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diff --git a/old/53861-0.txt b/old/53861-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 215a997..0000000 --- a/old/53861-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,7262 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Apple-Tree Table and Other Sketches, by Herman Melville - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Apple-Tree Table and Other Sketches - -Author: Herman Melville - -Contributor: Henry Chapin - -Release Date: January 1, 2017 [eBook #53861] -[Most recently updated: January 8, 2023] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Chris Whitehead, Mary Glenn Krause, David Edwards, Eric Lehtonen and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE APPLE-TREE TABLE AND OTHER SKETCHES *** - - - - - THE APPLE-TREE TABLE - AND OTHER SKETCHES - - - - - THE - APPLE-TREE TABLE - AND OTHER SKETCHES - - BY - HERMAN MELVILLE - - - _With an Introductory Note by_ - HENRY CHAPIN - - - [Illustration] - - - - - PRINCETON - PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS - LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD - OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS - MCMXXII - - - - - _Copyrighted and Published 1922 by Princeton University Press_ - _Printed by the Princeton University Press, Princeton, U. S. A._ - - - - -Introductory Note - - -_The various prose sketches here reprinted were first published by -Melville, some in Harper's and some in Putnam's magazines, during the -years from 1850 to 1856. "Hawthorne and His Mosses," the only piece of -criticism in this collection, is particularly interesting viewed in the -light of Melville's friendship with Hawthorne while they were neighbors -at Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The other sketches cover a variety of -homely subjects treated by Melville with a fresh humor, richly phrased -and curiously personal. Longer and in some ways more ambitious prose -pieces written about this same time have been collected under the -title of "Piazza Tales," but none of the sketches which follow have -heretofore been gathered into a book. This has now been done not only -to answer a growing demand for accessible reprints of Melville's work -but also in response to the literary appeal of the sketches themselves. -The author's phraseology and punctuation have, of course, been, -followed exactly._ - - H. C. - - - - - CONTENTS - - - THE APPLE-TREE TABLE - - HAWTHORNE AND HIS MOSSES - - JIMMY ROSE - - I AND MY CHIMNEY - - PARADISE OF BACHELORS AND THE TARTARUS OF MAIDS - - COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO - - THE FIDDLER - - POOR MAN'S PUDDING AND RICH MAN'S CRUMBS - - THE HAPPY FAILURE - - THE 'GEES - - - - -THE APPLE-TREE TABLE - -_OR ORIGINAL SPIRITUAL MANIFESTATIONS_ - - -When I first saw the table, dingy and dusty, in the furthest corner -of the old hopper-shaped garret, and set out with broken, be-crusted -old purple vials and flasks, and a ghostly, dismantled old quarto, it -seemed just such a necromantic little old table as might have belonged -to Friar Bacon. Two plain features it had, significant of conjurations -and charms--the circle and tripod; the slab being round, supported by -a twisted little pillar, which, about a foot from the bottom, sprawled -out into three crooked legs, terminating in three cloven feet. A very -satanic-looking little old table, indeed. - -In order to convey a better idea of it, some account may as well be -given of the place it came from. A very old garret of a very old house -in an old-fashioned quarter of one of the oldest towns in America. -This garret had been closed for years. It was thought to be haunted; -a rumor, I confess, which, however absurd (in my opinion), I did not, -at the time of purchasing, very vehemently contradict; since, not -improbably, it tended to place the property the more conveniently -within my means. - -It was, therefore, from no dread of the reputed goblins aloft, that, -for five years after first taking up my residence in the house, I -never entered the garret. There was no special inducement. The roof -was well slated, and thoroughly tight. The company that insured the -house, waived all visitation of the garret; why, then, should the -owner be over-anxious about it?--particularly, as he had no use for -it, the house having ample room below. Then the key of the stair-door -leading to it was lost. The lock was a huge old-fashioned one. To -open it, a smith would have to be called; an unnecessary trouble, I -thought. Besides, though I had taken some care to keep my two daughters -in ignorance of the rumor above-mentioned, still, they had, by some -means, got an inkling of it, and were well enough pleased to see the -entrance to the haunted ground closed. It might have remained so for a -still longer time, had it not been for my accidentally discovering, in -a corner of our glen-like, old, terraced garden, a large and curious -key, very old and rusty, which I at once concluded must belong to the -garret-door--a supposition which, upon trial, proved correct. Now, the -possession of a key to anything, at once provokes a desire to unlock -and explore; and this, too, from a mere instinct of gratification, -irrespective of any particular benefit to accrue. - -Behold me, then, turning the rusty old key, and going up, alone, into -the haunted garret. It embraced the entire area of the mansion. Its -ceiling was formed by the roof, showing the rafters and boards on -which the slates were laid. The roof shedding the water four ways from -a high point in the centre, the space beneath was much like that of -a general's marquee--only midway broken by a labyrinth of timbers, -for braces, from which waved innumerable cobwebs, that, of a summer's -noon, shone like Bagdad tissues and gauzes. On every hand, some strange -insect was seen, flying, or running, or creeping, on rafter and floor. - -Under the apex of the roof was a rude, narrow, decrepit step-ladder, -something like a Gothic pulpit-stairway, leading to a pulpit-like -platform, from which a still narrower ladder--a sort of Jacob's -ladder--led somewhat higher to the lofty scuttle. The slide of this -scuttle was about two feet square, all in one piece, furnishing a -massive frame for a single small pane of glass, inserted into it like -a bull's-eye. The light of the garret came from this sole source, -filtrated through a dense curtain of cobwebs. Indeed, the whole stairs, -and platform, and ladder, were festooned, and carpeted, and canopied -with cobwebs; which, in funereal accumulations, hung, too, from the -groined, murky ceiling, like the Carolina moss in the cypress forest. -In these cobwebs, swung, as in aerial catacombs, myriads of all tribes -of mummied insects. - -Climbing the stairs to the platform, and pausing there, to recover my -breath, a curious scene was presented. The sun was about half-way up. -Piercing the little sky-light, it slopingly bored a rainbowed tunnel -clear across the darkness of the garret. Here, millions of butterfly -moles were swarming. Against the sky-light itself, with a cymbal-like -buzzing, thousands of insects clustered in a golden mob. - -Wishing to shed a clearer light through the place, I sought to -withdraw the scuttle-slide. But no sign of latch or hasp was visible. -Only after long peering, did I discover a little padlock, imbedded, -like an oyster at the bottom of the sea, amid matted masses of weedy -webs, chrysalides, and insectivorous eggs. Brushing these away, I found -it locked. With a crooked nail, I tried to pick the lock, when scores -of small ants and flies, half-torpid, crawled forth from the keyhole, -and, feeling the warmth of the sun in the pane, began frisking around -me. Others appeared. Presently, I was overrun by them. As if incensed -at this invasion of their retreat, countless bands darted up from -below, beating about my head, like hornets. At last, with a sudden -jerk, I burst open the scuttle. And ah! what a change. As from the -gloom of the grave and the companionship of worms, men shall at last -rapturously rise into the living greenness and glory-immortal, so, from -my cobwebbed old garret, I thrust forth my head into the balmy air, and -found myself hailed by the verdant tops of great trees, growing in the -little garden below--trees, whose leaves soared high above my topmost -slate. - -Refreshed by this outlook, I turned inward to behold the garret, now -unwontedly lit up. Such humped masses of obsolete furniture. An old -escritoire, from whose pigeon-holes sprang mice, and from whose secret -drawers came subterranean squeakings, as from chipmunks' holes in the -woods; and broken-down old chairs, with strange carvings, which seemed -fit to seat a conclave of conjurors. And a rusty, iron-bound chest, -lidless, and packed full of mildewed old documents; one of which, with -a faded red ink-blot at the end, looked as if it might have been the -original bond that Doctor Faust gave to Mephistopheles. And, finally, -in the least lighted corner of all, where was a profuse litter of -indescribable old rubbish--among which was a broken telescope, and a -celestial globe staved in--stood the little old table, one hoofed foot, -like that of the Evil One, dimly revealed through the cobwebs. What -a thick dust, half paste, had settled upon the old vials and flasks; -how their once liquid contents had caked, and how strangely looked the -mouldy old book in the middle--Cotton Mather's _Magnalia_. - -Table and book I removed below, and had the dislocations of the one and -the tatters of the other repaired. I resolved to surround this sad -little hermit of a table, so long banished from genial neighborhood, -with all the kindly influences of warm urns, warm fires, and warm -hearts, little dreaming what all this warm nursing would hatch. - -I was pleased by the discovery that the table was not of the ordinary -mahogany, but of apple-tree-wood, which age had darkened nearly to -walnut. It struck me as being an appropriate piece of furniture for -our cedar-parlor--so called, from its being, after the old fashion, -wainscoted with that wood. The table's round slab, or orb, was so -contrived as to be readily changed from a horizontal to a perpendicular -position; so that, when not in use, it could be snugly placed in a -corner. For myself, wife, and two daughters, I thought it would make -a nice little breakfast and tea-table. It was just the thing for a -whist-table, too. And I also pleased myself with the idea that it would -make a famous reading-table. - -In these fancies, my wife, for one, took little interest. She -disrelished the idea of so unfashionable and indigent-looking a -stranger as the table intruding into the polished society of more -prosperous furniture. But when, after seeking its fortune at the -cabinet-maker's, the table came home, varnished over, bright as a -guinea, no one exceeded my wife in a gracious reception of it. It was -advanced to an honorable position in the cedar-parlor. - -But, as for my daughter Julia, she never got over her strange emotions -upon first accidentally encountering the table. Unfortunately, it was -just as I was in the act of bringing it down from the garret. Holding -it by the slab, I was carrying it before me, one cobwebbed hoof thrust -out, which weird object at a turn of the stairs, suddenly touched my -girl, as she was ascending; whereupon, turning, and seeing no living -creature--for I was quite hidden behind my shield--seeing nothing -indeed, but the apparition of the Evil One's foot, as it seemed, she -cried out, and there is no knowing what might have followed, had I not -immediately spoken. - -From the impression thus produced, my poor girl, of a very nervous -temperament, was long recovering. Superstitiously grieved at my -violating the forbidden solitude above, she associated in her -mind the cloven-footed table with the reputed goblins there. She -besought me to give up the idea of domesticating the table. Nor did -her sister fail to add her entreaties. Between my girls there was a -constitutional sympathy. But my matter-of-fact wife had now declared in -the table's favor. She was not wanting in firmness and energy. To her, -the prejudices of Julia and Anna were simply ridiculous. It was her -maternal duty, she thought, to drive such weakness away. By degrees, -the girls, at breakfast and tea, were induced to sit down with us at -the table. Continual proximity was not without effect. By and by, they -would sit pretty tranquilly, though Julia, as much as possible, avoided -glancing at the hoofed feet, and, when at this I smiled, she would look -at me seriously--as much as to say, Ah, papa, you, too, may yet do the -same. She prophesied that, in connection with the table, something -strange would yet happen. But I would only smile the more, while my -wife indignantly chided. - -Meantime, I took particular satisfaction in my table, as a night -reading-table. At a ladies' fair, I bought me a beautifully worked -reading-cushion, and, with elbow leaning thereon, and hand shading my -eyes from the light, spent many a long hour--nobody by, but the queer -old book I had brought down from the garret. - -All went well, till the incident now about to be given--an incident, be -it remembered, which, like every other in this narration, happened long -before the time of the "Fox Girls." - -It was late on a Saturday night in December. In the little old -cedar-parlor, before the little old apple-tree table, I was sitting -up, as usual, alone. I had made more than one effort to get up and go -to bed; but I could not. I was, in fact, under a sort of fascination. -Somehow, too, certain reasonable opinions of mine, seemed not so -reasonable as before. I felt nervous. The truth was, that though, in -my previous night-readings, Cotton Mather had but amused me, upon -this particular night he terrified me. A thousand times I had laughed -at such stories. Old wives' fables, I thought, however entertaining. -But now, how different. They began to put on the aspect of reality. -Now, for the first time it struck me that this was no romantic -Mrs. Radcliffe, who had written the _Magnalia_; but a practical, -hard-working, earnest, upright man, a learned doctor, too, as well -as a good Christian and orthodox clergyman. What possible motive -could such a man have to deceive? His style had all the plainness -and unpoetic boldness of truth. In the most straightforward way, he -laid before me detailed accounts of New England witchcraft, each -important item corroborated by respectable townsfolk, and, of not a -few of the most surprising, he himself had been eye-witness. Cotton -Mather testified himself whereof he had seen. But, is it possible? I -asked myself. Then I remembered that Dr. Johnson, the matter-of-fact -compiler of a dictionary, had been a believer in ghosts, besides many -other sound, worthy men. Yielding to the fascination, I read deeper and -deeper into the night. At last, I found myself starting at the least -chance sound, and yet wishing that it were not so very still. - -A tumbler of warm punch stood by my side, with which beverage, in a -moderate way, I was accustomed to treat myself every Saturday night; -a habit, however, against which my good wife had long remonstrated; -predicting that, unless I gave it up, I would yet die a miserable sot. -Indeed, I may here mention that, on the Sunday mornings following -my Saturday nights, I had to be exceedingly cautious how I gave way -to the slightest impatience at any accidental annoyance; because -such impatience was sure to be quoted against me as evidence of the -melancholy consequences of over-night indulgence. As for my wife, she, -never sipping punch, could yield to any little passing peevishness as -much as she pleased. - -But, upon the night in question, I found myself wishing that, instead -of my usual mild mixture, I had concocted some potent draught. I felt -the need of stimulus. I wanted something to hearten me against Cotton -Mather--doleful, ghostly, ghastly Cotton Mather. I grew more and more -nervous. Nothing but fascination kept me from fleeing the room. The -candles burnt low, with long snuffs, and huge winding-sheets. But I -durst not raise the snuffers to them. It would make too much noise. And -yet, previously, I had been wishing for noise. I read on and on. My -hair began to have a sensation. My eyes felt strained; they pained me. -I was conscious of it. I knew I was injuring them. I knew I should rue -this abuse of them next day; but I read on and on. I could not help -it. The skinny hand was on me. - -All at once--Hark! - -My hair felt like growing grass. - -A faint sort of inward rapping or rasping--a strange, inexplicable -sound, mixed with a slight kind of wood-pecking or ticking. - -Tick! Tick! - -Yes, it was a faint sort of ticking. - -I looked up at my great Strasbourg clock in one corner. It was not -that. The clock had stopped. - -Tick! Tick! - -Was it my watch? - -According to her usual practice at night, my wife had, upon retiring, -carried my watch off to our chamber to hang it up on its nail. - -I listened with all my ears. - -Tick! Tick! - -Was it a death-tick in the wainscot? - -With a tremulous step I went all round the room, holding my ear to the -wainscot. - -No; it came not from the wainscot. - -Tick! Tick! - -I shook myself. I was ashamed of my fright. - -Tick! Tick! - -It grew in precision and audibleness. I retreated from the wainscot. It -seemed advancing to meet me. - -I looked round and round, but saw nothing, only one cloven foot of the -little apple-tree table. - -Bless me, said I to myself, with a sudden revulsion, it must be very -late; ain't that my wife calling me? Yes, yes; I must to bed. I suppose -all is locked up. No need to go the rounds. - -The fascination had departed, though the fear had increased. With -trembling hands, putting Cotton Mather out of sight, I soon found -myself, candlestick in hand, in my chamber, with a peculiar rearward -feeling, such as some truant dog may feel. In my eagerness to get well -into the chamber, I stumbled against a chair. - -"Do try and make less noise, my dear," said my wife from the bed. - -"You have been taking too much of that punch, I fear. That sad habit -grows on you. Ah, that I should ever see you thus staggering at night -into your chamber." - -"Wife," hoarsely whispered I, "there is--is something tick-ticking in -the cedar-parlor." - -"Poor old man--quite out of his mind--I knew it would be so. Come to -bed; come and sleep it off." - -"Wife, wife!" - -"Do, do come to bed. I forgive you. I won't remind you of it to-morrow. -But you must give up the punch-drinking, my dear. It quite gets the -better of you." - -"Don't exasperate me," I cried now, truly beside myself; "I will quit -the house!" - -"No, no! not in that state. Come to bed, my dear. I won't say another -word." - -The next morning, upon waking, my wife said nothing about the -past night's affair, and, feeling no little embarrassment myself, -especially at having been thrown into such a panic, I also was silent. -Consequently, my wife must still have ascribed my singular conduct to -a mind disordered, not by ghosts, but by punch. For my own part, as I -lay in bed watching the sun in the panes, I began to think that much -midnight reading of Cotton Mather was not good for man; that it had a -morbid influence upon the nerves, and gave rise to hallucinations. I -resolved to put Cotton Mather permanently aside. That done, I had no -fear of any return of the ticking. Indeed, I began to think that what -seemed the ticking in the room, was nothing but a sort of buzzing in my -ear. - -As is her wont, my wife having preceded me in rising, I made a -deliberate and agreeable toilet. Aware that most disorders of the mind -have their origin in the state of the body, I made vigorous use of -the flesh-brush, and bathed my head with New England rum, a specific -once recommended to me as good for buzzing in the ear. Wrapped in my -dressing gown, with cravat nicely adjusted, and fingernails neatly -trimmed, I complacently descended to the little cedar-parlor to -breakfast. - -What was my amazement to find my wife on her knees, rummaging about -the carpet nigh the little apple-tree table, on which the morning meal -was laid, while my daughters, Julia and Anna, were running about the -apartment distracted. - -"Oh, papa, papa!" cried Julia, hurrying up to me, "I knew it would be -so. The table, the table!" - -"Spirits! spirits!" cried Anna, standing far away from it, with pointed -finger. - -"Silence!" cried my wife. "How can I hear it, if you make such a -noise? Be still. Come here, husband; was this the ticking you spoke of? -Why don't you move? Was this it? Here, kneel down and listen to it. -Tick, tick, tick!--don't you hear it now?" - -"I do, I do," cried I, while my daughters besought us both to come away -from the spot. - -Tick, tick, tick! - -Right from under the snowy cloth, and the cheerful urn, and the smoking -milk-toast, the unaccountable ticking was heard. - -"Ain't there a fire in the next room, Julia," said I, "let us breakfast -there, my dear," turning to my wife--"let us go--leave the table--tell -Biddy to remove the things." - -And so saying I was moving towards the door in high self-possession, -when my wife interrupted me. - -"Before I quit this room, I will see into this ticking," she said with -energy. - -"It is something that can be found out, depend upon it. I don't believe -in spirits, especially at breakfast-time. Biddy! Biddy! Here, carry -these things back to the kitchen," handing the urn. Then, sweeping off -the cloth, the little table lay bare to the eye. - -"It's the table, the table!" cried Julia. - -"Nonsense," said my wife, "Who ever heard of a ticking table? It's on -the floor. Biddy! Julia! Anna! move everything out of the room--table -and all. Where are the tack-hammers?" - -"Heavens, mamma--you are not going to take up the carpet?" screamed -Julia. - -"Here's the hammers, marm," said Biddy, advancing tremblingly. - -"Hand them to me, then," cried my wife; for poor Biddy was, at long -gun-distance, holding them out as if her mistress had the plague. - -"Now, husband, do you take up that side of the carpet, and I will -this." Down on her knees she then dropped, while I followed suit. - -The carpet being removed, and the ear applied to the naked floor, not -the slightest ticking could be heard. - -"The table--after all, it is the table," cried my wife. "Biddy, bring -it back." - -"Oh no, marm, not I, please, marm," sobbed Biddy. - -"Foolish creature!--Husband, do you bring it." - -"My dear," said I, "we have plenty of other tables; why be so -particular?" - -"Where is that table?" cried my wife, contemptuously, regardless of my -gentle remonstrance. - -"In the wood-house, marm. I put it away as far as ever I could, marm," -sobbed Biddy. - -"Shall I go to the wood-house for it, or will you?" said my wife, -addressing me in a frightful, businesslike manner. - -Immediately I darted out of the door, and found the little apple-tree -table, upside down, in one of my chip-bins. I hurriedly returned with -it, and once more my wife examined it attentively. Tick, tick, tick! -Yes, it was the table. - -"Please, marm," said Biddy, now entering the room, with hat and -shawl--"please, marm, will you pay me my wages?" - -"Take your hat and shawl off directly," said my wife; "set this table -again." - -"Set it," roared I, in a passion, "set it, or I'll go for the police." - -"Heavens! heavens!" cried my daughters, in one breath. "What will -become of us!--Spirits! spirits!" - -"Will you set the table?" cried I, advancing upon Biddy. - -"I will, I will--yes, marm--yes, master--I will, I will. Spirits!--Holy -Vargin!" - -"Now, husband," said my wife, "I am convinced that, whatever it is that -causes this ticking, neither the ticking nor the table can hurt us; for -we are all good Christians, I hope. I am determined to find out the -cause of it, too, which time and patience will bring to light. I shall -breakfast on no other table but this, so long as we live in this house. -So, sit down, now that all things are ready again, and let us quietly -breakfast. My dears," turning to Julia and Anna, "go to your room, and -return composed. Let me have no more of this childishness." - -Upon occasion my wife was mistress in her house. - -During the meal, in vain was conversation started again and again; in -vain my wife said something brisk to infuse into others an animation -akin to her own. Julia and Anna, with heads bowed over their tea-cups, -were still listening for the tick. I confess, too, that their example -was catching. But, for the time, nothing was heard. Either the ticking -had died quite away, or else, slight as it was, the increasing uproar -of the street, with the general hum of day so contrasted with the -repose of night and early morning, smothered the sound. At the lurking -inquietude of her companions, my wife was indignant; the more so, as -she seemed to glory in her own exemption from panic. When breakfast was -cleared away she took my watch, and, placing it on the table, addressed -the supposed spirits in it, with a jocosely defiant air: - -"There, tick away, let us see who can tick loudest!" - -All that day, while abroad, I thought of the mysterious table. Could -Cotton Mather speak true? Were there spirits? And would spirits haunt -a tea-table? Would the Evil One dare show his cloven foot in the bosom -of an innocent family? I shuddered when I thought that I myself, -against the solemn warnings of my daughters, had wilfully introduced -the cloven foot there. Yea, three cloven feet. But, towards noon, this -sort of feeling began to wear off. The continual rubbing against so -many practical people in the street, brushed such chimeras away from -me. I remembered that I had not acquitted myself very intrepidly either -on the previous night or in the morning. I resolved to regain the good -opinion of my wife. - -To evince my hardihood the more signally, when tea was dismissed, and -the three rubbers of whist had been played, and no ticking had been -heard--which the more encouraged me--I took my pipe, and, saying that -bed-time had arrived for the rest, drew my chair towards the fire, and, -removing my slippers, placed my feet on the fender, looking as calm and -composed as old Democritus in the tombs of Abdera, when one midnight -the mischievous little boys of the town tried to frighten that sturdy -philosopher with spurious ghosts. - -And I thought to myself, that the worthy old gentleman had set a good -example to all times in his conduct on that occasion. For, when at the -dead hour, intent on his studies, he heard the strange sounds, he did -not so much as move his eyes from his page, only simply said: "Boys, -little boys, go home. This is no place for you. You will catch cold -here." The philosophy of which words lies here: that they imply the -foregone conclusion, that any possible investigation of any possible -spiritual phenomena was absurd; that upon the first face of such -things, the mind of a sane man instinctively affirmed them a humbug, -unworthy the least attention; more especially if such phenomena -appear in tombs, since tombs are peculiarly the place of silence, -lifelessness, and solitude; for which cause, by the way, the old man, -as upon the occasion in question, made the tombs of Abdera his place of -study. - -Presently I was alone, and all was hushed. I laid down my pipe, not -feeling exactly tranquil enough now thoroughly to enjoy it. Taking up -one of the newspapers, I began, in a nervous, hurried sort of way, to -read by the light of a candle placed on a small stand drawn close to -the fire. As for the apple-tree table, having lately concluded that it -was rather too low for a reading-table, I thought best not to use it -as such that night. But it stood not very distant in the middle of the -room. - -Try as I would, I could not succeed much at reading. Somehow I seemed -all ear and no eye; a condition of intense auricular suspense. But ere -long it was broken. - -Tick! tick! tick! - -Though it was not the first time I had heard that sound; nay, though I -had made it my particular business on this occasion to wait for that -sound, nevertheless, when it came, it seemed unexpected, as if a -cannon had boomed through the window. - -Tick! tick! tick! - -I sat stock still for a time, thoroughly to master, if possible, my -first discomposure. Then rising, I looked pretty steadily at the table; -went up to it pretty steadily; took hold of it pretty steadily; but let -it go pretty quickly; then paced up and down, stopping every moment -or two, with ear pricked to listen. Meantime, within me, the contest -between panic and philosophy remained not wholly decided. - -Tick! tick! tick! - -With appalling distinctness the ticking now rose on the night. - -My pulse fluttered--my heart beat. I hardly know what might not have -followed, had not Democritus just then come to the rescue. For shame, -said I to myself, what is the use of so fine an example of philosophy, -if it cannot be followed? Straightway I resolved to imitate it, even to -the old sage's occupation and attitude. - -Resuming my chair and paper, with back presented to the table, I -remained thus for a time, as if buried in study, when, the ticking -still continuing, I drawled out, in as indifferent and dryly jocose a -way as I could; "Come, come, Tick, my boy, fun enough for to-night." - -Tick! tick! tick! - -There seemed a sort of jeering defiance in the ticking now. It seemed -to exult over the poor affected part I was playing. But much as the -taunt stung me, it only stung me into persistence. I resolved not to -abate one whit in my mode of address. - -"Come, come, you make more and more noise, Tick, my boy; too much of a -joke--time to have done." - -No sooner said than the ticking ceased. Never was responsive obedience -more exact. For the life of me, I could not help turning round upon the -table, as one would upon some reasonable being, when--could I believe -my senses? I saw something moving, or wriggling, or squirming upon the -slab of the table. It shone like a glow-worm. Unconsciously, I grasped -the poker that stood at hand. But bethinking me how absurd to attack a -glow-worm with a poker, I put it down. How long I sat spellbound and -staring there, with my body presented one way and my face another, I -cannot say; but at length I rose, and, buttoning my coat up and down, -made a sudden intrepid forced march full upon the table. And there, -near the centre of the slab, as I live, I saw an irregular little -hole, or, rather, short nibbled sort of crack, from which (like a -butterfly escaping its chrysalis) the sparkling object, whatever it -might be, was struggling. Its motion was the motion of life. I stood -becharmed. Are there, indeed, spirits, thought I; and is this one? -No; I must be dreaming. I turned my glance off to the red fire on the -hearth, then back to the pale lustre on the table. What I saw was no -optical illusion, but a real marvel. The tremor was increasing, when, -once again, Democritus befriended me. Supernatural coruscation as it -appeared, I strove to look at the strange object in a purely scientific -way. Thus viewed, it appeared some new sort of small shining beetle or -bug, and, I thought, not without something of a hum to it, too. - -I still watched it, and with still increasing self-possession. -Sparkling and wriggling, it still continued its throes. In another -moment it was just on the point of escaping its prison. A thought -struck me. Running for a tumbler, I clapped it over the insect just in -time to secure it. - -After watching it a while longer under the tumbler, I left all as it -was, and, tolerably composed, retired. - -Now, for the soul of me, I could not, at that time, comprehend the -phenomenon. A live bug come out of a dead table? A fire-fly bug come -out of a piece of ancient lumber, for one knows not how many years -stored away in an old garret? Was ever such a thing heard of, or -even dreamed of? How got the bug there? Never mind. I bethought me -of Democritus, and resolved to keep cool. At all events, the mystery -of the ticking was explained. It was simply the sound of the gnawing -and filing, and tapping of the bug, in eating its way out. It was -satisfactory to think, that there was an end forever to the ticking. I -resolved not to let the occasion pass without reaping some credit from -it. - -"Wife," said I, next morning, "you will not be troubled with any more -ticking in our table. I have put a stop to all that." - -"Indeed, husband," said she, with some incredulity. - -"Yes, wife," returned I, perhaps a little vaingloriously, "I have put -a quietus upon that ticking. Depend upon it, the ticking will trouble -you no more." - -In vain she besought me to explain myself. I would not gratify her; -being willing to balance any previous trepidation I might have -betrayed, by leaving room now for the imputation of some heroic feat -whereby I had silenced the ticking. It was a sort of innocent deceit by -implication, quite harmless, and, I thought, of utility. - -But when I went to breakfast, I saw my wife kneeling at the table -again, and my girls looking ten times more frightened than ever. - -"Why did you tell me that boastful tale," said my wife, indignantly. -"You might have known how easily it would be found out. See this crack, -too; and here is the ticking again, plainer than ever." - -"Impossible," I explained; but upon applying my ear, sure enough, tick! -tick! tick! The ticking was there. - -Recovering myself the best way I might, I demanded the bug. - -"Bug?" screamed Julia, "Good heavens, papa!" - -"I hope sir, you have been bringing no bugs into this house," said my -wife, severely. - -"The bug, the bug!" I cried; "the bug under the tumbler." - -"Bugs in tumblers!" cried the girls; "not _our_ tumblers, papa? You -have not been putting bugs into our tumblers? Oh, what does--what -_does_ it all mean?" - -"Do you see this hole, this crack here?" said I, putting my finger on -the spot. - -"That I do," said my wife, with high displeasure. "And how did it come -there? What have you been doing to the table?" - -"Do you see this crack?" repeated I, intensely. - -"Yes, yes," said Julia; "that was what frightened me so; it looks so -like witch-work." - -"Spirits! spirits!" cried Anna. - -"Silence!" said my wife. "Go on, sir, and tell us what you know of the -crack." - -"Wife and daughters," said I, solemnly, "out of that crack, or hole, -while I was sitting all alone here last night, a wonderful--" - -Here, involuntarily, I paused, fascinated by the expectant attitudes -and bursting eyes of Julia and Anna. - -"What, what?" cried Julia. - -"A bug, Julia." - -"Bug?" cried my wife. "A bug come out of this table? And what did you -do with it?" - -"Clapped it under a tumbler." - -"Biddy! Biddy!" cried my wife, going to the door. "Did you see a -tumbler here on this table when you swept the room?" - -"Sure I did, marm, and 'bomnable bug under it." - -"And what did you do with it?" demanded I. - -"Put the bug in the fire, sir, and rinsed out the tumbler ever so many -times, marm." - -"Where is that tumbler?" cried Anna. "I hope you scratched it--marked -it some way. I'll never drink out of that tumbler; never put it before -me, Biddy. A bug--a bug! Oh, Julia! Oh, mamma! I feel it crawling all -over me, even now. Haunted table!" - -"Spirits! spirits!" cried Julia. - -"My daughters," said their mother, with authority in her eyes, "go to -your chamber till you can behave more like reasonable creatures. Is it -a bug--a bug that can frighten you out of what little wits you ever -had? Leave the room. I am astonished, I am pained by such childish -conduct." - -"Now tell me," said she, addressing me, as soon as they had withdrawn, -"now tell me truly, did a bug really come out of this crack in the -table?" - -"Wife, it is even so." - -"Did you see it come out?" - -"I did." - -She looked earnestly at the crack, leaning over it. - -"Are you sure?" said she, looking up, but still bent over. - -"Sure, sure." - -She was silent. I began to think that the mystery of the thing began -to tell even upon her. Yes, thought I, I shall presently see my wife -shaking and shuddering, and, who knows, calling in some old dominie to -exorcise the table, and drive out the spirits. - -"I'll tell you what we'll do," said she suddenly, and not without -excitement. - -"What, wife?" said I, all eagerness, expecting some mystical -proposition; "what, wife?" - -"We will rub this table all over with that celebrated 'roach powder' -I've heard of." - -"Good gracious! Then you don't think it's spirits?" - -"Spirits?" - -The emphasis of scornful incredulity was worthy of Democritus himself. - -"But this ticking--this ticking?" said I. - -"I'll whip that out of it." - -"Come, come, wife," said I, "you are going too far the other way, now. -Neither roach powder nor whipping will cure this table. It's a queer -table, wife; there's no blinking it." - -"I'll have it rubbed, though," she replied, "well rubbed;" and calling -Biddy, she bade her get wax and brush, and give the table a vigorous -manipulation. That done, the cloth was again laid, and we sat down to -our morning meal; but my daughters did not make their appearance. Julia -and Anna took no breakfast that day. - -When the cloth was removed, in a businesslike way, my wife went to work -with a dark colored cement, and hermetically closed the little hole in -the table. - -My daughters looking pale, I insisted upon taking them out for a walk -that morning, when the following conversation ensued: - -"My worst presentiments about that table are being verified, papa," -said Julia; "not for nothing was that intimation of the cloven foot on -my shoulder." - -"Nonsense," said I. "Let us go into Mrs. Brown's, and have an -ice-cream." - -The spirit of Democritus was stronger on me now. By a curious -coincidence, it strengthened with the strength of the sunlight. - -"But is it not miraculous," said Anna, "how a bug should come out of a -table?" - -"Not at all, my daughter. It is a very common thing for bugs to come -out of wood. You yourself must have seen them coming out of the ends of -the billets on the hearth." - -"Ah, but that wood is almost fresh from the woodland. But the table is -at least a hundred years old." - -"What of that?" said I, gayly. "Have not live toads been found in the -hearts of dead rocks, as old as creation?" - -"Say what you will, papa, I feel it is spirits," said Julia. "Do, do -now, my dear papa, have that haunted table removed from the house." - -"Nonsense," said I. - -By another curious coincidence, the more they felt frightened, the more -I felt brave. - -Evening came. - -"This ticking," said my wife; "do you think that another bug will come -of this continued ticking?" - -Curiously enough, that had not occurred to me before. I had not thought -of there being twins of bugs. But now, who knew; there might be even -triplets. - -I resolved to take precautions, and, if there was to be a second bug, -infallibly secure it. During the evening, the ticking was again heard. -About ten o'clock I clapped a tumbler over the spot, as near as I could -judge of it by my ear. Then we all retired, and locking the door of the -cedar-parlor, I put the key in my pocket. - -In the morning, nothing was to be seen, but the ticking was heard. -The trepidation of my daughters returned. They wanted to call in the -neighbors. But to this my wife was vigorously opposed. We should be the -laughing-stock of the whole town. So it was agreed that nothing should -be disclosed. Biddy received strict charges; and, to make sure, was not -allowed that week to go to confession, lest she should tell the priest. - -I stayed home all that day; every hour or two bending over the table, -both eye and ear. Towards night, I thought the ticking grew more -distinct, and seemed divided from my ear by a thinner and thinner -partition of the wood. I thought, too, that I perceived a faint -heaving up, or bulging of the wood, in the place where I had placed -the tumbler. To put an end to the suspense, my wife proposed taking -a knife and cutting into the wood there; but I had a less impatient -plan; namely, that she and I should sit up with the table that night, -as, from present symptoms, the bug would probably make its appearance -before morning. For myself, I was curious to see the first advent of -the thing--the first dazzle of the chick as it chipped the shell. - -The idea struck my wife not unfavorably. She insisted that both Julia -and Anna should be of the party, in order that the evidence of their -senses should disabuse their minds of all nursery nonsense. For that -spirits should tick, and that spirits should take unto themselves -the form of bugs, was, to my wife, the most foolish of all foolish -imaginations. True, she could not account for the thing; but she had -all confidence that it could be, and would yet be, somehow explained, -and that to her entire satisfaction. Without knowing it herself, my -wife was a female Democritus. For my part, my present feelings were of -a mixed sort. In a strange and not unpleasing way, I gently oscillated -between Democritus and Cotton Mather. But to my wife and daughters -I assumed to be pure Democritus--a jeerer at all tea-table spirits -whatever. - -So, laying in a good supply of candles and crackers, all four of us -sat up with the table, and at the same time sat round it. For a while -my wife and I carried on an animated conversation. But my daughters -were silent. Then my wife and I would have had a rubber of whist, but -my daughters could not be prevailed upon to join. So we played whist -with two dummies literally; my wife won the rubber and, fatigued with -victory, put away the cards. - -Half past eleven o'clock. No sign of the bug. The candles began to -burn dim. My wife was just in the act of snuffing them, when a sudden, -violent, hollow, resounding, rumbling, thumping was heard. - -Julia and Anna sprang to their feet. - -"All well!" cried a voice from the street. It was the watchman, first -ringing down his club on the pavement, and then following it up with -this highly satisfactory verbal announcement. - -"All well! Do you hear that, my girls?" said I, gayly. - -Indeed it was astonishing how brave as Bruce I felt in company with -three women, and two of them half frightened out of their wits. - -I rose for my pipe, and took a philosophic smoke. - -Democritus forever, thought I. - -In profound silence, I sat smoking, when lo!--pop! pop! pop!--right -under the table, a terrible popping. - -This time we all four sprang up, and my pipe was broken. - -"Good heavens! what's that?" - -"Spirits! spirits!" cried Julia. - -"Oh, oh, oh!" cried Anna. - -"Shame!" said my wife, "it's that new bottled cider, in the cellar, -going off. I told Biddy to wire the bottles to-day." - -I shall here transcribe from memoranda, kept during part of the night. - - "_One o'clock. No sign of the bug. Ticking continues. Wife getting - sleepy._ - - "_Two o'clock. No sign of the bug. Ticking intermittent. Wife fast - asleep._ - - "_Three o'clock. No sign of the bug. Ticking pretty steady. Julia and - Anna getting sleepy._ - - "_Four o'clock. No sign of the bug. Ticking regular, but not spirited. - Wife, Julia, and Anna, all fast asleep in their chairs._ - - "_Five o'clock. No sign of the bug. Ticking faint. Myself feeling - drowsy. The rest still asleep._" - -So far the journal. - ---Rap! rap! rap! - -A terrific, portentous rapping against a door. - -Startled from our dreams, we started to our feet. - -Rap! rap! rap! - -Julia and Anna shrieked. - -I cowered in the corner. - -"You fools!" cried my wife, "it's the baker with the bread." - -Six o'clock. - -She went to throw back the shutters, but ere it was done, a cry came -from Julia. There, half in and half out its crack, there wriggled the -bug, flashing in the room's general dimness, like a fiery opal. - -Had this bug had a tiny sword by its side--a Damascus sword--and a -tiny necklace round its neck--a diamond necklace--and a tiny gun in -its claw--brass gun--and a tiny manuscript in its mouth--a Chaldee -manuscript--Julia and Anna could not have stood more charmed. - -In truth, it was a beautiful bug--a Jew jeweler's bug--a bug like a -sparkle of a glorious sunset. - -Julia and Anna had never dreamed of such a bug. To them, bug had been -a word synonymous with hideousness. But this was a seraphical bug; or -rather, all it had of the bug was the B, for it was beautiful as a -butterfly. - -Julia and Anna gazed and gazed. They were no more alarmed. They were -delighted. - -"But how got this strange, pretty creature into the table?" cried Julia. - -"Spirits can get anywhere," replied Anna. - -"Pshaw!" said my wife. - -"Do you hear any more ticking?" said I. - -They all applied their ears, but heard nothing. - -"Well, then, wife and daughters, now that it is all over, this very -morning I will go and make inquiries about it." - -"Oh, do, papa," cried Julia, "do go and consult Madame Pazzi, the -conjuress." - -"Better go and consult Professor Johnson, the naturalist," said my wife. - -"Bravo, Mrs. Democritus!" said I. "Professor Johnson is the man." - -By good fortune I found the professor in. Informing him briefly of the -incident, he manifested a cool, collected sort of interest, and gravely -accompanied me home. The table was produced, the two openings pointed -out, the bug displayed, and the details of the affair set forth; my -wife and daughters being present. - -"And now, Professor," said I, "what do you think of it?" - -Putting on his spectacles, the learned professor looked hard at the -table, and gently scraped with his penknife into the holes, but said -nothing. - -"Is it not an unusual thing, this?" anxiously asked Anna. - -"Very unusual, Miss." - -At which Julia and Anna exchanged significant glances. - -"But is it not wonderful, very wonderful?" demanded Julia. - -"Very wonderful, Miss." - -My daughters exchanged still more significant glances, and Julia, -emboldened, again spoke. - -"And must you not admit, sir, that it is the work of--of--of sp--?" - -"Spirits? No," was the crusty rejoinder. - -"My daughters," said I, mildly, "you should remember that this is not -Madame Pazzi, the conjuress, you put your questions to, but the eminent -naturalist, Professor Johnson. And now, Professor," I added, "be -pleased to explain. Enlighten our ignorance." - -Without repeating all the learned gentleman said--for, indeed, though -lucid, he was a little prosy--let the following summary of his -explication suffice. - -The incident was not wholly without example. The wood of the table -was apple-tree, a sort of tree much fancied by various insects. The -bugs had come from eggs laid inside the bark of the living tree in the -orchard. By careful examination of the position of the hole from which -the last bug had emerged, in relation to the cortical layers of the -slab, and then allowing for the inch and a half along the grain, ere -the bug had eaten its way entirely out, and then computing the whole -number of cortical layers in the slab, with a reasonable conjecture -for the number cut off from the outside, it appeared that the egg must -have been laid in the tree some ninety years, more or less, before the -tree could have been felled. But between the felling of the tree and -the present time, how long might that be? It was a very old-fashioned -table. Allow eighty years for the age of the table, which would make -one hundred and fifty years that the bug had laid in the egg. Such, at -least, was Professor Johnson's computation. - -"Now, Julia," said I, "after that scientific statement of the case -(though, I confess, I don't exactly understand it) where are your -spirits? It is very wonderful as it is, but where are your spirits?" - -"Where, indeed?" said my wife. - -"Why, now, she did not _really_ associate this purely natural -phenomenon with any crude, spiritual hypothesis, did she?" observed the -learned professor, with a slight sneer. - -"Say what you will," said Julia, holding up, in the covered tumbler, -the glorious, lustrous, flashing, live opal, "say what you will, if -this beauteous creature be not a spirit, it yet teaches a spiritual -lesson. For if, after one hundred and fifty years' entombment, a mere -insect comes forth at last into light, itself an effulgence, shall -there be no glorified resurrection for the spirit of man? Spirits! -spirits!" she exclaimed, with rapture, "I still believe in them with -delight, when before I but thought of them with terror." - -The mysterious insect did not long enjoy its radiant life; it expired -the next day. But my girls have preserved it. Embalmed in a silver -vinaigrette, it lies on the little apple-tree table in the pier of the -cedar-parlor. - -And whatever lady doubts this story, my daughters will be happy to show -her both the bug and the table, and point out to her, in the repaired -slab of the latter, the two sealing-wax drops designating the exact -place of the two holes made by the two bugs, something in the same way -in which are marked the spots where the cannon balls struck Brattle -Street church. - - - - -HAWTHORNE AND HIS MOSSES - -_BY A VIRGINIAN SPENDING JULY IN VERMONT_ - - -A papered chamber in a fine old farmhouse, a mile from any other -dwelling, and dipped to the eaves in foliage--surrounded by mountains, -old woods, and Indian pools,--this surely, is the place to write of -Hawthorne. Some charm is in this northern air, for love and duty seem -both impelling to the task. A man of a deep and noble nature has seized -me in this seclusion. His wild, witch-voice rings through me; or, in -softer cadences, I seem to hear it in the songs of the hillside birds -that sing in the larch trees at my window. - -Would that all excellent books were foundlings, without father or -mother, that so it might be we could glorify them, without including -their ostensible authors! Nor would any true man take exception to -this; least of all, he who writes, "When the artist rises high enough -to achieve the beautiful, the symbol by which he makes it perceptible -to mortal senses becomes of little value in his eyes, while his spirit -possesses itself in the enjoyment of the reality." - -But more than this. I know not what would be the right name to put on -the title-page of an excellent book; but this I feel, that the names -of all fine authors are fictitious ones, far more so than that of -Junius; simply standing, as they do, for the mystical ever-eluding -spirit of all beauty, which ubiquitously possesses men of genius. -Purely imaginative as this fancy may appear, it nevertheless seems to -receive some warranty from the fact, that on a personal interview no -great author has ever come up to the idea of his reader. But that dust -of which our bodies are composed, how can it fitly express the nobler -intelligences among us? With reverence be it spoken, that not even in -the case of one deemed more than man, not even in our Saviour, did his -visible frame betoken anything of the augustness of the nature within. -Else, how could those Jewish eyewitnesses fail to see heaven in his -glance! - -It is curious how a man may travel along a country road, and yet miss -the grandest or sweetest of prospects by reason of an intervening -hedge, so like all other hedges, as in no way to hint of the wide -landscape beyond. So has it been with me concerning the enchanting -landscape in the soul of this Hawthorne, this most excellent Man of -Mosses. His Old Manse has been written now four years, but I never read -it till a day or two since. I had seen it in the book-stores--heard -of it often--even had it recommended to me by a tasteful friend, -as a rare, quiet book, perhaps too deserving of popularity to be -popular. But there are so many books called "excellent," and so much -unpopular merit, that amid the thick stir of other things, the hint -of my tasteful friend was disregarded and for four years the Mosses -on the Old Manse never refreshed me with their perennial green. It -may be, however, that all this while the book, likewise, was only -improving in flavor and body. At any rate, it so chanced that this long -procrastination eventuated in a happy result. At breakfast the other -day, a mountain girl, a cousin of mine, who for the last two weeks has -every morning helped me to strawberries and raspberries, which, like -the roses and pearls in the fairy tale, seemed to fall into the saucer -from those strawberry-beds, her cheeks--this delightful creature, -this charming Cherry says to me--"I see you spend your mornings in the -haymow; and yesterday I found there Dwight's _Travels in New England_. -Now I have something far better than that, something more congenial to -our summer on these hills. Take these raspberries, and then I will give -you some moss." "Moss!" said I. "Yes, and you must take it to the barn -with you, and good-by to Dwight." - -With that she left me, and soon returned with a volume, verdantly -bound, and garnished with a curious frontispiece in green; nothing -less than a fragment of real moss, cunningly pressed to a fly-leaf. -"Why, this," said I, spilling my raspberries, "this is the _Mosses from -an Old Manse_." "Yes," said cousin Cherry, "yes, it is that flowery -Hawthorne." "Hawthorne and Mosses," said I, "no more it is morning: it -is July in the country: and I am off for the barn." - -Stretched on that new mown clover, the hillside breeze blowing over -me through the wide barn door, and soothed by the hum of the bees in -the meadows around, how magically stole over me this Mossy Man! and -how amply, how bountifully, did he redeem that delicious promise to -his guests in the Old Manse, of whom it is written: "Others could give -them pleasure, or amusement, or instruction--these could be picked -up anywhere; but it was for me to give them rest--rest, in a life of -trouble! What better could be done for those weary and world-worn -spirits? ... what better could be done for anybody who came within our -magic circle than to throw the spell of a tranquil spirit over him?" So -all that day, half-buried in the new clover, I watched this Hawthorne's -"Assyrian dawn, and Paphian sunset and moonrise from the summit of our -eastern hill." - -The soft ravishments of the man spun me round about in a web of dreams, -and when the book was closed, when the spell was over, this wizard -"dismissed me with but misty reminiscences, as if I had been dreaming -of him." - -What a wild moonlight of contemplative humor bathes that Old -Manse!--the rich and rare distilment of a spicy and slowly-oozing -heart. No rollicking rudeness, no gross fun fed on fat dinners, and -bred in the lees of wine,--but a humor so spiritually gentle, so -high, so deep, and yet so richly relishable, that it were hardly -inappropriate in an angel. It is the very religion of mirth; for -nothing so human but it may be advanced to that. The orchard of the -Old Manse seems the visible type of the fine mind that has described -it--those twisted and contorted old trees, "they stretch out their -crooked branches, and take such hold of the imagination that we -remember them as humorists and odd-fellows." And then, as surrounded -by these grotesque forms, and hushed in the noonday repose of this -Hawthorne's spell, how aptly might the still fall of his ruddy thoughts -into your soul be symbolized by: "In the stillest afternoon, if I -listened, the thump of a great apple was audible, falling without a -breath of wind, from the mere necessity of perfect ripeness." For no -less ripe than ruddy are the apples of the thoughts and fancies in this -sweet Man of Mosses. - -_Buds and Bird Voices._ What a delicious thing is that! "Will the world -ever be so decayed, that spring may not renew its greenness?" And the -_Fire Worship_. Was ever the hearth so glorified into an altar before? -The mere title of that piece is better than any common work in fifty -folio volumes. How exquisite is this: "Nor did it lessen the charm of -his soft, familiar courtesy and helpfulness that the mighty spirit, -were opportunity offered him, would run riot through the peaceful -house, wrap its inmates in his terrible embrace, and leave nothing of -them save their whitened bones. This possibility of mad destruction -only made his domestic kindness the more beautiful and touching. It -was so sweet of him, being endowed with such power, to dwell day after -day, and one long lonesome night after another, on the dusky hearth, -only now and then betraying his wild nature by thrusting his red tongue -out of the chimney-top! True, he had done much mischief in the world, -and was pretty certain to do more; but his warm heart atoned for all. -He was kindly to the race of man; and they pardoned his characteristic -imperfections." - -But he has still other apples, not quite so ruddy, though full as -ripe:--apples, that have been left to wither on the tree, after the -pleasant autumn gathering is past. The sketch of _The Old Apple Dealer_ -is conceived in the subtlest spirit of sadness; he whose "subdued -and nerveless boyhood prefigured his abortive prime, which likewise -contained within itself the prophecy and image of his lean and torpid -age." Such touches as are in this piece cannot proceed from any common -heart. They argue such a depth of tenderness, such a boundless sympathy -with all forms of being, such an omnipresent love, that we must needs -say that this Hawthorne is here almost alone in his generation,--at -least, in the artistic manifestation of these things. Still more. -Such touches as these--and many, very many similar ones, all through -his chapters--furnish clues whereby we enter a little way into the -intricate, profound heart where they originated. And we see that -suffering, some time or other and in some shape or other,--this only -can enable any man to depict it in others. All over him, Hawthorne's -melancholy rests like an Indian-summer, which, though bathing a whole -country in one softness, still reveals the distinctive hue of every -towering hill and each far-winding vale. - -But it is the least part of genius that attracts admiration. Where -Hawthorne is known, he seems to be deemed a pleasant writer, with -a pleasant style,--a sequestered, harmless man, from whom any deep -and weighty thing would hardly be anticipated--a man who means no -meanings. But there is no man, in whom humor and love, like mountain -peaks, soar to such a rapt height as to receive the irradiations of -the upper skies;--there is no man in whom humor and love are developed -in that high form called genius; no such man can exist without also -possessing, as the indispensable complement of these, a great, deep -intellect, which drops down into the universe like a plummet. Or, -love and humor are only the eyes through which such an intellect -views this world. The great beauty in such a mind is but the product -of its strength. What, to all readers, can be more charming than the -piece entitled _Monsieur du Miroir_; and to a reader at all capable of -fully fathoming it, what, at the same time, can possess more mystical -depth of meaning?--yes, there he sits and looks at me,--this "shape -of mystery," this "identical MONSIEUR DU MIROIR!" "Methinks I should -tremble now were his wizard power of gliding through all impediments in -search of me to place him suddenly before my eyes." - -How profound, nay, appalling, is the moral evolved by the _Earth's -Holocaust_; where--beginning with the hollow follies and affectations -of the world,--all vanities and empty theories and forms are, one after -another, and by an admirably graduated, growing comprehensiveness, -thrown into the allegorical fire, till, at length, nothing is left but -the all-engendering heart of man; which remaining still unconsumed, the -great conflagration is naught. - -Of a piece with this, is the _Intelligence Office_, a wondrous -symbolizing of the secret workings in men's souls. There are other -sketches still more charged with ponderous import. - -_The Christmas Banquet_, and _The Bosom Serpent_, would be fine -subjects for a curious and elaborate analysis, touching the -conjectural parts of the mind that produced them. For spite of all the -Indian-summer sunlight on the hither side of Hawthorne's soul, the -other side--like the dark half of the physical sphere--is shrouded -in a blackness, ten times black. But this darkness but gives more -effect to the ever-moving dawn, that forever advances through it, and -circumnavigates his world. Whether Hawthorne has simply availed himself -of this mystical blackness as a means to the wondrous effects he makes -it to produce in his lights and shades; or whether there really lurks -in him, perhaps unknown to himself, a touch of Puritanic gloom,--this, -I cannot altogether tell. Certain it is, however, that this great -power of blackness in him derives its force from its appeals to that -Calvinistic sense of Innate Depravity and Original Sin, from whose -visitations, in some shape or other, no deeply thinking mind is always -and wholly free. For, in certain moods, no man can weigh this world -without throwing in something, somehow like Original Sin, to strike the -uneven balance. At all events, perhaps no writer has ever wielded this -terrific thought with greater terror than this same harmless Hawthorne. -Still more: this black conceit pervades him through and through. You -may be witched by his sunlight,--transported by the bright gildings in -the skies he builds over you; but there is the blackness of darkness -beyond; and even his bright gildings but fringe and play upon the -edges of thunder-clouds. In one word, the world is mistaken in this -Nathaniel Hawthorne. He himself must often have smiled at its absurd -misconception of him. He is immeasurably deeper than the plummet of -the mere critic. For it is not the brain that can test such a man; it -is only the heart. You cannot come to know greatness by inspecting it; -there is no glimpse to be caught of it, except by intuition; you need -not ring it, you but touch it, and you find it is gold. - -Now, it is that blackness in Hawthorne, of which I have spoken that -so fixes and fascinates me. It may be, nevertheless, that it is too -largely developed in him. Perhaps he does not give us a ray of light -for every shade of his dark. But however this may be, this blackness -it is that furnishes the infinite obscure of his background,--that -background, against which Shakspeare plays his grandest conceits, -the things that have made for Shakspeare his loftiest but most -circumscribed renown, as the profoundest of thinkers. For by -philosophers Shakspeare is not adored, as the great man of tragedy -and comedy:--"Off with his head; so much for Buckingham!" This sort -of rant interlined by another hand, brings down the house,--those -mistaken souls, who dream of Shakespeare as a mere man of Richard the -Third humps and Macbeth daggers. But it is those deep far-away things -in him; those occasional flashings-forth of the intuitive Truth in -him; those short, quick probings at the very axis of reality;--these -are the things that make Shakspeare, Shakspeare. Through the mouths of -the dark characters of Hamlet, Timon, Lear, and Iago, he craftily says, -or sometimes insinuates the things which we feel to be so terrifically -true, that it were all but madness for any good man, in his own proper -character, to utter, or even hint of them. Tormented into desperation, -Lear, the frantic king, tears off the mask, and speaks the same -madness of vital truth. But, as I before said, it is the least part of -genius that attracts admiration. And so, much of the blind, unbridled -admiration that has been heaped upon Shakspeare, has been lavished -upon the least part of him. And few of his endless commentators and -critics seem to have remembered, or even perceived, that the immediate -products of a great mind are not so great as that undeveloped and -sometimes undevelopable yet dimly-discernible greatness, to which those -immediate products are but the infallible indices. In Shakspeare's -tomb lies infinitely more than Shakspeare ever wrote. And if I magnify -Shakspeare, it is not so much for what he did do as for what he did -not do, or refrained from doing. For in this world of lies, Truth is -forced to fly like a scared white doe in the woodlands; and only by -cunning glimpses will she reveal herself, as in Shakspeare and other -masters of the great Art of Telling the Truth,--even though it be -covertly and by snatches. - -But if this view of the all-popular Shakspeare be seldom taken by his -readers, and if very few who extol him have ever read him deeply, or -perhaps, only have seen him on the tricky stage (which alone made, and -is still making him his mere mob renown)--if few men have time, or -patience, or palate, for the spiritual truth as it is in that great -genius--it is then no matter of surprise, that in a contemporaneous -age, Nathaniel Hawthorne is a man as yet almost utterly mistaken among -men. Here and there, in some quiet armchair in the noisy town, or -some deep nook among the noiseless mountains, he may be appreciated -for something of what he is. But unlike Shakspeare, who was forced -to the contrary course by circumstances, Hawthorne (either from -simple disinclination, or else from inaptitude) refrains from all -the popularizing noise and show of broad farce and blood-besmeared -tragedy; content with the still, rich utterance of a great intellect in -repose, and which sends few thoughts into circulation, except they be -arterialized at his large warm lungs, and expanded in his honest heart. - -Nor need you fix upon that blackness in him, if it suit you not. Nor, -indeed, will all readers discern it; for it is, mostly, insinuated -to those who may best understand it, and account for it; it is not -obtruded upon every one alike. - -Some may start to read of Shakspeare and Hawthorne on the same page. -They may say, that if an illustration were needed, a lesser light might -have sufficed to elucidate this Hawthorne, this small man of yesterday. -But I am not willingly one of those who, as touching Shakspeare at -least, exemplify the maxim of Rochefoucauld, that "we exalt the -reputation of some, in order to depress that of others";--who, to -teach all noble-souled aspirants that there is no hope for them, -pronounce Shakspeare absolutely unapproachable. But Shakspeare has -been approached. There are minds that have gone as far as Shakspeare -into the universe. And hardly a mortal man, who, at some time or -other, has not felt as great thoughts in him as any you will find -in Hamlet. We must not inferentially malign mankind for the sake -of any one man, whoever he may be. This is too cheap a purchase of -contentment for conscious mediocrity to make. Besides, this absolute -and unconditional adoration of Shakspeare has grown to be a part of -our Anglo-Saxon superstitions. The Thirty-Nine Articles are now Forty. -Intolerance has come to exist in this matter. You must believe in -Shakspeare's unapproachability, or quit the country. But what sort of a -belief is this for an American, a man who is bound to carry republican -progressiveness into Literature as well as into Life? Believe me, my -friends, that men, not very much inferior to Shakspeare are this day -being born on the banks of the Ohio. And the day will come when you -shall say, Who reads a book by an Englishman that is a modern? The -great mistake seems to be, that even with those Americans who look -forward to the coming of a great literary genius among us, they somehow -fancy he will come in the costume of Queen Elizabeth's day; be a writer -of dramas founded upon old English history or the tales of Boccaccio. -Whereas, great geniuses are parts of the times, they themselves are -the times, and possess a corresponding coloring. It is of a piece with -the Jews, who, while their Shiloh was meekly walking in their streets, -were still praying for his magnificent coming; looking for him in a -chariot, who was already among them on an ass. Nor must we forget that, -in his own lifetime, Shakspeare was not Shakspeare, but only Master -William Shakspeare of the shrewd, thriving, business firm of Condell, -Shakspeare and Co., proprietors of the Globe Theatre in London; and by -a courtly author, of the name of Chettle, was looked at as an "upstart -crow," beautified "with other birds' feathers." For, mark it well, -imitation is often the first charge brought against originality. Why -this is so, there is not space to set forth here. You must have plenty -of sea-room to tell the Truth in; especially when it seems to have an -aspect of newness, as America did in 1492, though it was then just as -old, and perhaps older than Asia, only those sagacious philosophers, -the common sailors, had never seen it before, swearing it was all water -and moonshine there. - -Now I do not say that Nathaniel of Salem is a greater man than William -of Avon, or as great. But the difference between the two men is by no -means immeasurable. Not a very great deal more, and Nathaniel were -verily William. - -This, too, I mean, that if Shakspeare has not been equalled, give the -world time, and he is sure to be surpassed in one hemisphere or the -other. Nor will it at all do to say that the world is getting grey and -grizzled now, and has lost that fresh charm which she wore of old, and -by virtue of which the great poets of past times made themselves what -we esteem them to be. Not so. The world is as young to-day as when it -was created; and this Vermont morning dew is as wet to my feet, as -Eden's dew to Adam's. Nor has nature been all over ransacked by our -progenitors, so that no new charms and mysteries remain for this latter -generation to find. Far from it. The trillionth part has not yet been -said; and all that has been said, but multiplies the avenues to what -remains to be said. It is not so much paucity as superabundance of -material that seems to incapacitate modern authors. - -Let America, then, prize and cherish her writers; yea, let her glorify -them. They are not so many in number as to exhaust her goodwill. And -while she has good kith and kin of her own, to take to her bosom, let -her not lavish her embraces upon the household of an alien. For believe -it or not, England after all, is in many things an alien to us. China -has more bonds of real love for us than she. But even were there no -strong literary individualities among us, as there are some dozens -at least, nevertheless, let America first praise mediocrity even, -in her children, before she praises (for everywhere, merit demands -acknowledgment from every one) the best excellence in the children -of any other land. Let her own authors, I say, have the priority of -appreciation. I was much pleased with a hot-headed Carolina cousin of -mine, who once said,--"If there were no other American to stand by, in -literature, why, then, I would stand by Pop Emmons and his _Fredoniad_, -and till a better epic came along, swear it was not very far behind the -_Iliad_." Take away the words, and in spirit he was sound. - -Not that American genius needs patronage in order to expand. For that -explosive sort of stuff will expand though screwed up in a vice, and -burst it, though it were triple steel. It is for the nation's sake, -and not for her authors' sake, that I would have America be heedful of -the increasing greatness among her writers. For how great the shame, -if other nations should be before her, in crowning her heroes of the -pen! But this is almost the case now. American authors have received -more just and discriminating praise (however loftily and ridiculously -given, in certain cases) even from some Englishmen, than from their own -countrymen. There are hardly five critics in America; and several of -them are asleep. As for patronage, it is the American author who now -patronizes his country, and not his country him. And if at times some -among them appeal to the people for more recognition, it is not always -with selfish motives, but patriotic ones. - -It is true, that but few of them as yet have evinced that decided -originality which merits great praise. But that graceful writer, who -perhaps of all Americans has received the most plaudits from his own -country for his productions,--that very popular and amiable writer, -however good and self-reliant in many things, perhaps owes his chief -reputation to the self-acknowledged imitation of a foreign model, and -to the studied avoidance of all topics but smooth ones. But it is -better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has -never failed somewhere, that man cannot be great. Failure is the true -test of greatness. And if it be said, that continual success is a proof -that a man wisely knows his powers,--it is only to be added, that, in -that case, he knows them to be small. Let us believe it, then, once for -all, that there is no hope for us in these smooth, pleasing writers -that know their powers. Without malice, but to speak the plain fact, -they but furnish an appendix to Goldsmith, and other English authors. -And we want no American Goldsmiths, nay, we want no American Miltons. -It were the vilest thing you could say of a true American author, that -he were an American Tompkins. Call him an American and have done, for -you cannot say a nobler thing of him. But it is not meant that all -American writers should studiously cleave to nationality in their -writings; only this, no American writer should write like an Englishman -or a Frenchman; let him write like a man, for then he will be sure -to write like an American. Let us away with this leaven of literary -flunkeyism towards England. If either must play the flunkey in this -thing, let England do it, not us. While we are rapidly preparing for -that political supremacy among the nations which prophetically awaits -us at the close of the present century, in a literary point of view, -we are deplorably unprepared for it; and we seem studious to remain -so. Hitherto, reasons might have existed why this should be; but no -good reason exists now. And all that is requisite to amendment in this -matter, is simply this; that while fully acknowledging all excellence -everywhere, we should refrain from unduly lauding foreign writers, and, -at the same time, duty recognize the meritorious writers that are our -own;--those writers who breathe that unshackled, democratic spirit of -Christianity in all things, which now takes the practical lead in this -world, though at the same time led by ourselves--us Americans. Let -us boldly condemn all imitation, though it comes to us graceful and -fragrant as the morning; and foster all originality though at first it -be crabbed and ugly as our own pine knots. And if any of our authors -fail, or seem to fail, then, in the words of my Carolina cousin, let -us clap him on the shoulder and back him against all Europe for his -second round. The truth is, that in one point of view this matter of -a national literature has come to pass with us, that in some sense we -must turn bullies, else the day is lost, or superiority so far beyond -us, that we can hardly say it will ever be ours. - -And now, my countrymen, as an excellent author of your own flesh -and blood,--an unimitating, and, perhaps, in his way, an inimitable -man--whom better can I commend to you, in the first place, than -Nathaniel Hawthorne. He is one of the new, and far better generation of -your writers. The smell of young beeches and hemlocks is upon him; your -own broad prairies are in his soul; and if you travel away inland into -his deep and noble nature, you will hear the far roar of his Niagara. -Give not over to future generations the glad duty of acknowledging him -for what he is. Take that joy to yourself, in your own generation; and -so shall he feel those grateful impulses on him, that may possibly -prompt him to the full flower of some still greater achievement in -your eyes. And by confessing him you thereby confess others; you brace -the whole brotherhood. For genius, all over the world, stands hand in -hand, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round. - -In treating of Hawthorne, or rather of Hawthorne in his writings (for -I never saw the man; and in the chances of a quiet plantation life, -remote from his haunts, perhaps never shall); in treating of his works, -I say, I have thus far omitted all mention of his _Twice Told Tales_, -and _Scarlet Letter_. Both are excellent, but full of such manifold, -strange, and diffusive beauties, that time would all but fail me to -point the half of them out. But there are things in those two books, -which, had they been written in England a century ago, Nathaniel -Hawthorne had utterly displaced many of the bright names we now revere -on authority. But I am content to leave Hawthorne to himself, and to -the infallible finding of posterity; and however great may be the -praise I have bestowed upon him, I feel that in so doing I have served -and honored myself, than him. For, at bottom, great excellence is -praise enough to itself; but the feeling of a sincere and appreciative -love and admiration towards it, this is relieved by utterance, and -warm, honest praise ever leaves a pleasant flavor in the mouth; and it -is an honorable thing to confess to what is honorable in others. - -But I cannot leave my subject yet. No man can read a fine author, and -relish him to his very bones while he reads, without subsequently -fancying to himself some ideal image of the man and his mind. And if -you rightly look for it, you will almost always find that the author -himself has somewhere furnished you with his own picture. For poets -(whether in prose or verse), being painters by nature, are like their -brethren of the pencil, the true portrait-painters, who, in the -multitude of likenesses to be sketched, do not invariably omit their -own; and in all high instances, they paint them without any vanity, -though at times with a lurking something that would take several pages -to properly define. - -I submit it, then, to those best acquainted with the man personally, -whether the following is not Nathaniel Hawthorne;--and to himself, -whether something involved in it does not express the temper of his -mind,--that lasting temper of all true, candid men--a seeker, not a -finder yet: - - A man now entered, in neglected attire, with the aspect of a thinker, - but somewhat too roughhewn and brawny for a scholar. His face was full - of sturdy vigor, with some finer and keener attribute beneath; though - harsh at first, it was tempered with the glow of a large, warm heart, - which had force enough to heat his powerful intellect through and - through. He advanced to the Intelligencer, and looked at him with a - glance of such stern sincerity, that perhaps few secrets were beyond - its scope. - - "I seek for Truth," said he. - -Twenty-four hours have elapsed since writing the foregoing. I have -just returned from the haymow, charged more and more with love and -admiration of Hawthorne. For I have just been gleaning through the -Mosses, picking up many things here and there that had previously -escaped me. And I found that but to glean after this man, is better -than to be in at the harvest of others. To be frank (though, perhaps, -rather foolish) notwithstanding what I wrote yesterday of these -Mosses, I had not then culled them all; but had, nevertheless, been -sufficiently sensible of the subtle essence in them, as to write as I -did. To what infinite height of loving wonder and admiration I may yet -be borne, when by repeatedly banqueting on these Mosses I shall have -thoroughly incorporated their whole stuff into my being--that, I cannot -tell. But already I feel that this Hawthorne has dropped germinous -seeds into my soul. He expands and deepens down, the more I contemplate -him; and further and further, shoots his strong New England roots into -the hot soil in my Southern soul. - -By careful reference to the table of contents, I now find that I have -gone through all the sketches; but that when I yesterday wrote, I -had not at all read two particular pieces, to which I now desire to -call special attention--_A Select Party_ and _Young Goodman Brown_. -Here, be it said to all those whom this poor fugitive scrawl of mine -may tempt to the perusal of the Mosses, that they must on no account -suffer themselves to be trifled with, disappointed, or deceived by -the triviality of many of the titles to these sketches. For in more -than one instance, the title utterly belies the piece. It is as if -rustic demijohns containing the very best and costliest of Falernian -and Tokay, were labelled "Cider," "Perry," and "Elderberry wine." The -truth seems to be, that like many other geniuses, this Man of Mosses -takes great delight in hoodwinking the world,--at least, with respect -to himself. Personally, I doubt not that he rather prefers to be -generally esteemed but a so-so sort of author; being willing to reserve -the thorough and acute appreciation of what he is, to that party most -qualified to judge--that is, to himself. Besides, at the bottom of -their natures, men like Hawthorne, in many things, deem the plaudits of -the public such strong presumptive evidence of mediocrity in the object -of them, that it would in some degree render them doubtful of their own -powers, did they hear much and vociferous braying concerning them in -the public pastures. True, I have been braying myself (if you please to -be witty enough to have it so), but then I claim to be the first that -has so brayed in this particular matter; and, therefore, while pleading -guilty to the charge, still claim all the merit due to originality. - -But with whatever motive, playful or profound, Nathaniel Hawthorne has -chosen to entitle his pieces in the manner he has, it is certain that -some of them are directly calculated to deceive--egregiously deceive, -the superficial skimmer of pages. To be downright and candid once -more, let me cheerfully say, that two of these titles did dolefully -dupe no less an eager-eyed reader than myself; and that, too, after -I had been impressed with a sense of the great depth and breadth -of this American man. "Who in the name of thunder" (as the country -people say in this neighborhood), "who in the name of thunder, would -anticipate any marvel in a piece entitled _Young Goodman Brown_?" You -would of course suppose that it was a simple little tale, intended as -a supplement to _Goody Two Shoes_. Whereas, it is deep as Dante; nor -can you finish it, without addressing the author in his own words--"It -shall be yours to penetrate, in every bosom, the deep mystery of -sin".... And with Young Goodman, too, in allegorical pursuit of his -Puritan wife, you cry out in your anguish: - - "Faith!" shouted Goodman Brown, in a voice of agony and desperation; - and the echoes of the forest mocked him, crying, "Faith! Faith!" as if - bewildered wretches were seeking her all through the wilderness. - -Now this same piece entitled _Young Goodman Brown_, is one of the two -that I had not all read yesterday; and I allude to it now, because it -is, in itself, such a strong positive illustration of the blackness -in Hawthorne, which I had assumed from the mere occasional shadows of -it; as revealed in several of the other sketches. But had I previously -perused _Young Goodman Brown_, I should have been at no pains to draw -the conclusion, which I came to at a time when I was ignorant that the -book contained one such direct and unqualified manifestation of it. - -The other piece of the two referred to, is entitled _A Select Party_, -which, in my first simplicity upon originally taking hold of the book, -I fancied must treat of some pumpkin-pie party in old Salem; or some -chowder party on Cape Cod. Whereas, by all the gods of Peedee, it is -the sweetest and sublimest thing that has been written since Spenser -wrote. Nay, there is nothing in Spenser that surpasses it, perhaps -nothing that equals it. And the test is this. Read any canto in _The -Faerie Queene_ and then read _A Select Party_, and decide which -pleases you most,--that is, if you are qualified to judge. Do not be -frightened at this; for when Spenser was alive, he was thought of -very much as Hawthorne is now,--was generally accounted just such a -"gentle" harmless man. It may be, that to common eyes, the sublimity -of Hawthorne seems lost in his sweetness,--as perhaps in that same -_Select Party_ of his; for whom he has builded so august a dome of -sunset clouds, and served them on richer plate than Belshazzar when he -banqueted his lords in Babylon. - -But my chief business now, is to point out a particular page in this -piece, having reference to an honored guest, who under the name of the -Master Genius, but in the guise "of a young man of poor attire, with no -insignia of rank or acknowledged eminence," is introduced to the Man of -Fancy, who is the giver of the feast. Now, the page having reference -to this Master Genius, so happily expresses much of what I yesterday -wrote, touching the coming of the literary Shiloh of America, that I -cannot but be charmed by the coincidence; especially, when it shows -such a parity of ideas, at least in this one point, between a man like -Hawthorne and a man like me. - -And here, let me throw out another conceit of mine touching this -American Shiloh, or Master Genius, as Hawthorne calls him. May it not -be, that this commanding mind has not been, is not, and never will be, -individually developed in any one man? And would it, indeed, appear so -unreasonable to suppose, that this great fulness and overflowing may -be, or may be destined to be, shared by a plurality of men of genius? -Surely, to take the very greatest example on record, Shakspeare cannot -be regarded as in himself the concretion of all the genius of his -time; nor as so immeasurably beyond Marlowe, Webster, Ford, Beaumont, -Jonson, that these great men can be said to share none of his power? -For one, I conceive that there were dramatists in Elizabeth's day, -between whom and Shakspeare the distance was by no means great. Let -any one, hitherto little acquainted with those neglected old authors, -for the first time read them thoroughly, or even read Charles Lamb's -_Specimens_ of them, and he will be amazed at the wondrous ability of -those Anaks of men, and shocked at this renewed example of the fact, -that Fortune has more to do with fame than merit,--though, without -merit, lasting fame there can be none. - -Nevertheless, it would argue too ill of my country were this maxim to -hold good concerning Nathaniel Hawthorne, a man, who already, in some -few minds has shed "such a light as never illuminates the earth save -when a great heart burns as the household fire of a grand intellect." - -The words are his,--in the _Select Party_; and they are a magnificent -setting to a coincident sentiment of my own, but ramblingly expressed -yesterday, in reference to himself. Gainsay it who will, as I now -write, I am Posterity speaking by proxy--and after times will make -it more than good, when I declare, that the American, who up to the -present day has evinced, in literature, the largest brain with the -largest heart, that man is Nathaniel Hawthorne. Moreover, that whatever -Nathaniel Hawthorne may hereafter write, _Mosses from an Old Manse_ -will be ultimately accounted his masterpiece. For there is a sure, -though secret sign in some works which proves the culmination of the -powers (only the developable ones, however) that produced them. But I -am by no means desirous of the glory of a prophet. I pray Heaven that -Hawthorne may yet prove me an impostor in this prediction. Especially, -as I somehow cling to the strange fancy, that, in all men, hiddenly -reside certain wondrous, occult properties--as in some plants and -minerals--which by some happy but very rare accident (as bronze was -discovered by the melting of the iron and brass at the burning of -Corinth) may chance to be called forth here on earth; not entirely -waiting for their better discovery in the more congenial, blessed -atmosphere of heaven. - -Once more--for it is hard to be finite upon an infinite subject, and -all subjects are infinite. By some people this entire scrawl of mine -may be esteemed altogether unnecessary, inasmuch "as years ago" (they -may say) "we found out the rich and rare stuff in this Hawthorne, who -you now parade forth, as if only you _yourself_ were the discoverer -of this Portuguese diamond in your literature." But even granting all -this--and adding to it, the assumption that the books of Hawthorne have -sold by the five thousand,--what does that signify? They should be sold -by the hundred thousand; and read by the million; and admired by every -one who is capable of admiration. - - - - -JIMMY ROSE - - -A time ago, no matter how long precisely, I, an old man, removed from -the country to the city, having become unexpected heir to a great old -house in a narrow street of one of the lower wards, once the haunt of -style and fashion, full of gay parlors and bridal chambers, but now, -for the most part, transformed into counting-rooms and warehouses. -There bales and boxes usurp the place of sofas; daybooks and ledgers -are spread where once the delicious breakfast toast was buttered. In -those old wards the glorious old soft-warfle days are over. - -Nevertheless, in this old house of mine, so strangely spared, some -monument of departed days survived. Nor was this the only one. Amidst -the warehouse ranges some few other dwellings likewise stood. The -street's transmutation was not yet complete. Like those old English -friars and nuns, long haunting the ruins of their retreats after -they had been despoiled, so some few strange old gentlemen and ladies -still lingered in the neighborhood, and would not, could not, might -not quit it. And I thought that when, one spring, emerging from my -white-blossoming orchard, my own white hairs and white ivory-headed -cane were added to their loitering census, that those poor old souls -insanely fancied the ward was looking up--the tide of fashion setting -back again. - -For many years the old house had been occupied by an owner; those -into whose hands it from time to time had passed having let it out to -various shifting tenants; decayed old townspeople, mysterious recluses, -or transient, ambiguous-looking foreigners. - -While from certain cheap furbishings to which the exterior had been -subjected, such as removing a fine old pulpit-like porch crowning -the summit of six lofty steps, and set off with a broad-brimmed -sounding-board overshadowing the whole, as well as replacing the -original heavy window shutters (each pierced with a crescent in the -upper panel to admit an Oriental and moony light into the otherwise -shut-up rooms of a sultry morning in July) with frippery Venetian -blinds; while, I repeat, the front of the house hereby presented an -incongruous aspect, as if the graft of modernness had not taken in its -ancient stock; still, however it might fare without, within little or -nothing had been altered. The cellars were full of great grim, arched -bins of blackened brick, looking like the ancient tombs of Templars, -while overhead were shown the first-floor timbers, huge, square, and -massive, all red oak, and through long eld, of a rich and Indian color. -So large were those timbers, and so thickly ranked, that to walk in -those capacious cellars was much like walking along a line-of-battle -ship's gun-deck. - -All the rooms in each story remained just as they stood ninety years -ago with all their heavy-moulded, wooden cornices, paneled wainscots, -and carved and inaccessible mantels of queer horticultural and -zoological devices. Dim with longevity, the very covering of the walls -still preserved the patterns of the times of Louis XVI. In the largest -parlor (the drawing-room, my daughters called it, in distinction -from two smaller parlors, though I did not think the distinction -indispensable) the paper hangings were in the most gaudy style. -Instantly we knew such paper could only have come from Paris--genuine -Versailles paper--the sort of paper that might have hung in Marie -Antoinette's boudoir. It was of great diamond lozenges, divided by -massive festoons of roses (onions, Biddy the girl said they were, -but my wife soon changed Biddy's mind on that head); and in those -lozenges, one and all, as in an over-arbored garden-cage, sat a grand -series of gorgeous illustrations of the natural history of the most -imposing Parisian-looking birds; parrots, macaws, and peacocks, but -mostly peacocks. Real Prince Esterhazies of birds; all rubies, diamonds -and Orders of the Golden Fleece. But, alas! the north side of this -old apartment presented a strange look; half mossy and half mildew; -something as ancient forest trees on their north sides, to which -particular side the moss most clings, and where, they say, internal -decay first strikes. In short, the original resplendence of the -peacocks had been sadly dimmed on that north side of the room, owing -to a small leak in the eaves, from which the rain had slowly trickled -its way down the wall, clean down to the first floor. This leak the -irreverent tenants, at that period occupying the premises, did not see -fit to stop, or rather, did not think it worth their while, seeing that -they only kept their fuel and dried their clothes in the parlor of the -peacocks. Hence many of the glowing birds seemed as if they had their -princely plumage bedraggled in a dusty shower. Most mournfully their -starry trains were blurred. Yet so patiently and so pleasantly, nay, -here and there so ruddily did they seem to hide their bitter doom, so -much of real elegance still lingered in their shapes, and so full, too, -seemed they of a sweet engaging pensiveness, meditating all day long, -for years and years, among their faded bowers, that though my family -repeatedly adjured me (especially my wife, who, I fear, was too young -for me) to destroy the whole hen-roost, as Biddy called it, and cover -the walls with a beautiful, nice, genteel, cream-colored paper, despite -all entreaties, I could not be prevailed upon, however submissive in -other things. - -But chiefly would I permit no violation of the old parlor of the -peacocks or room of roses (I call it by both names) on account of its -long association in my mind with one of the original proprietors of -the mansion--the gentle Jimmy Rose. - -Poor Jimmy Rose! - -He was among my earliest acquaintances. It is not many years since he -died; and I and two other tottering old fellows took hack, and in sole -procession followed him to his grave. - -Jimmy was born a man of moderate fortune. In his prime he had an -uncommonly handsome person; large and manly, with bright eyes of blue, -brown curling hair, and cheeks that seemed painted with carmine; but -it was health's genuine bloom, deepened by the joy of life. He was by -nature a great ladies' man, and like most deep adorers of the sex, -never tied up his freedom of general worship by making one willful -sacrifice of himself at the altar. - -Adding to his fortune by a large and princely business, something like -that of the great Florentine trader, Cosmo the Magnificent, he was -enabled to entertain on a grand scale. For a long time his dinners, -suppers and balls, were not to be surpassed by any given in the -party-giving city of New York. His uncommon cheeriness; the splendor -of his dress; his sparkling wit; radiant chandeliers; infinite fund -of small-talk; French furniture; glowing welcomes to his guests; his -bounteous heart and board; his noble graces and his glorious wine; what -wonder if all these drew crowds to Jimmy's hospitable abode? In the -winter assemblies he figured first on the manager's list. James Rose, -Esq., too, was the man to be found foremost in all presentations of -plate to highly successful actors at the Park, or of swords and guns -to highly successful generals in the field. Often, also, was he chosen -to present the gift on account of his fine gift of finely saying fine -things. - -"Sir," said he, in a great drawing-room in Broadway, as he extended -toward General G-- a brace of pistols set with turquoise, "Sir," said -Jimmy with a Castilian flourish and a rosy smile, "there would have -been more turquoise here set, had the names of your glorious victories -left room." - -Ah, Jimmy, Jimmy! Thou didst excel in compliments. But it was inwrought -with thy inmost texture to be affluent in all things which give -pleasure. And who shall reproach thee with borrowed wit on this -occasion, though borrowed indeed it was? Plagiarize otherwise as they -may, not often are the men of this world plagiarists in praise. - -But times changed. Time, true plagiarist of the seasons. - -Sudden and terrible reverses in business were made mortal by mad -prodigality on all hands. When his affairs came to be scrutinized, -it was found that Jimmy could not pay more than fifteen shillings in -the pound. And yet in time the deficiency might have been made up--of -course, leaving Jimmy penniless--had it not been that in one winter -gale two vessels of his from China perished off Sandy Hook; perished at -the threshold of their port. - -Jimmy was a ruined man. - -It was years ago. At that period I resided in the country, but happened -to be in the city on one of my annual visits. It was but four or five -days since seeing Jimmy at his house the centre of all eyes, and -hearing him at the close of the entertainment toasted by a brocaded -lady, in these well-remembered words: "Our noble host; the bloom on -his cheek, may it last long as the bloom in his heart!" And they, the -sweet ladies and gentlemen there, they drank that toast so gayly and -frankly off; and Jimmy, such a kind, proud, grateful tear stood in his -honest eye, angelically glancing round at the sparkling faces, and -equally sparkling, and equally feeling, decanters. - -Ah! poor, poor Jimmy--God guard us all--poor Jimmy Rose! - -Well, it was but four or five days after this that I heard a clap of -thunder--no, a clap of bad news. I was crossing the Bowling Green in -a snow-storm not far from Jimmy's house on the Battery, when I saw a -gentleman come sauntering along, whom I remembered at Jimmy's table as -having been the first to spring to his feet in eager response to the -lady's toast. Not more brimming the wine in his lifted glass than the -moisture in his eye on that happy occasion. - -Well, this good gentleman came sailing across the Bowling Green, -swinging a silver-headed rattan; seeing me, he paused: "Ah, lad, that -was rare wine Jimmy gave us the other night. Sha'n't get any more, -though. Heard the news? Jimmy's burst. Clean smash, I assure you. Come -along down to the Coffeehouse and I'll tell you more. And if you say -so, we'll arrange over a bottle of claret for a sleighing party to -Cato's to-night. Come along." - -"Thank you," said I, "I--I--I am engaged." - -Straight as an arrow I went to Jimmy's. Upon inquiring for him, the man -at the door told me that his master was not in; nor did he know where -he was; nor had his master been in the house for forty-eight hours. - -Walking up Broadway again, I questioned passing acquaintances; but -though each man verified the report, no man could tell where Jimmy was, -and no one seemed to care, until I encountered a merchant, who hinted -that probably Jimmy, having scraped up from the wreck a snug lump of -coin, had prudently betaken himself off to parts unknown. The next man -I saw, a great nabob he was too, foamed at the mouth when I mentioned -Jimmy's name. "Rascal; regular scamp, Sir, is Jimmy Rose! But there -are keen fellows after him." I afterward heard that this indignant -gentleman had lost the sum of seventy-five dollars and seventy-five -cents indirectly through Jimmy's failure. And yet I dare say the share -of the dinners he had eaten at Jimmy's might more than have balanced -that sum, considering that he was something of a wine-bibber, and such -wines as Jimmy imported cost a plum or two. Indeed, now that I bethink -me, I recall how I had more than once observed this same middle-aged -gentleman, and how that toward the close of one of Jimmy's dinners -he would sit at the table pretending to be earnestly talking with -beaming Jimmy, but all the while, with a half furtive sort of tremulous -eagerness and hastiness, pour down glass after glass of noble wine, as -if now, while Jimmy's bounteous sun was at meridian, was the time to -make his selfish hay. - -At last I met a person famed for his peculiar knowledge of whatever -was secret or withdrawn in the histories and habits of noted people. -When I inquired of this person where Jimmy could possibly be, he took -me close to Trinity Church rail, out of the jostling of the crowd, and -whispered me, that Jimmy had the evening before entered an old house -of his (Jimmy's), in C-- Street, which old house had been for a time -untenanted. The inference seemed to be that perhaps Jimmy might be -lurking there now. So getting the precise locality, I bent my steps -in that direction, and at last halted before the house containing -the room of roses. The shutters were closed, and cobwebs were spun -in their crescents. The whole place had a dreary, deserted air. The -snow lay unswept, drifted in one billowed heap against the porch, no -footprint tracking it. Whoever was within, surely that lonely man was -an abandoned one. Few or no people were in the street; for even at that -period one fashion of the street had departed from it, while trade had -not as yet occupied what its rival had renounced. - -Looking up and down the sidewalk a moment, I softly knocked at the -door. No response. I knocked again, and louder. No one came. I knocked -and rung both; still without effect. In despair I was going to quit the -spot, when, as a last resource, I gave a prolonged summons, with my -utmost strength, upon the heavy knocker, and then again stood still; -while from various strange old windows up and down the street, various -strange old heads were thrust out in wonder at so clamorous a stranger. -As if now frightened from its silence, a hollow, husky voice addressed -me through the keyhole. - -"Who are you?" it said. - -"A friend." - -"Then shall you not come in," replied the voice, more hollowly than -before. - -Great heavens! this is not Jimmy Rose, thought I, starting. This is the -wrong house. I have been misdirected. But still, to make all sure, I -spoke again. - -"Is James Rose within there?" - -No reply. - -Once more I spoke: - -"I am William Ford; let me in." - -"Oh, I can not, I can not! I am afraid of every one." - -It _was_ Jimmy Rose! - -"Let me in, Rose; let me in, man. I am your friend." - -"I will not. I can trust no man now." - -"Let me in, Rose; trust at least one, in me." - -"Quit the spot, or--" - -With that I heard a rattling against the huge lock, not made by -any key, as if some small tube were being thrust into the keyhole. -Horrified, I fled fast as feet could carry me. - -I was a young man then, and Jimmy was not more than forty. It was -five-and-twenty years ere I saw him again. And what a change. He -whom I expected to behold--if behold at all--dry, shrunken, meagre, -cadaverously fierce with misery and misanthropy--amazement! the old -Persian roses bloomed in his cheeks. And yet poor as any rat; poor -in the last dregs of poverty; a pauper beyond almshouse pauperism; a -promenading pauper in a thin, threadbare, careful coat; a pauper with -wealth of polished words; a courteous, smiling, shivering gentleman. - -Ah, poor, poor Jimmy--God guard us all--poor Jimmy Rose! - -Though at the first onset of his calamity, when creditors, once fast -friends, pursued him as carrion for jails; though then, to avoid their -hunt, as well as the human eye, he had gone and denned in the old -abandoned house; and there, in his loneliness, had been driven half -mad, yet time and tide had soothed him down to sanity. Perhaps at -bottom Jimmy was too thoroughly good and kind to be made from any cause -a man-hater. And doubtless it at last seemed irreligious to Jimmy even -to shun mankind. - -Sometimes sweet sense of duty will entice one to bitter doom. For what -could be more bitter now, in abject need, to be seen of those--nay, -crawl and visit them in an humble sort, and be tolerated as an old -eccentric, wandering in their parlors--who once had known him richest -of the rich, and gayest of the gay? Yet this Jimmy did. Without rudely -breaking him right down to it, fate slowly bent him more and more to -the lowest deep. From an unknown quarter he received an income of some -seventy dollars, more or less. The principal he would never touch, but, -by various modes of eking it out, managed to live on the interest. He -lived in an attic, where he supplied himself with food. He took but one -regular repast a day--meal and milk--and nothing more, unless procured -at others' tables. Often about the tea-hour he would drop in upon some -old acquaintance, clad in his neat, forlorn frock coat, with worn -velvet sewed upon the edges of the cuffs, and a similar device upon the -hems of his pantaloons, to hide that dire look of having been grated -off by rats. On Sunday he made a point of always dining at some fine -house or other. - -It is evident that no man could with impunity be allowed to lead this -life unless regarded as one who, free from vice, was by fortune brought -so low that the plummet of pity alone could reach him. Not much merit -redounded to his entertainers because they did not thrust the starving -gentleman forth when he came for his alms of tea and toast. Some -merit had been theirs had they clubbed together and provided him, at -small cost enough, with a sufficient income to make him, in point of -necessaries, independent of the daily dole of charity; charity not sent -to him either, but charity for which he had to trudge round to their -doors. - -But the most touching thing of all were those roses in his cheeks; -those ruddy roses in his nipping winter. How they bloomed; whether -meal or milk, and tea and toast could keep them flourishing; whether -now he painted them; by what strange magic they were made to blossom -so; no son of man might tell. But there they bloomed. And besides the -roses, Jimmy was rich in smiles. He smiled ever. The lordly door which -received him to his eleemosynary teas, know no such smiling guest as -Jimmy. In his prosperous days the smile of Jimmy was famous far and -wide. It should have been trebly famous now. - -Wherever he went to tea, he had all of the news of the town to tell. By -frequenting the reading-rooms, as one privileged through harmlessness, -he kept himself informed of European affairs and the last literature, -foreign and domestic. And of this, when encouragement was given, he -would largely talk. But encouragement was not always given. At certain -houses, and not a few, Jimmy would drop in about ten minutes before the -tea-hour, and drop out again about ten minutes after it; well knowing -that his further presence was not indispensable to the contentment or -felicity of his host. - -How forlorn it was to see him so heartily drinking the generous tea, -cup after cup, and eating the flavorous bread and butter, piece after -piece, when, owing to the lateness of the dinner hour with the rest, -and the abundance of that one grand meal with them, no one besides -Jimmy touched the bread and butter, or exceeded a single cup of -Souchong. And knowing all this very well, poor Jimmy would try to hide -his hunger, and yet gratify it too, by striving hard to carry on a -sprightly conversation with his hostess, and throwing in the eagerest -mouthfuls with a sort of absent-minded air, as if he ate merely for -custom's sake, and not starvation's. - -Poor, poor Jimmy--God guard us all--poor Jimmy Rose! - -Neither did Jimmy give up his courtly ways. Whenever there were ladies -at the table, sure were they of some fine word; though, indeed, -toward the close of Jimmy's life, the young ladies rather thought -his compliments somewhat musty, smacking of cocked hats and small -clothes--nay, of old pawnbrokers' shoulder-lace and sword belts. For -there still lingered in Jimmy's address a subdued sort of martial air; -he having in his palmy days been, among other things, a general of the -State militia. There seems a fatality in these militia generalships. -Alas! I can recall more than two or three gentlemen who from militia -generals became paupers. I am afraid to think why this is so. Is it -that this military learning in a man of an unmilitary heart--that is, -a gentle, peaceable heart--is an indication of some weak love of vain -display? But ten to one it is not so. At any rate, it is unhandsome, if -not unchristian, in the happy, too much to moralize on those who are -not so. - -So numerous were the houses that Jimmy visited, or so cautious was he -in timing his less welcome calls, that at certain mansions he only -dropped in about once a year or so. And annually upon seeing at that -house the blooming Miss Frances or Miss Arabella, he would profoundly -bow in his forlorn old coat, and with his soft, white hand take hers in -gallant-wise, saying, "Ah, Miss Arabella, these jewels here are bright -upon these fingers; but brighter would they look were it not for those -still brighter diamonds of your eyes!" - -Though in thy own need thou hadst no pence to give the poor, thou, -Jimmy, still hadst alms to give the rich. For not the beggar chattering -at the corner pines more after bread than the vain heart after -compliment. The rich in their craving glut, as the poor in their -craving want, we have with us always. So, I suppose, thought Jimmy Rose. - -But all women are not vain, or if a little grain that way inclined, -more than redeem it all with goodness. Such was the sweet girl that -closed poor Jimmy's eyes. The only daughter of an opulent alderman, she -knew Jimmy well, and saw to him in his declining days. During his last -sickness, with her own hands she carried him jellies and blanc-mange; -made tea for him in his attic, and turned the poor old gentleman in his -bed. And well hadst thou deserved it, Jimmy, at that fair creature's -hands; well merited to have the old eyes closed by woman's fairy -fingers, who through life, in riches and in poverty, was still woman's -sworn champion and devotee. - -I hardly know that I should mention here one little incident connected -with this young lady's ministrations, and poor Jimmy's reception of -them. But it is harm to neither; I will tell it. - -Chancing to be in town, and hearing of Jimmy's illness, I went to -see him. And there in his lone attic I found the lovely ministrant. -Withdrawing upon seeing another visitor, she left me alone with him. -She had brought some little delicacies, and also several books, of such -a sort as are sent by serious-minded well-wishers to invalids in a -serious crisis. Now whether it was repugnance at being considered next -door to death, or whether it was but the natural peevishment brought on -by the general misery of his state; however it was, as the gentle girl -withdrew, Jimmy, with what small remains of strength were his, pitched -the books into the furthest corner, murmuring, "Why will she bring me -this sad old stuff? Does she take me for a pauper? Thinks she to salve -a gentleman's heart with Poor Man's Plaster?" - -Poor, poor Jimmy--God guard us all--poor Jimmy Rose! - -Well, well, I am an old man, and I suppose these tears I drop are -dribblets from my dotage. But Heaven be praised, Jimmy needs no man's -pity now. - -Jimmy Rose is dead! - -Meantime, as I sit within the parlor of the peacocks--that chamber from -which his husky voice had come ere threatening me with the pistol--I -still must meditate upon his strange example, whereof the marvel is, -how after that gay, dashing, nobleman's career, he could be content -to crawl through life, and peep about the marbles and mahoganies for -contumelious tea and toast, where once like a very Warwick he had -feasted the huzzaing world with Burgundy and venison. - -And every time I look at the wilted resplendence of those proud -peacocks on the wall, I bethink me of the withering change in Jimmy's -once resplendent pride of state. But still again, every time I gaze -upon those festoons of perpetual roses, mid which the faded peacocks -hang, I bethink me of those undying roses which bloomed in ruined -Jimmy's cheek. - -Transplanted to another soil, all the unkind past forgot, God grant -that Jimmy's roses may immortally survive! - - - - -I AND MY CHIMNEY - - -I and my chimney, two grey-headed old smokers, reside in the country. -We are, I may say, old settlers here; particularly my old chimney, -which settles more and more every day. - -Though I always say, _I and my chimney_, as Cardinal Wolsey used to -say, "_I and my King_," yet this egotistic way of speaking, wherein I -take precedence of my chimney, is hereby borne out by the facts; in -everything, except the above phrase, my chimney taking precedence of me. - -Within thirty feet of the turf-sided road, my chimney--a huge, -corpulent old Harry VIII of a chimney--rises full in front of me and -all my possessions. Standing well up a hillside, my chimney, like Lord -Rosse's monster telescope, swung vertical to hit the meridian moon, is -the first object to greet the approaching traveler's eye, nor is it the -last which the sun salutes. My chimney, too, is before me in receiving -the first-fruits of the seasons. The snow is on its head ere on my hat; -and every spring, as in a hollow beech tree, the first swallows build -their nests in it. - -But it is within doors that the pre-eminence of my chimney is most -manifest. When in the rear room, set apart for that object, I stand -to receive my guests (who, by the way call more, I suspect, to see -my chimney than me) I then stand, not so much before, as, strictly -speaking, behind my chimney, which is, indeed, the true host. Not that -I demur. In the presence of my betters, I hope I know my place. - -From this habitual precedence of my chimney over me, some even think -that I have got into a sad rearward way altogether; in short, from -standing behind my old-fashioned chimney so much, I have got to be -quite behind the age too, as well as running behindhand in everything -else. But to tell the truth, I never was a very forward old fellow, -nor what my farming neighbors call a forehanded one. Indeed, those -rumors about my behindhandedness are so far correct, that I have an odd -sauntering way with me sometimes of going about with my hands behind -my back. As for my belonging to the rear-guard in general, certain -it is, I bring up the rear of my chimney--which, by the way, is this -moment before me--and that, too, both in fancy and fact. In brief, my -chimney is my superior; my superior by I know not how many heads and -shoulders; my superior, too, in that humbly bowing over with shovel and -tongs, I much minister to it; yet never does it minister, or incline -over to me; but, if anything, in its settlings, rather leans the other -way. - -My chimney is grand seignior here--the one great domineering object, -not more of the landscape, than of the house; all the rest of which -house, in each architectural arrangement, as may shortly appear, is, -in the most marked manner, accommodated, not to my wants, but to my -chimney's, which, among other things, has the centre of the house to -himself, leaving but the odd holes and corners to me. - -But I and my chimney must explain; and as we are both rather obese, we -may have to expatiate. - -In those houses which are strictly double houses--that is, where the -hall is in the middle--the fireplaces usually are on opposite sides; -so that while one member of the household is wanning himself at a fire -built into a recess of the north wall, say another member, the former's -own brother, perhaps, may be holding his feet to the blaze before a -hearth in the south wall--the two thus fairly sitting back to back. Is -this well? Be it put to any man who has a proper fraternal feeling. -Has it not a sort of sulky appearance? But very probably this style -of chimney building originated with some architect afflicted with a -quarrelsome family. - -Then again, almost every modern fireplace has its separate -flue--separate throughout, from hearth to chimney-top. At least such -an arrangement is deemed desirable. Does not this look egotistical, -selfish? But still more, all these separate flues, instead of having -independent masonry establishments of their own, or instead of -being grouped together in one federal stock in the middle of the -house--instead of this, I say, each flue is surreptitiously honeycombed -into the walls; so that these last are here and there, or indeed almost -anywhere, treacherously hollow, and, in consequence, more or less weak. -Of course, the main reason of this style of chimney building is to -economize room. In cities, where lots are sold by the inch, small space -is to spare for a chimney constructed on magnanimous principles; and, -as with most thin men, who are generally tall, so with such houses, -what is lacking in breadth, must be made up in height. This remark -holds true even with regard to many very stylish abodes, built by -the most stylish of gentlemen. And yet, when that stylish gentleman, -Louis le Grand of France, would build a palace for his lady friend, -Madame de Maintenon, he built it but one story high--in fact in the -cottage style. But then, how uncommonly quadrangular, spacious, and -broad--horizontal acres, not vertical ones. Such is the palace, which, -in all its one-storied magnificence of Languedoc marble, in the garden -of Versailles, still remains to this day. Any man can buy a square foot -of land and plant a liberty-pole on it; but it takes a king to set -apart whole acres for a grand triannon. - -But nowadays it is different; and furthermore, what originated in -a necessity has been mounted into a vaunt. In towns there is large -rivalry in building tall houses. If one gentleman builds his house -four stories high, and another gentleman comes next door and builds -five stories high, then the former, not to be looked down upon that -way, immediately sends for his architect and claps a fifth and a -sixth story on top of his previous four. And, not till the gentleman -has achieved his aspiration, not till he has stolen over the way by -twilight and observed how his sixth story soars beyond his neighbor's -fifth--not till then does he retire to his rest with satisfaction. - -Such folks, it seems to me, need mountains for neighbors, to take this -emulous conceit of soaring out of them. - -If, considering that mine is a very wide house, and by no means lofty, -aught in the above may appear like interested pleading, as if I did but -fold myself about in the cloak of a general proposition, cunningly to -tickle my individual vanity beneath it, such misconception must vanish -upon my frankly conceding, that land adjoining my alder swamp was -sold last month for ten dollars an acre, and thought a rash purchase -at that; so that for wide houses hereabouts there is plenty of room, -and cheap. Indeed so cheap--dirt cheap--is the soil, that our elms -thrust out their roots in it, and hang their great boughs over it, -in the most lavish and reckless way. Almost all our crops, too, are -sown broadcast, even peas and turnips. A farmer among us, who should -go about his twenty-acre field, poking his finger into it here and -there, and dropping down a mustard seed, would be thought a penurious, -narrow-minded husbandman. The dandelions in the river-meadows, and the -forget-me-nots along the mountain roads, you see at once they are put -to no economy in space. Some seasons, too, our rye comes up here and -there a spear, sole and single like a church-spire. It doesn't care to -crowd itself where it knows there is such a deal of room. The world -is wide, the world is all before us, says the rye. Weeds, too, it is -amazing how they spread. No such thing as arresting them--some of our -pastures being a sort of Alsatia for the weeds. As for the grass, -every spring it is like Kossuth's rising of what he calls the peoples. -Mountains, too, a regular camp-meeting of them. For the same reason, -the same all-sufficiency of room, our shadows march and countermarch, -going through their various drills and masterly evolutions, like the -old imperial guard on the Champs de Mars. As for the hills, especially -where the roads cross them the supervisors of our various towns have -given notice to all concerned, that they can come and dig them down -and cart them off, and never a cent to pay, no more than for the -privilege of picking blackberries. The stranger who is buried here, -what liberal-hearted landed proprietor among us grudges him six feet of -rocky pasture? - -Nevertheless, cheap, after all, as our land is, and much as it is -trodden under foot, I, for one, am proud of it for what it bears; and -chiefly for its three great lions--the Great Oak, Ogg Mountain, and my -chimney. - -Most houses, here, are but one and a half stories high; few exceed two. -That in which I and my chimney dwell, is in width nearly twice its -height, from sill to eaves--which accounts for the magnitude of its -main content--besides showing that in this house, as in this country at -large, there is abundance of space, and to spare, for both of us. - -The frame of the old house is of wood--which but the more sets forth -the solidity of the chimney, which is of brick. And as the great -wrought nails, binding the clapboards, are unknown in these degenerate -days, so are the huge bricks in the chimney walls. The architect of the -chimney must have had the pyramid of Cheops before him; for, after that -famous structure, it seems modeled, only its rate of decrease towards -the summit is considerably less, and it is truncated. From the exact -middle of the mansion it soars from the cellar, right up through each -successive floor, till, four feet square, it breaks water from the -ridge-pole of the roof, like an anvil-headed whale, through the crest -of a billow. Most people, though, liken it, in that part, to a razed -observatory, masoned up. - -The reason for its peculiar appearance above the roof touches upon -rather delicate ground. How shall I reveal that, forasmuch as many -years ago the original gable roof of the old house had become very -leaky, a temporary proprietor hired a band of woodmen, with their -huge, cross-cut saws, and went to sawing the old gable roof clean off. -Off it went, with all its birds' nests, and dormer windows. It was -replaced with a modern roof, more fit for a railway wood-house than an -old country gentleman's abode. This operation--razeeing the structure -some fifteen feet--was, in effect upon the chimney, something like the -falling of the great spring tides. It left uncommon low water all about -the chimney--to abate which appearance, the same person now proceeds to -slice fifteen feet off the chimney itself, actually beheading my royal -old chimney--a regicidal act, which, were it not for the palliating -fact that he was a poulterer by trade, and, therefore, hardened to such -neck-wringings, should send that former proprietor down to posterity in -the same cart with Cromwell. - -Owing to its pyramidal shape, the reduction of the chimney inordinately -widened its razeed summit. Inordinately, I say, but only in the -estimation of such as have no eye to the picturesque. What care I, if, -unaware that my chimney, as a free citizen of this free land, stands -upon an independent basis of its own, people passing it, wonder how -such a brick-kiln, as they call it, is supported upon mere joists -and rafters? What care I? I will give a traveler a cup of switchel, -if he want it; but am I bound to supply him with a sweet taste? Men -of cultivated minds see, in my old house and chimney, a goodly old -elephant-and-castle. - -All feeling hearts will sympathize with me in what I am now about to -add. The surgical operation, above referred to, necessarily brought -into the open air a part of the chimney previously under cover, and -intended to remain so, and, therefore, not built of what are called -weather-bricks. In consequence, the chimney, though of a vigorous -constitution, suffered not a little, from so naked an exposure; and, -unable to acclimate itself, ere long began to fail--showing blotchy -symptoms akin to those in measles. Whereupon travelers, passing my way, -would wag their heads, laughing; "See that wax nose--how it melts off!" -But what cared I? The same travelers would travel across the sea to -view Kenilworth peeling away, and for a very good reason: that of all -artists of the picturesque, decay wears the palm--I would say, the ivy. -In fact, I've often thought that the proper place for my old chimney is -ivied old England. - -In vain my wife--with what probable ulterior intent will, ere long, -appear--solemnly warned me, that unless something were done, and -speedily, we should be burnt to the ground, owing to the holes -crumbling through the aforesaid blotchy parts, where the chimney joined -the roof. "Wife," said I, "far better that my house should burn down, -than that my chimney should be pulled down, though but a few feet. -They call it a wax nose; very good; not for me to tweak the nose of my -superior." But at last the man who has a mortgage on the house dropped -me a note, reminding me that, if my chimney was allowed to stand in -that invalid condition, my policy of insurance would be void. This was -a sort of hint not to be neglected. All the world over, the picturesque -yields to the pocketesque. The mortgagor cared not, but the mortgagee -did. - -So another operation was performed. The wax nose was taken off, and a -new one fitted on. Unfortunately for the expression--being put up by -a squint-eyed mason, who, at the time, had a bad stitch in the same -side--the new nose stands a little awry, in the same direction. - -Of one thing, however, I am proud. The horizontal dimensions of the new -part are unreduced. - -Large as the chimney appears upon the roof, that is nothing to its -spaciousness below. At its base in the cellar, it is precisely twelve -feet square; and hence covers precisely one hundred and forty-four -superficial feet. What an appropriation of terra firma for a chimney, -and what a huge load for this earth! In fact, it was only because I -and my chimney formed no part of his ancient burden, that that stout -peddler, Atlas of old, was enabled to stand up so bravely under his -pack. The dimensions given may, perhaps, seem fabulous. But, like those -stones at Gilgal, which Joshua set up for a memorial of having passed -over Jordan, does not my chimney remain, even unto this day? - -Very often I go down into my cellar, and attentively survey that vast -square of masonry. I stand long, and ponder over, and wonder at it. It -has a druidical look, away down in the umbrageous cellar there whose -numerous vaulted passages, and far glens of gloom, resemble the dark, -damp depths of primeval woods. So strongly did this conceit steal -over me, so deeply was I penetrated with wonder at the chimney, that -one day--when I was a little out of my mind, I now think--getting a -spade from the garden, I set to work, digging round the foundation, -especially at the corners thereof, obscurely prompted by dreams of -striking upon some old, earthen-worn memorial of that by-gone day, -when, into all this gloom, the light of heaven entered, as the masons -laid the foundation-stones, peradventure sweltering under an August -sun, or pelted by a March storm. Plying my blunted spade, how vexed was -I by that ungracious interruption of a neighbor who, calling to see me -upon some business, and being informed that I was below said I need not -be troubled to come up, but he would go down to me; and so, without -ceremony, and without my having been forewarned, suddenly discovered -me, digging in my cellar. - -"Gold digging, sir?" - -"Nay, sir," answered I, starting, "I was merely--ahem!--merely--I say I -was merely digging--round my chimney." - -"Ah, loosening the soil, to make it grow. Your chimney, sir, you regard -as too small, I suppose; needing further development, especially at the -top?" - -"Sir!" said I, throwing down the spade, "do not be personal. I and my -chimney--" - -"Personal?" - -"Sir, I look upon this chimney less as a pile of masonry than as -a personage. It is the king of the house. I am but a suffered and -inferior subject." - -In fact, I would permit no gibes to be cast at either myself or my -chimney; and never again did my visitor refer to it in my hearing, -without coupling some compliment with the mention. It well deserves a -respectful consideration. There it stands, solitary and alone--not a -council--of ten flues, but, like his sacred majesty of Russia, a unit -of an autocrat. - -Even to me, its dimensions, at times, seem incredible. It does not look -so big--no, not even in the cellar. By the mere eye, its magnitude can -be but imperfectly comprehended, because only one side can be received -at one time; and said side can only present twelve feet, linear -measure. But then, each other side also is twelve feet long; and the -whole obviously forms a square and twelve times twelve is one hundred -and forty-four. And so, an adequate conception of the magnitude of -this chimney is only to be got at by a sort of process in the higher -mathematics by a method somewhat akin to those whereby the surprising -distances of fixed stars are computed. - -It need hardly be said, that the walls of my house are entirely free -from fireplaces. These all congregate in the middle--in the one grand -central chimney, upon all four sides of which are hearths--two tiers of -hearths--so that when, in the various chambers, my family and guests -are warming themselves of a cold winter's night, just before retiring, -then, though at the time they may not be thinking so, all their faces -mutually look towards each other, yea, all their feet point to one -centre; and, when they go to sleep in their beds, they all sleep round -one warm chimney, like so many Iroquois Indians, in the woods, round -their one heap of embers. And just as the Indians' fire serves, not -only to keep them comfortable, but also to keep off wolves, and other -savage monsters, so my chimney, by its obvious smoke at top, keeps off -prowling burglars from the towns--for what burglar or murderer would -dare break into an abode from whose chimney issues such a continual -smoke--betokening that if the inmates are not stirring, at least fires -are, and in case of an alarm, candles may readily be lighted, to say -nothing of muskets. - -But stately as is the chimney--yea, grand high altar as it is, right -worthy for the celebration of high mass before the Pope of Rome, and -all his cardinals--yet what is there perfect in this world? Caius -Julius Caesar, had he not been so inordinately great, they say that -Brutus, Cassius, Antony, and the rest, had been greater. My chimney, -were it not so mighty in its magnitude, my chambers had been larger. -How often has my wife ruefully told me, that my chimney, like the -English aristocracy, casts a contracting shade all round it. She avers -that endless domestic inconveniences arise--more particularly from -the chimney's stubborn central locality. The grand objection with her -is, that it stands midway in the place where a fine entrance-hall -ought to be. In truth, there is no hall whatever to the house--nothing -but a sort of square landing-place, as you enter from the wide front -door. A roomy enough landing-place, I admit, but not attaining to the -dignity of a hall. Now, as the front door is precisely in the middle -of the front of the house, inwards it faces the chimney. In fact, the -opposite wall of the landing-place is formed solely by the chimney; -and hence--owing to the gradual tapering of the chimney--is a little -less than twelve feet in width. Climbing the chimney in this part, is -the principal staircase--which, by three abrupt turns, and three minor -landing-places, mounts to the second floor, where, over the front door, -runs a sort of narrow gallery, something less than twelve feet long, -leading to chambers on either hand. This gallery, of course, is railed; -and so, looking down upon the stairs, and all those landing-places -together, with the main one at bottom, resembles not a little a balcony -for musicians, in some jolly old abode, in times Elizabethan. Shall I -tell a weakness? I cherish the cobwebs there, and many a time arrest -Biddy in the act of brushing them with her broom, and have many a -quarrel with my wife and daughters about it. - -Now the ceiling, so to speak, of the place where you enter the house, -that ceiling is, in fact, the ceiling of the second floor, not the -first. The two floors are made one here; so that ascending this turning -stairs, you seem going up into a kind of soaring tower, or lighthouse. -At the second landing, midway up the chimney, is a mysterious door, -entering to a mysterious closet; and here I keep mysterious cordials, -of a choice, mysterious flavor, made so by the constant nurturing -and subtle ripening of the chimney's gentle heat, distilled through -that warm mass of masonry. Better for wines is it than voyages to -the Indias; my chimney itself a tropic. A chair by my chimney in a -November day is as good for an invalid as a long season spent in Cuba. -Often I think how grapes might ripen against my chimney. How my wife's -geraniums bud there! Bud in December. Her eggs, too--can't keep them -near the chimney, on account of the hatching. Ah, a warm heart has my -chimney. - -How often my wife was at me about that projected grand entrance-hall -of hers, which was to be knocked clean through the chimney, from one -end of the house to the other, and astonish all guests by its generous -amplitude. "But, wife," said I, "the chimney--consider the chimney: if -you demolish the foundation, what is to support the superstructure?" -"Oh, that will rest on the second floor." The truth is, women know -next to nothing about the realities of architecture. However, my wife -still talked of running her entries and partitions. She spent many long -nights elaborating her plans; in imagination building her boasted hall -through the chimney, as though its high mightiness were a mere spear of -sorrel-top. At last, I gently reminded her that, little as she might -fancy it, the chimney was a fact--a sober, substantial fact, which, in -all her plannings, it would be well to take into full consideration. -But this was not of much avail. - -And here, respectfully craving her permission, I must say a few words -about this enterprising wife of mine. Though in years nearly old as -myself, in spirit she is young as my little sorrel mare, Trigger, -that threw me last fall. What is extraordinary, though she comes of -a rheumatic family, she is straight as a pine, never has any aches; -while for me with the sciatica, I am sometimes as crippled up as any -old apple-tree. But she has not so much as a toothache. As for her -hearing--let me enter the house in my dusty boots, and she away up -in the attic. And for her sight--Biddy, the housemaid, tells other -people's housemaids, that her mistress will spy a spot on the dresser -straight through the pewter platter, put up on purpose to hide it. -Her faculties are alert as her limbs and her senses. No danger of my -spouse dying of torpor. The longest night in the year I've known her -lie awake, planning her campaign for the morrow. She is a natural -projector. The maxim, "Whatever is, is right," is not hers. Her maxim -is, Whatever is, is wrong; and what is more, must be altered; and what -is still more, must be altered right away. Dreadful maxim for the wife -of a dozy old dreamer like me, who dote on seventh days as days of -rest, and out of a sabbatical horror of industry, will, on a week day, -go out of my road a quarter of a mile, to avoid the sight of a man at -work. - -That matches are made in heaven, may be, but my wife would have been -just the wife for Peter the Great, or Peter the Piper. How she would -have set in order that huge littered empire of the one, and with -indefatigable painstaking picked the peck of pickled peppers for the -other. - -But the most wonderful thing is, my wife never thinks of her end. Her -youthful incredulity, as to the plain theory, and still plainer fact of -death, hardly seems Christian. Advanced in years, as she knows she must -be, my wife seems to think that she is to teem on, and be inexhaustible -forever. She doesn't believe in old age. At that strange promise in -the plain of Mamre, my old wife, unlike old Abraham's, would not have -jeeringly laughed within herself. - -Judge how to me, who, sitting in the comfortable shadow of my chimney, -smoking my comfortable pipe, with ashes not unwelcome at my feet, -and ashes not unwelcome all but in my mouth; and who am thus in a -comfortable sort of not unwelcome, though, indeed, ashy enough way, -reminded of the ultimate exhaustion even of the most fiery life; judge -how to me this unwarrantable vitality in my wife must come, sometimes, -it is true, with a moral and a calm, but oftener with a breeze and a -ruffle. - -If the doctrine be true, that in wedlock contraries attract, by how -cogent a fatality must I have been drawn to my wife! While spicily -impatient of present and past, like a glass of ginger-beer she -overflows with her schemes; and, with like energy as she puts down -her foot, puts down her preserves and her pickles, and lives with -them in a continual future; or ever full of expectations both from -time and space, is ever restless for newspapers, and ravenous for -letters. Content with the years that are gone, taking no thought for -the morrow, and looking for no new thing from any person or quarter -whatever, I have not a single scheme or expectation on earth, save in -unequal resistance of the undue encroachment of hers. - -Old myself, I take to oldness in things; for that cause mainly loving -old Montague, and old cheese, and old wine; and eschewing young people, -hot rolls, new books, and early potatoes and very fond of my old -claw-footed chair, and old club-footed Deacon White, my neighbor, and -that still nigher old neighbor, my betwisted old grape-vine, that of a -summer evening leans in his elbow for cosy company at my window-sill, -while I, within doors, lean over mine to meet his; and above all, high -above all, am fond of my high-mantled old chimney. But she, out of the -infatuate juvenility of hers, takes to nothing but newness; for that -cause mainly, loving new cider in autumn, and in spring, as if she -were own daughter of Nebuchadnezzar, fairly raving after all sorts of -salads and spinages, and more particularly green cucumbers (though all -the time nature rebukes such unsuitable young hankerings in so elderly -a person, by never permitting such things to agree with her), and has -an itch after recently-discovered fine prospects (so no graveyard be -in the background), and also after Swedenborganism, and the Spirit -Rapping philosophy, with other new views, alike in things natural and -unnatural; and immortally hopeful, is forever making new flower-beds -even on the north side of the house, where the bleak mountain wind -would scarce allow the wiry weed called hard-hack to gain a thorough -footing; and on the road-side sets out mere pipe-stems of young elms; -though there is no hope of any shade from them, except over the ruins -of her great granddaughter's gravestones; and won't wear caps, but -plaits her gray hair; and takes the Ladies' Magazine for the fashions; -and always buys her new almanac a month before the new year; and rises -at dawn; and to the warmest sunset turns a cold shoulder; and still -goes on at odd hours with her new course of history, and her French, -and her music; and likes a young company; and offers to ride young -colts; and sets out young suckers in the orchard; and has a spite -against my elbowed old grape-vine, and my club-footed old neighbor, and -my claw-footed old chair, and above all, high above all, would fain -persecute, until death, my high-mantled old chimney. By what perverse -magic, I a thousand times think, does such a very autumnal old lady -have such a very vernal young soul? When I would remonstrate at times, -she spins round on me with, "Oh, don't you grumble, old man (she always -calls me old man), it's I, young I, that keep you from stagnating." -Well, I suppose it is so. Yea, after all, these things are well -ordered. My wife, as one of her poor relations, good soul, intimates, -is the salt of the earth, and none the less the salt of my sea, which -otherwise were unwholesome. She is its monsoon, too, blowing a brisk -gale over it, in the one steady direction of my chimney. - -Not insensible of her superior energies, my wife has frequently made -me propositions to take upon herself all the responsibilities of my -affairs. She is desirous that, domestically, I should abdicate; that, -renouncing further rule, like the venerable Charles V, I should retire -into some sort of monastery. But indeed, the chimney excepted, I have -little authority to lay down. By my wife's ingenious application of the -principle that certain things belong of right to female jurisdiction, -I find myself, through my easy compliances, insensibly stripped by -degrees of one masculine prerogative after another. In a dream I go -about my fields, a sort of lazy, happy-go-lucky, good-for-nothing, -loafing old Lear. Only by some sudden revelation am I reminded who -is over me; as year before last, one day seeing in one corner of the -premises fresh deposits of mysterious boards and timbers, the oddity of -the incident at length begat serious meditation. "Wife," said I, "whose -boards and timbers are those I see near the orchard there? Do you know -anything about them, wife? Who put them there? You know I do not like -the neighbors to use my land that way; they should ask permission -first." - -She regarded me with a pitying smile. - -"Why, old man, don't you know I am building a new barn? Didn't you know -that, old man?" - -This is the poor old lady who was accusing me of tyrannizing over her. - -To return now to the chimney. Upon being assured of the futility of her -proposed hall, so long as the obstacle remained, for a time my wife -was for a modified project. But I could never exactly comprehend it. -As far as I could see through it, it seemed to involve the general -idea of a sort of irregular archway, or elbowed tunnel, which was to -penetrate the chimney at some convenient point under the staircase, -and carefully avoiding dangerous contact with the fireplaces, and -particularly steering clear of the great interior flue, was to conduct -the enterprising traveler from the front door all the way into the -dining-room in the remote rear of the mansion. Doubtless it was a bold -stroke of genius, that plan of hers, and so was Nero's when he schemed -his grand canal through the Isthmus of Corinth. Nor will I take oath, -that, had her project been accomplished, then, by help of lights hung -at judicious intervals through the tunnel, some Belzoni or other might -have succeeded in future ages in penetrating through the masonry, and -actually emerging into the dining-room, and once there, it would have -been inhospitable treatment of such a traveler to have denied him a -recruiting meal. - -But my bustling wife did not restrict her objections, nor in the end -confine her proposed alterations to the first floor. Her ambition was -of the mounting order. She ascended with her schemes to the second -floor, and so to the attic. Perhaps there was some small ground for -her discontent with things as they were. The truth is, there was no -regular passage-way up-stairs or down, unless we again except that -little orchestra-gallery before mentioned. And all this was owing to -the chimney, which my gamesome spouse seemed despitefully to regard as -the bully of the house. On all its four sides, nearly all the chambers -sidled up to the chimney for the benefit of a fireplace. The chimney -would not go to them; they must needs go to it. The consequence was, -almost every room, like a philosophical system, was in itself an entry, -or passage-way to other rooms, and systems of rooms--a whole suite of -entries, in fact. Going through the house, you seem to be forever going -somewhere, and getting nowhere. It is like losing one's self in the -woods; round and round the chimney you go, and if you arrive at all, -it is just where you started, and so you begin again, and again get -nowhere. Indeed--though I say it not in the way of fault-finding at -all--never was there so labyrinthine an abode. Guests will tarry with -me several weeks and every now and then, be anew astonished at some -unforseen apartment. - -The puzzling nature of the mansion, resulting from the chimney, is -peculiarly noticeable in the dining-room, which has no less than nine -doors, opening in all directions, and into all sorts of places. A -stranger for the first time entering this dining-room, and naturally -taking no special heed at which door he entered, will, upon rising to -depart, commit the strangest blunders. Such, for instance, as opening -the first door that comes handy, and finding himself stealing up-stairs -by the back passage. Shutting that he will proceed to another, and be -aghast at the cellar yawning at his feet. Trying a third, he surprises -the housemaid at her work. In the end, no more relying on his own -unaided efforts, he procures a trusty guide in some passing person, -and in good time successfully emerges. Perhaps as curious a blunder as -any, was that of a certain stylish young gentleman, a great exquisite, -in whose judicious eyes my daughter Anna had found especial favor. -He called upon the young lady one evening, and found her alone in -the dining-room at her needlework. He stayed rather late; and after -abundance of superfine discourse, all the while retaining his hat -and cane, made his profuse adieus, and with repeated graceful bows -proceeded to depart, after fashion of courtiers from the Queen, and by -so doing, opening a door at random, with one hand placed behind, very -effectually succeeded in backing himself into a dark pantry, where -he carefully shut himself up, wondering there was no light in the -entry. After several strange noises as of a cat among the crockery, -he reappeared through the same door, looking uncommonly crestfallen, -and, with a deeply embarrassed air, requested my daughter to designate -at which of the nine he should find exit. When the mischievous Anna -told me the story, she said it was surprising how unaffected and -matter-of-fact the young gentleman's manner was after his reappearance. -He was more candid than ever, to be sure; having inadvertently -thrust his white kids into an open drawer of Havana sugar, under the -impression, probably, that being what they call "a sweet fellow," his -route might possibly lie in that direction. - -Another inconvenience resulting from the chimney is, the bewilderment -of a guest in gaining his chamber, many strange doors lying between -him and it. To direct him by fingerposts would look rather queer; and -just as queer in him to be knocking at every door on his route, like -London's city guest, the king, at Temple-Bar. - -Now, of all these things and many, many more, my family continually -complained. At last my wife came out with her sweeping proposition--in -toto to abolish the chimney. - -"What!" said I, "abolish the chimney? To take out the backbone of -anything, wife, is a hazardous affair. Spines out of backs, and -chimneys out of houses, are not to be taken like frosted lead pipes -from the ground. Besides," added I, "the chimney is the one grand -permanence of this abode. If undisturbed by innovators, then in future -ages, when all the house shall have crumbled from it, this chimney will -still survive--a Bunker Hill monument. No, no, wife, I can't abolish my -backbone." - -So said I then. But who is sure of himself, especially an old man, -with both wife and daughters ever at his elbow and ear? In time, I -was persuaded to think a little better of it; in short, to take the -matter into preliminary consideration. At length it came to pass that a -master-mason--a rough sort of architect--one Mr. Scribe, was summoned -to a conference. I formally introduced him to my chimney. A previous -introduction from my wife had introduced him to myself. He had been -not a little employed by that lady, in preparing plans and estimates -for some of her extensive operations in drainage. Having, with much -ado, exhorted from my spouse the promise that she would leave us to -an unmolested survey, I began by leading Mr. Scribe down to the root -of the matter, in the cellar. Lamp in hand, I descended; for though -up-stairs it was noon, below it was night. - -We seemed in the pyramids; and I, with one hand holding my lamp over -head, and with the other pointing out, in the obscurity, the hoar mass -of the chimney, seemed some Arab guide, showing the cobwebbed mausoleum -of the great god Apis. - -"This is a most remarkable structure, sir," said the master-mason, -after long contemplating it in silence, "a most remarkable structure, -sir." - -"Yes," said I complacently, "every one says so." - -"But large as it appears above the roof, I would not have inferred the -magnitude of this foundation, sir," eyeing it critically. - -Then taking out his rule, he measured it. - -"Twelve feet square; one hundred and forty-four square feet! Sir, this -house would appear to have been built simply for the accommodation of -your chimney." - -"Yes, my chimney and me. Tell me candidly, now," I added, "would you -have such a famous chimney abolished?" - -"I wouldn't have it in a house of mine, sir, for a gift," was the -reply. "It's a losing affair altogether, sir. Do you know, sir, that -in retaining this chimney, you are losing, not only one hundred and -forty-four square feet of good ground, but likewise a considerable -interest upon a considerable principal?" - -"How?" - -"Look, sir!" said he, taking a bit of red chalk from his pocket, and -figuring against a whitewashed wall, "twenty times eight is so and so; -then forty-two times thirty-nine is so and so--ain't it, sir? Well, add -those together, and subtract this here, then that makes so and so," -still chalking away. - -To be brief, after no small ciphering, Mr. Scribe informed me that -my chimney contained, I am ashamed to say how many thousand and odd -valuable bricks. - -"No more," said I fidgeting. "Pray now, let us have a look above." - -In that upper zone we made two more circumnavigations for the first and -second floors. That done, we stood together at the foot of the stairway -by the front door; my hand upon the knob, and Mr. Scribe hat in hand. - -"Well, sir," said he, a sort of feeling his way, and, to help himself, -fumbling with his hat, "well, sir, I think it can be done." - -"What, pray, Mr. Scribe; _what_ can be done?" - -"Your chimney, sir; it can without rashness be removed, I think." - -"I will think of it, too, Mr. Scribe," said I, turning the knob and -bowing him towards the open space without, "I will _think_ of it, sir; -it demands consideration; much obliged to ye; good morning, Mr. Scribe." - -"It is all arranged, then," cried my wife with great glee, bursting -from the nighest room. - -"When will they begin?" demanded my daughter Julia. - -"To-morrow?" asked Anna. - -"Patience, patience, my dears," said I, "such a big chimney is not to -be abolished in a minute." - -Next morning it began again. - -"You remember the chimney," said my wife. - -"Wife," said I, "it is never out of my house and never out of my mind." - -"But when is Mr. Scribe to begin to pull it down?" asked Anna. - -"Not to-day, Anna," said I. - -"_When_, then?" demanded Julia, in alarm. - -Now, if this chimney of mine was, for size, a sort of belfry, for -ding-donging at me about it, my wife and daughters were a sort of -bells, always chiming together, or taking up each other's melodies at -every pause, my wife the key-clapper of all. A very sweet ringing, and -pealing, and chiming, I confess; but then, the most silvery of bells -may, sometimes, dismally toll, as well as merrily play. And as touching -the subject in question, it became so now. Perceiving a strange relapse -of opposition in me, wife and daughters began a soft and dirge-like, -melancholy tolling over it. - -At length my wife, getting much excited, declared to me, with pointed -finger, that so long as that chimney stood, she should regard it as the -monument of what she called my broken pledge. But finding this did not -answer, the next day, she gave me to understand that either she or the -chimney must quit the house. - -Finding matters coming to such a pass, I and my pipe philosophized -over them awhile, and finally concluded between us, that little as our -hearts went with the plan, yet for peace' sake, I might write out the -chimney's death-warrant, and, while my hand was in, scratch a note to -Mr. Scribe. - -Considering that I, and my chimney, and my pipe, from having been so -much together, were three great cronies, the facility with which my -pipe consented to a project so fatal to the goodliest of our trio; or -rather, the way in which I and my pipe, in secret, conspired together, -as it were, against our unsuspicious old comrade--this may seem rather -strange, if not suggestive of sad reflections upon us two. But, indeed, -we, sons of clay, that is my pipe and I, are no whit better than the -rest. Far from us, indeed, to have volunteered the betrayal of our -crony. We are of a peaceable nature, too. But that love of peace -it was which made us false to a mutual friend, as soon as his cause -demanded a vigorous vindication. But, I rejoice to add, that better and -braver thoughts soon returned, as will now briefly be set forth. - -To my note, Mr. Scribe replied in person. - -Once more we made a survey, mainly now with a view to a pecuniary -estimate. - -"I will do it for five hundred dollars," said Mr. Scribe at last, again -hat in hand. - -"Very well, Mr. Scribe, I will think of it," replied I, again bowing -him to the door. - -Not unvexed by this, for the second time, unexpected response, again -he withdrew, and from my wife, and daughters again burst the old -exclamations. - -The truth is, resolved how I would, at the last pinch I and my chimney -could not be parted. - -"So Holofernes will have his way, never mind whose heart breaks for -it," said my wife next morning, at breakfast, in that half-didactic, -half-reproachful way of hers, which is harder to bear than her most -energetic assault. Holofernes, too, is with her a pet name for any fell -domestic despot. So, whenever, against her most ambitious innovations, -those which saw me quite across the grain, I, as in the present -instance, stand with however little steadfastness on the defence, -she is sure to call me Holofernes, and ten to one takes the first -opportunity to read aloud, with a suppressed emphasis, of an evening, -the first newspaper paragraph about some tyrannic day-laborer, who, -after being for many years the Caligula of his family, ends by beating -his long-suffering spouse to death, with a garret door wrenched off -its hinges, and then, pitching his little innocents out of the window, -suicidally turns inward towards the broken wall scored with the -butcher's and baker's bills, and so rushes headlong to his dreadful -account. - -Nevertheless, for a few days, not a little to my surprise, I heard -no further reproaches. An intense calm pervaded my wife, but beneath -which, as in the sea, there was no knowing what portentous movements -might be going on. She frequently went abroad, and in a direction -which I thought not unsuspicious; namely, in the direction of New -Petra, a griffin-like house of wood and stucco, in the highest style of -ornamental art, graced with four chimneys in the form of erect dragons -spouting smoke from their nostrils; the elegant modern residence -of Mr. Scribe, which he had built for the purpose of a standing -advertisement, not more of his taste as an architect, than his solidity -as a master-mason. - -At last, smoking my pipe one morning, I heard a rap at the door, and -my wife, with an air unusually quiet for her brought me a note. As I -have no correspondents except Solomon, with whom in his sentiments, -at least, I entirely correspond, the note occasioned me some little -surprise, which was not dismissed upon reading the following:-- - - NEW PETRA, April 1st. - - SIR--During my last examination of your chimney, possibly you may have - noted that I frequently applied my rule to it in a manner apparently - unnecessary. Possibly, also, at the same time, you might have observed - in me more or less of perplexity, to which, however, I refrained from - giving any verbal expression. - - I now feel it obligatory upon me to inform you of what was then but a - dim suspicion, and as such would have been unwise to give utterance - to, but which now, from various subsequent calculations assuming no - little probability, it may be important that you should not remain in - further ignorance of. - - It is my solemn duty to warn you, sir, that there is architectural - cause to conjecture that somewhere concealed in your chimney is a - reserved space, hermetically closed, in short, a secret chamber, or - rather closet. How long it has been there, it is for me impossible - to say. What it contains is hid, with itself, in darkness. But - probably a secret closet would not have been contrived except for some - extraordinary object, whether for the concealment of treasure, or for - what other purpose, may be left to those better acquainted with the - history of the house to guess. - - But enough: in making this disclosure, sir, my conscience is eased. - Whatever step you choose to take upon it, is of course a matter of - indifference to me; though, I confess, as respects the character of - the closet, I cannot but share in a natural curiosity. - - Trusting that you may be guided aright, in determining whether it is - Christian-like knowingly to reside in a house, hidden in which is a - secret closet, - - I remain, - - With much respect, - - Yours very humbly, - - HIRAM SCRIBE. - -My first thought upon reading this note was, not of the alleged mystery -of manner to which, at the outset, it alluded--for none such had I at -all observed in the master-mason during his surveys--but of my late -kinsman, Captain Julian Dacres, long a ship-master and merchant in -the Indian trade, who, about thirty years ago, and at the ripe age -of ninety, died a bachelor, and in this very house, which he had -built. He was supposed to have retired into this country with a large -fortune. But to the general surprise, after being at great cost in -building himself this mansion, he settled down into a sedate, reserved -and inexpensive old age, which by the neighbors was thought all the -better for his heirs: but lo! upon opening the will, his property was -found to consist but of the house and grounds, and some ten thousand -dollars in stocks; but the place, being found heavily mortgaged, was -in consequence sold. Gossip had its day, and left the grass quietly to -creep over the captain's grave, where he still slumbers in a privacy -as unmolested as if the billows of the Indian Ocean, instead of the -billows of inland verdure, rolled over him. Still, I remembered long -ago, hearing strange solutions whispered by the country people for -the mystery involving his will, and, by reflex, himself; and that, -too, as well in conscience as purse. But people who could circulate -the report (which they did), that Captain Julian Dacres had, in his -day, been a Borneo pirate, surely were not worthy of credence in their -collateral notions. It is queer what wild whimsies of rumors will, -like toadstools, spring up about any eccentric stranger, who settling -down among a rustic population, keeps quietly to himself. With some, -inoffensiveness would seem a prime cause of offense. But what chiefly -had led me to scout at these rumors, particularly as referring to -concealed treasure, was the circumstance, that the stranger (the same -who razeed the roof and the chimney) into whose hands the estate had -passed on my kinsman's death, was of that sort of character, that had -there been the least ground for those reports, he would speedily have -tested them, by tearing down and rummaging the walls. - -Nevertheless, the note of Mr. Scribe, so strangely recalling the memory -of my kinsman, very naturally chimed in with what had been mysterious, -or at least unexplained, about him; vague flashings of ingots united -in my mind with vague gleamings of skulls. But the first cool thought -soon dismissed such chimeras; and, with a calm smile, I turned towards -my wife, who, meantime, had been sitting near by, impatient enough, I -dare say, to know who could have taken it into his head to write me a -letter. - -"Well, old man," said she, "who is it from, and what is it about?" - -"Read it, wife," said I, handing it. - -Read it she did, and then--such an explosion! I will not pretend to -describe her emotions, or repeat her expressions. Enough that my -daughters were quickly called in to share the excitement. Although they -had never dreamed of such a revelation as Mr. Scribe's; yet upon the -first suggestion they instinctively saw the extreme likelihood of it. -In corroboration, they cited first my kinsman, and second, my chimney; -alleging that the profound mystery involving the former, and the -equally profound masonry involving the latter, though both acknowledged -facts, were alike preposterous on any other supposition than the secret -closet. - -But all this time I was quietly thinking to myself: Could it be hidden -from me that my credulity in this instance would operate very favorably -to a certain plan of theirs? How to get to the secret closet, or how -to have any certainty about it at all, without making such fell work -with my chimney as to render its set destruction superfluous? That my -wife wished to get rid of the chimney, it needed no reflection to show; -and that Mr. Scribe, for all his pretended disinterestedness, was not -opposed to pocketing five hundred dollars by the operation, seemed -equally evident. That my wife had, in secret, laid heads together with -Mr. Scribe, I at present refrain from affirming. But when I consider -her enmity against my chimney, and the steadiness with which at the -last she is wont to carry out her schemes, if by hook or crook she can, -especially after having been once baffled, why, I scarcely knew at what -step of hers to be surprised. - -Of one thing only was I resolved, that I and my chimney should not -budge. - -In vain all protests. Next morning I went out into the road, where I -had noticed a diabolical-looking old gander, that, for its doughty -exploits in the way of scratching into forbidden inclosures, had -been rewarded by its master with a portentous, four-pronged, wooden -decoration, in the shape of a collar of the Order of the Garotte. This -gander I cornered and rummaging out its stiffest quill, plucked it, -took it home, and making a stiff pen, inscribed the following stiff -note: - - CHIMNEY SIDE, April 2. - - _Mr. Scribe_ - - SIR:--For your conjecture, we return you our joint thanks and - compliments, and beg leave to assure you, that - - We shall remain, - - Very faithfully, - - The same, - - I AND MY CHIMNEY. - -Of course, for this epistle we had to endure some pretty sharp raps. -But having at last explicitly understood from me that Mr. Scribe's -note had not altered my mind one jot, my wife, to move me, among other -things said, that if she remembered aright, there was a statute placing -the keeping in private of secret closets on the same unlawful footing -with the keeping of gunpowder. But it had no effect. - -A few days after, my spouse changed her key. - -It was nearly midnight, and all were in bed but ourselves, who sat -up, one in each chimney-corner; she, needles in hand, indefatigably -knitting a sock; I, pipe in mouth, indolently weaving my vapors. - -It was one of the first of the chill nights in autumn. There was a fire -on the hearth, burning low. The air without was torpid and heavy; the -wood, by an oversight, of the sort called soggy. - -"Do look at the chimney," she began; "can't you see that something must -be in it?" - -"Yes, wife. Truly there is smoke in the chimney, as in Mr. Scribe's -note." - -"Smoke? Yes, indeed, and in my eyes, too. How you two wicked old -sinners do smoke!--this wicked old chimney and you." - -"Wife," said I, "I and my chimney like to have a quiet smoke together, -it is true, but we don't like to be called names." - -"Now, dear old man," said she, softening down, and a little shifting -the subject, "when you think of that old kinsman of yours, you _know_ -there must be a secret closet in this chimney." - -"Secret ash-hole, wife, why don't you have it? Yes, I dare say there is -a secret ash-hole in the chimney; for where do all the ashes go to that -drop down the queer hole yonder?" - -"I know where they go to; I've been there almost as many times as the -cat." - -"What devil, wife, prompted you to crawl into the ash-hole? Don't you -know that St. Dunstan's devil emerged from the ash-hole? You will -get your death one of these days, exploring all about as you do. But -supposing there be a secret closet, what then?" - -"What then? why what should be in a secret closet but--" - -"Dry bones, wife," broke in I with a puff, while the sociable old -chimney broke in with another. - -"There again! Oh, how this wretched old chimney smokes," wiping her -eyes with her handkerchief. "I've no doubt the reason it smokes so is, -because that secret closet interferes with the flue. Do see, too, how -the jambs here keep settling; and it's down hill all the way from the -door to this hearth. This horrid old chimney will fall on our heads -yet; depend upon it, old man." - -"Yes, wife, I do depend on it; yes indeed, I place every dependence on -my chimney. As for its settling, I like it. I, too, am settling, you -know, in my gait. I and my chimney are settling together, and shall -keep settling, too, till, as in a great feather-bed, we shall both have -settled away clean out of sight. But this secret oven; I mean, secret -closet of yours, wife; where exactly do you suppose that secret closet -is?" - -"That is for Mr. Scribe to say." - -"But suppose he cannot say exactly; what, then?" - -"Why then he can prove, I am sure, that it must be somewhere or other -in this horrid old chimney." - -"And if he can't prove that; what, then?" - -"Why then, old man," with a stately air, "I shall say little more about -it." - -"Agreed, wife," returned I, knocking my pipe-bowl against the jamb, -"and now, to-morrow, I will for a third time send for Mr. Scribe. Wife, -the sciatica takes me; be so good as to put this pipe on the mantel." - -"If you get the step-ladder for me, I will. This shocking old chimney, -this abominable old-fashioned old chimney's mantels are so high, I -can't reach them." - -No opportunity, however trivial, was overlooked for a subordinate fling -at the pile. - -Here, by way of introduction, it should be mentioned, that besides the -fireplaces all round it, the chimney was, in the most haphazard way, -excavated on each floor for certain curious out-of-the-way cupboards -and closets, of all sorts and sizes, clinging here and there, like -nests in the crotches of some old oak. On the second floor these -closets were by far the most irregular and numerous. And yet this -should hardly have been so, since the theory of the chimney was, that -it pyramidically diminished as it ascended. The abridgment of its -square on the roof was obvious enough; and it was supposed that the -reduction must be methodically graduated from bottom to top. - -"Mr. Scribe," said I when, the next day, with an eager aspect, that -individual again came, "my object in sending for you this morning -is, not to arrange for the demolition of my chimney, nor to have -any particular conversation about it, but simply to allow you every -reasonable facility for verifying, if you can, the conjecture -communicated in your note." - -Though in secret not a little crestfallen, it may be, by my phlegmatic -reception, so different from what he had looked for; with much -apparent alacrity he commenced the survey; throwing open the cupboards -on the first floor, and peering into the closets on the second; -measuring one within, and then comparing that measurement with the -measurement without. Removing the fireboards, he would gaze up the -flues. But no sign of the hidden work yet. - -Now, on the second floor the rooms were the most rambling conceivable. -They, as it were, dovetailed into each other. They were of all shapes; -not one mathematically square room among them all--a peculiarity which -by the master-mason had not been unobserved. With a significant, not to -say portentous expression, he took a circuit of the chimney, measuring -the area of each room around it; then going down stairs, and out of -doors, he measured the entire ground area; then compared the sum total -of the areas of all the rooms on the second floor with the ground area; -then, returning to me in no small excitement, announced that there was -a difference of no less than two hundred and odd square feet--room -enough, in all conscience, for a secret closet. - -"But, Mr. Scribe," said I, stroking my chin, "have you allowed for the -walls, both main and sectional? They take up some space, you know." - -"Ah, I had forgotten that," tapping his forehead; "but," still -ciphering on his paper, "that will not make up the deficiency." - -"But, Mr. Scribe, have you allowed for the recesses of so many -fireplaces on a floor, and for the fire-walls, and the flues; in short, -Mr. Scribe, have you allowed for the legitimate chimney itself--some -one hundred and forty-four square feet or thereabouts, Mr. Scribe?" - -"How unaccountable. That slipped my mind, too." - -"Did it, indeed, Mr. Scribe?" - -He faltered a little, and burst forth with, "But we must now allow -one hundred and forty-four square feet for the legitimate chimney. -My position is, that within those undue limits the secret closet is -contained." - -I eyed him in silence a moment; then spoke: - -"Your survey is concluded, Mr. Scribe; be so good now as to lay your -finger upon the exact part of the chimney wall where you believe this -secret closet to be; or would a witch-hazel wand assist you, Mr. -Scribe?" - -"No, sir, but a crowbar would," he, with temper, rejoined. - -Here, now, thought I to myself, the cat leaps out of the bag. I looked -at him with a calm glance, under which he seemed somewhat uneasy. More -than ever now I suspected a plot. I remembered what my wife had said -about abiding by the decision of Mr. Scribe. In a bland way, I resolved -to buy up the decision of Mr. Scribe. - -"Sir," said I, "really, I am much obliged to you for this survey. It -has quite set my mind at rest. And no doubt you, too, Mr. Scribe, must -feel much relieved. Sir," I added, "you have made three visits to the -chimney. With a business man, time is money. Here are fifty dollars, -Mr. Scribe. Nay, take it. You have earned it. Your opinion is worth -it. And by the way,"--as he modestly received the money--"have you any -objections to give me a--a--little certificate--something, say, like a -steamboat certificate, certifying that you, a competent surveyor, have -surveyed my chimney, and found no reason to believe any unsoundness; in -short, any--any secret closet in it. Would you be so kind, Mr. Scribe?" - -"But, but, sir," stammered he with honest hesitation. - -"Here, here are pen and paper," said I, with entire assurance. - -Enough. - -That evening I had the certificate framed and hung over the dining-room -fireplace, trusting that the continual sight of it would forever put at -rest at once the dreams and stratagems of my household. - -But, no. Inveterately bent upon the extirpation of that noble old -chimney, still to this day my wife goes about it, with my daughter -Anna's geological hammer, tapping the wall all over, and then holding -her ear against it, as I have seen the physicians of life insurance -companies tap a man's chest, and then incline over for the echo. -Sometimes of nights she almost frightens one, going about on this -phantom errand, and still following the sepulchral response of the -chimney, round and round, as if it were leading her to the threshold of -the secret closet. - -"How hollow it sounds," she will hollowly cry. "Yes, I declare," with -an emphatic tap, "there is a secret closet here. Here, in this very -spot. Hark! How hollow!" - -"Psha! wife, of course it is hollow. Who ever heard of a solid -chimney?" But nothing avails. And my daughters take after, not me, but -their mother. - -Sometimes all three abandon the theory of the secret closet and return -to the genuine ground of attack--the unsightliness of so cumbrous a -pile, with comments upon the great addition of room to be gained by its -demolition, and the fine effect of the projected grand hall, and the -convenience resulting from the collateral running in one direction and -another of their various partitions. Not more ruthlessly did the Three -Powers partition away poor Poland, than my wife and daughters would -fain partition away my chimney. - -But seeing that, despite all, I and my chimney still smoke our pipes, -my wife reoccupies the ground of the secret closet, enlarging upon -what wonders are there, and what a shame it is, not to seek it out and -explore it. - -"Wife," said I, upon one of these occasions, "why speak more of that -secret closet, when there before you hangs contrary testimony of a -master mason, elected by yourself to decide. Besides, even if there -were a secret closet, secret it should remain, and secret it shall. -Yes, wife, here for once I must say my say. Infinite sad mischief has -resulted from the profane bursting open of secret recesses. Though -standing in the heart of this house, though hitherto we have all -nestled about it, unsuspicious of aught hidden within, this chimney may -or may not have a secret closet. But if it have, it is my kinsman's. -To break into that wall, would be to break into his breast. And that -wall-breaking wish of Momus I account the wish of a church-robbing -gossip and knave. Yes, wife, a vile eavesdropping varlet was Momus." - -"Moses? Mumps? Stuff with your mumps and Moses?" - -The truth is, my wife, like all the rest of the world, cares not -a fig for philosophical jabber. In dearth of other philosophical -companionship, I and my chimney have to smoke and philosophize -together. And sitting up so late as we do at it, a mighty smoke it is -that we two smoky old philosophers make. - -But my spouse, who likes the smoke of my tobacco as little as she does -that of the soot, carries on her war against both. I live in continual -dread lest, like the golden bowl, the pipes of me and my chimney shall -yet be broken. To stay that mad project of my wife's, naught answers. -Or, rather, she herself is incessantly answering, incessantly besetting -me with her terrible alacrity for improvement, which is a softer name -for destruction. Scarce a day I do not find her with her tape-measure, -measuring for her grand hall, while Anna holds a yardstick on one side, -and Julia looks approvingly on from the other. Mysterious intimations -appear in the nearest village paper, signed "Claude," to the effect -that a certain structure, standing on a certain hill, is a sad blemish -to an otherwise lovely landscape. Anonymous letters arrive, threatening -me with I know not what, unless I remove my chimney. Is it my wife, -too, or who, that sets up the neighbors to badgering me on the same -subject, and hinting to me that my chimney, like a huge elm, absorbs -all moisture from my garden? At night, also, my wife will start as -from sleep, professing to hear ghostly noises from the secret closet. -Assailed on all sides, and in all ways, small peace have I and my -chimney. - -Were it not for the baggage, we would together pack up and remove from -the country. - -What narrow escapes have been ours! Once I found in a drawer a whole -portfolio of plans and estimates. Another time, upon returning after -a day's absence, I discovered my wife standing before the chimney in -earnest conversation with a person whom I at once recognized as a -meddlesome architectural reformer, who, because he had no gift for -putting up anything was ever intent upon pulling them down; in various -parts of the country having prevailed upon half-witted old folks to -destroy their old-fashioned houses, particularly the chimneys. - -But worst of all was, that time I unexpectedly returned at early -morning from a visit to the city, and upon approaching the house, -narrowly escaped three brickbats which fell, from high aloft, at my -feet. Glancing up, what was my horror to see three savages, in blue -jean overalls, in the very act of commencing the long-threatened -attack. Aye, indeed, thinking of those three brickbats, I and my -chimney have had narrow escapes. - -It is now some seven years since I have stirred from my home. My city -friends all wonder why I don't come to see them, as in former times. -They think I am getting sour and unsocial. Some say that I have become -a sort of mossy old misanthrope, while all the time the fact is, I am -simply standing guard over my mossy old chimney; for it is resolved -between me and my chimney, that I and my chimney will never surrender. - - - - -THE PARADISE OF BACHELORS AND THE TARTARUS OF MAIDS - -THE PARADISE OF BACHELORS - - -It lies not far from Temple-Bar. - -Going to it, by the usual way, is like stealing from the heated plain -into some cool, deep glen, shady among the harboring hills. - -Sick with the din and soiled with the mud of Fleet Street--where the -Benedick tradesmen are hurrying by, with ledger-lines ruled along their -brows; thinking upon rise of bread and fall of babies--you adroitly -turn a mystic corner--not a street--glide down a dim, monastic way, -flanked by dark, sedate, and solemn piles, and still wending on, give -the whole careworn world the slip, and, disentangled, stand beneath the -quiet cloisters of the Paradise of Bachelors. - -Sweet are the oases in Sahara; charming the isle-groves of August -prairies; delectable pure faith amidst a thousand perfidies: but -sweeter, still more charming, more delectable, the dreamy Paradise of -Bachelors, found in the stony heart of stunning London. - -In mild meditation pace the cloisters; take your pleasure, sip your -leisure, in the garden waterward; go linger in the ancient library; -go worship in the sculptured chapel; but little have you seen, just -nothing do you know, not the kernel have you tasted, till you dine -among the banded Bachelors, and see their convivial eyes and glasses -sparkle. Not dine in bustling commons, during term-time, in the -hall; but tranquilly, by private hint, at a private table; some fine -Templar's hospitality invited guest. - -Templar? That's a romantic name. Let me see. Brian de Bois Gilbert was -a Templar, I believe. Do we understand you to insinuate that those -famous Templars still survive in modern London? May the ring of their -armed heels be heard, and the rattle of their shields, as in mailed -prayer the monk-knights kneel before the consecrated Host? Surely a -monk-knight were a curious sight picking his way along the Strand, -his gleaming corselet and snowy surcoat spattered by an omnibus. -Long-bearded, too, according to his order's rule; his face fuzzy -as a pard's; how would the grim ghost look among the crop-haired, -close-shaven citizens. We know indeed--sad history recounts it--that a -moral blight tainted at last this sacred Brotherhood. Though no sworded -foe might outskill them in the fence, yet the work of luxury crawled -beneath their guard, gnawing the core of knightly troth, nibbling the -monastic vows, till at last the monk's austerity relaxed to wassailing, -and the sworn knights-bachelors grew to be but hypocrites and rakes. - -But for all this, quite unprepared were we to learn that -Knights-Templars (if at all in being) were so entirely secularized as -to be reduced from carving out immortal fame in glorious battling for -the Holy Land, to the carving of roast mutton at a dinner-board. Like -Anacreon, do these degenerate Templars now think it sweeter far to fall -in banquet hall than in war? Or, indeed, how can there be any survival -of that famous order? Templars in modern London! Templars in their -red-cross mantles smoking cigars at the Divan! Templars crowded in a -railway train, till, stacked with steel helmet, spear, and shield, the -whole train looks like one elongated locomotive! - -No. The genuine Templar is long since departed. Go view the -wondrous tombs in the Temple Church; see there the rigidly-haughty -forms stretched out, with crossed arms upon their stilly hearts, in -everlasting undreaming rest. Like the years before the flood, the bold -Knights-Templars are no more. Nevertheless, the name remains, and the -nominal society, and the ancient grounds, and some of the ancient -edifices. But the iron heel is changed to a boot of patent-leather; -the long two-handed sword to a one-handed quill; the monk-giver of -gratuitous ghostly counsel now counsels for a fee; the defender of the -sarcophagus (if in good practice with his weapon) now has more than one -case to defend; the vowed opener and clearer of all highways leading -to the Holy Sepulchre, now has it in particular charge to check, to -clog, to hinder, and embarrass all the courts and avenues of Law; the -Knight-combatant of the Saracen, breasting spear-point at Acre, now -fights law-points in Westminster Hall. The helmet is a wig. Struck by -Time's enchanter's wand, the Templar is to-day a Lawyer. - -But, like many others tumbled from proud glory's height, like the -apple, hard on the bough but mellow on the ground, the Templar's fall -has but made him all the finer fellow. - -I dare say those old warrior-priests were but gruff and grouty at the -best; cased in Birmingham hardware, how could their crimped arms give -yours or mine a hearty shake? Their proud, ambitious, monkish souls -clasped shut, like horn-book missals; their very faces clapped in -bomb-shells; what sort of genial men were these? But best of comrades, -most affable of hosts, capital diner is the modern Templar. His wit and -wine are both of sparkling brands. - -The church and cloisters, courts and vaults, lanes and passages, -banquet-halls, refectories, libraries, terraces, gardens, broad walks, -domicils, and dessert-rooms, covering a very large space of ground, -and all grouped in central neighborhood and quite sequestered from the -old city's surrounding din; and everything about the place being kept -in most bachelor-like particularity, no part of London offers a quiet -wight so agreeable a refuge. - -The Temple is, indeed, a city by itself. A city with all the best -appurtenances, as the above enumeration shows. A city with a park to -it, and flower-beds, and a riverside--the Thames flowing by as openly, -in one part, as by Eden's primal garden flowed the mild Euphrates. -In what is now the Temple Garden the old Crusaders used to exercise -their steeds and lances; the modern Templars now lounge on the benches -beneath the trees, and switching their patent-leather boots, in gay -discourse exercise at repartee. - -Long lines of stately portraits in the banquet-halls, show what great -men of mark--famous nobles, judges, and Lord Chancellors--have in their -time been Templars. But all Templars are not known to universal fame; -though, if the having warm hearts and warmer welcomes, full minds and -fuller cellars, and giving good advice and glorious dinners, spiced -with rare divertisements of fun and fancy, merit immortal mention, set -down, ye muses, the names of R.F.C. and his imperial brother. - -Though to be a Templar, in the one true sense, you must needs be a -lawyer, or a student at the law, and be ceremoniously enrolled as -member of the order, yet as many such, though they may have their -offices there, just so, on the other hand, there are many residents of -the hoary old domicils who are not admitted Templars. If being, say, -a lounging gentleman and bachelor, or a quiet, unmarried literary man, -charmed with the soft seclusion of the spot, you much desire to pitch -your shady tent among the rest in this serene encampment, then you must -make some special friend among the order, and procure him to rent, in -his name but at your charge, whatever vacant chamber you may find to -suit. - -Thus, I suppose, did Dr. Johnson, that nominal Benedick and widower but -virtual bachelor, when for a space he resided here. So, too, did that -undoubted bachelor and rare good soul, Charles Lamb. And hundreds more, -of sterling spirits, Brethren of the Order of Celibacy, from time to -time have dined, and slept, and tabernacled here. Indeed, the place is -all a honeycomb of offices and domicils. Like any cheese, it is quite -perforated through and through in all directions with the snug cells of -bachelors. Dear, delightful spot! Ah! when I bethink me of the sweet -hours there passed, enjoying such genial hospitalities beneath those -time-honored roofs, my heart only finds due utterance through poetry; -and, with a sigh, I softly sing, "Carry me back to old Virginny!" - -Such then, at large, is the Paradise of Bachelors. And such I found it -one pleasant afternoon in the smiling month of May, when, sallying from -my hotel in Trafalgar Square, I went to keep my dinner-appointment with -that fine Barrister, Bachelor, and Bencher, R.F.C. (he is the first and -second, and should be the third; I hereby nominate him), whose card I -kept fast pinched between my gloved forefinger and thumb, and every now -and then snatched still another look at the pleasant address inscribed -beneath the name, Number --, Elm Court, Templar. - -At the core he was a right bluff, care-free, right comfortable, and -most companionable Englishman. If on a first acquaintance he seemed -reserved, quite icy in his air--patience; this champagne will thaw. -And, if it never do, better frozen champagne than liquid vinegar. - -There were nine gentlemen, all bachelors, at the dinner. One was from -"Number --, King's Bench Walk, Temple"; a second, third and fourth, -and fifth, from various courts or passages christened with some -similarly rich resounding syllables. It was indeed a sort of Senate of -the Bachelors, sent to this dinner from widely-scattered districts, -to represent the general celibacy of the Temple. Nay it was, by -representation, a Grand Parliament of the best Bachelors in universal -London; several of those present being from distant quarters of the -town, noted immemorial seats of lawyers and unmarried men--Lincoln's -Inn, Furnival's Inn; and one gentlemen upon whom I looked with a sort -of collateral awe, hailed from the spot where Lord Verulam once abode a -bachelor--Gray's Inn. - -The apartment was well up toward heaven; I know not how many strange -old stairs I climbed to get to it. But a good dinner, with famous -company, should be well earned. No doubt our host had his dining-room -so high with a view to secure the prior exercise necessary to the due -relishing and digesting of it. - -The furniture was wonderfully unpretending, old, and snug. No new -shining mahogany, sticky with undried varnish; no uncomfortably -luxurious ottomans, and sofas too fine to use, vexed you in this sedate -apartment. It is a thing which every sensible American should learn -from every sensible Englishmen, that glare and glitter, gimcracks and -gewgaws, are not indispensable to domestic solacement. The American -Benedick snatches, down-town, a tough chop in a gilded show-box; the -English bachelor leisurely dines at home on that incomparable South -Down of his, off a plain deal board. - -The ceiling of the room was low. Who wants to dine under the dome of -St. Peter's? High ceilings! If that is your demand, and the higher the -better, and you be so very tall, then go dine out with the topping -giraffe in the open air. - -In good time the nine gentlemen sat down to nine covers, and soon were -fairly under way. - -If I remember right, ox-tail soup inaugurated the affair. Of a rich -russet hue, its agreeable flavor dissipated my first confounding of its -main ingredient with teamster's gads and the rawhides of ushers. (By -way of interlude, we here drank a little claret.) Neptune's was the -next tribute rendered--turbot coming second; snow-white, flaky, and -just gelatinous enough, not too turtleish in its unctuousness. (At this -point we refreshed ourselves with a glass of sherry.) After these light -skirmishers had vanished, the heavy artillery of the feast marched -in, led by that well-known English generalissimo, roast beef. For -aids-de-camp we had a saddle of mutton, a fat turkey, a chicken-pie, -and endless other savory things; while for avant-couriers came nine -silver flagons of humming ale. This heavy ordnance having departed -on the track of the light skirmishers, a picked brigade of game-fowl -encamped upon the board, their camp-fires lit by the ruddiest of -decanters. - -Tarts and puddings followed, with innumerable niceties; then cheese -and crackers. (By way of ceremony, simply, only to keep up good old -fashions, we here each drank a glass of good old port.) - -The cloth was now removed; and like Blucher's army coming in at the -death on the field of Waterloo, in marched a fresh detachment of -bottles, dusty with their hurried march. - -All these manoeuvrings of the forces were superintended by a surprising -old field marshal (I can not school myself to call him by the -inglorious name of waiter), with snowy hair and napkin, and a head like -Socrates. Amidst all the hilarity of the feast, intent on important -business, he disdained to smile. Venerable man! - -I have above endeavored to give some slight schedule of the general -plan of operations. But any one knows that a good, general dinner is -a sort of pell-mell, indiscriminate affair, quite baffling to detail -in all particulars. Thus, I spoke of taking a glass of claret, and a -glass of sherry, and a glass of port, and a mug of ale--all at certain -specific periods and times. But those were merely the state bumpers, -so to speak. Innumerable impromptu glasses were drained between the -periods of those grand imposing ones. - -The nine bachelors seemed to have the most tender concern for each -other's health. All the time, in flowing wine, they most earnestly -expressed their sincerest wishes for the entire well-being and lasting -hygiene of the gentlemen on the right and on the left. I noticed that -when one of these kind bachelors desired a little more wine (just for -his stomach's sake, like Timothy), he would not help himself to it -unless some other bachelor would join him. It seemed held something -indelicate, selfish and unfraternal to be seen taking a lonely, -unparticipated glass. Meantime, as the wine ran apace, the spirits of -the company grew more and more to perfect genialness and unconstraint. -They related all sorts of pleasant stories. Choice experiences in their -private lives were now brought out, like choice brands of Moselle or -Rhenish, only kept for particular company. One told us how mellowly he -lived when a student at Oxford; with various spicy anecdotes of most -frank-hearted noble lords, his liberal companions. Another bachelor, a -gray-headed man, with a sunny face, who, by his own account, embraced -every opportunity of leisure to cross over into the Low Countries, -on sudden tours of inspection of the fine old Flemish architecture -there--this learned, white-haired, sunny-faced old bachelor, -excelled in his descriptions of the elaborate splendors of those old -guild-halls, town-halls, and stadhold-houses, to be seen in the land -of the ancient Flemings. A third was a great frequenter of the British -Museum, and knew all about scores of wonderful antiquities, of Oriental -manuscripts, and costly books without a duplicate. A fourth had lately -returned from a trip to Old Granada, and, of course, was full of -Saracenic scenery. A fifth had a funny case in law to tell. A sixth -was erudite in wines. A seventh had a strange characteristic anecdote -of the private life of the Iron Duke, never printed, and never before -announced in any public or private company. An eighth had lately been -amusing his evening, now and then, with translating a comic poem of -Pulci's. He quoted for us the more amusing passages. - -And so the evening slipped along, the hours told, not by a water-clock, -like King Alfred's but a wine-chronometer. Meantime the table seemed -a sort of Epsom Heath; a regular ring, where the decanters galloped -round. For fear one decanter should not with sufficient speed reach -his destination, another was sent express after him to hurry him; and -then a third to hurry the second; and so on with a fourth and fifth. -And throughout all this nothing loud, nothing unmannerly, nothing -turbulent. I am quite sure, from the scrupulous gravity and austerity -of his air, that had Socrates, the field marshal, perceived aught of -indecorum in the company he served, he would have forthwith departed -without giving warning. I afterward learned that during the repast, -an invalid bachelor in an adjoining chamber enjoyed his first sound -refreshing slumber in three long weary weeks. - -It was the very perfection of quiet absorption of good living, good -drinking, good feeling, and good talk. We were a band of brothers. -Comfort--fraternal, household comfort, was the grand trait of the -affair. Also, you would plainly see that these easy-hearted men had no -wives or children to give an anxious thought. Almost all of them were -travelers, too; and without any twinges of their consciences touching -desertion of the fireside. - -The thing called pain, the bugbear styled trouble--those two legends -seemed preposterous to their bachelor imaginations. How could men -of liberal sense, ripe scholarship in the world, and capacious -philosophical and convivial understanding--how could they suffer -themselves to be imposed upon by such monkish fables? Pain! Trouble! -As well talk of Catholic miracles. No such thing.--Pass the sherry, -Sir.--Pooh, pooh! Can't be!--The port, Sir, if you please. Nonsense; -don't tell me so.--The decanter stops with you, Sir, I believe. - -And so it went. - -Not long after the cloth was drawn our host glanced significantly upon -Socrates, who, solemnly stepping to a stand, returned with an immense -convolved horn, a regular Jericho horn, mounted with polished silver, -and otherwise chased and curiously enriched; not omitting two lifelike -goat's heads, with four more horns of solid silver, projecting from -opposite sides of the mouth of the noble main horn. - -Not having heard that our host was a performer on the bugle, I was -surprised to see him lift this horn from the table, as if he were about -to blow an inspiring blast. But I was relieved from this, and set -quite right as touching the purposes of the horn, by his now inserting -his thumb and forefinger into its mouth; whereupon a slight aroma was -stirred up, and my nostrils were greeted with the smell of some choice -Rappee. It was a mull of snuff. It went the rounds. Capital idea this, -thought I, of taking snuff about this juncture. This goodly fashion -must be introduced among my countrymen at home, further ruminated I. - -The remarkable decorum of the nine bachelors--a decorum not to be -affected by any quantity of wine--a decorum unassailable by any degree -of mirthfulness--this was again set in a forcible light to me, by now -observing that, though they took snuff very freely, yet not a man so -far violated the proprieties, or so far molested the invalid bachelor -in the adjoining room as to indulge himself in a sneeze. The snuff was -snuffed silently, as if it had been some fine innoxious powder brushed -off the wings of butterflies. - -But fine though they be, bachelors' dinners, like bachelors' lives, -can not endure forever. The time came for breaking up. One by one -the bachelors took their hats, and two by two, and arm-in-arm they -descended, still conversing, to the flagging of the court; some going -to their neighboring chambers to turn over the Decameron ere retiring -for the night; some to smoke a cigar, promenading in the garden on the -cool riverside; some to make for the street, call a hack and be driven -snugly to their distant lodgings. - -I was the last lingerer. - -"Well," said my smiling host, "what do you think of the Temple here, -and the sort of life we bachelors make out to live in it?" - -"Sir," said I, with a burst of admiring candor--"Sir, this is the very -Paradise of Bachelors!" - - -THE TARTARUS OF MAIDS - -It lies not far from Woedolor Mountain in New England. Turning to the -east, right out from among bright farms and sunny meadows, nodding in -early June with odorous grasses, you enter ascendingly among bleak -hills. These gradually close in upon a dusky pass, which, from the -violent Gulf Stream of air unceasingly driving between its cloven walls -of haggard rock, as well as from the tradition of a crazy spinster's -hut having long ago stood somewhere hereabout, is called the Mad Maid's -Bellows'-pipe. - -Winding along at the bottom of the gorge is a dangerously narrow -wheel-road, occupying the bed of a former torrent. Following this road -to its highest point, you stand as within a Dantean gateway. From -the steepness of the walls here, their strangely ebon hue, and the -sudden contraction of the gorge, this particular point is called the -Black Notch. The ravine now expandingly descends into a great, purple, -hopper-shaped hollow, far sunk among many Plutonian, shaggy-wooded -mountains. By the country people this hollow is called the Devil's -Dungeon. Sounds of torrents fall on all sides upon the ear. These rapid -waters unite at last in one turbid, brick-colored stream, boiling -through a flume among enormous boulders. They call this strange-colored -torrent Blood River. Gaining a dark precipice it wheels suddenly to -the west, and makes one maniac spring of sixty feet into the arms of a -stunted wood of gray-haired pines, between which it thence eddies on -its further way down to the invisible lowlands. - -Conspicuously crowning a rocky bluff high to one side, at the -cataract's verge, is the ruin of an old saw-mill, built in those -primitive times when vast pines and hemlocks superabounded throughout -the neighboring region. The black-mossed bulk of those immense, -rough-hewn, and spike-knotted logs, here and there tumbled all -together, in long abandonment and decay, or left in solitary, perilous -projection over the cataract's gloomy brink, impart to this rude wooden -ruin not only much of the aspect of one of rough-quarried stone, but -also a sort of feudal, Rhineland, and Thurmberg look, derived from the -pinnacled wildness of the neighborhood scenery. - -Not far from the bottom of the Dungeon stands a large whitewashed -building, relieved, like some great white sepulchre, against the -sullen background of mountain-side firs, and other hardy evergreens, -inaccessibly rising in grim terraces for some two thousand feet. - -The building is a paper-mill. - -Having embarked on a large scale in the seedsman's business (so -extensively and broadcast, indeed, that at length my seeds were -distributed through all the Eastern and Northern States, and even fell -into the far soil of Missouri and the Carolinas), the demand for paper -at my place became so great, that the expenditure soon amounted to a -most important item in the general account. It need hardly be hinted -how paper comes into use with seedsmen, as envelopes. These are mostly -made of yellowish paper, folded square; and when filled, are all but -flat, and being stamped, and superscribed with the nature of the seeds -contained, assume not a little the appearance of business letters -ready for the mail. Of these small envelopes I used an incredible -quantity--several hundred of thousands in a year. For a time I had -purchased my paper from the wholesale dealers in a neighboring town. -For economy's sake, and partly for the adventure of the trip, I now -resolved to cross the mountains, some sixty miles, and order my future -paper at the Devil's Dungeon paper-mill. - -The sleighing being uncommonly fine toward the end of January, and -promising to hold so for no small period, in spite of the bitter cold -I started one gray Friday noon in my pung, well fitted with buffalo -and wolf robes; and, spending one night on the road, next noon came in -sight of Woedolor Mountain. - -The far summit fairly smoked with frost; white vapors curled up from -its white-wooded top, as from a chimney. The intense congelation -made the whole country look like one petrification. The steel shoes -of my pung craunched and gritted over the vitreous, chippy snow, as -if it had been broken glass. The forests here and there skirting -the route, feeling the same all-stiffening influence, their inmost -fibres penetrated with the cold, strangely groaned--not in the swaying -branches merely, but likewise in the vertical trunk--as the fitful -gusts remorseless swept through them. Brittle with excessive frost, -many colossal tough-grained maples, snapped in twain like pipe-stems, -cumbered the unfeeling earth. - -Flaked all over with frozen sweat, white as a milky ram, his nostrils -at each breath sending forth two horn-shaped shoots of heated -respiration, Black, my good horse, but six years old, started at a -sudden turn, where, right across the track--not ten minutes fallen--an -old distorted hemlock lay, darkly undulatory as an anaconda. - -Gaining the Bellows'-pipe, the violent blast, dead from behind, all -but shoved my high-backed pung up-hill. The gust shrieked through the -shivered pass, as if laden with lost spirits bound to the unhappy -world. Ere gaining the summit, Black, my horse, as if exasperated by -the cutting wind, slung out with his strong hind legs, tore the light -pung straight up-hill, and sweeping grazingly through the narrow notch, -sped downward madly past the ruined saw-mill. Into the Devil's Dungeon -horse and cataract rushed together. - -With might and main, quitting my seat and robes, and standing backward, -with one foot braced against the dashboard, I rasped and churned -the bit, and stopped him just in time to avoid collision, at a turn, -with the bleak nozzle of a rock, couchant like a lion in the way--a -road-side rock. - -At first I could not discover the paper-mill. - -The whole hollow gleamed with the white, except, here and there, where -a pinnacle of granite showed one wind-swept angle bare. The mountains -stood pinned in shrouds--a pass of Alpine corpses. Where stands the -mill? Suddenly a whirling, humming sound broke upon my ear. I looked, -and there, like an arrested avalanche, lay the large whitewashed -factory. It was subordinately surrounded by a cluster of other and -smaller buildings, some of which, from their cheap, blank air, great -length, gregarious windows, and comfortless expression, no doubt were -boarding-houses of the operatives. A snow-white hamlet amidst the -snows. Various rude, irregular squares and courts resulted from the -somewhat picturesque clusterings of these buildings, owing to the -broken, rocky nature of the ground, which forbade all method in their -relative arrangement. Several narrow lanes and alleys, too, partly -blocked with snow fallen from the roof, cut up the hamlet in all -directions. - -When, turning from the traveled highway, jingling with bells of -numerous farmers--who, availing themselves of the fine sleighing, were -dragging their wood to market--and frequently diversified with swift -cutters dashing from inn to inn of the scattered villages--when, I -say, turning from that bustling main-road, I by degrees wound into -the Mad Maid's Bellows'-pipe, and saw the grim Black Notch beyond, -then something latent, as well as something obvious in the time and -scene, strangely brought back to my mind my first sight of dark and -grimy Temple Bar. And when Black, my horse, went darting through the -Notch, perilously grazing its rocky wall, I remembered being in a -runaway London omnibus, which in much the same sort of style, though -by no means at an equal rate, dashed through the ancient arch of Wren. -Though the two objects did by no means correspond, yet this partial -inadequacy but served to tinge the similitude not less with the -vividness than the disorder of a dream. So that, when upon reining up -at the protruding rock I at last caught sight of the quaint groupings -of the factory-buildings, and with the traveled highway and the Notch -behind, found myself all alone, silently and privily stealing through -deep-cloven passages into this sequestered spot, and saw the long, -high-gabled main factory edifice, with a rude tower--for hoisting -heavy boxes--at one end, standing among its crowded outbuildings and -boarding-houses, as the Temple Church amidst the surrounding offices -and dormitories, and when the marvelous retirement of this mysterious -mountain nook fastened its whole spell upon me, then, what memory -lacked, all tributary imagination furnished, and I said to myself, This -is the very counterpart of the Paradise of Bachelors, but snowed upon, -and frost-painted in a sepulchre. - -Dismounting, and warily picking my way down the dangerous -declivity--horse and man both sliding now and then upon the icy -ledges--at length I drove, or the blast drove me, into the largest -square, before one side of the main edifice. Piercingly and shrilly the -shotted blast blew by the corner; and redly and demoniacally boiled -Blood River at one side. A long woodpile, of many scores of cords, all -glittering in mail of crusted ice, stood crosswise in the square. A -row of horse-posts, their north sides plastered with adhesive snow, -flanked the factory wall. The bleak frost packed and paved the square -as with some ringing metal. - -The inverted similitude recurred--"The sweet, tranquil Temple garden, -with the Thames bordering its green beds," strangely meditated I. - -But where are the gay bachelors? - -Then, as I and my horse stood shivering in the wind-spray, a girl ran -from a neighboring dormitory door, and throwing her thin apron over her -bare head, made for the opposite building. - -"One moment, my girl; is there no shed hereabouts which I may drive -into?" - -Pausing, she turned upon me a face pale with work, and blue with cold; -an eye supernatural with unrelated misery. - -"Nay," faltered I, "I mistook you. Go on; I want nothing." - -Leading my horse close to the door from which she had come, I knocked. -Another pale, blue girl appeared, shivering in the doorway as, to -prevent the blast, she jealously held the door ajar. - -"Nay, I mistake again. In God's name shut the door. But hold, is there -no man about?" - -That moment a dark-complexioned well-wrapped personage passed, making -for the factory door, and spying him coming, the girl rapidly closed -the other one. - -"Is there no horse-shed here, Sir?" - -"Yonder, the wood-shed," he replied, and disappeared inside the factory. - -With much ado I managed to wedge in horse and pung between scattered -piles of wood all sawn and split. Then, blanketing my horse, and piling -my buffalo on the blanket's top, and tucking in its edges well around -the breastband and breeching, so that the wind might not strip him -bare, I tied him fast, and ran lamely for the factory door, still with -frost, and cumbered with my driver's dread-naught. - -Immediately I found myself standing in a spacious place, intolerably -lighted by long rows of windows, focusing inward the snowy scene -without. - -At rows of blank-looking counters sat rows of blank-looking girls, -white folders in their blank hands, all blankly folding blank paper. - -In one corner stood some huge frame of ponderous iron, with a vertical -thing like a piston periodically rising and falling upon a heavy wooden -block. Before it--its tame minister--stood a tall girl, feeding the -iron animal with half-quires of rose-hued note paper, which, at every -downward dab of the piston-like machine, received in the corner the -impress of a wreath of roses. I looked from the rosy paper to the -pallid cheek, but said nothing. - -Seated before a long apparatus, strung with long, slender strings like -any harp, another girl was feeding it with foolscap sheets, which, so -soon as they curiously traveled from her on the cords, were withdrawn -at the opposite end of the machine by a second girl. They came to the -first girl blank; they went to the second girl ruled. - -I looked upon the first girl's brow, and saw it was young and fair; -I looked upon the the second girl's brow, and saw it was ruled and -wrinkled. Then, as I still looked, the two--for some small variety to -the monotony--changed places; and where had stood the young, fair brow, -now stood the ruled and wrinkled one. - -Perched high upon a narrow platform, and still higher upon a high stool -crowning it, sat another figure serving some other iron animal; while -below the platform sat her mate in some sort of reciprocal attendance. - -Not a syllable was breathed. Nothing was heard but the low, steady -overruling hum of the iron animals. The human voice was banished -from the spot. Machinery--that vaunted slave of humanity--here stood -menially served by human beings, who served mutely and cringingly as -the slave serves the Sultan. The girls did not so much seem accessory -wheels to the general machinery as mere cogs to the wheels. - -All this scene around me was instantaneously taken in at one sweeping -glance--even before I had proceeded to unwind the heavy fur tippet from -around my neck. But as soon as this fell from me the dark-complexioned -man, standing close by, raised a sudden cry, and seizing my arm, -dragged me out into the open air, and without pausing for a word -instantly caught up some congealed snow and began rubbing both my -cheeks. - -"Two white spots like the whites of your eyes," he said; "man, your -cheeks are frozen." - -"That may well be," muttered I; "'tis some wonder the frost of the -Devil's Dungeon strikes in no deeper. Rub away." - -Soon a horrible, tearing pain caught at my reviving cheeks. Two gaunt -blood-hounds, one on either side, seemed mumbling them. I seemed -Actaeon. - -Presently, when all was over, I re-entered the factory, made known my -business, concluded it satisfactorily, and then begged to be conducted -throughout the place to view it. - -"Cupid is the boy for that," said the dark-complexioned man. -"Cupid!" and by this odd fancy-name calling a dimpled, red-cheeked, -spirited-looking, forward little fellow, who was rather impudently, I -thought, gliding about among the passive-looking girls--like a gold -fish through hueless waves--yet doing nothing in particular that I -could see, the man bade him lead the stranger through the edifice. - -"Come first and see the water-wheel," said this lively lad, with the -air of boyishly-brisk importance. - -Quitting the folding-room, we crossed some damp, cold boards, and -stood beneath a great wet shed, incessantly showered with foam, -like the green barnacled bow of some East Indiaman in a gale. Round -and round here went the enormous revolutions of the dark colossal -water-wheel, grim with its one immutable purpose. - -"This sets our whole machinery a-going, Sir; in every part of all these -buildings; where the girls work and all." - -I looked, and saw that the turbid waters of Blood River had not changed -their hue by coming under the use of man. - -"You make only blank paper; no printing of any sort, I suppose? All -blank paper, don't you?" - -"Certainly; what else should a paper-factory make?" - -The lad here looked at me as if suspicious of my common-sense. - -"Oh, to be sure!" said I, confused and stammering; "it only struck me -as so strange that red waters should turn out pale chee--paper, I mean." - -He took me up a wet and rickety stair to a great light room, furnished -with no visible thing but rude, manger-like receptacles running -all round its sides; and up to these mangers, like so many mares -haltered to the rack stood rows of girls. Before each was vertically -thrust up a long, glittering scythe, immovably fixed at bottom to -the manger-edge. The curve of the scythe, and its having no snath to -it, made it look exactly like a sword. To and fro, across the sharp -edge, the girls forever dragged long strips of rags, washed white, -picked from baskets at one side; thus ripping asunder every seam, and -converting the tatters almost into lint. The air swam with the fine, -poisonous particles, which from all sides darted, subtilely, as motes -in sunbeams, into the lungs. - -"This is the rag-room," coughed the boy. - -"You find it rather stifling here," coughed I, in answer; "but the -girls don't cough." - -"Oh, they are used to it." - -"Where do you get such hosts of rags?" picking up a handful from a -basket. - -"Some from the country round about; some from far over sea--Leghorn and -London." - -"'Tis not unlikely, then," murmured I, "that among these heaps of rags -there may be some old shirts, gathered from the dormitories of the -Paradise of Bachelors. But the buttons are all dropped off. Pray, my -lad, do you ever find any bachelor's buttons hereabouts?" - -"None grow in this part of the country. The Devil's Dungeon is no place -for flowers." - -"Oh! you mean the _flowers_ so called--the Bachelor's Buttons?" - -"And was not that what you asked about? Or did you mean the gold -bosom-buttons of our boss, Old Bach, as our whispering girls all call -him?" - -"The man, then, I saw below is a bachelor, is he?" - -"Oh, yes, he's a Bach." - -"The edges of those swords, they are turned outward from the girls, if -I see right; but their rags and fingers fly so, I can not distinctly -see." - -"Turned outward." - -Yes, murmured I to myself; I see it now; turned outward; and each -erected sword is so borne, edge-outward, before each girl. If my -reading fails me not, just so, of old, condemned state-prisoners went -from the hall of judgment to their doom; an officer before, bearing -a sword, its edge turned outward, in significance of their fatal -sentence. So, through consumptive pallors of this blank, raggy life, go -these white girls to death. - -"Those scythes look very sharp," again turning toward the boy. - -"Yes; they have to keep them so. Look!" - -That moment two of the girls, dropping their rags, plied each a -whetstone up and down the sword-blade. My unaccustomed blood curdled at -the sharp shriek of the tormented steel. - -Their own executioners; themselves whetting the very swords that slay -them; meditated I. - -"What makes those girls so sheet-white, my lad?" - -"Why"--with a roguish twinkle, pure ignorant drollery, not knowing -heartlessness--"I suppose the handling of such white bits of sheets all -the time makes them so sheety." - -"Let us leave the rag-room now, my lad." - -More tragical and more inscrutably mysterious than any mystic sight, -human or machine, throughout the factory, was the strange innocence of -cruel-heartedness in this usage-hardened boy. - -"And now," said he, cheerily, "I suppose you want to see our great -machine, which cost us twelve thousand dollars only last autumn. That's -the machine that makes the paper, too. This way, Sir." - -Following him I crossed a large, bespattered place, with two great -round vats in it, full of a white, wet, woolly-looking stuff, not -unlike the albuminous part of an egg, soft-boiled. - -"There," said Cupid, tapping the vats carelessly, "these are the first -beginning of the paper; this white pulp you see. Look how it swims -bubbling round and round, moved by the paddle here. From hence it pours -from both vats into the one common channel yonder; and so goes, mixed -up and leisurely, to the great machine. And now for that." - -He led me into a room, stifling with a strange, blood-like, abdominal -heat, as if here, true enough, were being finally developed the -germinous particles lately seen. - -Before me, rolled out like some long Eastern manuscript, lay stretched -one continuous length of iron framework--multitudinous and mystical, -with all sorts of rollers, wheels, and cylinders, in slowly-measured -and unceasing motion. - -"Here first comes the pulp now," said Cupid, pointing to the nighest -end of the machine. - -"See; first it pours out and spreads itself upon this wide, sloping -board; and then--look--slides, thin and quivering, beneath the first -roller there. Follow on now, and see it as it slides from under that -to the next cylinder. There; see how it has become just a very little -less pulpy now. One step more, and it grows still more to some slight -consistence. Still another cylinder, and it is so knitted--though as -yet mere dragon-fly wing--that it forms an air-bridge here, like a -suspended cobweb, between two more separated rollers; and flowing over -the last one, and under again, and doubling about there out of sight -for a minute among all those mixed cylinders you indistinctly see, it -reappears here, looking now at last a little less like pulp and more -like paper, but still quite delicate and defective yet awhile. But--a -little further onward, Sir, if you please--here now, at this further -point, it puts on something of a real look, as if it might turn out to -be something you might possibly handle in the end. But it's not yet -done, Sir. Good way to travel yet, and plenty more of cylinders must -roll it." - -"Bless my soul!" said I, amazed at the elongation, interminable -convolutions, and deliberate slowness of the machine. "It must take a -long time for the pulp to pass from end to end, and come out paper." - -"Oh, not so long," smiled the precocious lad, with a superior and -patronizing air; "only nine minutes. But look; you may try it for -yourself. Have you a bit of paper? Ah! here's a bit on the floor. Now -mark that with any word you please, and let me dab it on here, and -we'll see how long before it comes out at the other end." - -"Well, let me see," said I, taking out my pencil. "Come, I'll mark it -with your name." - -Bidding me take out my watch, Cupid adroitly dropped the inscribed slip -on an exposed part of the incipient mass. - -Instantly my eye marked the second-hand on my dial-plate. - -Slowly I followed the slip, inch by inch: sometimes pausing for full -half a minute as it disappeared beneath inscrutable groups of the lower -cylinders, but only gradually to emerge again; and so, on, and on, and -on--inch by inch; now in open sight, sliding along like a freckle on -the quivering sheet; and then again wholly vanished; and so, on, and -on, and on--inch by inch; all the time the main sheet growing more and -more to final firmness--when, suddenly, I saw a sort of paper-fall, -not wholly unlike a water-fall; a scissory sound smote my ear, as of -some cord being snapped; and down dropped an unfolded sheet of perfect -foolscap, with my "Cupid" half faded out of it, and still moist and -warm. - -My travels were at an end, for here was the end of the machine. - -"Well, how long was it?" said Cupid. - -"Nine minutes to a second," replied I, watch in hand. - -"I told you so." - -For a moment a curious emotion filled me, not wholly unlike that which -one might experience at the fulfillment of some mysterious prophecy. -But how absurd, thought I again; the thing is a mere machine, the -essence of which is unvarying punctuality and precision. - -Previously absorbed by the wheels and cylinders, my attention was now -directed to a sad-looking woman standing by. - -"That is rather an elderly person so silently tending the machine-end -here. She would not seem wholly used to it either." - -"Oh," knowingly whispered Cupid, through the din, "she only came last -week. She was a nurse formerly. But the business is poor in these -parts, and she's left it. But look at the paper she is piling there." - -"Ay, foolscap," handling the piles of moist, warm sheets, which -continually were being delivered into the woman's waiting hands. "Don't -you turn out anything but foolscap at this machine?" - -"Oh, sometimes, but not often, we turn out finer work--cream-laid and -royal sheets, we call them. But foolscap being in chief demand we turn -out foolscap most." - -It was very curious. Looking at that blank paper continually dropping, -dropping, dropping, my mind ran on in wonderings of those strange uses -to which those thousand sheets eventually would be put. All sorts of -writings would be writ on those now vacant things--sermons, lawyers' -briefs, physicians' prescriptions, love-letters, marriage certificates, -bills of divorce, registers of births, death-warrants, and so on, -without end. Then, recurring back to them as they here lay all blank, -I could not but bethink me of that celebrated comparison of John Locke, -who, in demonstration of his theory that man had no innate ideas, -compared the human mind at birth to a sheet of blank paper, something -destined to be scribbled on, but what sort of characters no soul might -tell. - -Pacing slowly to and fro along the involved machine, still humming -with its play, I was struck as well by the inevitability as the -evolvement-power in all its motions. - -"Does that thin cobweb there," said I, pointing to the sheet in its -more imperfect stage, "does that never tear or break? It is marvelous -fragile, and yet this machine it passes through is so mighty." - -"It never is known to tear a hair's point." - -"Does it never stop--get clogged?" - -"No. It _must_ go. The machinery makes it go just _so_; just that very -way, and at that very pace you there plainly _see_ it go. The pulp -can't help going." - -Something of awe now stole over me, as I gazed upon this inflexible -iron animal. Always, more or less, machinery of this ponderous -elaborate sort strikes, in some moods, strange dread into the human -heart, as some living, panting Behemoth might. But what made the thing -I saw so specially terrible to me was the metallic necessity, the -unbudging fatality which governed it. Though, here and there, I could -not follow the thin, gauzy vail of pulp in the course of its more -mysterious or entirely invisible advance, yet it was indubitable that, -at those points where it eluded me, it still marched on in unvarying -docility to the autocratic cunning of the machine. A fascination -fastened on me. I stood spellbound and wandering in my soul. Before my -eyes--there, passing in slow procession along the wheeling cylinders, I -seemed to see, glued to the pallid incipience of the pulp, the yet more -pallid faces of all the pallid girls I had eyed that heavy day. Slowly, -mournfully, beseechingly, yet unresistingly, they gleamed along, their -agony dimly outlined on the imperfect paper, like the print of the -tormented face on the handkerchief of Saint Veronica. - -"Halloa! the heat of this room is too much for you," cried Cupid, -staring at me. - -"No--I am rather chill, if anything." - -"Come out, Sir--out--out," and, with the protecting air of a careful -father, the precocious lad hurried me outside. - -In a few minutes, feeling revived a little, I went into the -folding-room--the first room I had entered, and where the desk for -transacting business stood, surrounded by the blank counters and blank -girls engaged at them. - -"Cupid here has led me a strange tour," said I to the dark-complexioned -man before mentioned, whom I had ere this discovered not only to be -an old bachelor, but also the principal proprietor. "Yours is a most -wonderful factory. Your great machine is a miracle of inscrutable -intricacy." - -"Yes, all our visitors think it so. But we don't have many. We are in -a very out-of-the-way corner here. Few inhabitants, too. Most of our -girls come from far-off villages." - -"The girls," echoed I, glancing round at their silent forms. "Why is -it, Sir, that in most factories, female operatives, of whatever age, -are indiscriminately called girls, never women?" - -"Oh! as to that--why, I suppose, the fact of their being generally -unmarried--that's the reason, I should think. But it never struck me -before. For our factory here, we will not have married women; they -are apt to be off-and-on too much. We want none but steady workers; -twelve hours to the day, day after day, through the three hundred and -sixty-five days, excepting Sundays, Thanksgiving, and Fast-days. That's -our rule. And so, having no married women, what females we have are -rightly enough called girls." - -"Then these are all maids," said I, while some pained homage to their -pale virginity made me involuntarily bow. - -"All maids." - -Again the strange emotion filled me. - -"Your cheeks look whitish yet, Sir," said the man, gazing at me -narrowly. "You must be careful going home. Do they pain you at all now? -It's a bad sign, if they do." - -"No doubt, Sir," answered I, "when once I have got out of the Devil's -Dungeon I shall feel them mending." - -"Ah, yes; the winter air in valleys, or gorges, or any sunken place, is -far colder and more bitter than elsewhere. You would hardly believe it -now, but it is colder here than at the top of Woedolor Mountain." - -"I dare say it is, Sir. But time presses me; I must depart." - -With that, remuffling myself in dread-naught and tippet, thrusting my -hands into my huge sealskin mittens, I sallied out into the nipping -air, and found poor Black, my horse, all cringing and doubled up with -the cold. - -Soon, wrapped in furs and meditations, I ascended from the Devil's -Dungeon. - -At the Black Notch I paused, and once more bethought me of Temple-Bar. -Then, shooting through the pass, all alone with inscrutable nature, I -exclaimed--Oh! Paradise of Bachelors! and oh! Tartarus of Maids! - - - - -COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO! - -_OR THE CROWING OF THE NOBLE COCK BENEVENTANO_ - - -In all parts of the world many high-spirited revolts from rascally -despotisms had of late been knocked on the head; many dreadful -casualties, by locomotive and steamer, had likewise knocked hundreds -of high-spirited travelers on the head (I lost a dear friend in one of -them); my own private affairs were also full of despotisms, casualties, -and knockings on the head, when early one morning in spring, being too -full of hypoes to sleep, I sallied out to walk on my hillside pasture. - -It was a cool and misty, damp, disagreeable air. The country looked -underdone, its raw juices squirting out all round. I buttoned out -this squitchy air as well as I could with my lean, double-breasted -dress-coat--my overcoat being so long-skirted I only used it in my -wagon--and spitefully thrusting my crab-stick into the oozy sod, bent -my blue form to the steep ascent of the hill. This toiling posture -brought my head pretty well earthward, as if I were in the act of -butting it against the world. I marked the fact, but only grinned at it -with a ghastly grin. - -All round me were tokens of a divided empire. The old grass and the -new grass were striving together. In the low wet swales the verdure -peeped out in vivid green; beyond, on the mountains, lay light patches -of snow, strangely relieved against their russet sides; all the humped -hills looked like brindled kine in the shivers. The woods were strewn -with dry dead boughs, snapped off by the riotous winds of March, while -the young trees skirting the woods were just beginning to show the -first yellowish tinge of the nascent spray. - -I sat down for a moment on a great rotting log nigh the top of the -hill, my back to a heavy grove, my face presented toward a wide -sweeping circuit of mountains enclosing a rolling, diversified -country. Along the base of one long range of heights ran a lagging, -fever-and-agueish river, over which was a duplicate stream of dripping -mist, exactly corresponding in every meander with its parent water -below. Low down, here and there, shreds of vapor listlessly wandered -in the air, like abandoned or helmless nations or ships--or very soaky -towels hung on criss-cross clothes-lines to dry. Afar, over a distant -village lying in a bay of the plain formed by the mountains, there -rested a great flat canopy of haze, like a pall. It was the condensed -smoke of the chimneys, with the condensed, exhaled breath of the -villagers, prevented from dispersion by the imprisoning hills. It was -too heavy and lifeless to mount of itself; so there it lay, between the -village and the sky, doubtless hiding many a man with the mumps, and -many a queasy child. - -My eye ranged over the capacious rolling country, and over the -mountains, and over the village, and over a farmhouse here and there, -and over woods, groves, streams, rocks, fells--and I thought to myself, -what a slight mark, after all, does man make on this huge great earth. -Yet the earth makes a mark on him. What a horrid accident was that -on the Ohio, where my good friend and thirty other good fellows were -sloped into eternity at the bidding of a thick-headed engineer, who -knew not a valve from a flue. And that crash on the railroad just -over yon mountains there, where two infatuate trains ran pell-mell -into each other, and climbed and clawed each other's backs; and one -locomotive was found fairly shelled like a chick, inside of a passenger -car in the antagonist train; and near a score of noble hearts, a bride -and her groom, and an innocent little infant, were all disembarked -into the grim hulk of Charon, who ferried them over, all baggageless, -to some clinkered iron-foundry country or other. Yet what's the use -of complaining? What justice of the peace will right this matter? -Yea, what's the use of bothering the very heavens about it? Don't the -heavens themselves ordain these things--else they could not happen? - -A miserable world! Who would take the trouble to make a fortune in it, -when he knows not how long he can keep it, for the thousand villains -and asses who have the management of railroads and steamboats, and -innumerable other vital things in the world. If they would make me -Dictator in North America awhile I'd string them up! and hang, draw, -and quarter; fry, roast and boil; stew, grill, and devil them like so -many turkey-legs--the rascally numskulls of stokers; I'd set them to -stokering in Tartarus--I would! - -Great improvements of the age! What! to call the facilitation of death -and murder an improvement! Who wants to travel so fast? My grandfather -did not, and he was no fool. Hark! here comes that old dragon -again--that gigantic gadfly of a Moloch--snort! puff! scream!--here -he comes straight-bent through these vernal woods, like the Asiatic -cholera cantering on a camel. Stand aside! Here he comes, the chartered -murderer! the death monopolizer! judge, jury, and hangman all together, -whose victims die always without benefit of clergy. For two hundred -and fifty miles that iron fiend goes yelling through the land, crying -"More! more! more!" Would fifty conspiring mountains fall atop of him! -and, while they were about it, would they would also fall atop of that -smaller dunning fiend, my creditor, who frightens the life out of me -more than any locomotive--a lantern-jawed rascal, who seems to run on a -railroad track too, and duns me even on Sunday, all the way to church -and back, and comes and sits in the same pew with me, and pretending to -be polite and hand me the prayer-book opened at the proper place, pokes -his pesky bill under my nose in the very midst of my devotions, and -so shoves himself between me and salvation; for how can one keep his -temper on such occasions? - -I can't pay this horrid man; and yet they say money was never so -plentiful--a drug on the market; but blame me if I can get any of the -drug, though there never was a sick man more in need of that particular -sort of medicine. It's a lie; money ain't plenty--feel of my pocket. -Ha! here's a powder I was going to send to the sick baby in yonder -hovel, where the Irish ditcher lives. That baby has the scarlet fever. -They say the measles are rife in the country too, and the varioloid, -and the chicken-pox, and it's bad for teething children. And after all, -I suppose many of the poor little ones, after going through all this -trouble snap off short; and so they had the measles, mumps, croup, -scarlet-fever, chicken-pox, cholera-morbus, summer-complaint, and all -else, in vain! Ah! there's that twinge of the rheumatics in my right -shoulder. I got it one night on the North River, when, in a crowded -boat, I gave up my berth to a sick lady, and staid on deck till morning -in drizzling weather. There's the thanks one gets for charity! Twinge! -Shoot away, ye rheumatics! Ye couldn't lay on worse if I were some -villain who had murdered the lady instead of befriending her. Dyspepsia -too--I am troubled with that. - -Hallo! here come the calves, the two-year-olds, just turned out of -the barn into the pasture, after six months of cold victuals. What a -miserable-looking set, to be sure! A breaking up of a hard winter, -that's certain; sharp bones sticking out like elbows; all quilted -with a strange stuff dried on their flanks like layers of pancakes. -Hair worn quite off too, here and there; and where it ain't pancaked, -or worn off, looks like the rubbed sides of mangy old hair-trunks. -In fact, they are not six two-year-olds, but six abominable old -hair-trunks wandering about here in this pasture. - -Hark! By Jove, what's that? See! the very hair-trunks prick their ears -at it, and stand and gaze away down into the rolling country yonder. -Hark again! How clear! how musical! how prolonged! What a triumphant -thanksgiving of a cock-crow! "_Glory be to God in the highest!_" It -says those very words as plain as ever cock did in this world. Why, -why, I began to feel a little in sorts again. It ain't so very misty, -after all. The sun yonder is beginning to show himself; I feel warmer. - -Hark! There again! Did ever such a blessed cock-crow so ring out over -the earth before! Clear, shrill, full of pluck, full of fire, full of -fun, full of glee. It plainly says--"_Never say die!_" My friends, it -is extraordinary, is it not? - -Unwittingly, I found that I had been addressing the two-year-olds--the -calves--in my enthusiasm; which shows how one's true nature will -betray itself at times in the most unconscious way. For what a very -two-year-old, and calf, I had been to fall into the sulks, on a hilltop -too, when a cock down in the lowlands there, without discourse of -reason, and quite penniless in the world, and with death hanging over -him at any moment from his hungry master, sends up a cry like a very -laureate celebrating the glorious victory of New Orleans. - -Hark! there it goes again! My friends, that must be a Shanghai; no -domestic-born cock could crow in such prodigious exulting strains. -Plainly, my friends, a Shanghai of the Emperor of China's breed. - -But my friends the hair-trunks, fairly alarmed at last by such -clamorously-victorious tones, were now scampering off, with their -tails flirting in the air, and capering with their legs in clumsy -enough sort of style, sufficiently evincing that they had not freely -flourished them for the six months last past. - -Hark! there again! Whose cock is that? Who in this region can afford -to buy such an extraordinary Shanghai? Bless me--it makes my blood -bound--I feel wild. What? jumping on this rotten old log here, to flap -my elbows and crow too? And just now in the doleful dumps. And all this -from the simple crow of a cock. Marvelous cock! But soft--this fellow -now crows most lustily; but it's only morning; let's see how he'll crow -about noon, and towards nightfall. Come to think of it, cocks crow most -lustily in the beginning of the day. Their pluck ain't lasting, after -all. Yes, yes; even cocks have to succumb to the universal spell of -tribulation: jubilant in the beginning, but down in the mouth at the -end. - - ... "_Of fine mornings, - We fine lusty cocks begin our crows in gladness; - But when the eve does come we don't crow quite so much, - For then cometh despondency and madness._" - -The poet had this very Shanghai in mind when he wrote that. But stop. -There he rings out again, ten times richer, fuller, longer, more -obstreperously exulting than before! In fact, that bell ought to be -taken down, and this Shanghai put in its place. Such a crow would -jollify all London, from Mile-End (which is no end) to Primrose Hill -(where there ain't any primroses), and scatter the fog. - -Well, I have an appetite for my breakfast this morning, if I have not -had it for a week before. I meant to have only tea and toast; but I'll -have coffee and eggs--no, brown stout and a beefsteak. I want something -hearty. Ah, here comes the down-train: white cars, flashing through -the trees like a vein of silver. How cheerfully the steam-pipe chirps! -Gay are the passengers. There waves a handkerchief--going down to the -city to eat oysters, and see their friends, and drop in at the circus. -Look at the mist yonder; what soft curls and undulations round the -hills, and the sun weaving his rays among them. See the azure smoke of -the village, like the azure tester over a bridal-bed. How bright the -country looks there where the river overflowed the meadows. The old -grass has to knock under to the new. Well, I feel the better for this -walk. Home now, and walk into that steak and crack that bottle of brown -stout; and by the time that's drank--a quart of stout--by that time, I -shall feel about as stout as Samson. Come to think of it, that dun may -call, though. I'll just visit the woods and cut a club. I'll club him, -by Jove, if he duns me this day. - -Hark! there goes Shanghai again. Shanghai says, "Bravo!" Shanghai says, -"Club him!" - -Oh, brave cock! - -I felt in rare spirits the whole morning. The dun called about eleven. -I had the boy Jake send the dun up. I was reading _Tristram Shandy_, -and could not go down under the circumstances. The lean rascal (a -lean farmer, too--think of that!) entered, and found me seated in an -armchair, with my feet on the table, and the second bottle of brown -stout handy, and the book under eye. - -"Sit down," said I, "I'll finish this chapter, and then attend to you. -Fine morning. Ha! ha!--this is a fine joke about my Uncle Toby and the -Widow Wadman! Ha! ha! ha! let me read this to you." - -"I have no time; I've got my noon _chores_ to do." - -"To the deuce with your _chores_!" said I. "Don't drop your old tobacco -about here, or I'll turn you out." - -"Sir!" - -"Let me read you this about the Widow Wadman. Said the Widow Wadman--" - -"There's my bill, sir." - -"Very good. Just twist it up, will you--it's about my smoking-time; and -hand a coal, will you, from the hearth yonder!" - -"My bill, sir!" said the rascal, turning pale with rage and amazement -at my unwonted air (formerly I had always dodged him with a pale face), -but too prudent as yet to betray the extremity of his astonishment. "My -bill, sir"--and he stiffly poked it at me. - -"My friend," said I, "what a charming morning! How sweet the country -looks! Pray, did you hear that extraordinary cock-crow this morning? -Take a glass of my stout!" - -"_Yours?_ First pay your debts before you offer folks _your_ stout!" - -"You think, then, that, properly speaking, I have no _stout_," said I, -deliberately rising. "I'll undeceive you. I'll show you stout of a -superior brand to Barclay and Perkins." - -Without more ado, I seized that insolent dun by the slack of his -coat--(and, being a lean, shad-bellied wretch, there was plenty of -slack to it)--I seized him that way, tied him with a sailor-knot, -and, thrusting his bill between his teeth, introduced him to the open -country lying round about my place of abode. - -"Jake," said I, "you'll find a sack of bluenosed potatoes lying under -the shed. Drag it here, and pelt this pauper away; he's been begging -pence of me, and I know he can work, but he's lazy. Pelt him away, -Jake!" - -Bless my stars, what a crow! Shanghai sent up such a perfect pæan -and _laudamus_--such a trumpet blast of triumph, that my soul fairly -snorted in me. Duns!--I could have fought an army of them! Plainly, -Shanghai was of the opinion that duns only came into the world to be -kicked, hanged, bruised, battered, choked, walloped, hammered, drowned, -clubbed! - -Returning indoors, when the exultation of my victory over the dun had a -little subsided, I fell to musing over the mysterious Shanghai. I had -no idea I would hear him so nigh my house. I wondered from what rich -gentleman's yard he crowed. Nor had he cut short his crows so easily as -I had supposed he would. This Shanghai crowed till midday, at least. -Would he keep a-crowing all day? I resolved to learn. Again I ascended -the hill. The whole country was now bathed in a rejoicing sunlight. -The warm verdure was bursting all round me. Teams were a-field. Birds, -newly arrived from the South, were blithely singing in the air. Even -the crows cawed with a certain unction, and seemed a shade or two less -black than usual. - -Hark! there goes the cock! How shall I describe the crow of the -Shanghai at noontide! His sunrise crow was a whisper to it. It was -the loudest, longest and most strangely musical crow that ever amazed -mortal man. I had heard plenty of cock-crows before, and many fine -ones;--but this one! so smooth, and flutelike in its very clamor--so -self-possessed in its very rapture of exultation--so vast, mounting, -swelling, soaring, as if spurted out from a golden throat, thrown far -back. Nor did it sound like the foolish, vain-glorious crow of some -young sophomorean cock, who knew not the world, and was beginning life -in audacious gay spirits, because in wretched ignorance of what might -be to come. It was the crow of a cock who crowed not without advice; -the crow of a cock who knew a thing or two; the crow of a cock who had -fought the world and got the better of it and was resolved to crow, -though the earth should heave and the heavens should fall. It was a -wise crow; an invincible crow; a philosophic crow; a crow of all crows. - -I returned home once more full of reinvigorated spirits, with a -dauntless sort of feeling. I thought over my debts and other troubles, -and over the unlucky risings of the poor oppressed peoples abroad, and -over the railroad and steamboat accidents, and over even the loss of -my dear friend, with a calm, good-natured rapture of defiance, which -astounded myself. I felt as though I could meet Death, and invite -him to dinner, and toast the Catacombs with him, in pure overflow of -self-reliance and a sense of universal security. - -Toward evening I went up to the hill once more to find whether, indeed, -the glorious cock would prove game even from the rising of the sun -unto the going down thereof. Talk of Vespers or Curfew!--the evening -crow of the cock went out of his mighty throat all over the land and -inhabited it, like Xerxes from the East with his double-winged host. It -was miraculous. Bless me, what a crow! The cock went game to roost that -night, depend upon it, victorious over the entire day, and bequeathing -the echoes of his thousand crows to night. - -After an unwontedly sound, refreshing sleep I rose early, feeling -like a carriage-spring--light--elliptical--airy--buoyant as -sturgeon-nose--and, like a foot-ball, bounded up the hill. Hark! -Shanghai was up before me. The early bird that caught the worm--crowing -like a bugle worked by an engine--lusty, loud, all jubilation. From -the scattered farmhouses a multitude of other cocks were crowing, -and replying to each other's crows. But they were as flageolets to a -trombone. Shanghai would suddenly break in, and overwhelm all their -crows with his one domineering blast. He seemed to have nothing to do -with any other concern. He replied to no other crow, but crowed solely -by himself, on his own account, in solitary scorn and independence. - -Oh, brave cock!--oh, noble Shanghai!--oh, bird rightly offered up by -the invincible Socrates, in testimony of his final victory over life. - -As I live, thought I, this blessed day, will I go and seek out the -Shanghai, and buy him, if I have to clap another mortgage on my land. - -I listened attentively now, striving to mark from what direction the -crow came. But it so charged and replenished, and made bountiful and -overflowing all the air, that it was impossible to say from what -precise point the exultation came. All that I could decide upon was -this: the crow came from out of the east, and not from out of the west. -I then considered with myself how far a cock-crow might be heard. In -this still country, shut in, too, by mountains, sounds were audible at -great distances. Besides, the undulations of the land, the abuttings of -the mountains into the rolling hill and valley below, produced strange -echoes, and reverberations, and multiplications, and accumulations of -resonance, very remarkable to hear, and very puzzling to think of. -Where lurked this valiant Shanghai--this bird of cheerful Socrates--the -game-fowl Greek who died unappalled? Where lurked he? Oh, noble cock, -where are you? Crow once more, my Bantam! my princely, my imperial -Shanghai! my bird of the Emperor of China! Brother of the sun! Cousin -of great Jove! where are you?--one crow more, and tell me your number! - -Hark! like a full orchestra of the cocks of all nations, forth burst -the crow. But where from? There it is; but where? There was no telling, -further than it came from out of the east. - -After breakfast I took my stick and sallied down the road. There were -many gentlemen's seats dotting the neighboring country, and I made -no doubt that some of these opulent gentlemen had invested a hundred -dollar bill in some royal Shanghai recently imported in the ship Trade -Wind, or the ship White Squall, or the ship Sovereign of the Seas; for -it must needs have been a brave ship with a brave name which bore the -fortunes of so brave a cock. I resolved to walk the entire country, and -find this noble foreigner out; but thought it would not be amiss to -inquire on the way at the humblest homesteads, whether, peradventure, -they had heard of a lately-imported Shanghai belonging to any gentlemen -settlers from the city; for it was plain that no poor farmer, no poor -man of any sort, could own such an Oriental trophy--such a Great Bell -of St. Paul's swung in a cock's throat. - -I met an old man, plowing, in a field nigh the road-side fence. - -"My friend, have you heard an extraordinary cock-crow of late?" - -"Well, well," he drawled, "I don't know--the Widow Crowfoot has a -cock--and Squire Squaretoes has a cock--and I have a cock, and they all -crow. But I don't know of any on 'em with 'straordinary crows." - -"Good-morning to you," said I, shortly; "it's plain that you have not -heard the crow of the Emperor of China's chanticleer." - -Presently I met another old man mending a tumble-down old rail-fence. -The rails were rotten, and at every move of the old man's hand they -crumbled into yellow ochre. He had much better let the fence alone, or -else get him new rails. And here I must say, that one cause of the sad -fact why idiocy more prevails among farmers than any other class of -people, is owing to their undertaking the mending of rotten rail-fences -in warm, relaxing spring weather. The enterprise is a hopeless one. It -is a laborious one; it is a bootless one. It is an enterprise to make -the heart break. Vast pains squandered upon a vanity. For how can one -make rotten rail-fences stand up on their rotten pins? By what magic -put pitch into sticks which have lain freezing and baking through sixty -consecutive winters and summers? This it is, this wretched endeavor to -mend rotten rail-fences with their own rotten rails, which drives many -farmers into the asylum. - -On the face of the old man in question incipient idiocy was plainly -marked. For, about sixty rods before him extended one of the most -unhappy and desponding broken-hearted Virginia rail-fences I ever -saw in my life. While in a field behind, were a set of young steers, -possessed as by devils, continually butting at this forlorn old fence, -and breaking through it here and there, causing the old man to drop -his work and chase them back within bounds. He would chase them with -a piece of rail huge as Goliath's beam, but as light as cork. At the -first flourish, it crumbled into powder. - -"My friend," said I, addressing this woeful mortal, "have you heard an -extraordinary cock-crow of late?" - -I might as well as have asked him if he had heard the death-tick. He -stared at me with a long, bewildered, doleful, and unutterable stare, -and without reply resumed his unhappy labors. - -What a fool, thought I, to have asked such an uncheerful and -uncheerable creature about a cheerful cock! - -I walked on. I had now descended the high land where my house stood, -and being in a low tract could not hear the crow of the Shanghai, which -doubtless overshot me there. Besides, the Shanghai might be at lunch of -corn and oats, or taking a nap, and so interrupted his jubilations for -a while. - -At length, I encountered riding along the road, a portly -gentleman--nay, a _pursy_ one--of great wealth, who had recently -purchased him some noble acres, and built him a noble mansion, with a -goodly fowl-house attached, the fame whereof spread through all the -country. Thought I, Here now is the owner of the Shanghai. - -"Sir," said I, "excuse me, but I am a countryman of yours, and would -ask, if so be you own any Shanghais?" - -"Oh, yes; I have ten Shanghais." - -"Ten!" exclaimed I, in wonder; "and do they all crow?" - -"Most lustily; every soul of them; I wouldn't own a cock that wouldn't -crow." - -"Will you turn back, and show me those Shanghais?" - -"With pleasure: I am proud of them. They cost me, in the lump, six -hundred dollars." - -As I walked by the side of his horse, I was thinking to myself whether -possibly I had not mistaken the harmoniously combined crowings of ten -Shanghais in a squad, for the supernatural crow of a single Shanghai by -himself. - -"Sir," said I, "is there one of your Shanghais which far exceeds all -the others in the lustiness, musicalness, and inspiring effects of his -crow?" - -"They crow pretty much alike, I believe," he courteously replied. "I -really don't know that I could tell their crow apart." - -I began to think that after all my noble chanticleer might not be in -the possession of this wealthy gentleman. However, we went into his -fowl-yard, and saw his Shanghais. Let me say that hitherto I had never -clapped eye on this species of imported fowl. I had heard what enormous -prices were paid for them, and also that they were of an enormous -size, and had somehow fancied they must be of a beauty and brilliancy -proportioned both to size and price. What was my surprise, then, to -see ten carrot-colored monsters, without the smallest pretension to -effulgence of plumage. Immediately, I determined that my royal cock was -neither among these, nor could possibly be a Shanghai at all; if these -gigantic gallows-bird fowl were fair specimens of the true Shanghai. - -I walked all day, dining and resting at a farmhouse, inspecting various -fowl-yards, interrogating various owners of fowls, hearkening to -various crows, but discovered not the mysterious chanticleer. Indeed, -I had wandered so far and deviously, that I could not hear his crow. I -began to suspect that this cock was a mere visitor in the country, who -had taken his departure by the eleven o'clock train for the South, and -was now crowing and jubilating somewhere on the verdant banks of Long -Island Sound. - -But next morning, again I heard the inspiring blast, again felt -my blood bound in me, again felt superior to all the ills of life, -again felt like turning my dun out of doors. But displeased with the -reception given him at his last visit, the dun stayed away, doubtless -being in a huff. Silly fellow that he was to take a harmless joke in -earnest. - -Several days passed, during which I made sundry excursions in the -regions roundabout, but in vain sought the cock. Still, I heard him -from the hill, and sometimes from the house, and sometimes in the -stillness of the night. If at times I would relapse into my doleful -dumps straightway at the sound of the exultant and defiant crow, my -soul, too, would turn chanticleer, and clap her wings, and throw back -her throat, and breathe forth a cheerful challenge to all the world of -woes. - -At last, after some weeks I was necessitated to clap another mortgage -on my estate, in order to pay certain debts, and among others the one -I owed the dun, who of late had commenced a civil-process against me. -The way the process was served was a most insulting one. In a private -room I had been enjoying myself in the village tavern over a bottle of -Philadelphia porter, and some Herkimer cheese, and a roll, and having -apprised the landlord, who was a friend of mine, that I would settle -with him when I received my next remittances, stepped to the peg where -I had hung my hat in the bar-room, to get a choice cigar I had left in -the hall, when lo! I found the civil-process enveloping the cigar. When -I unrolled the cigar, I unrolled the civil-process, and the constable -standing by rolled out, with a thick tongue, "Take notice!" and added, -in a whisper, "Put that in your pipe and smoke it!" - -I turned short round upon the gentlemen then and there present in that -bar-room. Said I, "Gentlemen, is this an honorable--nay, is this a -lawful way of serving a civil-process? Behold!" - -One and all they were of opinion, that it was a highly inelegant act -in the constable to take advantage of a gentleman's lunching on cheese -and porter, to be so uncivil as to slip a civil-process into his hat. -It was ungenerous; it was cruel; for the sudden shock of the thing -coming instanter upon the lunch, would impair the proper digestion -of the cheese, which is proverbially not so easy of digestion as -_blanc-mange_. - -Arrived at home I read the process, and felt a twinge of melancholy. -Hard world! hard world! Here I am, as good a fellow as ever -lived--hospitable--open-hearted--generous to a fault; and the Fates -forbid that I should possess the fortune to bless the country with -my bounteousness. Nay, while many a stingy curmudgeon rolls in -idle gold, I, heart of nobleness as I am, I have civil-processes -served on me! I bowed my head, and felt forlorn--unjustly -used--abused--unappreciated--in short, miserable. - -Hark! like a clarion! yea, like a bolt of thunder with bells to -it--came the all-glorious and defiant crow! Ye gods, how it set me up -again! Right on my pins! Yes, verily on stilts! - -Oh, noble cock! - -Plain as cock could speak, it said, "Let the world and all aboard of -it go to pot. Do you be jolly, and never say die! What's the world -compared to you? What is it, anyhow, but a lump of loam? Do you be -jolly!" - -Oh, noble cock! - -"But my dear and glorious cock," mused I, upon second thought, "one -can't so easily send this world to pot; one can't so easily be jolly -with civil-processes in his hat or hand." - -Hark! the crow again. Plain as cock could speak, it said: "Hang the -process, and hang the fellow that sent it! If you have not land or -cash, go and thrash the fellow, and tell him you never mean to pay him. -Be jolly!" - -Now this was the way--through the imperative intimations of the -cock--that I came to clap the added mortgage on my estate; paid all my -debts by fusing them into this one added bond and mortgage. Thus made -at ease again, I renewed my search for the noble cock. But in vain, -though I heard him every day. I began to think there was some sort -of deception in this mysterious thing: some wonderful ventriloquist -prowled around my barns, or in my cellar, or on my roof, and was minded -to be gayly mischievous. But no--what ventriloquist could so crow with -such an heroic and celestial crow? - -At last, one morning there came to me a certain singular man, who had -sawed and split my wood in March--some five-and-thirty cords of it--and -now he came for his pay. He was a singular man, I say. He was tall -and spare, with a long saddish face, yet somehow a latently joyous -eye, which offered the strangest contrast. His air seemed staid, but -undepressed. He wore a long, gray, shabby coat, and a big battered hat. -This man had sawed my wood at so much a cord. He would stand and saw -all day in a driving snow-storm, and never wink at it. He never spoke -unless spoken to. He only sawed. Saw, saw, saw--snow, snow, snow. The -saw and the snow went together like two natural things. The first day -this man came, he brought his dinner with him, and volunteered to eat -it sitting on his buck in the snow-storm. From my window, where I was -reading Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_, I saw him in the act. I burst -out of doors bareheaded. "Good heavens!" cried I; "what are you doing? -Come in. _This_ your dinner!" - -He had a hunk of stale bread and another hunk of salt beef, wrapped in -a wet newspaper, and washed his morsels down by melting a handful of -fresh snow in his mouth. I took this rash man indoors, planted him by -the fire, gave him a dish of hot pork and beans, and a mug of cider. - -"Now," said I, "don't you bring any of your damp dinners here. You work -by the job, to be sure; but I'll dine you for all that." - -He expressed his acknowledgments in a calm, proud, but not ungrateful -way, and dispatched his meal with satisfaction to himself, and me -also. It afforded me pleasure to perceive that he quaffed down his -mug of cider like a man. I honored him. When I addressed him in the -way of business at his buck, I did so in a guardedly respectful and -deferential manner. Interested in his singular aspect, struck by his -wondrous intensity of application at his saw--a most wearisome and -disgustful occupation to most people--I often sought to gather from -him who he was, what sort of a life he led, where he was born, and so -on. But he was mum. He came to saw my wood, and eat my dinners--if I -chose to offer them--but not to gabble. At first, I somewhat resented -his sullen silence under the circumstances. But better considering -it, I honored him the more. I increased the respectfulness and -deferentialness of my address toward him. I concluded within myself -that this man had experienced hard times; that he had had many sore -rubs in the world; that he was of a solemn disposition; that he was -of the mind of Solomon; that he lived calmly, decorously, temperately; -and though a very poor man, was, nevertheless, a highly respectable -one. At times I imagined that he might even be an elder or deacon of -some small country church. I thought it would not be a bad plan to run -this excellent man for President of the United States. He would prove a -great reformer of abuses. - -His name was Merrymusk. I had often thought how jolly a name for so -unjolly a wight. I inquired of people whether they knew Merrymusk. -But it was some time before I learned much about him. He was by birth -a Marylander, it appeared, who had long lived in the country round -about; a wandering man; until within some ten years ago, a thriftless -man, though perfectly innocent of crime; a man who would work hard a -month with surprising soberness, and then spend all his wages in one -riotous night. In youth he had been a sailor, and run away from his -ship at Batavia, where he caught the fever, and came nigh dying. But he -rallied, reshipped, landed home, found all his friends dead, and struck -for the Northern interior, where he had since tarried. Nine years back -he had married a wife, and now had four children. His wife was become -a perfect invalid; one child had the white-swelling and the rest were -rickety. He and his family lived in a shanty on a lonely barren patch -nigh the railroad track, where it passed close to the base of the -mountain. He had bought a fine cow to have plenty of wholesome milk for -his children; but the cow died during an accouchement, and he could not -afford to buy another. Still, his family never suffered for lack of -food. He worked hard and brought it to them. - -Now, as I said before, having long previously sawed my wood, this -Merrymusk came for his pay. - -"My friend," said I, "do you know of any gentleman hereabouts who owns -an extraordinary cock?" - -The twinkle glittered quite plain in the wood-sawyer's eye. - -"I know of no _gentleman_," he replied, "who has what might well be -called an extraordinary cock." - -Oh, thought I, this Merrymusk is not the man to enlighten me. I am -afraid I shall never discover this extraordinary cock. - -Not having the full change to pay Merrymusk, I gave him his due, as -nigh as I could make it, and told him that in a day or two I would take -a walk and visit his place, and hand to him the remainder. Accordingly -one fine morning I sallied forth upon the errand. I had much ado -finding the best road to the shanty. No one seemed to know where it was -exactly. It lay in a very lonely part of the country, a densely-wooded -mountain on one side (which I call October Mountain, on account of its -bannered aspect in that month), and a thicketed swamp on the other, the -railroad cutting the swamp. Straight as a die the railroad cut it; many -times a day tantalizing the wretched shanty with the sight of all the -beauty, rank, fashion, health, trunks, silver and gold, dry-goods and -groceries, brides and grooms, happy wives and husbands, flying by the -lonely door--no time to stop--flash! here they are--and there they go! -out of sight at both ends--as if that part of the world were only made -to fly over, and not to settle upon. And this was about all the shanty -saw of what people call life. - -Though puzzled somewhat, yet I knew the general direction where the -shanty lay, and on I trudged. As I advanced, I was surprised to hear -the mysterious cock crow with more and more distinctness. Is it -possible, thought I, that any gentleman owning a Shanghai can dwell in -such a lonesome, dreary region? Louder and louder, nigher and nigher, -sounded the glorious and defiant clarion. Though somehow I may be out -of the track to my wood-sawyer's, I said to myself, yet, thank heaven, -I seem to be on the way toward that extraordinary cock. I was delighted -with this auspicious accident. On I journeyed; while at intervals the -crow sounded most invitingly, and jocundly, and superbly; and the -last crow was ever nigher than the former one. At last, emerging from -a thicket of elders, straight before me I saw the most resplendent -creature that ever blessed the sight of man. - -A cock, more like a golden eagle than a cock. A cock, more like a -field marshal than a cock. A cock, more like Lord Nelson with all his -glittering arms on, standing on the Vanguard's quarter-deck going into -battle, than a cock. A cock, more like the Emperor Charlemagne in his -robes at Aix la Chapelle, than a cock. - -Such a cock! - -He was of a haughty size, stood haughtily on his haughty legs. His -colors were red, gold, and white. The red was on his crest along, -which was a mighty and symmetric crest, like unto Hector's helmet, as -delineated on antique shields. His plumage was snowy, traced with gold. -He walked in front of the shanty, like a peer of the realm; his crest -lifted, his chest heaved out, his embroidered trappings flashing in the -light. His pace was wonderful. He looked like some Oriental king in -some magnificent Italian opera. - -Merrymusk advanced from the door. - -"Pray is not that the Signor Beneventano?" - -"Sir!" - -"That's the cock," said I, a little embarrassed. The truth was, my -enthusiasm had betrayed me into a rather silly inadvertence. I had made -a somewhat learned sort of allusion in the presence of an unlearned -man. Consequently, upon discovering it by his honest stare, I felt -foolish; but carried it off by declaring that _this was the cock_. - -Now, during the preceding autumn I had been to the city, and had -chanced to be present at a performance of the Italian Opera. In that -opera figured in some royal character a certain Signor Beneventano--a -man of a tall, imposing person, clad in rich raiment, like to plumage, -and with a most remarkable, majestic, scornful stride. The Signor -Beneventano seemed on the point of tumbling over backward with -exceeding haughtiness. And, for all the world, the proud pace of the -cock seemed the very stage-pace of the Signor Beneventano. - -Hark! suddenly the cock paused, lifted his head still higher, ruffled -his plumes, seemed inspired, and sent forth a lusty crow. October -Mountain echoed it; other mountains sent it back; still others -rebounded it; it overran the country round. Now I plainly perceived how -it was I had chanced to hear the gladdening sound on my distant hill. - -"Good heavens! do you own the cock? Is that cock yours?" - -"Is it my cock!" said Merrymusk, looking slyly gleeful out of the -corner of his long, solemn face. - -"Where did you get it?" - -"It chipped the shell here. I raised it." - -"You?" - -Hark? Another crow. It might have raised the ghosts of all the pines -and hemlocks ever cut down in that country. Marvelous cock! Having -crowed, he strode on again, surrounded by a bevy of admiring hens. - -"What will you take for Signor Beneventano?" - -"Sir?" - -"That magic cock--what will you take for him?" - -"I won't sell him." - -"I will give you fifty dollars." - -"Pooh!" - -"One hundred!" - -"Pish!" - -"Five hundred!" - -"Bah!" - -"And you a poor man." - -"No; don't I own that cock, and haven't I refused five hundred dollars -for him?" - -"True," said I, in profound thought; "that's a fact. You won't sell -him, then?" - -"No." - -"Will you give him?" - -"No." - -"Will you _keep_ him, then!" I shouted, in a rage. - -"Yes." - -I stood awhile admiring the cock, and wondering at the man. At last I -felt a redoubled admiration of the one, and a redoubled deference for -the other. - -"Won't you step in?" said Merrymusk. - -"But won't the cock be prevailed upon to join us?" said I. - -"Yes. Trumpet! hither, boy! hither!" - -The cock turned round, and strode up to Merrymusk. - -"Come!" - -The cock followed us into the shanty. - -"Crow!" - -The roof jarred. - -Oh, noble cock! - -I turned in silence upon my entertainer. There he sat on an old -battered chest, in his old battered gray coat, with patches at his -knees and elbows, and a deplorably bunged hat. I glanced round the -room. Bare rafters overhead, but solid junks of jerked beef hanging -from them. Earth floor, but a heap of potatoes in one corner, and -a sack of Indian meal in another. A blanket was strung across the -apartment at the further end, from which came a woman's ailing voice -and the voices of ailing children. But somehow in the ailing of these -voices there seemed no complaint. - -"Mrs. Merrymusk and children?" - -"Yes." - -I looked at the cock. There he stood majestically in the middle of -the room. He looked like a Spanish grandee caught in a shower, and -standing under some peasant's shed. There was a strange supernatural -look of contrast about him. He irradiated the shanty; he glorified its -meanness. He glorified the battered chest, and tattered gray coat, and -the bunged hat. He glorified the very voices which came in ailing tones -from behind the screen. - -"Oh, father," cried a little sickly voice, "let Trumpet sound again." - -"Crow," cried Merrymusk. - -The cock threw himself into a posture. The roof jarred. - -"Does not this disturb Mrs. Merrymusk and the sick children?" - -"Crow again, Trumpet." - -The roof jarred. - -"It does not disturb them, then?" - -"Didn't you hear 'em _ask_ for it?" - -"How is it, that your sick family like this crowing?" said I. "The cock -is a glorious cock, with a glorious voice, but not exactly the sort of -thing for a sick chamber, one would suppose. Do they really like it?" - -"Don't _you_ like it? Don't it do _you_ good? Ain't it inspiring? Don't -it impart pluck? give stuff against despair?" - -"All true," said I, removing my hat with profound humility before the -brave spirit disguised in the base coat. - -"But then," said I, still with some misgivings, "so loud, so -wonderfully clamorous a crow, methinks might be amiss to invalids, and -retard their convalescence." - -"Crow your best now, Trumpet!" - -I leaped from my chair. The cock frightened me, like some overpowering -angel in the Apocalypse. He seemed crowing over the fall of wicked -Babylon, or crowing over the triumph of righteous Joshua in the vale of -Askelon. When I regained my composure somewhat, an inquisitive thought -occurred to me. I resolved to gratify it. - -"Merrymusk, will you present me to your wife and children?" - -"Yes. Wife, the gentleman wants to step in." - -"He is very welcome," replied a weak voice. - -Going behind the curtain, there lay a wasted, but strangely cheerful -human face; and that was pretty much all; the body, hid by the -counterpane and an old coat, seemed too shrunken to reveal itself -through such impediments. At the bedside sat a pale girl, ministering. -In another bed lay three children, side by side; three more pale faces. - -"Oh, father, we don't mislike the gentleman, but let us see Trumpet -too." - -At a word, the cock strode behind the screen, and perched himself on -the children's bed. All their wasted eyes gazed at him with a wild and -spiritual delight. They seemed to sun themselves in the radiant plumage -of the cock. - -"Better than a 'pothecary, eh," said Merrymusk. "This is Dr. Cock -himself." - -We retired from the sick ones, and I reseated myself again, lost in -thought, over this strange household. - -"You seem a glorious independent fellow," said I. - -"And I don't think you a fool, and never did. Sir, you are a trump." - -"Is there any hope of your wife's recovery?" said I, modestly seeking -to turn the conversation. - -"Not the least." - -"The children?" - -"Very little." - -"It must be a doleful life, then, for all concerned. This lonely -solitude--this shanty--hard work--hard times." - -"Haven't I Trumpet? He's the cheerer. He crows through all; crows at -the darkest: Glory to God in the highest! Continually he crows it." - -"Just the import I first ascribed to his crow, Merrymusk, when first -I heard it from my hill. I thought some rich nabob owned some costly -Shanghai; little weening any such poor man as you owned this lusty cock -of a domestic breed." - -"_Poor_ man like _me_? Why call _me_ poor? Don't the cock _I_ own -glorify this otherwise inglorious, lean, lantern-jawed land? Didn't -_my_ cock encourage _you_? And _I_ give you all this glorification away -gratis. I am a great philanthropist. I am a rich man--a very rich man, -and a very happy one. Crow, Trumpet." - -The roof jarred. - -I returned home in a deep mood. I was not wholly at rest concerning the -soundness of Merrymusk's views of things, though full of admiration for -him. I was thinking on the matter before my door, when I heard the cock -crow again. Enough. Merrymusk is right. - -Oh, noble cock! oh, noble man! - -I did not see Merrymusk for some weeks after this; but hearing the -glorious and rejoicing crow, I supposed that all went as usual with -him. My own frame of mind remained a rejoicing one. The cock still -inspired me. I saw another mortgage piled on my plantation; but only -bought another dozen of stout, and a dozen-dozen of Philadelphia -porter. Some of my relatives died; I wore no mourning, but for three -days drank stout in preference to porter, stout being of the darker -color. I heard the cock crow the instant I received the unwelcome -tidings. - -"Your health in this stout, oh, noble cock!" - -I thought I would call on Merrymusk again, not having seen or heard of -him for some time now. Approaching the place, there were no signs of -motion about the shanty. I felt a strange misgiving. But the cock crew -from within doors, and the boding vanished. I knocked at the door. A -feeble voice bade me enter. The curtain was no longer drawn; the whole -house was a hospital now. Merrymusk lay on a heap of old clothes; wife -and children were all in their beds. The cock was perched on an old -hogshead hoop, swung from the ridge-pole in the middle of the shanty. - -"You are sick, Merrymusk," said I mournfully. - -"No, I am well," he feebly answered.-- - -"Crow, Trumpet." - -I shrunk. The strong soul in the feeble body appalled me. - -But the cock crew. - -The roof jarred. - -"How is Mrs. Merrymusk?" - -"Well." - -"And the children?" - -"Well. All well." - -The last two words he shouted forth in a kind of wild ecstasy of -triumph over ill. It was too much. His head fell back. A white napkin -seemed dropped upon his face. Merrymusk was dead. - -An awful fear seized me. - -But the cock crew. - -The cock shook his plumage as if each feather were a banner. The cock -hung from the shanty roof as erewhile the trophied flags from the dome -of St. Paul's. The cock terrified me with exceeding wonder. - -I drew nigh the bedsides of the woman and children. They marked my look -of strange affright; they knew what had happened. - -"My good man is just dead," breathed the woman lowly. "Tell me true?" - -"Dead," said I. - -The cock crew. - -She fell back, without a sigh, and through long-loving sympathy was -dead. - -The cock crew. - -The cock shook sparkles from his golden plumage. The cock seemed in -a rapture of benevolent delight. Leaping from the hoop, he strode -up majestically to the pile of old clothes, where the wood-sawyer -lay, and planted himself, like an armorial supporter, at his side. -Then raised one long, musical, triumphant, and final sort of a crow, -with throat heaved far back, as if he meant the blast to waft the -wood-sawyer's soul sheer up to the seventh heavens. Then he strode, -king-like, to the woman's bed. Another upturned and exultant crow, -mated to the former. - -The pallor of the children was changed to radiance. Their faces shone -celestially through grime and dirt. They seemed children of emperors -and kings, disguised. The cock sprang upon their bed, shook himself, -and crowed, and crowed again, and still and still again. He seemed bent -upon crowing the souls of the children out of their wasted bodies. He -seemed bent upon rejoining instanter this whole family in the upper -air. The children seemed to second his endeavors. Far, deep, intense -longings for release transfigured them into spirits before my eyes. I -saw angels where they lay. - -They were dead. - -The cock shook his plumage over them. The cock crew. It was now like a -Bravo! like a Hurrah! like a Three-times-three! hip! hip! He strode -out of the shanty. I followed. He flew upon the apex of the dwelling, -spread wide his wings, sounded one supernatural note, and dropped at my -feet. - -The cock was dead. - -If now you visit that hilly region, you will see, nigh the railroad -track, just beneath October Mountain, on the other side of the -swamp--there you will see a gravestone, not with skull and cross-bones, -but with a lusty cock in act of crowing, chiseled on it, with the words -beneath: - - "_O death, where is thy sting? - O grave, where is thy victory?_" - -The wood-sawyer and his family, with the Signor Beneventano, lie in -that spot; and I buried them, and planted the stone, which was a stone -made to order; and never since then have I felt the doleful dumps, but -under all circumstances crow late and early with a continual crow. - -Cock-a-Doodle-Doo!--oo!--oo!--oo!--oo! - - - - -THE FIDDLER - - -So my poem is damned, and immortal fame is not for me! I am nobody -forever and ever. Intolerable fate! - -Snatching my hat, I dashed down the criticism and rushed out into -Broadway, where enthusiastic throngs were crowding to a circus in a -side-street near by, very recently started, and famous for a capital -clown. - -Presently my old friend Standard rather boisterously accosted me. - -"Well met, Helmstone, my boy! Ah! what's the matter? Haven't been -committing murder? Ain't flying justice? You look wild!" - -"You have seen it, then!" said I, of course referring to the criticism. - -"Oh, yes; I was there at the morning performance. Great clown, I assure -you. But here comes Hautboy. Hautboy--Helmstone." - -Without having time or inclination to resent so mortifying a mistake, I -was instantly soothed as I gazed on the face of the new acquaintance -so unceremoniously introduced. His person was short and full, with a -juvenile, animated cast to it. His complexion rurally ruddy; his eye -sincere, cheery, and gray. His hair alone betrayed that he was not an -overgrown boy. From his hair I set him down as forty or more. - -"Come, Standard," he gleefully cried to my friend, "are you not going -to the circus? The clown is inimitable, they say. Come, Mr. Helmstone, -too--come both; and circus over, we'll take a nice stew and punch at -Taylor's." - -The sterling content, good-humor, and extraordinary ruddy, sincere -expression of this most singular new acquaintance acted upon me like -magic. It seemed mere loyalty to human nature to accept an invitation -from so unmistakably kind and honest a heart. - -During the circus performance I kept my eye more on Hautboy than on the -celebrated clown. Hautboy was the sight for me. Such genuine enjoyment -as his struck me to the soul with a sense of the reality of the thing -called happiness. The jokes of the clown he seemed to roll under his -tongue as ripe magnumbonums. Now the foot, now the hand, was employed -to attest his grateful applause. At any hit more than ordinary, he -turned upon Standard and me to see if his rare pleasure was shared. -In a man of forty I saw a boy of twelve; and this too without the -slightest abatement of my respect. Because all was so honest and -natural, every expression and attitude so graceful with genuine -good-nature, that the marvelous juvenility of Hautboy assumed a sort -of divine and immortal air, like that of some forever youthful god of -Greece. - -But much as I gazed upon Hautboy, and much as I admired his air, yet -that desperate mood in which I had first rushed from the house had not -so entirely departed as not to molest me with momentary returns. But -from these relapses I would rouse myself, and swiftly glance round -the broad amphitheatre of eagerly interested and all-applauding human -faces. Hark! claps, thumps, deafening huzzas; the vast assembly seemed -frantic with acclamation; and what, mused I, has caused all this? Why, -the clown only comically grinned with one of his extra grins. - -Then I repeated in my mind that sublime passage in my poem, in which -Cleothemes the Argive vindicates the justice of the war. Ay, ay, -thought I to myself, did I now leap into the ring there, and repeat -that identical passage, nay, enact the whole tragic poem before them, -would they applaud the poet as they applaud the clown? No! They would -hoot me, and call me doting or mad. Then what does this prove? Your -infatuation or their insensibility? Perhaps both; but indubitably the -first. But why wail? Do you seek admiration from the admirers of a -buffoon? Call to mind the saying of the Athenian, who, when the people -vociferously applauded in the forum, asked his friend in a whisper, -what foolish thing had he said? - -Again my eye swept the circus, and fell on the ruddy radiance of the -countenance of Hautboy. But its clear honest cheeriness disdained my -disdain. My intolerant pride was rebuked. And yet Hautboy dreamed not -what magic reproof to a soul like mine sat on his laughing brow. At the -very instant I felt the dart of the censure, his eye twinkled, his hand -waved, his voice was lifted in jubilant delight at another joke of the -inexhaustible clown. - -Circus over, we went to Taylor's. Among crowds of others, we sat down -to our stews and punches at one of the small marble tables. Hautboy -sat opposite to me. Though greatly subdued from its former hilarity, -his face still shone with gladness. But added to this was a quality -not so prominent before; a certain serene expression of leisurely, -deep good sense. Good sense and good humor in him joined hands. As -the conversation proceeded between the brisk Standard and him--for I -said little or nothing--I was more and more struck with the excellent -judgment he evinced. In most of his remarks upon a variety of topics -Hautboy seemed intuitively to hit the exact line between enthusiasm and -apathy. It was plain that while Hautboy saw the world pretty much as it -was, yet he did not theoretically espouse its bright side nor its dark -side. Rejecting all solutions, he but acknowledged facts. What was sad -in the world he did not superficially gainsay; what was glad in it he -did not cynically slur; and all which was to him personally enjoyable, -he gratefully took to his heart. It was plain, then--so it seemed at -that moment, at least--that his extraordinary cheerfulness did not -arise either from deficiency of feeling or thought. - -Suddenly remembering an engagement, he took up his hat, bowed -pleasantly, and left us. - -"Well, Helmstone," said Standard, inaudibly drumming on the slab, "what -do you think of your new acquaintance?" - -The last two words tingled with a peculiar and novel significance. - -"New acquaintance indeed," echoed I. "Standard, I owe you a thousand -thanks for introducing me to one of the most singular men I have ever -seen. It needed the optical sight of such a man to believe in the -possibility of his existence." - -"You rather like him, then," said Standard, with ironical dryness. - -"I hugely love and admire him, Standard. I wish I were Hautboy." - -"Ah? That's a pity now. There's only one Hautboy in the world." - -This last remark set me to pondering again, and somehow it revived my -dark mood. - -"His wonderful cheerfulness, I suppose," said I, sneering with spleen, -"originates not less in a felicitous fortune than in a felicitous -temper. His great good sense is apparent; but great good sense may -exist without sublime endowments. Nay, I take it, in certain cases, -that good sense is simply owing to the absence of those. Much more, -cheerfulness. Unpossessed of genius, Hautboy is eternally blessed." - -"Ah? You would not think him an extraordinary genius then?" - -"Genius? What! Such a short, fat fellow a genius! Genius, like Cassius, -is lank." - -"Ah? But could you not fancy that Hautboy might formerly have had -genius, but luckily getting rid of it, at last fatted up?" - -"For a genius to get rid of his genius is as impossible as for a man in -the galloping consumption to get rid of that." - -"Ah? You speak very decidedly." - -"Yes, Standard," cried I, increasing in spleen, "your cheery Hautboy, -after all, is no pattern, no lesson for you and me. With average -abilities; opinions clear, because circumscribed; passions docile, -because they are feeble; a temper hilarious, because he was born to -it--how can your Hautboy be made a reasonable example to a heady fellow -like you, or an ambitious dreamer like me? Nothing tempts him beyond -common limit; in himself he has nothing to restrain. By constitution -he is exempted from all moral harm. Could ambition but prick him; had -he but once heard applause, or endured contempt, a very different man -would your Hautboy be. Acquiescent and calm from the cradle to the -grave, he obviously slides through the crowd." - -"Ah?" - -"Why do you say _ah_ to me so strangely whenever I speak?" - -"Did you ever hear of Master Betty?" - -"The great English prodigy, who long ago ousted the Siddons and -the Kembles from Drury Lane, and made the whole town run mad with -acclamation?" - -"The same," said Standard, once more inaudibly drumming on the slab. - -I looked at him perplexed. He seemed to be holding the master-key of -our theme in mysterious reserve; seemed to be throwing out his Master -Betty too, to puzzle me only the more. - -"What under heaven can Master Betty, the great genius and prodigy, an -English boy twelve years old, have to do with the poor commonplace -plodder Hautboy, an American of forty?" - -"Oh, nothing in the least. I don't imagine that they ever saw each -other. Besides, Master Betty must be dead and buried long ere this." - -"Then why cross the ocean, and rifle the grave to drag his remains into -this living discussion?" - -"Absent-mindedness, I suppose. I humbly beg pardon. Proceed with your -observations on Hautboy. You think he never had genius, quite too -contented and happy, and fat for that--ah? You think him no pattern for -men in general? affording no lesson of value to neglected merit, genius -ignored, or impotent presumption rebuked?--all of which three amount to -much the same thing. You admire his cheerfulness, while scorning his -commonplace soul. Poor Hautboy, how sad that your very cheerfulness -should, by a by-blow, bring you despite!" - -"I don't say I scorn him; you are unjust. I simply declare that he is -no pattern for me." - -A sudden noise at my side attracted my ear. Turning, I saw Hautboy -again, who very blithely reseated himself on the chair he had left. - -"I was behind time with my engagement," said Hautboy, "so thought I -would run back and rejoin you. But come, you have sat long enough here. -Let us go to my rooms. It is only five minutes' walk." - -"If you will promise to fiddle for us, we will," said Standard. - -Fiddle! thought I--he's a jigembob _fiddler_ then? No wonder genius -declines to measure its pace to a fiddler's bow. My spleen was very -strong on me now. - -"I will gladly fiddle you your fill," replied Hautboy to Standard. -"Come on." - -In a few minutes we found ourselves in the fifth story of a sort of -storehouse, in a lateral street to Broadway. It was curiously furnished -with all sorts of odd furniture which seemed to have been obtained, -piece by piece, at auctions of old-fashioned household stuff. But all -was charmingly clean and cosy. - -Pressed by Standard, Hautboy forthwith got out his dented old fiddle, -and sitting down on a tall rickety stool, played away right merrily -at Yankee Doodle and other off-handed, dashing, and disdainfully -care-free airs. But common as were the tunes, I was transfixed by -something miraculously superior in the style. Sitting there on the old -stool, his rusty hat sideways cocked on his head, one foot dangling -adrift, he plied the bow of an enchanter. All my moody discontent, -every vestige of peevishness fled. My whole splenetic soul capitulated -to the magical fiddle. - -"Something of an Orpheus, ah?" said Standard, archly nudging me beneath -the left rib. - -"And I, the charmed Bruin," murmured I. - -The fiddle ceased. Once more, with redoubled curiosity, I gazed upon -the easy, indifferent Hautboy. But he entirely baffled inquisition. - -When, leaving him, Standard and I were in the street once more, I -earnestly conjured him to tell me who, in sober truth, this marvelous -Hautboy was. - -"Why, haven't you seen him? And didn't you yourself lay his whole -anatomy open on the marble slab at Taylor's? What more can you possibly -learn? Doubtless your own masterly insight has already put you in -possession of all." - -"You mock me, Standard. There is some mystery here. Tell me, I entreat -you, who is Hautboy?" - -"An extraordinary genius, Helmstone," said Standard, with sudden ardor, -"who in boyhood drained the whole flagon of glory; whose going from -city to city was a going from triumph to triumph. One who has been -an object of wonder to the wisest, been caressed by the loveliest, -received the open homage of thousands on thousands of the rabble. But -to-day he walks Broadway and no man knows him. With you and me, the -elbow of the hurrying clerk, and the pole of the remorseless omnibus, -shove him. He who has a hundred times been crowned with laurels, now -wears, as you see, a bunged beaver. Once fortune poured showers of gold -into his lap, as showers of laurel leaves upon his brow. To-day, from -house to house he hies, teaching fiddling for a living. Crammed once -with fame, he is now hilarious without it. _With_ genius and _without_ -fame, he is happier than a king. More a prodigy now than ever." - -"His true name?" - -"Let me whisper it in your ear." - -"What! Oh, Standard, myself, as a child, have shouted myself hoarse -applauding that very name in the theatre." - -"I have heard your poem was not very handsomely received," said -Standard, now suddenly shifting the subject. - -"Not a word of that, for heaven's sake!" cried I. "If Cicero, traveling -in the East, found sympathetic solace for his grief in beholding the -arid overthrow of a once gorgeous city, shall not my petty affair be as -nothing, when I behold in Hautboy the vine and the rose climbing the -shattered shafts of his tumbled temple of Fame?" - -Next day I tore all my manuscripts, bought me a fiddle, and went to -take regular lessons of Hautboy. - - - - -POOR MAN'S PUDDING AND RICH MAN'S CRUMBS - - -PICTURE FIRST - -POOR MAN'S PUDDING - -"You see," said poet Blandmour, enthusiastically--as some forty years -ago we walked along the road in a soft, moist snowfall, toward the -end of March--"you see, my friend, that the blessed almoner, Nature, -is in all things beneficent; and not only so, but considerate in -her charities, as any discreet human philanthropist might be. This -snow, now, which seems so unseasonable, is in fact just what a poor -husbandman needs. Rightly is this soft March snow, falling just before -seed-time, rightly it is called 'Poor Man's Manure.' Distilling from -kind heaven upon the soil, by a gentle penetration it nourishes every -clod, ridge, and furrow. To the poor farmer it is as good as the rich -farmer's farmyard enrichments. And the poor man has no trouble to -spread it, while the rich man has to spread his." - -"Perhaps so," said I, without equal enthusiasm, brushing some of the -damp flakes from my chest. "It may be as you say, dear Blandmour. But -tell me, how is it that the wind drives yonder drifts of 'Poor Man's -Manure' off poor Coulter's two-acre patch here, and piles it up yonder -on rich Squire Teamster's twenty-acre field?" - -"Ah! to be sure--yes--well; Coulter's field, I suppose is sufficiently -moist without further moistenings. Enough is as good as a feast, you -know." - -"Yes," replied I, "of this sort of damp fare," shaking another shower -of the damp flakes from my person. "But tell me, this warm spring snow -may answer very well, as you say; but how is it with the cold snows of -the long, long winters here?" - -"Why, do you not remember the words of the Psalmist?--'The Lord giveth -snow like wool'; meaning not only that snow is white as wool, but -warm, too, as wool. For the only reason, as I take it, that wool is -comfortable, is because air is entangled, and therefore warmed among -its fibres. Just so, then, take the temperature of a December field -when covered with this snow-fleece, and you will no doubt find it -several degrees above that of the air. So, you see, the winter's snow -_itself_ is beneficent; under the pretense of frost--a sort of gruff -philanthropist--actually warming the earth, which afterward is to be -fertilizingly moistened by these gentle flakes of March." - -"I like to hear you talk, dear Blandmour; and, guided by your -benevolent heart, can only wish to poor Coulter plenty of this 'Poor -Man's Manure.'" - -"But that is not all," said Blandmour, eagerly. "Did you never hear of -the 'Poor Man's Eye-water'?" - -"Never." - -"Take this soft March snow, melt it, and bottle it. It keeps pure as -alcohol. The very best thing in the world for weak eyes. I have a whole -demijohn of it myself. But the poorest man, afflicted in his eyes, can -freely help himself to this same all-bountiful remedy. Now, what a kind -provision is that!" - -"Then 'Poor Man's Manure' is 'Poor Man's Eye-water' too?" - -"Exactly. And what could be more economically contrived? One thing -answering two ends--ends so very distinct." - -"Very distinct, indeed." - -"Ah! that is your way. Making sport of earnest. But never mind. We have -been talking of snow; but common rain-water--such as falls all the year -round--is still more kindly. Not to speak of its known fertilizing -quality as to fields, consider it in one of its minor lights. Pray, did -you ever hear of a 'Poor Man's Egg'?" - -"Never. What is that, now?" - -"Why, in making some culinary preparations of meal and flour, where -eggs are recommended in the receipt-book, a substitute for the eggs -may be had in a cup of cold rain-water, which acts as leaven. And so a -cup of cold rain-water thus used is called by housewives a 'Poor Man's -Egg.' And many rich men's housekeepers sometimes use it." - -"But only when they are out of hen's eggs, I presume, dear Blandmour. -But your talk is--I sincerely say it--most agreeable to me. Talk on." - -"Then there's 'Poor Man's Plaster' for wounds and other bodily harms; -an alleviative and curative, compounded of simple, natural things; and -so, being very cheap, is accessible to the poorest sufferers. Rich men -often use 'Poor Man's Plaster'." - -"But not without the judicious advice of a fee'd physician, dear -Blandmour." - -"Doubtless, they first consult the physician; but that may be an -unnecessary precaution." - -"Perhaps so. I do not gainsay it. Go on." - -"Well, then, did you ever eat of a 'Poor Man's Pudding'?" - -"I never so much as heard of it before." - -"Indeed! Well, now you shall eat of one; and you shall eat it, too, as -made, unprompted, by a poor man's wife, and you shall eat it at a poor -man's table, and in a poor man's house. Come now, and if after this -eating, you do not say that a 'Poor Man's Pudding' is as relishable as -a rich man's, I will give up the point altogether; which briefly is: -that, through kind Nature, the poor, out of their very poverty, extract -comfort." - -Not to narrate any more of our conversations upon this subject (for -we had several--I being at that time the guest of Blandmour in the -country, for the benefit of my health), suffice it that acting upon -Blandmour's hint, I introduced myself into Coulter's house on a wet -Monday noon (for the snow had thawed), under the innocent pretense of -craving a pedestrian's rest and refreshment for an hour or two. - -I was greeted, not without much embarrassment--owing, I suppose to my -dress--but still with unaffected and honest kindness. Dame Coulter was -just leaving the wash-tub to get ready her one o'clock meal against -her good man's return from a deep wood about a mile distant among the -hills, where he was chopping by day's work--seventy-five cents per day -and found himself. The washing being done outside the main building, -under an infirm-looking old shed, the dame stood upon a half-rotten -soaked board to protect her feet, as well as might be, from the -penetrating damp of the bare ground; hence she looked pale and chill. -But her paleness had still another and more secret cause--the paleness -of a mother to be. A quiet, fathomless heart-trouble, too, couched -beneath the mild, resigned blue of her soft and wife-like eye. But -she smiled upon me, as apologizing for the unavoidable disorder of a -Monday and a washing-day, and, conducting me into the kitchen, set me -down in the best seat it had--an old-fashioned chair of an enfeebled -constitution. - -I thanked her; and sat rubbing my hands before the ineffectual low -fire, and--unobservantly as I could--glancing now and then about the -room, while the good woman, throwing on more sticks said she was sorry -the room was no warmer. Something more she said, too--not repiningly, -however--of the fuel, as old and damp; picked-up sticks in Squire -Teamster's forest, where her husband was chopping the sappy logs of the -living tree for the Squire's fires. It needed not her remark, whatever -it was, to convince me of the inferior quality of the sticks; some -being quite mossy and toadstooled with long lying bedded among the -accumulated dead leaves of many autumns. They made a sad hissing, and -vain spluttering enough. - -"You must rest yourself here till dinner-time, at least," said the -dame; "what I have you are heartily welcome to." - -I thanked her again, and begged her not to heed my presence in the -least, but go on with her usual affairs. - -I was struck by the aspect of the room. The house was old, and -constitutionally damp. The window-sills had beads of exuded dampness -upon them. The shriveled sashes shook in their frames, and the green -panes of glass were clouded with the long thaw. On some little errand -the dame passed into an adjoining chamber, leaving the door partly -open. The floor of that room was carpetless, as the kitchen's was. -Nothing but bare necessaries were about me; and those not of the best -sort. Not a print on the wall but an old volume of Doddridge lay on the -smoked chimney-shelf. - -"You must have walked a long way, sir; you sigh so with weariness." - -"No, I am not nigh so weary as yourself, I dare say." - -"Oh, but I am accustomed to that; _you_ are not, I should think," and -her soft, sad blue eye ran over my dress. "But I must sweep these -shavings away; husband made him a new ax-helve this morning before -sunrise, and I have been so busy washing, that I have had no time to -clear up. But now they are just the thing I want for the fire. They'd -be much better though, were they not so green." - -Now if Blandmour were here, thought I to myself, he would call those -green shavings "Poor Man's Matches," or "Poor Man's Tinder," or some -pleasant name of that sort. - -"I do not know," said the good woman, turning round to me again--as she -stirred among her pots on the smoky fire--"I do not know how you will -like our pudding. It is only rice, milk, and salt boiled together." - -"Ah, what they call 'Poor Man's Pudding,' I suppose you mean?" - -A quick flush, half resentful, passed over her face. - -"We do not call it so, sir," she said, and was silent. - -Upbraiding myself for my inadvertence, I could not but again think to -myself what Blandmour would have said, had he heard those words and -seen that flush. - -At last a slow, heavy footfall was heard; then a scraping at the door, -and another voice said, "Come, wife; come, come--I must be back again -in a jif--if you say I _must_ take all my meals at home, you must be -speedy; because the Squire--Good-day, sir," he exclaimed, now first -catching sight of me as he entered the room. He turned toward his -wife, inquiringly, and stood stock-still, while the moisture oozed from -his patched boots to the floor. - -"This gentleman stops here awhile to rest and refresh: he will take -dinner with us, too. All will be ready now in a trice: so sit down -on the bench, husband, and be patient, I pray. You see, sir," she -continued, turning to me, "William there wants, of mornings, to carry -a cold meal into the woods with him, to save the long one-o'clock walk -across the fields to and fro. But I won't let him. A warm dinner is -more than pay for the long walk." - -"I don't know about that," said William, shaking his head. "I have -often debated in my mind whether it really paid. There's not much odds, -either way, between a wet walk after hard work, and a wet dinner before -it. But I like to oblige a good wife like Martha. And you know, sir, -that women will have their whimseys." - -"I wish they all had as kind whimseys as your wife has," said I. - -"Well, I've heard that some women ain't all maple-sugar; but, content -with dear Martha, I don't know much about others." - -"You find rare wisdom in the woods," mused I. - -"Now, husband, if you ain't too tired, just lend a hand to draw the -table out." - -"Nay," said I; "let him rest, and let me help." - -"No," said William, rising. - -"Sit still," said his wife to me. - -The table set, in due time we all found ourselves with plates before us. - -"You see what we have," said Coulter--"salt pork, rye-bread, and -pudding. Let me help you. I got this pork of the Squire; some of his -last year's pork, which he let me have on account. It isn't quite as -sweet as this year's would be; but I find it hearty enough to work on, -and that's all I eat for. Only let the rheumatiz and other sicknesses -keep clear of me, and I ask no flavors or favors from any. But you -don't eat of the pork!" - -"I see," said the wife, gently and gravely, "that the gentleman knows -the difference between this year's and last year's pork. But perhaps he -will like the pudding." - -I summoned up all my self-control, and smilingly assented to the -proposition of the pudding, without by my looks casting any reflections -upon the pork. But, to tell the truth, it was quite impossible for me -(not being ravenous, but only a little hungry at that time) to eat -of the latter. It had a yellowish crust all round it, and was rather -rankish, I thought, to the taste. I observed, too, that the dame did -not eat of it, though she suffered some to be put on her plate, and -pretended to be busy with it when Coulter looked that way. But she ate -of the rye-bread, and so did I. - -"Now, then, for the pudding," said Coulter. "Quick, wife; the Squire -sits in his sitting-room window, looking far out across the fields. His -time-piece is true." - -"He don't play the spy on you, does he?" said I. - -"Oh, no!--I don't say that. He's a good enough man. He gives me work. -But he's particular. Wife, help the gentleman. You see, sir, if I lose -the Squire's work, what will become of--" and, with a look for which I -honored humanity, with sly significance, he glanced toward his wife; -then, a little changing his voice, instantly continued--"that fine -horse I am going to buy?" - -"I guess," said the dame, with a strange, subdued sort of inefficient -pleasantry--"I guess that fine horse you sometimes so merrily dream of -will long stay in the Squire's stall. But sometimes his man gives me a -Sunday ride." - -"A Sunday ride!" said I. - -"You see," resumed Coulter, "wife loves to go to church; but the -nighest is four miles off, over yon snowy hills. So she can't walk it; -and I can't carry her in my arms, though I have carried her up-stairs -before now. But, as she says, the Squire's man sometimes gives her a -lift on the road; and for this cause it is that I speak of a horse I -am going to have one of these fine sunny days. And already, before -having it, I have christened it 'Martha.' But what am I about? Come, -come, wife! The pudding! Help the gentleman, do! The Squire! the -Squire!--think of the Squire! and help round the pudding. There, -one--two--three mouthfuls must do me. Good-by, wife. Good-by, sir, I'm -off." - -And, snatching his soaked hat, the noble Poor Man hurriedly went out -into the soak and the mire. - -I suppose now, thinks I to myself, that Blandmour would poetically say, -He goes to take a Poor Man's saunter. - -"You have a fine husband," said I to the woman, as we were now left -together. - -"William loves me this day as on the wedding-day, sir. Some hasty -words, but never a harsh one. I wish I were better and stronger for -his sake. And, oh! sir, both for his sake and mine" (and the soft, -blue, beautiful eyes turned into two well-springs), "how I wish little -William and Martha lived--it is so lonely-like now. William named after -him, and Martha for me." - -When a companion's heart of itself overflows, the best one can do is to -do nothing. I sat looking down on my as yet untasted pudding. - -"You should have seen little William, sir. Such a bright, manly boy, -only six years old--cold, cold now!" - -Plunging my spoon into the pudding, I forced some into my mouth to stop -it. - -"And little Martha--Oh! sir, she was the beauty! Bitter, bitter! but -needs must be borne!" - -The mouthful of pudding now touched my palate, and touched it with a -mouldy, briny taste. The rice, I knew, was of that damaged sort sold -cheap; and the salt from the last year's pork barrel. - -"Ah, sir, if those little ones yet to enter the world were the same -little ones which so sadly have left it; returning friends, not -strangers, strangers, always strangers! Yet does a mother soon learn -to love them; for certain, sir, they come from where the others have -gone. Don't you believe that, sir? Yes, I know all good people must. -But, still, still--and I fear it is wicked, and very black-hearted, -too--still, strive how I may to cheer me with thinking of little -William and Martha in heaven, and with reading Dr. Doddridge -there--still, still does dark grief leak in, just like the rain through -our roof. I am left so lonesome now; day after day, all the day long, -dear William is gone; and all the damp day long grief drizzles and -drizzles down on my soul. But I pray to God to forgive me for this; and -for the rest, manage it as well as I may." - -Bitter and mouldy is the "Poor Man's Pudding," groaned I to myself, -half choked with but one little mouthful of it, which would hardly go -down. - -I could stay no longer to hear of sorrows for which the sincerest -sympathies could give no adequate relief; of a fond persuasion, to -which there could be furnished no further proof than already was had--a -persuasion, too, of that sort which much speaking is sure more or less -to mar; of causeless self-upbraidings, which no expostulations could -have dispelled, I offered no pay for hospitalities gratuitous and -honorable as those of a prince. I knew that such offerings would have -been more than declined; charity resented. - -The native American poor never lose their delicacy or pride; hence, -though unreduced to the physical degradation of the European pauper, -they yet suffer more in mind than the poor of any other people in the -world. Those peculiar social sensibilities nourished by our peculiar -political principles, while they enhance the true dignity of a -prosperous American, do but minister to the added wretchedness of the -unfortunate; first, by prohibiting their acceptance of what little -random relief charity may offer; and, second, by furnishing them with -the keenest appreciation of the smarting distinction between their -ideal of universal equality and their grindstone experience of the -practical misery and infamy of poverty--a misery and infamy which is, -ever has been, and ever will be, precisely the same in India, England, -and America. - -Under pretense that my journey called me forthwith, I bade the -dame good-by; shook her cold hand; looked my last into her blue, -resigned eye, and went out into the wet. But cheerless as it was, -and damp, damp, damp--the heavy atmosphere charged with all sorts -of incipiencies--I yet became conscious by the suddenness of the -contrast, that the house air I had quitted was laden down with that -peculiar deleterious quality, the height of which--insufferable to some -visitants--will be found in a poorhouse ward. - -This ill-ventilation in winter of the rooms of the poor--a thing, -too, so stubbornly persisted in--is usually charged upon them as -their disgraceful neglect of the most simple means to health. But the -instinct of the poor is wiser than we think. The air which ventilates, -likewise _cools_. And to any shiverer, ill-ventilated warmth is better -than well-ventilated cold. Of all the preposterous assumptions of -humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on -the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed. - - * * * * * - -"Blandmour," said I that evening, as after tea I sat on his comfortable -sofa, before a blazing fire, with one of his two ruddy little children -on my knee, "you are not what may rightly be called a rich man; you -have a fair competence; no more. Is it not so? Well then, I do not -include _you_, when I say, that if ever a rich man speaks prosperously -to me of a Poor Man, I shall set it down as--I won't mention the word." - - -PICTURE SECOND - -RICH MAN'S CRUMBS - -In the year 1814, during the summer following my first taste of -the "Poor Man's Pudding," a sea-voyage was recommended to me by my -physician. The Battle of Waterloo having closed the long drama of -Napoleon's wars, many strangers were visiting Europe. I arrived -in London at the time the victorious princes were there assembled -enjoying the Arabian Nights' hospitalities of a grateful and gorgeous -aristocracy, and the courtliest of gentlemen and kings--George the -Prince Regent. - -I had declined all letters but one to my banker. I wandered about for -the best reception an adventurous traveler can have--the reception I -mean, which unsolicited chance and accident throw in his venturous way. - -But I omit all else to recount one hour's hap under the lead of a -very friendly man, whose acquaintance I made in the open street of -Cheapside. He wore a uniform, and was some sort of a civic subordinate; -I forget exactly what. He was off duty that day. His discourse was -chiefly of the noble charities of London. He took me to two or three, -and made admiring mention of many more. - -"But," said he, as we turned into Cheapside again, "if you are at all -curious about such things, let me take you--if it be not too late--to -one of the most interesting of all--our Lord Mayor's Charities, sir; -nay, the charities not only of a Lord Mayor, but, I may truly say, in -this one instance, of emperors, regents, and kings. You remember the -event of yesterday?" - -"That sad fire on the river-side, you mean, unhousing so many of the -poor?" - -"No. The grand Guildhall Banquet to the princes. Who can forget it? -Sir, the dinner was served on nothing but solid silver and gold plate, -worth at the least £200,000--that is, 1,000,000 of your dollars; while -the mere expenditure of meats, wines, attendance and upholstery, etc., -can not be footed under £25,000--120,000 dollars of your hard cash." - -"But, surely, my friend, you do not call that charity--feeding kings at -that rate?" - -"No. The feast came first--yesterday; and the charity after--to-day. -How else would you have it, where princes are concerned? But I think -we shall be quite in time--come; here we are at King Street, and down -there is Guildhall. Will you go?" - -"Gladly, my good friend. Take me where you will. I come but to roam and -see." - -Avoiding the main entrance of the hall, which was barred, he took me -through some private way, and we found ourselves in a rear blind-walled -place in the open air. I looked round amazed. The spot was grimy as -a backyard in the Five Points. It was packed with a mass of lean, -famished, ferocious creatures, struggling and fighting for some -mysterious precedency, and all holding soiled blue tickets in their -hands. - -"There is no other way," said my guide; "we can only get in with the -crowd. Will you try it? I hope you have not on your drawing-room -suit? What do you say? It will be well worth your sight. So noble a -charity does not often offer. The one following the annual banquet of -Lord Mayor's day--fine a charity as that certainly is--is not to be -mentioned with what will be seen to-day. Is it, ay?" - -As he spoke, a basement door in the distance was thrown open, and the -squalid mass made a rush for the dark vault beyond. - -I nodded to my guide, and sideways we joined in with the rest. Ere long -we found our retreat cut off by the yelping crowd behind, and I could -not but congratulate myself on having a civic, as well as civil guide; -one, too, whose uniform made evident his authority. - -It was just the same as if I were pressed by a mob of cannibals on some -pagan beach. The beings round me roared with famine. For in this mighty -London misery but maddens. In the country it softens. As I gazed on the -meagre, murderous pack, I thought of the blue eye of the gentle wife of -poor Coulter. Some sort of curved, glittering steel thing (not a sword; -I know not what it was), before worn in his belt, was now flourished -overhead by my guide, menacing the creatures to forbear offering the -stranger violence. - -As we drove, slow and wedge-like, into the gloomy vault, the howls of -the mass reverberated. I seemed seething in the Pit with the Lost. On -and on, through the dark and damp, and then up a stone stairway to a -wide portal; when, diffusing, the pestiferous mob poured in bright -day between painted walls and beneath a painted dome. I thought of the -anarchic sack of Versailles. - -A few moments more and I stood bewildered among the beggars in the -famous Guildhall. - -Where I stood--where the thronged rabble stood, less than twelve -hours before sat His Imperial Majesty, Alexander of Russia; His Royal -Majesty, Frederick William, King of Prussia; His Royal Highness, -George, Prince Regent of England; His world-renowned Grace, the Duke -of Wellington; with a mob of magnificoes, made up of conquering field -marshals, earls, counts, and innumerable other nobles of mark. - -The walls swept to and fro, like the foliage of a forest with -blazonings of conquerors' flags. Naught outside the hall was visible. -No windows were within four-and-twenty feet of the floor. Cut off from -all other sights, I was hemmed in by one splendid spectacle--splendid, -I mean, everywhere, but as the eye fell toward the floor. _That_ was -foul as a hovel's--as a kennel's; the naked boards being strewed with -the smaller and more wasteful fragments of the feast, while the two -long parallel lines, up and down the hall, of now unrobed, shabby, -dirty pine-tables were piled with less trampled wrecks. The dyed -banners were in keeping with the last night's kings: the floor suited -the beggars of to-day. The banners looked upon the floor as from his -balcony Dives upon Lazarus. A line of liveried men kept back with -their staves the impatient jam of the mob, who, otherwise, might have -instantaneously converted the Charity into a Pillage. Another body of -gowned and gilded officials distributed the broken meats--the cold -victuals and crumbs of kings. One after another the beggars held up -their dirty blue tickets, and were served with the plundered wreck of -a pheasant, or the rim of a pasty--like the detached crown of an old -hat--the solids and meats stolen out. - -"What a noble charity," whispered my guide. "See that pasty now, -snatched by that pale girl; I dare say the Emperor of Russia ate of -that last night." - -"Very probably," murmured I; "it looks as though some omnivorous -emperor or other had had a finger in that pie." - -"And see yon pheasant too--there--that one--the boy in the torn shirt -has it now--look! The Prince Regent might have dined off that." - -The two breasts were gouged ruthlessly out, exposing the bare bones, -embellished with the untouched pinions and legs. - -"Yes, who knows!" said my guide, "his Royal Highness the Prince Regent -might have eaten of that identical pheasant." - -"I don't doubt it," murmured I, "he is said to be uncommonly fond of -the breast. But where is Napoleon's head in a charger? I should fancy -that ought to have been the principal dish." - -"You are merry. Sir, even Cossacks are charitable here in Guildhall. -Look! the famous Platoff, the Hetman himself--(he was here last night -with the rest)--no doubt he thrust a lance into yon pork-pie there. -Look! the old shirtless man has it now. How he licks his chops over it, -little thinking of or thanking the good, kind Cossack that left it him! -Ah! another--a stouter has grabbed it. It falls; bless my soul!--the -dish is quite empty--only a bit of the hacked crust." - -"The Cossacks, my friend, are said to be immoderately fond of fat," -observed I. "The Hetman was hardly so charitable as you thought." - -"A noble charity, upon the whole, for all that. See, even Gog and Magog -yonder, at the other end of the hall fairly laugh out their delight at -the scene." - -"But don't you think, though," hinted I, "that the sculptor, whoever he -was, carved the laugh too much into a grin--a sort of sardonical grin?" - -"Well, that's as you take it, sir. But see--now I'd wager a guinea -the Lord Mayor's lady dipped her golden spoon into yonder golden-hued -jelly. See, the jelly-eyed old body has slipped it, in one broad gulp, -down his throat." - -"Peace to that jelly!" breathed I. - -"What a generous, noble, magnanimous charity this is! unheard of in -any country but England, which feeds her very beggars with golden-hued -jellies." - -"But not three times every day, my friend. And do you really think that -jellies are the best sort of relief you can furnish to beggars? Would -not plain beef and bread, with something to do, and be paid for, be -better?" - -"But plain beef and bread were not eaten here. Emperors, and -prince-regents, and kings, and field marshals don't often dine on plain -beef and bread. So the leavings are according. Tell me, can you expect -that the crumbs of kings can be like the crumbs of squirrels?" - -"_You!_ I mean _you_! stand aside, or else be served and away! Here, -take this pasty, and be thankful that you taste of the same dish with -her Grace the Duchess of Devonshire. Graceless ragamuffin, do you hear?" - -These words were bellowed at me through the din by a red-gowned -official nigh the board. - -"Surely he does not mean _me_," said I to my guide; "he has not -confounded _me_ with the rest." - -"One is known by the company he keeps," smiled my guide. "See! not only -stands your hat awry and bunged on your head, but your coat is fouled -and torn. Nay," he cried to the red-gown, "this is an unfortunate -friend: a simple spectator, I assure you." - -"Ah! is that you, old lad?" responded the red-gown, in familiar -recognition of my guide--a personal friend as it seemed; "well, convey -your friend out forthwith. Mind the grand crash; it will soon be -coming; hark! now! away with him!" - -Too late. The last dish had been seized. The yet unglutted mob raised -a fierce yell, which wafted the banners like a strong gust, and filled -the air with a reek as from sewers. They surged against the tables, -broke through all barriers, and billowed over the hall--their bare -tossed arms like the dashed ribs of a wreck. It seemed to me as if a -sudden impotent fury of fell envy possessed them. That one half-hour's -peep at the mere remnants of the glories of the Banquets of Kings; the -unsatisfying mouthfuls of disemboweled pasties, plundered pheasants, -and half-sucked jellies, served to remind them of the intrinsic -contempt of the alms. In this sudden mood, or whatever mysterious thing -it was that now seized them, these Lazaruses seemed ready to spew up in -repentant scorn the contumelious crumbs of Dives. - -"This way, this way! stick like a bee to my back," intensely whispered -my guide. "My friend there has answered my beck, and thrown open yon -private door for us two. Wedge--wedge in--quick, there goes your -bunged hat--never stop for your coat-tail--hit that man--strike him -down! hold! jam! now! wrench along for your life! ha! here we breathe -freely; thank God! You faint. Ho!" - -"Never mind. This fresh air revives me." - -I inhaled a few more breaths of it, and felt ready to proceed. - -"And now conduct me, my good friend, by some front passage into -Cheapside, forthwith. I must home." - -"Not by the sidewalk though. Look at your dress. I must get a hack for -you." - -"Yes, I suppose so," said I, ruefully eyeing my tatters, and then -glancing in envy at the close-buttoned coat and flat cap of my guide, -which defied all tumblings and tearings. - -"There, now, sir," said the honest fellow, as he put me into the hack, -and tucked in me and my rags, "when you get back to your own country, -you can say you have witnessed the greatest of all England's noble -charities. Of course, you will make reasonable allowances for the -unavoidable jam. Good-by. Mind, Jehu"--addressing the driver on the -box--"this is a _gentleman_ you carry. He is just from the Guildhall -Charity, which accounts for his appearance. Go on now. London Tavern, -Fleet Street, remember, is the place." - - * * * * * - -"Now, Heaven in its kind mercy save me from the noble charities of -London," sighed I, as that night I lay bruised and battered on my bed; -"and Heaven save me equally from the 'Poor Man's Pudding' and the 'Rich -Man's Crumbs.'" - - - - -THE HAPPY FAILURE - -_A STORY OF THE RIVER HUDSON_ - - -The appointment was that I should meet my elderly uncle at the -riverside, precisely at nine in the morning. The skiff was to be ready, -and the apparatus to be brought down by his grizzled old black man. As -yet, the nature of the wonderful experiment remained a mystery to all -but the projector. - -I was first on the spot. The village was high up the river, and the -inland summer sun was already oppressively warm. Presently I saw my -uncle advancing beneath the trees, hat off, and wiping his brow; while -far behind struggled poor old Yorpy, with what seemed one of the gates -of Gaza on his back. - -"Come, hurrah, stump along, Yorpy!" cried my uncle, impatiently turning -round every now and then. - -Upon the black's staggering up to the skiff, I perceived that the -great gate of Gaza was transformed into a huge, shabby, oblong box, -hermetically sealed. The sphinx-like blankness of the box quadrupled -the mystery in my mind. - -"Is _this_ the wonderful apparatus," said I in amazement. "Why, it's -nothing but a battered old dry-goods box, nailed up. And is _this_ the -thing, uncle, that is to make you a million of dollars ere the year be -out? What a forlorn-looking, lack-lustre, old ash-box it is." - -"Put it into the skiff!" roared my uncle to Yorpy, without heeding -my boyish disdain. "Put it in, you grizzled-headed cherub--put it -in carefully, carefully! If that box bursts, my everlasting fortune -collapses." - -"Bursts?--collapses?" cried I, in alarm. "It ain't full of -combustibles? Quick, let me go to the further end of the boat!" - -"Sit still, you simpleton!" cried my uncle again. "Jump in, Yorpy, -and hold on to the box like grim death while I shove off. Carefully! -carefully! you dunderheaded black! Mind t'other side of the box, I say! -Do you mean to destroy the box?" - -"Duyvel take te pox!" muttered old Yorpy, who was a sort of Dutch -African. "De pox has been my cuss for de ten long 'ear." - -"Now, then, we're off--take an oar, youngster; you, Yorpy, clinch -the box fast. Here we go now. Carefully! carefully! You, Yorpy, stop -shaking the box! Easy! there's a big snag. Pull now. Hurrah! deep water -at last! Now give way, youngster, and away to the island." - -"The island!" said I. "There's no island hereabouts." - -"There is ten miles above the bridge, though," said my uncle, -determinately. - -"Ten miles off! Pull that old dry-goods box ten miles up the river in -this blazing sun?" - -"All that I have to say," said my uncle, firmly, "is that we are bound -to Quash Island." - -"Mercy, uncle! if I had known of this great long pull of ten mortal -miles in this fiery sun, you wouldn't have juggled _me_ into the skiff -so easy. What's _in_ that box?--paving-stones? See how the skiff -settles down under it. I won't help pull a box of paving-stones ten -miles. What's the use of pulling 'em?" - -"Look you, simpleton," quoth my uncle, pausing upon his suspended oar. -"Stop rowing, will ye! Now then, if you don't want to share in the -glory of my experiment; if you are wholly indifferent to halving its -immortal renown; I say, sir, if you care not to be present at the -first trial of my Great Hydraulic-Hydrostatic Apparatus for draining -swamps and marshes, and converting them, at the rate of one acre the -hour, into fields more fertile than those of the Genesee; if you care -not, I repeat, to have this proud thing to tell--in far future days, -when poor old I shall have been long dead and gone, boy--to your -children and your children's children; in that case, sir, you are free -to land forthwith." - -"Oh, uncle! I did not mean--" - -"No words, sir! Yorpy, take his oar, and help pull him ashore." - -"But, my dear uncle; I declare to you that--" - -"Not a syllable, sir; you have cast open scorn upon the Great -Hydraulic-Hydrostatic Apparatus. Yorpy, put him ashore, Yorpy. It's -shallow here again. Jump out, Yorpy, and wade with him ashore." - -"Now, my dear, good, kind uncle, do but pardon me this one time, and I -will say nothing about the apparatus." - -"Say nothing about it! when it is my express end and aim it shall be -famous! Put him ashore, Yorpy." - -"Nay, uncle, I _will_ not give up my oar. I have an oar in this matter, -and I mean to keep it. You shall not cheat me out my share of your -glory." - -"Ah, now there--that's sensible. You may stay, youngster. Pull again -now." - -We were all silent for a time, steadily plying our way. At last I -ventured to break water once more. - -"I am glad, dear uncle, you have revealed to me at last the nature and -end of your great experiment. It is the effectual draining of swamps; -an attempt, dear uncle, in which, if you do but succeed (as I know you -will), you will earn the glory denied to a Roman emperor. He tried to -drain the Pontine marsh, but failed." - -"The world has shot ahead the length of its own diameter since then," -quoth my uncle, proudly. "If that Roman emperor were here, I'd show him -what can be done in the present enlightened age." - -Seeing my good uncle so far mollified now as to be quite -self-complacent, I ventured another remark. - -"This is a rather severe, hot pull, dear uncle." - -"Glory is not to be gained, youngster, without pulling hard for -it--against the stream, too, as we do now. The natural tendency of man, -in the mass, is to go down with the universal current into oblivion." - -"But why pull so far, dear uncle, upon the present occasion? Why pull -ten miles for it? You do but propose, as I understand it, to put to -the actual test this admirable invention of yours. And could it not be -tested almost anywhere?" - -"Simple boy," quoth my uncle, "would you have some malignant spy steal -from me the fruits of ten long years of high-hearted, persevering -endeavor? Solitary in my scheme, I go to a solitary place to test it. -If I fail--for all things are possible--no one out of the family will -know it. If I succeed, secure in the secrecy of my invention, I can -boldly demand any price for its publication." - -"Pardon me, dear uncle; you are wiser than I." - -"One would think years and gray hairs should bring wisdom, boy." - -"Yorpy there, dear uncle; think you his grizzled locks thatch a brain -improved by long life?" - -"Am I Yorpy, boy? Keep to your oar!" - -Thus padlocked again, I said no further word till the skiff grounded on -the shallows, some twenty yards from the deep-wooded isle. - -"Hush!" whispered my uncle, intensely; "not a word now!" and he sat -perfectly still, slowly sweeping with his glance the whole country -around, even to both banks of the here wide-expanded stream. - -"Wait till that horseman, yonder, passes!" he whispered again, pointing -to a speck moving along a lofty, riverside road, which perilously wound -on midway up a long line of broken bluffs and cliffs. "There--he's out -of sight now, behind the copse. Quick! Yorpy! Carefully, though! Jump -overboard, and shoulder the box, and--Hold!" - -We were all mute and motionless again. - -"Ain't that a boy, sitting like Zaccheus in yonder tree of the orchard -on the other bank? Look, youngster--young eyes are better than -old--don't you see him?" - -"Dear uncle, I see the orchard, but I can't see any boy." - -"He's a spy--I know he is," suddenly said my uncle, disregardful of my -answer, and intently gazing, shading his eyes with his flattened hand. -"Don't touch the box, Yorpy. Crouch! crouch down, all of ye!" - -"Why, uncle--there--see--the boy is only a withered white bough. I see -it very plainly now." - -"You don't see the tree I mean," quoth my uncle, with a decided air of -relief, "but never mind; I defy the boy. Yorpy, jump out, and shoulder -the box. And now then, youngster, off with your shoes and stockings, -roll up your trousers legs, and follow me. Carefully, Yorpy, carefully. -That's more precious than a box of gold, mind." - -"Heavy as de gelt anyhow," growled Yorpy, staggering and splashing in -the shallows beneath it. - -"There, stop under the bushes there--in among the flags--so--gently, -gently--there, put it down just there. Now youngster, are you ready? -Follow--tiptoes, tiptoes!" - -"I can't wade in this mud and water on my tiptoes, uncle; and I don't -see the need of it either." - -"Go ashore, sir--instantly!" - -"Why, uncle, I _am_ ashore." - -"Peace! follow me, and no more." - -Crouching in the water in complete secrecy, beneath the bushes and -among the tall flags, my uncle now stealthily produced a hammer and -wrench from one of his enormous pockets, and presently tapped the box. -But the sound alarmed him. - -"Yorpy," he whispered, "go you off to the right, behind the bushes, and -keep watch. If you see any one coming, whistle softly. Youngster, you -do the same to the left." - -We obeyed; and presently, after considerable hammering and supplemental -tinkering, my uncle's voice was heard in the utter solitude, loudly -commanding our return. - -Again we obeyed, and now found the cover of the box removed. All -eagerness, I peeped in, and saw a surprising multiplicity of convoluted -metal pipes and syringes of all sorts and varieties, all sizes and -calibres, inextricably interwreathed together in one gigantic coil. It -looked like a huge nest of anacondas and adders. - -"Now then, Yorpy," said my uncle, all animation, and flushed with the -foretaste of glory, "do you stand this side, and be ready to tip when I -give the word. And do you, youngster, stand ready to do as much for the -other side. Mind, don't budge it the fraction of a barley-corn till I -say the word. All depends on a proper adjustment." - -"No fear, uncle. I will be careful as a lady's tweezers." - -"I s'ant life de heavy pox," growled old Yorpy, "till de wort pe given; -no fear o' dat." - -"Oh, boy," said my uncle now, upturning his face devotionally, while -a really noble gleam irradiated his gray eyes, locks, and wrinkles; -"Oh, boy! this, _this_ is the hour which for ten long years has, in -the prospect, sustained me through all my painstaking obscurity. Fame -will be the sweeter because it comes at the last; the truer, because -it comes to an old man like me, not to a boy like you. Sustainer! I -glorify Thee." - -He bowed over his venerable head, and--as I live--something like a -shower-drop somehow fell from my face into the shallows. - -"Tip!" - -We tipped. - -"A _leetle_ more!" - -We tipped a little more. - -"A _leetle_ more!" - -We tipped a _leetle_ more. - -"Just a _leetle_, very _leetle_ bit more." - -With great difficulty we tipped just a _leetle_, very _leetle_ more. - -All this time my uncle was diligently stooping over, and striving to -peep in, up, and under the box where the coiled anacondas and adders -lay; but the machine being now fairly immersed, the attempt was wholly -vain. - -He rose erect, and waded slowly all round the box; his countenance firm -and reliant, but not a little troubled and vexed. - -It was plain something or other was going wrong. But as I was left in -utter ignorance as to the mystery of the contrivance, I could not tell -where the difficulty lay, or what was the proper remedy. - -Once more, still more slowly, still more vexedly, my uncle waded -round the box, the dissatisfaction gradually deepening, but still -controlled, and still with hope at the bottom of it. - -Nothing could be more sure than that some anticipated effect had, as -yet, failed to develop itself. Certain I was, too, that the water-line -did not lower about my legs. - -"Tip it a _leetle_ bit--very _leetle_ now." - -"Dear uncle, it is tipped already as far as it can be. Don't you see it -rests now square on its bottom?" - -"You, Yorpy, take your black hoof from under the box!" - -This gust of passion on the part of my uncle made the matter seem still -more dubious and dark. It was a bad symptom, I thought. - -"Surely you _can_ tip it just a _leetle_ more!" - -"Not a hair, uncle." - -"Blast and blister the cursed box then!" roared my uncle, in a terrific -voice, sudden as a squall. Running at the box, he dashed his bare foot -into it, and with astonishing power all but crushed in the side. Then -seizing the whole box, he disemboweled it of all its anacondas and -adders, and, tearing and wrenching them, flung them right and left over -the water. - -"Hold, hold, my dear, dear uncle!--do for heaven's sake desist. Don't -destroy so, in one frantic moment, all your long calm years of devotion -to one darling scheme. Hold, I conjure!" - -Moved by my vehement voice and uncontrollable tears, he paused in his -work of destruction, and stood steadfastly eyeing me, or rather blankly -staring at me, like one demented. - -"It is not yet wholly ruined, dear uncle; come put it together now. You -have hammer and wrench; put it together again, and try it once more. -While there is life there is hope." - -"While there is life hereafter there is _despair_," he howled. - -"Do, do now, dear uncle--here, here, put those pieces together; or, if -that can't be done without more tools, try a _section_ of it--that will -do just as well. Try it once; try, uncle." - -My persistent persuasiveness told upon him. The stubborn stump of hope, -plowed at and uprooted in vain, put forth one last miraculous green -sprout. - -Steadily and carefully pulling out of the wreck some of the more -curious-looking fragments, he mysteriously involved them together, and -then, clearing out the box, slowly inserted them there, and ranging -Yorpy and me as before, bade us tip the box once again. - -We did so; and as no perceptible effect yet followed, I was each moment -looking for the previous command to tip the box over yet more, when, -glancing into my uncle's face, I started aghast. It seemed pinched, -shriveled into mouldy whiteness, like a mildewed grape. I dropped the -box, and sprang toward him just in time to prevent his fall. - -Leaving the woeful box where we had dropped it, Yorpy and I helped the -old man into the skiff and silently pulled from Quash Isle. - -How swiftly the current now swept us down! How hardly before had we -striven to stem it! I thought of my poor uncle's saying, not an hour -gone by, about the universal drift of the mass of humanity toward utter -oblivion. - -"Boy!" said my uncle at last, lifting his head. I looked at him -earnestly, and was gladdened to see that the terrible blight of his -face had almost departed. - -"Boy, there's not much left in an old world for an old man to invent." - -I said nothing. - -"Boy, take my advice, and never try to invent anything but--happiness." - -I said nothing. - -"Boy, about ship, and pull back for the box." - -"Dear uncle!" - -"It will make a good wood-box, boy. And faithful old Yorpy can sell the -old iron for tobacco-money." - -"Dear massa! dear old massa! dat be very fust time in de ten long 'ear -yoo hab mention kindly old Yorpy. I tank yoo, dear old massa; I tank -yoo so kindly. Yoo is yourself agin in de ten long 'ear." - -"Ay, long ears enough," sighed my uncle; "Esopian ears. But it's all -over now. Boy, I'm glad I've failed. I say, boy, failure has made a -good old man of me. It was horrible at first, but I'm glad I've failed. -Praise be to God for the failure!" - -His face kindled with a strange, rapt earnestness. I have never -forgotten that look. If the event made my uncle a good old man as he -called it, it made me a wise young one. Example did for me the work of -experience. - -When some years had gone by, and my dear old uncle began to fail, and, -after peaceful days of autumnal content, was gathered gently to his -fathers--faithful old Yorpy closing his eyes--as I took my last look at -his venerable face, the pale resigned lips seemed to move. I seemed to -hear again his deep, fervent cry--"Praise be to God for the failure!" - - - - -THE 'GEES - - -In relating to my friends various passages of my sea-goings I have -at times had occasion to allude to that singular people the 'Gees, -sometimes as casual acquaintances, sometimes as shipmates. Such -allusions have been quite natural and easy. For instance, I have said -_The two 'Gees_, just as another would say _The two Dutchmen_, or _The -two Indians_. In fact, being myself so familiar with 'Gees, it seemed -as if all the rest of the world must be. But not so. My auditors have -opened their eyes as much as to say, "What under the sun is a 'Gee?" -To enlighten them I have repeatedly had to interrupt myself and not -without detriment to my stories. To remedy which inconvenience, a -friend hinted the advisability of writing out some account of the -'Gees, and having it published. Such as they are, the following -memoranda spring from that happy suggestion: - -The word _'Gee_ (_g_ hard) is an abbreviation, by seamen, of -_Portugee_, the corrupt form of _Portuguese_. As the name is a -curtailment, so the race is a residuum. Some three centuries ago -certain Portuguese convicts were sent as a colony to Fogo, one of the -Cape de Verdes, off the northwest coast of Africa, an island previously -stocked with an aboriginal race of negroes, ranking pretty high in -civility, but rather low in stature and morals. In course of time, from -the amalgamated generation all the likelier sort were drafted off as -food for powder, and the ancestors of the since-called 'Gees were left -as the _caput mortum_, or melancholy remainder. - -Of all men seamen have strong prejudices, particularly in the matter of -race. They are bigots here. But when a creature of inferior race lives -among them, an inferior tar, there seems no bound to their disdain. -Now, as ere long will be hinted, the 'Gee, though of an aquatic -nature, does not, as regards higher qualifications, make the best of -sailors. In short, by seamen the abbreviation 'Gee was hit upon in pure -contumely; the degree of which may be partially inferred from this, -that with them the primitive word Portugee itself is a reproach; so -that 'Gee, being a subtle distillation from that word, stands, in point -of relative intensity to it, as attar of roses does to rose-water. At -times, when some crusty old sea-dog has his spleen more than unusually -excited against some luckless blunderer of Fogo his shipmate, it is -marvelous the prolongation of taunt into which he will spin out the one -little exclamatory monosyllable Ge-e-e-e-e! - -The Isle of Fogo, that is, "Fire Isle," was so called from its volcano, -which, after throwing up an infinite deal of stones and ashes, finally -threw up business altogether, from its broadcast bounteousness having -become bankrupt. But thanks to the volcano's prodigality in its time, -the soil of Fogo is such as may be found on a dusty day on a road newly -macadamized. Cut off from farms and gardens, the staple food of the -inhabitants is fish, at catching which they are expert. But none the -less do they relish ship-biscuit, which, indeed, by most islanders, -barbarous or semi-barbarous, is held a sort of lozenge. - -In his best estate the 'Gee is rather small (he admits it) but, with -some exceptions, hardy; capable of enduring extreme hard work, hard -fare, or hard usage, as the case may be. In fact, upon a scientific -view, there would seem a natural adaptability in the 'Gee to hard -times generally. A theory not uncorroborated by his experiences; and -furthermore, that kindly care of Nature in fitting him for them, -something as for his hard rubs with a hardened world Fox the Quaker -fitted himself, namely, in a tough leather suit from top to toe. In -other words, the 'Gee is by no means of that exquisitely delicate -sensibility expressed by the figurative adjective thin-skinned. His -physicals and spirituals are in singular contrast. The 'Gee has a great -appetite, but little imagination; a large eyeball, but small insight. -Biscuit he crunches, but sentiment he eschews. - -His complexion is hybrid; his hair ditto; his mouth disproportionally -large, as compared with his stomach; his neck short; but his head -round, compact, and betokening a solid understanding. - -Like the negro, the 'Gee has a peculiar savor, but a different one--a -sort of wild, marine, gamey savor, as in the sea-bird called haglet. -Like venison, his flesh is firm but lean. - -His teeth are what are called butter-teeth, strong, durable, square, -and yellow. Among captains at a loss for better discourse during dull, -rainy weather in the horse-latitudes, much debate has been had whether -his teeth are intended for carnivorous or herbivorous purposes, or both -conjoined. But as on his isle the 'Gee eats neither flesh nor grass, -this inquiry would seem superfluous. - -The native dress of the 'Gee is, like his name, compendious. His head -being by nature well thatched, he wears no hat. Wont to wade much in -the surf, he wears no shoes. He has a serviceably hard heel, a kick -from which is by the judicious held almost as dangerous as one from a -wild zebra. - -Though for a long time back no stranger to the seafaring people of -Portugal, the 'Gee, until a comparatively recent period, remained -almost undreamed of by seafaring Americans. It is now some forty years -since he first became known to certain masters of our Nantucket ships, -who commenced the practice of touching at Fogo, on the outward passage, -there to fill up vacancies among their crews arising from the short -supply of men at home. By degrees the custom became pretty general, -till now the 'Gee is found aboard of almost one whaler out of three. -One reason why they are in request is this: An unsophisticated 'Gee -coming on board a foreign ship never asks for wages. He comes for -biscuit. He does not know what wages mean, unless cuffs and buffets be -wages, of which sort he receives a liberal allowance, paid with great -punctuality, besides perquisites of punches thrown in now and then. -But for all this, some persons there are, and not unduly biassed by -partiality to him either, who still insist that the 'Gee never gets his -due. - -His docile services being thus cheaply to be had, some captains -will go the length of maintaining that 'Gee sailors are preferable, -indeed every way, physically and intellectually, superior to American -sailors--such captains complaining, and justly, that American sailors, -if not decently treated, are apt to give serious trouble. - -But even by their most ardent admirers it is not deemed prudent to sail -a ship with none but 'Gees, at least if they chance to be all green -hands, a green 'Gee being of all green things the greenest. Besides, -owing to the clumsiness of their feet ere improved by practice in -the rigging, green 'Gees are wont, in no inconsiderable numbers, to -fall overboard the first dark, squally night; insomuch that when -unreasonable owners insist with a captain against his will upon a green -'Gee crew fore and aft, he will ship twice as many 'Gees as he would -have shipped of Americans, so as to provide for all contingencies. - -The 'Gees are always ready to be shipped. Any day one may go to their -isle, and on the showing of a coin of biscuit over the rail, may load -down to the water's edge with them. - -But though any number of 'Gees are ever ready to be shipped, still it -is by no means well to take them as they come. There is a choice even -in 'Gees. - -Of course the 'Gee has his private nature as well as his public coat. -To know 'Gees--to be a sound judge of 'Gees--one must study them, -just as to know and be a judge of horses one must study horses. -Simple as for the most part are both horse and 'Gee, in neither case -can knowledge of the creature come by intuition. How unwise, then, -in those ignorant young captains who, on their first voyage, will go -and ship their 'Gees at Fogo without any preparatory information, -or even so much as taking convenient advice from a 'Gee jockey. By a -'Gee jockey is meant a man well versed in 'Gees. Many a young captain -has been thrown and badly hurt by a 'Gee of his own choosing. For -notwithstanding the general docility of the 'Gee when green, it may be -otherwise with him when ripe. Discreet captains won't have such a 'Gee. -"Away with that ripe 'Gee!" they cry; "that smart 'Gee; that knowing -'Gee! Green 'Gees for me!" - -For the benefit of inexperienced captains about to visit Fogo, the -following may be given as the best way to test a 'Gee: Get square -before him, at, say three paces, so that the eye, like a shot, may -rake the 'Gee fore and aft, at one glance taking in his whole make and -build--how he looks about the head, whether he carry it well; his ears, -are they over-lengthy? How fares it in the withers? His legs, does the -'Gee stand strongly on them? His knees, any Belshazzar symptoms there? -How stands it in the regions of the brisket, etc., etc. - -Thus far bone and bottom. For the rest, draw close to, and put the -centre of the pupil of your eye--put it, as it were, right into the -'Gee's eye--even as an eye-stone, gently, but firmly slip it in there, -and then note what speck or beam of viciousness, if any, will be -floated out. - -All this and more must be done; and yet after all, the best judge may -be deceived. But on no account should the shipper negotiate for his -'Gee with any middle-man, himself a 'Gee. Because such an one must be -a knowing 'Gee, who will be sure to advise the green 'Gee what things -to hide and what to display, to hit the skipper's fancy; which, of -course, the knowing 'Gee supposes to lean toward as much physical -and moral excellence as possible. The rashness of trusting to one of -these middle-men was forcibly shown in the case of the 'Gee who by his -countrymen was recommended to a New Bedford captain as one of the most -agile 'Gees in Fogo. There he stood straight and stout, in a flowing -pair of man-of-war's-man trousers, uncommonly well fitted out. True, he -did not step around much at the time. But that was diffidence. Good. -They shipped him. But at the first taking in of sail the 'Gee hung -fire. Come to look, both trousers-legs were full of elephantiasis. It -was a long sperm-whaling voyage. Useless as so much lumber, at every -port prohibited from being dumped ashore, that elephantine 'Gee, ever -crunching biscuit, for three weary years was trundled round the globe. - -Grown wise by several similar experiences, old Captain Hosea Kean, of -Nantucket, in shipping a 'Gee, at present manages matters thus: He -lands at Fogo in the night; by secret means gains information where the -likeliest 'Gee wanting to ship lodges; whereupon with a strong party he -surprises all the friends and acquaintances of that 'Gee; putting them -under guard with pistols at their heads; then creeps cautiously toward -the 'Gee, now lying wholly unawares in his hut, quite relaxed from -all possibility of displaying aught deceptive in his appearance. Thus -silently, thus suddenly, thus unannounced, Captain Kean bursts upon his -'Gee, so to speak, in the very bosom of his family. By this means, more -than once, unexpected revelations have been made. A 'Gee, noised abroad -for a Hercules in strength and an Apollo Belvidere for beauty, of a -sudden is discovered all in a wretched heap; forlornly adroop as upon -crutches, his legs looking as if broken at the cart-wheel. Solitude is -the house of candor, according to Captain Kean. In the stall, not the -street, he says, resides the real nag. - -The innate disdain of regularly bred seamen toward 'Gees receives an -added edge from this. The 'Gees undersell them working for biscuit -where the sailors demand dollars. Hence anything said by sailors to the -prejudice of 'Gees should be received with caution. Especially that -jeer of theirs, that monkey-jacket was originally so called from the -circumstance that that rude sort of shaggy garment was first known in -Fogo. They often call a monkey-jacket a 'Gee-jacket. However this may -be, there is no call to which the 'Gee will with more alacrity respond -than the word "Man!" - -Is there any hard work to be done, and the 'Gees stand round in sulks? -"Here, my men!" cries the mate. How they jump. But ten to one when the -work is done, it is plain 'Gee again. "Here, 'Gee you 'Ge-e-e-e!" In -fact, it is not unsurmised, that only when extraordinary stimulus is -needed, only when an extra strain is to be got out of them, are these -hapless 'Gees ennobled with the human name. - -As yet, the intellect of the 'Gee has been little cultivated. No -well-attested educational experiment has been tried upon him. It is -said, however, that in the last century a young 'Gee was by a visionary -Portuguese naval officer sent to Salamanca University. Also, among the -Quakers of Nantucket, there has been talk of sending five comely 'Gees, -aged sixteen, to Dartmouth College; that venerable institution, as is -well known, having been originally founded partly with the object of -finishing off wild Indians in the classics and higher mathematics. Two -qualities of the 'Gee which, with his docility, may be justly regarded -as furnishing a hopeful basis for his intellectual training, is his -excellent memory, and still more excellent credulity. - -The above account may, perhaps, among the ethnologists, raise some -curiosity to see a 'Gee. But to see a 'Gee there is no need to go all -the way to Fogo, no more than to see a Chinaman to go all the way to -China. 'Gees are occasionally to be encountered in our seaports, but -more particularly in Nantucket and New Bedford. But these 'Gees are -not the 'Gees of Fogo. That is, they are no longer green 'Gees. They -are sophisticated 'Gees, and hence liable to be taken for naturalized -citizens badly sunburnt. Many a Chinaman, in a new coat and pantaloons, -his long queue coiled out of sight in one of Genin's hats, has -promenaded Broadway, and been taken merely for an eccentric Georgia -planter. The same with 'Gees; a stranger need have a sharp eye to know -a 'Gee, even if he see him. - -Thus much for a general sketchy view of the 'Gee. For further and -fuller information apply to any sharp-witted American whaling captain -but more especially to the before-mentioned old Captain Hosea Kean, of -Nantucket, whose address at present is "Pacific Ocean." - - - - - OF THE FIRST EDITION OF THIS BOOK - SIXTEEN HUNDRED SEVENTY-FIVE COPIES HAVE BEEN - PRINTED AND ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY-FIVE COPIES - ARE ON FRENCH HAND-MADE PAPER AND NUMBERED - OF WHICH ONE HUNDRED FIFTY ARE FOR SALE - - - - -TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: - -Obvious printer errors have been corrected. 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