go out." + +That is a saucy touch,--that of Ben's rage when he is told that presumption +is not, before Apollo, to take the place of merit, or even to back it! + +The other notice is taken from a letter from Howel to Sir Thomas Hawk, +written the year before Jonson's death:-- + +"I was invited yesternight to a solemn supper by B. J., where you were +deeply remembered. There was good company, excellent cheer, choice wines, +and jovial welcome. One thing intervened which almost spoiled the relish of +the rest,--that B. began to engross all the discourse, to vapor extremely +by himself, and, by vilifying others, to magnify his own Muse. For my part, +I am content to dispense with the Roman infirmity of Ben, now that time has +snowed upon his pericranium." + +But this snow of time, however it may have begun to cover up the solider +qualities of his mind, seems to have left untouched his strictly poetic +faculty. That shone out in his last hours, with more than usual splendor, +in the beautiful pastoral drama of "The Sad Shepherd"; and it may be +doubted if, in his whole works, any other passage can be found so exquisite +in sentiment, fancy, and expression as the opening lines of this charming +product of his old age:-- + + "Here she was wont to go! and here! and here! + Just where those daisies, pinks, and violets grow: + The world may find the Spring by following her; + For other print her airy steps ne'er left: + Her treading would not bend a blade of grass, + Or shake the downy blow-ball from his stalk! + But like the soft west-wind she shot along, + And where she went the flowers took thickest root, + As she had sowed them with her odorous foot!" + +Before he completed "The Sad Shepherd," he was struck with mortal illness; +and the brave old man prepared to meet his last enemy, and, if possible, +convert him into a friend. As early as 1606 he had returned to the English +Church, after having been for twelve years a Romanist; and his penitent +death-bed was attended by the Bishop of Winchester. He died in August, +1637, in his sixty-fourth year, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. The +inscription on the common pavement stone which was laid over his grave +still expresses, after a lapse of two hundred years, the feelings of all +readers of the English race,-- + + "O RARE BEN JONSON!" + +It must be admitted, however, that this epithet is sufficiently indefinite +to admit widely differing estimates of the value of his works. In a +critical view, the most obvious characteristic of his mind is its bulk; but +its creativeness bears no proportion to its massiveness. His faculties, +ranged according to their relative strength, would fall into this +rank:--first, BEN; next, understanding; next, memory; next, humor; next, +fancy; and last and least, imagination. Thus, in the strictly poetic action +of his mind, his fancy and imagination being subordinated to his other +faculties, and not co-ordinated with them, his whole nature is not kindled, +and his best masques and sweetest lyrics give no idea of the general +largeness of the man. In them the burly giant becomes gracefully _petite_; +it is Fletcher's Omphale "smiling the club" out of the hand of Hercules, +and making him, for the time, "spin her smocks." Now the greatest poetical +creations of Shakespeare are those in which he is greatest in reason, and +greatest in passion, and greatest in knowledge, as well as greatest in +imagination,--his poetic power being + + "Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone, + Binding all things with beauty." + +His mind is "one entire and perfect chrysolite," while Jonson's rather +suggests the pudding-stone. The poet _in_ Ben, being thus but a +comparatively small portion _of_ Ben, works by effort, rather than +efficiency, and leaves the impression of ingenuity rather than +inventiveness. But in his tragedies of "Sejanus" and "Catiline," and +especially in his three great comedies of "The Fox," "The Alchymist," and +"The Silent Woman," the whole man is thrust forward, with his towering +individuality, his massive understanding, his wide knowledge of the baser +side of life, his relentless scorn of weakness and wickedness, his vivid +memory of facts and ideas derived from books. They seem written with his +fist. But, though they convey a powerful impression of his collective +ability, they do not convey a poetic impression, and hardly an agreeable +one. His greatest characters, as might be expected, are not heroes or +martyrs, but cheats or dupes. His most magnificent cheat is Volpone, in +"The Fox"; his most magnificent dupe is Sir Epicure Mammon, in "The +Alchymist"; but in their most gorgeous mental rioting in imaginary objects +or sense, the effect is produced by a dogged accumulation of successive +images, which are linked by no train of strictly imaginative association, +and are not fused into unity of purpose by the fire of passion-penetrated +imagination. + +Indeed, it is a curious psychological study to watch the laborious process +by which Jonson drags his thoughts and fancies from the reluctant and +resisting soil of his mind, and then lays them, one after the other, with a +deep-drawn breath, on his page. Each is forced into form by main strength, +as we sometimes see a pillar of granite wearily drawn through the street by +a score of straining oxen. Take, for example, Sir Epicure Mammon's detail +of the luxuries he will revel in when his possession of the philosopher's +stone shall have given him boundless wealth. The first cup of Canary and +the first tug of invention bring up this enormous piece of humor:-- + + "My flatterers + Shall be the pure and gravest of divines + That I can get for money." + +Then another wrench of the mind, and, it is to be feared, another inlet of +the liquid, and we have this:-- + + "My meat shall all come in in Indian shells, + Dishes of agate, set in gold, and studded + With emeralds, sapphires, hyacinths, and rubies." + +Glue that on, and now for another tug:-- + + "My shirts + I 'll have of taffeta-sarsnet, soft and light + As cobwebs; and for all my other raiment, + It shall be such as might provoke the Persian, + Were he to teach the world riot anew." + +And then, a little heated, his imagination is stung into action, and this +refinement of sensation flashes out:-- + + "My gloves of fishes' and birds' skins perfumed + _With gums of Paradise and Eastern air_." + +And now we have an extravagance jerked violently out from his logical +fancy:-- + + "I will have all my beds blown up, not stuffed; + Down is too hard." + +But all this patient accumulation of particulars, each costing a mighty +effort of memory or analogy, produces no cumulative effect. Certainly, the +word "strains," as employed to designate the effusions of poetry, has a +peculiar significance as applied to Jonson's verse. No hewer of wood or +drawer of water ever earned his daily wages by a more conscientious putting +forth of daily labor. Critics--and among the critics Ben is the most +clamorous--call upon us to admire and praise the construction of his +plays. But his plots, admirable of their kind, are still but elaborate +contrivances of the understanding, all distinctly thought out beforehand by +the method of logic, not the method of imagination; regular in external +form, but animated by no living internal principle; artful, but not +artistic; ingenious schemes, not organic growths; and conveying the same +kind of pleasure we experience in inspecting other mechanical contrivances. +His method is neither the method of nature nor the method of art, but the +method of artifice. A drama of Shakespeare may be compared to an oak; a +drama by Jonson, to a cunningly fashioned box, made of oak-wood, with some +living plants growing in it. Jonson is big; Shakespeare is great. + +Still we say, "O rare Ben Jonson!" A large, rude, clumsy, English force, +irritable, egotistic, dogmatic, and quarrelsome, but brave, generous, and +placable; with no taint of a malignant vice in his boisterous foibles; with +a good deal of the bulldog in him, but nothing of the spaniel, and one +whose growl was ever worse than his bite;--he, the bricklayer's apprentice, +fighting his way to eminence through the roughest obstacles, capable of +wrath, but incapable of falsehood, willing to boast, but scorning to creep, +still sturdily keeps his hard-won position among the Elizabethan worthies +as poet, playwright, scholar, man of letters, man of muscle and brawn; as +friend of Beaumont and Fletcher and Chapman and Bacon and Shakespeare; and +as ever ready, in all places and at all times, to assert the manhood of Ben +by tongue and pen and sword. + + + + +UNCHARITABLENESS. + + +I hold society responsible for a great deal. + +I wondered once where all the disconsolate came from,--where all the human +wrecks tossed up by the waves of misfortune received their injuries, and +what became of those who sailed from port in early youth and were never +heard of more. I marvelled, too, that there were so many unhappy bachelors, +so many forlorn maids, so many neither wife nor maid; but at all these +things I wonder no longer. I have solved the problem I set myself. Society +makes them all. + +I am not going to analyze society to please any one. I make mine own. +Hyacinth, I dare swear, makes his. Why shall I paint it? It is you, it is +I, it is both of us, and many more. Can I sketch the figures in a +kaleidoscope ere they change? If I could, I might say what society is or +was. To-day members of circles marry, or are given in marriage. Disease +comes and war decimates; foul tongues asperse, and the unity that was +perfect is so no longer. The whole world is society, and I believe there +was not so much confusion at the Tower of Babel after all. Men speak in +different tongues, but their motives are the same in all climes. + +I love or I hate my Celtic friend. The sea rolls between us, but from afar +the same sun warms us. If he does a good deed, I shall applaud it; or, if +he is mean, shall I not smite him? The world looks on, and puts us all to +the test alike. We love or we hate. + +Are there no Procrustean couches in these days? If my neighbor is too +short, what shall I do but stretch him? if he is too long, I am the one who +shall hack off his superfluous inches. + +Ah! believe me, sceptic, there is a mote in thine eye, but in mine there is +no beam. It is I who am immaculate. "The king can do no wrong." I am a +king unto myself; but, whether king or commoner, how lenient I am to my own +faults,--how intensely alive to my neighbor's! + +If Kubla Khan decide to build his pleasure dome,--nay, if he but hint at +it,--I set myself to wonder where he can possibly have obtained the funds. +Not in commerce surely. Not in that vulgar little furnishing-store in which +he has toiled early and late for twenty years. He is doubtless a spy of the +government,--a detective of some kind; and, now that I recall it, he +certainly was away some time during the Rebellion. In short, there are many +ways by which he may have procured this money dishonestly. Rather than +believe my neighbor quite honest and beyond reproach, I discuss the topic +of his supposed fall from virtue with our mutual neighbors, until at last I +bring them to the conclusion I have long ago arrived at, which is, if the +truth were known, that Kubla Khan is no better than the law compels him to +be. + +I do this, of course, solely from a regard for virtue, from a sense of +duty. The times, I say in my discussions, are such that one must know his +associates thoroughly; and so I believe, or profess to believe, K. K. to be +a rogue rather than an honest, upright man. + +I have a right to my opinion, have I not? Most unquestionably. While this +tongue and beard can wag, I will assert the privilege of free speech. But +have I a right to traduce my neighbor? What business is it of mine if he +has money, and sees fit to build a house with it? Am I his banker, that I +give heed to his concerns? Why cannot I look on with delight, and even help +select the site of the future edifice? All of his previous life has been +blameless and without reproach; but now I suddenly discover that my +neighbor is not trustworthy. Is this charity? + +Perhaps I do not touch upon Kubla Khan and his prospective chateau at all. +My neighbors in the house adjoining engross my attention. Come! let us +watch for the butcher and the baker, that we may see what our neighbors' +fare is. I will engage that I can fix to a shilling the amount of their +weekly bills. Such meanness are some people guilty of, that they live upon +a sum that would not keep my boy in tarts. I am certain that our neighbors +take ice but every other day in the summer, and if the milk they buy is not +swill-fed, then I am no judge. The steaks are not porter-house, but +rump-steaks. Last Saturday night I saw Pater-familias bring home a smoked +shoulder,--not a _ham_, because that is much dearer; and--will it be +believed?--the bonnets the girls wear are revamped from those of last year. +Young Threadpaper dances attendance upon them, and I am sure of all low +things a man milliner is the lowest. Two weeks ago Pater-familias rode down +town with me, and I saw upon his shoe an immense patch, while his hat was +so shiny, with frequent caressings from a silk handkerchief, that it seemed +to be varnished and polished. + +His clothes are very unfashionable, too. He is invariably a year behind the +style; and how can one respect a person who does not wear garments of the +prevalent cut? + +There must be something mysterious about this man. If there is, I am the +one to ferret it out. Let me see. His manner is reticent. From this I +deduce the fact that he has at some time been a convict. All men who have +been incarcerated are just so quiet. I was once in a jail in Massachusetts, +with other persons, and one poor fellow, taking advantage of our presence, +whispered to his neighbor, whereat the jailer swore awfully, and punished +him; but the rest were very quiet, just like my neighbor. It is certainly +suspicious. + +He is economical, too. Ah! that follows quite naturally. Remorse has seized +him, and he is now endeavoring to pay off his indebtedness, or do something +else which I cannot fathom just now; thus making his family suffer doubly +for his misdeed. + +O, I cry in the pride of my heart, truly "the sins of the fathers are +visited upon the children," and I not only fix the nature of my neighbor's +transgression, but the very jail in which he was incarcerated. + +Fool and blind that I am! If I had but a tithe of that intuition I boast, I +might have discerned that my neighbor was one of those rare individuals we +sometimes read of in tracts, but seldom meet in the flesh,--one of those +heroes who fight daily battles with trial, temptation, suffering, and +privation in many shapes, that he may live honorably before men, and leave +a heritage of honor to his children when he goeth to his long home. I might +have seen that this man worked early and late without complaint, that he +might pay debts his dead father incurred for his education, and that the +poor decrepit old lady whom no physician can cure is his mother. She costs +him a pretty penny for her support, I warrant me, and accuses him in her +dotage with harboring a desire to get rid of her. What wonder if he is +reticent to the world? Look in his eye. It is the eye of an honest man. +Take his hand. 'T is a true palm, and many a beggar shall be refused at +Dives's door, but not at his. + +But he is poor; he looks downcast. Come, let us beslime him with the breath +of suspicion. Let us gossip about him. Let us look askance at him, and +direct our children to avoid his,--when they play their little hour, to run +swiftly past that wretched abode of silence. + +Silence! said I. Ah! that is a queer silence which reigns in my neighbor's +dwelling. When he comes to his family there are shouts and laughter, and +rosy-mouthed roisterers stand ready to pillage the plethoric pockets laden +to the flaps with bananas and oranges he has starved himself to procure. I +do not hear that he discusses his neighbor's affairs, or that he distils +into his oolong one drop of bitter scandal by way of flavor. Nay, I am +certain that I might lose five hundred dollars per diem, and the world +would be none the wiser through him. + +So much for externals. + +How sharply we see things which have no existence! How quickly we discern +faults in our neighbors, but how slow we are to find out our own! + +Now I look at it, there is a grievous rent in my neighbor's doublet; but +look at mine own. How it fits! Is it not immaculate? I have a suit of +character in which I am triply armed,--a coat of mail of reputation which I +defy slander to pierce. The man who wrote + + "He that is down need fear no fall, + He that is up no pride, + He that is humble ever shall + Have God to be his guide," + +knew nothing about human nature. I fancy I could teach that genius a thing +or two. The springs of human action are not concealed to me. Ah, no! I see +them all, in my own conceit, and no mean motive of other people escapes me. + +But how shall my neighbor fare at my hands in argument? Well, I trust, if +he agree with me. That is, provided he sees things as I do. If he sees the +shield to be gold, and I see it so also, what sagacity he has! what +judgment! "A man of fine talents," I say to my son. "See that you emulate +him. Mark how quickly he grasps the same points that I did,--with what nice +discrimination he avoids irrelevant matters, and treats only the main +idea." Next to myself, I say in my heart, there is no one but my neighbor +who could have solved this riddle so quickly. + +But let him dare to disagree with me,--let him say the shield is gold when +I say it is silver, or brass if I like,--and what depth of stultification +is too deep for him,--what pit of error too dark for him to stumble in? He +is a sophisticator, a casuist; he chases every paltry side-issue until his +brains are so muddled that he cannot tell what he does think; he is a mole, +an owl, a bat; he is a blockhead, to boot. + +What! differ from _me_?--the idiot! I say the shield _is_ silver; how can +it be gold? Is it not white? doth it not glisten? hath it not lustre? what +else can it be? + +My neighbor suggests sportively that it is tin; whereupon I impugn my +neighbor's good-sense; and that is a logical conclusion of the controversy. +It does not occur to me that a man may differ in opinion from his fellows, +and yet not be a convicted felon or a disturber of the peace. His views are +his; foolish, perhaps, from my standpoint; yet, because he is not so wise +as I, is he any the less entitled to courtesy, to consideration and +charity,--is he the less a fond father, a patriot, or an honorable man? Why +insist that of all the world I am sagest and always right? + +Why shall I break the images men set up? Iconoclast that I am, reflection +would show me what long years ago my copy-book told me, _Humanum est +errare_,--and that violence, intolerance, and discourtesy are poor weapons +to fight prejudice and bigotry with. Come! let us throw them aside +hereafter; let none be persecuted or derided in social circles for their +opinions' sake. There are more forcible arguments than vituperation and +personality, and if we cannot convince, let us be content. + +The world is made for all. When my Uncle Toby took the fly and let him out, +he did as men should to others who differ in opinion. Go! I say to the +sceptic, the world is wide enough for thee and me. + +At the commencement of this paper, I said it was no mystery where the +disconsolate came from,--society made them; and I reassert it as my +conviction that the supply is far ahead of the demand. I say too many in +society are hollow and false, and not true to themselves, nor to the +instinct planted in every human breast. + +By word or deed I convey to my _vis-a-vis_ in the crowded _salon_ my +opinion that our host's daughter is a failure; the money spent upon her +education is thrown away. She has no air, no manner, no tone. My +_vis-a-vis_ understands me, and, taking her cue, goes to the cherished of +her heart, and straightway repeats the slander, and we smile and smile and +are villains. + +"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, saith the Preacher," and I say after +him, Is there nothing but nettles in the world's garden,--nothing but +noxious weeds? Have we no traits and sentiments which are lofty and +ennobling? Why cannot we see these and talk about them? But whoever went to +a party where the guests talked of virtue? + +Here is Straitlace. His wife is in the country; he will therefore bear +watching. Come! let us invent and suppose, let us pry and peek. Ah, ha! I +see a letter,--a _billet-doux_, a delicately scented one, and he is so +close to me in the cars that, by the merest accident I assure you, I am +able to read the beginning,--"Dearest of my soul." + +There, that is quite enough. Dearest of her soul, indeed! Do wives begin +letters in that way? Not many. Shocking! Dreadful! And then my comrades and +I roll the sweet morsel under our tongues, when, after all, the model +husband was only reading his model wife's letter. + +Or look at this phase of uncharitableness. What a happy faculty my +countrymen have for finding out each other's business. I move into some +country village, where a small but select community meet and agitate +various topics for the moral regeneration of all. I am from the city, and +therefore have some ways easily noticed. I am unquestionably "stuck up," +and am hardly settled in my place before a tea-party is held, not to do me +honor, but to sit in inquest upon me and my family. + +Are our virtues discussed at the inquest? Have we any good qualities? Are +we not almost outcasts? How we drawl our words, for example. We wear white +skirts, when balmorals are good enough for most folks. We starve our +children, too, because they get only bread and milk for tea, and no pies +or cakes. In short, how very far below our neighbors we are in social +standing! + +Go to, ye shallow dissemblers, retailers of scandal, disturbers of the +peace! Leave _us_ in peace, and possess your souls in patience. We are +human, and frail even as you are. We have faults and virtues. Why not +extend the hand of friendship to us? Why not be courteous, instead of +making us detest your presence,--instead of souring our tempers, and making +us feel as though every one's hand was against us? + +There is that Abigail, whom I have often seen lounging at the next door +below. She snuffeth scandal from afar. She heareth the whisperings and +innuendoes of them that traffic in reputations, and she loseth little time +ere she adorns the secret meetings of the conspirators with her presence. +Away with her to the scaffold! she is chiefest among the malefactors. Offer +her up a sacrifice to charity, and let none say nay! + +Suppose I stand by when the tale-bearer begins his monotonous song, what am +I to lose by keeping silent, as he tears my neighbor to pieces? + +There were two maidens, saith the fable, one of whom was lovely to look +upon, while the other was plain; but when the former spake, toads and +serpents fell from her lips, while from the unlovely lips came diamonds and +pearls. I know which I should have wooed, and I hope won, for I value more +a quiet life than false lips and a tongue that speaketh lies. + +"Speech is silvern, but silence is golden." I shall be silent when the +detractor begins his tale. + + "Teach me to hide the faults I see, + And feel for others' woe," + +saith the poet, and, though he may be accused of uttering a platitude, I +subscribe to it. I am willing to forgive and forget, instead of enlarging +upon all the flaws, all the weaknesses, of human nature. I shall not +thunder on the roof of some hapless wretch who has stumbled, fallen by the +wayside, and cry, "Come out! come out! thou villain, and do penance for +thy sin." I will rather give him my hand and help him arise. I will set him +up again, and I will back him against all takers that he never slips again. + +"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin," saith another poet; but he +meant good, not bad nature, for he knew full well how to set communities by +the ears with his sharp sayings. + +To-day it is the sister against her brother, the son against his father, +and the world is so full of evil, if we might believe the scandal-mongers, +that no good will ever exist again in it. + +"Let those who dance pay the piper," says Worldly-mindedness, and he +chuckles as he says it for a sharp thing. But there are some who like +dancing that have not the wherewithal, and to those I offer my purse. If a +man fall down, I am not going to jump upon his back and jeer him. He has +danced, and cannot pay now; but what of that? Some day he will. + +Here is one hand and one heart that shall never betray. Come to me, ye +scandal-torn and society-ridden. Come to me, ye whom venomous tongues have +harried, and ye whose characters hang in shreds about you, come also. Ye +have faults, and so have I. Somewhere ye have good traits, and these are +what I respect. + +Let us defy the "they-says," and as for those whose shibboleth is, "I have +it upon good authority," we will give them the go-by. + +We will laugh to see the tribulation of them that sit in council, and hold +foul revelry over their neighbors' shortcomings; they shall read of our +resolutions, and there shall be no comfort in the cup of tea any more which +Tabbies sip delectably, while they tear Miss Bright-eyes to pieces. There +shall lurk a maggot in the shreds of dried beef which these modern ghouls +rend, as they rend my fair name; and may the biscuits be as heavy upon +their stomachs as tale-bearing shall one day be upon their consciences. + +_Thou shalt not bear false witness._ + +If I am unlike you, gentle reader, guiltless of this crying sin, I know you +will not condemn me, will not decry me, make little of me, or seek to +poison men's minds against me. You will have that charity for me which is +not puffed up; and where I err, or you are ignorant of my motive, hold your +peace. + +To-day there are dear ones in exile, or in the bonds of sin, for this very +practice. There are lives hopelessly lost to virtue, and others imbittered +forever. Families are separated, and high hopes and aspirations crushed, +while the fountains of affection which should be filled to the brim afford +only a trickling stream, or, worse still, foul lees which never will +subside. There are shadows in many homes, and empty chairs that never will +be filled. The child on the floor misses its playfellow, the wife her +husband, the mother her son, the betrothed her lover, and still the +tale-bearers go upon their rounds, and their feet never, never rest. + + + + +THE ROSE ROLLINS. + + +PART I. + +There lived a few years ago in one of the small seaport towns of New +England a solitary, friendless man, of the name of John Chidlaw,--a +gray-headed, stoop-shouldered, hollow-chested person of about fifty years +of age at the time our story begins. He was sober, steady, and industrious, +and always had been so since his first appearance in the place, but somehow +he never got ahead. He was thriftless, people used to say, and they got in +the habit of calling him "Johnny," and then "Old Johnny," until nobody +called him anything else, unless it were here and there some poor child or +sympathetic woman, who said "Uncle Johnny," with that sort of gentle +kindness that is never bestowed on the prosperous. + +He did not resent anything, even pity, but took his hard fortune as a +matter of course, and the heavier the burden, why, the more he bent his +shoulders, but he did not complain. Nobody had ever asked his history,--the +history of a man who has patches at his knees, and whose elbows are out, is +not, by those more fortunate persons who have no patches at their knees, +and whose elbows are not out, generally supposed to be of an interesting +character. John Chidlaw was, therefore, never bothered with questions. + +Could he lift a heavy log? Could he tend a saw-mill? Could he drive a team, +or carry a hod of bricks? These, and the like, were the questions that were +asked him mostly; and as he could say yes to any and all of these, and as +people did not require him to say more, he seldom did say more, but lifted +the log, or drove the team, as the case might be, in silence. + +He looked a good deal older than he was,--not that his head was so gray, +and not that his shoulders bent so much, but the rather that there was an +utter absence of buoyancy, an indurated and inflexible style and expression +about the whole man, as if, in fact, he had been born old. You could not +think of him as having ever been a boy, with cherry cheeks, and laughing +eyes, and steps that were careless and fleet as the wind, but he had had +his boyhood and his boyhood's dream, as will appear by and by. + +It had happened to him at one time that a saw had gone into his hand, and +left a jagged and ugly scar across the back; another time it had happened +that his horse had run away, upsetting his cart, and breaking one of his +legs, so that he limped thereafter, and was disabled from some of the +harder kinds of work he had been used to do. He had been dismissed by one +and another, in consequence of his inability to make a full day's work, and +was sitting one day on a pile of bricks in the outer edge of the town where +he lived, quite down-hearted, and chewing, not the cud of sweet and bitter +fancies, but, instead thereof, a bit of pine stick, which he held partly in +and partly out of his mouth. + +His eyes looked solemnly out from under his gray eyebrows as now and then a +whistling teamster drove by, throwing a whole cloud of hot, suffocating +dust over him. Sometimes a pedler, or some stroller with a monkey on his +shoulder and an organ on his back, would nod to him as he passed; but the +pedler did not think of exhibiting his wares, nor the organman of grinding +out a tune, or of setting his monkey to playing tricks, for the like of old +Johnny. The sun was growing large toward the setting, and nothing had +turned up, when all at once there was a wild whirl of wheels, and a crying +and shouting and holding up of hands by all the men and boys along the +road. A horse was running away. On he came, galloping furiously, while the +old heavy-topped buggy to which he was attached rattled and creaked and +swayed from side to side frightfully,--frightfully, because it was in +imminent danger of being crushed all to pieces; and sitting still and +solemnly upright, swaying with the buggy, and in imminent danger of being +crushed to pieces too, was a child,--a beautiful little girl, with a cloud +of yellow curls rippling down her bare shoulders. Her white dress fluttered +in the wind, and her hat was swimming on the pond half a mile in the rear; +but still she sat, sober and quiet as though she had been on her mother's +knees, and not so much as puckering her pretty lip for all the tumult and +fright. + +A dozen men were in the road, some with rails in their arms, with which +they no doubt intended to intercept the mad creature; but the best +intentions fail sometimes, and the men with rails in their arms threw them +down, and got themselves out of the way, as soon as the danger came near +them. + +John Chidlaw went into the road among the rest, but without a rail in his +arms. He did not, however, get himself out of the way,--not he. He threw +himself with might and main upon the neck of the frightened beast, and +there he held, and was dragged along,--half the time, as it seemed, under +his very feet. + +"That's you, Johnny!" "Go it!" "Good for you!" were the cheers and calls of +encouragement that followed him. The horse was valuable, and he was in +danger of breaking his neck; and what matter about John Chidlaw! He had no +friends! + +He required not to be thus stimulated, if they had but known it: he had +been stimulated sufficiently already, by the tossing hair and fair face of +the little girl, to peril his life, and he was not the man to look back +when he had his hand to the plough. + +The blood besmeared his face, and streamed down his neck, and wet his +shirt-bosom and sleeves, and still the voices cried, "Hold on, Johnny!" +They thought he was being battered to death, though the blood was from the +mouth of the horse, for the entire weight of the man was being dragged by +the bit. + +At the toll-gate an old woman ran out with a broom,--she could have shut +the gate, but did not,--and when Johnny had stopped the horse, which he did +a little farther on, she told him that but for his being in the way she +could have stopped the beast at once, and that, if he was as badly battered +as he seemed, she would be at the pains of getting the poor-house cart, and +seeing that he was carted away! The old carriage was surrounded in a few +minutes, and the child lifted out, and kissed and coaxed, and petted and +praised, and fed with candies and cakes, and handed from the arms of one to +another; and the feet and legs of the horse were carefully examined, and he +was dashed with cool water, and combed and rubbed, and petted and patted, +and given a variety of either grand or endearing names; but nobody looked +after Johnny, and the only kindness shown him was that of the old woman +with the broom. + +But even Fortune tires of frowning at last, and the time of her relenting +toward John Chidlaw was at hand. + +He was washing the blood from his face in a wayside puddle, when the man +who owned the horse and buggy came breathlessly up. "My good friend," he +said, slapping him on the shoulder, "you have saved my child's life!" And +then his hand slipped from shoulder to waist, and he positively hugged the +astonished Johnny, who was almost awe-struck at first, for the hugger was +well to do, and he that was hugged was exceeding poor, as the reader knows. + +"My name," he said, introducing himself, "is Hilton, David Hilton, and I +keep the ferry at the lower end of the town; should n't wonder if I could +put business in your way! You can turn your hand to a'most anything, I +reckon,--a man of your build mostly can." + +A fortnight later, and John Chidlaw was the master of a little black +sailboat not much bigger than a canoe, and his business was to carry +butchers' meat, bread, poultry, and vegetables from the market-town in +which he lived to the great hotels situated on the hills above the opposite +shore. His boat had, therefore, in his eyes, somewhat the dignity of a +merchantman; and as he was entitled to a part of the profits of the trade +he carried on, he was at once a proud and a happy man. He had christened +his boat "The Rose Rollins," and kept her as neat and trim as she could be. +He wore a sailor's jacket, from professional pride, and used all the +nautical phrases he could muster. His shoulders got the better of their +stoop, and his chest of its hollowness, in a wonderfully short time; and +one day, when he was asked about the scar on his hand, he answered that he +had been bitten by a whale when he was a young man at sea. It will be +perceived that he was gaining confidence, and growing in worldly wisdom. +The questioner was a very timid person, but she said she guessed she could +trust herself with an old sailor like that, and at once went aboard. She +was a milliner, laden with boxes for the ladies in the opposite hotels, and +was the first female passenger the master of the Rose had had;--for his +legitimate trade was merchandise, and not the transportation of men and +women; but occasionally, as his confidence grew, he had taken a passenger +or two across the ferry, on his own hook, as he phrased it. + +"I took such a wiolent fancy to the name o' your wessel," says the +milliner, "and that is how I come to take passage with you. Ain't she a +nice little thing, though?" + +"Trim as a gal o' sixteen!" says John. "But had n't you better unlade +yourself o' your merchandise, and fix to enjoy the sail some?"--and he +began taking the boxes from her lap. + +"O sir, you 're wery good!" says the milliner, quite blushing. And then she +adjusted her skirts, and flirted them about as she adjusted them, and then +she untied her bonnet-strings and knotted them up again, for nothing in the +world but the pleasure of tying knots in ribbon apparently; but John +Chidlaw thought he had never in his life seen such a graceful and +enchanting performance. He brought his jacket directly, and offered to +spread it over the board on which she was sitting. + +"Oh, you 're wery good, wery good, I am sure, sir,--but I 'm a-givin' you +too much trouble!"--and, saying so, she partly rose and allowed the seat to +be cushioned as proposed. The wind caught the bright ribbons, and fluttered +them in the man's face as he was thus employed. + +"Oh!" says the milliner, with a little start; and then she says, "The nasty +winds have such a wulgar way of catchin' up a body's things"; and she pulls +back the innocent strings and holds them against her bosom by main force. + +"Pray, miss, don't haul 'em round that way on my account; they did n't hurt +me none! Why, I thought 't was a butterfly at fust, and then I thought 't +was a hummin'-bird, and them was allers pleasin' things to me, both on +'em." + +The woman was flattered. In the first place she was not young,--not much +younger than he, in fact,--and he had addressed her as "miss"; and in the +next place his comparing her ribbons to butterflies and humming-birds +seemed the same as a personal compliment. + +"O Captain!" she says, coloring up, "did you think so, werily?"--and then +she changes the subject, and talks about the appearance of the clouds, and +the prospect of rain. "I suppose you old sailors can tell, purty much," she +says, "whether it 's a-goin' to rain, or whether the clouds will ewaporate +into mist; and I should really walue your judgment, for if my things +should git wet, you see, it would cost me a wery considerable sum!" + +"I'll just take an obserwation!" says John; and he set his foot on a +bread-basket, and cocked up one eye. He had never given the sound of _w_ to +his _v_ before, but he had noticed that his fair passenger did so, and he +adopted the pronunciation, partly in gallantry, partly because it struck +him as elegant. While he was taking the observation, a bright thought came +to him. "I guess we shall have foul weather afore long," says he. "When the +clouds hev sich disjinted shapes as they hev this mornin', it 's generally +portentous; but I can knock up a canvas kiver in a minute, and if it still +looks like fur rain when we go into port, why, I would adwise you just to +stay aboard,--it sha'n't cost you a cent more, not if you make a dozen +trips!" + +"I 'm sure I 'm wery much obliged, Captain, and I 'll take your adwice when +we come to port, and if the weather still looks wacillating, I won't wenter +ashore. It would n't be worth while to risk my goods,--some of 'em welwets, +too, of great walue!" + +"The keepin' on 'em aboard sha'n't cost you nothin'," says John, "if that +'ll be any object to you." + +He wished to convey the idea, that, to a person of her fabulous wealth, +dealing in velvets and the like, a fare more or less could not possibly be +an object, and at the same time to show a magnanimous disposition on his +own part. + +"Money is money," says the milliner, "there is no denying of that; and it +has its adwantages, on account o' which I set a certain walue upon it; but +just for its own sake I can't say that I do walue it,--not over and above!" + +"I hev n't hed no great on 't," says John, "but I 've hed enough, sense I +'ve come into business, to know that if I hed to keep it a-chinkin' into my +pocket I should n't value it much." + +Then he corrected himself, and said _walue_. + +"I 'll tell you how money is waluable to me," says the milliner, "if I may +wenter so far?" + +"Most certainly!" exclaimed John. "You could n't venter nothin' that would +n't be to your credit,--I 'll vouch a fippenny bit on that!" + +Then he repeated himself, substituting _wenter_, and _wouch_, in the places +of the words previously used. + +"Dear me! I should become wain o' myself if I thought your compliment was +walid," says the milliner, dropping her eyes; but the next moment she gives +her bonnet-strings a little flirt, and goes on in the sprightliest way +about a hundred trifles,--one of which had no connection with another. + +"You 've forgot what you sot out on!" says John, interrupting her at last; +"and you kerried me away so, I was a-forgittin' on 't too. Howsever, it 's +no odds, as I know on,--you make whatever you touch so interestin'!" + +"O Captain! how you do warnish me up! I shall certainly wacate the premises +when we come to port, if you don't stop sich things!--that is, if there's a +single westige o' clear sky. But we were talking of the walue of money, was +n't we?" She cast down her eyes again, and spoke with a sweet seriousness. +"I walue money," she says, "when I see I can make another happy with it." +And then she says her lot in life has been a wery lonely and sad +one,--wersatile, but on the whole lonely, sometimes to the wery werge of +despair! + +"You don't say?" says John. "I certainly should n't 'a' thought it +possible! Why, you don't mean to say you 've allers been alone in the +world?" + +Then she tells him how she thought she fell in love, at seventeen, with a +green-grocer that turned out to be a miserable wagabond, inwesting all her +earnings in whiskey and rum, and drinking them himself. + +"The villain!" cried John;--and then, finding that he had not done justice +to his feelings, he repeated, with great stress of indignation, "The +willain! the black-hearted willain! But he never dared to lay +violent--wiolent, I mean--hands onto you!" + +"Dear me, how my heart wibrates!" says the woman,--"not so much with the +memory of what I have suffered as that--that anybody should manifest such +a--such a wery kind feeling toward me now!" + +"How anybody that seen you should 'a' helpt from doin' on 't," says the +boatman, "is awful curus to me!" + +"Law mercy, how selfish I am, never offering you a seat all this while!" +says the artful woman. And she hitched along, and smoothed out the jacket. + +"Well, whatever your trouble 's been," says John, "I hope your red on 't!" + +It was an ingenious method of saying he hoped the vagabond was out of the +way. + +He turned toward her as he spoke, and the wind once more fluttered the gay +ribbons in his face. She lifted her hand to draw them back. "Don't you be +a-mindin' on 'em," says John; "they're just as sweet as rose-leaves, and I +like to hev em a-blowin' over me so." + +You may smile, reader, if you will, but you would not smile if you had seen +the soul yearning in the eyes of the man, if you had heard the pleading in +the sad sincerity of his tone. He was fifty years old now, and I dare say a +woman's ribbon had never touched him till then. He was wrinkled and gray, +and old to look upon, but his heart in its tender sentiment was as fresh +and young as a boy's. + +So, with the ribbons fluttering on his cheek, and his boat drifting as it +would, John Chidlaw listened to the story of the woman's life, and as +Desdemona loved the Moor for the dangers he had passed, so he loved her for +the sorrows she had borne. + +"Yes, Captain," she says, "my troubles is over now, pretty much. I've been +a widder this ten year,"--(he hitched a little closer,)--"I 've been a +widder, and I 've had peace o' mind, and I 've laid up money; but, law me +when a body has nobody to lay up for, what 's the use?" + +"Sure enough, what is the use on 't?" says John. + +"Why, it's no use," she answers; "it's wanity and wexation! that's what it +is!" + +"Wanity and wexation!" he repeats. + +And then she says, if anybody had ever showed a warm heart toward her, she +'d 'a' been a different woman to what she is. + +"A different woman!" says John. "How different to what you be?" He could +not conceive of the possibility of a difference for the better. + +"Why, I would 'a' been ten year younger and ten year smarter," says the +widow, "and then may be somebody might 'a' took a notion to me! Who knows? +We women never cease to hope, you know!" + +"And hev n't they, as 't is?" says John, eagerly bending toward her. + +"What a saucy Captain you are, to ask me such questions!"--and she put him +gently back with her white hand. "But here we are almost ashore!"--and she +began gathering up her band-boxes and paper parcels with great energy. + +"I thought you said you was a-goin' to take my advice?" says John, with a +soft reproach in his voice. + +"Did I? O, then I will!" she answers, with the most innocent air possible, +and leaning quite across his knee to replace one of her boxes. "What is +your adwice, now? But you must bear in mind the walue of the welwets. I 've +one bonnet in the lot, of a wermilion color, that's worth a wast deal; and +you know welwet, when it 's once wet, looks just like a drownded cat. No +dressing can make anything of it. Some ladies wears it, but _my_ ladies +does n't." + +"I never knew clouds look like them," says John, "when it did n't pour; +and, if you take my adwice, you 'll stay just where you be." + +"I 'll take your adwice," says the widow, touching his hand lightly with +her soft fingers, and smiling upon him with that unpremeditated coquetry +that always makes a woman charming. It was especially charming to this +man, for no woman had ever smiled upon him like that; and then to think +she had asked and accepted his advice, withal! It was enough to turn his +head, and it did. + +"I'll take your adwice, Captain," she says, "and keep the welwets dry, for +it would cost a pretty penny to replace that wermilion, to be sure! I shall +lose some time by it; and time is money. But what 's money but wanity and +wexation, when nobody has a warm heart toward us?" + +John Chidlaw sighed a long, long sigh, and then he turned his boat about +and they sailed back again. By and by, as if to push him toward his fate, +there flashed down a few big drops of rain. The sun was shining all the +while, but he bestirred himself, and worked with a will, and the widow lent +her little hindering help, and directly the canvas was spread and securely +drawn down, and they were sitting beneath it, side by side, cosey as could +be. She became more communicative now, and told him in what street she was +born and who her father was. + +"What! not ---- Street, of our town here? And your father's name Peter +Rollins, too?" + +"Yes, Peter Rollins, coffin-maker, satin-lined and silver-screwed! The wery +tiptop. None but quality come to him. When I was a little girl, I used to +get into 'em, when we played hide and seek. Why, if you believe me, I 've +been into many a hundred-dollar one, and had my head into the satin piller +of it! That's the way I happened to cultiwate a taste for satins and +welwets and the like, I guess." + +She did not heed the intimation of her companion that he had known her +father, but went on for half an hour without once stopping to take breath. + +"Ah, Captain," she says, "I 've been dethroned in the world! I was born to +riches and a proud position, but I married beneath me, a poor green-grocer +that turned out a wagabond; and in my trials with him, I lost all my good +looks; for I may say, without wanity, that I was good-looking in my +girlish days, and lost all my wiwacity, and come to be the sober, staid +old woman you see me." + +"Old woman, to be sure!" says John. "Why, nobody would think o' callin' you +old. You look a'most like a girl o' sixteen to me!" + +"O Captain!" says the widow; and then she says his sight must be failing, +though his eyes do look so uncommon bright; and then she says, with a +little sigh, that she is upwards of forty. + +She had observed John's wrinkled face, and her confession was not without +method, though she might have added five to the forty years, if she had +chosen to be very accurate. + +"Up'ards o' forty!" says John, charmed alike with her sincerity and her +well-preserved beauty. "Why, I snum, you might marry a man o' twenty-five +any day, if you had a mind." + +"Ah, Captain, but I have n't the mind. I want a man--that is, if I ever +wenter to marry agin--who is older than myself,--say from ten to fifteen +year older. I would n't be so wery particular." And then she says to +John,--for a possibility crosses her mind,--"Does your family live +hereabouts?" + +John blushed up to his eyes. "Family!" says he. "I never was so fortinate +as to hev one." + +"Not even a wife, to be sure?" + +"No, miss." And then he says he never expects to hev one. + +"Law, Captain, why? if I may wenter." + +"Cause nobody 'd hev me, miss; and to say truth, I never thought on 't much +till sense we 've been a-takin' this voyage"; and he glanced at her slyly, +and touched the ends of her ribbon. + +"And what could 'a' put it into your head now, Captain Chidlaw?" + +"Can you ask me that in airnest?" says John, still holding the ribbons as +for dear life. "Then I must tell you to just look into the glass, and you +'ll see what." + +"O Captain, you ought to be ashamed to plague a poor lone woman like me +that way; it 's wery bad of you, wery, and I 've a great mind to box your +ears!" and she put out her little hand to him in a sweetly menacing manner. + +John seized the hand and kissed it, and then, frightened at himself, ran to +the other end of the boat and looked hard at the clouds. + +"O, come back! come back!" screamed the widow; "the boat 'll upset, with me +at one end and you at the other!" + +"Sure enough!" says John, and he went sheepishly back, and again seated +himself by her side. + +She gave him a little tap on the ear, and asked him if he would promise +never to run away and frighten her so again. + +John said he would promise her anything in the world that was in his power +to grant; and he looked at her with such adoration that the woman overcame +the coquette, or the coquette the woman,--which shall I say?--and she went +as far from the "dangerous edge of things" as possible, and told him +demurely that the only promise she exacted was, that he should listen to +the long and techin' story of her life. It all came back upon her, and she +felt as if she must tell it to somebody. "May be, though, you don't want to +hear it?" says she. + +"May be I don't want to hear it! How can you?" says John, edging up. And +she began:-- + +"I told you, Captain, that I had been dethroned, and I have,--wilely +dethroned, and brought low, by my own woluntary act." + +"Dear heart!" says John, "so much the worse, if it was woluntary, so few +pities you." + +"Ah, that 's it," says the widow; "nobody pities me,--nobody in the wide +world has got a warm heart toward me." She broke quite down, and the tears +came to her eyes. + +"What may your name be?" says John, seizing both her hands and gazing +tenderly in her face. + +"Why do you ask? I 'm but a transient wisitor to your boat; you can't have +no interest in me; and, besides, my name is hateful to me." + +"But I must call you somethin'!" + +"Well, then, inwent a name. My maiden name reminds me of the royal hours +when my father's position gave me rank, and before the wicissitudes of +fortune brought me low; I cannot therefore consent to be called by that; +and my married name is the name of a wagabond, and I despise it. O sir, +inwent a name, for mercy's sake!" + +"I 'll inwent it for love's sake," says John, slipping his arm round her +waist, and drawing her close to him; "and I 'll call you my dove, coz you +see you 've got all the timidity and gentleness o' that lovely bird, and +your voice is sweeter than the turtle's, I 'm sure." + +"O Captain, my woice is n't a nice woice now-a-days,--my woice went with +the rest of my attractions when I was dethroned. I had a nice woice once. +If we could have met then!" + +"My dove!" says John, "whatever your woice hes ben, I would n't hev it no +sweeter than what it is now; it kerries me back to the years that hed hope +in 'em,--the years when I was a boy, and in love." + +"Say no more," says the widow; "my heart already tells me that you love +another,"--and she began to pout. + +"Lord bless us!" says John; "our boat is aground. I was so took up with +you, Rose, that I did n't see she was driftin' down stream, and here we be, +high and dry, and a storm a-comin' on; but you can't blame me so ha'shly, +my dear Rose, as what I blame myself. Can you forgive me?" + +"Forgive you?" cries the widow, reproachfully. "Can you forget that I am an +undertaker's daughter?" + +This speech did not convey any very clear meaning to the mind of John +Chidlaw; but he attributed that to his own dulness, and as this struck him +as being very great, somehow or other, though he could not tell how, he +bowed his head in shamefaced silence. + +In spite of what he had said about being in love in his youth, the widow +took great courage. He had said "our boat" instead of "my boat," and he +had called her Rose,--her real name,--how should he know that? She could +not tell, but somehow she augured favorably from it; besides, they were +aground, and must wait for the rising of the tide, and in the intervening +time who knew what might be done? She would tell all her story; and its +pathos, she fancied, must subjugate the most obdurate heart. + +"Yes," she renewed, "I am, or rather was, an undertaker's daughter, with +the most brilliant prospects before me that ever allured a wile wagabond of +a fortune-hunter, for such he was who stole me from the satin pillers my +young head had played among, and give me a piller of husks, and cold +wittles, and wulgar lodgings." + +"The wretch!" cries John. "The wile wretch! if he yet lived, I would wow +myself to wengeance!" And, like Jacob of old, he lifted up his voice and +wept. + +"Don't take on so," says the widow. "I would not cause you a moment's +sorrow for the world." + +"To think any man should have abused the like o' you!" says John. "But +surely he never laid wiolent hands ont' you? I think I shall lose my senses +if you say that." + +"Then I won't say it," says the widow, tenderly stroking his hand. + +"That touch is wivifying," says John; "so, dear Rose, you may go on and +tell the wust on 't." + +Then the widow came to the worst; for after all the trials she had with the +old wagabond, she said, she could have put up with him but for one nasty +habit,--he walked into his sleep! "And now a man that walks into his +sleep," says she, "is a trial and a torment to his wife which there is no +tongue can tell it." + +"Ah, to be sure," says John, "you ought to hev been divorced, and to have +recovered big damages into the bargain. To think that the willain dared to +walk into his sleep, and frighten a poor timid dove like you! But the +hearts o' some does seem manufactured o' flints, and his'n was one on 'em, +I guess." + +"Yes, as you say wisely, some is flint," says the widow; "but then some is +n't!" And she dropped her eyes, and gave his hand a confiding little +squeeze. And then she says that, once married, diworce is n't got for the +asking,--"you are tied for good and all." And then she says, that brings +her to the p'int. + +"To be dethroned was bad enough," says she; "and then to see my royal +dowery conwerted into whiskey, which it was dewoured by him, the same being +took continual; but what was most intolerable of all was that he walked +into his sleep! I tried every way to contrawene the wile habit that could +be inwented. I coaxed and I scolded, and I got up late, and I give him hot +winegar with a little whiskey into it,--he would swaller anything that had +a drop of whiskey into it,--and I prewailed on him to sing psalms, and, +that failing, I prewailed onto him to inwest into a wiolin and play onto +that till late into the midnight, thinking by that means his witality would +be exhausted, and he would lie into his bed like any other man; but lo and +behold! he inwested into the wiolin a-Monday, and a-Monday night he played +till along towards ten o'clock, and I got clean wore out, and, says I, 'Do +leave off playing onto that wiolin,' says I, 'for my head aches like all +possess'; and with that he up and went to bed, and after a while I hears +something fingering the latch, and I riz onto my elbow, and says, in a +whisper, 'Dan'l, there 's a man a-trying to break in, as sure as you 're +alive!' He did n't answer, and thinks says I, the wiolin has done it, and +he is a-sleeping with a wengeance, and then I feels along, and says I, +'Dan'l, Dan'l!' but still no answer; then I felt for the piller, and there +was no head onto it, and I scraped a match, and it went out, and I scraped +another, and it went out, and I scraped another, and a leetle blue flame +just started and flickered, and before I could see what it was a-fumbling +at the door, _it_ went out. Thinks says I, I 'll make sure work now; and I +took two of the nasty things into my hand and scraped so hard I crushed +them all up together, and they flashed out and seared my finger-ends and +burnt a hole into my nightgownd-sleeve, and, seeing I was like to burn up, +I slapped my arm with all my might, and at last I slapped the flame down, +and at last, by persewerance, I slapped it out; and yet I had n't seen a +thing, but I could feel the hole into my nightgownd-sleeve, and my arm all +burnt into a light blister. 'Dan'l!' says I again; but Dan'l did n't +answer, and then I was full sure it was him, and I scraped with a steadier +hand, and the match--it was one of them nasty lucifers, may be you know--" + +"Yes, I 've heerd tell on 'em," says John. + +And the wretched woman went on: "It was one of them nasty lucifers, and it +choked me so I could not find the candle; and though I could just see a +ghostly object at the door, I could not tell at all whether it was Dan'l or +not, for he never looked like himself when he walked into his sleep; and +the match--they are nothing but splinters, you know--was burning closer and +closer to my fingers, and I just dabs it wiolently into the washbowl, and +puts it out. And then says I, 'Dan'l! Dan'l!' again; and this time he +answers, and says he, 'You wixen,' says he, 'shut up your mouth!' + +"There was no mistaking that, and all in the dark I wentered after him, and +grabbed and ketched him by the end of his neck-tie, and hild with all my +might; and at that he began to wociferate at the top of his woice, and, +thinks says I, better than rouse all the neighbors and have them broke o' +their rest, I 'll just let him go and walk into his sleep till he 's +satisfied. I took the key out of the door, and then I tried to find my way +back, for, thinks says I, I 'll retire and take my rest anyhow, and, if you +believe it, I was so turned round I could n't find the piller! So I went +feeling here and there, and every minute I come back to him, and every time +I touched him he wociferated at the top of his woice; and then I 'd say, +'Dan'l, it was n't woluntary!' and then I 'd feel and feel by the chairs +and the wall, and by one thing and another, as a body will when they can't +see, and the first thing I 'd know I 'd be right back to him agin. My +blistered arm, meantime, was a-burning like fire, but, thinks says I, it 's +no use, I can 't find the water-pitcher, I 'm so turned round; and I just +sot down where I was, and there I sot till daylight, blowing all my breath +away onto my arm, and the minute I could see I made for the pitcher; but, +happening to take it by the snout instead of the handle, away it went, and +spilt all the water, and broke the pitcher past all mending,--and a fine +pitcher, too!--one that my own father give me in cholera times, when his +business was at the best." + +"I declare," says John Chidlaw, "it 's enough to make a body's blood run +cold!" And then he says he does n't wonder she 's agin matrimony! + +Now the widow had said nothing of the sort, and stoutly protested that she +had not, but that, on the contrary, she thought it an adwantage to any +woman to be married, prowided she could find an indiwidual that had a warm +heart toward her; to which John replied that she had found such a one; and +she answered, "How you do go on!" and resumed her story. + +"Well, a-Tuesday night he took to the wiolin again, and played and played +and played and played all the old dancing tunes in creation, and I sot by +and never said a word till 'leven o'clock come, and then till twelve +o'clock come, and then till one o'clock come, and then till two o'clock +come, and at last, thinks says I, my brain will go wild, and says I, +'Dan'l, I ain't a bit sleepy, but I do feel some as if I could go to sleep +if you 'd just keep on a-playing; I 've got kind o' used to it, and I don't +believe I can go to sleep without it.' With this he flung the wiolin into +the cradle,--my father had presented me with a cradle that he had made out +of some boards that had been used once and rejected on account of knots, +but just as good, you know,--and then he flounced into bed, and he never +walked into his sleep that night!" + +"You cunnin' little thing!" cries John, overcome with her smartness, and +hugging her close. "Who but you would ever 'a' thought on 't? Such a sleek +deception!" + +"Well, a-Wednesday night he would n't touch his wiolin, and that night, or +rather along towards morning, he walked into his sleep, and a-Thursday +night he would n't play a stroke agin; in wain I put the wiolin into his +sight; and that night he just dewoted himself to walking,--making himself +wisible to the neighbors, even. So thinks says I, this won't do; and +a-Friday night, says I, I says to him, says I, 'I hate the old wiolin,' +says I; 'and I 've a good notion to burn it up!' + +"'You just wenter!' says he, and he takes it up and slants it agin his +shoulder, and turns his head kind a sideways, all the time a-keeping his +eye onto me, and he seesaws and seesaws till I falls asleep into my chair, +and then he seesaws and seesaws till I wakes and rubs my eyes, and still +his head is kind a sideways, and his wiolin agin his shoulder, aslant like, +just as if he had n't moved; and then I pertends to sleep, and I pertends +and pertends and pertends, and at last pertence is clear wore out, and I +wakes up like, and I says, says I, 'Dan'l, it must be a'most ten o'clock, +ain't it?'--I knew it was daylight. And all at once his wisage changed, and +the wiolin fairly dropt from his shoulder, and he hild up his head that had +been kind a sideways all that while, and went to bed peaceable as a lamb, +he did, and for the rest of the night he did n't walk into his sleep at +all!" + +"You angel!" says John,--"to get round him so." + +"Just wait," says the widow; "there's something a-coming that 'll make you +open your eyes. A-Saturday night says I, 'I feel like dancing,' says I; +'so, Dan'l, give us one of your liveliest tunes!' and with that I began to +hop about like a lark. Of course he was took in, and the wiolin was n't +touched; but O how he did walk into his sleep! Wisible to everybody! In +wain I argued that walking into sleep was wulgar, in wain I coaxed, and in +wain I cried,--though tears will sometimes prewail when nothing else will, +that is, if they ain't too woluntary. Some women seems to shed 'em +woluntary, and then they are not so prewailing, which it was never my case, +Captain, never! I cried for sheer spite and for nothing else; it was always +the way with me, especially after I was dethroned; and when tears did n't +prewail, thinks says I, I must take adwice, which I took it,--adwice here +and adwice there,--and one adwised one thing and one another; but the +adwice I took was adwice that it liked to have landed me where I never +should have seen the light of this blessed day, nor seen, nor seen, nor +seen--you!" + +John put both arms round her instead of one, and held her fast, lest she +might vanish like a phantom. + +"You seem so like a sweet wision of the night!" he said. And then he asked +her what was the wicious adwice. + +"I do feel as if I 'd wanish, sure enough," says the widow, "if it was n't +for your wine-like arms a-holding me up so nice, for I never can repeat +this part of my sufferings without being quite wanquished,--just a leetle +closer, if you please; now your shoulder, so that it will catch my head if +it should happen to fall. You have wisely called the adwice which I was +adwised to wicious," says she; "but what will you say when you hear the +adwice which I was adwised? Nerve yourself up, Captain, but don't let go of +me, not the least bit, I am so liable to be wanquished by my feelings. +There, that 'll do,--the dear knows it 's all because of my fear. Well, +the adwice I was adwised was, as you wisely said, wicious,--indeed it was +wery wicious,--and yet the woman that she adwised the adwice was a woman of +wast experience,--the wife of a wiolent drinker, and the mother of fourteen +children. More than this, her father had been constable once, and she wore +French thread-lace altogether! Would you suppose, Captain, considering her +adwantages, especially as regards her father and her laces, that she could +have adwised me with adwice that it was unadwisable?" + +"No, I should n't a-dreampt on 't," says the Captain; "but what was the +adwice that she adwised you that warn't adwisable?" + +"I really can't get my consent to tell," says the widow, "now that I 've +sot out, for I never expected to reweal it to anybody, unless it was +to--well, to some one that either was, or was like to be, my husband. Dear +me, I've undertook too much!" + +"There," says the enraptured lover; "now can't you go on?" + +"I don't know," says the widow, blushing, but not withdrawing her cheek. + +"Try, for my sake!" says the Captain, "it 's so interestin'. You 've +undertook a good deal, but whatever consarns you consarns me." + +"Well, I won't wacillate no more,--not if it plagues you!" And the widow +looked fondly in his face, and then, quite supporting herself upon his arm, +she drooped her eyelids modestly and resumed. + + + + +INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. + + +There is an American lady living at Hartford, in Connecticut, whom the +United States has permitted to be robbed by foreigners of $200,000. Her +name is Harriet Beecher Stowe. By no disloyal act has she or her family +forfeited their right to the protection of the government of the United +States. She pays her taxes, keeps the peace, and earns her livelihood by +honest industry; she has reared children for the service of the +Commonwealth; she was warm and active for her country when many around her +were cold or hostile;--in a word, she is a good citizen. + +More than that: she is an illustrious citizen. The United States stands +higher to-day in the regard of every civilized being in Christendom because +she lives in the United States. She is the only woman yet produced on the +continent of America to whom the world assigns equal rank in literature +with the great authoresses of Europe. If, in addition to the admirable +talents with which she is endowed, she had chanced to possess one more, +namely, the excellent gift of plodding, she had been a consummate artist, +and had produced immortal works. All else she has,--the seeing eye, the +discriminating intelligence, the sympathetic mind, the fluent word, the +sure and happy touch; and these gifts enabled her to render her country the +precise service which it needed most. Others talked about slavery: she made +us _see_ it. She showed it to us in its fairest and in its foulest aspect; +she revealed its average and ordinary working. There never was a fairer nor +a kinder book than "Uncle Tom's Cabin"; for the entire odium of the +revelation fell upon the Thing, not upon the unhappy mortals who were born +and reared under its shadow. The reader felt that Legree was not less, but +far more, the victim of slavery than Uncle Tom, and the effect of the book +was to concentrate wrath upon the system which tortured the slave's body +and damned the master's soul. Wonderful magic of genius! The hovels and +cotton-fields which this authoress scarcely saw she made all the world see, +and see more vividly and more truly than the busy world can ever see remote +objects with its own unassisted eyes. We are very dull and stupid in what +does not immediately concern us, until we are roused and enlightened by +such as she. Those whom we call "the intelligent," or "the educated," are +merely the one in ten of the human family who by some chance learned to +read, and thus came under the influence of the class whom Mrs. Stowe +represents. + +It is not possible to state the amount of good which this book has done, is +doing, and is to do. Mr. Eugene Schuyler, in the preface to the Russian +novel which he has recently done the public the service to translate, +informs us that the publication of a little book in Russia contributed +powerfully to the emancipation of the Russian serfs. The book was merely a +collection of sketches, entitled "The Memoirs of a Sportsman"; but it +revealed serfdom to the men who had lived in the midst of it all their +lives without ever seeing it. Nothing is ever _seen_ in this world, till +the searching eye of a sympathetic genius falls upon it. This Russian +nobleman, Turgenef, noble in every sense, saw serfdom, and showed it to his +countrymen. His volume was read by the present Emperor, and _he_ saw +serfdom; and he has since declared that the reading of that little book was +"one of the first incitements to the decree which gave freedom to thirty +millions of serfs." All the reading public of Russia read it, and _they_ +saw serfdom; and thus a public opinion was created, without the support of +which not even the absolute Czar of all the Russias would have dared to +issue a decree so sweeping and radical. + +We cannot say as much for "Uncle Tom's Cabin," because the public opinion +of the United States which permitted the emancipation of the slaves was of +longer growth, and was the result of a thousand influences. But when we +consider that the United States only just escaped dismemberment and +dissolution in the late war, and that two great powers of Europe were only +prevented from active interference on behalf of the Rebellion by that +public opinion which "Uncle Tom's Cabin" had recently revived and +intensified, we may at least believe, that, if the whole influence of that +work could have been annihilated, the final triumph of the United States +might have been deferred, and come only after a series of wars. That book, +we may almost say, went into every household in the civilized world which +contained one person capable of reading it. And it was not an essay; it was +a vivid exhibition;--it was not read from a sense of duty, nor from a +desire to get knowledge; it was read with passion; it was devoured; people +sat up all night reading it; those who could read read it to those who +could not; and hundreds of thousands who would never have read it saw it +played upon the stage. Who shall presume to say how many soldiers that book +added to the Union army? Who shall estimate its influence in hastening +emancipation in Brazil, and in preparing the amiable Cubans for a similar +measure? Both in Cuba and Brazil the work has been read with the most +passionate interest. + +If it is impossible to measure the political effect of this work, we may at +least assert that it gave a thrilling pleasure to ten millions of human +beings,--an innocent pleasure, too, and one of many hours' duration. We may +also say, that, while enjoying that long delight, each of those ten +millions was made to see, with more or less clearness, the great truth that +man is not fit to be trusted with arbitrary power over his fellow. The +person who afforded this great pleasure, and who brought home this +fundamental truth to so many minds, was Harriet Beecher Stowe, of Hartford, +in the State of Connecticut, where she keeps house, educates her children, +has a book at the grocery, and invites her friends to tea. To that American +woman every person on earth who read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" incurred a +personal obligation. Every individual who became possessed of a copy of the +book, and every one who saw the story played in a theatre, was bound, in +natural justice, to pay money to her for service rendered, unless she +expressly and formally relinquished her right,--which she has never done. +What can be clearer than this? Mrs. Stowe, in the exercise of her vocation, +the vocation by which she lives, performs a professional service to ten +millions of people. The service is great and lasting. The work done is +satisfactory to the customer. What can annul the obligation resting upon +each to render his portion of an equivalent, except the consent of the +authoress "first had and obtained"? If Mrs. Stowe, instead of creating for +our delight and instruction a glorious work of fiction, had contracted her +fine powers to the point of inventing a nutcracker or a match-safe, a +rolling-pin or a needle-threader, every individual purchaser could have +been compelled to pay money for the use of her ingenuity, and everybody +would have thought it the most natural and proper thing in the world so to +do. There are fifty American inventions now in use in Europe from which the +inventors derive revenue. _Revenue!_--not a sum of money which, once spent, +is gone forever, but that most solid and respectable of material blessings, +a sum per annum! Thus we reward those who light our matches. It is +otherwise that we compensate those who kindle our souls. + +"Uncle Tom's Cabin," like every other novelty in literature, was the +late-maturing fruit of generations. Two centuries of wrong had to pass, +before the Subject was complete for the Artist's hand, and the Artist +herself was a flower of an ancient and gifted family. The Autobiography of +Lyman Beecher has made known this remarkable family to the public. We can +all see for ourselves how slowly and painfully this beautiful genius was +nourished,--what a narrow escape it had from being crushed and extinguished +amid the horrors of theology and the poverty of a Connecticut +parsonage,--how it was saved, and even nurtured, by that extraordinary old +father, that most strange and interesting character of New England, who +could come home, after preaching a sermon that appalled the galleries, and +play the fiddle and riot with his children till bedtime. A piano found its +way into the house, and the old man, whose geniality was of such abounding +force that forty years of theology could not lessen it, let his children +read Ivanhoe and the other novels of Sir Walter Scott. Partly by chance, +partly by stealth, chiefly by the force of her own cravings, this daughter +of the Puritans obtained the scanty nutriment which kept her genius from +starving. By and by, on the banks of the Ohio, within sight of a slave +State, the Subject and the Artist met, and there, from the lips of sore and +panting fugitives, she gained, in the course of years, the knowledge which +she revealed to mankind in "Uncle Tom's Cabin." + +When she had done the work, the United States stood by and saw her deprived +of three fourths of her just and legitimate wages, without stirring a +finger for her protection. The book sold to the extent of two millions of +copies, and the story was played in most of the theatres in which the +English language is spoken, and in many French and German theatres. In one +theatre in New York it was played eight times a week for twelve months. +Considerable fortunes have been gained by its performance, and it is still +a source of revenue to actors and managers. We believe that there are at +least three persons in the United States, connected with theatres, who have +gained more money from "Uncle Tom's Cabin" than Mrs. Stowe. Of all the +immense sums which the exhibition of this story upon the stage has +produced, the authoress has received nothing. When Dumas or Victor Hugo +publishes a novel, the sale of the right to perform it as a play yields him +from eighty thousand to one hundred and twenty thousand francs. These +authors receive a share of the receipts of the theatre,--the only fair +arrangement,--and this share, we believe, is usually one tenth; which is +also the usual percentage paid to authors upon the sale of their books. If +a French author had written "Uncle Tom's Cabin," he would have enjoyed,--1. +A part of the price of every copy sold in France; 2. A share of the +receipts of every theatre in France in which he permitted it to be played; +3. A sum of money for the right of translation into English; 4. A sum of +money for the right of translation into German. We believe we are far +within the truth when we say, that a literary success achieved by a French +author equal to that of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" would have yielded that author +half a million dollars in gold; and that, too, in spite of the lamentable +fact, that America would have stolen the product of his genius, instead of +buying it. + +Mrs. Stowe received for "Uncle Tom's Cabin" the usual percentage upon the +sale of the American edition; which may have consisted of some three +hundred thousand copies. This percentage, with some other trifling sums, +may have amounted to forty thousand dollars. From the theatre she has +received nothing; from foreign countries nothing, or next to nothing. This +poor forty thousand dollars--about enough to build a comfortable house in +the country, and lay out an acre or two of grounds--was the product of the +supreme literary success of all times! A _corresponding_ success in sugar, +in stocks, in tobacco, in cotton, in invention, in real estate, would have +yielded millions upon millions to the lucky operator. To say that Mrs. +Stowe, through our cruel and shameful indifference with regard to the +rights of authors, native and foreign, has been kept out of two hundred +thousand dollars, honestly hers, is a most moderate and safe statement. +This money was due to her as entirely as the sum named upon a bill of +exchange is due to the rightful owner of the same. It was for "value +received." A permanently attractive book, moreover, would naturally be more +than a sum of money; it would be an estate; it would be an income. This +wrong, therefore, continues to the present moment, and will go on longer +than the life of the authoress. While we are writing this sentence, +probably, some German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, or English +bookseller is dropping into his "till" the price of a copy of "Uncle Tom's +Cabin," the whole of which he will keep, instead of sending ten per cent of +it to Hartford on the 1st of January next. + +We have had another literary success in these years,--Mr. Motley's +Histories of the Dutch Republic and of the United Netherlands. As there are +fifteen persons in the world who can enjoy fiction to one that will read +much of any other kind of literary production, the writers of fiction +usually receive some compensation for their labors. Not a fair nor an +adequate compensation, but _some_. This compensation will never be fair nor +adequate until every man or woman in the whole world who buys a copy of a +novel, or sees it played, shall, in so doing, contribute a certain +stipulated sum to the author. Nevertheless, the writers of fiction do get a +little money, and a few of them are able to live almost as well as a +retired grocer. Now and then we hear of an author who gets almost as much +money for a novel that enthralls and enchants two or three nations for many +months, as a beardless operator in stocks sometimes wins between one and +two P. M. It is not so with the heroes of research, like Motley, Buckle, +Bancroft, and Carlyle. Upon this point we are ready to make a sweeping +assertion, and it is this. No well-executed work, involving original +research, can pay expenses, unless the author is protected in his right to +the market of the world. This is one of the points to which we particularly +wish to call attention. Give us international copyright, and it immediately +becomes possible in the United States for a man who is not rich to devote +his existence to the production of works of permanent and universal value. +Continue to withhold international copyright, and this privilege remains +the almost exclusive portion of men of wealth. For, in the United States, +there is scarcely any such thing as honest leisure in connection with +business or a salaried office. + +Now, with regard to Mr. Motley, whose five massive volumes of Dutch History +are addressed to the educated class of all nations,--before that author +could write the first sentence of his work he must have been familiar with +six languages, English, Latin, Dutch, French, German, and Spanish, besides +possessing that general knowledge of history, literature, and science which +constitutes what is called culture. He must also have spent five laborious +years in gaining an intimate knowledge of his subject, in the course of +which he must have travelled in more than one country, and expended large +sums in the purchase of books and documents, and for copies of manuscripts. +Living in the cheap capitals of Continental Europe, and managing his +affairs with economy, he may have accomplished his preparatory studies at +an expenditure of ten thousand dollars,--two thousand dollars a year. The +volumes contain in all about three thousand five hundred large pages. At +two pages a day, which would be very rapid work, and probably twice as fast +as he did work, he could have executed the five volumes, and got them +through the press (a year's hard labor in itself), in seven years. Here are +twelve years' labor, and twenty-four thousand dollars' necessary +expenditure. Mr. Motley probably expended more than twelve years, and twice +twenty-four thousand dollars; but we choose to estimate the work at its +necessary cost. Two other items must be also considered:--1. The talents +of the author, which, employed in another profession, would have brought +large returns in money and honor; 2. The intense and exhausting nature of +the labor. The production of a work which demands strict fidelity to truth, +as well as excellence in composition,--which obliges the author, first, to +know all, and, after that, to impart the essence of his knowledge in an +agreeable and striking manner,--is the hardest continuous work ever done by +man. It is at times a fierce and passionate joy; it is at times a harrowing +anxiety; it is at times a vast despair; but it is always very hard labor. +The search after a fact is sometimes as arduous as the chase after a deer, +and it may last six weeks, and, after all, there may be no such fact, or it +may be valueless. And when all is done,--when the mountain of manuscript +lies before the author ready for the press,--he cannot for the life of him +tell whether his work is trash or treasure. As poor Charlotte Bronte said, +when she had finished Jane Eyre, "I only know that the story has interested +_me_." Finally comes the anguish of having the work judged by persons whose +only knowledge of the subject is derived from the work itself. + +No matter for all that: we are speaking of money. This work, we repeat, +cost the author twenty-four thousand dollars to produce. Messrs. Harper +sell it at fifteen dollars a copy. The usual allowance to the author is ten +per cent of the retail price, and, as a rule, it ought not to be more. Upon +works of that magnitude, however, it often is more. Suppose, then, that Mr. +Motley receives two dollars for every copy of his work sold by his American +publishers. A meritorious work of general interest, i. e. a book not +addressed to any class, sect, or profession, that costs fifteen dollars, is +considered successful in the United States if it sells three thousand +copies. Five thousand is decided success. Seven thousand is brilliant +success. Ten thousand copies, sold in the lifetime of the author, is all +the success that can be hoped for. Ten thousand copies would yield to the +author twenty thousand dollars, which is four thousand dollars less than it +cost him. + +But Mr. Motley's work is of universal interest. It does not concern the +people of the United States any more than it does the people of England, +France, and Germany, nor as much as it does the people of Spain and +Holland. Wherever, in the whole world, there is an intelligent, educated +human being, there is a person who would like to read and possess Motley's +Histories, which relate events of undying interest to all the few in every +land who are capable of comprehending their significance. Give this author +the market of the world, and he is compensated for his labor. Deny him this +right, and it is impossible he should be. England buys a greater number of +fifteen-dollar books than the United States, because, in England, rich men +are generally educated men, and in the United States the class who most +want such books cannot buy them. Our clergy are poor; our students are +generally poor; our lawyers and doctors are not rich, as a class; our +professors and schoolmasters are generally very poor; our men of business, +as a class, read little but the daily paper; and our men of leisure are too +few to be of any account. Nor have we yet that universal system of town and +village self-sustaining libraries, which will, by and by, abundantly atone +for the ignorance and indifference of the rich, and make the best market +for books the world has ever seen. England would readily "take" ten +thousand copies of a three-guinea book of first-rate merit and universal +interest. A French translation of the same would sell five thousand in +France, and, probably three thousand more in other Continental countries. A +German translation would place it within the reach of nations of readers, +and a few hundreds in each of those nations would become possessors of the +work. Or, in other words, an International Copyright would multiply the +gains of an author like Mr. Motley by three, possibly by four. 20,000 x 3 += 60,000. + +We are far from thinking that sixty thousand dollars would be a +compensation for such work as Mr. Motley has done. We merely say, that the +reasonable prospect of even such a partial recompense as that would make it +possible for persons not rich to produce in the United States works of +universal and permanent value. The question is, Are we prepared to say that +such works shall be attempted here only by rich men, or by men like Noah +Webster, who lived upon a Spelling-Book while he wrote his Dictionary? +Generally, the acquisition of an independent income is the work of a +lifetime, and it ought to be. But the production of a masterpiece, +involving original research, is also the work of a lifetime. Not one man in +a thousand millions can do both. Give us International Copyright, and there +are already five publishers in the United States who are able and willing +to give an author the equivalent of Gibbon's sixteen hundred pounds a year, +or of Noah Webster's Spelling-Book, or Prescott's thousand dollars a month; +i. e. maintenance while he is doing that part of his work which requires +exclusive devotion to it. Besides, a man intent upon the execution of a +great work can contrive, in many ways, to exist--just exist--for ten years, +provided he has a reasonable prospect of moderate reward when his task is +done. There are fifty men in New England alone who would deem it an honor +and a privilege "to invest" in such an enterprise. + +Mr. Bancroft's is another case in point. Mr. Buckle remarks, that there is +no knowledge until there is a class who have conquered leisure, and that, +although most of this class will always employ their leisure in the pursuit +of pleasure, yet a few will devote it to the acquisition of knowledge. +These few are the flower of their species,--its ornaments and +benefactors,--for the flower issues in most precious fruit, which finally +nourishes and exalts the whole. We are such idle and pleasure-loving +creatures, and civilization places so many alluring delights within the +reach of a rich man, that it must ever be accounted a merit in one of this +class if he devotes himself to generous toil for the public good. George +Bancroft has spent thirty years in such toil. His History of the United +States has stood to him in the place of a profession. His house is filled +with the most costly material, the spoils of foreign archives and of +domestic chests, the pick of auction sales, the hidden treasure of ancient +bookstores, and the chance discoveries of dusty garrets. His work has been +eminently "successful," and he has received for it about as much as his +material cost, and perhaps half a dollar a day for his labor. When the +third volume of the work was about to appear, a London publisher offered +three hundred pounds for the advance sheets, which were furnished, and the +money was paid. The same sum was offered and paid for the advance sheets of +the fourth volume. Then the London publisher discovered that "the courtesy +of the trade" would suffice for his purpose, and he forbore to pay for that +which he could get for nothing. Six hundred pounds, therefore, is all that +this American author has received from foreign countries for thirty years' +labor. His work has been translated into two or three foreign languages, +and it is found in all European libraries of any completeness, whether +public or private; but this little sum is all that has come back to _him_. +Surely, there cannot be one reader of this periodical so insensible to +moral distinctions as not to feel that this is wrong. The happy accident of +Mr. Bancroft's not needing the money has nothing to do with the right and +wrong of the matter. No man is so rich that he does not like to receive +money which he has honestly earned; for money honestly earned is honor as +well as reward, and it is not for _us_, the benefited party, to withhold +his right from a man because he has been generous to us. And the question +again occurs, Shall we sit down content with an arrangement which obliges +us to wait for works of permanent and universal interest until the accident +occurs of a rich man willing and able to execute them? It is not an +accident, but a most rare conjunction of accidents. First, the man must be +competent; secondly, he must be willing; thirdly, he must be rich. This +fortunate combination is so little likely to occur in a new country, that +it must be accounted honorable to the United States that in the same +generation we have had three such men,--Bancroft, Motley, and Prescott. Is +it _such_ persons that should be singled out from the mass of their +fellow-citizens to be deprived of their honest gains? Besides, riches take +to themselves wings. A case has occurred among us of a rich man devoting +the flower of his days to the production of excellent works, and then +losing his property. + +It will be of no avail to adduce the instance of Dr. J. W. Draper. We have +had the pleasure of hearing Dr. Draper relate the history of his average +day. Up at six. Breakfast at seven. An hour's ride to the city. Busy at the +New York University from nine to one. Home in cars to dinner at three. At +four P. M. _begins_ his day's literary work, and keeps steadily on till +eleven. Then, bed. Not one man in many millions could endure such a life, +and no man, perhaps, ought to endure it. Dr. Draper happens to possess a +most sound and easy-working constitution of body and mind, and he has +acquired a knowledge of the laws which relate to its well-being. But, even +in his case, it is questionable whether it is well, or even right, to +devote so large a part of his existence to labor. It is probable, too, that +an International Copyright would, ere this, have released him from the +necessity of it, or the temptation to it. + +Few of us are aware of the extent to which American works are now reprinted +in England. We noticed, the other day, in an English publication, a page of +advertisements containing the titles of thirteen volumes announced to be +sold at "1_s._" or "1_s._ 6_d._" Twelve of the thirteen were American. +Among them, we remember, were Mrs. Stowe's "Little Foxes," Dr. Holmes's +"Humorous Poems," and Mr. Lowell's "Biglow Papers." The cheap publication +stores of Great Britain are heaped with such reprints, the sale of which +yields nothing to the authors. We have even seen in England a series of +school writing-books, the invention of a Philadelphia writing-master, the +English copies of which betrayed no trace of their origin. Nor have we been +able, after much inquiry, to hear of one instance in which an English +publisher has paid an American author, resident in America, for anything +except advance sheets. Mr. Longfellow, whose works are as popular in +England as in America, and as salable, has derived, we believe, +considerable sums for advance sheets of his works; but, unless we are +grossly misinformed, even he receives no percentage upon the annual sale of +his works in Great Britain. + +And the aggravating circumstance of all this spoliation of the men and +women who are the country's ornament and boast is, that it is wholly our +fault. We force the European publishers to steal. England is more than +willing, France is more than willing, Germany is quite willing, Sweden, +Denmark, and Russia are willing, to come at once into an international +arrangement which shall render literary property as sacred and as safe in +all civilized lands as tobacco and whiskey. All the countries we have named +are now obliged to steal it, and do steal it. Who would have expected to +find the Essays of Mr. Emerson a topic in the interior of Russia? We find +them, however, familiarly alluded to in the Russian novel "Fathers and +Sons," recently translated. If authors had their rights, a rill of Russian +silver would come trickling into Concord, while a broad and brimming river +of it would inundate a certain cottage in Hartford. How many modest and +straitened American homes would have new parlor carpets this year, if +henceforth, on the first days of January and July, drafts to their address +were to be dropped in the mail in every capital of the world which the +work done in those homes instructs or cheers! Nor would new carpets be all. +Many authors would be instantly delivered from the fatal necessity of +over-production,--the vice that threatens literature with annihilation. + +There is another aggravating circumstance,--most aggravating. The want of +an International Copyright chiefly robs our best and brightest! A dull book +protects itself; no foreigner wants it. An honest drudge, who compiles +timely works of utility, or works which appease a transient curiosity, and +which thousands of "agents" put under the nose of the whole population, can +make a fortune by one or two lucky hits. There are respectable gentlemen +not far off, who, with pen and scissors, in four months, manufactured +pieces of merchandise, labelled "Life of Abraham Lincoln," of which a +hundred thousand copies each were sold in half a year, and which yielded +the manufacturer thirty thousand dollars. This sum is probably more than +twice as great as the sum total of Mr. Emerson's receipts from his +published works,--the fruit of forty years of study and meditation. It is +chiefly our dear Immortals and our best Ephemerals who need this protection +from their country's justice. It is our Emersons, our Hawthornes, our +Longfellows, our Lowells, our Holmeses, our Bryants, our Curtises, our +Beechers, our Mrs. Stowes, our Motleys, our Bancrofts, our Prescotts, whom +we permit all the world to plunder. We harmless drudges and book-makers are +protected by our own dulness. We are panoplied in our insignificance. The +stupidest set of school-books we ever looked into has yielded, for many +years, an annual profit of one hundred thousand dollars, and is now +enriching its third set of proprietors. No one, therefore, need feel any +concern for _us_. _We _can do pretty well if only we are stupid enough, and +"study to please." But, O honorable members, spare the few who redeem and +exalt the country's name, and who keep alive the all but extinguished +celestial fire! If American property abroad must be robbed, let cotton and +tobacco take a turn, and see how _they_ like it. Invite Manchester to come +to the Liverpool Docks and help itself. Let there be free smoking in +Europe. Summon the merchants of London to a scramble for American bills of +exchange. Select for spoliation anything but the country's literature. + +The worst remains to be told. It is bad to have your pocket picked; but +there is something infinitely worse,--it is to pick a pocket. Who would not +rather be stolen from, than steal? Who would not rather be murdered, than +be a murderer? Nevertheless, in depriving foreign authors of their rights, +it is still ourselves whom we injure most. The great damage to America, and +to American literature, from the want of an international copyright law, is +not the thousands of dollars per annum which authors lose. This is, in +fact, the smallest item that enters into the huge sum total of our loss. + +It maims or kills seven tenths of the contemporary literature that must be +translated before it is available for publication here. Charles Reade, in +that gallant and brilliant little book of his, "The Eighth Commandment," +quotes from a letter written in Cologne, in 1851, the following passage:-- + +"About thirty years ago the first translations from English were brought to +the German market. The Waverley Novels were extensively circulated, and +read with avidity by all classes. Next came Bulwer, and after him Dickens +and other writers. Rival editions of the same works sprang up by the +half-dozen; the profits decreased, and the publishers were obliged to cut +down the pay of the translators. I know that a translation-monger at Grimm +pays about L6 for a three-volume novel. + +"These works, got up in a hurry, and printed with bad type on wretched +paper, are completely flooding the market; and, as they are much cheaper +than original works, they are a serious obstacle to our national +literature. Thus much for our share in the miseries of free trade[2] in +translations. + +"Now for yours. There are able men in Germany, who, were it made worth +their while, could and would put the master works of your novelists and +historians into a decent German garb. But under the present system these +men are elbowed out of the field." + +Change a few names in this passage, and it describes, with considerable +exactness, the state of the translation market in the United States. Works, +which in France charm the _boudoir_ and amuse the whole of the educated +class, sink, under the handling of hasty translators and enterprising +publishers, into what we call "Yellow-Covered Literature," which is to be +found chiefly upon the wharves. Respectable publishers have a well-founded +terror of French and German translations; since, after incurring the +expense of translation, they have no protection against the publication of +another version except "the courtesy of the trade,"--a code of laws which +has not much force in the regions from which the literature of the Yellow +Cover emanates. We are not getting half the good we ought from the +contemporary literature of France, Germany, Sweden, Russia, Holland, Italy, +and we never shall, until American publishers can acquire property in it by +fair purchase, which the law will protect. The business of furnishing the +American public with good translations from the French would of itself +maintain two or three great publishing houses. There is a mine of wealth +there waiting for the removal of the squatters and the recognition of the +rightful title-deeds. What would California have been worth to us, or to +itself, or to anybody, if its treasures had been _left_ to the hurried +scratchings over the surface of uncapitalled prospecters? Capital and skill +wait until the title is clear. Then they go in, with their ponderous +engines, and pound the rocks till the gold glitters all over the heap. + +Messrs. Appleton, of New York, have recently ventured to publish good +translations and good editions of Madame Muehlbach's historical novels. The +name of this lady being new to America, the enterprise was a risk,--a risk +of many thousand dollars,--a risk which only a wealthy house would be +justified in assuming. The _great_ expense of such an undertaking is +incurred in making the new name known, in advertising it, in shouting it +into the ears of a public deafened with a thousand outcries. An enormous +sum of money may easily be spent in this way, when advertising costs from +twenty cents to two dollars a line. Suppose the efforts of the publishers +are successful, see how beautifully the present system works! The more +successful they are, the more perilous their property becomes! It is safe +only as long as it is worthless. Just as soon as they have, by the +expenditure of unknown thousands, created for the works of this German lady +a steady demand, which promises to recompense them, they are open to the +inroads of the Knights of the Yellow Cover! See, too, the effects upon the +Berlin authoress. Playing such a dangerous and costly game as this, the +American publisher dare not, cannot treat with her in the only proper and +honorable way,--open a fair bargain, so much for so much. Messrs. Appleton +did themselves the honor, the other day, to send her a thousand dollars, +gold, which was an act as wise as it was right. We enjoyed an exquisite +pleasure in looking upon the lovely document, duly stamped and +authenticated, which has ere this given her a claim upon a Berlin banker; +and we have also a prodigious happiness in committing the impropriety of +making the fact public. Nevertheless, it is not thus that authors should be +paid for their own. All we can say of it is, that it is better than nothing +to her, and the best a publisher can do under the circumstances. + +This business of publishing books is the most difficult one carried on in +the world. It demands qualities so seldom found in the same individual, +that there has scarcely ever been an eminent and stable publishing house +which did not consist of several active and able men. Failure is the rule, +success the rare exception. The shores of the business world are strewn +thick with the wrecks of ventures in this line that gave every promise of +bringing back a large return. It has been proved a task beyond the wisdom +of mortals, to decide with any positive degree of certainty whether a heap +of blotted manuscript is the most precious or the most worthless of all the +productions of human industry. Young publishers think they can tell: old +publishers know they cannot. This is so true, that for a publisher to have +a knowledge of the commodity in which he deals is generally a point against +his success as a publisher; and it will certainly ruin him, unless he has a +remarkably sound judgment, or a good, solid, unlearned partner, whose +intuitive sense of what the public wants is unbiased by tastes of his own. + +It is this terrible uncertainty as to the value of the commodity purchased, +which renders publishing a business so difficult, precarious, and +unprofitable; and the higher the character of the literature, the greater +the difficulty becomes. Publishers who confine themselves chiefly to works +of utility and necessity, or to works professional and sectarian, have an +easy task to perform, compared with that of a publisher who aims to supply +the public with pure science and high literature. If any business can claim +favorable consideration from those who have in charge the distribution of +the public burdens, surely it is this. If in any way its perils can be +justly diminished by law, surely that protection ought not to be withheld. +We believe it could be shown that the business of publishing what the trade +calls "miscellaneous books," i. e. books which depend solely upon their +intrinsic interest or merit, yields a smaller return for the capital and +talent invested in it than any other. The Harpers have a grand +establishment,--one of the wonders of America. Any one going over that +assemblage of enormous edifices, and observing the multitude of men and +women employed in them, the vast and far-reaching enterprises going +forward,--some of which involve a large expenditure for years before any +return is possible,--the great numbers of men of ability, learning, and +experience who are superintending the various departments, and the amazing +quantities of merchandise produced, the mere catalogue of which is a large +volume,--any one, we say, observing these things, would naturally conclude, +that the proprietors must be in the receipt of Vanderbiltian incomes. The +same amount of capital, force, experience, and talent employed in any other +branch of business could not fail to put the incomes of the proprietors +high up among those which require six figures for their expression. Compare +the returns of these monarchs of the "trade" with those of our dry-goods +magnates, and our mighty men in cotton, tobacco, and railroads. A dealer in +dry-goods in the city of New York has returned as the _income_ of a single +year a sum half as large as the whole capital invested in the establishment +of the Harpers. If the _signal_ successes of publishing--successes which +are the result of the rarest conjunctions of talent, capital, experience, +and opportunity--are represented by incomes of twenty and thirty thousand +paper dollars a year, what must be the general condition of the trade? But +it is the difficulty of conducting the business at all, not the slenderness +of its profits, upon which we now desire the reader to reflect. That +difficulty, we repeat, arises from the fact that a publisher buys his pig +in a poke. He generally knows not, and cannot know, whether what he buys is +worth much, little, or nothing. + +But there is one branch of his business which does not present this +difficulty,--the reprinting of works previously published in a foreign +country. He has the advantage of holding in his hand the precise article +which he proposes to reproduce,--a printed volume, which he can read with +ease and rapidity; and this is nearly as great an advantage as a manager +has who sees a play performed before buying it. He has the still greater +advantage of a public verdict upon the book. It has been tried upon a +public; and it is a rule almost without exception, that a book which sells +largely in one country will not fail in another. Dickens, Thackeray, Reade, +Miss Mulock, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, Dumas, Hugo, George Sand, have +in all foreign countries a popularity which bears a certain proportion to +that which they enjoy in their own; and even the Chinese novel published +some years ago in England was a safe speculation, because it was +universally popular in China. The Russian novel before alluded to was a +prudent enterprise, because Russia had previously tasted and enjoyed it. +Literature of high character is always pervaded with the essence of the +nationality which produced it, but it is, for that very reason, the more +interesting to other nations. Don Quixote has more Spain in it than all the +histories of Spain; but in the library of the German collector of +Cervantes, whose death has been recently announced, there were more than +twice as many foreign editions as Spanish. According to the Pall Mall +Gazette, there were 400 editions in Spanish, 168 in French, 200 in English, +87 in Portuguese, 96 in Italian, 70 in German, 4 in Russian, 4 in Greek, 8 +in Polish, 6 in Danish, 13 in Swedish, and 5 in Latin. Poor Cervantes! How +eloquently this list pleads for International Copyright! + +It is, then, in the republication of foreign works that our publishers +ought to find an element of certainty, which cannot appertain to the +publication of original and untried productions. But it is precisely here +that chaos reigns. In the issue of native works, there is but a single +uncertainty; in the republication of foreign, there are many. No man knows +what his rights are; nor whether he has any rights; nor whether there +_are_ any rights; nor, if he has rights, whether they will be respected. +This chaos has taken to itself the pleasant and delusive name of "Courtesy +of the Trade." Before the "reign of law" is established in any province of +human affairs, we generally see men feeling their way to it, trying to find +something else that will answer the purpose, endeavoring to reduce the +chaos of conflicting claims to some kind of rule. The publishers of the +United States have been doing this for many years, and the result is the +unwritten code called the Courtesy of the Trade,--a code defective in +itself, with neither judge to expound it, jury to decide upon it, nor +sheriff to execute it. This code consisted at first of one rule,--If a +publisher issues a foreign work, no other American publisher shall issue +it. But it often happened that two or three publishers began or desired to +begin the printing of the same book. To meet this and other cases, other +laws were added, until at present the code, as laid down by the rigorists, +consists of the following rules:-- + +1. If a publisher issues an edition of a foreign work, he has acquired an +exclusive right to it for a period undefined. + +2. If a publisher is the first to announce his intention to publish a +foreign work, that announcement gives him an exclusive right to publish it. + +3. If a publisher has already issued a work of a foreign author, he has +acquired thereby an exclusive right to the republication of all subsequent +works by the same author. + +4. The purchase of advance sheets for publication in a periodical gives a +publisher the exclusive right to publish the same in any other form. + +5. All and several of these rights may be bought and sold, like any other +kind of property. + +There is a kind of justice in all these rules. If we could concede that a +foreign author _has_ no ownership of the coinage of his brain,--if anything +but that author's free gift or purchased consent _could_ convey that +property to another,--if foreign literature _is_ the legitimate spoil of +America,--then some such code as this would be the only method of +preventing the business from degenerating into a game of unmitigated grab. +In its present ill-defined and most imperfect state, this system of +"courtesy" scarcely mitigates the game at all; and, accordingly, in "the +trade," instead of the friendly feeling that would naturally exist among +honorable men in the highest branch of business, we find feuds, +heart-burnings, and a grievous sense of wrongs unredressed and +unredressable. Some houses "announce" everything that is announced on the +other side of the Atlantic, so as to have the first choice. Smaller firms, +seeing these announcements, dare not undertake any foreign work, even +though the great house never decides to publish the book upon which the +smaller had fixed its attention. It is only under the reign of law that the +rights of the weak have any security. In the most exquisitely organized +system of piracy, no man can rely upon the enjoyment of a right which he is +not strong enough personally to defend. It is not every house that can +crush a rival edition by selling thousands of expensive books at half their +cost. Between the giant houses that tower above him, and the yellow-covered +gentry that prowl about his feet, an American publisher of only ordinary +resources has a game to play which is really too difficult for the limited +capacities of man. Who can wonder that most of them lose it? + +One effect of this courtesy system is, that many excellent works, which it +would be a public benefit to have reprinted here are not reprinted. Another +is, that corrected or improved editions cannot be given to the American +reader without bringing down upon the publisher the enmity or the vengeance +of a rival. It is not common in Europe for the first editions of important +works to be stereotyped; but in America they always are. The European +author frequently makes extensive additions and valuable emendations in +each successive edition; until, in the course of years, his work is +essentially different from, and far superior to, the first essay. _We_ +cannot have the advantage of the improved version. There is a set of old +and worn stereotype plates in the way, the proprietor of which will not +sacrifice them, nor permit another publisher to produce the corrected +edition, which would as completely destroy their value as though they were +melted into type metal. Who can blame him? No one likes to have a valuable +property suddenly rendered valueless. "It is not human nature." Mr. Lewes +is not justified in so bitterly reproaching Messrs. Appleton for their cold +entertainment of his offer to them of the enlarged version of his "History +of Philosophy." + +"I felt," says Mr. Lewes, "that Messrs. Appleton, of New York, had, in +courtesy, a prior claim, on the ground of their having reprinted the +previous edition in 1857. Accordingly I wrote to them, through their London +agent, stating that I considered they had a claim to the first offer, and +stating, further, that the new edition was substantially a new book. [As +this is an important element in the present case, allow me to add, that the +edition of 1857 was in one volume 8vo, published at sixteen shillings, +whereas the new edition is in two volumes 8vo, published at thirty +shillings; and the work is so considerably altered and enlarged that a new +title has been affixed to it, for the purpose of marking it off from its +predecessors.] Questions of courtesy are, however, but ill understood by +some people, and by Messrs. Appleton so ill understood that they did not +even answer my letter. After waiting more than three months for an answer, +I asked a friend to see their London agent on the subject, and thus I +learned that Messrs. Appleton--_risum teneatis, amici?_--'considered they +had a right to publish all future editions of my work without payment,' +because ten years ago they had given the magnificent sum of twenty-five +pounds to secure themselves against rivals for the second edition." + +The omission to answer the author's letter, we may assume, was accidental. +It is not correct to say that the publishers founded their claim to issue +the new edition upon their payment of twenty-five pounds. The real +difficulty was, that Messrs. Appleton possessed the plates of the first +edition, and could not issue the enlarged edition without, first, +destroying a property already existing, and, secondly, creating a new +property at an expenditure about four times as great as the sum originally +invested. The acceptance of Mr. Lewes's offer would have involved an +expenditure of several thousand dollars, at a time when, for a variety of +reasons, works of that character could hardly be expected to return the +outlay upon them. The exclusive and certain ownership of the work might +well justify its republication, even now, when it costs exactly three times +as much to manufacture a book in the United States as it did seven years +ago. But nothing short of this would warrant a publisher in undertaking it. +The real sinners, against whom Mr. Lewes should have launched his sarcasm, +are the people of the United States, who permit their instructors, both +native and foreign, to be robbed of their property with impunity. Thus we +see that a few hundred pounds of metal are likely to bar the entrance among +us of a work which demonstrates, in the clearest and most attractive +manner, the inutility of all that has hitherto gone by the name of +"metaphysics," and which also indicates the method of investigation from +which good results are to be rationally hoped for. + +It is the grossest injustice to hold American publishers responsible for +the system of ill-regulated plunder which they have inherited, and which +injures them more immediately and palpably than any other class, excepting +alone the class producing the commodity in which they deal. There are no +business men more honorable or more generous than the publishers of the +United States, and especially honorable and considerate are they toward +authors. The relation usually existing between author and publisher in the +United States is that of a warm and lasting friendship,--such as that which +subsisted for so many years between Irving and Putnam, and which now +animates and dignifies the intercourse between the literary men of New +England and Messrs. Ticknor and Fields, and which gathers in the well-known +room of the Harpers a host of writers who are attached friends of the +"House." The relation, too, is one of a singular mutual trustfulness. The +author receives his semiannual account from the publisher with as absolute +a faith in its correctness as though he had himself counted the volumes +sold; and the publisher consigns the manuscript of the established author +to the printer almost without opening it, confident that, whether it +succeeds or fails, the author has done his best. We have heard of instances +in which a publisher had serious cause of complaint against an author, but +never have we known an author to be intentionally wronged by a publisher. +We have known a publisher, in the midst of the ruin of his house, to make +it one of the first objects of his care to save authors from loss, or make +their inevitable losses less. How common, too, it is in the trade for a +publisher to go beyond the letter of his bond, and after publishing five +books without profit, to give the author of the successful sixth more than +the stipulated price! Let every one speak of the market as he finds it. For +our part, after fifteen years of almost daily intercourse with publishers, +we have no recollections of them that are not agreeable, and can call to +mind no transaction in which they did not show themselves to be men of +honor as much as men of business. We have not the least doubt that Mr. +Peterson honestly thought he had acquired a right, by fair purchase, to +sell the property of Charles Dickens in the United States as long as he +should continue in business, and then to dispose of that right to his +successor. We are equally confident that Messrs. Harper felt themselves +completely justified in endeavoring to crush the Diamond Edition of +Thackeray. All this chaos and uncertainty, all these feuds and enmities, +have one and the same cause,--the existence in the world of a kind of +property which is at once the most precious, the easiest stolen, and the +worst protected. + +Almost to a man, our publishers are in favor of an International Copyright. +We have been able to hear of but one exception, and this is the publisher +of but one book,--Webster's Dictionary,--the work of all others now in +existence that would profit most from just protection in foreign countries. +There is an impression in many circles that the Harpers are opposed to it. +We are enabled to state, upon the authority of a member of that great +house, that this is not now, and never has been, the case. Messrs. Harper +comprehend, as well as we do, that they would gain more from the measure +than any other house in the world; because it is the natural effect of law, +while it protects the weak, to legitimate and establish the dominion of the +strong. International Copyright would benefit every creature connected with +publishing, but it would benefit most of all the great and wealthy houses. +The Harpers have spent tens of thousands in enforcing the observance of the +courtesy of the trade, but they cannot enforce it. It is a work never done +and always beginning. It cost them four hundred of our ridiculous dollars +for the advance sheets of each number of Mr. Dickens's last novel; and +within forty-eight hours of the publication of the Magazine containing it, +two other editions were for sale under their noses. The matter for +"Harper's Magazine" often costs three or four thousand dollars a number; +can any one suppose that the proprietors _like_ to see Blackwood and half a +dozen other British magazines sold all over the country at a little more +than the cost of paper and printing? They like it as little as the +proprietors of Blackwood like it. This is a wrong which injures two +nations and benefits one printer; and that printer would himself do better +if he could obtain exclusive rights by fair purchase. No; Messrs. Harper, +we are happy to state, are decidedly in favor of an International +Copyright, and so is every other general publishing house in the country of +which we have any knowledge. + +Consider the case of our venerable and beloved instructor, "The North +American Review," conducted with so much diligence, energy, and tact by the +present editors. Not a number of it has appeared under their management +which has not been a national benefit; and no country more needs such a +periodical than the United States, now standing on the threshold of a new +career. The time has passed when a review could consist chiefly of the +skilfully condensed contents of interesting books, which men could execute +in the intervals of professional duty, and think themselves happy in +receiving one dollar for a printed page, extracts deducted. At the present +time, a review must initiate as well as criticise, and do something itself +as well as comment upon the performances of others. We believe that no +number of the North American Review now appears, the matter of which costs +as little as a thousand dollars. But it has to compete, not only with the +four British Reviews sold here at the price of paper and printing, but with +several periodicals made up of selections from the reviews and magazines of +Europe. Nor is this all. A public accustomed to buy books and periodicals +at a price into which nothing enters but manual labor and visible material +is apt to pause and recoil when it is solicited to pay the just value of +those commodities. A man who buys a number of the Westminster Review for +half a dollar is likely to regard a dollar and a half as an enormous price +for a number of the North American, though he gets for his money what cost +a thousand dollars before the printer saw it. For forty years or more we +have all been buying our books and reviews at thieves' prices,--prices in +which everybody was considered except the creators of the value; and the +consequence is, that we turn away when a proper price is demanded for a +book, and regard ourselves as injured beings. How monstrous for a volume of +Emerson to be sold for a dollar! In England and France, when the price is +to be fixed upon works of that nature, the mere cost of paper and printing +is hardly considered at all. Such trifles are felt, and rightly felt, to +have little to do with the question of price. The publisher knows very well +that he has to dispose of one of those rare and beautiful products which +only a very few thousands of his countrymen will care to possess, or could +enjoy if it were thrust upon them. He fixes the price with reference to the +facts of the case,--the important facts as well as the trivial, the rights +of the author as well as the little bill of the printer,--and that price is +half a guinea. The want of an International Copyright, besides lowering and +degrading all literature, has demoralized the public by getting it into the +habit of paying for books the price of stolen goods. And hence the North +American Review, which would naturally be a most valuable property, has +never yielded a profit corresponding to its real value. People stand aghast +at the invitation to pay six dollars a year for an article, the mere +unmanufactured ingredients of which cost a thousand times six dollars. + +Good contemporary books cannot be very cheap, unless there is stealing +_somewhere_, for a good book is one of the most costly products of nature. +Fortunately, they need not be cheap, for it is not necessary to own many of +them. As soon as an International Copyright has given tone to the business +of writing and publishing books, and has restored the prices of them to the +just standard, we shall see a great increase of those facilities for +purchasing the opportunity to read a book without buying it, which have +placed the whole literature of the world at the command of an English +farmer who can spare a guinea or two per annum. It is not necessary, we +repeat, to possess many new books; it is only necessary to read them, get +the good of them, and give a hearty support to the library from which we +take them. The purchase of a book should be a serious and well-considered +act, not the hasty cramming of a thin, double-columned pamphlet into a +coat-pocket, to be read and cast aside at the bottom of a book-case. It is +an abominable extravagance to buy a great and good novel in a perishable +form for a few cents; it is good economy to pay a few dollars for one +substantially bound, that will amuse and inform generations. A good novel, +play, or poem can be reread every five years during a long life. When a +book is to be selected out of the mass, to become thenceforth part and +parcel of a home, let it be well printed and well bound, and, above all, +let it be of an edition to which the author has set the seal of his consent +and approbation. No one need fear that the addition of the author's ten per +cent to the price of foreign books will make them less accessible to the +masses of the people. It will make them more accessible, and it will tend +to make them better worth keeping. + +When we consider the difficulties which now beset the publication of books +in the United States, we cannot but wonder at the liberality of American +publishers toward foreign authors,--a liberality which has met no return +from publishers in Europe. The first money that Herbert Spencer ever +received in his life from his _books_ was sent to him in 1861 by the +Appletons as his share of the proceeds of his "Essays upon Education"; and +every year since he has received upon all his works republished here the +percentage usually paid to native authors. This is so interesting a case, +and so forcibly illustrates many aspects of our subject, that we will dwell +upon it for a moment. + +It will occasionally happen that an author is produced in a country who is +charged with a special message for another country. There will be something +in the cast of his mind, or in the nature of his subject, which renders his +writings more immediately or more generally suitable to the people of a +land other than his own. We might cite as an example Washington Irving, +who, though a sound American patriot, was essentially an English author, +and whose earlier works are so English that many English people read them +to this day, we are told, who do not suspect that the author was not their +countryman. Washington Irving owed his literary career to this fact! His +seventeen years' residence abroad enabled him to enjoy part of the +advantage which all great authors would derive from an International +Copyright, that is to say, he derived revenue from _both_ countries. During +the first half of his literary career, he drew the chief part of his income +from England; during the second half, when his Sketch-Book vein was +exhausted, and he was again an American resident, he derived his main +support from America. If he had never resided abroad, we never should have +had a Washington Irving; if he had not returned home, he would have been +sadly pinched in his old age. Alone among the American authors of his day +or of any day, he had the market of the world for his works; and he only, +of excellent American authors, has received anything like a compensation +for his labor. The entire proceeds of his works during his lifetime were +$205,383, of which about one third came to him from England. His average +income, during the fifty years of his authorship, was about four thousand +dollars a year. Less than any other of our famous authors he injured his +powers by over-production, and it was only the unsteadiness of his income, +the occasional failure of his resources, or the dread of a failure, that +ever induced him to take up his pen when exhausted nature cried, Forbear! +Cooper, on the contrary, who was read and robbed in every country, wrote +himself all out, and still wrote on, until his powers were destroyed and +his name was a by-word. + +A case similar in principle to that of Irving was Audubon, the +indefatigable and amiable Audubon. The exceeding costliness of his "Birds +of America" protected that work as completely as an International Copyright +could; and, but for this, we never could have had it. Audubon enjoyed the +market of the world! The price of his wonderful work was a thousand +dollars, and, at that period, neither Europe nor America could furnish +purchasers enough to warrant him in giving it to the press. But Europe +_and_ America could! Europe and America _did_,--each continent taking about +eighty copies. The excellent Audubon, therefore, was not ruined by his +brave endeavor to honor his country and instruct mankind. He ended his days +in peace in that well-known villa on the banks of the Hudson, continuing +his useful and beautiful labors to the last, and leaving to his sons the +means of perfecting what he left incomplete. + +But to return to Herbert Spencer, the author of "Social Statics"; or, as we +call it, Jeffersonian Democracy, illustrated and applied. Unconnected with +the governing classes of his own country, escaping the universities, bred +to none of the professions, and inheriting but a slender patrimony, he +earned a modest and precarious livelihood by contributing to the +periodicals, and wrung from his small leisure the books that England +needed, but would not buy. An American citizen, Professor Youmans, felt all +their merit, and perceived how adapted they were to the tastes and habits +of the American mind, and how skilfully the ideas upon which America is +founded were developed in them. He also felt, as we have heard him say, +that, next to the production of excellent works, the most useful thing a +man can do in his generation is to aid in giving them currency. Aided by +other lovers of his favorite author, he was soon in a position to bear +part of the heavy expense of stereotyping Mr. Spencer's works; and thus +Messrs. Appleton were enabled, not only to publish them, but to afford the +author as large a share of the proceeds as though he had been a resident of +the United States. Thus Herbert Spencer, by a happy accident, enjoys part +of the advantage which would accrue to all his brethren from an +International Copyright; and we have the great satisfaction of knowing, +when we buy one of his volumes, that we are not defrauding our benefactor. + +Charles Scribner habitually pays English authors a part of the profit +derived from their republished works. Max Mueller, Mr. Trench, and others +who figure upon his list, derive revenue from the sale of their works in +America. Mr. Scribner considers it both his duty and his interest to +acquire all the right to republish which a foreign author can bestow; and +he desires to see the day when the law will recognize and secure the most +obvious and unquestionable of all rights, the right of an author to the +product of his mind. + +We trust Messrs. Ticknor and Fields will not regard it as an affront to +their delicacy if we allude here to facts which recent events have in part +disclosed to the public. This house, on principle, and as an essential part +of their system, send to foreign authors a share of the proceeds of their +works, and this they have habitually done for twenty-five years. The first +American edition of the Poems of Mr. Tennyson, published by them in 1842, +consisted of one thousand copies, and it was three years in selling; but +upon this edition a fair acknowledgment in money was sent to the poet. +Since that time, Mr. Tennyson has received from them a certain equitable +portion of the proceeds of all the numerous editions of his works which +they have issued. Mr. Fields, with great labor and some expense, collected +from periodicals and libraries a complete set of the works of Mr. De +Quincey, which the house published in twenty-two volumes, the sale of which +was barely remunerative; but the author received, from time to time, a sum +proportioned to the number of volumes sold. Mr. Fields has been recently +gathering the "Early and Late Papers" of Mr. Thackeray, one volume of which +has been published, to the great satisfaction of the public. Miss Thackeray +has already received a considerable sum for the sale of the first edition. +Mr. Browning, Mr. Hughes, Mr. Reade, the Country Parson, Mr. Kingsley, Mr. +Matthew Arnold, Dr. John Brown, Mr. Mayne Reid, Mr. Dickens, have been +dealt with in a similar manner; some of them receiving copyright, and +others a sum of money proportioned to the sale or expected sale of their +works. Nor has the appearance of rival editions been allowed to diminish +the author's share of the profits realized upon the editions published with +their consent. Mr. Tennyson counts upon the American part of his income +with the same certainty as upon that which he derives from the sale of his +works in England, although he cannot secure his Boston publishers the +exclusive market of the United States. We dare not comment upon these +facts, because, if we were to indulge our desire to do so, the passage +would be certain "to turn up missing" upon the printed page, since Messrs. +Ticknor and Fields live two hundred miles nearer the office of the Atlantic +Monthly than we do. Happily, comment is needless. Every man who has either +a conscience or a talent for business will recognize either the propriety +or the wisdom of their conduct. Upon this rock of fair-dealing the eminent +and long-sustained prosperity of this house is founded. + +The following note appeared recently in "The Athenaeum":-- + + "May I, without egotism, mention in your paper that + Messrs. Harper, of New York, have sent me, quite + unsolicited, a money acknowledgment for reprinting, in + their cheap series, two of my novels, 'Lizzie Lorton of + Greyrigg' and 'Sowing the Wind.' At a time when so many + complaints are being made of American publishers, it + is pleasant to be able to record this voluntary act of + grace and courtesy from so influential a house. + + "E. LYNN LINTON." + + + +Complaints, then, are made of American publishers! This is pleasant. We say +again, that, after diligent inquiry, we cannot hear of one instance of an +English publisher sending money to an American author for anything but +advance sheets. Mr. Longfellow is as popular a poet in England as Mr. +Tennyson is in America, and he has, consequently, as before remarked, +received considerable sums for early sheets, but nothing, we believe, upon +the annual sale of his works, nothing from the voluntary and spontaneous +justice of his English publishers. We have no right, perhaps, to censure +men for not going beyond the requirements of law; but still less can we +withhold the tribute of our homage to those who are more just than the law +compels, and this tribute is due to several publishers on this side of the +Atlantic. But then there remains the great fact against us, that England is +willing to-day, and we are not, to throw the protection of international +law around this most sacred interest of civilization. + +Would that it were in our power to give adequate expression to the mighty +debt we owe, as a people, to the living and recent authors of Europe! But +who can weigh or estimate the invisible and widely diffused influence of a +book? There are sentences in the earlier works of Carlyle which have +regenerated American souls. There are chapters in Mill which are reforming +the policy of American nations. There are passages in Buckle which give the +key to the mysteries of American history. There are lines in Tennyson which +have become incorporated into the fabric of our minds, and flash light and +beauty upon our daily conversation. There are characters in Dickens which +are extinguishing the foibles which they embody, and pages of Thackeray +which kill the affectations they depict. What a colossal good to us is Mr. +Grote's "History of Greece"! Miss Mulock, George Eliot, Charles Reade, +Charlotte Bronte, Kinglake, Matthew Arnold, Charles Kingsley, Ruskin, +Macaulay,--how could we spare the least of them? Take from our lives the +happiness and the benefit which we have derived from the recent authors of +Europe; take from the future the silent, ceaseless working of their +spirits,--so antidotal to all that remains in us of colonial, provincial, +and superstitious,--and what language could state, ever so inadequately, +the loss we and posterity should experience? And let us not lay the mean +unction to our souls that money cannot repay such services as these. It +can! It can repay it as truly and as fully as sixpence pays for a loaf of +bread that saves a shipwrecked hero's life. The baker gets his own; he is +satisfied, and holy justice is satisfied. This common phrase, "making +money," is a poor, mean way of expressing an august and sacred thing; for +the money which fairly comes to us, in the way of our vocation, is, or +ought to be, the measure of our worth to the community we serve. It is +honor, safety, education, leisure, children's bread, wife's dignity and +adornment, pleasant home, society, an independent old age, comfort in +dying, and solace to those we leave behind us. Money is the representative +of all the substantial good that man can bestow on man. And money justly +earned is never withheld without damage to the withholder and to the +interest he represents. + +We often think of the case of Dion Boucicault, the one man now writing the +English language who has shown a very great natural aptitude for telling a +story in the dramatic form. For thirty years we have been witnessing his +plays in the United States. A fair share of the nightly receipts of the +theatres in which they were played would have enriched him in the prime of +his talent, or, in other words, have delivered him from that temptation to +over-production which has wellnigh destroyed his powers. He never received +any revenue from us until he came here and turned actor. He gets a little +money now by associating with himself an American friend, who writes a few +sentences of a play, then brings it to New York and disposes of it to +managers as their joint production. But what an exquisite shame it is for +us to compel an artist to whom we owe so many delightful hours to resort to +an artifice in order to be able to sell the product of his talent! Our +injustice, too, damages ourselves even more than it despoils him; for if we +had paid him fairly for "London Assurance" and "Old Heads and Young +Hearts," if he had found a career in the production of plays, he might not +have been lured from his vocation, and might have written twenty good +plays, instead of a hundred good, bad, indifferent, and atrocious. We cheat +him of our part of the just results of his lifetime's labor, and he flings +back at us his anathema in the form of a "Flying Scud." Think of Sheridan +Knowles, too, deriving nothing from our theatres, in which his dramas have +been worn threadbare by incessant playing! To say that they are trash is +not an infinitesimal fraction of an excuse; for it is just as wrong to +steal paste as it is to steal diamonds. We liked the trash well enough to +appropriate it. Besides, he really had the knack of constructing a telling +play, which, it seems, is one of the rarest gifts bestowed upon man, and +the one which affords the most intense pleasure to the greatest number of +people. + +Why, we may ask in passing, did the English stage languish for so many +years? It was because the money that should have compensated dramatists +enriched actors; because the dramatist that wrote "Black-eyed Susan" was +paid five pounds a week, and the actor that played William received four +thousand pounds during the first run of the play. In France, where the +drama flourishes, it is the actor who gets five pounds a week, and the +dramatist who gets the thousands of pounds for the first run; and this +just distribution of profits is infinitely the best, in the long run, for +_actors_. + +There is still an impression prevalent in the world, that there is no +connection between good work and good wages in this kind of industry. There +was never a greater mistake. A few great men, exceptional in character as +in circumstances, blind like Milton, exiled like Dante, prisoners like +Bunyan and Cervantes, may have written for solace, or for fame, or from +benevolence; but, as a rule, _nothing gets the immortal work from +first-rate men but money_. We need only mention Shakespeare, for every one +knows that he wrote plays simply and solely as a matter of business, to +draw money into the treasury of his theatre. He was author and publisher, +actor as well, and thus derived a threefold benefit from his labors. +Moliere, too, the greatest name in the literature of France, and the second +in the dramatic literature of the world, was author, actor, and manager. +Play-writing was the career of these great men. It was their business and +vocation; and it is only in the way of his business and vocation that we +can, as a rule, get from an artist the best and the utmost there is in him. +Common honesty demands that a man shall do his best when he works for his +own price. His honor and his safety are alike involved. All our courage and +all our cowardice, all our pride and all our humility, all our generosity +and all our selfishness, all that can incite and all that can scare us to +exertion, may enter into the complex motive that is urging us on when we +are doing the work by which we earn our right to exist. Nothing is of great +and lasting account,--not religion, nor benevolence, nor law, nor +science,--until it is so organized that honest and able men can live by it. +Then it lures talent, character, ambition, wealth, and force to its support +and illustration. The whole history of literature, so far as it is known, +shows that literature flourishes when it is fairly rewarded, and declines +when it is robbed of its just compensation. Mr. Reade has admirably +demonstrated this in his "Eighth Commandment," a little book as full of +wit, fact, argument, eloquence, and delicious audacity as any that has +lately appeared. + +There has been but one country in which literature has ever succeeded in +raising itself to the power and dignity of a profession, and it is the only +country which has ever enjoyed a considerable part of the market of the +world for its literary wares. This is France, which has a kind of +International Copyright in its language. Educated Russia reads few books +that are not French, and in every country of Christendom it is taken for +granted that an educated person reads this language. Wherever in Europe or +America or India or Australia many books are sold, some French books are +sold. Here in New York, for example, we have had for many years an elegant +and well-appointed French bookstore, in which the standard works of French +literature are temptingly displayed, and the new works are for sale within +three weeks after their publication in Paris. Many of our readers, too, +must have noticed the huge masses of French books exhibited in some of the +second-hand bookstores of Nassau Street. French books, in fact, form a very +considerable part of the daily business of the bookstores in every capital +of the world. Nearly one hundred subscribers were obtained in the United +States for the _Nouvelle Biographie_ in forty-six volumes, the total cost +of which, bound, was more than two hundred of our preposterous dollars. +Besides this large and steady sale of their works in every city on earth, +French authors enjoy a protection to their rights at home which is most +complete, and they address a public accustomed to pay for new books a +price, in determining which the author was considered. Mr. Reade informs us +that a first-rate dramatic success in Paris is worth to the author six +thousand pounds sterling, and that this six thousand pounds is very +frequently drawn from the theatre after a larger sum has been obtained for +the same work in the form of a novel. + +What is the effect? Literature in France, as we have said, is one of the +liberal professions. Literary men are an important and honorable order in +the state. The press teems with works of real value and great cost. The +three hundred French dramatists supply the theatres of Christendom with +plays so excellent, that not even the cheat of "adaptation" can wholly +conceal their merit. Great novels, great histories, great essays and +treatises, important contributions to science, illustrated works of the +highest excellence, compilations of the first utility, marvellous +dictionaries and statistical works, appear with a frequency which nothing +but a universal market could sustain. In whatever direction public +curiosity is aroused, prompt and intelligent efforts are made to gratify +it. Nothing more surprises an American inquirer than the excellent manner +in which this mere task-work, these "booksellers' jobs," as we term them, +are executed in Paris. That _Nouvelle Biographie_ of which we have spoken +is so faithfully done, and is so free from any perverseness or narrowness +of nationality, that it would be a good enterprise in any of the reading +countries to publish a translation of it just as it stands. French +literature follows the general law, that, as the volume of business +increases, the quality of the work done improves. The last French work +which the pursuit of our vocation led us to read was one upon the +Mistresses of Louis XV., by Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. We need not say +how such a subject as this would be treated by the cheated hirelings of the +Yellow Cover. This work, on the contrary, is an intelligent historical +study of a period when mistresses governed France; and the passages in the +work which touch upon the adulterous tie which gave fair France over to +these vampires are managed with a delicacy the most perfect. The present +hope of France is in her literature. Her literary men are fast educating +that interesting and virtuous people to the point when they will be able to +regain their freedom and keep it safe from nocturnal conspirators. They +would have done it ere now, but for the woful fact that only half of their +countrymen can read, and are thus the helpless victims of a perjured +Dutchman and his priests. + +What the general knowledge of the French language has done for French +literature, all of that, and more than that, an International Copyright law +would do for the literature of Great Britain and the United States. Here +are four great and growing empires, Great Britain, the United States, the +Dominion of Canada, and the states of Australia, in which the same language +is spoken and similar tastes prevail. In all these nations there is a +spirit abroad which will never rest content until the whole population are +readers, and those readers will be counted by hundreds of millions. Already +they are so numerous, that one first-rate literary success, one book +excellent enough to be of universal interest, would give the author leisure +for life, if his rights were completely protected by international law. +What a field for honorable exertion is this! And how can these empires fail +to grow into unity when the cultivated intelligence of them all shall be +nourished from the same sources, and bow in homage to the same commanding +minds? Wanting this protection, the literature of both countries +languishes. The blight of over-production falls upon immature genius, +masterpieces are followed by labored and spiritless repetitions, and men +that have it in them to inform and move mankind grind out task-work for +daily bread. One man, one masterpiece, that is the general law. Not one +eminent literary artist of either country can be named who has not injured +his powers and jeoparded his fame by over-production. We do not address a +polite note to Elias Howe, and ask him how much he would charge for a +"series" of inventions equal in importance to the sewing-machine. We +merely enable him to demand a dollar every time that _one_ conception is +used. Imagine Job applied to for a "series" of Books of Job. Not less +absurd is it to compel an author to try and write two Sketch-Books, two +David Copperfields, two Uncle Toms, two Jane Eyres, or two books like "The +Newcomes." When once a great writer has given such complete expression of +his experience as was given in each of those works, a long time must elapse +before his mind fills again to a natural overflow. But, alas! only a very +short time elapses before his purse empties. + +It was the intention of the founders of this Republic to give complete +protection to intellectual property, and this intention is clearly +expressed in the Constitution. Justified by the authority given in that +instrument, Congress has passed patent laws which have called into exercise +an amount of triumphant ingenuity that is one of the great wonders of the +modern world; but under the copyright laws, enacted with the same good +intentions, our infant literature pines and dwindles. The reason is plain. +For a labor-saving invention, the United States, which abounds in +everything but labor, is field enough, and the inventor is rewarded; while +a great book cannot be remunerative unless it enjoys the market of the +whole civilized world. The readers of excellent books are few in every +country on earth. The readers of any one excellent book are usually very +few indeed; and the purchasers are still fewer. In a world that is supposed +to contain a thousand millions of people, it is spoken of as a marvel that +two millions of them bought the most popular book ever published,--one +purchaser to every five hundred inhabitants. + +We say, then, to those members of Congress who go to Washington to do +something besides make Presidents, that time has developed a new necessity, +not indeed contemplated by the framers of the Constitution, yet covered by +the Constitution; and it now devolves upon them to carry out the evident +intention of their just and wise predecessors, which was, to secure to +genius, learning, and talent the certain ownership of their productions. We +want an international system which shall protect a kind of property which +cannot be brought to market without exposing it to plunder,--property in a +book being simply the right to multiply copies of it. We want this property +secured, for a sufficient period, to the creator of the value, so that no +property in a book can be acquired anywhere on earth unless by the gift or +consent of the author thereof. There are men in Congress who feel all the +magnitude and sacredness of the debt which they owe, and which their +country owes, to the authors and artists of the time. We believe such +members are more numerous now than they ever were before,--much more +numerous. It is they who must take the leading part in bringing about this +great measure of justice and good policy; and, as usual in such cases, some +one man must adopt it as his special vocation, and never rest till he has +conferred on mankind this immeasurable boon. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[2] Upon this expression Mr. Reade justly remarks: "This is a foolish and +inapplicable phrase. Free trade is free buying and selling, not free +stealing." + + + + +THE FLIGHT OF THE GODDESS. + + + A man should live in a garret, I think, + And have few friends, and be poorly clad, + With an old hat stopping the wind in the chink, + To keep the Goddess constant and glad. + + Of old, when I walked on a rugged way, + And gave much work for but little bread, + The Goddess dwelt with me night and day, + Sat at my table, haunted my bed. + + The narrow, mean attic, I see it now!-- + Its window o'erlooking the city's tiles, + The sunset's fires, and the clouds of snow, + And the river wandering miles and miles. + + Just one picture hung in the room, + The saddest story that Art can tell,-- + Dante and Virgil in lurid gloom + Watching the Lovers float through Hell. + + Wretched enough was I sometimes, + Pinched, and harassed with vain desires; + But thicker than clover sprung the rhymes + As I dwelt like a sparrow among the spires. + + Midnight filled my slumbers with song; + Music haunted my dreams by day: + Now I listen and wait and long, + But the Delphian airs have died away! + + I wonder and wonder how it befell: + Suddenly I had friends in crowds; + I bade the house-tops a long farewell; + "Good by," I cried, "to the stars and clouds! + + "But thou, rare soul, that hast dwelt with me, + Spirit of Poesy! thou divine + Breath of the morning, thou shalt be, + Goddess! for ever and ever mine." + + And the woman I loved was now my bride, + And the house I wanted was my own; + I turned to the Goddess satisfied,-- + But the Goddess had somehow flown! + + Flown, and I fear she will never return! + I'm much too sleek and happy for her, + Whose lovers must hunger, and waste, and burn, + Ere the beautiful heathen heart will stir! + + I call,--but she does not stoop to my cry; + I wait,--but she lingers, and ah! so long! + It was not so in the years gone by, + When she touched my lips with chrism of song. + + I swear I will get me a garret again, + And let the wee wife see the sunset's fires, + And lure the Goddess, by vigil and pain, + Up with the sparrows among the spires! + + For a man should live in a garret aloof, + And have few friends, and be poorly clad, + With an old hat stopping the chink in the roof, + To keep the Goddess constant and glad! + + + + +THE THRONE OF THE GOLDEN FOOT. + + +Early on the morning of the 13th of September, 1855, a most fantastic and +picturesque procession--in which the formal and arrogant simplicities of a +nice Western civilization, and the grotesque and insolent ostentations of a +crude Oriental barbarism, with all the splendid riddles of its far-fetched +type-and-symbolry, were blended in a rich bizarreness--formed in the main +street of the western suburb of "the Immortal City" of Amarapoora, and +moved toward the palace of "him who reigns over the kingdoms of +Thunaparanta, Tampadepa, and all the great umbrella-bearing chiefs of the +Eastern countries,"--the Lord of Earth and Water, King of the Rising Sun, +Lord of the Sacred White Elephant and of all white elephants, Master of the +Celestial Weapon, and Great Chief of Life and Righteousness,--called, "for +short," Mendoon-men, King of Ava. An imposing deputation of Woons and other +grandees, with their respective "tails," were escorting the newly arrived +Envoy of the Governor-General of India, and his suite, from their Residency +on the south shore of the lake Toung-ah-mah-Eing below the city, to the +Hall of the Throne of the Golden Foot, there to have audience of that +great, glorious, and most excellent Majesty, whose dominions are bounded +only by the imagination--and here and there a British customhouse; and +whose excursions of dreadful power are stayed only by the forbearing fiat +of Boodh--and now and then some British bayonets. + +The escort was illustrious: there were the old Nan-ma-dau-Phra Woon, or +Lord-Governor of the Queen's Palace; the Woondouk Mhoung Mhon, a minister +of the second order in the High Court and Council; and the Tara-Thoogyi, or +Chief Judge of Amarapoora; besides other magnificos of less note, but all +very fine in their heavy, wide-sleeved court robes of crimson velvet, laced +with a broad edging of Benares brocade. On their heads they wore high +mitres, also of crimson velvet, curving backward in a volute, and encircled +at the base with a coronet of tinsel spear-heads. It is the _ton_ at court +to wear these mitres excessively tight, and to carry a little ivory blade, +modelled like a shoe-horn, with which the cap of honor is drawn on, and all +"vagrom" locks of hair "comprehended." The _tsalwe_ (a Burman badge of +nobility, derived from the Brahminical triple cord, and having three, six, +nine, or even twelve threads, according to the distinction conferred on the +wearer), and a trumpet-shaped ear-tube of gold, complete the official +costume. + +The royal presents from England, guarded by the British-Indian cavalry +escort, had been sent forward over a long bridge which spanned the southern +end of the Toung-ah-mah, to await on the other side the arrival of the +Envoy. There was a superb carriage for the King, which, being too wide to +pass the bridge, was towed across the lake on a raft. + +That was a brilliant scene, the passage of the lake; and the picturesque +elements almost surpassed the fantastic;--the jolly-boats of the steamers, +leading the way with the men of her Majesty's 84th, followed by the +Zenobia's gig, bearing the Governor-General's letter, with the Honorable +East India Company's jack saucily flaunting at the bow; then other gigs and +cutters, with the Envoy's suite; and, lastly, a gorgeously gilded war-boat, +carrying the Envoy and the Woons, with fifty Burman oarsmen rowing to a +wild chant. The white spire and pinnacles of the Ananda temple, with its +grove of noble cotton-trees and tall palms, sharply defined against the +boldly diversified ranges of the Shan Mountains, formed the background of +the picture, which derived rich color and grotesque action from the Burmese +soldiers of the Envoy's guard lining the banks, and the hurly-burly of +half-naked, splashing villagers, waist-deep in the lake,--_salvages +coupes_. + +First in the procession went the cases of royal presents, borne by Burmese +porters on bamboo litters, and followed by four Arab horses and an English +carriage for the King; next came the cavalry and infantry of the Envoy's +Anglo-Indian escort, preceded by a band; behind these, the Secretary of the +mission on an elephant, with the Governor-General's letter under the +Company's jack; the Envoy (Major Phayre) in a _tonjon_, attended by the +Nan-ma-dau Woon and the Woondouk on elephants; the British superintending +surgeon in Pegu, and the Tara-Thoogyi; a British special deputy +commissioner for the frontier, and one of the Tsa-re-dau-gyis, or Royal +Scribes; and all the rest of the British officials, each paired with a +Burmese _thoo-gyi_ or "great man," in a Burmese howdah.[3] + +The route lay through the street called Ambassador's Row,--the very one by +which the Chinese Envoys entered Amarapoora sixty years before,--toward the +western central gate of the city. From lake to palace the way was fenced +with troops; but such troops!--fishermen and convicts, old men and +boys,--probably old women too, and girls,--the he and she Warts, Mouldys, +Shadows, Feebles, and Bullcalfs of the Immortal City. At every cross street +were officers on elephants, "men in gilt Mambrino helmets and mountebank +costumes, decked out with triple buckram capes, and shoulder lappets, and +paltry embroidery." But there were men in red jackets and _papier-mache_ +helmets accompanying the procession, who appeared to be more at home with +their arms than these motley musketeers. Inside the city the streets were +flooded with water from a heavy rain the night before, and here the +soldiers were propped on little stools of bamboo, to keep them out of the +mud, while the officers occupied higher perches, each with his spittoon and +his box of betel. A great rabble of spectators, of whom many were +women,--not all uncomely or shabbily attired,--peeped through the endless +white lattice, or thronged the cross-streets,--all still and silent, with +wonder or suspicion. + +Just as the escort, with fixed bayonets and martial music, turned up the +street leading to the eastern gate of the palace, and, halting, faced +inward for the party to pass, the procession of the Ein-she-men, or heir +apparent, (Lord of the Eastern Palace,) came suddenly up from another road, +and crossed before them to enter the enclosure,--a stale trick of Burmese +jealousy and insolence to keep them waiting at the palace gate. Precedent, +which is a god in Burmah, has bestowed a sort of respectability upon this +exploit in bad manners, every British envoy having been treated so, from +Fleetwood to Phayre. The prince himself was conspicuous in a massive gilded +litter, borne by many sturdy fellows elaborately tattooed, while eight +long-shafted gold umbrellas flashed over his head. When he had entered the +gate, and it was closed behind him, his retinue, consisting of several +hundred soldiers, performed some intricate and tedious evolutions, +countermarching round an open circle, with the manifest purpose of +magnifying the apparent strength of the force, as well as of prolonging the +detention of the unwelcome strangers. + +When Colonel Burney, who was sent as Resident to Ava in 1830, was detained +by the same manoeuvre at the stockade which encircles the palace wall, +some of his party were sharp enough to discover that many of the retainers, +as well as of the elephants and bands of music, after passing in the suite +of one prince, made a sly circuit to the rear, and appeared as part of the +tail of another prince. + +As the Envoy and his suite dismounted, noon was struck by alternate strokes +on a great bell and a great drum, mounted on a square tower within the gate +called "Ywe-dau-yoo-Taga," or the Royal Gate of the Chosen, because it is +guarded by picked troops. By this gate they entered; but first the Envoy +took the Governor-General's letter from the Secretary, and carried it +himself. The Nan-ma-dau-Phra Woon and his august colleagues now threw off +their shoes, and the Woondouk strove ineffectually to induce the +representative of Great Britain to follow their loyal example. At four +different points, as they advanced to the inner gate, they even dropped on +their knees, and _shikhoed_, with their faces in the dust, toward the +palace; and again Burmah pressed Bull to take part in the pious services, +but the obstinate infidel _Kala_[4] would not; for you see the world has +moved, and Anglo-Saxon backbones have stiffened, since Fleetwood wrote, in +1695: "As the palace gates were opened we fell down upon our knees, and +made three bows (_shikhos_), which done, we entered the garden, the +presents following; and having gone about half-way from the gate to the +place where the king was seated, we made three bows again as before. When +we got within fifteen yards of the king, we made three bows again, and were +ordered to sit down." Between Fleetwood and Phayre are two wars, several +annexations, "a lot" of custom-houses, and "no end" of bomb-shells. + +The gilded colonnade, and the many-storied spire, conspicuous from all +sides of the city; the great inner court, with its groups of tumblers, +jugglers, and dancers, performing in the corners for the entertainment of +privileged spectators; the dirty grand-staircase, where, to their lively +disgust, the distinguished strangers, Envoy and all, had to leave their +shoes; the long wings of the structure, curiously resembling the transepts +of a cathedral; the choir-like centre; the altar-like throne; the tall, +lacquered columns, picked out in red at the base, and all ablaze with +gilding;--by these the great Hall of Audience was known; and here, on a +carpet in the centre, facing the throne, the Envoy and his party seated +themselves, doubling their legs behind them. + +On a broad dais blazed the high throne, in all its barbaric gorgeousness of +carving and gilding,--competing in splendor with the awful seats of Guadma +in the temples, and surpassing the glory of the pulpit from which the High +Poonghyi[5] chants the beatitudes of the Boodh. On the top it was +luxuriously mattressed with crimson velvet, and on the left was a tall +elbow-cushion for the king. A carved portal, with gilded lattice doors, +opened from behind to the top level of the throne, which was wrought in a +sort of mosaic of gold, silver, and mirror-work. A few small figures, +representing the progenitors of the human race, occupied niches in the +central band, while on the edge of the dais stood five royal emblems, in +the shape of gilded shafts, with small gilt labels or scrolls, like flags, +attached to them. + +On each side of the dais were pew-like recesses, with railings; and rows of +expanded white umbrellas, fringed with muslin valances, (the royal +insignia,) were displayed along the walls behind the throne. The central +hall or aisle, in which the gentlemen of the mission sat, was laid with +velvet-pile carpet of Axminster or Lasswade; elsewhere there was matting +merely, except where the more distinguished officers of the court had their +separate carpets. A double row of young princes, in surcoats of gold and +silver brocade, with gay silk _putsos_, occupied the centre aisle in front +of the Envoy;--on the right, four sons of the King; on the left, four sons +of the Crown Prince. Farther forward, near the steps of the dais, the +Ein-she-men himself was installed, in a sort of couch or carved litter, +scarcely raised above the floor. In his robes of Benares gold brocade, and +his superb mitre set with precious stones, he sat still as an effigy, never +turning round, but betraying his curiosity by the use he slyly made of a +small looking-glass. Behind the pillars on each side, and a little in +advance of the Englishmen, were the Woongyis, or principal minister of +state, constituting the Hlwot-dau, the High Court and Council; and nearer +to the steps of the dais were several elderly princes of the blood, "men of +sensual aspect and heavy jowl, like the heads of some of the burlier +Caesars,--or, with their stiff robes and jewelled tiaras, perhaps recalling +certain of the old Popes."[6] Close to the Envoy's party were two of the +_Atwen-woons_, or Ministers of the Interior (Household) Council, and some +_Nekhan-daus_, "Royal Ears," besides other officers of the Palace and +Hlwot-dau. + +The Envoy, on taking his seat, had deposited the salver with the +Governor-General's letter on a gilt stool covered with muslin, which had +been placed there to receive it. Little gilt stands, containing trays of +tobacco, pawn, _hlapet_, or pickled tea, and other curious confections, +neatly set out in golden cups and saucers, together with water-goglets and +gold drinking-cups, were then laid before the Kala guests, the water being +faintly perfumed with musk. + +At last, from some mysterious inner court of the palace came a burst of +music. From the verandas behind the throne a party of musketeers filed in, +and, taking position between the pillars on each side of the centre aisle, +knelt down, with their double-barrelled pieces between their knees, and +their hands clasped before them in an attitude of prayer. + +As the last man entered the golden lattice doors, the doors rolled back +into the wall, and the King was seen, mounting a stair leading from a +chamber behind to the summit of the throne. He ascended slowly, using his +golden-sheathed _dhar_ as a staff to his laboring steps; and no wonder, for +his jewelled robe alone weighed one hundred pounds. Having dusted the +_gudhi_ with his own hand, by means of a small _chowree_, or fly-flapper, +he had brought with him, he took his seat on the left side of the throne, +resting his elbow on the velvet cushion, which had been covered with a +napkin. Then the Queen, who had followed him closely, seated herself by his +side,--on the right, and a little behind him,--where she received from the +hands of female attendants, who showed themselves but for a moment, the +golden spittoon and other ungraceful conveniences, which, on all occasions +and in all places, must be at the elbow of every Burmese dignitary. Next, +she fanned herself for a few moments, and then she fanned the King; and +finally, having been served with a lighted cheroot by the shy fingers of +some mysterious maid of honor, she smoked in silent expectation. + +The Lord of White Elephants and Righteousness is a portly man, with refined +features, an agreeable and intelligent expression, and delicate hands. He +wore a sort of long tunic, or surcoat, so thickly set with jewels that the +material, a kind of light-colored silk, was overlaid and almost hidden. +_Tha-ra-poo_, the crown, is a round tiara of similar material, in shape +like an Indian morion, surmounted by a spire-like ornament several inches +high, and expanding in flaps or wings over each ear. + +The Queen, who, like all her predecessors, is her husband's half-sister, +wore a perfectly close cap, covering hair and ears, and forming, as it +rose, a conical crest, with the point curved forward in a volute, like the +horn of a rhinoceros, or the large nipper of a crab's claw; close lappets +hung over the cheeks. The rest of her Majesty's dress was oddly +Elizabethan; the sleeves and skirt in "successive overlapping scalloped +lappets"; around the throat a high collar, also scalloped or vandyked, and +continued in front to the waist, where blazed a stomacher, or breast-plate, +of great gems. Both cap and robe were stiff with diamonds. The Queen's name +is Tsoo-phragyi, and she is the eldest daughter of her husband's father, +King Tharawadi. + +On a pedestal between their Majesties, in front of the throne, stood a +great golden figure of the _Henza_, or Sacred Goose,--the national emblem. + +When the awful pair had fairly entered, the Englishmen for the first time +took off their hats; but the entire audience of subjects bowed their faces +to the earth, and clasped their hands before them. "The two rows of little +princes, who lay in file, doubled over one another like fallen books on a +shelf, and the two Atwen-woons, grovelled forward, in their frog-like +attitude, to a point about half-way to the throne." + +Then some eight or ten Brahmins (two of whom are court astrologers), in +white stoles, and white mitres encircled with gold leaves, entered the +screened pew-like recesses near the throne, and struck up a choral chant in +Sanscrit; which done, one of them immediately followed in a solo hymn in +Burmese, which is thus translated by the Envoy, Major Phayre:-- + +1. "May the dangers and enmity which arise from the Ten Points be calmed +and subdued! May the affliction of disease never attach itself to thee; and +in accordance with the blessings declared in the sacred Pali, mayest thou +be continually victorious! May thy life be prolonged for more than a +hundred years, and may thy glory continue till the end of the world! Mayest +thou enjoy whatever is propitious, and may all evil be far from thee,--O +KING! + +2. "Thy glorious reputation diffuses itself like the scent of the +sandal-wood, and exceeds the refulgence of the moon! Lord of the Celestial +Elephant,--of the Excellent White Elephant! Master of the Celestial Weapon! +Lord of Life, and Great Chief of Righteousness! Lineal descendant of +Mahatha-mada and Mahadha-mayadza! Like unto the Kings of the Universe, who +governed the four great islands of the solar system, and were versed in +charms and spells of fourteen descriptions, may thy glory be prolonged, and +thy life be extended, to more than a hundred years! Mayest thou enjoy +whatever is propitious, and may all evil be far from thee,--O KING! + +3. "Great Chief of Righteousness! whose fame spreads like the fragrance of +sandal-wood, and exceeds the glorious light of the moon,--in whom is +concentrated all glory and honor,--who, with her Majesty, the Queen, the +lineal descendant of anointed kings, happily governest all,--may thy rule +extend, not only to the great Southern Island (the earth), which is tens of +thousands of miles in extent, but to all the four grand and five hundred +smaller Islands! May it equal the stability of the mountains Yoo-gan-toh, +Myen-mo, and Hai-ma-garee; and until the end of the world mayest thou and +thy descendants continue in unbroken line, unto the royal son and royal +great-grandson, that thy glory may endure for countless ages! And may thy +royal life be prolonged for more than a hundred years,--O KING! + +4. "May our king be continually victorious! When the divine Buddha ascended +the golden throne, all created beings inhabiting millions of worlds became +his subjects, and he overcame all enemies. So may kings by hundreds and +thousands, and tens of thousands, come with offerings of celestial weapons, +white elephants, flying horses, virgins, and precious stones of divers +sorts, and do homage to the Golden Feet, which resemble the germs of the +lotos,--O KING!" + +Now, even for an exploit in poetical license, that is sublimely cool, +considering that a mere yesterday of thirty years has sufficed to strip the +Throne of the Golden Foot of dominions which were the gradual acquisition +of more than two bloody centuries of drunken lust, and that the dread Lord +of Life and Master of the Celestial Weapon well knew that day that he no +longer had access to the sea save through many leagues of British +territory,--considering that the chronicle of the Burmese kings is one of +the bloodiest chapters in the book of Time, a record of hell-engendered +monsters, conceived in incest, brought forth in insanity, trained to the +very sport of slaughter, and doomed to quick assassination or the most +summary deposition and disgrace,--considering that even this "just and +humane" Mendoon-men himself had deposed his cock-fighting brother, the +Pagan-men, and sacked and burned his capital, and that even now he held him +a close prisoner, poor and despised, in a corner of the fortified +city,--and finally, that even as that paean of infatuation ascends to the +besotted ears of the King, given up of God to believe lies, his own +brother, the Ein-she-men, possessed of a devil of precedent, crouches like +a tiger below the dais, and plots assassination and usurpation in his +cunning bit of looking-glass. + +The chants concluded, the Tara-Thoogyi read from a _parabeik_, or black +note-book, an address to the King, stating that the offerings his Majesty +purposed making to certain pagodas at the capital were ready. "Let them be +dedicated!" said one of the officials solemnly; and the music was renewed. +This dedication, the chant of the Brahmins, and the singular ceremony of +_A-beit-theit_ (literally, a pouring out of water on a solemn occasion), +together constitute the formal inauguration of a royal sitting. Then the +Governor-General's letter was drawn from its cover, and read aloud by a +Than-daugan, or Receiver of the Royal Voice, who also read the list of +presents for the King and Queen. A railway model, contributed by Sir +Macdonald Stephenson, was immediately produced and exhibited in the +Hall,--the only one of the presents uncovered there,--and excited lively +interest among the Burmese. All the readings were intoned in a high +recitative, like the English Cathedral service; and the long-drawn +"Phra-a-a-a!" (My Lord!) was delivered like the "Amen" of the Liturgy. + +After this, his Majesty, without moving his lips, but speaking by an +Atwen-woon, who discharged for that occasion the function of Royal Tongue, +condescended to address to the Envoy three formal questions, prescribed by +custom and precedent, thus:-- + +_Royal Tongue._ "Is the English ruler well?" + +_Envoy._ "The English ruler is well." + +_Receiver of the Royal Voice_ (in a loud tone). "By reason of your +Majesty's great glory and excellence, the English ruler is well; and +therefore, with obeisance, I represent the same to your Majesty." + +_Royal Tongue._ "How long is it since you left the English country?" + +_Envoy._ "It is now fifty-five days since we left Bengal, and have arrived, +and lived happily, at the Royal City." + +_Receiver of the Royal Voice._ "By reason of your Majesty's great glory +and excellence it is fifty-five days since the Envoy left the English +country, and he has now happily arrived at the Golden Feet. Therefore, with +obeisance," &c., &c. + +_Royal Tongue._ "Are the rain and air propitious, so that the people live +in happiness and ease?" + +_Envoy._ "The seasons are favorable, and the people live in happiness." + +_Receiver of the Royal Voice._ "By reason of your Majesty's great glory and +excellence, the rain and air are propitious, and the people live in +happiness." + +And here the awful conversation came to a profound close. Gifts were +presently bestowed on all the officers of the mission;--to the Envoy a gold +cup embossed with the zodiacal signs, a fine ruby, a tsalwe of nine cords, +and a handsome putso; to other officers, a plain gold cup, ring, and putso, +or a ring and putso only. + +Then the King rose to depart, the Queen assisting him to rise, and +afterward using the royal dhar to help herself up. "They passed through the +gilded lattice, the music played again, the doors rolled out from the wall, +and we were told that we might retire." + +On the twenty-first, Major Phayre had a private interview, by appointment, +with the King. The reception was almost _en famille_. As the Envoy +approached the palace, he found the assembled court under a circular +temporary building, called a _Mandat_, where music and dancing were going +on,--the King half reclined on a kind of sofa in a room raised several feet +above the level of the mandat. The Envoy was led forward and shown to a +place among the ministers, who, as well as all the rest of the company, +were seated on the ground,--only the dancers standing. Outside squatted +guards in red jackets, with red _papier-mache_ helmets, and muskets with +the buts resting between their legs. Eight couples of men and women were +dancing. The King did not speak to Major Phayre, but, on the contrary, +retired as he entered, and sent him word that he would see him in another +room; where again he found his Majesty reclining on a sofa, no longer in +imperial costume, but the ordinary garb of the country,--a silk putso, or +waist-cloth, of gay colors, a white cotton jacket, reaching a little below +the hips, and a single fillet of book-muslin twisted round his head. On his +left, at a little distance, were some half-dozen of his sons, "of all ages +up to sixteen years," crouching on the ground, with their chins touching +it. A band of girls in fantastic court-dresses were in an anteroom, +discoursing soft music on stringed instruments. One of the Atwen-woons, +with several other officers of the court, and a few pages, had followed the +Envoy, and now sat together near the end of the room. The King held up his +hand, and the music ceased. He then requested the Envoy to notice some +large imitation lotos-flowers in a vase; and as he spoke, the buds, which +had been closed, suddenly expanded, and out of one of them flew a solitary +sparrow. The king smiled, and one of the company said, "Each bud had a bird +imprisoned, but they managed to escape, all but this one." + +Then the King said to the Envoy, "Have you read the Mengala-thoot?" + +"I have, your Majesty." + +"Do you know the meaning of it?" + +"I do. I have read the Burmese interpretation." + +"How many precepts does it contain?" + +"Thirty-eight." + +"Do you remember them?" + +The Envoy did not; so the King repeated some of the precepts of this +summary of beatitude,--a sermon of Guadma's, containing thirty rules of +life, against pride, anger, evil associates, and the like. + +Then followed much talk about a treaty which the Envoy was anxious to +procure; but the King, with diplomatic adroitness, put him off; for the +Burmese hate treaties, and always break them. Said his Majesty, very dryly: +"I have heard a great deal of you, and that you are wise and well +disposed. I should not have taken the same pains to receive every one; I +should have done according to custom. You have commenced well. But in a +man's life, and in every transaction, there is a beginning, a middle, and +an end,"--illustrating the remark by running his finger along the hilt of +his dhar of state, which lay on a stand before him. + +"Did you receive the marble pagoda I sent you?" + +"I did, your Majesty, and have brought a singing-bird box, as a token of my +thanks." + +"I am going to bestow on you a ring, which you will find very curious." + +Here a ring, half sapphire and half topaz, was brought in, and presented to +the Envoy. + +The King expressed a wish to engage some one to take charge of his ruby +mines, and especially his lively desire to procure a model of a human +skeleton, made of wood, and so arranged that the action of the joints in +sitting and rising should be shown. The Envoy promised to attend to this. +Some trays of cakes and sweetmeats were then brought in, and the King, +having particularly recommended one or two of the dishes to the Envoy, +retired. During the interview his Majesty behaved with much courtesy and +kindness. One of his children, about eighteen months old, ran in two or +three times, naked as he was born, and climbed up on the couch; the young +sons now and then lighted the King's cheroot, and gave him water to drink. + +On the 2d of October the Envoy is again with the King in the small +pavilion; about a hundred persons are present, including two Atwen-woons, +the Nan-ma-dau-Phra Woon, and several Shan Tsaub-was, but none of the +Woongyis. The King asked the Envoy if he had been to the Pyee-Kyoung to see +the Tshaya-dau, or Royal Teacher, Patriarch or Bishop of all the Monks. + +"I have, your Majesty." + +"Did he discourse to you, and did you approve of what he said?" + +"He discoursed on moral duties, and what he said was very proper." + +"You know what we call the Ten Virtues.[7] Do you approve of them?" + +"They are most excellent." + +"What length of time, according to your books, is a Kamba?" (A complete +revolution of nature, a geological period, it might almost be called.) + +"Our books, your Majesty, do not contain that." + +"Well, we say that in a Kamba the life period of man gradually advances +from the limit of ten years to an Athenkhya,[8] and then gradually +diminishes from that down to ten years again. When that has been repeated +sixty-four times it constitutes a period, which again is repeated +sixty-four times; and when four such compound periods have been repeated, +the whole era is called a Kamba, or a grand revolution of the universe. The +world is then destroyed, and a new era commences." + +The King then entered into a long discourse on the history of the +Mahan-Zat, or life of Guadma in one of his former births, the gist of which +was that a king who had a wise minister could get anything he set his heart +upon. After which he related the story of a king of Benares, who had three +birds' eggs brought to him; one produced a parrot, one an owl, and the +other a _mainah_; and to each of these, in course of time, a department of +the state was intrusted, but the highest, politics, fell to the parrot. + +"I believe," to the Envoy, ironically, "your English kings have existed for +two hundred years or more. Have they not?" + +"The English nation, your Majesty, have had kings to reign over them for +fifteen hundred years." + +"_My_ ancestors have come in regular descent from King Mahatha-mada" (the +first king who established government on the earth,--many millions of years +ago, at the beginning of the present Kamba, in fact). + +_Envoy_ (to one of the Atwen-woons, to show that he knew that no such king +had ever reigned in Burmah). "Which of the royal cities did Mahatha-mada +build?" + +The Atwen-woon only stared. + +"O," said the quick-witted Woondouk, "that king reigned in +Myit-tshe-ma-detha [_the Middle land_, India]." + +_King._ "Our race once reigned in all the countries you hold. Now the Kalas +have come close up to us." + +_Envoy._ "It is very true, your Majesty." + +"Have you read any part of our Maha-Radza-Weng [_Chronicles of the +Kings_]?" + +"I have read portions of them, your Majesty, and am very anxious to read +more." + +"Well, I will present you with a complete copy, and also a copy of the 550 +Zats, and the Mahan-Zats; and when you come again I shall expect to find +that you have studied them. I should like to have a copy of your Radza-Weng +[_History of Kings_]." + +"That I will present to your Majesty." + +"It is only right, and the part of a wise man, to gather instruction from +the records of the past and the works of sages. By the study of these books +you will be enabled to divine people's thoughts from their appearance, and +may aspire to the most difficult of all attainments,--the discerning of +which is the greater principle, matter or spirit." + +The King then inquired if the Envoy had visited the Royal Tanks, at +Oungben-le and other places, which had been recently constructed. + +"I have not, your Majesty; but I purpose going." + +"I have caused ninety-nine tanks and ancient reservoirs to be dug, or +repaired, and sixty-six canals, whereby a great deal of rice land will be +made available. In the reign of Naurabha-dzyai 9999 tanks and canals were +constructed. I purpose renewing them." + +"Ninety-nine" in Burmese signifies a large number merely. Thus, Captain +Hannay was told that there were ninety-nine _jheels_, or lakes, in the +district of Tagoung. An ancient king of Aracan is said to have founded +ninety-nine cities on each side of the Aracan River. The Burmese speak of +the ninety-nine towns of the Shan country. Duttagamini, king of Ceylon, is +said to have built ninety-nine great temples. The Buddhist physiology +reckons ninety-nine joints and ninety-nine thousand pores of the human +body.[9] + +At a later interview, the Envoy took particular note of the personal +appearance of this royal barbarian. His skin was smooth and clear, and his +bright black eyes twinkled, and displayed a true Chinese obliquity when he +laughed, as he did every two or three minutes. His mustache was good, his +throat and jaws were very massive, his chest and arms remarkably well +developed, and his hands clean and small. The retreating forehead, which +marked him as a descendant of Alompra, was especially conspicuous. + +He reclined, in a characteristic attitude, on a splendid sofa, wrought in +mosaic of gilding and looking-glass, spread with a rich yellow velvet +mattress, bordered with crimson; and a corresponding rug, of crimson +bordered with yellow, was spread below for the regalia. These consisted of +a fantastic gilded ornament, "in size and shape much like a pair of stag's +antlers," festooned with a muslin scarf, and intended to receive the royal +dhar; and of the large golden Henza, set with precious stones. Other royal +paraphernalia, such as the golden spittoon and salver, and the stand for +the water-goglet, with its conical golden cover set with gems, were brought +in and deposited on the rug when his Majesty appeared. Dancing-women were +performing in the central aisle before the throne, to the music of a group +of female minstrels, gayly attired, and crowned with pagoda-shaped tiaras, +like those worn by the princes in the plays. + +Speaking of the Maha-Radza-Weng, and other books which he had ordered to be +brought for the Envoy, the King said: "The mass of earth, water, and air +which composes the Great Island [the earth] and Mount Myen-mo is vast, but +learning is more stupendous still, and great labor is necessary to acquire +it. Do you [the Envoy] know how many elements there are in a man's body?" + +"I cannot inform your Majesty." + +"The body consists of a great number of particles, small as flour or dust. +One hair of the head appears like a single fibre, yet it is made up of a +great number of smaller fibres; just as one of the long ropes you sound the +depth of water with is composed of many short fibres. Of the elements, +earth enters into the bones, and water into the hair." + +In this connection, Captain Yule has an interesting note to the first +chapter of his narrative:--"There seems to turn up now and then in the +science of the Buddhists a very curious parody, as it were, or chance +suggestion, of some of the great truths or speculations of modern science; +just as there are circumstances of their religion which seem to run +parallel with circumstances and forms of Christianity or Christian +churches, and which made the old Jesuit fathers think that the Devil had, +of malice aforethought, prepared these travesties of Christian rites and +mysteries among the heathen, in order to cast ridicule on the Church, and +bar her progress. An example of what I allude to is found here, as regards +electricity, in their apparent knowledge of the non-conducting power of +glass. In the Buddhist theory of the universe, we have an infinity of +contemporary systems, each provided with its sun and planets, analogous to +the commonly received opinion of the plurality of worlds. We have also +their infinite succession of creations and destructions by fire or water, +analogous to a formerly popular geological theory. They hold the +circulation of the blood, after a fashion. The King's conversations at +Amarapoora indicated his belief in the atomic constitution of the body, and +of the existence of a microscopic world, though his illustrations were not +accurate. And when Mr. Crawfurd published his account of fossil elephant +bones from the Irrawaddi, Colonel Burney tells us that the Burmese +philosophers expressed much satisfaction at the discovery, as establishing +the doctrine of their books. These taught that in former times there were +ten species of elephants, but that the smallest species alone survived." + +The King inquired who of the English gentlemen were then present. + +_Woondouk._ "There are Captain Yule, the Secretary to the Mission (_Letya +Bogyee_, or right-hand chief); Dr. Forsyth (_Tshaya Woon_, or supreme over +the teachers); Professor Oldham, the geologist (_Kyouk Tshaya_, or rock +teacher); and Major Allan (_Meaday Woon_ and _Mhan Byoung Bo_, telescope +officer)." + +_King._ "Major Allan is a good man. Does he speak Burmese?" + +"A little, your Majesty." + +"Not so much as the Envoy, I suppose. He should study. Parrots, by +diligence, learn languages. Have you parrots that can speak English?" + +_Envoy._ "We have, your Majesty." + +"And we have parrots that even understand writing. What stones is the Rock +Teacher acquainted with?" + +"He knows all kinds, your Majesty." + +"In my country there are mountains, along the side of which if horses, +elephants, or men go, a green shadow is cast on their bodies. Your black +coat would appear green there. How does he explain this?" + +Professor Oldham suggested that it might arise from copper on the surface. + +"No, it cannot be that, as the copper is not seen. I think it results from +emeralds below."[10] + +_To Dr. Forsyth._ "How many elementary substances are there in the human +body?" + +_Dr. F._ "Four substances." + +"That is correct. Could a man have one of them destroyed, and yet survive?" + +"It might be partially injured, and he yet survive." + +"But suppose the element on which the issues of the body depend were to be +destroyed, could the man survive?" + +"In that case he must die, if the action could not be restored." + +"That is true. It is proper for every physician to be conversant with the +elementary substances. There are a great number of books on the subject of +medicine in the Burmese language,--books _so_ deep,"--raising his hand +above his head. + +_Envoy._ "I have received from your Majesty a fossil alligator's head, +which is very much prized by the Rock Teacher; and I have heard there are +Biloos'[11] (monsters') bones in some parts of the country." + +_King._ "There are Biloos' bones in the Yau district, and you can have as +many as you choose, or a whole Biloo even." (_To the Woondouk_,) "See that +this is attended to." (_To the Atwen-woons_,) "These people cannot sit long +thus without being cramped." + +His Majesty then flung himself brusquely off the sofa, turned his back, put +on his shoes, and strode away without any leave-taking. His manner was easy +and full of good-humor; but he chewed betel to almost disgusting excess; +the golden pawn-box was never out of his hand, and he played with it as he +talked. + +When he was gone, refreshments were brought in,--pancakes filled with +spiced meats, jellies of rice-starch, in various colors, and other viands. +But the most Oriental and by no means the least palatable dish consisted of +fried locusts, stuffed with spiced meat. They were brought in +"hot-and-hot," in relays of saucers, and tasted like fried shrimps. + +In the large audience-hall, adjoining the pavilion, ten or twelve richly +dressed dancing-girls slowly circled to passionate music, brandishing in +both hands bunches of peacock's feathers, throwing themselves into a +variety of difficult and curious attitudes, and chanting all the while in a +pleasing chorus, which singularly resembled the psalmody of a choir in an +English parish church. + +A few days later the Envoy called, _pour prendre conge_, on the +Ein-she-men, whose physiognomy he describes as that of a strong-willed, +boisterous, passionate, and energetic man, with but little intellect or +refinement, but not, perhaps, without kindly impulses. He was full of +questions,--among others, "What nation first made gunpowder?" + +_Envoy._ "I am not quite sure, your Highness, whether it was first made in +England or Germany. Our books say that it was known from an earlier period +in China." + +"Ah!" interposed the sly old Woondouk. "You won't say where gunpowder was +first made, because you want it to appear that it was in England." + +"Not at all; the point is a doubtful one. I tell you exactly what I know." + +"Then where were muskets first invented?" + +"I cannot tell you. The first use of cannon on record was by the English, +some five hundred years ago." + +_Prince._ "What nation first made steamships?" + +"America, your Highness. The steam-engine was invented in England, and an +American adapted it to ships." + +_Woondouk._ "Those are the people who went out from you, and you could not +govern them, and they set up for themselves." + +_Envoy._ "Precisely. Just as the people of Aracan, of your own race and +religion, settled in that country, and had a king of their own, and you +lost dominion over them." (_Much good-humored laughter at this reply._) + +Speaking of the friendly relations between England and France, the Envoy +explained that communication is kept up constantly between the two +countries by means of the electric telegraph. (_To the Woondouk._) "You +have seen the telegraph in Bengal, and will be able to inform his Highness +about it." + +_Woondouk._ "They put a wire on posts above the ground, or bury it +underneath, carrying it over mountains and through rivers; and at certain +stations apart there are magnetic needles, which shake to denote the +letters of the words of a message that is sent. Thus they converse +together, though they are hundreds of miles apart." + +This Woondouk, Moung Mhon, was a very astute and ingenious man. When he +accompanied the old Dalla-Woon on a mission to the Governor-General, he was +taken on one occasion, by Major Phayre and Colonel Baker, to make a short +excursion on the East India Railway. When his attention was called to the +great speed at which they were travelling, he made no remark, except to +ask the interval between two telegraph posts on the line; and then, +counting the beats of his own pulse, and making a mental estimate of the +rapidity with which he passed those intervals, he quietly said, "Yes, we +_are_ going very fast." + +_Woondouk._ "Now where was the electric telegraph first discovered?" + +_Envoy._ "I believe the discovery was nearly contemporaneous in England and +America." + +_Woondouk._ "But it must have been in one place or the other." + +_Envoy._ "In Europe, where men of science are engaged in a great variety of +studies, and publish their views and opinions, similar discoveries are +frequently made about the same time in different countries." + +The visits of ceremony to the four Woongyis, and to old Moung Pathee, the +Nan-ma-dau Woon, were marked by circumstances of peculiar interest. At the +house of the Magwe Menghi (Great Prince of Magwe), the most intellectual +and influential of the Woongyis, the floor was laid with carpets, and +chairs for the visitors were set at a long table. The large silk curtain +which separated the reception-room from the women's apartment was partly +raised at one corner; and there, on carpets, were seated all the ladies of +the family. Breakfast was served, at first in English fashion, with bread +and butter, muffins and tarts. But presently the hospitable Woongyi called +out cheerily, "Come, come! they know an English breakfast well enough; let +us have Burmese dishes now." Then came sweetmeats and dainties of various +kinds, and in profusion,--in all, fifty-seven dishes. After the breakfast +the usual Burmese dessert of betel-nut, pawn, pickled tea,[12] salted +ginger in small strips, fried garlic, walnuts without the shells, roasted +groundnuts, &c., on little gold and silver dishes; and, last of all, +cheroots. + +The Woongyi led in his wife, and would have her attempt an English chair, +next the Envoy; but the old lady, after several amiable efforts to +reconcile herself to the foreign situation, bravely tucked in her scanty +robes, and doubled her legs under her. + +From the Magwe Menghi's they passed to the houses of the Mein-loung, the +Myo-doung, and the Pakhan Menghi, (all Woonghis,) and of the venerable +Nan-ma-dau Woon,--breakfasting at each. At the residence of the Pakhan +Menghi several ladies joined the party at table; these were the Woongyi's +wife, who had been one of Tharawadi's queens, with her mother and two +sisters,--all really lady-like and self-possessed, fairer than the +generality of Burmese women, and of delicate and graceful figures, though +not pretty. They wore the usual _tawein_, or narrow petticoat of gorgeously +striped silk, polka jackets of thin white muslin, and ornaments of +extraordinary brilliancy. Their ear-cylinders were gold; but instead of +being open tubes, as commonly worn at the capital, they were closed in +front, and set with one large cut diamond, ruby, or emerald, surrounded by +smaller brilliants. The necklace consisted of a narrow chain of gold, +plain, or set with pearls, and bearing table diamonds in two rows, one +fixed and the other pendent. They also wore superb rings, in which were +rubies of noble size. + +Among the ladies seated on the ground were two strongly resembling one +another, and with the receding forehead which marks all the descendants of +Alompra. These were daughters of the Mekhara-men, that uncle of King +Tharawadi who used to translate articles from Rees's Cyclopaedia into +Burmese, and who assisted Mr. Lane, a merchant of Ava, in the compilation +of the English and Burmese Dictionary which bears the name of the latter. + +For a Kala at Amarapoora not to know the Lord White Elephant is to argue +himself unknown. Consequently a presentation to that Buddhistic demi-god in +bleached and animated India-rubber was a crowning ceremonial, essential, in +a political as well as religious point of view, to the success of the +embassy. He "receives" in his "palace," a little to the north of the Hall +of Audience. On the south are sheds for the vulgar monsters of his retinue, +and brick _godowns_, in which the state carriages, and the massive and +gorgeous golden litters, are stowed. + +Captain Yule says the present white elephant is the very one mentioned by +Padre Sangermano as having been caught in 1806,--to the great joy of the +king, who had just lost the preceding incumbent, a female, which died after +a year's captivity. "He is very large, almost ten feet high, with a noble +head and pair of tusks. But he is long-bodied and lank, and not otherwise +handsome for an elephant. He is sickly too, and out of condition, being +distempered for five months in the year, from April to August. His eye, the +iris of which is yellow, with a reddish outer annulus, and a small, clear, +black pupil, has an uneasy glare, and his keepers evidently mistrust his +temper. The annulus round the iris is pointed out as resembling a circle of +the nine gems. His color is almost uniform,--about the ground-tint of the +mottled or freckled part of the trunk and ears of common elephants, perhaps +a little darker. He also has pale freckles on the same parts. On the whole, +he is well entitled to his appellation." + +His royal paraphernalia are magnificent. The driving-hook is three feet +long, the stem a mass of small pearls, girt at frequent intervals with +bands of rubies, and the hook and handle of crystal, tipped with gold. The +headstall is of fine red cloth, plentifully studded with choice rubies, and +near the extremity are some precious diamonds. Fitting over the bumps of +the forehead are circles of the nine gems, which are supposed to be charms +against malign influences. + +When caparisoned, he also wears on the forehead, like other Burmese +dignitaries, including the king himself, a golden plate inscribed with his +titles, and a gold crescent set with circles of large gems between the +eyes. Large silver tassels hang in front of his ears, and he is harnessed +with bands of gold and crimson set with large bosses of pure gold. He is a +regular estate of the realm, having a Woon, or minister, of his own, four +gold umbrellas, the white umbrellas which are peculiar to royalty, and a +suite of thirty attendants. The Burmese remove their shoes on entering his +palace. He has an appanage, or territory, assigned to him to "eat," like +other princes of the Empire. In Burney's time it was the rich cotton +district of Taroup Myo. + +The present king never rides the white elephant; but his uncle used to do +so frequently, acting as his own mahout, which was one of the royal +accomplishments of the ancient Indian kings. + +"The importance attached to the possession of a white elephant," says +Captain Yule, "is traceable to the Buddhist system. A white elephant of +certain wonderful endowments is one of the seven precious things the +possession of which marks the _Maha chakravartti Raja_, 'the great +wheel-turning king,' the holy and universal sovereign, a character who +appears once in a cycle, at the period when the waxing and waning term of +human life has reached its maximum of an _asanhkya_ in duration. Hence the +white elephant is the ensign of universal sovereignty." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] Narrative of a Mission to the Court of Ava, in 1855. By Captain Henry +Yule, Secretary to the Envoy. + +[4] Western foreigner. + +[5] Priest; literally, "Great Glory." + +[6] Yule's Narrative. + +[7] 1. Charity; 2. Religious Observances; 3. Self-denial; 4. Learning; 5. +Diligence; 6. Patience; 7. Truth; 8. Perseverance; 9. Friendship; 10. +Impartiality. + +[8] _Athenkhya_ is a corruption, or Burmese pronunciation, of _asankhya_, +Sanscrit, from the negative _a_ and _sankhya_, "number,"--literally, +"innumerable"; but as a Buddhist period, it is expressed by a unit and _one +hundred and forty ciphers_. Yule. + +[9] Yule's Narrative. + +[10] "Amid lovely prospects of rich valleys, and wooded hills, and winding +waters, almost every rock bore on its surface the yellow gleam of gold. +True, according to the voyager, the precious metal was itself absent; but +Sir Walter [Raleigh], on afterward showing the stones to a Spaniard of the +Caracas, was told by him that they were _madre del oro_, mother of gold, +and that the mine itself was further in the ground."--_Hugh Miller._ + +[11] A sort of demon-monkeys, grotesquely hideous and fearfully +funny,--generally depicted as black Calibans, with tusks. Judson defines +them as "monsters which devour human flesh, and possess certain superhuman +powers." According to a Buddhist legend, Guadma, when he attempted to land +at Martaban, was stoned by the Nats and Biloos, who then inhabited that +country, as well as Tavoy and Mergui; and Captain Yule imagines there may +be some dim tradition here of an alien and savage race of aborigines (akin, +perhaps, to the quasi-negroes of the Andamans), who have become the Biloos, +or Ogres, of Burman legend, "just as our Ogres took their name, probably, +from the Ugrians of Northeastern Europe." The description of the Andaman +negroes by the Mohammedan travellers of the ninth century, as quoted by +Prichard, would answer well for the Biloos of Burmah: "The people eat human +flesh quite raw; their complexion is black, their hair frizzled, their +countenance and eyes frightful; their feet are almost a cubit in length, +and they go quite naked." The comic element, however, always enters into +the Burmese conception of a Biloo. On the pavement of a royal monastery at +Amarapoora is a set of bas-reliefs representing Biloos in all sorts of +impish attitudes and antics. + +[12] _Hlapet_, or pickled tea, made up with a little oil, salt, and garlic, +or assafoetida, is eaten in small quantities by the Burmese, after dinner, +as we eat cheese. They say it promotes digestion, and they cannot live in +comfort without it. Hlapet is also passed around on many ceremonial +occasions, and on the conclusion of lawsuits. + + + + +THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A QUACK. + +IN TWO PARTS. + + +PART I. + +At this present moment of time I am what the doctors call an interesting +case, and am to be found in bed No. 10, Ward II. Massachusetts General +Hospital. I am told that I have what is called Addison's Disease,--and that +it is this pleasing malady which causes me to be covered with large +blotches of a dark mulatto tint, such as I suppose would make me peculiarly +acceptable to a Massachusetts constituency, if my legs were only strong +enough to enable me to run for Congress. However, it is a rather grim +subject to joke about, because, if I believe the doctor who comes around +every day and thumps me, and listens to my chest with as much pleasure as +if I was music all through,--I say, if I believed him, I should suppose I +was going to die. The fact is, I don't believe him at all. Some of these +days I shall take a turn and get about again, but meanwhile it is rather +dull for a stirring, active person to have to lie still and watch myself +getting big brown and yellow spots all over me, like a map that has taken +to growing. + +The man on my right has consumption, smells of cod-liver oil, and coughs +all night. The man on my left is a Down-Easter, with a liver which has +struck work; looks like a human pumpkin; and how he contrives to whittle +jack-straws all day, and eat as he does, I can't understand. I have tried +reading and tried whittling, but they don't either of them satisfy me, so +that yesterday I concluded to ask the doctor if he could n't suggest some +other amusement. + +I waited until he had gone through the ward, and then I seized my chance, +and asked him to stop a moment. + +"Well," said he, "what do you want?" + +"Something to do, Doctor." + +He thought a little, and then replied: "I'll tell you what to do; I think +if you were to write out a plain account of your life, it would be pretty +well worth reading, and perhaps would serve to occupy you for a few days at +least. If half of what you told me last week be true, you must be about as +clever a scamp as there is to be met with, and I suppose you would just as +lief put it on paper as talk it." + +"Pretty nearly," said I; "I think I will try it, Doctor." + +After he left I lay awhile thinking over the matter. I knew well enough +that I was what the world calls a scamp, and I knew also that I had got +little good out of the fact. If a man is what people call virtuous, and +fails in life, he gets credit at least for the virtue; but when a man is a +rascal, and breaks down at the trade, somehow or other people don't credit +him with the intelligence he has put into the business,--and this I call +hard. I never had much experience of virtue being its own reward; but I do +know that, when rascality is left with nothing but the contemplation of +itself for comfort, it is by no means refreshing. Now this is just my +present position; and if I did not recall with satisfaction the energy and +skill with which I did my work, I should be nothing but disgusted at the +melancholy spectacle of my failure. I suppose that I shall at least find +occupation in reviewing all this, and I think, therefore, that I shall try +to give a plain and straightforward account of the life I have led, and the +various devices by which I have sought to get my share of the money of my +countrymen. + +I want it to be clearly understood, at the beginning, that in what I may +have to say, I shall stick severely to the truth, without any overstrained +regard for my neighbors' feelings. In fact, I shall have some little +satisfaction when I do come a little heavy on corn or bunyon, because for +the past two years the whole world appears to have been engaged in +trotting over mine with as much certainty as if there were no other +standing-room left in creation. + +I shall be rather brief about my early life, which possesses little or no +interest. + +I was born in Newark, New Jersey, and am therefore what those dreary +Pennsylvanians call a Jersey Yankee, and sometimes a Spaniard, as pleases +them best. My father was a respectable physician in large practice, too +busy to look after me. My mother died too early for me to remember her at +all. An old aunt who took her place as our housekeeper indulged me to the +utmost, and I thus acquired a taste for having my own way and the best of +everything, which has stuck to me through life. I do not remember when it +was that I first began to pilfer, but it must have been rather early in +life. Indeed, I believe I may say that, charitably speaking, which is the +only way to speak of one's self, I was what the doctors call a +kleptomaniac,--which means that, when I could not get a thing in any other +way, I took it. As to education, I took very little of that, but I had, +notwithstanding, a liking for reading, and especially for light literature. +At the age of sixteen I was sent to Nassau Hall, best known as Princeton +College; but, for reasons which I need not state very fully, I did not +remain beyond the close of the Junior year. The causes which led to my +removal were not the usual foolish scrapes in which college lads indulge. +Indeed, I never have been guilty of any of those wanton pieces of +wickedness which injure the feelings of others while they lead to no useful +result. When I left to return home, I set myself seriously to reflect upon +the necessity of greater caution in following out my inclinations, and from +that time forward I have steadily avoided the vulgar vice of directly +possessing myself of objects to which I could show no legal title. My +father was justly indignant at the results of my college career; and, +according to my aunt, his sorrow had some effect in shortening his life, +which ended rather suddenly within the year. + +I was now about nineteen years old, and, as I remember, a middle-sized, +well-built young fellow, with large, dark eyes, a slight mustache, and, I +have been told, with very good manners, and a somewhat humorous turn. +Besides these advantages, my guardian held in trust for me about three +thousand dollars. After some consultation between us, it was resolved that +I should study medicine. + +Accordingly I set out for Philadelphia, with many good counsels from my +aunt and guardian. I look back upon this period as a turning-point in my +life. I had seen enough of the world already to know that, if you can +succeed honestly, it is by far the pleasantest way; and I really believe +that, if I had not been endowed with such a fatal liking for all the good +things of life, I might have lived along as reputably as most men. This, +however, is, and always has been, my difficulty, and I suppose that I am +not therefore altogether responsible for the incidents to which it gave +rise. Most men also have some ties in life. I had only one, a little +sister, now about ten years of age, for whom I have always had more or less +affection, but who was of course too much my junior to exert over me that +beneficial control which has saved so many men from evil courses. She cried +a good deal when we parted, and this, I think, had a very good effect in +strengthening my resolution to do nothing which could get me into trouble. + +The janitor of the College to which I went directed me to a boarding-house, +where I engaged a small, third-story room, which I afterwards shared with +Mr. Chaucer of Jawjaw, as he called the State which he had the honor to +represent. + +In this very remarkable abode I spent the next two winters; and finally +graduated, along with two hundred more, at the close of my two years of +study. I should also have been one year in a physician's office as a +student, but this regulation is very easily evaded. As to my studies, the +less said the better. I attended the quizzes, as they call them, pretty +closely, and, being of quick and retentive memory, was thus enabled to +dispense, for the most part, with the six or seven lectures a day which +duller men found it necessary to follow. + +Dissecting struck me as a rather nasty business for a gentleman, and on +this account I did just as little as was absolutely essential. In fact, if +a man takes his teckers, and pays the dissection fees, nobody troubles +himself as to whether or not he does any more than this. A like evil exists +as to graduation; whether you merely squeeze through, or pass with credit, +is a thing which is not made public, so that I had absolutely nothing to +stimulate my ambition. + +The astonishment with which I learned of my success was shared by the +numerous Southern gentlemen who darkened the floors, and perfumed with +tobacco the rooms of our boarding-house. In my companions, during the time +of my studies so called, as in other matters in life, I was somewhat +unfortunate. All of them were Southern gentlemen, with more money than I. +They all carried great sticks, usually sword-canes, and most of them +bowie-knives; also they delighted in dress-coats, long hair, felt hats, and +very tight boots, swore hideously, and glared at every woman they met as +they strolled along with their arms affectionately over the shoulders of +their companion. They hated the "Nawth," and cursed the Yankees, and +honestly believed that the leanest of them was a match for any half-dozen +of the bulkiest of Northerners. I must also do them the justice to say that +they were quite as ready to fight as to brag, which, by the way, is no +meagre statement. With these gentry, for whom I retain a respect which has +filled me with regret at the recent course of events, I spent a good deal +of my large leisure. We were what the more respectable students of both +sections called a hard crowd; but what we did, or how we did it, little +concerns us here, except that, owing to my esteem for chivalric blood and +breeding, I was led into many practices and excesses which cost my guardian +much distress and myself a good deal of money. + +At the close of my career as a student, I found myself aged twenty-one +years, and owner of twelve hundred dollars,--the rest of my small estate +having disappeared variously within the last two years. After my friends +had gone to their homes in the South, I began to look about me for an +office, and finally settled upon a very good room in one of the down-town +localities of the Quaker City. I am not specific as to number and street, +for reasons which may hereafter appear. I liked the situation on various +accounts. It had been occupied by a doctor; the terms were reasonable; and +it lay on the skirts of a good neighborhood; while below it lived a motley +population, amongst whom I expected to get my first patients and such fees +as were to be had. Into this new home I moved my medical text-books, a few +bones, and myself. Also I displayed in the window a fresh sign, upon which +was distinctly to be read:-- + + "DR. ELIAS SANDCRAFT. + Office hours, 7 to 9 A. M., 3 to 6 + P. M., 7 to 9 P. M." + +I felt now that I had done my fair share towards attaining a virtuous +subsistence, and so I waited tranquilly, and without undue enthusiasm, to +see the rest of the world do its part in the matter. Meanwhile I read up on +all sorts of imaginable cases, stayed at home all through my office hours, +and at intervals explored the strange section of the town which lay to the +south of my office. I do not suppose there is anything like it elsewhere. +It was then, and still is, a nest of endless grog-shops, brothels, +slop-shops, and low lodging-houses. You may dine here for a penny off of +soup made from the refuse meats of the rich, gathered at back gates by a +horde of half-naked children, who all tell varieties of one woful tale. +Here, too, you may be drunk at five cents, and lodge for three, with men, +women, and children of all colors lying about you. It is this hideous +mixture of black and white and yellow wretchedness which makes the place so +peculiar. The blacks predominate, and have mostly that swollen, reddish, +dark skin, the sign in this race of habitual drunkenness. Of course only +the lowest whites are here,--rag-pickers, pawnbrokers, old-clothes-men, +thieves, and the like. All of this, as it came before me, I viewed with +mingled disgust and philosophy. I hated filth, but I understood that +society has to stand on somebody, and I was only glad that I was not one of +the undermost and worst-squeezed bricks. + +You will hardly believe me, but I had waited a month without having been +called upon by a single patient. At last the policeman on the beat brought +me a fancy man, with a dog bite. This patient recommended me to his +brother, the keeper of a small pawnbroking shop, and by very slow degrees I +began to get stray patients who were too poor to indulge in uptown doctors. +I found the police very useful acquaintances; and, by a drink or a cigar +now and then, I got most of the cases of cut heads and the like at the next +station-house. These, however, were the aristocrats of my practice; the +bulk of my patients were soap-fat-men, rag-pickers, oystermen, hose-house +bummers, and worse, with other and nameless trades, men and women, white, +black, or mulatto. How they got the levies and quarters with which I was +reluctantly paid, I do not know; that indeed was none of my business. They +expected to pay, and they came to me in preference to the dispensary doctor +two or three squares away, who seemed to me to live in the lanes and alleys +about us. Of course he received no pay except experience, since the +dispensaries in the Quaker City, as a rule, do not give salaries to their +doctors; and the vilest of the poor will prefer a pay doctor, if he can get +one, to one of these disinterested gentlemen who are at everybody's call +and beck. I am told that most young doctors do a large amount of poor +practice, as it is called; but, for my own part, I think it better for both +parties when the doctor insists upon some compensation being made to him. +This has been usually my own custom, and I have not found reason to regret +it. + +Notwithstanding my strict attention to my own interests, I have been rather +sorely dealt with by fate, upon several occasions, where, so far as I could +see, I was vigilantly doing everything in my power to keep myself out of +trouble or danger. I may as well relate one of them, merely as an +illustration of how little value a man's intellect may be, when fate and +the prejudices of the mass of men are against him. + +One evening late, I myself answered a ring at the bell, and found a small +black boy on the steps, a shoeless, hatless little wretch, with curled +darkness for hair, and teeth like new tombstones. It was pretty cold, and +he was relieving his feet by standing first on one and then on the other. +He did not wait for me to speak. + +"Hi, sah, Missy Barker she say to come quick away, sah, to Numbah 709 +Bedford Street." + +The locality did not look like pay, but it was hard to say in this quarter, +because sometimes you found a well-to-do "brandy-snifter,"--local for +gin-shop,--or a hard-working "leather-jeweller,"--ditto for +shoemaker,--with next door, in a house no better or worse, dozens of human +rats for whom every police trap in the city was constantly set. + +With a doubt, then, in my mind as to whether I should find a good patient +or some mean nigger, I sought out the place to which I had been directed. I +did not like its looks; but I blundered up an alley, and into a back room, +where I fell over somebody, and was cursed and told to lie down and keep +easy, or somebody, meaning the man stumbled over, would make me. At last I +lit on a staircase which led into the alley, and, after some inquiry, got +as high as the garret. People hereabouts did not know one another, or did +not want to know, so that it was of little avail to ask questions. At +length I saw a light through the cracks in the attic door, and walked in. +To my amazement, the first person I saw was a woman of about thirty-five, +in pearl-gray Quaker dress,--one of your calm, good-looking people. She was +seated on a stool beside a straw mattress, upon which lay a black woman. +There were three others crowded close around a small stove, which was +red-hot,--an unusual spectacle in this street. Altogether a most nasty den. + +As I came in, the little Quaker woman got up, and said, "I took the liberty +of sending for thee to look at this poor woman. I am afraid she has the +small-pox. Will thee be so kind as to look at her?" And with this she held +down the candle towards the bed. + +"Good gracious!" said I hastily, seeing how the creature was speckled, "I +did n't understand this, or I would not have come. Best let her alone, +miss," I added, "there 's nothing to be done for these cases." + +Upon my word, I was astonished at the little woman's indignation. She said +just those things which make you feel as if somebody had been calling you +names or kicking you. Was I a doctor? Was I a man? and so on. However, I +never did fancy the small-pox, and what could a fellow get by doctoring +wretches like these? So I held my tongue and went away. About a week +afterwards, I met Evans, the Dispensary man. + +"Halloa!" says he. "Doctor, you made a nice mistake about that darky at No. +709 Bedford Street the other night. She had nothing but measles after all." + +"Of course I knew," said I, laughing; "but you don't think I was going into +dispensary trash, do you?" + +"I should think not," says Evans. + +I learned afterwards that this Miss Barker had taken an absurd fancy to +the man because he had doctored the darky, and would not let the Quakeress +pay him. The end was, that when I wanted to get a vacancy in the Southwark +Dispensary, where they do pay the doctors, Miss Barker was malignant enough +to take advantage of my oversight by telling the whole story to the board; +so that Evans got in, and I was beaten. + +You may be pretty sure that I found rather slow the kind of practice I have +described, and began to look about for chances of bettering myself. In this +sort of location these came up now and then; and as soon as I got to be +known as a reliable man, I began to get the peculiar sort of practice I +wanted. Notwithstanding all my efforts, however, I found myself at the +close of three years with all my means spent, and just able to live +meagrely from hand to mouth, which by no means suited a person of my +luxurious turn. Six months went by, and I was worse off than ever,--two +months in arrears of rent, and numerous other debts to cigar-shops and +liquor-dealers. Now and then, some good job, such as a burglar with a cut +head, helped me up for a while; but on the whole, I was like Slider +Downeyhylle in poor Neal's Charcoal Sketches, and "kept going downer and +downer the more I tried not to." Something must be done. + +One night, as I was debating with myself as to how I was to improve my +position, I heard a knock on my shutter, and, going to the door, let in a +broad-shouldered man with a white face and a great hooked nose. He wore a +heavy black beard and mustache, and looked like the wolf in the pictures of +Red Riding-Hood which I had seen as a child. + +"Your name 's Sandcraft?" said the man, shaking the snow over everything. +"Set down, want to talk to you." + +"That's my name. What can I do for you?" said I. + +The man looked around the room rather scornfully, at the same time throwing +back his coat, and displaying a red neckerchief and a huge garnet pin. +"Guess you 're not overly rich," he said. + +"Not especially," said I. + +"Know--Simon Stagers?" + +"Can't say I do," said I. Simon was a burglar who had blown off two fingers +when mining a safe, and whom I had attended while he was hiding. + +"Can't say you do," says the wolf. + +"Well, you can lie, and no mistake. Come now, Doctor, Simon says you 're +safe, and I want to do a leetle plain talk with you." With this he laid ten +eagles on the table; I put out my hand instinctively. + +"Let 'em alone," cried the man sharply. "They 're easy earned, and ten more +like 'em." + +"For doing what?" said I. + +The man paused a moment, looked around him, eyed me furtively, and finally +loosened his cravat with a hasty pull. "You 're the coroner," said he. + +"I! What do you mean?" + +"Yes, you,--the coroner, don't you understand?" and so saying he shoved the +gold pieces towards me. + +"Very good," said I, "we will suppose I 'm the coroner." + +"And being the coroner," said he, "you get this note, which requests you to +call at No. 9 Blank Street to examine the body of a young man which is +supposed--only supposed, you see--to have--well, to have died under +suspicious circumstances." + +"Go on," said I. + +"No," he returned, "not till I know how you like it. Stagers and another +knows it; and it would n't be very safe for you to split, besides not +making nothing out of it; but what I say is this. Do you like the business +of coroner?" + +Now I did not like it, but two hundred in gold was life to me just then; so +I said, "Let me hear the whole of it first." + +"That 's square enough," said the man; "my wife 's got"--correcting himself +with a little shiver--"my wife had a brother that 's been cuttin' up rough, +because, when I 'd been up too late, I handled her a leetle hard now and +again. About three weeks ago, he threatened to fetch the police on me for +one or two little things Stagers and I done together. Luckily, he fell sick +with a typhoid just then; but he made such a thunderin' noise about opening +safes, and what he done, and I done, and so on, that I did n't dare to have +any one about him. When he began to mend, I gave him a little plain talk +about this business of threatening to bring the police on us, and next day +I caught him a saying something to my wife about it. The end of it was, he +was took worse next morning, and--well he died yesterday. Now what does his +sister do, but writes a note, and gives it to a boy in the alley to put in +the post. Luckily, Stagers happened to be round; and after the boy got away +a bit, Bill bribes him with a quarter to give him the note, which was n't +no less than a request to the coroner to come to our house to-morrow and +make an examination, as foul play was suspected." + +Here he paused. As for myself, I was cold all over. I was afraid to go on, +and afraid to go back, besides which I did not doubt that there was a good +deal of money in the case. "Of course," said I, "it's all nonsense; only I +suppose you don't want the officers about, and a fuss, and that sort of +thing." + +"Exactly," said my friend, "you 're the coroner; you take this note and +come to my house. Says you, 'Mrs. File, are you the woman that wrote this +note? because in that case I must examine the body.'" + +"I see," said I; "she need n't know who I am, or anything else. But if I +tell her it's all right, do you think she won't want to know why there +ain't a jury, and so on?" + +"Bless you," said the man, "the girl is n't over seventeen, and does n't +know no more than her baby." + +"I 'll do it," said I, suddenly, for, as I saw, it involved no sort of +risk; "but I must have three hundred dollars." + +"And fifty," added the wolf, "if you do it well." + +With this the man buttoned about him a shaggy gray overcoat, and took his +leave without a single word in addition. + +For the first time in my life I failed that night to sleep. I thought to +myself at last that I would get up early, pack a few clothes, and escape, +leaving my books to pay, as they might, my arrears of rent. Looking out of +the window, however, in the morning, I saw Stagers prowling about the +opposite pavement, and, as the only exit except the street door was an +alleyway, which opened alongside of the front of the house, I gave myself +up for lost. About ten o'clock I took my case of instruments, and started +for File's house, followed, as I too well understood, by Stagers. + +I knew the house, which was in a small street, by its closed windows and +the craped bell, which I shuddered as I touched. However, it was too late +to draw back, and I therefore inquired for Mrs. File. A young and +haggard-looking woman came down, and led me into a small parlor, for whose +darkened light I was thankful enough. + +"Did you write me this note?" said I. + +"I did," said the woman, "if you 're the coroner. Joe, he 's my husband, he +'s gone out to see about the funeral. I wish it was his, I do." + +"What do you suspect?" said I. + +"I 'll tell you," she returned, in a whisper. "I think he was made away +with. I think there was foul play. I think he was poisoned. That 's what I +think." + +"I hope you may be mistaken," said I. "Suppose you let me see the body." + +"You shall see it," she replied; and, following her, I went up stairs to a +front chamber, where I found the corpse. + +"Get it over soon," said the woman, with a strange firmness. "If there +ain't no murder been done, I shall have to run for it. If there is," and +her face set hard, "I guess I 'll stay." With this she closed the door, and +left me with the dead. + +If I had known what was before me, I never should have gone into the thing +at all. It looked a little better when I had opened a window, and let in +plenty of light; for, although I was, on the whole, far less afraid of dead +than living men, I had an absurd feeling that I was doing this dead man a +distinct wrong, as if it mattered to the dead, after all. When the affair +was over, I thought more of the possible consequences than of its relation +to the dead man himself; but do as I would at the time, I was in a +ridiculous tremor, and especially when, in going through the forms of a +_post-mortem_ dissection, I had to make the first cut through the skin. Of +course, I made no examination of the internal organs. I wanted to know as +little as possible about them, and to get done as soon as I could. +Unluckily, however, the walls of the stomach had softened and given way, so +that I could not help seeing, among the escaped contents of the stomach, +numerous grains of a white powder, which I hastened to conceal from my +sight by rapidly sewing up the incisions which I had made. + +I am free to confess now that I was careful not to uncover the man's face, +and that when it was over I backed to the door, and hastily escaped from +the room. On the stairs opposite to me Mrs. File was seated, with her +bonnet on, and a small bundle in her hand. + +"Well," said she, rising as she spoke, and with a certain eagerness in her +tones, "what killed him? Was it arsenic?" + +"Arsenic, my good woman!" said I; "when a man has typhoid fever, he don't +need poison to kill him." + +"And you mean to say he was n't poisoned," said she, with more than a trace +of disappointment in her voice,--"not poisoned at all?" + +"No more than you are," said I. "If I had found any signs of foul play, I +should have had a regular inquest. As it is, the less said about it the +better; and the fact is, it would have been much wiser to have kept quiet +at the beginning. I can't understand why you should have troubled me about +it at all." + +"Neither I would," said she, "if I had n't been pretty sure. I guess now +the sooner I leave, the better for me." + +"As to that," I returned, "it is none of my business; but you may rest +certain that you are mistaken about the cause of your brother's death." + +As I left the house, whom should I meet but Dr. Evans. "Why, halloa!" said +he; "called you in, have they? Who 's sick?" + +You may believe I was scared. "Mrs. File," said I, remembering with horror +that I had forgotten to ask whether at any time the man had had a doctor. + +"Bad lot," returned Evans; "I was sent for to see the brother when he was +as good as dead." + +"As bad as dead," I retorted, with a sickly effort at a joke. "What killed +him?" + +"I suppose one of the ulcers gave way, and that he died of the +consequences. Perforation, you know, and that sort of thing. I thought of +asking File for a _post_, but I did n't." + +"Wish you luck of them. Good-by." + +I was greatly alarmed at this new incident, but my fears were somewhat +quieted that evening when Stagers and the wolf appeared with the remainder +of the money, and I learned that Mrs. File had fled from her home, and, as +File thought likely, from the city also. A few months later, File himself +disappeared, and Stagers found his way into the Penitentiary. + +I felt, for my own part, that I had been guilty of more than one mistake, +and that I had displayed throughout a want of intelligence for which I came +near being punished very severely. I should have made proper inquiries +before venturing on a matter so dangerous, and I ought also to have got a +good fee from Mrs. File on account of my services as coroner. It served me, +however, as a good lesson, but it was several months before I felt quite +easy in mind. Meanwhile, money became scarce once more, and I was driven +to my wit's end to devise how I should continue to live as I had done. I +tried, among other plans, that of keeping certain pills and other +medicines, which I sold to my patients; but on the whole I found it better +to send all my prescriptions to one druggist, who charged the patient ten +or twenty per cent over the correct price, and handed this amount to me. + +In some cases I am told the percentage is supposed to be a donation on the +part of the apothecary; but I rather fancy the patient pays for it in the +end. It is one of the absurd vagaries of the profession to discountenance +the practice I have described, but I wish, for my part, I had never done +anything worse or more dangerous. Of course it inclines a doctor to change +his medicines a good deal, and to order them in large quantities, which is +occasionally annoying to the poor; yet, as I have always observed, there is +no poverty so painful as your own, so that in a case of doubt I prefer +equally to distribute pecuniary suffering among many, rather than to +concentrate it on myself. + +About six months after the date of my rather annoying adventure, an +incident occurred which altered somewhat, and for a time improved, my +professional position. During my morning office-hour an old woman came in, +and, putting down a large basket, wiped her face with a yellow cotton +handkerchief first, and afterwards with the corner of her apron. Then she +looked around uneasily, got up, settled her basket on her arm with a jerk, +which decided the future of an egg or two, and remarked briskly, "Don't see +no little bottles about; got to the wrong stall I guess. You ain't no +homoeopath doctor, are you?" + +With great presence of mind, I replied, "Well, ma'am, that depends upon +what you want. Some of my patients like one, and some like the other." I +was about to add, "You pays your money and you takes your choice," but +thought better of it, and held my peace, refraining from classical +quotation. + +"Being as that 's the case," said the old lady, "I 'll just tell you my +symptoms. You said you give either kind of medicine, did n't you?" + +"Just so," I replied. + +"Clams or oysters, whichever opens most lively, as my Joe says. Perhaps you +know Joe,--tends the oyster-stand at stall No. 9." + +No, I did not know Joe; but what were the symptoms? + +They proved to be numerous, and included a stunnin' in the head, and a +misery in the side, and a goin' on with bokin' after victuals. + +I proceeded of course to apply a stethoscope over her ample bosom, though +what I heard on this or similar occasions I should find it rather difficult +to state. I remember well my astonishment in one instance, where, having +unconsciously applied my instrument over a large chronometer in the +watch-fob of a sea-captain, I concluded for a brief space that he was +suffering from a rather remarkable displacement of the heart. As to the old +lady, whose name was Checkers, and who kept an apple-stall near by, I told +her that I was out of pills just then, but would have plenty next day. +Accordingly I proceeded to invest a small amount at a place called a +Homoeopathic Pharmacy, which I remember amused me immensely. + +A stout little German, with great silver spectacles, sat behind a counter +containing numerous jars of white powders labelled concisely, Lach., Led., +Onis., Op., Puls., etc., while behind him were shelves filled with bottles +of what looked like minute white shot. + +"I want some homoeopathic medicine," said I. + +"Vat kindst?" said my friend. "Vat you vants to cure?" + +I explained at random that I wished to treat diseases in general. + +"Vell, ve gifs you a case, mit a pooks";--and thereupon produced a large +box containing bottles of small pills and powders, labelled variously with +the names of diseases, so that all you required was to use the headache or +colic bottle in order to meet the needs of those particular maladies. + +I was struck at first with the exquisite simplicity of this arrangement; +but before purchasing, I happened luckily to turn over the leaves of a +book, in two volumes, which lay on the counter, and was labelled, +"Jahr--Manual." Opening at page 310, Vol. I., I lit upon Lachesis, which, +on inquiry, proved to be snake-venom. This Mr. Jahr stated to be indicated +in upwards of a hundred maladies. At once it occurred to me that Lach. was +the medicine for my money, and that it was quite needless to waste cash on +the box. I therefore bought a small jar of Lach. and a lot of little pills, +and started for home. + +My old woman proved a fast friend; and as she sent me numerous patients, I +by and by altered my sign to "Homoeopathic Physician and Surgeon," +whatever that may mean, and was regarded by my medical brethren as a lost +sheep, and by the little-pill doctors as one who had seen the error of his +ways. + +In point of fact, my new practice had decided advantages. All the pills +looked and tasted alike, and the same might be said of the powders, so that +I was never troubled by those absurd investigations into the nature of the +remedies which some patients are prone to make. Of course I desired to get +business, and it was therefore obviously unwise to give little pills of +Lach. or Puls. or Sep., when a man distinctly needed full doses of iron, or +the like. I soon discovered, however, that it was only necessary to +describe cod-liver oil, for instance, as a diet, in order to make use of it +where required. When a man got impatient over an ancient ague, I usually +found, too, that I could persuade him to let me try a good dose of quinine; +while, on the other hand, there was a distinct pecuniary advantage in those +cases of the shakes which could be made to believe that it was "best not to +interfere with nature." I ought to add, that this kind of faith is uncommon +among folks who carry hods or build walls. + +For women who are hysterical, and go heart and soul into the business of +being sick, I have found the little pills a most charming resort, because +you cannot carry the refinement of symptoms beyond what my friend Jahr has +done in the way of fitting medicines to them, so that, if I had been +disposed honestly to practise this droll style of therapeutics, it had, as +I saw, certain conveniences. + +Another year went by, and I was beginning to prosper in my new mode of +life. The medicines (being chiefly milk-sugar, with variations as to the +labels) cost next to nothing; and, as I charged pretty well for both these +and my advice, I was now able to start a gig, and also to bring my sister, +a very pretty girl of fourteen years old, to live with me in a small house +which I rented, a square from my old office. + +This business of my sister's is one of the things I like the least to look +back upon. When she came to me she was a pale-faced child, with large, +mournful gray eyes, soft, yellow hair, and the promise of remarkable good +looks. As to her attachment to me, it was something quite ridiculous. She +followed me to the door when I went out, waited for me to come in, lay +awake until she heard my step at night, and, in a word, hung around my neck +like a kind of affectionate mill-stone. + + + + +WRITINGS OF T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE. + + +"I Am indebted to you for a knowledge of life in the old cathedral towns of +England,--of the ecclesiastical side of society, so minute and authentic +that it is like a personal experience." Thus I replied to Anthony +Trollope's declaration that he lacked an essential quality of the +novelist,--imagination. "Ah," he replied, "when you speak of careful +observation and the honest and thorough report thereof, I am conscious of +fidelity to the facts of life and character; but," he added, with that +bluff heartiness so characteristic of the man, "my brother is more than an +accurate observer: he is a scholar, a philosopher as well, with historical +tastes and cosmopolitan sympathies,--a patient student. You should read his +books";--and he snatched a pencil, and wrote out the list for me.[13] Only +two of Thomas Adolphus Trollope's volumes have been republished in this +country,--one a novel of English life, in tenor and traits very like his +brother's, the other a brief memoir of a famous and fair Italian.[14] This +curious neglect on the part of American publishers induces us to briefly +record this industrious and interesting author's claims to grateful +recognition, especially on the part of those who cherish fond recollections +of Italian travel, and enjoy the sympathetic and intelligent illustration +of Italian life and history. + +In a literary point of view "An Englishman in Italy," in the last century, +would be suggestive of a classical tour like that of Addison and +Eustace,--a field of study and speculation quite apart from the people of +the country, who, except for purposes of deprecatory contrast, would +probably be ignored; and, in our own times, the idea is rather identified +with caricature than sympathy,--we associate these insular travellers with +exclusiveness and prejudice. As a general rule, they know little and care +less for the fellow-creatures among whom they sojourn, holding themselves +aloof, incapable of genial relations, and owning no guide to foreign +knowledge but Murray and the Times. Farce and romance have long made +capital out of this obtuse and impervious nationality; and it is the more +refreshing, because of the general rule, to note a noble exception,--to see +an Englishman, highly educated, studious, domestic, and patriotic, yet +dwelling in Italy, not to despise and ignore, but to interpret and endear +the country and people,--making his hospitable dwelling, with all its +Italian trophies and traits, the favorite rendezvous for the best of his +countrymen and the native society,--there discussing the principles and +prospects of civic reform, doing honor to men of genius and aspiration, +irrespective of race,--blending in his _salon_ the scholarly talk of Landor +with the fervid pleas of "Young Italy," giving equal welcome to English +radical, Piedmontese patriot, American humanitarian, and Tuscan +_dilettante_,--and thus, as it were, recognizing the free and faithful +spirit of modern progress and brotherhood amid the old armor, bridal +chests, parchment tomes, quaintly carved chairs, and other mediaeval relics +of a Florentine _palazzo_. + +But this cosmopolitan candor, so rare as a social phenomenon among the +English in Italy, is no less characteristic of Adolphus Trollope as a +writer. As he entertained, in his pleasant, antique reception-room or +garden-terrace, disciples of Cavour, of Mazzini, and of Gioberti, with men +and women of varied genius and opposite convictions from England and the +United States, extending kindly tolerance or catholic sympathy to all, so +he sought, in the history of the past and the facts of the present in the +land of his love and adoption, evidences of her vital worth and auspicious +destiny. Long residence abroad liberalized, and long study enriched, a mind +singularly just in its appreciation, and a heart naturally kind and +expansive. All his friends recognize in Adolphus Trollope that rare union +of rectitude and reflection which constitutes the genuine philosopher. Mrs. +Browning aptly called him Aristides. Thus living in the atmosphere of broad +social instincts, and sharing the literary faculty and facility of his +family, this Englishman in Italy set himself deliberately to study the +country of his sojourn, in her records, local memorials, and social life, +and, having so studied, to reproduce and illustrate the knowledge thus +gleaned, with the fidelity of an annalist and the tact of a _raconteur_. It +was a noble and pleasant task, and has been nobly and pleasantly fulfilled. +Let us note its chief results, and honor the industry, truth, and humane +wisdom manifest therein. + +The range of Mr. Trollope's investigations may be appreciated by the fact +that, while he is the author of "A History of Florence from the Earliest +Independence of the Commune to the Fall of the Republic in 1531," he has +also given to the press the most clear and reliable account of the +revolution of our own day, under the title of "Tuscany in 1849"; thus +supplying the two chronicles of the past and the present which together +reveal the origin, development, and character of the state and its people. +In the Preface to the former work he suggests this vital connection between +the ancient republic and the modern city. "It contains," he observes, "such +an exposition of the old Guelph community as sufficiently demonstrates the +fitness of this culmination of the grand old city's fortunes." It is this +liberal and comprehensive tone, this "looking before and after," which, +united to careful research and patient narration, renders the author so +well equipped and inspired for his task. He has brought together the +essential social and political facts of the past, and, associating them +with local traits and transitions, enabled us to realize the rise, +progress, and alternations of the Italian state, as it is next to +impossible for the Anglo-Saxon reader to do while exploring the partial, +prejudiced, and complicated annals of the native historians. This is a +needful, a timely, and a gracious service, for which every intelligent and +sympathetic traveller who has learned to love the Tuscan capital, and grown +bewildered over the complex story of her civil strifes, will feel grateful, +while his obligations are renewed by the moderate but candid statement of +those later movements, which, culminating in a childlike triumph, were +followed by a reaction whose hopelessness was more apparent than real, and +has subsequently proved an auspicious trial and training for the discipline +and privileges of constitutional liberty. + +The "History of Florence" is remarkable for the skilful method whereby the +author has arranged, in luminous sequence, a long and confused series of +political events. He has confined his narrative to the essential points of +an intricate subject, omitting what is of mere casual or local interest, +and aiming to elucidate the civic growth of the little city on the banks of +the Arno. It is an admirable illustration of the conservative principles of +free municipal institutions in the Middle Ages, notwithstanding their +limited sway and frequent perversion. There is no attempt at rhetorical +display, but great precision and authenticity of statement, and a +conscientious citation of authorities; the style often lapses into +colloquial freedom, not inappropriate to the familiar discussion of some of +the curious details involved in the theme; and there are episodes of +judicious and philosophical comment, with apt historical parallels, not a +few of which come home to our recent national experience. The author's +previous studies in Italian history, and intimate familiarity with the +scene of his chronicle, give him a grasp and an insight which render his +treatment at once thorough, sensible, and facile. But it is upon the more +special subjects of Italian history that Mr. Trollope has expended his time +and talents to the best advantage,--subjects chosen with singular judgment +and imbued with fresh local and personal interest. + +The scope and method of these historical studies are such as at once to +embody and illustrate what is normally characteristic in time, place, and +individual, while completeness of treatment is secured, and a person and +period made suggestive of a comprehensive historical subject. Thus in "The +Girlhood of Catharine de' Medici" we have the key to her mature and +relentless bigotry, the logical origin of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, +while, at the same time, the discipline of a convent and the intrigues of a +ruling family in the Middle Ages are elaborately unfolded. Grouped around +and associated with so remarkable an historical woman, they have a definite +significance to the modern reader, otherwise unattainable; the Palazzo +Medici, the Convents of St. Mark, Santa Lucia, and Murate, become scenes of +personal interest; the Cardinal Clement and Alessandro, in their relation +to the young Catharine, grow more real in their subtlety, family ambitions, +and unscrupulous tyranny; and the surroundings, superstition, fanaticism, +and domestic despotism which attended the forlorn girl until she became the +wife of Henry of France, explain her subsequent career and execrated +memory. Incidentally the life of mediaeval Tuscany is also revealed with +authentic emphasis. In "Paul the Pope and Paul the Friar," all the singular +circumstances whereby a priest of Rome became the instrument of striking +the first effectual blow at her absolute spiritual dominion are narrated +with precision and tact. The prolonged quarrel between the Vatican and the +Republic of Venice, the ecclesiastical and civic power, then opened the way +to human freedom, and Sarpi is truly exhibited as the pioneer reformer. His +liberal studies, foreign friends, and independent and intrepid mind +rendered him admirably fitted for the task he undertook, and the Papal +government only added infamy to despotism by the baffled attempt to +assassinate him. It is difficult to imagine a better introduction to the +subsequent history of free thought and spiritual emancipation, which +culminated in the Reformation, than this biographical sketch, where a great +historical development is made clear and dramatic by the carefully told +story of the lives of the two chief actors and agents therein. + +There is a power in the state, unofficial, but essential, and therefore +more intimately blended with its welfare and identified with its fortunes +than pope, emperor, or prince,--and that is the Banker. Even in modern +times the life of such a financier as Lafitte is part of the social and +political history of France; but in mediaeval times, when "the sinews of +war" and the wages of corruption so often turned the scale of ambition and +success, the rich bankers of the Italian cities were among the most +efficient of their social forces and fame. In writing the memoirs of +Filippo Strozzi, Mr. Trollope struck the key-note of local associations in +the Tuscan capital. The least observant or retrospective stranger is +impressed with the sight of the massive walls and grated windows of the +Strozzi Palace, and is attracted by such a monument of the past to the +story of its founder. A standard drama and novel were long since made to +illustrate those annals,[15] but it was reserved for an Englishman in Italy +to record, in a well-digested and authentic narrative, the career of +Filippo, whose immense wealth, marriage to a Medici, family ambition, +scholarship, political and social distinction, enterprise, and luxury, and +especially his financial relations with both rulers and ruled, make him one +of those central figures of an historic group that serve as expositors of +the time. He was indeed, by his accomplishments and his profligacy, his +intrigues and associations, his alliances and enmities, his domestic and +his political life, a representative man, whose character and career aptly +embody and illustrate a most stirring era of European and Italian history. +He escorted Catharine de' Medici on her bridal journey from Florence, +talked philosophy at Medicean banquets, was closeted with popes and kings, +was the boon companion of reigning dukes, a courtier to princes and people, +a magnificent entertainer, a fugitive, exile, prisoner, sceptic, scholar, +and suicide,--typifying in his life the luxury and lawlessness, the culture +and the crime, the splendor and the degradation, the manners and morals, of +his country and his age,--and hence a most instructive biographical study, +which Mr. Trollope has treated with equal fulness, insight, and +authenticity. + +But the most felicitous of the series is the "Decade of Italian Women." The +idea of this work is worthy of a philosopher, and its execution, of a +humane scholar. It has long been an accepted theory, that, to understand +the talent and pervasive spirit of an age or country, we must look to the +influence and character of the women. A subtile social atmosphere exhales +from their presence and power in the state and the family; and the dominant +elements of faith, as well as the tone of manners and the tendencies of +character, find in the best endowed and most auspiciously situated of the +sex, an embodiment and inspiration which are the most authentic, because +the most instinctive, test and trait of the life of the time. Shakespeare +has, with exquisite insight and memorable skill, illustrated this +representative function of woman by creating types of female character +which, while they modify and mould persons and events, preserve intact +their essential quality of sex, and yet represent none the less the spirit +and manners of their respective epochs. Scott has done the same thing in an +historical direction, that Shakespeare realized in a psychological way. We +regard it, therefore, as a most judicious experiment to indicate the +characteristics of mediaeval Italy by delineating her representative women. +They inevitably lead us to the heart of things,--to the palace, the +convent, the court, the vigil of battle, and the triumph of art,--to the +loves of warrior, statesman, and priest,--to the inmost domestic +shrine,--to the festival and the funeral; and all this we behold, not +objectively, but through our vivid interest in a noble, persecuted, +saintly, impassioned, or gifted woman, and thus partake, as it were, of the +life of the age, realize its inspiration, recognize its meaning, in a +manner and to a degree impossible to be derived from the formal narrative +of events, without a central figure or a consecutive life which serves as a +nucleus and a link, giving vital unity and personal significance to the +whole. + +The period of time embraced in these female biographies extends from the +birth of St. Catherine of Siena, in 1347, to the death of the celebrated +_improvvisatrice_ Corilla, in 1800. With the career of each is identified a +salient phase of Italian history, manners, or character; incident to the +experience of all are special localities, political and social conditions, +relations of art, of faith, of culture, of rule, and of morals, whereby we +obtain the most desirable glimpses of the actual life and latent tendencies +of Italy, considered as the focus of European civilization. We gaze upon a +woman's portrait, but beyond, beside, and around her are the warriors, +statesmen, prelates, poets, and people of her time. Through her triumphs +and trials, her renown or degradation, her love, ambition, sorrows, +virtues, or sins, we feel, as well as see, the vital facts of her age and +country. Nor is this all: each character is not only full of interest in +itself, but is essentially typical and representative. Thus we have the +fair saint of the Middle Ages, the energetic and sagacious ruler, the +gracious reformer, the artist, the near kinswoman of prince or +ecclesiastic, the poetess, the _chatelaine_, the nun, the profligate, the +powerful, the beautiful, and the base,--all the forms and forces of womanly +influence as modified by the life of the time and country. They move before +us a grand procession, now awakening admiration and now pity, here +ravishing in beauty or genius and there forlorn in disaster or disgrace, +yet always bearing with them the strong individuality and attractive +expression which, to the imagination, so easily transforms the heroines of +history into the ideals of the drama, or the characters of romance. And yet +in these delineations the author has indulged in no rhetorical +embellishments: he has arrived simply, and sometimes sternly, at the clear +statement of facts, and left them to convey their legitimate impression to +the reader's mind. The lives of many of these women have been written +before, some of them elaborately; but they are here grouped and contrasted +as illustrative of national life, and hence gain a fresh charm and +suggestiveness, especially as the fruits of research and the method of a +disciplined _raconteur_ are blent with the light and life of personal +observation as to scenes and memorials,--the land where they once dwelt, +its natural aspect and ancient trophies, being fondly familiar to the +biographer. Eloquent memoirs of female sovereigns have become popular +through the genial labors of Agnes Strickland and Mrs. Jameson, while +Shakespeare's women furnish a perpetual challenge to psychological critics; +but the "Decade of Italian Women" has a certain unity of aim and relative +interest which makes it, as a literary record, analogous to a complete, +though limited, gallery of family portraits, inasmuch as, however diverse +the characters, they own a common bond of race and nationality, and are +memorable exemplars thereof. First in the list is Catherine of Siena, the +Saint,--an accurate mediaeval religious delineation which all who have +visited the old city where her relics are preserved and her name reverenced +will value. Then we have Catherine Sforza,--the fair representative of one +of those powerful and princely families whose history is that of the state +they rule. Next comes the noblest and most gifted woman of the Middle Ages, +the friend of Michel Angelo, the ideal of a wife, and a lady of culture, +genius, and patriotism,--Vittoria Colonna. The Bishop of Palermo's +illegitimate daughter--a famous poetess, Tullia d' Arragona--precedes the +learned, pure, intrepid Protestant, Olimpia Morata, who takes us to the +court of Ferrara in its palmy days, to show how "like a star that dwells +apart" is a woman of rectitude and wisdom and faith amid the shallow, the +sensual, and the bigoted. The renowned Paduan actress, Isabella Adrieni, +gives us a striking illustration of the influence, traits, and triumphs of +histrionic genius in Italy of old; while among the prone towers and gloomy +arcades of Bologna we become intimate with the chaste and charming +aspirations and skill of Elisabetta Sirani, whose pencil was the pride of +the city, and whose character hallows her genius. Of La Corilla it is +enough to say, that she was the original of Madame de Stael's "Corinne"; +and no woman could have been more wisely selected to represent the +fascination, subtlety, force of purpose, ambition, resources, passion, and +external success of an unprincipled patrician Italian beauty of the Middle +Ages than Bianca Capello. + +With such a basis of research it is easy to infer how authentic, as a +picture of life, would be the superstructure of romantic fiction by an +author adequately equipped. Accordingly, the Italian novels of Thomas +Adolphus Trollope are most accurate and detailed reflections of local +characteristics; they are full of special information; and, while they +enlighten the novice as to the domestic economy, habits, ways of thinking, +costume, and social traditions of the people, they revive, with singular +freshness, to the mind of one who has sojourned in Italy, every particular +of his experience,--not only the _corso_, the opera, and the carnival, but +the meals, the phraseology, the household arrangements,--all that is most +individual in a district, with all that is most general as nationally +representative. Indeed, not a fact or trait of modern Tuscan life seems to +have escaped the author's vigilant observation and patient record; the life +of the effete noble, the frugal citizen, the shrewd broker, the pampered, +ecclesiastic, the peasant, and the artist is revealed with the most precise +and graphic detail. We are taken to the promenade and the _caffe_, to the +_piazza_ and the church, to the farm-house and the _palazzo_; and there we +see and hear the actual everyday intercourse of the people. The Tuscan +character is drawn to the life, without exaggeration, and even in its more +evanescent, as well as normal traits; its urbanity, gossip, thrift, +geniality, self-indulgence, and latent courage are admirably delineated; +its superior refinement, sobriety, love of show, and class peculiarities +are truly given; the old feudal manners that linger in modern civilization +are accounted for and illustrated, especially in the relation of dependants +"occupying every shade of gradation between a common servant and a bosom +friend." The author's ecclesiastic portraits are as exact, according to our +observation, as his brother's. Each class of Italian priests is portrayed +with discrimination, and no writer has better exemplified the paralyzing +and perverting influence of Romanism upon the integrity of domestic life, +and the purity and power of political aspirations. The women, too, are +typical,--remarkably free from fanciful embellishment, eloquent of race, +instinct with nature. Their limited culture, social prejudices, artless +charms, frugal lives, naive or reticent characters, as modified by town and +country, patrician or popular influences, we recognize at once as +identical with what we have known in the households or social circles of +Florence. Mr. Trollope, in all this, is a Flemish artist, and, as much of +the interest of his pictures depends on their truthfulness, perhaps they +are really appreciated only by those who have enjoyed adequate +opportunities of becoming intimate with the original scenes, situations, +and personages depicted. In the fidelity of his art he abstains from all +attempts at brilliancy, and ignores the intense and highly dramatic, +finding enough of wholesome interest in the real life around him, and well +satisfied to reproduce it with candor and sympathy; now and then indulging +in a philosophical suggestion or a judicious comment, and thus gradually, +but securely, winning the grateful recognition of his reader. + +"La Beata" as completely takes those familiar with its scene into the life +and moral atmosphere of Florence, as does "The Vicar of Wakefield" into the +rural life of England before the days of railways and cheap journalism. The +streets, the dwellings, the people and incidents are so truly described, +the perspective is so correct, and the foreground so elaborate, that, with +the faithful local coloring and naive truth of the characters, we seem, as +we read, to be lost in a retrospective dream,--the more so as there is an +utter absence of the sensational and rhetorical in the style, which is that +of direct and unpretending narrative. The heroine is a saintly model, +though at the same time a thoroughly human girl,--such a one as the +artistic, superstitious, frugal, and simple experience of her class and of +the place could alone have fostered; the artist-hero is no less +characteristic,--a selfish, clever, amiable, ambitious, and superficial +Italian; while the old wax-candle manufacturer, with his domicile, +daughter, and church relations, is a genuine Florentine of his kind. The +life of the studio, then and there, is drawn from reality. The peculiar and +traditional customs, social experience, church ceremonials, popular fetes, +home and heart life, have a minute fidelity which renders the picture +vivid and winsome to one who well knows and wisely loves the Tuscan +capital. An English family delineated without the least exaggeration, and +with the striking contrasts such visitors always present to the native +scene and people of Italy, adds to and emphasizes the salient traits of the +story. Among the subjects described and illustrated with remarkable tact +and truth is that most interesting charitable fraternity, the +_Misericordia_, of which every stranger in Florence has caught impressive +glimpses, but of whose social influence and real significance few are +aware. Add to this the description of Camaldoli, with its famous pines, its +Dantesque associations, and its remorseful convent, and we have a scope and +detail in the scene and spirit of this little local romance which +concentrate the points of interest in Florentine life and bring into view +all that is most familiar and characteristic in the place and people. We +see the gay boats on St. John's eve from the bridges of the Arno, the +procession of the black Madonna, the interior of the studios, the +ceremonies, the saintly traffic and social subterfuge and naive +manners,--the tradesman, painter, devotee, priest,--pride, piety, and +passion,--whereof even the casual observation of a traveller's sojourn had +given us so curious or attractive an idea, that, thus expanded and defined, +they seem like a personal experience. There is singular pathos in the +character and career of La Beata, as there is in the expression of Santa +Filomena for which she was the recognized and inspired model. The integrity +of her sentiment is as Southern-European as is her lover's falsehood and +voluntary expiation. That absolute ignorance of the world and childlike +trust, which we rarely meet except in Shakespeare's women, is a moral fact +of which the stranger in Italy, who has grown intimate with families of the +middle class, is cognizant, and which he is apt to recall as one of those +elemental and primitive phases of human nature which justify the most pure +and plaintive creations of the poet. Herein the author has shown an +insight as honest and suggestive as his keen and patient observation and +candid record thereof. + +"Marietta" is the genuine embodiment of that local attachment and ancestral +pride so remarkable in the mediaeval Florentines, and still manifest in an +exceptional class of their descendants. The modern life of a decayed branch +of the Tuscan nobility in the nineteenth century, the process and method of +its decadence, the charm of "a local habitation and a name," once +identified with the vital power of the old republic, and the sad, +effeminate, yet not unromantic sentiment incident to its passing away, +through the prosperous encroachments of new men, with whom money is the +power once only attached to birth, are most aptly described. The thrifty +farmer of the Apennine, and his slow and handsome son, are capital types of +the frugal and shrewd _fattore_ and rustic proprietor of Tuscany; and his +more astute and polished brother is equally typical of the old money-lender +and goldsmith of the Ponte Vecchio. Simon Boccanera well represents the +tasteful artificer of Florence, and the Gobbo the feudal devotee, whose +political faith has been expanded by French ideas. In the _bon vivant_, the +amateur musician, the amiable and easy Canonico Lunardi, what a true +portrait of the priestly epicure, the self-indulgent but kindly churchman +of the most urbane of Italian communities, and in the Canon of San Lorenzo, +how faithful a picture of the elegant and unscrupulous aspirant and +intriguer! The two girls of the story are veritable specimens, in looks, +dress, talk, domestic aspect and aptitudes, not only of Italian maidenhood, +but of that of the state and city of their birth,--such maidens as are only +encountered on the banks of the Arno. This pleasant story takes us into one +of those massive old Florentine palaces, with its lofty _loggia_ +overlooking mountain, river, olive orchard and vineyard, dome and +tower,--its adjacent church with the family chapel and ancestral +effigies,--its several floors let out as lodgings,--its heavy portal, +stone staircase, faded frescos, barred windows, paved court-yard, +moss-grown statues, and damp green garden. We recognize the familiar +elements of the local life,--the frugal dinner, the wine flask, the +coal-brazier, the antique lamp, the violin, the snuff-box, the ample coarse +cloak, the frugality, _bonhommie_, shrewdness, proverbs, greetings, grace, +cheerfulness, chat, rural and city traits, prejudices, pride, and +pleasantness of Tuscan life and character. These all appear in suggestive +contrast, and with accurate detail, woven into a tale which breathes the +very atmosphere of the place. + +"Giulio Malatesta," on the other hand, opens with distinctive glimpses of +an old Italian university town; initiates us into the prolonged and patient +political conspiracies of Romagna and the ideal hopes of Gioberti's +disciples. Its hero is a student at Pisa, and one of the brave champions of +Italy who led the Tuscan volunteers to patriotic martyrdom, in 1848, at +Curtone. Nowhere have we read so graceful and graphic a picture of that +noble episode in the history of Tuscany, which redeemed her character and +proved the latent manliness of her children. There is a touching similarity +between the description of the march of the Corpo Universitario from Pisa +to the Mincio,--the fight at the mill, and the death of the generous and +lovely boy, Enrico Palmieri,--and recent scenes in our own civil war, +wherein appeared the same youthful enthusiasm and utter inexperience, the +same hardships and fortitude, valor and faith. In striking contrast with, +these scenes of battle and self-sacrifice, including the tragic incidents +attending the third anniversary of the Tuscan martyrs in the church of +Santa Croce at Florence, three years later, are the episodes of fashionable +and carnival life in that delightful capital. The Cascine and the Pergola +are reproduced with all their gay life and license; the Contessa Zenobia +and her _cavalier servente_, so comical, yet true, are but slight +exaggerations of what many of us have witnessed and wondered at. Provincial +and conventual life in Italy is photographed in this story; fresh forms and +phases of the ecclesiastical element are incarnated from careful +observation; and the political feeling, faith, and transitions of the +period are vividly illustrated. Carlo, the young noble, is a true portrait +of the kindly, genial, but shallow and pleasure-seeking Florentine youth of +the day, such as we have loitered with on the promenade and chatted beside +at the Caffe Doney,--without convictions, playful, always half in love, +with a little stock of philosophy and a lesser one of religion, yet alert +to do a kindness,--full of tact, charming in manner, tasteful and tolerant, +with no higher aim than being agreeable and ignoring care,--impatient of +duty, fond of pastime, utterly incapable of giving pain or attempting hard +work. His friend Giulio Malatesta, on the other hand, adequately +personifies the earnest, thoughtful, and patriotic Italian, to whom _Viva +l' Italia!_ means something,--who is ready to suffer for his country, and +who knows her poets by heart, believes in her unity, and has boundless +faith in her future. Francesca Varini is described with an exactitude which +defines her peculiar charms and traits to any reader who has fondly noted +the modifications of female beauty and character incident to race and +locality in Italy; and old Marta Varini is such a stoical, acute, and +persistent woman as signalized the days of the Carbonari; while Stella and +Madalina are local heroines with characteristic national traits. + +In "Beppo the Conscript" we are transported to "the narrow strip of +territory shut in between the Apennines and the Adriatic, to the south of +Bologna and the north of Ancona," where European civilization once centred, +Tasso sung and raved, and the Dukes of Urbino flourished. But not to revive +their past glories are we beguiled to the decayed old city of Fano, and the +umbrageous valleys that nestle amid the surrounding hills; it is the +normal, primitive, agricultural life and economy of the region, and the +late political and social condition of the inhabitants, which this story +illustrates. The means and methods of rural toil,--the "wine, corn, and +oil" of Scriptural and Virgilian times; the avarice, the pride, the love, +the industry, and the superstition of the _Contadini_ of the Romagna; a +household of prosperous rustics, their ways and traits; and the subtle and +prevailing agency of priest-craft in its secret opposition to the new and +liberal Italian government,--are all exhibited with a quiet zest and a +graphic fidelity which take us into the heart of the people, and the +arcana, as well as the spectacle, of daily life as there latent and +manifest. The domestic, peasant, and provincial scenes and characters are +drawn with fresh and natural colors and faithful outlines. + +The scene of the last-published domestic novel[16] of the series is laid at +Siena; and, although the story is based upon one of those impassioned +tragedies of love and jealousy which can only be found in the family +chronicles of Italy, the still-life, social phases, and local traits of the +romance are delineated with the same quiet simplicity and graphic truth +which constitute the authenticity of the author's previous delineations of +modern Italian life. The grave, conservative, and old-fashioned Tuscan city +reappears, with its mediaeval aspect and traditional customs. Convent +education, the homes of the patrician and the citizen, the little gig of +the _fattore_, with the small, wiry ponies of the region, the local +antiquarian and doctor, the letter-carrier, family servant, lady-superior, +pharmacist, the noble and plebeian, the costumes, phrases, and natural +language characteristic of that non-commercial and isolated Tuscan city +before the days of railroads and annexation, are drawn with emphasis and +significant detail. Shades and causes of character are finely +discriminated; the old mediaeval _festa_ peculiar to Siena, with all its +original features and social phenomena, is vividly enacted in the elaborate +description of the "Palio" on the 15th of August; while the insalubrious +and picturesque Maremma is portrayed, from the Etruscan crypts of the +ravines to the desolate streets of Savona, by an artistic and philosophic +hand. Incidentally the solidarity of families and the antagonism of +_contrade_, dating from the Middle Ages, are defined in explanation of +modern traits. We pace the bastions of the fortress built by Cosmo de' +Medici for "the subjection of his newly conquered subjects"; we haunt the +cabinet of a numismatic enthusiast, and the forlorn palace-chamber of a +baffled and beautiful scion of the old, fierce Orsini race; we overhear the +peasants talk, and watch the exquisite gradations of color at sunset on the +adjacent mountains, across the lonely plains, or gaze down upon St. +Catherine's house in the dyers' quarter, and muse in deserted church, urban +garden, and precipitous street, consciously alive the while to the aspect +and atmosphere, not only of the Siena we have visited or imagined, but of +mediaeval Tuscany, and its language and life of to-day, as they are +incidentally reflected in the experience of a few distinctly individualized +and harmoniously developed characters,--true to race, period, and locality, +and far more complete and authentic, as a record and revelation, than dry +annals on the one hand, or superficial travel-sketches on the other. + +The _justice_ which these writings display, in revealing the latent +goodness in things evil, the instinctive and spiritual graces as well as +the social perversions of the Italian character, is quite as refreshing as +the correct observation of external traits and the true record of +historical causes. A generous and intelligent sympathy imparts "a precious +seeing to the eye" of the agreeable story-teller, who has thus patiently +and fondly explored the past, delineated the present, and hailed the future +of Italy, in a spirit of liberal wisdom and true humanity. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[13] _A History of Florence_, in four volumes; _Paul the Pope and Paul the +Friar_; _Filippo Strozzi_; _The Girlhood of Catharine de' Medici_; _A +Decade of Italian Women_; _Tuscany in 1849_; _La Beata_; _Marietta_; +_Giulio Malatesta_; _Beppo the Conscript_. London: Chapman and Hall. +1856-1865. + +[14] _Lindisfarn Chase._ Harper and Brothers, 1863. _Life of Vittoria +Colonna._ Sheldon & Co., 1859. + +[15] _Filippo Strozzi_, Tragedia par G. B. Niccolini. _Luisa Strozzi_, +Romanzo par G. Rossini. + +[16] _Gemma._ A Novel in three volumes. London: Chapman and Hall. 1866. + + + + +A NATIVE OF BORNOO. + + +Nicholas Said, at the time of his enlistment in the army of the Union, +during the third year of the great Rebellion, was about twenty-eight years +of age, of medium height, somewhat slenderly built, with pleasing features, +not of the extreme negro type, complexion perfectly black, and quiet and +unassuming address. + +He became known to the writer while serving in one of our colored +regiments; and attention was first directed to his case by the tattooing on +his face, and by the entry in the company descriptive book, which gave +"Africa" as his birthplace. + +Inquiry showed that he was more or less acquainted with seven different +languages, in addition to his native tongue; that he had travelled +extensively in Africa and Europe, and that his life had been one of such +varied experience as to render it interesting both on that account and also +on account of the mystery which surrounds, notwithstanding recent +explorations, the country of his birth. + +At the request of those who had been from time to time entertained by the +recital of portions of his history, he was induced to put it in writing. +The narrative which follows is condensed from his manuscript, and his own +language has been retained as far as possible. + + * * * * * + +Reader, you must excuse me for the mistakes which this article will +contain, as you will bear in mind that this language in which I am now +trying to write is not my mother tongue; on the other hand, I never had a +teacher, nor ever was at school for the purpose of acquiring the English. +The only way I learned what little of the language I know was through +French books. + +I was born in the kingdom of Bornoo, in Soodan, in the problematic central +part of Africa, so imperfectly known to the civilized nations of Europe +and America. + +Soodan has several kingdoms, the country of the Fellatahs and Bornoo being +the most powerful,--the territorial extent of the latter being some 810,000 +square miles. + +These nations are strict Mohammedans, having been converted some two or +three centuries ago by the Bedouin Arabs and those from Morocco, who, +pushed by want of riches, came to Soodan to acquire them. Different +languages are found in each nation, some written and some not; but the +Arabic is very much in use among the higher class of people, as the Latin +is used by the Catholic priests. Especially the Koran is written in Arabic, +and in my country no one is allowed to handle the Sacred Book unless he can +read it and explain its contents. + +Bornoo, my native country, is the most civilized part of Soodan, on account +of the great commerce carried on between it and the Barbary States of +Fezzan, Tunis, and Tripoli. They export all kinds of European articles to +Central Africa, and take gold-dust, ivory, &c., in return. + +Bornoo has had a romantic history for the last one hundred years. The whole +of Soodan, more than two thousand miles in extent, was once under the Mais +of Bornoo; but by dissensions and civil wars nearly all the tributaries +north of Lake Tchad were lost. In 1809 a shepherd arose from the country of +the Fellatahs and assumed the title of Prophet. He said to the ignorant +portion of his countrymen, that Allah had given him orders to make war with +the whole of Soodan, and had promised him victory. They believed his story, +and the legitimate king was dethroned and the false prophet, Otman +Danfodio, was proclaimed Emperor of the Fellatahs. The impostor went at +once to work, and in less than two years conquered almost the whole of +Soodan, excepting Kanem, a tributary to my country. Bornoo, after a manly +effort, was compelled by force of arms to submit to the yoke of the +Fellatahs. + +In 1815 Bornoo arose from its humiliating position, to shake off the yoke +of Danfodio. Mohammed el Anim el Kanemy, the Washington of Bornoo, was the +man who undertook to liberate his country and restore her former prestige. +This immortal hero could collect from the villages of Bornoo but a few +hundreds of horsemen; but in Kanem he got eight hundred men, and accepted +an engagement with the enemy. He gained the first victory, and took such +good advantage of his success, that in the space of two months he won forty +battles, drove the enemy entirely out of Bornoo, and captured a great many +places belonging to the Fellatahs. + +At the close of the war, El Kanemy found himself at the head of +twenty-eight thousand horsemen, and the real ruler of Bornoo. Like all +great men, he refused the sceptre, and, going to the legitimate heir of the +throne, Mais Barnoma, told him he was at his disposal. Barnoma, +notwithstanding the noble actions of El Kanemy, was jealous of his fame, +and tried a plan to dispose of him, which he thought would be best, and of +which the public would not suspect him. Accordingly he wrote to the king of +Begharmi, promising to pay the expenses of his troops, and some extra +compensation beside, if he would make as though he were really at war with +Bornoo. He agreed to the proposal, and crossed with his army the great +river Shary, the natural frontier of the two kingdoms. El Kanemy was then +in the city of Kooka, which he had built for himself. He heard finally of +the war between Bornoo and Begharmi, and, hastily calling out his ancient +veterans, he reported to Engornoo, where the king resided. The combined +forces numbered some forty thousand men. El Kanemy knew nothing of the +infamous act of the king; but Allah, who protects the innocent and punishes +the guilty, was smiling over him. The armies pitched their camps opposite +to each other; and the king of Begharmi sent a messenger with a letter to +Mais Barnoma, informing him that the heaviest assault would be made upon +the left, and that, if he would give El Kanemy command there, the bravest +of the assailants would surround and kill him at once. This letter the +messenger carried to El Kanemy instead of the king, who, at once seeing the +plot, immediately answered the important document, signing the name of +Barnoma, and loading the messenger with presents of all descriptions for +his master. The next morning El Kanemy went to the king and told him that +the heaviest assault would be made on the right, and that he should not +expose his precious life there. As Barnoma got no letter from the king of +Begharmi, he thought El Kanemy was right, and acted accordingly. + +The battle finally began, and the Sycaries of Begharmi, attacking the left +where they thought El Kanemy was, surrounded Mais Barnoma and killed him, +supposing him El Kanemy. The battle, however, went on, and the king of +Begharmi found out before long that he had killed the wrong lion. His army, +in spite of their usual courage, were beaten, and obliged to recross the +river Shary, at that place more than two miles wide, with a loss of half +their number. The victorious army of El Kanemy also crossed the river, and, +pursuing the retreating forces, captured Mesna, the capital of Begharmi, +and drove the king into the country of Waday. + +El Kanemy now found himself the absolute ruler of Bornoo, nor had that +kingdom ever any greater ruler. Under his reign the nation prospered +finely. He encouraged commerce with Northern and Eastern Africa, and, +building a fleet of small vessels, sailed with a strong force against a +tribe who inhabited the main islands of Lake Tchad, and who used to commit +depredations upon the neighboring sections of Bornoo, and chastised them +severely. These islanders are the finest type of the African race, +possessing regular features, and large, expressive eyes, though they are +the darkest of all Africans. El Kanemy also subdued many of the surrounding +tribes and nations, until the population of Bornoo and its provinces +amounted to nearly fifteen millions. + +My father was the descendant of a very illustrious family. He was the first +man who had a commission under El Kanemy when he went to Kanem to recruit +his forces. He was made a Bagafuby, or captain of one hundred cavalry, and +was in every engagement which El Kanemy went through. The name by which my +father was known was Barca Gana.[17] My great-grandfather was from Molgoi. +He established himself in Bornoo many years ago, and was greatly favored by +the monarchs of that country. My mother was a Mandara woman, the daughter +of a chief. I was born in Kooka, a few years after the Waday war of 1831. +We were in all nineteen children, twelve boys and seven girls. I was the +ninth child of my mother. All my brothers were well educated in Arabic and +Turkish. Two of them, Mustapha and Abderahman, were very rich, having +acquired their wealth by trading in ivory and gold-dust. Both had been to +Mecca as pilgrims. My father himself was rich, but when he was killed, our +elder brother seized the greater part, and those who were not eighteen +years of age had to leave their share in their mother's hands. Five cleared +farms and a considerable amount of gold fell to my share. I do not know how +much the gold amounted to, but my mother used to tell me, that, when I got +to be twenty years of age, I would have as much as either of my elder +brothers. + +After my father's death I was given to a teacher to be instructed in my +native tongue, and also in Arabic. In the space of three years I could read +and write both languages. I was tried in my native tongue, and passed; but +I could not pass in Arabic, and my mother and uncle returned me to the +teacher for eighteen months. I stayed the required time, and then was tried +and passed. + +I was then old enough to be circumcised. Three hundred boys went through +the ceremony at once, and were then dressed in white clothes, and received +according to custom a great many presents. Fifteen days we ate the best +that Kooka had, the king himself giving us the best he had in his palace. +This generally happens only to the sons of those who have distinguished +themselves in the army, or, to explain myself better, to those of the +military aristocracy. At the end of this time all of us went home. For my +part, this was the first time I had slept in my father's house for four +years and seven months. I was very much welcomed by my mother, sisters, and +brothers, and was a pet for some time. + +After returning from school to my father's house, I judge about four or +five years afterwards, I was invited, in company with three of my brothers, +by the eldest son of the governor of the province of Yaoori and Laree, who +lived in the town of the latter name, to visit him. This part of the +province is very charming. The forests are full of delicious game, and the +lake of fish and beautiful aquatic birds; while in the dry seasons the +woods and uncultivated plains are worthy to be called the garden of Eden. +In my childhood I had quite a passion for hunting, one of my father's great +passions also. In spite of the efforts of my elder brothers to check me in +it, I would persuade the other boys to follow me into the thick woods, to +the danger of their lives and mine. My worthy mother declared several times +that I would be captured by the Kindils, a wandering tribe of the desert. +Her prophecy was fulfilled after all, unhappily for myself, and perhaps +more so for those I had persuaded with me. While on the visit just spoken +of, one day,--it was a Ramadan day, anniversary of the Prophet's day,--I +persuaded a great number of boys, and we went into the woods a great way +from any village. We came across nests of Guinea fowl, and gathered plenty +of eggs, and killed several of the fowl. We made fire by rubbing two pieces +of dry stick together, and broiled the chickens and eggs. Then we proceeded +farther, and came across a tree called Agoua, bearing a delicious kind of +fruit. We all went up the tree, eating fruit and making a great deal of +noise. We frolicked on that tree for many hours. Presently several of the +boys told me they heard the neighing of horses. We then all agreed not to +make so much noise, but we were just too late. In about a quarter of an +hour we were startled by the cry, "Kindil! Kindil!" The boys who were +nearest to the ground contrived to hide themselves in the thicket. It +happened that I was higher than any one, and while coming down with haste, +I missed my hold and fell, and lay senseless. When I opened my eyes, I +found myself on horseback behind a man, and tied to him with a rope. Out of +forty boys, eighteen of us were taken captive. I wished then that it was a +dream rather than a reality, and the warnings of my mother passed through +my mind. Tears began to flow down my cheeks; I not only lamented for +myself, but for those also whom I persuaded into those wild woods. +Meanwhile, our inhuman captors were laughing and talking merrily, but I +could not understand them. About six hours' ride, as I suppose, brought us +to their camp. The tents were then immediately taken down, the camels +loaded, and we started again, travelling night, and day for three long +days, until we came to a temporary village where their chief was. After we +got there we were all chained together, except four, who were taken pity +upon, on account of their age and birth. It was then night, and nearly all +the camp was under the influence of hashish, an intoxicating mixture made +of hemp-seed and other ingredients, which when too much is eaten will +intoxicate worse than whiskey, or even spirits of wine. While the robbers +were drunk, we boys were consulting and plotting to run away. We succeeded +in breaking the chains, and four of the oldest boys took their captors' +arms, cut their throats, jumped on their horses, and succeeded in making +their escape. When it was found out, they gave each of us fifteen strokes +in the hollows of our feet, because we did not inform them. + +A little while after our comrades' escape we started on again. This time we +had to go on foot for five days, until we reached a town called Kashna, +belonging to the Emperor of the Fellatahs, but situated in the country of +Houssa, where we were all dispersed to see each other no more. Fortunately, +none of my brothers were with me in the woods. + +My lot was that of an Arab slave, for I was bought by a man named +Abd-el-Kader, a merchant of Tripoli and Fezzan. He was not an Arabian, +however, but a brown-skinned man, and undoubtedly had African blood in his +veins. He had at this time a large load of ivory and other goods waiting +for the caravan from Kano and Sacca-too. This caravan soon came, and with +it we started for Moorzook, capital of the pachalic of Fezzan. Although we +numbered about five hundred, all armed except slaves who could not be +trusted, a lion whom we met after starting, lying in our path, would not +derange himself on our account, and we had to attack him. Twelve men fired +into him. Four men he killed, and wounded five or six, and then escaped. He +was hit somewhere, as they found blood where he lay, but it was not known +where. When he roared, he scared all the horses and camels composing the +caravan. Abd-el-Kader was one of those who attacked the lion, but he was +not hurt. + +Five days after we left Kashna, we came to the first oasis. Here the plains +were all barren and sandy, but full of gazelles, antelopes, and ostriches. +The principal tree growing here was the date-palm, and the water was very +bad, tasting salty. + +As the caravan travelled toward the east, the ground rose by degrees. If I +am not mistaken, we passed five oases before we came into the country of +Tibboo, a mountainous region between Bornoo and Fezzan, the inhabitants of +which suffer considerably from the Kindils, though they are also robbers +themselves. The capital of Tibboo is Boolma, built on a high mountain. I +was disappointed when I saw the city, for I had heard that it was quite a +large place. Laree, the smallest town in Bornoo, is a place of more +importance. The people of Tibboo are of dark-brown complexion, and are +noted in Soodan for their shrewdness. The day that the caravan happened to +be at Boolma, two parties were in a warlike attitude about a fair maid whom +each wished their chief to have for a wife. We did not stay long enough to +see the issue of the fight, and two days' journey took us out of the +kingdom of Tibboo. + +As soon as the oasis of Tibboo was left, the country became very +rocky,--the rock being a kind of black granite; and the Arabs had to make +shoes for both their camels and slaves, for the rocks were very sharp, and +if this precaution had not been taken, in a few hours their feet would have +been so cut that they could not have proceeded farther. Some Arabs would +rather lose four or five slaves than a single camel. They rode very seldom. +In a journey of ten or twelve weeks I saw Abd-el-Kader ride but once, and +the majority never rode at all. + +In these rocky regions of the desert a great amount of salt is found +also,--what is called in our language Kalboo, and I believe, in English, +carbonate of soda. Soodan is supplied by the Moors and Kindils with salt +from the desert. Sea-shells are also occasionally found in this region. +After we left Tibboo fire was never allowed, even in the oases, but I do +not know for what reason. + +The mountainous regions of the desert passed, we came to a more level +country, but it was not long before we saw other mountains ahead. As we +passed over the last of them, we found them very dangerous from their +steepness, and a few camels were lost by falling into the ravines. After +passing this dangerous place, a sign of vegetation was seen, oases were +more frequent, and at last forests of date-palm, the fruit of which forms +the principal food of both the inhabitants of Fezzan and their camels, +became abundant. + +El Kaheni is the first town or human habitation seen after leaving Tibboo. +It is a small walled town, like all other places in Fezzan. Here I first +saw the curious way in which the Fezzaneers cultivate their land by +irrigation. Each farm has a large well, wide at the top and sloping toward +the bottom, out of which water is drawn by donkeys, and poured into a +trough, from which it runs into small ditches. This process is renewed +every few days until the crop no longer needs watering. + +The people of El Kaheni were very courteous. I had a long talk with a young +man, who gave me a description of the capital, Moorzook, but his story did +not agree with that which Abd-el-Kader told me. I afterwards found that the +young man's story was correct. We left El Kaheni the next day, taking a +large load of dates, superior to those of Soodan in size and sweetness. +After three days' journey we could see in the distance a large flag on a +long pole, on the top of the English Consulate, the largest house in the +metropolis of Fezzan. We passed several villages of trifling importance, +and at about noon arrived within the walls of Moorzook. There the caravan +dissolved, and each man went to his own house. + +I found Moorzook to be not larger than a quarter of my native town of +Kooka; but the buildings were in general better, every house being of +stone, though of course very poorly built in comparison with European +dwellings. The city has four gates, one toward each cardinal point of the +compass. The northern is the one by which the caravan entered; the eastern +is a ruin; the southern, which is behind the Pacha's palace, has mounted +by it two guns of large calibre; while the western, and the best of all, is +situated near the barracks, which are fine buildings, larger even than the +Pacha's palace. The pachalic of Fezzan is a tributary of the Ottoman Porte, +and the Pacha, a Turk, is very much hated by the Bedouins. + +After reaching Abd-el-Kader's house, I found that he was a poor man. The +reader can form some idea from his living in the capital, and having but +one wife, all his property consisting of a piece of land about two and a +half miles from the city, a few donkeys, ten camels, old and young, an Arab +slave, and myself. While I was yet with him he bought also a young Fellatah +girl. As soon as we arrived, he sent me with Hassan, his slave, to the +farm, where I worked some fifteen days. I told him then that I was not used +to such work, and prayed him to sell me to some Turk or Egyptian. He asked +me what my father used to do, and I told him that he was a warrior and also +traded in gold-dust and ivory. On hearing my father's name he opened his +eyes wide, and asked me why I did not tell him that in Soodan. He had known +my father well, but had not seen him for fifteen rainy seasons. From that +day Abd-el-Kader was very kind to me, and said he had a great notion to +take me back. He, however, sold me after all to a young Turkish officer +named Abdy Agra, an excellent young man, full of life and fun. This officer +was always with the Pacha, and I believe was one of his aides. His wife was +a Kanowry woman. He used to bring home money every night and often gave me +some. After he had dressed me up, I accompanied him to the Pacha's every +day. He spoke my language very correctly, only with an accent, like all +strangers trying to speak Kanowry, and he began to teach me Turkish. +Strange to say, in Fezzan the Bornoo tongue is in great vogue, rich and +poor speaking Kanowry. I stayed with Abdy Agra more than three months; but +one day he told me that he had to send me to his father in Tripoli. So +long as I had to be a slave, I hated to leave so excellent a man, but I had +to go. Accordingly, when the caravan was to start, he sent me in charge of +Abd-el-Kader, the man from whom he had bought me. Before leaving the city +we went to a house that I had never seen before, and had our names +registered in a book by a very benevolent-looking man, who wore spectacles +on his eyes, something I had never seen before, and which made me afraid of +him. As we passed out of the city gate we were counted one by one by an +officer. + +On our arrival at Tripoli, Abd-el-Kader took me to an old house in a street +narrow and dirty beyond description, where we passed the night. The next +morning he went with me to my new master, Hadji Daoud, the father of Abdy +Agra. When we found him he was sitting on a divan of velvet, smoking his +narghile. He looked at that time to be about forty-five years old, and was +of very fine appearance, having a long beard, white as snow. Abd-el-Kader +seemed well acquainted with him, for they shook hands and drank coffee +together. After this we proceeded to the Turkish Bazaar, where I found that +he was a merchant of tobacco, and had an extensive shop, his own property. +Hadji Daoud had three wives; the principal one was an Arabian, one was a +native of my country, and one, and, to do her justice, the best looking of +them all, was a Houssa girl. He believed in keeping a comfortable table, +and we had mutton almost daily, and sometimes fowls. He had but one son, +and he was far away. He told me that he intended to treat me as a son, and +every day I went to the shop with him. He treated me always kindly, but +madam was a cross and overbearing woman. + +About this time my master started on his third pilgrimage to Mecca, leaving +a friend in charge of his store, and taking me with him. We went by sail +from Tripoli to Alexandria, touching at Bengazi. From Alexandria we went by +cars to Ben Hadad, thence to Saida and Cairo, the capital of Egypt. From +Cairo we travelled to Kartoom, at the forks of the Nile, and thence to +Gondar, the capital of Abyssinia, where we stayed only twenty-four hours, +my master being in continual fear of his life from the natives, who +differed from him in belief, and then started for Zela, a port on the Red +Sea. From Zela we sailed to Muscat, and thence proceeded to Mecca. I had +not come of my own free will and for the express purpose of a pilgrimage, +and therefore I was not permitted to go with Daoud to the grave of the +Prophet, and was obliged to content myself without the title of Hadji, +which is one much respected among the Mohammedans. We had returned as far +as Alexandria on our way home, when my master was informed that his store +and a great deal of property, in fact, all his goods and money, had been +destroyed by fire. This made the good man almost crazy. He did not hesitate +to tell me that he should have to sell me; but said that he would take care +that I should have a rich and good master, a promise which he kept. The +next day, with the present of a good suit of clothes, I was put on board a +vessel bound for Smyrna and Constantinople. I was to be landed at the +former city. On this vessel was a young man of eighteen, one of the crew, +who spoke my own language. I have heard it only twice, I think, since that +time. + +At Smyrna I was sold to a Turkish officer, Yousouf Effendi, a very wealthy +man, and brother-in-law to the celebrated Reschid Pacha, the Minister of +Foreign Affairs. He had a great many houses in Smyrna, as well as +Constantinople. We sailed the next day for the latter city in a man-of-war +steamer, the Abdul Medjid. My duty was that of a Tchidboudji, which +consists in filling and cleaning the pipes and narghiles. This was all that +I had to do, while I was well dressed in cloths and silks, and had plenty +of leisure time. After a service of eighteen months with Yousouf Effendi, +he gave me to his younger brother, Yousouf Kavass, less wealthy than +himself. This brother was, however, a very kind-hearted man, and treated +his slaves, a Nubian, a native of Sennar, and myself, very kindly. While in +this service I became known to Prince Mentchikoff, the Envoy Extraordinary +of Russia at Constantinople, and was finally sold to him by my master. At +the declaration of the Crimean war, after sending his things on board the +Russian steamer Vladimir, the Prince started with despatches for his august +master, via Corfu, Athens, Zara, Trieste, Vienna, Cracow, and Warsaw, to +St. Petersburg. I accompanied him on the journey, and, as the despatches +were of the utmost importance, we travelled with the greatest speed. + +The house of my master, to which we went, in St. Petersburg, was situated +on the Nevskoi Prospekt, the Broadway of the city, and was built of +granite, in the Doric style, and very spacious. His family consisted of his +wife, one son, and three daughters, while his servants numbered about +thirty. The Prince, however, was not so immensely rich as some Russian +aristocrats of his standing. Shortly after his arrival at St. Petersburg, +Prince Mentchikoff was assigned to command in the army of the Crimea, and +he hastened there, leaving me in St. Petersburg. After his departure, not +being satisfied with the way in which the head servant treated me, I +engaged service with Prince Nicholas Troubetzkoy. + +This family, better known as Le Grand Troubetzkoy, are descendants of the +Grand Duke of Lithuania. The Prince's father was noted for skill and +bravery in the war of 1828. The Troubetzkoys claim relationship with the +Emperor of France, the Duc de Morny, the half-brother of the Emperor, +having married the daughter of Prince Serges Troubetzkoy. + +Prince Nicholas was the youngest of five sons, and lived with his brother +Andre, not far from the Italian theatre, both of them being single. + +While in this service, I was baptized in St. Petersburg, November 12, +1855, into the Greek Church, my name being changed from +Mohammed-Ali-Ben-Said to Nicholas Said. Prince Nicholas was my godfather. I +shall always feel grateful, so long as I live, for Prince Nicholas's +kindness to me; but I cannot help thinking that the way I was baptized was +not right, for I think that I ought to have known perfectly well the nature +of the thing beforehand. Still, it was a good intention the Prince had +toward my moral welfare. After I was baptized he was very kind to me, and +he bought me a solid gold cross to wear on my breast, after the Russian +fashion. I was the Prince's personal servant, going always in the carriage +with him. + +As the Czar Nicholas was godfather to the Prince, he had free access to the +palace. Though he had several chances to become minister at some European +court, he always refused, preferring to live a life of inaction. His +health, however, was not very good, and he was very nervous. I have seen +him faint scores of time in Russia; but when he left Russia, his health +began to improve very much. + +Everybody acquainted with Russia knows that Czar Nicholas used to make all +the aristocracy tremble at his feet. No nobleman, to whatever rank he might +belong, could leave the country without his consent, and paying a certain +sum of money for the privilege. This measure of the Czar was not very well +liked by the nobility, but his will was law, and had to be executed without +grumbling. + +Prince Troubetzkoy had several times made application for permission to +travel, but without success, so long as Czar Nicholas lived; for he hated +liberal ideas, and feared some of his subjects might, in the course of +time, introduce those ideas from foreign countries into Russia. + +The Prince passed the summer season outside of the city, a distance of +about twenty-five versts, at a splendid residence of his own, a marble +house about the size of the Fifth Avenue Hotel of New York City. Adjoining +it was a small theatre, or glass house, containing tropical fruits, and a +menagerie, where I first saw a llama, and the interior of the palace was +lined with pictures and statues. It was a magnificent building, but was +getting to be quite old, and the Prince used to talk of repairing it, +though he remarked it would cost many thousand roubles. This estate +contained many thousand acres, and four good-sized villages, and was about +eight miles square. I had here some of the happiest days of my life. + +About this time I went with the Prince to Georgia,--his brother-in-law, a +general in that department, having been wounded by the Circassians under +Schamyl. We reached Tiflis, the capital of Georgia, in January, and +remained there until after the capture of Kars by the English and Turks. +While in the Caucasus, the Prince visited some of the neighboring parts of +Persia, including Teheran and some smaller towns, and he returned to Russia +by way of Novgorod. + +After the death of Czar Nicholas, Alexander, his successor, gave the Prince +permission to travel where he chose, without limit of time, and on the 24th +of February he started, going first to Warsaw, and thence, via Cracow, to +Vienna. Here I remained for two months, in charge of his effects, while he +visited a sister in Pesth, in Hungary. On his return we went to Prague, and +thence to Dresden. At this place, I was greatly bothered by the children. +They said that they had never seen a black man before. But the thing which +most attracted them was my Turkish dress, which I wore all the time in +Europe. Every day, for the three weeks we remained in Dresden, whenever I +went to take my walk I was surrounded by them to the number of several +hundred. To keep myself from them, I used to ride in a carriage or on +horseback, but this was too expensive. I thought the way I could do best +was to be friendly with them. So I used to sit in the garden and speak +with them,--that is, those who could understand French. They took a great +liking to me, for I used sometimes to buy them fruits, candies, and other +things, spending in this way a large amount. Prince Troubetzkoy had a +brother, Prince Vladimir, living in Dresden, a very handsome and a very +excellent man, but suffering from consumption. He treated me very kindly, +and when we left gave me several very interesting books, both religious and +secular. + +From Dresden we went to Munich, thence to Baden-Baden, Wiesbaden, Coblenz, +Cologne, Aix-la-Chapelle, Brussels, and Ostende; then, returning to +Brussels, visited the field of Waterloo, and proceeded to Switzerland, +passing through Berne, Interlachen, over the Jura and St. Gothard's, to +Zurich. From Zurich we went to Como in Lombardy, where the Prince's eldest +brother, Alexander, had a villa on the borders of the lake. After a short +stay here, we went on to Verona, and then to Milan, where I was left while +the Prince made a short visit to Venice. Here, while left alone, I did not +behave as well as I might have done, sometimes drinking too much, and +spending my money foolishly. Here also I saw, for the first time since +leaving Africa, a countryman. He was named Mirza, and was born about +thirty-five miles from Kooka, my native place. He was considerably older +than I, and had been away from Africa some fifteen years. He was waiting on +a Venetian Marquis whose name I have forgotten. + +After a stay of four weeks in Milan, we started, via Genoa, Leghorn, and +Pisa, for Florence. Here I attended my master at two levees,--one at the +palace of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, where I believe I had a better time +than the Prince, and the other at Prince Demidoff's. This latter gentleman +is a very wealthy Russian, and is very widely known. He is not a nobleman +in Russia, however, but has his title from the Grand Duke. He is well known +for the disagreeable propensity he has for beating his servants. While he +was in Vienna he was worsted in an attempt to chastise a Hungarian footman, +but he would not quit the practice, and has paid several fines imposed by +law in consequence. + +Our next stopping-place was Rome, where the Prince remained for the winter, +making meanwhile a short visit to Naples, and leaving in the spring for +Paris. We were in Paris when the Prince Imperial was born, and stayed until +his christening, which was a very important day there. I remember well the +wonder of a young Russian servant-girl, that France should have still so +many soldiers as appeared in the procession,--a fraction only, of course, +of her army,--after losing so many in the Crimea. The Prince always took a +great pride in dress, both for himself and his servants, and particularly +here. I was always dressed in Turkish costume, embroidered with gold, and +never costing less than two or three hundred dollars. + +After a three months' stay in Paris we went to London, where the Prince +took rooms at a first-class boarding-house; but he was invited almost all +the time to different country seats, where I had very gay times, for the +English servants live better than any in Europe. + +At the conclusion of his English visit, the Prince returned to Baden-Baden, +this time renting a house. While there Napoleon III. passed through the +place on his way to meet the Czar Alexander; and Prince Troubetzkoy was +summoned to Frankfort-on-the-Main to attend on the latter. Here I was one +day told by the Prince to dress myself in my best, and go to the Russian +Ambassador's to wait on the Emperor at dinner. There were present beside +the two Emperors, the King of Wurtemberg, the Grand Dukes of Baden, Hesse +Darmstadt, and Nassau, the Ministers of France and Belgium, the Burgomaster +of Frankfort, Messrs. Rothschild, and many others. A splendid dinner was +served at six o'clock, the usual Russian dinner-hour, and was followed by +a ball, which continued until two in the morning. A day previous to the +monarch's departure Prince Gortchakoff handed my master thirty thalers as a +present for me. + +About this time I began to think of the condition of Africa, my native +country, how European encroachments might be stopped, and her nationalities +united. I thought how powerful the United States had become since 1776, and +I wondered if I were capable of persuading the kings of Soodan to send +several hundred boys to learn the arts and sciences existing in civilized +countries. I thought that I would willingly sacrifice my life, if need be, +in realizing my dreams. I cried many times at the ignorance of my people, +exposed to foreign ambition, who, however good warriors they might be, +could not contend against superior weapons and tactics in the field. I +prayed earnestly to be enabled to do some good to my race. The Prince could +not but see that I was very sober, but I never told him my thoughts. + +We stayed at Baden-Baden all summer and part of the fall, and then left for +Paris. The Prince made this journey to visit his niece, who had just been +married to the Duc de Morny, formerly the French Ambassador to Russia. She +was a most beautiful person, only seventeen years of age. I was taken to +see her, and kiss her hand, according to custom. She at first hesitated to +give me her hand, undoubtedly being afraid. I had never seen her in Russia, +as she was at the Imperial University, studying. After two weeks we again +left Paris for Rome, via Switzerland, again passed the summer at +Baden-Baden, again visited Paris, and various other points, until the year +1859 found the Prince again in London. + +My desire to return to my native country had now become so strong, that I +here told the Prince I must go home to my people. He tried to persuade me +to the contrary, but I was inflexible in my determination. After he found +that I was not to be persuaded, he got up with tears in his eyes, and +said: "Said, I wish you good luck; you have served me honestly and +faithfully, and if ever misfortune happens to you, remember I shall always +be, as I always have been, interested in you." I, with many tears, replied +that I was exceedingly thankful for all he had bestowed on me and done in +my behalf, and that I should pray for him while I lived. I felt truly sorry +to leave this most excellent Prince. As I was leaving, he gave me as a +present two fifty-pound bills. It was many days before I overcame my +regret. Often I could hardly eat for grief. + +I now went to board at the Strangers' Home, at the West India Dock, five +miles from where the Prince stopped. Here I waited for a steamer for +Africa. Hardly had I been there two weeks, when a gentleman from Holland +proposed to me a situation to travel with him in the United States and West +India Islands. I had read much about these countries, and my desire to see +them caused me to consent, and we left Liverpool soon after New Year's, +1860. + +With this gentleman I went via Boston and New York to New Providence, Long +Keys, Inagua, Kingston, Les Gonaives, St. Marc, Demerara, Martinique, +Guadeloupe, and then back to New Providence, and from there by steamer to +New York. We remained in New York two months, and then visited Niagara, +Hamilton, Toronto, Kingston, Montreal, Quebec, and Ottawa, until, finally, +at a small village called Elmer, my employer's funds gave out, and I lent +him five hundred dollars of my own money. Of this five hundred I received +back only three hundred and eighty, and this failure compelled me to remain +in this country and earn my living by work to which I was unaccustomed. + + * * * * * + +At this point the written narrative of Nicholas ends, at some date during +the year 1861. He afterward went to Detroit, and taught a school for those +of his own color, meeting there, I believe, a clergyman whom he had seen +years before in Constantinople, while a servant to Prince Mentchikoff. At +Detroit he enlisted in a colored regiment in the summer of 1863. He served +faithfully and bravely with his regiment as corporal and sergeant in the +Department of the South, and near the close of the war was attached, at his +own request, to the hospital department, to acquire some knowledge of +medicine. He was mustered out with the company in which he served, in the +fall of 1865. But, alas for his plans of service to his countrymen in his +native land! like many a warrior before him, he fell captive to woman, +married at the South, and for some time past the writer, amidst the changes +of business, has entirely lost sight of him. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[17] Barca Gana is alluded to in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (Vol. V. p. +54) as the general of the Scheik of Bornoo.--EDS. + + + + +BY-WAYS OF EUROPE. + +FROM PERPIGNAN TO MONTSERRAT. + + +"Out of France and into Spain," says the old nursery rhyme; but at the +eastern base of the Pyrenees one seems to have entered Spain before leaving +France. The rich vine-plains of Roussillon once belonged to the former +country; they retain quite as distinct traces of the earlier Moorish +occupancy, and their people speak a dialect almost identical with that of +Catalonia. I do not remember the old boundaries of the province, but I +noticed the change immediately after leaving Narbonne. Vine-green, with the +grays of olive and rock, were the only colors of the landscape. The tower, +massive and perched upon elevations, spoke of assault and defence; the +laborers in the fields were brown, dark-haired, and grave, and the +semi-African silence of Spain seemed already to brood over the land. + +I entered Perpignan under a heavy Moorish gateway, and made my way to a +hostel through narrow, tortuous streets, between houses with projecting +balconies, and windows few and small, as in the Orient. The hostel, though +ambitiously calling itself an hotel, was filled with that Mediterranean +atmosphere and odor which you breathe everywhere in Italy and the +Levant,--a single characteristic flavor, in which, nevertheless, you fancy +you detect the exhalations of garlic, oranges, horses, cheese, and oil. A +mild whiff of it stimulates the imagination, and is no detriment to +physical comfort. When, at breakfast, red mullet came upon the table, and +oranges fresh from the tree, I straightway took off my Northern nature as a +garment, folded it and packed it neatly away in my knapsack, and took out, +in its stead, the light beribboned and bespangled Southern nature, which I +had not worn for some eight or nine years. It was like a dressing-gown +after a dress-coat, and I went about with a delightfully free play of the +mental and moral joints. + +There were four hours before the departure of the diligence for Spain, and +I presume I might have seen various historical or architectural sights of +Perpignan; but I was really too comfortable for anything else than a lazy +meandering about the city, feeding my eyes on quaint houses, groups of +people full of noise and gesture, the scarlet blossoms of the pomegranate, +and the glitter of citron-leaves in the gardens. A one-legged fellow, seven +feet high, who called himself a _commissionnaire_, insisted on accompanying +me, and I finally accepted him, for two reasons;--first, he knew nothing +whatever about the city; and secondly, tourists are so rare that he must +have been very poor. His wooden leg, moreover, easily kept pace with my +loitering steps, and though, as a matter of conscience, he sometimes +volunteered a little information, he took my silence meekly and without +offence. In this wise, I gained some pleasant pictures of the place; and +the pictures which come with least effort are those which remain freshest +in memory. + +There was one point, however, where my limping giant made a stand, and set +his will against expostulation or entreaty. I _must_ see the avenue of +sycamores, he said; there was plenty of time; France, the world, had no +such avenue; it was near at hand; every stranger went to see it and was +amazed;--and therewith he set off, without waiting for my answer. I +followed, for I saw that otherwise he would not have considered his fee +earned. The avenue of sycamores was indeed all that he had promised. I had +seen larger trees in Syria and Negropont, but here was a triple avenue, +nearly half a mile in length, so trained and sculptured that they rivalled +the regularity of masonry. Each trunk, at the height of ten or twelve feet, +divided into two arms, which then leaned outwards at the same angle, and +mingled their smaller boughs, fifty feet overhead. The aisles between them +thus took the form of very slender pyramids, truncated near the top. If the +elm gives the Gothic, this was assuredly the Cyclopean arch. In the +beginning, the effect must have been artificially produced, but the trees +were now so old, and had so accustomed themselves to the forms imposed, +that no impression of force or restraint remained. Through the roof of this +superb green minster not a beam of sunshine found its way. On the hard +gravel floor groups of peasants, soldiers, nurses, and children strolled up +and down, all with the careless and leisurely air of a region where time +has no particular value. + +We passed a dark-haired and rather handsome gentleman and lady. "They are +opera-singers, Italians," said my companion, "and they are going with you +in the diligence." I looked at my watch and found that the hour of +departure had nearly arrived, and I should have barely time to procure a +little Spanish money. When I reached the office, the gentleman and lady +were already installed in the two corners of the _coupe_. My place, +apparently, was between them. The agent was politely handing me up the +steps, when the gentleman began to remonstrate; but in France the +regulations are rigid, and he presently saw that the intrusion could not be +prevented. With a sigh and a groan he gave up his comfortable corner to me, +and took the middle seat, for which I was booked! "Will you have your +place?" whispered the agent. I shook my head. "You get the best seat, don't +you see?" he resumed, "because--" But the rest of the sentence was a wink +and a laugh. I am sure there is the least possible of the Don Juan in my +appearance; yet this agent never lost an opportunity to wink at me whenever +he came near the diligence, and I fancied I heard him humming to himself, +as we drove away,-- + + "Ma--nella Spagna--mille e tre!" + +I endeavored to be reasonably courteous, without familiarity, towards the +opera-singers, but the effect of the malicious winks and smiles made the +lady appear to me timid and oppressed, and the gentleman an unexploded mine +of jealousy. My remarks were civilly if briefly answered, and then they +turned towards each other and began conversing in a language which was not +Italian, although melodious, nor French, although nasal. I pricked up my +ears and listened more sharply than good manners allowed,--but only until I +had recognized the Portuguese tongue. Whomsoever I may meet, in wandering +over the world, it rarely happens that I cannot discover some common or +"mutual" friend, and in this instance I determined to try the experiment. +After preliminaries, which gently led the conversation to Portugal, I +asked:-- + +"Do you happen to know Count M----?" + +"Only by name." + +"Or Senhor O----, a young man and an astronomer?" + +"Very well!" was the reply. "He is one of the most distinguished young men +of science in Portugal." + +The ice was thereupon broken, and the gentleman became communicative and +agreeable. I saw, very soon, that the pair were no more opera-singers than +they were Italians; that the lady was not timid, nor her husband jealous; +but he had simply preferred, as any respectable husband would, to give up +his comfortable seat rather than have a stranger thrust between himself and +his wife. + +Once out of Perpignan, the Pyrenees lay clear before us. Over bare red +hills, near at hand, rose a gray mountain rampart, neither lofty nor +formidable; but westward, between the valleys of the Tech and the Tet, +towered the solitary pyramid of the Canigou, streaked with snow-filled +ravines. The landscapes would have appeared bleak and melancholy, but for +the riotous growth of vines which cover the plain and climb the hillsides +wherever there is room for a terrace of earth. These vines produce the +dark, rich wine of Roussillon, the best vintage of Southern France. Hedges +of aloes, clumps of Southern cypress, poplars by the dry beds of winter +streams, with brown tints in the houses and red in the soil, increased the +resemblance to Spain. Rough fellows, in rusty velvet, who now and then dug +their dangling heels into the sides of the mules or asses they rode, were +enough like _arrieros_ or _contrabandistas_ to be the real article. Our +stout and friendly coachman, even, was hailed by the name of Moreno, and +spoke French with a foreign accent. + +At the post-station of Le Boulou, we left the plain of Roussillon behind +us. At this end of the Pyrenean chain there are no such trumpet-names as +Roncesvalles, Fontarabia, and the Bidassoa. Hannibal, Caesar, Charlemagne, +and the Saracens have marched through these defiles, and left no grand +historic footprint, but they will always keep the interest which belongs to +those natural barriers and division walls whereby races and histories were +once separated. It was enough for me that here were the Pyrenees, and I +looked forward, perhaps, with a keener curiosity, to the character and +forms of their scenery, than to the sentiment which any historic +association could produce. A broad and perfect highway led us through +shallow valleys, whose rocky sides were hung with rows of olive-trees, into +wilder and more abrupt dells, where vegetation engaged in a struggle with +stone, and without man's help would have been driven from the field. Over +us the mountains lifted themselves in bold bastions and parapets, +disforested now, if those gray upper plateaus ever bore forests, and of a +uniform slaty-gray in tone, except where reddish patches of oxidation +showed like the rust of age. + +But, like "all waste and solitary places," the scenery had its own peculiar +charm. Poussin and Salvator Rosa would have seated themselves afresh at +every twist of the glen, and sketched the new picture which it unfolded. +The huge rocks, fallen from above, or shattered in the original upheaval of +the chain, presented a thousand sharp, forcible outlines and ragged facets +of shadow, and the two native growths of the Pyrenees--box and +cork-oak--fringed them as thickets or overhung them as trees, in the +wildest and most picturesque combinations. Indeed, during this portion of +the journey, I saw scores of sketches waiting for the selected artist who +has not yet come for them,--sketches full of strength and beauty, and with +a harmony of color as simple as the chord of triple tones in music. When to +their dark grays and greens came the scarlet Phrygian cap of the +Catalonian, it was brighter than sunshine. + +The French fortress of Bellegarde, crowning a drum-shaped mass of rock, +which blocked up the narrow valley in front, announced our approach to the +Spanish frontier. The road wound back and forth as it climbed through a +stony wilderness to the mouth of a gorge under the fortress, and I saw, +before we entered this last gateway into Spain, the peak of the Canigou +touched with sunset, and the sweep of plain beyond it black under the +shadow of storm-clouds. On either side were some heaps of stone, left from +forts and chapels of the Middle Ages, indicating that we had already +reached the summit of the pass, which is less than a thousand feet above +the sea-level. In ten minutes the gorge opened, and we found ourselves +suddenly rattling along the one street of the gay French village of +Perthus. Officers from Bellegarde sat at the table in front of the smart +_cafe_, and drank absinthe; soldiers in red trousers chatted with the +lively women who sold tobacco and groceries; there were trees, little +gardens, arbors of vine, and the valley opened southwards, descending and +broadening towards a cloudless evening sky. + +At the end of the village I saw a granite pyramid, with the single word +"Gallia" engraved upon it; a few paces farther two marble posts bore the +half-obliterated arms of Spain. Here the diligence paused a moment, and an +officer of customs took his seat beside the coachman. The telegraph-pole +behind us was of barked pine, the next one in front was painted gray; the +_vente de tabac_ became _estanco nacional_, and the only overlapping of the +two nationalities which I observed--all things else being suddenly and +sharply divided--was that some awkward and dusty Spanish soldiers were +walking up the street of Perthus, and some trim, jaunty French soldiers +were walking down the road, towards the first Spanish wine-shop. We also +went down, and swiftly, in the falling twilight, through which, erelong, +gardens and fields began to glimmer, and in half an hour drew up in the +little Spanish town of La Junquera, the ancient "place of rushes." Here +there was a rapid and courteous examination of baggage, a call for +passports, which were opened and then handed back to us without _vise_ or +fee being demanded, and we were declared free to journey in Spain. Verily, +the world is becoming civilized, when Spain, the moral satrapy of Rome, +begins to pull down her barriers and let the stranger in! + +I inspected our "insides," as they issued forth, and found, in addition to +a priest and three or four commercial individuals with a contraband air, a +young French naval officer, and an old German who was too practical for a +professor and too stubborn in his views to be anything else. He had made +fifteen journeys to Switzerland, he informed me, knew Scotland from the +Cheviots to John o' Groat's, and now proposed the conquest of Spain. Here +Moreno summoned us to our places, and the diligence rolled onward. Past +groups of Catalans, in sandals and scarlet bonnets, returning from the +harvest fields; past stacks of dusky grain and shadowy olive-orchards; past +open houses, where a single lamp sometimes flashed upon a woman's head; +past a bonfire, turning the cork-trees into transparent bronze, and past +the sound of water, plunging under the idle mill-wheel, in the cool, +delicious summer air,--we journeyed on. The stars were beginning to gather +in the sky, when square towers and masses of cubic houses rose against +them, and the steady roll of our wheels on the smooth highway became a +dreadful clatter on the rough cobble-stones of Figueras. + +The Pyrenees were already behind us; the town overlooks a wide, marshy +plain. But the mountains make their vicinity felt in a peculiar manner. The +north-wind, gathered into the low pass of Bellegarde and drawn to a focus +of strength, blows down the opening valley with a force which sometimes +lays an embargo on travel. Diligences are overturned, postilions blown out +of their saddles, and pedestrians carried off their feet. The people then +pray to their saints that the _tramontana_ may cease; but, on the other +hand, as it is a very healthy wind, sweeping away the feverish exhalations +from the marshy soil, they get up a grand annual procession to some +mountain-shrine of the Virgin, and pray that it may blow. So, when the +Virgin takes them at their word, the saints are invoked on the other side, +and the wonder is that both parties don't get out of patience with the +people of Figueras. + +The diligence drew up at the door of a _fonda_, and Moreno announced that +we were to take supper and wait until midnight. This was welcome news to +all; but the old German drew me aside as we entered the house, and +whispered, "Now our stomachs are going to be tried." "Not at all," I +answered, "we shall find very good provender." "But the guide-book says it +is very bad," he persisted. And he looked despondent, even with a clean +table-cloth and a crisp roll of bread before him, until the soup steamed +under his nose. His face brightened at the odor, grew radiant at the +flavor, and long before we reached the roast pullet and salad he expressed +his satisfaction with Spanish cookery. With the dessert came a _vino +rancio_, full of summer fire, and the tongues of the company were loosened. +From the weather and the Paris Exposition we leaped boldly into politics, +and, being on Spanish soil, discussed France and the Mexican business. The +French officer was silent and annoyed: he was a pleasant fellow, and I, for +one, had a little sympathy with his annoyance, but I could not help saying +that all Americans (except the Rev. ----) considered the action of France +as an outrage and an impertinence, and were satisfied with her miserable +failure. The Spanish passengers nodded and smiled. + +I should not have spoken, had I foreseen one consequence of my words. The +German snatched the reins of conversation out of our hands, and dashed off +at full speed, trampling France and her ruler under his feet. At the first +pause, I said to him, in German: "Pray don't be so violent in your +expressions,--the gentleman beside me is a naval officer." But he answered: +"I don't care,--I must speak my mind, which I could not do in Paris. France +has been the curse of Spain, as well as of all Europe, and there will be no +peace until we put a stop to her pretensions!" Thereupon he said the same +thing to the company; but the Spaniards were too politic to acquiesce +openly. The officer replied, "France has not injured Spain, but, on the +contrary, has protected her!" and he evidently had not the slightest +suspicion that there was anything offensive in his words. The Spaniards +still remained silent, but another expression came into their eyes. It was +time to change the subject; so the principle of non-intervention, in its +fullest, most literal sense, was proposed and accepted. A grave Majorcan +gentleman distributed cigars; his daughter, with her soft, melodious voice, +was oil to the troubled waters, and before midnight we were all equally +courteous and cosmopolitan. + +Of the four ensuing hours I can give no account. Neither asleep nor awake, +hearing with closed eyes, or seeing with half-closed senses, one can never +afterwards distinguish between what is seen and what is dreamed. This is a +state in which the body may possibly obtain some rest, but the mind becomes +inexpressibly fatigued. One's memory of it is a blurred sketch, a faded +daguerreotype. I welcomed that hour when + + "The wind blows cold + While the morning doth unfold," + +for it blew away this film, which usurped the place of the blessed mantle +of sleep. Chill, even here in African Spain, where the pale pearl of the +dawn foretold a burning noon, and where, in May, the harvests were already +reaped, the morning brightened; but we were near the end of the journey. At +sunrise, the towers of Giron stood fast and firm over the misty level of +the shimmering olive-groves; then the huge dull mass of the cathedral, the +walls and bastions of the hill-forts, which resisted a siege of seven +months during the Peninsular war, and finally the monotonous streets of the +lower town, through which we drove. + +The industrious Catalans were already awake and stirring. Smokes from +domestic hearths warmed the cool morning air; cheerful noises of men, +animals, and fowls broke the silence; doors were open as we entered the +town, and the women were combing and twisting their black hair in the +shadows within. At the post some brown grooms lounged about the door. A +priest passed,--a genuine Don Basilio, in inky gown and shovel-hat; and +these graceless grooms looked after him, thrust their tongues into their +cheeks, and made an irreverent grimace. The agent at Perpignan came into my +mind; I winked at the fellows, without any clear idea wherefore, but it +must have expressed something, for they burst into a laugh and repeated the +grimace. + +The lower town seemed to be of immense length. Once out of it, a superb +avenue of plane-trees received us, at the end of which was the +railway-station. In another hour the train would leave for Barcelona. Our +trunks must be again examined. When I asked the reason why this annoying +regulation, obsolete elsewhere in Europe, is here retained, the Spaniards +gravely informed me that, if it were abolished, a great many people would +be thrown out of employment. Not that they get much pay for the +examination,--but they are constantly bribed not to examine! There was a +_cafe_ attached to the station, and I advised my fellow-passengers to take +a cup of the delicious ropy chocolate of Spain, after which one accepts the +inevitable more patiently. + +I found the landscapes from Giron to Barcelona very bright and beautiful. +Our locomotive had fallen into the national habit: it was stately and +deliberate, it could not be hurried, its very whistle was subdued and +dignified. We went forward at an easy pace, making about fifteen miles an +hour, which enabled me to notice the patient industry of the people, as +manifested on every plain and hillside. The Catalans are called rough and +ungraceful; beside the sprightly Andalusians they seem cold and repellent; +they have less of that blue blood which makes the beggar as proud as the +grandee, but they possess the virtue of labor, which, however our artistic +tastes may undervalue it, is the basis from which all good must spring. +When I saw how the red and rocky hills were turned into garden-terraces, +how the olive-trees were pruned into health and productiveness, how the +wheat stood so thick that it rolled but stiffly under the breeze, I forgot +the jaunty _majos_ of Seville, and gave my hearty admiration to the +strong-backed reapers in the fields of Catalonia. + +The passengers we took up on the way, though belonging to the better class, +and speaking Spanish whenever it was necessary, all seemed to prefer the +popular dialect. Proprietors of estates and elegant young ladies conversed +together in the rough patois of the peasants, which to me was especially +tantalizing, because it sounded so familiar, and yet was so unintelligible. +It is in reality the old _langue limousine_ of France, kindred to the +Provencal, and differs very slightly from the dialect spoken on the other +side of the Pyrenees. It is terse, forcible, and expressive, and I must +confess that the lisping Spanish, beside it, seems to gain in melody at the +expense of strength. + +We approached Barcelona across the wide plain of the Llobregat, where +orange-gardens and factory chimneys, fountains "i' the midst of roses" and +machine-shops full of grimy workmen, succeed each other in a curious tangle +of poetry and greasy fact. The Mediterranean gleams in a blue line on the +left, the citadel of Montjoi crowns a bluff in front; but the level city +hides itself behind the foliage of the plain, and is not seen. At the +station you wait half an hour, until the baggage is again deposited on the +dissecting-tables of the customs officers; and here, if, instead of joining +the crowd of unhappy murmurers in the anteroom, you take your station in +the doorway, looking down upon porters, pedlers, idlers, and policemen, you +are sure to be diverted by a little comedy acted in pantomime. An outside +porter has in some way interfered with the rights of a station-porter; a +policeman steps between the two, the latter of whom, lifting both hands to +heaven in a wild appeal, brings them down swiftly and thrusts them out +before him, as if descending to earthly justice. The outsider goes through +the same gestures, and then both, with flashing eyes and open mouths, teeth +glittering under the drawn lips, await the decision. The policeman first +makes a sabre-cut with his right arm, then with his left; then also lifts +his hands to heaven, shakes them there a moment, and, turning as he brings +them down, faces the outside porter. The latter utters a passionate cry, +and his arms begin to rise; but he is seized by the shoulder and turned +aside; the crowd closes in, and the comedy is over. + +We have a faint interest in Barcelona for the sake of Columbus; but, apart +from this one association, we set it down beside Manchester, Lowell, and +other manufacturing cities. It was so crowded within its former walls, that +little space was left for architectural display. In many of the streets I +doubt whether four persons could walk abreast. Only in the Rambla, a broad +central boulevard, is there any chance for air and sunshine, and all the +leisure and pleasure of the city is poured into this one avenue. Since the +useless walls have been removed, an ambitious modern suburb is springing up +on the west, and there will in time be a new city better than the old. + +This region appears to be the head-quarters of political discontent in +Spain,--probably because the people get to be more sensible of the misrule +under which they languish, in proportion as they become more active and +industrious. Nothing could have been more peaceable upon the surface than +the aspect of things; the local newspapers never reported any disturbance, +yet intelligence of trouble in Catalonia was circulating through the rest +of Europe, and _something_--I could not ascertain precisely what it +was--took place during my brief visit. The telegraph-wires were cut, and +some hundreds of soldiers were sent into the country; but the matter was +never mentioned, unless two persons whom I saw whispering together in the +darkest corner of a _cafe_ were discussing it. I believe, if a battle had +been fought within hearing of the cannon, the Barcelonese would have gone +about the streets with the same placid, unconcerned faces. Whether this was +cunning, phlegm, or the ascendency of solid material interests over the +fiery, impulsive nature of the Spaniard, was not clear to a passing +observer. In either case it was a prudent course. + +If, in the darkened streets--or rather lanes--of Barcelona, I saw some +suggestive pictures; if the court-yard of the cathedral, with its fountains +and orange-trees, seemed a thousand miles removed from the trade and +manufacture of the city; if the issuing into sunshine on the mole was like +a blow in the eyes, to which the sapphire bloom of the Mediterranean became +a healing balm; and if the Rambla, towards evening, changed into a shifting +diorama of color and cheerful life,--none of these things inclined me to +remain longer than the preparation for my further journey required. Before +reaching the city, I had caught a glimpse, far up the valley of the +Llobregat, of a high, curiously serrated mountain, and that old book of the +"Wonders of the World," (now, alas! driven from the library of childhood,) +opened its pages and showed its rough woodcuts, in memory, to tell me what +the mountain was. How many times has that wonderful book been the chief +charm of my travels, causing me to forget Sulpicius on the AEgean Sea, Byron +in Italy, and Humboldt in Mexico! + +To those who live in Barcelona, Montserrat has become a common-place, the +resort of Sunday excursions and picnics, one fourth devotional, and three +fourths epicurean. Wild, mysterious, almost inaccessible as it stands in +one's fancy, it sinks at this distance into the very material atmosphere of +railroad and omnibus; but, for all that, we are not going to give it up, +though another "Wonder of the World" should go by the board. Take the +Tarragona train then with me, on a cloudless afternoon. In a few minutes +the scattered suburban blocks are left behind, and we enter the belt of +villas, with their fountained terraces and tropical gardens. More and more +the dark red earth shows through the thin foliage of the olives, as the +hills draw nearer, and it finally gives color to the landscapes. The vines +covering the levels and lower slopes are wonderfully luxuriant; but we can +see how carefully they are cultivated. Hedges of aloe and cactus divide +them; here and there some underground cavern has tumbled in, letting down +irregular tracts of soil, and the vines still flourish at the bottom of the +pits thus made. As the plain shrinks to a valley, the hills on either side +ascend into rounded summits, which begin to be dark with pine forests; +villages with square, brown church-towers perch on the lower heights; +cotton-mills draw into their service the scanty waters of the river, and +the appearance of cheerful, thrifty labor increases as the country becomes +rougher. + +All this time the serrated mountain is drawing nearer, and breaking into a +wilder confusion of pinnacles. It stands alone, planted across the base of +a triangular tract of open country,--a strange, solitary, exiled peak, +drifted away in the beginning of things from its brethren of the Pyrenees, +and stranded in a different geological period. This circumstance must have +long ago impressed the inhabitants of the region,--even in the +ante-historic ages. When Christianity rendered a new set of traditions +necessary, the story arose that the mountain was so split and shattered at +the moment when Christ breathed his last on the cross of Calvary. This is +still the popular belief; but the singular formation of Montserrat, +independent of it, was sufficient to fix the anchoretic tastes of the early +Christians. It is set apart by Nature, not only towering above all the +surrounding heights, but drawing itself haughtily away from contact with +them, as if conscious of its earlier origin. + +At the station of Martorel I left the train, and took a coach which was in +waiting for the village of Collbato, at the southern base of the mountain. +My companion in the _coupe_ was a young cotton-manufacturer, who assured me +that in Spain the sky and soil were good, but the _entresol_ (namely, the +human race) was bad. The interior was crowded with country women, each of +whom seemed to have four large baskets. I watched the driver for half an +hour attempting to light a broken cigar, and then rewarded his astonishing +patience with a fresh one, whereby we became good friends. Such a peaceful +light lay upon the landscape, the people were so cheerful, the laborers +worked so quietly in the vineyards, that the thought of a political +disturbance the day before seemed very absurd. The olive-trees, which +clothed the hills wherever their bony roots could find the least lodgement +of soil, were of remarkably healthy and vigorous growth, and the regular +cubic form into which they were pruned marked the climbing terraces with +long lines of gray light, as the sun slanted across them. + +"You see," said the Spaniard, as I noticed this peculiarity, "the +_entresol_ is a little better in this neighborhood than elsewhere in Spain. +The people cut the trees into this shape in order that they may become more +compact and produce better; besides which, the fruit is more easily +gathered. In all those orchards you will not find a decayed or an unhealthy +tree; they are dug up and burned, and young ones planted in their place." + +At the village of Esparaguerra the other passengers left, and I went on +towards Collbato alone. But I had Montserrat for company, towering more +grandly, more brokenly, from minute to minute. Every change in the +foreground gave me a new picture. Now it was a clump of olives with twisted +trunks; now an aloe, lifting its giant candelabrum of blossoms from the +edge of a rock; now a bank of dull vermilion earth, upon which goats were +hanging. The upper spires of the mountain disappeared behind its basal +buttresses of gray rock, a thousand feet in perpendicular height, and the +sinking sun, as it crept westward, edged these with sharp lines of light. +Up, under the tremendous cliffs, and already in shadow, lay Collbato, and I +was presently set down at the gate of the _posada_. + +Don Pedro, the host, came forward to meet and welcome me, and his pretty +daughter, sitting on the steps, rose up and dropped a salute. In the +entrance hall I read, painted in large letters on the wall, the words of +St. Augustine: "_In necessariis unitas; in dubiis libertas; in omnibus, +caritas._" (If these sayings are _not_ St. Augustine's, somebody will be +sure to correct me.) Verily, thought I, Don Pedro must be a character. I +had no sooner comfortably seated myself in the doorway to contemplate the +exquisite evening landscape, which the Mediterranean bounded in the +distance, and await my supper, than Don Pedro ordered his daughter to bring +the guests' book, and then betook himself to the task of running down a +lean chicken. In the record of ten years I found that Germans were the most +frequent visitors; Americans appeared but thrice. One party of the latter +registered themselves as "gentlemen," and stated that they had seen the +"prom_a_nent points,"--which gave occasion to a later Englishman to comment +upon the intelligence of American gentlemen. The host's daughter, Pepita, +was the theme of praise in prose and raptures in poetry. + +"Are you Pepita?" I asked, turning to the girl, who sat on the steps before +me, gazing into the evening sky with an expression of the most indolent +happiness. I noticed for the first time, and admired, her firm, regular, +almost Roman profile, and the dark masses of _real_ hair on her head. Her +attitude, also, was very graceful, and she would have been, to impressible +eyes, a phantom of delight, but for the ungraceful fact that she +inveterately scratched herself whenever and wherever a flea happened to +bite. + +"No, senor," she answered; "I am Carmen. Pepita was married first, and +then Mariquita. Angelita and myself are the only ones at home." + +"I see there is also a poem to Angelita," I remarked, turning over the last +leaves. + +"O, that was a poet!" said she,--"a funny man! Everybody knows him: he +writes for the theatre, and all that is about some eggs which Angelita +fried for him. We can't understand it all, but we think it's good-natured." + +Here the mother came, not as duenna, but as companion, with her distaff and +spindle, and talked and span until I could no longer distinguish the thread +against her gray dress. When the lean chicken was set before me, Don Pedro +announced that a mule and guide would be in readiness at sunrise, and I +could, if I chose, mount to the topmost peak of San Geronimo. In the base +of the mountain, near Collbato, there are spacious caverns, which most +travellers feel bound to visit; but I think that six or seven caves, one +coal mine, and one gold mine are enough for a lifetime, and have renounced +any further subterranean researches. Why delve into those dark, moist, +oppressive crypts, when the blessed sunshine of years shows one so little +of the earth and of human life? Let any one that chooses come and explore +the caverns of Montserrat, and then tell me (as people have a passion for +doing), "You missed the best!" The best is that with which one is +satisfied. + +Instead of five o'clock, when I should have been called, I awoke naturally +at six, and found that Don Pedro had set out for San Geronimo four hours +before, while neither guide nor mule was forthcoming. The old woman pointed +to some specks far up in the shadow of the cliffs, which she assured me +were travellers, and would arrive with mules in fifteen minutes. But I +applied the words _in dubiis libertas_, and insisted on an immediate animal +and guide, both of which, somewhat to my surprise, were produced. The black +mule was strong, and the lank old Catalan shouldered my heavy valise and +walked off without a murmur. The sun was already hot; but once risen above +the last painfully constructed terrace of olives, and climbing the stony +steep, we dipped into the cool shadow of the mountain. The path was +difficult but not dangerous, winding upward through rocks fringed with +dwarf ilex, box, and mastic, which made the air fragrant. Thyme, wild flax, +and aconite blossomed in the crevices. The botany of the mountain is as +exceptional as its geology; it includes five hundred different species. + +The box-tree, which my Catalan guide called _bosch_ in his dialect, is a +reminiscence, wherever one sees it, of Italy and Greece,--of ancient +culture and art. Its odor, as Holmes admirably says, suggests eternity. If +it was not the first plant that sprang up on the cooling planet, it ought +to have been. Its glossy mounds, and rude, statuesque clumps, which often +seem struggling to mould themselves into human shape, cover with beauty the +terrible rocks of Montserrat. M. Delavigne had warned me of the dangers of +the path I was pursuing,--walls on one side, and chasms a thousand feet +deep on the other,--but the box everywhere shaped itself into protecting +figures, and whispered as I went by, "Never fear; if you slip, I will hold +you!" + +The mountain is an irregular cone, about thirty-five hundred feet in +height, and cleft down the middle by a torrent which breaks through its +walls on the northeastern side. It presents a perpendicular face, which +seems inaccessible, for the shelves between the successive elevations, when +seen from below, appear as narrow fringes of vegetation, growing out of one +unbroken wall. They furnish, indeed, but scanty room for the bridle-path, +which at various points is both excavated and supported by arches of +masonry. After nearly an hour, I found myself over Collbato, upon the roofs +of which, it seemed, I might fling a stone. At the next angle of the +mountain, the crest was attained, and I stood between the torn and scarred +upper wilderness of Montserrat on the one hand, and the broad, airy sweep +of landscape, bounded by the sea, on the other. To the northward, a similar +cape thrust out its sheer walls against the dim, dissolving distances, and +it was necessary to climb along the sides of the intervening gulf, which +sank under me into depths of shadow. Every step of the way was inspiring, +for there was the constant threat, without the reality, of danger. My mule +paced securely along the giddy brinks; and though the path seemed to +terminate fifty paces ahead, I was always sure to find a loop-hole or +coigne of vantage which the box and mastic had hidden from sight. So in +another hour the opposite foreland was attained, and from its crest I saw, +all along the northern horizon, the snowy wall of the Pyrenees. + +Here a path branched off to the peak of San Geronimo,--a two hours' clamber +through an absolute desert of rock. My guide, although panting and sweating +with his load, proposed the ascent; but in the film of heat which +overspread the land I should have only had a wider panorama in which all +distinct forms were lost,--vast, no doubt, but as blurred and intangible as +a metaphysical treatise. I judged it better to follow the example of a +pious peasant and his wife whom we had overtaken, and who, setting their +faces toward the renowned monastery, murmured an _Ave_ from time to time. +Erelong, on emerging from the thickets, we burst suddenly upon one of the +wildest and most wonderful pictures I ever beheld. A tremendous wall of +rock arose in front, crowned by colossal turrets, pyramids, clubs, pillars, +and ten-pin shaped masses, which were drawn singly, or in groups of +incredible distortion, against the deep blue of the sky. At the foot of the +rock, the buildings of the monastery, huge and massive, the church, the +houses for pilgrims, and the narrow gardens completely filled and almost +overhung a horizontal shelf of the mountain, under which it again fell +sheer away, down, down into misty depths, the bottom of which was hidden +from sight. I dropped from the mule, sat down upon the grass, and, under +pretence of sketching, studied this picture for an hour. In all the +galleries of memory I could find nothing resembling it. + +The descriptions of Montserrat must have made a powerful impression upon +Goethe's mind, since he deliberately appropriated the scenery for the fifth +act of the Second Part of Faust. Goethe was in the steadfast habit of +choosing a local and actual habitation for the creations of his +imagination; his landscapes were always either painted from nature, or +copied from the sketch-books of others. The marvellous choruses of the +fifth act floated through my mind as I drew; the "Pater Ecstaticus" hovered +in the sunny air, the anchorites chanted from their caves, and the mystic +voices of the undeveloped child-spirits came between, like the breathing of +an AEolian harp. I suspect that the sanctity of the mountain really depends +as much upon its extraordinary forms, as upon the traditions which have +been gradually attached to it. These latter, however, are so strange and +grotesque, that they could only be accepted here. + +The monastery owes its foundation to a miraculous statue of the Virgin, +sculptured by St. Luke, and brought to Spain by no less a personage than +St. Peter. In the year 880, some shepherds who had climbed the mountain in +search of stray goats heard celestial harmonies among the rocks. This +phenomenon coming to the ears of Bishop Gondemar, he climbed to the spot, +and was led by the music to the mouth of a cave, which exhaled a delicious +perfume. There, enshrined in light, lay the sacred statue. Gondemar and his +priests, chanting as they went, set out for Manresa, the seat of the +diocese, carrying it with them; but on reaching a certain spot, they found +it impossible to move farther. The statue obstinately refused to accompany +them,--which was taken as a sign that there, and nowhere else, the shrine +should be built. Just below the monastery there still stands a cross, with +the inscription, "Here the Holy Image declared itself immovable, 880." + +The chapel when built was intrusted to the pious care of Fray Juan Garin, +whose hermitage is pointed out to you, on a peak which seems accessible +only to the eagle. The Devil, however, interfered, as he always does in +such cases. He first entered into Riquilda, the daughter of the Count of +Barcelona, and then declared through her mouth that he would not quit her +body except by the order of Juan Garin, the hermit of Montserrat. Riquilda +was therefore sent to the mountain and given into the hermit's charge. A +temptation similar to that of St. Anthony followed, but with exactly the +opposite result. In order to conceal his sin, Juan Garin cut off Riquilda's +head, buried her, and fled. Overtaken by remorse, he made his way to Rome, +confessed himself to the Pope, and prayed for a punishment proportioned to +his crime. He was ordered to become a beast, never lifting his face towards +heaven, until the hour when God himself should signify his pardon. + +Juan Garin went forth from the Papal presence on his hands and knees, +crawled back to Montserrat, and there lived seven years as a wild animal, +eating grass and bark, and never lifting his face towards heaven. At the +end of this time his body was entirely covered with hair, and it so +happened that the hunters of the Count snared him as a strange beast, put a +chain around his neck, and took him to Barcelona. In the mansion of the +Count there was an infant only five months old, in its nurse's arms. No +sooner had the child beheld the supposed animal, than it gave a loud cry +and exclaimed: "Rise up, Juan Garin; God has pardoned thee!" Then, to the +astonishment of all, the beast arose and spoke in a human tongue. He told +his story, and the Count set out at once with him to the spot where +Riquilda was buried. They opened the grave and the maiden rose up alive, +with only a rosy mark, like a thread, around her neck. In commemoration of +so many miracles, the Count founded the monastery. + +At present, the monks retain but a fragment of their former wealth and +power. Their number is reduced to nineteen, which is barely enough to guard +the shrine, perform the offices, and prepare and bless the rosaries and +other articles of devotional traffic. I visited the church, courts, and +corridors, but took no pains to get sight of the miraculous statue. I have +already seen both the painting and the sculpture of St. Luke, and think him +one of the worst artists that ever existed. Moreover, the place is fast +assuming a secular, not to say profane air. There is a modern restaurant, +with bill of fare and wine list, inside the gate, ticket-office for +travellers, and a daily omnibus to the nearest railway station. Ladies in +black mantillas lounge about the court-yards, gentlemen smoke on the +balconies, and only the brown-faced peasant pilgrims, arriving with weary +feet, enter the church with an expression of awe and of unquestioning +faith. The enormous wealth which the monastery once possessed--the offering +of kings--has disappeared in the vicissitudes of Spanish history, the +French, in 1811, being the last pillagers. Since then, the treasures of +gold and jewels have not returned; for the crowns offered to the Virgin by +the city of Barcelona and by a rich American are of gilded silver, set with +diamonds of paste! + +I loitered for hours on the narrow terraces around the monastery, +constantly finding some new and strange combination of forms in the +architecture of the mountain. The bright silver-gray of the rock contrasted +finely with the dark masses of eternal box, and there was an endless play +of light and shade as the sun burst suddenly through some unsuspected gap, +or hid himself behind one of the giant ten-pins of the summit. The world +below swam in dim red undulations, for the color of the soil showed +everywhere through its thin clothing of olive-trees. In hue as in form, +Montserrat had no fellowship with the surrounding region. + +The descent on the northern side is far less picturesque, inasmuch as you +are perched upon the front seat of an omnibus, and have an excellent +road--a work of great cost and labor--the whole way. But, on the other +hand, you skirt the base of a number of the detached pillars and pyramids +into which the mountain separates, and gain fresh pictures of its +remarkable structure. There is one isolated shaft, visible at a great +distance, which I should judge to be three hundred feet in height by forty +or fifty in diameter. At the western end, the outline is less precipitous, +and here the fields of vine and olive climb much higher than elsewhere. In +an hour from the time of leaving the monastery, we were below the last +rampart, rolling through dust in the hot valley of the Llobregat, and +tracing the course of the invisible road across the walls of Montserrat, +with a feeling of incredulity that we had really descended from such a +point. + +At the village of Montrisol, on the river, there is a large cotton factory. +The doors opened as we approached, and the workmen came forth, their day's +labor done. Men and women, boys and girls, in red caps and sandals, or +bareheaded and barefooted, they streamed merrily along the road, teeth and +eyes flashing as they chatted and sang. They were no pale, melancholy +factory slaves, but joyous and light-hearted children of labor, and, it +seemed to me, the proper successors of the useless idlers in the monastery +of Montserrat. Up there, on the mountain, a system, all-powerful in the +past, was swiftly dying; here, in the valley, was the first life of the +only system that can give a future to Spain. + + + + +DINNER SPEAKING. + +A LETTER TO MY NEPHEW. + + +So you did not enjoy your first Phi Beta dinner, dear Tom, because you were +afraid all the time that the new members would be toasted, and then "the +fellows" had said you must reply for them. That is a pity. As, after all, +the fellows were not toasted, it is a great pity. I am glad you write to me +about it, however, and now it is for me to take care that this never +happens to you again. + +I will tell you how to be always ready. I will tell you how I do. + +My first Phi Beta dinner was, like yours, my first public dinner. It was on +the day, which this year everybody remembered who was old enough, when Mr. +Emerson delivered his first Phi Beta oration at Cambridge. How proudly he +has the right to look back on the generation between, all of which he has +seen, so much of which he has been! Well, he is no older this day, to all +appearance, than he was then,--and your uncle, my dear boy, though older to +appearance, is not older in reality. What is it dear G---- Q---- +sings,--who sat behind me that early day at Phi Beta? + + "When we 've been there ten million years, + Bright shining as the sun, + We 'll _have more days_ + To sing God's praise, + Than when we first begun!" + +Remember that, my dear oldest nephew, as the ten million years go by,--and, +remembering it, keep young or grow young. + +Mr. Emerson was young, I say,--and I. We were all young. + +Mr. Edward Everett was young. He was then Governor,--and, I think, +presided, certainly spoke, at that Phi Beta dinner. By the almanac he must +have been that year forty-five years old,--just as old, dear Tom, as some +other people are this year by the almanac. He had been pretty much +everything, had gone most everywhere, had seen almost all the people that +were worth seeing, and remembered more than all the rest of us had +forgotten. And he was very young. To those who knew him he always was. The +day he died he was about the youngest man in most things that I knew. + +And so it happened that he made the first dinner speech that I remember. We +were all in the South Commons Hall of University, now used as somebody's +lecture-room, say, at a guess, Professor Lovering's. And he gave some +charming reminiscences of Charles Emerson, brother of the philosopher, too +early lost, and everywhere loved,--and then, speaking of the oration of the +day, and of the new philosophy to which it belonged, and of which the +orator was, is, and will be the prophet, he said, in his gracious, funny, +courtly, and hearty way, that he always thought of its thunders as he did +of the bolts of Jupiter himself! Could one have complimented an orator more +than to compare him to Jupiter? And then he went on to verify the +comparison, by quoting the description,-- + + "Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosae + Addiderant, tres rutili ignis, tres alitis Austri,"-- + +and translated the words for his purpose,-- + + "Three ports were raging fire, and three the whelming waves! + But three were _thirsty cloud_, and three were _empty wind_!" + +Ah well, my boy! You do not remember what all the world, except a few of +the elect, then said of "Transcendentalism." So you cannot imagine the +scream of fun and applause which saluted this good-natured analysis of its +thunder. + +And I,--I was delighted at this aptness of quotation. Should I ever bring +my capping lines to such a market? Here was a hit as good as the famous +parliamentary retorts, which were so precious to us in the I. O. H. and in +the Harvard Union. Should I ever live to see the happy day when I should +find that it was wise, witty, and just the thing to say, + + "Tu quoque litoribus nostris AEneia nutrix"? + +or, + + "Tityre dum redeo, brevis est via, pasce capellas," + +or any other of the T's? Or, + + "AEsopus auctor quam materiam reperit," + +or, + + "AEacus ingemuit, tristique ita voce locutus," + +or any other of the AE diphthongs? It did not seem possible, but we would +see. + +Now it happened that, in the vacation following, a French steamer, I think +the Geryon, came to Boston. And there was, perhaps a civic dinner, +certainly an excursion down the harbor, to persuade her officers, and +through them Louis Philippe, for this was in the early age of stone, that +Boston Harbor was the best point for the projected line of French packets +to stop at,--and somebody invited me to go. And it turned out that few of +the Frenchmen spoke English, and few of the Common Councilmen spoke French, +so that poor little I came to some miserable use as a half-interpreter. I +remember telling a Lieutenant de Vaisseau that the "Centurion" rock was +called so because the 74 Centurion was lost there; and that an indignant +civic authority, guessing out my speech, told me they did not want the +Frenchmen to know anything was ever lost in Boston Harbor! Perhaps that was +the reason the French packets never came. Well, by and by there was the +inevitable collation in the cabin. (A collation, dear boy, is a dinner +where you have nothing to eat.) And we went down stairs to collate. I began +to think of the speeches. Suppose they should call on the youngest of the +interpreters, what could he say? What Latin quotation that would answer? +Not Tityrus certainly! No. Nor AEneas's nurse certainly, for she went +overboard,--bad luck to her!--or was she buried decently? Bad omen that! +But--yes! certainly--what better than the thunderbolts of Jove? +Steam-navigation forever,--Robert Fulton, Marquis of Worcester, madman in +the French bedlam,--bolts of heaven secured for service of +earth,--Franklin,--the great alliance,--steam-navigation uniting the world! +Was not the whole prefigured, _messieurs, quand le grand poete_ forged the +very thunderbolts of the _Dieu des Cieux_? + + "Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosae + Addiderant, tres rutili ignis, tres alitis Austri." + +What better description of the power which at that moment was driving us +along,-- + + "Three rays of writhen rain, of fire three more, + Of winged southern winds, and cloudy store, + As many parts the dreadful mixture frame"? + +Could anything have been more happy? And fortunately no member of Phi Beta +was present but myself. But, unfortunately, there was no speaking, and for +the moment I lost my opportunity. + +But not my preparation, dear Tom. And for this purpose have I written this +long story, to show you how, in thirty happy years since, when I have had +nothing else to say, "Tres imbris torti radios" has always stood me in +stead. One good quotation makes an after-dinner speaker the match of the +whole world. And if you have it in Latin, the people who understand that +language enjoy it especially, and those who do not always appear to enjoy +it more especially. Perhaps they do. There is also the advantage of slight +variations in the translation. Note the difference between Mr. Everett's +above, and John Dryden's. + +Imagine yourself, for instance, an invited guest at a Cincinnati dinner in +Wisconsin. Unfortunately, my dear boy, none of your ancestors rose even to +the rank of drummer in the army of the Revolution. Your great-grandfather's +brother had Chastellux to dinner one day. If you can, make your speech out +of that. But I do not think you can. Still, you are called up to speak: +"Our friend from New England,"--"Connecticut,--Israel Putnam,--Bunker +Hill,--Groton,--Wooster," &c., &c. What will you do, my boy? You must do +something, and you must not disgrace old Wooster. Do! You have your +thunderbolts. + +"This army,"--"gathered from North and South and East and West,"--"like +another army,"--"whose brave officers still linger among us,--cheer us," +&c., &c.,--"this army,"--"combining such various elements of power, +endurance, and wisdom,--this army, always when I think of it,--more than +ever to-day, sir, when I see these who represent it in another +generation,--when I think of Manly coming from the yeasty waves of the +outstretched Cape,--of Ethan Allen descending from the cloudy tops of the +Green Mountains,--of Knox, sweaty and black from the hot furnace work of +Salisbury, where + + 'He created all the stores of war,'-- + +all meeting at the same moment with the Morgans, and Marions, and the one +Washington from the distant South,--this army always seems to me to be the +prefigured thunderbolt which the Cyclops forged for Jupiter. + + 'Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosae + Addiderant, tres rutili ignis, tres alitis Austri.' + + 'Three from the sultry South, three from the storm-beat shore, + Three parts from distant mountains' cloudy store, + While raging heat fused all with three parts more!'" + +You see, dear Tom, these audiences are always good-natured, and by no means +critical of your version. + +Why, at the only time I was ever at a regimental dinner on the Plains, long +before the war, you know, when to the untaught mind it did seem as if there +was no reason why we were there, and no pretence for mutual congratulation, +I remember when poor Pendergrast called me up to represent science, (I was +at that time in the telegraph business,) the dear old quotation came to my +relief like an inspiration. I got round to the Flag. Do you remember how +safe General Halleck always found it to allude to the Flag? + +"The Flag, gentlemen,"--"colors,"--"rainbow of our liberties,"--"Liberty +everywhere." "Blue, white, and red of Low Countries,"--"Red, white, and +blue of France,"--"English Constitution,"--"Puritan fathers, Cavaliers," +&c., &c. + +"Does it seem too much to say, gentlemen, that, with the divine instinct of +poetry, the unequalled bard of the court of Augustus, looking down the ages +beyond the sickly purple of the palace, to the days when armies should be +the armies of freemen, and not the Praetorian guards of a tyrant,--that he +veiled the glad prophecy of the future in the words in which he describes +even the thunderbolt itself? The white crest of the foam, the blue of the +sky, the red of the fiery furnace, are all tossed together, and play +together, and rejoice together, there in the smiles or in the rage of the +very breeze of Heaven. + + 'Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosae + Addiderant, tres rutili ignis, tres alitis Austri.' + + 'Three parts of white the crested billows lent, + Three parts of blue the heavens themselves had sent, + Three parts of fiery red with these were blent, + And on the free-born wind across the world they went.'" + +You are not old enough, my dear nephew, to remember the great consistory +which the Pope held at Somerville, when for a moment he thought that the +churches of the world had recognized that Union which in fact does make +them one, and were willing to offer one front to the Devil, instead of +fighting, as they always had done, on ten thousand hooks of their own. You +understand, it was not this pope, Pius IX. It was the pope who came after +Gregory XVII. and before Pius IX. Well, at that immense dinner-table, which +had been built on the plan of John O'Groat's, so that each of the eleven +thousand six hundred and thirty popes present might sit at the head,--I was +fortunate enough to be appointed to represent the Sandemanian clergy,--the +only body, as I will venture to say to you, which really preserves the +simplicity of Gospel institutions, or in the least carries into our own +time the spirit and life of fundamental Christianity. Now you may imagine +the difficulty of speaking on such an occasion. I had thought it proper to +speak in Latin. The difficulty was not so much in the language as in what +to say, that one might be at once brave as a Sandemanian, and at the same +time tolerant, and catholic as a Christian. Now it is not for me to say how +well I acquitted myself. If you want to see my speech, you had better look +in the _Annales de Foi_; and, if it is there, you will certainly find it. I +did not think it amiss, certainly, that I was able to close by comparing +the great agencies which the United Church would be able to employ to the +thunderbolt itself. We had there present bishops from England of perpetual +rain, from Sitka of perpetual cloud, from the eternal fires of the torrid +zone, and from the farthest south of Patagonia. When we selected our sacred +twelve, it was easy for us to take them, as if we were forging thunders. + + "Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosae + Addiderant, tres rutili ignis, tres alitis Austri." + +Now, my dear Tom, I am sure my lesson needs no moral. Of course I do not +think you had better start in life with my quotation. To tell you the +truth, I am still young. I am a life-member of many societies, and, as +they outlive other usefulness, the more frequently do they dine together. I +may therefore have some other occasion when I may be reminded of the +Cyclops. But if, at your dinner, I had happened to be called upon, I +think,--I do not know, but I think that, seeing such men as you describe, I +should have been irresistibly led to consider the varied gifts which the +University every year scatters over the land, and the exquisite harmony by +which, from such different callings, different homes, and different +destinies, they unite in the merriment or in the wisdom of her festivities. +The men of practice who have been taming the waterfall, and made it +subservient; the men of the gentle ministries of peace, whose blessings +distil upon us like the very dews of heaven; and the men of the spoken +word,--of the spirit of truth, of which, like the wind itself, no man +knoweth whence it cometh or whither it goeth,--these, and the men of war +who have passed through its fires to give us the free America of to-day, +all were around you. Surely in such a union I should have been reminded of +the divine harmony by which elements the most diverse were welded into the +bolts of Jove. + + "Tres imbris torti radios, tres nubis aquosae + Addiderant, tres rutili ignis, tres alitis Austri." + + "Three parts like dews from heaven, three from the wave-beat shore, + Three from the soft-winged breeze, and three from blood-red war." + + Always, dear Tom, your affectionate uncle, + + FREDERIC INGHAM. + + + + +REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES. + + + _The Champagne Country._ By ROBERT TOMES. New York: + Hurd and Houghton. + +The fear, or hope, that photography will supersede tourists, and at last +take travel out of literature, scarcely concerns this admirable book and +the books of its kind. The class is as yet small, but it increases; and it +is probable that in travel, which is a sort of contemporary history, there +will be more and more works devoted to a single phase of European life, as +studied in a particular city or province; just as, in the history of the +past, the tendency is toward the illustration of certain periods, or even +episodes, in the lives of nations. + +The chief topic Mr. Tomes discusses is the manufacture of champagne wines; +but his book is also descriptive of life in Rheims and the adjacent +country, as he knew it during two years' residence in that ancient city. +Indeed, it is only when the reader remembers his former ignorance of +everything concerning champagne, excepting its pop and sparkle and flavor, +that he realizes how thoroughly instructive Mr. Tomes's agreeable pages +are. In them an intelligent sympathy follows the grape through all the +processes of its change to wine;--through the vintage, when it is gathered +by the yeomen of La Champagne, from their own land, and sold to the great +champagne lords of Rheims; through the expression of its juice in presses +obedient to the trained and sensitive touch of hands which give neither +more nor less strength than is adequate to the extraction of the most +delicate flavor; through the season of its first fermentation in casks, and +its second in bottles; through its "marriage" with the kindred juices, +whose united offspring is champagne; through the crisis when it is doctored +with the cordial that bestows a life-long sweetness; through its final +corking and sale in every civilized country. As Mr. Tomes's style is light +and easy, and as he has a quick, unforced sense of humor, his information +is as delightful as it is honest. He counts nothing alien to him that +concerns champagne, and he sketches with a pleasant and graphic touch the +champagne lords and their history, beginning with the great Clicquot +(whose widow, after inheriting him so many years, died only the other day), +and bringing down the list with the Heidsiecks, the Roederers, Moet and +Chandon, the Mumms, and De St. Marceaux, last but not least of the great +champagne houses. As appears from their names, most of these are Germans, +and, according to Mr. Tomes, most of the business of Rheims is conducted by +Germans, who far excel the French in capacity for commerce. They are the +agents and chief clerks even in French houses; it is some German of +enormous physique and iron constitution who is selected as +_commis-voyageur_ to sell the wines and attract custom, by pouring them out +and convivially drinking them wherever he goes. Mr. Tomes's conviction is, +that this commercial traveller leads a difficult and precarious life, for +he cannot eject the wine when once taken into the mouth, as is the custom +of the more fortunate dealers in selling to buyers at the manufactories. + +It is around the wine-trade, the great central feature of life in Rheims, +that Mr. Tomes groups notices of the city's minor traits, and gossips of +its cathedral and ecclesiastical history, its picturesqueness, its +antiquities, its dulness, its contented and prosperous ignorance, its +luxury and depravity. His pictures are always artistic, and have an air of +fidelity, and we may believe that they reflect with sufficient truth +provincial society under the second French Empire. Society it is not, of +course, in our sense, and perhaps civilization is the better word. Many of +its characteristics are those common to all Latin Europe,--a religion and +an atheism alike immoral, an essential rudeness under a polished show of +good-breeding, an inviolable conventionality, and an unbounded license. But +to these the Empire has added some traits of its own,--an intellectual +apathy to be matched nowhere else, a content and pride in mere material +success, an enjoyment of none but sensual delights. The government seems to +have besotted the provinces in the same degree that it has corrupted Paris. + +Mr. Tomes treats an unworn topic with freshness and authentic skill, and we +welcome his bright and candid book as a more valuable contribution to +literature than most contemporary novels and poems. + + + _Deus Homo: God-Man._ By THEOPHILUS PARSONS. Chicago: + E. B. Myers and Chandler. + +The author of this book assures us that it is in no sense a criticism of +either of the two remarkable works which have lately agitated the religious +and philosophical world; that it is a reply neither to "Ecce Deus" nor to +"Ecce Homo," but that its title is rather descriptive of the belief which +inspired it, than indicative of a controversial purpose. Indeed, it is a +notably calm and uncontroversial statement of the Swedenborgian idea of +Christ's life and character, and presents with great clearness and +simplicity the doctrines of the very earnest sect to which its author +belongs. The author fully accepts the fact of Swedenborg's illumination, +but the reader is only asked to consider the reasonableness of his +philosophy, as applied to the elucidation of all Scriptural truth, and more +particularly the acts and essence of Christ. The people of the New Church +(as the followers of Swedenborg call themselves) affirm the divinity of +Christ with an emphasis which excludes from the Godhead any other +personality than his; and it is in the light of this creed that Mr. Parsons +regards his character, and discusses the facts of his birth, his sojourn in +Egypt, his temptations, his death, the miracles, the parables, the supper, +the Apostles. Naturally, the author has frequent recourse to that science +of correspondences by which Swedenborg interprets Scripture, and so far +there is an air of mysticism in his work; but it is on the whole a most +intelligible declaration of the main Swedenborgian ideas. As such, it must +have an interest for all candid thinkers; and it appears fortunately at +this time, when the life of Swedenborg has been made the subject of fresh +inquiry, as well as the Life which Swedenborg's philosophy is here employed +to illustrate. + + + _The Sayings of Doctor Bushwhacker and other Learned + Men._ By FREDERICK S. COZZENS. New York: A. Simpson & + Co. + +The best thing in this book is that brief sketch of travel, called "Up the +Rhine," in which the British tourist is presented with a delightful +fidelity. Eyes that have once beheld him never forget him, and it is good +to gaze upon him here in his extraordinary travelling-costume, with all his +sightseer's panoply upon him. It affects one like a personal recollection, +when he addresses the American and says:-- + +"'Going to Switz'land?' + +"'Yes.' + +"'Y' got Moy for Switz'land?' + +"'Moy? I beg pardon.' + +"'Yes, Moy,--Moy; got Moy for Switz'land?' + +"'Moy! Do you mean money? I hope so!' + +"'Ged gad, sir, no! I say Moy.' + +"'Upon my word, I _do not_ comprehend you.' + +"'Moy, sir, Moy!' rapping vehemently on the red cover of my guide-book that +lay on the table, 'I say Moy for Switz'land.' + +"'O, you mean Murray?' + +"'Certainly, sir; did n't I say Moy?'" + +This is a touch of nature; and nothing else in the book is done with a hand +so free and artistic. Doctor Bushwhacker is passably entertaining in his +talk of tea and coffee and chocolate and wine and salad; but when he comes +to speak of literature, he makes us suspect that the latest thing in +criticism which his professional duties have left him leisure to read is E. +A. Poe's "American Literati." He discourses of "Accidental Resemblances" +between Mr. Longfellow and other poets, defends the venerable Halleck from +the charge of copying "Don Juan" in his "Fanny," and pronounces Joseph +Rodman Drake the only original American poet. + +Among the contributions to these "Sayings" by other learned men than Dr. +Bushwhacker, the most admirable are the two imitations of Macaulay by the +late Colonel Porter; of their kind they are nowhere surpassed. But the +editor of the book has left the retiring muse of criticism little to say of +these productions of his _collaborateurs_. In his Preface he efficiently +praises them all, specifying one as "sparkling," and another as +"excellent," and others as coming from persons who have exquisite taste for +true humor, and assemble in themselves great moral, religious, and literary +merits; and finally offers his thanks to the gentleman who indefatigably +urged him to publish the collection. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. +120, October, 1867., by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATLANTIC MONTHLY, OCTOBER 1867 *** + +***** This file should be named 38270.txt or 38270.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/2/7/38270/ + +Produced by Jana Srna, Josephine Paolucci and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. 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