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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #55194 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55194)
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Chautauquan, Vol. IV, June 1884, No. 9, by
-The Chautauquan Literary and Scientific Circle
-
-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'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: The Chautauquan, Vol. IV, June 1884, No. 9
-
-Author: The Chautauquan Literary and Scientific Circle
-
-Editor: Theodore L. Flood
-
-Release Date: July 24, 2017 [EBook #55194]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHAUTAUQUAN, JUNE 1884 ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Emmy, Juliet Sutherland and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- THE CHAUTAUQUAN.
-
- _A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PROMOTION OF TRUE CULTURE.
- ORGAN OF THE CHAUTAUQUA LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC CIRCLE._
-
- VOL. IV. JUNE, 1884. No. 9.
-
-
-
-
-Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.
-
-
-_President_—Lewis Miller, Akron, Ohio.
-
-_Superintendent of Instruction_—Rev. J. H. Vincent, D.D., New Haven, Conn.
-
-_Counselors_—Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D.; Rev. J. M. Gibson, D.D.; Bishop H.
-W. Warren, D.D.; Prof. W. C. Wilkinson, D.D.
-
-_Office Secretary_—Miss Kate F. Kimball, Plainfield, N. J.
-
-_General Secretary_—Albert M. Martin, Pittsburgh, Pa.
-
-
-
-
-Contents
-
-Transcriber’s Note: This table of contents of this periodical was created
-for the HTML version to aid the reader.
-
- REQUIRED READING
- Readings from Roman History 497
- Sunday Readings
- [_June 1_] 499
- [_June 8_] 499
- [_June 15_] 499
- [_June 22_] 500
- [_June 29_] 500
- Readings in Art
- III.—English Painters and Paintings 500
- Criticisms on American Literature 503
- United States History 505
- Night 510
- Eccentric Americans
- VII.—The Well-Balanced Eccentric 510
- What Shall We Do With The Inebriates? 514
- Climate-Seeking in America 516
- A Dreamy Old Town 520
- Our Steel Horse 523
- The Navy 524
- Astronomy of the Heavens for June 528
- To Blossoms 529
- The Soldiers’ Home 529
- Eight Centuries with Walter Scott 533
- Some London Preachers 536
- The Prayer of Socrates 537
- C. L. S. C. Work 538
- Outline of C. L. S. C. Readings 539
- Local Circles 539
- Chautauqua for 1884 543
- Questions and Answers 544
- Chautauqua Normal Course 545
- Editor’s Outlook 546
- Editor’s Note-Book 548
- C. L. S. C. Notes on Required Readings for June 551
- Notes on Required Readings in “The Chautauquan” 554
- Talk About Books 556
-
-
-
-
-REQUIRED READING
-
-FOR THE
-
-_Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle for 1883-4_.
-
-JUNE.
-
-
-
-
-READINGS FROM ROMAN HISTORY.
-
-SELECTED BY WILLIAM CLEAVER WILKINSON.
-
- Next we will give a picture, a partial picture it must be, of an
- action occurring a little more than half a century later in Roman
- history. Dr. Arnold shall be our painter:
-
-
-HANNIBAL CROSSING THE ALPS.
-
-[219 B. C.]
-
-Hannibal was on the summit of the Alps about the end of October; the
-first winter snows had already fallen; but two hundred years before the
-Christian era, when all Germany was one vast forest, the climate of the
-Alps was far colder than at present, and the snow lay on the passes
-all through the year. Thus the soldiers were in dreary quarters; they
-remained two days on the summit, resting from their fatigues, and giving
-opportunity to many of the stragglers, and of the horses and cattle, to
-rejoin them by following their track; but they were cold and worn and
-disheartened; and mountains still rose before them, through which, as
-they knew too well, even their descent might be perilous and painful.
-
-But their great general, who felt that he now stood victorious on the
-ramparts of Italy, and that the torrent which rolled before him was
-carrying its waters to the rich plains of Cisalpine Gaul, endeavored to
-kindle his soldiers with his own spirit of hope. He called them together;
-he pointed out the valley beneath, to which the descent seemed the work
-of a moment. “That valley,” he said, “is Italy; it leads us to the
-country of our friends, the Gauls, and yonder is our way to Rome.” His
-eyes were eagerly fixed on that point of the horizon; and as he gazed,
-the distance between seemed to vanish, till he could almost fancy that he
-was crossing the Tiber, and assailing the Capitol.
-
-After the two days’ rest the descent began. Hannibal experienced no more
-open hostility from the barbarians, only some petty attempts here and
-there to plunder; a fact strange in itself, but doubly so, if he was
-really descending the valley of the Doria Baltea, through the country of
-the Salassians, the most untamable robbers of all the Alpine barbarians.
-It is possible that the influence of the Insubrians may partly have
-restrained the mountaineers; and partly, also, they may have been
-deterred by the ill success of all former attacks, and may by this time
-have regarded the strange army and its monstrous beasts with something
-of superstitious terror. But the natural difficulties of the ground on
-the descent were greater than ever. The snow covered the track so that
-the men often lost it, and fell down the steep below; at last they came
-to a place where an avalanche had carried it away altogether for about
-three hundred yards, leaving the mountain side a mere wreck of scattered
-rocks and snow. To go round was impossible; for the depth of the snow on
-the heights above rendered it hopeless to scale them; nothing, therefore,
-was left but to repair the road. A summit of some extent was found, and
-cleared of the snow; and here the army were obliged to encamp, whilst
-the work went on. There was no want of hands; and every man was laboring
-for his life; the road therefore was restored, and supported with solid
-substructions below; and in a single day it was made practicable for
-the cavalry and baggage cattle, which were immediately sent forward,
-and reached the lower valley in safety, where they were turned out to
-pasture. A harder labor was required to make a passage for the elephants;
-the way for them must be wide and solid, and the work could not be
-accomplished in less than three days. The poor animals suffered severely
-in the interval from hunger; for no forage was to be found in that
-wilderness of snow, nor any trees whose leaves might supply the place
-of other herbage. At last they too were able to proceed with safety;
-Hannibal overtook his cavalry and baggage, and in three days more the
-whole army had got clear of the Alpine valleys, and entered the country
-of their friends, the Insubrians, on the wide plain of northern Italy.
-
-Hannibal was arrived in Italy, but with a force so weakened by its losses
-in men and horses, and by the exhausted state of the survivors, that he
-might seem to have accomplished his great march in vain. According to his
-own statement, which there is no reason to doubt, he brought out of the
-Alpine valleys no more than 12,000 African and 8,000 Spanish infantry,
-with 6,000 cavalry, so that his march from the Pyrenees to the plains of
-northern Italy must have cost him 33,000 men; an enormous loss, which
-proves how severely the army must have suffered from the privations of
-the march and the severity of the Alpine climate; for not half of these
-33,000 men can have fallen in battle.
-
- * * * * *
-
- Once again the subject shall be Hannibal, and Arnold shall be the
- artist. This time Hannibal suffers his final defeat at the hands
- of Scipio.
-
-
-THE BATTLE OF ZAMA.
-
-[201 B.C.]
-
-Hannibal, we are told, landed at Leptis, at what season of the year we
-know not; and after refreshing his troops for some time at Adrumetum,
-he took the field, and advanced to the neighborhood of Zama, a town
-situated, as Polybius describes it, about five days’ journey from
-Carthage, toward the west. It seems that Scipio was busied in
-overrunning the country, and in subduing the several towns, when he was
-interrupted in these operations by the approach of the Carthaginian army.
-He is said to have detected some spies sent by Hannibal to observe his
-position; and by causing them to be led carefully round his camp, and
-then sent back in safety to Hannibal, he so excited the admiration of his
-antagonist as to make him solicit a personal interview, with the hope of
-effecting a termination of hostilities. The report of this conference,
-and of the speeches of the two generals, savors greatly of the style of
-Roman family memoirs, the most unscrupulous in falsehood of any pretended
-records of facts that the world has yet seen. However, the meeting ended
-in nothing, and the next day the two armies were led out into the field
-for the last decisive struggle. The numbers on each side we have no
-knowledge of, but probably neither was in this respect much superior.
-Masinissa, however, with four thousand Numidian cavalry, beside six
-thousand infantry, had joined Scipio a few days before the battle; while
-Hannibal, who had so often been indebted to the services of Numidians,
-had now, on this great occasion, only two thousand horse of that nation
-to oppose to the numbers and fortune and activity of Masinissa. The
-account of the disposition of both armies, and of the events of the
-action, was probably drawn up by Polybius from the information given
-to him by Lælius, and perhaps from the family records of the house of
-Scipio. And here we may admit its authority to be excellent. It states
-that the Roman legions were drawn up in their usual order, except that
-the maniples of every alternate line did not cover the intervals in
-the line before them, but were placed one behind another, thus leaving
-avenues in several places through the whole depth of the army, from front
-to rear. These avenues were loosely filled by the light-armed troops,
-who had received orders to meet the charge of the elephants, and to
-draw them down the passages left between the maniples, till they should
-be enticed entirely beyond the rear of the whole army. The cavalry, as
-usual, was stationed on the wings; Masinissa, with his Numidians, on the
-right, and Lælius, with the Italians, on the left. On the other side,
-Hannibal stationed his elephants, to the number of eighty, in the front
-of his whole line. Next to these were placed the foreign troops in the
-service of Carthage, twelve thousand strong, consisting of Ligurians,
-Gauls, inhabitants of the Balearian islands, and Moors. The second
-line was composed of those Africans who were the immediate subjects of
-Carthage, and of the Carthaginians themselves; while Hannibal himself,
-with his veteran soldiers, who had returned with him from Italy, formed
-a third line, which was kept in reserve, at a little distance behind the
-other two. The Numidian cavalry were on the left, opposed to their own
-countrymen under Masinissa; and the Carthaginian horse on the right,
-opposed to Lælius and the Italians. After some skirmishing of the
-Numidians in the two armies, Hannibal’s elephants advanced to the charge,
-but being startled by the sound of the Roman trumpets, and annoyed by the
-light-armed troops of the enemy, some broke off to the right and left,
-and fell in amongst the cavalry of their own army on both the wings, so
-that Lælius and Masinissa, availing themselves of this disorder, drove
-the Carthaginian horse speedily from the field. Others advanced against
-the enemy’s line, and did much mischief, till at length, being frightened
-and becoming ungovernable, they were enticed by the light-armed troops
-of the Romans to follow them down the avenues which Scipio had purposely
-left open, and were thus drawn out of the action altogether. Meantime,
-the infantry on both sides met, and, after a fierce contest, the foreign
-troops in Hannibal’s army, not being properly supported by the soldiers
-of the second line, were forced to give ground; and in resentment for
-this desertion, they fell upon the Africans and Carthaginians, and cut
-them down as enemies, so that these troops, at once assaulted by their
-fellow-soldiers, and by the pursuing enemy, were also, after a brave
-resistance, defeated and dispersed. Hannibal, with his reserve, kept
-off the fugitives by presenting spears to them, and obliging them to
-escape in a different direction; and he then prepared to meet the enemy,
-trusting that they would be ill able to resist the shock of a fresh body
-of veterans, after having already been engaged in a long and obstinate
-struggle. Scipio, after having extricated his troops from the heaps of
-dead which lay between him and Hannibal, commenced a second, and a far
-more serious contest. The soldiers on both sides were perfect in courage
-and in discipline, and as the battle went on, they fell in the ranks
-where they fought, and their places were supplied by their comrades with
-unabated zeal. At last Lælius and Masinissa returned from the pursuit
-of the enemy’s beaten cavalry, and fell, in a critical moment, upon the
-rear of Hannibal’s army. Then his veterans, surrounded and overpowered,
-still maintained their high reputation, and most of them were cut down
-where they stood, resisting to the last. Flight indeed was not easy, for
-the country was a plain, and the Roman and Numidian horse were active
-in pursuit; yet Hannibal, when he saw the battle totally lost, with a
-nobler fortitude than his brother had shown at the Metaurus, escaped
-from the field to Adrumetum. He knew that his country would now need his
-assistance more than ever, and as he had been in so great a degree the
-promoter of the war, it ill became him to shrink from bearing his full
-share of the weight of its disastrous issue.
-
-On the plains of Zama twenty thousand of the Carthaginian army were
-slain, and an equal number taken prisoners, but the consequences of the
-battle far exceeded the greatness of the immediate victory. It was not
-the mere destruction of an army, but the final conquest of the only
-power that seemed able to combat Rome on equal terms. In the state of
-the ancient world, with so few nations really great and powerful, and
-so little of a common feeling pervading them, there was neither the
-disposition nor the materials for forming a general confederacy against
-the power of Rome; and the single efforts of Macedonia, of Syria, and of
-Carthage herself, after the fatal event of the second Punic war, were
-of no other use than to provoke their own ruin. The defeat of Hannibal
-insured the empire of the ancient civilized world.
-
-The only hope of the Carthaginians now rested on the forbearance of
-Scipio, and they again sent deputies to him, with a full confession of
-the injustice of their conduct in the first origin of the war, and still
-more in their recent violation of the truce, and with a renewal of their
-supplications for peace. The conqueror, telling them that he was moved
-solely by considerations of the dignity of Rome, and the uncertainty of
-all human greatness, and in no degree by any pity for misfortunes which
-were so well deserved, presented the terms on which alone they could hope
-for mercy. “They were to make amends for the injuries done to the Romans
-during the truce; to restore all prisoners and deserters; to give up all
-their ships of war, except ten, and all their elephants; to engage in
-no war at all out of Africa, nor in Africa without the consent of the
-Romans; to restore to Masinissa all that had belonged to him or any of
-his ancestors; to feed the Roman army for three months, and pay it till
-it should be recalled home; to pay a contribution of ten thousand Euboic
-talents, at the rate of two hundred talents a year, for fifty years; and
-to give a hundred hostages, between the ages of fourteen and thirty, to
-be selected at the pleasure of the Roman general.” At this price the
-Carthaginians were allowed to hold their former dominion in Africa, and
-to enjoy their independence, till it should seem convenient to the Romans
-to complete their destruction. Yet Hannibal strongly urged that the terms
-should be accepted, and, it is said, rudely interrupted a member of the
-supreme council at Carthage, who was speaking against them. He probably
-felt, as his father had done under circumstances nearly similar, that
-for the present resistance was vain, but that, by purchasing peace at
-any price, and by a wise management of their internal resources, his
-countrymen might again find an opportunity to recover their losses. Peace
-was accordingly signed, the Roman army returned to Italy, and Hannibal,
-at the age of forty-five, having seen the schemes of his whole life
-utterly ruined, was now beginning, with equal patience and resolution, to
-lay the foundation for them again.
-
- * * * * *
-
- But Zama was Hannibal’s Waterloo, and the virtual overthrow of
- Carthage. Rome’s course was now open to universal empire.
-
-
-
-
-SUNDAY READINGS.
-
-SELECTED BY THE REV. J. H. VINCENT, D.D.
-
-
-[_June 1._]
-
-When we wish by our own efforts that something shall succeed, we become
-irritated with obstacles, because we feel in these hindrances that the
-motive that makes us act has not placed them there, and we find things in
-them which the self-will that makes us act has not found there.
-
-But when God inspires our actions, we never feel anything outside that
-does not come from the same principle that causes us to act; there is
-no opposition in the motive that impels us; the same motive power which
-leads us to act, leads others to resist us, or permits them at least;
-so that as we find no difference in this, and it is not our own will
-that combats external events, but the same will that produces the good
-and permits the evil, this uniformity does not trouble the peace of the
-soul, and is one of the best tokens that we are acting by the will of
-God, since it is much more certain that God permits the evil, however
-great it may be, than that God causes the good in us (and not some secret
-motive), however great it may appear to us; so that in order really to
-perceive whether it is God that makes us act, it is much better to test
-ourselves by our deportment without than by our motives within, since if
-we only examine ourselves within, although we may find nothing but good
-there, we can not assure ourselves that this good comes truly from God.
-But when we examine ourselves without, that is when we consider whether
-we suffer external hindrances with patience, this signifies that there is
-a uniformity of will between the motive power that inspires our passions
-and the one that permits the resistance to them; and as there is no doubt
-that it is God who permits the one, we have a right humbly to hope that
-it is God who produces the other.
-
-But what! we act as if it were our mission to make truth triumph,
-whilst it is only our mission to combat for it. The desire to conquer
-is so natural that when it is covered by the desire of making the truth
-triumph, we often take the one for the other, and think that we are
-seeking the glory of God, when in truth we are seeking our own. It seems
-to me that the way in which we support these hindrances is the surest
-token of it, for in fine if we wish only the order established by God,
-it is certain that we wish the triumph of his justice as much as that
-of his mercy, and when it does not come of our negligence, we shall be
-in an equal mood, whether the truth be known or whether it be combated,
-since in the one the mercy of God triumphs, and in the other his
-justice.—_Pascal._
-
-
-[_June 8._]
-
-O most blessed mansion of the heavenly Jerusalem! O most effulgent day of
-eternity, which night obscureth not, but the supreme truth continually
-enlighteneth! a day of perennial peace and joy, incapable of change or
-intermission! It shineth now in the full splendor of perpetual light
-to the blessed; but to the poor pilgrims on earth it appeareth only
-at a great distance, and “through a glass darkly.” The redeemed sons
-of heaven triumph in the perfection of the joys of his eternal day,
-while the distressed sons of Eve lament the irksomeness of days teeming
-with distress and anguish. How is man defiled with sins, agitated with
-passions, disquieted with fears, tortured with cares, embarrassed
-with refinements, deluded with vanities, encompassed with errors, worn
-out with labors, vexed with temptations, enervated with pleasures, and
-tormented with want!
-
-O when will these various evils be no more? When shall I be delivered
-from the slavery of sin? When, O Lord, shall my thoughts and desires
-center and be fixed in thee alone? When shall I regain my native liberty?
-O, when will peace return, and be established, peace from the troubles
-of the world, and the disorders of sinful passions; universal peace,
-incapable of interruption; that “peace which passeth all understanding?”
-When, O most merciful Jesus! when shall I stand in pure abstraction
-from all inferior good to gaze upon thee and contemplate the wonders of
-redeeming love? When wilt thou be to me all in all? O, when shall I dwell
-with thee in that kingdom which thou hast prepared for thy beloved before
-the foundation of the world?
-
-Soften, I beseech thee, the rigor of my banishment, assuage the violence
-of my sorrow! for my soul thirsteth after thee; and all that the world
-offers for my comfort would but add one more weight to the burden that
-oppresses me. I long, O Lord, to enjoy thee truly, and would fain rise
-to a constant adherence to heavenly objects, but the power of earthly
-objects operating upon my unmortified passions, keeps me down. My mind
-labors to be superior to the good and evil of this animal life, but
-my body constrains it to be subject to them. And thus, “wretched man
-that I am,” while the spirit is always tending to heaven, and the flesh
-to earth, my heart is the seat of incessant war, and I am a burden
-to myself! … LXXVII.—“Unto thee do I lift up mine eyes, O thou that
-dwellest in the heavens.” In thee, the Father of mercies, I place all my
-confidence! O illuminate and sanctify my soul with the influence of thy
-Holy Spirit; that being delivered from all the darkness and impurity of
-its alienated life, it may become the holy temple of thy living presence,
-the seat of thy eternal glory! In the immensity of thy goodness, O Lord,
-and “in the multitude of thy tender mercies, turn unto me,” and hear
-the prayer of thy poor servant, who hast wandered far from thee into
-the region of the shadow of death. O protect and keep my soul amid the
-innumerable evils which this corruptible life is always bringing forth;
-and by the perpetual guidance of thy grace, lead me in the narrow path
-of holiness to the realms of everlasting peace.—_Kempis’ “Imitation of
-Christ.”_
-
-
-[_June 15._]
-
-_The Christian life is better than any other that can be discovered or
-devised._
-
-First, this is manifest from its object. For no life can have or desire
-a better object than that which is set forth in the Christian religion,
-which finds its object in the vision of the divine essence.… But since
-man can not attain to the contemplation of divine things except by
-purification of the heart, how much, even in this regard, does the
-Christian life excel all others. For no greater purification of the heart
-can be discovered than Christian purification. For that is called pure
-which is not mixed with another substance, especially one inferior to
-itself. Thus gold is said to be pure when it is not mixed with silver
-or lead, or any other inferior substance. Now, because the end of man
-is God, when man through the intellect and the affections, is united or
-mixed with other creatures as an ultimate end, especially with those
-inferior to himself, he is called impure. And the more one frees himself
-from the love of creatures, the more pure he becomes; purity of the human
-heart consists in withdrawing the desires and the will from creature
-loves. But no greater or more perfect withdrawal from earthly loves can
-be discovered or devised than that which is proclaimed in the Christian
-religion.… And since man can not live without any love, it teaches that
-man should love God above all things, even above himself. And, if he
-loves himself or other creatures, it commands that he love them for the
-sake of God, so that all his love may tend toward God, and that in
-the creatures themselves he may love God, and may think nothing, speak
-nothing, do nothing which does not tend to the glory and honor of God,
-so that the whole man may tend toward God, and be united with God, and
-become one with God. And certainly no life can be discovered or devised
-better than this.
-
-As to the will, he loves God and our Lord Jesus Christ above all things,
-and his neighbor as himself, keeping all the commands of the law which
-depend upon this double love.
-
-As to the sensibilities, he strives with all his might to bring desire
-and anger and all the emotions under the control of reason, and by no
-means to make provision for the lusts of the flesh (_curam carnis facere
-in concupiscentia_).—_Savonarola—“De Simplicitate Christianæ Vitæ.”_
-
-
-[_June 22._]
-
-The sense of the vastness of the universe, and of the imperfection of
-our own knowledge, may help us in some degree to understand—not, indeed,
-the origin of evil and of suffering, but, at any rate, something of its
-possible uses and purposes. We look around the world, and we see cruel
-perplexities; the useless spared, the useful taken; the young and happy
-removed, and the old and miserable lingering on; happy households broken
-up under our feet, despondent hopes, and the failure of those to whom we
-looked up with reverence and respect. We go through these trials with
-wonder and fear; and we ask whereunto this will grow. But has nothing
-been gained? Yes, that has been gained which nothing else, humanly
-speaking, could gain. We may have gained a deeper knowledge of the mind
-of God, and a deeper insight into ourselves. Truths which once seemed
-mere words, received our heed and heart. Our understanding may have
-become part of ourselves.
-
-Humility for ourselves, charity for others, self-abasement before the
-judge of all mankind, these are the gifts that even the best man, and
-even the worst man may gain by distrust, by doubt, by difficulty.
-
- * * * * *
-
-The perplexity, the danger, the grief often brings with it its own remedy.
-
-On each bursting wave of disappointment and vexation there is a crown of
-heavenly light which reveals the peril and shows the way, and guides us
-through the roaring storm.
-
-Out of doubt comes faith; out of grief comes hope; and “to the upright
-there ariseth light in darkness.”
-
-With each new temptation comes a way to escape; with each new difficulty
-comes some new explanation. As life advances it does indeed seem to be
-as a vessel going to pieces, as though we were on the broken fragments
-of a ship, or in a solitary skiff on the waste of waters; but as long as
-existence lasts, we must not give up the duty of cheerfulness and hope.
-He who has guided us through the day may guide us through the night also.
-The pillar of darkness often turns into a pillar of fire. Let us hold on
-though the land be miles away; let us hold till the morning breaks. That
-speck on the distant horizon may be the vessel for which we must shape
-our course. Forward, not backward, must we steer—forward, and forward,
-till the speck becomes the friendly ship. Have patience and perseverance;
-believe that there is still a future before us; and we shall at last
-reach the heaven where we would be.—_Dean Stanley._
-
-
-[_June 29._]
-
-Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed.
-It is not necessary that the entire universe arm itself to crush him.
-A breath of air, a drop of water, suffices to kill him. But were the
-universe to crush him, man would still be more noble than that which
-kills him, because he knows that he dies; and the universe knows nothing
-of the advantage it has over him.
-
-Our whole dignity consists then in thought. Our elevation must be
-derived from this, not from space and duration, which we can not fill.
-Let us endeavor, then, to think well.
-
-Our imagination so magnifies the present time by continually reflecting
-upon it, and so diminishes eternity by not reflecting upon it, that we
-make a nothingness of eternity, and an eternity of nothingness, and all
-this has its roots so vital in us, that our reason can not defend us from
-it.
-
- * * * * *
-
-It is necessary to know where to doubt, where to be assured, and where
-to submit. Who does not thus, understands not the force of reason. There
-are those who offend against these three principles, either affirming
-everything as demonstrative, for want of a knowledge of demonstration; or
-doubting everything, for want of knowing where it is necessary to submit;
-or submitting to everything, for want of knowing where it is necessary to
-judge.
-
-But those who seek God with all their heart, who have no sorrow, but in
-being deprived of his presence, who have no desire but to possess him,
-and no enemies but those who turn them from him; who are afflicted in
-seeing themselves surrounded and oppressed by such enemies; let them be
-comforted, I bring them good news; there is a liberator for them, I shall
-cause them to see him; I shall show them that there is a God for them; I
-shall show him to no others.
-
-The stoics say: Enter into yourselves; there you will find repose; and
-this is not true. Others say: Go out of yourselves; seek happiness in
-diverting yourselves; and this is not true. Diseases come; happiness is
-neither out of us, nor in us; it is in God, both out of, and in us.
-
-If man is not made for God, why is he happy only in God? If man is made
-for God, why is he opposed to God?—_Pascal._
-
-
-
-
-READINGS IN ART.
-
-
-III.—ENGLISH PAINTERS AND PAINTINGS.
-
-Abridged from “English and American Painters,” by Wilmot Buxton and
-S. R. Köhler.
-
-
-WILLIAM HOGARTH,
-
-Who was the first original painter of England, was born in 1697. His
-father, who had received a good education at St. Bees, kept a school in
-Ship Court, and sought work from booksellers. But, like many another poor
-scholar, he could not make a living, and died disappointed.
-
-After spending some time at school, William Hogarth, warned by the
-example of his father, determined to pursue a craft in preference to
-literature, and was apprenticed, probably in 1711, to Ellis Gamble, a
-silversmith in Cranbourne Alley. He tells us how he determined to enter
-a wider field than that of mere silver-plate engraving, though at the
-age of twenty to engrave his own designs on copper was the height of
-his ambition. The men and women who jostled him in London streets or
-rolled by him in their coaches, were his models. Beside the keenest
-powers of observation, and a sardonic, sympathizing, and pitying humor,
-he possessed a wonderfully accurate and retentive memory, which enabled
-him to impress a face or form on his mind, and to reproduce it at
-leisure. Occasionally, if some very attractive or singular face struck
-his fancy, he would sketch it on his thumb nail, and thence transfer
-it. Hogarth tells us that “instead of burdening the memory with musty
-rules, or tiring the eye with copying dry or damaged pictures, I have
-ever found studying from nature the shortest and safest way of obtaining
-knowledge of my art.” In 1724 he engraved “Masquerades and Operas,” a
-satire, which represents “society” crowding to a masquerade, and led
-by a figure wearing a cap and bells on his head, and the garter on
-his leg. This engraving delighted the public whom it satirized, and
-Hogarth lost much through piracies of his work. He was employed by the
-booksellers to illustrate books with engravings and frontispieces.
-In 1726 was published, beside his twelve large prints, which are well
-known, an edition of “Hudibras,” illustrated by Hogarth, in seventeen
-smaller plates. The designs of Hogarth are not so witty as the verses
-of Butler, but we must remember that the painter had never seen men
-living and acting as they are described in the poem; they were not
-like the men of whom he made his daily studies. At this period he who
-dared to be original, and to satirize his neighbors, had much trouble.
-In 1730 Hogarth made a secret marriage at old Paddington Church, with
-Jane, only daughter of Sir James Thornhill, Serjeant-Painter to the
-King. He had frequented Thornhill’s studio, but whether the art of the
-court painter, or the face of his daughter was the greater attraction we
-know not. There is no doubt that Hogarth’s technique was studied from
-Thornhill’s pictures, and not from those of Watteau or Chardin, as has
-been supposed. For a time after his marriage Hogarth confined himself to
-painting portraits and conversation pieces, for which he was well paid,
-although Walpole declares that this “was the most ill-suited employment
-to a man whose turn was certainly not flattery.” Truthfulness, however,
-is more valuable in a portrait than flattery, and we surely find it in
-Hogarth’s portraits of himself, one in the National Gallery, and in that
-of “Captain Coram,” at the Foundling.
-
-One of the best of Hogarth’s life stories is the “Marriage à la Mode,”
-the original paintings of which are in the National Gallery; they
-appeared in prints in 1745. These well known pictures illustrate the
-story of a loveless marriage, where parents sacrifice their children, the
-one for rank, the other for money. Mr. Redgrave (“A Century of Painters”)
-tells us that “the novelty of Hogarth’s work consisted in the painter
-being the inventor of his own drama, as well as painter, and in the way
-in which all the parts are made to tend to a dramatic whole, each picture
-dependent on the other, and all the details illustrative of the complete
-work. The same characters recur again and again, moved in different
-tableaux with varied passions, one moral running through all, the
-beginning finding its natural climax in the end.” We can not do more than
-mention some of the remaining works by which the satirist continued “to
-shoot Folly as she flies.” “Beer Street,” and “Gin Lane,” illustrate the
-advantages of drinking the national beverage, and the miseries following
-the use of gin. “The Cockpit” represents a scene very common in those
-days, and contains many portraits. “The Election” is a series of four
-scenes, published between 1755 and 1758, in which all the varied vices,
-humors, and passions of a contested election are admirably represented.
-
-Hogarth’s last years were embittered by quarrels, those with Churchill
-and Wilkes being the most memorable. The publication in 1753 of his
-admirable book, called “The Analysis of Beauty,” in which he tried to
-prove that a winding line is the line of beauty, produced much adverse
-criticism and many fierce attacks, which the painter could not take
-quietly. He was further annoyed by the censures passed on his picture of
-“Sigismunda,” now in the National Gallery, which he had painted in 1759
-for Sir Richard Grosvenor, and which was returned on his hands. Two years
-previously Hogarth had been made Serjeant-Painter to the King. He did
-not live to hold his office long; on October 26th, 1764, the hand which
-had exposed the vices and follies of the day so truly, and yet with such
-humor, had ceased to move.
-
-
-RICHARD WILSON.
-
-The story of Richard Wilson (1713-1782) is the story of a disappointed
-man. Born at Pinegas, Montgomeryshire, the son of the parson of that
-place, Wilson’s early taste for drawing attracted the attention of Sir
-George Wynne, by whom he was introduced to one Wright, a portrait painter
-in London. In 1749 he visited Italy, and whilst waiting for an interview
-with the landscape painter Zuccarelli he is said to have sketched the
-view through the open window. The Italian advised the Englishman to
-devote himself henceforth to landscapes, and Wilson followed his advice.
-After six years’ stay in Italy, during which period he became imbued with
-the beauties of that country, Wilson returned to England in 1755, and
-found Zuccarelli worshiped, whilst he himself was neglected. His “Niobe,”
-one version of which is in the National Gallery, was exhibited with
-the Society of Artists’ Collection, in Spring Gardens, 1760, and made
-a great impression, but, in general, his pictures, infinitely superior
-to the mere decorations of the Italian, were criticised, and compared
-unfavorably with those of Zuccarelli, and it was not till long after
-Wilson’s death that he was thoroughly appreciated. He was often compelled
-to sell his pictures to pawnbrokers, who, so it is said, could not sell
-them again. Wilson was one of the original thirty-six members of the
-Royal Academy, and in 1776 applied for and obtained the post of Librarian
-to that body, the small salary helping the struggling man to live. The
-last years of his life were brightened by better fortune. A brother left
-him a legacy, and in 1780 Wilson retired to a pleasant home at Llanberis,
-Carnarvon, where he died two years later. Mr. Redgrave says of him:
-“There is this praise due to our countryman—that our landscape art, which
-had heretofore been derived from the meaner school of Holland, following
-his great example, looked thenceforth to Italy for its inspiration;
-that he proved the power of native art to compete on this ground also
-with the art of the foreigner, and prepared the way for the coming men,
-who, embracing Nature as their mistress, were prepared to leave all and
-follow her.” Wilson frequently repeated his more successful pictures.
-“The Ruins of the Villa of Mæcenas, at Tivoli” (National Gallery), was
-painted five times by him. In the same gallery are “The Destruction of
-Niobe’s Children,” “A Landscape with Figures,” three “Views in Italy,”
-“Lake Avernus with the Bay of Naples in the Distance,” etc. In the Duke
-of Westminster’s collection are “Apollo and the Seasons” and “The river
-Dee.” Wilson, like many another man of genius, lived before his time, and
-was forced one day to ask Barry, the Royal Academician, if he knew any
-one mad enough to employ a landscape painter, and if so, whether he would
-recommend him.
-
-
-JOSHUA REYNOLDS.
-
-Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) was born at Plympton, Devon, the son of a
-clergyman who was a master in the grammar school. His father had intended
-him for a doctor, but nature decided that Joshua Reynolds should be a
-painter. He preferred to read Richardson’s “Treatise on Painting” to any
-other book, and when his taste for art became manifest he was sent to
-London to study with Hudson, the popular portrait painter of the day. It
-was in 1741 that Joshua Reynolds began his studies with Hudson, and as
-that worthy could teach him little or nothing, it is fortunate for art
-that the connection only lasted two years. On leaving Hudson’s studio
-Reynolds returned to Devonshire, but we know little about his life there
-till the year 1746, when his father died, and the painter was established
-at Plymouth Dock, now Devonport, and was painting portraits. Many of
-these earlier works betray the stiffness and want of nature which their
-author had probably learned from Hudson. Having visited London, and
-stayed for a time in St. Martin’s Lane, the artists’ quarter, Reynolds
-was enabled, in 1749, to realize his great wish, and go abroad, where,
-unfettered and unspoilt by the mechanical arts of his countrymen, he
-studied the treasures of Italy, chiefly in Rome, and without becoming a
-copyist, was imbued with the beauties of the Italian school. A love of
-color was the characteristic of Reynolds, and his use of brilliant and
-fugitive pigments accounts for the decay of many of his best works; he
-used to say jestingly that “he came off with _flying colors_.” Doubtless
-the wish to rival the coloring of the Venetians led Reynolds to make
-numerous experiments which were often fatal to the preservation of his
-pictures.
-
-Most of the leaders of the rank and fashion of the day sat for their
-portraits to the painter who “read souls in faces.” In 1768 Joshua
-Reynolds was chosen first President of the Royal Academy, and was
-knighted by George III. He succeeded, on the death of Ramsey, to the
-office of Court Painter. His “Discourses on Painting,” delivered at the
-Royal Academy, were remarkable for their excellent judgment and literary
-skill. A lesser honor, though one which caused him the greatest pleasure,
-was conferred on Reynolds in 1773, when he was elected Mayor of his
-native Plympton. In the same year he exhibited his famous “Strawberry
-Girl,” of which he said that it was “one of the half dozen original
-things” which no man ever exceeded in his life’s work. In 1789 the
-failure of his sight warned Sir Joshua that “the night cometh when no man
-can work.” He died, full of years and honors, on February 23rd, 1792, and
-was buried near Sir Christopher Wren, in St. Paul’s Cathedral.
-
-Reynolds was a most untiring worker. He exhibited two hundred and
-forty-five pictures in the Royal Academy, on an average eleven every
-year. In the National Gallery are twenty-three of his paintings. Mr.
-Ruskin deems Reynolds “one of _the_ seven colorists of the world,” and
-places him with Titian, Giorgione, Correggio, Tintoretto, Veronese, and
-Turner. He likewise says: “Considered as a painter of individuality
-in the human form and mind, I think him, even as it is, the prince of
-portrait painters.” Titian paints nobler pictures, and Van Dyck had
-nobler subjects, but neither of them entered so subtly as Sir Joshua did
-into the minor varieties of heart and temper.
-
-
-THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH.
-
-Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788), the son of a clothier, was born at
-Sudbury, in Suffolk. The details of this master’s life are few and
-uneventful. When between fourteen and fifteen years of age, his father
-sent Thomas Gainsborough to London to study art. His first master
-was Gravelot, a French engraver of great ability, to whose teaching
-Gainsborough probably owed much. From him he passed to Hayman, in the
-St. Martin’s Lane Academy, a drawing school only. Gainsborough began as
-a portrait and landscape painter in Hatton Garden, but finding little
-patronage during four years of his sojourn there, returned to his
-native town. In 1760 he removed to Bath, and found a favorable field
-for portrait painting, though landscape was not neglected. Fourteen
-years later Gainsborough, no longer an unknown artist, came to London
-and rented part of Schomberg House, Pall Mall. He was now regarded
-as the rival of Reynolds in portraiture, and of Wilson in landscape.
-Once, when Reynolds at an Academy dinner proposed the health of his
-rival as “the greatest landscape painter of the day,” Wilson, who was
-present, exclaimed, “Yes, and the greatest portrait painter, too.” One
-of the original members of the Royal Academy, Gainsborough exhibited
-ninety pictures in the Gallery, but refused to contribute after 1783,
-because a portrait of his was not hung as he wished. A quick tempered,
-impulsive man, he had many disputes with Reynolds, though none of them
-were of a very bitter kind. Gainsborough’s “Blue Boy” is commonly said
-to have been painted in spite against Reynolds, in order to disprove the
-President’s statement that blue ought not to be used in masses. But there
-were other and worthier reasons for the production of this celebrated
-work, in respect to which Gainsborough followed his favorite Van Dyck in
-displaying “a large breadth of cool light supporting the flesh.” It is
-pleasant to know that whatever soreness of feeling existed between him
-and Sir Joshua passed away before he died. This was in 1788. Gainsborough
-was buried at Kew. The Englishness of his landscapes makes him popular.
-Wilson had improved on the Dutch type by visiting Italy, but Gainsborough
-sought no other subjects than his own land afforded. Nature speaks in his
-portraits, or from his landscapes, and his rustic children excel those of
-Reynolds, because they are really sun-browned peasants, not fine ladies
-and gentlemen masquerading in the dresses of villagers. Mr. Ruskin says
-of Gainsborough: “His power of color (it is mentioned by Sir Joshua as
-his peculiar gift) is capable of taking rank beside that of Rubens; he is
-the purest colorist—Sir Joshua himself not excepted—of the whole English
-school; with him, in fact, the art of painting did in great part die, and
-exists not now in Europe. I hesitate not to say that in the management
-and quality of single and particular tints, in the purely technical part
-of painting, Turner is a child to Gainsborough.”
-
-
-JOSEPH TURNER.
-
-Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) stands at the head of English
-landscape painters. It has been said that though others may have equaled
-or surpassed him in some respects, “none has yet appeared with such
-versatility of talent.” Turner owed nothing to the beauty or poetic
-surroundings of his birthplace, which was the house of his father, a
-barber in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden. But as Lord Byron is said to have
-conjured up his loveliest scenes of Greece whilst walking in Albemarle
-Street, so the associations of Maiden Lane did not prevent Turner from
-delineating storm-swept landscapes, and innumerable splendors of nature.
-The barber was justly proud of his child, who very early displayed his
-genius, and the first drawings of Turner are said to have been exhibited
-in his father’s shaving room. In time the boy was coloring prints and
-washing in the backgrounds of architects’ drawings. Dr. Monro, the art
-patron, extended a helping hand to the young genius of Maiden Lane.
-“Girtin and I,” says Turner, “often walked to Bushey and back, to make
-drawings for good Dr. Munro at half a crown a piece, and the money for
-our supper when we got home.” He did not, of course, start from London.
-
-In 1789 Turner became a student in the Academy, and exhibited a picture
-in the next year at Somerset House, “View of the Archbishop’s Palace
-at Lambeth.” He was then only fifteen. From that time he worked with
-unceasing energy at his profession. Indeed, the pursuit of art was the
-one ruling principle of his life. He frequently went on excursions,
-the first being to Ramsgate and Margate, and was storing his memory
-with effects of storm, mist, and tempest, which he reproduced. In 1799,
-when made A.R.A., Turner had already exhibited works which ranged over
-twenty-six counties of England and Wales. In 1802 he was made full
-Academician, and presented, as his diploma picture, “Dolbadarn Castle,
-North Wales.” In this year he visited the Continent, and saw France
-and Switzerland. Five years later Turner was appointed Professor of
-Perspective to the Royal Academy. We are told his lectures were delivered
-in so strange a style, that they were scarcely instructive. Of his
-water-color paintings and of the “Liber Studiorum” it is impossible to
-speak too highly; he created the modern school of water-color painting,
-and his works in oil have influenced the art of the nineteenth century.
-He visited Italy for the first time in 1819; again ten years later, and
-for the last time in 1840. His eccentricity, both in manner and in art,
-increased with age. Though wealthy, and possessing a good house in Queen
-Anne Street, he died in an obscure lodging by the Thames, at Chelsea, a
-few days before Christmas, 1851.
-
-Turner bequeathed his property to found a charity for male decayed
-artists, but the alleged obscurity of his will defeated this object. It
-was decided that his pictures and drawings should be presented to the
-National Gallery, that one thousand pounds should be spent on a monument
-to the painter in St. Paul’s, twenty thousand pounds should be given to
-the Royal Academy, and the remainder to the next of kin and heir at law.
-The National Gallery contains more than one hundred of his pictures,
-beside a large number of water-color drawings and sketches.
-
-
-EASTLAKE.
-
-Charles Lock Eastlake (1793-1865), son of the Solicitor to the Admiralty
-in that town, was born at Plymouth, and educated first in Plympton
-Grammar School, where Reynolds had studied, and afterward at the
-Charterhouse, London. Choosing the profession of a painter, he was
-encouraged, doubtless, by his fellow townsman, Haydon, who had just
-exhibited “Dentatus.” Eastlake became the pupil of that erratic master,
-and attended the Academy schools. In 1813 he exhibited at the British
-Institution a large and ambitious picture, “Christ raising the Daughter
-of the Ruler.” In the following year the young painter was sent by Mr.
-Harmon to Paris, to copy some of the famous works collected by Napoleon
-in the Louvre. The emperor’s escape from Elba, and the consequent
-excitement in Europe, caused Eastlake to quit Paris, and he returned
-to Plymouth, where he practiced successfully as a portrait painter. In
-1819 Eastlake visited Greece and Italy, and spent fourteen years abroad,
-chiefly at Ferrara and Rome. The picturesque dress of the Italian and
-Greek peasantry so fascinated him that for a long period he forsook
-history for small _genre_ works, of which brigands and peasants were the
-chief subjects. A large historical painting, “Mercury bringing the Golden
-Apple to Paris,” appeared in 1820, and seven years later, “The Spartan
-Isidas.” In 1828 Eastlake produced “Italian Scene in the Anno Santo,
-Pilgrims arriving in sight of St. Peters,” which he twice repeated. In
-1829 “Lord Byron’s Dream,” a poetic landscape (National Gallery), was
-exhibited, and Eastlake becoming an Academician, returned to England. To
-his labors as a painter Eastlake added the duties of several important
-offices, and much valuable literary work. He was Secretary to the Royal
-Commission for Decorating the New Palace of Westminster, Librarian of
-the Royal Academy, and Keeper, and afterward Director of the National
-Gallery. In 1850 he succeeded Sir Martin Shee as President of the Royal
-Academy, and was knighted. From that time till his death, at Pisa, in
-1865, he was chiefly engaged in selecting pictures to be purchased by the
-British Government. He was editor of Kugler’s “Handbook of the Italian
-Schools of painting,” and author of “Materials for a History of Oil
-Painting.”
-
-
-SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.
-
-Edwin Henry Landseer (1802-1873) was eminent among English animal
-painters. No artist has done more to teach us how to love animals and to
-enforce the truth that
-
- “He prayeth best who loveth best
- All things both great and small.”
-
-Not only did Landseer rival some of the Dutch masters of the seventeenth
-century in painting fur and feathers, but he depicted animals with
-sympathy, as if he believed that “the dumb, driven cattle” possess souls.
-His dogs and other animals are so human as to look as if they were able
-to speak. The painter was the son of John Landseer, the engraver, and
-was born in London. He received art lessons from his father, and, when
-little more than a baby, would sketch donkeys, horses, and cows at
-Hampstead Heath. Some of these sketches, made when Landseer was five,
-seven, and ten years old, are at Kensington. He was only fourteen when
-he exhibited the heads of “A Pointer Bitch and Puppy.” When between
-sixteen and seventeen he produced “Dogs Fighting,” which was engraved by
-the painter’s father. Still more popular was “The Dogs of St. Gothard
-rescuing a Distressed Traveler,” which appeared when its author was
-eighteen. Landseer was not a pupil of Haydon, but he had occasional
-counsel from him. He dissected a lion. As soon as he reached the age
-of twenty-four he was elected A.R.A., and exhibited at the Academy
-“The Hunting of Chevy Chase.” This was in 1826, and in 1831 he became
-a full member of the Academy. Landseer had visited Scotland in 1826,
-and from that date we trace a change in his style, which thenceforth
-was far less solid, true and searching, and became more free and bold.
-The introduction of deer into his pictures, as in “The Children of the
-Mist,” “Seeking Sanctuary,” and “The Stag at Bay,” marked the influence
-of Scotch associations. Landseer was knighted in 1850, and at the French
-exhibition of 1855 was awarded the only large gold medal given to an
-English artist. Prosperous, popular, and the guest of the highest
-personages of the realm, he was visited about 1852 by an illness which
-compelled him to retire from society. From this he recovered, but the
-effects of a railway accident in 1868 brought on a relapse. He died in
-1873, and was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral. On the death of Sir Charles
-Eastlake, in 1865, he was offered the Presidentship of the Royal Academy,
-but this honor he declined. In the National Gallery are “Spaniels of King
-Charles’s Breed,” “Low Life and High Life,” “Highland Music” (a highland
-piper disturbing a group of five hungry dogs, at their meal, with a blast
-on the pipes), “The Hunted Stag,” “Peace,” “War” (dying and dead horses,
-and their riders lying amidst the burning ruins of a cottage), “Dignity
-and Impudence,” “Alexander and Diogenes,” “The Defeat of Comus,” a sketch
-painted for a fresco in the Queen’s summer house, Buckingham Palace.
-Sixteen of Landseer’s works are in the Sheepshanks Collection, including
-the touching “Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner,” of which Mr. Ruskin said
-that “it stamps its author not as the neat imitator of the texture of a
-skin, or the fold of a drapery, but as the man of mind.”
-
-
-
-
-CRITICISMS ON AMERICAN LITERATURE.
-
-
-CONDITIONS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF AMERICAN LITERATURE.
-
-The conditions under which the communities of the New World were
-established, and the terms on which they hitherto existed, have been
-unfavorable to Art. The religious and commercial enthusiasms of the
-first adventurers to her shores, supplying themes for the romancers of
-a later age, were themselves antagonistic to romance. The spirit which
-tore down the aisles of St. Regulus, and was revived in England in a
-reaction against music, painting and poetry, the Pilgrim Fathers bore
-with them in the “Mayflower” and planted across the seas. The life
-of the early colonists left no leisure for refinement. They had to
-conquer nature before admiring it, to feed and clothe before analyzing
-themselves. The ordinary cares of existence beset them to the exclusion
-of its embellishments. While Dryden, Pope and Addison were polishing
-stanzas and adding grace to English prose, they were felling trees,
-navigating rivers, and fertilizing valleys.… An enlightened people in a
-new land “where almost every one has facilities elsewhere unknown for
-making his fortune,” it is not to be wondered that the pursuit of wealth
-has been their leading impulse; nor is it perhaps to be regretted that
-much of their originality has been expended upon inventing machines
-instead of manufacturing verses, or that their religion itself has taken
-a practical turn. One of their own authors confesses that the “common
-New England life is still a lean, impoverished life, in distinction from
-a rich and suggestive one,” but it is there alone that the speculative
-and artistic tendencies of recent years have found room and occasion
-for development. Our travelers find a peculiar charm in the manly force
-and rough adventurous spirit of the Far West, but the poetry of the
-pioneer is unconscious. The attractive culture of the South has been
-limited in extent and degree. The hothouse fruit of wealth and leisure,
-it has never struck its roots deeply into native soil.… All the best
-transatlantic literature is inspired by the spirit of confidence—often of
-over-confidence—in labor. It has only flourished freely in a free soil;
-and for almost all its vitality and aspirations, its comparatively scant
-performance and large promise we must turn to New England. Its defects
-and merits are those of the national character as developed in the
-northern states, and we must seek for an explanation of its peculiarities
-in the physical and moral circumstances which surround them.
-
-When European poets and essayists write of nature it is to contrast her
-permanence with the mutability of human life. We talk of the everlasting
-hills, the perennial fountains, the ever-recurring seasons.… In America,
-on the other hand, it is the extent of nature that is dwelt upon—the
-infinity of space, rather than the infinity of time, is opposed to the
-limited rather than to the transient existence of man. Nothing strikes a
-traveler in that country so much as this feature of magnitude. The rivers
-like rolling lakes, the lakes which are inland seas, the forests, the
-plains, Niagara itself, with its world of waters, owe their magnificence
-to their immensity; and by a transference, not unnatural, although
-fallacious, the Americans generally have modeled their ideas of art after
-the same standard of size. Their wars, their hotels, their language, are
-pitched on the huge scale of their distances. “Orphaned of the solemn
-inspiration of antiquity,” they gain in surface what they have lost in
-age; in hope, what they have lost in memory.
-
- “That untraveled world whose margin fades
- Forever and forever when they move,”
-
-is all their own; and they have the area and the expectation of a
-continent to set against the culture and the ancestral voices of a
-thousand years. Where Englishmen remember, Americans anticipate. In
-thought and action they are ever rushing into empty spaces. Except in a
-few of the older states, a family mansion is rarely rooted to the same
-town or district; and the tie which unites one generation with another
-being easily broken, the want of continuity in life breeds a want of
-continuity in thought. The American mind delights in speculative and
-practical, social and political experiments, as Shakerism, Mormonism,
-Pantagamy; and a host of authors from Emerson to Walt. Whitman, have
-tried to glorify every mode of human life from the transcendental to the
-brutish. The habit of instability, fostered by the rapid vicissitudes of
-their commercial life and the melting of one class into another drifts
-away all their landmarks but that of temporary public opinion; and where
-there is little time for verification and the study of details, men
-satisfy their curiosity with crude generalizations. The great literary
-fault of the Americans has thus come to be _impatience_. The majority
-of them have never learned that “raw haste is half-sister to delay,”
-that “works done least rapidly, art most cherishes.” The make-shifts
-which were first a necessity with the northern settlers have grown into
-a custom. They adopt ten half measures instead of one whole one; and,
-beginning bravely like the grandiloquent preambles to their Constitutions
-end sometimes in the sublime, and sometimes in the ridiculous.
-
-The critics of one nation must, to a certain extent, regard the works of
-another from an outside point of view. Few are able to divest themselves
-wholly of the influence of local standards; and this is preëminently
-the case when the early efforts of a young country are submitted to
-the judgment of an older country, strong in its prescriptive rights,
-and intolerant of changes the drift of which it is unable or unwilling
-to appreciate. English critics are apt to bear down on the writers and
-thinkers of the new world with a sort of aristocratic hauteur; they are
-perpetually reminding them of their immaturity and their disregard of
-the golden mean. Americans, on the other hand, are impossible to please.
-Ordinary men among them are as sensitive to foreign, and above all to
-British censure, as the _irritable genus_ of other lands. Mr. Emerson is
-permitted to impress home truths on his countrymen, as “your American
-eagle is all very well, but beware of the American peacock.” Such remarks
-are not permitted to Englishmen; if they point to any flaws in American
-manners or ways of thinking, with an effort after politeness, it is “the
-good natured cynicism of a well-to-do age;” if they commend transatlantic
-institutions or achievements, it is, according to Mr. Lowell, “with
-that pleasant European air of self-compliment in condescending to be
-pleased by American merit which we find so conciliating.” Now that the
-United States have reached their full majority, it is time that England
-should cease to assume the attitude of their guardian, and time that
-they should cease to be on the alert to resent the assumption. Foremost
-among the more attractive features of transatlantic literature is its
-_freshness_. The authority which is the guide of old nations constantly
-threatens to become tyrannical; they wear their traditions like a
-chain; and in the canonization of laws of taste, the creative powers
-are depressed. Even in England we write under fixed conditions; with
-the fear of critics before our eyes, we are all bound to cast our ideas
-into similar moulds, and the name of “free-thinkers” has grown into a
-term of reproach. Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” is perhaps the last book
-written without a thought of being reviewed. There is a gain in the habit
-of self-restraint fostered by this state of things; but there is a loss
-in the consequent lack of spontaneity, and we may learn something from
-a literature which is ever ready for adventure. In America the love of
-uniformity gives place to impetuous impulses; the most extreme sentiments
-are made audible; the most noxious “have their day and cease to be;” and
-truth being left to vindicate itself, the overthrow of error, though more
-gradual, may at last prove more complete. A New England poet can write
-with confidence of his country as the land
-
- “Where no one suffers loss or bleeds
- For thoughts that men call heresies.”
-
-Another feature of American literature is its _comprehensiveness_; what
-it has lost in depth it has gained in breadth. Addressing a vast audience
-it appeals to universal sympathies.—_Abridged from “American Literature”
-in Encyclopædia Britannica._
-
-
-OUR LITERATURE IMITATIVE.
-
-Literature is a positive element of civilized life; but in different
-countries and epochs it exists sometimes as a passive taste or means
-of culture, and at others as a development of productive tendencies.
-The first is the usual form in colonial societies, where the habit
-of looking to the fatherland for intellectual nutriment as well as
-political authority is the natural result even of patriotic feeling. The
-circumstances, too, of young communities, like those of the individual,
-are unfavorable to original literary production. Life is too absorbing
-to be recorded otherwise than in statistics. The wants of the hour and
-the exigencies of practical responsibility wholly engage the mind. Half a
-century ago, it was usual to sneer in England at the literary pretensions
-of America; but the ridicule was quite as unphilosophical as unjust,
-for it was to be expected that the new settlements would find their
-chief mental subsistence in the rich heritage of British literature,
-endeared to them by a community of language, political sentiment,
-and historical association. And when a few of the busy denizens of a
-new republic ventured to give expression to their thoughts, it was
-equally natural that the spirit and the principles of their ancestral
-literature should reappear. Scenery, border-life, the vicinity of the
-aborigines, and a great political experiment were the only novel features
-in the new world upon which to found anticipations of originality; in
-academic culture, habitual reading, moral and domestic tastes, and cast
-of mind, the Americans were identified with the mother country, and,
-in all essential particulars, would naturally follow the style thus
-inherent in their natures and confirmed by habit and study. At first,
-therefore, the literary development of the United States was imitative;
-but with the progress of the country, and her increased leisure and
-means of education, the writings of the people became more and more
-characteristic; theological and political occasions gradually ceased
-to be the exclusive moulds of thought; and didactic, romantic, and
-picturesque compositions appeared from time to time. Irving peopled
-“Sleepy Hollow” with fanciful creations; Bryant described not only with
-truth and grace, but with devotional sentiment, the characteristic
-scenes of his native land; Cooper introduced Europeans to the wonders
-of her forest and seacoast; Bancroft made her story eloquent; and
-Webster proved that the race of orators who once roused her children to
-freedom was not extinct. The names of Edwards and Franklin were echoed
-abroad; the bonds of mental dependence were gradually loosened; the
-inherited tastes remained, but they were freshened with a more native
-zest; and although Brockden Brown is still compared to Godwin, Irving
-to Addison, Cooper to Scott, Hoffman to Moore, Emerson to Carlyle, and
-Holmes to Pope, a characteristic vein, an individuality of thought, and
-a local significance is now generally recognized in the emanations of
-the American mind; and the best of them rank favorably and harmoniously
-with similar exemplars in British literature; while, in a few instances,
-the nationality is so marked, and so sanctioned by true genius, as
-to challenge the recognition of all impartial and able critics. The
-majority, however, of our authors are men of talent rather than of
-genius; the greater part of the literature of the country has sprung
-from New England, and is therefore, as a general rule, too unimpassioned
-and coldly elegant for popular effect. There have been a lamentable
-want of self-reliance, and an obstinate blindness to the worth of
-native material, both scenic, historical, and social. The great defect
-of our literature has been a lack of independence, and too exclusive a
-deference to hackneyed models; there has been, and is, no deficiency of
-intellectual life; it has thus far, however, often proved too diffusive
-and conventional for great results.—_Henry T. Tuckerman._
-
-
-POETRY OF AMERICA.
-
-America abounds in the material of poetry. Its history, its scenery, the
-structure of its social life, the thoughts which pervade its political
-forms, the meaning which underlies its hot contests, are all capable
-of being exhibited in a poetical aspect. Carlyle, in speaking of the
-settlement of Plymouth by the Pilgrims, remarks that, if we had the open
-sense of the Greeks, we should have “found a poem here; one of nature’s
-own poems, such as she writes in broad facts over great continents.” If
-we have a literature, it should be a national literature; no feeble or
-sonorous echo of Germany or England, but essentially American in its tone
-and object. No matter how meritorious a composition may be, as long as
-any foreign nation can say that it has done the same thing better, so
-long shall we be spoken of with contempt, or in a spirit of impertinent
-patronage. We begin to sicken of the custom, now so common, of presenting
-even our best poems to the attention of foreigners with a deprecating,
-apologetic air; as if their acceptance of the offering, with a few soft
-and silky compliments, would be an act of kindness demanding our warmest
-acknowledgements. If the _Quarterly Review_ or _Blackwood’s Magazine_
-speaks well of an American production, we think that we can praise it
-ourselves, without incurring the reproach of bad taste. The folly we
-yearly practice, of flying into a passion with some inferior English
-writer, who caricatures our faults, and tells dull jokes about his tour
-through the land, has only the effect to exalt an insignificant scribbler
-into notoriety, and give a nominal value to his recorded impertinence. If
-the mind and heart of the country had its due expression, if its life had
-taken form in a literature worthy of itself, we should pay little regard
-to the childish tattling of a pert coxcomb, who was discontented with our
-taverns, or the execrations of some bluff sea-captain, who was shocked
-with our manners. The uneasy sense we have of something in our national
-existence which has not yet been fitly expressed, gives poignancy to
-the least ridicule launched at faults and follies which lie on the
-superficies of our life. Every person feels that a book which condemns
-the country for its peculiarities of manners and customs does not pierce
-into the heart of the matter, and is essentially worthless. If Bishop
-Berkeley, when he visited Malebranche, had paid exclusive attention
-to the habitation, raiment, and manners of the man, and neglected the
-conversation of the metaphysician, and, when he returned to England, had
-entertained Pope, Swift, Gay, and Arbuthnot, with satirical descriptions
-of the “complement extern” of his eccentric host, he would have acted
-just as wisely as many an English tourist, with whose malicious
-pleasantry on our habits of chewing, spitting, and eating, we are silly
-enough to quarrel. To the United States, in reference to the pop-gun
-shots of foreign tourists, might be addressed the warning which Peter
-Plymley thundered against Bonaparte, in reference to the Anti-Jacobin
-jests of Canning: Tremble, oh thou land of many spitters and voters, “for
-a _pleasant_ man has come out against thee, and thou shalt be laid low by
-a joker of jokes, and he shall talk his pleasant talk to thee, and thou
-shalt be no more!”
-
-In order that America may take its due rank in the commonwealth of
-nations, a literature is needed which shall be the exponent of its
-higher life. We live in times of turbulence and change. There is a
-general dissatisfaction, manifesting itself often in rude contests and
-ruder speech, with the gulf which separates principles from actions.
-Men are struggling to realize dim ideals of right and truth, and each
-failure adds to the desperate earnestness of their efforts. Beneath
-all the shrewdness and selfishness of the American character, there
-is a smouldering enthusiasm which flames out at the first touch of
-fire,—sometimes at the hot and hasty words of party, and sometimes at
-the bidding of great thoughts and unselfish principles. The heart of
-the nation is easily stirred to its depths; but those who rouse its
-fiery impulses into action are often men compounded of ignorance and
-wickedness, and wholly unfit to guide the passions which they are able to
-excite. There is no country in the world which has nobler ideas embodied
-in more worthless shapes. All our factions, fanaticisms, reforms,
-parties, creeds, ridiculous or dangerous though they often appear, are
-founded on some aspiration or reality which deserves a better form and
-expression. There is a mighty power in great speech. If the sources of
-what we call our fooleries and faults were rightly addressed, they would
-echo more majestic and kindling truths. We want a poetry which shall
-speak in clear, loud tones to the people; a poetry which shall make us
-more in love with our native land, by converting its ennobling scenery
-into the images of lofty thought; which shall give visible form and life
-to the abstract ideas of our written constitutions; which shall confer
-upon virtue all the strength of principle, and all the energy of passion;
-which shall disentangle freedom from cant and senseless hyperbole, and
-render it a thing of such loveliness and grandeur as to justify all
-self-sacrifice; which shall make us love man by the new consecrations
-it sheds on his life and destiny; which shall force through the thin
-partitions of conventionalism and expediency; vindicate the majesty of
-reason; give new power to the voice of conscience, and new vitality to
-human affection; soften and elevate passion; guide enthusiasm in a right
-direction, and speak out in the high language of men to a nation of
-men.—_E. P. Whipple._
-
-
-THE THREE PERIODS OF OUR LITERATURE.
-
-The literary history of the United States may be treated under three
-distinctly marked periods, viz.: a colonial, or ante-revolutionary
-period, during which the literature of the country was closely
-assimilated in form and character to that of England; a first American
-period (from 1775 to 1820) which witnessed the transition from a style
-for the most part imitative to one national or peculiar, as a consequence
-of the revolutionary struggle and the ideas generated by it; a second
-American (from 1820 to the present time), in which the literature of the
-country assumed a decided character of originality.
-
-Though men of letters were found everywhere among the colonists, in New
-England alone, where the first printing press was established, was there
-any considerable progress made in literary culture, and the literature of
-the colonial period was chiefly confined to that locality or indirectly
-connected with it. The earliest development, owing to the religious
-character of the people, and to the fact that during the first century
-after the settlement of the country the clergy were the best informed
-and educated class, was theological. Some of the works, by Edwards and
-others, in defense of the dogmas of the church were very elaborate,
-and the positions taken maintained with much ability and acuteness of
-argument.
-
-The influence of the great English essayists and novelists of the
-eighteenth century had, meanwhile, begun to affect the literature of
-the New World; and in the essays, the collection of maxims published
-under the title of “Poor Richard,” or “The Way to Wealth,” the
-scientific papers and autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, we have
-specimens of practical philosophy, or of simple narrative expressed in
-a style eminently clear, pleasing, and condensed; and not unfrequently
-embellished by the wit and elegance characteristic of the best writers of
-Queen Anne’s time. His investigations in electricity and other scientific
-subjects are not less felicitously narrated, and together with the works
-of James Logan, Paul Dudley, Cadwallader Colden and John Bartram, a
-naturalist, and one of the earliest of American travelers, constitute the
-chief contributions to scientific literature during the colonial period.
-
-II. The earliest works produced during the first American period,
-commencing with the Revolution, are naturally associated with the causes
-which led to that event. The severance of the intellectual reliance
-of the colonies on the mother country followed as a consequence of
-their political independence, and as early as the commencement of the
-revolutionary struggle the high literary ability as well as practical
-wisdom evinced in the public documents of the principal American
-statesmen, were recognized by Lord Chatham, in whose opinion these
-productions rivaled the masterpieces of antiquity. Politics now gained
-a prominence almost equal to that enjoyed by theology in the preceding
-period. The discussions accorded thoroughly with the popular taste,
-and the influence of political writers and orators in giving a decided
-national type to American literature is unmistakable.
-
-III. The last period of American literature presents a marked contrast
-with those which preceded in the national character, as well as in the
-variety and extent of its productions. In 1820 the poverty of American
-Literature was sneeringly commented upon by Sydney Smith in the Edinburgh
-_Review_, but from that date, the political crisis being past, the
-intellectual development of the country has been commensurate with its
-social and material progress, until at the present day it can be said
-there is no department of human knowledge which has not been more or less
-thoroughly explored by American authors. In history, natural science,
-jurisprudence, and imaginative literature their efforts have not been
-exceeded by those of contemporary authors in any part of the world.
-
-The catalogue of American books, many of them having rare excellence,
-published in the last half century would fill volumes.
-
-Perhaps in her periodical literature, more than elsewhere, America
-excels. Her leading quarterlies and literary magazines are scarcely
-inferior to the best we get from Europe; while their number and
-circulation are matter of astonishment. The masses in America read
-far more than in other countries. They patronize 11,403 different
-periodicals, that have an aggregate circulation of 31,177,924. Of these
-3,637,224 are received daily, making 148,451,110 papers a year. There are
-19,459,107 papers published weekly, making 97,295,535 a year. Others are
-published semi-weekly, monthly, semi-monthly, or quarterly.—_Abridged
-from American Cyclopædia._
-
- * * * * *
-
-For when a man is brought up honorably, he feels ashamed to act basely;
-every one trained to noble deeds blushes to be found recreant; valor may
-be taught, as we teach a child to speak, to hear those things which he
-knows not; such love as the child learns he retains with fondness to old
-age—strong incitements to train your children well.—_Euripides._
-
-
-
-
-UNITED STATES HISTORY.
-
-
-THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.
-
-For twelve years after the defeat of the French, the English colonists in
-America, though suffering many things, prospered. A patriotic, vigorous
-race had possession of the new world—men who loved liberty, knew their
-rights, and dared maintain them. Their civil institutions were founded
-on liberal principles, and the sovereignty of the people recognized.
-Time and conflicting interests had somewhat weakened the ties that
-bound them to the mother country. Already numbering near two millions,
-though nominally subject to the crown they had, for generations, managed
-their affairs with more hindrance than help from the ruling class in
-Great Britain. Agriculture was the chief industry, and the products
-had become extensive; but commerce hampered by many restrictions was
-carried on awkwardly, and often with little profit to the producers.
-Manufacturing enterprises were discouraged and hindered by arbitrary
-enactments respecting them. The colonists felt the wrongs they suffered,
-but endured them till the hindrances and burdens became intolerable.
-Their complaints unheeded and their petitions spurned, nothing could
-longer delay the bold, defiant assertion of their rights, or quell the
-spirit of indignant resentment. The most thoughtful had reluctantly come
-to regard war as inevitable, and resolutely prepared to meet the demands
-that would be made on them. The differences between the home government
-and the colonists were of long standing and about matters of such vital
-interest to the latter, they could make no compromise. The king and his
-ministers claimed the right to tax, at their pleasure, two millions
-of British subjects who were allowed no representation in Parliament.
-This was denied steadily and with emphasis—every attempt to enforce,
-however indirectly, the claim was watched and defeated. Enactments that
-were regarded oppressive were either evaded or openly set at naught.
-The duties required could not be collected. No matter how plain the
-law, governors who held office by the appointment of the king could not
-enforce it, and the recusant merchants and manufacturers, if arrested and
-tried, were not convicted. Applications to the courts for warrants to
-seize goods were resisted—and neither search nor seizure was found quite
-safe for those who attempted it.
-
-In 1763 officers were directed to confiscate all merchant vessels
-engaged in what was declared unlawful trade, and English war ships were
-sent to the American coast to enforce the order. This exasperating
-measure ruined for a time trade with the West Indies, but failed to
-intimidate. The next year the odious Stamp Act was passed requiring all
-deeds, articles of agreement, notes, receipts, checks and drafts to be
-written on paper bearing the government stamp, and taxed from three
-pence to six pounds sterling, according to the purpose for which it
-was prepared. Franklin, who labored hard to prevent the passage of the
-act, was sadly disappointed and wrote to a friend at home: “The sun of
-American liberty has set—we must now light the lamps of industry and
-economy.” “Be assured,” said the patriotic friend in reply, “we shall
-light torches of another sort.” And they did. The paper was manufactured
-and sent over in large quantities, but no market was found for it. In
-New York and Boston much of it was seized and publicly destroyed, while
-whole cargoes were carried back to England. The people were thoroughly
-aroused and indignant. Crowds of excited men collected in the towns, and
-acts of violence were committed against any who proposed submission.
-The ringing words of Patrick Henry in the Virginia legislature, and the
-resolutions sent out from that body boldly declaring that the colonists,
-as Englishmen, would never submit to be taxed without representation,
-startled the people. Some were alarmed, but most expressed hearty
-approval. About the same time similar action was taken by the New
-York and Massachusetts legislatures, and the question of an American
-Congress, suggestive of a separate nationality, was agitated. The
-patriotic society known as “The Sons of Liberty” was now organized, the
-members being pledged to oppose tyranny and defend, with their lives,
-if necessary, the sacred rights of freemen. Merchants in the principal
-cities bound themselves to buy no more goods from English houses until
-the offensive act was repealed, while the people with wonderful unanimity
-resolved to deny themselves all imported luxuries. The storm that was
-seen to be gathering caused some hesitation in Parliament. The English
-manufacturers and merchants, whose products and merchandise remained
-in their storehouses, became alarmed, while a few eminent statesmen as
-Lord Camden, and Pitt in the House of Commons, espoused the cause of the
-colonists and denounced the folly of the administration. “You,” said
-Pitt in a powerful speech, “have no right to tax America. I rejoice
-that Americans have resisted.” The result was the necessitated repeal
-of the unwise measure. To cover their retreat from the position taken,
-and to conciliate the Tories, the act to repeal was accompanied with a
-declaration of “right to bind the colonists in all things whatsoever.”
-Nobody seemed to care much for their harmless declaration, and for a
-brief space there was quiet, if not peace.
-
-A year later there was a change in the ministry, and, in an hour of
-unparalleled folly, another scheme was brought forward to levy a tax in
-a slightly different form—a duty on sundry specified articles, such as
-glass, paper, printers’ colors and tea. The resentment was immediate and
-indignant. It seemed like adding insult to injury, and denunciations of
-the attempt, both in popular assemblies and by the press, were prompt
-and bitter. Early in 1768 the legislature of Massachusetts adopted a
-circular calling on the other colonies for assistance in a determined
-effort to have redress. This, more than all that orators or editors could
-say, exasperated the British lords, who in the name of the king enjoined
-the legislature to at once rescind their action, that was pronounced
-treasonable, and to express regret for such hasty proceedings. The sturdy
-Massachusetts men, who had counted the cost, were not in a temper to do
-anything of the kind, but instead they almost unanimously re-affirmed
-their action; nor would they disperse at his bidding when the Tory
-governor, with authority dissolved the Assembly. They knew the peril of
-the situation, and their great disadvantage in having among them and over
-them civil officers appointed by the king, while his armies held all the
-forts and arsenals of the country. But there was no alternative. They
-must accept a servile condition or offer manly resistance and take the
-consequences. For this they were ready, and the people ready to sustain
-them. In opposition to the governor’s edict they communicated to their
-constituents and to the other colonies their unchanging determination to
-resist the unjust demands of their lordly oppressors. This hastened the
-crisis. The exasperated governor invoked the aid of the military. And his
-friend General Gage, commander of the British forces in America, ordered
-from Halifax two regiments of regulars to strengthen the governor’s
-police. It seemed a large force for the purpose, but even they were
-not sufficient to squelch the spirit of freedom. The civil authorities
-promptly refused to provide supplies or quarters for the troops for whose
-presence they had no occasion or need. They were encamped on the common,
-and, for the purpose of intimidation, a great display was made, but it
-only imbittered the feelings of the citizens. Mutual hatred between them
-and the hired soldiers, aggravated by insults and injuries on both sides,
-soon led to open hostilities. A small company of soldiers were attacked
-by a mob, and fired, killing some and wounding others. The rage of the
-people at the occurrence knew no bounds. They became so violent that it
-was thought advisable to withdraw the troops from the city. The squad
-implicated in the massacre was indicted for murder and had a fair trial.
-This was magnanimous. The keenest sense of the injuries received did not
-make true patriots forgetful of the personal rights of those who were the
-instruments of the oppression they suffered. At the trial of the soldiers
-John Adams and Josiah Quincy, both well known as stanch advocates of the
-people’s cause, appeared for the defense, and showed that the evidence
-could only convict of manslaughter, and as it seemed in self-defense, the
-punishment should be light.
-
-Meanwhile full accounts of these disturbances were sent to England
-and caused intense excitement there. Parliament not only censured the
-colonists in strongly worded resolutions, but directed the governors to
-seize and transport to England for trial the leaders of disloyalty. The
-order was never carried out. Even after this some concessions were made
-to the demands of the colonists under the pressure of urgent appeals from
-English merchants who saw nothing but financial ruin to themselves in the
-loss of their trade with America. The duties on all articles imported
-from England were removed except on tea, and that, it was said, was
-retained simply to assert the sovereignty of the home government. This
-was an effort to conciliate those whom threats and military displays had
-failed to intimidate, but it too failed.
-
-The East India Company had large quantities of tea in their storehouses,
-and having no orders from merchants, and being assured that many
-_Tories_, as all officers and supporters of the king were called, would
-patronize them, made arrangements for carrying on the business through
-their own agents. The plan seemed to promise success. Their men were
-appointed and a number of vessels freighted and sent to America. But
-there were difficulties in the way. In New York and Philadelphia the
-consignees, though anxious for the gains promised them, became alarmed
-and dared not enter on the duties of their appointment; and the captains
-were obliged to return to England with their cargoes. In Boston the
-agents of the company refused to resign, though threatened for their
-contumacy. In the midst of the excitement three ships arrived with
-cargoes of tea. A large committee demanded that it should be taken
-away. Of course there could be no public, and the vigilance of the
-citizens prevented a secret landing. The shipmasters saw that the only
-safe course for them was to obey the will of the people, but when they
-would have departed the governor was obstinate and no clearance could
-be obtained without first landing the cargoes. Repeated meetings were
-held, the question fully discussed, when it was resolved to resist to the
-last extremity the landing of the tea. They were in mass meeting when
-the ultimatum of the governor refusing the passports was received. The
-deliberations were then at an end, and the enthusiasm knew no bounds. A
-man in the crowd suddenly gave the war whoop and a rush was made for the
-wharf. The disguised man was joined by others, perhaps twenty in number,
-who without damaging any other property emptied all the tea chests into
-the sea. The work was done speedily and without hindrance. When informed
-of these violent proceedings Parliament immediately passed the “Boston
-Port Bill,” and removed the custom house to Salem. At the same time two
-other acts were passed, that added fuel to the fire, one giving the
-appointment of all civil and judicial officers directly to the crown;
-the other providing that in any future trial for homicide or violent
-resistance of the lawfully constituted authorities, the governor might
-send the accused out of the colony for trial.
-
-In 1774 General Gage was appointed governor instead of Hutchinson.
-Personally he was much preferred to his predecessor, but coming to
-enforce the Port Bill, and having military authority the people felt that
-he was their enemy, and were ready to obstruct any measures he might
-adopt. Though Gage, with his army of regulars, was in possession, the
-organization and training of the militia proceeded with great zeal. Soon
-twelve thousand were enrolled as “Minute Men,” or civilians ready for
-military service at a moment’s notice. In the other colonies much the
-same state of things existed. The people organized, drilled and prepared
-materials of war for the common defense.
-
-In September of this year Congress met in Philadelphia. Of the
-fifty-three members in attendance nearly all were men of high standing
-in society, and already known to the country as true patriots. They were
-not an assembly of political aspirants and adventurers who, for personal
-ends, had sought the high position they filled, but representative men
-who deeply felt that the best interests, if not the very existence of the
-communities they represented demanded of them measures as prudent and
-cautious as they were firm and uncompromising. They indorsed the action
-of the Massachusetts Convention; put forth a plain, well-considered
-declaration of colonial rights; enumerated instances in which these had
-been violated; effected a more efficient opposition to any trade with
-England until satisfaction could be obtained for injuries done.
-
-The moderation yet firmness of Congress met with very general approval.
-A few were in sympathy with the government, and the Quakers condemned
-everything they thought might bring on the country the calamities of war.
-All other religious bodies, and especially the pastors of the New England
-churches, without hesitation lent all their influence to the cause of
-freedom. Parliament now decided on more violent coercive measures. The
-policy of Pitt was rejected. The colonial agents, Franklin and others,
-were refused a hearing, and large military reënforcements ordered to
-America. The crisis had come sooner than some, who thought it inevitable,
-expected, but the citizens, cut off from all their sources of prosperity
-and denounced as rebels, were ready. The British garrison in Boston was
-strong, but the suffering people were unawed, and the commander of the
-post learned with some concern of the vigorous preparations for the
-impending conflict that were progressing in all parts of the province.
-Arms and other war material were, with all possible speed, collected and
-stored in different places. It was soon learned that notwithstanding the
-presence of the army and vigilance of the officers, large quantities
-of arms and ammunition had been smuggled out of Boston and stored at
-Concord, some eighteen miles distant. General Gage thought the time
-had come to stop these movements that might cause him serious trouble,
-and eighteen hundred of his infantry were sent to seize the stores at
-Concord. The plan of that first raid was supposed to be entirely secret.
-But somehow, Dr. Warren, a prominent Boston patriot, became apprised
-of it and spread the intelligence through the country in time to have
-the stores in part removed to a safer place. The troops next morning on
-reaching Lexington, a few miles from Concord, found a company of militia
-under arms, who were ordered to disperse, a volley was fired and eight
-men killed. At Concord the minute men endeavored to keep possession of a
-bridge, but were charged and driven from it. The object of the raid was
-in part accomplished. Some stores that could not be removed in time to
-save them were destroyed, but nothing of value could be taken away. The
-“Minute Men” were, by this time, coming from all quarters, and a very
-hasty retreat was found necessary. They were exposed to a galling fire
-from riflemen concealed on both sides of the road, while others pressed
-hard on their rear. Many fell, and but for reënforcements sent out to
-meet them, the whole command might have been cut off or captured. They
-lost that day not far from three hundred men. British soldiers and their
-officers gained some new ideas of the metal of the untrained militia
-with whom they had to deal. The war was now begun, the first blood shed,
-and the call to arms was promptly answered in all parts of the province.
-In a short time there were more men gathered about Boston with their
-rifles and shotguns than could be employed. The city was besieged, and
-in the trenches, amidst intense excitement, there was enough brave
-talk of driving the British into the sea. Through all the southern and
-middle colonies the news of the opening of the campaign called forth the
-strongest expressions of sympathy and prompt assurances of support in
-the common cause. Everywhere the patriots organized for defense and for
-the seizure of such military funds and stores as might be found at posts
-not sufficiently guarded.
-
-In May, 1775, Congress met again in Philadelphia and decided that as
-war had been commenced by the mother country the most active measures
-should be taken for defense. George Washington, of Virginia, was made
-commander-in-chief, and several Major and Adjutant Generals appointed.
-
-In the meantime the forces that held Gage shut up in Boston rapidly
-increased in numbers. Stark, Putnam, Green and Arnold, with their
-militia, hastened to the scene of action, eager to avenge the wrongs of
-their fellow citizens.
-
-In another quarter the eccentric Ethan Allen, with a company of Vermont
-mountaineers, made a dash as daring and successful as any during the
-war. The attention of the patriotic leaders was turned to the fortress
-at Ticonderoga, where immense stores were collected for the use of the
-British army. Allen resolved to surprise the garrison and capture the
-place. They reached the shore of the lake opposite Ticonderoga without
-being discovered, but found the means of transportation so limited
-that only eighty men succeeded in crossing. To delay was to fail, and
-the attack must be made at once. Allen and Arnold, who had joined the
-expedition as a private, rushed into the gateway of the fort, driving,
-and entering with the sentinel, closely followed by their men. The shouts
-of the audacious assailants, already within the fort, were such as few
-garrisons had heard. Not a gun had been discharged, but Allen’s men faced
-the barracks, while he rushed to the quarters of the commandant, and
-shouted, “Surrender this fort immediately.” “By what authority?” inquired
-the astounded officer, suddenly roused from his slumbers. “In the name
-of the Great Jehovah and of the Continental Congress,” said Allen. And
-there seemed to be no alternative. A fortress that cost England millions
-of dollars was captured in ten minutes by that little band of patriots.
-Twenty cannon and a vast quantity of all kinds of military stores fell
-into the hands of the Americans.
-
-In May of this year Generals Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne arrived at
-Boston with reënforcements that increased the army holding the place
-to more than ten thousand men. General Gage, thus strengthened, became
-arrogant, issued his proclamation, denouncing those in arms as rebels,
-but offering pardon to any who would submit, excepting Adams and Hancock.
-These two, when delivered up or taken, were to suffer the penalty for
-treason.
-
-There were evident preparations for some movement from Boston—rumor said
-to burn the neighboring towns, and lay waste the country. To prevent
-this the Americans determined to seize and fortify Bunker Hill, which
-commanded the peninsula over which their enemies would seek to pass. On
-the night of the 16th of June, Colonel Prescott was sent with a thousand
-men to occupy the hill. The movement was skilfully carried out, and a
-position a little farther down the peninsula than that contemplated,
-and within easy cannon range of the city was fortified, the men working
-diligently till morning in digging trenches and constructing their fort.
-When the astonished general discovered what was done, he said: “We must
-take those works immediately.” After a fierce cannonade, that did little
-harm, the attack was made by General Howe, with three thousand regulars,
-determined to carry the works on the hill by assault. As the column moved
-forward in fine order, all the batteries within range opened fire on
-the intrenchments of the Americans, who were only about fifteen hundred
-in number, and having wrought all night, and till three p. m., were
-suffering from hunger and fatigue. Happily the gunners did not get the
-range, or much disturb those in the trenches, who reserved their fire
-till the head of the column was within one hundred and fifty feet, when,
-at the command of Prescott, every gun was discharged with deliberate
-aim. The shock was terrible. Hundreds fell, and there was a precipitate
-retreat. At the foot of the hill they were re-formed, and made a second
-fierce assault, with a like result, the men in the trenches reserving
-their fire till the enemy were close at hand. The destruction was so
-terrible that nearly all the officers fell, and the shattered column
-returned in disorder. General Clinton, who had witnessed the unexpected
-repulse, hastened to the field with reinforcements, and the third attempt
-was more successful. The provincials had but little ammunition left, and
-were unable to repel the fresh assailants. Some had already leaped over
-the breastworks, and the brave defenders of the fort withdrew. In the
-retreat the lamented Warren fell. Though defeated it was a glorious day
-for the patriots. Generals Howe and Clinton had gained a victory, but at
-fearful cost. Two more such would have nearly blotted out that splendid
-army.
-
-They dared not venture into the country, but returned to Boston and
-were still closely besieged by Washington and his army. The siege was
-so pressed that it was difficult to subsist the army there, and to save
-the city from destruction they were allowed to embark the whole army on
-transports, taking with them many Tories who had been too open in their
-friendship for the Royalists to be safe if left behind. Of that class
-there were some in almost all communities, and during the bloody years
-that followed they both suffered much and caused much suffering. In some
-sections where they were numerous the citizen conflicts between Whigs and
-Tories, or Patriots and Loyalists were characterized by great bitterness
-and unmitigated cruelty on both sides. Hundreds were slain not in battle,
-but by the hands of assassins who were neighbors, and had been friends.
-
-For nearly a year no decisive battles were fought, though there was much
-skirmishing and much suffering, destruction of property and loss of life.
-The colonists were in an anomalous condition, still confessing themselves
-British subjects, and in the Episcopal churches repeating prayers for the
-king, while doing all in their power to resist his authority and destroy
-his armies.
-
-In June, 1776, a resolution similar to that passed by the Virginia
-Assembly, was discussed in Congress with much ability, and on the 4th of
-July the memorable Declaration of Independence, drawn up by Jefferson,
-with the assistance of Franklin and others, was adopted. The preamble, as
-remarkable for its finish as for clearness and strength, commences: “When
-in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to
-dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and
-to assume among the nations of the earth the separate and equal station
-to which the laws of nature and nature’s God entitle them, a decent
-respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare
-the causes which impel them to the separation.” After such a beginning
-there follows a clear, succinct, forcible statement of the wrongs
-endured, and the contemptuous rejection of all petitions for redress.
-The conclusion reached is in the following words: “These united colonies
-are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are
-absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political
-connection between them and Great Britain is and ought to be totally
-dissolved.”
-
-For the maintenance of this declaration the signers pledged their
-property, lives and sacred honor.
-
-Hostilities were continued with, if possible, more determined energy on
-both sides. With some partial successes there followed a long series of
-disasters to the patriot cause, that at times seemed almost hopeless.
-
-In August Washington, anticipating an attack on New York, sent Putnam
-with nine hundred men to defend the place. They were defeated with heavy
-loss on Long Island. The enemy, however, did not gain much from the
-victory, as the patriots quietly crossed the river to New York in the
-night, and the victors had but possession of the island, and nothing
-more. In the city Washington himself took command, and had a large part
-of his available forces there. When the British fleet, that was expected,
-entered the harbor, any attempt further to defend the place would have
-been useless, and the patriot forces were withdrawn. Fort Washington,
-a place of great natural and artificial strength, on Manhattan Island,
-five miles from the city, was for some reason not evacuated when the
-army left, and was some time after attacked and forced to surrender. The
-assailants suffered great loss, but took the fort, and the garrison of
-two thousand men were crowded into the filthy New York military prisons.
-Washington retreated through New Jersey, closely pursued, but by great
-vigilance and skill avoided a conflict for which he was not prepared. It
-often requires more real generalship to conduct a retreat safely, than to
-make a successful assault, and the great American general, with an army
-so inferior in numbers and equipments, had much to do in that line during
-the struggle for independence.
-
-On the 8th of December he crossed the Delaware, taking with him or
-destroying all the boats within reach, and thus baffled his pursuer.
-Cornwallis found it necessary to wait for the freezing of the river, and
-reluctantly put his army into winter quarters in the nearest towns and
-villages. Two thousand Hessians, commanded by Colonel Rahl, occupied
-Trenton, and the other detachments were arranged so that all might
-proceed against Philadelphia soon as the river was bridged with ice.
-During the month Washington saw and seized the opportunity to strike
-a blow for his disheartened country. He planned to cross the river
-Christmas night, in three divisions, and attack the portion of the army
-at Trenton before daylight. The division led by the General himself and
-Sullivan succeeded, not without great difficulty because of the floating
-ice, in crossing some miles above the town. The others failed. Though
-delayed beyond the time intended, and without the support expected, the
-attempt must be made. So dividing those that were over into two bands,
-that the assault might be made on both sides at once, they approached
-rapidly. The Hessians were completely surprised, their Colonel killed at
-the first volley, and the whole regiment, thinking themselves surrounded,
-threw down their arms and begged for quarter. They were made prisoners
-of war, and before night their captors had them safe beyond the river.
-This at the time, and under all the circumstances, was an event of great
-importance, as it encouraged the soldiers and gave new hope to the
-country.
-
-Three days after, Washington with all his available force returned to
-Trenton, and on the day following, Cornwallis approached from Princeton
-with the main body of his army, determined to crush the resolute
-Americans. After much skirmishing Cornwallis attempted to force his way
-into the town, but was repulsed, and, as it was now evening, thought
-it prudent to wait for the morning. The position of the Americans,
-confronted with such superior numbers, was critical. To attempt to
-recross the Delaware was too hazardous, so it was promptly decided to
-withdraw quietly in the night, and by a circuitous route to strike the
-enemy at Princeton before his expectant antagonist could discover the
-movement. The baggage was safely removed, the campfires were lighted,
-and a guard left to keep them burning. The sentries walked their beats
-too, unconcernedly, till the morning light showed a deserted camp, and
-about the same time the roar of American cannon thirteen miles away told
-Cornwallis how he had been outgeneraled. A sharp battle was fought at
-Princeton, and Washington was again victorious, but the legions of the
-British army were within hearing. When they arrived the active enemy that
-had so annoyed and harmed them had departed, going northward. Again sadly
-disappointed, Cornwallis must needs hasten to New Brunswick, to protect
-the stores.
-
-It is impossible here even to mention the important events that followed.
-For weary months and years the terribly destructive war continued.
-Many campaigns were planned and conducted with great energy. Battles
-were fought in which the carnage was fearful. Ships were burned or
-sunk—strongholds were taken by siege or assault, and the garrisons
-defending them cut to pieces, or, as in some instances, cruelly massacred
-after they were surrendered. Towns and hamlets were burned, and large
-sections of country laid waste. For a time the greatest destruction was
-in the East and North, but when the work of death fairly commenced in
-the South blood flowed not less freely. In 1779 the principal theater of
-the war was in Georgia and the Carolinas, and the heaviest engagements
-were adverse to the Americans. Savannah and Charleston were captured and
-the whole states overrun by detachments of British soldiers who at first
-met with but little opposition. Very soon, however, the patriots, though
-unable by reason of their losses to take the field in force, renewed the
-contest under Sumter, Marrion, Pickens, and other daring leaders who
-continually harassed not only the British, but also the Tories, of whom
-there were great numbers in that region.
-
-In the North General Burgoyne, after two battles with General Gates, in
-both of which the Americans had the advantage, surrendered his whole
-army of seven thousand regulars, beside Indians and Canadians. This
-achievement, vastly important to the country, as it had influence in
-securing the powerful aid of France, gave Gates a standing higher than
-he deserved or could maintain. On account of his victory at Saratoga
-he was sent to recover South Carolina; but in his first encounter with
-Cornwallis at Camden, he was routed, with the loss of one thousand men,
-and with the remnant of his army fled to North Carolina.
-
-After obtaining aid from France, though some serious disasters were
-suffered, and the faint-hearted were at times discouraged, the cause of
-the country gained strength till final success was assured.
-
-In 1781, at Cowpens, S. C., on January 17th, General Morgan won a
-brilliant victory over the British under Tarleton; and the bloody
-battle at Eutaw Springs nearly terminated the war in South Carolina.
-In Virginia, Cornwallis, who was now opposed by La Fayette, Wayne
-and Steuben, had fortified himself at Yorktown, where he had a large
-army. Meanwhile, the American army of the North, under Washington,
-and the French army under Count de Rochambeau formed a junction on
-the Hudson which seemed to threaten an attack on Clinton in New York,
-and effectually prevented him from sending aid to the army shut up at
-Yorktown. By a sudden diversion, and before the movement was discovered,
-the allied armies, 12,000 strong, were far on their way toward Yorktown,
-and arrived without hindrance, on the 28th of September. The siege was
-but short. On the 19th of October Cornwallis surrendered, with his
-whole army of 7,000 men. This victory substantially terminated the
-conflict, and secured American independence. Thus ended the war which,
-in the language of Pitt, “Was conceived in injustice, nurtured in folly,
-and whose footsteps were marked with slaughter and devastation. The
-nation was drained of its best blood and its vital resources, for which
-nothing was received in return but a series of inefficient victories and
-disgraceful defeats; victories obtained over men fighting in the holy
-cause of liberty—defeats which filled the land with mourning for the loss
-of dear and valuable relations, slain in a detested and impious quarrel.”
-
-During the seven years of blood Great Britain sent to the war she was
-waging to subdue her colonists 134,000 soldiers and seamen. The forces of
-the United States and their allies consisted of 230,000 regular soldiers,
-and some 56,000 militia. Those who perished in battle or otherwise, by
-reason of the war, reached some hundreds of thousands; other hundreds
-of thousands were made widows or orphans, while the cost in actual
-expenditures and property destroyed must be told by hundreds of millions.
-And yet, for America, the sacrifice was not too great. The heritage of
-freedom left us is more than worth it all.
-
- [End of Required Reading for 1883-4.]
-
-
-
-
-NIGHT.
-
-By CHARLES GRINDROD.
-
-
- The sunset fades into a common glow:
- A deeper shadow all the valley fills:
- The trees are ghostlier in the fields below:
- The river runs more darkly through the hills:
- Only the Night-bird’s voice the coppice thrills,
- Stirring the very leaves into a sense.
- A witching stillness holds the breath of things.
- Earth has put on her garb of reverence,
- As when a nun within a cloister sings
- To mourn a passing soul before it wings.
- Silent as dew now falls the straight-winged Night.
- Clear overhead (God’s still imaginings),
- Shining like Hope, through very darkness bright,
- Star follows star, till heaven is all alight.
-
-
-
-
-ECCENTRIC AMERICANS.
-
-By COLEMAN E. BISHOP.
-
-
-VII.—THE WELL-BALANCED ECCENTRIC.
-
-At length we have an Eccentric American who was practical, successful,
-useful, and happy; who was a conservative radical, a laughing
-philanthropist, a non-resisting hero, a lovely fighting Quaker, the
-popular champion of an unpopular cause, and—most singular of all!—a
-Christian in fact and act, though counted a heretic by evangelicals, and
-excommunicated by his own sect. It is just because his life was gentle,
-and the elements so mixed in him, that Isaac T. Hopper takes rank as one
-of the grandest and rarest of Eccentrics. For, as the reader may know, we
-have declared from the outset of this series that the true man in a false
-world is necessarily eccentric; that uniformity is always at the expense
-of principle. “Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one
-man picked out often thousand.” And isn’t that odd?
-
-The key to this symmetrical eccentricity of friend Hopper is found
-in the counterbalancing qualities of his character. A powerful will
-was offset by a conscience equally imperative. A native bravery was
-balanced by softness of heart, so that he was at once incapable of fear
-and of cruelty; combativeness was mollified by simplicity of manner
-and frankness of speech. A genius for finesse was by an all-pervading
-benevolence and love of justice enlisted in the service of the slave
-and the convict; a lively sense of humor sweetened the austerities of
-a formal religion, softened the asperities of a life of warfare and
-informed great natural pride with geniality. With less love of abstract
-justice, he might have been a great lawyer; with less conscience and
-benevolence he might have been a great soldier; with less earnestness and
-dignity he might have been a great comedian; with less philanthropy he
-might have been a great business man; with less executive will he might
-have been a great preacher. Balanced as these qualities were, he was a
-rare Eccentric—being lawyer, soldier, comedian, business man and minister
-combined.
-
-“The boy was father of the man,” in his case. Born in 1771 to poor
-parents, farmers in New Jersey, he early made manifest extraordinary
-qualities.
-
-_Bravery._—A cosset lamb which he had reared was seized by a foraging
-party of British soldiers from Philadelphia and cast bound into their
-wagon. The lad of ten years ran and climbed into the vehicle, cut the
-cords with a rusty jack-knife, and then stoutly resisted the captors,
-until the officer in command, attracted by the outcry, rode up and
-ordered the lamb restored, out of admiration for the wee patriot’s pluck
-and devotion. He would fight any man on behalf of all of his pet animals,
-of which he always had a menagerie, caught and tamed by aid of a certain
-brute free-masonry which he possessed.
-
-_Justice._—Isaac and his brother trapped partridges. One day the former
-found one in his brother’s trap and none in his own; first removing the
-bird to his own trap he carried it home, saying he took it out of his
-trap—the little lawyer! But before morning conscience asserted itself, he
-confessed the deception and restored the game—the little justice!
-
-_Humor._—His love of mischief kept him in continual disgrace, and the
-house and school in continual turmoil—albeit his love of justice usually
-led to reparation of damages; if he got others into scrapes he was quite
-willing to shoulder the consequences; he could fill a schoolmate’s dinner
-pail with sand, and then dry all tears by giving up his own lunch. One
-night he went to see old Polly milk. Fun soon got the better of the
-boy, he got a twig, the cow got a sensation, and Polly got a surprise.
-There was a lacteal cataclysm and a _tableau vivant_; mingled strains
-of wild juvenile laughter and wilder feminine screams, accompanied by a
-rude barbaric clangor of cow-bell and tin pail. The boy went slippered
-and supperless to bed, but he lay there hungry and happy, waking the
-wild echoes of his raftered chamber with shouts of laughter over the
-persisting vision of how the maid turned pale and flew, and the cow
-turned pail and ran, with altitudinous tail and head. The artless sports
-of our childhood are often our most enduring joys, and Father Hopper
-never forgot this _chef d’œuvre_ of his childhood, though he was only
-five years old when he thus essayed the part of _Puck_; for he afterward
-secured the cow’s bell, and for fifty years used it as a dinner bell,
-refusing to substitute a more melodious, but less memorial monitor. He
-immensely enjoyed reviving at once the household and his own thoughts
-with it, and often with a sedate Quaker chuckle told the story when he
-tolled the bell.
-
-Not the least curious antithesis in this mixed character was his
-open-heartedness and cunning; his simplicity of speech and shrewdness
-of management. From the age of nine years he marketed the farm produce
-in Philadelphia, and there was known as “The Little Governor,” for
-his precocious dignity. When asked the price of a pair of fowls, he
-replied, “My father told me to sell them for fifty cents if I could, if
-not, to take forty.” He got the fifty before he would part with them,
-however—just as, years on, he would frankly give up his plans to an
-antagonist and still beat him.
-
-Isaac’s sympathy with the enslaved was aroused as early as the age of
-nine by listening to the harrowing narrative of a native African captive;
-and he was only sixteen years old when he assisted to liberate a slave
-who had acquired the right of freedom by residence in Philadelphia.
-The lad was at that time apprentice to a tailor, his uncle, in the
-city. Slavery still existed in all the states of the union, though
-the movement for its gradual abolishment had been begun in several of
-them. Pennsylvania had taken a long step in this direction by enacting
-the gradual emancipation of her own citizens’ slaves, and decreeing
-that any slave from another state, coming by his owner’s consent into
-Pennsylvania and there abiding continuously for six months, should be
-free; and that any slave landing there from a foreign country should
-immediately become free by that fact. It was in enforcing this law, as
-also in preventing the kidnaping of free negroes from Pennsylvania, that
-Hopper soon distinguished himself. Philadelphia became a modern city
-of refuge, and Friend Hopper a recognized deliverer of fugitives and
-freedmen, from either Southern or Northern states. It is thus a fact, not
-often remarked as to the relation of human slavery to our government,
-that the first blows at the institution were the work of state rights;
-and that the remedy provided for this trenching of one state upon the
-institutions of another, in the fugitive slave law of Fillmore’s time,
-was an encroachment of federal power over the previously reserved rights
-of the states. The National Anti-Slavery Society was formed many years
-later; the national conscience was not yet quickened on this question;
-but Philadelphia had even then a local anti-slavery society, and with
-it Friend Hopper identified himself. He made himself master of all
-the laws, findings, decisions and proceedings relating to slavery and
-manumission, as well as, incidentally, an adept in the proverbially
-intricate Pennsylvania laws of contracts, property, evidence, and
-general processes, so that he soon became the best authority thereon
-in Philadelphia. In fact, he was the embodiment of that enigma which,
-it is alleged, could “puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer.” His standing in
-court became so well recognized that no lawyer was anxious to take a
-case against him. “You had better consult Mr. Hopper,” said a judge to a
-veteran counselor who asked his opinion on a slave case before him, “he
-knows more law on these cases than you and I both together.” “I thought
-I knew something of law, but it seems I do not,” said a magistrate
-petulantly, upon being tripped up in a slave case by Friend Hopper, a
-layman. The latter did not scruple to use in behalf of freedom all the
-technicalities and delays of law; and his craft in these devices was
-not the less effective because his openness of manner made him seem an
-unsophisticated and rather simple fellow. His dignity, simplicity and
-directness of speech in quaint Quaker phraseology, compelled the respect
-of courts and won the confidence of juries. If needs were he would
-procrastinate and continue a case in court three or four years, until the
-master would tire out and sell the manumission of the slave for a nominal
-sum. In case of attempted kidnaping he took the aggressive against the
-abductors, and forced them to pay roundly for the benefit of the negroes;
-generally those who came to carry off others were glad enough to escape
-themselves. Hopper and other friends advanced large sums of money for
-the purchase of manumissions, which were invariably repaid, in part or
-entire, from the subsequent earnings of the freedmen.
-
-Unbroken success at length brought Friend Hopper a factitious reputation,
-insomuch that it was difficult to enlist Philadelphia officers of law
-heartily against him; if a magistrate reluctantly granted a process, the
-constables more timidly executed it. “Did you say I dared not grant a
-warrant to search your house?” demanded the Mayor upon one occasion.
-
-“Indeed I did say so, and I now repeat it,” rejoined the imperturbable
-Quaker. “I am a man of established reputation; I am not a suspicious
-character.” (This was what the world calls “bluffing.” The slave was at
-that moment locked in his house.)
-
-“Is not this man’s slave in your house?” asked the Mayor.
-
-“Thou hast no right to ask that question, friend Mayor. A man is not
-bound to inform against himself. Thou well knowest the penalty for
-secreting a slave.”
-
-Getting no evidence sufficient for a search-warrant, his house was
-watched day and night for a week. Friend Hopper, with perfect urbanity,
-tendered the planter the use of his warm parlor as a guard-house, for
-the nights were cold. This was surlily refused. In the morning he had a
-good hot breakfast prepared for the shivering men outside, but they dared
-not accept it. They had learned that Hopper was most dangerous when most
-agreeable, and feared a trick from the gift-bearing Greek. A ruse _was_
-preparing for them. At night a free colored man was employed to run out
-of the house. The guard sprang out of their hiding and seized him, but
-immediately released him on perceiving their mistake. Hopper arrested
-them and put them under peace bonds. This made them cautious. The next
-night the same negro made another rush and was not stopped. The third
-night it was the slave who did the rushing; he ran past the irresolute
-guard and escaped to other hiding, until Hopper could negotiate his
-manumission with the discouraged master.
-
-On one occasion he instituted a fictitious suit for debt against a
-freedman in order to gain time to secure evidence of his freedom. On
-another, he offered to become bound _to the United States_ for the
-return of a slave to court, and the simple magistrate so entered the
-recognizance. When the day came Hopper was there but the slave was not,
-and magistrate, owner and lawyer for the first time discovered that the
-bond was worthless, as the United States could not be a party to it.
-Again he entered into an undertaking to produce a slave or pay $500 for
-his freedom—after his master had once before agreed to free him for $150.
-He produced the slave, and professed to have failed in raising the $500,
-and demanded the return of his bond. The slave, previously instructed, as
-soon as the bond touched Hopper’s hand, bolted and escaped by a back door
-and an alley. The master was so furious at this trick that he assaulted
-several free colored people, for which he was arrested and threatened
-with such heavy penalties that he was glad to remit the $150 first
-promised him for a bill of manumission, and to pay some damages to the
-other negroes besides.
-
-“There is no use trying to capture a runaway slave in Philadelphia,”
-exclaimed an irate and discouraged master. “I believe the devil himself
-could not catch them when they once get here.”
-
-“That is very likely,” answered Friend Hopper with a twinkling eye; “but
-I think he would have less difficulty in catching the masters, being so
-much more familiar with them.”
-
-In dealing with so desperate a class of men as usually made a business
-of man-chasing, incensed as they were by his successful tactics, Hopper
-was often in extreme peril, and he always showed a coolness and dexterity
-equal to the most daring of them. His adventures and escapes outdo
-romance. After making all allowance for supposed consciousness of the
-weakness of a bad cause on the part of his antagonists, and the moral
-effect of his name; after picturing his insensibility to fear, his calm,
-good-natured, and dignified bearing, and above all, that remarkable
-will-power, under which officers in the rightful discharge of their
-duties had been known to surrender to him—maugre all this, it seems
-wonderful that in the hundreds of cases he had to do with, he neither
-used force nor (save once) suffered by force. It seems as if there could
-have been found some one man in the United States cool enough to face
-down or reckless enough to strike down this man of peace—but there was
-not. It must have been the power of passiveness, the irresistibleness
-of non-resistance. “The weak alone are strong.” This is Scriptural
-eccentricity. Even in this world of force he who, when smitten on one
-cheek, can turn the other, may conquer—though this is a definition of
-success by cheek that is not usually accepted.
-
-The solitary occasion upon which Friend Hopper suffered violence was when
-a posse of kidnapers guarding a negro threw him bodily from a second
-story window. Though severely hurt, as it afterward turned out, he gained
-a reëntrance, and while the guard were yet congratulating themselves on
-being well rid of him, he walked into the room, cut the captive’s bonds
-and secured his escape. He seemed to bear a charmed life, and when years
-later he went to Europe, he found the reputation of a wizard had preceded
-him.
-
-These efforts lasted during his forty years’ residence in Philadelphia,
-and continued after his removal to New York (1829). Not less than one
-thousand persons owed their escape from servitude to him, some of them
-becoming useful members of society. One was a missionary to Sierra Leone,
-one a bishop, several were preachers and teachers. So this one tailor
-made nine men multiplied an hundred fold.
-
-He made other than black men. His labors in behalf of prison reform and
-for the raising of fallen men and abandoned women, and the relief of the
-unfortunate, if less exciting, were not less apt to draw our admiration
-and sympathy. The story of “The Umbrella Girl,” which has traveled the
-rounds of the press for forty years, is a good example of his tact in
-conducting a delicate case to a happy end; one hardly knows which most
-to admire, the goodness or the shrewdness of the philanthropist. His
-biography, by Lydia Maria Child, abounds in narratives of these acts; it
-would make an admirable Sunday-school library volume.
-
-His success in reclaiming the lost and despairing was largely due to two
-beautiful traits, viz.: his confidence in human nature and his patient
-long-suffering. Seventy and seven times could he forgive and lift again
-a brother, because he believed there was an imperishable spark of the
-divine there. He was accustomed to say that there was not one among the
-prisoners in the Philadelphia penitentiary with whom he would be afraid
-to trust himself alone by night with large sums of money in his pocket.
-
-His biographer tells the following in point:
-
- One of the prisoners, who had been convicted of manslaughter,
- became furious, in consequence of being threatened with a
- whipping. When they attempted to bring him out of his dungeon
- to receive punishment, he seized a knife and a club, rushed
- back again, and swore he would kill the first person who came
- near him. Being a very strong man, and in a state of madness,
- no one dared to approach him. They tried to starve him into
- submission, but finding he was not to be subdued that way, they
- sent for Friend Hopper, as they were accustomed to do in all such
- difficult emergencies. He went boldly into the cell, looked the
- desperado calmly in the face, and said, “It is foolish for thee
- to contend with the authorities, thou wilt be compelled to yield
- at last. I will inquire into thy case. If thou hast been unjustly
- dealt by, I promise thee it shall be remedied.” This kind and
- sensible remonstrance had the desired effect. From that time
- forward he had great influence over the ferocious fellow, who was
- always willing to be guided by his advice, and finally became one
- of the most reasonable and orderly inmates of the prison.
-
-Charity for convicts was truly eccentric in that day. The general
-sentiment regarding prisoners and prison management was far different
-from what it now is. It was with great difficulty that consent could be
-got to even hold religious services in prison; the authorities declaring
-that the prisoners would rise, kill the minister, escape in a body, and
-burn and kill indiscriminately. At the first service (1787) they had
-a loaded cannon mounted on the rostrum, by the side of the messenger
-of Christ, a man standing by with lighted match during the prayer and
-preaching, the prisoners being carefully arranged in a solid column
-in front of the cannon. Thus was accompanied the first preaching to
-prisoners in this country. Deplorable as was their situation behind the
-bars, their punishment was hardly less after their release. “Who passes
-here leaves hope behind” might have been written over the prison door
-outside and inside. (Was the North then more humane in its regard of
-convicts than the South was in its regard of slaves? In which respect has
-public sentiment more improved, and in what states most?)
-
-Among the insane, too, he was a missionary. He had the clairvoyant sense
-to understand, and the mysterious power to control them, such as made
-him when a boy a tamer of wild animals. In fact, among all the depraved
-and unfortunate elements of society his face was a benediction, his
-tones pulsated hope, his hand lifted to better lives. I fancy that his
-cheery, hearty, homely, sympathetic presence came from the feminine side
-of his nature, while the strong uplift and commanding presence came from
-the masculine side; and that he seemed both mother and father to the
-unfortunate; to be a representative of both home and heaven. The grandest
-natures that walk the earth are these congenital marriages, combinations
-of the two sexes in one person. The weakest, those which are only
-masculine or only feminine.
-
- “The bravest are the tenderest,
- The loving are the daring.”
-
-Friend Hopper’s appearance was much in his favor in this work. His erect
-form, jet black, curly hair, plain, rich Quaker costume, and dignified
-port made him conspicuous in a crowd. But his face was the study. Its
-lines mingled of strength and tenderness gave it that representation
-of benign efficiency which sculptors and limners try to give to their
-personifications of divine attributes. Humboldt’s was one of those
-faces—and I remember once seeing some children, constructing a “play”
-world, paste a likeness of Humboldt to the ceiling. When asked what that
-was for, they explained with perfect sincerity and reverence, “That is
-God.” Happy the childhood that hath received such beautiful conceptions
-of the All Father! It was often remarked that Hopper’s face bore a strong
-resemblance to that of Napoleon Bonaparte. Joseph Bonaparte, when he
-resided at Bordentown, frequently commented on the remarkable likeness,
-and declared that Isaac T. Hopper could easily excite a revolution in
-Paris.
-
-In 1829 Friend Hopper had reduced himself to insolvency by the
-expenditure of money and time on behalf of others, and he closed his
-tailoring business at Philadelphia, removed to New York, and accepted
-the agency for the publications of the Anti-Slavery Society. Here his
-activity in behalf of slaves got him worse enmity than in Philadelphia it
-did. New York’s commercial interests made her a Northern stronghold of
-pro-slavery sentiment. The press was violent against the Abolitionists,
-the courts were unfriendly, and “Judge Lynch” more than once summarily
-adjudicated their cases. One of these mobs directed their attack toward
-Friend Hopper’s store, after having sacked several places. He was
-apprised of the danger but refused to budge, to call in help, to close
-his doors, or to put up his shutters. He received the howling rioters,
-standing impassively on the steps. Not a word was uttered on either
-side; the mob stopped its course there, because the sight of its master
-compelled it to pause, and presently it passed on to other spoliation.
-It was quite fit that in the same city twenty-five years later, the mob
-which hung negroes to lamp posts and burned colored orphan asylums should
-single out the house of Isaac T. Hopper’s daughter for destruction, while
-she was away nursing soldiers in the hospitals!
-
-The commercial spirit of slavery invaded every interest of society
-and every church. Even the Quakers became infected, insomuch that
-Friend Hopper and others were tried and expelled the society for their
-connection with anti-slavery publications. Thus the persecuted sect of
-old turned persecutors. This was the severest penalty this Eccentric
-was called on to pay for his adherence to his work; for he loved the
-faith and associations of his fathers. It was he who remained orthodox
-and regular, however, and the society which became eccentric to true
-Quakerism; they narrowed and declined. “His character grew larger and his
-views more liberal, after the bonds which bound him to a sect were cut
-asunder,” says his Quaker biographer; “it is astonishing how troublesome
-a living soul proves to be when they try to shut it up within the narrow
-limits of a drowsy sect.” He lived to be solicited to return to the
-society, and to decline a connection with a church which he thought had
-abandoned its own faith and practice.
-
-In New York Friend Hopper also continued his work on behalf of
-prisoners and offenders. Public interest at length awoke; the Prison
-Association was formed, and organized efforts began in that direction.
-Father Hopper was made its agent, and he became a very active one,
-for though seventy-four years old, his movements were as elastic, his
-spirit as young, and his hair as unstreaked of white as ever. In the
-legal relations of this work, Friend Hopper was frequently before the
-legislature and the governor of the state, and his appeals uniformly
-secured ameliorations of law or pardon of convicts. “Friend Hopper, I
-will pardon any convict whom you say you conscientiously believe I ought
-to pardon,” said Governor Young. Hopper always addressed his excellency
-as “Esteemed friend, John Young,” and the Governor in reply adopted the
-Quaker “thou” and “thee.” When he was seventy-eight years old the Prison
-Association struck a bronze medallion likeness of Hopper, from the fine
-portrait by the artist Page, representing him raising a prisoner from the
-ground, and bearing the striking text:
-
- “To seek and save that which was lost.”
-
-No one this side of the White Throne knows how many he was instrumental
-in rescuing from worse than death. One whom he had lifted from prison,
-from the insane asylum, from the gutter many times, and at last made a
-safe, good, and happy woman, thus wrote him:
-
- “Father Hopper, you first saw me in prison, and visited me. You
- followed me to the asylum. You did not forsake me. You have
- changed a bed of straw to a bed of down. May heaven bless and
- reward you for it. No tongue can express the gratitude I feel.
- Many are the hearts you have made glad. Suppose all you have
- dragged out of one place and another were to stand before you at
- once! I think you would have more than you could shake hands with
- in a month; and I know you would shake hands with them all.”
-
-Isaac T. Hopper’s democratic spirit was one of the most conspicuous of
-his minor traits. It was founded in his natural lack of reverence and
-intense love of justice, and fostered by his religious training and
-political experience. He came honestly by it. His mother revealed it in
-her parting injunction to him upon his leaving home: “My son, you are
-now going forth to make your own way in the world. Always remember that
-you are as good as any other person; but remember also that you are no
-better.” Fowler, the phrenologist, made a happy guess when he said of
-Hopper:
-
- “He has very little reverence, and stands in no awe of the powers
- that be. He is emphatically republican in feeling and character.
- He has very little credulity; he understands just when and where
- to take men and things.”
-
-How remarkable was the benevolence of a man thus keen-sighted for human
-defects, and immovable by human excellence, that he became so great a
-philanthropist; but for this counterbalance of sympathy and justice he
-would have been a cynic—with his keen wit, a satirist. His democratic
-manners showed more conspicuously in the old country than here. The
-following incidents illustrate his irreverence and coolness:
-
- When in Bristol, he asked permission to look at the interior of
- the cathedral. He had been walking about some little time when
- a rough looking man said to him in a very surly tone, “Take off
- your hat, sir!”
-
- He replied very courteously, “I have asked permission to enter
- here to gratify my curiosity as a stranger. I hope there is no
- offense.”
-
- “Take off your hat!” rejoined the rude man. “If you don’t, I’ll
- take it off for you.”
-
- Friend Hopper leaned on his cane, looked him full in the face,
- and answered very coolly, “If thou dost, I hope thou wilt send
- it to my lodgings; for I shall have need of it this afternoon. I
- lodge at No. 35, Lower Crescent, Clifton.” The place designated
- was about a mile from the cathedral. The man stared at him as
- if puzzled whether he were talking to an insane person or not.
- When the imperturbable Quaker had seen all he cared to see, he
- deliberately walked away.
-
- At Westminster Abbey he paid the customary fee of two shillings
- sixpence for admission. The doorkeeper followed him, saying, “You
- must uncover yourself, sir.”
-
- “Uncover myself,” exclaimed the Friend, with an affectation of
- ignorant simplicity. “What dost thou mean? Must I take off my
- coat?”
-
- “Your coat!” responded the man, smiling. “No, indeed, I mean your
- hat.”
-
- “And what should I take off my hat for?” he inquired.
-
- “Because you are in a church, sir,” answered the doorkeeper.
-
- “I see no church here,” rejoined the Quaker. “Perhaps thou
- meanest the house where the church assembles. I suppose thou
- art aware that it is the _people_, not the _building_, that
- constitutes a church, sir?”
-
- The idea seemed new to the man, but he merely repeated, “You must
- take off your hat, sir.”
-
- But the Friend inquired, “What for? On account of these images?
- Thou knowest Scripture commands us not to worship graven images.”
-
- The man persisted in saying that no person could be permitted
- to pass through the church without uncovering his head. “Well,
- friend,” rejoined Isaac, “I have some conscientious scruples on
- that subject; so give me back my money and I will go out.”
-
- The reverential habits of the doorkeeper were not quite strong
- enough to compel him to that sacrifice; and he walked away
- without saying anything more on the subject.
-
- When Friend Hopper visited the House of Lords, he asked the
- sergeant-at-arms if he might sit on the throne. He replied, “No,
- sir. No one but his majesty sits there.”
-
- “Wherein does his majesty differ from other men?” inquired he.
- “If his head were cut off, wouldn’t he die?”
-
- “Certainly he would,” replied the officer.
-
- “So would an American,” rejoined Friend Hopper. As he spoke he
- stepped up to the gilded railing that surrounded the throne,
- and tried to open the gate. The officer told him it was locked.
- “Well, won’t the same key that locked it unlock it?” inquired he.
- “Is this the key hanging here?”
-
- Being informed that it was, he took it down and unlocked the
- gate. He removed the satin covering from the throne, carefully
- dusting the railing with his handkerchief before he hung the
- satin over it, and then seated himself in the royal chair.
- “Well,” said he, “do I look anything like his majesty?”
-
- The man seemed embarrassed, but smiled as he answered, “Why, sir,
- you certainly fill the throne very respectably.”
-
- There were several noblemen in the room, who seemed to be
- extremely amused by these unusual proceedings.
-
-Father Hopper lived verily to a “green old age.” On his eightieth
-birthday he thus wrote to his youngest daughter, Mary:
-
-“My eye is not dim, nor my natural force abated. My head is well covered
-with hair, which still retains its usual glossy, dark color, with but few
-gray hairs sprinkled about. My life has been prolonged beyond most, and
-has been truly a chequered scene. Mercy and kindness have followed me
-thus far, and I have faith that they will continue with me to the end.”
-
-A few months later, going to visit a discharged convict for whom the
-association had built a shop far up in the city, Friend Hopper took a
-fatal cold. It was a long and painful sickness, but he restrained his
-tendency to groan by singing, and said: “There is no cloud. There is
-nothing in the way. Nothing troubles me.” His heart was with his past
-work. His son-in-law wrote: “Reminiscences are continually falling from
-his lips, like leaves in autumn from an old forest tree; not, indeed
-green, but rich in the colors that are of the tree, and characteristic. I
-have never seen so beautiful a close to a good man’s life.” On the last
-day he said: “I seem to hear voices singing, ‘We have come to take thee
-home.’” And again he spoke low to his daughter, “Maria, is there anything
-peculiar in this room?” “No; why do you ask that question?” “Because,”
-said the dying patriarch, “you all look so beautiful; and the covering
-on the bed hath such glorious colors as I never saw. But perhaps I had
-better not have said anything about it.”
-
-His last act was characteristic. Calling for his box of private papers
-he took out one and asked to have it destroyed, lest it should do some
-injury. He confided to his eldest daughter as a precious keepsake a
-little yellow paper, fastened by a rusty pin; it was the first love
-letter of his first love, her mother, written when she and he were
-fourteen years old, children in school. Love of justice and love of love
-in his last breath!
-
- * * * * *
-
-Truth is the source of every good to gods and men. He who expects
-to be blest and fortunate in this world should be a partaker of it
-from the earliest moment of his life, that he may live as long as
-possible a person of truth; for such a man is trustworthy. But that
-man is untrustworthy who loveth a lie in his heart; and if it be told
-involuntary, and in mere wantonness, he is a fool. In neither case
-can they be envied; for every knave and shallow dunce is without real
-friends. As time passes on to morose old age, he becomes known, and has
-prepared for himself at the end of his life a dreary solitude; so that,
-whether his associates and children be alive or not, his life becomes
-nearly equally a state of isolation.—_Plato._
-
-
-
-
-WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THE INEBRIATES?
-
- Synopsis of a lecture delivered on Saturday, April 12, in the
- National Museum, at Washington, D. C., by Dr. W. W. Godding, in
- charge of the Government Hospital for the Insane at Washington,
- D. C.
-
-
-The profound interest which I feel for this subject is in sympathy with
-certain words of Terence: “I am a man, and nothing that concerns a man
-do I deem a matter of indifference to me.” This sentiment is to be
-commended to the scientists of the Christian era. Entitled, then, to the
-grave consideration of humanity, is the miserable inebriate. The study
-of this subject has both a biological and anthropological bearing. The
-former defines the protoplasm—the wonderful beginning of existence—the
-subject in hand demonstrates the destructive oxidation of the soul in the
-presence of alcohol, the deterioration of vital energy, and a misspent
-life. Again, the anthropologist studies man in his present and primeval
-existence, delving into burial mounds and bone cases to spell out the
-lessons learned by each succeeding generation in the great struggle for
-existence.
-
-Of man it has been written: “How noble in reason! how infinite in
-faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action,
-how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a God!” But by saturating
-his brain with whiskey, how soon would the godlike man become debased
-lower than the meanest brute. Truly here in the nineteenth century—not
-in the old red sandstone or in the silurian beds—but right here in this
-day appears what might be called the “missing link” in anthropological
-studies.
-
-What is to be done with the inebriate? Prohibition, total abstinence, and
-women’s crusades have struggled with the demon of drunkenness, but its
-throne has not yet been demolished. Its dominion was set up among men
-long before the Macedonian conqueror, with heel planted upon the neck of
-a prostrate world, was vanquished by it, and its temples were already
-hoary when the old Roman worshiped Bacchus under the vines. In the
-history of the world it has been more potent than Christianity in winning
-the savage tribes, and at the same time has done more to depauperize
-Christian nations than all other calamities put together. The subject
-of intemperance and its cure present the most important social problem
-of the day for both philanthropist and legislator. However, much good
-has been brought about by the moral forces of society and the benevolent
-organizations, toward the extinction of the vice, yet it seems that
-its utter annihilation is entirely beyond the reach of all influences.
-Shakspere well described this lurking remnant of a vice not wholly to be
-controlled, when he said, “I have lost the immortal part, sir, of myself,
-and what remains is bestial.” There has been too much nonsense in dealing
-with the inebriate. The world has laughed too long at the noisy, reeling
-comedy daily enacted on our streets, and is unmindful too often of the
-corresponding silent tragedy taking place at home. Patient women are not
-unfrequently found wearing away in gloom what might have been a happy
-life, looking for the daily return of a drunken husband. Many a death is
-attributed in the obituary columns of our papers to Bright’s disease, or
-pneumonia, when in reality whiskey should take all the blame.
-
-The indiscriminate commitment of the inebriate to the hospital for the
-insane is a grievous wrong. Genuine cases of a real insanity, resulting
-from dipsomania, are indeed to be found, but it is absurd to class any
-considerable portion of the inebriates in this category. The hospital
-for the insane is, however, preferred to the workhouse, as announcing
-less publicly the disgrace of the victim, and therefore it is that
-dipsomania is so often stretched into insanity. With some physicians
-inebriety is confounded with insanity, while others deny the existence
-of an insanity whose sign is a passion for drink, and accordingly fail
-to distinguish dipsomania from drunkenness or crime. These points need
-not, however, be discussed in a lecture intended to treat the subject
-socially. Social science asks whether this inebriety is a crime or
-a disease. The law classes drunkenness among crimes, and sends the
-offenders to penal institutions; but how often do friends, unwilling
-to see the victims of intemperance committed with the felons, bring to
-bear on the case powerful arguments to show that the mind is diseased,
-and thus have him transferred from the gaol to the lunatic asylum, where
-he is evidently out of place as soon as the fumes of alcohol have left
-the brain. Inebriety is both a crime and a disease, and owing to a want
-of recognition of this truth on the part of philanthropists, much work
-and intended good have been wasted. When it is regarded by the law as
-an _iniquitous disease_, and provided for by the law with a _curative
-punishment_, then will the community at large be afforded a relief which
-might also effect the recovery of the victim.
-
-As to the vices of drunkenness and opium consumption, women are probably
-as much addicted to the latter as men, while drunkenness counts many
-more victims among the males. The former is a social vice, the latter a
-solitary evil. The latter injures none but the consumer, leaving out of
-consideration its power to unfit the mind for business, and thus injure
-the other members of the family. Through persistent indulgence in opium
-the mind at last suffers more surely than from alcohol. The love of opium
-often originates in a physician’s prescription of an opiate for the
-relief of pain. That is a grave responsibility, but it is inexcusable
-that the patient is allowed to renew the prescription at will, and long
-after the immediate necessity for its use has passed away. The antidotes
-so commonly used as “opium cures” are nothing but disguised morphine,
-and the poor wretch instead of conquering his love for opiates allows
-them to get a firmer and surer hold upon him. Such nostrums as “Collins’s
-cure” and “Hoffman’s antidote” should be analyzed by a chemist directed
-by state authorities, and the amount of morphine contained in them be
-published to the world. Prolonged treatment in proper homes, where the
-victims of opium can be protected against themselves, is the only radical
-cure.
-
-The dipsomaniac is often to be found in the full vigor of youth; a man
-rejoicing in a magnificent physique, and showing no external signs of
-impairment. He may have talent and wit, and be high in the social scale.
-But behind the mask something is found to be lacking. His liver, clogged
-with fatty deposit, is disordered, the coats of the stomach are more or
-less burnt out, dyspeptic symptoms are apparent. The man becomes moody
-and irritable if deprived of his stimulant, while gout and neuralgia
-perhaps add themselves to the list of symptoms. The most marked result
-probably is the utter absence of the natural instincts of rectitude and
-morality. His whole confession of faith might be summed up in the words
-of Byron: “Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; the best of life is but
-intoxication.”
-
-If the dipsomaniac be sent to the hospital, it is noticed that,
-while recovering from the immediate effects of his revels there is a
-condition of unstrung nerves, with marked depression of mind. As his
-normal activity is restored through rest, proper food and abstinence
-from stimulants, there appear peculiar intellectual and moral phases
-characteristic of the inebriate. He speaks of his indulgence as a thing
-of the past; blames everybody but himself for his excess; declares that
-it is the result of a dose of Plantation Bitters (perhaps) taken as a
-cure for an attack of cholera morbus, at the suggestion of a friend
-who declared they contained no alcohol; treats the matter as something
-which could never possibly happen again—in fact, regards it as an
-unfortunate mistake. He declares that the idea of being detained as a
-lunatic is absurd, and repugnant to his feelings, and probably will soon
-actually have the effect of converting him into a lunatic; that it is
-absolutely necessary for him to go and attend to his business. He will
-never forget the physician’s kindness, and departs apparently cured.
-His actions remind me of the poor Indian who came to the missionary
-and began repeating the names of the twelve apostles, adding those of
-the patriarchs and Old Testament worthies, and anxious to enlarge upon
-Biblical literature; but when the astounded missionary exclaimed, “What
-does all this mean?” the Indian promptly replied “Whiskey.”
-
-I have pictured the dipsomaniac as I myself have known him. There are, of
-course, cases in which the victim is thoroughly convinced of his folly
-and sin, and radically cured. That is the exception, however, and not the
-rule. The grave question then has to be considered—“What shall we do with
-the inebriates?” Are they to be sent back to their families, because the
-law allows a man’s house to be his castle, in which he has a right to do
-as he pleases? The inebriate has no such right. Whether sick or criminal,
-such a man is a nuisance, and should be put down. The law should confine
-him, however, not as a disturber of the peace, not as a terror to wife
-and children, nor as a dangerous man to the community, but he should be
-restrained and punished because he is a confirmed inebriate, with the
-hope that the punishment will cure his disease and depravity. If sent
-to the insane hospital it should be as an inebriate, not as a lunatic,
-and a separate building and enclosed grounds should be provided for this
-class. The law should provide for his prolonged detention and compulsory
-labor. The victim, if a minor, should be sentenced for the remainder of
-his minority. It is an open question whether the will power of a drunkard
-ever, indeed, attained its majority. If over twenty-one years of age, the
-first offense should be limited to perhaps one year; but should a second
-commitment be necessary, then for a term of years, discretionary power
-being left with the court, under the advice of the authorities of the
-institution.
-
-Insufficient period of detention, lack of legal power to detain, and
-absence of authority to inflict compulsory labor, has prevented much good
-being done by inebriate asylums. It is the province of legislation to
-invest the court and authorities of inebriate asylums with these powers.
-Unfortunately, there is a fourth drawback to the permanent cure of the
-inebriate—one which is outside of the control of legislation—namely: a
-general indisposition to reform, a perfect atrophy of moral sense, an
-instinctive return, like “the dog to his own vomit,” of the inebriate to
-his cups. After the law has endued the authorities of inebriate asylums
-with all desired power, the essential element of their cure then comes
-in, and that is sound medical treatment. Asylums conducted in this manner
-would be able to record quite as large a proportion of good recoveries
-as the insane hospitals. Would there be anything cruel in subjecting
-the patient to compulsory labor, or in detaining him for a long period?
-Surely not; his freedom before the right time would only mean a return
-to vice and sloth, while his labor could probably be made to pay for
-his maintenance in the asylum. Not until savants take an interest in
-this subject will public sentiment be gained, legislation in its behalf
-enacted and, in fine, a glad release from this state of bondage be
-attained.
-
- * * * * *
-
-It is a foe invisible which I fear—an enemy in the human breast which
-opposes me—by its coward fear alone made fearful to me; not that which,
-full of life, instinct with power, makes known its present being; that
-is not the perilously formidable. Oh, no! it is the common, the quite
-common, the thing of an eternal yesterday, which ever was and evermore
-returns—sterling to-morrow for it was sterling to-day; for man is made
-of the wholly common, and custom is his nurse. Woe then to them who lay
-irreverent hands on his old house furniture, the dear inheritance from
-his forefathers! For time consecrates, and what is gray with age becomes
-religion. Be in possession, and thou hast the right, and sacred will the
-many guard it for thee.—_Schiller._
-
-
-
-
-CLIMATE-SEEKING IN AMERICA.
-
-By GEO. ALFRED TOWNSEND.
-
-
-As nations rise in wealth, comfort and communications, they discover
-that the simplest of all things, mere climate or air, is of the greatest
-value. The English race paid early attention to this question and seized
-upon the sheltered positions, the _spas_ and baths as places of resort
-both for weak systems and for luxurious existence. Religion itself
-conveniently placed its miracles and chapels where the best climate or
-the most healing waters were found.
-
-Soon after America was discovered there spread through the most
-successful nations a belief in a Golden Spring, an El Dorado, and this
-was pursued notably in Florida, where many yet believe that the most
-golden spring is to be found, as its season hardly begins till February
-or March, and is used to offset a lingering winter and the angry winds of
-the northern sea coast country.
-
-One of the most notable instances of seeking a climate in our colonial
-history is that of Sir William Johnson, who lived among the six nations
-of Indians about the Mohawk, and being a portly man with European habits
-of life, he found his old age, in spite of his active and military
-youth, affected by gouts and by the heavy stagnant air of the limestone
-valleys in which he lived, and he was one of the first Americans to
-select at once a seacoast resort and the mineral springs. We need not
-repeat the story of how the Indians, among whom he married, concluded in
-their affection for him to show him their celebrated mineral spring, and
-took him on a litter through hidden paths to the Tufa rock of Saratoga,
-where he, the first of white men, saw the reflection of his face in the
-meteoric water there. It is not as well known that Sir William Johnson
-also made himself a road to the sea beach, near New London, where he went
-in summer, not for mineral water, but for sea air, which he esteemed so
-much more valuable.
-
-Climate, indeed, is one of the most important subjects to be considered
-by superior men, and the earliest travelers in this country noted down
-where they escaped the insects, where the nights were cool, where the
-trade winds blew, etc. The oranges of Florida, for instance, were noted
-by the old Spanish chroniclers as the finest that grew in their immense
-dominions, and that perfection is kept up to the present time.
-
-General Washington, a man of good condition, was one of the early
-annual seekers for a pleasant climate, which he found west of the North
-Mountain, about Berkeley Springs, where he had a hut built, and for
-years repaired there with his chicken cocks and horses. When he went
-through Virginia as a young surveyor, he observed the differences in the
-temperature, and in the humidity, and located some of the best springs
-and resorts in the Old Dominion. When Washington first visited Saratoga
-he endeavored, at once, to purchase the tract enclosing the few sources
-at that time known, so much was he impressed with the superiority of the
-climate of New York in summer over that of Virginia.
-
-Mr. Jefferson, who was one of the best amateurs in the country at all
-sorts of subjects, although he lived on the top of a mountain above
-the tidewater region, and in sight of other peaks, would not spend his
-summers at home about Charlottsville, but had a road cut far into the
-west and built himself a sort of lodge called Poplar Forest, in the high
-country about Lynchburgh; it was a brick house on a slope, one story
-high in front and two stories high in the rear, of octagon shape, with a
-portico in front and a veranda in the rear. To this spot Jefferson went
-both in summer and in autumn to escape his political followers, and to
-think, read and sleep.
-
-Jefferson was one of the earliest weather prophets in this country and
-in his works are found many references to the American climate, of use
-to any future climatologist. About 1805 he wrote to Mr. Volney, the
-philosopher: “In no case does habit attach our choice or judgment more
-than in climate. The Canadian glows with delight in his sleigh and snow,
-the very idea of which gives me the shivers. The changes between heat
-and cold in America are greater and more frequent, and the extremes
-comprehend a greater scale on the thermometer in America than in Europe.
-Habit, however, prevents these from affecting us more than the smaller
-changes of Europe affect the European, but he is greatly affected by
-ours. As our sky is always clear and that of Europe always cloudy, there
-is a greater accumulation of heat here than there in the same parallel.
-The changes between wet and dry are much more frequent and sudden in
-Europe than in America, for though we have double the rain, it falls in
-half the time. Taking all these together, I prefer much the climate of
-the United States to that of Europe, and I think it a more cheerful one.
-It is our cloudless sky which has eradicated from our constitutions all
-disposition to hang ourselves, which we might otherwise have inherited
-from our English ancestors. Still, I do not wonder that a European should
-prefer his grey to our azure sky.”
-
-This description in the main holds good to our time, although social
-causes have increased here the tendency to suicide, though perhaps the
-ratio of suicide is no greater in America now than it ever was. If we add
-dueling, which was a form of suicide, to the regular cases of suicide, I
-have my doubts whether more Americans make away with themselves now than
-in the early days. I happen to think of one signer of the Declaration
-of Independence who died from mental excitement over signing that
-instrument, of another who was poisoned, and of a third who was killed by
-a fellow patriot in a duel.
-
-Jefferson also noted in 1809, under “Cultivation,” the changes in the
-American climate, in a letter to Dr. Chapman: “I remember,” said he,
-“that when I was a small boy, say sixty years ago, snows were frequent
-and deep in every winter, to my knee very often, to my waist sometimes,
-and that they covered the earth long. And I remember while yet young to
-have heard from very old men that in their youth the winters had been
-still colder, with deeper and longer snows. In the year 1772 we had a
-snow two feet deep in the Champagne parts of this state, and three feet
-in the counties next below the mountains. But when I was President the
-average fall of snow for the seven winters was only 14½ inches, and the
-ground was covered but sixteen days in each winter on an average of the
-whole. I noticed the change in our climate in my ‘Notes on Virginia,’
-but since that time public vocations have taken my attention from the
-subject, nor do I know of any source in Virginia now existing, from which
-anything on climate can be derived. Dr. Williamson has written on the
-subject, and Mr. Williams in his ‘History of Vermont’ has an essay on the
-subject of climate.”
-
-Addressing Mr. Louis E. Beck at Albany, N. Y., in 1824, when he was a
-very old man, Jefferson said:
-
-“I thank you for your pamphlet on the climate of the West; although it
-does not yet establish a satisfactory theory, it is an additional step
-toward it. My own was perhaps the first attempt to bring together the
-few facts then known, and suggest them to public attention, and they
-were written before the close of the revolutionary war, when the western
-country was a wilderness untrodden but by the feet of the savage or the
-hunter. It is now flourishing in population and science, and after a few
-more years of observation and collection of facts, they will doubtless
-furnish a theory of their climate. Years are requisite for this, steady
-attention to the thermometer, to the plants growing there, the times of
-their leafing and flowering, its prevalent winds, quantities of rain and
-snow, temperature of fountains, animal inhabitants, etc. We want this,
-indeed, for all the states, and the work should be repeated once or twice
-in a century to show the effects of clearing and culture toward changes
-of climate.”
-
-Thus promptly did our early scholars and sages watch the climatic
-relations of the country to its population and vitality. These “Notes
-on Virginia,” which Jefferson wrote during the Revolution, contain
-five years’ instrumental observation on rain, heat and wind taken at
-Williamsburgh, the tidewater capital, which is about forty miles from
-Fortress Monroe, which latter place has since become a winter resort. He
-computed that we had forty-seven inches of rain annually, considerably
-more than fell in Europe, but a much larger proportion of sunshine than
-there, only half as many cloudy days as in France and Germany, and the
-statesman says about the Alleghany Mountain region, of which Chautauqua
-Lake is an outpost:
-
-“It is remarkable that proceeding on the same parallel of latitude
-westerly, the climate becomes colder in like manner as when you proceed
-northerly. This continues to be the case until you attain the summit
-of the Alleghany, which is the highest land between the ocean and
-the Mississippi. From thence, descending in the same latitude to the
-Mississippi, the change reverses, and, if we may believe travelers, it
-becomes warmer there than it is on the same latitude on the sea side.
-On the higher parts of mountains, where it is absolutely colder than it
-is on the plains on which they stand, frosts do not appear so early by
-a considerable time in autumn, and go off sooner in the spring than on
-the plains. I have known frost so severe as to kill the hickory trees
-round about Monticello, and yet not injure the tender fruit blossoms
-then in bloom on the top and higher parts of the mountain. A change in
-our climate is taking place very sensibly, and both heats and colds are
-becoming much more moderate, within the memory even of the middle-aged.”
-
-General Washington, it may not be generally known, kept all his early
-diaries on the blank leaves of the “Virginia Almanac,” which was printed
-at Williamsburgh, showing that he watched the weather as if it were a
-part of public life.
-
-Washington came to the vicinity of Chautauqua Lake in 1753, when he was
-scarcely of age, and this journey makes his earliest diary. He went
-from Williamsburgh to Fredericksburgh, thence to Alexandria, thence to
-Winchester in the valley of Virginia, thence to Cumberland, Maryland,
-and down the Monongahela River and up the Alleghany to French Creek, or
-the Venango. All the land was then a wilderness. Washington reported
-from hearsay, at Venango, that there were four forts, the first of them
-on French Creek near a small lake, the next on Lake Erie about 15 miles
-from the other, from which it was 120 miles to the fort at the falls of
-Lake Erie. From the fort on Lake Erie to Montreal was about 600 miles,
-which the French only required four weeks to traverse in good weather.
-Washington noted the good land about Venango and the extensive and rich
-meadows, one of which was four miles in length. When Washington was
-interested in connecting Lake Erie with the waters of the Ohio by a
-canal, he was very explicit in addressing General William Irvine about
-the climate traits of Chautauqua Lake; this General Irvine was a doctor
-born in Ireland and settled at Carlisle, Pa., and he was among the first
-men to understand the climate of Lake Erie, and he managed to get for
-Pennsylvania a frontage on this lake.
-
-In the pursuit of climate, it is probable that the first movements were
-made by the people of the populous states of Virginia and Pennsylvania.
-Any one who possesses a library of travels in America, conveying
-successive pictures of our social life from colonial times down to the
-day of railroads, will discover numbers of perished watering places.
-
-For instance, about the time of the Revolution, the chief summer resorts
-in Pennsylvania were about York, as at York Springs, and I possess
-pictures of old log hotels at some of these resorts, where the outspurs
-of the Blue Mountains gave a little altitude above the surrounding
-plains. The wounded soldiers in the Revolution were sent up to Ephrata
-and Litiz and Bethlehem, where the air was good and nurses were to be had.
-
-These Blue Mountains were not ascended until 1716, when Governor
-Spotiswood of Virginia undertook to find where the rivers of that state
-had their fountains, and he took an ensign in the British army and
-went to the frontier, where he was joined by some gentlemen and some
-militia rangers, about fifty in all, with pack-horses and much liquor,
-and this little army started out from near the site of the battle of
-Chancellorsville, and it took them a week to get to the top of the Blue
-Ridge at Swift Run Gap, thirty-six days after the Governor had left
-Williamsburgh. They went down into the Shenandoah Valley and called
-that flowing river the Euphrates. So much delighted was Spotiswood with
-the air and scenery of the mountains that he instituted an order of
-knighthood called the Tramontane order.
-
-Such was the beginning of human knowledge of the Alleghanies, nearly 170
-years ago. The lives of three not very old men would have spanned from
-that day to this. The nearest approach of that Alleghany range, of which
-the Blue Ridge was the first parallel, to the great interior lakes of
-North America, is at Chautauqua. At this lake the Alleghany ridge, which
-divides the sources of the Ohio valley from the great lakes, is between
-800 and 1400 feet high, every hill arable, and the earliest settlers
-observed how quickly the apples, pears and plums succeeded in the mild
-climate. They were surprised to find, at an altitude of more than 1300
-feet above the ocean, a noble sheet of water 20 miles long. Some of the
-earliest settlers in this region came from the Blue Mountain country,
-buying their land from the Holland Land Company of New York, of which
-William H. Seward was long the attorney. Some of the first settlers
-pitched their cabins about 1803.
-
-It is understood that Chautauqua Lake was first navigated about 1782,
-when the Revolutionary war was almost done and the battle of Yorktown had
-been fought. Desirous of keeping up some show of hostility, about 1800
-British and Indians were sent to recapture Pittsburgh, and they launched
-their canoes on this lake, but their spies came back and told them that
-the Americans were on the lookout. Earlier than this, about 1752, when
-the French resolved to seize on the head waters of the Ohio, they left
-Niagara Fort by water in April and got to a place they called Chadacoin
-(undoubtedly Chautauqua) on Lake Erie, where they began to cut timber
-and prepared to build a fort, but their engineer coming on afterward put
-a stop to it, saying that the Chautauqua River was too shallow to carry
-out any craft with provisions to the Ohio. The man who had begun building
-the fort, M. Babeer, was so much pleased with the spot that he insisted
-on continuing his work, and he demanded that his opponent give him a
-certificate to excuse himself to the governor for not selecting so good a
-place. Consequently the fort was built at Erie, or Presqu’Ile.
-
-The region about Chautauqua Lake is therefore, in an imperial sense,
-the oldest in America, the neighborhood for which two great empires
-contended, and at the time the French were meditating the seizure of
-these high lands and water-courses, twelve Virginians, two of whom were
-named Washington, formed the Ohio Company, before the year 1750.
-
-Thus a third of a century only elapsed between the discovery of the Blue
-Ridge and the enterprises to connect the Alleghanies and the lakes on the
-part of two distinguished nations.
-
-The high lands and hills about Chautauqua were familiar objects to the
-subjects of Louis XV. on their way to meet the adolescent Washington,
-and young Jumondville, who fell before Washington’s night assault, had
-cooled his fevered eyes on the green forests of the Chautauqua summits.
-In forty-six years more, old General Wayne, who used this region as the
-base of observations against the Indians of Michigan and Ohio, closed
-his eyes almost within sight of the Chautauqua hillocks, and, while his
-body was still lying in the fort where he breathed his last, Commodore
-Perry was building a crude navy to sweep Lake Erie of the British. Perry
-came through New York state to Lake Ontario, from thence went to Buffalo
-and took a sleigh on the ice for Erie, also passing within sight of the
-high knobs of Chautauqua. Several of his vessels went from the region
-of Buffalo, and at the age of twenty-seven this young officer won a fame
-hardly surpassed in the naval history of the New World.
-
-The influence of the lake and western climate on the seamen and soldiers
-who visited it was almost immediately seen in their location hereabout
-and settling of many towns on the southern shore of Lake Erie, and if
-both sides of this lake were American, there seems to be little doubt
-that it would now be approaching the time of being the greatest center
-of population in the New World. That center has been driven down the hot
-Ohio valley by the limitations of our boundary, which giving not American
-soil to the north of Lake Erie, has reluctantly abandoned the cool summer
-air and clear fine winters of the lakes for the hot limestone inclosures
-of the streams to the south.
-
-Yet the present growth of towns along Lake Erie shows with what alacrity
-the populations of the lower West precipitate themselves against the
-shores of the lake. Cleveland is growing faster than Cincinnati. Detroit,
-long retarded by a _habitant_ population, is growing faster than
-Louisville. Toledo is growing faster than Wheeling. Buffalo has almost
-outgrown its more ancient neighbor of Pittsburgh. Chicago and Milwaukee
-stride ahead of St. Louis and Memphis. When the summer comes and the
-great national conventions choose their places of meeting, they benefit
-by experience, and both assemble the same year at Chicago to get the air
-of the lakes instead of sweltering in St. Louis or Cincinnati.
-
-The fine climate about Chautauqua is in much a matter of altitude.
-Proceeding either east or west from this point, the shores of the lakes
-lie comparatively flat, and in the state of Ohio there is but one
-eminence sufficient to be called a mountain, and that is the Little
-Mountain not far from Painesville, a mere knob only about 200 feet above
-the plain, and ten miles back from Lake Erie. Even here some comfort can
-be had by the inhabitants of the plain, and a hotel was built at least
-fifty years ago.
-
-The rise of public biography on the southern shore of Lake Erie has not
-been overlooked by the general reader; Garfield, Giddings, Wade, General
-McPherson, Hon. Henry B. Payne, Governor Todd, William Howells, Chief
-Justice Waite and many others are among the men whose minds have been
-lifted by the breezes from the lake, and which have already begun to
-display an energizing character attracting the attention of the whole
-country.
-
-It has only been eighty-eight years since the first surveyors landed
-at Conneaut to survey the military lands of Connecticut and organize
-northern Ohio. When they pulled their boats ashore, which they had taken
-from Buffalo up the lake, they were so touched with their improved health
-that they moored on the beach, had prayer together and resolved to make
-the first day in the West a holiday. Mr. Harvey Rice in his recent
-history of the Western Reserve says: “The day was remarkably pleasant
-and the air bracing, and they partook of an extemporized feast with
-a keen relish, and gave for one of the toasts, ‘May these fifty sons
-and daughters multiply in sixteen years sixteen times fifty.’” Seven
-weeks after this picnic the site of Cleveland was selected for a city.
-Twenty-two years after that the first steamboat starting from Buffalo
-passed within sight of Chautauqua and entered the harbor of Cleveland and
-went on to Detroit.
-
-I have been almost an extensive traveler in the United States, not like
-commercial travelers, merely visiting the towns and trading points, but
-the scenery and the health resorts. About twenty-four years ago I went
-on the press and the vocation of special correspondent was then just
-rising into consideration, and I threw myself toward it, desiring to
-gratify “the lust of the eye” by my newspaper facilities. Even before I
-left school I had tramped through the Alleghany mountains, through the
-Sinking Spring valley, the Seven mountains and the fountain town called
-Bellefonte, in the heart of the Alleghanies. Next I went through the
-Lackawanna and Wyoming valleys, visited the old resorts in the lap of
-Pennsylvania under the Blue Mountains, and in the midst of the war was
-a battle correspondent at such places as the Fauquier White Sulphur
-Springs. Next, lecturing opportunities took me through New York state and
-the West, and I visited Fredonia twice, in the vicinity of Chautauqua
-Lake, and there heard of the beautiful region almost overhanging it, on
-the highlands. With renewed opportunities I have been in California,
-about Los Angeles, and at Santa Barbara, and in southern Georgia and
-Florida, and in Cuba, at the Hot Springs of Arkansas, on the summits
-of the Osage mountains where the trade wind blows, at Springfield and
-through the Indian territory, and at San Antonio, in Texas, with smaller
-journeys to Oaklands and the Green Brier White Sulphur Springs, on the
-Alleghany tops and the Peaks of Otter, and along all our coasts as far as
-Mount Desert and New Brunswick, and several times in the White Mountains,
-down the St. Lawrence to the sea and out the Northern Pacific railroad,
-and I miss no opportunity, when I can afford it, to extend my information
-of places and people.
-
-This is only said in answer to your request to give some idea of the
-relative quality of the air about Chautauqua Lake. I have seen no place
-where the air is so pure and the nights so agreeable anywhere along our
-lakes, and the spot seems almost arranged by nature with a reference to
-the anticipated arrangement of the people and the lines of communication
-in this republic.
-
-When you consider that the low grade railroad route to the West must
-turn the Alleghany mountains to the North and use the limited space
-between those mountain spurs and the lake to reach the West without
-unnecessary expenditure of steam power, it would seem that Chautauqua
-Lake had been adjusted to the coming lines of travel, and we already have
-the Lake Shore, the Nickel Plate, the Erie, and the different Alleghany
-River lines, with more lines soon to come, to connect the Lehigh, the
-Lackawanna, the West Shore, and kindred systems with the great West.
-
-Surely the spot is most agreeable for health and enjoyment to the great
-homogeneous people who are nearly evenly divided in numbers by the
-Alleghany range. The Alleghany mountains have hardly commenced their
-material development, and being full of coal, oil, iron, and the more
-precious minerals, the time is approaching when that mountain range will
-contain on its slopes the densest population in America, and its mineral
-resources be worked from the vicinity of Buffalo to Alabama.
-
-My brother, Doctor Ralph M. Townsend, who was a surgeon connected with
-the medical schools of Philadelphia, and also a writer, was taken ill
-about ten years ago and compelled to search up and down the world for
-a climate in which to live. He tried Algiers, the south of France, the
-Bahamas, the Bermudas, Central America, Lower California, Colorado, and
-finally died in the Adirondack mountains, which he thought might allow
-him, in the dry air, to safely winter there. He did not like Florida,
-thought it was too damp, considered the southern part of California to be
-subject to winds, took cold in Colorado, which hastened his death, and
-finally considered that the northern climates were the most reliable. His
-vital power was almost spent when he came to this conclusion.
-
-I was recently talking to General Pike Graham, a retired officer of the
-United States army and a native of Virginia, about the relative climate
-of Europe and America. He said that he had spent within a very few years
-three full winters abroad, and had tried almost all the resorts in the
-South of Europe, and he considered that the United States was much better
-situated for climate. He did not think Florida was a good climate, being
-too low and subject to changes and to dampness, but regarded southwestern
-Texas as perhaps the best he knew. I haw talked to other travelers who
-consider the City of Mexico to have the best air they know of on the
-continent.
-
-It is of advantage to an invalid to have a resort from which the
-surrounding world of men is attainable. That accounts for Fortress Monroe
-in the winter, with probably an inferior climate, absorbing much of the
-best travel to Florida. It is softer than any indentation to the north
-of the Chesapeake, and can be reached by a husband, or brother, or wife,
-from any of the great centers of the North in a very little time. The
-same is the case with Chautauqua Lake; it is only a night from the East,
-and a night and a day from the far West. A large portion of the American
-people can visit it without taking rail at all, using the steam lines on
-the St. Lawrence and the great lakes. It is especially a summer climate
-and the foliage of western New York in the autumns is not equaled on the
-globe, at least not in the temperate zones. The finest autumn tints I
-ever recollect to have seen are in western New York, where the character
-of the trees assimilates to the ardor of the foliage, and the maples and
-poplars almost imitate the finery of the Indians who once dwelt in their
-region.
-
-The Western States do not possess the variety of the East in coasts,
-hills, spas, and scenery; much of the Mississippi valley is limestone
-hill or flat plain, bare of mountains, and the first cool and lovely spot
-reached from the West is on the lofty headwaters of the Ohio, near Lake
-Erie. Following the Lake Shore to the westward I do not know of a single
-spot to be found like Chautauqua, though one should go as far as Duluth,
-where I have been also in the time of its prosperity, about 1872; the
-heat at Duluth, though so much farther to the north, was much greater
-in midsummer than it is on the Chautauqua uplands. Indeed, the heat of
-the American summer penetrates almost every resort, and I have known at
-Saratoga some of the most stagnant days of my life. A perfectly cool
-climate is not obtained along our coasts till one gets to New Brunswick,
-about St. John, and the coolness there has the drawback of heavy fogs and
-a moisture exceeding Ireland.
-
-My brother, already referred to, possessed more special intelligence on
-this subject than myself, and at the commencement of his sickness he
-began a series of letters to the _Medical and Surgical Reporter_, where
-I read at the outstart this sentence: “My languor and lassitude from May
-until July was followed by a slight attack of laryngitis. I grew thinner
-daily. A week in July at the high, dry country estate of a friend did
-bring some increased strength and appetite, but a second week at Cape May
-brought on a severe attack of bronchitis. Recovering partly from this,
-two weeks were spent at Saratoga and Lake George with the effect of again
-bringing me home with a bronchial attack, and the last straw was finally
-attained by taking my boy to Atlantic City for his health. I had hardly
-come within smell of the salt marshes at this place when my bronchial
-trouble was brought back with redoubled intensity.”
-
-He goes on to say that his doctor, Professor Da Costa, ordered him to
-find a new climate at once, as a deposit had already made its appearance
-in both lungs. This was just ten years ago, and in the month of October,
-he says: “Of the many different medical friends who came to say good-bye
-and add hearty wishes for my recovery, scarcely two united on the same
-place as the one best suited for me to go to.”
-
-My brother’s letters, continued for several months and written just
-before his death, grappled with the question of a climate after severe
-experience. He found Mentone “the most crowded of all places with
-invalids, and the least deserving of patronage of any place long the
-Riviera.” “If you get into a carriage in front of a hotel on a beautiful
-sunshiny day you protest against taking an overcoat in the absolute
-heat, but when you turn a corner into a shady street or get on the shady
-side of a wall or hill and let the sun be temporarily obscured, you must
-quickly draw close your overcoat and pull a robe over your lap. I do not
-recommend Nice as a winter climate except by comparison, and I would
-never halt on the north shore of the Mediterranean if it were in my power
-to reach Egypt or Algeria.”
-
-He kept a diary, wherever he went, of the condition of the weather, and
-Europe is almost invariably written “cloudy,” “chilly,” “raw,” “showery,”
-or “rain.” He thought much better of Algiers, where he stayed fifty-nine
-days, but how few persons can afford to go to Algiers—“and even there,”
-he says, “ten days were partially or wholly cloudy, and on eleven
-days we had continuous rains or showers, one of the rainy days being
-characterized by a smart hail storm.” This was between January and March.
-
-Santa Barbara is probably the best indorsed wintering place on the coast
-of California. I went ashore there from a ship, and found a small town,
-partly of frame houses and partly of Mexican huts, with a dull mongrel
-life, hardly relieved by an old mission house a mile or so in the rear
-of the town; the invalids looked like banished people, and had then such
-infrequent access to the outer world that their eyes seemed yearning
-toward their homes in Chicago or elsewhere. The element of society and
-of change and life is more necessary than medicine to a desponding and
-invalid nature. That is the great trouble with the majority of American
-resorts, which are neither large enough to accommodate the crowd in the
-high season, nor near enough to the channels of travel in any season.
-There can not be, for example, a more wretched place than the Hot Springs
-of Arkansas, even in the height of the season, which is in late winter
-and spring; the close ragged valley with a sewer running through the
-middle of it, alternately a stench and deluge, and the series of raveled
-hotels wherein gambling is the chief occupation, where the rain is
-frequent and at times seems constant, and the natural life of the place
-is hard and outlaw like, and it takes about twenty-four hours to get
-anywhere in the current of mankind.
-
-San Antonio, which has a good climate, has not a hotel fit for a
-person to inhabit who is acquainted with the comforts of the table.
-Though situated considerably inland, it is subject to what are called
-“northers,” or cold storms, that often bring hail, and advance upon the
-place with the rapidity of a spirit of ice and snow. Almost all those
-southern resorts are too warm for summer tourists, and this is the case
-at the Green Brier Sulphur Springs, notwithstanding its high altitude;
-the nights are cold, but mid-day is often exhausting.
-
-About Oakland, in Maryland, is a cool climate, and the summit there has
-become something similar to Chautauqua Lake, having groups of hotels
-about six miles apart, and between them in the glades is a kind of
-religious camp settlement.
-
-The interior of New York state, as at Cooperstown, is agreeable in the
-nights, but the limestone soil retains a portion of its heat and the days
-are often sultry.
-
-The White Mountains have the disadvantage of remoteness from any
-considerable centers of population and are not upon the main highways
-of travel. It takes a whole day to go to the mountains from Boston, and
-many of the resorts there are distant from the railroad, and must be
-reached by livery teams, which slowly climb to the altitudes, and affect
-the patience and also increase the cost of living. The days are often
-very cold. I was in the White Mountains last summer, and undertook to
-walk from my hotel down to the village of Franconia, in plain sight. I
-generally found that the heat spoiled my linen and brought me back to the
-hotel used up.
-
- * * * * *
-
-For my own part I am fully persuaded that the most powerful goddess,
-and one that rules mankind with the most authoritative sway is Truth.
-For though she is resisted by all, and ofttimes has drawn up against
-her the plausibilities of falsehood in the subtlest forms, she triumphs
-over all opposition. I know not how it is that she, by her own unadorned
-charms, forces herself into the heart of man. At times her power is
-instantly felt; at other times, though obscured for awhile, she at last
-bursts forth in meridian splendor, and conquers by her innate force the
-falsehood with which she has been oppressed.—_Polybius._
-
-
-
-
-A DREAMY OLD TOWN.
-
-By EDITH SESSIONS TUPPER.
-
-
-To Chautauquans the name Chautauqua means one thing; and yet I believe
-that anything pertaining to Chautauqua county must of necessity be of
-interest to the thousands who know and love the beautiful lake which
-bears the name. To this end has this rambling sketch of the oldest town
-in the county been prepared. It lies only seven miles away from _the_
-Chautauqua; at just the right distance for a day’s excursion from that
-point, when the student’s head, bewildered by so many good things,
-demands and needs a day’s rest and diversion. The drive is a delightful
-one, passing through the pretty little village of Mayville and over
-the hills, from one of which one gets a view of two lakes, beautiful
-Chautauqua flashing and sparkling under the mid-summer sun, glorious
-old Erie rolling his blue waters with slow and majestic movement. Then
-descending these hills one comes into the pleasant valley and into the
-dreamy old town. It has been said of it, that one-half of it is dead and
-the other half gone to its funeral, but to the tired heart and brain its
-peaceful quiet comes as a whiff of salt air or a breeze from mountain
-heights. With natural advantages equal to those of many noted watering
-places, it is somewhat of a mystery why the sleepy old place has never
-awakened and found itself famous.
-
-But it lies, sleeping beauty that it is, dreaming, shut in by a range of
-dark green hills on one side and by the waters of the bluest of all the
-great lakes on the other. There are a few factories and mills within its
-precincts, but somehow no whirr of machinery nor other sound ever comes
-from them to break the stillness, which is Sabbath-like every day. It
-boasts of three railroads, but each at a respectful enough distance from
-the town, so that the faint shriek of the locomotive alone causes the
-sojourner to remember that far away, somewhere, outside, there is such
-a thing as a busy, noisy, bustling world. It is the home of solidity,
-respectability, and wealth. A place in which erring human nature finds
-it very easy to be good; in which the old-fashioned virtues of sobriety,
-temperance, and hospitality hold sway; in which no more reckless
-amusements than lawn tennis and teas, with an occasional reception at one
-of the many beautiful homes, or a clam-bake on the shores of the lake are
-permitted; a thoroughly drowsy old town.
-
-Westfield, the oldest town of the famous Chautauqua county, New York
-state, lies on the shore of Lake Erie, fifty-seven miles west from
-Buffalo. It is a garden of the gods on a small scale. Lying back one mile
-and a half from the lake, it receives its breezes at exactly the right
-temperature. It is never too hot in summer; rarely too cold in winter.
-
-The town is divided by a deep picturesque gorge, through which Chautauqua
-Creek runs, and whose sides are now high and rocky, now a bewildering
-and beautiful mass of wild grapevines, chestnut and willow, and shrubs
-of nearly every variety and description. It is spanned at seemingly the
-most inaccessible places by various bridges and ah! the beauty of that
-deep chasm on an autumn day, when it is ablaze with the color of maple
-leaf and sumach and golden rod. This gorge deepens and widens, grows more
-wild and gloomy as it runs back among the Chautauqua hills, until it
-culminates in a most remarkable freak of nature, known the country round
-as the “Hog’s Back,” of which a description will be given further on.
-
-The first white settlement of this town, and of the entire county as
-well, was commenced in 1802, at what was long known as the Cross Roads,
-and which is now marked by a curious stone monument. The earlier history
-of these regions is dim and indistinct, but all tradition and history,
-as well as many curious relics which have been discovered, point to the
-fact that after the mound builders, the Neutral nations, or as they
-were called by the Senecas, the _Kahkwas_, were the first occupants of
-the soil of Chautauqua. They dwelt in forty villages, some of which
-were near Fort Niagara; some in Erie county, but the greater part of
-their territory extended west along the shore of Lake Erie, through
-Chautauqua county into Ohio. They were a strange race of people, famous
-hunters, exceedingly fierce and superstitious. The first knowledge had
-by Europeans of the Lake Erie regions, and of the tribes which inhabited
-them, was obtained by the French in Canada; their enterprise in this
-surpassing that of the British.
-
-Father Lalement, in a letter to the Provincial of Jesuits in France,
-dated at St. Mary’s Mission, May 19, 1641, speaks of the Neutrals, and
-also of a warlike nation named the Eries, or the Nation of the Cat, so
-called from the extraordinary number of wild cats which infested their
-section, that lived to the south of Lake Erie and west of the Neutral
-nation. The Eries were great warriors and were a terror to the Iroquois.
-They fought with poisoned arrows, having no fire-arms.
-
-Both these nations were cruelly destroyed by the Iroquois in 1651 and
-1655. The final overthrow of the Neutral nation is supposed to have taken
-place near Buffalo; the destruction of the Eries, along the shore of
-the beautiful lake bearing this name. The whole force of the Iroquois
-embarked in canoes upon the blue waters of the lake, and after assaulting
-the Eries at a point, the exact location of which is not now known,
-scenes most horrible and revolting were enacted, and the brave Eries were
-totally annihilated in a fearful butchery.
-
-The accounts of the destruction of these nations are found in the written
-narratives of the Jesuits, who were living at that time among the
-Indians of New York and Canada. From the extirpation of the Neutral and
-Erie nations, until its settlement by pioneers, Chautauqua county, and
-especially the portion along the shore of Lake Erie, was the home of the
-Senecas, the fiercest tribe of the Iroquois nation.
-
-In 1679, La Salle, Tonti, his Italian lieutenant, Father Louis Hennepin
-and several others set sail from Cayuga Creek, a small stream emptying
-into Niagara River, for the foot of Lake Erie, steering west-southwest.
-They made many leagues, passing what is now Chautauqua county. They are
-supposed to be the first Europeans who saw the Chautauqua hills, gloomy
-and rugged, covered with mighty forests. The boundary line between
-the French and English possessions in America had long been a cause
-of contention, and the territory of Chautauqua county was included
-in the disputed ground. Communications between the French posts on
-the Mississippi and French forts in Canada were made by the long and
-tedious routes of the Mississippi, Green Bay routes, and afterward by
-Lake Michigan and the Wabash. The easy communication between Canada
-and the Mississippi by way of Lake Erie and Chautauqua Lake was not
-discovered until 1752, when the Marquis Du Quesne, having been appointed
-Governor-General of Canada, arrived there. He at once took more
-aggressive and decided measures to obtain possession of the disputed
-territory, than any of his predecessors had done. He immediately began to
-construct the long line of frontier forts which La Salle had suggested,
-that were to unite Canada and Louisiana by way of the Ohio. This bold
-step is regarded as leading to the French and Indian war, which resulted
-in losing Canada to the French. One of Du Quesne’s first acts was to open
-a portage road from the mouth of the Chautauqua Creek, which empties into
-Lake Erie a mile and a half from the town of Westfield, to the head of
-Chautauqua Lake, and thus open communication between Lake Erie and the
-head waters of the Ohio.
-
-In a letter which he sends to the French minister of the marine and
-colonies, in Paris, he states that his intention is to begin his posts
-near the mouth of _Chataconit_, or Chautauqua Creek. This portage road
-was cut through the wilderness more than twenty years before the battle
-of Lexington, and yet traces of it to this day are to be seen in and
-about the town. In 1761 Sir William Johnson journeyed to Detroit to
-establish a treaty with the Ottawa confederacy. On his return, he sailed
-along the southern shore of Lake Erie, and in his journal speaks thus of
-this portage:
-
- “Wednesday, October 1, 1761.—Embarked at _Presque Isle_ (Erie) at
- 7 o’clock, with the wind strong ahead, continued so all the day,
- notwithstanding it improved all day, and got to _Jadaghque Creek,
- and carrying place_, which is a fine harbor and encampment.”
-
-In a letter from General Washington to General Irvine, dated Mount
-Vernon, October 31, 1788, he speaks thus of this portage:
-
- “If the Chautauqua Lake at the head of the Connewango River
- approximates Lake Erie as closely as it is laid down in the draft
- you sent me, it presents a very short portage indeed between the
- two, and access to all those above the latter.
-
- “I am, etc.,
-
- “GEORGE WASHINGTON.”
-
-One of Chautauqua’s earliest pioneers was William Peacock, who passed
-over this road in 1800. Ten years later he became the agent of the
-Holland Land Company. He was an eccentric and shrewd man, and in a short
-time became exceedingly wealthy, the hard working land owners thought
-at their expense. He was charged with reserving the choicest farms,
-best water powers and timber lands for himself and his favorites. The
-land holders also thought he was not giving them credit for interest
-which they paid from time to time upon their land, and these opinions
-found vent in the newspapers, and the agitation grew until on the 6th
-of February, 1836, a mob gathered from all parts of the county at
-Dewittville, a little hamlet on the shore of Chautauqua Lake.
-
-Word was brought to Mr. Peacock at Mayville, a village at the head of the
-lake, and seven miles from Westfield, that a raid was to be made upon the
-land office that night, and that mischief might be done to his person
-unless he should make good his escape. Donald McKenzie, a northwestern
-fur trader, and brother of the McKenzie who discovered the river of that
-name, had three years previous to this come to Mayville to live, and was
-in the land office that dreary February afternoon when this alarming
-message was brought. The stalwart Scotchman, through whose veins flowed
-some of the proudest blood of Caledonia, feared neither “mon nor de’il.”
-It was his custom to wear a very long black coat which fell in ample
-folds around his massive frame. Mr. Peacock was an undersized man. Donald
-McKenzie cast the drapery of his inky cloak about the frightened little
-man and thus shielded and shrouded from sight, he hurried him up the hill
-to his home, whence he was soon taken in a covered sleigh to Westfield,
-and down the lake shore road to Buffalo as fast as horses could carry
-him, and none too soon was he out of the way, for at dusk a crowd of
-infuriated men, numbering two or three hundred, made a raid upon the land
-office, demolished it, and after working until near morning succeeded in
-forcing open the vault and seized the books, records and contracts and
-carried them two miles away, and heaping them up made a goodly bonfire
-of them. The ruins of the land office are yet to be seen in Mayville.
-The land holders by this mad proceeding brought only “confusion worse
-than death” upon themselves, while the prudent Peacock accumulated a
-wonderful property, and was afterward made judge. He left to one heir
-alone the whole village of Barcelona, the harbor of Westfield, situated
-just east of the mouth of Chautauqua Creek, the starting point of the
-French portage road. This harbor was made a port of entry by the general
-government. In 1828 a lighthouse was erected by a citizen at his own
-expense; a steamer named the “William Peacock,” for the hero of the land
-office story, was built; all craft on the lake stopped at the little
-port; a company was formed called the Barcelona Company; the village was
-enlarged, the streets being laid out in city fashion; corner lots sold
-for fabulous sums; men lost their heads; the place was to be a great
-port; when suddenly the railroad came creeping along the shore; the
-bubble broke; the mushroom town was a failure; fortunes were lost, and
-to-day Barcelona harbor is a deserted village with grass-grown streets,
-gaunt houses, whose windows stare reproachfully at the gay carriage
-loads passing by, and an old white lighthouse, which, like the ghostly
-finger of the past, seems to beckon to all to come and look upon the
-desolation around it. A few sad faced women who might have ridden in
-their carriages; brawny fishermen who might have owned their blocks and
-wharves and shipping, are the only inhabitants. Down on the beach of a
-bright autumn afternoon the nets are spread a-drying; little huts, whose
-half open doors reveal the hauls of herring and bass, are here and there;
-ruddy faced boys lie sprawling on the sand, sunning themselves; the trees
-have grown thick and tall about the lighthouse upon the cliff; no sound
-is heard save the hiss of the waves as they tumble in; the quaint little
-harbor wears a disappointed look. Old “Groats’ Inn,” though time has
-used it roughly, alone seems to try and hold its ancient smartness, like
-an antiquated spinster who wishes it understood that the reason she has
-never married is not that she never had an offer. Summer and winter for
-many long years has it stood there on the edge of the cliff, waiting for
-the rush of travel which never came; ready to give hospitality to man and
-beast, but no wayfarer ever knocks for admission and entertainment. There
-is nothing sadder than a deserted village. What a mockery it seems of all
-human hopes and ambitions. In these old houses that look as if they were
-weary waiting through so many long years, what homely, uneventful lives
-have been spent; what tired eyes have closed for the last time; what
-aching and disappointed hearts have ceased to beat, thankful, no doubt,
-that the worry and fret were all over.
-
-When old Judge Peacock died, his heirs each received one thirteenth of
-his vast estate. One grand-nephew, whose father and mother had been
-cousins, fell heir to two-thirteenths, and from being a poor lad living
-among the fishermen, found himself the possessor of this entire harbor
-and nearly all the land lying between it and Westfield.
-
-In June, 1836, four months after the land office at Mayville had been
-destroyed, William H. Seward having been appointed to the agency, and
-also having an interest in the purchase, established the land office in
-Westfield and lived there until his election as governor of New York. The
-Seward mansion is one of the attractions to visitors. It is a “brave old
-house,” with a beautiful lawn, fronting on the village green. Its trees
-are trimmed in a peculiar old-fashioned way. Its iron gates stand open,
-as if inviting the passer to enter and look upon its quaint surroundings.
-Another stately old-time mansion is that of the Patterson family. It was
-originally occupied by a brother of Seward’s, and when a member of the
-family died its front door was painted black! A superb lawn shaded by
-grand old trees sweeps away on one side; a garden of grapevines lies on
-the other; in front great beds of scarlet geranium blaze, and the trees
-and shrubs are out in the same quaint pattern as those upon the Seward
-estate. The fashion of other days is plainly to be seen in everything
-pertaining to both these rare old places.
-
-The drives about the town are picturesque and delightful. From nearly
-every street and road you get enchanting views of the lake on one hand
-and the range of hills on the other. The streets are laid in curves, and
-you are continually sweeping rounded corners and coming upon unexpected
-beauties. Old trees meet above your head; you cross and recross the gorge
-dividing the town; far below you rushes the stream; down a shaded street
-you go past old-fashioned homes and modern villas in sharp contrast,
-and suddenly through overhanging boughs you catch the glory of the blue
-waters of old Erie; you are soon in Barcelona harbor; from there you
-can drive for miles along the beach, now on the cliff, with the waves
-thundering in many feet below you, now further back from the shore
-past finely cultivated farms, vineyards, orchards, fields “afoam with
-sweetness,” and never failing to catch through grove, across fields of
-waving corn and grain, wooded hollows through which clear waters run,
-glimpses of the lake’s witchery.
-
-Or you can drive into Peacock’s Grove at Barcelona—a lovely little forest
-of tall graceful trees, with a velvet turf from which all annoying brush
-has been removed. Leave your carriage, throw yourself upon the ground and
-drink in the ever changing beauty of the magic view; the turquoise blue
-of the water, of a sunny morning; the sapphire blue of a drowsy summer
-afternoon; the molten glory of sky and water at sunset; the slow oncoming
-of the solemn moon. How the trees seem to whisper to the waters as if
-they were talking over all they have witnessed in common; faintly comes
-the tinkle of a cow bell from a neighboring copse; the crows are calling
-to each other in the tree-tops; across the path scamper the squirrels;
-the bay is dotted with the boats of the fishermen; there is scarcely a
-ripple on the vast stretch of water before you; a heavenly peace lies on
-lake and shore.
-
-Or take the drive to the wonderful “Hog’s Back.” Leaving the town behind
-you, commence the gradual ascent of the dark and rugged hills. Up and
-up, higher and higher you go, now pause and look back. The valley lies
-smiling before you—a lovely jewel with its setting of the marvelously
-blue waters behind it. You leave your carriage and horses in a hospitable
-farm yard and set out on foot for the “Hog’s Back.” Across a meadow or
-two and you come into a forest of pines and hemlocks. The wind sighs
-through the trees as it only sighs through such a wood; far, far off you
-hear the rushing of water. You go on a few steps further and suddenly
-you find yourself on the edge of a most frightful precipice, the descent
-into which is over a narrow ledge of earth thrown up by some tremendous
-eruption into the shape of the back of a giant hog. And such an abyss!
-Words can not express the awful stillness which reigns over this mighty
-gorge whose sides are lined with gloomy forests. Primeval solitudes
-could not have been more desolate. The descent is terrible, but nothing
-in comparison with the dizzy ascent. One draws a breath of relief when
-safely up once more and out from the shade of the mysterious pines into
-the gladness of sunlight and an open sky.
-
-Having heard that a mile or so from the town were still to be seen traces
-of an old French fort, built either at the time Du Quesne cut the portage
-road, or during the French and Indian war, the writer drove with a friend
-one morning in search of the place. After many questions, directions and
-counter-directions, we finally found the farm upon which it was said to
-be located. The genial farmer to whom we stated our errand laughed and
-answered:
-
-“O, yes, I’ve got all there is left of it, which ain’t much.”
-
-He told us we could drive nearly to the spot, and led the way, walking by
-the carriage, while a joyful dog leaped on before. Past the farm house,
-barns, the orchard flaunting its magnificent red fruit, through the “back
-lot,” across a field perfumed with its “second crop” of red clover, we
-came to a rail fence almost hidden from view by young chestnut trees
-and the rioting wild grapevine. Thus far, and no farther, could we go
-in the carriage, and leaving it, we stepped over the fence chivalrously
-lowered by our guide, and soon saw “all there’s left of it.” Only an
-immense circular breastwork, with tall straight trees many, many years
-old growing on its top, is left of what may have been simply a supply
-station, a fort erected by the French against the Indians, possibly the
-fort where the brave Eries were massacred by the Iroquois, or going
-further back, it may have been the work of the mound builders.
-
-“I can’t tell you anything about it,” said our obliging guide, “but
-if you want to take the trouble to go there, old Uncle Dave Cochrane
-will tell you all about it. He’s ninety years old, but he remembers
-everything, and he’ll be glad to see you and tell you all he knows.”
-
-Being directed to Uncle Dave’s, we left the farm and drove in the
-opposite direction toward the lake. When about half way to Barcelona, we
-turned aside from the main road, and in a hollow, close by Chautauqua
-Creek, found an old-fashioned stuccoed house, over which the scarlet
-woodbine crept and clung lovingly. We could bring no one to the front
-door, and so the Adventurous One commenced to explore the rear of the
-house, and was rewarded by seeing peering over the top of the coal bin in
-the woodshed, an old, old man with a chisel in his hand.
-
-“Are you Uncle David Cochrane?”
-
-“Hey?” shouted the old gentleman.
-
-The question was repeated, and the answer was literally bawled:
-
-“Yes; who be you?”
-
-The Adventurous One was obliged to state her name and errand before the
-old man would move one step from behind the coal bin.
-
-“I’ll come around to the front of the house,” announced this tremendous
-voice, coming with startling effect from this little bundle of humanity
-to which it belonged, “for I’m hard o’ hearin’.”
-
-And so Uncle Dave and the Adventurous One sat down on a bench by the old
-stone wall around the little garden, and while the autumn sun smiled down
-on the waters of the pretty stream that flowed by the old man’s door,
-this voice from the past spoke freely and at length.
-
-Uncle Dave was a remarkable old gentleman, possessing an astounding
-memory, of which faculty he was well aware, and of which he was very
-proud. He had dates, incidents, historical events at his tongue’s end. On
-being asked, who in his opinion had built the fortifications we had that
-morning seen, he said emphatically:
-
-“It was some of them ten foot fellers that lived here long before the
-Injuns. Injuns never done it, they didn’t know enough, and they are too
-old for the French to have built ’em.”
-
-Did he mean the mound builders?
-
-“Yes, I reckin that’s what ye call ’em.”
-
-Did he ever see any traces of the old portage road?
-
-“O, yes,” he trumpeted forth, “the French under _Du Quizney_ built that
-road from the mouth of this here very creek to the head of Chautauqua
-Lake.”
-
-“Do you remember, Mr. Cochrane, when Lafayette visited Westfield in 1823?”
-
-“Yes, sir,” he shouted, and his withered old face was suddenly
-transfigured by some nameless light, “indeed I do. Word was brought to
-us that Lafayette was in Erie, and Judge Peacock had a splendid span of
-greys and a nice carriage, and he sent them to the State line to bring
-him to Westfield. I got a six-pounder all ready, and when the runner came
-ahead to let us know them grays was in sight, I jest teched her off. He
-drove over the bridge and up on the village square, and got out of the
-carriage and took off his hat.” Here the old man reverently uncovered his
-head, straightened himself and became unconsciously dramatic. “He was a
-sandy haired feller, a reg’lar Frenchman, and he spoke to everybody that
-crowded up to shake hands with him. And I tell ye it was a sight to see
-them Revolutioners crowd around him. Alec Wilson, he was a Revolutioner,
-an Irishman, says he, ‘God bless yez, Markis, how air yez;’ and the
-Markis says just as pleasant and affable like, ‘Very well, my friend, but
-you have the advantage of me.’ ‘Why, Markis,’ says Alec, ‘I wuz one of
-General Washington’s body-guard, I wuz. Many a time have I seen you and
-the Gineral together, Lord love ye.’ ‘Is that so, Alec,’ says the Markis,
-‘then I must shake hands again,’ and he did shake again with that air
-Irishman!”
-
-When we came away his parting shout was to this effect:
-
-“When ye find a man of my age with a better memory, s’posen ye let me
-know.”
-
-Good by, brave old pioneer, we shall never see you again; but the picture
-you made as you stood there “in the pleasant autumn weather,” the breeze
-playing with your white hair, your little cottage, its cream tint
-contrasting so well with the vivid red of the woodbine which wantoned
-over it, for a back-ground, will not soon be forgotten.
-
-Westfield is admirably adapted for a summer resort. Aside from its
-beautiful scenery, its hills, its lake with its inducements in the way
-of fishing, sailing and rowing, its charming drives, and equally as
-charming walks, it is undeniably a healthy place. Its air is pure and
-bracing. Every breath you draw seems to put new life into your frame.
-There are mineral springs near the town which might be utilized. There
-are many points near by suitable for excursions. Van Buren’s Harbor, a
-delightful picnic ground, and the best beach along shore for bathing, is
-within a short drive. Peacock’s Grove offers inducements for camping and
-clam baking. There are many other beautiful villages easy of access; the
-remarkable “Hog’s Back” furnishes a day’s diversion; twenty miles away
-is a wonderful geological attraction known as Panama Rocks, which well
-deserves and repays attention. In point of fact, the sleepy old place has
-more than its share of surrounding attractions and only needs a magic
-touch to waken it, and yet it would be a pity to transform this little
-Arcadia into a fashionable watering place. One would not care to see
-its primitive beauty sullied and its peace broken in upon by the world.
-Rather let it remain one of those places fast dying out before the march
-of so-called civilization, a dreamy old town.
-
-
-
-
-OUR STEEL HORSE.
-
-
-If we should try to trace the rise of the bicycle I imagine that the
-multitude of queer contrivances which would be brought together could
-hardly be surpassed by a collection of the flying machines of the
-world, or of the instruments for producing perpetual motion. Since Von
-Drais’ _draisine_ of 1817 we have had a series of curious and ingenious
-inventions, all aiming at the same result—a steel horse which would never
-tire, which would eat no oats and need no groom, but which, while subject
-to none of the drawbacks of horseflesh, would carry its owner to his
-business, on pleasure trips across the country—anywhere and everywhere.
-Has it been found at last? Truly, it seems so. To our few standard
-methods of traveling, by steam, by rail, by carriage, by horse, and by
-foot, we must certainly add by bicycle.
-
-Most people remember the forerunner of the present light and noiseless
-“wheel,” for it was not until 1865 that the first bicycle—we called it
-a velocipede then—was brought to America. Every one will remember too
-the velocipede craze that possessed the whole race of boys, young and
-old, in 1869-’70. Many a town still contains the shattered remnant of
-a velocipede rink, which in those days was its most popular place of
-amusement, and in many a wood-shed, garret or barn loft there is still
-stowed away the remnant of an old-fashioned velocipede which once made
-happy a now grown-up-and-gone-away son.
-
-Since those days there has been a decided change in the construction of
-the machine, the almost clumsy velocipede has become the airy “wheel.”
-The general structure has not been changed, but improved mechanical
-work and greater skill in adapting certain points so that they will do
-more effective work has brought the vehicle to a very high degree of
-perfection. The bicycle and tricycle in their improved forms are meeting
-with remarkable success. It is said that there are 30,000 bicyclers in
-the United States, nearly all having joined the ranks in the past six
-years, and that these 30,000 have four hundred organized clubs. The
-national club, called “The League of American Wheelmen,” numbers already
-4,000 members, two excellent magazines, _Outing_ and _The Wheelman_, and
-several papers are devoted to its interests, and are spreading everywhere
-information and enthusiasm.
-
-Tricycles are rapidly gaining the favor among ladies that the bicycle
-already has won among gentlemen. Hundreds of them are in use in the
-cities, where a common sight on the boulevards and in the parks is a
-tricycle party of ladies and portly men taking a morning constitutional
-or an afternoon’s pleasure ride.
-
-So many of our hobbies have their day and die, are popular because some
-shrewd fellow has made them fashionable that people of good common sense
-are becoming a little slow in adopting new things. Many are now inquiring
-about the validity of the bicycle’s claim. Is it as useful, as healthful,
-as pleasant a steed as avowed? No doubt an unqualified affirmative in
-answer to this question would be wrong, but that there are many strong
-points in favor the facts will prove. To fairly test its capabilities
-one should not take the experience of the first day’s riding, or of a
-would-be wheelman who is yet in the A B Cs of bicycling. It is an art
-and must be learned. A novice can not mount and ride away without a few
-tumbles; he can not at first “take” a curb or, in fact, any obstruction.
-If he try to use the brake in going down hill he will undoubtedly be
-thrown overboard and roll instead of wheel to the foot. He will ache and
-groan over long rides, and if easily discouraged, give up his efforts.
-But are these results any worse, or even so bad as the results of the
-first experiences on horseback? What is the bicycle or tricycle worth to
-the one who can handle it? is the question.
-
-We are accustomed to think of it as useful only on a level where the
-roads are hard and smooth and unobstructed, but he is a poor wheelman
-indeed, who can ride only on smooth ground. Any ordinary road, though
-it may be encumbered by ruts, pebbles, or mud, may be safely traveled.
-Snowy roads, of course, are hard traveling, but it is recorded of an
-enthusiastic New Hampshire bicycler that he was on the roads a part of
-each day during the year 1881. Candidly, it requires an unusual amount
-of skill and enthusiasm to use a bicycle on snowy or rugged roads for
-any long distance, although a quite possible task. By far the worst
-impediment which the “wheel” encounters is a stretch of loose sand, then
-all momentum is lost by the friction, and to go at all is very hard work;
-however, there is rarely a road so located that turf or a beaten walk
-does not lie near, to which the rider may resort. Nor are the hills a
-disadvantage, unless they are very long and steep. The ordinary grade can
-be easily mounted, though, as in walking, there is of course a greater
-degree of exertion required than on the level. The true answer to the
-question, where the bicycle may be ridden, is: On any road where one can
-drive safely and pleasantly.
-
-The question of speed is a very important one. Unless something can be
-gained in point of time it is no advantage to rushing clerks and brokers
-and students to bicycle their way to business and back; but the fact that
-something can be gained is a very strong point in favor of the “wheel.”
-The rate of speed compared with walking is three to one, and the exertion
-on level ground is but one-third of that of walking. On our steel horse,
-too, we make better time than on horseback. In a day’s travel the gain
-is very noticeable. The bicycle will take you four or five times as far
-as you can walk and twice as far as you can ride on horseback. The real
-advantage of a mode of travel which exercises and exhilarates, which is
-less wearisome than walking and which, while it gives as high speed as a
-horse, yet causes none of the trouble, the possible risk and no expense,
-is very apparent. This is no whimsical fancy either, but a fact. Many
-physicians, clergymen and business men are finding it invaluable in their
-work. A certain physician of high rank has given it as his opinion,
-that the “bicycle or tricycle can be practically and profitably used by
-physicians as an adjunct to, or even in place of, the horse; and that it
-solves, beyond any question, the problem of exercise for a very large
-class of our patients.” And another writing of its merits, says: “This
-summer I have turned both my horses out to grass and have trusted to my
-bicycle alone, doing, on an average, about 50 miles a day. I find I get
-through my day’s work with less fatigue than on horseback, and without
-the monotony of driving.” If it will serve the purpose of a doctor it
-will of any and all busy men.
-
-More important than its practical value is its health giving qualities.
-It is a veritable cure-all. The pleasure of the exercise, the fine play
-it gives to the muscles of the upper and lower limbs, and the free
-exposure to sun and air are the best possible medicines. _Ennui_, the
-wretched, worn-out feeling of so many over-worked students, bookkeepers
-and professional men, dyspepsia and nervousness can have no better
-prescription than bicycle or tricycle riding. Indeed, of the latter
-no less an authority than B. W. Richardson, M. D., a famous English
-physician, says: “I am of the opinion that no exercise for women has ever
-been discovered that is to them so really useful. Young and middle aged
-ladies can learn to ride the tricycle with the greatest facility, and
-they become excellently skillful. The tricycle is, in fact, now with me a
-not uncommon prescription, and is far more useful than many a dry, formal
-medicinal one which I have had to write on paper.”
-
-The real enjoyment of the exercise is wonderfully in its favor. No finer
-sport can be found than the rapid spinning by green fields, through shady
-woods and along clear streams, lifted so far above the earth that you
-half believe you are treading air, so still and smoothly your “wheels”
-carry you. The bounding life that gentle exercise and abundant air and
-sunshine bring is yours. You seem almost a creature of the air as you
-whirl along. It is pure, perfect pleasure—the perfection of motion. One
-feature of bicycle and tricycle riding that commends it to many is the
-opportunity it offers for delightful summer trips. The bicycle clubs
-of many cities make daily morning runs of ten or twelve miles into the
-country, returning in time for a club breakfast at the home of some
-member—longer trips which occupy a day are common, and a month’s travel
-through a pleasant country is becoming a very fashionable as well as
-healthful and inexpensive way of spending a vacation. An English lady and
-her sister recently made a trip of 470 miles through the pleasant country
-of South England on tricycles, and declare that they had so pleasant a
-time they intend to make another tour next year. Indeed, so successful
-have bicycle and tricycle excursions become that they threaten to rival
-the railway and steamer.
-
-The expense is of course an important item to most people, and is
-decidedly in favor of the wheel. As in all goods, the prices vary with
-quality and finish. The price of a bicycle varies from $7 to $175, of
-a tricycle from $20 to $240. The medium prices give as durable and
-useful an instrument as the higher. When once owned there is little more
-expense—a trifle will be spent in repairs each year, and if desired,
-there are certain accessories which can be added. New tires are needed
-about once in four years, and cost about $10 for a fifty-inch bicycle.
-But there is no feeding nor stalling nor grooming. Your steel horse makes
-no demands upon your purse, your sympathies, or your time.
-
-What is the bicycle coming to? Certainly to be a very important factor
-in our civilization. We may expect to see it some day in war—already the
-mounted orderlies in the Italian army use it. In twenty years, maybe
-less, we shall all be taking our wedding trips by bicycle, and it may
-not be wild to suppose that the enterprising wheelman will soon have a
-highway from New York to San Francisco, and that our summer trips to the
-Golden Gate or the Atlantic will be _via_ bicycle.
-
- * * * * *
-
-Never, never has one forgotten his pure, right-educating mother. On the
-blue mountains of our dim childhood, toward which we ever turn and look,
-stand the mothers, who marked out to us from thence our life; the most
-blessed age must be forgotten ere we can forget the warmest heart. You
-wish, O woman! to be ardently loved, and forever, even till death. Be,
-then, the mothers of your children.—_Richter._
-
-
-
-
-THE NAVY.
-
-WHY IT SHOULD BE EFFICIENTLY MAINTAINED IN TIME OF PEACE.
-
-By LIEUTENANT G. W. MENTZ, of the U. S. Navy.
-
-
-Many intelligent people in our country know nothing whatever of the navy.
-
-We are not a warlike nation, and our people are engaged in peaceful
-pursuits. The majority are so busied with matters which have no
-connection with nautical affairs that they have no time for reflection
-upon any such subject.
-
-A great many of our fellow countrymen have never seen the ocean, have
-never seen anything in the shape of a ship except a river steamboat.
-
-Not seeing the navy, not hearing of it in these piping times of peace,
-having no dealings with it or with ships, never coming in contact with it
-in any way, and not understanding anything about it, they never trouble
-themselves with it, and care nothing for it, just as almost every one
-naturally does with any subject in which he is not personally interested.
-
-But how can our people in the interior be influenced to interest
-themselves in a subject which really is of vital importance to them, and
-almost as much so as to those living on the seaboard?
-
-They are told, year after year, that our coasts and our lakes
-are undefended, that a navy is absolutely necessary, that in its
-present state it could not stand a chance with the navy of even a
-fourth-rate power; yet they never care enough about it to instruct
-their representatives in Congress to put the country in a secure state
-of defense, and unless so instructed by the people, our politicians
-will never do anything but dilly-dally with every subject of national
-importance.
-
-We are slapped in the face, first on one side then on the other, and
-kicked about by nations which are picayunish in their resources in
-comparison with ourselves, and yet we take it all with indifference or a
-faint protest.
-
-We are a strange combination as a nation; the same men who would resent
-an insult individually, or so provide themselves with weapons that no one
-would _dare_ insult them, when taken collectively as a nation pitifully
-ask to be “let off” the moment the British lion shows his teeth, or the
-Prussian eagle raises his claws.
-
-But it is not intended to appeal to the sentiment of the people of the
-United States, or to their sense of honor to rouse their interest in the
-navy. That has been tried too often, and has failed in every case, until
-truly patriotic men (and thank God there are a few such men left) have
-almost given up in despair, if not in disgust. This article will, it is
-hoped, prove, on other grounds than sentiment, the absolute necessity of
-a navy in time of peace by showing what it does when we are not at war.
-
-Every one knows the navy has something to do with the defenses of the
-country, but—
-
-What is the use of a navy in time of peace?
-
-What does it do?
-
-What does it consist of?
-
-Who manages it?
-
-How much does it cost us taxpayers?
-
-Do we get any return for our money? and the like, are questions which
-every one, in his capacity of an American citizen, has a right to ask,
-and which should be answered in such a way that every school boy could
-understand.
-
-It is easily understood by those of our countrymen living even in those
-parts of our land most remote from either ocean washing our shores, that
-a navy is necessary in time of war with a foreign country, and that then
-it would protect our coasts and prevent an invasion of our soil, and keep
-the enemy’s war ships from destroying our cities, or from blockading
-our ports, and thus give the grain and beef—“the production of which is
-the very life and soul of the West”—an opportunity to get out of the
-country, and to their markets; for it requires no great reasoning powers
-to understand that with the enemy hovering around our ports with his
-ships of war, no shipment of grain and beef could take place.
-
-But the navy protects those same interests in time of peace, and in this
-way:
-
-Suppose _no_ nation had a navy, and that _no_ armed force existed on the
-sea, what would be the result?
-
-We would want to export our surplus grain and beef, and hundreds of
-other articles which we raise in excess of our needs in this country and
-exchange them for tea and coffee and other articles which we can not
-raise. We can not send them by rail across the ocean, we have to employ
-ships. _We can not get along without ships._
-
-Even in this age of steam and telegraph, can any one doubt that with no
-armed force to protect the ships with their valuable cargoes and small
-crews of two dozen or more men, that the pirate would not again infest
-the seas and prey upon commerce? Steam and the telegraph would aid him
-just as much as they would the merchant. But, it might be argued, arm the
-crews of the merchant ship, put guns and gunners on board. If you do that
-you have a navy, and a much more expensive and inefficient one than by
-the present methods.
-
-The navies of the world drove the pirate from the seas. He became a
-universal enemy, and was hunted down by the war ships of all civilized
-nations, and there was no dissenting voice among them upon this one
-question of piracy. To prevent his return the existence of a naval force
-was necessary _and the display of such a force is all that prevents his
-return now_.
-
-Of those who believe there would be no piracy did no navies exist in this
-age of enlightenment and of rapid communication, it might be asked if
-they thought property would at all be safe in any of our cities if the
-police were withdrawn from its protection. What is it that prevents many
-a thief from robbing property when he finds it apparently unprotected,
-_sees_ no policemen as he looks up and down the street? It is his
-knowledge that the city _has_ a police force, and that a policeman may be
-in the near vicinity, though not in sight.
-
-_It is this moral effect of the existence of an armed force_ which
-prevents many robberies being committed on shore, and it is the same with
-the ocean.
-
-_Without an armed force on the ocean to protect cargoes in time of peace
-the temptation to become suddenly rich, and without any one knowing how,
-would be too great to be resisted. The navy is the police of the seas,
-and one class of property should be protected just as much as another.
-Shipping is entitled to the same treatment and care as any other form of
-invested capital._
-
-Acknowledging then that it is the existence of war vessels on the seas
-that prevents piracy and insures the safety of our cargoes of grain and
-beef, and other articles in their transit across the ocean, and that a
-navy in this way protects commerce in time of peace, _then, is it just
-that ONE nation should bear all the expense of keeping up a sufficient
-show of force in the shape of a navy to prevent the return of the
-pirates? All nations who have property on the ocean, or ships carrying
-cargoes from port to port, must aid in thus protecting the seas in
-proportion to the value of property sailing the ocean. And the maritime
-powers of the world must assist each other against the common enemy, just
-as the police of one country assist those of another in procuring and
-bringing to justice the extraditional criminals._
-
-It is not right or just for a country to have a merchant marine without a
-corresponding navy to protect it; it is unjust to other nations, and we
-have the second largest merchant marine in the world, and hardly rank as
-_fifth_ as a naval power.
-
-The country in time of peace, in the early stages of its existence,
-when our navy was as large in proportion to the inhabitants as it is
-now, had practically merchant ship after merchant ship seized, not by
-individuals, but by nations which possessed more powerful navies, and the
-number of ships so seized by France alone counts up in the hundreds, and
-France is a friend of the United States if we have one in Europe.
-
-It seems to be natural that the unprotected should be imposed upon.
-Wherever we glance throughout nature we find the mighty preying upon the
-weak, and even in the very plants the weaker are crowded out and must
-give way to the stronger. This is true of men, and it is likewise true of
-nations. For a proof consider the number of nations England has crowded
-out. We, too, have crowded out the Indian.
-
-I suppose the Bey of Tunis would still be imposing upon our merchants in
-the Mediterranean if we had not aroused ourselves and shown him what a
-naval force could do, and made him respect it.
-
-Many Americans engaged in commerce are temporarily resident abroad, and
-although they may be most law abiding, there still occur times when they
-are imposed upon, and in some cases incarcerated or maltreated, even
-murdered. The government owes these men protection. It is the solemn duty
-of the government to see that they are justly treated; and this can be
-done, in many cases, in no better way than by a show of force. One small
-gunboat in a port where one of our fellow citizens has been imposed upon
-will do more toward setting him right than thousands of appealing or
-of threatening words from a distance. There are hundreds of instances
-on record in the Navy and State Departments which might be cited in
-illustration of this, but the following will serve the purpose. They are
-taken from recent editions of the Washington _National Republican_:
-
- In the spring of 1858 the United States steamer “Fulton,”
- mounting six guns, was cruising in the West Indies. Information
- reached the commander that a revolution had broken out at
- Tampico; that the town was besieged, and that American merchant
- vessels were detained in the river. The “Fulton” proceeded with
- all despatch to Tampico, and found affairs as had been reported.
-
- Tampico is situated six miles up the river of that name. The
- revolutionary and besieging party was within three miles of the
- city, and had established a custom house at the mouth of the
- river. Five American merchant vessels were in the river at the
- time. They had paid the necessary custom house dues at Tampico,
- and started down the river to proceed to sea. Upon approaching
- the mouth of the river they were directed to anchor until they
- had paid additional custom house dues. To this, of course, the
- American captains positively refused, as they had already paid
- the necessary legal dues. Consequently the vessels were detained
- under the guns of the besieging party, and had not the United
- States steamer “Fulton” made her appearance they would continue
- to have been detained. The commander of the “Fulton” demanded
- their instant release, which was complied with, and the vessels
- proceeded to sea accordingly.
-
- One of the captains was very spunky, and gave those Mexicans a
- piece of his mind. For this he was taken out of his vessel and
- put in prison. The excuse for this which the Mexicans gave was
- that a small signal gun, which a man could easily carry, was
- found on board, and this was considered contraband. The commander
- of the “Fulton” went in person, demanded the release of this
- captain, took him off in his gig, and restored him to his vessel.
-
- Gen. Gaza, of the besieging forces, hadn’t an idea that there was
- an American man-of-war within a thousand miles of Tampico when
- he committed these high-handed proceedings, and he was greatly
- astonished when the “Fulton” made her appearance. It does not
- always matter so much about the size of a man-of-war on hand upon
- these occasions. A six or eight gun vessel may suffice, and will
- often effect the service required quite as well as a frigate.
- What is necessary is the sight of the American ensign and pennant
- backed by a few guns.
-
- In September, 1873, a revolution of a violent character broke out
- at Panama, and the city was besieged. Whenever there is trouble
- on the Isthmus they make a “dead set” at the railroad. In case
- of war the government of Colombia guarantees to protect and
- preserve neutrality upon the Panama railroad. Upon this occasion
- the governor of Panama declared his inability to protect the
- railroad. The commander-in-chief of the United States naval
- forces in the Pacific happened to be at Panama just in the “nick
- of time,” with two good sized men of war, the “Pensacola” and
- “Benicia,” and upon his own responsibility landed 250 men—seamen
- and marines—divided between the Panama railroad station and the
- custom house. The city of Panama and the Panama railroad were
- in imminent danger of being destroyed. The show of forces had
- the desired effect, without the necessity of firing a shot. Once
- the revolutionary party approached, with an attempt, apparently,
- to come upon the railroad, but a bold front shown by the United
- States forces evidently caused them to change their minds.
-
- Four lines of steamers of four different nations were then
- running and connecting with the Panama railroad, viz.: American,
- English, French, and German. Passengers, freights, and specials
- continually passed over the road in safety and without
- interruption. These troubles lasted for a fortnight, when the
- insurrectionary forces retired and broke up, and the United
- States naval forces were withdrawn to their ships.
-
- For these services the United States naval commander-in-chief
- received the thanks of the Panama Railroad Company, the several
- Pacific Mail Steamship Companies, and all the consuls and foreign
- merchants.
-
- These are a few instances of which the writer is cognizant of
- what the navy does in time of peace. Scarcely a naval officer
- of moderate experience and length of service but has witnessed
- similar scenes in different parts of the world. They do not
- attract the attention of the public, and naval officers are not
- apt to blow their own trumpets.—_March 13, 1884._
-
- * * * * *
-
- Under the Napoleon dynasty, when Murat was king of Naples,
- several American merchant vessels, with valuable cargoes, were
- captured and confiscated under protest, and taken into Neapolitan
- ports. The entire proceedings were pronounced arbitrary and
- thoroughly illegal. In course of time Napoleon and all his
- dynasties went under, and Naples and the Neapolitans were
- restored to their possessions and the government of their country
- once more. But the government of Naples was held responsible for
- the seizure and consequent loss to their owners of these vessels
- and cargoes, although these flagrant acts were committed under
- the French.
-
- After a lapse of time a thorough investigation and an estimate of
- losses were made. A demand for indemnity was made and positively
- refused. Several years elapsed when Gen. Jackson became President
- of the United States, and he, with his accustomed emphasis,
- repeated the demand, which was again refused. In the year 1832
- Gen. Jackson appointed a special minister (Hon. John Nelson, of
- Maryland) to Naples to press this demand. Commodore Daniel T.
- Patterson (who commanded the naval forces and coöperated with
- Gen. Jackson at New Orleans) was at this time commander-in-chief
- of the United States Mediterranean squadron, consisting of three
- fifty-gun frigates and three twenty-two-gun corvettes. The writer
- of this was a midshipman in the squadron.
-
- It was arranged that one ship at a time should make her
- appearance at Naples. The commodore went in first, and a week
- after another ship arrived. Mr. Nelson then made the demand as
- directed by his government. It was refused. At the end of a
- week a third ship appeared, and so continued. The Neapolitan
- government became alarmed, began to look at the condition of
- the forts, mounted additional guns, built sand bag batteries,
- and kept up a constant drilling of their troops. When the fifth
- ship arrived the government gave in, acknowledged the claim, and
- ordered it to be paid just as the sixth ship entered the harbor.
-
- The amount was not so large—about $350,000—but there was a great
- principle involved. This money was owing to owners, captains,
- and crews of American merchant vessels, whose property had been
- illegally and unjustly taken from them.
-
- And it may be asked when and whether they would ever have
- received it had it not been for the United States navy. This
- fully illustrates one of Nelson’s maxims: “To negotiate with
- effect a naval force should always be at hand.”—_About April 4,
- 1884._
-
- * * * * *
-
- VIGOROUS, BUT TARDY.
-
- The House committee on foreign affairs yesterday directed
- Representative Lamb to report to the House the following:
-
- _Resolved_, That the President be directed to bring to
- the attention of the government of Venezuela the claim
- of John E. Wheelock, a citizen of the United States, for
- indemnity for gross outrages and tortures inflicted upon
- him by an officer of said Venezuelan government, and to
- demand and enforce in such manner as he may deem best an
- immediate settlement of said claim.
-
- The report accompanying the resolution says: “Your committee
- is of the opinion that more vigorous measures than diplomatic
- correspondence are necessary to secure justice for the citizen of
- the United States thus grievously wronged.” Mr. Wheelock’s claim
- is for $50,000.—_April 18, 1884._
-
-Even the missionary, the peaceful man of God, in his commendable work
-of extending the teachings of the Bible to semi-civilized people, often
-carries his life in his hand, and many have asked for the protection of a
-man-of-war.
-
-Numbers of American missionaries in China can tell with what joy they
-have hailed “the good old flag backed by a few guns.”
-
-Since the massacre of foreigners (mostly missionaries) in Tientsin,
-China, in June, 1870, that place has scarcely ever been without the
-presence of an American war vessel, and missionaries resident there will
-not hesitate to acknowledge the feeling of security such a vessel brings
-with her, and the necessity of such a show of force.
-
-While England is very prompt in redressing the wrongs of those of her
-subjects resident abroad, the United States is very derelict, and the
-difference in the respect shown by foreigners to Americans and Englishmen
-is very marked in consequence.
-
-But there are other reasons than those of policing the sea and protecting
-our citizens abroad, why a navy is necessary in time of peace.
-
-It requires time to build ships and guns, and to train men to handle
-them, and we must be prepared with suitable weapons to meet any enemy who
-may declare war against us.
-
-Wars come upon us when least expected, and even we, who are advocates
-of settling all difficulties with foreign nations by arbitration, and
-who pride ourselves upon maintaining only a small army and navy, cannot
-escape the horrors of war.
-
-If there is any truth in the saying that “History repeats itself,” then
-the time for us to be at war is close at hand.
-
-We are young as a nation, and although our tendencies have been peaceful,
-and although we have almost, _have_ sacrificed our honor, yet, in spite
-of all that, we have never had a reign of peace for a longer period than
-thirty-five years, and in the one hundred and odd years of our existence,
-we, the “peaceful nation,” have had _four foreign wars_. Two with Great
-Britain, one with France, and one with Mexico. Can any one believe we
-will never have another foreign war?
-
-We are not prepared for war, and in time of peace we should prepare for
-war.
-
-As stated above, we rank as a fifth-rate naval power, and our next war
-is going to be a foreign war—(for we will hardly fight among ourselves
-again)—and _then the navy will have to do most, if not all, of the
-fighting_.
-
-Our resources are not as great as our people in their fancied security
-believe. For instance, the whole number of deep-sea sailor men from whom
-we could draw recruits, is only 60,000, including foreigners sailing
-under the American flag. These men are untrained for war purposes, and
-as much so as any man you might pick up in the streets is untrained as a
-cavalry man or artillery man, although he may have had some experience in
-riding a horse or in shooting birds with a shot gun.
-
-The tendencies of the present age are to wars of short duration, and in
-our next war we will be “knocked out” in as comparatively short a time as
-Mr. Sullivan “knocks out” his opponents, unless we are better prepared
-than we are at present.
-
-“At present England could bring, in thirty days, the greater part of her
-immense iron clad fleet to operate upon our coast, and the damage which
-this force could inflict upon the seaboard, and indirectly upon the whole
-country would be incalculable. In thirty days we would have paid in the
-way of ransom money and in the value of property destroyed the value of
-a dozen navies, to say nothing of the national disgrace, and a complete
-cessation of foreign and coastwise trade. In thirty days we could do
-nothing, _absolutely nothing_ in the way of improvising a coast defense.
-Our naval vessels could not be recalled from foreign stations, and if
-they could their weakness and small number would only insure certain
-defeat.”
-
-It takes a year to build even a simple unarmored ship, whose thin sides
-of 10-16 of an inch can be penetrated by modern guns at a distance of
-several miles;
-
-And three years to build such iron clads as most of the South American
-states even, possess;
-
-And a year to build a modern steel gun of any power;
-
-When all the skilled labor and appliances for manufacturing the material
-are at hand.
-
-But our workmen, though skilled in other things, are not skilled in
-making the requisite kind of metal either for guns or armor, and in
-putting it together when it is obtained. We have not the immense steam
-hammers and plant for such colossal work.
-
-Our country is exposed on all sides—Pacific, Atlantic, and lakes.
-
-The country that goes to war with us is not going to treat us as the
-militia did the rioters in Cincinnati the other day, remain inactive
-until we can arm ourselves.
-
-If England is to be our enemy (and there is no reason why she should not
-be, for she has never shown her friendship for us except by words. In her
-actions she has proved an enemy, and we must never forget the blockade
-runners and the “Alabama,” and the fact that is largely due to her, that
-our civil war lasted so long), she will attack us both on the Atlantic
-coast and on the great lakes.
-
-In the latter region she is much better prepared to injure us now, and we
-in a worse condition to prevent it, than in 1812.
-
-Profiting by her experience, she is preparing a waterway that will admit
-her gunboats to the very heart of our country. It requires no close
-observation to realize that other motives than those of commerce induced
-England to purchase and expend millions of money upon the Welland Canal,
-and that it gives her a great strategical advantage.
-
-That is one advantage she has over us, should the war be carried to the
-lakes.
-
-Another is, the mouth of the St. Lawrence River—the route from the sea to
-the lakes—lies wholly within British territory.
-
-Still another is, we have signed an agreement with England not to
-maintain more than one small gunboat on the lakes, and not to build any
-war vessels on the lakes.
-
-In the interests of economy we have practically cut ourselves off from
-the right or privilege to construct what we please in our own territory.
-Next, it may be presumed, we will be asking permission to sneeze.
-
-With the Welland Canal and the agreement not to build war vessels on the
-lakes, we have placed ourselves at great disadvantage.
-
-That agreement does not affect England, for she possesses a waterway
-for her gunboats from the sea to the lakes. Our only waterway from the
-sea to the lakes, the Erie Canal, is not deep enough, nor are its locks
-large enough, for gunboats. England has one hundred such vessels which
-she could assemble at Montreal upon the _slightest_ suspicion of war, and
-when the time came for action, they would proceed via the Welland Canal,
-and destroy Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, Sandusky, Toledo, and all the other
-great cities on the lakes before we could improvise an effective defense,
-and certainly before we could build _one_ ship to oppose her fleet. The
-“Michigan” would not be effective, the English fleet would soon sink
-her. It might be argued that Buffalo and the other ports would furnish
-merchant steamers in an emergency, which could serve as improvised
-gunboats. But even if such vessels could successfully oppose a fleet
-of vessels built specially for war purposes, the guns, equipments and
-ammunition are not on hand to be put on board such ships, even if they
-were to be found conveniently moored to the docks at Buffalo, nor are
-the trained crews to be found at a moment’s notice, and those men who
-are trained would be needed to move the regular ships of the navy on the
-seaboard, where the enemy would be even more vigorous in his operations.
-
-Many people have a misconception of the effectiveness of the torpedo.
-
-The torpedo is certainly a powerful and destructive weapon when it works
-all right, but you might plant torpedoes all over some of our harbors,
-and still they would not protect the cities from destruction, nor prevent
-the enemy from landing and capturing the city, in spite of the torpedoes.
-
-At New York there is no necessity for a fleet to _enter_ the harbor to
-destroy the city. There is a place south of Long Island, nine miles
-distant from the City Hall in New York, where there is plenty of water
-for a fleet of the largest ironclads to take up its position, from which
-it could batter down Brooklyn and New York. Some of the modern guns send
-shot weighing 2,000 lbs. (one ton) eleven miles.
-
-Then too, there might appear a foreign Farragut to PASS the torpedoes,
-losing perhaps some of his vessels, but still having enough left to
-accomplish his object.
-
-The torpedo is by no means a _sure_ weapon. During the war of the
-Rebellion the ship “Ironsides” was stationary for one hour directly over
-a torpedo which had a 5,000 lb. charge of powder, at Charleston. It
-failed to explode despite every effort of the operator on shore to get it
-to do its work.
-
-_If_ a ship happens to pass directly over a torpedo, and
-
-_If_ the operator touches the firing key at exactly the right moment, and
-
-_If_ the connection between the electrical battery and the torpedo fuse
-is all right, and
-
-_If_ the fuse itself is in good condition, and
-
-_If_ the charge in the torpedo has not deteriorated, the torpedo _may_
-explode and blow up the ship.
-
-Too many “ifs” to make this a reliable weapon, and one to be solely
-depended upon.
-
-Torpedoes, or submarine mines, unless protected by batteries, to prevent
-the enemy from quietly picking them up, are of no use whatever except to
-cause delay.
-
-It is the custom in modern wars for the victor to demand of the
-vanquished large war indemnities, so that the people who are whipped
-not only suffer great losses incident to war itself, but must pay the
-expenses both they and their conquerors have incurred, and the people
-have to pay this in the shape of taxes.
-
-Now, no one believes we are going to be conquered, but this is how an
-enemy’s fleet off New York, for instance, will affect all the people in
-the United States.
-
-They would send a shot or two in the vicinity of the city, from their
-position south of Long Island, just to show what they _could_ do, and
-threaten to destroy the city if a tribute of anywhere from $100,000,000
-to $200,000,000 is not forthcoming in twenty-four hours. It would be
-paid, as that amount does not anywhere near represent the value of
-property in New York City. The United States government would have to
-return this amount to the citizens who advanced it, for according to the
-constitution the government must provide for the common defense of the
-country. Then it would fall back on the taxpayers again, and _they_ would
-have to pay it.
-
-All that could be prevented by having the proper defense always ready.
-
-The other important cities on the coasts are as vulnerable to attack as
-New York.
-
-Just think of the billions of property which in this way is at the mercy
-of an enemy.
-
-We forget that English soldiers once destroyed our capitol.
-
-They could do it now, and think of the vast amount of money in the
-treasury at Washington which would fall into their hands, and the value
-of the property that would be destroyed, and of the valuable papers that
-would be lost.
-
-“There is no insurance against the great evils of war so certain and
-CHEAP as the preparations for defense and offense.”
-
-We are less likely to be attacked if our great seaboard and lake cities
-are defended by heavy rifled guns, by ironclads and torpedoes, and if we
-have enough cruisers to threaten an enemy’s commerce, and can take the
-offensive at once.
-
-Offense, with the proper weapons, is the best kind of defense.
-
-We must have a suitable navy to attack our enemy before he can get to our
-coast, and before he can either destroy or blockade our ports.
-
-Our policy being a peaceful one, we are not going to engage in war
-except in self defense, and we do not need to keep up a large naval
-establishment in time of peace, _but what we have should be the very
-best that can be obtained, and each individual ship and gun, and the
-personnel, should be of the most effective kind_.
-
-
-
-
-ASTRONOMY OF THE HEAVENS FOR JUNE.
-
-By PROF. M. B. GOFF.
-
-
-THE SUN
-
-In the northern hemisphere the longest day of this year is the 20th
-of this month; though in many places it would be difficult to notice
-that there was really any difference between the length of this day and
-that of a few of those preceding and succeeding. The sun has reached
-his farthest point northward, and, although he travels about his usual
-distance each day, he moves in a part of his orbit which is, for all
-practical purposes, parallel to the equator, and hence must rise about
-the same place and hour each morning, and set at the same place and
-hour every evening. About the 21st of December of each year we have
-the shortest day, with several of the neighboring days but very little
-longer; for the reason that at that date the sun reaches its southern
-limit and moves almost parallel to the equator.
-
-It may be interesting to see how our neighbors fare in regard to longest
-days. By the working of a few problems in spherical trigonometry we find
-that our friends living on the equator have all their days the same
-length, namely, twelve hours. So that there is in that region no looking
-forward to the long winter evenings, nor any hoping for the shortening of
-summer’s sultry days. They have, however, this advantage: If the sun’s
-rays do sometimes “come down by a straight road,” they do not continue so
-long at a time as with us. As we proceed north, we find in latitude 30°
-48′ that the longest day is fourteen hours, in latitude 49° 2′, sixteen
-hours; in 58° 27′, eighteen hours; in 63° 23′, twenty hours; in 65° 48′,
-twenty-two hours; in 66° 32′, twenty-four hours, no night at all; and
-51′ further north, that is, in latitude 67° 23′, the longest day begins
-about the fifth of June, and lasts till about the fourth of July, and is
-about thirty days long; in 73° 40′, it is three months long; in 84° 5′,
-it is five months; and at the north pole six months. Practically the days
-are longer than here represented; for we have natural light enough to
-pursue most vocations both before sunrise and after sunset. In latitude
-63° 23′, for example, where the day’s extreme length is twenty hours, on
-account of the twilight the remaining four hours might as well be called
-daylight, for the sun descends only a few degrees below the horizon, and
-though hidden from sight, still through the medium of the atmosphere
-affords almost the usual light of day.
-
-Of course our friends in the corresponding latitudes of the southern
-hemisphere are enjoying correspondingly short days and long nights.
-In 63° 23′ south latitude the day is only four hours long, and the
-night twenty hours. No wonder people sometimes say, “This is a queer
-world.” Its mechanism is certainly very wonderful. If we wished to be
-somewhat exact, we would say that the sun enters _Cancer_ and summer
-begins on June 20th, at 7:51 p. m., Washington mean time, and continues
-ninety-three days, fourteen hours twenty-two minutes. Other items are as
-follows: On the 1st, 15th, and 30th, the sun rises at 4:31, 4:28, and
-4:29 a. m.; and on the same dates sets at 7:24, 7:32, and 7:34 p. m.
-During the month our days vary in length from fourteen hours fifty-three
-minutes to fifteen hours five minutes; and on the 20th, the time from
-early dawn till the end of twilight is nineteen hours thirty minutes.
-On the 3rd, at 4:00 p. m., the sun is in conjunction with Saturn; on
-the 14th, at 3:00 p. m., 90° west of Uranus; on the 30th, at midnight,
-farthest from the earth; greatest elevation, in latitude 41° 30′ north,
-71° 57′. Diameter decreases from 31′ 36″ on the 1st, to 31′ 32″ on the
-30th.
-
-
-THE MOON’S
-
-Phases occur in the following order: Full moon on the 8th, at 2:41 p. m.;
-last quarter, on 16th, at 9:26 a. m.; new moon, on 23rd, at 12:25 a. m.;
-first quarter, on 30th, at 1:06 a. m. On the 1st, the moon sets at 12:38
-a. m.; on the 15th, rises at 11:45 p. m.; and on the 29th, sets at 11:42
-p. m. Is farthest from the earth on the 16th, at 10:18 p. m.; nearest to
-earth on 21st, at 10:30 p. m. Least meridian altitude on 9th, 29° 41′;
-greatest altitude on the 22nd, amounting to 67° 18⅓′.
-
-
-MERCURY.
-
-A pair of good sharp eyes looking out sufficiently early in the morning,
-can almost any day during the month get a view of this planet; especially
-will this be the case near the 12th, the day on which it reaches its
-greatest western elongation, amounting to 23° 19′. On the 1st, 15th, and
-30th, the time of rising is 3:51, 3:23, and 3:37 a. m. On the 21st, at
-12:41 p. m., it will be 1° 39′ north of the moon, and on the 26th, at
-6:00 p. m., one minute of arc north of Saturn.
-
-
-VENUS.
-
-This planet which has for several months been so conspicuous in the
-western sky, reaches its greatest brilliancy on the 3rd, after which
-it will decrease in interest, and continue to appear each day smaller,
-until its light is again obscured by the sun, and after remaining for a
-short time hidden from view, again appears in the eastern horizon as the
-_Lucifer_ (light-bearer) of the ancients. It will set at 10:24, 9:40, and
-8:21 p. m., respectively, on the evenings of the 1st, 15th, and 30th. Its
-diameter will increase from 35.8″ to 55.2″; but as it “turns its back
-upon us,” its increasing diameter will not add to the amount of light
-furnished the earth.
-
-
-MARS.
-
-On the 1st Mars will be found quite close to, and a little to the east
-of the star Regulus, in the constellation _Leo_, and will move east
-somewhat rapidly, making a direct movement of 14° 31′ 55.5″ from the 1st
-to the 30th. His diameter decreases from 6.6″ to 5.8″, indicating his
-continually increasing distance from the earth. He rises during the day
-and sets at the following hours: On the 2nd at 12:07 a. m.; on the 15th
-at 11:30 p. m.; and on the 30th at 10:49 p. m.
-
-
-JUPITER
-
-During the month moves about six degrees eastwardly from a point a little
-west of _Præsepe_, in _Cancer_, leaving the Nebula a little to the north,
-and reaching, on the 30th, a point a little northeast of _Delta Cancri_.
-He comes to the meridian on the 1st, 15th, and 30th, at 3:34.6, 2:50.2,
-and 2:03.5, p. m., and sets on the same days at 10:49, 10:01, and 9:12 p.
-m., respectively.
-
-
-SATURN,
-
-Who has for several months been making of himself such a fine display,
-exhibiting to those who were fortunate enough to possess a moderately
-good telescope, a splendid view of his rings, now retires abashed before
-the “King of Day;” during the first of the month, not even deigning
-“to put in an appearance.” But he only “bides his time.” For during
-the succeeding months he will be cheerfully “at home” to early risers.
-It will be observed that on the 1st he rises after and sets before the
-sun, namely, at 4:51 a. m. and 7:23 p. m.; on the 15th, rises at 4:02,
-twenty-six minutes before the sun, and sets at 6:36 p. m., some fifty-six
-minutes earlier than the sun; and on the 30th rises at 3:11 a. m., and
-sets 5:47 p. m. On the 3rd, at 4:00 p. m. he is in conjunction with and
-about 1° 23′ south of the sun; and on the 21st, at 10:30 p. m., 2° 46′
-north of the moon. Diameter, 15.6″.
-
-
-URANUS
-
-Makes an advance movement of 22′ 30″, presenting a diameter of 3.7″. Is
-evening star during the month, setting at the following times: On the 2nd
-at 1:07 a. m.; on the 16th at 12:12 a. m.; and on the 30th at 11:14 p. m.
-On the 14th at 3:00 p. m., is 90° east of the sun; on the 1st at 3:54 p.
-m., is 3° 21′ north of the moon, and again on the 28th at 11:42 p. m., 3°
-21′ north of the moon.
-
-One of the odd things in astronomy is the story of the satellites of
-Uranus. In a work published as recently as 1852, we are gravely told that
-Uranus “is attended by _six_ moons or satellites, which revolve about
-him in different periods, and at various distances. Four of them were
-discovered by Dr. Herschel and two by his sister, Caroline Herschel,
-with the promise of more to be discovered;” and then we are given their
-distances from the planet, and also their times of revolution, which
-vary from 224,000 to 1,556,000 miles as to distance, and from five days,
-twenty-one hours, twenty-five minutes, twenty seconds to one hundred and
-seven days, sixteen hours, thirty-nine minutes, fifty-six seconds, as
-to times of revolution. But now we are told Herschel’s “satellites have
-been sought for in vain, both with Mr. Lassell’s great reflectors and
-with the Washington twenty-six inch refractor, all of which are optically
-more powerful than the telescopes of Herschel. There may be additional
-satellites which have not yet been discovered; but if so, they must
-have been too faint to have been recognized by Herschel.” Our latest
-information on this subject gives four satellites named Ariel, Umbriel,
-Titania, Oberon, in order outwardly from the planet, and their periodic
-times, respectively, 2.52, 4.14, 8.7, and 13.46 days; the credit of
-discovering the two outer ones being given to Herschel and that of the
-two inner being divided between Mr. Lassell and Mr. Struve.
-
-
-NEPTUNE
-
-Will be one of our morning stars, rising at 3:35, 2:45, and 1:48 a. m.,
-on the 1st, 15th, and 30th, respectively. His motion, 58′ 39″ direct;
-diameter, 2.5″.
-
-
-
-
-TO BLOSSOMS.
-
-By R. HERRICK.
-
-
- Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,
- Why do ye fall so fast?
- Your date is not so past,
- But you may stay yet here awhile
- To blush and gently smile,
- And go at last.
-
- What, were ye born to be
- An hour or half’s delight,
- And so to bid good-night?
- ’Twas pity Nature brought ye forth
- Merely to show your worth,
- And lose you quite.
-
- But you are lovely leaves, where we
- May read how soon things have
- Their end, though ne’er so brave:
- And after they have shown their pride
- Like you, awhile, they glide
- Into the grave.
-
-
-
-
-THE SOLDIERS’ HOME.
-
-By OLIVER W. LONGAN,
-
-Adjutant General’s Office, War Department.
-
-
-Visitors to Washington, whether for the purpose of meeting friends, or,
-as strangers to “see the sights,” are moved by common impulse to find
-their greatest gratification in all day tours from building to building,
-and from point to point, where the wonders of the place are to be found,
-and no ordinary matter can distract the attention from the one object
-which is the topic for discussion and arrangement through all the indoor
-hours of morning and evening while the visit lasts. Even the dreary
-drizzling rain which fairly divides the time with the sunshine of this
-weather-wise day can not dampen the ardor of the tourist, and on foot
-or on wheel the round is pursued regardless of fatigue and discomfort.
-Indeed, there is something of heroism both in the appearance and feeling
-manifest in the mien and move of the travelers as they walk about the
-streets or “climb to the dome,” and after the wearied guest has departed
-and the family physician is called in to prescribe a tonic or stimulant
-for an exhausted nature upon which the duty of guide has been imposed in
-the days just past, he will invariably remark with exasperating irony
-which almost makes the patient determine never again to truthfully reveal
-the cause of infirmity, “of course you climbed to the dome.”
-
-The purpose being to invite the reader to the “dome” as the first point
-of view, a few words of description are offered. The dome of the capitol
-building is a conspicuous object from all parts of the city and affords
-a standpoint from which to obtain the best prospect of all the city and
-surrounding country. This fact, and because it fills a picture of beauty
-in a vista from a particular spot in the grounds of the Soldiers’ Home,
-introduces it into this article.
-
-From a balcony on the top of the dome, two hundred and sixteen feet from
-the ground, on the eastern front of the capitol, the eye takes in a scene
-of which Humboldt remarked, “I have not seen a more charming panorama in
-all my travels.” West at a distance of nearly three miles is Arlington.
-The mansion, which was once the home of Robert E. Lee, resembles, in the
-distance, the “Hall in the Grove.” Behind it is the city of the dead, a
-_home_ for the remains of about 15,000 soldiers. North a little more than
-three miles is the home of the living soldier. The clock tower appears to
-be the only sign of habitation upon a well wooded hill.
-
-As one of the many places of interest which receives the attention and
-merits the praise of visitors as a spot “beautiful for situation,”
-a brief history and description is offered to the readers of THE
-CHAUTAUQUAN, but in neither will there be found any of the mellowness of
-age which is possessed by old-world places nor of the power which belongs
-to
-
- “Things of earth, which time hath bent,
- A spirit’s feeling; and where he hath lent
- His hand, but broke his scythe.
- …
- For which the palace of the present hour
- Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower.”
-
-The credit of the origin of the movement to establish a retreat for the
-old and disabled soldiers of the United States army, appears to be due to
-Hon. James Barbour, Secretary of War under John Quincy Adams. In a report
-dated November 26, 1827, he suggests the founding of an army asylum. A
-report was made upon the subject by the Committee on Military Affairs
-in the House of Representatives May 21, 1828, and another February 27,
-1829. Except the collection of some data upon the subject nothing further
-appears to have been done until in 1839 General Robert Anderson, “the
-hero of Fort Sumter,” reviewed the work and submitted his plans and
-views to a number of older and more experienced officers of the army.
-Their responses indicate the high degree of favor with which they looked
-upon the project, but their words of foreboding in pointing out the
-difficulties to be surmounted in bringing a measure through the Congress
-to give it a legal status gave evidence that their estimate of strategy
-did not confine its use to the military department. Receiving but little
-more than good wishes for his encouragement, the dauntless captain (such
-was the rank then held by General Anderson) went knocking at the doors of
-Congress, and a communication addressed by him February 12, 1840, to Hon.
-John Reynolds, M. C., embodying the details of his plan became the basis
-of a favorable report by the House Military Committee January 7, 1841, in
-which, after setting forth the usage of the service and the improvement
-which would follow an act which should give the faithful soldier “the
-confidence of comfortable provision for his old age when he shall be worn
-out in his country’s service,” the committee declare it to be a “high
-gratification” to recommend to the “favorable consideration of Congress
-the admirable plan submitted by Captain Anderson—a plan which imposes no
-additional burden on the community, but merely provides that the savings
-of the soldier, in the vigor of his age, may afford him a shelter in the
-times of his infirmity or old age.”
-
-Never did an apple afloat more provokingly elude a youth, as with
-hands resolutely clasped behind him, he bent over the tub of water and
-endeavored to take it with his teeth, than did the object of Captain
-Anderson play away from successful accomplishment. The experience of
-people who have sought the favor of the law-making or executive powers
-to obtain an object of personal good for themselves or others has taught
-them that, as old people look over their spectacles to see the movement
-on the other side, so do the servants of the public over the object
-presented to measure the strength of the impelling power, and that
-attitude is apt to remain unchanged until the impulsion becomes dynamic
-when the direction of view is turned into, and through the matter urged
-upon them. Something of this character must have been the experience of
-those pleading the cause of the “old soldier” for about twelve years.
-General Winfield Scott made special mention of the subject and strongly
-recommended it in his annual report dated November 20, 1845, and again in
-a report dated November 3, 1849, he says:
-
-“While the army under my command lay at Pueblo a part of the summer of
-1847, an humble petition to Congress in favor of an asylum … for the
-benefit of _enlisted_ men was drawn up and signed by, I believe, every
-commissioned officer.… In connection with that petition I beg to add
-the following facts: On the capture of the city of Mexico, by the same
-army, I levied a contribution upon the inhabitants of $150,000, in lieu
-of pillage, to which the city, by the usages of war, was, under the
-circumstances, liable.” The disposition of this money was accounted for
-in a letter to the Secretary of War, dated at Mexico February 6, 1848,
-in which was enclosed a draft for $100,000, concerning which the letter
-says: “I hope you will allow the draft to go to the credit of an _army
-asylum_, and make the subject known, in the way you deem best, to the
-military committee of Congress. That sum is, in small part, the price of
-the American blood so gallantly shed in this vicinity.” Quoting again
-from the report of November 3, 1849: “The draft was made payable to me;
-and, in order to place the deposit beyond the control of any individual
-functionary whatever, I endorsed it, ‘The Bank of America will place the
-within amount to the credit of _army asylum, subject to the order of
-Congress_.’” The remainder of the report is an earnest protest against
-the disposition of the draft (which the Secretary of War had caused to
-be turned into the United States treasury), and a renewed “petition that
-Congress may appropriate the whole to an _army asylum_ for the worn out
-or decayed _enlisted_ men (regulars and volunteers) yet in service, or
-who may have been honorably discharged therefrom.” Thus, all along the
-line the history shows the difficulties which confronted the friends
-of the soldier, while within the citadel the feeling of opposition
-was strong enough to evoke the following from a member of the House of
-Representatives, in a letter to General Anderson, dated January 31, 1851:
-
-“The prejudices of the House against the army are strong, and stupid and
-undiscriminating opposition is made to all changes which do not propose
-to cut down the army. I am not hopeful of the success of any measure—of
-the number in contemplation—that looks to the improvement of the army.”
-This language was descriptive of a most remarkable state of feeling,
-else the honorable member erred greatly in thinking that in the face of
-the recent achievements in Mexico the national legislature would strike
-down the bruised and broken battalions which had brought untold wealth
-to the people, as well as glory to the national standard. The action
-of a few weeks later indicated that however strong was the prejudice
-against the army there was a power somewhere which operated to protect
-and advance the interests so long and faithfully urged upon Congress in
-favor of the “army asylum,” and on the 3d of March, 1851, the approval
-of the President was given to “An Act to found a military asylum for the
-relief and support of invalid and disabled soldiers of the army of the
-United States.” The law constituted the general-in-chief commanding the
-army and seven other general officers a board of commissioners with the
-necessary powers for carrying out the purposes of the act, and provided
-for the detail of officers from the army for the position of governor,
-deputy governor, and secretary and treasurer, for each site which should
-be established. It gave the right of admission to benefit in the asylum
-to all discharged soldiers of twenty years’ service, and all disqualified
-by wounds received or disease contracted in the service and in the line
-of military duty—excepting deserters, mutineers, habitual drunkards and
-convicted felons—and required the discharge from the asylum of those who,
-being under fifty years of age, should recover their health so as to be
-fit again for military duty. By the same act a specific appropriation
-of money (including the levy made by General Scott upon Mexico),
-amounting to $183,110.42, was made to establish the asylum, and for its
-future maintenance provision was made to devote all monies derived from
-stoppages and fines by courts-martial, from pay forfeited by deserters,
-and from the effects of deceased soldiers unclaimed for three years—the
-latter to be subject to demand of legal heirs at any time—also from a
-deduction of twenty-five cents per month from each enlisted soldier,
-giving the volunteers or those belonging to organizations raised for a
-limited period the option of permitting the deduction from their pay
-to be made or not, as they chose, but making it obligatory in effect
-upon the _regular_ soldier. An amendment to this law was made March 3,
-1859, which changed the name of the institution to the “Soldiers’ Home,”
-reduced the number of commissioners to _three_, reduced the monthly
-deduction from the pay of the soldiers to twelve and one-half cents per
-month, and required pensioners to surrender their pensions to the Home
-while they should remain in and receive its benefits. Another amendment
-was made March 3, 1883, which made the Board of Commissioners to consist
-of the general-in-chief commanding the army, the commissary general, the
-adjutant general, the judge advocate general, the quartermaster general,
-the surgeon general, and the governor of the Home (all _ex-officio_),
-and provided for the pensions of inmate pensioners to be held in trust
-for their benefit, or to be paid to their parents, wives or children.
-With the exception of these amendments the provisions of the original law
-remain in force.
-
-The first commissioners, with General Scott as the senior officer, lost
-no time in selecting a location for the “asylum.” Parcels of ground on
-every side in the immediate vicinity of Washington City were offered
-at prices varying from $50 to $350 per acre. A portion of Mount Vernon
-was also offered at $1,333.33 per acre. Two tracts north of the city,
-containing a total of 256 acres, were purchased for $57,500. On one of
-these tracts were good buildings, one of which, “the mansion,” is now a
-summer residence for the President of the United States. Additions of
-ground since made to the original purchase have increased the number of
-acres to 500. The tract is nearly seven-eighths of a mile wide for about
-half its length from the southern boundary, which is irregular. The
-north half is reduced in width by a change of direction of the eastern
-boundary running westward about 400 yards. The western boundary nearly
-opposite the same point changes its course and runs northeast until it
-meets the eastern boundary at a point about one mile and three-eighths
-from the south line. In this north point nearly all of the buildings are
-situated. The ground is nearly level, being the broad top of a ridge
-which, upon the east side just outside the Home grounds, is of quite
-abrupt descent. A public road cuts off about fifteen acres, a portion
-of which is devoted to a national cemetery, while the remaining portion
-is a hillside grove in which, within a year past, a platform and seats
-have been erected for use on “decoration day.” Within the main grounds a
-pear orchard covers the “point,” and the first building near it is the
-library. The building was originally intended for a billiard room and
-bowling alley, and is the only building upon the grounds upon which the
-genius of the architect “run to waste.” The main building a few yards
-south of the library was the first one erected after the purchase of the
-grounds for an asylum. It was commenced in 1852 and completed in 1857. It
-is of white marble, the front structure 151⅓ feet long by 57 feet wide,
-four stories high, with a clock tower in the center of the south front.
-A rear wing from the center covers nearly equal ground with the front.
-In the basement are the kitchens, store rooms, offices, smoking rooms,
-etc. Upon the first floor is the dining room, large enough to seat 340
-men. The remainder of this floor, and all the other floors, is devoted
-to sleeping rooms, and of these—except in the matter of ventilation of
-a few of the upper rooms—it may be said that they are as nearly perfect
-for the uses intended as can well be made. Single beds, wire and hair
-mattresses, clean and comfortable clothing of woolen and linen, clean
-uncarpeted floors and pure air, a box or locker for each man, make up a
-sum of comfort for the lodging of one accustomed only to the blanket and
-the bunk, which is well nigh perfect, and not to be found for the same
-person in the most luxurious bed-chamber wealth could provide. On the
-east of the main building is the annex used principally as a dormitory.
-On the same side are the stables and shops, the former too close for a
-well regulated institution. Upon the west and next the main building is
-the mansion, the dwelling of the former proprietor, and now the summer
-residence of the President. It has been remodeled, and very little of
-the original appearance of the building which a few years since was
-almost buried in vines, is left. Directly south from the mansion and
-main building the ground falls off gradually for half a mile, while on
-either side the ridge extends in a graceful sweep for about five hundred
-yards to bluffs somewhat abrupt, but not enough so to mar the beauty of
-rounded form. Upon the western ridge going southward from the mansion are
-the following objects in their order: The office building, a one story
-brick structure, where the commissioners meet at least once every month;
-the governor’s residence, and next the deputy governor’s residence, both
-large, roomy, and comfortable double houses of the same material as the
-“main building,” and of design in harmony with it. Next is a double
-building of brick occupied by the treasurer and the attending surgeon.
-These buildings all have a back-ground of woods which extends with the
-gradually sloping hill to the highway which here forms the western
-boundary of the grounds. The next object upon the western avenue is a
-portrait statue of General Scott, which was erected in 1874 upon a point
-of the ridge, which here extends to the east so as to make one side of a
-basin formed with the lower ground south of the mansion. The statue is
-bronze, ten feet high, upon a granite pedestal placed in the center of
-a mound, around which is a circular drive for carriages. The figure is
-represented in uniform, with a military cloak, fastened at the throat and
-thrown back from the right shoulder; head uncovered, left arm slightly
-bent and the hand resting on the thigh, the right hand upon the breast
-and thrust under the partly open coat. The position is one of dignified
-repose. No strain of feeling is aroused in the observer, such as is
-felt in looking upon the various equine figures in the city, upon which
-is perpetuated in the figure of the officer, the tension of nerve and
-alertness which almost prompts an effort to break the spell and give the
-dead their rest.
-
-Standing beside the statue, or seated upon the rustic bench close by,
-a view may be obtained which the visitor who has leisure may enjoy for
-an indefinite time. The city lies not far below. The eye can cover it
-all at one gaze. The dome of the capitol stands high above every other
-object—except that shaft of marble which bids fair to soon become the
-Washington monument—and far beyond is the broad Potomac, whose course is
-in the direction of view, and carries the eye on and on until objects
-become indistinct. Perhaps an officer close by may be observed lazily
-reclining upon the grass, while a soldier stands near him waving in
-various directions a white flag with a square block of color in the
-center. Presently the officer takes a small telescope from the earth
-beside him, and leveling it in a direction west of the city, looks
-steadily for a minute or two, lowers the glass and apparently writes
-down the result of his observation in a memorandum book. Looking in the
-same direction as did the officer the sight will be just strong enough
-to discern a flag-staff upon the top of the hills on the other side of
-the Potomac, perhaps five or six miles away. Curiosity may be gratified
-by a few questions, and from the answers it will be learned that the
-flag-staff marks the spot known as Fort Meyer, Virginia, the station
-of the United States signal corps, and the operation just witnessed
-was simply a practice lesson in transmitting a message by the use of
-the small flag, the motions of which to right, to left, to front, or
-by circle, indicated the letters or words of the message. A practice
-day upon this spot, by the signal men, is a diversion for many an old
-soldier whose monotonous life is greatly relieved even by a pantomime.
-A little east of south from the statue, about 400 yards distant,
-is Barnes’ Hospital, named for General Joseph K. Barnes, deceased,
-late surgeon-general of the army, who was the senior officer of the
-commissioners of the Home, when the hospital was built nearly eight
-years ago. It is a model hospital in every respect, and has received
-unqualified approval from the foremost medical men of Europe, as well
-as of America. It is full of patients all the time. It was intended to
-accommodate sixty, but the average number is about eighty. Some are
-ailing, some are waiting, some of sight or limb are wanting, all are
-forever done with the fullness of physical life, and the surgeon looks
-upon them as his children, whose every want he must attend. Three hundred
-yards farther south is the portion of the grounds known as “Harewood,”
-an estate of 191 acres added to the Home by purchase in 1872. A good
-portion of it is woods, through which are beautiful drives winding into
-labyrinths for one unaccustomed to them, for at three different points a
-stranger will be bewildered by following a well-worn track which returns
-upon itself, and may be traversed many times before some objects begin
-to have a familiar look. One of these places is bounded by a drive which
-is as irregular as would be the loop of a lasso thrown from the hand
-and permitted to drop upon the ground, an oblong irregular figure, from
-the northern end of which is the capitol “vista.” Through the woods
-for a distance of 500 or 600 yards an opening has been cut just wide
-enough, and trimmed just high enough to admit a view of the dome of the
-capitol, which is invisible from points a step or two on either side of a
-particular spot. With the aid of very little imagination one may think
-the eye rests upon the temple in the new city which has been pictured in
-misty glory by so many artists.
-
-Upon the “Harewood” grounds are the principal farm and dairy buildings.
-The cottage now occupied by the farmer was, in some of the years of war,
-the summer home of the “great war secretary,” Edwin M. Stanton, the man
-who in the war times inspired more fear amongst his subordinates by the
-promptness and severity of his punishments for delinquencies than ever
-visited the same persons in the presence of an active foe. And yet when
-he stood upon the steps of the north front of the old War Department
-building, now gone down with him to the dust, and tried on that memorable
-3d of April, 1865, to speak congratulatory words concerning the news
-which had come over the wires from the hand of President Lincoln, at City
-Point, Va., of a broken Rebellion and an evacuated Confederate capitol,
-his eyes were so full of tears that he did not see that the crowd which
-stood about and before him was composed of his apparently demoralized
-officers and clerks who had abandoned their desks and swarmed from the
-building by the windows as well as the doors; or, if he did see them,
-his voice was too much broken with the emotions, which were stronger
-than his stout heart, to permit him to administer a rebuke to those who
-almost without exception, at some time in the months and years just past,
-contributed their share to the result, and many had brought away the
-marks of the sacrifice.
-
-The work of farming is confined to the products of a market garden, which
-can not be purchased for the purposes of the Home in as good condition
-as they can be raised upon the ground. The dairy is the most important
-institution of the Home, and the herd of from forty to fifty Alderney and
-Holstein cattle is by no means the least amongst the matters of interest
-to be seen upon the grounds. The work of the dairy is done by men. The
-cooking for the inmates, nursing the sick, and indeed all the indoor
-work usually done by women is done by men. Some of the employes are
-“civilians,” so called to distinguish them from inmates who are employed
-upon light work.
-
-There are five principal gates or entrances to the Home grounds; two
-upon the east side and three upon the west side. At each is a lodge and
-a gate-keeper. The first on the east is the Harewood gate, entering
-upon the grounds already mentioned, of the same name. From it the “East
-drive,” after a serpentine course westward for about 500 yards up a
-pretty sharp grade, turns northward, and as it passes along east of
-the central portion of the grounds affords the finest view of the open
-country, the drive being upon high ground and the view unobstructed
-across the entire place. From the same gate “Corcoran Avenue,” flanked
-on both sides by magnificent rows of shade trees, leads into the woods.
-“Sherman” gate is near the north point opposite the cemetery; “Scott”
-gate, or as familiarly known, “Eagle” gate because of the immense iron
-eagles upon the gate pillars, is directly opposite “Sherman” gate, and
-both lead to the buildings only a few steps distant. There is a large
-gate a few steps west of the Scott statue so little used as not to be
-dignified with a name. The most important gate is one nearest the city
-upon the west side. It is reached by an avenue from “Seventh Street
-Road,” a continuation of the most important street running north and
-south in Washington. The avenue is the property of the Home, although the
-land on either side is owned by private parties. It is called “Whitney
-Avenue,” and the gate bears the same name. The ornaments upon the gate
-pillars or piers, which are of brick capped with stone, are large vases
-said to be copies of a vase designed by Thorwaldsen. The first view
-upon entering this gate is the one which may properly be called the
-“prettiest” when the word is used as meaning an appearance which gives
-momentary pleasure, but may not be remembered as one would remember the
-scenery and lake at Chautauqua. About two hundred feet from the gate are
-two little lakes which serve to assure the visitor that there really is
-real water on the place. By artificial means one of these lakes is held
-at a level about ten feet above the other, and by pipes carried to the
-center of the lower, a pretty, single jet fountain is formed. The north
-end of the upper lake is crossed by a substantial iron bridge, and the
-south end of the lower one is covered by a short granite span. Between
-the two all effort to find any satisfaction in the waste (?) of water is
-futile. But for miniatures they are really pretty, and with the three
-swans bumping up against the green shore as they float backward and swim
-forward, the half dozen white ducks with their heads in the mud and their
-dozen red legs and feet in the air in active effort to kick themselves
-farther into the mud, and the two wild geese, domesticated by the loss of
-part of a pinion each, as they stand sullenly by looking like fettered
-savages, all combine to afford a diversion which may not be found
-anywhere else by the visitor.
-
-The drives throughout the grounds will afford a ride of ten or eleven
-miles without going twice over the same spot, except at crossings.
-They are beautiful, hard, well kept, graveled courses. The gutters
-are models, and of themselves works of beauty, as they are paved with
-selected stone, nearly white, nearly of a size, and none much larger
-than a large egg, all in their natural form or shape. But it all affords
-but little genuine good to the old soldier. If he ventures out upon the
-road his walk is beset with dangers, and a sudden fright from a dashing
-team almost upon him drives away all gratification he might receive by
-looking from a place of safety upon the handsome equipages whirling by.
-Except the “short cuts” through the grass—and these are few and under
-prohibition—there is but one foot-path of any length in the grounds, and
-that is of brick, between the main building and the hospital. In most
-cases, to traverse this, is not even a matter of melancholy pleasure. The
-many privileges ready made for the citizens of Washington, without care
-or cost to them, are no doubt appreciated by them, but if a due weight
-of appreciation could be given to the cost, both original in money and
-cumulative in deprivation to those whose right it is to use them, the use
-of extended drives in a beautiful park away from the heat and dust of the
-streets, and yet so near as to be at the door, would lead all the rest.
-
-The Soldiers’ Home in the District of Columbia is unquestionably a grand
-institution, and in providing creature comforts, can probably not be
-improved upon, but it fails to meet a want which is known and recognized
-by the authorities having it in charge. Perhaps the one word which
-will best express it is _diversion_, not in the sense of amusement,
-but to take one away from his melancholies and permit no reaction. The
-inmates are men who have formed habits which grew under circumstances of
-constantly recurring excitement.
-
-They are able to understand that the best years of their lives have
-passed, and that the best powers of their bodies have been used, while
-nearly half of the allotted time of life, as measured by the number
-of their years, ought to still be to their credit, but they feel in
-some way that their hands are empty. True, they have every comfort for
-animal life, and in the little red stone chapel, the three services
-every Sunday are more than they ever knew before as a provision for
-their spiritual welfare, and they have the same freedom from care to
-which they have been accustomed through their military life, but each
-one sees that all he has is shared by five hundred others, and in it all
-he has no single part over which he can exercise individual control,
-not even himself. Everything tells him his work is done, and there is
-no more in the give and take of life over which he can plan and work.
-Discontent is inevitable, and until some plan is devised for bringing
-the military service, or most of its features, to the Home, and having
-there a counterpart of the camp and its duties, not to be imposed as
-set tasks, but to be taken up and directed by the men who all their
-lives have been under direction, and ought now to enjoy the privilege of
-apparent control, a remedy will probably not be found. It took years
-to overcome in a measure the dislike and suspicion with which the old
-soldier regarded the Home. It was a manifestation of interest in him
-which was new and unusual, and by him untried. Progress has been made
-in the past years toward overcoming the matters which may be mentioned
-as difficulties in the problem of how to take care of men who ought to
-be simply aided in taking care of themselves by supplying them to a
-proper extent with means or material, and throwing upon them sufficient
-responsibility to create the _occupation_, which is the greatest need of
-the institution. This will gradually be worked out, and then the Home
-will be what it should, a place for work and life, and less of a place
-for waiting and death.
-
-
-
-
-EIGHT CENTURIES WITH WALTER SCOTT.
-
-By WALLACE BRUCE.
-
-
-It has been truly said that Walter Scott’s novels have done more to warm
-the hearts of the English people toward their northern brethren than
-any other influence during the last century. The two races, unlike in
-national traditions and social characteristics, differing as to climatic
-influence and formation of country, with a blood-stained record since the
-days of Keneth Mac Alpine, were not naturally allied, or well prepared
-for immediate and lasting friendship. To borrow the language of surgery:
-It was not a national break to be easily “knitted,” but a sort of
-compound fracture.
-
-For thirty generations English and Scot had literally “glowered” across
-the border. Constrained in the narrow island of Britain, they had
-struggled like Roman gladiators in a wave-washed Coliseum, from which
-there was no escape. In the world’s history there is no other record of
-two races, with so many divergent points, and so much ancestral hatred,
-solidifying into one harmonious nation; and it is to the glory of Scott
-to have contributed to so grand a consummation. “All war,” Bulwer says,
-“is a misunderstanding.” It seemed to be the mission of our novelist
-to introduce England and Scotland to each other, and to make future
-misunderstanding impossible. Some of the volumes and characters, which
-we are to consider in this and in the following paper, emphasize and
-illustrate this conclusion.
-
-“The Pirate,” next in historic sequence, has little to do with the
-history of reigns and dynasties. With the exception of a single
-paragraph, which refers incidentally to the commotion between Highlanders
-and Lowlanders, between Williamites and Jacobites, one would not dream
-that there was such a thing as a government in the world. The reader,
-in spite of the warlike title, finds himself in a northern Arcadia. In
-the hospitable home of Magnus Troil we have a picture of a Norwegian
-Udaller—one of the last survivors, who kept alive the customs of
-Scandinavia in the Orkney and Zetland Islands. What Cedric, the Saxon,
-was to his people, as a prototype of antique manners in the reign
-of Richard, the Lion Hearted, Magnus Troil is to the few surviving
-Norwegians at the close of the last century in the stormy islands of
-the north. We sit at his board, and hear Sagas rehearsed by fishermen,
-who preserved among themselves the ancient Norse tongue. We listen
-to the dark romance of other days when the black raven banner ruled
-the seas. We are taken back in fancy to moonlit bays, where mermaids
-mingle their voices with the moaning waves. The monstrous leviathans
-of the deep again seem real, and the sea-snake, with towering head,
-girdles with its green folds the misty islands of Shetland. We find
-captains negotiating for favorable voyages with weird hags and insane
-witches—antique insurance brokers, who were willing to take payment
-without giving indemnity. We find in Norna—the wild prophetess—who half
-believed her own divinations, a legitimate descendant of the Voluspæ, or
-divining women, who, from Hebraic and Delphic times, have wielded power
-through centuries of superstition. We find Christian inhabitants of well
-governed and hospitable villages, who regard the spoils of the sea, and
-castaway wrecks, as kindly dispensations of Providence. We are introduced
-to a primitive people still clinging to the belief that a supernatural
-race, allied to the fairies, sometimes propitious to mortals, but
-more frequently capricious and malevolent, worked below the earth as
-artificers of iron and precious metals. We see lovers still pledging
-their troth and taking the Promise of Oden at the Standing Stones of
-Stennis, and note the patriotism and proud spirit of Minna Troil, as she
-responds to her lover’s description of other lands of palm and cocoa,
-
- Fair realms of continual summer,
- And fields ever fragrant with flowers.
-
-“No,” she answers, “my own rude country has charms for me, even desolate
-as you think it, and depressed as it surely is, which no other land
-on earth can offer to me. I endeavor in vain to represent to myself
-those visions of trees and of groves, which my eye never saw; but my
-imagination can conceive no sight in nature more sublime than these
-waves, when agitated by a storm, or more beautiful, than when they come,
-as they now do, rolling in calm tranquility to the shore. Not the fairest
-scene in a foreign land—not the brightest sunbeam that ever shone upon
-the richest landscape, would win my thoughts for a moment from that lofty
-rock, misty hill and wide rolling ocean. Haitland is the land of my
-deceased ancestors, and of my living father, and in Haitland will I live
-and die.”
-
-The Bride of Lammermoor reveals the iniquitous administration of law in
-Scotland during the closing years of King William’s reign. The Scottish
-vicegerents, raised to power by the strength of faction, had friends
-to reward and enemies to humble. The old adage was literally verified:
-“Show me the man, and I will show you the law.” It is said that officers
-in high stations affected little scruple concerning bribery. “Pieces of
-plate, and bags of money, were sent in presents to the King’s counsel, to
-influence their conduct, and poured forth,” says a contemporary writer,
-“like billets of wood upon the floors, without even the decency of
-concealment.” The story opens with a burial and its attendant ceremony;
-and this key-note of sadness gives the tone or concert pitch to the
-sorrowful drama. The ready wit and crafty subterfuges of the old butler,
-Caleb Balderstone, somewhat relieve and lighten up the somberness of the
-tragedy. But it is not our purpose to trace the plot, or to point the
-moral of the swift and awful punishment which follows pride and injustice.
-
-As in “The Pirate,” we find but one paragraph relating to concurrent
-history, so in the “Bride of Lammermoor” we have but one historic glimpse
-of passing events, when the Tory party obtained, in the Scottish, as in
-the English councils of Queen Anne, a short lived ascendancy. There were
-at this time three parties in Scotland: the Unionists, who were destined
-providentially to triumph; the Jacobites, who desired the national
-independence of the kingdom; the third party, who were waiting to see
-the course of events. The reign of William, just completed, was not
-favorably regarded by the Scottish nation. His memory was justly honored
-in England, and revered by the Protestants of Ireland as a deliverer
-from civil and religious servitude. In Scotland he had likewise rendered
-great service to the right of worshiping God according to the dictates
-of one’s own conscience, but in civil matters he had infringed upon the
-prerogatives of the people—an infringement not speedily to be forgotten.
-Scott, in his “Tales of a Grandfather,” calls attention to this long
-cherished national resentment in the following paragraph: “On the fifth
-of November, 1788, when a full century had elapsed after the Revolution,
-some friends to constitutional liberty proposed that the return of the
-day should be solemnized by an agreement to erect a monument to the
-memory of King William, and the services which he had rendered to the
-British kingdoms. At this period an anonymous letter appeared in one
-of the Edinburgh newspapers, ironically applauding the undertaking,
-and proposing as two subjects of the entablature, for the base of the
-projected column, the massacre of Glencoe, and the distresses of the
-Scottish colonies at Darien. The proposal was abandoned as soon as the
-insinuation was made public.”
-
-When Queen Anne came to the throne it was thought prudent to make some
-provision which would insure a Protestant government for all time to
-Britain. The English Parliament therefore passed an Act of Succession
-in June, 1700: “Settling the crown, on the failure of Queen Anne
-and her issue, upon the grand-daughter of King James the First, of
-England—Sophia, Electress Dowager of Hanover, and her descendants. Queen
-Anne, and her statesmanlike adviser, Godolphin, saw the necessity of
-uniting Scotland in this agreement; but the Scottish people complained
-that they were not only required to surrender their public rights,
-according to the terms proposed, but also to yield them up to the very
-nation who had been most malevolent to them in all respects; who had been
-their constant enemies during a thousand years of almost continual war;
-and who, even since they had been united under the same crown, had shown
-in the massacre of Glencoe, and the disasters of Darien, at what a slight
-price they held the lives and rights of their northern neighbors.”
-
-“The Tale of the Black Dwarf” is related to the time of this fierce
-discussion in Scotland, as to the adoption or rejection of this proposed
-union; when mobs and rabbles crowded High Street; when the hall of
-meeting, contrary to the privileges of Edinburgh, was surrounded by
-guards and soldiery; when the debaters were often “in the form of a
-Polish Diet, with their swords in their hands, or at least their hands
-on their swords.” After a vain struggle the Scottish commissioners were
-compelled to submit to an incorporating union, and on the twenty-second
-of April the Parliament of Scotland adjourned forever. For the moment
-all parties were indignant. Papists, Prelatists, and Presbyterians
-were united in the common feeling that the country had been treated
-with injustice. Lord Belhaven, in a celebrated speech, which made the
-strongest impression on the people, declared that he saw, in prophetic
-vision, “The peers of Scotland, whose ancestors had raised tribute in
-England, now walking in the Courts of Requests, like so many English
-attorneys, laying aside their swords, lest self-defense should be called
-murder—he saw the Scottish barons with their lips padlocked to avoid the
-penalties of unknown laws—he saw the Scottish lawyers struck mute and
-confounded at being subjected to the intricacies and technical jargon
-of an unknown jurisprudence—he saw the merchants excluded from trade by
-the English monopolies—the artisans ruined for want of custom—the gentry
-reduced to indigence—the lower ranks to starvation and beggary. ‘But
-above all, my lord,’ he continued, ‘I think I see our ancient mother
-Caledonia, like Cæsar, sitting in the midst of our senate, ruefully
-looking around her, covering herself with her royal mantle, awaiting the
-fatal blow, and breathing out her last with the exclamation, “And thou
-too, my son.”’” These prophetic words made the deepest impression, until
-the effect was in some degree dispelled by Lord Marchmount, who rising to
-reply, said: “I have been much struck with the noble lord’s vision, but I
-conceive that the exposition of it might be given in a few words: I woke,
-and behold it was a dream.”
-
-If in these critical times the King of France had kept his promise to
-the son of James the Second, or if his Scottish friends had been more
-united or possessed a leader of distinguished talent, the House of Stuart
-might have repossessed their ancient throne of Scotland. The French
-fleet indeed brought the Pretender with an army of five thousand men to
-the Frith of Forth, but, frightened by the English fleet, returned to
-France without landing. It was an enterprise entirely devoid of spirit,
-and the closing chapters of the “Black Dwarf” reveal a pitiful picture
-of the apathy of the movement, and the indecision and incapacity of the
-Pretender’s adherents.
-
-“Rob Roy” introduces us to the wild fastnesses which lie between Loch
-Lomond and Loch Katrine. The state of the country is still unsettled. The
-Highlanders have been kept comparatively quiet since the days of King
-William by giving pensions to the leading chiefs, upon the principle of
-feeding the wilder and fiercer animals in order to keep them tractable;
-but, like a rock poised on a precipice, the clans seem ready at an
-instant to break loose and precipitate themselves upon the lowlands; the
-Jacobites still retain hope of restoring the Stuart line. The Whigs,
-continually on the alert, anticipate every movement; the slightest
-whisper in Paris is heard at the London Court; it also appeared that
-Louis the Fourteenth was nowise disposed to encourage any plot to disturb
-the reigning monarch of England; the Pretender hastened to Paris upon
-receiving tidings of the death of Queen Anne, but his reception was so
-unfavorable that he returned to Lorraine, “with the sad assurance that
-the monarch of France was determined to adhere to the treaty of Utrecht,
-by an important article of which he had recognized the succession of the
-House of Hanover to the Crown of Great Britain.”
-
-George the First landed at Greenwich, September seventeenth, 1714, and
-quietly assumed the government; but the seething plot of Macbeth’s
-witches was not yet skimmed. The rebellion known as “The Affair of
-1715” was organized and guided by the Earl of Mar. The clans were again
-in arms, and the Pretender again hailed as king. In the battle of
-Sheriffmuir, which followed soon afterward, an outlawed clan whose name
-for generations was only mentioned in whisper, “nameless by day” and
-fierce through oppression, remained inactive upon the field. They were
-ordered by the Earl of Mar to charge the enemy, but the bold chieftain
-answered with haughty indifference: “If you can not win without us you
-will not with us.” The speaker was Robert Mac Gregor, more generally
-known as Rob Roy. Like Robin Hood of England he is said to have been a
-kind and gentle robber, who harried the rich and relieved the poor. As
-Scott says in his introduction to the romance: “He maintained through
-good report and bad report a wonderful degree of importance in popular
-recollection. He owed his fame in a great measure to his residing on the
-very verge of the Highlands, and playing such pranks in the beginning
-of the eighteenth century as are usually ascribed to the freebooters
-of the middle ages—and that within forty miles of Glasgow, a great
-commercial city, the seat of a learned university. Thus a character like
-his, blending the wild virtues, the subtle policy, and unrestrained
-license of an American Indian, was flourishing in Scotland during the
-Augustan age of Queen Anne and George the First—the sept of Mac Gregor
-claimed a descent from Alpin, King of Scots, who ruled about 787. Hence
-their original patronymic is Mac Alpine. They occupied at one period
-very extensive possessions in Perthshire and Argyleshire, which they
-imprudently continued to hold by the right of the sword. Their neighbors,
-the Earls of Argyle and Breadalbane, managed to have this property
-engrossed in deeds and charters, which they easily obtained from the
-crown.” In plain English, they stole it, and obtained a commission by an
-Act of Privy Council in 1563 to pursue the claim with fire and sword.
-No wonder that the Mac Gregors came to have little regard for the law
-which had little regard for them. In sympathy for the oppressed outlaw,
-Wordsworth breaks out in enthusiastic tribute:
-
- Say then that he was wise as brave,
- As wise in thought as bold in deed;
- For in the principles of things
- He sought his moral creed.
-
- Said generous Rob, “What need of books?
- Burn all the statutes and their shelves!
- They stir us up against our kind,
- And worse, against ourselves.
-
- The creatures see of flood and field,
- And those that travel on the wind;
- With them no strife can last; they live
- In peace and peace of mind.
-
- For why? because the good old rule
- Sufficeth them; the simple plan,
- That they should take who have the power,
- And they should keep who can.”
-
-Blackstone would probably have regarded this as a feeble tenure of
-property, and Scott was too good a lawyer to excuse the robber and
-blackmailer on such primitive and poetic principles. He puts a more
-natural and sensible excuse in the mouth of the honest bailie, Nicol
-Jarvie: “Robin was anes a weel-doing, pains-taking drover, as ye wad see
-amang ten thousand. It was a pleasure to see him in his belted plaid and
-brogues, wi’ his target at his back, and claymore and dirk at his belt.
-And he was baith civil and just in his dealings; and if he thought his
-chapman had made a hard bargain, he would gie him back five shillings out
-o’ the pund sterling. But the times came hard, and Rob was venturesome,
-and the creditors, mair especially some grit neighbors o’ his, grippit to
-his living and land; and they say his wife was turned out o’ the house
-to the hillside, and sair misguided to the boot. Weel, Rob cam hame, and
-fand desolation, God pity us! where he left plenty; he looked east, west,
-south, north, and saw neither hauld nor hope—neither beild nor shelter,
-sae he e’en pu’d the bonnet ower his brow, belted the broadsword to his
-side, took to the brae-side, and became a broken man.”
-
-He had indeed suffered, and the harsh treatment which his wife had
-received from the soldiery was enough to have roused a less ferocious man
-to revenge. Her spirit seems to have been cast in the same mould, and
-Scott presents her in heroic guise, assuming the command of the clan in
-her husband’s absence. “Stand,” she said, with a commanding tone to the
-English soldiers, “and tell me what ye seek in Mac Gregor’s country?”
-“She wore her plaid, not drawn around her head and shoulders, as is the
-fashion of the women in Scotland, but disposed around her body, as the
-Highland soldiers wear theirs. She had a man’s bonnet, with a feather in
-it, an unsheathed sword in her hand, and a pair of pistols at her girdle.”
-
-“What seek ye here?” she asked again of Captain Thornton, who had
-himself advanced to reconnoiter. “We seek the outlaw, Rob Roy Mac Gregor
-Campbell,” answered the officer, “and make no war on women; therefore
-offer no vain opposition to the king’s troops, and assure yourself of
-civil treatment.”
-
-“Ay,” retorted the Amazon, “I am no stranger to your tender mercies. You
-have left me neither name nor fame—my mother’s bones will shrink aside in
-their grave when mine are laid beside them—ye have left me neither house
-nor hold, blanket nor bedding, cattle to feed us, or flocks to clothe
-us—ye have taken from us all—all! The very names of our ancestors have ye
-taken away, and now ye come for our lives.”
-
-There is another character which lives long and pleasantly in the
-reader’s memory—the warm hearted bumptious bailie, Nicol Jarvie, a
-Scotchman profoundly impressed with a sense of his own extraordinary
-ability, who never forgot to quote from his father, the deacon, and never
-lost his appreciation of the “siller.” Scott has drawn this character
-with marvelous art. It stands out like a living portrait, and the reader
-loves him because he is as brave as he is canny. The scene in the
-Highland inn, where he found his sword rusted fast in the scabbard, and
-seized the red hot poker for a weapon, is at once dramatic and humorous.
-
-The shifting of the scene of the story from the north of England to
-Glasgow, and thence to the Highlands, is naturally done, and without
-creaking of machinery. We have just enough of the villain Rashley and
-his nefarious plotting to give the continuous interest of uncertainty;
-and Die Vernon (pardon me, reader, for compressing her in a closing
-paragraph), with ready wit and sterling sense, flits about like a
-hoydenish angel—but in spite of eccentricities a ministering angel of
-peace and comfort. In the happiness of Frank Osbaldistone, who wins her
-hand in the closing chapter, we forget the defeat of the Jacobite party,
-or the fact that the Pretender is again an exile from the throne of his
-fathers.
-
-“The Heart of Midlothian” opens with a description of the celebrated
-Porteous Mob at Edinburgh, in 1736. Two smugglers, Wilson and Robertson,
-who were reduced to poverty, robbed the collector to make good their
-own loss. They were arrested, tried, and condemned to death. As the
-Parliament was endeavoring to make the income of Scotland a source of
-revenue to the common exchequer, smuggling was not looked upon by the
-people as a very heinous offense. In fact, it was almost universal in
-every port north of the Tweed during the reigns of George the First
-and George the Second. The people, unaccustomed to duties, considered
-them in the light of national oppression; and the sentence of death
-pronounced against Wilson and Robertson was considered severe and
-unjust. The prisoners attempted an escape, but were discovered. The
-day of execution came. It was customary for persons sentenced to death
-to attend preparatory service at the kirk. On this occasion the church
-was thronged. Wilson, who was a very powerful man, at the conclusion
-of the exercises seized two of the guards with his hands, at the same
-time catching the collar of the third with his teeth. He cried to
-his companion to run, and the crowd, whose sympathies were with the
-prisoners, allowed Robertson to mix with the people and escape. Wilson
-was executed. The City Guard, under the command of Porteous, was insulted
-by the citizens. The Guard fired upon them with deadly aim. Porteous
-was tried and condemned for murder. King George at this time was on the
-Continent, and Queen Caroline, acting in his absence, sent a reprieve
-to Porteous. Edinburgh was now thoroughly aroused. They asked if a poor
-smuggler, accused of stealing, should hang without a reprieve, while
-a hard hearted and despised man, who shot down the people of their
-chief city without mercy, should go scathless. A mob, apparently of the
-better class of citizens, too orderly to need even a leader, attacked
-the Tolbooth. Porteous was taken by force and hung at night in the
-Grassmarket.
-
-The Queen was incensed. “A bill was prepared and brought into Parliament
-for the punishment of the city of Edinburgh, in a very vindictive spirit,
-proposing to abolish the city charter, demolish the city walls, take away
-the town guard, and declare the provost incapable of holding any office
-of public trust.” Scotland was fortunate at that time in possessing
-a great leader, John, Duke of Argyle and Greenwich. His talents as a
-statesman and a soldier were generally admitted; he was not without
-ambition, but “without the illness that attends it”—that irregularity
-of thought and aim which often excites great men to grasp the means of
-raising themselves to power, at the risk of throwing a kingdom into
-confusion. Pope has distinguished him as
-
- “Argyle, the state’s whole thunder born to wield,
- And shake alike the senate and the field.”
-
-Soaring above the petty distinctions of faction, his voice was raised,
-whether in office or opposition, for those measures which were at once
-just and lenient. His independent and haughty mode of expressing himself
-in Parliament, and acting in public, were ill calculated to attract royal
-favor; but his high military talents enabled him, during the memorable
-year 1715, to render such services to the House of Hanover, as, perhaps,
-were too great to be either acknowledged or repaid. His spirited and
-witty reply to the queen was quoted and chuckled over from Berwick to
-Inverness: “Sooner than submit to such an insult as this Porteous Mob,”
-said the Queen to the Duke, “I will make Scotland a hunting field.” “In
-that case,” answered Argyle, “I will take leave of your Majesty, and go
-down to my own country to get my hounds ready.”
-
-His speech in Parliament in reference to the dismantling of Edinburgh
-reveals the straightforward character of the man. He retorted upon the
-Chancellor, Lord Hardwick, the insinuation that he had stated himself in
-this case rather as a party than as a judge: “I appeal,” said Argyle,
-“to the House—to the nation, if I can be justly branded with the infamy
-of being a jobber or a partisan. Have I been a briber of votes? a buyer
-of boroughs? the agent of corruption for any purpose, or on behalf of
-any party? Consider my life, examine my actions in the field and in the
-cabinet, and see where there lies a blot that can attach to my honor. I
-have shown myself the friend of my country—the loyal subject of my king.
-I am ready to do so again, without an instant’s regard to the frowns
-or smiles of a court. I have experienced both, and am prepared with
-indifference for either. I have given my reasons for opposing this bill,
-and have made it appear that it is repugnant to the international treaty
-of union, to the liberty of Scotland, and, reflectively, to that of
-England, to common justice, to common sense, and to the public interest.
-Shall the metropolis of Scotland, the capital of an independent nation,
-the residence of a long line of monarchs, by whom that noble city was
-graced and dignified—shall such a city, for the fault of an unknown body
-of rioters, be deprived of its honors and privileges—its gates and its
-guards? And shall a native Scotsman tamely behold the havoc? I glory, my
-lords, in opposing such unjust rigor, and reckon it my dearest pride and
-honor to stand up in defense of my native country, while thus laid open
-to undeserved shame and unjust spoliation.” In this tribute of Scott,
-and this speech, which he has recorded in one of his best known novels,
-Argyle stands out as a noble representative of a family powerful through
-centuries; ay, so thoroughly revered to-day in Scotland that an old
-Scotch woman on a comparatively recent wedding morn remarked that the
-Queen must be a happy woman noo, since her daughter has married the son
-of Argyle.
-
-So much for the historic setting of this well known story, which makes
-the reader acquainted with Arthur’s Seat, with High Street, the Old
-Tolbooth, the Grassmarket and the Church of St. Giles. We see in the
-unbending and uncompromising character of David Deans a descendant of
-the Covenanters, who could hardly understand how a Presbyterian could
-acknowledge a government that did not acknowledge the Solemn League
-and Covenant. We see his house made desolate by the misfortune and
-misguidance of his daughter Effie. We trace the unswerving rectitude
-of Jeanie’s character, destined to triumph at last over all obstacles.
-We witness the dramatic scene in the court room, and read her eloquent
-appeal before the Queen in the great park of Richmond. We go with her
-through strange villages, and over solitary heaths. But through insult
-and disaster we find her serenely relying upon that Providence which she
-knew was all-kind and all-powerful.
-
-She accomplished her mission and lived to enjoy the blessedness of well
-doing. And Effie, ah! poor Effie! she inherited wealth and possession,
-but lived to see her husband shot by a Gypsy band; while her son, reared
-among outlaws, became a wanderer, lost to the view of herself and the
-world. In the contrast of these sisters’ lives we recognize the truth of
-the oft-quoted lines:
-
- “’Tis better to be lowly born
- And range with humble livers in content,
- Than wear a golden sorrow.”
-
-Scott closes this dramatic story with these words: “This tale will not be
-told in vain, if it shall be found to illustrate the great truth, that
-guilt, though it may attain temporal splendor, can never confer real
-happiness; that the evil consequences of our crimes long survive their
-commission, and like the ghosts of the murdered, forever haunt the steps
-of the malefactor; and that the paths of virtue, though seldom those of
-worldly greatness, are always those of pleasantness and peace.”
-
-
-
-
-SOME LONDON PREACHERS.
-
-
-Canon Liddon and the Bishop of Peterborough stand out as unquestionably
-the two first preachers of the Established Church of England. There is a
-story of a private soldier having gone to St. Paul’s on an afternoon when
-Dr. Liddon was to preach. The printed paper with the hymn was handed to
-him, but not understanding that it was offered gratis he refused it with
-a shake of the head, saying: “You don’t suppose I should be here if I had
-got any money?” Most of the people who go to hear the eloquent Canon are
-different from this soldier, for they would pay—and very liberally—to
-get seats near the pulpit. On the afternoons of the Sundays when Dr.
-Liddon is in residence, the Cathedral presents an extraordinary sight
-with its huge nave and aisles densely thronged. So far as the preacher’s
-voice will reach people stand, straining eyes and ears, and fortunately
-Dr. Liddon’s voice resounds well under the dome; though now and then
-it becomes indistinct through the preacher’s speaking too fast in his
-excitement. Two other things occasionally mar Dr. Liddon’s delivery.
-Shortness of sight makes him often stoop to consult Bible or notes, and
-again he bows the head in a marked manner when he utters the holy name;
-but when he thus bends he goes on speaking, so that his words fall on
-the pulpit cushion and are deadened, which produces upon people who are
-at a little distance off, the effect of continual stoppages and gaps
-in the sermon. No other defects beside these, however, can be noted in
-orations which for beauty of language, elevation of thought and lucidity
-in reasoning, could not be surpassed. We have heard Dr. Liddon many
-times at Oxford and in London, and have observed that the impression
-produced by his eloquence was always the same, no matter who might be
-listening to him. We remember, in particular, a sermon of his on the
-text: “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation.” It was absolutely
-magnificent to hear him prophesy the gradual progress of the world toward
-a higher state. Every man, from the greatest to the least, was made to
-feel his share of responsibility in advancing or retarding the evolution
-of mankind, and while the consequences of evil were pointed out as
-extending to incalculable lengths, there was a sublime hopefulness in the
-promise that the smallest good offering brought to the Creator would be
-multiplied by Him as the “five loaves were multiplied.”
-
-Optimism—which is nothing but great faith—pervades Dr. Liddon’s
-preaching. He never leaves his hearers under the apprehension that in any
-struggle between the good and the bad forces of this world, the bad are
-going to get the best of it. He knows human nature too well, however, to
-exaggerate what can be done by any single human being. “The first lesson
-in true wisdom”—he said in one of his most recent sermons—“is the limited
-nature of our faculties, the reality and extent of our ignorance;” and
-there is a curious mixture of religious and mundane philosophy in the
-following remarks about the presumption of St. Peter, a few minutes
-before he denied his Master:
-
- We only weaken ourselves by dwelling upon mischiefs which we can
- not hope to remedy. We have only a certain amount of thought,
- of feeling, of resolve, each one of us, to dispose of. And when
- this has been expended unavailingly on the abstract, on the
- intangible, it is expended; it is no longer ours, and we can not
- employ it when and where we need it close at home.… Peter failed
- as he did, because he had expended his moral strength in words,
- and had no sufficient force to dispose of when the time came for
- action and for suffering.
-
-These observations made in a grand sermon, “The Lord was not in the
-fire,” may also be quoted:
-
- Religious passion carried to the highest point of enthusiasm is
- a great agency in human life; but religious passion may easily
- be too inconsiderate, too truculent, too entirely wanting in
- tenderness and in charity, to be in any sense divine. Christendom
- has been ablaze again and again with fires: and those fires are
- not extinct in our own day and country, of which it may certainly
- be said that the Lord is not in them.
-
-The Bishop of Peterborough has not often been heard in London of late
-years, but whenever he is advertised to preach, crowds flock to hear him.
-He need not be compared with Liddon, for the personal appearance, style,
-and opinions of the two men are quite different. But whereas the Canon
-sometimes preaches above the understanding of dull men, the Bishop’s
-eloquence never soars much above earth. It is a rousing eloquence,
-spirited, combative, often sarcastic and always directed against some
-evil which is preoccupying public attention at the time being. Dr. Magee
-is not merely a hater, but an aggressive enemy of “humbug,” clothe
-itself in what garb it may. With his animated Celtic features, long
-upper lip, large mouth, energetic nose and shaggy eyebrows, with his
-gruffness and broad smile which breaks up the whole of his face into
-comical lines, he has all the look of a humorist. The glance all round
-which he takes at his congregation when he has got into the pulpit, is
-that of a master. His first words arrest attention, and if some unlucky
-man drops a book during his exordium, that man will stare hard at the
-pulpit and pretend to have no connection whatever with the book, lest his
-lordship’s eyes should suddenly be turned upon him like two fiery points
-of interrogation. Presently, when the Bishop warms to his work, his arms
-hit out from the shoulder like piston-rods wrapped in lawn; down come
-his large hands with great slaps on his book or cushion, and if he is
-preaching in a church where the beadle has not heard of his little ways
-and has not been careful to give the cushions a beating, enough dust will
-be raised to make a fine powdering for the heads of the people in the pew
-beneath.
-
-Plainspoken and shrewd, discussing all questions with easy arguments,
-never stooping to subtleties, clear in his delivery, happy in the choice
-of words, he keeps his hearers bound like Ogmius, that god of eloquence
-among the Gauls who used to be represented with chains flowing out of
-his mouth. On occasions he rises to the highest flights of oratory, but
-never loses sight of his congregation, who have always been carried
-along by him through the successive degrees of his own enthusiasm. He
-should be heard delivering a charity sermon, for this is a duty which he
-discharges in no perfunctory fashion. He masters his subject thoroughly;
-speaks of the poor or afflicted for whom he is pleading like one who
-knows them; and his advice as to supplying their wants is never dictated
-by eccentric philanthropy, but springs from that true benevolence which
-has common sense for its source. He was being asked to interest himself
-in a carpenter’s clever young apprentice whom some good people wanted to
-send to college. “Let him first graduate as a good carpenter,” said the
-Bishop; “when he has become a skilled craftsman, so that he is proud of
-his trade and can fall back upon it if others fail, then will be the time
-to see if he is fit for anything better.”
-
-A popular vote would probably give the position of third amongst the
-best preachers of the day to Archdeacon Farrar. In his own church of
-St. Margaret, the Archdeacon shines with a subdued light. Those who
-have chatted with him by his own fireside, and know him to be the most
-amiable, unaffected of _causeurs_, those who remember him at Harrow as
-a most genial boy-loving master, will miss nothing of the good-natured
-simplicity which they liked in him, if they hear him in his own church
-discoursing about matters that concern his parish. But in the Abbey he is
-different. There, his massive face settles into a hard, expressionless
-look; his voice, which is loud and roughish, is pitched in a monotonous
-key; and his manner altogether lacks animation, even when his subject
-imperatively demands it. To illustrate any common reflection on the
-vicissitudes of life, the Archdeacon drags in the destruction of Pompeii
-with the latest mining accident; the overthrow of Darius with that of
-Osman Digna, the rainbow that appeared to Noah with Mr. Norman Lockyer’s
-explanations of recent glorious sunsets; and all these juxtapositions
-come down so pat as to suggest the irreverent idea that the book which
-the venerable preacher was studying during the prayers must have been an
-annotated copy of Maunders’s “Treasury of Knowledge.”
-
-Mr. Spurgeon stands head and shoulders above all the Non-conformist
-preachers. Somebody once expressed a regret that the great Baptist
-minister was not a member of the Establishment, to which the late Bishop
-of Winchester answered by quoting a portion of the tenth commandment. But
-Mr. Spurgeon was much more aggressive in those days than he is now; he
-has softened much of late years, and churchmen can go to hear him without
-fear of being offended. On the days when he preaches his Tabernacle holds
-a multitude. It is a huge hall, and to see gallery upon gallery crowded
-with eager faces—some six thousand—all turned toward the pastor whose
-voice has the power of troubling men to the depths of their hearts, is a
-stirring sight. Mr. Spurgeon’s is not a high-class congregation, and the
-preacher knows that its understanding can best be opened by metaphors and
-parables borrowed from the customs of the retail trade, and with similes
-taken from the colloquialisms of the streets. Laughter is not forbidden
-at the Tabernacle, and the congregation often breaks into titters, but
-the merriment is always directed against some piece of hypocrisy which
-the preacher has exposed, and it does one good to hear. He says:
-
- “You are always for giving God short measure, just as if He had
- not made the pint pot.”
-
- “You don’t expect the Queen to carry your letters for nothing,
- but when you are posting a letter heavenward you won’t trouble to
- stick a little bit of Christian faith on the right-hand corner of
- the envelope, and you won’t put a correct address on either, and
- then you wonder the letter isn’t delivered, so that you don’t get
- your remittance by next post.”
-
- “You trust Mr. Jones to pay you your wages regularly, and you say
- he’s a good master, but you don’t think God can be trusted like
- Mr. Jones; you won’t serve him because you don’t believe in the
- pay.”
-
- “You have heard of the man who diminished his dose of food every
- day to see on how little he could live, till he came to half a
- biscuit and then died; but, I tell you, most of you have tried on
- how little religion you could live, and many of you have got to
- the half-biscuit dose.”
-
-These whimsicalities, always effective, constitute but the foam of Mr.
-Spurgeon’s oratory; the torrent which casts them up is broad, deep and of
-overwhelming power. Mr. Spurgeon is among preachers as Mr. Bright among
-parliamentary orators. All desire to criticise vanishes, every faculty
-is subdued into admiration, when he has concluded a sermon with a burst
-of his truly inspired eloquence, leaving the whole of his congregation
-amazed and the vast majority of its members anxious or hopeful, but in
-any case roused as if they had seen the heavens open. We are compelled
-to add that Mr. Spurgeon has in the Baptist communion no co-minister
-wielding a tenth of his power, and that those who, having gone to the
-Tabernacle to hear him, have to listen to some other man, will be
-disappointed in more ways than one.—_Temple Bar._
-
-
-
-
-THE PRAYER OF SOCRATES.
-
-By JOHN STUART BLACKIE.
-
-
- Grant, O Olympian gods supreme,
- Not my wish, and not my dream;
- Grant me neither gold that shines,
- Nor ruddy copper in the mines,
- Nor power to wield the tyrant’s rod
- And be a fool, and seem a god,
- Nor precious robe with jeweled fringe
- Splendid with sea-born purple tinge,
- Nor silken vest on downy pillow,
- Nor hammock hard on heaving billow;
- But give all goodly things that be
- Good for the whole and best for me.
- My thoughts are foolish, blind and crude;
- Thou only knowest what is good.
-
-
-
-
-C. L. S. C. WORK.
-
-By Rev. J. H. VINCENT, D. D., SUPERINTENDENT OF INSTRUCTION.
-
-
-To a correspondent who forwards some poetry for personal examination and
-criticism, and who wants to know how she can get her production before
-the public. _Answer_:
-
-One of the most difficult things in literature is to give a fair
-judgment of poetry. There is one invaluable test by which a writer
-may know concerning the estimate of competent critics, and that is by
-sending poems or other contributions to such magazines as _The Century_,
-_Harper’s_, _Atlantic Monthly_, etc., or to such weekly papers as the
-_New York Independent_, the _Christian Advocate_, _The Christian Union_,
-the _Evangelist_, etc. If the editors of these publications approve
-sufficiently to publish and pay for a poem, the writer may congratulate
-herself. The commendations of friends who hear a thing read, or who have
-a bias in favor of the author, or who, as in my case, have sympathy with
-young persons who are attempting to make fame and financial compensation
-for themselves, are not always entirely trustworthy, and I therefore
-commend you to one of the most invaluable tests of real poetic ability:
-Submit your productions to the severest critics.
-
- * * * * *
-
-Phœbe S. Parker, of Roscoe, Ill., has recently joined the C. L. S. C. She
-will be 89 years old May 30, 1884. She joined the Methodist Episcopal
-Church in the year 1810, is a great reader, and has no difficulty in
-keeping up with the class, and she enjoys the work heartily. May she live
-to graduate.
-
- * * * * *
-
-A lady from the West, residing in a city where there is “a public
-library, in which is an excellent collection of standard works of all
-kinds, the current literature of the day and all the leading periodicals,
-reviews,” etc., finds it difficult “to read all the other good things
-she would like to read and, at the same time, keep up the C. L. S. C.
-course.” For example, she “cares nothing about ‘Easy Lessons in Vegetable
-Biology,’ and would rather spend her time reading something she enjoys,
-such as Farrar’s ‘Life of Christ,’ Mackenzie’s ‘Nineteenth Century,’
-Kingsley’s ‘Life and Letters.’” She says: “Having begun this work, I do
-not want to turn back, yet I am very much inclined sometimes to drop a
-book I am reading, and take up one I would much rather read, not in the
-course.”
-
-In answer to this devoted friend of the C. L. S. C., a member of the
-class of 1887, I desire to say:
-
-(1.) That the greater range of literature with which one is familiar,
-the greater the desire to read widely, and one may be tempted, while
-reading anything, to wish that she had undertaken something else, and it
-will be a good discipline of the will, having begun a course, to carry
-it through, since there is nothing in the course that can be pronounced
-“trash,” or be considered useless.
-
-(2.) The aim of the C. L. S. C. is not merely to give pleasant or classic
-reading, although the style or character of the reading should be worthy
-of commendation by the most cultivated taste. The object of the C. L.
-S. C. is to give the “college student’s outlook”—to present in a series
-of brief readings the whole world of history, literature, science and
-art. This is for the benefit of college graduates, who in college spent
-so much time with the languages and mathematics, for purposes of mental
-discipline, that they failed to enjoy the charms of the literature
-itself. It is also for the benefit of others, who, having studied the
-physical sciences years before, desire now to review, seeing that so
-many changes are continually taking place in the hypotheses and settled
-conclusions of the scientists. The course is also designed for people who
-have never enjoyed college training, that they may have the benefit of
-the outlook which is to be enjoyed by their children later on.
-
-(3.) A course so wide-reaching will embrace many topics about which
-certain people care nothing; but one of the greatest advantages of
-reading is the training of one to read because he ought to know rather
-than because he has a particular aptitude or delight in that direction.
-
-I hope that my genial, candid, “enthusiastic” Chautauquan of the class of
-1887, from beyond the Mississippi, will continue in the ranks of the C.
-L. S. C.
-
- * * * * *
-
-“Has any plan been devised by which graduates may go on with the regular
-classes as long as they wish, reading new and re-reading old subjects?”
-_Answer_: We give a seal for the re-reading of former years, and also a
-special seal for those who continue year after year to read.
-
- * * * * *
-
-Our excellent Canadian friend, Mr. James L. Hughes, writes: In answer
-to your query respecting the origin of the name “Canada,” I have the
-honor to state that the best authorities agree in deriving it from an
-Indian word “Kan-na-ta,” meaning a village. It is certain that Stadacona
-(Quebec) was spoken of as “Kan-na-ta,” and Champlain found it to be a
-common name applied to Indian villages. This is the received origin of
-the name. Some attribute its origin to the Spaniards, who first visited
-the country in search of mines, but finding none frequently exclaimed,
-“Aca Node,” “here is nothing.” This is not now accepted as reliable.
-Several others have been given, only one of which may be mentioned to
-show its absurdity. Some one claimed that the French supplied their
-workmen in the colony with canned food, and that each man was allowed a
-can a day! Hence the name.
-
- * * * * *
-
-A QUESTION.—“Some of our class reject the pronunciation of Goethe’s name
-as given by Prof. Wilkinson in the Latin Course. Please confirm—in the
-next number of THE CHAUTAUQUAN—the Professor, or give us the _correct_
-pronunciation according to the highest standard.”
-
-_An Answer_:—The Rev. Dr. Jos. A. Seiss, of Philadelphia, pastor of the
-leading Lutheran Church in Philadelphia, gives the following clear and
-satisfactory answer to the question, “How shall we pronounce the word
-GOETHE?”
-
- “There can be no doubt about the pronunciation of the name of
- _Goethe_ to those familiar with the sounds and powers of the
- German alphabet, which are always and in all relations the same.
- The diphthong _oe_, often written _ö_, has the sound and force of
- _a_ in _gate_. The remainder of the name, _the_, has the sound
- of _teh_, pronounced nearly the same as the English _ty_, with a
- slight vergence toward _ta_ as in _take_. Giving to the letters
- these sounds, the pronunciation of _Goethe_ would be represented
- by _Gateh_ in English phonography, or _Gayty_. It is hard for any
- other than a German tongue to give exactly the sound of _oe_; the
- above is as nearly as it can be represented in English letters.
-
- “Yours truly,
-
- “JOS. A. SEISS.”
-
- “45 East 68th St., NEW YORK, 17th April, ’84.
-
- “DEAR SIR:—In the name of Goethe the _oe_ is pronounced like the
- _u_ in the words “but,” “hut,” “rut,” only long. You stretch the
- _u_ in those words and you will have the vowel of the German _oe_
- as nearly as you can get it. The _th_ is pronounced like _t_, and
- the _e_ at the close has the sound of the _e_ in “let,” “get,”
- etc., but is half swallowed. You see that it is very difficult
- to express in English letters the pronunciation of the name of
- Goethe.
-
- “Very truly yours,
-
- “J. H. VINCENT, ESQ. C. SCHURZ.”
-
- * * * * *
-
-If members of the C. L. S. C. fail to receive prompt reply to their
-letters addressed to the Superintendent of Instruction, they will please
-remember the multitude of duties which crowd upon him, especially at
-this time. He will, as soon as practicable, reply to every letter on his
-table.
-
-
-
-
-OUTLINE OF C. L. S. C. READINGS.
-
-JUNE, 1884.
-
-
-The Required Readings for June include the second part of “Pictures from
-English History,” Chautauqua Text-Books—No. 4, English History, and No.
-43, Good Manners, and the Required Readings in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.
-
- * * * * *
-
-_First Week_ (ending June 9).—1. Pictures from English History, from
-chapter xxi, page 139 to page 175.
-
-2. Readings in Roman History in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.
-
-3. Sunday Readings in THE CHAUTAUQUAN for June 1.
-
-4. Sunday Readings in THE CHAUTAUQUAN for June 8.
-
- * * * * *
-
-_Second Week_ (ending June 16).—1. Pictures from English History, from
-page 175 to page 207.
-
-2. Readings in Art in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.
-
-3. Sunday Readings in THE CHAUTAUQUAN for June 15.
-
- * * * * *
-
-_Third Week_ (ending June 23).—1. Pictures from English History, from
-page 207 to page 241.
-
-2. Criticisms on American Literature in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.
-
-3. Sunday Readings in THE CHAUTAUQUAN for June 22.
-
- * * * * *
-
-_Fourth Week_ (ending June 30).—1. Pictures from English History, from
-page 241 to page 273.
-
-2. Readings in United States History in THE CHAUTAUQUAN.
-
-3. Sunday Readings for June 30.
-
-
-
-
-LOCAL CIRCLES.
-
-
-Letter-writing, that is genuine letter-writing, where one fills a
-half-dozen sheets with happy thoughts, spicy comments and fresh ideas
-has become, if not a lost art, at least an old-fashioned accomplishment.
-We lose much, both of culture and pleasure, when we neglect our letters.
-Animated, interested, breezy letter-writing produces almost the same
-feeling of sympathy and good fellowship as a face-to-face visit, and
-no means of social intercourse quicker brings into activity our best
-mental gifts. We fancy that among the many good works of the C. L. S.
-C. must be included as one of the first, the incentive which it has
-given to letter-writing in its “Correspondence Circle.” It may surprise
-some of our readers to know that already this circle numbers several
-hundred members. Our first report from a local circle of correspondents
-comes from =Jersey City, N. J.=, and is very suggestive of what may be
-done. The secretary writes: “Our little circle thinks it time to claim
-a place in the family. We are septangular, perfect in number if in no
-other respect. We can not strictly be called ‘local,’ as our angles are
-far reaching. Three of our members live on Staten Island, one at Spring
-Valley, one at Tappan, one in New York City, and one in Jersey City. Our
-communication is maintained by correspondence. We commenced our reading
-in October, 1882, and for one year plodded along without the help to
-be gained from association. Then it was agreed to carry on the work of
-a circle by correspondence. This plan has been in successful operation
-for six months, and it has proved of great benefit and interest to us
-all. The object of the circle is to awaken a more active interest in and
-incite to a more thorough study of the course of readings prescribed by
-the C. L. S C., therefore it is resolved: First, that on the first day
-of every month each member shall prepare a list of questions (containing
-not less than ten nor more than twenty) on the prescribed readings of
-the preceding month, and forward as many copies of the list as there are
-members in the circle to the secretary, who shall distribute them to the
-members. These questions must be answered and returned to the secretary
-within two weeks of the time of reception, after which the collection of
-answered questions must be passed from one member to another throughout
-the entire circle. Second—The questions must be such as will admit of
-answers which can be written on two lines of common note paper. We are
-seven busy people, our president is an active business man, three of our
-members are teachers, and we have all to use the corners of time to
-keep up with our studies. The preparation and answering of our lists of
-questions and answers adds greatly to our labor, but we all agree that
-_it pays_. We are all loyal Chautauquans. Please count us in.”
-
-The wonderful class of ’87 is doing a great deal of enthusiastic work,
-if one is to judge from the throngs of reports that come to us. We have
-never had as many new circles to report as we have this month, and at no
-time have the reports been more enthusiastic and suggestive. =Biddeford,
-Me.=, starts the list with a circle of nearly fifty. They have a capital
-idea in their “German evening,” in which the history, literature and
-music of the “Fatherland” was honored by carefully selected exercises.
-Very similar to this must have been the “Tour through Germany” which the
-=Knoxville, Tenn.=, circle took one evening not long ago. They had a
-delightful time, as their letter shows: “One member conducted the party
-from Knoxville to New York, across the ocean to Bremen, and then to
-Frankfort. Another member took us to a German hotel, then sightseeing in
-Frankfort, and to a German home, where our hostess kindly showed us over
-her house and explained many of their customs. This member of the circle
-was also our guide on all our journeys, and pointed out many of the
-peculiarities of the customs and people, and called our attention to many
-amusing incidents. Other members of the circle described the principal
-cities which we visited, government buildings, art galleries, pictures,
-etc. Altogether, the evening we spent in Germany was one of the most
-delightful of the year.”
-
-From the hill town of =East Barrington, N. H.=, a friend sends a most
-interesting account of the founding of their circle. “This is a scattered
-farming community,” she writes, “containing an unusual number—for its
-population—of people desirous of more intellectual advantages than have
-heretofore been within their reach. We are too far from the cities to
-derive much benefit from lectures, libraries, etc., and are not rich
-enough to have them at home. Chautauqua offers just what we need. My
-oldest son is a member of the class of 1886. The other children are
-‘picking up’ a great deal, and will join as soon as they are old enough.
-I did not join with him—for I feared with my many cares I should not find
-the requisite time; but I can not let the books alone, and have kept
-step with him so far. He read alone the first year. Every one to whom
-he recommended the course—and that was every acquaintance—shook their
-heads doubtfully. ‘Greek, Russian History, Geology? O, no! we are not
-“up” to that.’ I did not like that. I knew better, and procured a copy
-of ‘Hall in the Grove’ and sent it on its mission. Result—a C. L. S. C.
-organized January 1, 1884. Four regular members, and a number of local
-ones, which increased with every meeting, and who all announced their
-determination to ‘begin squarely next October.’ Many of our members are
-in my Bible class, and I can see the fruits of their reading every week.
-At home I see it every day. I would not have dared to report our little
-band as a circle, were it not for the notice in the March number of THE
-CHAUTAUQUAN—‘If there are but two members associated in study, report as
-a circle.’ You may judge of our enthusiasm when I say that some members
-drive four miles in a New Hampshire winter to attend the meetings.” It
-takes a great deal of pluck, as well as enthusiasm, for people to brave
-New Hampshire winters, but no more, perhaps, than the little circle at
-=North Weymouth, Mass.=, has to exercise in carrying out all the work of
-a full-grown circle while numbering but _two_. In spite of numbers they
-meet on Monday evening of each week, and look forward with great deal of
-pleasure to those meetings. They generally question each other on the
-studies of the previous week, and sometimes read essays on what has been
-studied. On the memorial nights they invite in some of their friends,
-varying the order of exercises, and doing their best to entertain. What a
-lesson to some of us who adjourn if the leader is absent, and who enforce
-but one parliamentary rule—that of requiring a quorum to have a meeting!
-
-From =Brighton=, =Beverly=, =Melrose= and =Shirley=, =Mass.=, we hear
-of new classes. At =Roxbury= a circle of twenty-three was organized
-in November last. One of their members declares that he never enjoyed
-anything more. Twelve busy people form the “Pansy” Circle, of =Chelsea=,
-the second circle of that city, organized last October. They write that
-they are obliged to plan a great deal to find time to accomplish their
-readings, but that they are so interested that they do not often fail.
-
-The “Raymond Circle” formed on January 1st, and composed of eighteen
-members, is the third class now in active operation at Lynn. _Eight_ new
-circles from =Massachusetts= in one report!
-
-At =Greenwich, Conn.=, the members of the class of ’87 have organized the
-“Sappho Circle.”
-
-=Babylon, R. I.=, has a circle of over thirty, which has been in
-operation since last October. It is said that a dozen circles were formed
-in =Providence, R. I.=, last fall; if this be true they have not all
-reported, although we have three reports of new organizations before
-us: The “Clio Circle” numbering forty-two, the “Whittier Circle” of
-thirteen, and the “Milton Circle” with twenty-two members. These circles
-all mention as one of their greatest social pleasures, the interchange of
-courtesies by the circles on Memorial Days. On Longfellow’s Day, “Milton
-Circle” entertained their C. L. S. C. friends in the city.
-
-To the already goodly list of =New York= circles we have six new ones to
-add from the following towns: =Bath=, =Cicero=, =Manchester=, =Pultney=,
-=West Galway=, and =Gouverneur=. The circle at Bath has a membership of
-thirty, a full corps of officers, and a prepared program, which they
-find both pleasant and profitable. At Cicero the circle was not formed
-until January 1, but the reading has been so enjoyable that they have
-done double work to “catch up.” The circle of fourteen at Manchester
-have honored themselves by giving their class the name of the “Mary
-A. Lathbury Circle.” Miss Lathbury’s birthplace and early home was
-Manchester. At Gouverneur the circle has increased to thirty-eight
-members since its organization, and they seem particularly interested.
-The work has been done so willingly that the secretary writes: “It has
-been pleasant to note how ready the members are to respond when called
-upon to prepare articles for the society, and what thorough work they
-are willing to do, though they are all busy people.” In the report
-of their Longfellow memorial we were pleased to notice that they had
-a paper on “Longfellow’s prose-writings,” a subject which was almost
-entirely neglected in most of the programs. There are many fine things in
-Longfellow’s prose. An evening spent with the poet is hardly complete if
-it neglects “Outre-Mer,” “Hyperion,” and “Kavanagh.” The experience of
-the Gouverneur circle is that of many others when it writes: “One of the
-chief benefits which we derive from our meetings is that which comes from
-knowing each other better. Our circle is made up of people who would not
-often be called together by other interests, so that beside the benefit
-that comes from the reading and study, we have each added to our list of
-friends many whom we can not lose.”
-
-The secretary writes from the circle of fifteen at =Tunkhannock, Pa.=:
-“I can say, not boastingly, but confidently, that but few, if any,
-circles are more wide awake or thorough in the course;” while from =West
-Middlesex=, of the same state, they send word that they are trying by
-careful study to hail their fellow students from the top round of the
-ladder.
-
-A vigorous, growing circle exists at =Reading, Pa.= In March they held
-a public meeting which did much to extend public interest in the C. L.
-S. C. They prepared an excellent program, taking care to select subjects
-which would show the scope of the Chautauqua work, and presented it so
-entertainingly that many were aroused to interest in the work.
-
-From =Corry, Pa.=, the “Omega” is reported, and from =Troy Center=, of
-the same state, a member of the new circle organized there in January,
-1884, writes of the influence of their reading: “Though we are country
-people we find both enjoyment and improvement in our reading. The meager
-knowledge of the farmer has widened into that of their more fortunate
-brethren. I doubt if some of the hopes, inspirations and longings that
-have been kindled by this winter’s studies will be satisfied by the old
-ways of spending the few leisure moments that come to us.”
-
-=Lancaster, Pa.=, organized a circle in December, the first in the city,
-and so called “No. 1.”
-
-The Asbury C. L. S. C. in =Wilmington, Del.=, numbering about twenty-five
-members, was organized September last. They write: “Our meetings, held
-semi-monthly, are exceedingly interesting, being conducted on the
-conversational plan, affording us an opportunity of hearing the opinions
-and ideas of the different members, giving us new thoughts, as well as
-impressing what we have read more indelibly upon our memories; we also
-have questions prepared by different members on some particular branch of
-our studies.”
-
-We are always glad to hear of new circles in the South. This month we
-have an excellent item from =Richmond, Va.= A circle was formed there
-last November with a membership of six, and it has steadily increased,
-until they now have a membership of thirty, which comprises nearly all
-of the male teachers in the city and three of the principals. They have
-given two public entertainments, both of which met with marked success.
-
-At =Media, Ohio=, there is a C. L. S. C. “Olive Branch” of ten members,
-which so arranges its programs that each member has something to do at
-each meeting—a most excellent plan to insure interest and attention. At
-=Springboro, Ohio=, is another new circle of four members, but so zealous
-that in spite of numbers they have observed all the “Days.” =Saint Paris,
-Ohio=, reports a class of fourteen, organized in October last, most of
-whom, they write, are reading the White Seal Course in addition to their
-regular work. At =Franklin, Ohio=, is a quartette of readers, brought
-together by one lady’s visit last summer to the Monteagle Assembly, and
-she now writes of their circle: “We meet once a week. Read and talk, and
-query and give information most informally, and always have delightful
-times. We have decided that outside of our Chautauqua work we are the
-four _busiest people in town_, yet we find time to do our work. Not so
-thoroughly as we would like, but in such a way as to derive much benefit
-from it.”
-
-At both =Franklin= and =Crawfordsville, Ind.=, there are new circles,
-each numbering twenty-eight members. The circle at =Marion= (a beautiful
-town of about 5,000 inhabitants in central =Indiana=), is the result of
-the efforts of a few ladies who, after much thought, and many misgivings,
-started out one afternoon to try and interest the ladies of their town
-in the good work. The time was surely just right for such an enterprise,
-for they met with a success beyond their most sanguine expectations.
-Fortunately they succeeded in enlisting many of their friends, who were
-ladies of influence, and now have a flourishing organization known as
-the “Marion C. C.” They have a membership of twenty-three, an average
-attendance of about twenty, and all so deeply interested, that they write
-that there is not one but anticipates the four years’ course.
-
-=Preston=, =Carbondale= and =Tuscola=, towns of Illinois, have each
-formed new circles this year. The Tuscola circle rejoices in a member
-who, having traveled through Europe, delights them by picturing St.
-Peter’s, St. Paul’s, the Appian Way, the Coliseum, Westminster Abbey, and
-many other places of historic interest.
-
-A new circle which was formed last October at =Kalamazoo, Mich.=,
-reports a very promising outlook in the growth of the work there; while
-the circle at =Erie, Mich.=, organized in the fall, and now numbering
-twenty-eight members, says: “We have every reason to hope for a large
-addition to our membership in October next.” Perhaps the secret is to be
-found in the interest they are taking in their work, for they write: “We
-congratulate ourselves on the pleasure afforded us by our studies, and on
-the improvement from month to month in the work of individual members.”
-
-We like that sort of interest in the C. L. S. C. which leads members
-to do everything in their power to follow the methods outlined by the
-leaders. It is such interest that makes the Circle grow—a case to the
-point comes from =Winfield, Mich.=, from a member, who writes: “I have
-secured a student to join in the studies of the C. L. S. C. for the class
-of ’87, and so am able to report as a circle from this place, though only
-two of us.” Too often “only two of us” is made an excuse for not joining
-the Plainfield office.
-
-“We are doing very thorough work, not only reading, but studying,” writes
-the secretary of the =Litchfield, Mich.=, circle. =Howell, Mich.=, has
-a circle of thirty-five ’87s. They had the privilege of welcoming the
-president of the class of ’87, the Rev. Frank Russell, on the 20th of
-February last, on the evening of which day he delivered his popular
-lecture on the “Man Invisible,” there under the auspices of their local
-circle. They took occasion to celebrate his coming with a reunion of the
-Chautauqua circles of the county. A most excellent idea, and one that
-evidently did both the fortunate hosts and guests much good, for they
-declare that they feel sure that all present were encouraged to press on
-to help swell the “Pansy” class of ’87 to 20,000.
-
-The “Flour City,” =Minneapolis, Minn.=, circle, commenced work the first
-of November. “Our number,” they write, “does not exceed twenty. We meet
-every Monday night for two hours, even when the thermometer has been on
-its way from twenty-five to thirty-five below zero. There is a great
-deal of pressure upon our lives in this thriving city, and we have not
-attempted to follow out attractive lines of study suggested, but have
-followed the course carefully, varying our exercises from time to time.
-We get up maps and charts, and exhibit pictures of places that we study
-about. Recently we spent the evening with the German authors from whose
-pens extracts have appeared. Each member present had a character, and all
-were well prepared. It proved one of our most delightful evenings.”
-
-A “Chautauqua Triangle” meets weekly at =Grinnell, Iowa=. From =Brighton,
-Iowa=, a class of nine is reported, and from =Ackley=, of the same
-state, a lady writes: “Our circle of about a dozen members has just
-been organized, what it lacks in numbers being made up in enthusiasm.
-We are to meet weekly. We have considerable variety among our members,
-some being college graduates, and others wishing they were; some being
-C. L. S. C. graduates, and others hoping to become such in ’86 or ’87,
-and still others, knowing that they can not pass through the ‘beautiful
-golden gate’ before ’88. For the sake of such we unite in reading the
-‘Bryant Course’ for the rest of this C. L. S. C. year, the old C. L. S.
-C.ists taking that work in addition to the regular reading, on which all
-will enter in the fall.”
-
-A little company of readers have formed a new circle at =Davenport,
-Iowa=. The interest in the C. L. S. C. course is increasing constantly,
-there being now over fifty persons who are taking the whole or parts of
-the course.
-
-Our friends at =Corydon, Iowa=, have been experiencing the effects of
-being too social. Their club of fifteen was organized last fall. Their
-meetings were always pleasant, but as they had no plan in their work
-they often found themselves unwittingly off the topic. Fortunately they
-discovered their mistake, and voted to reform. They write: “The two most
-profitable meetings we have yet had, were the two since ‘the change.’ Now
-we think we have the ‘Chautauqua Idea.’”
-
-=Kansas= sends word of two new clubs; one at =Elk Falls=, of nine
-members, and another at =Andover=, of seven.
-
-From =New Market, Platt County, Mo.=, we have received the program of
-the exercises held on Longfellow’s Day by the circle of four there.
-
-The teachers of the Natchez union schools, at =Natchez, Missouri=, were
-formed into a circle in December.
-
-In Southern =Dakota=, at =Bijou Hills=, the circle of ’87 has been
-holding weekly meetings all winter, and writes that notwithstanding the
-limited advantages on the frontier they are not discouraged, but live in
-hopes of having a larger circle next year.
-
-In January there was formed a circle at =McGregor, Texas=. Two of
-the members are of the class of ’82, and until recently lived in New
-York state, having spent nine happy summers at Chautauqua. One of the
-beautiful things about Chautauqua is that you can carry it with you—even
-as far as Texas, and that, as these two friends have done, you can impart
-its strength and inspiration to others.
-
-The first report which THE CHAUTAUQUAN has received from =Wyoming
-Territory= comes from =Cheyenne=, where, in February, a circle was
-organized consisting of eight active members, who pledged themselves to
-complete the four years’ course of study. With true Western vim they
-write: “Although small in numbers, we are earnest in purpose, and are
-determined to be in the front ranks among the classes of 1887.”
-
-=Canon City, Col.=, has organized a circle of ten busy housekeepers, who,
-though they have long been away from the discipline of the school room,
-yet find that it becomes continually easier to master the readings.
-
-=Linden, California=, has a class of seven regular members, with a few
-“socials.”
-
-There is a great deal of genuine, healthy, social life in the C. L.
-S. C., and a great many pleasant plans followed by different circles,
-which can not fail to be suggestive to others. The “Alpha” circle, of
-=Lewiston, Maine=, closed the year of 1882-3 with a social at the home
-of one of the members. While making merry over cake and ice cream, the
-writing of a book by the circle, each member contributing one chapter,
-was proposed. The idea was at once accepted by all. The plan of the book,
-subject, etc., was decided upon, two of the members volunteering to
-write a poem. The first meeting of the circle this Chautauqua year was a
-lakeside picnic, at which the party added to the usual picnic sports the
-election of officers for this year, and the reading of the first chapter
-of their book. We hope that book will be finished and reported. They are
-not alone in their “Chautauqua picnic.” The =Galesburg, Ill.= circle kept
-alive their enthusiasm last summer by holding one in the vacation, to
-which all Chautauquans of the city were invited, whether graduates or not.
-
-Perhaps the chief social event in the C. L. S. C. world so far this
-year has been the Alumni banquet held by the classes of ’82 and ’83, in
-=Boston=, on February 23d, in honor of Dr. Vincent, and Dr. Hurlbut. The
-_Boston Journal_ gave a full account of the event, and from it we quote:
-“The ladies and gentlemen who by virtue of their diplomas became members
-of the ‘Hall in the Grove’—so the _menu_ announced—were presided over for
-the day by Rev. O. S. Baketel. Prof. W. F. Sherwin acted as toastmaster,
-and never did a more humorous or genial master call for responses. He
-wanted a short, pleasant, instructive, amusing, cheerful, delightful,
-jocose, scientific speech from every one, and thought that five or six
-minutes’ speaking would surely not take ten minutes’ time. The class
-representatives called upon endeavored to follow out this request, the
-first one, Rev. George Benedict, of Hanson class, of ’87, condensing
-his short, pleasant, etc., oration to half a dozen words uttered in
-one minute. As soon as the toastmaster realized that ’87’s speech was
-disposed of, he called upon him ‘who had been under the snow so long,’
-Rev. B. P. Snow, of Biddeford, Me., class of ’86, and Mr. Snow described
-in glowing colors the work of the C. L. S. C. in popularizing culture for
-older people, declaring that it was not a college of universal smatter,
-but one of real work and progress. Rev. J. E. Fullerton, of Hopkinton,
-who responded for the class of ’85, spoke of the Chautauqua movement as
-Christian, popular, progressive and peculiarly American. For the classes
-of ’84 and ’83, Rev. W. N. Richardson, of East Saugus, and Rev. Alexander
-Dight, of Holliston, respectively, responded. Each speaker had naturally
-spoken in immeasurably high terms of the ability and wisdom of his own
-particular class, but it remained for the final class representative,
-Rev. Dr. J. L. Hurlbut, of ’82, to put the climax on humorous mock
-modesty and class exaltation by eulogizing the first graduating class
-of the Circle to the very highest skies, declaring that it possessed so
-much knowledge that there was scarcely enough left to go around among
-the other classes, and, moreover, it had laid the foundation of the
-great people’s college. A few hearty words laudatory of the founder of
-the Chautauqua movement, Dr. Vincent, and then the speaker announced
-that henceforth that day, February 23d, the anniversary of the birthday
-of the beloved Superintendent of Instruction, was to be recognized and
-celebrated as ‘Founder’s Day.’ When the applause which greeted this
-announcement had subsided, toastmaster Sherwin bade the assembly ‘do just
-as I do,’ and then taught them the ‘Chautauqua salute’ with variations,
-consisting of fifteen waves of the handkerchief in front and above the
-head. Dr. Vincent arose after this salute, and having expressed his
-appreciation and thanks, spoke to his pupils on the distinctive character
-of the C. L. S. C. ‘A short dialogue,’ announced toastmaster Sherwin,
-‘will now be given,’ and in accordance with this instruction Rev. Mr.
-Full, of South Framingham, recited his prepared part, which closed with
-a presentation to the Superintendent of two valuable sets of books, the
-works of Hawthorne and Oliver Wendell Holmes, as a slight token of the
-admiration of the alumni. The second part of the dialogue came from
-Dr. Vincent, who, although entirely unprepared and taken completely by
-surprise, yet acknowledged in graceful terms the gift of his friends.
-A final prayer, and then the alumni of C. L. S. C. separated for their
-homes.”
-
-The class of ’82 has set an excellent example to all succeeding classes
-by the way in which they have kept up their “class feeling”—especially
-has the New England Branch been faithful in paying allegiance to their
-Alma Mater, and in holding fast to the class bonds. Last August, at
-Framingham, they held a very pleasant reunion. The president of the N. E.
-branch of class of ’86, Mr. Pike, presided. Speeches were made by many
-gentlemen, well-known workers in the C. L. S. C. Songs were sung and a
-class poem read. A delightful affair in every respect, and one that they
-should try to repeat each summer.
-
-We do not often find new Memorial Days being added to the list, but the
-“Merrimac” C. L. S. C. of =Newburyport, Mass.=, has added one. “Although
-Whittier’s birthday is not a ‘Memorial,’ yet we felt we must observe
-it, as he belongs almost to us, living just across ‘Our River,’ which
-he has enshrined in verse, and from which we receive our title.” This
-class is enjoying some excellent “helps” in their work. Quite recently a
-gentleman, well fitted for the work, kindly favored them with an address
-on Biology, supplementing his words with microscopic views. They have
-now, in prospectus, a whole evening with the microscope, through the
-courtesy of an educated German resident, and also hope from him a “Talk”
-on his nation’s customs and ceremonies.
-
-From the list of special occasions we must not omit the entertainment
-which the circle of =Hampshire, Ill.=, held at the close of their last
-year of study. They had a Chautauqua banquet, each member having the
-privilege of inviting one guest. A very interesting literary program was
-prepared by the members, consisting of essays, recitations and music,
-followed by toasts. All present declared the evening delightful. The
-circle has increased this year from twelve to twenty-three.
-
-Not many lectures have been reported as yet. Under the auspices of the C.
-L. S. C. of =Nashville, Tenn.=, Dr. J. H. Worman, the well known German
-professor in the C. S. L., lectured March 3rd, at the Nashville College
-for Young Ladies, on “Modern Art.” The society is to be congratulated on
-securing so able a speaker as Prof. Worman. At =Milwaukee, Wis.=, the
-six circles, Alpha, Beta, Grand Avenue, Delta, Iota, and Bay View, had a
-delightful entertainment the 29th of March, when President Farrar, of the
-Milwaukee College, devoted an hour and a half to “Views of Architecture”
-from the earliest Egyptians down to the present time, given with the fine
-stereopticon which he uses every week in the Ladies’ Art Class of over
-two hundred members.
-
-The old circles seem to be doing splendid work. =Richford, N. Y.=,
-reports a steadily increasing interest and determination. A member of
-the “Harlem” Circle, =New York City=, describes in an entertaining
-letter their method of quizzing. It is good. The quizzing forms a
-regular feature of the program, and is limited to fifteen minutes. It is
-conducted by some one previously appointed. After that any member may
-question the quizzer for a few minutes longer. Our correspondent has been
-doing some useful C. L. S. C. work. He sent one of his old copies of THE
-CHAUTAUQUAN home, and the people there were so much pleased with its
-plan, that they are planning for some similar organization in their midst.
-
-At =Ithaca, N. Y.=, the circle is fortunate enough to be in reach
-of Cornell University and its professors. They are improving their
-opportunities, too, having recently had lectures on “Architecture” and
-“Political Economy.”
-
-We like the ring of the report from =South Lansing, N. J.= It is worth
-while to belong to a circle of two if it can be as pleasant as this
-one: “In number we are but two (sisters)—the only C. L. S. C. in this
-place. The duties of the usual officers of circles are borne by either
-member, as opportunity seems to favor. Examinations, reviews, exercises
-in pronunciation and definition are held at the most unconscionable hours
-by a self-constituted leader. Suddenly a member, inspired by some new
-reading, or a suggested thought, resolves into an animated question box;
-or perhaps, presumes to criticise some notable book. In this systemless
-manner we conduct our unadjourned meeting, and though our method, or
-rather, lack of method, may not be commendable to other circles, it
-certainly helps to meet the exigencies of ours. As we take leave of the
-regular course—for we are ’84s—we would join our voices to the chorus of
-Chautauqua enthusiasts.”
-
-=Naples, N. Y.=, has a circle of twelve, of the class of ’86, the fruit
-of the zealous work of one lady. This same friend was instrumental in
-arousing interest in the reading at =West Bloomfield=, where now there is
-a class of thirty. She accomplished this, she writes, while visiting the
-town, by introducing the C. L. S. C. into every tea party she attended
-while there.
-
-A two-year-old club exists at =New Wilmington, Pa.=, from which we have
-never before heard. There are twenty-four members. “As a rule,” writes
-the secretary, “our members are teachers and business men and women
-who have little spare time, but that little is enthusiastically and
-profitably employed. We are fortunate in possessing several members who
-are graduates of Westminster and other colleges. The studies are made
-interesting by a thorough recitation in each study. Obscure points are
-brought out and discussed freely and searchingly. The exercises are
-spiced by essays on, and recitations from favorite authors and subjects.
-Also by question box, debates, and music.”
-
-The pleasant circle at =Hillsboro, O.=, is enjoying the reading and doing
-very thorough work.
-
-There are two excellent features in the report received from the society
-at =South Toledo, O.= The members hand in a list of words to the vice
-president to be corrected—including mispronounced words, or those
-about whose pronunciation they are undecided, and they are at once
-corrected—the discussion over points doing much toward fixing the correct
-forms in their minds. Their city, on the banks of the Maumee River,
-historical ground, with old Fort Miami and Meigs standing sentinel
-over their respective charges, South Toledo and Perrysburg, and these
-enterprising students have wisely made the most of their location. They
-write: “In connection with our reading of Canadian and American History,
-in which the greatest interest was taken, ‘we dived down deep’ into the
-subject, had the history of this memorable spot written by our secretary,
-who gave an account of the battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794, fought
-between General Wayne, accompanied by General Scott and their forces,
-and Indians under command of Blue Jacket and Little Turtle, with their
-Canadian allies. The points of interest mentioned being so familiar
-to us; also gave the history of the settlement of Maumee (now South
-Toledo), with the progress of the place, and difficulties encountered,
-mentioning old pioneers, interesting events, etc. A newspaper sketch of
-a celebration held here in 1840 in honor of ‘Old Tippecanoe’ was read by
-our vice president. On this occasion we had an informal meeting, inviting
-guests to participate in our pleasure.”
-
-The Alpha and Beta circles of =Quincy, Ill.=, are doing enthusiastic
-work. On Longfellow’s day they joined their forces, carrying out an
-appropriate program.
-
-An effort to increase the membership has resulted in nearly doubling
-the numbers at =Petersburg, Ill.= The circle is in its second year, and
-rejoices in a wide awake president, who does his best to make this circle
-a success, and to extend its influence.
-
-=Nashville, Tenn.=, boasts a live circle of thirty-seven members and
-many friends under the auspices of the Y. M. C. A. Recently at their
-regular session in the parlors of the Association they executed a
-series of exercises which were as thoroughly produced as they were
-appreciatively listened to. Roman literature was the theme of the hour,
-and most luminous lights were glanced at in essays short, concise and
-pointed. Fifteen essays were read, and reports were read on facts, on
-pronunciation of names, and on general pronunciation.
-
-We have already heard good things of the C. L. S. C. at =Niles, Mich.=
-There are some zealous members in the circle, one of whom, a teacher,
-has been utilizing her reading very successfully in her school room.
-Hawthorne’s biographical stories have been adopted for the Friday
-reading, and each pupil is expected to reproduce orally, if called upon,
-the whole sketch. The reading has been found very attractive to the
-pupils.
-
-At =Sheboygan, Wis.=, the circle still flourishes. They have been having
-delightful evenings this year over their studies. The secretary writes:
-“At our last meeting we had for our lesson the first half of French
-History in THE CHAUTAUQUAN and the first part of the Latin Preparatory
-Course in English. One of the ladies furnished a paper on the ‘Siege of
-Calais,’ and another gave a talk upon the ‘Massacre of St. Bartholomew.’
-One of our members who spent last year abroad brought a most excellent
-map of Rome and many fine photographs of the Coliseum, the Pantheon, and
-other places of interest, which helped us greatly in our study of the
-seven-hilled city. We spent several delightful evenings upon Political
-Economy, one of the gentlemen who has given much study to the subject
-acting as leader.”
-
-At =Faribault, Minn.=, they are dividing their time between Art and
-American Literature. Though there are many letters before us still
-untouched, we must close the box, taking just a glance from a letter
-lately received from far away =Honolulu=, in which a lady writes: “After
-enjoying five months’ reading with Dr. Wythe’s circle, of Oakland,
-California, I found I had become quite a Chautauqua enthusiast. So after
-moving here I sought out a few to start a circle. I succeeded in finding
-four willing to try, and so we begun; we have now doubled in numbers,
-but have not succeeded in finding a permanent leader, but for all our
-drawbacks we enjoy it _immensely_, and intend to keep on, hoping some one
-will come to the rescue.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAUTAUQUA FOR 1884.
-
-
-Many of our friends, planning for their summer trips just now, are
-wondering, no doubt, what good things Chautauqua will have to offer this
-season. For their sakes we give just a glimpse of what is being prepared
-for the Chautauqua School of Languages and Chautauqua Teachers’ Retreat.
-With the July number of THE CHAUTAUQUAN, we shall forward to each of our
-subscribers a copy of the Advance Number of the _Assembly Herald_, which
-will contain full information about Chautauqua for 1884.
-
-The Chautauqua School of Languages will open on Saturday, July 12th,
-and continue for six weeks. It is the aim of the school to illustrate
-the best methods of teaching languages and to furnish instruction in
-languages for students.
-
-The Teachers’ Retreat will open Saturday, July 12th, and continue
-three weeks. It is the aim of the Retreat to benefit secular teachers
-by combining with the recreative delights of the summer vacation, the
-stimulating and quickening influence of the summer school.
-
-Following are the departments of the C. S. L. for 1884:
-
-_1. German._ Prof. J. H. Worman, Ph.D., Vanderbilt University, Nashville,
-Tenn. Three classes: Beginners, Middle and Advanced.
-
-_2. French._ Prof. A. Lalande, Louisville, Ky. Three classes: Beginners,
-Intermediate and Advanced.
-
-_3. Spanish._ Prof. J. H. Worman, Ph.D., Nashville, Tenn. Beginners class
-only.
-
-_4. Greek._ Henry Lummis, A.M., Stoneham, Mass. Three classes: Beginners,
-Intermediate and Advanced.
-
-_5. Latin._ E. S. Shumway, A.M., Rutger’s College, New Brunswick, N.
-J. Five classes: Teachers’ Method class, College class, Preparatory,
-Beginners, Circles and Colloquia.
-
-_6. English Language and Literature._ W. D. MacClintock, 3 Winthrop
-Place, New York City. Anglo-Saxon, Shakspere and Chaucer.
-
-_7. The Chautauqua School of Hebrew._ William R. Harper, Ph.D., Morgan
-Park, near Chicago, Ill. Four classes: Elementary, Intermediate,
-Progressive and Exegetical. Four weeks—July 21st, August 16th.
-
-_8. New Testament Greek._ Rev. A. A. Wright, Boston, Mass. Two divisions:
-1. Grammatical; 2. Lexicographical and Exegetical. Four weeks—July 25th,
-August 22nd.
-
-The rate of admission to all the exercises of the C. S. L. and C. T. R.
-for the session of six weeks will be $12.00. Arrangements have been made
-for special classes in several branches. We give a list of these classes
-and their cost:
-
-Elocution, fifteen lessons, $5.00; Elocution, ten lessons, $4.00;
-Elocution, five lessons, $3.00; Elocution, private, per hour, $3.00.
-Clay Modeling, per hour, $0.40. Drawing, fifteen lessons, $5.00;
-Drawing, ten lessons, $4.00; Drawing, five lessons, $3.00. Phonography,
-twenty lessons, $10.00. Voice culture, ten lessons, $10.00. Harmony,
-ten lessons, $10.00. Music in day school eight lessons free to C. S. L.
-and C. T. R. Mineralogy and Lithology, ten lessons, $2.00. Botany, ten
-lessons, $2.00.
-
-The rate of admission to the grounds will be, in July, twenty-five cents
-a day; in August, forty cents a day. A week ticket in July, $1.00; a week
-ticket in August, $2.00. Tickets for the entire term in July, $2.00;
-tickets for the August Assembly meetings, $3.00. An arrangement is made
-by which full course tickets may be secured for July and August for $4.00.
-
- * * * * *
-
-It is incredible how important it is that the corporeal frame should be
-kept under the influence of constant, continuous, and unbroken order,
-and free from the impressions of vicissitude, which always more or less
-derange the corporeal functions. After all, it is continued temperance
-which sustains the body for the longest period of time, and which most
-surely preserves it free from sickness.—_Von Humboldt._
-
-
-
-
-QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.
-
-FIFTY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON PICTURES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY—FROM PAGE
-145 TO THE END OF THE BOOK.
-
-By A. M. MARTIN, GENERAL SECRETARY C. L. S. C.
-
-
-1. Q. What were the “Wars of the Roses?” A. They were civil conflicts
-between the Yorkists and Lancastrians, the former having for their emblem
-a white rose and the latter a red rose.
-
-2. Q. How many kings had the House of York and how many the House of
-Lancaster? A. Each House had three kings.
-
-3. Q. During the reign of Henry VII. who led the French to victory
-against the English, and was afterward burned at the stake on a charge of
-heresy? A. Joan of Arc, the “Maid of Orleans.”
-
-4. Q. Who were the three sovereigns of the House of York? A. Edward IV.,
-Edward V., and Richard III.
-
-5. Q. Who was the first sovereign of the House of Tudor? A. Henry VII.,
-who descended from Edward III. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Edward
-IV., and so the Houses of York and Lancaster were united.
-
-6. Q. During the reign of Henry VII. what great geographical discovery
-was made? A. The discovery of America by Christopher Columbus.
-
-7. Q. How has Henry VIII., the successor of Henry VII., been
-characterized? A. As “the most tyrannical of kings, and the most
-bloodthirsty of husbands.”
-
-8. Q. How many wives did Henry VIII. marry? A. Six.
-
-9. Q. What two great events in England mark the reign of Henry VIII.?
-A. The beginning of the English Reformation, and the publication of the
-Bible in English.
-
-10. Q. What three children of Henry VIII. succeeded him in succession to
-the English throne? A. Edward VI., Mary and Elizabeth.
-
-11. Q. How is the character of Mary described by Motley? A. “As bloody
-Queen Mary she will ever be remembered with horror and detestation in
-Great Britain.”
-
-12. Q. What religion did Mary attempt to restore in England? A. The Roman
-Catholic religion.
-
-13. Q. What are the names of three prominent Protestant martyrs who were
-burned at the stake during Mary’s reign? A. Latimer, Cranmer and John
-Rogers.
-
-14. Q. What religion did Elizabeth reëstablish upon her accession to the
-throne? A. The Protestant religion.
-
-15. Q. What rival to the throne was executed during Elizabeth’s reign? A.
-Mary, Queen of Scots.
-
-16. Q. What great fleet sent by Spain to establish Catholicism in
-England, during Elizabeth’s sovereignty, met with a disastrous defeat? A.
-The Spanish Armada.
-
-17. Q. How many years did Elizabeth reign? A. Forty-five years.
-
-18. Q. What great English dramatist lived during her reign? A. William
-Shakspere.
-
-19. Q. What noted poet wrote during her reign? A. Edmund Spenser.
-
-20. Q. What prominent favorite of the Queen was executed during the reign
-of Elizabeth? A. Lord Essex.
-
-21. Q. Who succeeded Elizabeth to the throne? A. James I., son of Mary
-Queen of Scots.
-
-22. Q. Of what House was the first sovereign? A. The House of Stuart.
-
-23. Q. From the time of the accession of James I., what two crowns were
-united? A. Those of England and Scotland.
-
-24. Q. What great conspiracy was discovered during the reign of James I.?
-A. The gunpowder plot, a conspiracy to destroy both Houses of Parliament,
-the king and the royal family.
-
-25. Q. What noted publication occurred during the reign of James I.? A.
-The authorized version of the Bible.
-
-26. Q. Name four prominent men of letters who lived during the reign of
-James I.? A. Ben Jonson, poet; Beaumont and Fletcher, dramatists; and
-Francis Bacon, jurist, statesman and philosopher.
-
-27. Q. Who was the successor to James I. on the throne of England? A. His
-son, Charles I.
-
-28. Q. What noted Parliament was summoned by King Charles? A. The Long
-Parliament.
-
-29. Q. How long did this Parliament continue in session? A. Thirteen
-years.
-
-30. Q. What was the fate of Charles I.? A. He was tried, condemned and
-executed on a charge of treason in levying war against the Parliament.
-
-31. Q. After the execution of Charles what form of government was
-proclaimed in England? A. A Commonwealth.
-
-32. Q. Who was made the first Lord Protector of the Commonwealth? A.
-Oliver Cromwell.
-
-33. Q. Give the names of three illustrious persons who lived about this
-time. A. Milton, Bunyan and Dryden.
-
-34. Q. Upon the death of Oliver Cromwell, who was proclaimed Protector of
-the Commonwealth? A. His son, Richard Cromwell.
-
-35. Q. Eight months afterward, upon Richard Cromwell resigning the
-Protectorate, who became king of England? A. Charles II., son of Charles
-I.
-
-36. Q. What two great calamities occurred in London during the reign of
-Charles II.? A. The great plague and the great fire. By the former a
-hundred thousand people perished, and by the latter the greater part of
-the city was burned.
-
-37. Q. Who was the successor of Charles II.? A. His brother, James II.
-
-38. Q. What was the result of the revolution of 1688. A. James II.
-abdicated the throne, and William and Mary jointly reigned.
-
-39. Q. What historic battle occurred in 1609? A. The battle of the Boyne.
-
-40. Q. Mention the names of three great persons who lived during this
-reign? A. John Locke, Sir Isaac Newton and Sir Christopher Wren.
-
-41. Q. Who was the next English sovereign on the throne? A. Anne,
-daughter of James II.
-
-42. Q. What age of literature is the reign of Anne called? A. The
-Augustan age of English literature.
-
-43. Q. What are five of the illustrious names of this age? A. Addison,
-Steele, Swift, Watts and Pope.
-
-44. Q. With the reign of George I., grandson of James I., and successor
-of Anne, what House acceded to the throne? A. The House of Hanover.
-
-45. Q. What great speculation impoverished thousands during this reign?
-A. “The South Sea Bubble.”
-
-46. Q. What are the names of the three sovereigns who successively
-reigned after George I.? A. George II., George III., and George IV.
-
-47. Q. Whose reign was the longest in English history? A. That of George
-IV., extending over sixty years.
-
-48. Q. What colonies revolted during the reign of George IV. and obtained
-their independence? A. The American colonies.
-
-49. Q. What two great statesmen lived during the reign of George IV.? A.
-Pitt and Fox.
-
-50. Q. Who is the present sovereign of England? A. Queen Victoria,
-granddaughter of George III.
-
- * * * * *
-
-Death is a mighty mediator. There all the flames of rage are
-extinguished, hatred is appeased, and angelic pity, like a weeping
-sister, bends with gentle and close embrace over the funeral
-urn.—_Schiller._
-
-
-
-
-CHAUTAUQUA NORMAL COURSE.
-
-Season of 1884.
-
-
-LESSON X.—BIBLE SECTION.
-
-_The Doctrines of the Bible._
-
-By REV. J. L. HURLBUT, D.D., AND R. S. HOLMES, A.M.
-
-_Doceo_ means I teach. _Doctum_, a teaching. _Doctrina_, the result of
-teaching—_learning_. The doctrines of the Bible are simply its teachings.
-They are the teachings of God to the race, contained in the record of his
-dealings with the race. These dealings of God produced a supernatural
-history, in the course of which man originated and fell, the nature and
-character of the Creator appeared, the presence, power and effects of sin
-were made known, and the original and ultimate purposes of God with the
-race were declared. The outline of these teachings or doctrines is not
-designed to be exhaustive, nor is it formed on the model of any treatise
-on systematic theology. It aims to prompt to further study in the
-classics of theology, and to plainly state a few essential truths. These
-doctrines of the Bible are:
-
-_1. The Doctrine Concerning Beginnings._ (_a_) God was without
-beginning—Genesis 1:1. First fact—“The Eternal God.” (_b_) The Holy
-Spirit was without beginning—Gen. 1:2. Second fact—“The Eternal Spirit.”
-(_c_) The Word was without beginning—John 1:1. Third fact—“The Eternal
-Son.” Essential doctrine: the Triune God; unbegun, coequal, eternal.
-(_d_) All else, the whole vast universe, began by the power of God—Gen.
-1:1—through the Son—John 1:3. Fourth fact—“Man God’s offspring.”
-Essential doctrine: The Fatherhood of God; his sovereignty and right to
-demand obedience of his creatures.
-
-_2. The Doctrine Concerning Relations._ (_a_) God _is Creator_: hence
-_powerful_; _a spirit_—John 4:24—hence unseen; _without beginning or
-ending, hence infinite and eternal_—Ps. 90:1. Formula: “God is a spirit,
-infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness,
-justice, goodness and truth.” (_b_) _Man is the creature._ Essentially a
-thing created; he dies daily, to be recreated daily. What of himself man
-destroys, the Creator by daily sustenance replaces. He is therefore the
-bread-giver, _Hlaf-ford_—_Lord_. The gifts of the Creator are beneficent;
-so he is the Good-One, God. The Creator is also guardian, protector—that
-is, _Father_.
-
-Relation restated. The Creator, Lord, God, Father. The creature—a
-dependent child. The law of paternity—like produces like. Essential
-doctrine—man was originally like God, in harmony with him and at peace
-with him—Gen. 1:27.
-
-_3. The Doctrine Concerning Positions._ (_a_) Man supreme in creation.
-God calls himself Father of no other created thing. _Man a thinker,
-hence supreme._ (_b_) _Man free in the midst of creation._ No other
-power to dispute his right. In fellowship with God, his Father. In a
-place of his Father’s choice, under rules of his Father’s making; with
-a work of his Father’s planning—Gen. 2:15-16—with power to follow his
-own will—(Gen. 2:17, last clause)—answerable to no one but his Father.
-Essential Doctrines—The sovereignty of God—the freedom of man. (_c_) _Man
-confronted by a foe_—Gen. 3:1—A sinful power in the universe: sin before
-man—2 Peter 2:4, 1 John 3:8. _Picture_—The Almighty Father—the boundless
-earth—the wide permission; the single restraint; the only child; the
-tempter; the fall; sin’s victory—Romans 5:12. Essential doctrine: By
-man sin entered the world, and death by sin, imparting to man a sinful
-nature, and separating man from God.
-
-_4. The Doctrine Concerning Results._ (_a_) Separation from God; Eden
-lost; toil, pain and death—Gen. 3:17-19:23. (_b_) The kingdom of
-death—Romans 5:14; its prince, Satan; its subjects unclean—Job 15:14-16;
-its history a record of “sin, schism, and the clash of personalities.”
-(_c_) Eternal punishment probable from analogy, reasonable, just. Let
-the student carefully examine the testimony.
-
-_5. The Doctrine Concerning Rescue._ (_a_) Promised early in history—Gen.
-3:15. (_b_) _Divine_—John 3:16. (_c_) Yet _human_—Gen. 3:15; Romans 5:18;
-Luke 3:23 and ff. Central fact of history, the God-man. (_d_) Restoration
-to God’s likeness—1 John 3:2. (_e_) A life-giving rescue—Romans 6:23.
-(_f_) A cleansing rescue; find the symbolic use of water in Bible. (_g_)
-Obtained through suffering and propitiatory death—Isaiah 53. (_h_)
-Established by resurrection—Ps. 16:10, 49:15; Hosea 13:14. Essential
-doctrine: Salvation from God as a free gift of his grace for all who
-believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
-
-_6. The Doctrine Concerning Instruction._ (_a_) God himself the teacher
-of the race. _Adam_—_Abel_—the Altar and Sacrifice. Note: _service_ and
-_sacrifice_, man’s first lesson; the ark and Noah; rescue from sin’s
-penalty through obedience, man’s second lesson; Abraham—reckoned as
-righteous, because believing, man’s third lesson. (_b_) Moses the teacher
-of the race; the tabernacle in the wilderness; the same lessons repeated;
-God using his servant by direct instruction and communion. (_c_) The
-prophets the teachers of the race—Samuel—Malachi—the same lesson
-repeated; God teaching by inspiration; the home; the church; holy men
-speaking as moved by the Holy Ghost. (_d_) God by his Son the teacher of
-the race; Jesus Christ, Galilee, Samaria, Judea, the manger, the desert,
-the cross, the Easter morn, lessons, service, obedience, sacrifice,
-victory. (_e_) God by his teacher of the race.
-
-
-SUNDAY-SCHOOL SECTION.
-
-LESSON X.—THE TEACHING PROCESS.—ILLUSTRATION.
-
-[This lesson is adapted from the outline of Dr. Vincent, in the
-Chautauqua Normal Guide.]
-
-_I. There are four Uses of Illustrations._
-
-1. They win and hold _attention_. The ear is quickened to interest by
-a story; the eye is arrested by the picture or the chalk mark. Nothing
-awakens and retains the interest more than the illustration, whether
-heard or seen.
-
-2. They aid the _apprehension_. The statement of a truth is made plain
-where it is illustrated, as the rule in arithmetic is seen more clearly
-in the light of an example; and the definition of a scientific word in
-the dictionary by the picture accompanying it.
-
-3. They aid the _memory_. It is not the text, nor the line of thought,
-but the illustrations, which keep the sermon or the lesson from being
-forgotten.
-
-4. They awaken the _conscience_. How many have been aroused to conviction
-of sin by the parable of the Prodigal Son; and what is that but an
-illustration? So, many, like Zinzendorf, have been awakened by some
-picture of a Bible scene. Mr. Moody’s stories have sent the truth home as
-deeply as his exhortations.
-
-_II. There are four Classes of Illustrations._
-
-1. Those which depend upon the _sight_, and derive their interest from
-the pupil’s delight in seeing. Such are maps, pictures, diagrams, etc.,
-and when drawn in presence of the scholar, though ever so rudely, they
-have an increased interest and power.
-
-2. Those which depend upon the _imagination_. At no period in life is
-the imagination as strong as in childhood, when a rag doll can be a baby
-and a picture has real life. Thence come “word-pictures,” fairy stories,
-imaginary scenes, etc., as illustrations of the lesson.
-
-3. Those which depend upon _comparison_. To see resemblance in things
-different, or the correspondence between the outward and the spiritual,
-is as old as the parable of the sower, and the miracle of the loaves.
-“The likes of the lesson” form a fruitful field for the use of
-illustration.
-
-4. Those which depend upon _knowledge_. More than for anything else
-children are eager to know; and the story has an added value which is
-true. History, science, art, and indeed every department of knowledge
-will furnish illustrations of spiritual truth.
-
-_III. How to obtain Illustrations._
-
-1. By gaining knowledge, especially Bible knowledge. The wider the
-teacher’s range of thought, the more readily will he find illustrations
-to fit his thought. Particularly will the incidents of Bible story be
-found to furnish the frame for his thoughts in the class. Know the
-stories of the Bible, and you will have an encyclopædia of illustration
-in your mind.
-
-2. By the habit of observation. People find what they are seeking
-for, and the teacher who is looking for illustrations will find them
-everywhere, in books, among men, on the railway train, and in the forest.
-
-3. _By the preservation of illustrations._ The scrap book for clippings,
-the blank book for stray suggestions, the envelope, will all have their
-uses. Plans innumerable have been given, but each worker’s own plan is
-the best for himself.
-
-4. _By practice in the use of illustrations._ The way to use them is to
-_use_ them, and use will give ease. The teacher who has once made the
-experiment will repeat it, and find that his rough drawing, or his map,
-or his story will always attract the eager attention of his scholars.
-
-_IV. A few hints as to the use of Illustrations._
-
-1. Have a clear idea of the subject to be taught. Learn the lesson
-first of all, and know what you are to teach, before you seek for your
-illustration.
-
-2. Use illustrations only in the line of the teaching. Never tell a story
-for the sake of the story, but always to impress a truth; and let the
-truth be so plain that the story must carry its own application.
-
-3. Obtain the help of the scholar in illustration. Let the pupils suggest
-Bible incidents or Bible characters which present the traits of character
-which the lesson enforces. Never add a feature to the portrait which the
-scholar can himself give from his own knowledge.
-
-4. Do not use too many illustrations. Let not the lesson serve merely as
-a vehicle for story-telling, or picture drawing, or blackboarding; but
-keep _the truth_ at all times in the foreground.
-
-
-
-
-EDITOR’S OUTLOOK.
-
-
-TO THE CLASS OF 1884—GREETING.
-
-The completing of a course of study affords one of the few unalloyed
-satisfactions of life. It is an end reached—and it has been reached
-by personal effort. The class is at the goal, and it is there because
-it chose to be there, and resolutely and persistently labored to be
-there. We get many good things without effort, but they give us less
-satisfaction than meaner things which we have earned. There is a charm
-in winning a race, which does not consist either in being at the end of
-it, or in getting a prize. The victory is “our very own,” as the children
-say. But in a course of study completed one feels that the prize is
-worth his pains. He may feel discontented with the imperfections of his
-knowledge, but he would not for the world be put back where he began. We
-hold many things only with our hands; the fruits of a course of study are
-more secure—they are in our minds and hearts, and therefore can not fall
-out of our possession, or be wrested from us.
-
-It is a good thing for the student to take the refreshment of looking
-back to the place of beginning. “What was I when I began?” This sense
-of gain is apt to be supplanted by discontent and looking forward; but
-the student should give himself the comfort of the backward glance. No
-one has pursued our course of reading and study to the end without very
-great improvement in mental power and method, or without large additions
-to his knowledge. “Look to the hole of the pit.” Take a long look at
-your old self and do not hesitate to prefer the new self. You are wiser,
-stronger, better. Allow yourself the luxury of fully realizing that. And
-how little it has cost you! A piecing together of fragments of time that
-would otherwise have been wasted, that is the greater part of the cost
-of your course. Whatever else you have spent you would have spent less
-wisely if you had not been in the course. You have sacrificed nothing of
-any moment to this object. All else that you had you keep still; this
-fruit of patient study you have as a clean and pure gain. It is a matter
-to be happy about. A good hour of self-complacency will do you no harm.
-Indulge your self-respect a little. All might do what you have done; most
-of them have not done it. Your graduation is of itself a proof that you
-have pluck, constancy, and self-control.
-
-It is worth while to consider the elements of this victory. You have
-mixed time and method with reading and study. Hap-hazard study would not
-yield the fruit; it could not be ripened in a day. “Four months—and
-harvest.” Nor could method be left out. There is method in any work;
-method distinguishes work from play. There is method on the farm, in the
-mill, in the store. There must be method in gaining knowledge. Method
-makes tasks easy and combines many strokes into one result. In this
-combination of time and method lies the power of a course of study. All
-the mental effort is probably put forth by others spasmodically and
-unmethodically. You are at the end simply because you harnessed your
-efforts with years and system. Only stable and earnest characters are
-capable of the patient continuance in well-doing which is necessary to
-the completion of a course of study. College men say that the majority of
-those who begin a course fall out by the way; and they add that, whatever
-pretexts are used, the real reason is usually defective character.
-It is a rule in all undertakings of mankind; holdfast is the master
-quality. The men and women who complete the C. L. S. C. course do so
-on purpose and because they are capable of tenacity of purpose, and it
-is an education in tenacity. The man who has run such a race _through_
-is capable of running other races. He has learned how to “keep pegging
-away,” as Lincoln put it. He knows how to run—how to study. He likes to
-study. He has only begun in the great museum of knowledge, but he will go
-on searching its shelves until he is graduated into the large university
-of immortality. Ingratitude to our past selves is a human frailty which
-is often displayed, even ostentatiously, by men and women. Many there
-are who boast that they learned nothing at school; there are more who
-complain that they were taught nothing. Dr. Samuel Johnson was truer to
-himself in saying that he had learned nothing since. We hope that C. L.
-S. C. graduates will never fall into this cant. Be just now and always
-to yourselves and to those who have guided you through this journey. You
-have not learned everything, but you have learned how to learn. What you
-build yourself into hereafter will be built on this foundation. If you
-come to more wisdom do not be guilty of the meanness of despising these
-foundations. If the building rises high and stands firm, the glory of it
-will be these well-laid stones. If the building does not rise, yours the
-fault, for you will have neglected the solid base which invites you to
-build. Go on with the building; but do not forget now and again to bless
-the years when you were laying the first blocks of a studious life. In
-short, we have read you a little homily on self-respect. Take an honest
-satisfaction in your course; keep a just respect for your tenacity and
-application; cherish your love for those who have helped and inspired you
-in the good work.
-
-
-THE DECLINE OF OUR WORKMAN.
-
-The manufacturing classes of this country doubtless present a much more
-favorable condition of the workmen than prevails in other countries. The
-men who are generally described as laborers—whether they work isolated
-or in bodies—occupy a higher level of life than the same class in the
-old world. We may pass by, as being, in dispute, the question of the
-protective system’s relation to this fact. The higher condition of
-workmen is partly a result of democratic institutions and the absence
-of social grades in society; partly also of the youth of this country
-and its abundance of natural bounties. We have had the unexampled good
-fortune to be a young country rapidly developing wealth. A democratic
-level, a republican simplicity, vast stores of undeveloped natural
-wealth, and a system of free schools and free churches, have probably
-conspired to produce a high grade of workmen. We naturally desire to keep
-this feature of American society and industry. We note with alarm any
-sign that workmen are dropping to a lower level. It is not exclusively
-a humanitarian feeling which prompts us to maintain our workmen on a
-high level. We have all come to be interested in the prosperity of
-this section of the community. The economic usefulness of a man may be
-as conveniently measured by what he consumes as by what he does. In
-fact, his consuming power is the more accurate measure of his value.
-It is not so much a question of the number of strokes per day of which
-he is capable, as of the power he has to buy and use what his fellows
-produce. In this country the workman’s consuming power is probably at
-least twice as great as it is in Europe. This means that forty per
-cent. of our people buy twice as much as the corresponding forty per
-cent. buy in Europe. The effect is to greatly enlarge the market which
-we are all supplying with various kinds of goods. The reduction of
-this growing section of our population to the European condition would
-cause a contraction of the market, and an arrest of our industrial
-development, such as we have never experienced. We should be able to
-_make_ just as many goods as now, but the people who now buy them would
-be obliged to reduce their buying, and this reduction would make an
-appalling aggregate. If twenty millions of people should at once reduce
-their annual purchases by one-half, the effect would be a more complete
-bankruptcy of us all than we have ever dreamed of. The reduction might
-come about slowly and with less peril; but even then the stagnation would
-be fatal to a large portion of the community. The truth is that we have
-a new factor in our industrial life, a new economic co-efficient. It is
-the well-paid workman, who is a relatively large consumer. Relatively to
-population the market we are all engaged in supplying is a much larger
-market than exists in Europe. We are built upon a foundation of which
-this well-paid laborer is an important part. We added an immense mass to
-this foundation when we emancipated the slaves. We increased the demand
-for goods by the difference between the cost of supporting a slave and
-that of supporting a free man. The new factor is a sum to be estimated
-only by the study of our own country. It never before existed in any
-country. It is a fact without a precedent; and it is so large that the
-whole fabric of our prosperity rests upon it. Gradgrind may persuade
-himself that he does not care whether poor men can buy goods or not; but
-his persuasion to that indifference will give way just as soon as the
-poor cease to buy his goods. In short, Gradgrind can not afford to see
-the buying power of workmen reduced with complacency. It means, whenever
-it becomes a _general_ fact, ruin for Gradgrind. Whoever has anything or
-produces anything has given bonds for the maintenance of workmen’s wages.
-
-Well, then, the alarm has already been sounded. We do not refer to the
-“tariff reform”—though that _may_ be fatal—but to more certain matters
-over which the tariff laws have no power. It is affirmed that the
-character, social status, aspirations and self-respect of workmen in
-this country has already fallen. An observer in a manufacturing center
-recently said: “The change in ten years is frightful. The old hands have
-risen in life or gone west. The new hands live in smaller quarters, care
-less for the comfort of their families, and buy fewer goods of any kind.
-They read less, take newspapers more rarely, are less careful to dress
-well on Sunday, and see their children in rags with a complacency which
-was unknown ten years ago. The new people are from Europe, and nine in
-ten of them have brought their old habits with them. Higher wages mean to
-them only more rum and more idleness.”
-
-We hope that this is an exaggeration. But even if it be only very
-partially true, it opens an unexpected vista, and an alarming one. The
-only way to maintain workmen’s wages is to keep up workmen’s characters.
-If the character grows debased the wages will drop to that lower level.
-A higher grade of living is the only possible security for higher wages.
-Workmen can not long get high wages to spend in rum shops. Wages will
-sink to the level of their life. But if the common market is to suffer so
-great a loss as this fall in wages and consuming power would occasion,
-then we must all suffer. Nor is this all. The failure would be that
-of our civilization. We are, every way, in all sources, most deeply
-interested in arresting the threatened decline of the American workman.
-
-
-EFFICIENCY AND TENURE.
-
-The tenure of office in this country will be the subject of animated
-discussion for some years. Civil Service Reform aims to correct an
-abuse, and will probably achieve that end; but it is not certain that
-the right method of reform has been found. The ideal of good service is
-presented by a bank in which men serve indefinitely, and yet must serve
-efficiently. They are removed if they fail; they are not removed if they
-succeed. The difficulty in applying this rule to any form of public
-service lies in removals for cause. How to secure the removal of the
-man who fails? In the bank it is a simple thing to discharge a clerk.
-In public life it is not at all simple or easy. The clerk has no vested
-right to his place in the bank; in a department at Washington, a clerk
-has a vested right to his place. The bank removes because it chooses to
-do so. The government must invent some pretext or _prove_ inefficiency.
-Tenure during good behavior makes a _quasi_ property of the office.
-
-The ministry presents a good example of the workings of office tenure.
-Thousands of churches are without installed pastors, and one of the
-reasons given is that churches find it easier to install a man than
-to dismiss him. In the Methodist Church a hot discussion over the
-rule which limits continuous service in one church to three years has
-afforded good observers a fine opportunity to see the play of feeling
-and motive around the tenure principle. The change proposed has met
-with a crushing defeat, because Methodists are more anxious to keep
-the power to get rid of a poor pastor than they are to get the power
-to keep a good one. Why? Because they have much more experience of
-inefficient men than of efficient men. In short, the church says to
-itself: “Pastors usually fail; they rarely succeed; it is best to be
-able to send them away quietly.” This is not complimentary to the
-ministry, but it is the substance of the argument which has defeated a
-plan which had the sympathy of the best men in Methodism. The fact that
-in other denominations changes of pastors are about as frequent as among
-Methodists has the same explanation. For some reason the inefficient
-ministers are believed to be more numerous than the efficient. There is
-a suspicion in the general mind that this is true all round the circle
-of salaried life, and that we need swift and easy and decorous means
-of removing our public and semi-public servants more than we need to
-fortify the good men in their positions. In the large view, what ails
-us is poor work; and people in general think that the poor work is
-already tied fast to us. The human nature of the public has been too much
-overlooked. The human nature of the employed has hardly ever received
-appropriate attention. There are two kinds of persons to be considered
-in estimating the effect of time limits in any service. To one kind of
-man security of tenure is a means of increased efficiency. He is zealous
-and enterprising in his vocation. He is acutely conscientious toward
-his employers, the more so the less they are visible and near to him.
-To be secure in his place is to this man freedom to do good work and
-conduct his career to fruitful issues. Any other tenure means to him a
-harassing uncertainty in all plans and wearying anxieties about bread and
-butter questions. Such a man can not serve a cause of any kind well on
-an uncertain or limited tenure of office. The only possible uncertainty
-for him—the only one consistent with good work—is that which concerns
-the quality of his work. That species of uncertainty is one which he
-feels to be in his power. He will do his work so well that no uncertainty
-shall exist. But at the other extreme is a man to whose success the
-sense of security is fatal. He works best under the whip of uncertainty.
-He becomes lazy when the fear of removal does not exist. Between the
-two extremes—conscientious enthusiasm at one end and place-keeping
-inefficiency at the other—are men of a variety of tendencies to one
-or the other character. Colleges probably present the best view of
-the effect of security of tenure. The general public does not possess
-intimate knowledge of the results of the system in seats of learning; but
-now and then an intestine broil uncovers the college life, and invariably
-discloses an unsatisfactory condition. For a good professor fixed tenure
-is most wholesome; for a poor one it is unwholesome in its effects on
-his character and work. A man of wide experience in colleges tells us
-that there is not a college in the country but is lugging inefficient
-men; and he expresses the opinion that less than half of the college men
-are the best men for their places. In short, even in the college, unfit
-men get places and keep them, to the great detriment of the college. In
-an average institution four thoroughly good men carry six other men. A
-few give the college its character; the majority are a burden, and some
-men in this majority gloat over their supposed right to be lugged by the
-college. Any rule which should rid colleges of mere place-holders, of
-men weak in character, negligent in work, and far behind the times in
-scholarship would double the usefulness and the patronage of colleges in
-ten years. But if certainty of tenure is bad in college, it must be worse
-elsewhere.
-
-What is generally desired in the matter of tenure in service of any sort
-is to cut off the chances for the purchase and sale of places, and for
-the capricious and interested removal of good men. The scandals growing
-up in public life from this base caprice in the appointing power have
-sickened the popular stomach. Take, for example, the forced resignation
-of a stenographer, at the end of a session, in order that the speaker of
-the House of Representatives might appoint his own nephew to the place
-_for the vacation_, during which there were no duties. The filthiness of
-the proceeding surpasses belief; and yet it seems not to have provoked
-any proper indignation in Congress. But fixed tenure has more evils than
-it cures, and some middle way should be found. We can not afford to
-ignore the fact that average men need the spur. The highly conscientious
-and enterprising servant is yet too rare in the world for it to be safe
-to adjust the terms of service to his character and to leave the majority
-free from the whip.
-
-
-
-
-EDITOR’S NOTE-BOOK.
-
-
-An English magazine writer on Egypt points out the difficulty which is
-encountered in all the public life of the Nile country—it is the habit of
-submission to personal despotic authority. The only system of government
-which is possible is the old, old one—for it has unfitted the people
-for any other. An enlightened despotism might give the country rest and
-prosperity. But western Europe, now master in Egypt, has outgrown the
-capacity to administer a despotism.
-
- * * * * *
-
-Professor Goldwin Smith has recently stated that Canada is becoming more
-French. The French not only gain in population faster than the English
-in what was once called New France, but they are spreading out into the
-Canadian New England. In Quebec there are only 7,000 British people. The
-Canadian Frenchmen are cultivating, he says, the relations to France with
-increasing zeal. The sober truth is, we believe, that the English in
-Canada never had a chance of salvation except through annexation to the
-United States. We were never anxious about that; but they ought to have
-been.
-
- * * * * *
-
-Smuggling is not altogether a lost art. It is said that it is practiced
-for a livelihood on the Maine coast with some success. The fishermen are
-said to be experts in the business. But it is not a large business, and
-our government does not lose much, nor does any one get rich by breaking
-the revenue laws.
-
- * * * * *
-
-Somebody says that a ranch in Texas has 25,000 more acres than the state
-of Rhode Island. But don’t infer that this country is going to be a land
-of large farms. We have always had some such farms; but the number of
-them is decreasing. They never _pay_, and no social distinction attaches
-to their proprietors.
-
- * * * * *
-
-In Boston, Easter morning, Dr. Withrow dwelt upon the overwhelming
-evidence of the fact of Christ’s resurrection. Rev. Minot J. Savage
-said, at the same hour in the same city, that we have not the slightest
-evidence that any Apostle ever saw Christ after he was crucified and
-buried. It seems that there is at least one theological difference of
-creed extant in our harmonious time. Mr. Savage might profitably read
-Paul’s testimony on this subject.
-
- * * * * *
-
-Mr. W. S. Hallock, the editor of the _Christian at Work_, has been in
-Bermuda this season, and in a letter to his paper recalls the fact that
-the first settlers of that island were a drove of hogs who escaped
-thither from a wrecked vessel. They thrived so well that the next comers
-found the land filled with swine. Mr. Hallock adds: “It is probably the
-only successful instance of the commune to be found in all history.” The
-point scored is that communism is good for hogs.
-
- * * * * *
-
-This spring the West Indian war is in Cuba. It is commonly held in Hayti.
-An expedition headed by one Aguero escaped from Key West in April and,
-being joined in Cuba by many dissatisfied persons, made some headway
-as a revolution. Our government promptly issued orders to prevent the
-reënforcement of Aguero from this country. The hot weather will suppress
-the revolutionists—if they are natives of the United States.
-
- * * * * *
-
-Waiters on roller-skates is a novelty introduced into an Omaha hotel.
-Labor-saving contrivances in the household seem to have stopped with
-the sewing machine—and it is denied by husbands that this machine saves
-labor. It is rather a means of putting more work on a dress with the same
-amount of labor of the hand.
-
- * * * * *
-
-Herbert Spencer has been trying to prove that slavery is little different
-from our ordinary social freedom. A man must work, he says, most of
-the time for another person in either case. Yes, but it is a great
-satisfaction to select the man you will work for. And, in freedom, the
-workman is always working _for_ himself. Mr. Spencer should try being a
-slave for a length of time sufficient to teach him the moral distinction
-between that state and freedom.
-
- * * * * *
-
-One of the papers, noticing the death of a fast trotting horse, says that
-he was ill only fifteen minutes. Similar statements are frequently made
-respecting distinguished men; and the prayer book contains a petition
-to be delivered from sudden death. We note the facts for the sake of
-remarking that sudden death by disease, either in horses or men, never
-happens. Diseases act much more slowly, and the man who dies of a fever
-has probably been ill for months. The moral is, attend to the first
-symptoms of illness.
-
- * * * * *
-
-The United States recently transferred a prisoner from the north to the
-south _for the benefit of his health_. He was a “moonshiner,” and had
-killed several men who had attempted to arrest him. The solicitude for
-his health shows that we are not wanting in philanthropy toward prisoners.
-
- * * * * *
-
-The native Christians of India are taking the intellectual lead in that
-country. At the University examinations in Madras there were 2,702
-Brahmans, 1,303 non-Brahman-Hindoos, 107 Mohammedans, and 332 Christians.
-Forty-five per cent. of the Christians passed, and only thirty-five per
-cent. of the Brahmans, while the other classes were still lower. In India
-there are seventeen million Brahmans and two million Christians. The
-former increase at the rate of six per cent. in ten years, and the latter
-at the rate of eighty-five per cent. These facts furnish a very striking
-proof of Christian progress in India.
-
- * * * * *
-
-Reminiscences of Anthony Trollope continue to appear in English
-periodicals. Two manly traits of his character are dwelt upon. He was
-punctual in keeping his literary engagements, and he never pretended
-to be indifferent about his pay for work. He made a bargain and kept
-his promise—and did both like a man. The traditional literary man did
-neither; he was always behind with his copy, and always pretended that he
-did not care for remuneration. Trollope’s example deserves all the good
-things that are said of it.
-
- * * * * *
-
-The _Edinburgh Review_ expresses the opinion that the novels written by
-girls must be unreal and insubstantial. The girls _ought_ not, it thinks,
-to know anything about life, and probably do not know anything about it.
-The girl knows less of the world than the boy of her own age, and nobody
-expects the boy to write a novel. Yes, but then the girl often does
-produce a good story and the boy never does.
-
- * * * * *
-
-Art is _still_ long. Steam has not yet been successfully applied to it.
-A parent said to a teacher of music: “How long will it require to fit my
-daughter to appear in public? Will nine months do?” The teacher replied:
-“Nine years, madam. Even a boot-maker takes seven.” Hurrying to the front
-inflicts upon society a great deal of very poor art.
-
- * * * * *
-
-The vexed question has set in with great vigor in the coal country. Some
-very “heathenish and filthy” people, called Hungarians, have come in and
-are competing with low wages. They use no soap, and save all the cost of
-cleanliness. The question we refer to is whether American labor is to
-keep its high level of decency, comfort and education. It is noticeable
-that the Chinese are rapidly climbing to that level. Perhaps these
-Hungarians will.
-
- * * * * *
-
-Russia finds it increasingly difficult to live in the same house with
-modern civilization. Count Ignatief killed five newspapers during a year
-when he was Minister of the Interior. Count Tolstoi has killed nine in
-two years. Nihilist plots have made some sympathy for Russia; but the
-fatal disease of that country is despotism.
-
- * * * * *
-
-Our medical colleges, in some sections if not everywhere, need an
-improvement in the standard of requirements. A story is told of a western
-one at whose examinations a student answered correctly only three out of
-twenty-five questions, and was affably informed that his examination was
-“entirely satisfactory.” It is intimated, too, that the questions were
-very easy.
-
- * * * * *
-
-Dr. James A. H. Murray, the editor of the new English Dictionary, is a
-hard worked teacher in a non-conformist school in the suburbs of London.
-His good work on the first part of the dictionary, recently published,
-has attracted attention, and it is said that Oxford will give him a good
-place, and that Mr. Gladstone will add a government pension. The British
-eye is very quick to detect rare merit.
-
- * * * * *
-
-The British press is dealing severely with this country for tolerating
-dynamite conspirators. But up to this date no proof is furnished that
-there is any dynamite conspiracy here. Some indolent gentlemen in New
-York raise money for use against England and profess to be at the bottom
-of the dynamite business. But it is plain enough that they would not
-boast of it if they were really guilty, and that they collect the money
-for their own use. “Liberating Ireland” by taking up collections is an
-easy mode of gaining a livelihood.
-
- * * * * *
-
-The French have won another victory over the Black Flags in Tonquin. A
-very gratifying fact is that thus far the Chinese have not turned upon
-and maltreated the foreigners within their gates. A general massacre of
-traders, travelers and missionaries was feared when this trouble began;
-but it would seem that contact with Europeans has modified the Chinese
-feeling toward foreigners. It is reported that high officials have lost
-their offices, perhaps also their heads, but the foreign population has
-not been disturbed.
-
- * * * * *
-
-The political cauldrons are boiling. But an acute observer still sees
-that the general public is less partisan than it was ten years ago, or
-even four years ago. It is a wholesome state of things. Good men will
-stand the best chance of election, provided that they have some capacity
-to win popular affection. In politics, at least, there are no good
-icebergs.
-
- * * * * *
-
-A city marshal was shot dead in Dakota last month by a liquor dealer
-resisting an attempt to close his place at midnight. Lawlessness and
-recklessness are becoming more and more prominent characteristics of the
-liquor traffic; and this is a good sign in a bad situation. The decent
-men got out of the traffic some time ago; the semi-decent men followed
-them. The class remaining in the business can not have many friends, and
-will be disposed of by and by as nuisances.
-
- * * * * *
-
-It is said that the educated Chinese are rapidly becoming materialists.
-They have lost their old religion and are taking refuge in European
-scientific materialism. The meaning of this fact is that in Japan, as
-in America, the fight is between Christianity and materialistic dogmas.
-It is the same the world over, where enlightenment exists. These two
-struggle for the dominion of the world.
-
- * * * * *
-
-Actors and actresses have made a scandalous record on the question of
-marriage during the last four years. Any newspaper reader can make his
-own catalogue. That theater life is a terrible one for a virtuous woman.
-The horrible surroundings of an actress—the trial by fire which she
-undergoes, and so rarely survives, is a crushing argument against the
-stage.
-
- * * * * *
-
-One of the striking things to an American traveling in Europe is the
-cheap cab. After many trials and failures that great convenience has been
-introduced into New York under very promising conditions. A new company
-has organized the system and seems to be on a solid foundation. The cheap
-cab is a sign of civilization which has hitherto been wanting in our
-large cities. The world moves.
-
- * * * * *
-
-A relic of the battle of the Boyne appeared in Newfoundland last month.
-Orangemen were fired upon by Catholics. It is a pity that the battle of
-the Boyne can not be confined to Ireland. There seems to be no propriety
-in transporting it to this continent every year.
-
- * * * * *
-
-New York and Brooklyn are to be the Chinese center in this country. The
-yellow men are not persecuted there. The number of them now in those
-cities is estimated at from 3,500 to 5,000. Christian schools among them
-are growing rapidly. There are now twenty-two schools, with 910 scholars.
-Most of these schools were organized last year; only three of them are
-more than four years old.
-
- * * * * *
-
-Prince Bismarck recently said: “The telegraph fearfully multiplies my
-work.” Does it not multiply the work of all men in public positions? The
-telegraph travels fast and helps to make us work fast.
-
- * * * * *
-
-A correspondent asks us to make an itinerary for six months’ travel in
-Europe. Such a plan of travel would require too much space. Write to a
-New York publisher for a small book on the subject. There are many such
-books. To “read up” for the journey, procure two or three of the best
-books on the subject of European travel. Harper & Brothers publish a good
-one; there are several others. If you are about to invest from $600 to
-$1,000 in such a journey, you will do well to begin with an outlay of
-from ten to twenty dollars for special books.
-
- * * * * *
-
-The French have spent four years and $20,000,000 on the Panama Canal,
-and have not made great progress. An American who worked for a year on
-the canal, and got off with his life, reports that fever is the great
-enemy of the undertaking. He says that five thousand deaths of workmen
-occurred in three months. The company kept fifteen thousand men at work
-by bringing in shiploads of new men as fast as death destroyed its
-workmen. If the canal is ever finished it will have cost a hundred and
-fifty millions of dollars, and as many thousand lives.
-
- * * * * *
-
-General Gordon is at this writing still shut up in Khartoum, and
-England seems to be doing nothing to save him. Egypt is politically and
-financially bankrupt, and Mr. Gladstone’s ministry is threatened with
-overthrow because it has not managed the unmanageable Nile question.
-There is only one easy settlement of Egyptian affairs, and that is an
-English government of Egypt.
-
- * * * * *
-
-The drunken man is an increasing nuisance. Recently, in a Brooklyn, N.
-Y. theater, he cried “fire,” and caused a frightful panic. In a New
-York City theater he was an alderman, and interrupted the performance
-long enough to get arrested and marched off to the lock-up. He is
-always engaged in quarrels in which blood is drawn. In a western city,
-last month, he killed his best friend. We all have other business, but
-we ought not to neglect this drunken man, or the places where he is
-manufactured.
-
- * * * * *
-
-Something new in the matter of mixed metaphor appears in the New York
-_Times_. A correspondent, writing of a political organization, described
-some elements of it as “cancerous barnacles.” We notice, too, a new verb
-in politics. A dreary and egoistic speaker at a convention is said to
-have “pepper-sauced himself over an impatient audience.”
-
- * * * * *
-
-A wealthy New Yorker, recently deceased, disposed by will of some two
-millions of property which he had gained chiefly through the rewards
-and opportunities of public position. He bequeathed only $15,000 to
-benevolent causes. A man has the right to dispose of his estate as he
-will; but then the public has a judgment as to whether he disposes of it
-in the right way. And less than one per cent. to benevolence is not the
-right proportion.
-
- * * * * *
-
-There is a bad type of independence in politics. It is that whose
-shape is made by personal malignity, and whose method is slander and
-vituperation. Just at this season this sort of independence is noisy. It
-is a kind of politics which should have little influence.
-
- * * * * *
-
-A recent writing criticises the wealthy men of the country for negligence
-in the matter of making their wealth minister to philanthropy. Probably
-most of our millionaires are too busy to see the point, but the point is
-sharp and will stick in the world’s remembrance of many of them. The only
-moral justification for holding a large property is philanthropic use of
-it. Neglect of the kind mentioned breeds socialists and weakens the moral
-safeguards of all private property.
-
- * * * * *
-
-For two years, Mrs. Carrie B. Kilgore, a lady holding a diploma as
-bachelor of laws, granted her by the University of Pennsylvania, has
-been endeavoring to gain admittance to the bar, but has been refused, on
-the ground that the law was out of woman’s sphere, that it had been put
-there by custom, and that the aforesaid “sphere” could only be enlarged
-by action of the legislature. A Pennsylvania judge with a different idea
-has, however, been found. He declares, and very correctly: “If there
-is any longer any such thing as what old-fashioned philosophers and
-essayists used to call the sphere of woman, it must now be admitted to be
-a sphere with an infinite and indeterminable radius.” Mrs. Kilgore can,
-at last, use her hard-earned right to practice.
-
- * * * * *
-
-The late A. F. Bellows excelled in landscape, and the value of his
-productions has doubled since his lamented death last year. Four charming
-landscapes from his brush are among Prang’s forthcoming publications.
-They are in his happiest manner, with the tender poetic treatment that
-especially distinguished his work. Essentially American in feeling, his
-choice of subjects was always of quiet home scenes, and he is without
-a rival in the delineation of landscape, seeking his theme among quiet
-meadows and in pastoral districts, in preference to the wilder mountain
-views which tempt so many of our American artists. The house which is
-sending out this artist’s work has given us this year a large amount
-of very valuable productions. Their Easter cards, we remember, were
-unusually fine; among them the mediæval cards printed in red and black,
-and the prints and cards on old hand-made paper, encased in parchment
-paper, were the most attractive novelties.
-
- * * * * *
-
-Mr. Matthew Arnold had some unpleasant journalistic experiences in his
-late American trip. Flippant newspaper men punned and joked and told
-malicious stories about this dignified and scholarly gentleman until
-he has been driven to the opinion—and perhaps it is a correct one—that
-“mendacious personal gossip is the bane of American journalism.”
-
- * * * * *
-
-An unavoidable delay prevented our getting the following names into the
-list of graduates of the class of ’83. We are glad to be able to insert
-them now: Mrs. Sarah McElwain, Martin, Kansas; John R. Bowman, Iowa; Mrs.
-Matilda J. Hay, Pennsylvania; Mary S. Fish, California; Lucyannah Morrill
-Clark, Wisconsin; Annie M. Botsford, New York; Frances W. Judd, New York.
-
-
-
-
-C. L. S. C. NOTES ON REQUIRED READINGS FOR JUNE.
-
-
-PICTURES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY.
-
-P. 141.—“Erpingham.” An English general, distinguished for personal
-courage, a chief excellence in feudal times.
-
-“Truncheon,” trŭnˈshun. A baton or military staff, employed in directing
-the movements of troops.
-
-P. 143.—“Three French Dukes.” Since the fourteenth century the eldest
-son of the king of France, and heir apparent to the crown, is surnamed
-Dauphin. “Count” (from which comes companion) is one of the imperial
-court, a nobleman in rank, about equal to an English earl. Dukes (from
-_dux_, leader, or _duco_ to lead) were princes in peace, and leaders of
-clans in war.
-
-P. 145.—“Jack Cade.” A man of low condition; Irish by birth; once an
-exile because of his crimes, but having returned to England he became
-the successful leader in riotous demonstrations of most disastrous
-consequences. He had great power of control over a turbulent crowd, but
-the rioters became insubordinate, and the injuries were such that a price
-was offered for the leader’s head, and Jack was assassinated.
-
-“Cheapside.” Part of a principal thoroughfare in London, north of the
-Thames, and nearly parallel with it. If the name, as is supposed, at
-first marked the locality where shop-keepers, content with small profits,
-sold their goods cheap, it is less appropriate now. As the city extended
-new names were given to the same street passing through the successive
-additions to the city. Going west on Cheapside the avenue widens, and is
-in succession called New Gate, Holborn Viaduct, New Oxford, Uxbridge and
-High Street.
-
-P. 146.—“Duke of Somerset,” sŭmˈūr-sĕt. Edward Seymour, Lord Protector of
-England, was uncle to Edward VI, during whose minority he acted as regent
-of the realm—a most powerful nobleman. His brilliant victory over the
-Scots at Pinkey greatly strengthened his influence. There was much in his
-administration to be commended, but the execution of his own brother, and
-that of the accomplished Earl of Surrey, left a stain on his otherwise
-fair record. Through the machinations of his rival, he was deprived of
-his high office, and perished, on Tower Hill in 1552.
-
-“Earl of Warwick,” wŏrˈick. Richard Neville, a powerful chief at that
-time, and a cousin of King Edward IV. He was a most remarkable man, and
-his character and methods are a study. A powerful antagonist, and brave
-in battle, he was also a shrewd politician, and was much concerned with
-the affairs of the government. He does not seem to have coveted civic
-honors for himself, or to have had any aspirations for regal authority.
-His ambition was rather to make kings, and to unmake them when their
-character or policy did not suit. By marriage he succeeded to the
-earldom, and the vast estates of Warwick. He fell at the battle of Barnet.
-
-P. 149.—“Margaret of Anjou,” ănˈjoo. Daughter of a French count, and
-Queen of England—a woman of fine talents, well educated, and full of
-energy. She became unpopular with the English and was forced to flee from
-the country. She may have lacked womanly delicacy, but did not deserve
-the adverse criticism received. Her circumstances justified many of her
-seeming improprieties.
-
-P. 150.—“Towton,” often written Touton. The scene of the bloodiest battle
-of English history. A hundred thousand were engaged, and the carnage was
-terrible.
-
-“Vimeira,” ve-miˈrä. A town in Portugal where, during the same campaign,
-the French were again repulsed with great loss.
-
-“Talavera,” tä-läˈva-rä. In the province of Toledo, Spain. The battle
-referred to took place in 1809, when Sir Arthur Wellesley defeated the
-French.
-
-“Albuera,” ăl-boo-āˈrä. A small town in the province of Estremadura,
-Spain, where the English were victorious in 1811. This victory cost them
-nearly four fifths of the men engaged.
-
-“Salamanca,” sal-â-mancˈâ. The capital of a province of the same name in
-Spain, on the river Tormes, 120 miles northwest from Madrid. Wellington
-defeated the French here in 1812—a victory which put southern Spain into
-England’s power.
-
-“Vittorea,” ve-toˈre-ä. On the road from Bayonne to Madrid, where
-Wellesley defeated Joseph Bonaparte, in 1813, capturing 150 guns and
-$5,000,000 of military and other stores, the accumulations of five years’
-occupation of the place.
-
-P. 152.—“Montagu,” mŏnˌta-gūˈ. The orthography is not uniform. He was of
-the powerful family of Nevilles, and brother of the Earl of Warwick. They
-fell together on the bloody field at Barnet.
-
-“Gloucester,” glŏsˈter. This was Richard, brother of the king.
-
-“Coniers,” konˈi-ers.
-
-P. 153.—“Cognizance,” kŏgˈnĭ-zans. A badge to indicate a person of
-distinction, or the party to which he belongs. Flags are used for the
-same purpose on modern battlefields.
-
-P. 154.—“D’Eyncourt,” dāˌin-courˈ.
-
-“Cromwell.” Not Oliver, of course, but one of his ancestors, probably
-Thomas, who afterward became widely known as a statesman and politician
-in the service of Henry VIII.
-
-P. 155.—“Redoubted.” Regarded with fear, dreaded.
-
-P. 156.—“Exeter,” Earl of. The Earl was brother-in-law to Edward, and
-fought with the Lancastrians in the civil war.
-
-P. 157.—“The Destrier’s Breast,” dāsˌtre-āˈ. A French word meaning
-charger or war horse.
-
-P. 158.—“Victorious Touton.” On the bloody field of Towton, or Touton,
-at a crisis in the battle, Warwick had killed his favorite steed in the
-sight of his soldiers, kissing and swearing by the cross on the hilt of
-his sword to share with them a common fate, whether of life or death. He
-was victorious then.
-
-P. 160.—“Casque,” cäsk. A piece of defensive armor to protect the head
-and neck in battle.
-
-P. 162.—“Tewksbury,” tukesˈbĕr-e. A town in Gloucestershire, on the Avon
-and Severn. Edward there defeated the Lancastrians.
-
-“Mirwall Abbey.” A quiet retreat not far from Leicester, north-northwest
-from London.
-
-P. 163.—“Fleshed,” flesht. Used murderously on human flesh, especially
-for the first time.
-
-“Harquebuse,” härˈkwe-bŭse. An old-fashioned gun resembling a musket, and
-supported, when in use, upon a forked stick.
-
-“Morris pike.” An obsolete expression for a Moorish pike.
-
-P. 164.—“Frushed,” frusht. Trimmed, adjusted.
-
-P. 166.—“Tournay,” toorˌnāˈ. A city of some historic importance in
-Belgium, on the river Scheldt, near the French border. It was the
-birthplace of Perkin Warbeck.
-
-P. 169.—“Beaulieu,” bū-lĭ. A secluded place, sought for refuge.
-
-P. 171.—“Ardres,” ārdr; “Francois,” frŏnˈswäˌ.
-
-“St. Michael,” mīˈkāl. Jews, Mahomedans, and Romanists reverence St.
-Michael as their guardian angel. A favorite symbol of protection was an
-image of the saint, with drawn sword in hand, conquering the dragon.
-
-P. 172.—“Duprat,” du-präˈ. A French minister of state, and a diplomat of
-ability.
-
-“Louise of Savoy,” savˈoy or sa-voiˈ. Once a sovereign duchy, since a
-department of France, south of Switzerland, and west of Italy.
-
-P. 173.—“Sieur de Fleuranges,” sēˈurˌ deh fluhˈrŏngˌ.
-
-P. 174.—“Guisnes,” gheen. In France, not far from Ardres.
-
-P. 175.—“Almoner.” An officer connected with religious houses, intrusted
-principally with the distribution of alms, and also serving as chaplain
-to the sick, or those condemned to die.
-
-P. 181.—“Prebendary,” prebˈend-a-ry. A clergyman attached to a collegiate
-or cathedral church, who has his prebend or maintenance in consideration
-of his officiating at stated times in the church services.
-
-“Caermarthen,” kar-marˈthen. The chief town in Caermarthenshire, South
-Wales, a beautifully situated parliamentary borough, on the river Towy, a
-few miles from the bay. Caermarthen was the scene of the final struggle
-for Welsh independence under Llewellyn, the last of the princes.
-
-P. 187. “Babington conspiracy.” Anthony Babington, a gentleman of ancient
-and opulent family, when young became a leader of a band of zealous
-Catholics who were smarting under the persecutions to which the members
-of that communion were exposed in the days of Elizabeth. Their primary
-object was to promote the Catholic cause. When Mary, Queen of Scots, was
-forced to flee to England as a suppliant, Babington and his associates
-became interested in her. They conspired to rescue Mary and assassinate
-Elizabeth. The conspirators, when arrested, rather gloried in the
-undertaking; as to the fate intended for Elizabeth, Babington declared
-it no crime, in his estimation, to take the life of a sovereign “who had
-stript him and his brethren of all their political rights and reduced
-them to the condition of helots in the land of their fathers.” They were
-sentenced and executed.
-
-P. 192.—“In manus, Domine tuas, commendo animam meam,” Into thy hands, O
-Lord, I commit my spirit.
-
-P. 193.—“Fotheringay.” A town in Northamptonshire. Its famous castle was
-the birthplace of Richard III. Here Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned
-and executed. The Dukes of York, Richard and Edward, are buried at
-Fotheringay.
-
-P. 194.—“The Lizard.” The extreme southern point of land in England, on
-the British Channel.
-
-“Looe.” A town of the Cornish mining region in the southern part of
-Cornwall.
-
-P. 195.—“Drake,” Sir Francis. A most daring and efficient naval officer,
-and one of the founders of the naval greatness of England. In 1587 he was
-sent in command of a fleet to Cadiz, where, by a bold dash, he destroyed
-one hundred ships destined for the invasion of England, and the next year
-he commanded as vice-admiral in the victory obtained over the Spanish
-Armada.
-
-“Frobisher,” frŏbˈish-er, Sir Martin. An English navigator of the
-fifteenth century, who made many discoveries in the arctic regions, and
-was the first explorer for a northwest passage. He had a command in the
-great sea fight against the Spaniards in 1588.
-
-“Hawkins,” Sir John. He was previously associated with Drake in several
-important expeditions, and served as rear-admiral in the fight that,
-together with the elements, destroyed the Armada.
-
-“Weathergage.” The position of a ship to the windward of another. Hence a
-favorable position for making an attack with sailing vessels.
-
-“Medina Sidonia,” ma-deˈnä se-doˈne-ä. Shortly before the time fixed for
-the sailing of the fleet and army for the invasion of England, owing
-to the death of the admiral Santa Cruz, and also his rear-admiral, the
-Duke of Medina Sidonia, the extreme southern province of Spain, a man
-unacquainted with naval matters, was made captain-general of the fleet.
-He had, however, for his rear-admiral, Martinez Recalde, an expert seaman.
-
-“Recalde,” rā-kälˈdä.
-
-P. 196.—“Oquendo,” o-kānˈdo; “Pedro de Valdez,” peˈdro da väldĕthˈ.
-
-“Andalusian,” anˌda-luˈshi-an. The southern part of Spain. It was
-formerly called Vandalusia, because of the Vandals who settled there. It
-is a delightful country, having a mild climate, and generally a fertile
-soil. Cadiz is the principal seaport and commercial city.
-
-P. 197.—“Guipuzcoan,” ge poosˈko-an. The smallest but most densely
-populated of what are known as the Basque provinces; three Spanish
-provinces distinguished from all other divisions, in the character,
-language, and manners of the people. They have few of the characteristics
-of Spaniards, and acquired political privileges not enjoyed by others,
-and a form of government nearly republican.
-
-P. 198.—“Gravelines,” grävˈlēnˌ. A small fortified and seaport town of
-France, in a marshy region at the mouth of the river Aa.
-
-“Galleons.” Ships of three or four decks, used by the Spaniards both for
-war and commerce.
-
-“Galleasses.” A kind of combination of the galleon and the galley;
-propelled both by sails and oars.
-
-“Sir Henry Palmer;” “Sir William Winter.” English officers who were
-active in the attack on the Spanish fleet.
-
-P. 199.—“Alonzo de Leyra,” a-lonˈzo dā leiˈrä; “Diego Flores de Valdez,”
-de-āˈgo floˈreth dā välˈdeth; “Bertendona,” bĕrˈtān-doˌnä; “Don Francisco
-de Toledo,” don fran-chesˈko dā to-lāˈdo; “Pimental,” pe-manˈtäl; “Telles
-Enriquez,” telˈleth än-reˈketh.
-
-“Luzon,” loo-thonˈ; “Garibay,” gä-re-biˈ.
-
-P. 200.—“Borlase,” bor-lazˈ. A captain in the fleet of Van der Does.
-
-“Admiral Van der Does,” doos. A Hollander.
-
-P. 201.—“Ribadavia,” re-bä-däˈve-ä. A kind of Spanish wine.
-
-“Lepanto.” A seaport town of Greece, on the Gulf of Lepanto. In 1571 it
-was the scene of one of the greatest and most important naval battles
-ever fought. The Turkish sultan, Selim, with two hundred and fifty royal
-galleys and many smaller vessels, engaged the allied forces of Spain,
-Italy and the Venetian Republic, and was defeated with loss in killed and
-prisoners of thirty thousand men. The decline of the Turkish empire dates
-from the battle of Lepanto.
-
-P. 203.—“Essex.” (1567-1601.) Essex’s career had been a romantic one.
-From his first appearance at court at 17, he captivated Elizabeth. He
-was present at the battle of Zutphen, and joined an expedition against
-Portugal in 1596. His position as court favorite caused many intrigues
-to be formed against him, but he kept the queen’s favor, although often
-offending her. Elizabeth had ordered him imprisoned after the Ireland
-expedition, more to correct than to destroy him, but upon being dismissed
-he attempted to compel the queen to dismiss his enemies by raising a
-force against her. This led to his execution.
-
-P. 207.—“Walter Raleigh.” (1552-1618.) Navigator, author, courtier and
-commander. His first public services were his explorations in North
-America, during which he occupied the region named Virginia. Having given
-up his patent for exploration in the New World, he became interested in
-a project for the conquest of El Dorado. In pursuit of this he sailed
-in 1595 to South America, but soon returned. He assisted at the capture
-of Cadiz in 1596. After the death of Elizabeth he lost favor with the
-throne and was accused of treason and convicted. For thirteen years he
-was confined in the Tower, where he wrote his “History of the World.” In
-1615 he obtained his release to open a gold mine in Guinea. The search
-was unsuccessful. Having encountered in battle at St. Thomas a party of
-Spaniards, on his return the Spanish court demanded that he be punished,
-and the king, James I., resolved to execute the sentence passed on him
-fifteen years before.
-
-“Coke,” kŏōk. (1549-1634.) An eminent English judge and jurist. At the
-trial of Raleigh in 1603 his position was that of attorney-general.
-During the trial he showed the greatest insolence to Raleigh.
-
-“Yelverton,” yĕlˈver-ton. (1566-1630.) An English statesman and jurist.
-
-P. 208.—“Distich,” dĭsˈtik. A couple of verses or poetic lines making
-complete sense.
-
-P. 209.—“St. Giles.” A favorite saint in France, England and Scotland.
-Many localities and public places were named from the saints. The
-reference here is to a drinking place named in honor of St. Giles. It was
-situated near Tyburn, which, until 1783, was the chief place of execution
-in London. Since that date Old Bailey, or Newgate, has been the place of
-execution.
-
-“Oldys,” ōlˈdis. (1687-1761.) An English biographer and bibliographer. He
-wrote a life of Sir Walter Raleigh, prefixed to Raleigh’s “History of the
-World.”
-
-P. 210.—“Arundel,” arˈun-del. (1540?-1639.) The first Lord Arundel. He
-had served in the war against the Turks under the German emperor, and
-from him had received the title of Count of the Roman Empire.
-
-P. 211.—“Naunton,” naunˈton. An English statesman, who died in 1635. He
-was secretary of state under James I., and the author of an account of
-the court of Queen Elizabeth.
-
-“Paul’s Walk,” Bond Street, London, was known as St. Paul’s, before the
-commonwealth. Here crowds of loungers used to collect to gossip. They
-soon became known as _Paul’s Walkers_; now they are called _Bond Street
-Loungers_.
-
-“Mantle.” According to this old story, as the queen was going from the
-royal barge to the palace she came to a spot where the ground was so
-wet that she stopped. Raleigh immediately covered the spot with his
-rich cloak, on which she stepped. For his gallantry he is said to have
-received his knighthood and a grant of 12,000 acres of forfeited land in
-Ireland.
-
-P. 212.—“Spanish Main.” The circular bank of islands forming the northern
-and eastern boundaries of the Caribbean Sea. It is not the sea that is
-meant, but the bank of islands.
-
-P. 213.—“Roundheads.” The Puritans, so called because they wore their
-hair short, while the Royalists wore long hair covering their shoulders.
-
-“Cavaliers.” The adherents of Charles I. were members of the royal party,
-knights or gentlemen, to whom the name cavaliers was ordinarily applied.
-
-P. 214.—“Janizaries,” jănˈi-za-ries. A Turkish word. “A soldier of
-a privileged military class which formed the nucleus of the Turkish
-infantry, but was suppressed in 1826.”
-
-P. 215.—“Turenne,” tū-rĕnˈ. (1611-1675.) A famous general and marshal of
-France, who during his whole life was actively engaged in the French wars.
-
-“Counterscarp,” counˈter-scärp. The exterior slope of a ditch, made for
-preventing an approach to a town or fortress.
-
-P. 216.—“Pelagian.” Holding the doctrines of Pelagius, who denied the
-received tenets in regard to free will, original sin, grace, and the
-merit of good works.
-
-“Bulstrode,” bulˈstrode. (1588-1659.) An English jurist.
-
-P. 217.—“Sidney.” (1622-1683.) An eminent English patriot. He belonged to
-the army of parliament, but held no office under Cromwell. When Charles
-II. was restored he was on the continent, where he remained. In 1666 he
-solicited Louis XIV. to aid him in establishing a republic in England,
-and having returned to England he joined the leaders of the popular
-party. In 1683 he was tried as an accomplice in the Rye House plot, and
-executed.
-
-“Ludlow.” (1620-1693.) A republican general who assisted in founding
-the English republic, but was opposed to Cromwell’s ambition. He had
-been commander of the army, but his opposition to Cromwell lost him the
-position. On Oliver’s death he was replaced, but at the Restoration
-escaped to France, where he spent the remainder of his life.
-
-P. 227.—“O. S.” Dates reckoned according to the calendar of Julius Cæsar,
-who first attempted to make the calendar year coincide with the motions
-of the sun, are said to be _Old Style_ as contrasted with the dates of
-the Gregorian calendar. This latter corrected the mistake of the former,
-and was adopted by Catholic countries about 1582, but Protestant England
-did not accept it until 1752.
-
-P. 228.—“Shomberg,” shomˈberg. (1616-1690.)
-
-P. 233.—“Jeffreys.” (1648-1689.) A lawyer of great ferocity. In 1685 he
-caused 320 of Monmouth’s adherents to be hung, and 841 to be sold as
-slaves.
-
-P. 234.—“South Sea Bubble.” This scheme was proposed in 1711, by the
-Earl of Oxford, in order to provide for the national debt. The debt was
-taken by prominent merchants, to whom the government agreed to pay for a
-certain time six per cent. interest, and to whom they gave a monopoly of
-the trade of the South Seas. From 1711 to 1718 the scheme was honestly
-carried out, but after that time all scruples were thrown aside, and the
-rage of speculation here described followed.
-
-P. 235.—“The Rue Quincampoix.” A street of Paris where John Law developed
-his South Sea Bubble. He was a Scottish financier (1671-1729), who had
-won a place in London society, and supported himself by gaming. In 1715
-he persuaded the Regent of France to favor his schemes, obtained a
-charter for a bank, and in connection with it formed this company, which
-had the exclusive right of trade between France and Louisiana, China,
-India, etc. The stock rose to twenty times its original value. He was
-appointed minister of finance in 1720, but confidence was soon lost in
-his plan, and notes on his bank rapidly fell. Law was obliged to leave
-France, and finally died poor.
-
-P. 236.—“Scire Facias.” Cause it to be known.
-
-P. 237.—“Walpole.” (1676-1745.) Walpole had been prominent in politics
-since the accession of George I., and in 1715 was made first lord of the
-treasury.
-
-P. 241.—“Lord Mahon.” The fifth Earl of Stanhope. He was prominent in
-public affairs during his life, but his fame rests upon his historical
-works, of which he published several. “A History of England, from the
-Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles,” is the best known.
-
-“Maxima rerum Roma.” Rome greatest of all things.
-
-P. 242.—“Newcastle.” (1693-1768.) An English Whig.
-
-P. 243.—“Pelham.” (1694-1754.) A brother of the above, who in 1742
-succeeded Walpole as chancellor of the exchequer. He was one of the chief
-ministers of state 1743-1744.
-
-“Godolphin,” go-dolˈphin. An eminent English statesman, in the service of
-Charles II., afterward retained in office under James II., and made first
-lord of the treasury under William and Mary. Under Queen Anne he was
-again put in this position, from which he had been removed in 1697, and
-retained it until 1710. He died in 1712.
-
-P. 244.—“Aix,” āks; “Rochefort,” rotchˈfort, or roshˈfor; “St. Malos,”
-or St. Malo, mäˈloˌ; “Cherbourg,” sherˈburg, or sherˈboorˌ. See map of
-France in THE CHAUTAUQUAN for March.
-
-“Kensington.” A palace at Kensington, a western suburb of London, the
-birthplace of Queen Victoria.
-
-“Grand Alliance.” An alliance formed in 1689 by England, Germany, the
-States-General, and afterward by Spain and Savoy, to prevent the union of
-Spain and France.
-
-“Goree,” goˈrāˌ. An island on the west coast of Africa belonging to
-France.
-
-“Guadaloupe,” gwăd-loop. The most important island of the French West
-Indies.
-
-“Toulon,” tooˈlōnˌ. A seaport of southern France, at the head of a bay of
-the Mediterranean. It is the largest fort on the Sea, covering 240 acres.
-
-“Boscawen,” bosˈca-wen. (1711-1761.) An English admiral.
-
-“Lagos,” lâˈgoce. On the coast of Portugal.
-
-P. 245.—“Conflans,” kon-flon. (1690-1777.) At this time marshal of France.
-
-“Hawke,” hawk. (1715-1781.) An English admiral. In 1765 he became first
-lord of the admiralty, and in 1776 was raised to the peerage.
-
-“Chandernagore,” chanˌder-na-gōreˈ; “Pondicherry,” ponˈde-shĕrˌree.
-
-“Clive.” The founder of the British empire in India.
-
-“Coote.” A British general who distinguished himself in wars of India.
-
-“Bengal,” ben-galˈ; “Bahar,” ba-harˈ; “Orissa,” o-risˈsa; “Carnatic,”
-car-natˈic. Divisions of India at the time of the struggle of the English
-for possession.
-
-“Acbar,” ac-barˈ; “Aurungzebe,” ōˈrŭng-zābˌ. Emperors of Hindoostan.
-
-P. 247.—“Guildhall,” guildˈhall. A public building of London which serves
-as a town hall. All important public meetings, elections and city feasts
-are held here. Monuments of several statesmen adorn the hall.
-
-P. 248.—“Sackville.” The offense referred to was this: At the battle of
-Minden, in 1759, Lord Sackville commanded the British troops under Prince
-Ferdinand of Brunswick, but refused to obey orders. On return to England
-he was tried for this and dismissed from service.
-
-P. 251.—“Mecklenburg Strelitz,” meckˈlen-burg strelˈitz. The eastern
-division of the two parts into which the territory of Mecklenburg is
-divided.
-
-P. 254.—“Landgravine,” lăndˈgra-vïne. The wife of a landgrave, a German
-nobleman holding about the rank of an English earl or French count.
-
-“Hesse Homburg,” hess homˈburg. A former German landgraviate now
-belonging to Prussia.
-
-P. 255.—“Les Miserables,” the poor. A popular novel by Victor Hugo.
-
-“Austerlitz,” ausˈter-lits. A town of Moravia, where in 1805 Napoleon had
-gained a brilliant victory over the Prussian and Russian forces.
-
-“Waterloo.” A village of Belgium, about eight miles southeast of Brussels.
-
-“Blucher,” blooˈker. (1742-1819.) A Prussian field-marshal, sent to the
-aid of Wellington.
-
-P. 256.—“Nivelles,” neˈvĕlˌ. A road running to Nivelles, a town about
-seventeen miles south of Brussels.
-
-“Genappe,” jāˈnäpˌ; “Ohaine,” ōˌhānˈ; “Braine l’Alleud,” brān läl-leuˈ.
-
-“Mont St. Jean.” A village near Waterloo.
-
-“Hougomont,” ooˌgō-mŏnˈ. A château and wood.
-
-“Reille,” räl. (1775-1860.) A French general, who was at this time an
-aid-de-camp of Napoleon. In 1847 he was made marshal of France.
-
-“La Belle Alliance,” lä bĕl älˈleˌŏnsˌ. A farm near Waterloo.
-
-“La Haye Sainte,” lä ai sānt. A farm house.
-
-P. 258.—“Milhaud,” milˌhōˈ.
-
-“Lefebvre Desnouettes,” lĕhˈfāvrˌ dāˌnoo-ĕtˈ. (1773-1822.) A French
-general.
-
-“Gendarme,” zhŏng-därmˈ. An obsolete name for heavy cavalry.
-
-“Chasseurs,” shăsˈsûr. Light cavalry.
-
-“Veillons au Sainte,” etc. Guard the welfare of the empire.
-
-“Ney,” nā. (1769-1815.) One of the most prominent of Napoleon’s generals.
-After Napoleon’s abdication Ney joined Louis XVIII., but on the return
-of Napoleon, rejoined him. After the battle of Waterloo he was arrested,
-condemned, and shot.
-
-P. 259.—“Moskova,” mos-koˈva. A river of Russia, on which the French
-defeated the Russians.
-
-“Hippanthropist,” hip-panˈthro-pist. A fabulous animal whose body was
-partly like a man and partly like a horse.
-
-P. 262.—“Pibrock,” pīˈbrock. Bagpipe.
-
-P. 263.—“Chevau-legers.” The French for light cavalry.
-
-“Badajoz,” bad-a-hōsˈ. A fortified town, capital of a province of the
-same name in Spain. Wellington carried it by assault in 1812, and sacked
-the city.
-
-P. 264.—“Alava,” äˈlä-vä, (1771-1843.) A Spanish general and statesman.
-
-“Frischemont,” freshˈā-mŏnˌ.
-
-“Grouchy,” grooˌsheˈ. (1766-1847.) A French general and marshal.
-
-P. 265.—“Denouement,” de-nōōˈmong. The discovery of the end of a story,
-the catastrophe of a drama or romance.
-
-“Friant,” freˈōngˌ; “Michel,” meˈshĕlˌ; “Roguet,” rōˌguāˈ; “Mallet,”
-mäˌlaˈ; “Pont de Morvan,” pon deh morˈvonˌ.
-
-P. 266.—“Sauve qui peut.” Let each save himself.
-
-“Vive l’Empereur.” Long live the emperor.
-
-“Drouet d’Erlon,” droˌāˈ dĕrˈlōnˈ. (1765-1844.) Marshal of France and
-governor-general of Algeria.
-
-P. 267.—“Guyot,” gēˌoˈ; “Ziethen,” tseeˈten. A Prussian general.
-
-P. 268.—“Menschikoff,” menˈshiˌkoff. (1789-1869.)
-
-“Raglan,” (1788-1855.) Served in the Peninsula War under Wellington, and
-lost his arm at Waterloo; was afterward Wellington’s military secretary.
-He commanded the British army in the Crimean War, and died in camp in
-1855.
-
-P. 271.—“Tumbril,” tŭmˈbril. A two-wheeled cart which accompanies
-artillery, for carrying tools, etc.
-
-P. 272.—“Punctilio,” punc-tĭlˈyo. Exactness in forms or ceremony.
-
-“Ouglitz,” ougˈlitz; “Kourgané,” kour-gä-nāˈ.
-
-
-
-
-NOTES ON REQUIRED READINGS IN “THE CHAUTAUQUAN.”
-
-
-READINGS FROM ROMAN HISTORY.
-
-P. 497, c. 1.—“Cisalpine.” On the hither side of the Alps, with reference
-to Rome, that is, on the south side of the Alps, opposed to _transalpine_.
-
-“Doria Baltea,” doˈri-a bal-teˈa. Formerly called the _Duria_. It is a
-river which rises in the south of the Alps, and flows through the country
-to the Salassi, into the Po. It is said to bring gold dust with it.
-
-“Salassians,” sa-lasˈsi-ans. A brave, fierce people, formerly living at
-the foot of the Pennine Alps.
-
-P. 497, c. 2.—“Insubrians,” in-suˈbri-ans. A Gallic people who had
-crossed the Alps and settled in the north of Italy. They had become one
-of the most powerful and warlike of the Gallic tribes in Cisalpine Gaul.
-
-“Leptis,” lepˈtis. An important place on the coast of northern Africa,
-now in ruins.
-
-“Adrumetum,” or Hadrumetum, adˈri-mēˌtum. A large city founded by the
-Phœnicians in northern Africa. It is now called _Hammeim_.
-
-“Polybius,” po-lybˈi-us. A Greek historian, born about 206 B. C.
-
-P. 498, c. 1.—“Masinissa,” mas-i-nisˈsa. The Numidians were divided into
-two tribes, of the easternmost of which the father of Masinissa was king.
-He was an ally of the Carthagenians, and for many years warred with them
-against Syphax, the king of the other Numidian tribe. Masinissa remained
-friendly to the Carthagenians until Hasdrubal, who had betrothed his
-daughter to him, broke his promise, marrying her to Syphax. Masinissa
-then joined the Romans, to whom he rendered valuable service both before
-and at this battle. He was rewarded with much territory, which he ruled
-in peace until the breaking out of war between him and Carthage in 150.
-This outbreak led to the Third Punic War. Masinissa died, however, soon
-after the beginning of the trouble.
-
-“Lælius,” læˈlĭ-us. Sometimes called _Sapiens_ (the wise). Was an
-intimate friend of Scipio Africanus, the younger, while his father had
-been the companion of the elder Scipio. Polybius was his friend, and
-probably gained much help from him in writing his history. Lælius had
-a fine reputation as a philosopher and statesman, and it was Seneca’s
-advice to a friend “to live like Lælius.”
-
-“Maniples,” manˈi-ples. Literally a handful, from the Latin words for
-hand and full. A name given to a small company of Roman soldiers.
-
-“Ligurians,” li-guˈri-ans. Inhabitants of Liguria. A name given to a
-district of Italy which at that time lay south of the river Po.
-
-P. 498, c. 2.—“Metaurus,” me-tauˈrus. A small river of northern Italy
-flowing into the Adriatic Sea, made memorable by the defeat and death of
-Hannibal on its banks in 207 B. C.
-
-“Euboic.” Pertaining to Eubœa. An island east of Greece, the largest of
-the archipelago, lying in the Ægean Sea.
-
-
-SUNDAY READINGS.
-
-P. 500, c. 1.—“Savonarola,” sä-vo-nä-roˈlä. (1452-1468.) A celebrated
-Italian reformer. In his early ministry he effected important reforms and
-gained great political influence. Being sent to Florence he became the
-leader of the liberal party which succeeded the expulsion of the Medici.
-Having refused to submit to papal authority he was excommunicated, and
-popular favor leaving him he was executed. Savonarola published several
-works in Latin and Italian, among which was the one here quoted from, _De
-Simplicitate Christianæ Vitæ_, “On the Simplicity of the Christian Life.”
-
-
-READINGS IN ART.
-
-P. 500, c. 2.—“St. Bees.” A college in the village of Cumberland. St.
-Bees was so called from a nunnery founded here in 650, and dedicated to
-the Irish saint, Bega.
-
-“Ship Court.” A part of the district known as Old Bailey, near Ludgate
-Hill, in London. The house in which Hogarth was born was torn down in
-1862.
-
-P. 501, c. 1.—“Hudibras.” See page 306 of THE CHAUTAUQUAN, note on Samuel
-Butler.
-
-“Thornhill.” (1676-1734.) He was a historical painter of some celebrity.
-His chief productions are the cupola of St. Paul’s cathedral, which
-Queen Anne commissioned him to paint, and the decoration of several
-palaces. He was the first English artist to be knighted, and he sat in
-Parliament several years. No doubt his greatest honor was to be Hogarth’s
-father-in-law.
-
-“Watteau,” vätˌtōˈ. (1684-1721.) A French painter of much original power,
-who holds about the same place in the French schools as Hogarth in the
-English. His subjects were usually landscapes, with gay court scenes,
-balls, masquerades, and the like, in the foreground. The brilliancy of
-his coloring and the grace of his figures are particularly fine.
-
-“Chardin,” sharˈdănˌ. (1701-1779.) An eminent French painter. His
-pictures were mainly domestic scenes, executed with beauty and truth.
-
-“Walpole,” Horace. (1717-1797.) A famous literary gossip and wit of
-Hogarth’s time. Although highly educated and given an opportunity for
-a political career, he preferred his pictures, books, and curiosities.
-Among his many works were “A Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors,” and
-“Anecdotes of Painting in England.” Walpole was no admirer of Hogarth,
-for he says of him: “As a painter he has slender merit.”
-
-“Churchill.” Called “The Great Churchill.” (1731-1764.) A popular English
-poet and satirist. In youth he was fitted for a curate’s place, but after
-ordination and two years of the profession he abandoned his position
-and began his career as a writer, producing several popular poems and
-satires. He was accused of profligacy, but Macaulay says: “His vices were
-not so great as his virtues.”
-
-“Wilkes,” John. (1727-1797) A friend of the former, and a celebrated
-English politician. Well educated, clever, bold and unscrupulous. In his
-second term in Parliament he was obliged to resign from his indiscreet
-attack on Lord Bute, in a journal which he had founded. The next year
-he accused the king of an “infamous fallacy,” which so enraged the
-administration that Wilkes was finally outlawed. Returning to England
-he was elected to Parliament, but arrested. He was repeatedly expelled
-from the House, a persecution which secured the favor of the people. In
-1774 he was made lord mayor of London, and was afterward a member of
-Parliament for many years.
-
-“Sigismunda.” Daughter of Tancred, prince of Salerno. She fell in love
-with a page, to whom she was secretly married. Tancred discovering this
-put Guiscardo, the husband, to death, and sent his heart in a golden cup
-to his daughter.
-
-“Pinegas,” pinˈe-gas.
-
-“Zuccarelli,” dzook-ä-rĕlˈee. (1702-1788.) An eminent landscape painter
-of Tuscany. His scenery is pleasing and pictures well finished. He
-visited England in 1752, where he was very popular, being one of the
-original members of the Royal Academy. It is said that all his pictures
-are marked with a pumpkin growing on a vine or stuck with a stick on
-a rustic’s shoulder as the rebus of his name, which means in Italian
-_little pumpkin_.
-
-P. 501, c. 2.—“Royal Academy.” The most influential and oldest
-institution in London connected with painting and sculpture. It was
-founded in 1768. It consists of 40 academicians, 18 associates, 6
-associate engravers, and 3 or 4 honorary members. It holds annual
-exhibitions of modern and ancient art, and has organized classes for art
-instruction.
-
-“Llanberis,” llanˈbe-ris.
-
-“Carnarvon.” A northwest county of Wales, bordering on Menai Straits,
-famous for its slate.
-
-“Avernus.” A lake of Italy, near Naples, which fills the crater of an
-extinct volcano. Near its banks was the cave of the Cumæan Sybil, through
-which Æneas descended to the lower world.
-
-“Barry.” (1741-1806.) A British historical painter. He was a pupil of
-West. His best pictures are a series in the Adelphi theater, London.
-
-“Richardson.” (1665?-1745.) An English portrait painter and writer
-on art. His reputation is founded on his “Essay on the whole Art of
-Criticism as it relates to Painting.”
-
-P. 502, c. 1.—“Ramsay.” (1713-1784.) Son of the poet, Allan Ramsay. He
-was one of the best portrait painters of his time. Walpole praises highly
-some of his portraits. He was also a man of literary tastes and of great
-accomplishments.
-
-“Giorgione,” jor-joˈnā. (1477-1511.) The founder of the Venetian school
-of painting. A pupil of Bellini, and a rival of Titian. Before him, it is
-said that no one possessed so rich a coloring and so free a touch. His
-pictures are rare.
-
-“Correggio,” kor-ĕdˈjo. (1494-1534.) An illustrious Italian painter.
-His real name was Antoine Allegri, his popular name being taken from
-his birthplace—Correggio. The chief charms of his pictures were their
-exquisite harmony and grace. His principal work is the great fresco
-painting in the cupola of the Cathedral at Parma.
-
-“Tintoretto,” Il, ēl tin-to-rĕtˈo. (1512-1594.) His real name was Giacomo
-Robusti. The name of Tintoretto, by which he is generally known, was
-derived from the fact that he was the son of a dyer. A pupil of Titian,
-who was said to have been so jealous of him that he turned him from his
-studio. He conceived the idea of forming a new school of art, which
-should unite the beauties of Titian’s style with the dignity of Michael
-Angelo’s. His plan was never carried out fully because of his lack of
-patience. The “Martyrdom” at Venice is one of his best known paintings.
-
-“Gainsborough,” gānzˈb’ro.
-
-“Gravelot,” grävˈloˌ. (1699-1773.)
-
-“Hayman.” (1708-1776.) An English artist who acquired considerable
-reputation as a landscape painter. He was one of the first members of the
-Royal Academy.
-
-“Kew.” A pleasant village of Surrey, about 7 miles from London,
-distinguished for its botanical gardens, said to be the richest in the
-world. They extend over 75 acres, are beautifully laid out, and contain
-many rare and exotic plants and trees.
-
-P. 502, c. 2.—“Girtin.” (1773-1802.) He had found a friend in Dr. Monro,
-who helped him in many ways. Girtin is said to have revolutionized
-the technical practice of his forerunners. Most of his pictures were
-landscapes. A panorama of London was one of his most admired works.
-
-“Somerset House.” Now occupied as public offices. The present building
-was erected in 1786, on the site of the palace of the protector Somerset.
-Nine hundred officials are employed in the various public offices in the
-building.
-
-“Lambeth.” Lambeth palace, the London residence of the archbishops of
-Canterbury, is on the Surrey bank of the Thames. It has been in the
-possession of the archbishops since 1197. Several portions of the palace
-are of historical interest.
-
-“Ramsgate,” ramsˈgate; “Margate,” marˈgate. Seaports of Kent, England, on
-the island of Thanet. Both are fashionable watering places.
-
-“A. R. A.” Associate of the Royal Academy.
-
-“Liber Studiorum.” Book of studies. A series of prints or drawings issued
-by Turner, and which became very popular.
-
-“School of Water-color Painting.” That school of painting in which thin
-and delicate colors are applied to paper, on which a drawing of the
-picture has been made. It is a style carried to a greater perfection in
-England than any other country.
-
-“Charterhouse.” Formerly a Carthusian monastery. In 1611 it was turned
-into a school for forty boys, and an “asylum for eighty indigent and
-deserving gentlemen.” In 1872 this school was removed into the country.
-
-P. 503, c. 1.—“Dentatus.” A favorite hero of the Roman republic, living
-in the third century, and celebrated for his valor and virtue.
-
-“Anno Santo.” In the sacred year.
-
-“New Palace of Westminster.” Was finished in 1867 for the Houses of
-Parliament. It cost £3,000,000, and was built on the site of the old
-palace burned in 1835. The palace covers about eight acres.
-
-“Shee.” (1769-1850.) An eminent British portrait painter, a pupil of
-West. It was customary for the honor of knighthood to be conferred on the
-party elected to the presidency of the Academy.
-
-“Kugler,” kōogˈler. (1808-1858.) An eminent German critic and writer on
-art.
-
-“St. Gothard,” gotˈhard. The central group of all the Alpine chains.
-
-“Haydon.” (1786-1846.) An English historical painter who painted without
-success in his lifetime, and died broken-hearted. He is now considered to
-have been an artist of ability.
-
-“Chevy Chase.” The hunting of Chevy Chase is the account of a raid which
-Percy of Northumberland made on the territory of his rival Douglas,
-vowing to hunt there three days without asking leave. Chevy Chase means
-the hunt or chase among the Cheviot Hills.
-
-P. 503, c. 2.—“Sheepshanks Collection.” A large collection of the
-pictures of British artists made by John Sheepshanks, a collector of
-books and pictures, and presented by him to the English nation in 1857.
-
-
-CRITICISMS ON AMERICAN LITERATURE.
-
-P. 504.—“Shakerism.” The principles of the Shakers, a sect taking
-their name from the peculiar motions which characterize their worship.
-They call themselves “United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second
-Appearing,” and believe in an eternal Father and Mother in the Deity, in
-a dual Christ, a community of property, and celibacy. Sometimes called
-_Shaking Quakers_.
-
-“Pantagamy.” Plural marriage.
-
-P. 505, c. 1.—“Malebranche,” mälˌbrŏnshˈ. (1638-1715.) A French
-philosopher.
-
-P. 505, c. 2.—“Peter Plymley.” The _nom de plume_ under which Sidney
-Smith published a pamphlet entitled “Letters on the Subject of the
-Catholics, to my Brother Abraham who lives in the Country.”
-
-“Anti-Jacobin,” anˈte jacˈo-bin. Opposed to the Jacobins, a society of
-French revolutionists who in 1789 held secret meetings to direct the
-National Assembly.
-
-“Canning,” kănˈing. (1770-1827.) An English statesman.
-
-
-
-
-TALK ABOUT BOOKS.
-
-
-The new “Epitome of Universal History,”[A] by Dr. Carl Ploetz, the
-veteran German scholar and teacher, is just what it proposes to be—an
-“epitome,” giving no descriptions or detailed accounts, but a summary
-of the more important facts of ancient, mediæval and modern history.
-The facts are grouped in a comprehensive manner, yet so skilfully as
-to indicate their relationship. For the teacher it will be a valuable
-help; and students will find it a hand-book very serviceable in their
-reviews. The compressed statements are as clear and intelligible as can
-be desired, and may serve as models for notes to be taken in the lecture
-room; such facts as an attentive listener can jot down without loss of
-interest in the animated discourse. The attempt to report a lecture
-in full may so engross the attention that the impressions naturally
-received from the voice and manner of an earnest instructor are nearly
-lost. The learned author, as class lecturer, deprecates a too free use
-of the pencils in his lecture room, and when as epitomist he conducts us
-over fields once familiar he does not multiply landmarks beyond what are
-needed, or burden us with details when a word is sufficient.
-
-The translator’s work is valuable not only for his faithful rendering of
-the original, but for the additions made; none the less valuable because,
-as he modestly tells us, “they are only compilations from reliable
-sources.” A very full index gives the book somewhat the character of a
-historical dictionary, and increases its value.
-
-We commend this “epitome” to those pursuing, or having occasion to review
-historical studies, as a vade mecum that they will not likely part with,
-if it is once possessed.
-
-A most interesting series of “Health Primers”[B] has just come to our
-notice. There are twelve manuals in the series, each of about 150 pages.
-They have been written by as many different authors, all well qualified
-to discuss the subjects treated by them severally. Some of them, as
-specialists, have attained much celebrity in their profession, and in
-these admirable monograms show familiarity both with the elementary
-principles of their science, and with the results of the latest
-researches having a bearing on the topics discussed. Here is certainly
-much knowledge, important for the masses, and the writers, avoiding
-technical terms, have presented it in a manner intelligible to all
-classes. The twelve volumes, carefully edited, are now published in four.
-The first contains “Winter and Its Dangers,” by Hamilton Osgood, M.D.;
-“Summer and Its Diseases,” by Jas. C. Wilson, M.D.; and “Sea Air and Sea
-Bathing,” by J. H. Packard, M.D.
-
-Many publishers are wisely putting some of their best books, as well as
-reprints of standard works, into cheap editions. To be sure they are
-paper bound, the covers will tear, will come off, will grow limp, if wet,
-but still they are almost without exception well printed. They contain
-the much desired _book_ in a shape that suits even the shallowest purses.
-Among the most valuable which have reached us is “The Intellectual
-Life.”[C] It is a genuine public benefaction for a publisher to put such
-a book at twenty-five cents. Mr. Hamerton has so many true and strong
-thoughts on the training and habits of the intellect expressed plainly
-and pleasantly in it, that it is a matter for congratulation that anybody
-may own a copy of “The Intellectual Life.”
-
-Two cheap editions of Edward Everett Hale’s “In His Name,”[D] have
-recently appeared. The story gives a chapter of the fascinating history
-of the Waldenses[E] seven hundred years ago.
-
-In an unpretentious but well written and neatly published little volume,
-W. C. Wilkinson, already known to Chautauquans, discusses with becoming
-earnestness one of the living questions of the day, “The Dance.”[F]
-The dance confessedly has many apologists among reputable people, who
-think it a harmless amusement, but it is here arraigned and held to
-answer sundry charges of most damaging character. The author writes
-with the vigor of his convictions, but is calm—does not dogmatise or
-indulge in ranting invectives. The arguments, in themselves strong and
-convincing, gain in force because free from violent or indiscriminate
-abuse of those who see neither danger nor impropriety in the amusement
-condemned. The book will do good. Most persons who read it with candor,
-and dispassionately examine the case as presented, will feel that the
-several counts in the indictment are sustained, and unite in the verdict,
-“The dance of modern society should be dropped from our list of innocent
-or harmless amusements.”
-
-
-BOOKS RECEIVED.
-
-“Tip Lewis and His Lamp.” By Pansy. Boston: D. Lothrop and Company.
-
-“An Hour with Miss Streator.” By Pansy. Boston: D. Lothrop and Company.
-
-“The Riverside Literature Series,” “Studies in Longfellow,” “Outlines
-for Schools, Conversation Classes, and Home Study.” By W. C. Gannett.
-Houghton, Mifflin and Company. 1884.
-
-“Methods of Teaching Geography,” “Notes of Lessons.” By Lucretia Crocker,
-member of the Board of Supervisors of Boston Public Schools. Boston,
-Mass.: Boston School Supply Company. 1884.
-
-“Intellectual Arithmetic upon the Inductive Method of Instruction.” By
-Warren Colburn, A.M. Revised and enlarged edition with an appendix.
-Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
-
-“Light Ahead.” By Cecelia A. Gardiner. New York: Phillips & Hunt. 1884.
-
-A series of excellent low priced books comes from Funk & Wagnalls, New
-York:
-
-“Christianity Triumphant; Its Defensive and Aggressive Victories.” By
-John P. Newman, D.D., LL.D. Price, 15 cents.
-
-“The Clew of the Maze and The Spare Half-Hour.” By Rev. Chas. H.
-Spurgeon. Price, 15 cents.
-
-“My Musical Memories.” By H. R. Haweis. Price, 25 cents.
-
-“Story of the Merv.” By Edmond O’Donovan. Price, 25 cents.
-
-“Mumu and The Diary of a Superfluous Man.” By Ivan Turgenieff. Price, 15
-cents.
-
-“Archibald Malmaison.” By Julian Hawthorne. Price, 15 cents.
-
-“In the Heart of Africa.” Condensed from the works of Sir Samuel W.
-Baker, M.A., F.R.G.S. Price, 25 cents.
-
-“Memorie and Rime.” By Joaquin Miller. Price, 25 cents.
-
-[A] Epitome of Ancient, Mediæval and Modern History. By Carl Ploetz.
-Translated with extensive additions by William H. Tillinghast. Boston:
-Houghton, Mifflin and Co. 1884.
-
-[B] The American Health Primers. Health Manuals. Edited by W. W. Keen,
-D.D., Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Philadelphia:
-P. Blakiston, Son & Co.
-
-[C] The Intellectual Life. By Philip Gilbert Hamerton. Author’s edition.
-Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1884.
-
-[D] In His Name. By E. E. Hale. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1884. Price,
-30c.
-
-[E] A Story of the Waldenses, seven hundred years ago. In His Name. By
-Edward E. Hale. Boston: J. Stilman Smith & Co. 1884. Price, 25c.
-
-[F] The Dance of Modern Society. By William Cleaver Wilkinson. New York:
-Funk & Wagnalls. 1884.
-
- * * * * *
-
- [Illustration: ROYAL BAKING POWDER
-
- Absolutely Pure.]
-
- This powder never varies. A marvel of purity, strength and
- wholesomeness. More economical than the ordinary kinds, and can
- not be sold in competition with the multitude of low test, short
- weight, alum or phosphate powders. _Sold only in cans._ ROYAL
- BAKING POWDER CO., 106 Wall Street, New York.
-
- * * * * *
-
-Transcriber’s Notes:
-
-Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
-
-Page 502, “1879” changed to “1789” (In 1789 the failure of his sight)
-
-Page 502, “St.” changed to “Sir” (Sir Christopher Wren)
-
-Page 506, “effect” changed to “affect” (had, meanwhile, begun to affect)
-
-Page 508, “coersive” changed to “coercive” (more violent coercive
-measures)
-
-Page 528, “furnishedthe” changed to “furnished the” (the amount of light
-furnished the earth)
-
-Page 532, “Perphaps” changed to “Perhaps” (Perhaps the one word which
-will)
-
-Page 533, “Dephic” changed to “Delphic” (from Hebraic and Delphic times)
-
-Page 542, “the yshould” changed to “they should” (one that they should
-try to repeat)
-
-Page 548, illegible (possibly “sut”) changed to “but” (but now and then
-an intestine broil)
-
-Page 554, “Dorea” changed to “Doria” (Doria Baltea)
-
-Page 554, “Masinisssa” changed to “Masinissa” (Masinissa died, however)
-
-Page 554, “cathredral” changed to “cathedral” (St. Paul’s cathedral)
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Chautauquan, Vol. IV, June 1884,
-No. 9, by The Chautauquan Literary and Scientific Circle
-
-*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHAUTAUQUAN, JUNE 1884 ***
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-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Chautauquan, Vol. IV, June 1884, No. 9, by
-The Chautauquan Literary and Scientific Circle
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
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-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: The Chautauquan, Vol. IV, June 1884, No. 9
-
-Author: The Chautauquan Literary and Scientific Circle
-
-Editor: Theodore L. Flood
-
-Release Date: July 24, 2017 [EBook #55194]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
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-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHAUTAUQUAN, JUNE 1884 ***
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-
-
-<h1 class="faux">The Chautauquan, June 1884</h1>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 522px;">
-<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="522" height="800" alt="Cover" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="tnote">
-<div class="center"><small><b>Transcriber’s Note:</b> This cover has been
-created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</small></div>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[497]</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="maintitle"><span class="smcap">The Chautauquan.</span></div>
-
-<p class="center"><i>A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PROMOTION OF TRUE CULTURE. ORGAN OF
-THE CHAUTAUQUA LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC CIRCLE.</i></p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Vol. IV.</span> <span class="spacer">JUNE, 1884.</span> No. 9.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<h2>Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.</h2>
-
-<p><i>President</i>—Lewis Miller, Akron, Ohio.</p>
-
-<p><i>Superintendent of Instruction</i>—Rev. J. H. Vincent, D.D., New Haven,
-Conn.</p>
-
-<p><i>Counselors</i>—Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D.; Rev. J. M. Gibson, D.D.;
-Bishop H. W. Warren, D.D.; Prof. W. C. Wilkinson, D.D.</p>
-
-<p><i>Office Secretary</i>—Miss Kate F. Kimball, Plainfield, N. J.</p>
-
-<p><i>General Secretary</i>—Albert M. Martin, Pittsburgh, Pa.</p>
-
-<hr class="double" />
-
-<h2>Contents</h2>
-
-<div class="tnote"><b>Transcriber’s Note:</b> This table of contents of this periodical was created
-for the HTML version to aid the reader.</div>
-
-<table summary="Contents">
- <tr>
- <td colspan="2" class="center"><a href="#REQUIRED_READING">REQUIRED READING</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">Readings from Roman History</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#READINGS_FROM_ROMAN_HISTORY">497</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">Sunday Readings</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="indent2">[<i>June 1</i>]</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#JUNE1">499</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="indent2">[<i>June 8</i>]</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#JUNE8">499</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="indent2">[<i>June 15</i>]</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#JUNE15">499</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="indent2">[<i>June 22</i>]</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#JUNE22">500</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="indent2">[<i>June 29</i>]</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#JUNE29">500</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">Readings in Art</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="indent2">III.—English Painters and Paintings</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#READINGS_IN_ART">500</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">Criticisms on American Literature</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CRITICISMS_ON_AMERICAN">503</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">United States History</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#UNITED_STATES_HISTORY">505</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">Night</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#NIGHT">510</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">Eccentric Americans</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="indent2">VII.—The Well-Balanced Eccentric</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ECCENTRIC_AMERICANS">510</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">What Shall We Do With The Inebriates?</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#WHAT_SHALL_WE_DO_WITH_THE">514</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">Climate-Seeking in America</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CLIMATE-SEEKING_IN_AMERICA">516</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">A Dreamy Old Town</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#A_DREAMY_OLD_TOWN">520</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">Our Steel Horse</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#OUR_STEEL_HORSE">523</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">The Navy</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#THE_NAVY">524</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">Astronomy of the Heavens for June</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#ASTRONOMY_OF_THE_HEAVENS">528</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">To Blossoms</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#TO_BLOSSOMS">529</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">The Soldiers’ Home</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#THE_SOLDIERS_HOME">529</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">Eight Centuries with Walter Scott</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#EIGHT_CENTURIES_WITH_WALTER">533</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">Some London Preachers</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#SOME_LONDON_PREACHERS">536</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">The Prayer of Socrates</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#THE_PRAYER_OF_SOCRATES">537</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">C. L. S. C. Work</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#C_L_S_C_WORK">538</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">Outline of C. L. S. C. Readings</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#OUTLINE_OF_C_L_S_C_READINGS">539</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">Local Circles</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#LOCAL_CIRCLES">539</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">Chautauqua for 1884</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAUTAUQUA_FOR_1884">543</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">Questions and Answers</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#QUESTIONS_AND_ANSWERS">544</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">Chautauqua Normal Course</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAUTAUQUA_NORMAL_COURSE">545</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">Editor’s Outlook</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#EDITORS_OUTLOOK">546</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">Editor’s Note-Book</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#EDITORS_NOTE-BOOK">548</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">C. L. S. C. Notes on Required Readings for June</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#C_L_S_C_NOTES_ON_REQUIRED_READINGS_FOR_JUNE">551</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">Notes on Required Readings in “The Chautauquan”</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#NOTES_ON_REQUIRED_READINGS_IN_THE_CHAUTAUQUAN">554</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td><span class="smcap">Talk About Books</span></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#TALK_ABOUT_BOOKS">556</a></td>
- </tr>
-</table>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2 id="REQUIRED_READING">REQUIRED READING<br />
-<span class="smaller">FOR THE<br />
-<i>Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle for 1883-4</i>.<br />
-June.</span></h2>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2 id="READINGS_FROM_ROMAN_HISTORY">READINGS FROM ROMAN HISTORY.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p class="center">SELECTED BY WILLIAM CLEAVER WILKINSON.</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<div class="smaller">
-
-<p>Next we will give a picture, a partial picture it must be, of an action
-occurring a little more than half a century later in Roman history. Dr.
-Arnold shall be our painter:</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<h3>HANNIBAL CROSSING THE ALPS.</h3>
-
-<p class="center smaller">[219 B. C.]</p>
-
-<p>Hannibal was on the summit of the Alps about the end of
-October; the first winter snows had already fallen; but two
-hundred years before the Christian era, when all Germany was
-one vast forest, the climate of the Alps was far colder than at
-present, and the snow lay on the passes all through the year.
-Thus the soldiers were in dreary quarters; they remained two
-days on the summit, resting from their fatigues, and giving
-opportunity to many of the stragglers, and of the horses and
-cattle, to rejoin them by following their track; but they were
-cold and worn and disheartened; and mountains still rose before
-them, through which, as they knew too well, even their
-descent might be perilous and painful.</p>
-
-<p>But their great general, who felt that he now stood victorious
-on the ramparts of Italy, and that the torrent which rolled before
-him was carrying its waters to the rich plains of Cisalpine
-Gaul, endeavored to kindle his soldiers with his own spirit of
-hope. He called them together; he pointed out the valley
-beneath, to which the descent seemed the work of a moment.
-“That valley,” he said, “is Italy; it leads us to the country of
-our friends, the Gauls, and yonder is our way to Rome.” His
-eyes were eagerly fixed on that point of the horizon; and as
-he gazed, the distance between seemed to vanish, till he could
-almost fancy that he was crossing the Tiber, and assailing the
-Capitol.</p>
-
-<p>After the two days’ rest the descent began. Hannibal experienced
-no more open hostility from the barbarians, only
-some petty attempts here and there to plunder; a fact strange
-in itself, but doubly so, if he was really descending the valley
-of the Doria Baltea, through the country of the Salassians, the
-most untamable robbers of all the Alpine barbarians. It is possible
-that the influence of the Insubrians may partly have restrained
-the mountaineers; and partly, also, they may have
-been deterred by the ill success of all former attacks, and may
-by this time have regarded the strange army and its monstrous
-beasts with something of superstitious terror. But the
-natural difficulties of the ground on the descent were greater
-than ever. The snow covered the track so that the men often
-lost it, and fell down the steep below; at last they came to a
-place where an avalanche had carried it away altogether for
-about three hundred yards, leaving the mountain side a mere
-wreck of scattered rocks and snow. To go round was impossible;
-for the depth of the snow on the heights above rendered
-it hopeless to scale them; nothing, therefore, was left but to
-repair the road. A summit of some extent was found, and
-cleared of the snow; and here the army were obliged to encamp,
-whilst the work went on. There was no want of hands;
-and every man was laboring for his life; the road therefore
-was restored, and supported with solid substructions below;
-and in a single day it was made practicable for the cavalry
-and baggage cattle, which were immediately sent forward, and
-reached the lower valley in safety, where they were turned out
-to pasture. A harder labor was required to make a passage
-for the elephants; the way for them must be wide and solid,
-and the work could not be accomplished in less than three
-days. The poor animals suffered severely in the interval from
-hunger; for no forage was to be found in that wilderness of
-snow, nor any trees whose leaves might supply the place of
-other herbage. At last they too were able to proceed with
-safety; Hannibal overtook his cavalry and baggage, and in
-three days more the whole army had got clear of the Alpine
-valleys, and entered the country of their friends, the Insubrians,
-on the wide plain of northern Italy.</p>
-
-<p>Hannibal was arrived in Italy, but with a force so weakened
-by its losses in men and horses, and by the exhausted state of
-the survivors, that he might seem to have accomplished his
-great march in vain. According to his own statement, which
-there is no reason to doubt, he brought out of the Alpine valleys
-no more than 12,000 African and 8,000 Spanish infantry,
-with 6,000 cavalry, so that his march from the Pyrenees to the
-plains of northern Italy must have cost him 33,000 men; an
-enormous loss, which proves how severely the army must have
-suffered from the privations of the march and the severity of
-the Alpine climate; for not half of these 33,000 men can have
-fallen in battle.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<div class="smaller">
-
-<p>Once again the subject shall be Hannibal, and Arnold shall be the
-artist. This time Hannibal suffers his final defeat at the hands of
-Scipio.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<h3>THE BATTLE OF ZAMA.</h3>
-
-<p class="center smaller">[201 B.C.]</p>
-
-<p>Hannibal, we are told, landed at Leptis, at what season of
-the year we know not; and after refreshing his troops for some
-time at Adrumetum, he took the field, and advanced to the
-neighborhood of Zama, a town situated, as Polybius describes
-it, about five days’ journey from Carthage, toward the west.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[498]</a></span>
-It seems that Scipio was busied in overrunning the country,
-and in subduing the several towns, when he was interrupted in
-these operations by the approach of the Carthaginian army.
-He is said to have detected some spies sent by Hannibal to
-observe his position; and by causing them to be led carefully
-round his camp, and then sent back in safety to Hannibal, he
-so excited the admiration of his antagonist as to make him
-solicit a personal interview, with the hope of effecting a termination
-of hostilities. The report of this conference, and of
-the speeches of the two generals, savors greatly of the style of
-Roman family memoirs, the most unscrupulous in falsehood
-of any pretended records of facts that the world has yet seen.
-However, the meeting ended in nothing, and the next day the
-two armies were led out into the field for the last decisive
-struggle. The numbers on each side we have no knowledge
-of, but probably neither was in this respect much superior.
-Masinissa, however, with four thousand Numidian cavalry,
-beside six thousand infantry, had joined Scipio a few days
-before the battle; while Hannibal, who had so often been indebted
-to the services of Numidians, had now, on this great
-occasion, only two thousand horse of that nation to oppose to
-the numbers and fortune and activity of Masinissa. The account
-of the disposition of both armies, and of the events of the
-action, was probably drawn up by Polybius from the information
-given to him by Lælius, and perhaps from the family
-records of the house of Scipio. And here we may admit its
-authority to be excellent. It states that the Roman legions
-were drawn up in their usual order, except that the maniples
-of every alternate line did not cover the intervals in the line
-before them, but were placed one behind another, thus leaving
-avenues in several places through the whole depth of the army,
-from front to rear. These avenues were loosely filled by the
-light-armed troops, who had received orders to meet the
-charge of the elephants, and to draw them down the passages
-left between the maniples, till they should be enticed entirely
-beyond the rear of the whole army. The cavalry, as usual,
-was stationed on the wings; Masinissa, with his Numidians,
-on the right, and Lælius, with the Italians, on the left. On the
-other side, Hannibal stationed his elephants, to the number of
-eighty, in the front of his whole line. Next to these were
-placed the foreign troops in the service of Carthage, twelve
-thousand strong, consisting of Ligurians, Gauls, inhabitants of
-the Balearian islands, and Moors. The second line was composed
-of those Africans who were the immediate subjects of
-Carthage, and of the Carthaginians themselves; while Hannibal
-himself, with his veteran soldiers, who had returned with
-him from Italy, formed a third line, which was kept in reserve,
-at a little distance behind the other two. The Numidian cavalry
-were on the left, opposed to their own countrymen under
-Masinissa; and the Carthaginian horse on the right, opposed
-to Lælius and the Italians. After some skirmishing of the
-Numidians in the two armies, Hannibal’s elephants advanced
-to the charge, but being startled by the sound of the Roman
-trumpets, and annoyed by the light-armed troops of the enemy,
-some broke off to the right and left, and fell in amongst
-the cavalry of their own army on both the wings, so that Lælius
-and Masinissa, availing themselves of this disorder, drove the
-Carthaginian horse speedily from the field. Others advanced
-against the enemy’s line, and did much mischief, till at length,
-being frightened and becoming ungovernable, they were enticed
-by the light-armed troops of the Romans to follow them
-down the avenues which Scipio had purposely left open, and
-were thus drawn out of the action altogether. Meantime, the
-infantry on both sides met, and, after a fierce contest, the foreign
-troops in Hannibal’s army, not being properly supported
-by the soldiers of the second line, were forced to give ground;
-and in resentment for this desertion, they fell upon the Africans
-and Carthaginians, and cut them down as enemies, so
-that these troops, at once assaulted by their fellow-soldiers,
-and by the pursuing enemy, were also, after a brave resistance,
-defeated and dispersed. Hannibal, with his reserve, kept off
-the fugitives by presenting spears to them, and obliging them
-to escape in a different direction; and he then prepared to
-meet the enemy, trusting that they would be ill able to resist
-the shock of a fresh body of veterans, after having already
-been engaged in a long and obstinate struggle. Scipio, after
-having extricated his troops from the heaps of dead which lay
-between him and Hannibal, commenced a second, and a far
-more serious contest. The soldiers on both sides were perfect
-in courage and in discipline, and as the battle went on, they
-fell in the ranks where they fought, and their places were supplied
-by their comrades with unabated zeal. At last Lælius
-and Masinissa returned from the pursuit of the enemy’s beaten
-cavalry, and fell, in a critical moment, upon the rear of Hannibal’s
-army. Then his veterans, surrounded and overpowered,
-still maintained their high reputation, and most of
-them were cut down where they stood, resisting to the last.
-Flight indeed was not easy, for the country was a plain, and
-the Roman and Numidian horse were active in pursuit; yet
-Hannibal, when he saw the battle totally lost, with a nobler
-fortitude than his brother had shown at the Metaurus, escaped
-from the field to Adrumetum. He knew that his country
-would now need his assistance more than ever, and as he had
-been in so great a degree the promoter of the war, it ill became
-him to shrink from bearing his full share of the weight of its
-disastrous issue.</p>
-
-<p>On the plains of Zama twenty thousand of the Carthaginian
-army were slain, and an equal number taken prisoners, but the
-consequences of the battle far exceeded the greatness of the
-immediate victory. It was not the mere destruction of an army,
-but the final conquest of the only power that seemed able to
-combat Rome on equal terms. In the state of the ancient
-world, with so few nations really great and powerful, and so
-little of a common feeling pervading them, there was neither
-the disposition nor the materials for forming a general confederacy
-against the power of Rome; and the single efforts of
-Macedonia, of Syria, and of Carthage herself, after the fatal
-event of the second Punic war, were of no other use than to
-provoke their own ruin. The defeat of Hannibal insured the
-empire of the ancient civilized world.</p>
-
-<p>The only hope of the Carthaginians now rested on the forbearance
-of Scipio, and they again sent deputies to him, with
-a full confession of the injustice of their conduct in the first
-origin of the war, and still more in their recent violation of the
-truce, and with a renewal of their supplications for peace.
-The conqueror, telling them that he was moved solely by considerations
-of the dignity of Rome, and the uncertainty of all
-human greatness, and in no degree by any pity for misfortunes
-which were so well deserved, presented the terms on
-which alone they could hope for mercy. “They were to make
-amends for the injuries done to the Romans during the truce;
-to restore all prisoners and deserters; to give up all their ships
-of war, except ten, and all their elephants; to engage in no
-war at all out of Africa, nor in Africa without the consent of
-the Romans; to restore to Masinissa all that had belonged to
-him or any of his ancestors; to feed the Roman army for three
-months, and pay it till it should be recalled home; to pay a
-contribution of ten thousand Euboic talents, at the rate of two
-hundred talents a year, for fifty years; and to give a hundred
-hostages, between the ages of fourteen and thirty, to be selected
-at the pleasure of the Roman general.” At this price the
-Carthaginians were allowed to hold their former dominion in
-Africa, and to enjoy their independence, till it should seem
-convenient to the Romans to complete their destruction. Yet
-Hannibal strongly urged that the terms should be accepted,
-and, it is said, rudely interrupted a member of the supreme
-council at Carthage, who was speaking against them. He
-probably felt, as his father had done under circumstances
-nearly similar, that for the present resistance was vain, but
-that, by purchasing peace at any price, and by a wise management<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">[499]</a></span>
-of their internal resources, his countrymen might
-again find an opportunity to recover their losses. Peace was
-accordingly signed, the Roman army returned to Italy, and
-Hannibal, at the age of forty-five, having seen the schemes of
-his whole life utterly ruined, was now beginning, with equal
-patience and resolution, to lay the foundation for them again.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<div class="smaller">
-
-<p>But Zama was Hannibal’s Waterloo, and the virtual overthrow of
-Carthage. Rome’s course was now open to universal empire.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2 id="SUNDAY_READINGS">SUNDAY READINGS.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p class="center">SELECTED BY THE REV. J. H. VINCENT, D.D.</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3 id="JUNE1">[<i>June 1.</i>]</h3>
-
-<p>When we wish by our own efforts that something shall succeed,
-we become irritated with obstacles, because we feel in these
-hindrances that the motive that makes us act has not placed
-them there, and we find things in them which the self-will that
-makes us act has not found there.</p>
-
-<p>But when God inspires our actions, we never feel anything
-outside that does not come from the same principle that causes
-us to act; there is no opposition in the motive that impels us;
-the same motive power which leads us to act, leads others to
-resist us, or permits them at least; so that as we find no difference
-in this, and it is not our own will that combats external
-events, but the same will that produces the good and permits the
-evil, this uniformity does not trouble the peace of the soul, and
-is one of the best tokens that we are acting by the will of God,
-since it is much more certain that God permits the evil, however
-great it may be, than that God causes the good in us (and
-not some secret motive), however great it may appear to us;
-so that in order really to perceive whether it is God that makes
-us act, it is much better to test ourselves by our deportment
-without than by our motives within, since if we only examine
-ourselves within, although we may find nothing but good there,
-we can not assure ourselves that this good comes truly from
-God. But when we examine ourselves without, that is when
-we consider whether we suffer external hindrances with patience,
-this signifies that there is a uniformity of will between
-the motive power that inspires our passions and the one that
-permits the resistance to them; and as there is no doubt that
-it is God who permits the one, we have a right humbly to hope
-that it is God who produces the other.</p>
-
-<p>But what! we act as if it were our mission to make truth
-triumph, whilst it is only our mission to combat for it. The desire
-to conquer is so natural that when it is covered by the desire
-of making the truth triumph, we often take the one for the
-other, and think that we are seeking the glory of God, when in
-truth we are seeking our own. It seems to me that the way in
-which we support these hindrances is the surest token of it, for
-in fine if we wish only the order established by God, it is certain
-that we wish the triumph of his justice as much as that of
-his mercy, and when it does not come of our negligence, we
-shall be in an equal mood, whether the truth be known or
-whether it be combated, since in the one the mercy of God
-triumphs, and in the other his justice.—<i>Pascal.</i></p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3 id="JUNE8">[<i>June 8.</i>]</h3>
-
-<p>O most blessed mansion of the heavenly Jerusalem! O most
-effulgent day of eternity, which night obscureth not, but the supreme
-truth continually enlighteneth! a day of perennial peace
-and joy, incapable of change or intermission! It shineth now in
-the full splendor of perpetual light to the blessed; but to the
-poor pilgrims on earth it appeareth only at a great distance,
-and “through a glass darkly.” The redeemed sons of heaven
-triumph in the perfection of the joys of his eternal day, while
-the distressed sons of Eve lament the irksomeness of days
-teeming with distress and anguish. How is man defiled with
-sins, agitated with passions, disquieted with fears, tortured with
-cares, embarrassed with refinements, deluded with vanities, encompassed
-with errors, worn out with labors, vexed with temptations,
-enervated with pleasures, and tormented with want!</p>
-
-<p>O when will these various evils be no more? When shall I
-be delivered from the slavery of sin? When, O Lord, shall
-my thoughts and desires center and be fixed in thee alone?
-When shall I regain my native liberty? O, when will peace
-return, and be established, peace from the troubles of the
-world, and the disorders of sinful passions; universal peace,
-incapable of interruption; that “peace which passeth all understanding?”
-When, O most merciful Jesus! when shall I
-stand in pure abstraction from all inferior good to gaze upon
-thee and contemplate the wonders of redeeming love? When
-wilt thou be to me all in all? O, when shall I dwell with thee
-in that kingdom which thou hast prepared for thy beloved before
-the foundation of the world?</p>
-
-<p>Soften, I beseech thee, the rigor of my banishment, assuage
-the violence of my sorrow! for my soul thirsteth after thee;
-and all that the world offers for my comfort would but add one
-more weight to the burden that oppresses me. I long, O Lord,
-to enjoy thee truly, and would fain rise to a constant adherence
-to heavenly objects, but the power of earthly objects operating
-upon my unmortified passions, keeps me down. My mind labors
-to be superior to the good and evil of this animal life, but my body
-constrains it to be subject to them. And thus, “wretched man
-that I am,” while the spirit is always tending to heaven, and the
-flesh to earth, my heart is the seat of incessant war, and I am a
-burden to myself! … LXXVII.—“Unto thee do I lift up mine
-eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens.” In thee, the Father
-of mercies, I place all my confidence! O illuminate and sanctify
-my soul with the influence of thy Holy Spirit; that being
-delivered from all the darkness and impurity of its alienated
-life, it may become the holy temple of thy living presence, the
-seat of thy eternal glory! In the immensity of thy goodness,
-O Lord, and “in the multitude of thy tender mercies, turn unto
-me,” and hear the prayer of thy poor servant, who hast wandered
-far from thee into the region of the shadow of death. O
-protect and keep my soul amid the innumerable evils which
-this corruptible life is always bringing forth; and by the perpetual
-guidance of thy grace, lead me in the narrow path of
-holiness to the realms of everlasting peace.—<i>Kempis’ “Imitation
-of Christ.”</i></p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3 id="JUNE15">[<i>June 15.</i>]</h3>
-
-<p><i>The Christian life is better than any other that can be discovered
-or devised.</i></p>
-
-<p>First, this is manifest from its object. For no life can have
-or desire a better object than that which is set forth in the
-Christian religion, which finds its object in the vision of the divine
-essence.… But since man can not attain to the
-contemplation of divine things except by purification of the
-heart, how much, even in this regard, does the Christian life
-excel all others. For no greater purification of the heart can
-be discovered than Christian purification. For that is called
-pure which is not mixed with another substance, especially
-one inferior to itself. Thus gold is said to be pure when it is
-not mixed with silver or lead, or any other inferior substance.
-Now, because the end of man is God, when man through the
-intellect and the affections, is united or mixed with other creatures
-as an ultimate end, especially with those inferior to himself,
-he is called impure. And the more one frees himself
-from the love of creatures, the more pure he becomes; purity
-of the human heart consists in withdrawing the desires and
-the will from creature loves. But no greater or more perfect
-withdrawal from earthly loves can be discovered or devised
-than that which is proclaimed in the Christian religion.…
-And since man can not live without any love, it teaches
-that man should love God above all things, even above
-himself. And, if he loves himself or other creatures, it commands
-that he love them for the sake of God, so that all his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">[500]</a></span>
-love may tend toward God, and that in the creatures themselves
-he may love God, and may think nothing, speak nothing,
-do nothing which does not tend to the glory and honor of God,
-so that the whole man may tend toward God, and be united
-with God, and become one with God. And certainly no life can
-be discovered or devised better than this.</p>
-
-<p>As to the will, he loves God and our Lord Jesus Christ above
-all things, and his neighbor as himself, keeping all the commands
-of the law which depend upon this double love.</p>
-
-<p>As to the sensibilities, he strives with all his might to bring
-desire and anger and all the emotions under the control of
-reason, and by no means to make provision for the lusts of the
-flesh (<i>curam carnis facere in concupiscentia</i>).—<i>Savonarola—“De
-Simplicitate Christianæ Vitæ.”</i></p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3 id="JUNE22">[<i>June 22.</i>]</h3>
-
-<p>The sense of the vastness of the universe, and of the imperfection
-of our own knowledge, may help us in some degree to
-understand—not, indeed, the origin of evil and of suffering,
-but, at any rate, something of its possible uses and purposes.
-We look around the world, and we see cruel perplexities; the
-useless spared, the useful taken; the young and happy removed,
-and the old and miserable lingering on; happy households
-broken up under our feet, despondent hopes, and the
-failure of those to whom we looked up with reverence and respect.
-We go through these trials with wonder and fear; and
-we ask whereunto this will grow. But has nothing been gained?
-Yes, that has been gained which nothing else, humanly
-speaking, could gain. We may have gained a deeper knowledge
-of the mind of God, and a deeper insight into ourselves.
-Truths which once seemed mere words, received our heed and
-heart. Our understanding may have become part of ourselves.</p>
-
-<p>Humility for ourselves, charity for others, self-abasement
-before the judge of all mankind, these are the gifts that even
-the best man, and even the worst man may gain by distrust,
-by doubt, by difficulty.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>The perplexity, the danger, the grief often brings with it its
-own remedy.</p>
-
-<p>On each bursting wave of disappointment and vexation
-there is a crown of heavenly light which reveals the peril and
-shows the way, and guides us through the roaring storm.</p>
-
-<p>Out of doubt comes faith; out of grief comes hope; and “to
-the upright there ariseth light in darkness.”</p>
-
-<p>With each new temptation comes a way to escape; with each
-new difficulty comes some new explanation. As life advances
-it does indeed seem to be as a vessel going to pieces, as though
-we were on the broken fragments of a ship, or in a solitary skiff
-on the waste of waters; but as long as existence lasts, we must
-not give up the duty of cheerfulness and hope. He who has
-guided us through the day may guide us through the night also.
-The pillar of darkness often turns into a pillar of fire. Let us
-hold on though the land be miles away; let us hold till the
-morning breaks. That speck on the distant horizon may be
-the vessel for which we must shape our course. Forward, not
-backward, must we steer—forward, and forward, till the speck
-becomes the friendly ship. Have patience and perseverance;
-believe that there is still a future before us; and we shall at
-last reach the heaven where we would be.—<i>Dean Stanley.</i></p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3 id="JUNE29">[<i>June 29.</i>]</h3>
-
-<p>Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking
-reed. It is not necessary that the entire universe arm itself
-to crush him. A breath of air, a drop of water, suffices to kill
-him. But were the universe to crush him, man would still be
-more noble than that which kills him, because he knows that
-he dies; and the universe knows nothing of the advantage it
-has over him.</p>
-
-<p>Our whole dignity consists then in thought. Our elevation
-must be derived from this, not from space and duration, which
-we can not fill. Let us endeavor, then, to think well.</p>
-
-<p>Our imagination so magnifies the present time by continually
-reflecting upon it, and so diminishes eternity by not reflecting
-upon it, that we make a nothingness of eternity, and an eternity
-of nothingness, and all this has its roots so vital in us, that our
-reason can not defend us from it.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>It is necessary to know where to doubt, where to be assured,
-and where to submit. Who does not thus, understands not the
-force of reason. There are those who offend against these
-three principles, either affirming everything as demonstrative,
-for want of a knowledge of demonstration; or doubting everything,
-for want of knowing where it is necessary to submit; or
-submitting to everything, for want of knowing where it is necessary
-to judge.</p>
-
-<p>But those who seek God with all their heart, who have no
-sorrow, but in being deprived of his presence, who have no desire
-but to possess him, and no enemies but those who turn them
-from him; who are afflicted in seeing themselves surrounded
-and oppressed by such enemies; let them be comforted, I
-bring them good news; there is a liberator for them, I shall
-cause them to see him; I shall show them that there is a God
-for them; I shall show him to no others.</p>
-
-<p>The stoics say: Enter into yourselves; there you will find
-repose; and this is not true. Others say: Go out of yourselves;
-seek happiness in diverting yourselves; and this is not true.
-Diseases come; happiness is neither out of us, nor in us; it is
-in God, both out of, and in us.</p>
-
-<p>If man is not made for God, why is he happy only in God?
-If man is made for God, why is he opposed to God?—<i>Pascal.</i></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2 id="READINGS_IN_ART">READINGS IN ART.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3>III.—ENGLISH PAINTERS AND PAINTINGS.</h3>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p class="center">Abridged from “English and American Painters,” by Wilmot Buxton and S. R.
-Köhler.</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h4>WILLIAM HOGARTH,</h4>
-
-<p class="unindent">Who was the first original painter of England, was born in 1697.
-His father, who had received a good education at St. Bees, kept
-a school in Ship Court, and sought work from booksellers.
-But, like many another poor scholar, he could not make
-a living, and died disappointed.</p>
-
-<p>After spending some time at school, William Hogarth,
-warned by the example of his father, determined to pursue a
-craft in preference to literature, and was apprenticed, probably
-in 1711, to Ellis Gamble, a silversmith in Cranbourne
-Alley. He tells us how he determined to enter a wider field
-than that of mere silver-plate engraving, though at the age of
-twenty to engrave his own designs on copper was the height
-of his ambition. The men and women who jostled him in
-London streets or rolled by him in their coaches, were his
-models. Beside the keenest powers of observation, and a sardonic,
-sympathizing, and pitying humor, he possessed a wonderfully
-accurate and retentive memory, which enabled him to
-impress a face or form on his mind, and to reproduce it at leisure.
-Occasionally, if some very attractive or singular face
-struck his fancy, he would sketch it on his thumb nail, and
-thence transfer it. Hogarth tells us that “instead of burdening
-the memory with musty rules, or tiring the eye with copying
-dry or damaged pictures, I have ever found studying from
-nature the shortest and safest way of obtaining knowledge of
-my art.” In 1724 he engraved “Masquerades and Operas,” a
-satire, which represents “society” crowding to a masquerade,
-and led by a figure wearing a cap and bells on his head, and
-the garter on his leg. This engraving delighted the public
-whom it satirized, and Hogarth lost much through piracies of
-his work. He was employed by the booksellers to illustrate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">[501]</a></span>
-books with engravings and frontispieces. In 1726 was published,
-beside his twelve large prints, which are well known,
-an edition of “Hudibras,” illustrated by Hogarth, in seventeen
-smaller plates. The designs of Hogarth are not so witty
-as the verses of Butler, but we must remember that the painter
-had never seen men living and acting as they are described in
-the poem; they were not like the men of whom he made his
-daily studies. At this period he who dared to be original, and
-to satirize his neighbors, had much trouble. In 1730 Hogarth
-made a secret marriage at old Paddington Church, with Jane,
-only daughter of Sir James Thornhill, Serjeant-Painter to the
-King. He had frequented Thornhill’s studio, but whether the
-art of the court painter, or the face of his daughter was the greater
-attraction we know not. There is no doubt that Hogarth’s
-technique was studied from Thornhill’s pictures, and not from
-those of Watteau or Chardin, as has been supposed. For a
-time after his marriage Hogarth confined himself to painting
-portraits and conversation pieces, for which he was well paid,
-although Walpole declares that this “was the most ill-suited
-employment to a man whose turn was certainly not flattery.”
-Truthfulness, however, is more valuable in a portrait than flattery,
-and we surely find it in Hogarth’s portraits of himself,
-one in the National Gallery, and in that of “Captain Coram,”
-at the Foundling.</p>
-
-<p>One of the best of Hogarth’s life stories is the “Marriage à
-la Mode,” the original paintings of which are in the National
-Gallery; they appeared in prints in 1745. These well known
-pictures illustrate the story of a loveless marriage, where parents
-sacrifice their children, the one for rank, the other for
-money. Mr. Redgrave (“A Century of Painters”) tells us
-that “the novelty of Hogarth’s work consisted in the painter
-being the inventor of his own drama, as well as painter, and in
-the way in which all the parts are made to tend to a dramatic
-whole, each picture dependent on the other, and all the details
-illustrative of the complete work. The same characters recur
-again and again, moved in different tableaux with varied passions,
-one moral running through all, the beginning finding its
-natural climax in the end.” We can not do more than mention
-some of the remaining works by which the satirist continued
-“to shoot Folly as she flies.” “Beer Street,” and “Gin
-Lane,” illustrate the advantages of drinking the national beverage,
-and the miseries following the use of gin. “The Cockpit”
-represents a scene very common in those days, and contains
-many portraits. “The Election” is a series of four scenes,
-published between 1755 and 1758, in which all the varied vices,
-humors, and passions of a contested election are admirably
-represented.</p>
-
-<p>Hogarth’s last years were embittered by quarrels, those with
-Churchill and Wilkes being the most memorable. The publication
-in 1753 of his admirable book, called “The Analysis
-of Beauty,” in which he tried to prove that a winding line
-is the line of beauty, produced much adverse criticism and
-many fierce attacks, which the painter could not take quietly.
-He was further annoyed by the censures passed on his picture
-of “Sigismunda,” now in the National Gallery, which he had
-painted in 1759 for Sir Richard Grosvenor, and which was returned
-on his hands. Two years previously Hogarth had been
-made Serjeant-Painter to the King. He did not live to hold
-his office long; on October 26th, 1764, the hand which had exposed
-the vices and follies of the day so truly, and yet with such
-humor, had ceased to move.</p>
-
-<h4>RICHARD WILSON.</h4>
-
-<p>The story of Richard Wilson (1713-1782) is the story of a
-disappointed man. Born at Pinegas, Montgomeryshire, the
-son of the parson of that place, Wilson’s early taste for drawing
-attracted the attention of Sir George Wynne, by whom he
-was introduced to one Wright, a portrait painter in London.
-In 1749 he visited Italy, and whilst waiting for an interview
-with the landscape painter Zuccarelli he is said to have
-sketched the view through the open window. The Italian advised
-the Englishman to devote himself henceforth to landscapes,
-and Wilson followed his advice. After six years’ stay
-in Italy, during which period he became imbued with the beauties
-of that country, Wilson returned to England in 1755, and
-found Zuccarelli worshiped, whilst he himself was neglected.
-His “Niobe,” one version of which is in the National Gallery,
-was exhibited with the Society of Artists’ Collection, in Spring
-Gardens, 1760, and made a great impression, but, in general,
-his pictures, infinitely superior to the mere decorations of the
-Italian, were criticised, and compared unfavorably with those
-of Zuccarelli, and it was not till long after Wilson’s death that
-he was thoroughly appreciated. He was often compelled to
-sell his pictures to pawnbrokers, who, so it is said, could not sell
-them again. Wilson was one of the original thirty-six members
-of the Royal Academy, and in 1776 applied for and obtained
-the post of Librarian to that body, the small salary helping
-the struggling man to live. The last years of his life were
-brightened by better fortune. A brother left him a legacy, and
-in 1780 Wilson retired to a pleasant home at Llanberis, Carnarvon,
-where he died two years later. Mr. Redgrave says of
-him: “There is this praise due to our countryman—that our
-landscape art, which had heretofore been derived from the
-meaner school of Holland, following his great example, looked
-thenceforth to Italy for its inspiration; that he proved the power
-of native art to compete on this ground also with the art of the
-foreigner, and prepared the way for the coming men, who, embracing
-Nature as their mistress, were prepared to leave all and
-follow her.” Wilson frequently repeated his more successful
-pictures. “The Ruins of the Villa of Mæcenas, at Tivoli”
-(National Gallery), was painted five times by him. In the same
-gallery are “The Destruction of Niobe’s Children,” “A Landscape
-with Figures,” three “Views in Italy,” “Lake Avernus
-with the Bay of Naples in the Distance,” etc. In the Duke of
-Westminster’s collection are “Apollo and the Seasons” and
-“The river Dee.” Wilson, like many another man of genius,
-lived before his time, and was forced one day to ask Barry, the
-Royal Academician, if he knew any one mad enough to employ
-a landscape painter, and if so, whether he would recommend
-him.</p>
-
-<h4>JOSHUA REYNOLDS.</h4>
-
-<p>Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) was born at Plympton, Devon,
-the son of a clergyman who was a master in the grammar
-school. His father had intended him for a doctor, but nature
-decided that Joshua Reynolds should be a painter. He preferred
-to read Richardson’s “Treatise on Painting” to any
-other book, and when his taste for art became manifest he was
-sent to London to study with Hudson, the popular portrait
-painter of the day. It was in 1741 that Joshua Reynolds began
-his studies with Hudson, and as that worthy could teach
-him little or nothing, it is fortunate for art that the connection
-only lasted two years. On leaving Hudson’s studio Reynolds
-returned to Devonshire, but we know little about his life there
-till the year 1746, when his father died, and the painter was established
-at Plymouth Dock, now Devonport, and was painting
-portraits. Many of these earlier works betray the stiffness
-and want of nature which their author had probably learned from
-Hudson. Having visited London, and stayed for a time in St.
-Martin’s Lane, the artists’ quarter, Reynolds was enabled, in
-1749, to realize his great wish, and go abroad, where, unfettered
-and unspoilt by the mechanical arts of his countrymen,
-he studied the treasures of Italy, chiefly in Rome, and without
-becoming a copyist, was imbued with the beauties of the Italian
-school. A love of color was the characteristic of Reynolds,
-and his use of brilliant and fugitive pigments accounts for the
-decay of many of his best works; he used to say jestingly that
-“he came off with <i>flying colors</i>.” Doubtless the wish to rival
-the coloring of the Venetians led Reynolds to make numerous
-experiments which were often fatal to the preservation of his
-pictures.</p>
-
-<p>Most of the leaders of the rank and fashion of the day sat for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">[502]</a></span>
-their portraits to the painter who “read souls in faces.” In 1768
-Joshua Reynolds was chosen first President of the Royal Academy,
-and was knighted by George III. He succeeded, on the
-death of Ramsey, to the office of Court Painter. His “Discourses
-on Painting,” delivered at the Royal Academy, were
-remarkable for their excellent judgment and literary skill. A
-lesser honor, though one which caused him the greatest pleasure,
-was conferred on Reynolds in 1773, when he was elected
-Mayor of his native Plympton. In the same year he exhibited
-his famous “Strawberry Girl,” of which he said that it was
-“one of the half dozen original things” which no man ever
-exceeded in his life’s work. In 1789 the failure of his sight
-warned Sir Joshua that “the night cometh when no man can
-work.” He died, full of years and honors, on February 23rd,
-1792, and was buried near Sir Christopher Wren, in St. Paul’s
-Cathedral.</p>
-
-<p>Reynolds was a most untiring worker. He exhibited two
-hundred and forty-five pictures in the Royal Academy, on an
-average eleven every year. In the National Gallery are twenty-three
-of his paintings. Mr. Ruskin deems Reynolds “one of
-<i>the</i> seven colorists of the world,” and places him with Titian,
-Giorgione, Correggio, Tintoretto, Veronese, and Turner. He
-likewise says: “Considered as a painter of individuality in the
-human form and mind, I think him, even as it is, the prince of
-portrait painters.” Titian paints nobler pictures, and Van Dyck
-had nobler subjects, but neither of them entered so subtly as
-Sir Joshua did into the minor varieties of heart and temper.</p>
-
-<h4>THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH.</h4>
-
-<p>Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788), the son of a clothier,
-was born at Sudbury, in Suffolk. The details of this master’s
-life are few and uneventful. When between fourteen and fifteen
-years of age, his father sent Thomas Gainsborough to
-London to study art. His first master was Gravelot, a French
-engraver of great ability, to whose teaching Gainsborough
-probably owed much. From him he passed to Hayman, in the
-St. Martin’s Lane Academy, a drawing school only. Gainsborough
-began as a portrait and landscape painter in Hatton
-Garden, but finding little patronage during four years of his
-sojourn there, returned to his native town. In 1760 he removed
-to Bath, and found a favorable field for portrait painting,
-though landscape was not neglected. Fourteen years later
-Gainsborough, no longer an unknown artist, came to London
-and rented part of Schomberg House, Pall Mall. He was now
-regarded as the rival of Reynolds in portraiture, and of Wilson
-in landscape. Once, when Reynolds at an Academy dinner
-proposed the health of his rival as “the greatest landscape
-painter of the day,” Wilson, who was present, exclaimed, “Yes,
-and the greatest portrait painter, too.” One of the original
-members of the Royal Academy, Gainsborough exhibited
-ninety pictures in the Gallery, but refused to contribute after
-1783, because a portrait of his was not hung as he wished. A
-quick tempered, impulsive man, he had many disputes with
-Reynolds, though none of them were of a very bitter kind.
-Gainsborough’s “Blue Boy” is commonly said to have been
-painted in spite against Reynolds, in order to disprove the
-President’s statement that blue ought not to be used in masses.
-But there were other and worthier reasons for the production
-of this celebrated work, in respect to which Gainsborough
-followed his favorite Van Dyck in displaying “a large breadth
-of cool light supporting the flesh.” It is pleasant to know that
-whatever soreness of feeling existed between him and Sir
-Joshua passed away before he died. This was in 1788.
-Gainsborough was buried at Kew. The Englishness of his
-landscapes makes him popular. Wilson had improved on
-the Dutch type by visiting Italy, but Gainsborough sought
-no other subjects than his own land afforded. Nature speaks
-in his portraits, or from his landscapes, and his rustic children
-excel those of Reynolds, because they are really sun-browned
-peasants, not fine ladies and gentlemen masquerading
-in the dresses of villagers. Mr. Ruskin says of Gainsborough:
-“His power of color (it is mentioned by Sir Joshua
-as his peculiar gift) is capable of taking rank beside that of
-Rubens; he is the purest colorist—Sir Joshua himself not excepted—of
-the whole English school; with him, in fact, the art
-of painting did in great part die, and exists not now in Europe.
-I hesitate not to say that in the management and quality
-of single and particular tints, in the purely technical part
-of painting, Turner is a child to Gainsborough.”</p>
-
-<h4>JOSEPH TURNER.</h4>
-
-<p>Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) stands at the
-head of English landscape painters. It has been said that
-though others may have equaled or surpassed him in some respects,
-“none has yet appeared with such versatility of talent.”
-Turner owed nothing to the beauty or poetic surroundings of
-his birthplace, which was the house of his father, a barber in
-Maiden Lane, Covent Garden. But as Lord Byron is said to
-have conjured up his loveliest scenes of Greece whilst walking
-in Albemarle Street, so the associations of Maiden Lane did
-not prevent Turner from delineating storm-swept landscapes,
-and innumerable splendors of nature. The barber was justly
-proud of his child, who very early displayed his genius, and
-the first drawings of Turner are said to have been exhibited in
-his father’s shaving room. In time the boy was coloring prints
-and washing in the backgrounds of architects’ drawings. Dr.
-Monro, the art patron, extended a helping hand to the young
-genius of Maiden Lane. “Girtin and I,” says Turner, “often
-walked to Bushey and back, to make drawings for good Dr.
-Munro at half a crown a piece, and the money for our supper
-when we got home.” He did not, of course, start from London.</p>
-
-<p>In 1789 Turner became a student in the Academy, and exhibited
-a picture in the next year at Somerset House, “View of
-the Archbishop’s Palace at Lambeth.” He was then only fifteen.
-From that time he worked with unceasing energy at his
-profession. Indeed, the pursuit of art was the one ruling principle
-of his life. He frequently went on excursions, the first being
-to Ramsgate and Margate, and was storing his memory
-with effects of storm, mist, and tempest, which he reproduced.
-In 1799, when made A.R.A., Turner had already exhibited
-works which ranged over twenty-six counties of England and
-Wales. In 1802 he was made full Academician, and presented, as
-his diploma picture, “Dolbadarn Castle, North Wales.” In this
-year he visited the Continent, and saw France and Switzerland.
-Five years later Turner was appointed Professor of Perspective
-to the Royal Academy. We are told his lectures were delivered
-in so strange a style, that they were scarcely instructive.
-Of his water-color paintings and of the “Liber Studiorum”
-it is impossible to speak too highly; he created the modern
-school of water-color painting, and his works in oil have
-influenced the art of the nineteenth century. He visited Italy
-for the first time in 1819; again ten years later, and for the last
-time in 1840. His eccentricity, both in manner and in art, increased
-with age. Though wealthy, and possessing a good
-house in Queen Anne Street, he died in an obscure lodging by
-the Thames, at Chelsea, a few days before Christmas, 1851.</p>
-
-<p>Turner bequeathed his property to found a charity for male
-decayed artists, but the alleged obscurity of his will defeated
-this object. It was decided that his pictures and drawings
-should be presented to the National Gallery, that one thousand
-pounds should be spent on a monument to the painter in St.
-Paul’s, twenty thousand pounds should be given to the Royal
-Academy, and the remainder to the next of kin and heir at
-law. The National Gallery contains more than one hundred
-of his pictures, beside a large number of water-color drawings
-and sketches.</p>
-
-<h4>EASTLAKE.</h4>
-
-<p>Charles Lock Eastlake (1793-1865), son of the Solicitor to the
-Admiralty in that town, was born at Plymouth, and educated
-first in Plympton Grammar School, where Reynolds had studied,
-and afterward at the Charterhouse, London. Choosing the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">[503]</a></span>
-profession of a painter, he was encouraged, doubtless, by his
-fellow townsman, Haydon, who had just exhibited “Dentatus.”
-Eastlake became the pupil of that erratic master, and attended
-the Academy schools. In 1813 he exhibited at the British Institution
-a large and ambitious picture, “Christ raising the
-Daughter of the Ruler.” In the following year the young
-painter was sent by Mr. Harmon to Paris, to copy some of the
-famous works collected by Napoleon in the Louvre. The emperor’s
-escape from Elba, and the consequent excitement in Europe,
-caused Eastlake to quit Paris, and he returned to Plymouth,
-where he practiced successfully as a portrait painter. In
-1819 Eastlake visited Greece and Italy, and spent fourteen
-years abroad, chiefly at Ferrara and Rome. The picturesque
-dress of the Italian and Greek peasantry so fascinated him that
-for a long period he forsook history for small <i>genre</i> works, of
-which brigands and peasants were the chief subjects. A large
-historical painting, “Mercury bringing the Golden Apple to
-Paris,” appeared in 1820, and seven years later, “The Spartan
-Isidas.” In 1828 Eastlake produced “Italian Scene in the
-Anno Santo, Pilgrims arriving in sight of St. Peters,” which he
-twice repeated. In 1829 “Lord Byron’s Dream,” a poetic
-landscape (National Gallery), was exhibited, and Eastlake becoming
-an Academician, returned to England. To his labors
-as a painter Eastlake added the duties of several important
-offices, and much valuable literary work. He was Secretary
-to the Royal Commission for Decorating the New Palace of
-Westminster, Librarian of the Royal Academy, and Keeper,
-and afterward Director of the National Gallery. In 1850 he
-succeeded Sir Martin Shee as President of the Royal Academy,
-and was knighted. From that time till his death, at Pisa, in
-1865, he was chiefly engaged in selecting pictures to be purchased
-by the British Government. He was editor of Kugler’s
-“Handbook of the Italian Schools of painting,” and author of
-“Materials for a History of Oil Painting.”</p>
-
-<h4>SIR EDWIN LANDSEER.</h4>
-
-<p>Edwin Henry Landseer (1802-1873) was eminent among
-English animal painters. No artist has done more to teach us
-how to love animals and to enforce the truth that</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“He prayeth best who loveth best</div>
-<div class="verse i1">All things both great and small.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Not only did Landseer rival some of the Dutch masters of the
-seventeenth century in painting fur and feathers, but he depicted
-animals with sympathy, as if he believed that “the
-dumb, driven cattle” possess souls. His dogs and other animals
-are so human as to look as if they were able to speak. The
-painter was the son of John Landseer, the engraver, and was
-born in London. He received art lessons from his father, and,
-when little more than a baby, would sketch donkeys, horses,
-and cows at Hampstead Heath. Some of these sketches, made
-when Landseer was five, seven, and ten years old, are at Kensington.
-He was only fourteen when he exhibited the heads
-of “A Pointer Bitch and Puppy.” When between sixteen and
-seventeen he produced “Dogs Fighting,” which was engraved
-by the painter’s father. Still more popular was “The Dogs of
-St. Gothard rescuing a Distressed Traveler,” which appeared
-when its author was eighteen. Landseer was not a pupil of
-Haydon, but he had occasional counsel from him. He dissected
-a lion. As soon as he reached the age of twenty-four he was
-elected A.R.A., and exhibited at the Academy “The Hunting
-of Chevy Chase.” This was in 1826, and in 1831 he became a
-full member of the Academy. Landseer had visited Scotland
-in 1826, and from that date we trace a change in his style,
-which thenceforth was far less solid, true and searching, and
-became more free and bold. The introduction of deer into his
-pictures, as in “The Children of the Mist,” “Seeking Sanctuary,”
-and “The Stag at Bay,” marked the influence of Scotch
-associations. Landseer was knighted in 1850, and at the
-French exhibition of 1855 was awarded the only large gold medal
-given to an English artist. Prosperous, popular, and the guest
-of the highest personages of the realm, he was visited about
-1852 by an illness which compelled him to retire from society.
-From this he recovered, but the effects of a railway accident in
-1868 brought on a relapse. He died in 1873, and was buried
-in St. Paul’s Cathedral. On the death of Sir Charles Eastlake,
-in 1865, he was offered the Presidentship of the Royal Academy,
-but this honor he declined. In the National Gallery are
-“Spaniels of King Charles’s Breed,” “Low Life and High
-Life,” “Highland Music” (a highland piper disturbing a group
-of five hungry dogs, at their meal, with a blast on the pipes),
-“The Hunted Stag,” “Peace,” “War” (dying and dead
-horses, and their riders lying amidst the burning ruins of a cottage),
-“Dignity and Impudence,” “Alexander and Diogenes,”
-“The Defeat of Comus,” a sketch painted for a fresco in the
-Queen’s summer house, Buckingham Palace. Sixteen of Landseer’s
-works are in the Sheepshanks Collection, including the
-touching “Old Shepherd’s Chief Mourner,” of which Mr. Ruskin
-said that “it stamps its author not as the neat imitator of the
-texture of a skin, or the fold of a drapery, but as the man of
-mind.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2 id="CRITICISMS_ON_AMERICAN">CRITICISMS ON AMERICAN
-LITERATURE.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3>CONDITIONS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF AMERICAN
-LITERATURE.</h3>
-
-<p>The conditions under which the communities of the New
-World were established, and the terms on which they hitherto
-existed, have been unfavorable to Art. The religious and
-commercial enthusiasms of the first adventurers to her shores,
-supplying themes for the romancers of a later age, were themselves
-antagonistic to romance. The spirit which tore down
-the aisles of St. Regulus, and was revived in England in a reaction
-against music, painting and poetry, the Pilgrim Fathers
-bore with them in the “Mayflower” and planted across the
-seas. The life of the early colonists left no leisure for refinement.
-They had to conquer nature before admiring it, to feed
-and clothe before analyzing themselves. The ordinary cares
-of existence beset them to the exclusion of its embellishments.
-While Dryden, Pope and Addison were polishing stanzas and
-adding grace to English prose, they were felling trees, navigating
-rivers, and fertilizing valleys.… An enlightened people
-in a new land “where almost every one has facilities elsewhere
-unknown for making his fortune,” it is not to be wondered
-that the pursuit of wealth has been their leading impulse; nor
-is it perhaps to be regretted that much of their originality has
-been expended upon inventing machines instead of manufacturing
-verses, or that their religion itself has taken a practical
-turn. One of their own authors confesses that the “common
-New England life is still a lean, impoverished life, in distinction
-from a rich and suggestive one,” but it is there alone that
-the speculative and artistic tendencies of recent years have
-found room and occasion for development. Our travelers find
-a peculiar charm in the manly force and rough adventurous
-spirit of the Far West, but the poetry of the pioneer is unconscious.
-The attractive culture of the South has been limited
-in extent and degree. The hothouse fruit of wealth and leisure,
-it has never struck its roots deeply into native soil.…
-All the best transatlantic literature is inspired by the spirit of
-confidence—often of over-confidence—in labor. It has only
-flourished freely in a free soil; and for almost all its vitality
-and aspirations, its comparatively scant performance and
-large promise we must turn to New England. Its defects and
-merits are those of the national character as developed in the
-northern states, and we must seek for an explanation of its
-peculiarities in the physical and moral circumstances which
-surround them.</p>
-
-<p>When European poets and essayists write of nature it is to
-contrast her permanence with the mutability of human life.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">[504]</a></span>
-We talk of the everlasting hills, the perennial fountains, the
-ever-recurring seasons.… In America, on the other hand,
-it is the extent of nature that is dwelt upon—the infinity of space,
-rather than the infinity of time, is opposed to the limited rather
-than to the transient existence of man. Nothing strikes a
-traveler in that country so much as this feature of magnitude.
-The rivers like rolling lakes, the lakes which are inland seas,
-the forests, the plains, Niagara itself, with its world of waters,
-owe their magnificence to their immensity; and by a transference,
-not unnatural, although fallacious, the Americans
-generally have modeled their ideas of art after the same standard
-of size. Their wars, their hotels, their language, are
-pitched on the huge scale of their distances. “Orphaned of
-the solemn inspiration of antiquity,” they gain in surface what
-they have lost in age; in hope, what they have lost in memory.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“That untraveled world whose margin fades</div>
-<div class="verse i1">Forever and forever when they move,”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p class="unindent">is all their own; and they have the area and the expectation
-of a continent to set against the culture and the ancestral
-voices of a thousand years. Where Englishmen remember,
-Americans anticipate. In thought and action they are ever
-rushing into empty spaces. Except in a few of the older
-states, a family mansion is rarely rooted to the same town or
-district; and the tie which unites one generation with another
-being easily broken, the want of continuity in life breeds a
-want of continuity in thought. The American mind delights
-in speculative and practical, social and political experiments,
-as Shakerism, Mormonism, Pantagamy; and a host of authors
-from Emerson to Walt. Whitman, have tried to glorify every
-mode of human life from the transcendental to the brutish. The
-habit of instability, fostered by the rapid vicissitudes of their
-commercial life and the melting of one class into another drifts
-away all their landmarks but that of temporary public opinion;
-and where there is little time for verification and the study
-of details, men satisfy their curiosity with crude generalizations.
-The great literary fault of the Americans has thus come
-to be <i>impatience</i>. The majority of them have never learned
-that “raw haste is half-sister to delay,” that “works done
-least rapidly, art most cherishes.” The make-shifts which
-were first a necessity with the northern settlers have grown into
-a custom. They adopt ten half measures instead of one whole
-one; and, beginning bravely like the grandiloquent preambles
-to their Constitutions end sometimes in the sublime, and
-sometimes in the ridiculous.</p>
-
-<p>The critics of one nation must, to a certain extent, regard the
-works of another from an outside point of view. Few are able to
-divest themselves wholly of the influence of local standards; and
-this is preëminently the case when the early efforts of a young
-country are submitted to the judgment of an older country, strong
-in its prescriptive rights, and intolerant of changes the drift of
-which it is unable or unwilling to appreciate. English critics
-are apt to bear down on the writers and thinkers of the new
-world with a sort of aristocratic hauteur; they are perpetually
-reminding them of their immaturity and their disregard of the
-golden mean. Americans, on the other hand, are impossible
-to please. Ordinary men among them are as sensitive
-to foreign, and above all to British censure, as the <i>irritable
-genus</i> of other lands. Mr. Emerson is permitted to impress
-home truths on his countrymen, as “your American eagle is
-all very well, but beware of the American peacock.” Such
-remarks are not permitted to Englishmen; if they point to any
-flaws in American manners or ways of thinking, with an effort
-after politeness, it is “the good natured cynicism of a well-to-do
-age;” if they commend transatlantic institutions or achievements,
-it is, according to Mr. Lowell, “with that pleasant
-European air of self-compliment in condescending to be pleased
-by American merit which we find so conciliating.” Now that
-the United States have reached their full majority, it is time
-that England should cease to assume the attitude of their guardian,
-and time that they should cease to be on the alert to resent
-the assumption. Foremost among the more attractive
-features of transatlantic literature is its <i>freshness</i>. The authority
-which is the guide of old nations constantly threatens
-to become tyrannical; they wear their traditions like a chain;
-and in the canonization of laws of taste, the creative powers are
-depressed. Even in England we write under fixed conditions;
-with the fear of critics before our eyes, we are all bound to cast
-our ideas into similar moulds, and the name of “free-thinkers”
-has grown into a term of reproach. Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s
-Progress” is perhaps the last book written without a thought of
-being reviewed. There is a gain in the habit of self-restraint
-fostered by this state of things; but there is a loss in the consequent
-lack of spontaneity, and we may learn something from
-a literature which is ever ready for adventure. In America
-the love of uniformity gives place to impetuous impulses; the
-most extreme sentiments are made audible; the most noxious
-“have their day and cease to be;” and truth being left to vindicate
-itself, the overthrow of error, though more gradual, may
-at last prove more complete. A New England poet can write
-with confidence of his country as the land</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Where no one suffers loss or bleeds</div>
-<div class="verse i1">For thoughts that men call heresies.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Another feature of American literature is its <i>comprehensiveness</i>;
-what it has lost in depth it has gained in breadth. Addressing
-a vast audience it appeals to universal sympathies.—<i>Abridged
-from “American Literature” in Encyclopædia Britannica.</i></p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3>OUR LITERATURE IMITATIVE.</h3>
-
-<p>Literature is a positive element of civilized life; but in different
-countries and epochs it exists sometimes as a passive
-taste or means of culture, and at others as a development of
-productive tendencies. The first is the usual form in colonial
-societies, where the habit of looking to the fatherland for intellectual
-nutriment as well as political authority is the natural
-result even of patriotic feeling. The circumstances, too, of
-young communities, like those of the individual, are unfavorable
-to original literary production. Life is too absorbing to
-be recorded otherwise than in statistics. The wants of the
-hour and the exigencies of practical responsibility wholly engage
-the mind. Half a century ago, it was usual to sneer in
-England at the literary pretensions of America; but the ridicule
-was quite as unphilosophical as unjust, for it was to be
-expected that the new settlements would find their chief mental
-subsistence in the rich heritage of British literature, endeared
-to them by a community of language, political sentiment,
-and historical association. And when a few of the busy
-denizens of a new republic ventured to give expression to their
-thoughts, it was equally natural that the spirit and the principles
-of their ancestral literature should reappear. Scenery,
-border-life, the vicinity of the aborigines, and a great political
-experiment were the only novel features in the new world upon
-which to found anticipations of originality; in academic culture,
-habitual reading, moral and domestic tastes, and cast of mind,
-the Americans were identified with the mother country, and,
-in all essential particulars, would naturally follow the style
-thus inherent in their natures and confirmed by habit and
-study. At first, therefore, the literary development of the
-United States was imitative; but with the progress of the country,
-and her increased leisure and means of education, the
-writings of the people became more and more characteristic;
-theological and political occasions gradually ceased to be the
-exclusive moulds of thought; and didactic, romantic, and
-picturesque compositions appeared from time to time. Irving
-peopled “Sleepy Hollow” with fanciful creations; Bryant described
-not only with truth and grace, but with devotional
-sentiment, the characteristic scenes of his native land; Cooper
-introduced Europeans to the wonders of her forest and seacoast;
-Bancroft made her story eloquent; and Webster<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">[505]</a></span>
-proved that the race of orators who once roused her children
-to freedom was not extinct. The names of Edwards and
-Franklin were echoed abroad; the bonds of mental dependence
-were gradually loosened; the inherited tastes remained,
-but they were freshened with a more native zest; and although
-Brockden Brown is still compared to Godwin, Irving to Addison,
-Cooper to Scott, Hoffman to Moore, Emerson to Carlyle,
-and Holmes to Pope, a characteristic vein, an individuality of
-thought, and a local significance is now generally recognized
-in the emanations of the American mind; and the best of them
-rank favorably and harmoniously with similar exemplars in
-British literature; while, in a few instances, the nationality is
-so marked, and so sanctioned by true genius, as to challenge
-the recognition of all impartial and able critics. The majority,
-however, of our authors are men of talent rather than of
-genius; the greater part of the literature of the country has
-sprung from New England, and is therefore, as a general rule,
-too unimpassioned and coldly elegant for popular effect.
-There have been a lamentable want of self-reliance, and an
-obstinate blindness to the worth of native material, both scenic,
-historical, and social. The great defect of our literature has
-been a lack of independence, and too exclusive a deference to
-hackneyed models; there has been, and is, no deficiency of
-intellectual life; it has thus far, however, often proved too diffusive
-and conventional for great results.—<i>Henry T. Tuckerman.</i></p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3>POETRY OF AMERICA.</h3>
-
-<p>America abounds in the material of poetry. Its history, its
-scenery, the structure of its social life, the thoughts which pervade
-its political forms, the meaning which underlies its hot
-contests, are all capable of being exhibited in a poetical aspect.
-Carlyle, in speaking of the settlement of Plymouth by the Pilgrims,
-remarks that, if we had the open sense of the Greeks,
-we should have “found a poem here; one of nature’s own
-poems, such as she writes in broad facts over great continents.”
-If we have a literature, it should be a national literature; no
-feeble or sonorous echo of Germany or England, but essentially
-American in its tone and object. No matter how meritorious
-a composition may be, as long as any foreign nation
-can say that it has done the same thing better, so long shall
-we be spoken of with contempt, or in a spirit of impertinent
-patronage. We begin to sicken of the custom, now so common,
-of presenting even our best poems to the attention of
-foreigners with a deprecating, apologetic air; as if their acceptance
-of the offering, with a few soft and silky compliments,
-would be an act of kindness demanding our warmest acknowledgements.
-If the <i>Quarterly Review</i> or <i>Blackwood’s Magazine</i>
-speaks well of an American production, we think that we
-can praise it ourselves, without incurring the reproach of bad
-taste. The folly we yearly practice, of flying into a passion
-with some inferior English writer, who caricatures our faults,
-and tells dull jokes about his tour through the land, has only
-the effect to exalt an insignificant scribbler into notoriety, and
-give a nominal value to his recorded impertinence. If the
-mind and heart of the country had its due expression, if its life
-had taken form in a literature worthy of itself, we should pay
-little regard to the childish tattling of a pert coxcomb, who was
-discontented with our taverns, or the execrations of some
-bluff sea-captain, who was shocked with our manners. The
-uneasy sense we have of something in our national existence
-which has not yet been fitly expressed, gives poignancy to the
-least ridicule launched at faults and follies which lie on the
-superficies of our life. Every person feels that a book which
-condemns the country for its peculiarities of manners and customs
-does not pierce into the heart of the matter, and is essentially
-worthless. If Bishop Berkeley, when he visited Malebranche,
-had paid exclusive attention to the habitation, raiment,
-and manners of the man, and neglected the conversation of
-the metaphysician, and, when he returned to England, had entertained
-Pope, Swift, Gay, and Arbuthnot, with satirical descriptions
-of the “complement extern” of his eccentric host,
-he would have acted just as wisely as many an English tourist,
-with whose malicious pleasantry on our habits of chewing,
-spitting, and eating, we are silly enough to quarrel. To the
-United States, in reference to the pop-gun shots of foreign
-tourists, might be addressed the warning which Peter Plymley
-thundered against Bonaparte, in reference to the Anti-Jacobin
-jests of Canning: Tremble, oh thou land of many spitters and
-voters, “for a <i>pleasant</i> man has come out against thee, and
-thou shalt be laid low by a joker of jokes, and he shall talk his
-pleasant talk to thee, and thou shalt be no more!”</p>
-
-<p>In order that America may take its due rank in the commonwealth
-of nations, a literature is needed which shall be the
-exponent of its higher life. We live in times of turbulence and
-change. There is a general dissatisfaction, manifesting itself
-often in rude contests and ruder speech, with the gulf which
-separates principles from actions. Men are struggling to realize
-dim ideals of right and truth, and each failure adds to the
-desperate earnestness of their efforts. Beneath all the shrewdness
-and selfishness of the American character, there is a
-smouldering enthusiasm which flames out at the first touch of
-fire,—sometimes at the hot and hasty words of party, and
-sometimes at the bidding of great thoughts and unselfish principles.
-The heart of the nation is easily stirred to its depths;
-but those who rouse its fiery impulses into action are often men
-compounded of ignorance and wickedness, and wholly unfit
-to guide the passions which they are able to excite. There is
-no country in the world which has nobler ideas embodied in
-more worthless shapes. All our factions, fanaticisms, reforms,
-parties, creeds, ridiculous or dangerous though they often appear,
-are founded on some aspiration or reality which deserves
-a better form and expression. There is a mighty power in
-great speech. If the sources of what we call our fooleries and
-faults were rightly addressed, they would echo more majestic
-and kindling truths. We want a poetry which shall speak in
-clear, loud tones to the people; a poetry which shall make us
-more in love with our native land, by converting its ennobling
-scenery into the images of lofty thought; which shall give
-visible form and life to the abstract ideas of our written constitutions;
-which shall confer upon virtue all the strength of
-principle, and all the energy of passion; which shall disentangle
-freedom from cant and senseless hyperbole, and render
-it a thing of such loveliness and grandeur as to justify all self-sacrifice;
-which shall make us love man by the new consecrations
-it sheds on his life and destiny; which shall force through
-the thin partitions of conventionalism and expediency; vindicate
-the majesty of reason; give new power to the voice of
-conscience, and new vitality to human affection; soften and
-elevate passion; guide enthusiasm in a right direction, and
-speak out in the high language of men to a nation of men.—<i>E.
-P. Whipple.</i></p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3>THE THREE PERIODS OF OUR LITERATURE.</h3>
-
-<p>The literary history of the United States may be treated under
-three distinctly marked periods, viz.: a colonial, or ante-revolutionary
-period, during which the literature of the country
-was closely assimilated in form and character to that of England;
-a first American period (from 1775 to 1820) which witnessed
-the transition from a style for the most part imitative
-to one national or peculiar, as a consequence of the revolutionary
-struggle and the ideas generated by it; a second
-American (from 1820 to the present time), in which the literature
-of the country assumed a decided character of originality.</p>
-
-<p>Though men of letters were found everywhere among the
-colonists, in New England alone, where the first printing press
-was established, was there any considerable progress made in
-literary culture, and the literature of the colonial period was
-chiefly confined to that locality or indirectly connected with it.
-The earliest development, owing to the religious character of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">[506]</a></span>
-the people, and to the fact that during the first century after
-the settlement of the country the clergy were the best informed
-and educated class, was theological. Some of the works, by
-Edwards and others, in defense of the dogmas of the church
-were very elaborate, and the positions taken maintained with
-much ability and acuteness of argument.</p>
-
-<p>The influence of the great English essayists and novelists of
-the eighteenth century had, meanwhile, begun to affect the
-literature of the New World; and in the essays, the collection
-of maxims published under the title of “Poor Richard,” or
-“The Way to Wealth,” the scientific papers and autobiography
-of Benjamin Franklin, we have specimens of practical
-philosophy, or of simple narrative expressed in a style eminently
-clear, pleasing, and condensed; and not unfrequently
-embellished by the wit and elegance characteristic of the best
-writers of Queen Anne’s time. His investigations in electricity
-and other scientific subjects are not less felicitously narrated,
-and together with the works of James Logan, Paul Dudley,
-Cadwallader Colden and John Bartram, a naturalist, and one
-of the earliest of American travelers, constitute the chief contributions
-to scientific literature during the colonial period.</p>
-
-<p>II. The earliest works produced during the first American
-period, commencing with the Revolution, are naturally associated
-with the causes which led to that event. The severance
-of the intellectual reliance of the colonies on the mother country
-followed as a consequence of their political independence,
-and as early as the commencement of the revolutionary struggle
-the high literary ability as well as practical wisdom evinced
-in the public documents of the principal American statesmen,
-were recognized by Lord Chatham, in whose opinion these
-productions rivaled the masterpieces of antiquity. Politics
-now gained a prominence almost equal to that enjoyed by
-theology in the preceding period. The discussions accorded
-thoroughly with the popular taste, and the influence of political
-writers and orators in giving a decided national type to American
-literature is unmistakable.</p>
-
-<p>III. The last period of American literature presents a marked
-contrast with those which preceded in the national character,
-as well as in the variety and extent of its productions. In 1820
-the poverty of American Literature was sneeringly commented
-upon by Sydney Smith in the Edinburgh <i>Review</i>, but from
-that date, the political crisis being past, the intellectual development
-of the country has been commensurate with its social
-and material progress, until at the present day it can be said
-there is no department of human knowledge which has not
-been more or less thoroughly explored by American authors.
-In history, natural science, jurisprudence, and imaginative literature
-their efforts have not been exceeded by those of contemporary
-authors in any part of the world.</p>
-
-<p>The catalogue of American books, many of them having
-rare excellence, published in the last half century would fill
-volumes.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps in her periodical literature, more than elsewhere,
-America excels. Her leading quarterlies and literary magazines
-are scarcely inferior to the best we get from Europe;
-while their number and circulation are matter of astonishment.
-The masses in America read far more than in other countries.
-They patronize 11,403 different periodicals, that have an aggregate
-circulation of 31,177,924. Of these 3,637,224 are received
-daily, making 148,451,110 papers a year. There are
-19,459,107 papers published weekly, making 97,295,535 a year.
-Others are published semi-weekly, monthly, semi-monthly, or
-quarterly.—<i>Abridged from American Cyclopædia.</i></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<p>For when a man is brought up honorably, he feels ashamed
-to act basely; every one trained to noble deeds blushes to be
-found recreant; valor may be taught, as we teach a child to
-speak, to hear those things which he knows not; such love as
-the child learns he retains with fondness to old age—strong incitements
-to train your children well.—<i>Euripides.</i></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2 id="UNITED_STATES_HISTORY">UNITED STATES HISTORY.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3>THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.</h3>
-
-<p>For twelve years after the defeat of the French, the English
-colonists in America, though suffering many things, prospered.
-A patriotic, vigorous race had possession of the new world—men
-who loved liberty, knew their rights, and dared maintain
-them. Their civil institutions were founded on liberal principles,
-and the sovereignty of the people recognized. Time and
-conflicting interests had somewhat weakened the ties that
-bound them to the mother country. Already numbering near
-two millions, though nominally subject to the crown they had,
-for generations, managed their affairs with more hindrance
-than help from the ruling class in Great Britain. Agriculture
-was the chief industry, and the products had become extensive;
-but commerce hampered by many restrictions was carried on
-awkwardly, and often with little profit to the producers. Manufacturing
-enterprises were discouraged and hindered by arbitrary
-enactments respecting them. The colonists felt the
-wrongs they suffered, but endured them till the hindrances and
-burdens became intolerable. Their complaints unheeded and
-their petitions spurned, nothing could longer delay the bold,
-defiant assertion of their rights, or quell the spirit of indignant
-resentment. The most thoughtful had reluctantly come to regard
-war as inevitable, and resolutely prepared to meet the
-demands that would be made on them. The differences between
-the home government and the colonists were of long
-standing and about matters of such vital interest to the latter,
-they could make no compromise. The king and his ministers
-claimed the right to tax, at their pleasure, two millions of
-British subjects who were allowed no representation in Parliament.
-This was denied steadily and with emphasis—every attempt
-to enforce, however indirectly, the claim was watched
-and defeated. Enactments that were regarded oppressive were
-either evaded or openly set at naught. The duties required
-could not be collected. No matter how plain the law, governors
-who held office by the appointment of the king could not
-enforce it, and the recusant merchants and manufacturers, if
-arrested and tried, were not convicted. Applications to the
-courts for warrants to seize goods were resisted—and neither
-search nor seizure was found quite safe for those who attempted
-it.</p>
-
-<p>In 1763 officers were directed to confiscate all merchant
-vessels engaged in what was declared unlawful trade, and English
-war ships were sent to the American coast to enforce the
-order. This exasperating measure ruined for a time trade
-with the West Indies, but failed to intimidate. The next year
-the odious Stamp Act was passed requiring all deeds, articles
-of agreement, notes, receipts, checks and drafts to be written
-on paper bearing the government stamp, and taxed from three
-pence to six pounds sterling, according to the purpose for
-which it was prepared. Franklin, who labored hard to prevent
-the passage of the act, was sadly disappointed and wrote to a
-friend at home: “The sun of American liberty has set—we
-must now light the lamps of industry and economy.” “Be
-assured,” said the patriotic friend in reply, “we shall light
-torches of another sort.” And they did. The paper was
-manufactured and sent over in large quantities, but no market
-was found for it. In New York and Boston much of it was
-seized and publicly destroyed, while whole cargoes were carried
-back to England. The people were thoroughly aroused and
-indignant. Crowds of excited men collected in the towns, and
-acts of violence were committed against any who proposed
-submission. The ringing words of Patrick Henry in the Virginia
-legislature, and the resolutions sent out from that body
-boldly declaring that the colonists, as Englishmen, would
-never submit to be taxed without representation, startled the
-people. Some were alarmed, but most expressed hearty approval.
-About the same time similar action was taken by the
-New York and Massachusetts legislatures, and the question of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">[507]</a></span>
-an American Congress, suggestive of a separate nationality,
-was agitated. The patriotic society known as “The Sons of
-Liberty” was now organized, the members being pledged to
-oppose tyranny and defend, with their lives, if necessary, the
-sacred rights of freemen. Merchants in the principal cities
-bound themselves to buy no more goods from English houses
-until the offensive act was repealed, while the people with wonderful
-unanimity resolved to deny themselves all imported
-luxuries. The storm that was seen to be gathering caused
-some hesitation in Parliament. The English manufacturers
-and merchants, whose products and merchandise remained in
-their storehouses, became alarmed, while a few eminent statesmen
-as Lord Camden, and Pitt in the House of Commons,
-espoused the cause of the colonists and denounced the folly of
-the administration. “You,” said Pitt in a powerful speech,
-“have no right to tax America. I rejoice that Americans
-have resisted.” The result was the necessitated repeal of the
-unwise measure. To cover their retreat from the position
-taken, and to conciliate the Tories, the act to repeal was accompanied
-with a declaration of “right to bind the colonists in all
-things whatsoever.” Nobody seemed to care much for their
-harmless declaration, and for a brief space there was quiet, if
-not peace.</p>
-
-<p>A year later there was a change in the ministry, and, in an
-hour of unparalleled folly, another scheme was brought forward
-to levy a tax in a slightly different form—a duty on sundry
-specified articles, such as glass, paper, printers’ colors and
-tea. The resentment was immediate and indignant. It seemed
-like adding insult to injury, and denunciations of the attempt,
-both in popular assemblies and by the press, were prompt and
-bitter. Early in 1768 the legislature of Massachusetts adopted
-a circular calling on the other colonies for assistance in a determined
-effort to have redress. This, more than all that
-orators or editors could say, exasperated the British lords, who
-in the name of the king enjoined the legislature to at once rescind
-their action, that was pronounced treasonable, and to
-express regret for such hasty proceedings. The sturdy Massachusetts
-men, who had counted the cost, were not in a temper
-to do anything of the kind, but instead they almost unanimously
-re-affirmed their action; nor would they disperse at his
-bidding when the Tory governor, with authority dissolved the
-Assembly. They knew the peril of the situation, and their
-great disadvantage in having among them and over them
-civil officers appointed by the king, while his armies held all
-the forts and arsenals of the country. But there was no alternative.
-They must accept a servile condition or offer manly
-resistance and take the consequences. For this they were
-ready, and the people ready to sustain them. In opposition to
-the governor’s edict they communicated to their constituents
-and to the other colonies their unchanging determination to
-resist the unjust demands of their lordly oppressors. This
-hastened the crisis. The exasperated governor invoked the
-aid of the military. And his friend General Gage, commander
-of the British forces in America, ordered from Halifax two regiments
-of regulars to strengthen the governor’s police. It
-seemed a large force for the purpose, but even they were not
-sufficient to squelch the spirit of freedom. The civil authorities
-promptly refused to provide supplies or quarters for the
-troops for whose presence they had no occasion or need. They
-were encamped on the common, and, for the purpose of intimidation,
-a great display was made, but it only imbittered
-the feelings of the citizens. Mutual hatred between them and
-the hired soldiers, aggravated by insults and injuries on both
-sides, soon led to open hostilities. A small company of soldiers
-were attacked by a mob, and fired, killing some and
-wounding others. The rage of the people at the occurrence
-knew no bounds. They became so violent that it was thought
-advisable to withdraw the troops from the city. The squad
-implicated in the massacre was indicted for murder and had
-a fair trial. This was magnanimous. The keenest sense of
-the injuries received did not make true patriots forgetful of the
-personal rights of those who were the instruments of the oppression
-they suffered. At the trial of the soldiers John
-Adams and Josiah Quincy, both well known as stanch advocates
-of the people’s cause, appeared for the defense, and
-showed that the evidence could only convict of manslaughter,
-and as it seemed in self-defense, the punishment should be light.</p>
-
-<p>Meanwhile full accounts of these disturbances were sent to
-England and caused intense excitement there. Parliament
-not only censured the colonists in strongly worded resolutions,
-but directed the governors to seize and transport to England
-for trial the leaders of disloyalty. The order was never carried
-out. Even after this some concessions were made to the
-demands of the colonists under the pressure of urgent appeals
-from English merchants who saw nothing but financial ruin to
-themselves in the loss of their trade with America. The duties
-on all articles imported from England were removed except on
-tea, and that, it was said, was retained simply to assert the
-sovereignty of the home government. This was an effort to
-conciliate those whom threats and military displays had failed
-to intimidate, but it too failed.</p>
-
-<p>The East India Company had large quantities of tea in their
-storehouses, and having no orders from merchants, and being
-assured that many <i>Tories</i>, as all officers and supporters of the
-king were called, would patronize them, made arrangements
-for carrying on the business through their own agents. The
-plan seemed to promise success. Their men were appointed
-and a number of vessels freighted and sent to America. But
-there were difficulties in the way. In New York and Philadelphia
-the consignees, though anxious for the gains promised
-them, became alarmed and dared not enter on the duties of
-their appointment; and the captains were obliged to return to
-England with their cargoes. In Boston the agents of the company
-refused to resign, though threatened for their contumacy.
-In the midst of the excitement three ships arrived with cargoes
-of tea. A large committee demanded that it should be taken
-away. Of course there could be no public, and the vigilance
-of the citizens prevented a secret landing. The shipmasters
-saw that the only safe course for them was to obey the will of
-the people, but when they would have departed the governor
-was obstinate and no clearance could be obtained without first
-landing the cargoes. Repeated meetings were held, the question
-fully discussed, when it was resolved to resist to the last
-extremity the landing of the tea. They were in mass meeting
-when the ultimatum of the governor refusing the passports
-was received. The deliberations were then at an end, and the
-enthusiasm knew no bounds. A man in the crowd suddenly
-gave the war whoop and a rush was made for the wharf. The
-disguised man was joined by others, perhaps twenty in number,
-who without damaging any other property emptied all the
-tea chests into the sea. The work was done speedily and
-without hindrance. When informed of these violent proceedings
-Parliament immediately passed the “Boston Port Bill,”
-and removed the custom house to Salem. At the same time
-two other acts were passed, that added fuel to the fire, one
-giving the appointment of all civil and judicial officers directly
-to the crown; the other providing that in any future trial for
-homicide or violent resistance of the lawfully constituted authorities,
-the governor might send the accused out of the colony
-for trial.</p>
-
-<p>In 1774 General Gage was appointed governor instead of
-Hutchinson. Personally he was much preferred to his predecessor,
-but coming to enforce the Port Bill, and having military
-authority the people felt that he was their enemy, and
-were ready to obstruct any measures he might adopt. Though
-Gage, with his army of regulars, was in possession, the organization
-and training of the militia proceeded with great zeal.
-Soon twelve thousand were enrolled as “Minute Men,” or civilians
-ready for military service at a moment’s notice. In the
-other colonies much the same state of things existed. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">[508]</a></span>
-people organized, drilled and prepared materials of war for the
-common defense.</p>
-
-<p>In September of this year Congress met in Philadelphia. Of
-the fifty-three members in attendance nearly all were men of
-high standing in society, and already known to the country as
-true patriots. They were not an assembly of political aspirants
-and adventurers who, for personal ends, had sought the
-high position they filled, but representative men who deeply
-felt that the best interests, if not the very existence of the communities
-they represented demanded of them measures as
-prudent and cautious as they were firm and uncompromising.
-They indorsed the action of the Massachusetts Convention;
-put forth a plain, well-considered declaration of colonial
-rights; enumerated instances in which these had been violated;
-effected a more efficient opposition to any trade with
-England until satisfaction could be obtained for injuries done.</p>
-
-<p>The moderation yet firmness of Congress met with very general
-approval. A few were in sympathy with the government,
-and the Quakers condemned everything they thought might
-bring on the country the calamities of war. All other religious
-bodies, and especially the pastors of the New England churches,
-without hesitation lent all their influence to the cause of freedom.
-Parliament now decided on more violent coercive
-measures. The policy of Pitt was rejected. The colonial
-agents, Franklin and others, were refused a hearing, and large
-military reënforcements ordered to America. The crisis had
-come sooner than some, who thought it inevitable, expected, but
-the citizens, cut off from all their sources of prosperity and denounced
-as rebels, were ready. The British garrison in Boston
-was strong, but the suffering people were unawed, and the
-commander of the post learned with some concern of the vigorous
-preparations for the impending conflict that were progressing
-in all parts of the province. Arms and other war
-material were, with all possible speed, collected and stored in
-different places. It was soon learned that notwithstanding the
-presence of the army and vigilance of the officers, large quantities
-of arms and ammunition had been smuggled out of Boston
-and stored at Concord, some eighteen miles distant.
-General Gage thought the time had come to stop these movements
-that might cause him serious trouble, and eighteen
-hundred of his infantry were sent to seize the stores at Concord.
-The plan of that first raid was supposed to be entirely secret.
-But somehow, Dr. Warren, a prominent Boston patriot, became
-apprised of it and spread the intelligence through the
-country in time to have the stores in part removed to a safer
-place. The troops next morning on reaching Lexington, a few
-miles from Concord, found a company of militia under arms,
-who were ordered to disperse, a volley was fired and eight men
-killed. At Concord the minute men endeavored to keep possession
-of a bridge, but were charged and driven from it. The
-object of the raid was in part accomplished. Some stores that
-could not be removed in time to save them were destroyed, but
-nothing of value could be taken away. The “Minute Men”
-were, by this time, coming from all quarters, and a very hasty
-retreat was found necessary. They were exposed to a galling
-fire from riflemen concealed on both sides of the road, while
-others pressed hard on their rear. Many fell, and but for reënforcements
-sent out to meet them, the whole command might
-have been cut off or captured. They lost that day not far
-from three hundred men. British soldiers and their officers
-gained some new ideas of the metal of the untrained militia
-with whom they had to deal. The war was now begun, the
-first blood shed, and the call to arms was promptly answered
-in all parts of the province. In a short time there were more
-men gathered about Boston with their rifles and shotguns than
-could be employed. The city was besieged, and in the
-trenches, amidst intense excitement, there was enough brave
-talk of driving the British into the sea. Through all the
-southern and middle colonies the news of the opening of the
-campaign called forth the strongest expressions of sympathy
-and prompt assurances of support in the common cause.
-Everywhere the patriots organized for defense and for the
-seizure of such military funds and stores as might be found at
-posts not sufficiently guarded.</p>
-
-<p>In May, 1775, Congress met again in Philadelphia and decided
-that as war had been commenced by the mother country
-the most active measures should be taken for defense. George
-Washington, of Virginia, was made commander-in-chief, and
-several Major and Adjutant Generals appointed.</p>
-
-<p>In the meantime the forces that held Gage shut up in Boston
-rapidly increased in numbers. Stark, Putnam, Green and Arnold,
-with their militia, hastened to the scene of action, eager
-to avenge the wrongs of their fellow citizens.</p>
-
-<p>In another quarter the eccentric Ethan Allen, with a company
-of Vermont mountaineers, made a dash as daring and
-successful as any during the war. The attention of the patriotic
-leaders was turned to the fortress at Ticonderoga, where immense
-stores were collected for the use of the British army.
-Allen resolved to surprise the garrison and capture the place.
-They reached the shore of the lake opposite Ticonderoga without
-being discovered, but found the means of transportation
-so limited that only eighty men succeeded in crossing. To
-delay was to fail, and the attack must be made at once. Allen
-and Arnold, who had joined the expedition as a private, rushed
-into the gateway of the fort, driving, and entering with the sentinel,
-closely followed by their men. The shouts of the audacious
-assailants, already within the fort, were such as few garrisons
-had heard. Not a gun had been discharged, but Allen’s
-men faced the barracks, while he rushed to the quarters of
-the commandant, and shouted, “Surrender this fort immediately.”
-“By what authority?” inquired the astounded officer,
-suddenly roused from his slumbers. “In the name of the Great
-Jehovah and of the Continental Congress,” said Allen. And
-there seemed to be no alternative. A fortress that cost England
-millions of dollars was captured in ten minutes by that
-little band of patriots. Twenty cannon and a vast quantity of
-all kinds of military stores fell into the hands of the Americans.</p>
-
-<p>In May of this year Generals Howe, Clinton, and Burgoyne
-arrived at Boston with reënforcements that increased the army
-holding the place to more than ten thousand men. General
-Gage, thus strengthened, became arrogant, issued his proclamation,
-denouncing those in arms as rebels, but offering pardon
-to any who would submit, excepting Adams and Hancock.
-These two, when delivered up or taken, were to suffer
-the penalty for treason.</p>
-
-<p>There were evident preparations for some movement from
-Boston—rumor said to burn the neighboring towns, and lay
-waste the country. To prevent this the Americans determined
-to seize and fortify Bunker Hill, which commanded the peninsula
-over which their enemies would seek to pass. On the
-night of the 16th of June, Colonel Prescott was sent with a
-thousand men to occupy the hill. The movement was skilfully
-carried out, and a position a little farther down the peninsula
-than that contemplated, and within easy cannon range of the
-city was fortified, the men working diligently till morning in
-digging trenches and constructing their fort. When the astonished
-general discovered what was done, he said: “We must
-take those works immediately.” After a fierce cannonade,
-that did little harm, the attack was made by General Howe,
-with three thousand regulars, determined to carry the works on
-the hill by assault. As the column moved forward in fine order,
-all the batteries within range opened fire on the intrenchments
-of the Americans, who were only about fifteen hundred
-in number, and having wrought all night, and till three p. m.,
-were suffering from hunger and fatigue. Happily the gunners
-did not get the range, or much disturb those in the trenches,
-who reserved their fire till the head of the column was within
-one hundred and fifty feet, when, at the command of Prescott,
-every gun was discharged with deliberate aim. The shock was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">[509]</a></span>
-terrible. Hundreds fell, and there was a precipitate retreat.
-At the foot of the hill they were re-formed, and made a second
-fierce assault, with a like result, the men in the trenches reserving
-their fire till the enemy were close at hand. The destruction
-was so terrible that nearly all the officers fell, and the
-shattered column returned in disorder. General Clinton, who
-had witnessed the unexpected repulse, hastened to the field
-with reinforcements, and the third attempt was more successful.
-The provincials had but little ammunition left, and were
-unable to repel the fresh assailants. Some had already leaped
-over the breastworks, and the brave defenders of the fort
-withdrew. In the retreat the lamented Warren fell. Though
-defeated it was a glorious day for the patriots. Generals Howe
-and Clinton had gained a victory, but at fearful cost. Two
-more such would have nearly blotted out that splendid army.</p>
-
-<p>They dared not venture into the country, but returned to Boston
-and were still closely besieged by Washington and his
-army. The siege was so pressed that it was difficult to subsist
-the army there, and to save the city from destruction they were
-allowed to embark the whole army on transports, taking with
-them many Tories who had been too open in their friendship
-for the Royalists to be safe if left behind. Of that class there
-were some in almost all communities, and during the bloody
-years that followed they both suffered much and caused much
-suffering. In some sections where they were numerous the citizen
-conflicts between Whigs and Tories, or Patriots and Loyalists
-were characterized by great bitterness and unmitigated cruelty
-on both sides. Hundreds were slain not in battle, but by the
-hands of assassins who were neighbors, and had been friends.</p>
-
-<p>For nearly a year no decisive battles were fought, though there
-was much skirmishing and much suffering, destruction of property
-and loss of life. The colonists were in an anomalous condition,
-still confessing themselves British subjects, and in the
-Episcopal churches repeating prayers for the king, while doing
-all in their power to resist his authority and destroy his
-armies.</p>
-
-<p>In June, 1776, a resolution similar to that passed by the Virginia
-Assembly, was discussed in Congress with much ability,
-and on the 4th of July the memorable Declaration of Independence,
-drawn up by Jefferson, with the assistance of Franklin
-and others, was adopted. The preamble, as remarkable for
-its finish as for clearness and strength, commences: “When
-in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one
-people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected
-them with another, and to assume among the nations of the
-earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature
-and nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect for the
-opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the
-causes which impel them to the separation.” After such a beginning
-there follows a clear, succinct, forcible statement of the
-wrongs endured, and the contemptuous rejection of all petitions
-for redress. The conclusion reached is in the following
-words: “These united colonies are, and of right ought to be,
-free and independent States, that they are absolved from all
-allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection
-between them and Great Britain is and ought to be totally
-dissolved.”</p>
-
-<p>For the maintenance of this declaration the signers pledged
-their property, lives and sacred honor.</p>
-
-<p>Hostilities were continued with, if possible, more determined
-energy on both sides. With some partial successes there followed
-a long series of disasters to the patriot cause, that at
-times seemed almost hopeless.</p>
-
-<p>In August Washington, anticipating an attack on New York,
-sent Putnam with nine hundred men to defend the place. They
-were defeated with heavy loss on Long Island. The enemy,
-however, did not gain much from the victory, as the patriots
-quietly crossed the river to New York in the night, and the victors
-had but possession of the island, and nothing more. In
-the city Washington himself took command, and had a large
-part of his available forces there. When the British fleet, that
-was expected, entered the harbor, any attempt further to defend
-the place would have been useless, and the patriot forces
-were withdrawn. Fort Washington, a place of great natural
-and artificial strength, on Manhattan Island, five miles from
-the city, was for some reason not evacuated when the army
-left, and was some time after attacked and forced to surrender.
-The assailants suffered great loss, but took the fort, and
-the garrison of two thousand men were crowded into the filthy
-New York military prisons. Washington retreated through
-New Jersey, closely pursued, but by great vigilance and skill
-avoided a conflict for which he was not prepared. It often requires
-more real generalship to conduct a retreat safely, than
-to make a successful assault, and the great American general,
-with an army so inferior in numbers and equipments, had
-much to do in that line during the struggle for independence.</p>
-
-<p>On the 8th of December he crossed the Delaware, taking with
-him or destroying all the boats within reach, and thus baffled his
-pursuer. Cornwallis found it necessary to wait for the freezing of
-the river, and reluctantly put his army into winter quarters in
-the nearest towns and villages. Two thousand Hessians, commanded
-by Colonel Rahl, occupied Trenton, and the other detachments
-were arranged so that all might proceed against
-Philadelphia soon as the river was bridged with ice. During
-the month Washington saw and seized the opportunity to strike
-a blow for his disheartened country. He planned to cross the
-river Christmas night, in three divisions, and attack the portion
-of the army at Trenton before daylight. The division led by
-the General himself and Sullivan succeeded, not without great
-difficulty because of the floating ice, in crossing some miles
-above the town. The others failed. Though delayed beyond
-the time intended, and without the support expected, the attempt
-must be made. So dividing those that were over into
-two bands, that the assault might be made on both sides at
-once, they approached rapidly. The Hessians were completely
-surprised, their Colonel killed at the first volley, and the whole
-regiment, thinking themselves surrounded, threw down their
-arms and begged for quarter. They were made prisoners of
-war, and before night their captors had them safe beyond the
-river. This at the time, and under all the circumstances, was
-an event of great importance, as it encouraged the soldiers
-and gave new hope to the country.</p>
-
-<p>Three days after, Washington with all his available force
-returned to Trenton, and on the day following, Cornwallis approached
-from Princeton with the main body of his army, determined
-to crush the resolute Americans. After much skirmishing
-Cornwallis attempted to force his way into the town,
-but was repulsed, and, as it was now evening, thought it prudent
-to wait for the morning. The position of the Americans,
-confronted with such superior numbers, was critical. To attempt
-to recross the Delaware was too hazardous, so it was
-promptly decided to withdraw quietly in the night, and by a
-circuitous route to strike the enemy at Princeton before his expectant
-antagonist could discover the movement. The baggage
-was safely removed, the campfires were lighted, and a guard
-left to keep them burning. The sentries walked their beats
-too, unconcernedly, till the morning light showed a deserted
-camp, and about the same time the roar of American cannon
-thirteen miles away told Cornwallis how he had been outgeneraled.
-A sharp battle was fought at Princeton, and Washington
-was again victorious, but the legions of the British army
-were within hearing. When they arrived the active enemy
-that had so annoyed and harmed them had departed, going
-northward. Again sadly disappointed, Cornwallis must needs
-hasten to New Brunswick, to protect the stores.</p>
-
-<p>It is impossible here even to mention the important events
-that followed. For weary months and years the terribly destructive
-war continued. Many campaigns were planned and
-conducted with great energy. Battles were fought in which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">[510]</a></span>
-the carnage was fearful. Ships were burned or sunk—strongholds
-were taken by siege or assault, and the garrisons defending
-them cut to pieces, or, as in some instances, cruelly massacred
-after they were surrendered. Towns and hamlets were
-burned, and large sections of country laid waste. For a time
-the greatest destruction was in the East and North, but when
-the work of death fairly commenced in the South blood flowed
-not less freely. In 1779 the principal theater of the war was in
-Georgia and the Carolinas, and the heaviest engagements were
-adverse to the Americans. Savannah and Charleston were
-captured and the whole states overrun by detachments of British
-soldiers who at first met with but little opposition. Very
-soon, however, the patriots, though unable by reason of their
-losses to take the field in force, renewed the contest under
-Sumter, Marrion, Pickens, and other daring leaders who continually
-harassed not only the British, but also the Tories, of
-whom there were great numbers in that region.</p>
-
-<p>In the North General Burgoyne, after two battles with General
-Gates, in both of which the Americans had the advantage,
-surrendered his whole army of seven thousand regulars, beside
-Indians and Canadians. This achievement, vastly important
-to the country, as it had influence in securing the powerful aid
-of France, gave Gates a standing higher than he deserved or
-could maintain. On account of his victory at Saratoga he was
-sent to recover South Carolina; but in his first encounter with
-Cornwallis at Camden, he was routed, with the loss of one
-thousand men, and with the remnant of his army fled to North
-Carolina.</p>
-
-<p>After obtaining aid from France, though some serious disasters
-were suffered, and the faint-hearted were at times discouraged,
-the cause of the country gained strength till final success
-was assured.</p>
-
-<p>In 1781, at Cowpens, S. C., on January 17th, General Morgan
-won a brilliant victory over the British under Tarleton;
-and the bloody battle at Eutaw Springs nearly terminated the
-war in South Carolina. In Virginia, Cornwallis, who was now
-opposed by La Fayette, Wayne and Steuben, had fortified himself
-at Yorktown, where he had a large army. Meanwhile, the
-American army of the North, under Washington, and the
-French army under Count de Rochambeau formed a junction
-on the Hudson which seemed to threaten an attack on Clinton
-in New York, and effectually prevented him from sending aid
-to the army shut up at Yorktown. By a sudden diversion, and
-before the movement was discovered, the allied armies, 12,000
-strong, were far on their way toward Yorktown, and arrived
-without hindrance, on the 28th of September. The siege was
-but short. On the 19th of October Cornwallis surrendered,
-with his whole army of 7,000 men. This victory substantially
-terminated the conflict, and secured American independence.
-Thus ended the war which, in the language of Pitt, “Was conceived
-in injustice, nurtured in folly, and whose footsteps were
-marked with slaughter and devastation. The nation was
-drained of its best blood and its vital resources, for which
-nothing was received in return but a series of inefficient victories
-and disgraceful defeats; victories obtained over men fighting
-in the holy cause of liberty—defeats which filled the land
-with mourning for the loss of dear and valuable relations,
-slain in a detested and impious quarrel.”</p>
-
-<p>During the seven years of blood Great Britain sent to the
-war she was waging to subdue her colonists 134,000 soldiers
-and seamen. The forces of the United States and their allies
-consisted of 230,000 regular soldiers, and some 56,000 militia.
-Those who perished in battle or otherwise, by reason of the
-war, reached some hundreds of thousands; other hundreds of
-thousands were made widows or orphans, while the cost in actual
-expenditures and property destroyed must be told by
-hundreds of millions. And yet, for America, the sacrifice was
-not too great. The heritage of freedom left us is more than
-worth it all.</p>
-
-<p class="center smaller">[End of Required Reading for 1883-4.]</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2 id="NIGHT">NIGHT.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p class="center">By CHARLES GRINDROD.</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">The sunset fades into a common glow:</div>
-<div class="verse i2">A deeper shadow all the valley fills:</div>
-<div class="verse">The trees are ghostlier in the fields below:</div>
-<div class="verse i2">The river runs more darkly through the hills:</div>
-<div class="verse i2">Only the Night-bird’s voice the coppice thrills,</div>
-<div class="verse">Stirring the very leaves into a sense.</div>
-<div class="verse i2">A witching stillness holds the breath of things.</div>
-<div class="verse">Earth has put on her garb of reverence,</div>
-<div class="verse i2">As when a nun within a cloister sings</div>
-<div class="verse i2">To mourn a passing soul before it wings.</div>
-<div class="verse">Silent as dew now falls the straight-winged Night.</div>
-<div class="verse i2">Clear overhead (God’s still imaginings),</div>
-<div class="verse">Shining like Hope, through very darkness bright,</div>
-<div class="verse">Star follows star, till heaven is all alight.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2 id="ECCENTRIC_AMERICANS">ECCENTRIC AMERICANS.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p class="center">By COLEMAN E. BISHOP.</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3>VII.—THE WELL-BALANCED ECCENTRIC.</h3>
-
-<p>At length we have an Eccentric American who was practical,
-successful, useful, and happy; who was a conservative
-radical, a laughing philanthropist, a non-resisting hero, a
-lovely fighting Quaker, the popular champion of an unpopular
-cause, and—most singular of all!—a Christian in fact and act,
-though counted a heretic by evangelicals, and excommunicated
-by his own sect. It is just because his life was gentle, and the
-elements so mixed in him, that Isaac T. Hopper takes rank as
-one of the grandest and rarest of Eccentrics. For, as the
-reader may know, we have declared from the outset of this
-series that the true man in a false world is necessarily eccentric;
-that uniformity is always at the expense of principle.
-“Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man
-picked out often thousand.” And isn’t that odd?</p>
-
-<p>The key to this symmetrical eccentricity of friend Hopper is
-found in the counterbalancing qualities of his character. A
-powerful will was offset by a conscience equally imperative. A
-native bravery was balanced by softness of heart, so that he
-was at once incapable of fear and of cruelty; combativeness
-was mollified by simplicity of manner and frankness of speech.
-A genius for finesse was by an all-pervading benevolence and
-love of justice enlisted in the service of the slave and the convict;
-a lively sense of humor sweetened the austerities of a
-formal religion, softened the asperities of a life of warfare and
-informed great natural pride with geniality. With less love of
-abstract justice, he might have been a great lawyer; with less
-conscience and benevolence he might have been a great soldier;
-with less earnestness and dignity he might have been a
-great comedian; with less philanthropy he might have been a
-great business man; with less executive will he might have
-been a great preacher. Balanced as these qualities were, he
-was a rare Eccentric—being lawyer, soldier, comedian, business
-man and minister combined.</p>
-
-<p>“The boy was father of the man,” in his case. Born in 1771
-to poor parents, farmers in New Jersey, he early made manifest
-extraordinary qualities.</p>
-
-<p><i>Bravery.</i>—A cosset lamb which he had reared was
-seized by a foraging party of British soldiers from Philadelphia
-and cast bound into their wagon. The lad of ten
-years ran and climbed into the vehicle, cut the cords
-with a rusty jack-knife, and then stoutly resisted the captors,
-until the officer in command, attracted by the outcry, rode up
-and ordered the lamb restored, out of admiration for the wee
-patriot’s pluck and devotion. He would fight any man on behalf
-of all of his pet animals, of which he always had a menagerie,
-caught and tamed by aid of a certain brute free-masonry
-which he possessed.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">[511]</a></span></p>
-
-<p><i>Justice.</i>—Isaac and his brother trapped partridges. One day
-the former found one in his brother’s trap and none in his own;
-first removing the bird to his own trap he carried it home, saying
-he took it out of his trap—the little lawyer! But before
-morning conscience asserted itself, he confessed the deception
-and restored the game—the little justice!</p>
-
-<p><i>Humor.</i>—His love of mischief kept him in continual disgrace,
-and the house and school in continual turmoil—albeit
-his love of justice usually led to reparation of damages; if he
-got others into scrapes he was quite willing to shoulder the
-consequences; he could fill a schoolmate’s dinner pail with
-sand, and then dry all tears by giving up his own lunch. One
-night he went to see old Polly milk. Fun soon got the better
-of the boy, he got a twig, the cow got a sensation, and Polly
-got a surprise. There was a lacteal cataclysm and a <i>tableau
-vivant</i>; mingled strains of wild juvenile laughter and wilder
-feminine screams, accompanied by a rude barbaric clangor of
-cow-bell and tin pail. The boy went slippered and supperless
-to bed, but he lay there hungry and happy, waking the
-wild echoes of his raftered chamber with shouts of laughter
-over the persisting vision of how the maid turned pale and
-flew, and the cow turned pail and ran, with altitudinous tail and
-head. The artless sports of our childhood are often our most
-enduring joys, and Father Hopper never forgot this <i>chef
-d’œuvre</i> of his childhood, though he was only five years old when
-he thus essayed the part of <i>Puck</i>; for he afterward secured the
-cow’s bell, and for fifty years used it as a dinner bell, refusing
-to substitute a more melodious, but less memorial monitor. He
-immensely enjoyed reviving at once the household and his
-own thoughts with it, and often with a sedate Quaker chuckle
-told the story when he tolled the bell.</p>
-
-<p>Not the least curious antithesis in this mixed character was
-his open-heartedness and cunning; his simplicity of speech
-and shrewdness of management. From the age of nine years
-he marketed the farm produce in Philadelphia, and there was
-known as “The Little Governor,” for his precocious dignity.
-When asked the price of a pair of fowls, he replied, “My
-father told me to sell them for fifty cents if I could, if not, to
-take forty.” He got the fifty before he would part with them,
-however—just as, years on, he would frankly give up his plans
-to an antagonist and still beat him.</p>
-
-<p>Isaac’s sympathy with the enslaved was aroused as early as
-the age of nine by listening to the harrowing narrative of a
-native African captive; and he was only sixteen years old
-when he assisted to liberate a slave who had acquired the right
-of freedom by residence in Philadelphia. The lad was at that
-time apprentice to a tailor, his uncle, in the city. Slavery
-still existed in all the states of the union, though the movement
-for its gradual abolishment had been begun in several of
-them. Pennsylvania had taken a long step in this direction
-by enacting the gradual emancipation of her own citizens’
-slaves, and decreeing that any slave from another state, coming
-by his owner’s consent into Pennsylvania and there abiding
-continuously for six months, should be free; and that any
-slave landing there from a foreign country should immediately
-become free by that fact. It was in enforcing this law, as also
-in preventing the kidnaping of free negroes from Pennsylvania,
-that Hopper soon distinguished himself. Philadelphia
-became a modern city of refuge, and Friend Hopper a recognized
-deliverer of fugitives and freedmen, from either Southern
-or Northern states. It is thus a fact, not often remarked as to
-the relation of human slavery to our government, that the first
-blows at the institution were the work of state rights; and that
-the remedy provided for this trenching of one state upon the
-institutions of another, in the fugitive slave law of Fillmore’s
-time, was an encroachment of federal power over the previously
-reserved rights of the states. The National Anti-Slavery
-Society was formed many years later; the national conscience
-was not yet quickened on this question; but Philadelphia had
-even then a local anti-slavery society, and with it Friend Hopper
-identified himself. He made himself master of all the
-laws, findings, decisions and proceedings relating to slavery
-and manumission, as well as, incidentally, an adept in the
-proverbially intricate Pennsylvania laws of contracts, property,
-evidence, and general processes, so that he soon became the
-best authority thereon in Philadelphia. In fact, he was the
-embodiment of that enigma which, it is alleged, could “puzzle
-a Philadelphia lawyer.” His standing in court became so well
-recognized that no lawyer was anxious to take a case against
-him. “You had better consult Mr. Hopper,” said a judge to a
-veteran counselor who asked his opinion on a slave case before
-him, “he knows more law on these cases than you and I
-both together.” “I thought I knew something of law, but it
-seems I do not,” said a magistrate petulantly, upon being
-tripped up in a slave case by Friend Hopper, a layman. The
-latter did not scruple to use in behalf of freedom all the technicalities
-and delays of law; and his craft in these devices was
-not the less effective because his openness of manner made
-him seem an unsophisticated and rather simple fellow. His
-dignity, simplicity and directness of speech in quaint Quaker
-phraseology, compelled the respect of courts and won the confidence
-of juries. If needs were he would procrastinate and
-continue a case in court three or four years, until the master
-would tire out and sell the manumission of the slave for a
-nominal sum. In case of attempted kidnaping he took the
-aggressive against the abductors, and forced them to pay
-roundly for the benefit of the negroes; generally those who
-came to carry off others were glad enough to escape themselves.
-Hopper and other friends advanced large sums of
-money for the purchase of manumissions, which were invariably
-repaid, in part or entire, from the subsequent earnings of
-the freedmen.</p>
-
-<p>Unbroken success at length brought Friend Hopper a factitious
-reputation, insomuch that it was difficult to enlist Philadelphia
-officers of law heartily against him; if a magistrate reluctantly
-granted a process, the constables more timidly executed
-it. “Did you say I dared not grant a warrant to search
-your house?” demanded the Mayor upon one occasion.</p>
-
-<p>“Indeed I did say so, and I now repeat it,” rejoined the
-imperturbable Quaker. “I am a man of established reputation;
-I am not a suspicious character.” (This was what the
-world calls “bluffing.” The slave was at that moment locked
-in his house.)</p>
-
-<p>“Is not this man’s slave in your house?” asked the Mayor.</p>
-
-<p>“Thou hast no right to ask that question, friend Mayor. A
-man is not bound to inform against himself. Thou well
-knowest the penalty for secreting a slave.”</p>
-
-<p>Getting no evidence sufficient for a search-warrant, his house
-was watched day and night for a week. Friend Hopper, with
-perfect urbanity, tendered the planter the use of his warm parlor
-as a guard-house, for the nights were cold. This was surlily
-refused. In the morning he had a good hot breakfast
-prepared for the shivering men outside, but they dared not
-accept it. They had learned that Hopper was most dangerous
-when most agreeable, and feared a trick from the gift-bearing
-Greek. A ruse <i>was</i> preparing for them. At night a free colored
-man was employed to run out of the house. The guard
-sprang out of their hiding and seized him, but immediately released
-him on perceiving their mistake. Hopper arrested
-them and put them under peace bonds. This made them cautious.
-The next night the same negro made another rush and
-was not stopped. The third night it was the slave who did the
-rushing; he ran past the irresolute guard and escaped to other
-hiding, until Hopper could negotiate his manumission with the
-discouraged master.</p>
-
-<p>On one occasion he instituted a fictitious suit for debt against
-a freedman in order to gain time to secure evidence of his
-freedom. On another, he offered to become bound <i>to the
-United States</i> for the return of a slave to court, and the simple
-magistrate so entered the recognizance. When the day came<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">[512]</a></span>
-Hopper was there but the slave was not, and magistrate, owner
-and lawyer for the first time discovered that the bond was
-worthless, as the United States could not be a party to it.
-Again he entered into an undertaking to produce a slave or pay
-$500 for his freedom—after his master had once before agreed to
-free him for $150. He produced the slave, and professed to
-have failed in raising the $500, and demanded the return of his
-bond. The slave, previously instructed, as soon as the bond
-touched Hopper’s hand, bolted and escaped by a back door
-and an alley. The master was so furious at this trick that he
-assaulted several free colored people, for which he was arrested
-and threatened with such heavy penalties that he was
-glad to remit the $150 first promised him for a bill of manumission,
-and to pay some damages to the other negroes besides.</p>
-
-<p>“There is no use trying to capture a runaway slave in Philadelphia,”
-exclaimed an irate and discouraged master. “I
-believe the devil himself could not catch them when they once
-get here.”</p>
-
-<p>“That is very likely,” answered Friend Hopper with a
-twinkling eye; “but I think he would have less difficulty in
-catching the masters, being so much more familiar with them.”</p>
-
-<p>In dealing with so desperate a class of men as usually made
-a business of man-chasing, incensed as they were by his successful
-tactics, Hopper was often in extreme peril, and he
-always showed a coolness and dexterity equal to the most
-daring of them. His adventures and escapes outdo romance.
-After making all allowance for supposed consciousness of the
-weakness of a bad cause on the part of his antagonists, and
-the moral effect of his name; after picturing his insensibility
-to fear, his calm, good-natured, and dignified bearing, and
-above all, that remarkable will-power, under which officers in
-the rightful discharge of their duties had been known to surrender
-to him—maugre all this, it seems wonderful that in the hundreds
-of cases he had to do with, he neither used force nor
-(save once) suffered by force. It seems as if there could have
-been found some one man in the United States cool enough to
-face down or reckless enough to strike down this man of peace—but
-there was not. It must have been the power of passiveness,
-the irresistibleness of non-resistance. “The weak alone
-are strong.” This is Scriptural eccentricity. Even in this
-world of force he who, when smitten on one cheek, can turn
-the other, may conquer—though this is a definition of success
-by cheek that is not usually accepted.</p>
-
-<p>The solitary occasion upon which Friend Hopper suffered
-violence was when a posse of kidnapers guarding a negro
-threw him bodily from a second story window. Though severely
-hurt, as it afterward turned out, he gained a reëntrance,
-and while the guard were yet congratulating themselves on
-being well rid of him, he walked into the room, cut the captive’s
-bonds and secured his escape. He seemed to bear a
-charmed life, and when years later he went to Europe, he
-found the reputation of a wizard had preceded him.</p>
-
-<p>These efforts lasted during his forty years’ residence in Philadelphia,
-and continued after his removal to New York (1829).
-Not less than one thousand persons owed their escape from
-servitude to him, some of them becoming useful members of
-society. One was a missionary to Sierra Leone, one a bishop,
-several were preachers and teachers. So this one tailor made
-nine men multiplied an hundred fold.</p>
-
-<p>He made other than black men. His labors in behalf of
-prison reform and for the raising of fallen men and abandoned
-women, and the relief of the unfortunate, if less exciting,
-were not less apt to draw our admiration and sympathy.
-The story of “The Umbrella Girl,” which has traveled the
-rounds of the press for forty years, is a good example of his
-tact in conducting a delicate case to a happy end; one hardly
-knows which most to admire, the goodness or the shrewdness
-of the philanthropist. His biography, by Lydia Maria Child,
-abounds in narratives of these acts; it would make an admirable
-Sunday-school library volume.</p>
-
-<p>His success in reclaiming the lost and despairing was largely
-due to two beautiful traits, viz.: his confidence in human nature
-and his patient long-suffering. Seventy and seven times
-could he forgive and lift again a brother, because he believed
-there was an imperishable spark of the divine there. He was
-accustomed to say that there was not one among the prisoners
-in the Philadelphia penitentiary with whom he would be afraid
-to trust himself alone by night with large sums of money in his
-pocket.</p>
-
-<p>His biographer tells the following in point:</p>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p>One of the prisoners, who had been convicted of manslaughter, became
-furious, in consequence of being threatened with a whipping.
-When they attempted to bring him out of his dungeon to receive punishment,
-he seized a knife and a club, rushed back again, and swore he
-would kill the first person who came near him. Being a very strong
-man, and in a state of madness, no one dared to approach him. They
-tried to starve him into submission, but finding he was not to be subdued
-that way, they sent for Friend Hopper, as they were accustomed
-to do in all such difficult emergencies. He went boldly into the cell,
-looked the desperado calmly in the face, and said, “It is foolish for
-thee to contend with the authorities, thou wilt be compelled to yield at
-last. I will inquire into thy case. If thou hast been unjustly dealt by,
-I promise thee it shall be remedied.” This kind and sensible remonstrance
-had the desired effect. From that time forward he had great
-influence over the ferocious fellow, who was always willing to be
-guided by his advice, and finally became one of the most reasonable
-and orderly inmates of the prison.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<p>Charity for convicts was truly eccentric in that day. The
-general sentiment regarding prisoners and prison management
-was far different from what it now is. It was with great difficulty
-that consent could be got to even hold religious services
-in prison; the authorities declaring that the prisoners would
-rise, kill the minister, escape in a body, and burn and kill indiscriminately.
-At the first service (1787) they had a loaded
-cannon mounted on the rostrum, by the side of the messenger
-of Christ, a man standing by with lighted match during the
-prayer and preaching, the prisoners being carefully arranged in
-a solid column in front of the cannon. Thus was accompanied
-the first preaching to prisoners in this country. Deplorable as
-was their situation behind the bars, their punishment was
-hardly less after their release. “Who passes here leaves hope
-behind” might have been written over the prison door outside
-and inside. (Was the North then more humane in its regard of
-convicts than the South was in its regard of slaves? In which
-respect has public sentiment more improved, and in what
-states most?)</p>
-
-<p>Among the insane, too, he was a missionary. He had the
-clairvoyant sense to understand, and the mysterious power to
-control them, such as made him when a boy a tamer of wild
-animals. In fact, among all the depraved and unfortunate
-elements of society his face was a benediction, his tones pulsated
-hope, his hand lifted to better lives. I fancy that his
-cheery, hearty, homely, sympathetic presence came from the
-feminine side of his nature, while the strong uplift and commanding
-presence came from the masculine side; and that he
-seemed both mother and father to the unfortunate; to be a
-representative of both home and heaven. The grandest natures
-that walk the earth are these congenital marriages, combinations
-of the two sexes in one person. The weakest, those
-which are only masculine or only feminine.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“The bravest are the tenderest,</div>
-<div class="verse i1">The loving are the daring.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Friend Hopper’s appearance was much in his favor in this
-work. His erect form, jet black, curly hair, plain, rich Quaker
-costume, and dignified port made him conspicuous in a crowd.
-But his face was the study. Its lines mingled of strength and
-tenderness gave it that representation of benign efficiency
-which sculptors and limners try to give to their personifications
-of divine attributes. Humboldt’s was one of those faces—and
-I remember once seeing some children, constructing a “play”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">[513]</a></span>
-world, paste a likeness of Humboldt to the ceiling. When
-asked what that was for, they explained with perfect sincerity
-and reverence, “That is God.” Happy the childhood that
-hath received such beautiful conceptions of the All Father!
-It was often remarked that Hopper’s face bore a strong resemblance
-to that of Napoleon Bonaparte. Joseph Bonaparte,
-when he resided at Bordentown, frequently commented on the
-remarkable likeness, and declared that Isaac T. Hopper could
-easily excite a revolution in Paris.</p>
-
-<p>In 1829 Friend Hopper had reduced himself to insolvency
-by the expenditure of money and time on behalf of others, and
-he closed his tailoring business at Philadelphia, removed to
-New York, and accepted the agency for the publications of the
-Anti-Slavery Society. Here his activity in behalf of slaves got
-him worse enmity than in Philadelphia it did. New York’s
-commercial interests made her a Northern stronghold of pro-slavery
-sentiment. The press was violent against the Abolitionists,
-the courts were unfriendly, and “Judge Lynch” more
-than once summarily adjudicated their cases. One of these
-mobs directed their attack toward Friend Hopper’s store, after
-having sacked several places. He was apprised of the danger
-but refused to budge, to call in help, to close his doors, or to
-put up his shutters. He received the howling rioters, standing
-impassively on the steps. Not a word was uttered on either
-side; the mob stopped its course there, because the sight of its
-master compelled it to pause, and presently it passed on to other
-spoliation. It was quite fit that in the same city twenty-five
-years later, the mob which hung negroes to lamp posts and
-burned colored orphan asylums should single out the house of
-Isaac T. Hopper’s daughter for destruction, while she was away
-nursing soldiers in the hospitals!</p>
-
-<p>The commercial spirit of slavery invaded every interest of
-society and every church. Even the Quakers became infected,
-insomuch that Friend Hopper and others were tried and expelled
-the society for their connection with anti-slavery publications.
-Thus the persecuted sect of old turned persecutors.
-This was the severest penalty this Eccentric was called on to
-pay for his adherence to his work; for he loved the faith and
-associations of his fathers. It was he who remained orthodox
-and regular, however, and the society which became eccentric
-to true Quakerism; they narrowed and declined. “His character
-grew larger and his views more liberal, after the bonds
-which bound him to a sect were cut asunder,” says his Quaker
-biographer; “it is astonishing how troublesome a living soul
-proves to be when they try to shut it up within the narrow limits
-of a drowsy sect.” He lived to be solicited to return to the society,
-and to decline a connection with a church which he
-thought had abandoned its own faith and practice.</p>
-
-<p>In New York Friend Hopper also continued his work on behalf
-of prisoners and offenders. Public interest at length
-awoke; the Prison Association was formed, and organized
-efforts began in that direction. Father Hopper was made its
-agent, and he became a very active one, for though seventy-four
-years old, his movements were as elastic, his spirit as
-young, and his hair as unstreaked of white as ever. In the
-legal relations of this work, Friend Hopper was frequently before
-the legislature and the governor of the state, and his appeals
-uniformly secured ameliorations of law or pardon of
-convicts. “Friend Hopper, I will pardon any convict whom you
-say you conscientiously believe I ought to pardon,” said Governor
-Young. Hopper always addressed his excellency as
-“Esteemed friend, John Young,” and the Governor in reply
-adopted the Quaker “thou” and “thee.” When he was
-seventy-eight years old the Prison Association struck a bronze
-medallion likeness of Hopper, from the fine portrait by the artist
-Page, representing him raising a prisoner from the ground, and
-bearing the striking text:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“To seek and save that which was lost.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>No one this side of the White Throne knows how many he
-was instrumental in rescuing from worse than death. One
-whom he had lifted from prison, from the insane asylum, from
-the gutter many times, and at last made a safe, good, and
-happy woman, thus wrote him:</p>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p>“Father Hopper, you first saw me in prison, and visited me. You
-followed me to the asylum. You did not forsake me. You have changed
-a bed of straw to a bed of down. May heaven bless and reward you for
-it. No tongue can express the gratitude I feel. Many are the hearts
-you have made glad. Suppose all you have dragged out of one place
-and another were to stand before you at once! I think you would have
-more than you could shake hands with in a month; and I know you
-would shake hands with them all.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<p>Isaac T. Hopper’s democratic spirit was one of the most conspicuous
-of his minor traits. It was founded in his natural lack
-of reverence and intense love of justice, and fostered by his
-religious training and political experience. He came honestly
-by it. His mother revealed it in her parting injunction to him
-upon his leaving home: “My son, you are now going forth to
-make your own way in the world. Always remember that you
-are as good as any other person; but remember also that you
-are no better.” Fowler, the phrenologist, made a happy guess
-when he said of Hopper:</p>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p>“He has very little reverence, and stands in no awe of the powers
-that be. He is emphatically republican in feeling and character. He
-has very little credulity; he understands just when and where to take
-men and things.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<p>How remarkable was the benevolence of a man thus keen-sighted
-for human defects, and immovable by human excellence,
-that he became so great a philanthropist; but for this
-counterbalance of sympathy and justice he would have been a
-cynic—with his keen wit, a satirist. His democratic manners
-showed more conspicuously in the old country than here. The
-following incidents illustrate his irreverence and coolness:</p>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p>When in Bristol, he asked permission to look at the interior of the
-cathedral. He had been walking about some little time when a rough
-looking man said to him in a very surly tone, “Take off your hat, sir!”</p>
-
-<p>He replied very courteously, “I have asked permission to enter here
-to gratify my curiosity as a stranger. I hope there is no offense.”</p>
-
-<p>“Take off your hat!” rejoined the rude man. “If you don’t, I’ll
-take it off for you.”</p>
-
-<p>Friend Hopper leaned on his cane, looked him full in the face, and
-answered very coolly, “If thou dost, I hope thou wilt send it to my
-lodgings; for I shall have need of it this afternoon. I lodge at No. 35,
-Lower Crescent, Clifton.” The place designated was about a mile
-from the cathedral. The man stared at him as if puzzled whether he
-were talking to an insane person or not. When the imperturbable
-Quaker had seen all he cared to see, he deliberately walked away.</p>
-
-<p>At Westminster Abbey he paid the customary fee of two shillings
-sixpence for admission. The doorkeeper followed him, saying, “You
-must uncover yourself, sir.”</p>
-
-<p>“Uncover myself,” exclaimed the Friend, with an affectation of ignorant
-simplicity. “What dost thou mean? Must I take off my
-coat?”</p>
-
-<p>“Your coat!” responded the man, smiling. “No, indeed, I mean
-your hat.”</p>
-
-<p>“And what should I take off my hat for?” he inquired.</p>
-
-<p>“Because you are in a church, sir,” answered the doorkeeper.</p>
-
-<p>“I see no church here,” rejoined the Quaker. “Perhaps thou
-meanest the house where the church assembles. I suppose thou art
-aware that it is the <i>people</i>, not the <i>building</i>, that constitutes a church,
-sir?”</p>
-
-<p>The idea seemed new to the man, but he merely repeated, “You
-must take off your hat, sir.”</p>
-
-<p>But the Friend inquired, “What for? On account of these images?
-Thou knowest Scripture commands us not to worship graven images.”</p>
-
-<p>The man persisted in saying that no person could be permitted to
-pass through the church without uncovering his head. “Well, friend,”
-rejoined Isaac, “I have some conscientious scruples on that subject; so
-give me back my money and I will go out.”</p>
-
-<p>The reverential habits of the doorkeeper were not quite strong<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">[514]</a></span>
-enough to compel him to that sacrifice; and he walked away without
-saying anything more on the subject.</p>
-
-<p>When Friend Hopper visited the House of Lords, he asked the sergeant-at-arms
-if he might sit on the throne. He replied, “No, sir. No
-one but his majesty sits there.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wherein does his majesty differ from other men?” inquired he.
-“If his head were cut off, wouldn’t he die?”</p>
-
-<p>“Certainly he would,” replied the officer.</p>
-
-<p>“So would an American,” rejoined Friend Hopper. As he spoke
-he stepped up to the gilded railing that surrounded the throne, and
-tried to open the gate. The officer told him it was locked. “Well,
-won’t the same key that locked it unlock it?” inquired he. “Is this
-the key hanging here?”</p>
-
-<p>Being informed that it was, he took it down and unlocked the gate.
-He removed the satin covering from the throne, carefully dusting the
-railing with his handkerchief before he hung the satin over it, and then
-seated himself in the royal chair. “Well,” said he, “do I look anything
-like his majesty?”</p>
-
-<p>The man seemed embarrassed, but smiled as he answered, “Why,
-sir, you certainly fill the throne very respectably.”</p>
-
-<p>There were several noblemen in the room, who seemed to be extremely
-amused by these unusual proceedings.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<p>Father Hopper lived verily to a “green old age.” On his
-eightieth birthday he thus wrote to his youngest daughter,
-Mary:</p>
-
-<p>“My eye is not dim, nor my natural force abated. My head
-is well covered with hair, which still retains its usual glossy,
-dark color, with but few gray hairs sprinkled about. My life
-has been prolonged beyond most, and has been truly a chequered
-scene. Mercy and kindness have followed me thus
-far, and I have faith that they will continue with me to the
-end.”</p>
-
-<p>A few months later, going to visit a discharged convict for
-whom the association had built a shop far up in the city, Friend
-Hopper took a fatal cold. It was a long and painful sickness,
-but he restrained his tendency to groan by singing, and said:
-“There is no cloud. There is nothing in the way. Nothing
-troubles me.” His heart was with his past work. His son-in-law
-wrote: “Reminiscences are continually falling from his
-lips, like leaves in autumn from an old forest tree; not, indeed
-green, but rich in the colors that are of the tree, and characteristic.
-I have never seen so beautiful a close to a good man’s
-life.” On the last day he said: “I seem to hear voices singing,
-‘We have come to take thee home.’” And again he spoke low
-to his daughter, “Maria, is there anything peculiar in this room?”
-“No; why do you ask that question?” “Because,” said the dying
-patriarch, “you all look so beautiful; and the covering on
-the bed hath such glorious colors as I never saw. But perhaps
-I had better not have said anything about it.”</p>
-
-<p>His last act was characteristic. Calling for his box of private
-papers he took out one and asked to have it destroyed,
-lest it should do some injury. He confided to his eldest daughter
-as a precious keepsake a little yellow paper, fastened by a
-rusty pin; it was the first love letter of his first love, her
-mother, written when she and he were fourteen years old,
-children in school. Love of justice and love of love in his last
-breath!</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<p>Truth is the source of every good to gods and men. He who
-expects to be blest and fortunate in this world should be a partaker
-of it from the earliest moment of his life, that he may live
-as long as possible a person of truth; for such a man is trustworthy.
-But that man is untrustworthy who loveth a lie in his
-heart; and if it be told involuntary, and in mere wantonness,
-he is a fool. In neither case can they be envied; for every
-knave and shallow dunce is without real friends. As time
-passes on to morose old age, he becomes known, and has prepared
-for himself at the end of his life a dreary solitude; so
-that, whether his associates and children be alive or not, his
-life becomes nearly equally a state of isolation.—<i>Plato.</i></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2 id="WHAT_SHALL_WE_DO_WITH_THE">WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THE INEBRIATES?</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p class="smaller hanging">Synopsis of a lecture delivered on Saturday, April 12, in the National Museum,
-at Washington, D. C., by Dr. W. W. Godding, in charge of the Government Hospital
-for the Insane at Washington, D. C.</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p>The profound interest which I feel for this subject is in sympathy
-with certain words of Terence: “I am a man, and nothing
-that concerns a man do I deem a matter of indifference to
-me.” This sentiment is to be commended to the scientists of
-the Christian era. Entitled, then, to the grave consideration of
-humanity, is the miserable inebriate. The study of this subject
-has both a biological and anthropological bearing. The former
-defines the protoplasm—the wonderful beginning of existence—the
-subject in hand demonstrates the destructive oxidation of
-the soul in the presence of alcohol, the deterioration of vital
-energy, and a misspent life. Again, the anthropologist studies
-man in his present and primeval existence, delving into burial
-mounds and bone cases to spell out the lessons learned by
-each succeeding generation in the great struggle for existence.</p>
-
-<p>Of man it has been written: “How noble in reason! how infinite
-in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable!
-in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like
-a God!” But by saturating his brain with whiskey, how soon
-would the godlike man become debased lower than the meanest
-brute. Truly here in the nineteenth century—not in the old
-red sandstone or in the silurian beds—but right here in this
-day appears what might be called the “missing link” in anthropological
-studies.</p>
-
-<p>What is to be done with the inebriate? Prohibition, total
-abstinence, and women’s crusades have struggled with the demon
-of drunkenness, but its throne has not yet been demolished.
-Its dominion was set up among men long before the
-Macedonian conqueror, with heel planted upon the neck of a
-prostrate world, was vanquished by it, and its temples were
-already hoary when the old Roman worshiped Bacchus under
-the vines. In the history of the world it has been more potent
-than Christianity in winning the savage tribes, and at the same
-time has done more to depauperize Christian nations than all
-other calamities put together. The subject of intemperance
-and its cure present the most important social problem of the
-day for both philanthropist and legislator. However, much
-good has been brought about by the moral forces of society
-and the benevolent organizations, toward the extinction of the
-vice, yet it seems that its utter annihilation is entirely beyond
-the reach of all influences. Shakspere well described this
-lurking remnant of a vice not wholly to be controlled, when he
-said, “I have lost the immortal part, sir, of myself, and what
-remains is bestial.” There has been too much nonsense in
-dealing with the inebriate. The world has laughed too long at
-the noisy, reeling comedy daily enacted on our streets, and is
-unmindful too often of the corresponding silent tragedy taking
-place at home. Patient women are not unfrequently found
-wearing away in gloom what might have been a happy life,
-looking for the daily return of a drunken husband. Many a
-death is attributed in the obituary columns of our papers to
-Bright’s disease, or pneumonia, when in reality whiskey should
-take all the blame.</p>
-
-<p>The indiscriminate commitment of the inebriate to the hospital
-for the insane is a grievous wrong. Genuine cases of a
-real insanity, resulting from dipsomania, are indeed to be found,
-but it is absurd to class any considerable portion of the inebriates
-in this category. The hospital for the insane is, however,
-preferred to the workhouse, as announcing less publicly the
-disgrace of the victim, and therefore it is that dipsomania is so
-often stretched into insanity. With some physicians inebriety
-is confounded with insanity, while others deny the existence of
-an insanity whose sign is a passion for drink, and accordingly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">[515]</a></span>
-fail to distinguish dipsomania from drunkenness or crime.
-These points need not, however, be discussed in a lecture intended
-to treat the subject socially. Social science asks whether
-this inebriety is a crime or a disease. The law classes drunkenness
-among crimes, and sends the offenders to penal institutions;
-but how often do friends, unwilling to see the victims of
-intemperance committed with the felons, bring to bear on the
-case powerful arguments to show that the mind is diseased,
-and thus have him transferred from the gaol to the lunatic asylum,
-where he is evidently out of place as soon as the fumes of
-alcohol have left the brain. Inebriety is both a crime and a
-disease, and owing to a want of recognition of this truth on
-the part of philanthropists, much work and intended good have
-been wasted. When it is regarded by the law as an <i>iniquitous
-disease</i>, and provided for by the law with a <i>curative punishment</i>,
-then will the community at large be afforded a relief
-which might also effect the recovery of the victim.</p>
-
-<p>As to the vices of drunkenness and opium consumption,
-women are probably as much addicted to the latter as men,
-while drunkenness counts many more victims among the
-males. The former is a social vice, the latter a solitary evil.
-The latter injures none but the consumer, leaving out of consideration
-its power to unfit the mind for business, and thus
-injure the other members of the family. Through persistent
-indulgence in opium the mind at last suffers more surely than
-from alcohol. The love of opium often originates in a physician’s
-prescription of an opiate for the relief of pain. That is
-a grave responsibility, but it is inexcusable that the patient is allowed
-to renew the prescription at will, and long after the immediate
-necessity for its use has passed away. The antidotes
-so commonly used as “opium cures” are nothing but disguised
-morphine, and the poor wretch instead of conquering his love
-for opiates allows them to get a firmer and surer hold upon
-him. Such nostrums as “Collins’s cure” and “Hoffman’s antidote”
-should be analyzed by a chemist directed by state authorities,
-and the amount of morphine contained in them be
-published to the world. Prolonged treatment in proper homes,
-where the victims of opium can be protected against themselves,
-is the only radical cure.</p>
-
-<p>The dipsomaniac is often to be found in the full vigor of
-youth; a man rejoicing in a magnificent physique, and showing
-no external signs of impairment. He may have talent and
-wit, and be high in the social scale. But behind the mask
-something is found to be lacking. His liver, clogged with fatty
-deposit, is disordered, the coats of the stomach are more or
-less burnt out, dyspeptic symptoms are apparent. The man
-becomes moody and irritable if deprived of his stimulant, while
-gout and neuralgia perhaps add themselves to the list of symptoms.
-The most marked result probably is the utter absence
-of the natural instincts of rectitude and morality. His whole
-confession of faith might be summed up in the words of Byron:
-“Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; the best of life is but
-intoxication.”</p>
-
-<p>If the dipsomaniac be sent to the hospital, it is noticed that,
-while recovering from the immediate effects of his revels there
-is a condition of unstrung nerves, with marked depression of
-mind. As his normal activity is restored through rest, proper
-food and abstinence from stimulants, there appear peculiar
-intellectual and moral phases characteristic of the inebriate.
-He speaks of his indulgence as a thing of the past; blames
-everybody but himself for his excess; declares that it is the
-result of a dose of Plantation Bitters (perhaps) taken as a
-cure for an attack of cholera morbus, at the suggestion of a
-friend who declared they contained no alcohol; treats the matter
-as something which could never possibly happen again—in
-fact, regards it as an unfortunate mistake. He declares that
-the idea of being detained as a lunatic is absurd, and repugnant
-to his feelings, and probably will soon actually have the
-effect of converting him into a lunatic; that it is absolutely
-necessary for him to go and attend to his business. He will
-never forget the physician’s kindness, and departs apparently
-cured. His actions remind me of the poor Indian who came
-to the missionary and began repeating the names of the twelve
-apostles, adding those of the patriarchs and Old Testament
-worthies, and anxious to enlarge upon Biblical literature; but
-when the astounded missionary exclaimed, “What does all
-this mean?” the Indian promptly replied “Whiskey.”</p>
-
-<p>I have pictured the dipsomaniac as I myself have known
-him. There are, of course, cases in which the victim is thoroughly
-convinced of his folly and sin, and radically cured.
-That is the exception, however, and not the rule. The grave
-question then has to be considered—“What shall we do with
-the inebriates?” Are they to be sent back to their families,
-because the law allows a man’s house to be his castle, in which
-he has a right to do as he pleases? The inebriate has no such
-right. Whether sick or criminal, such a man is a nuisance,
-and should be put down. The law should confine him, however,
-not as a disturber of the peace, not as a terror to wife
-and children, nor as a dangerous man to the community, but
-he should be restrained and punished because he is a confirmed
-inebriate, with the hope that the punishment will cure his disease
-and depravity. If sent to the insane hospital it should be
-as an inebriate, not as a lunatic, and a separate building and
-enclosed grounds should be provided for this class. The law
-should provide for his prolonged detention and compulsory
-labor. The victim, if a minor, should be sentenced for the
-remainder of his minority. It is an open question whether the
-will power of a drunkard ever, indeed, attained its majority.
-If over twenty-one years of age, the first offense should be
-limited to perhaps one year; but should a second commitment
-be necessary, then for a term of years, discretionary power
-being left with the court, under the advice of the authorities of
-the institution.</p>
-
-<p>Insufficient period of detention, lack of legal power to detain,
-and absence of authority to inflict compulsory labor, has
-prevented much good being done by inebriate asylums. It is
-the province of legislation to invest the court and authorities
-of inebriate asylums with these powers. Unfortunately, there
-is a fourth drawback to the permanent cure of the inebriate—one
-which is outside of the control of legislation—namely: a
-general indisposition to reform, a perfect atrophy of moral
-sense, an instinctive return, like “the dog to his own vomit,”
-of the inebriate to his cups. After the law has endued the authorities
-of inebriate asylums with all desired power, the essential
-element of their cure then comes in, and that is sound medical
-treatment. Asylums conducted in this manner would be
-able to record quite as large a proportion of good recoveries
-as the insane hospitals. Would there be anything cruel in
-subjecting the patient to compulsory labor, or in detaining him
-for a long period? Surely not; his freedom before the right
-time would only mean a return to vice and sloth, while his
-labor could probably be made to pay for his maintenance in
-the asylum. Not until savants take an interest in this subject
-will public sentiment be gained, legislation in its behalf enacted
-and, in fine, a glad release from this state of bondage be
-attained.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<p>It is a foe invisible which I fear—an enemy in the human
-breast which opposes me—by its coward fear alone made fearful
-to me; not that which, full of life, instinct with power,
-makes known its present being; that is not the perilously formidable.
-Oh, no! it is the common, the quite common, the
-thing of an eternal yesterday, which ever was and evermore
-returns—sterling to-morrow for it was sterling to-day; for man
-is made of the wholly common, and custom is his nurse. Woe
-then to them who lay irreverent hands on his old house furniture,
-the dear inheritance from his forefathers! For time consecrates,
-and what is gray with age becomes religion. Be in
-possession, and thou hast the right, and sacred will the many
-guard it for thee.—<i>Schiller.</i></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">[516]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2 id="CLIMATE-SEEKING_IN_AMERICA">CLIMATE-SEEKING IN AMERICA.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p class="center">By GEO. ALFRED TOWNSEND.</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p>As nations rise in wealth, comfort and communications, they
-discover that the simplest of all things, mere climate or air, is
-of the greatest value. The English race paid early attention
-to this question and seized upon the sheltered positions, the
-<i>spas</i> and baths as places of resort both for weak systems and
-for luxurious existence. Religion itself conveniently placed its
-miracles and chapels where the best climate or the most healing
-waters were found.</p>
-
-<p>Soon after America was discovered there spread through the
-most successful nations a belief in a Golden Spring, an El
-Dorado, and this was pursued notably in Florida, where many
-yet believe that the most golden spring is to be found, as its
-season hardly begins till February or March, and is used to
-offset a lingering winter and the angry winds of the northern
-sea coast country.</p>
-
-<p>One of the most notable instances of seeking a climate in
-our colonial history is that of Sir William Johnson, who lived
-among the six nations of Indians about the Mohawk, and being
-a portly man with European habits of life, he found his old
-age, in spite of his active and military youth, affected by gouts
-and by the heavy stagnant air of the limestone valleys in which
-he lived, and he was one of the first Americans to select at
-once a seacoast resort and the mineral springs. We need not
-repeat the story of how the Indians, among whom he married,
-concluded in their affection for him to show him their celebrated
-mineral spring, and took him on a litter through hidden
-paths to the Tufa rock of Saratoga, where he, the first of white
-men, saw the reflection of his face in the meteoric water there.
-It is not as well known that Sir William Johnson also made
-himself a road to the sea beach, near New London, where he
-went in summer, not for mineral water, but for sea air, which
-he esteemed so much more valuable.</p>
-
-<p>Climate, indeed, is one of the most important subjects to be
-considered by superior men, and the earliest travelers in this
-country noted down where they escaped the insects, where the
-nights were cool, where the trade winds blew, etc. The oranges
-of Florida, for instance, were noted by the old Spanish
-chroniclers as the finest that grew in their immense dominions,
-and that perfection is kept up to the present time.</p>
-
-<p>General Washington, a man of good condition, was one of
-the early annual seekers for a pleasant climate, which he found
-west of the North Mountain, about Berkeley Springs, where he
-had a hut built, and for years repaired there with his chicken
-cocks and horses. When he went through Virginia as a young
-surveyor, he observed the differences in the temperature, and
-in the humidity, and located some of the best springs and resorts
-in the Old Dominion. When Washington first visited
-Saratoga he endeavored, at once, to purchase the tract enclosing
-the few sources at that time known, so much was he impressed
-with the superiority of the climate of New York in
-summer over that of Virginia.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Jefferson, who was one of the best amateurs in the country
-at all sorts of subjects, although he lived on the top of a
-mountain above the tidewater region, and in sight of other
-peaks, would not spend his summers at home about Charlottsville,
-but had a road cut far into the west and built himself a
-sort of lodge called Poplar Forest, in the high country about
-Lynchburgh; it was a brick house on a slope, one story high
-in front and two stories high in the rear, of octagon shape, with
-a portico in front and a veranda in the rear. To this spot Jefferson
-went both in summer and in autumn to escape his political
-followers, and to think, read and sleep.</p>
-
-<p>Jefferson was one of the earliest weather prophets in this
-country and in his works are found many references to the
-American climate, of use to any future climatologist. About 1805
-he wrote to Mr. Volney, the philosopher: “In no case does habit
-attach our choice or judgment more than in climate. The
-Canadian glows with delight in his sleigh and snow, the very
-idea of which gives me the shivers. The changes between
-heat and cold in America are greater and more frequent, and
-the extremes comprehend a greater scale on the thermometer
-in America than in Europe. Habit, however, prevents these
-from affecting us more than the smaller changes of Europe affect
-the European, but he is greatly affected by ours. As our sky
-is always clear and that of Europe always cloudy, there is a
-greater accumulation of heat here than there in the same parallel.
-The changes between wet and dry are much more frequent
-and sudden in Europe than in America, for though we
-have double the rain, it falls in half the time. Taking all
-these together, I prefer much the climate of the United States
-to that of Europe, and I think it a more cheerful one. It is our
-cloudless sky which has eradicated from our constitutions all
-disposition to hang ourselves, which we might otherwise have
-inherited from our English ancestors. Still, I do not wonder
-that a European should prefer his grey to our azure sky.”</p>
-
-<p>This description in the main holds good to our time, although
-social causes have increased here the tendency to suicide,
-though perhaps the ratio of suicide is no greater in
-America now than it ever was. If we add dueling, which was
-a form of suicide, to the regular cases of suicide, I have my
-doubts whether more Americans make away with themselves
-now than in the early days. I happen to think of one signer
-of the Declaration of Independence who died from mental excitement
-over signing that instrument, of another who was
-poisoned, and of a third who was killed by a fellow patriot in
-a duel.</p>
-
-<p>Jefferson also noted in 1809, under “Cultivation,” the
-changes in the American climate, in a letter to Dr. Chapman:
-“I remember,” said he, “that when I was a small boy, say sixty
-years ago, snows were frequent and deep in every winter, to
-my knee very often, to my waist sometimes, and that they covered
-the earth long. And I remember while yet young to have
-heard from very old men that in their youth the winters had
-been still colder, with deeper and longer snows. In the year
-1772 we had a snow two feet deep in the Champagne parts of
-this state, and three feet in the counties next below the mountains.
-But when I was President the average fall of snow for
-the seven winters was only 14½ inches, and the ground was
-covered but sixteen days in each winter on an average of the
-whole. I noticed the change in our climate in my ‘Notes on
-Virginia,’ but since that time public vocations have taken my
-attention from the subject, nor do I know of any source in Virginia
-now existing, from which anything on climate can be
-derived. Dr. Williamson has written on the subject, and Mr.
-Williams in his ‘History of Vermont’ has an essay on the subject
-of climate.”</p>
-
-<p>Addressing Mr. Louis E. Beck at Albany, N. Y., in 1824,
-when he was a very old man, Jefferson said:</p>
-
-<p>“I thank you for your pamphlet on the climate of the West;
-although it does not yet establish a satisfactory theory, it is an
-additional step toward it. My own was perhaps the first attempt
-to bring together the few facts then known, and suggest
-them to public attention, and they were written before the close
-of the revolutionary war, when the western country was a wilderness
-untrodden but by the feet of the savage or the hunter.
-It is now flourishing in population and science, and after a few
-more years of observation and collection of facts, they will
-doubtless furnish a theory of their climate. Years are requisite
-for this, steady attention to the thermometer, to the plants
-growing there, the times of their leafing and flowering, its prevalent
-winds, quantities of rain and snow, temperature of fountains,
-animal inhabitants, etc. We want this, indeed, for all
-the states, and the work should be repeated once or twice in a
-century to show the effects of clearing and culture toward
-changes of climate.”</p>
-
-<p>Thus promptly did our early scholars and sages watch the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">[517]</a></span>
-climatic relations of the country to its population and vitality.
-These “Notes on Virginia,” which Jefferson wrote during the
-Revolution, contain five years’ instrumental observation on
-rain, heat and wind taken at Williamsburgh, the tidewater capital,
-which is about forty miles from Fortress Monroe, which
-latter place has since become a winter resort. He computed
-that we had forty-seven inches of rain annually, considerably
-more than fell in Europe, but a much larger proportion of sunshine
-than there, only half as many cloudy days as in France
-and Germany, and the statesman says about the Alleghany
-Mountain region, of which Chautauqua Lake is an outpost:</p>
-
-<p>“It is remarkable that proceeding on the same parallel of
-latitude westerly, the climate becomes colder in like manner as
-when you proceed northerly. This continues to be the case
-until you attain the summit of the Alleghany, which is the
-highest land between the ocean and the Mississippi. From
-thence, descending in the same latitude to the Mississippi, the
-change reverses, and, if we may believe travelers, it becomes
-warmer there than it is on the same latitude on the sea side. On
-the higher parts of mountains, where it is absolutely colder than
-it is on the plains on which they stand, frosts do not appear so
-early by a considerable time in autumn, and go off sooner in
-the spring than on the plains. I have known frost so severe
-as to kill the hickory trees round about Monticello, and yet not
-injure the tender fruit blossoms then in bloom on the top and
-higher parts of the mountain. A change in our climate is taking
-place very sensibly, and both heats and colds are becoming
-much more moderate, within the memory even of the middle-aged.”</p>
-
-<p>General Washington, it may not be generally known, kept all
-his early diaries on the blank leaves of the “Virginia Almanac,”
-which was printed at Williamsburgh, showing that he watched
-the weather as if it were a part of public life.</p>
-
-<p>Washington came to the vicinity of Chautauqua Lake in
-1753, when he was scarcely of age, and this journey makes his
-earliest diary. He went from Williamsburgh to Fredericksburgh,
-thence to Alexandria, thence to Winchester in the valley
-of Virginia, thence to Cumberland, Maryland, and down the
-Monongahela River and up the Alleghany to French Creek, or
-the Venango. All the land was then a wilderness. Washington
-reported from hearsay, at Venango, that there were four
-forts, the first of them on French Creek near a small lake, the
-next on Lake Erie about 15 miles from the other, from which it
-was 120 miles to the fort at the falls of Lake Erie. From the
-fort on Lake Erie to Montreal was about 600 miles, which the
-French only required four weeks to traverse in good weather.
-Washington noted the good land about Venango and the extensive
-and rich meadows, one of which was four miles in
-length. When Washington was interested in connecting Lake
-Erie with the waters of the Ohio by a canal, he was very explicit
-in addressing General William Irvine about the climate
-traits of Chautauqua Lake; this General Irvine was a doctor
-born in Ireland and settled at Carlisle, Pa., and he was among
-the first men to understand the climate of Lake Erie, and he
-managed to get for Pennsylvania a frontage on this lake.</p>
-
-<p>In the pursuit of climate, it is probable that the first movements
-were made by the people of the populous states of Virginia
-and Pennsylvania. Any one who possesses a library of
-travels in America, conveying successive pictures of our social
-life from colonial times down to the day of railroads, will discover
-numbers of perished watering places.</p>
-
-<p>For instance, about the time of the Revolution, the chief
-summer resorts in Pennsylvania were about York, as at York
-Springs, and I possess pictures of old log hotels at some of
-these resorts, where the outspurs of the Blue Mountains gave a
-little altitude above the surrounding plains. The wounded
-soldiers in the Revolution were sent up to Ephrata and Litiz
-and Bethlehem, where the air was good and nurses were to be
-had.</p>
-
-<p>These Blue Mountains were not ascended until 1716, when
-Governor Spotiswood of Virginia undertook to find where the
-rivers of that state had their fountains, and he took an ensign
-in the British army and went to the frontier, where he was
-joined by some gentlemen and some militia rangers, about fifty
-in all, with pack-horses and much liquor, and this little army
-started out from near the site of the battle of Chancellorsville,
-and it took them a week to get to the top of the Blue Ridge at
-Swift Run Gap, thirty-six days after the Governor had left
-Williamsburgh. They went down into the Shenandoah Valley
-and called that flowing river the Euphrates. So much delighted
-was Spotiswood with the air and scenery of the mountains
-that he instituted an order of knighthood called the
-Tramontane order.</p>
-
-<p>Such was the beginning of human knowledge of the Alleghanies,
-nearly 170 years ago. The lives of three not very old
-men would have spanned from that day to this. The nearest
-approach of that Alleghany range, of which the Blue Ridge was
-the first parallel, to the great interior lakes of North America,
-is at Chautauqua. At this lake the Alleghany ridge, which divides
-the sources of the Ohio valley from the great lakes, is
-between 800 and 1400 feet high, every hill arable, and the
-earliest settlers observed how quickly the apples, pears and
-plums succeeded in the mild climate. They were surprised to
-find, at an altitude of more than 1300 feet above the ocean, a
-noble sheet of water 20 miles long. Some of the earliest settlers
-in this region came from the Blue Mountain country, buying
-their land from the Holland Land Company of New York,
-of which William H. Seward was long the attorney. Some of
-the first settlers pitched their cabins about 1803.</p>
-
-<p>It is understood that Chautauqua Lake was first navigated
-about 1782, when the Revolutionary war was almost done and
-the battle of Yorktown had been fought. Desirous of keeping
-up some show of hostility, about 1800 British and Indians were
-sent to recapture Pittsburgh, and they launched their canoes
-on this lake, but their spies came back and told them that the
-Americans were on the lookout. Earlier than this, about 1752,
-when the French resolved to seize on the head waters of the
-Ohio, they left Niagara Fort by water in April and got to a
-place they called Chadacoin (undoubtedly Chautauqua) on
-Lake Erie, where they began to cut timber and prepared to
-build a fort, but their engineer coming on afterward put a stop
-to it, saying that the Chautauqua River was too shallow to carry
-out any craft with provisions to the Ohio. The man who had
-begun building the fort, M. Babeer, was so much pleased with
-the spot that he insisted on continuing his work, and he demanded
-that his opponent give him a certificate to excuse himself
-to the governor for not selecting so good a place. Consequently
-the fort was built at Erie, or Presqu’Ile.</p>
-
-<p>The region about Chautauqua Lake is therefore, in an imperial
-sense, the oldest in America, the neighborhood for
-which two great empires contended, and at the time the French
-were meditating the seizure of these high lands and water-courses,
-twelve Virginians, two of whom were named Washington,
-formed the Ohio Company, before the year 1750.</p>
-
-<p>Thus a third of a century only elapsed between the discovery
-of the Blue Ridge and the enterprises to connect the Alleghanies
-and the lakes on the part of two distinguished nations.</p>
-
-<p>The high lands and hills about Chautauqua were familiar
-objects to the subjects of Louis XV. on their way to meet the
-adolescent Washington, and young Jumondville, who fell before
-Washington’s night assault, had cooled his fevered eyes
-on the green forests of the Chautauqua summits. In forty-six
-years more, old General Wayne, who used this region as the
-base of observations against the Indians of Michigan and Ohio,
-closed his eyes almost within sight of the Chautauqua hillocks,
-and, while his body was still lying in the fort where he breathed
-his last, Commodore Perry was building a crude navy to sweep
-Lake Erie of the British. Perry came through New York state
-to Lake Ontario, from thence went to Buffalo and took a sleigh
-on the ice for Erie, also passing within sight of the high knobs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">[518]</a></span>
-of Chautauqua. Several of his vessels went from the region of
-Buffalo, and at the age of twenty-seven this young officer won
-a fame hardly surpassed in the naval history of the New World.</p>
-
-<p>The influence of the lake and western climate on the seamen
-and soldiers who visited it was almost immediately seen
-in their location hereabout and settling of many towns on the
-southern shore of Lake Erie, and if both sides of this lake were
-American, there seems to be little doubt that it would now be
-approaching the time of being the greatest center of population
-in the New World. That center has been driven down
-the hot Ohio valley by the limitations of our boundary, which
-giving not American soil to the north of Lake Erie, has reluctantly
-abandoned the cool summer air and clear fine winters
-of the lakes for the hot limestone inclosures of the streams to
-the south.</p>
-
-<p>Yet the present growth of towns along Lake Erie shows
-with what alacrity the populations of the lower West precipitate
-themselves against the shores of the lake. Cleveland is growing
-faster than Cincinnati. Detroit, long retarded by a <i>habitant</i>
-population, is growing faster than Louisville. Toledo is
-growing faster than Wheeling. Buffalo has almost outgrown
-its more ancient neighbor of Pittsburgh. Chicago and Milwaukee
-stride ahead of St. Louis and Memphis. When the
-summer comes and the great national conventions choose their
-places of meeting, they benefit by experience, and both assemble
-the same year at Chicago to get the air of the lakes instead
-of sweltering in St. Louis or Cincinnati.</p>
-
-<p>The fine climate about Chautauqua is in much a matter of
-altitude. Proceeding either east or west from this point, the
-shores of the lakes lie comparatively flat, and in the state of
-Ohio there is but one eminence sufficient to be called a mountain,
-and that is the Little Mountain not far from Painesville, a
-mere knob only about 200 feet above the plain, and ten miles
-back from Lake Erie. Even here some comfort can be had
-by the inhabitants of the plain, and a hotel was built at least
-fifty years ago.</p>
-
-<p>The rise of public biography on the southern shore of Lake
-Erie has not been overlooked by the general reader; Garfield,
-Giddings, Wade, General McPherson, Hon. Henry B. Payne,
-Governor Todd, William Howells, Chief Justice Waite and
-many others are among the men whose minds have been lifted
-by the breezes from the lake, and which have already begun
-to display an energizing character attracting the attention of
-the whole country.</p>
-
-<p>It has only been eighty-eight years since the first surveyors
-landed at Conneaut to survey the military lands of Connecticut
-and organize northern Ohio. When they pulled their boats
-ashore, which they had taken from Buffalo up the lake, they
-were so touched with their improved health that they moored
-on the beach, had prayer together and resolved to make the
-first day in the West a holiday. Mr. Harvey Rice in his recent
-history of the Western Reserve says: “The day was remarkably
-pleasant and the air bracing, and they partook of an extemporized
-feast with a keen relish, and gave for one of the
-toasts, ‘May these fifty sons and daughters multiply in sixteen
-years sixteen times fifty.’” Seven weeks after this picnic
-the site of Cleveland was selected for a city. Twenty-two
-years after that the first steamboat starting from Buffalo passed
-within sight of Chautauqua and entered the harbor of Cleveland
-and went on to Detroit.</p>
-
-<p>I have been almost an extensive traveler in the United
-States, not like commercial travelers, merely visiting the towns
-and trading points, but the scenery and the health resorts.
-About twenty-four years ago I went on the press and the vocation
-of special correspondent was then just rising into consideration,
-and I threw myself toward it, desiring to gratify
-“the lust of the eye” by my newspaper facilities. Even before
-I left school I had tramped through the Alleghany mountains,
-through the Sinking Spring valley, the Seven mountains and
-the fountain town called Bellefonte, in the heart of the Alleghanies.
-Next I went through the Lackawanna and Wyoming
-valleys, visited the old resorts in the lap of Pennsylvania under
-the Blue Mountains, and in the midst of the war was a battle
-correspondent at such places as the Fauquier White Sulphur
-Springs. Next, lecturing opportunities took me through New
-York state and the West, and I visited Fredonia twice, in the
-vicinity of Chautauqua Lake, and there heard of the beautiful
-region almost overhanging it, on the highlands. With renewed
-opportunities I have been in California, about Los Angeles,
-and at Santa Barbara, and in southern Georgia and Florida,
-and in Cuba, at the Hot Springs of Arkansas, on the summits
-of the Osage mountains where the trade wind blows, at Springfield
-and through the Indian territory, and at San Antonio, in
-Texas, with smaller journeys to Oaklands and the Green Brier
-White Sulphur Springs, on the Alleghany tops and the Peaks
-of Otter, and along all our coasts as far as Mount Desert and
-New Brunswick, and several times in the White Mountains,
-down the St. Lawrence to the sea and out the Northern Pacific
-railroad, and I miss no opportunity, when I can afford it, to
-extend my information of places and people.</p>
-
-<p>This is only said in answer to your request to give some idea
-of the relative quality of the air about Chautauqua Lake. I
-have seen no place where the air is so pure and the nights so
-agreeable anywhere along our lakes, and the spot seems almost
-arranged by nature with a reference to the anticipated arrangement
-of the people and the lines of communication in this
-republic.</p>
-
-<p>When you consider that the low grade railroad route to the
-West must turn the Alleghany mountains to the North and use
-the limited space between those mountain spurs and the lake
-to reach the West without unnecessary expenditure of steam
-power, it would seem that Chautauqua Lake had been adjusted
-to the coming lines of travel, and we already have the Lake
-Shore, the Nickel Plate, the Erie, and the different Alleghany
-River lines, with more lines soon to come, to connect the
-Lehigh, the Lackawanna, the West Shore, and kindred systems
-with the great West.</p>
-
-<p>Surely the spot is most agreeable for health and enjoyment
-to the great homogeneous people who are nearly evenly divided
-in numbers by the Alleghany range. The Alleghany mountains
-have hardly commenced their material development,
-and being full of coal, oil, iron, and the more precious minerals,
-the time is approaching when that mountain range will contain
-on its slopes the densest population in America, and its
-mineral resources be worked from the vicinity of Buffalo to
-Alabama.</p>
-
-<p>My brother, Doctor Ralph M. Townsend, who was a surgeon
-connected with the medical schools of Philadelphia, and also
-a writer, was taken ill about ten years ago and compelled to
-search up and down the world for a climate in which to live.
-He tried Algiers, the south of France, the Bahamas, the
-Bermudas, Central America, Lower California, Colorado, and
-finally died in the Adirondack mountains, which he thought
-might allow him, in the dry air, to safely winter there. He did
-not like Florida, thought it was too damp, considered the
-southern part of California to be subject to winds, took cold in
-Colorado, which hastened his death, and finally considered
-that the northern climates were the most reliable. His vital
-power was almost spent when he came to this conclusion.</p>
-
-<p>I was recently talking to General Pike Graham, a retired
-officer of the United States army and a native of Virginia, about
-the relative climate of Europe and America. He said that he
-had spent within a very few years three full winters abroad,
-and had tried almost all the resorts in the South of Europe,
-and he considered that the United States was much better situated
-for climate. He did not think Florida was a good climate,
-being too low and subject to changes and to dampness, but
-regarded southwestern Texas as perhaps the best he knew. I
-haw talked to other travelers who consider the City of Mexico
-to have the best air they know of on the continent.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">[519]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>It is of advantage to an invalid to have a resort from which
-the surrounding world of men is attainable. That accounts
-for Fortress Monroe in the winter, with probably an inferior
-climate, absorbing much of the best travel to Florida. It is
-softer than any indentation to the north of the Chesapeake, and
-can be reached by a husband, or brother, or wife, from any of
-the great centers of the North in a very little time. The same
-is the case with Chautauqua Lake; it is only a night from the
-East, and a night and a day from the far West. A large portion
-of the American people can visit it without taking rail at
-all, using the steam lines on the St. Lawrence and the great
-lakes. It is especially a summer climate and the foliage of
-western New York in the autumns is not equaled on the globe,
-at least not in the temperate zones. The finest autumn tints
-I ever recollect to have seen are in western New York, where
-the character of the trees assimilates to the ardor of the foliage,
-and the maples and poplars almost imitate the finery of the
-Indians who once dwelt in their region.</p>
-
-<p>The Western States do not possess the variety of the East in
-coasts, hills, spas, and scenery; much of the Mississippi valley
-is limestone hill or flat plain, bare of mountains, and the first
-cool and lovely spot reached from the West is on the lofty headwaters
-of the Ohio, near Lake Erie. Following the Lake Shore
-to the westward I do not know of a single spot to be found like
-Chautauqua, though one should go as far as Duluth, where I
-have been also in the time of its prosperity, about 1872; the
-heat at Duluth, though so much farther to the north, was much
-greater in midsummer than it is on the Chautauqua uplands.
-Indeed, the heat of the American summer penetrates almost
-every resort, and I have known at Saratoga some of the most
-stagnant days of my life. A perfectly cool climate is not obtained
-along our coasts till one gets to New Brunswick, about
-St. John, and the coolness there has the drawback of heavy
-fogs and a moisture exceeding Ireland.</p>
-
-<p>My brother, already referred to, possessed more special intelligence
-on this subject than myself, and at the commencement
-of his sickness he began a series of letters to the <i>Medical
-and Surgical Reporter</i>, where I read at the outstart this sentence:
-“My languor and lassitude from May until July was
-followed by a slight attack of laryngitis. I grew thinner daily.
-A week in July at the high, dry country estate of a friend did
-bring some increased strength and appetite, but a second week
-at Cape May brought on a severe attack of bronchitis. Recovering
-partly from this, two weeks were spent at Saratoga
-and Lake George with the effect of again bringing me home
-with a bronchial attack, and the last straw was finally attained
-by taking my boy to Atlantic City for his health. I had hardly
-come within smell of the salt marshes at this place when my
-bronchial trouble was brought back with redoubled intensity.”</p>
-
-<p>He goes on to say that his doctor, Professor Da Costa,
-ordered him to find a new climate at once, as a deposit had
-already made its appearance in both lungs. This was just ten
-years ago, and in the month of October, he says: “Of the
-many different medical friends who came to say good-bye and
-add hearty wishes for my recovery, scarcely two united on the
-same place as the one best suited for me to go to.”</p>
-
-<p>My brother’s letters, continued for several months and written
-just before his death, grappled with the question of a
-climate after severe experience. He found Mentone “the most
-crowded of all places with invalids, and the least deserving of
-patronage of any place long the Riviera.” “If you get into a
-carriage in front of a hotel on a beautiful sunshiny day you protest
-against taking an overcoat in the absolute heat, but when
-you turn a corner into a shady street or get on the shady side of
-a wall or hill and let the sun be temporarily obscured, you must
-quickly draw close your overcoat and pull a robe over your lap.
-I do not recommend Nice as a winter climate except by comparison,
-and I would never halt on the north shore of the
-Mediterranean if it were in my power to reach Egypt or
-Algeria.”</p>
-
-<p>He kept a diary, wherever he went, of the condition of the
-weather, and Europe is almost invariably written “cloudy,”
-“chilly,” “raw,” “showery,” or “rain.” He thought much
-better of Algiers, where he stayed fifty-nine days, but how few
-persons can afford to go to Algiers—“and even there,” he
-says, “ten days were partially or wholly cloudy, and on eleven
-days we had continuous rains or showers, one of the rainy days
-being characterized by a smart hail storm.” This was between
-January and March.</p>
-
-<p>Santa Barbara is probably the best indorsed wintering place
-on the coast of California. I went ashore there from a ship,
-and found a small town, partly of frame houses and partly of
-Mexican huts, with a dull mongrel life, hardly relieved by an
-old mission house a mile or so in the rear of the town; the invalids
-looked like banished people, and had then such infrequent
-access to the outer world that their eyes seemed yearning
-toward their homes in Chicago or elsewhere. The element of
-society and of change and life is more necessary than medicine
-to a desponding and invalid nature. That is the great trouble
-with the majority of American resorts, which are neither large
-enough to accommodate the crowd in the high season, nor near
-enough to the channels of travel in any season. There can not
-be, for example, a more wretched place than the Hot Springs
-of Arkansas, even in the height of the season, which is in late
-winter and spring; the close ragged valley with a sewer running
-through the middle of it, alternately a stench and deluge,
-and the series of raveled hotels wherein gambling is the chief
-occupation, where the rain is frequent and at times seems constant,
-and the natural life of the place is hard and outlaw like,
-and it takes about twenty-four hours to get anywhere in the
-current of mankind.</p>
-
-<p>San Antonio, which has a good climate, has not a hotel fit for
-a person to inhabit who is acquainted with the comforts of the
-table. Though situated considerably inland, it is subject to
-what are called “northers,” or cold storms, that often bring
-hail, and advance upon the place with the rapidity of a spirit
-of ice and snow. Almost all those southern resorts are too
-warm for summer tourists, and this is the case at the Green
-Brier Sulphur Springs, notwithstanding its high altitude; the
-nights are cold, but mid-day is often exhausting.</p>
-
-<p>About Oakland, in Maryland, is a cool climate, and the summit
-there has become something similar to Chautauqua Lake,
-having groups of hotels about six miles apart, and between
-them in the glades is a kind of religious camp settlement.</p>
-
-<p>The interior of New York state, as at Cooperstown, is agreeable
-in the nights, but the limestone soil retains a portion of its
-heat and the days are often sultry.</p>
-
-<p>The White Mountains have the disadvantage of remoteness
-from any considerable centers of population and are not upon
-the main highways of travel. It takes a whole day to go to the
-mountains from Boston, and many of the resorts there are distant
-from the railroad, and must be reached by livery teams,
-which slowly climb to the altitudes, and affect the patience and
-also increase the cost of living. The days are often very cold.
-I was in the White Mountains last summer, and undertook to
-walk from my hotel down to the village of Franconia, in plain
-sight. I generally found that the heat spoiled my linen and
-brought me back to the hotel used up.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<p>For my own part I am fully persuaded that the most powerful
-goddess, and one that rules mankind with the most authoritative
-sway is Truth. For though she is resisted by all, and
-ofttimes has drawn up against her the plausibilities of falsehood
-in the subtlest forms, she triumphs over all opposition. I know
-not how it is that she, by her own unadorned charms, forces
-herself into the heart of man. At times her power is instantly
-felt; at other times, though obscured for awhile, she at last
-bursts forth in meridian splendor, and conquers by her innate
-force the falsehood with which she has been oppressed.—<i>Polybius.</i></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">[520]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2 id="A_DREAMY_OLD_TOWN">A DREAMY OLD TOWN.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p class="center">By EDITH SESSIONS TUPPER.</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p>To Chautauquans the name Chautauqua means one thing;
-and yet I believe that anything pertaining to Chautauqua
-county must of necessity be of interest to the thousands who
-know and love the beautiful lake which bears the name. To
-this end has this rambling sketch of the oldest town in the
-county been prepared. It lies only seven miles away from
-<i>the</i> Chautauqua; at just the right distance for a day’s excursion
-from that point, when the student’s head, bewildered by
-so many good things, demands and needs a day’s rest and
-diversion. The drive is a delightful one, passing through the
-pretty little village of Mayville and over the hills, from one
-of which one gets a view of two lakes, beautiful Chautauqua
-flashing and sparkling under the mid-summer sun, glorious
-old Erie rolling his blue waters with slow and majestic movement.
-Then descending these hills one comes into the pleasant
-valley and into the dreamy old town. It has been said of
-it, that one-half of it is dead and the other half gone to its
-funeral, but to the tired heart and brain its peaceful quiet
-comes as a whiff of salt air or a breeze from mountain heights.
-With natural advantages equal to those of many noted watering
-places, it is somewhat of a mystery why the sleepy old
-place has never awakened and found itself famous.</p>
-
-<p>But it lies, sleeping beauty that it is, dreaming, shut in by a
-range of dark green hills on one side and by the waters of the
-bluest of all the great lakes on the other. There are a few
-factories and mills within its precincts, but somehow no whirr
-of machinery nor other sound ever comes from them to break the
-stillness, which is Sabbath-like every day. It boasts of three
-railroads, but each at a respectful enough distance from the
-town, so that the faint shriek of the locomotive alone causes
-the sojourner to remember that far away, somewhere, outside,
-there is such a thing as a busy, noisy, bustling world. It is
-the home of solidity, respectability, and wealth. A place in
-which erring human nature finds it very easy to be good; in
-which the old-fashioned virtues of sobriety, temperance, and
-hospitality hold sway; in which no more reckless amusements
-than lawn tennis and teas, with an occasional reception at one
-of the many beautiful homes, or a clam-bake on the shores of
-the lake are permitted; a thoroughly drowsy old town.</p>
-
-<p>Westfield, the oldest town of the famous Chautauqua county,
-New York state, lies on the shore of Lake Erie, fifty-seven
-miles west from Buffalo. It is a garden of the gods on a small
-scale. Lying back one mile and a half from the lake, it receives
-its breezes at exactly the right temperature. It is never
-too hot in summer; rarely too cold in winter.</p>
-
-<p>The town is divided by a deep picturesque gorge, through
-which Chautauqua Creek runs, and whose sides are now high
-and rocky, now a bewildering and beautiful mass of wild grapevines,
-chestnut and willow, and shrubs of nearly every variety
-and description. It is spanned at seemingly the most inaccessible
-places by various bridges and ah! the beauty of that
-deep chasm on an autumn day, when it is ablaze with the color
-of maple leaf and sumach and golden rod. This gorge deepens
-and widens, grows more wild and gloomy as it runs back
-among the Chautauqua hills, until it culminates in a most remarkable
-freak of nature, known the country round as the
-“Hog’s Back,” of which a description will be given further on.</p>
-
-<p>The first white settlement of this town, and of the entire
-county as well, was commenced in 1802, at what was long
-known as the Cross Roads, and which is now marked by a
-curious stone monument. The earlier history of these regions
-is dim and indistinct, but all tradition and history, as well as
-many curious relics which have been discovered, point to the
-fact that after the mound builders, the Neutral nations, or as
-they were called by the Senecas, the <i>Kahkwas</i>, were the first
-occupants of the soil of Chautauqua. They dwelt in forty villages,
-some of which were near Fort Niagara; some in Erie
-county, but the greater part of their territory extended west
-along the shore of Lake Erie, through Chautauqua county into
-Ohio. They were a strange race of people, famous hunters,
-exceedingly fierce and superstitious. The first knowledge had
-by Europeans of the Lake Erie regions, and of the tribes which
-inhabited them, was obtained by the French in Canada; their
-enterprise in this surpassing that of the British.</p>
-
-<p>Father Lalement, in a letter to the Provincial of Jesuits in
-France, dated at St. Mary’s Mission, May 19, 1641, speaks of
-the Neutrals, and also of a warlike nation named the Eries, or
-the Nation of the Cat, so called from the extraordinary number
-of wild cats which infested their section, that lived to the south
-of Lake Erie and west of the Neutral nation. The Eries were
-great warriors and were a terror to the Iroquois. They fought
-with poisoned arrows, having no fire-arms.</p>
-
-<p>Both these nations were cruelly destroyed by the Iroquois in
-1651 and 1655. The final overthrow of the Neutral nation is
-supposed to have taken place near Buffalo; the destruction of
-the Eries, along the shore of the beautiful lake bearing this
-name. The whole force of the Iroquois embarked in canoes
-upon the blue waters of the lake, and after assaulting the Eries
-at a point, the exact location of which is not now known,
-scenes most horrible and revolting were enacted, and the brave
-Eries were totally annihilated in a fearful butchery.</p>
-
-<p>The accounts of the destruction of these nations are found
-in the written narratives of the Jesuits, who were living at that
-time among the Indians of New York and Canada. From the
-extirpation of the Neutral and Erie nations, until its settlement
-by pioneers, Chautauqua county, and especially the portion
-along the shore of Lake Erie, was the home of the Senecas,
-the fiercest tribe of the Iroquois nation.</p>
-
-<p>In 1679, La Salle, Tonti, his Italian lieutenant, Father Louis
-Hennepin and several others set sail from Cayuga Creek, a
-small stream emptying into Niagara River, for the foot of
-Lake Erie, steering west-southwest. They made many
-leagues, passing what is now Chautauqua county. They are
-supposed to be the first Europeans who saw the Chautauqua
-hills, gloomy and rugged, covered with mighty forests. The
-boundary line between the French and English possessions
-in America had long been a cause of contention, and the territory
-of Chautauqua county was included in the disputed
-ground. Communications between the French posts on the
-Mississippi and French forts in Canada were made by the long
-and tedious routes of the Mississippi, Green Bay routes, and
-afterward by Lake Michigan and the Wabash. The easy communication
-between Canada and the Mississippi by way of Lake
-Erie and Chautauqua Lake was not discovered until 1752,
-when the Marquis Du Quesne, having been appointed Governor-General
-of Canada, arrived there. He at once took more
-aggressive and decided measures to obtain possession of the
-disputed territory, than any of his predecessors had done. He
-immediately began to construct the long line of frontier forts
-which La Salle had suggested, that were to unite Canada and
-Louisiana by way of the Ohio. This bold step is regarded as
-leading to the French and Indian war, which resulted in losing
-Canada to the French. One of Du Quesne’s first acts was to
-open a portage road from the mouth of the Chautauqua Creek,
-which empties into Lake Erie a mile and a half from the town
-of Westfield, to the head of Chautauqua Lake, and thus open
-communication between Lake Erie and the head waters of the
-Ohio.</p>
-
-<p>In a letter which he sends to the French minister of the
-marine and colonies, in Paris, he states that his intention is to
-begin his posts near the mouth of <i>Chataconit</i>, or Chautauqua
-Creek. This portage road was cut through the wilderness
-more than twenty years before the battle of Lexington, and
-yet traces of it to this day are to be seen in and about the town.
-In 1761 Sir William Johnson journeyed to Detroit to establish
-a treaty with the Ottawa confederacy. On his return, he sailed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">[521]</a></span>
-along the southern shore of Lake Erie, and in his journal
-speaks thus of this portage:</p>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p>“Wednesday, October 1, 1761.—Embarked at <i>Presque Isle</i> (Erie) at
-7 o’clock, with the wind strong ahead, continued so all the day, notwithstanding
-it improved all day, and got to <i>Jadaghque Creek, and carrying
-place</i>, which is a fine harbor and encampment.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<p>In a letter from General Washington to General Irvine,
-dated Mount Vernon, October 31, 1788, he speaks thus of this
-portage:</p>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p>“If the Chautauqua Lake at the head of the Connewango River approximates
-Lake Erie as closely as it is laid down in the draft you sent
-me, it presents a very short portage indeed between the two, and access
-to all those above the latter.</p>
-
-<p class="center">“I am, etc.,</p>
-
-<p class="sig">“<span class="smcap">George Washington</span>.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<p>One of Chautauqua’s earliest pioneers was William Peacock,
-who passed over this road in 1800. Ten years later he became
-the agent of the Holland Land Company. He was an
-eccentric and shrewd man, and in a short time became exceedingly
-wealthy, the hard working land owners thought at their
-expense. He was charged with reserving the choicest farms,
-best water powers and timber lands for himself and his favorites.
-The land holders also thought he was not giving them
-credit for interest which they paid from time to time upon
-their land, and these opinions found vent in the newspapers,
-and the agitation grew until on the 6th of February, 1836, a
-mob gathered from all parts of the county at Dewittville, a little
-hamlet on the shore of Chautauqua Lake.</p>
-
-<p>Word was brought to Mr. Peacock at Mayville, a village at
-the head of the lake, and seven miles from Westfield, that a
-raid was to be made upon the land office that night, and that
-mischief might be done to his person unless he should make
-good his escape. Donald McKenzie, a northwestern fur
-trader, and brother of the McKenzie who discovered the river
-of that name, had three years previous to this come to Mayville
-to live, and was in the land office that dreary February
-afternoon when this alarming message was brought. The
-stalwart Scotchman, through whose veins flowed some of the
-proudest blood of Caledonia, feared neither “mon nor de’il.”
-It was his custom to wear a very long black coat which fell in
-ample folds around his massive frame. Mr. Peacock was an
-undersized man. Donald McKenzie cast the drapery of his
-inky cloak about the frightened little man and thus shielded
-and shrouded from sight, he hurried him up the hill to his
-home, whence he was soon taken in a covered sleigh to Westfield,
-and down the lake shore road to Buffalo as fast as horses
-could carry him, and none too soon was he out of the way, for
-at dusk a crowd of infuriated men, numbering two or three
-hundred, made a raid upon the land office, demolished it, and
-after working until near morning succeeded in forcing open
-the vault and seized the books, records and contracts and
-carried them two miles away, and heaping them up made a
-goodly bonfire of them. The ruins of the land office are yet
-to be seen in Mayville. The land holders by this mad proceeding
-brought only “confusion worse than death” upon
-themselves, while the prudent Peacock accumulated a wonderful
-property, and was afterward made judge. He left to
-one heir alone the whole village of Barcelona, the harbor of
-Westfield, situated just east of the mouth of Chautauqua
-Creek, the starting point of the French portage road. This
-harbor was made a port of entry by the general government.
-In 1828 a lighthouse was erected by a citizen at his own expense;
-a steamer named the “William Peacock,” for the hero
-of the land office story, was built; all craft on the lake stopped
-at the little port; a company was formed called the Barcelona
-Company; the village was enlarged, the streets being laid out
-in city fashion; corner lots sold for fabulous sums; men lost
-their heads; the place was to be a great port; when suddenly
-the railroad came creeping along the shore; the bubble broke;
-the mushroom town was a failure; fortunes were lost, and to-day
-Barcelona harbor is a deserted village with grass-grown
-streets, gaunt houses, whose windows stare reproachfully at
-the gay carriage loads passing by, and an old white lighthouse,
-which, like the ghostly finger of the past, seems to beckon to
-all to come and look upon the desolation around it. A few
-sad faced women who might have ridden in their carriages;
-brawny fishermen who might have owned their blocks and
-wharves and shipping, are the only inhabitants. Down on
-the beach of a bright autumn afternoon the nets are spread
-a-drying; little huts, whose half open doors reveal the hauls
-of herring and bass, are here and there; ruddy faced boys lie
-sprawling on the sand, sunning themselves; the trees have
-grown thick and tall about the lighthouse upon the cliff; no
-sound is heard save the hiss of the waves as they tumble in;
-the quaint little harbor wears a disappointed look. Old “Groats’
-Inn,” though time has used it roughly, alone seems to try and
-hold its ancient smartness, like an antiquated spinster who
-wishes it understood that the reason she has never married
-is not that she never had an offer. Summer and winter for
-many long years has it stood there on the edge of the cliff,
-waiting for the rush of travel which never came; ready to
-give hospitality to man and beast, but no wayfarer ever knocks
-for admission and entertainment. There is nothing sadder
-than a deserted village. What a mockery it seems of all human
-hopes and ambitions. In these old houses that look as if
-they were weary waiting through so many long years, what
-homely, uneventful lives have been spent; what tired eyes
-have closed for the last time; what aching and disappointed
-hearts have ceased to beat, thankful, no doubt, that the worry
-and fret were all over.</p>
-
-<p>When old Judge Peacock died, his heirs each received one
-thirteenth of his vast estate. One grand-nephew, whose father
-and mother had been cousins, fell heir to two-thirteenths, and
-from being a poor lad living among the fishermen, found himself
-the possessor of this entire harbor and nearly all the land
-lying between it and Westfield.</p>
-
-<p>In June, 1836, four months after the land office at Mayville
-had been destroyed, William H. Seward having been appointed
-to the agency, and also having an interest in the purchase,
-established the land office in Westfield and lived there
-until his election as governor of New York. The Seward
-mansion is one of the attractions to visitors. It is a “brave
-old house,” with a beautiful lawn, fronting on the village
-green. Its trees are trimmed in a peculiar old-fashioned way.
-Its iron gates stand open, as if inviting the passer to enter and
-look upon its quaint surroundings. Another stately old-time
-mansion is that of the Patterson family. It was originally occupied
-by a brother of Seward’s, and when a member of the
-family died its front door was painted black! A superb lawn
-shaded by grand old trees sweeps away on one side; a garden
-of grapevines lies on the other; in front great beds of scarlet
-geranium blaze, and the trees and shrubs are out in the same
-quaint pattern as those upon the Seward estate. The fashion
-of other days is plainly to be seen in everything pertaining to
-both these rare old places.</p>
-
-<p>The drives about the town are picturesque and delightful.
-From nearly every street and road you get enchanting views
-of the lake on one hand and the range of hills on the other.
-The streets are laid in curves, and you are continually sweeping
-rounded corners and coming upon unexpected beauties.
-Old trees meet above your head; you cross and recross the
-gorge dividing the town; far below you rushes the stream;
-down a shaded street you go past old-fashioned homes and
-modern villas in sharp contrast, and suddenly through overhanging
-boughs you catch the glory of the blue waters of old
-Erie; you are soon in Barcelona harbor; from there you can
-drive for miles along the beach, now on the cliff, with the waves
-thundering in many feet below you, now further back from
-the shore past finely cultivated farms, vineyards, orchards,
-fields “afoam with sweetness,” and never failing to catch
-through grove, across fields of waving corn and grain, wooded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">[522]</a></span>
-hollows through which clear waters run, glimpses of the lake’s
-witchery.</p>
-
-<p>Or you can drive into Peacock’s Grove at Barcelona—a
-lovely little forest of tall graceful trees, with a velvet turf from
-which all annoying brush has been removed. Leave your
-carriage, throw yourself upon the ground and drink in the ever
-changing beauty of the magic view; the turquoise blue of the
-water, of a sunny morning; the sapphire blue of a drowsy summer
-afternoon; the molten glory of sky and water at sunset;
-the slow oncoming of the solemn moon. How the trees seem
-to whisper to the waters as if they were talking over all they
-have witnessed in common; faintly comes the tinkle of a cow
-bell from a neighboring copse; the crows are calling to each
-other in the tree-tops; across the path scamper the squirrels;
-the bay is dotted with the boats of the fishermen; there is
-scarcely a ripple on the vast stretch of water before you; a
-heavenly peace lies on lake and shore.</p>
-
-<p>Or take the drive to the wonderful “Hog’s Back.” Leaving
-the town behind you, commence the gradual ascent of the dark
-and rugged hills. Up and up, higher and higher you go, now
-pause and look back. The valley lies smiling before you—a
-lovely jewel with its setting of the marvelously blue waters behind
-it. You leave your carriage and horses in a hospitable
-farm yard and set out on foot for the “Hog’s Back.” Across
-a meadow or two and you come into a forest of pines and hemlocks.
-The wind sighs through the trees as it only sighs
-through such a wood; far, far off you hear the rushing of
-water. You go on a few steps further and suddenly you find
-yourself on the edge of a most frightful precipice, the descent
-into which is over a narrow ledge of earth thrown up by some
-tremendous eruption into the shape of the back of a giant hog.
-And such an abyss! Words can not express the awful stillness
-which reigns over this mighty gorge whose sides are lined
-with gloomy forests. Primeval solitudes could not have been
-more desolate. The descent is terrible, but nothing in comparison
-with the dizzy ascent. One draws a breath of relief
-when safely up once more and out from the shade of the mysterious
-pines into the gladness of sunlight and an open sky.</p>
-
-<p>Having heard that a mile or so from the town were still to
-be seen traces of an old French fort, built either at the time Du
-Quesne cut the portage road, or during the French and Indian
-war, the writer drove with a friend one morning in search of
-the place. After many questions, directions and counter-directions,
-we finally found the farm upon which it was said to
-be located. The genial farmer to whom we stated our errand
-laughed and answered:</p>
-
-<p>“O, yes, I’ve got all there is left of it, which ain’t much.”</p>
-
-<p>He told us we could drive nearly to the spot, and led the way,
-walking by the carriage, while a joyful dog leaped on before.
-Past the farm house, barns, the orchard flaunting its magnificent
-red fruit, through the “back lot,” across a field perfumed
-with its “second crop” of red clover, we came to a rail fence
-almost hidden from view by young chestnut trees and the rioting
-wild grapevine. Thus far, and no farther, could we go in
-the carriage, and leaving it, we stepped over the fence chivalrously
-lowered by our guide, and soon saw “all there’s left of
-it.” Only an immense circular breastwork, with tall straight
-trees many, many years old growing on its top, is left of what
-may have been simply a supply station, a fort erected by the
-French against the Indians, possibly the fort where the brave
-Eries were massacred by the Iroquois, or going further back,
-it may have been the work of the mound builders.</p>
-
-<p>“I can’t tell you anything about it,” said our obliging guide,
-“but if you want to take the trouble to go there, old Uncle
-Dave Cochrane will tell you all about it. He’s ninety years
-old, but he remembers everything, and he’ll be glad to see you
-and tell you all he knows.”</p>
-
-<p>Being directed to Uncle Dave’s, we left the farm and
-drove in the opposite direction toward the lake. When
-about half way to Barcelona, we turned aside from the
-main road, and in a hollow, close by Chautauqua Creek,
-found an old-fashioned stuccoed house, over which the scarlet
-woodbine crept and clung lovingly. We could bring no one
-to the front door, and so the Adventurous One commenced to
-explore the rear of the house, and was rewarded by seeing
-peering over the top of the coal bin in the woodshed, an old,
-old man with a chisel in his hand.</p>
-
-<p>“Are you Uncle David Cochrane?”</p>
-
-<p>“Hey?” shouted the old gentleman.</p>
-
-<p>The question was repeated, and the answer was literally
-bawled:</p>
-
-<p>“Yes; who be you?”</p>
-
-<p>The Adventurous One was obliged to state her name and
-errand before the old man would move one step from behind
-the coal bin.</p>
-
-<p>“I’ll come around to the front of the house,” announced
-this tremendous voice, coming with startling effect from this
-little bundle of humanity to which it belonged, “for I’m hard
-o’ hearin’.”</p>
-
-<p>And so Uncle Dave and the Adventurous One sat down
-on a bench by the old stone wall around the little garden, and
-while the autumn sun smiled down on the waters of the
-pretty stream that flowed by the old man’s door, this voice
-from the past spoke freely and at length.</p>
-
-<p>Uncle Dave was a remarkable old gentleman, possessing an
-astounding memory, of which faculty he was well aware, and
-of which he was very proud. He had dates, incidents, historical
-events at his tongue’s end. On being asked, who in
-his opinion had built the fortifications we had that morning
-seen, he said emphatically:</p>
-
-<p>“It was some of them ten foot fellers that lived here long
-before the Injuns. Injuns never done it, they didn’t know
-enough, and they are too old for the French to have built
-’em.”</p>
-
-<p>Did he mean the mound builders?</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, I reckin that’s what ye call ’em.”</p>
-
-<p>Did he ever see any traces of the old portage road?</p>
-
-<p>“O, yes,” he trumpeted forth, “the French under <i>Du
-Quizney</i> built that road from the mouth of this here very creek
-to the head of Chautauqua Lake.”</p>
-
-<p>“Do you remember, Mr. Cochrane, when Lafayette visited
-Westfield in 1823?”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, sir,” he shouted, and his withered old face was suddenly
-transfigured by some nameless light, “indeed I do.
-Word was brought to us that Lafayette was in Erie, and Judge
-Peacock had a splendid span of greys and a nice carriage,
-and he sent them to the State line to bring him to Westfield.
-I got a six-pounder all ready, and when the runner came
-ahead to let us know them grays was in sight, I jest teched her
-off. He drove over the bridge and up on the village square,
-and got out of the carriage and took off his hat.” Here the
-old man reverently uncovered his head, straightened himself
-and became unconsciously dramatic. “He was a sandy
-haired feller, a reg’lar Frenchman, and he spoke to everybody
-that crowded up to shake hands with him. And I tell ye it
-was a sight to see them Revolutioners crowd around him.
-Alec Wilson, he was a Revolutioner, an Irishman, says he,
-‘God bless yez, Markis, how air yez;’ and the Markis says just
-as pleasant and affable like, ‘Very well, my friend, but you
-have the advantage of me.’ ‘Why, Markis,’ says Alec, ‘I
-wuz one of General Washington’s body-guard, I wuz. Many
-a time have I seen you and the Gineral together, Lord love ye.’
-‘Is that so, Alec,’ says the Markis, ‘then I must shake hands
-again,’ and he did shake again with that air Irishman!”</p>
-
-<p>When we came away his parting shout was to this effect:</p>
-
-<p>“When ye find a man of my age with a better memory,
-s’posen ye let me know.”</p>
-
-<p>Good by, brave old pioneer, we shall never see you again;
-but the picture you made as you stood there “in the pleasant
-autumn weather,” the breeze playing with your white hair,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">[523]</a></span>
-your little cottage, its cream tint contrasting so well with the
-vivid red of the woodbine which wantoned over it, for a back-ground,
-will not soon be forgotten.</p>
-
-<p>Westfield is admirably adapted for a summer resort. Aside
-from its beautiful scenery, its hills, its lake with its inducements
-in the way of fishing, sailing and rowing, its charming
-drives, and equally as charming walks, it is undeniably a
-healthy place. Its air is pure and bracing. Every breath you
-draw seems to put new life into your frame. There are mineral
-springs near the town which might be utilized. There are
-many points near by suitable for excursions. Van Buren’s
-Harbor, a delightful picnic ground, and the best beach along
-shore for bathing, is within a short drive. Peacock’s Grove
-offers inducements for camping and clam baking. There are
-many other beautiful villages easy of access; the remarkable
-“Hog’s Back” furnishes a day’s diversion; twenty miles
-away is a wonderful geological attraction known as Panama
-Rocks, which well deserves and repays attention. In point of
-fact, the sleepy old place has more than its share of surrounding
-attractions and only needs a magic touch to waken it, and
-yet it would be a pity to transform this little Arcadia into a
-fashionable watering place. One would not care to see its
-primitive beauty sullied and its peace broken in upon by the
-world. Rather let it remain one of those places fast dying out
-before the march of so-called civilization, a dreamy old town.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2 id="OUR_STEEL_HORSE">OUR STEEL HORSE.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p>If we should try to trace the rise of the bicycle I imagine that
-the multitude of queer contrivances which would be brought
-together could hardly be surpassed by a collection of the flying
-machines of the world, or of the instruments for producing
-perpetual motion. Since Von Drais’ <i>draisine</i> of 1817 we have
-had a series of curious and ingenious inventions, all aiming at the
-same result—a steel horse which would never tire, which would
-eat no oats and need no groom, but which, while subject to
-none of the drawbacks of horseflesh, would carry its owner to
-his business, on pleasure trips across the country—anywhere
-and everywhere. Has it been found at last? Truly, it seems
-so. To our few standard methods of traveling, by steam, by
-rail, by carriage, by horse, and by foot, we must certainly add
-by bicycle.</p>
-
-<p>Most people remember the forerunner of the present light
-and noiseless “wheel,” for it was not until 1865 that the first
-bicycle—we called it a velocipede then—was brought to America.
-Every one will remember too the velocipede craze that
-possessed the whole race of boys, young and old, in 1869-’70.
-Many a town still contains the shattered remnant of a velocipede
-rink, which in those days was its most popular place of
-amusement, and in many a wood-shed, garret or barn loft
-there is still stowed away the remnant of an old-fashioned
-velocipede which once made happy a now grown-up-and-gone-away
-son.</p>
-
-<p>Since those days there has been a decided change in the
-construction of the machine, the almost clumsy velocipede has
-become the airy “wheel.” The general structure has not been
-changed, but improved mechanical work and greater skill in
-adapting certain points so that they will do more effective
-work has brought the vehicle to a very high degree of perfection.
-The bicycle and tricycle in their improved forms are
-meeting with remarkable success. It is said that there are
-30,000 bicyclers in the United States, nearly all having joined
-the ranks in the past six years, and that these 30,000 have four
-hundred organized clubs. The national club, called “The
-League of American Wheelmen,” numbers already 4,000
-members, two excellent magazines, <i>Outing</i> and <i>The Wheelman</i>,
-and several papers are devoted to its interests, and are spreading
-everywhere information and enthusiasm.</p>
-
-<p>Tricycles are rapidly gaining the favor among ladies that the
-bicycle already has won among gentlemen. Hundreds of
-them are in use in the cities, where a common sight on the
-boulevards and in the parks is a tricycle party of ladies and portly
-men taking a morning constitutional or an afternoon’s pleasure
-ride.</p>
-
-<p>So many of our hobbies have their day and die, are popular
-because some shrewd fellow has made them fashionable that
-people of good common sense are becoming a little slow in
-adopting new things. Many are now inquiring about the validity
-of the bicycle’s claim. Is it as useful, as healthful, as
-pleasant a steed as avowed? No doubt an unqualified affirmative
-in answer to this question would be wrong, but that there
-are many strong points in favor the facts will prove. To fairly
-test its capabilities one should not take the experience of the
-first day’s riding, or of a would-be wheelman who is yet in the
-A B Cs of bicycling. It is an art and must be learned. A
-novice can not mount and ride away without a few tumbles;
-he can not at first “take” a curb or, in fact, any obstruction.
-If he try to use the brake in going down hill he will undoubtedly
-be thrown overboard and roll instead of wheel to the foot.
-He will ache and groan over long rides, and if easily discouraged,
-give up his efforts. But are these results any worse, or
-even so bad as the results of the first experiences on horseback?
-What is the bicycle or tricycle worth to the one who
-can handle it? is the question.</p>
-
-<p>We are accustomed to think of it as useful only on a level
-where the roads are hard and smooth and unobstructed, but
-he is a poor wheelman indeed, who can ride only on smooth
-ground. Any ordinary road, though it may be encumbered
-by ruts, pebbles, or mud, may be safely traveled. Snowy roads,
-of course, are hard traveling, but it is recorded of an enthusiastic
-New Hampshire bicycler that he was on the roads a part
-of each day during the year 1881. Candidly, it requires an
-unusual amount of skill and enthusiasm to use a bicycle on
-snowy or rugged roads for any long distance, although a quite
-possible task. By far the worst impediment which the “wheel”
-encounters is a stretch of loose sand, then all momentum is
-lost by the friction, and to go at all is very hard work; however,
-there is rarely a road so located that turf or a beaten
-walk does not lie near, to which the rider may resort. Nor are
-the hills a disadvantage, unless they are very long and steep.
-The ordinary grade can be easily mounted, though, as in
-walking, there is of course a greater degree of exertion required
-than on the level. The true answer to the question, where the
-bicycle may be ridden, is: On any road where one can drive
-safely and pleasantly.</p>
-
-<p>The question of speed is a very important one. Unless
-something can be gained in point of time it is no advantage to
-rushing clerks and brokers and students to bicycle their way
-to business and back; but the fact that something can be
-gained is a very strong point in favor of the “wheel.” The
-rate of speed compared with walking is three to one, and the
-exertion on level ground is but one-third of that of walking.
-On our steel horse, too, we make better time than on horseback.
-In a day’s travel the gain is very noticeable. The
-bicycle will take you four or five times as far as you can walk
-and twice as far as you can ride on horseback. The real advantage
-of a mode of travel which exercises and exhilarates,
-which is less wearisome than walking and which, while it gives
-as high speed as a horse, yet causes none of the trouble, the
-possible risk and no expense, is very apparent. This is no
-whimsical fancy either, but a fact. Many physicians, clergymen
-and business men are finding it invaluable in their work.
-A certain physician of high rank has given it as his opinion,
-that the “bicycle or tricycle can be practically and profitably
-used by physicians as an adjunct to, or even in place of, the
-horse; and that it solves, beyond any question, the problem
-of exercise for a very large class of our patients.” And another
-writing of its merits, says: “This summer I have turned both
-my horses out to grass and have trusted to my bicycle alone,
-doing, on an average, about 50 miles a day. I find I get<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">[524]</a></span>
-through my day’s work with less fatigue than on horseback,
-and without the monotony of driving.” If it will serve the
-purpose of a doctor it will of any and all busy men.</p>
-
-<p>More important than its practical value is its health giving
-qualities. It is a veritable cure-all. The pleasure of the exercise,
-the fine play it gives to the muscles of the upper and
-lower limbs, and the free exposure to sun and air are the best
-possible medicines. <i>Ennui</i>, the wretched, worn-out feeling of
-so many over-worked students, bookkeepers and professional
-men, dyspepsia and nervousness can have no better prescription
-than bicycle or tricycle riding. Indeed, of the latter no
-less an authority than B. W. Richardson, M. D., a famous
-English physician, says: “I am of the opinion that no exercise
-for women has ever been discovered that is to them so
-really useful. Young and middle aged ladies can learn to ride
-the tricycle with the greatest facility, and they become excellently
-skillful. The tricycle is, in fact, now with me a not uncommon
-prescription, and is far more useful than many a dry,
-formal medicinal one which I have had to write on paper.”</p>
-
-<p>The real enjoyment of the exercise is wonderfully in its favor.
-No finer sport can be found than the rapid spinning by green
-fields, through shady woods and along clear streams, lifted so
-far above the earth that you half believe you are treading air,
-so still and smoothly your “wheels” carry you. The bounding
-life that gentle exercise and abundant air and sunshine
-bring is yours. You seem almost a creature of the air as you
-whirl along. It is pure, perfect pleasure—the perfection of
-motion. One feature of bicycle and tricycle riding that commends
-it to many is the opportunity it offers for delightful
-summer trips. The bicycle clubs of many cities make daily
-morning runs of ten or twelve miles into the country, returning
-in time for a club breakfast at the home of some member—longer
-trips which occupy a day are common, and a month’s
-travel through a pleasant country is becoming a very fashionable
-as well as healthful and inexpensive way of spending a
-vacation. An English lady and her sister recently made a
-trip of 470 miles through the pleasant country of South England
-on tricycles, and declare that they had so pleasant a
-time they intend to make another tour next year. Indeed, so
-successful have bicycle and tricycle excursions become that
-they threaten to rival the railway and steamer.</p>
-
-<p>The expense is of course an important item to most people,
-and is decidedly in favor of the wheel. As in all goods, the
-prices vary with quality and finish. The price of a bicycle
-varies from $7 to $175, of a tricycle from $20 to $240. The
-medium prices give as durable and useful an instrument as the
-higher. When once owned there is little more expense—a
-trifle will be spent in repairs each year, and if desired, there
-are certain accessories which can be added. New tires are
-needed about once in four years, and cost about $10 for a fifty-inch
-bicycle. But there is no feeding nor stalling nor grooming.
-Your steel horse makes no demands upon your purse,
-your sympathies, or your time.</p>
-
-<p>What is the bicycle coming to? Certainly to be a very important
-factor in our civilization. We may expect to see it
-some day in war—already the mounted orderlies in the Italian
-army use it. In twenty years, maybe less, we shall all be
-taking our wedding trips by bicycle, and it may not be wild
-to suppose that the enterprising wheelman will soon have a
-highway from New York to San Francisco, and that our summer
-trips to the Golden Gate or the Atlantic will be <i>via</i>
-bicycle.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<p>Never, never has one forgotten his pure, right-educating
-mother. On the blue mountains of our dim childhood, toward
-which we ever turn and look, stand the mothers, who marked
-out to us from thence our life; the most blessed age must be
-forgotten ere we can forget the warmest heart. You wish, O
-woman! to be ardently loved, and forever, even till death. Be,
-then, the mothers of your children.—<i>Richter.</i></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2 id="THE_NAVY">THE NAVY.<br />
-<span class="smaller">WHY IT SHOULD BE EFFICIENTLY MAINTAINED
-IN TIME OF PEACE.</span></h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p class="center">By <span class="smcap">Lieutenant G. W. MENTZ</span>, of the U. S. Navy.</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p>Many intelligent people in our country know nothing whatever
-of the navy.</p>
-
-<p>We are not a warlike nation, and our people are engaged in
-peaceful pursuits. The majority are so busied with matters
-which have no connection with nautical affairs that they have
-no time for reflection upon any such subject.</p>
-
-<p>A great many of our fellow countrymen have never seen the
-ocean, have never seen anything in the shape of a ship except
-a river steamboat.</p>
-
-<p>Not seeing the navy, not hearing of it in these piping times
-of peace, having no dealings with it or with ships, never coming
-in contact with it in any way, and not understanding anything
-about it, they never trouble themselves with it, and care
-nothing for it, just as almost every one naturally does with any
-subject in which he is not personally interested.</p>
-
-<p>But how can our people in the interior be influenced to interest
-themselves in a subject which really is of vital importance
-to them, and almost as much so as to those living on the seaboard?</p>
-
-<p>They are told, year after year, that our coasts and our lakes
-are undefended, that a navy is absolutely necessary, that in its
-present state it could not stand a chance with the navy of even
-a fourth-rate power; yet they never care enough about it to
-instruct their representatives in Congress to put the country in
-a secure state of defense, and unless so instructed by the people,
-our politicians will never do anything but dilly-dally with
-every subject of national importance.</p>
-
-<p>We are slapped in the face, first on one side then on the
-other, and kicked about by nations which are picayunish in their
-resources in comparison with ourselves, and yet we take it all
-with indifference or a faint protest.</p>
-
-<p>We are a strange combination as a nation; the same men who
-would resent an insult individually, or so provide themselves
-with weapons that no one would <i>dare</i> insult them, when taken
-collectively as a nation pitifully ask to be “let off” the moment
-the British lion shows his teeth, or the Prussian eagle
-raises his claws.</p>
-
-<p>But it is not intended to appeal to the sentiment of the people
-of the United States, or to their sense of honor to rouse
-their interest in the navy. That has been tried too often, and
-has failed in every case, until truly patriotic men (and thank
-God there are a few such men left) have almost given up in
-despair, if not in disgust. This article will, it is hoped, prove,
-on other grounds than sentiment, the absolute necessity of a
-navy in time of peace by showing what it does when we are
-not at war.</p>
-
-<p>Every one knows the navy has something to do with the defenses
-of the country, but—</p>
-
-<p>What is the use of a navy in time of peace?</p>
-
-<p>What does it do?</p>
-
-<p>What does it consist of?</p>
-
-<p>Who manages it?</p>
-
-<p>How much does it cost us taxpayers?</p>
-
-<p>Do we get any return for our money? and the like, are questions
-which every one, in his capacity of an American citizen,
-has a right to ask, and which should be answered in such a
-way that every school boy could understand.</p>
-
-<p>It is easily understood by those of our countrymen living even
-in those parts of our land most remote from either ocean washing
-our shores, that a navy is necessary in time of war with a foreign
-country, and that then it would protect our coasts and prevent
-an invasion of our soil, and keep the enemy’s war ships from
-destroying our cities, or from blockading our ports, and thus
-give the grain and beef—“the production of which is the very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">[525]</a></span>
-life and soul of the West”—an opportunity to get out of the
-country, and to their markets; for it requires no great reasoning
-powers to understand that with the enemy hovering around
-our ports with his ships of war, no shipment of grain and beef
-could take place.</p>
-
-<p>But the navy protects those same interests in time of peace,
-and in this way:</p>
-
-<p>Suppose <i>no</i> nation had a navy, and that <i>no</i> armed force existed
-on the sea, what would be the result?</p>
-
-<p>We would want to export our surplus grain and beef, and
-hundreds of other articles which we raise in excess of our
-needs in this country and exchange them for tea and coffee and
-other articles which we can not raise. We can not send them by
-rail across the ocean, we have to employ ships. <i>We can not
-get along without ships.</i></p>
-
-<p>Even in this age of steam and telegraph, can any one doubt
-that with no armed force to protect the ships with their valuable
-cargoes and small crews of two dozen or more men, that
-the pirate would not again infest the seas and prey upon commerce?
-Steam and the telegraph would aid him just as much
-as they would the merchant. But, it might be argued, arm the
-crews of the merchant ship, put guns and gunners on board.
-If you do that you have a navy, and a much more expensive
-and inefficient one than by the present methods.</p>
-
-<p>The navies of the world drove the pirate from the seas. He
-became a universal enemy, and was hunted down by the war
-ships of all civilized nations, and there was no dissenting voice
-among them upon this one question of piracy. To prevent his
-return the existence of a naval force was necessary <i>and the
-display of such a force is all that prevents his return now</i>.</p>
-
-<p>Of those who believe there would be no piracy did no navies
-exist in this age of enlightenment and of rapid communication,
-it might be asked if they thought property would at all be safe
-in any of our cities if the police were withdrawn from its protection.
-What is it that prevents many a thief from robbing
-property when he finds it apparently unprotected, <i>sees</i> no policemen
-as he looks up and down the street? It is his knowledge
-that the city <i>has</i> a police force, and that a policeman may
-be in the near vicinity, though not in sight.</p>
-
-<p><i>It is this moral effect of the existence of an armed force</i> which
-prevents many robberies being committed on shore, and it is
-the same with the ocean.</p>
-
-<p><i>Without an armed force on the ocean to protect cargoes in
-time of peace the temptation to become suddenly rich, and without
-any one knowing how, would be too great to be resisted.
-The navy is the police of the seas, and one class of property
-should be protected just as much as another. Shipping is entitled
-to the same treatment and care as any other form of invested
-capital.</i></p>
-
-<p>Acknowledging then that it is the existence of war vessels
-on the seas that prevents piracy and insures the safety of our
-cargoes of grain and beef, and other articles in their transit
-across the ocean, and that a navy in this way protects commerce
-in time of peace, <i>then, is it just that <span class="smcapuc">ONE</span> nation should
-bear all the expense of keeping up a sufficient show of force in
-the shape of a navy to prevent the return of the pirates? All
-nations who have property on the ocean, or ships carrying cargoes
-from port to port, must aid in thus protecting the seas in
-proportion to the value of property sailing the ocean. And
-the maritime powers of the world must assist each other against
-the common enemy, just as the police of one country assist those
-of another in procuring and bringing to justice the extraditional
-criminals.</i></p>
-
-<p>It is not right or just for a country to have a merchant marine
-without a corresponding navy to protect it; it is unjust to
-other nations, and we have the second largest merchant marine
-in the world, and hardly rank as <i>fifth</i> as a naval power.</p>
-
-<p>The country in time of peace, in the early stages of its existence,
-when our navy was as large in proportion to the inhabitants
-as it is now, had practically merchant ship after merchant
-ship seized, not by individuals, but by nations which possessed
-more powerful navies, and the number of ships so seized by
-France alone counts up in the hundreds, and France is a friend
-of the United States if we have one in Europe.</p>
-
-<p>It seems to be natural that the unprotected should be imposed
-upon. Wherever we glance throughout nature we find
-the mighty preying upon the weak, and even in the very plants
-the weaker are crowded out and must give way to the
-stronger. This is true of men, and it is likewise true of nations.
-For a proof consider the number of nations England
-has crowded out. We, too, have crowded out the Indian.</p>
-
-<p>I suppose the Bey of Tunis would still be imposing upon our
-merchants in the Mediterranean if we had not aroused ourselves
-and shown him what a naval force could do, and made
-him respect it.</p>
-
-<p>Many Americans engaged in commerce are temporarily resident
-abroad, and although they may be most law abiding,
-there still occur times when they are imposed upon, and in
-some cases incarcerated or maltreated, even murdered. The
-government owes these men protection. It is the solemn duty
-of the government to see that they are justly treated; and this
-can be done, in many cases, in no better way than by a show
-of force. One small gunboat in a port where one of our fellow
-citizens has been imposed upon will do more toward setting
-him right than thousands of appealing or of threatening
-words from a distance. There are hundreds of instances on
-record in the Navy and State Departments which might be
-cited in illustration of this, but the following will serve the purpose.
-They are taken from recent editions of the Washington
-<i>National Republican</i>:</p>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p>In the spring of 1858 the United States steamer “Fulton,” mounting
-six guns, was cruising in the West Indies. Information reached the commander
-that a revolution had broken out at Tampico; that the town was
-besieged, and that American merchant vessels were detained in the river.
-The “Fulton” proceeded with all despatch to Tampico, and found affairs
-as had been reported.</p>
-
-<p>Tampico is situated six miles up the river of that name. The revolutionary
-and besieging party was within three miles of the city, and had
-established a custom house at the mouth of the river. Five American
-merchant vessels were in the river at the time. They had paid the
-necessary custom house dues at Tampico, and started down the river to
-proceed to sea. Upon approaching the mouth of the river they were
-directed to anchor until they had paid additional custom house dues. To
-this, of course, the American captains positively refused, as they had
-already paid the necessary legal dues. Consequently the vessels were
-detained under the guns of the besieging party, and had not the United
-States steamer “Fulton” made her appearance they would continue to
-have been detained. The commander of the “Fulton” demanded their
-instant release, which was complied with, and the vessels proceeded to
-sea accordingly.</p>
-
-<p>One of the captains was very spunky, and gave those Mexicans a
-piece of his mind. For this he was taken out of his vessel and put in
-prison. The excuse for this which the Mexicans gave was that a small
-signal gun, which a man could easily carry, was found on board, and
-this was considered contraband. The commander of the “Fulton” went
-in person, demanded the release of this captain, took him off in his gig,
-and restored him to his vessel.</p>
-
-<p>Gen. Gaza, of the besieging forces, hadn’t an idea that there was an
-American man-of-war within a thousand miles of Tampico when he
-committed these high-handed proceedings, and he was greatly astonished
-when the “Fulton” made her appearance. It does not always matter
-so much about the size of a man-of-war on hand upon these occasions.
-A six or eight gun vessel may suffice, and will often effect the service
-required quite as well as a frigate. What is necessary is the sight of the
-American ensign and pennant backed by a few guns.</p>
-
-<p>In September, 1873, a revolution of a violent character broke out at
-Panama, and the city was besieged. Whenever there is trouble on the
-Isthmus they make a “dead set” at the railroad. In case of war the
-government of Colombia guarantees to protect and preserve neutrality
-upon the Panama railroad. Upon this occasion the governor of Panama<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">[526]</a></span>
-declared his inability to protect the railroad. The commander-in-chief
-of the United States naval forces in the Pacific happened to be at Panama
-just in the “nick of time,” with two good sized men of war, the
-“Pensacola” and “Benicia,” and upon his own responsibility landed 250
-men—seamen and marines—divided between the Panama railroad station
-and the custom house. The city of Panama and the Panama railroad
-were in imminent danger of being destroyed. The show of forces had
-the desired effect, without the necessity of firing a shot. Once the revolutionary
-party approached, with an attempt, apparently, to come upon
-the railroad, but a bold front shown by the United States forces evidently
-caused them to change their minds.</p>
-
-<p>Four lines of steamers of four different nations were then running
-and connecting with the Panama railroad, viz.: American, English,
-French, and German. Passengers, freights, and specials continually
-passed over the road in safety and without interruption. These troubles
-lasted for a fortnight, when the insurrectionary forces retired and broke
-up, and the United States naval forces were withdrawn to their ships.</p>
-
-<p>For these services the United States naval commander-in-chief received
-the thanks of the Panama Railroad Company, the several Pacific Mail
-Steamship Companies, and all the consuls and foreign merchants.</p>
-
-<p>These are a few instances of which the writer is cognizant of what
-the navy does in time of peace. Scarcely a naval officer of moderate
-experience and length of service but has witnessed similar scenes in different
-parts of the world. They do not attract the attention of the public,
-and naval officers are not apt to blow their own trumpets.—<i>March
-13, 1884.</i></p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p>Under the Napoleon dynasty, when Murat was king of Naples, several
-American merchant vessels, with valuable cargoes, were captured and
-confiscated under protest, and taken into Neapolitan ports. The entire
-proceedings were pronounced arbitrary and thoroughly illegal. In course
-of time Napoleon and all his dynasties went under, and Naples and the
-Neapolitans were restored to their possessions and the government of
-their country once more. But the government of Naples was held responsible
-for the seizure and consequent loss to their owners of these
-vessels and cargoes, although these flagrant acts were committed under
-the French.</p>
-
-<p>After a lapse of time a thorough investigation and an estimate of
-losses were made. A demand for indemnity was made and positively
-refused. Several years elapsed when Gen. Jackson became President of
-the United States, and he, with his accustomed emphasis, repeated the
-demand, which was again refused. In the year 1832 Gen. Jackson appointed
-a special minister (Hon. John Nelson, of Maryland) to Naples
-to press this demand. Commodore Daniel T. Patterson (who commanded
-the naval forces and coöperated with Gen. Jackson at New Orleans)
-was at this time commander-in-chief of the United States Mediterranean
-squadron, consisting of three fifty-gun frigates and three twenty-two-gun
-corvettes. The writer of this was a midshipman in the squadron.</p>
-
-<p>It was arranged that one ship at a time should make her appearance
-at Naples. The commodore went in first, and a week after another
-ship arrived. Mr. Nelson then made the demand as directed by
-his government. It was refused. At the end of a week a third ship
-appeared, and so continued. The Neapolitan government became
-alarmed, began to look at the condition of the forts, mounted additional
-guns, built sand bag batteries, and kept up a constant drilling of their
-troops. When the fifth ship arrived the government gave in, acknowledged
-the claim, and ordered it to be paid just as the sixth ship entered
-the harbor.</p>
-
-<p>The amount was not so large—about $350,000—but there was a great
-principle involved. This money was owing to owners, captains, and
-crews of American merchant vessels, whose property had been illegally
-and unjustly taken from them.</p>
-
-<p>And it may be asked when and whether they would ever have received
-it had it not been for the United States navy. This fully illustrates
-one of Nelson’s maxims: “To negotiate with effect a naval force
-should always be at hand.”—<i>About April 4, 1884.</i></p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p class="center">VIGOROUS, BUT TARDY.</p>
-
-<p>The House committee on foreign affairs yesterday directed Representative
-Lamb to report to the House the following:</p>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p><i>Resolved</i>, That the President be directed to bring to the attention of
-the government of Venezuela the claim of John E. Wheelock, a citizen
-of the United States, for indemnity for gross outrages and tortures inflicted
-upon him by an officer of said Venezuelan government, and to
-demand and enforce in such manner as he may deem best an immediate
-settlement of said claim.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<p>The report accompanying the resolution says: “Your committee is of
-the opinion that more vigorous measures than diplomatic correspondence
-are necessary to secure justice for the citizen of the United States thus
-grievously wronged.” Mr. Wheelock’s claim is for $50,000.—<i>April
-18, 1884.</i></p>
-
-</div>
-
-<p>Even the missionary, the peaceful man of God, in his commendable
-work of extending the teachings of the Bible to
-semi-civilized people, often carries his life in his hand, and
-many have asked for the protection of a man-of-war.</p>
-
-<p>Numbers of American missionaries in China can tell with
-what joy they have hailed “the good old flag backed by a few
-guns.”</p>
-
-<p>Since the massacre of foreigners (mostly missionaries) in
-Tientsin, China, in June, 1870, that place has scarcely ever
-been without the presence of an American war vessel, and
-missionaries resident there will not hesitate to acknowledge
-the feeling of security such a vessel brings with her, and the
-necessity of such a show of force.</p>
-
-<p>While England is very prompt in redressing the wrongs of
-those of her subjects resident abroad, the United States is very
-derelict, and the difference in the respect shown by foreigners
-to Americans and Englishmen is very marked in consequence.</p>
-
-<p>But there are other reasons than those of policing the sea
-and protecting our citizens abroad, why a navy is necessary in
-time of peace.</p>
-
-<p>It requires time to build ships and guns, and to train men to
-handle them, and we must be prepared with suitable weapons
-to meet any enemy who may declare war against us.</p>
-
-<p>Wars come upon us when least expected, and even we, who
-are advocates of settling all difficulties with foreign nations
-by arbitration, and who pride ourselves upon maintaining only
-a small army and navy, cannot escape the horrors of war.</p>
-
-<p>If there is any truth in the saying that “History repeats
-itself,” then the time for us to be at war is close at hand.</p>
-
-<p>We are young as a nation, and although our tendencies have
-been peaceful, and although we have almost, <i>have</i> sacrificed
-our honor, yet, in spite of all that, we have never had a reign
-of peace for a longer period than thirty-five years, and in the
-one hundred and odd years of our existence, we, the “peaceful
-nation,” have had <i>four foreign wars</i>. Two with Great Britain,
-one with France, and one with Mexico. Can any one believe
-we will never have another foreign war?</p>
-
-<p>We are not prepared for war, and in time of peace we should
-prepare for war.</p>
-
-<p>As stated above, we rank as a fifth-rate naval power, and
-our next war is going to be a foreign war—(for we will hardly
-fight among ourselves again)—and <i>then the navy will have to
-do most, if not all, of the fighting</i>.</p>
-
-<p>Our resources are not as great as our people in their fancied
-security believe. For instance, the whole number of deep-sea
-sailor men from whom we could draw recruits, is only 60,000,
-including foreigners sailing under the American flag. These
-men are untrained for war purposes, and as much so as any man
-you might pick up in the streets is untrained as a cavalry man
-or artillery man, although he may have had some experience
-in riding a horse or in shooting birds with a shot gun.</p>
-
-<p>The tendencies of the present age are to wars of short duration,
-and in our next war we will be “knocked out” in as
-comparatively short a time as Mr. Sullivan “knocks out” his
-opponents, unless we are better prepared than we are at present.</p>
-
-<p>“At present England could bring, in thirty days, the greater
-part of her immense iron clad fleet to operate upon our coast,
-and the damage which this force could inflict upon the seaboard,
-and indirectly upon the whole country would be incalculable.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">[527]</a></span>
-In thirty days we would have paid in the way of ransom
-money and in the value of property destroyed the value
-of a dozen navies, to say nothing of the national disgrace, and
-a complete cessation of foreign and coastwise trade. In thirty
-days we could do nothing, <i>absolutely nothing</i> in the way of
-improvising a coast defense. Our naval vessels could not be
-recalled from foreign stations, and if they could their weakness
-and small number would only insure certain defeat.”</p>
-
-<p>It takes a year to build even a simple unarmored ship, whose
-thin sides of 10-16 of an inch can be penetrated by modern
-guns at a distance of several miles;</p>
-
-<p>And three years to build such iron clads as most of the
-South American states even, possess;</p>
-
-<p>And a year to build a modern steel gun of any power;</p>
-
-<p>When all the skilled labor and appliances for manufacturing
-the material are at hand.</p>
-
-<p>But our workmen, though skilled in other things, are not
-skilled in making the requisite kind of metal either for guns or
-armor, and in putting it together when it is obtained. We have
-not the immense steam hammers and plant for such colossal
-work.</p>
-
-<p>Our country is exposed on all sides—Pacific, Atlantic, and
-lakes.</p>
-
-<p>The country that goes to war with us is not going to treat
-us as the militia did the rioters in Cincinnati the other day, remain
-inactive until we can arm ourselves.</p>
-
-<p>If England is to be our enemy (and there is no reason why
-she should not be, for she has never shown her friendship for
-us except by words. In her actions she has proved an enemy,
-and we must never forget the blockade runners and the “Alabama,”
-and the fact that is largely due to her, that our civil
-war lasted so long), she will attack us both on the Atlantic
-coast and on the great lakes.</p>
-
-<p>In the latter region she is much better prepared to injure us
-now, and we in a worse condition to prevent it, than in 1812.</p>
-
-<p>Profiting by her experience, she is preparing a waterway that
-will admit her gunboats to the very heart of our country. It
-requires no close observation to realize that other motives
-than those of commerce induced England to purchase and
-expend millions of money upon the Welland Canal, and that it
-gives her a great strategical advantage.</p>
-
-<p>That is one advantage she has over us, should the war be
-carried to the lakes.</p>
-
-<p>Another is, the mouth of the St. Lawrence River—the route
-from the sea to the lakes—lies wholly within British territory.</p>
-
-<p>Still another is, we have signed an agreement with England
-not to maintain more than one small gunboat on the lakes,
-and not to build any war vessels on the lakes.</p>
-
-<p>In the interests of economy we have practically cut ourselves
-off from the right or privilege to construct what we please in
-our own territory. Next, it may be presumed, we will be asking
-permission to sneeze.</p>
-
-<p>With the Welland Canal and the agreement not to build war
-vessels on the lakes, we have placed ourselves at great disadvantage.</p>
-
-<p>That agreement does not affect England, for she possesses a
-waterway for her gunboats from the sea to the lakes. Our only
-waterway from the sea to the lakes, the Erie Canal, is not deep
-enough, nor are its locks large enough, for gunboats. England
-has one hundred such vessels which she could assemble at
-Montreal upon the <i>slightest</i> suspicion of war, and when the
-time came for action, they would proceed via the Welland
-Canal, and destroy Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, Sandusky, Toledo,
-and all the other great cities on the lakes before we could improvise
-an effective defense, and certainly before we could
-build <i>one</i> ship to oppose her fleet. The “Michigan” would
-not be effective, the English fleet would soon sink her. It
-might be argued that Buffalo and the other ports would furnish
-merchant steamers in an emergency, which could serve as improvised
-gunboats. But even if such vessels could successfully
-oppose a fleet of vessels built specially for war purposes, the
-guns, equipments and ammunition are not on hand to be
-put on board such ships, even if they were to be found conveniently
-moored to the docks at Buffalo, nor are the trained
-crews to be found at a moment’s notice, and those men who
-are trained would be needed to move the regular ships of the
-navy on the seaboard, where the enemy would be even more
-vigorous in his operations.</p>
-
-<p>Many people have a misconception of the effectiveness of
-the torpedo.</p>
-
-<p>The torpedo is certainly a powerful and destructive weapon
-when it works all right, but you might plant torpedoes all over
-some of our harbors, and still they would not protect the cities
-from destruction, nor prevent the enemy from landing and capturing
-the city, in spite of the torpedoes.</p>
-
-<p>At New York there is no necessity for a fleet to <i>enter</i> the harbor
-to destroy the city. There is a place south of Long Island,
-nine miles distant from the City Hall in New York, where there
-is plenty of water for a fleet of the largest ironclads to take
-up its position, from which it could batter down Brooklyn and
-New York. Some of the modern guns send shot weighing
-2,000 lbs. (one ton) eleven miles.</p>
-
-<p>Then too, there might appear a foreign Farragut to <span class="smcapuc">PASS</span> the
-torpedoes, losing perhaps some of his vessels, but still having
-enough left to accomplish his object.</p>
-
-<p>The torpedo is by no means a <i>sure</i> weapon. During the
-war of the Rebellion the ship “Ironsides” was stationary
-for one hour directly over a torpedo which had a 5,000 lb.
-charge of powder, at Charleston. It failed to explode despite
-every effort of the operator on shore to get it to do its work.</p>
-
-<p><i>If</i> a ship happens to pass directly over a torpedo, and</p>
-
-<p><i>If</i> the operator touches the firing key at exactly the right
-moment, and</p>
-
-<p><i>If</i> the connection between the electrical battery and the torpedo
-fuse is all right, and</p>
-
-<p><i>If</i> the fuse itself is in good condition, and</p>
-
-<p><i>If</i> the charge in the torpedo has not deteriorated, the torpedo
-<i>may</i> explode and blow up the ship.</p>
-
-<p>Too many “ifs” to make this a reliable weapon, and one
-to be solely depended upon.</p>
-
-<p>Torpedoes, or submarine mines, unless protected by batteries,
-to prevent the enemy from quietly picking them up, are of
-no use whatever except to cause delay.</p>
-
-<p>It is the custom in modern wars for the victor to demand of
-the vanquished large war indemnities, so that the people who
-are whipped not only suffer great losses incident to war
-itself, but must pay the expenses both they and their conquerors
-have incurred, and the people have to pay this in the shape
-of taxes.</p>
-
-<p>Now, no one believes we are going to be conquered, but this
-is how an enemy’s fleet off New York, for instance, will affect
-all the people in the United States.</p>
-
-<p>They would send a shot or two in the vicinity of the city,
-from their position south of Long Island, just to show what
-they <i>could</i> do, and threaten to destroy the city if a tribute of
-anywhere from $100,000,000 to $200,000,000 is not forthcoming
-in twenty-four hours. It would be paid, as that amount does
-not anywhere near represent the value of property in New
-York City. The United States government would have to return
-this amount to the citizens who advanced it, for according
-to the constitution the government must provide for the common
-defense of the country. Then it would fall back on the
-taxpayers again, and <i>they</i> would have to pay it.</p>
-
-<p>All that could be prevented by having the proper defense
-always ready.</p>
-
-<p>The other important cities on the coasts are as vulnerable to
-attack as New York.</p>
-
-<p>Just think of the billions of property which in this way is at
-the mercy of an enemy.</p>
-
-<p>We forget that English soldiers once destroyed our capitol.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">[528]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>They could do it now, and think of the vast amount of
-money in the treasury at Washington which would fall into
-their hands, and the value of the property that would be destroyed,
-and of the valuable papers that would be lost.</p>
-
-<p>“There is no insurance against the great evils of war so
-certain and <span class="smcapuc">CHEAP</span> as the preparations for defense and offense.”</p>
-
-<p>We are less likely to be attacked if our great seaboard and
-lake cities are defended by heavy rifled guns, by ironclads and
-torpedoes, and if we have enough cruisers to threaten an enemy’s
-commerce, and can take the offensive at once.</p>
-
-<p>Offense, with the proper weapons, is the best kind of defense.</p>
-
-<p>We must have a suitable navy to attack our enemy before he
-can get to our coast, and before he can either destroy or blockade
-our ports.</p>
-
-<p>Our policy being a peaceful one, we are not going to engage
-in war except in self defense, and we do not need to keep up a
-large naval establishment in time of peace, <i>but what we have
-should be the very best that can be obtained, and each individual
-ship and gun, and the personnel, should be of the most effective
-kind</i>.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2 id="ASTRONOMY_OF_THE_HEAVENS">ASTRONOMY OF THE HEAVENS FOR JUNE.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p class="center">By <span class="smcap">Prof. M. B. GOFF</span>.</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3>THE SUN</h3>
-
-<p>In the northern hemisphere the longest day of this year is
-the 20th of this month; though in many places it would be difficult
-to notice that there was really any difference between the
-length of this day and that of a few of those preceding and succeeding.
-The sun has reached his farthest point northward,
-and, although he travels about his usual distance each day, he
-moves in a part of his orbit which is, for all practical purposes,
-parallel to the equator, and hence must rise about the same
-place and hour each morning, and set at the same place and
-hour every evening. About the 21st of December of each year
-we have the shortest day, with several of the neighboring days
-but very little longer; for the reason that at that date the sun
-reaches its southern limit and moves almost parallel to the
-equator.</p>
-
-<p>It may be interesting to see how our neighbors fare in regard
-to longest days. By the working of a few problems in spherical
-trigonometry we find that our friends living on the equator
-have all their days the same length, namely, twelve hours. So
-that there is in that region no looking forward to the long winter
-evenings, nor any hoping for the shortening of summer’s
-sultry days. They have, however, this advantage: If the sun’s
-rays do sometimes “come down by a straight road,” they do
-not continue so long at a time as with us. As we proceed
-north, we find in latitude 30° 48′ that the longest day is
-fourteen hours, in latitude 49° 2′, sixteen hours; in 58° 27′,
-eighteen hours; in 63° 23′, twenty hours; in 65° 48′, twenty-two
-hours; in 66° 32′, twenty-four hours, no night at all; and
-51′ further north, that is, in latitude 67° 23′, the longest day
-begins about the fifth of June, and lasts till about the fourth of
-July, and is about thirty days long; in 73° 40′, it is three
-months long; in 84° 5′, it is five months; and at the north pole
-six months. Practically the days are longer than here represented;
-for we have natural light enough to pursue most vocations
-both before sunrise and after sunset. In latitude 63°
-23′, for example, where the day’s extreme length is twenty
-hours, on account of the twilight the remaining four hours
-might as well be called daylight, for the sun descends only a
-few degrees below the horizon, and though hidden from sight,
-still through the medium of the atmosphere affords almost the
-usual light of day.</p>
-
-<p>Of course our friends in the corresponding latitudes of the
-southern hemisphere are enjoying correspondingly short days
-and long nights. In 63° 23′ south latitude the day is only four
-hours long, and the night twenty hours. No wonder people
-sometimes say, “This is a queer world.” Its mechanism is
-certainly very wonderful. If we wished to be somewhat exact,
-we would say that the sun enters <i>Cancer</i> and summer begins
-on June 20th, at 7:51 p. m., Washington mean time, and continues
-ninety-three days, fourteen hours twenty-two minutes.
-Other items are as follows: On the 1st, 15th, and 30th,
-the sun rises at 4:31, 4:28, and 4:29 a. m.; and on the same dates
-sets at 7:24, 7:32, and 7:34 p. m. During the month our days
-vary in length from fourteen hours fifty-three minutes to fifteen
-hours five minutes; and on the 20th, the time from early
-dawn till the end of twilight is nineteen hours thirty minutes.
-On the 3rd, at 4:00 p. m., the sun is in conjunction with
-Saturn; on the 14th, at 3:00 p. m., 90° west of Uranus; on
-the 30th, at midnight, farthest from the earth; greatest elevation,
-in latitude 41° 30′ north, 71° 57′. Diameter decreases
-from 31′ 36″ on the 1st, to 31′ 32″ on the 30th.</p>
-
-<h3>THE MOON’S</h3>
-
-<p class="unindent">Phases occur in the following order: Full moon on the 8th, at
-2:41 p. m.; last quarter, on 16th, at 9:26 a. m.; new moon,
-on 23rd, at 12:25 a. m.; first quarter, on 30th, at 1:06 a. m. On
-the 1st, the moon sets at 12:38 a. m.; on the 15th, rises at 11:45
-p. m.; and on the 29th, sets at 11:42 p. m. Is farthest from
-the earth on the 16th, at 10:18 p. m.; nearest to earth on 21st,
-at 10:30 p. m. Least meridian altitude on 9th, 29° 41′; greatest
-altitude on the 22nd, amounting to 67° 18⅓′.</p>
-
-<h3>MERCURY.</h3>
-
-<p>A pair of good sharp eyes looking out sufficiently early in
-the morning, can almost any day during the month get a view
-of this planet; especially will this be the case near the 12th,
-the day on which it reaches its greatest western elongation,
-amounting to 23° 19′. On the 1st, 15th, and 30th, the time
-of rising is 3:51, 3:23, and 3:37 a. m. On the 21st, at 12:41 p.
-m., it will be 1° 39′ north of the moon, and on the 26th, at 6:00
-p. m., one minute of arc north of Saturn.</p>
-
-<h3>VENUS.</h3>
-
-<p>This planet which has for several months been so conspicuous
-in the western sky, reaches its greatest brilliancy on the
-3rd, after which it will decrease in interest, and continue to appear
-each day smaller, until its light is again obscured by the
-sun, and after remaining for a short time hidden from view,
-again appears in the eastern horizon as the <i>Lucifer</i> (light-bearer)
-of the ancients. It will set at 10:24, 9:40, and 8:21 p.
-m., respectively, on the evenings of the 1st, 15th, and 30th. Its
-diameter will increase from 35.8″ to 55.2″; but as it “turns
-its back upon us,” its increasing diameter will not add to the
-amount of light furnished the earth.</p>
-
-<h3>MARS.</h3>
-
-<p>On the 1st Mars will be found quite close to, and a little to
-the east of the star Regulus, in the constellation <i>Leo</i>, and will
-move east somewhat rapidly, making a direct movement of 14°
-31′ 55.5″ from the 1st to the 30th. His diameter decreases
-from 6.6″ to 5.8″, indicating his continually increasing distance
-from the earth. He rises during the day and sets at the
-following hours: On the 2nd at 12:07 a. m.; on the 15th at
-11:30 p. m.; and on the 30th at 10:49 p. m.</p>
-
-<h3>JUPITER</h3>
-
-<p class="unindent">During the month moves about six degrees eastwardly from a
-point a little west of <i>Præsepe</i>, in <i>Cancer</i>, leaving the Nebula a
-little to the north, and reaching, on the 30th, a point a little northeast
-of <i>Delta Cancri</i>. He comes to the meridian on the 1st, 15th,
-and 30th, at 3:34.6, 2:50.2, and 2:03.5, p. m., and sets on the
-same days at 10:49, 10:01, and 9:12 p. m., respectively.</p>
-
-<h3>SATURN,</h3>
-
-<p class="unindent">Who has for several months been making of himself such a
-fine display, exhibiting to those who were fortunate enough to
-possess a moderately good telescope, a splendid view of his
-rings, now retires abashed before the “King of Day;” during
-the first of the month, not even deigning “to put in an appearance.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">[529]</a></span>
-But he only “bides his time.” For during the succeeding
-months he will be cheerfully “at home” to early
-risers. It will be observed that on the 1st he rises after and sets
-before the sun, namely, at 4:51 a. m. and 7:23 p. m.; on the
-15th, rises at 4:02, twenty-six minutes before the sun, and sets
-at 6:36 p. m., some fifty-six minutes earlier than the sun; and
-on the 30th rises at 3:11 a. m., and sets 5:47 p. m. On the 3rd,
-at 4:00 p. m. he is in conjunction with and about 1° 23′ south
-of the sun; and on the 21st, at 10:30 p. m., 2° 46′ north of the
-moon. Diameter, 15.6″.</p>
-
-<h3>URANUS</h3>
-
-<p class="unindent">Makes an advance movement of 22′ 30″, presenting a diameter
-of 3.7″. Is evening star during the month, setting at the
-following times: On the 2nd at 1:07 a. m.; on the 16th at 12:12
-a. m.; and on the 30th at 11:14 p. m. On the 14th at 3:00 p.
-m., is 90° east of the sun; on the 1st at 3:54 p. m., is 3° 21′
-north of the moon, and again on the 28th at 11:42 p. m., 3°
-21′ north of the moon.</p>
-
-<p>One of the odd things in astronomy is the story of the satellites
-of Uranus. In a work published as recently as 1852, we
-are gravely told that Uranus “is attended by <i>six</i> moons or satellites,
-which revolve about him in different periods, and at various
-distances. Four of them were discovered by Dr. Herschel
-and two by his sister, Caroline Herschel, with the promise
-of more to be discovered;” and then we are given their distances
-from the planet, and also their times of revolution, which
-vary from 224,000 to 1,556,000 miles as to distance, and from
-five days, twenty-one hours, twenty-five minutes, twenty seconds
-to one hundred and seven days, sixteen hours, thirty-nine
-minutes, fifty-six seconds, as to times of revolution. But now
-we are told Herschel’s “satellites have been sought for in
-vain, both with Mr. Lassell’s great reflectors and with the
-Washington twenty-six inch refractor, all of which are optically
-more powerful than the telescopes of Herschel. There may be
-additional satellites which have not yet been discovered; but
-if so, they must have been too faint to have been recognized
-by Herschel.” Our latest information on this subject gives four
-satellites named Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon, in order outwardly
-from the planet, and their periodic times, respectively,
-2.52, 4.14, 8.7, and 13.46 days; the credit of discovering the
-two outer ones being given to Herschel and that of the two
-inner being divided between Mr. Lassell and Mr. Struve.</p>
-
-<h3>NEPTUNE</h3>
-
-<p class="unindent">Will be one of our morning stars, rising at 3:35, 2:45, and 1:48
-a. m., on the 1st, 15th, and 30th, respectively. His motion,
-58′ 39″ direct; diameter, 2.5″.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2 id="TO_BLOSSOMS">TO BLOSSOMS.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p class="center">By R. HERRICK.</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,</div>
-<div class="verse i4">Why do ye fall so fast?</div>
-<div class="verse i4">Your date is not so past,</div>
-<div class="verse">But you may stay yet here awhile</div>
-<div class="verse i4">To blush and gently smile,</div>
-<div class="verse i8">And go at last.</div>
-</div>
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">What, were ye born to be</div>
-<div class="verse i4">An hour or half’s delight,</div>
-<div class="verse i4">And so to bid good-night?</div>
-<div class="verse">’Twas pity Nature brought ye forth</div>
-<div class="verse i4">Merely to show your worth,</div>
-<div class="verse i8">And lose you quite.</div>
-</div>
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">But you are lovely leaves, where we</div>
-<div class="verse i4">May read how soon things have</div>
-<div class="verse i4">Their end, though ne’er so brave:</div>
-<div class="verse">And after they have shown their pride</div>
-<div class="verse i4">Like you, awhile, they glide</div>
-<div class="verse i8">Into the grave.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2 id="THE_SOLDIERS_HOME">THE SOLDIERS’ HOME.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p class="center">By OLIVER W. LONGAN,<br />
-Adjutant General’s Office, War Department.</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p>Visitors to Washington, whether for the purpose of meeting
-friends, or, as strangers to “see the sights,” are moved by
-common impulse to find their greatest gratification in all day
-tours from building to building, and from point to point, where
-the wonders of the place are to be found, and no ordinary
-matter can distract the attention from the one object which is
-the topic for discussion and arrangement through all the indoor
-hours of morning and evening while the visit lasts. Even
-the dreary drizzling rain which fairly divides the time with the
-sunshine of this weather-wise day can not dampen the ardor
-of the tourist, and on foot or on wheel the round is pursued
-regardless of fatigue and discomfort. Indeed, there is something
-of heroism both in the appearance and feeling manifest
-in the mien and move of the travelers as they walk about the
-streets or “climb to the dome,” and after the wearied guest
-has departed and the family physician is called in to prescribe
-a tonic or stimulant for an exhausted nature upon which the
-duty of guide has been imposed in the days just past, he will
-invariably remark with exasperating irony which almost makes
-the patient determine never again to truthfully reveal the cause
-of infirmity, “of course you climbed to the dome.”</p>
-
-<p>The purpose being to invite the reader to the “dome” as
-the first point of view, a few words of description are offered.
-The dome of the capitol building is a conspicuous object from
-all parts of the city and affords a standpoint from which to
-obtain the best prospect of all the city and surrounding country.
-This fact, and because it fills a picture of beauty in a
-vista from a particular spot in the grounds of the Soldiers’
-Home, introduces it into this article.</p>
-
-<p>From a balcony on the top of the dome, two hundred and
-sixteen feet from the ground, on the eastern front of the capitol,
-the eye takes in a scene of which Humboldt remarked, “I
-have not seen a more charming panorama in all my travels.”
-West at a distance of nearly three miles is Arlington. The
-mansion, which was once the home of Robert E. Lee, resembles,
-in the distance, the “Hall in the Grove.” Behind it is
-the city of the dead, a <i>home</i> for the remains of about 15,000
-soldiers. North a little more than three miles is the home of
-the living soldier. The clock tower appears to be the only sign
-of habitation upon a well wooded hill.</p>
-
-<p>As one of the many places of interest which receives the attention
-and merits the praise of visitors as a spot “beautiful
-for situation,” a brief history and description is offered to the
-readers of <span class="smcap">The Chautauquan</span>, but in neither will there be
-found any of the mellowness of age which is possessed by old-world
-places nor of the power which belongs to</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Things of earth, which time hath bent,</div>
-<div class="verse i1">A spirit’s feeling; and where he hath lent</div>
-<div class="verse i1">His hand, but broke his scythe.</div>
-<div class="verse i1">…</div>
-<div class="verse i1">For which the palace of the present hour</div>
-<div class="verse i1">Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The credit of the origin of the movement to establish a retreat
-for the old and disabled soldiers of the United States
-army, appears to be due to Hon. James Barbour, Secretary of
-War under John Quincy Adams. In a report dated November
-26, 1827, he suggests the founding of an army asylum. A report
-was made upon the subject by the Committee on Military
-Affairs in the House of Representatives May 21, 1828, and
-another February 27, 1829. Except the collection of some
-data upon the subject nothing further appears to have been
-done until in 1839 General Robert Anderson, “the hero of
-Fort Sumter,” reviewed the work and submitted his plans and
-views to a number of older and more experienced officers of
-the army. Their responses indicate the high degree of favor
-with which they looked upon the project, but their words of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_530" id="Page_530">[530]</a></span>
-foreboding in pointing out the difficulties to be surmounted in
-bringing a measure through the Congress to give it a legal
-status gave evidence that their estimate of strategy did not
-confine its use to the military department. Receiving but little
-more than good wishes for his encouragement, the dauntless
-captain (such was the rank then held by General Anderson)
-went knocking at the doors of Congress, and a communication
-addressed by him February 12, 1840, to Hon. John
-Reynolds, M. C., embodying the details of his plan became
-the basis of a favorable report by the House Military Committee
-January 7, 1841, in which, after setting forth the usage
-of the service and the improvement which would follow an act
-which should give the faithful soldier “the confidence of comfortable
-provision for his old age when he shall be worn out
-in his country’s service,” the committee declare it to be a
-“high gratification” to recommend to the “favorable consideration
-of Congress the admirable plan submitted by Captain
-Anderson—a plan which imposes no additional burden on the
-community, but merely provides that the savings of the soldier,
-in the vigor of his age, may afford him a shelter in the
-times of his infirmity or old age.”</p>
-
-<p>Never did an apple afloat more provokingly elude a youth,
-as with hands resolutely clasped behind him, he bent over the
-tub of water and endeavored to take it with his teeth, than did
-the object of Captain Anderson play away from successful accomplishment.
-The experience of people who have sought
-the favor of the law-making or executive powers to obtain an
-object of personal good for themselves or others has taught
-them that, as old people look over their spectacles to see the
-movement on the other side, so do the servants of the public
-over the object presented to measure the strength of the impelling
-power, and that attitude is apt to remain unchanged
-until the impulsion becomes dynamic when the direction of
-view is turned into, and through the matter urged upon them.
-Something of this character must have been the experience of
-those pleading the cause of the “old soldier” for about twelve
-years. General Winfield Scott made special mention of the
-subject and strongly recommended it in his annual report
-dated November 20, 1845, and again in a report dated November
-3, 1849, he says:</p>
-
-<p>“While the army under my command lay at Pueblo a part
-of the summer of 1847, an humble petition to Congress in favor
-of an asylum … for the benefit of <i>enlisted</i> men was
-drawn up and signed by, I believe, every commissioned
-officer.… In connection with that petition I beg to
-add the following facts: On the capture of the city of Mexico,
-by the same army, I levied a contribution upon the inhabitants
-of $150,000, in lieu of pillage, to which the city, by the
-usages of war, was, under the circumstances, liable.” The
-disposition of this money was accounted for in a letter to the
-Secretary of War, dated at Mexico February 6, 1848, in which
-was enclosed a draft for $100,000, concerning which the letter
-says: “I hope you will allow the draft to go to the credit of an
-<i>army asylum</i>, and make the subject known, in the way you
-deem best, to the military committee of Congress. That sum
-is, in small part, the price of the American blood so gallantly
-shed in this vicinity.” Quoting again from the report of November
-3, 1849: “The draft was made payable to me; and,
-in order to place the deposit beyond the control of any individual
-functionary whatever, I endorsed it, ‘The Bank of
-America will place the within amount to the credit of <i>army
-asylum, subject to the order of Congress</i>.’” The remainder of
-the report is an earnest protest against the disposition of the
-draft (which the Secretary of War had caused to be turned into
-the United States treasury), and a renewed “petition that Congress
-may appropriate the whole to an <i>army asylum</i> for the
-worn out or decayed <i>enlisted</i> men (regulars and volunteers)
-yet in service, or who may have been honorably discharged
-therefrom.” Thus, all along the line the history shows the
-difficulties which confronted the friends of the soldier, while
-within the citadel the feeling of opposition was strong enough
-to evoke the following from a member of the House of Representatives,
-in a letter to General Anderson, dated January 31,
-1851:</p>
-
-<p>“The prejudices of the House against the army are strong,
-and stupid and undiscriminating opposition is made to all
-changes which do not propose to cut down the army. I am not
-hopeful of the success of any measure—of the number in contemplation—that
-looks to the improvement of the army.” This
-language was descriptive of a most remarkable state of feeling,
-else the honorable member erred greatly in thinking that
-in the face of the recent achievements in Mexico the national
-legislature would strike down the bruised and broken battalions
-which had brought untold wealth to the people, as well as
-glory to the national standard. The action of a few weeks
-later indicated that however strong was the prejudice against
-the army there was a power somewhere which operated to
-protect and advance the interests so long and faithfully urged
-upon Congress in favor of the “army asylum,” and on the 3d
-of March, 1851, the approval of the President was given to
-“An Act to found a military asylum for the relief and support
-of invalid and disabled soldiers of the army of the United
-States.” The law constituted the general-in-chief commanding
-the army and seven other general officers a board of commissioners
-with the necessary powers for carrying out the purposes
-of the act, and provided for the detail of officers from the
-army for the position of governor, deputy governor, and secretary
-and treasurer, for each site which should be established.
-It gave the right of admission to benefit in the asylum to all
-discharged soldiers of twenty years’ service, and all disqualified
-by wounds received or disease contracted in the service
-and in the line of military duty—excepting deserters, mutineers,
-habitual drunkards and convicted felons—and required
-the discharge from the asylum of those who, being under fifty
-years of age, should recover their health so as to be fit again
-for military duty. By the same act a specific appropriation of
-money (including the levy made by General Scott upon Mexico),
-amounting to $183,110.42, was made to establish the asylum,
-and for its future maintenance provision was made to
-devote all monies derived from stoppages and fines by courts-martial,
-from pay forfeited by deserters, and from the effects
-of deceased soldiers unclaimed for three years—the latter to
-be subject to demand of legal heirs at any time—also from a
-deduction of twenty-five cents per month from each enlisted
-soldier, giving the volunteers or those belonging to organizations
-raised for a limited period the option of permitting the
-deduction from their pay to be made or not, as they chose, but
-making it obligatory in effect upon the <i>regular</i> soldier. An
-amendment to this law was made March 3, 1859, which
-changed the name of the institution to the “Soldiers’ Home,”
-reduced the number of commissioners to <i>three</i>, reduced the
-monthly deduction from the pay of the soldiers to twelve and
-one-half cents per month, and required pensioners to surrender
-their pensions to the Home while they should remain in and
-receive its benefits. Another amendment was made March 3,
-1883, which made the Board of Commissioners to consist of
-the general-in-chief commanding the army, the commissary
-general, the adjutant general, the judge advocate general, the
-quartermaster general, the surgeon general, and the governor
-of the Home (all <i>ex-officio</i>), and provided for the pensions of
-inmate pensioners to be held in trust for their benefit, or to be
-paid to their parents, wives or children. With the exception
-of these amendments the provisions of the original law remain
-in force.</p>
-
-<p>The first commissioners, with General Scott as the senior
-officer, lost no time in selecting a location for the “asylum.”
-Parcels of ground on every side in the immediate vicinity of
-Washington City were offered at prices varying from $50 to
-$350 per acre. A portion of Mount Vernon was also offered at
-$1,333.33 per acre. Two tracts north of the city, containing a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_531" id="Page_531">[531]</a></span>
-total of 256 acres, were purchased for $57,500. On one of
-these tracts were good buildings, one of which, “the mansion,”
-is now a summer residence for the President of the United
-States. Additions of ground since made to the original purchase
-have increased the number of acres to 500. The tract is
-nearly seven-eighths of a mile wide for about half its length
-from the southern boundary, which is irregular. The north
-half is reduced in width by a change of direction of the eastern
-boundary running westward about 400 yards. The western
-boundary nearly opposite the same point changes its course
-and runs northeast until it meets the eastern boundary at a
-point about one mile and three-eighths from the south line.
-In this north point nearly all of the buildings are situated.
-The ground is nearly level, being the broad top of a ridge
-which, upon the east side just outside the Home grounds, is of
-quite abrupt descent. A public road cuts off about fifteen
-acres, a portion of which is devoted to a national cemetery,
-while the remaining portion is a hillside grove in which, within
-a year past, a platform and seats have been erected for use on
-“decoration day.” Within the main grounds a pear orchard
-covers the “point,” and the first building near it is the library.
-The building was originally intended for a billiard room and
-bowling alley, and is the only building upon the grounds upon
-which the genius of the architect “run to waste.” The main
-building a few yards south of the library was the first one erected
-after the purchase of the grounds for an asylum. It was
-commenced in 1852 and completed in 1857. It is of white
-marble, the front structure 151⅓ feet long by 57 feet wide, four
-stories high, with a clock tower in the center of the south front.
-A rear wing from the center covers nearly equal ground with
-the front. In the basement are the kitchens, store rooms,
-offices, smoking rooms, etc. Upon the first floor is the dining
-room, large enough to seat 340 men. The remainder of this
-floor, and all the other floors, is devoted to sleeping rooms,
-and of these—except in the matter of ventilation of a few of
-the upper rooms—it may be said that they are as nearly perfect
-for the uses intended as can well be made. Single beds,
-wire and hair mattresses, clean and comfortable clothing of
-woolen and linen, clean uncarpeted floors and pure air, a box
-or locker for each man, make up a sum of comfort for the
-lodging of one accustomed only to the blanket and the bunk,
-which is well nigh perfect, and not to be found for the same
-person in the most luxurious bed-chamber wealth could provide.
-On the east of the main building is the annex used principally
-as a dormitory. On the same side are the stables and
-shops, the former too close for a well regulated institution.
-Upon the west and next the main building is the mansion, the
-dwelling of the former proprietor, and now the summer residence
-of the President. It has been remodeled, and very little
-of the original appearance of the building which a few
-years since was almost buried in vines, is left. Directly south
-from the mansion and main building the ground falls off gradually
-for half a mile, while on either side the ridge extends in
-a graceful sweep for about five hundred yards to bluffs somewhat
-abrupt, but not enough so to mar the beauty of rounded
-form. Upon the western ridge going southward from the mansion
-are the following objects in their order: The office building,
-a one story brick structure, where the commissioners meet
-at least once every month; the governor’s residence, and next
-the deputy governor’s residence, both large, roomy, and comfortable
-double houses of the same material as the “main
-building,” and of design in harmony with it. Next is a double
-building of brick occupied by the treasurer and the attending
-surgeon. These buildings all have a back-ground of woods
-which extends with the gradually sloping hill to the highway
-which here forms the western boundary of the grounds. The
-next object upon the western avenue is a portrait statue of
-General Scott, which was erected in 1874 upon a point of the
-ridge, which here extends to the east so as to make one side
-of a basin formed with the lower ground south of the mansion.
-The statue is bronze, ten feet high, upon a granite pedestal
-placed in the center of a mound, around which is a circular
-drive for carriages. The figure is represented in uniform, with
-a military cloak, fastened at the throat and thrown back from
-the right shoulder; head uncovered, left arm slightly bent and
-the hand resting on the thigh, the right hand upon the breast
-and thrust under the partly open coat. The position is one of
-dignified repose. No strain of feeling is aroused in the observer,
-such as is felt in looking upon the various equine figures
-in the city, upon which is perpetuated in the figure of the
-officer, the tension of nerve and alertness which almost
-prompts an effort to break the spell and give the dead their
-rest.</p>
-
-<p>Standing beside the statue, or seated upon the rustic
-bench close by, a view may be obtained which the visitor who
-has leisure may enjoy for an indefinite time. The city lies not
-far below. The eye can cover it all at one gaze. The dome
-of the capitol stands high above every other object—except
-that shaft of marble which bids fair to soon become the Washington
-monument—and far beyond is the broad Potomac,
-whose course is in the direction of view, and carries the eye on
-and on until objects become indistinct. Perhaps an officer close
-by may be observed lazily reclining upon the grass, while a
-soldier stands near him waving in various directions a white
-flag with a square block of color in the center. Presently the
-officer takes a small telescope from the earth beside him, and
-leveling it in a direction west of the city, looks steadily for a
-minute or two, lowers the glass and apparently writes down
-the result of his observation in a memorandum book. Looking
-in the same direction as did the officer the sight will be just
-strong enough to discern a flag-staff upon the top of the hills
-on the other side of the Potomac, perhaps five or six miles
-away. Curiosity may be gratified by a few questions, and from
-the answers it will be learned that the flag-staff marks the spot
-known as Fort Meyer, Virginia, the station of the United States
-signal corps, and the operation just witnessed was simply a
-practice lesson in transmitting a message by the use of the
-small flag, the motions of which to right, to left, to front, or by
-circle, indicated the letters or words of the message. A practice
-day upon this spot, by the signal men, is a diversion for
-many an old soldier whose monotonous life is greatly relieved
-even by a pantomime. A little east of south from the statue,
-about 400 yards distant, is Barnes’ Hospital, named for General
-Joseph K. Barnes, deceased, late surgeon-general of the
-army, who was the senior officer of the commissioners of the
-Home, when the hospital was built nearly eight years ago. It
-is a model hospital in every respect, and has received unqualified
-approval from the foremost medical men of Europe, as
-well as of America. It is full of patients all the time. It was
-intended to accommodate sixty, but the average number is
-about eighty. Some are ailing, some are waiting, some of
-sight or limb are wanting, all are forever done with the fullness
-of physical life, and the surgeon looks upon them as his children,
-whose every want he must attend. Three hundred yards
-farther south is the portion of the grounds known as “Harewood,”
-an estate of 191 acres added to the Home by purchase
-in 1872. A good portion of it is woods, through which are
-beautiful drives winding into labyrinths for one unaccustomed
-to them, for at three different points a stranger will be bewildered
-by following a well-worn track which returns upon itself,
-and may be traversed many times before some objects
-begin to have a familiar look. One of these places is bounded
-by a drive which is as irregular as would be the loop of a lasso
-thrown from the hand and permitted to drop upon the ground,
-an oblong irregular figure, from the northern end of which is
-the capitol “vista.” Through the woods for a distance of 500
-or 600 yards an opening has been cut just wide enough, and
-trimmed just high enough to admit a view of the dome of the
-capitol, which is invisible from points a step or two on either
-side of a particular spot. With the aid of very little imagination<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_532" id="Page_532">[532]</a></span>
-one may think the eye rests upon the temple in the new
-city which has been pictured in misty glory by so many artists.</p>
-
-<p>Upon the “Harewood” grounds are the principal farm and
-dairy buildings. The cottage now occupied by the farmer
-was, in some of the years of war, the summer home of the
-“great war secretary,” Edwin M. Stanton, the man who in
-the war times inspired more fear amongst his subordinates by
-the promptness and severity of his punishments for delinquencies
-than ever visited the same persons in the presence of an
-active foe. And yet when he stood upon the steps of the north
-front of the old War Department building, now gone down with
-him to the dust, and tried on that memorable 3d of April, 1865,
-to speak congratulatory words concerning the news which had
-come over the wires from the hand of President Lincoln, at
-City Point, Va., of a broken Rebellion and an evacuated Confederate
-capitol, his eyes were so full of tears that he did not
-see that the crowd which stood about and before him was composed
-of his apparently demoralized officers and clerks who
-had abandoned their desks and swarmed from the building by
-the windows as well as the doors; or, if he did see them, his
-voice was too much broken with the emotions, which were
-stronger than his stout heart, to permit him to administer a
-rebuke to those who almost without exception, at some time in
-the months and years just past, contributed their share to the
-result, and many had brought away the marks of the sacrifice.</p>
-
-<p>The work of farming is confined to the products of a market
-garden, which can not be purchased for the purposes of the
-Home in as good condition as they can be raised upon the
-ground. The dairy is the most important institution of the Home,
-and the herd of from forty to fifty Alderney and Holstein cattle is
-by no means the least amongst the matters of interest to be
-seen upon the grounds. The work of the dairy is done by men.
-The cooking for the inmates, nursing the sick, and indeed all
-the indoor work usually done by women is done by men. Some
-of the employes are “civilians,” so called to distinguish them
-from inmates who are employed upon light work.</p>
-
-<p>There are five principal gates or entrances to the Home
-grounds; two upon the east side and three upon the west side.
-At each is a lodge and a gate-keeper. The first on the east is
-the Harewood gate, entering upon the grounds already mentioned,
-of the same name. From it the “East drive,” after a
-serpentine course westward for about 500 yards up a pretty
-sharp grade, turns northward, and as it passes along east of
-the central portion of the grounds affords the finest view of the
-open country, the drive being upon high ground and the view
-unobstructed across the entire place. From the same gate
-“Corcoran Avenue,” flanked on both sides by magnificent
-rows of shade trees, leads into the woods. “Sherman” gate
-is near the north point opposite the cemetery; “Scott” gate,
-or as familiarly known, “Eagle” gate because of the immense
-iron eagles upon the gate pillars, is directly opposite “Sherman”
-gate, and both lead to the buildings only a few steps
-distant. There is a large gate a few steps west of the Scott
-statue so little used as not to be dignified with a name. The
-most important gate is one nearest the city upon the west side.
-It is reached by an avenue from “Seventh Street Road,” a
-continuation of the most important street running north and
-south in Washington. The avenue is the property of the
-Home, although the land on either side is owned by private
-parties. It is called “Whitney Avenue,” and the gate bears
-the same name. The ornaments upon the gate pillars or
-piers, which are of brick capped with stone, are large vases
-said to be copies of a vase designed by Thorwaldsen. The
-first view upon entering this gate is the one which may properly
-be called the “prettiest” when the word is used as meaning
-an appearance which gives momentary pleasure, but may not
-be remembered as one would remember the scenery and lake
-at Chautauqua. About two hundred feet from the gate are
-two little lakes which serve to assure the visitor that there really
-is real water on the place. By artificial means one of these
-lakes is held at a level about ten feet above the other, and by
-pipes carried to the center of the lower, a pretty, single jet
-fountain is formed. The north end of the upper lake is crossed
-by a substantial iron bridge, and the south end of the lower one
-is covered by a short granite span. Between the two all effort
-to find any satisfaction in the waste (?) of water is futile. But
-for miniatures they are really pretty, and with the three swans
-bumping up against the green shore as they float backward and
-swim forward, the half dozen white ducks with their heads in
-the mud and their dozen red legs and feet in the air in active
-effort to kick themselves farther into the mud, and the two
-wild geese, domesticated by the loss of part of a pinion each,
-as they stand sullenly by looking like fettered savages, all
-combine to afford a diversion which may not be found anywhere
-else by the visitor.</p>
-
-<p>The drives throughout the grounds will afford a ride of ten
-or eleven miles without going twice over the same spot, except
-at crossings. They are beautiful, hard, well kept, graveled
-courses. The gutters are models, and of themselves works of
-beauty, as they are paved with selected stone, nearly white,
-nearly of a size, and none much larger than a large egg, all in
-their natural form or shape. But it all affords but little genuine
-good to the old soldier. If he ventures out upon the road his
-walk is beset with dangers, and a sudden fright from a dashing
-team almost upon him drives away all gratification he
-might receive by looking from a place of safety upon the handsome
-equipages whirling by. Except the “short cuts” through
-the grass—and these are few and under prohibition—there is
-but one foot-path of any length in the grounds, and that is of
-brick, between the main building and the hospital. In most
-cases, to traverse this, is not even a matter of melancholy
-pleasure. The many privileges ready made for the citizens of
-Washington, without care or cost to them, are no doubt appreciated
-by them, but if a due weight of appreciation could
-be given to the cost, both original in money and cumulative in
-deprivation to those whose right it is to use them, the use of
-extended drives in a beautiful park away from the heat and
-dust of the streets, and yet so near as to be at the door, would
-lead all the rest.</p>
-
-<p>The Soldiers’ Home in the District of Columbia is unquestionably
-a grand institution, and in providing creature comforts,
-can probably not be improved upon, but it fails to meet a want
-which is known and recognized by the authorities having it in
-charge. Perhaps the one word which will best express it is
-<i>diversion</i>, not in the sense of amusement, but to take one
-away from his melancholies and permit no reaction. The inmates
-are men who have formed habits which grew under
-circumstances of constantly recurring excitement.</p>
-
-<p>They are able to understand that the best years of their lives
-have passed, and that the best powers of their bodies have
-been used, while nearly half of the allotted time of life, as
-measured by the number of their years, ought to still be to
-their credit, but they feel in some way that their hands are
-empty. True, they have every comfort for animal life, and in
-the little red stone chapel, the three services every Sunday are
-more than they ever knew before as a provision for their spiritual
-welfare, and they have the same freedom from care to
-which they have been accustomed through their military life,
-but each one sees that all he has is shared by five hundred
-others, and in it all he has no single part over which he can
-exercise individual control, not even himself. Everything tells
-him his work is done, and there is no more in the give and take
-of life over which he can plan and work. Discontent is inevitable,
-and until some plan is devised for bringing the military
-service, or most of its features, to the Home, and having there
-a counterpart of the camp and its duties, not to be imposed as
-set tasks, but to be taken up and directed by the men who all
-their lives have been under direction, and ought now to enjoy
-the privilege of apparent control, a remedy will probably not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_533" id="Page_533">[533]</a></span>
-be found. It took years to overcome in a measure the dislike
-and suspicion with which the old soldier regarded the Home.
-It was a manifestation of interest in him which was new and
-unusual, and by him untried. Progress has been made in the
-past years toward overcoming the matters which may be mentioned
-as difficulties in the problem of how to take care of
-men who ought to be simply aided in taking care of themselves
-by supplying them to a proper extent with means or material,
-and throwing upon them sufficient responsibility to create the
-<i>occupation</i>, which is the greatest need of the institution. This
-will gradually be worked out, and then the Home will be what
-it should, a place for work and life, and less of a place for waiting
-and death.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2 id="EIGHT_CENTURIES_WITH_WALTER">EIGHT CENTURIES WITH WALTER
-SCOTT.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p class="center">By WALLACE BRUCE.</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p>It has been truly said that Walter Scott’s novels have done
-more to warm the hearts of the English people toward their
-northern brethren than any other influence during the last century.
-The two races, unlike in national traditions and social
-characteristics, differing as to climatic influence and formation
-of country, with a blood-stained record since the days of Keneth
-Mac Alpine, were not naturally allied, or well prepared for
-immediate and lasting friendship. To borrow the language of
-surgery: It was not a national break to be easily “knitted,”
-but a sort of compound fracture.</p>
-
-<p>For thirty generations English and Scot had literally “glowered”
-across the border. Constrained in the narrow island of
-Britain, they had struggled like Roman gladiators in a wave-washed
-Coliseum, from which there was no escape. In the
-world’s history there is no other record of two races, with so
-many divergent points, and so much ancestral hatred, solidifying
-into one harmonious nation; and it is to the glory of
-Scott to have contributed to so grand a consummation. “All
-war,” Bulwer says, “is a misunderstanding.” It seemed to be
-the mission of our novelist to introduce England and Scotland
-to each other, and to make future misunderstanding impossible.
-Some of the volumes and characters, which we are to
-consider in this and in the following paper, emphasize and
-illustrate this conclusion.</p>
-
-<p>“The Pirate,” next in historic sequence, has little to do with
-the history of reigns and dynasties. With the exception of a
-single paragraph, which refers incidentally to the commotion
-between Highlanders and Lowlanders, between Williamites
-and Jacobites, one would not dream that there was such a
-thing as a government in the world. The reader, in spite of
-the warlike title, finds himself in a northern Arcadia. In the
-hospitable home of Magnus Troil we have a picture of a Norwegian
-Udaller—one of the last survivors, who kept alive the
-customs of Scandinavia in the Orkney and Zetland Islands.
-What Cedric, the Saxon, was to his people, as a prototype of
-antique manners in the reign of Richard, the Lion Hearted,
-Magnus Troil is to the few surviving Norwegians at the close
-of the last century in the stormy islands of the north. We sit
-at his board, and hear Sagas rehearsed by fishermen, who preserved
-among themselves the ancient Norse tongue. We listen
-to the dark romance of other days when the black raven
-banner ruled the seas. We are taken back in fancy to
-moonlit bays, where mermaids mingle their voices with the
-moaning waves. The monstrous leviathans of the deep again
-seem real, and the sea-snake, with towering head, girdles with
-its green folds the misty islands of Shetland. We find captains
-negotiating for favorable voyages with weird hags and
-insane witches—antique insurance brokers, who were willing
-to take payment without giving indemnity. We find in Norna—the
-wild prophetess—who half believed her own divinations,
-a legitimate descendant of the Voluspæ, or divining women,
-who, from Hebraic and Delphic times, have wielded power
-through centuries of superstition. We find Christian inhabitants
-of well governed and hospitable villages, who regard the
-spoils of the sea, and castaway wrecks, as kindly dispensations
-of Providence. We are introduced to a primitive people
-still clinging to the belief that a supernatural race, allied to the
-fairies, sometimes propitious to mortals, but more frequently
-capricious and malevolent, worked below the earth as artificers
-of iron and precious metals. We see lovers still pledging
-their troth and taking the Promise of Oden at the Standing
-Stones of Stennis, and note the patriotism and proud spirit of
-Minna Troil, as she responds to her lover’s description of other
-lands of palm and cocoa,</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Fair realms of continual summer,</div>
-<div class="verse">And fields ever fragrant with flowers.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“No,” she answers, “my own rude country has charms for
-me, even desolate as you think it, and depressed as it surely
-is, which no other land on earth can offer to me. I endeavor
-in vain to represent to myself those visions of trees and of
-groves, which my eye never saw; but my imagination can conceive
-no sight in nature more sublime than these waves, when
-agitated by a storm, or more beautiful, than when they come,
-as they now do, rolling in calm tranquility to the shore. Not
-the fairest scene in a foreign land—not the brightest sunbeam
-that ever shone upon the richest landscape, would win my
-thoughts for a moment from that lofty rock, misty hill and wide
-rolling ocean. Haitland is the land of my deceased ancestors,
-and of my living father, and in Haitland will I live and die.”</p>
-
-<p>The Bride of Lammermoor reveals the iniquitous administration
-of law in Scotland during the closing years of King
-William’s reign. The Scottish vicegerents, raised to power
-by the strength of faction, had friends to reward and enemies
-to humble. The old adage was literally verified: “Show me
-the man, and I will show you the law.” It is said that officers
-in high stations affected little scruple concerning bribery.
-“Pieces of plate, and bags of money, were sent in presents to
-the King’s counsel, to influence their conduct, and poured
-forth,” says a contemporary writer, “like billets of wood upon
-the floors, without even the decency of concealment.” The
-story opens with a burial and its attendant ceremony; and this
-key-note of sadness gives the tone or concert pitch to the sorrowful
-drama. The ready wit and crafty subterfuges of the
-old butler, Caleb Balderstone, somewhat relieve and lighten
-up the somberness of the tragedy. But it is not our purpose
-to trace the plot, or to point the moral of the swift and awful
-punishment which follows pride and injustice.</p>
-
-<p>As in “The Pirate,” we find but one paragraph relating to
-concurrent history, so in the “Bride of Lammermoor” we
-have but one historic glimpse of passing events, when the
-Tory party obtained, in the Scottish, as in the English councils
-of Queen Anne, a short lived ascendancy. There were at this
-time three parties in Scotland: the Unionists, who were destined
-providentially to triumph; the Jacobites, who desired the
-national independence of the kingdom; the third party, who were
-waiting to see the course of events. The reign of William,
-just completed, was not favorably regarded by the Scottish nation.
-His memory was justly honored in England, and revered
-by the Protestants of Ireland as a deliverer from civil
-and religious servitude. In Scotland he had likewise rendered
-great service to the right of worshiping God according
-to the dictates of one’s own conscience, but in civil matters he
-had infringed upon the prerogatives of the people—an infringement
-not speedily to be forgotten. Scott, in his “Tales of a
-Grandfather,” calls attention to this long cherished national
-resentment in the following paragraph: “On the fifth of November,
-1788, when a full century had elapsed after the Revolution,
-some friends to constitutional liberty proposed that the
-return of the day should be solemnized by an agreement to
-erect a monument to the memory of King William, and the
-services which he had rendered to the British kingdoms. At<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_534" id="Page_534">[534]</a></span>
-this period an anonymous letter appeared in one of the Edinburgh
-newspapers, ironically applauding the undertaking, and
-proposing as two subjects of the entablature, for the base of
-the projected column, the massacre of Glencoe, and the
-distresses of the Scottish colonies at Darien. The proposal
-was abandoned as soon as the insinuation was made public.”</p>
-
-<p>When Queen Anne came to the throne it was thought prudent
-to make some provision which would insure a Protestant
-government for all time to Britain. The English Parliament
-therefore passed an Act of Succession in June, 1700: “Settling
-the crown, on the failure of Queen Anne and her issue,
-upon the grand-daughter of King James the First, of England—Sophia,
-Electress Dowager of Hanover, and her descendants.
-Queen Anne, and her statesmanlike adviser, Godolphin,
-saw the necessity of uniting Scotland in this agreement; but
-the Scottish people complained that they were not only required
-to surrender their public rights, according to the terms
-proposed, but also to yield them up to the very nation who had
-been most malevolent to them in all respects; who had been
-their constant enemies during a thousand years of almost continual
-war; and who, even since they had been united under
-the same crown, had shown in the massacre of Glencoe, and
-the disasters of Darien, at what a slight price they held the
-lives and rights of their northern neighbors.”</p>
-
-<p>“The Tale of the Black Dwarf” is related to the time of this
-fierce discussion in Scotland, as to the adoption or rejection of
-this proposed union; when mobs and rabbles crowded High
-Street; when the hall of meeting, contrary to the privileges of
-Edinburgh, was surrounded by guards and soldiery; when the
-debaters were often “in the form of a Polish Diet, with their
-swords in their hands, or at least their hands on their swords.”
-After a vain struggle the Scottish commissioners were compelled
-to submit to an incorporating union, and on the twenty-second
-of April the Parliament of Scotland adjourned forever.
-For the moment all parties were indignant. Papists, Prelatists,
-and Presbyterians were united in the common feeling that
-the country had been treated with injustice. Lord Belhaven,
-in a celebrated speech, which made the strongest impression
-on the people, declared that he saw, in prophetic vision, “The
-peers of Scotland, whose ancestors had raised tribute in England,
-now walking in the Courts of Requests, like so many
-English attorneys, laying aside their swords, lest self-defense
-should be called murder—he saw the Scottish barons with their
-lips padlocked to avoid the penalties of unknown laws—he
-saw the Scottish lawyers struck mute and confounded at being
-subjected to the intricacies and technical jargon of an unknown
-jurisprudence—he saw the merchants excluded from
-trade by the English monopolies—the artisans ruined for want
-of custom—the gentry reduced to indigence—the lower ranks
-to starvation and beggary. ‘But above all, my lord,’ he continued,
-‘I think I see our ancient mother Caledonia, like Cæsar,
-sitting in the midst of our senate, ruefully looking around
-her, covering herself with her royal mantle, awaiting the fatal
-blow, and breathing out her last with the exclamation, “And
-thou too, my son.”’” These prophetic words made the deepest
-impression, until the effect was in some degree dispelled by
-Lord Marchmount, who rising to reply, said: “I have been
-much struck with the noble lord’s vision, but I conceive that
-the exposition of it might be given in a few words: I woke,
-and behold it was a dream.”</p>
-
-<p>If in these critical times the King of France had kept his
-promise to the son of James the Second, or if his Scottish
-friends had been more united or possessed a leader of distinguished
-talent, the House of Stuart might have repossessed
-their ancient throne of Scotland. The French fleet indeed
-brought the Pretender with an army of five thousand men to the
-Frith of Forth, but, frightened by the English fleet, returned to
-France without landing. It was an enterprise entirely devoid
-of spirit, and the closing chapters of the “Black Dwarf” reveal
-a pitiful picture of the apathy of the movement, and the
-indecision and incapacity of the Pretender’s adherents.</p>
-
-<p>“Rob Roy” introduces us to the wild fastnesses which lie
-between Loch Lomond and Loch Katrine. The state of the
-country is still unsettled. The Highlanders have been kept
-comparatively quiet since the days of King William by giving
-pensions to the leading chiefs, upon the principle of feeding
-the wilder and fiercer animals in order to keep them tractable;
-but, like a rock poised on a precipice, the clans seem ready at
-an instant to break loose and precipitate themselves upon the
-lowlands; the Jacobites still retain hope of restoring the Stuart
-line. The Whigs, continually on the alert, anticipate every
-movement; the slightest whisper in Paris is heard at the London
-Court; it also appeared that Louis the Fourteenth was nowise
-disposed to encourage any plot to disturb the reigning
-monarch of England; the Pretender hastened to Paris upon
-receiving tidings of the death of Queen Anne, but his reception
-was so unfavorable that he returned to Lorraine, “with the sad
-assurance that the monarch of France was determined to adhere
-to the treaty of Utrecht, by an important article of which
-he had recognized the succession of the House of Hanover to
-the Crown of Great Britain.”</p>
-
-<p>George the First landed at Greenwich, September seventeenth,
-1714, and quietly assumed the government; but the seething
-plot of Macbeth’s witches was not yet skimmed. The rebellion
-known as “The Affair of 1715” was organized and guided by
-the Earl of Mar. The clans were again in arms, and the Pretender
-again hailed as king. In the battle of Sheriffmuir,
-which followed soon afterward, an outlawed clan whose name
-for generations was only mentioned in whisper, “nameless by
-day” and fierce through oppression, remained inactive upon
-the field. They were ordered by the Earl of Mar to charge
-the enemy, but the bold chieftain answered with haughty indifference:
-“If you can not win without us you will not with
-us.” The speaker was Robert Mac Gregor, more generally
-known as Rob Roy. Like Robin Hood of England he is said
-to have been a kind and gentle robber, who harried the rich
-and relieved the poor. As Scott says in his introduction to
-the romance: “He maintained through good report and bad
-report a wonderful degree of importance in popular recollection.
-He owed his fame in a great measure to his residing on
-the very verge of the Highlands, and playing such pranks in
-the beginning of the eighteenth century as are usually ascribed
-to the freebooters of the middle ages—and that within forty
-miles of Glasgow, a great commercial city, the seat of a learned
-university. Thus a character like his, blending the wild virtues,
-the subtle policy, and unrestrained license of an American
-Indian, was flourishing in Scotland during the Augustan
-age of Queen Anne and George the First—the sept of Mac Gregor
-claimed a descent from Alpin, King of Scots, who ruled
-about 787. Hence their original patronymic is Mac Alpine.
-They occupied at one period very extensive possessions in
-Perthshire and Argyleshire, which they imprudently continued
-to hold by the right of the sword. Their neighbors, the Earls
-of Argyle and Breadalbane, managed to have this property
-engrossed in deeds and charters, which they easily obtained
-from the crown.” In plain English, they stole it, and obtained
-a commission by an Act of Privy Council in 1563 to pursue the
-claim with fire and sword. No wonder that the Mac Gregors
-came to have little regard for the law which had little regard
-for them. In sympathy for the oppressed outlaw, Wordsworth
-breaks out in enthusiastic tribute:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Say then that he was wise as brave,</div>
-<div class="verse i2">As wise in thought as bold in deed;</div>
-<div class="verse">For in the principles of things</div>
-<div class="verse i2">He sought his moral creed.</div>
-</div>
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Said generous Rob, “What need of books?</div>
-<div class="verse i2">Burn all the statutes and their shelves!</div>
-<div class="verse">They stir us up against our kind,</div>
-<div class="verse i2">And worse, against ourselves.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_535" id="Page_535">[535]</a></span>
-</div>
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">The creatures see of flood and field,</div>
-<div class="verse i2">And those that travel on the wind;</div>
-<div class="verse">With them no strife can last; they live</div>
-<div class="verse i2">In peace and peace of mind.</div>
-</div>
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">For why? because the good old rule</div>
-<div class="verse i2">Sufficeth them; the simple plan,</div>
-<div class="verse">That they should take who have the power,</div>
-<div class="verse i2">And they should keep who can.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Blackstone would probably have regarded this as a feeble
-tenure of property, and Scott was too good a lawyer to excuse
-the robber and blackmailer on such primitive and poetic
-principles. He puts a more natural and sensible excuse in the
-mouth of the honest bailie, Nicol Jarvie: “Robin was anes
-a weel-doing, pains-taking drover, as ye wad see amang ten
-thousand. It was a pleasure to see him in his belted plaid and
-brogues, wi’ his target at his back, and claymore and dirk at
-his belt. And he was baith civil and just in his dealings; and
-if he thought his chapman had made a hard bargain, he would
-gie him back five shillings out o’ the pund sterling. But the
-times came hard, and Rob was venturesome, and the creditors,
-mair especially some grit neighbors o’ his, grippit to his living
-and land; and they say his wife was turned out o’ the house
-to the hillside, and sair misguided to the boot. Weel, Rob
-cam hame, and fand desolation, God pity us! where he left
-plenty; he looked east, west, south, north, and saw neither
-hauld nor hope—neither beild nor shelter, sae he e’en pu’d the
-bonnet ower his brow, belted the broadsword to his side, took
-to the brae-side, and became a broken man.”</p>
-
-<p>He had indeed suffered, and the harsh treatment which his
-wife had received from the soldiery was enough to have roused
-a less ferocious man to revenge. Her spirit seems to have been
-cast in the same mould, and Scott presents her in heroic guise,
-assuming the command of the clan in her husband’s absence.
-“Stand,” she said, with a commanding tone to the English
-soldiers, “and tell me what ye seek in Mac Gregor’s country?”
-“She wore her plaid, not drawn around her head and shoulders,
-as is the fashion of the women in Scotland, but disposed around
-her body, as the Highland soldiers wear theirs. She had a
-man’s bonnet, with a feather in it, an unsheathed sword in her
-hand, and a pair of pistols at her girdle.”</p>
-
-<p>“What seek ye here?” she asked again of Captain Thornton,
-who had himself advanced to reconnoiter. “We seek the outlaw,
-Rob Roy Mac Gregor Campbell,” answered the officer,
-“and make no war on women; therefore offer no vain opposition
-to the king’s troops, and assure yourself of civil treatment.”</p>
-
-<p>“Ay,” retorted the Amazon, “I am no stranger to your tender
-mercies. You have left me neither name nor fame—my
-mother’s bones will shrink aside in their grave when mine are
-laid beside them—ye have left me neither house nor hold,
-blanket nor bedding, cattle to feed us, or flocks to clothe us—ye
-have taken from us all—all! The very names of our ancestors
-have ye taken away, and now ye come for our lives.”</p>
-
-<p>There is another character which lives long and pleasantly
-in the reader’s memory—the warm hearted bumptious bailie,
-Nicol Jarvie, a Scotchman profoundly impressed with a sense
-of his own extraordinary ability, who never forgot to quote
-from his father, the deacon, and never lost his appreciation of
-the “siller.” Scott has drawn this character with marvelous
-art. It stands out like a living portrait, and the reader loves
-him because he is as brave as he is canny. The scene in the
-Highland inn, where he found his sword rusted fast in the
-scabbard, and seized the red hot poker for a weapon, is at once
-dramatic and humorous.</p>
-
-<p>The shifting of the scene of the story from the north of
-England to Glasgow, and thence to the Highlands, is naturally
-done, and without creaking of machinery. We have just
-enough of the villain Rashley and his nefarious plotting to give
-the continuous interest of uncertainty; and Die Vernon (pardon
-me, reader, for compressing her in a closing paragraph),
-with ready wit and sterling sense, flits about like a hoydenish
-angel—but in spite of eccentricities a ministering angel of
-peace and comfort. In the happiness of Frank Osbaldistone,
-who wins her hand in the closing chapter, we forget the defeat
-of the Jacobite party, or the fact that the Pretender is
-again an exile from the throne of his fathers.</p>
-
-<p>“The Heart of Midlothian” opens with a description of the
-celebrated Porteous Mob at Edinburgh, in 1736. Two smugglers,
-Wilson and Robertson, who were reduced to poverty,
-robbed the collector to make good their own loss. They were
-arrested, tried, and condemned to death. As the Parliament
-was endeavoring to make the income of Scotland a source of
-revenue to the common exchequer, smuggling was not looked
-upon by the people as a very heinous offense. In fact, it was
-almost universal in every port north of the Tweed during the
-reigns of George the First and George the Second. The people,
-unaccustomed to duties, considered them in the light of
-national oppression; and the sentence of death pronounced
-against Wilson and Robertson was considered severe and unjust.
-The prisoners attempted an escape, but were discovered.
-The day of execution came. It was customary for persons
-sentenced to death to attend preparatory service at the kirk.
-On this occasion the church was thronged. Wilson, who was
-a very powerful man, at the conclusion of the exercises seized
-two of the guards with his hands, at the same time catching
-the collar of the third with his teeth. He cried to his companion
-to run, and the crowd, whose sympathies were with the
-prisoners, allowed Robertson to mix with the people and escape.
-Wilson was executed. The City Guard, under the command
-of Porteous, was insulted by the citizens. The Guard
-fired upon them with deadly aim. Porteous was tried and condemned
-for murder. King George at this time was on the
-Continent, and Queen Caroline, acting in his absence, sent a
-reprieve to Porteous. Edinburgh was now thoroughly aroused.
-They asked if a poor smuggler, accused of stealing, should
-hang without a reprieve, while a hard hearted and despised
-man, who shot down the people of their chief city without
-mercy, should go scathless. A mob, apparently of the better
-class of citizens, too orderly to need even a leader, attacked
-the Tolbooth. Porteous was taken by force and hung at night
-in the Grassmarket.</p>
-
-<p>The Queen was incensed. “A bill was prepared and brought
-into Parliament for the punishment of the city of Edinburgh,
-in a very vindictive spirit, proposing to abolish the city charter,
-demolish the city walls, take away the town guard, and
-declare the provost incapable of holding any office of public
-trust.” Scotland was fortunate at that time in possessing a
-great leader, John, Duke of Argyle and Greenwich. His
-talents as a statesman and a soldier were generally admitted;
-he was not without ambition, but “without the illness that attends
-it”—that irregularity of thought and aim which often excites
-great men to grasp the means of raising themselves to
-power, at the risk of throwing a kingdom into confusion. Pope
-has distinguished him as</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">“Argyle, the state’s whole thunder born to wield,</div>
-<div class="verse i1">And shake alike the senate and the field.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Soaring above the petty distinctions of faction, his voice was
-raised, whether in office or opposition, for those measures
-which were at once just and lenient. His independent and
-haughty mode of expressing himself in Parliament, and acting
-in public, were ill calculated to attract royal favor; but his
-high military talents enabled him, during the memorable year
-1715, to render such services to the House of Hanover, as,
-perhaps, were too great to be either acknowledged or repaid.
-His spirited and witty reply to the queen was quoted and
-chuckled over from Berwick to Inverness: “Sooner than submit
-to such an insult as this Porteous Mob,” said the Queen to
-the Duke, “I will make Scotland a hunting field.” “In that
-case,” answered Argyle, “I will take leave of your Majesty,
-and go down to my own country to get my hounds ready.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_536" id="Page_536">[536]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>His speech in Parliament in reference to the dismantling of
-Edinburgh reveals the straightforward character of the man.
-He retorted upon the Chancellor, Lord Hardwick, the insinuation
-that he had stated himself in this case rather as a party
-than as a judge: “I appeal,” said Argyle, “to the House—to
-the nation, if I can be justly branded with the infamy of being
-a jobber or a partisan. Have I been a briber of votes? a
-buyer of boroughs? the agent of corruption for any purpose,
-or on behalf of any party? Consider my life, examine my actions
-in the field and in the cabinet, and see where there lies a
-blot that can attach to my honor. I have shown myself the
-friend of my country—the loyal subject of my king. I am
-ready to do so again, without an instant’s regard to the frowns
-or smiles of a court. I have experienced both, and am prepared
-with indifference for either. I have given my reasons for
-opposing this bill, and have made it appear that it is repugnant
-to the international treaty of union, to the liberty of Scotland,
-and, reflectively, to that of England, to common justice, to common
-sense, and to the public interest. Shall the metropolis of
-Scotland, the capital of an independent nation, the residence of
-a long line of monarchs, by whom that noble city was graced
-and dignified—shall such a city, for the fault of an unknown
-body of rioters, be deprived of its honors and privileges—its
-gates and its guards? And shall a native Scotsman tamely
-behold the havoc? I glory, my lords, in opposing such
-unjust rigor, and reckon it my dearest pride and honor to
-stand up in defense of my native country, while thus laid open
-to undeserved shame and unjust spoliation.” In this tribute
-of Scott, and this speech, which he has recorded in one of his
-best known novels, Argyle stands out as a noble representative
-of a family powerful through centuries; ay, so thoroughly
-revered to-day in Scotland that an old Scotch woman on a
-comparatively recent wedding morn remarked that the Queen
-must be a happy woman noo, since her daughter has married
-the son of Argyle.</p>
-
-<p>So much for the historic setting of this well known story,
-which makes the reader acquainted with Arthur’s Seat,
-with High Street, the Old Tolbooth, the Grassmarket and the
-Church of St. Giles. We see in the unbending and uncompromising
-character of David Deans a descendant of the Covenanters,
-who could hardly understand how a Presbyterian
-could acknowledge a government that did not acknowledge
-the Solemn League and Covenant. We see his house made
-desolate by the misfortune and misguidance of his daughter
-Effie. We trace the unswerving rectitude of Jeanie’s character,
-destined to triumph at last over all obstacles. We witness
-the dramatic scene in the court room, and read her eloquent
-appeal before the Queen in the great park of Richmond. We
-go with her through strange villages, and over solitary heaths.
-But through insult and disaster we find her serenely relying
-upon that Providence which she knew was all-kind and all-powerful.</p>
-
-<p>She accomplished her mission and lived to enjoy the blessedness
-of well doing. And Effie, ah! poor Effie! she inherited
-wealth and possession, but lived to see her husband shot
-by a Gypsy band; while her son, reared among outlaws, became
-a wanderer, lost to the view of herself and the world.
-In the contrast of these sisters’ lives we recognize the truth of
-the oft-quoted lines:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse i8">“’Tis better to be lowly born</div>
-<div class="verse">And range with humble livers in content,</div>
-<div class="verse">Than wear a golden sorrow.”</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Scott closes this dramatic story with these words: “This
-tale will not be told in vain, if it shall be found to illustrate the
-great truth, that guilt, though it may attain temporal splendor,
-can never confer real happiness; that the evil consequences
-of our crimes long survive their commission, and like the
-ghosts of the murdered, forever haunt the steps of the malefactor;
-and that the paths of virtue, though seldom those of
-worldly greatness, are always those of pleasantness and peace.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2 id="SOME_LONDON_PREACHERS">SOME LONDON PREACHERS.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p>Canon Liddon and the Bishop of Peterborough stand out as
-unquestionably the two first preachers of the Established
-Church of England. There is a story of a private soldier having
-gone to St. Paul’s on an afternoon when Dr. Liddon was to
-preach. The printed paper with the hymn was handed to him,
-but not understanding that it was offered gratis he refused it
-with a shake of the head, saying: “You don’t suppose I should
-be here if I had got any money?” Most of the people who go
-to hear the eloquent Canon are different from this soldier, for
-they would pay—and very liberally—to get seats near the pulpit.
-On the afternoons of the Sundays when Dr. Liddon is in
-residence, the Cathedral presents an extraordinary sight with
-its huge nave and aisles densely thronged. So far as the
-preacher’s voice will reach people stand, straining eyes and
-ears, and fortunately Dr. Liddon’s voice resounds well under
-the dome; though now and then it becomes indistinct through
-the preacher’s speaking too fast in his excitement. Two other
-things occasionally mar Dr. Liddon’s delivery. Shortness of
-sight makes him often stoop to consult Bible or notes, and
-again he bows the head in a marked manner when he utters
-the holy name; but when he thus bends he goes on speaking,
-so that his words fall on the pulpit cushion and are deadened,
-which produces upon people who are at a little distance off, the
-effect of continual stoppages and gaps in the sermon. No other
-defects beside these, however, can be noted in orations which
-for beauty of language, elevation of thought and lucidity in
-reasoning, could not be surpassed. We have heard Dr. Liddon
-many times at Oxford and in London, and have observed
-that the impression produced by his eloquence was always the
-same, no matter who might be listening to him. We remember,
-in particular, a sermon of his on the text: “The kingdom
-of God cometh not with observation.” It was absolutely magnificent
-to hear him prophesy the gradual progress of the
-world toward a higher state. Every man, from the greatest to
-the least, was made to feel his share of responsibility in advancing
-or retarding the evolution of mankind, and while the
-consequences of evil were pointed out as extending to incalculable
-lengths, there was a sublime hopefulness in the promise
-that the smallest good offering brought to the Creator would be
-multiplied by Him as the “five loaves were multiplied.”</p>
-
-<p>Optimism—which is nothing but great faith—pervades Dr.
-Liddon’s preaching. He never leaves his hearers under the
-apprehension that in any struggle between the good and the
-bad forces of this world, the bad are going to get the best of it.
-He knows human nature too well, however, to exaggerate what
-can be done by any single human being. “The first lesson in
-true wisdom”—he said in one of his most recent sermons—“is
-the limited nature of our faculties, the reality and extent of our
-ignorance;” and there is a curious mixture of religious and
-mundane philosophy in the following remarks about the presumption
-of St. Peter, a few minutes before he denied his Master:</p>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p>We only weaken ourselves by dwelling upon mischiefs which we can
-not hope to remedy. We have only a certain amount of thought, of
-feeling, of resolve, each one of us, to dispose of. And when this has
-been expended unavailingly on the abstract, on the intangible, it is expended;
-it is no longer ours, and we can not employ it when and where
-we need it close at home.… Peter failed as he did, because he
-had expended his moral strength in words, and had no sufficient force to
-dispose of when the time came for action and for suffering.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<p>These observations made in a grand sermon, “The Lord was
-not in the fire,” may also be quoted:</p>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p>Religious passion carried to the highest point of enthusiasm is a great
-agency in human life; but religious passion may easily be too inconsiderate,
-too truculent, too entirely wanting in tenderness and in charity, to
-be in any sense divine. Christendom has been ablaze again and again
-with fires: and those fires are not extinct in our own day and country,
-of which it may certainly be said that the Lord is not in them.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_537" id="Page_537">[537]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>The Bishop of Peterborough has not often been heard in
-London of late years, but whenever he is advertised to preach,
-crowds flock to hear him. He need not be compared with
-Liddon, for the personal appearance, style, and opinions of the
-two men are quite different. But whereas the Canon sometimes
-preaches above the understanding of dull men, the
-Bishop’s eloquence never soars much above earth. It is a
-rousing eloquence, spirited, combative, often sarcastic and always
-directed against some evil which is preoccupying public
-attention at the time being. Dr. Magee is not merely a hater,
-but an aggressive enemy of “humbug,” clothe itself in what
-garb it may. With his animated Celtic features, long upper
-lip, large mouth, energetic nose and shaggy eyebrows, with
-his gruffness and broad smile which breaks up the whole of his
-face into comical lines, he has all the look of a humorist. The
-glance all round which he takes at his congregation when he
-has got into the pulpit, is that of a master. His first words arrest
-attention, and if some unlucky man drops a book during
-his exordium, that man will stare hard at the pulpit and pretend
-to have no connection whatever with the book, lest his
-lordship’s eyes should suddenly be turned upon him like two
-fiery points of interrogation. Presently, when the Bishop
-warms to his work, his arms hit out from the shoulder like
-piston-rods wrapped in lawn; down come his large hands with
-great slaps on his book or cushion, and if he is preaching in a
-church where the beadle has not heard of his little ways and
-has not been careful to give the cushions a beating, enough
-dust will be raised to make a fine powdering for the heads of
-the people in the pew beneath.</p>
-
-<p>Plainspoken and shrewd, discussing all questions with easy
-arguments, never stooping to subtleties, clear in his delivery,
-happy in the choice of words, he keeps his hearers bound like
-Ogmius, that god of eloquence among the Gauls who used to
-be represented with chains flowing out of his mouth. On occasions
-he rises to the highest flights of oratory, but never loses
-sight of his congregation, who have always been carried along
-by him through the successive degrees of his own enthusiasm.
-He should be heard delivering a charity sermon, for this is a
-duty which he discharges in no perfunctory fashion. He masters
-his subject thoroughly; speaks of the poor or afflicted for
-whom he is pleading like one who knows them; and his advice
-as to supplying their wants is never dictated by eccentric
-philanthropy, but springs from that true benevolence which
-has common sense for its source. He was being asked to interest
-himself in a carpenter’s clever young apprentice whom
-some good people wanted to send to college. “Let him first
-graduate as a good carpenter,” said the Bishop; “when he has
-become a skilled craftsman, so that he is proud of his trade
-and can fall back upon it if others fail, then will be the time to
-see if he is fit for anything better.”</p>
-
-<p>A popular vote would probably give the position of third
-amongst the best preachers of the day to Archdeacon Farrar.
-In his own church of St. Margaret, the Archdeacon shines
-with a subdued light. Those who have chatted with him by
-his own fireside, and know him to be the most amiable, unaffected
-of <i>causeurs</i>, those who remember him at Harrow as a
-most genial boy-loving master, will miss nothing of the good-natured
-simplicity which they liked in him, if they hear him in
-his own church discoursing about matters that concern his
-parish. But in the Abbey he is different. There, his massive
-face settles into a hard, expressionless look; his voice, which
-is loud and roughish, is pitched in a monotonous key; and his
-manner altogether lacks animation, even when his subject imperatively
-demands it. To illustrate any common reflection
-on the vicissitudes of life, the Archdeacon drags in the destruction
-of Pompeii with the latest mining accident; the overthrow
-of Darius with that of Osman Digna, the rainbow that appeared
-to Noah with Mr. Norman Lockyer’s explanations of recent
-glorious sunsets; and all these juxtapositions come down so
-pat as to suggest the irreverent idea that the book which the
-venerable preacher was studying during the prayers must have
-been an annotated copy of Maunders’s “Treasury of Knowledge.”</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Spurgeon stands head and shoulders above all the Non-conformist
-preachers. Somebody once expressed a regret
-that the great Baptist minister was not a member of the Establishment,
-to which the late Bishop of Winchester answered by
-quoting a portion of the tenth commandment. But Mr. Spurgeon
-was much more aggressive in those days than he is now;
-he has softened much of late years, and churchmen can go to
-hear him without fear of being offended. On the days when
-he preaches his Tabernacle holds a multitude. It is a huge
-hall, and to see gallery upon gallery crowded with eager faces—some
-six thousand—all turned toward the pastor whose voice
-has the power of troubling men to the depths of their hearts, is
-a stirring sight. Mr. Spurgeon’s is not a high-class congregation,
-and the preacher knows that its understanding can best
-be opened by metaphors and parables borrowed from the customs
-of the retail trade, and with similes taken from the colloquialisms
-of the streets. Laughter is not forbidden at the
-Tabernacle, and the congregation often breaks into titters, but
-the merriment is always directed against some piece of hypocrisy
-which the preacher has exposed, and it does one good
-to hear. He says:</p>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p>“You are always for giving God short measure, just as if He had not
-made the pint pot.”</p>
-
-<p>“You don’t expect the Queen to carry your letters for nothing, but
-when you are posting a letter heavenward you won’t trouble to stick a
-little bit of Christian faith on the right-hand corner of the envelope,
-and you won’t put a correct address on either, and then you wonder the
-letter isn’t delivered, so that you don’t get your remittance by next post.”</p>
-
-<p>“You trust Mr. Jones to pay you your wages regularly, and you say
-he’s a good master, but you don’t think God can be trusted like Mr.
-Jones; you won’t serve him because you don’t believe in the pay.”</p>
-
-<p>“You have heard of the man who diminished his dose of food every
-day to see on how little he could live, till he came to half a biscuit and
-then died; but, I tell you, most of you have tried on how little religion
-you could live, and many of you have got to the half-biscuit dose.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<p>These whimsicalities, always effective, constitute but the foam
-of Mr. Spurgeon’s oratory; the torrent which casts them up is
-broad, deep and of overwhelming power. Mr. Spurgeon is among
-preachers as Mr. Bright among parliamentary orators. All desire
-to criticise vanishes, every faculty is subdued into admiration,
-when he has concluded a sermon with a burst of his truly
-inspired eloquence, leaving the whole of his congregation
-amazed and the vast majority of its members anxious or hopeful,
-but in any case roused as if they had seen the heavens
-open. We are compelled to add that Mr. Spurgeon has in the
-Baptist communion no co-minister wielding a tenth of his
-power, and that those who, having gone to the Tabernacle to
-hear him, have to listen to some other man, will be disappointed
-in more ways than one.—<i>Temple Bar.</i></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2 id="THE_PRAYER_OF_SOCRATES">THE PRAYER OF SOCRATES.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p class="center">By JOHN STUART BLACKIE.</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-<div class="stanza">
-<div class="verse">Grant, O Olympian gods supreme,</div>
-<div class="verse">Not my wish, and not my dream;</div>
-<div class="verse">Grant me neither gold that shines,</div>
-<div class="verse">Nor ruddy copper in the mines,</div>
-<div class="verse">Nor power to wield the tyrant’s rod</div>
-<div class="verse">And be a fool, and seem a god,</div>
-<div class="verse">Nor precious robe with jeweled fringe</div>
-<div class="verse">Splendid with sea-born purple tinge,</div>
-<div class="verse">Nor silken vest on downy pillow,</div>
-<div class="verse">Nor hammock hard on heaving billow;</div>
-<div class="verse">But give all goodly things that be</div>
-<div class="verse">Good for the whole and best for me.</div>
-<div class="verse">My thoughts are foolish, blind and crude;</div>
-<div class="verse">Thou only knowest what is good.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_538" id="Page_538">[538]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2 id="C_L_S_C_WORK">C. L. S. C. WORK.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p class="center">By Rev. J. H. VINCENT, D. D., <span class="smcap">Superintendent of Instruction</span>.</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p>To a correspondent who forwards some poetry for personal
-examination and criticism, and who wants to know how she
-can get her production before the public. <i>Answer</i>:</p>
-
-<p>One of the most difficult things in literature is to give a fair
-judgment of poetry. There is one invaluable test by which a
-writer may know concerning the estimate of competent critics,
-and that is by sending poems or other contributions to such
-magazines as <i>The Century</i>, <i>Harper’s</i>, <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, etc., or
-to such weekly papers as the <i>New York Independent</i>, the
-<i>Christian Advocate</i>, <i>The Christian Union</i>, the <i>Evangelist</i>, etc.
-If the editors of these publications approve sufficiently to publish
-and pay for a poem, the writer may congratulate herself.
-The commendations of friends who hear a thing read, or who
-have a bias in favor of the author, or who, as in my case, have
-sympathy with young persons who are attempting to make
-fame and financial compensation for themselves, are not
-always entirely trustworthy, and I therefore commend you to
-one of the most invaluable tests of real poetic ability: Submit
-your productions to the severest critics.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>Phœbe S. Parker, of Roscoe, Ill., has recently joined the
-C. L. S. C. She will be 89 years old May 30, 1884. She joined
-the Methodist Episcopal Church in the year 1810, is a great
-reader, and has no difficulty in keeping up with the class, and
-she enjoys the work heartily. May she live to graduate.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>A lady from the West, residing in a city where there is “a
-public library, in which is an excellent collection of standard
-works of all kinds, the current literature of the day and all the
-leading periodicals, reviews,” etc., finds it difficult “to read
-all the other good things she would like to read and, at the
-same time, keep up the C. L. S. C. course.” For example,
-she “cares nothing about ‘Easy Lessons in Vegetable Biology,’
-and would rather spend her time reading something she enjoys,
-such as Farrar’s ‘Life of Christ,’ Mackenzie’s ‘Nineteenth
-Century,’ Kingsley’s ‘Life and Letters.’” She says: “Having
-begun this work, I do not want to turn back, yet I
-am very much inclined sometimes to drop a book I am
-reading, and take up one I would much rather read, not in the
-course.”</p>
-
-<p>In answer to this devoted friend of the C. L. S. C., a member
-of the class of 1887, I desire to say:</p>
-
-<p>(1.) That the greater range of literature with which one is familiar,
-the greater the desire to read widely, and one may be
-tempted, while reading anything, to wish that she had undertaken
-something else, and it will be a good discipline of the
-will, having begun a course, to carry it through, since there is
-nothing in the course that can be pronounced “trash,” or be
-considered useless.</p>
-
-<p>(2.) The aim of the C. L. S. C. is not merely to give pleasant
-or classic reading, although the style or character of the
-reading should be worthy of commendation by the most cultivated
-taste. The object of the C. L. S. C. is to give the “college
-student’s outlook”—to present in a series of brief readings
-the whole world of history, literature, science and art.
-This is for the benefit of college graduates, who in college
-spent so much time with the languages and mathematics, for
-purposes of mental discipline, that they failed to enjoy the
-charms of the literature itself. It is also for the benefit of
-others, who, having studied the physical sciences years before,
-desire now to review, seeing that so many changes are
-continually taking place in the hypotheses and settled conclusions
-of the scientists. The course is also designed for
-people who have never enjoyed college training, that they may
-have the benefit of the outlook which is to be enjoyed by their
-children later on.</p>
-
-<p>(3.) A course so wide-reaching will embrace many topics
-about which certain people care nothing; but one of the
-greatest advantages of reading is the training of one to read
-because he ought to know rather than because he has a particular
-aptitude or delight in that direction.</p>
-
-<p>I hope that my genial, candid, “enthusiastic” Chautauquan
-of the class of 1887, from beyond the Mississippi, will continue
-in the ranks of the C. L. S. C.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>“Has any plan been devised by which graduates may go
-on with the regular classes as long as they wish, reading new
-and re-reading old subjects?” <i>Answer</i>: We give a seal for
-the re-reading of former years, and also a special seal for
-those who continue year after year to read.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>Our excellent Canadian friend, Mr. James L. Hughes, writes:
-In answer to your query respecting the origin of the name
-“Canada,” I have the honor to state that the best authorities
-agree in deriving it from an Indian word “Kan-na-ta,” meaning
-a village. It is certain that Stadacona (Quebec) was
-spoken of as “Kan-na-ta,” and Champlain found it to be a
-common name applied to Indian villages. This is the received
-origin of the name. Some attribute its origin to the
-Spaniards, who first visited the country in search of mines, but
-finding none frequently exclaimed, “Aca Node,” “here is
-nothing.” This is not now accepted as reliable. Several
-others have been given, only one of which may be mentioned
-to show its absurdity. Some one claimed that the French supplied
-their workmen in the colony with canned food, and that
-each man was allowed a can a day! Hence the name.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p><span class="smcap">A question.</span>—“Some of our class reject the pronunciation
-of Goethe’s name as given by Prof. Wilkinson in the Latin
-Course. Please confirm—in the next number of <span class="smcap">The Chautauquan</span>—the
-Professor, or give us the <i>correct</i> pronunciation
-according to the highest standard.”</p>
-
-<p><i>An Answer</i>:—The Rev. Dr. Jos. A. Seiss, of Philadelphia,
-pastor of the leading Lutheran Church in Philadelphia, gives
-the following clear and satisfactory answer to the question,
-“How shall we pronounce the word <span class="smcap">Goethe</span>?”</p>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p>“There can be no doubt about the pronunciation of the name
-of <i>Goethe</i> to those familiar with the sounds and powers of the
-German alphabet, which are always and in all relations the
-same. The diphthong <i>oe</i>, often written <i>ö</i>, has the sound and
-force of <i>a</i> in <i>gate</i>. The remainder of the name, <i>the</i>, has the
-sound of <i>teh</i>, pronounced nearly the same as the English <i>ty</i>,
-with a slight vergence toward <i>ta</i> as in <i>take</i>. Giving to the letters
-these sounds, the pronunciation of <i>Goethe</i> would be represented
-by <i>Gateh</i> in English phonography, or <i>Gayty</i>. It is
-hard for any other than a German tongue to give exactly the
-sound of <i>oe</i>; the above is as nearly as it can be represented in
-English letters.</p>
-
-<p class="center">“Yours truly,</p>
-
-<p class="sig">“<span class="smcap">Jos. A. Seiss</span>.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<p class="right">“45 East 68th St., <span class="smcap">New York</span>, 17th April, ’84.</p>
-
-<p>“<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>:—In the name of Goethe the <i>oe</i> is pronounced
-like the <i>u</i> in the words “but,” “hut,” “rut,” only long. You
-stretch the <i>u</i> in those words and you will have the vowel of the
-German <i>oe</i> as nearly as you can get it. The <i>th</i> is pronounced
-like <i>t</i>, and the <i>e</i> at the close has the sound of the <i>e</i> in “let,”
-“get,” etc., but is half swallowed. You see that it is very
-difficult to express in English letters the pronunciation of the
-name of Goethe.</p>
-
-<p class="center">“Very truly yours,</p>
-
-<p class="sig">“<span class="smcap">J. H. Vincent, Esq.</span> <span class="spacer">&nbsp;</span>
-<span class="smcap">C. Schurz</span>.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>If members of the C. L. S. C. fail to receive prompt reply to
-their letters addressed to the Superintendent of Instruction,
-they will please remember the multitude of duties which crowd
-upon him, especially at this time. He will, as soon as practicable,
-reply to every letter on his table.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_539" id="Page_539">[539]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2 id="OUTLINE_OF_C_L_S_C_READINGS">OUTLINE OF C. L. S. C. READINGS.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3>JUNE, 1884.</h3>
-
-<p>The Required Readings for June include the second part of
-“Pictures from English History,” Chautauqua Text-Books—No.
-4, English History, and No. 43, Good Manners, and the
-Required Readings in <span class="smcap">The Chautauquan</span>.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p><i>First Week</i> (ending June 9).—1. Pictures from English History,
-from chapter xxi, page 139 to page 175.</p>
-
-<p>2. Readings in Roman History in <span class="smcap">The Chautauquan</span>.</p>
-
-<p>3. Sunday Readings in <span class="smcap">The Chautauquan</span> for June 1.</p>
-
-<p>4. Sunday Readings in <span class="smcap">The Chautauquan</span> for June 8.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p><i>Second Week</i> (ending June 16).—1. Pictures from English
-History, from page 175 to page 207.</p>
-
-<p>2. Readings in Art in <span class="smcap">The Chautauquan</span>.</p>
-
-<p>3. Sunday Readings in <span class="smcap">The Chautauquan</span> for June 15.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p><i>Third Week</i> (ending June 23).—1. Pictures from English
-History, from page 207 to page 241.</p>
-
-<p>2. Criticisms on American Literature in <span class="smcap">The Chautauquan</span>.</p>
-
-<p>3. Sunday Readings in <span class="smcap">The Chautauquan</span> for June 22.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p><i>Fourth Week</i> (ending June 30).—1. Pictures from English
-History, from page 241 to page 273.</p>
-
-<p>2. Readings in United States History in <span class="smcap">The Chautauquan</span>.</p>
-
-<p>3. Sunday Readings for June 30.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2 id="LOCAL_CIRCLES">LOCAL CIRCLES.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p>Letter-writing, that is genuine letter-writing, where one fills
-a half-dozen sheets with happy thoughts, spicy comments and
-fresh ideas has become, if not a lost art, at least an old-fashioned
-accomplishment. We lose much, both of culture and
-pleasure, when we neglect our letters. Animated, interested,
-breezy letter-writing produces almost the same feeling of sympathy
-and good fellowship as a face-to-face visit, and no means
-of social intercourse quicker brings into activity our best mental
-gifts. We fancy that among the many good works of the
-C. L. S. C. must be included as one of the first, the incentive
-which it has given to letter-writing in its “Correspondence
-Circle.” It may surprise some of our readers to know that
-already this circle numbers several hundred members. Our
-first report from a local circle of correspondents comes from
-<b>Jersey City, N. J.</b>, and is very suggestive of what may be done.
-The secretary writes: “Our little circle thinks it time to claim a
-place in the family. We are septangular, perfect in number
-if in no other respect. We can not strictly be called ‘local,’
-as our angles are far reaching. Three of our members live on
-Staten Island, one at Spring Valley, one at Tappan, one in
-New York City, and one in Jersey City. Our communication
-is maintained by correspondence. We commenced our reading
-in October, 1882, and for one year plodded along without
-the help to be gained from association. Then it was agreed
-to carry on the work of a circle by correspondence. This
-plan has been in successful operation for six months, and it
-has proved of great benefit and interest to us all. The object
-of the circle is to awaken a more active interest in and incite
-to a more thorough study of the course of readings prescribed
-by the C. L. S C., therefore it is resolved: First, that on
-the first day of every month each member shall prepare a list
-of questions (containing not less than ten nor more than twenty)
-on the prescribed readings of the preceding month, and forward
-as many copies of the list as there are members in the circle to
-the secretary, who shall distribute them to the members. These
-questions must be answered and returned to the secretary
-within two weeks of the time of reception, after which the collection
-of answered questions must be passed from one member
-to another throughout the entire circle. Second—The
-questions must be such as will admit of answers which can be
-written on two lines of common note paper. We are seven
-busy people, our president is an active business man, three of
-our members are teachers, and we have all to use the corners
-of time to keep up with our studies. The preparation and
-answering of our lists of questions and answers adds greatly to
-our labor, but we all agree that <i>it pays</i>. We are all loyal
-Chautauquans. Please count us in.”</p>
-
-<p>The wonderful class of ’87 is doing a great deal of enthusiastic
-work, if one is to judge from the throngs of reports that
-come to us. We have never had as many new circles to report
-as we have this month, and at no time have the reports
-been more enthusiastic and suggestive. <b>Biddeford, Me.</b>, starts
-the list with a circle of nearly fifty. They have a capital idea
-in their “German evening,” in which the history, literature
-and music of the “Fatherland” was honored by carefully selected
-exercises. Very similar to this must have been the
-“Tour through Germany” which the <b>Knoxville, Tenn.</b>, circle
-took one evening not long ago. They had a delightful time, as
-their letter shows: “One member conducted the party from
-Knoxville to New York, across the ocean to Bremen, and then
-to Frankfort. Another member took us to a German hotel, then
-sightseeing in Frankfort, and to a German home, where our
-hostess kindly showed us over her house and explained many
-of their customs. This member of the circle was also our
-guide on all our journeys, and pointed out many of the peculiarities
-of the customs and people, and called our attention to
-many amusing incidents. Other members of the circle described
-the principal cities which we visited, government
-buildings, art galleries, pictures, etc. Altogether, the evening
-we spent in Germany was one of the most delightful of the
-year.”</p>
-
-<p>From the hill town of <b>East Barrington, N. H.</b>, a friend sends
-a most interesting account of the founding of their circle.
-“This is a scattered farming community,” she writes, “containing
-an unusual number—for its population—of people desirous
-of more intellectual advantages than have heretofore
-been within their reach. We are too far from the cities to derive
-much benefit from lectures, libraries, etc., and are not rich
-enough to have them at home. Chautauqua offers just what we
-need. My oldest son is a member of the class of 1886. The
-other children are ‘picking up’ a great deal, and will join as
-soon as they are old enough. I did not join with him—for I
-feared with my many cares I should not find the requisite time;
-but I can not let the books alone, and have kept step with him
-so far. He read alone the first year. Every one to whom he
-recommended the course—and that was every acquaintance—shook
-their heads doubtfully. ‘Greek, Russian History,
-Geology? O, no! we are not “up” to that.’ I did not like
-that. I knew better, and procured a copy of ‘Hall in the
-Grove’ and sent it on its mission. Result—a C. L. S. C. organized
-January 1, 1884. Four regular members, and a number
-of local ones, which increased with every meeting, and
-who all announced their determination to ‘begin squarely
-next October.’ Many of our members are in my Bible class,
-and I can see the fruits of their reading every week. At home
-I see it every day. I would not have dared to report our little
-band as a circle, were it not for the notice in the March number
-of <span class="smcap">The Chautauquan</span>—‘If there are but two members
-associated in study, report as a circle.’ You may judge of
-our enthusiasm when I say that some members drive four
-miles in a New Hampshire winter to attend the meetings.” It
-takes a great deal of pluck, as well as enthusiasm, for people
-to brave New Hampshire winters, but no more, perhaps, than
-the little circle at <b>North Weymouth, Mass.</b>, has to exercise in
-carrying out all the work of a full-grown circle while numbering
-but <i>two</i>. In spite of numbers they meet on Monday evening
-of each week, and look forward with great deal of pleasure
-to those meetings. They generally question each other on the
-studies of the previous week, and sometimes read essays on
-what has been studied. On the memorial nights they invite
-in some of their friends, varying the order of exercises, and
-doing their best to entertain. What a lesson to some of us
-who adjourn if the leader is absent, and who enforce but one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_540" id="Page_540">[540]</a></span>
-parliamentary rule—that of requiring a quorum to have a
-meeting!</p>
-
-<p>From <b>Brighton</b>, <b>Beverly</b>, <b>Melrose</b> and <b>Shirley</b>, <b>Mass.</b>, we hear
-of new classes. At <b>Roxbury</b> a circle of twenty-three was organized
-in November last. One of their members declares
-that he never enjoyed anything more. Twelve busy people
-form the “Pansy” Circle, of <b>Chelsea</b>, the second circle of that
-city, organized last October. They write that they are obliged
-to plan a great deal to find time to accomplish their readings,
-but that they are so interested that they do not often fail.</p>
-
-<p>The “Raymond Circle” formed on January 1st, and composed
-of eighteen members, is the third class now in active
-operation at Lynn. <i>Eight</i> new circles from <b>Massachusetts</b> in
-one report!</p>
-
-<p>At <b>Greenwich, Conn.</b>, the members of the class of ’87 have
-organized the “Sappho Circle.”</p>
-
-<p><b>Babylon, R. I.</b>, has a circle of over thirty, which has been
-in operation since last October. It is said that a dozen circles
-were formed in <b>Providence, R. I.</b>, last fall; if this be true they
-have not all reported, although we have three reports of new
-organizations before us: The “Clio Circle” numbering forty-two,
-the “Whittier Circle” of thirteen, and the “Milton Circle”
-with twenty-two members. These circles all mention as
-one of their greatest social pleasures, the interchange of courtesies
-by the circles on Memorial Days. On Longfellow’s Day,
-“Milton Circle” entertained their C. L. S. C. friends in the
-city.</p>
-
-<p>To the already goodly list of <b>New York</b> circles we have six
-new ones to add from the following towns: <b>Bath</b>, <b>Cicero</b>, <b>Manchester</b>,
-<b>Pultney</b>, <b>West Galway</b>, and <b>Gouverneur</b>. The circle
-at Bath has a membership of thirty, a full corps of officers, and
-a prepared program, which they find both pleasant and profitable.
-At Cicero the circle was not formed until January 1, but
-the reading has been so enjoyable that they have done double
-work to “catch up.” The circle of fourteen at Manchester
-have honored themselves by giving their class the name of the
-“Mary A. Lathbury Circle.” Miss Lathbury’s birthplace and
-early home was Manchester. At Gouverneur the circle has increased
-to thirty-eight members since its organization, and
-they seem particularly interested. The work has been done so
-willingly that the secretary writes: “It has been pleasant to
-note how ready the members are to respond when called upon
-to prepare articles for the society, and what thorough work they
-are willing to do, though they are all busy people.” In the report
-of their Longfellow memorial we were pleased to notice
-that they had a paper on “Longfellow’s prose-writings,” a
-subject which was almost entirely neglected in most of the
-programs. There are many fine things in Longfellow’s prose.
-An evening spent with the poet is hardly complete if it neglects
-“Outre-Mer,” “Hyperion,” and “Kavanagh.” The experience
-of the Gouverneur circle is that of many others when
-it writes: “One of the chief benefits which we derive from our
-meetings is that which comes from knowing each other better.
-Our circle is made up of people who would not often be called
-together by other interests, so that beside the benefit that
-comes from the reading and study, we have each added to our
-list of friends many whom we can not lose.”</p>
-
-<p>The secretary writes from the circle of fifteen at <b>Tunkhannock,
-Pa.</b>: “I can say, not boastingly, but confidently, that but
-few, if any, circles are more wide awake or thorough in the
-course;” while from <b>West Middlesex</b>, of the same state, they
-send word that they are trying by careful study to hail their
-fellow students from the top round of the ladder.</p>
-
-<p>A vigorous, growing circle exists at <b>Reading, Pa.</b> In March
-they held a public meeting which did much to extend public
-interest in the C. L. S. C. They prepared an excellent program,
-taking care to select subjects which would show the
-scope of the Chautauqua work, and presented it so entertainingly
-that many were aroused to interest in the work.</p>
-
-<p>From <b>Corry, Pa.</b>, the “Omega” is reported, and from <b>Troy
-Center</b>, of the same state, a member of the new circle organized
-there in January, 1884, writes of the influence of their
-reading: “Though we are country people we find both enjoyment
-and improvement in our reading. The meager knowledge
-of the farmer has widened into that of their more fortunate
-brethren. I doubt if some of the hopes, inspirations
-and longings that have been kindled by this winter’s studies
-will be satisfied by the old ways of spending the few leisure
-moments that come to us.”</p>
-
-<p><b>Lancaster, Pa.</b>, organized a circle in December, the first in
-the city, and so called “No. 1.”</p>
-
-<p>The Asbury C. L. S. C. in <b>Wilmington, Del.</b>, numbering
-about twenty-five members, was organized September last.
-They write: “Our meetings, held semi-monthly, are exceedingly
-interesting, being conducted on the conversational plan,
-affording us an opportunity of hearing the opinions and ideas
-of the different members, giving us new thoughts, as well as
-impressing what we have read more indelibly upon our memories;
-we also have questions prepared by different members
-on some particular branch of our studies.”</p>
-
-<p>We are always glad to hear of new circles in the South.
-This month we have an excellent item from <b>Richmond, Va.</b>
-A circle was formed there last November with a membership
-of six, and it has steadily increased, until they now have a
-membership of thirty, which comprises nearly all of the male
-teachers in the city and three of the principals. They have
-given two public entertainments, both of which met with
-marked success.</p>
-
-<p>At <b>Media, Ohio</b>, there is a C. L. S. C. “Olive Branch” of ten
-members, which so arranges its programs that each member
-has something to do at each meeting—a most excellent plan
-to insure interest and attention. At <b>Springboro, Ohio</b>, is another
-new circle of four members, but so zealous that in spite
-of numbers they have observed all the “Days.” <b>Saint Paris,
-Ohio</b>, reports a class of fourteen, organized in October last,
-most of whom, they write, are reading the White Seal Course
-in addition to their regular work. At <b>Franklin, Ohio</b>, is a
-quartette of readers, brought together by one lady’s visit last
-summer to the Monteagle Assembly, and she now writes of
-their circle: “We meet once a week. Read and talk, and
-query and give information most informally, and always have
-delightful times. We have decided that outside of our Chautauqua
-work we are the four <i>busiest people in town</i>, yet we find
-time to do our work. Not so thoroughly as we would like, but
-in such a way as to derive much benefit from it.”</p>
-
-<p>At both <b>Franklin</b> and <b>Crawfordsville, Ind.</b>, there are new circles,
-each numbering twenty-eight members. The circle at
-<b>Marion</b> (a beautiful town of about 5,000 inhabitants in central
-<b>Indiana</b>), is the result of the efforts of a few ladies who, after
-much thought, and many misgivings, started out one afternoon
-to try and interest the ladies of their town in the good work.
-The time was surely just right for such an enterprise, for they
-met with a success beyond their most sanguine expectations.
-Fortunately they succeeded in enlisting many of their friends,
-who were ladies of influence, and now have a flourishing organization
-known as the “Marion C. C.” They have a membership
-of twenty-three, an average attendance of about twenty,
-and all so deeply interested, that they write that there is not
-one but anticipates the four years’ course.</p>
-
-<p><b>Preston</b>, <b>Carbondale</b> and <b>Tuscola</b>, towns of Illinois, have each
-formed new circles this year. The Tuscola circle rejoices in
-a member who, having traveled through Europe, delights them
-by picturing St. Peter’s, St. Paul’s, the Appian Way, the Coliseum,
-Westminster Abbey, and many other places of historic
-interest.</p>
-
-<p>A new circle which was formed last October at <b>Kalamazoo,
-Mich.</b>, reports a very promising outlook in the growth of the
-work there; while the circle at <b>Erie, Mich.</b>, organized in the
-fall, and now numbering twenty-eight members, says: “We
-have every reason to hope for a large addition to our membership<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_541" id="Page_541">[541]</a></span>
-in October next.” Perhaps the secret is to be found in
-the interest they are taking in their work, for they write: “We
-congratulate ourselves on the pleasure afforded us by our
-studies, and on the improvement from month to month in the
-work of individual members.”</p>
-
-<p>We like that sort of interest in the C. L. S. C. which leads
-members to do everything in their power to follow the methods
-outlined by the leaders. It is such interest that makes the
-Circle grow—a case to the point comes from <b>Winfield, Mich.</b>,
-from a member, who writes: “I have secured a student to join
-in the studies of the C. L. S. C. for the class of ’87, and so am
-able to report as a circle from this place, though only two of
-us.” Too often “only two of us” is made an excuse for not
-joining the Plainfield office.</p>
-
-<p>“We are doing very thorough work, not only reading, but
-studying,” writes the secretary of the <b>Litchfield, Mich.</b>, circle.
-<b>Howell, Mich.</b>, has a circle of thirty-five ’87s. They had the
-privilege of welcoming the president of the class of ’87, the
-Rev. Frank Russell, on the 20th of February last, on the evening
-of which day he delivered his popular lecture on the “Man
-Invisible,” there under the auspices of their local circle. They
-took occasion to celebrate his coming with a reunion of the
-Chautauqua circles of the county. A most excellent idea, and
-one that evidently did both the fortunate hosts and guests
-much good, for they declare that they feel sure that all present
-were encouraged to press on to help swell the “Pansy” class
-of ’87 to 20,000.</p>
-
-<p>The “Flour City,” <b>Minneapolis, Minn.</b>, circle, commenced
-work the first of November. “Our number,” they write,
-“does not exceed twenty. We meet every Monday night for
-two hours, even when the thermometer has been on its way
-from twenty-five to thirty-five below zero. There is a great
-deal of pressure upon our lives in this thriving city, and we
-have not attempted to follow out attractive lines of study suggested,
-but have followed the course carefully, varying our exercises
-from time to time. We get up maps and charts, and
-exhibit pictures of places that we study about. Recently we
-spent the evening with the German authors from whose pens
-extracts have appeared. Each member present had a character,
-and all were well prepared. It proved one of our most delightful
-evenings.”</p>
-
-<p>A “Chautauqua Triangle” meets weekly at <b>Grinnell, Iowa</b>.
-From <b>Brighton, Iowa</b>, a class of nine is reported, and from
-<b>Ackley</b>, of the same state, a lady writes: “Our circle of about
-a dozen members has just been organized, what it lacks in
-numbers being made up in enthusiasm. We are to meet
-weekly. We have considerable variety among our members,
-some being college graduates, and others wishing they were;
-some being C. L. S. C. graduates, and others hoping to become
-such in ’86 or ’87, and still others, knowing that they can not
-pass through the ‘beautiful golden gate’ before ’88. For the
-sake of such we unite in reading the ‘Bryant Course’ for the
-rest of this C. L. S. C. year, the old C. L. S. C.ists taking
-that work in addition to the regular reading, on which all will
-enter in the fall.”</p>
-
-<p>A little company of readers have formed a new circle at <b>Davenport,
-Iowa</b>. The interest in the C. L. S. C. course is increasing
-constantly, there being now over fifty persons who are
-taking the whole or parts of the course.</p>
-
-<p>Our friends at <b>Corydon, Iowa</b>, have been experiencing the
-effects of being too social. Their club of fifteen was organized
-last fall. Their meetings were always pleasant, but as
-they had no plan in their work they often found themselves
-unwittingly off the topic. Fortunately they discovered their
-mistake, and voted to reform. They write: “The two most
-profitable meetings we have yet had, were the two since ‘the
-change.’ Now we think we have the ‘Chautauqua Idea.’”</p>
-
-<p><b>Kansas</b> sends word of two new clubs; one at <b>Elk Falls</b>, of
-nine members, and another at <b>Andover</b>, of seven.</p>
-
-<p>From <b>New Market, Platt County, Mo.</b>, we have received the
-program of the exercises held on Longfellow’s Day by the circle
-of four there.</p>
-
-<p>The teachers of the Natchez union schools, at <b>Natchez, Missouri</b>,
-were formed into a circle in December.</p>
-
-<p>In Southern <b>Dakota</b>, at <b>Bijou Hills</b>, the circle of ’87 has
-been holding weekly meetings all winter, and writes that notwithstanding
-the limited advantages on the frontier they are not
-discouraged, but live in hopes of having a larger circle next
-year.</p>
-
-<p>In January there was formed a circle at <b>McGregor, Texas</b>.
-Two of the members are of the class of ’82, and until recently
-lived in New York state, having spent nine happy summers at
-Chautauqua. One of the beautiful things about Chautauqua
-is that you can carry it with you—even as far as Texas, and
-that, as these two friends have done, you can impart its
-strength and inspiration to others.</p>
-
-<p>The first report which <span class="smcap">The Chautauquan</span> has received from
-<b>Wyoming Territory</b> comes from <b>Cheyenne</b>, where, in February,
-a circle was organized consisting of eight active members, who
-pledged themselves to complete the four years’ course of study.
-With true Western vim they write: “Although small in numbers,
-we are earnest in purpose, and are determined to be in
-the front ranks among the classes of 1887.”</p>
-
-<p><b>Canon City, Col.</b>, has organized a circle of ten busy housekeepers,
-who, though they have long been away from the discipline
-of the school room, yet find that it becomes continually
-easier to master the readings.</p>
-
-<p><b>Linden, California</b>, has a class of seven regular members,
-with a few “socials.”</p>
-
-<p>There is a great deal of genuine, healthy, social life in the
-C. L. S. C., and a great many pleasant plans followed by different
-circles, which can not fail to be suggestive to others.
-The “Alpha” circle, of <b>Lewiston, Maine</b>, closed the year of
-1882-3 with a social at the home of one of the members. While
-making merry over cake and ice cream, the writing of a book
-by the circle, each member contributing one chapter, was proposed.
-The idea was at once accepted by all. The plan of
-the book, subject, etc., was decided upon, two of the members
-volunteering to write a poem. The first meeting of the circle
-this Chautauqua year was a lakeside picnic, at which the party
-added to the usual picnic sports the election of officers for this
-year, and the reading of the first chapter of their book. We
-hope that book will be finished and reported. They are not
-alone in their “Chautauqua picnic.” The <b>Galesburg, Ill.</b>
-circle kept alive their enthusiasm last summer by holding one
-in the vacation, to which all Chautauquans of the city were invited,
-whether graduates or not.</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps the chief social event in the C. L. S. C. world so far
-this year has been the Alumni banquet held by the classes of ’82
-and ’83, in <b>Boston</b>, on February 23d, in honor of Dr. Vincent,
-and Dr. Hurlbut. The <i>Boston Journal</i> gave a full account of
-the event, and from it we quote: “The ladies and gentlemen
-who by virtue of their diplomas became members of the ‘Hall
-in the Grove’—so the <i>menu</i> announced—were presided over
-for the day by Rev. O. S. Baketel. Prof. W. F. Sherwin acted as
-toastmaster, and never did a more humorous or genial master
-call for responses. He wanted a short, pleasant, instructive,
-amusing, cheerful, delightful, jocose, scientific speech from
-every one, and thought that five or six minutes’ speaking would
-surely not take ten minutes’ time. The class representatives
-called upon endeavored to follow out this request, the first one,
-Rev. George Benedict, of Hanson class, of ’87, condensing
-his short, pleasant, etc., oration to half a dozen words uttered
-in one minute. As soon as the toastmaster realized that ’87’s
-speech was disposed of, he called upon him ‘who had been under
-the snow so long,’ Rev. B. P. Snow, of Biddeford, Me., class
-of ’86, and Mr. Snow described in glowing colors the work of
-the C. L. S. C. in popularizing culture for older people, declaring
-that it was not a college of universal smatter, but one of
-real work and progress. Rev. J. E. Fullerton, of Hopkinton,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_542" id="Page_542">[542]</a></span>
-who responded for the class of ’85, spoke of the Chautauqua
-movement as Christian, popular, progressive and peculiarly
-American. For the classes of ’84 and ’83, Rev. W. N. Richardson,
-of East Saugus, and Rev. Alexander Dight, of Holliston,
-respectively, responded. Each speaker had naturally
-spoken in immeasurably high terms of the ability and wisdom
-of his own particular class, but it remained for the final class
-representative, Rev. Dr. J. L. Hurlbut, of ’82, to put the climax
-on humorous mock modesty and class exaltation by eulogizing
-the first graduating class of the Circle to the very highest
-skies, declaring that it possessed so much knowledge that
-there was scarcely enough left to go around among the other
-classes, and, moreover, it had laid the foundation of the great
-people’s college. A few hearty words laudatory of the founder
-of the Chautauqua movement, Dr. Vincent, and then the
-speaker announced that henceforth that day, February 23d,
-the anniversary of the birthday of the beloved Superintendent
-of Instruction, was to be recognized and celebrated as ‘Founder’s
-Day.’ When the applause which greeted this announcement
-had subsided, toastmaster Sherwin bade the assembly
-‘do just as I do,’ and then taught them the ‘Chautauqua salute’
-with variations, consisting of fifteen waves of the handkerchief
-in front and above the head. Dr. Vincent arose after this
-salute, and having expressed his appreciation and thanks, spoke
-to his pupils on the distinctive character of the C. L. S. C. ‘A
-short dialogue,’ announced toastmaster Sherwin, ‘will now be
-given,’ and in accordance with this instruction Rev. Mr. Full,
-of South Framingham, recited his prepared part, which closed
-with a presentation to the Superintendent of two valuable sets
-of books, the works of Hawthorne and Oliver Wendell
-Holmes, as a slight token of the admiration of the alumni.
-The second part of the dialogue came from Dr. Vincent, who,
-although entirely unprepared and taken completely by surprise,
-yet acknowledged in graceful terms the gift of his friends.
-A final prayer, and then the alumni of C. L. S. C. separated
-for their homes.”</p>
-
-<p>The class of ’82 has set an excellent example to all succeeding
-classes by the way in which they have kept up their “class
-feeling”—especially has the New England Branch been faithful
-in paying allegiance to their Alma Mater, and in holding
-fast to the class bonds. Last August, at Framingham, they
-held a very pleasant reunion. The president of the N. E. branch
-of class of ’86, Mr. Pike, presided. Speeches were made by
-many gentlemen, well-known workers in the C. L. S. C. Songs
-were sung and a class poem read. A delightful affair in every
-respect, and one that they should try to repeat each summer.</p>
-
-<p>We do not often find new Memorial Days being added to
-the list, but the “Merrimac” C. L. S. C. of <b>Newburyport, Mass.</b>,
-has added one. “Although Whittier’s birthday is not a ‘Memorial,’
-yet we felt we must observe it, as he belongs almost
-to us, living just across ‘Our River,’ which he has enshrined
-in verse, and from which we receive our title.” This class is
-enjoying some excellent “helps” in their work. Quite recently
-a gentleman, well fitted for the work, kindly favored
-them with an address on Biology, supplementing his words
-with microscopic views. They have now, in prospectus, a
-whole evening with the microscope, through the courtesy of an
-educated German resident, and also hope from him a “Talk”
-on his nation’s customs and ceremonies.</p>
-
-<p>From the list of special occasions we must not omit the entertainment
-which the circle of <b>Hampshire, Ill.</b>, held at the
-close of their last year of study. They had a Chautauqua banquet,
-each member having the privilege of inviting one guest.
-A very interesting literary program was prepared by the members,
-consisting of essays, recitations and music, followed by
-toasts. All present declared the evening delightful. The
-circle has increased this year from twelve to twenty-three.</p>
-
-<p>Not many lectures have been reported as yet. Under the
-auspices of the C. L. S. C. of <b>Nashville, Tenn.</b>, Dr. J. H. Worman,
-the well known German professor in the C. S. L., lectured
-March 3rd, at the Nashville College for Young Ladies,
-on “Modern Art.” The society is to be congratulated on securing
-so able a speaker as Prof. Worman. At <b>Milwaukee,
-Wis.</b>, the six circles, Alpha, Beta, Grand Avenue, Delta, Iota,
-and Bay View, had a delightful entertainment the 29th of
-March, when President Farrar, of the Milwaukee College, devoted
-an hour and a half to “Views of Architecture” from the
-earliest Egyptians down to the present time, given with the
-fine stereopticon which he uses every week in the Ladies’ Art
-Class of over two hundred members.</p>
-
-<p>The old circles seem to be doing splendid work. <b>Richford,
-N. Y.</b>, reports a steadily increasing interest and determination.
-A member of the “Harlem” Circle, <b>New York City</b>, describes
-in an entertaining letter their method of quizzing. It is good.
-The quizzing forms a regular feature of the program, and is
-limited to fifteen minutes. It is conducted by some one previously
-appointed. After that any member may question the
-quizzer for a few minutes longer. Our correspondent has been
-doing some useful C. L. S. C. work. He sent one of his old
-copies of <span class="smcap">The Chautauquan</span> home, and the people there were
-so much pleased with its plan, that they are planning for some
-similar organization in their midst.</p>
-
-<p>At <b>Ithaca, N. Y.</b>, the circle is fortunate enough to be in reach
-of Cornell University and its professors. They are improving
-their opportunities, too, having recently had lectures on “Architecture”
-and “Political Economy.”</p>
-
-<p>We like the ring of the report from <b>South Lansing, N. J.</b> It
-is worth while to belong to a circle of two if it can be as pleasant
-as this one: “In number we are but two (sisters)—the only
-C. L. S. C. in this place. The duties of the usual officers of
-circles are borne by either member, as opportunity seems to
-favor. Examinations, reviews, exercises in pronunciation and
-definition are held at the most unconscionable hours by a self-constituted
-leader. Suddenly a member, inspired by some
-new reading, or a suggested thought, resolves into an animated
-question box; or perhaps, presumes to criticise some notable
-book. In this systemless manner we conduct our unadjourned
-meeting, and though our method, or rather, lack of method,
-may not be commendable to other circles, it certainly helps to
-meet the exigencies of ours. As we take leave of the regular
-course—for we are ’84s—we would join our voices to the chorus
-of Chautauqua enthusiasts.”</p>
-
-<p><b>Naples, N. Y.</b>, has a circle of twelve, of the class of ’86,
-the fruit of the zealous work of one lady. This same
-friend was instrumental in arousing interest in the reading at
-<b>West Bloomfield</b>, where now there is a class of thirty. She
-accomplished this, she writes, while visiting the town, by introducing
-the C. L. S. C. into every tea party she attended while
-there.</p>
-
-<p>A two-year-old club exists at <b>New Wilmington, Pa.</b>, from
-which we have never before heard. There are twenty-four members.
-“As a rule,” writes the secretary, “our members are
-teachers and business men and women who have little spare
-time, but that little is enthusiastically and profitably employed.
-We are fortunate in possessing several members who are graduates
-of Westminster and other colleges. The studies are
-made interesting by a thorough recitation in each study. Obscure
-points are brought out and discussed freely and searchingly.
-The exercises are spiced by essays on, and recitations
-from favorite authors and subjects. Also by question box, debates,
-and music.”</p>
-
-<p>The pleasant circle at <b>Hillsboro, O.</b>, is enjoying the reading
-and doing very thorough work.</p>
-
-<p>There are two excellent features in the report received from
-the society at <b>South Toledo, O.</b> The members hand in a list
-of words to the vice president to be corrected—including
-mispronounced words, or those about whose pronunciation they
-are undecided, and they are at once corrected—the discussion
-over points doing much toward fixing the correct forms in
-their minds. Their city, on the banks of the Maumee River,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_543" id="Page_543">[543]</a></span>
-historical ground, with old Fort Miami and Meigs standing
-sentinel over their respective charges, South Toledo and Perrysburg,
-and these enterprising students have wisely made the
-most of their location. They write: “In connection with our
-reading of Canadian and American History, in which the
-greatest interest was taken, ‘we dived down deep’ into the
-subject, had the history of this memorable spot written by our
-secretary, who gave an account of the battle of Fallen Timbers
-in 1794, fought between General Wayne, accompanied by
-General Scott and their forces, and Indians under command
-of Blue Jacket and Little Turtle, with their Canadian allies.
-The points of interest mentioned being so familiar to us; also
-gave the history of the settlement of Maumee (now South
-Toledo), with the progress of the place, and difficulties encountered,
-mentioning old pioneers, interesting events, etc. A
-newspaper sketch of a celebration held here in 1840 in honor
-of ‘Old Tippecanoe’ was read by our vice president. On
-this occasion we had an informal meeting, inviting guests to
-participate in our pleasure.”</p>
-
-<p>The Alpha and Beta circles of <b>Quincy, Ill.</b>, are doing enthusiastic
-work. On Longfellow’s day they joined their forces,
-carrying out an appropriate program.</p>
-
-<p>An effort to increase the membership has resulted in nearly
-doubling the numbers at <b>Petersburg, Ill.</b> The circle is in its
-second year, and rejoices in a wide awake president, who does
-his best to make this circle a success, and to extend its influence.</p>
-
-<p><b>Nashville, Tenn.</b>, boasts a live circle of thirty-seven members
-and many friends under the auspices of the Y. M. C. A.
-Recently at their regular session in the parlors of the Association
-they executed a series of exercises which were as thoroughly
-produced as they were appreciatively listened to. Roman
-literature was the theme of the hour, and most luminous
-lights were glanced at in essays short, concise and pointed.
-Fifteen essays were read, and reports were read on facts, on
-pronunciation of names, and on general pronunciation.</p>
-
-<p>We have already heard good things of the C. L. S. C. at
-<b>Niles, Mich.</b> There are some zealous members in the circle, one
-of whom, a teacher, has been utilizing her reading very successfully
-in her school room. Hawthorne’s biographical stories
-have been adopted for the Friday reading, and each pupil is
-expected to reproduce orally, if called upon, the whole sketch.
-The reading has been found very attractive to the pupils.</p>
-
-<p>At <b>Sheboygan, Wis.</b>, the circle still flourishes. They have
-been having delightful evenings this year over their studies.
-The secretary writes: “At our last meeting we had for our lesson
-the first half of French History in <span class="smcap">The Chautauquan</span> and
-the first part of the Latin Preparatory Course in English. One
-of the ladies furnished a paper on the ‘Siege of Calais,’ and
-another gave a talk upon the ‘Massacre of St. Bartholomew.’
-One of our members who spent last year abroad brought a
-most excellent map of Rome and many fine photographs of
-the Coliseum, the Pantheon, and other places of interest,
-which helped us greatly in our study of the seven-hilled city.
-We spent several delightful evenings upon Political Economy,
-one of the gentlemen who has given much study to the subject
-acting as leader.”</p>
-
-<p>At <b>Faribault, Minn.</b>, they are dividing their time between Art
-and American Literature. Though there are many letters before
-us still untouched, we must close the box, taking just a
-glance from a letter lately received from far away <b>Honolulu</b>, in
-which a lady writes: “After enjoying five months’ reading
-with Dr. Wythe’s circle, of Oakland, California, I found I had
-become quite a Chautauqua enthusiast. So after moving here
-I sought out a few to start a circle. I succeeded in finding four
-willing to try, and so we begun; we have now doubled in
-numbers, but have not succeeded in finding a permanent
-leader, but for all our drawbacks we enjoy it <i>immensely</i>, and
-intend to keep on, hoping some one will come to the rescue.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2 id="CHAUTAUQUA_FOR_1884">CHAUTAUQUA FOR 1884.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p>Many of our friends, planning for their summer trips just
-now, are wondering, no doubt, what good things Chautauqua
-will have to offer this season. For their sakes we give just a
-glimpse of what is being prepared for the Chautauqua School
-of Languages and Chautauqua Teachers’ Retreat. With the
-July number of <span class="smcap">The Chautauquan</span>, we shall forward to each
-of our subscribers a copy of the Advance Number of the
-<i>Assembly Herald</i>, which will contain full information about
-Chautauqua for 1884.</p>
-
-<p>The Chautauqua School of Languages will open on Saturday,
-July 12th, and continue for six weeks. It is the aim of
-the school to illustrate the best methods of teaching languages
-and to furnish instruction in languages for students.</p>
-
-<p>The Teachers’ Retreat will open Saturday, July 12th, and
-continue three weeks. It is the aim of the Retreat to benefit
-secular teachers by combining with the recreative delights of
-the summer vacation, the stimulating and quickening influence
-of the summer school.</p>
-
-<p>Following are the departments of the C. S. L. for 1884:</p>
-
-<p><i>1. German.</i> Prof. J. H. Worman, Ph.D., Vanderbilt University,
-Nashville, Tenn. Three classes: Beginners, Middle and
-Advanced.</p>
-
-<p><i>2. French.</i> Prof. A. Lalande, Louisville, Ky. Three classes:
-Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced.</p>
-
-<p><i>3. Spanish.</i> Prof. J. H. Worman, Ph.D., Nashville, Tenn.
-Beginners class only.</p>
-
-<p><i>4. Greek.</i> Henry Lummis, A.M., Stoneham, Mass. Three
-classes: Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced.</p>
-
-<p><i>5. Latin.</i> E. S. Shumway, A.M., Rutger’s College, New
-Brunswick, N. J. Five classes: Teachers’ Method class, College
-class, Preparatory, Beginners, Circles and Colloquia.</p>
-
-<p><i>6. English Language and Literature.</i> W. D. MacClintock,
-3 Winthrop Place, New York City. Anglo-Saxon, Shakspere
-and Chaucer.</p>
-
-<p><i>7. The Chautauqua School of Hebrew.</i> William R. Harper,
-Ph.D., Morgan Park, near Chicago, Ill. Four classes: Elementary,
-Intermediate, Progressive and Exegetical. Four
-weeks—July 21st, August 16th.</p>
-
-<p><i>8. New Testament Greek.</i> Rev. A. A. Wright, Boston, Mass.
-Two divisions: 1. Grammatical; 2. Lexicographical and Exegetical.
-Four weeks—July 25th, August 22nd.</p>
-
-<p>The rate of admission to all the exercises of the C. S. L. and
-C. T. R. for the session of six weeks will be $12.00. Arrangements
-have been made for special classes in several branches.
-We give a list of these classes and their cost:</p>
-
-<p>Elocution, fifteen lessons, $5.00; Elocution, ten lessons,
-$4.00; Elocution, five lessons, $3.00; Elocution, private, per
-hour, $3.00. Clay Modeling, per hour, $0.40. Drawing, fifteen
-lessons, $5.00; Drawing, ten lessons, $4.00; Drawing, five lessons,
-$3.00. Phonography, twenty lessons, $10.00. Voice culture,
-ten lessons, $10.00. Harmony, ten lessons, $10.00. Music
-in day school eight lessons free to C. S. L. and C. T. R.
-Mineralogy and Lithology, ten lessons, $2.00. Botany, ten lessons,
-$2.00.</p>
-
-<p>The rate of admission to the grounds will be, in July, twenty-five
-cents a day; in August, forty cents a day. A week ticket
-in July, $1.00; a week ticket in August, $2.00. Tickets for the
-entire term in July, $2.00; tickets for the August Assembly
-meetings, $3.00. An arrangement is made by which full course
-tickets may be secured for July and August for $4.00.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<p>It is incredible how important it is that the corporeal frame
-should be kept under the influence of constant, continuous, and
-unbroken order, and free from the impressions of vicissitude,
-which always more or less derange the corporeal functions.
-After all, it is continued temperance which sustains the body
-for the longest period of time, and which most surely preserves
-it free from sickness.—<i>Von Humboldt.</i></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_544" id="Page_544">[544]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2 id="QUESTIONS_AND_ANSWERS">QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p class="hanging">FIFTY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON PICTURES FROM ENGLISH
-HISTORY—FROM PAGE 145 TO THE END OF THE BOOK.</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p class="center">By A. M. MARTIN, <span class="smcap">General Secretary C. L. S. C.</span></p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p>1. Q. What were the “Wars of the Roses?” A. They were
-civil conflicts between the Yorkists and Lancastrians, the
-former having for their emblem a white rose and the latter a
-red rose.</p>
-
-<p>2. Q. How many kings had the House of York and how
-many the House of Lancaster? A. Each House had three
-kings.</p>
-
-<p>3. Q. During the reign of Henry VII. who led the French to
-victory against the English, and was afterward burned at the
-stake on a charge of heresy? A. Joan of Arc, the “Maid of
-Orleans.”</p>
-
-<p>4. Q. Who were the three sovereigns of the House of York?
-A. Edward IV., Edward V., and Richard III.</p>
-
-<p>5. Q. Who was the first sovereign of the House of Tudor?
-A. Henry VII., who descended from Edward III. He married
-Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV., and so the Houses of York
-and Lancaster were united.</p>
-
-<p>6. Q. During the reign of Henry VII. what great geographical
-discovery was made? A. The discovery of America by
-Christopher Columbus.</p>
-
-<p>7. Q. How has Henry VIII., the successor of Henry VII.,
-been characterized? A. As “the most tyrannical of kings,
-and the most bloodthirsty of husbands.”</p>
-
-<p>8. Q. How many wives did Henry VIII. marry? A. Six.</p>
-
-<p>9. Q. What two great events in England mark the reign of
-Henry VIII.? A. The beginning of the English Reformation,
-and the publication of the Bible in English.</p>
-
-<p>10. Q. What three children of Henry VIII. succeeded him
-in succession to the English throne? A. Edward VI., Mary
-and Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>11. Q. How is the character of Mary described by Motley?
-A. “As bloody Queen Mary she will ever be remembered with
-horror and detestation in Great Britain.”</p>
-
-<p>12. Q. What religion did Mary attempt to restore in England?
-A. The Roman Catholic religion.</p>
-
-<p>13. Q. What are the names of three prominent Protestant
-martyrs who were burned at the stake during Mary’s reign?
-A. Latimer, Cranmer and John Rogers.</p>
-
-<p>14. Q. What religion did Elizabeth reëstablish upon her accession
-to the throne? A. The Protestant religion.</p>
-
-<p>15. Q. What rival to the throne was executed during Elizabeth’s
-reign? A. Mary, Queen of Scots.</p>
-
-<p>16. Q. What great fleet sent by Spain to establish Catholicism
-in England, during Elizabeth’s sovereignty, met with a
-disastrous defeat? A. The Spanish Armada.</p>
-
-<p>17. Q. How many years did Elizabeth reign? A. Forty-five
-years.</p>
-
-<p>18. Q. What great English dramatist lived during her reign?
-A. William Shakspere.</p>
-
-<p>19. Q. What noted poet wrote during her reign? A. Edmund
-Spenser.</p>
-
-<p>20. Q. What prominent favorite of the Queen was executed
-during the reign of Elizabeth? A. Lord Essex.</p>
-
-<p>21. Q. Who succeeded Elizabeth to the throne? A. James
-I., son of Mary Queen of Scots.</p>
-
-<p>22. Q. Of what House was the first sovereign? A. The
-House of Stuart.</p>
-
-<p>23. Q. From the time of the accession of James I., what two
-crowns were united? A. Those of England and Scotland.</p>
-
-<p>24. Q. What great conspiracy was discovered during the
-reign of James I.? A. The gunpowder plot, a conspiracy to
-destroy both Houses of Parliament, the king and the royal
-family.</p>
-
-<p>25. Q. What noted publication occurred during the reign
-of James I.? A. The authorized version of the Bible.</p>
-
-<p>26. Q. Name four prominent men of letters who lived during
-the reign of James I.? A. Ben Jonson, poet; Beaumont and
-Fletcher, dramatists; and Francis Bacon, jurist, statesman
-and philosopher.</p>
-
-<p>27. Q. Who was the successor to James I. on the throne of
-England? A. His son, Charles I.</p>
-
-<p>28. Q. What noted Parliament was summoned by King
-Charles? A. The Long Parliament.</p>
-
-<p>29. Q. How long did this Parliament continue in session?
-A. Thirteen years.</p>
-
-<p>30. Q. What was the fate of Charles I.? A. He was tried,
-condemned and executed on a charge of treason in levying
-war against the Parliament.</p>
-
-<p>31. Q. After the execution of Charles what form of government
-was proclaimed in England? A. A Commonwealth.</p>
-
-<p>32. Q. Who was made the first Lord Protector of the Commonwealth?
-A. Oliver Cromwell.</p>
-
-<p>33. Q. Give the names of three illustrious persons who lived
-about this time. A. Milton, Bunyan and Dryden.</p>
-
-<p>34. Q. Upon the death of Oliver Cromwell, who was proclaimed
-Protector of the Commonwealth? A. His son, Richard
-Cromwell.</p>
-
-<p>35. Q. Eight months afterward, upon Richard Cromwell
-resigning the Protectorate, who became king of England? A.
-Charles II., son of Charles I.</p>
-
-<p>36. Q. What two great calamities occurred in London during
-the reign of Charles II.? A. The great plague and the
-great fire. By the former a hundred thousand people
-perished, and by the latter the greater part of the city was
-burned.</p>
-
-<p>37. Q. Who was the successor of Charles II.? A. His
-brother, James II.</p>
-
-<p>38. Q. What was the result of the revolution of 1688. A.
-James II. abdicated the throne, and William and Mary jointly
-reigned.</p>
-
-<p>39. Q. What historic battle occurred in 1609? A. The battle
-of the Boyne.</p>
-
-<p>40. Q. Mention the names of three great persons who lived
-during this reign? A. John Locke, Sir Isaac Newton and Sir
-Christopher Wren.</p>
-
-<p>41. Q. Who was the next English sovereign on the throne?
-A. Anne, daughter of James II.</p>
-
-<p>42. Q. What age of literature is the reign of Anne called?
-A. The Augustan age of English literature.</p>
-
-<p>43. Q. What are five of the illustrious names of this age?
-A. Addison, Steele, Swift, Watts and Pope.</p>
-
-<p>44. Q. With the reign of George I., grandson of James I.,
-and successor of Anne, what House acceded to the throne?
-A. The House of Hanover.</p>
-
-<p>45. Q. What great speculation impoverished thousands during
-this reign? A. “The South Sea Bubble.”</p>
-
-<p>46. Q. What are the names of the three sovereigns who successively
-reigned after George I.? A. George II., George III.,
-and George IV.</p>
-
-<p>47. Q. Whose reign was the longest in English history? A.
-That of George IV., extending over sixty years.</p>
-
-<p>48. Q. What colonies revolted during the reign of George
-IV. and obtained their independence? A. The American
-colonies.</p>
-
-<p>49. Q. What two great statesmen lived during the reign of
-George IV.? A. Pitt and Fox.</p>
-
-<p>50. Q. Who is the present sovereign of England? A. Queen
-Victoria, granddaughter of George III.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<p>Death is a mighty mediator. There all the flames of rage
-are extinguished, hatred is appeased, and angelic pity, like a
-weeping sister, bends with gentle and close embrace over the
-funeral urn.—<i>Schiller.</i></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_545" id="Page_545">[545]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2 id="CHAUTAUQUA_NORMAL_COURSE">CHAUTAUQUA NORMAL COURSE.</h2>
-
-<p class="center smaller">Season of 1884.</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3>LESSON X.—BIBLE SECTION.</h3>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h4><i>The Doctrines of the Bible.</i></h4>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p class="center">By <span class="smcap">Rev. J. L. HURLBUT, D.D., and R. S. HOLMES, A.M.</span></p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p><i>Doceo</i> means I teach. <i>Doctum</i>, a teaching. <i>Doctrina</i>, the
-result of teaching—<i>learning</i>. The doctrines of the Bible are
-simply its teachings. They are the teachings of God to the
-race, contained in the record of his dealings with the race.
-These dealings of God produced a supernatural history, in the
-course of which man originated and fell, the nature and character
-of the Creator appeared, the presence, power and effects of
-sin were made known, and the original and ultimate purposes
-of God with the race were declared. The outline of these
-teachings or doctrines is not designed to be exhaustive, nor is
-it formed on the model of any treatise on systematic theology.
-It aims to prompt to further study in the classics of theology,
-and to plainly state a few essential truths. These doctrines of
-the Bible are:</p>
-
-<p><i>1. The Doctrine Concerning Beginnings.</i> (<i>a</i>) God was without
-beginning—Genesis 1:1. First fact—“The Eternal God.”
-(<i>b</i>) The Holy Spirit was without beginning—Gen. 1:2. Second
-fact—“The Eternal Spirit.” (<i>c</i>) The Word was without beginning—John
-1:1. Third fact—“The Eternal Son.” Essential
-doctrine: the Triune God; unbegun, coequal, eternal. (<i>d</i>)
-All else, the whole vast universe, began by the power of God—Gen.
-1:1—through the Son—John 1:3. Fourth fact—“Man
-God’s offspring.” Essential doctrine: The Fatherhood of God;
-his sovereignty and right to demand obedience of his creatures.</p>
-
-<p><i>2. The Doctrine Concerning Relations.</i> (<i>a</i>) God <i>is Creator</i>:
-hence <i>powerful</i>; <i>a spirit</i>—John 4:24—hence unseen; <i>without
-beginning or ending, hence infinite and eternal</i>—Ps. 90:1.
-Formula: “God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable
-in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and
-truth.” (<i>b</i>) <i>Man is the creature.</i> Essentially a thing created;
-he dies daily, to be recreated daily. What of himself man destroys,
-the Creator by daily sustenance replaces. He is therefore
-the bread-giver, <i>Hlaf-ford</i>—<i>Lord</i>. The gifts of the Creator
-are beneficent; so he is the Good-One, God. The Creator
-is also guardian, protector—that is, <i>Father</i>.</p>
-
-<p>Relation restated. The Creator, Lord, God, Father. The
-creature—a dependent child. The law of paternity—like produces
-like. Essential doctrine—man was originally like God,
-in harmony with him and at peace with him—Gen. 1:27.</p>
-
-<p><i>3. The Doctrine Concerning Positions.</i> (<i>a</i>) Man supreme in
-creation. God calls himself Father of no other created thing.
-<i>Man a thinker, hence supreme.</i> (<i>b</i>) <i>Man free in the midst of
-creation.</i> No other power to dispute his right. In fellowship with
-God, his Father. In a place of his Father’s choice, under
-rules of his Father’s making; with a work of his Father’s
-planning—Gen. 2:15-16—with power to follow his own will—(Gen.
-2:17, last clause)—answerable to no one but his Father.
-Essential Doctrines—The sovereignty of God—the freedom
-of man. (<i>c</i>) <i>Man confronted by a foe</i>—Gen. 3:1—A sinful
-power in the universe: sin before man—2 Peter 2:4, 1 John 3:8.
-<i>Picture</i>—The Almighty Father—the boundless earth—the wide
-permission; the single restraint; the only child; the tempter;
-the fall; sin’s victory—Romans 5:12. Essential doctrine: By
-man sin entered the world, and death by sin, imparting to
-man a sinful nature, and separating man from God.</p>
-
-<p><i>4. The Doctrine Concerning Results.</i> (<i>a</i>) Separation from
-God; Eden lost; toil, pain and death—Gen. 3:17-19:23. (<i>b</i>)
-The kingdom of death—Romans 5:14; its prince, Satan; its
-subjects unclean—Job 15:14-16; its history a record of “sin,
-schism, and the clash of personalities.” (<i>c</i>) Eternal punishment
-probable from analogy, reasonable, just. Let the student
-carefully examine the testimony.</p>
-
-<p><i>5. The Doctrine Concerning Rescue.</i> (<i>a</i>) Promised early in
-history—Gen. 3:15. (<i>b</i>) <i>Divine</i>—John 3:16. (<i>c</i>) Yet <i>human</i>—Gen.
-3:15; Romans 5:18; Luke 3:23 and ff. Central fact of
-history, the God-man. (<i>d</i>) Restoration to God’s likeness—1 John
-3:2. (<i>e</i>) A life-giving rescue—Romans 6:23. (<i>f</i>) A cleansing
-rescue; find the symbolic use of water in Bible. (<i>g</i>) Obtained
-through suffering and propitiatory death—Isaiah 53. (<i>h</i>)
-Established by resurrection—Ps. 16:10, 49:15; Hosea 13:14.
-Essential doctrine: Salvation from God as a free gift of his
-grace for all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.</p>
-
-<p><i>6. The Doctrine Concerning Instruction.</i> (<i>a</i>) God himself
-the teacher of the race. <i>Adam</i>—<i>Abel</i>—the Altar and Sacrifice.
-Note: <i>service</i> and <i>sacrifice</i>, man’s first lesson; the ark and
-Noah; rescue from sin’s penalty through obedience, man’s
-second lesson; Abraham—reckoned as righteous, because believing,
-man’s third lesson. (<i>b</i>) Moses the teacher of the race;
-the tabernacle in the wilderness; the same lessons repeated;
-God using his servant by direct instruction and communion.
-(<i>c</i>) The prophets the teachers of the race—Samuel—Malachi—the
-same lesson repeated; God teaching by inspiration; the
-home; the church; holy men speaking as moved by the Holy
-Ghost. (<i>d</i>) God by his Son the teacher of the race; Jesus
-Christ, Galilee, Samaria, Judea, the manger, the desert, the
-cross, the Easter morn, lessons, service, obedience, sacrifice,
-victory. (<i>e</i>) God by his teacher of the race.</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3>SUNDAY-SCHOOL SECTION.</h3>
-
-<h4>LESSON X.—THE TEACHING PROCESS.—ILLUSTRATION.</h4>
-
-<p>[This lesson is adapted from the outline of Dr. Vincent, in
-the Chautauqua Normal Guide.]</p>
-
-<p><i>I. There are four Uses of Illustrations.</i></p>
-
-<p>1. They win and hold <i>attention</i>. The ear is quickened to
-interest by a story; the eye is arrested by the picture or the
-chalk mark. Nothing awakens and retains the interest more
-than the illustration, whether heard or seen.</p>
-
-<p>2. They aid the <i>apprehension</i>. The statement of a truth is
-made plain where it is illustrated, as the rule in arithmetic is
-seen more clearly in the light of an example; and the definition
-of a scientific word in the dictionary by the picture accompanying
-it.</p>
-
-<p>3. They aid the <i>memory</i>. It is not the text, nor the line of
-thought, but the illustrations, which keep the sermon or the
-lesson from being forgotten.</p>
-
-<p>4. They awaken the <i>conscience</i>. How many have been
-aroused to conviction of sin by the parable of the Prodigal Son;
-and what is that but an illustration? So, many, like Zinzendorf,
-have been awakened by some picture of a Bible scene.
-Mr. Moody’s stories have sent the truth home as deeply as his
-exhortations.</p>
-
-<p><i>II. There are four Classes of Illustrations.</i></p>
-
-<p>1. Those which depend upon the <i>sight</i>, and derive their interest
-from the pupil’s delight in seeing. Such are maps, pictures,
-diagrams, etc., and when drawn in presence of the
-scholar, though ever so rudely, they have an increased interest
-and power.</p>
-
-<p>2. Those which depend upon the <i>imagination</i>. At no period
-in life is the imagination as strong as in childhood, when a
-rag doll can be a baby and a picture has real life. Thence
-come “word-pictures,” fairy stories, imaginary scenes, etc., as
-illustrations of the lesson.</p>
-
-<p>3. Those which depend upon <i>comparison</i>. To see resemblance
-in things different, or the correspondence between the
-outward and the spiritual, is as old as the parable of the sower,
-and the miracle of the loaves. “The likes of the lesson”
-form a fruitful field for the use of illustration.</p>
-
-<p>4. Those which depend upon <i>knowledge</i>. More than for
-anything else children are eager to know; and the story has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_546" id="Page_546">[546]</a></span>
-an added value which is true. History, science, art, and indeed
-every department of knowledge will furnish illustrations
-of spiritual truth.</p>
-
-<p><i>III. How to obtain Illustrations.</i></p>
-
-<p>1. By gaining knowledge, especially Bible knowledge. The
-wider the teacher’s range of thought, the more readily will he
-find illustrations to fit his thought. Particularly will the incidents
-of Bible story be found to furnish the frame for his
-thoughts in the class. Know the stories of the Bible, and you
-will have an encyclopædia of illustration in your mind.</p>
-
-<p>2. By the habit of observation. People find what they are
-seeking for, and the teacher who is looking for illustrations
-will find them everywhere, in books, among men, on the railway
-train, and in the forest.</p>
-
-<p>3. <i>By the preservation of illustrations.</i> The scrap book for
-clippings, the blank book for stray suggestions, the envelope,
-will all have their uses. Plans innumerable have been given,
-but each worker’s own plan is the best for himself.</p>
-
-<p>4. <i>By practice in the use of illustrations.</i> The way to use
-them is to <i>use</i> them, and use will give ease. The teacher who
-has once made the experiment will repeat it, and find that his
-rough drawing, or his map, or his story will always attract the
-eager attention of his scholars.</p>
-
-<p><i>IV. A few hints as to the use of Illustrations.</i></p>
-
-<p>1. Have a clear idea of the subject to be taught. Learn the
-lesson first of all, and know what you are to teach, before you
-seek for your illustration.</p>
-
-<p>2. Use illustrations only in the line of the teaching. Never
-tell a story for the sake of the story, but always to impress a
-truth; and let the truth be so plain that the story must carry its
-own application.</p>
-
-<p>3. Obtain the help of the scholar in illustration. Let the pupils
-suggest Bible incidents or Bible characters which present
-the traits of character which the lesson enforces. Never add
-a feature to the portrait which the scholar can himself give
-from his own knowledge.</p>
-
-<p>4. Do not use too many illustrations. Let not the lesson
-serve merely as a vehicle for story-telling, or picture drawing,
-or blackboarding; but keep <i>the truth</i> at all times in the foreground.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2 id="EDITORS_OUTLOOK">EDITOR’S OUTLOOK.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3>TO THE CLASS OF 1884—GREETING.</h3>
-
-<p>The completing of a course of study affords one of the few
-unalloyed satisfactions of life. It is an end reached—and it
-has been reached by personal effort. The class is at the goal,
-and it is there because it chose to be there, and resolutely and
-persistently labored to be there. We get many good things
-without effort, but they give us less satisfaction than meaner
-things which we have earned. There is a charm in winning a
-race, which does not consist either in being at the end of it, or
-in getting a prize. The victory is “our very own,” as the children
-say. But in a course of study completed one feels that
-the prize is worth his pains. He may feel discontented with
-the imperfections of his knowledge, but he would not for the
-world be put back where he began. We hold many things
-only with our hands; the fruits of a course of study are more
-secure—they are in our minds and hearts, and therefore can
-not fall out of our possession, or be wrested from us.</p>
-
-<p>It is a good thing for the student to take the refreshment of
-looking back to the place of beginning. “What was I when
-I began?” This sense of gain is apt to be supplanted by discontent
-and looking forward; but the student should give himself
-the comfort of the backward glance. No one has pursued
-our course of reading and study to the end without very great
-improvement in mental power and method, or without large
-additions to his knowledge. “Look to the hole of the pit.”
-Take a long look at your old self and do not hesitate to prefer
-the new self. You are wiser, stronger, better. Allow yourself
-the luxury of fully realizing that. And how little it has cost
-you! A piecing together of fragments of time that would otherwise
-have been wasted, that is the greater part of the cost of
-your course. Whatever else you have spent you would have
-spent less wisely if you had not been in the course. You have
-sacrificed nothing of any moment to this object. All else that
-you had you keep still; this fruit of patient study you have
-as a clean and pure gain. It is a matter to be happy about.
-A good hour of self-complacency will do you no harm. Indulge
-your self-respect a little. All might do what you have
-done; most of them have not done it. Your graduation is of
-itself a proof that you have pluck, constancy, and self-control.</p>
-
-<p>It is worth while to consider the elements of this victory.
-You have mixed time and method with reading and study.
-Hap-hazard study would not yield the fruit; it could not be
-ripened in a day. “Four months—and harvest.” Nor could
-method be left out. There is method in any work; method
-distinguishes work from play. There is method on the farm,
-in the mill, in the store. There must be method in gaining
-knowledge. Method makes tasks easy and combines many
-strokes into one result. In this combination of time and
-method lies the power of a course of study. All the mental
-effort is probably put forth by others spasmodically and unmethodically.
-You are at the end simply because you harnessed
-your efforts with years and system. Only stable and earnest
-characters are capable of the patient continuance in well-doing
-which is necessary to the completion of a course of study.
-College men say that the majority of those who begin a course
-fall out by the way; and they add that, whatever pretexts are
-used, the real reason is usually defective character. It is a rule
-in all undertakings of mankind; holdfast is the master quality.
-The men and women who complete the C. L. S. C. course do so
-on purpose and because they are capable of tenacity of purpose,
-and it is an education in tenacity. The man who has run
-such a race <i>through</i> is capable of running other races. He has
-learned how to “keep pegging away,” as Lincoln put it. He
-knows how to run—how to study. He likes to study. He has
-only begun in the great museum of knowledge, but he will go
-on searching its shelves until he is graduated into the large
-university of immortality. Ingratitude to our past selves is a
-human frailty which is often displayed, even ostentatiously, by
-men and women. Many there are who boast that they learned
-nothing at school; there are more who complain that they were
-taught nothing. Dr. Samuel Johnson was truer to himself in
-saying that he had learned nothing since. We hope that C. L.
-S. C. graduates will never fall into this cant. Be just now
-and always to yourselves and to those who have guided you
-through this journey. You have not learned everything, but
-you have learned how to learn. What you build yourself into
-hereafter will be built on this foundation. If you come to
-more wisdom do not be guilty of the meanness of despising
-these foundations. If the building rises high and stands firm,
-the glory of it will be these well-laid stones. If the building
-does not rise, yours the fault, for you will have neglected the
-solid base which invites you to build. Go on with the building;
-but do not forget now and again to bless the years when
-you were laying the first blocks of a studious life. In short,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_547" id="Page_547">[547]</a></span>
-we have read you a little homily on self-respect. Take an
-honest satisfaction in your course; keep a just respect for your
-tenacity and application; cherish your love for those who have
-helped and inspired you in the good work.</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3>THE DECLINE OF OUR WORKMAN.</h3>
-
-<p>The manufacturing classes of this country doubtless present
-a much more favorable condition of the workmen than prevails
-in other countries. The men who are generally described as
-laborers—whether they work isolated or in bodies—occupy a
-higher level of life than the same class in the old world. We
-may pass by, as being, in dispute, the question of the protective
-system’s relation to this fact. The higher condition of
-workmen is partly a result of democratic institutions and the
-absence of social grades in society; partly also of the youth of
-this country and its abundance of natural bounties. We have
-had the unexampled good fortune to be a young country rapidly
-developing wealth. A democratic level, a republican
-simplicity, vast stores of undeveloped natural wealth, and a
-system of free schools and free churches, have probably conspired
-to produce a high grade of workmen. We naturally desire
-to keep this feature of American society and industry.
-We note with alarm any sign that workmen are dropping to a
-lower level. It is not exclusively a humanitarian feeling
-which prompts us to maintain our workmen on a high level.
-We have all come to be interested in the prosperity of this section
-of the community. The economic usefulness of a man
-may be as conveniently measured by what he consumes as by
-what he does. In fact, his consuming power is the more accurate
-measure of his value. It is not so much a question of
-the number of strokes per day of which he is capable, as of
-the power he has to buy and use what his fellows produce. In
-this country the workman’s consuming power is probably at
-least twice as great as it is in Europe. This means that forty
-per cent. of our people buy twice as much as the corresponding
-forty per cent. buy in Europe. The effect is to greatly enlarge
-the market which we are all supplying with various
-kinds of goods. The reduction of this growing section of our
-population to the European condition would cause a contraction
-of the market, and an arrest of our industrial development,
-such as we have never experienced. We should be able to
-<i>make</i> just as many goods as now, but the people who now
-buy them would be obliged to reduce their buying, and this reduction
-would make an appalling aggregate. If twenty millions
-of people should at once reduce their annual purchases
-by one-half, the effect would be a more complete bankruptcy
-of us all than we have ever dreamed of. The reduction might
-come about slowly and with less peril; but even then the stagnation
-would be fatal to a large portion of the community.
-The truth is that we have a new factor in our industrial life, a
-new economic co-efficient. It is the well-paid workman, who
-is a relatively large consumer. Relatively to population the
-market we are all engaged in supplying is a much larger market
-than exists in Europe. We are built upon a foundation of
-which this well-paid laborer is an important part. We added
-an immense mass to this foundation when we emancipated the
-slaves. We increased the demand for goods by the difference
-between the cost of supporting a slave and that of supporting
-a free man. The new factor is a sum to be estimated only by
-the study of our own country. It never before existed in any
-country. It is a fact without a precedent; and it is so large
-that the whole fabric of our prosperity rests upon it. Gradgrind
-may persuade himself that he does not care whether poor
-men can buy goods or not; but his persuasion to that indifference
-will give way just as soon as the poor cease to buy his
-goods. In short, Gradgrind can not afford to see the buying
-power of workmen reduced with complacency. It means,
-whenever it becomes a <i>general</i> fact, ruin for Gradgrind. Whoever
-has anything or produces anything has given bonds for
-the maintenance of workmen’s wages.</p>
-
-<p>Well, then, the alarm has already been sounded. We do
-not refer to the “tariff reform”—though that <i>may</i> be fatal—but
-to more certain matters over which the tariff laws have no
-power. It is affirmed that the character, social status, aspirations
-and self-respect of workmen in this country has already
-fallen. An observer in a manufacturing center recently said:
-“The change in ten years is frightful. The old hands have
-risen in life or gone west. The new hands live in smaller
-quarters, care less for the comfort of their families, and buy
-fewer goods of any kind. They read less, take newspapers
-more rarely, are less careful to dress well on Sunday, and see
-their children in rags with a complacency which was unknown
-ten years ago. The new people are from Europe, and nine in
-ten of them have brought their old habits with them. Higher
-wages mean to them only more rum and more idleness.”</p>
-
-<p>We hope that this is an exaggeration. But even if it be only
-very partially true, it opens an unexpected vista, and an alarming
-one. The only way to maintain workmen’s wages is to
-keep up workmen’s characters. If the character grows debased
-the wages will drop to that lower level. A higher grade
-of living is the only possible security for higher wages. Workmen
-can not long get high wages to spend in rum shops.
-Wages will sink to the level of their life. But if the common
-market is to suffer so great a loss as this fall in wages and consuming
-power would occasion, then we must all suffer. Nor
-is this all. The failure would be that of our civilization. We
-are, every way, in all sources, most deeply interested in arresting
-the threatened decline of the American workman.</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3>EFFICIENCY AND TENURE.</h3>
-
-<p>The tenure of office in this country will be the subject of animated
-discussion for some years. Civil Service Reform aims
-to correct an abuse, and will probably achieve that end; but
-it is not certain that the right method of reform has been found.
-The ideal of good service is presented by a bank in which men
-serve indefinitely, and yet must serve efficiently. They are
-removed if they fail; they are not removed if they succeed.
-The difficulty in applying this rule to any form of public service
-lies in removals for cause. How to secure the removal of
-the man who fails? In the bank it is a simple thing to discharge
-a clerk. In public life it is not at all simple or easy.
-The clerk has no vested right to his place in the bank; in a
-department at Washington, a clerk has a vested right to his
-place. The bank removes because it chooses to do so. The government
-must invent some pretext or <i>prove</i> inefficiency. Tenure
-during good behavior makes a <i>quasi</i> property of the office.</p>
-
-<p>The ministry presents a good example of the workings of
-office tenure. Thousands of churches are without installed
-pastors, and one of the reasons given is that churches find it
-easier to install a man than to dismiss him. In the Methodist
-Church a hot discussion over the rule which limits continuous
-service in one church to three years has afforded good observers
-a fine opportunity to see the play of feeling and motive
-around the tenure principle. The change proposed has met
-with a crushing defeat, because Methodists are more anxious to
-keep the power to get rid of a poor pastor than they are to get
-the power to keep a good one. Why? Because they have
-much more experience of inefficient men than of efficient men.
-In short, the church says to itself: “Pastors usually fail; they
-rarely succeed; it is best to be able to send them away quietly.”
-This is not complimentary to the ministry, but it is the
-substance of the argument which has defeated a plan which
-had the sympathy of the best men in Methodism. The fact
-that in other denominations changes of pastors are about as
-frequent as among Methodists has the same explanation. For
-some reason the inefficient ministers are believed to be more
-numerous than the efficient. There is a suspicion in the general
-mind that this is true all round the circle of salaried life,
-and that we need swift and easy and decorous means of removing
-our public and semi-public servants more than we need to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_548" id="Page_548">[548]</a></span>
-fortify the good men in their positions. In the large view, what
-ails us is poor work; and people in general think that the poor
-work is already tied fast to us. The human nature of the public
-has been too much overlooked. The human nature of the
-employed has hardly ever received appropriate attention.
-There are two kinds of persons to be considered in estimating
-the effect of time limits in any service. To one kind of man
-security of tenure is a means of increased efficiency. He is
-zealous and enterprising in his vocation. He is acutely conscientious
-toward his employers, the more so the less they are
-visible and near to him. To be secure in his place is to this
-man freedom to do good work and conduct his career to fruitful
-issues. Any other tenure means to him a harassing uncertainty
-in all plans and wearying anxieties about bread and butter
-questions. Such a man can not serve a cause of any kind
-well on an uncertain or limited tenure of office. The only possible
-uncertainty for him—the only one consistent with good
-work—is that which concerns the quality of his work. That
-species of uncertainty is one which he feels to be in his power.
-He will do his work so well that no uncertainty shall exist. But
-at the other extreme is a man to whose success the sense of security
-is fatal. He works best under the whip of uncertainty.
-He becomes lazy when the fear of removal does not exist.
-Between the two extremes—conscientious enthusiasm at one end
-and place-keeping inefficiency at the other—are men of a variety
-of tendencies to one or the other character. Colleges
-probably present the best view of the effect of security of tenure.
-The general public does not possess intimate knowledge
-of the results of the system in seats of learning; but now and
-then an intestine broil uncovers the college life, and invariably
-discloses an unsatisfactory condition. For a good professor
-fixed tenure is most wholesome; for a poor one it is unwholesome
-in its effects on his character and work. A man of wide
-experience in colleges tells us that there is not a college in the
-country but is lugging inefficient men; and he expresses the
-opinion that less than half of the college men are the best
-men for their places. In short, even in the college, unfit men get
-places and keep them, to the great detriment of the college. In
-an average institution four thoroughly good men carry six other
-men. A few give the college its character; the majority are a
-burden, and some men in this majority gloat over their supposed
-right to be lugged by the college. Any rule which should
-rid colleges of mere place-holders, of men weak in character,
-negligent in work, and far behind the times in scholarship
-would double the usefulness and the patronage of colleges in
-ten years. But if certainty of tenure is bad in college, it must
-be worse elsewhere.</p>
-
-<p>What is generally desired in the matter of tenure in service
-of any sort is to cut off the chances for the purchase and sale
-of places, and for the capricious and interested removal of
-good men. The scandals growing up in public life from this
-base caprice in the appointing power have sickened the popular
-stomach. Take, for example, the forced resignation of a
-stenographer, at the end of a session, in order that the speaker
-of the House of Representatives might appoint his own nephew
-to the place <i>for the vacation</i>, during which there were no duties.
-The filthiness of the proceeding surpasses belief; and yet it
-seems not to have provoked any proper indignation in Congress.
-But fixed tenure has more evils than it cures, and some
-middle way should be found. We can not afford to ignore the
-fact that average men need the spur. The highly conscientious
-and enterprising servant is yet too rare in the world for it
-to be safe to adjust the terms of service to his character and
-to leave the majority free from the whip.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2 id="EDITORS_NOTE-BOOK">EDITOR’S NOTE-BOOK.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p>An English magazine writer on Egypt points out the difficulty
-which is encountered in all the public life of the Nile country—it
-is the habit of submission to personal despotic authority.
-The only system of government which is possible is the
-old, old one—for it has unfitted the people for any other. An
-enlightened despotism might give the country rest and prosperity.
-But western Europe, now master in Egypt, has
-outgrown the capacity to administer a despotism.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>Professor Goldwin Smith has recently stated that Canada is
-becoming more French. The French not only gain in population
-faster than the English in what was once called New
-France, but they are spreading out into the Canadian New
-England. In Quebec there are only 7,000 British people. The
-Canadian Frenchmen are cultivating, he says, the relations to
-France with increasing zeal. The sober truth is, we believe,
-that the English in Canada never had a chance of salvation
-except through annexation to the United States. We were
-never anxious about that; but they ought to have been.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>Smuggling is not altogether a lost art. It is said that it is
-practiced for a livelihood on the Maine coast with some success.
-The fishermen are said to be experts in the business.
-But it is not a large business, and our government does not
-lose much, nor does any one get rich by breaking the revenue
-laws.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>Somebody says that a ranch in Texas has 25,000 more acres
-than the state of Rhode Island. But don’t infer that this country
-is going to be a land of large farms. We have always had
-some such farms; but the number of them is decreasing. They
-never <i>pay</i>, and no social distinction attaches to their proprietors.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>In Boston, Easter morning, Dr. Withrow dwelt upon the
-overwhelming evidence of the fact of Christ’s resurrection.
-Rev. Minot J. Savage said, at the same hour in the same city,
-that we have not the slightest evidence that any Apostle ever
-saw Christ after he was crucified and buried. It seems that
-there is at least one theological difference of creed extant
-in our harmonious time. Mr. Savage might profitably read
-Paul’s testimony on this subject.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>Mr. W. S. Hallock, the editor of the <i>Christian at Work</i>,
-has been in Bermuda this season, and in a letter to his paper
-recalls the fact that the first settlers of that island were a drove
-of hogs who escaped thither from a wrecked vessel. They
-thrived so well that the next comers found the land filled with
-swine. Mr. Hallock adds: “It is probably the only successful
-instance of the commune to be found in all history.” The
-point scored is that communism is good for hogs.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>This spring the West Indian war is in Cuba. It is commonly
-held in Hayti. An expedition headed by one Aguero escaped
-from Key West in April and, being joined in Cuba by many
-dissatisfied persons, made some headway as a revolution. Our
-government promptly issued orders to prevent the reënforcement
-of Aguero from this country. The hot weather will suppress
-the revolutionists—if they are natives of the United
-States.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>Waiters on roller-skates is a novelty introduced into an
-Omaha hotel. Labor-saving contrivances in the household<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_549" id="Page_549">[549]</a></span>
-seem to have stopped with the sewing machine—and it is denied
-by husbands that this machine saves labor. It is rather
-a means of putting more work on a dress with the same amount
-of labor of the hand.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>Herbert Spencer has been trying to prove that slavery is little
-different from our ordinary social freedom. A man must
-work, he says, most of the time for another person in either
-case. Yes, but it is a great satisfaction to select the man you
-will work for. And, in freedom, the workman is always working
-<i>for</i> himself. Mr. Spencer should try being a slave for a
-length of time sufficient to teach him the moral distinction between
-that state and freedom.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>One of the papers, noticing the death of a fast trotting horse,
-says that he was ill only fifteen minutes. Similar statements
-are frequently made respecting distinguished men; and the
-prayer book contains a petition to be delivered from sudden
-death. We note the facts for the sake of remarking that sudden
-death by disease, either in horses or men, never happens.
-Diseases act much more slowly, and the man who dies of a
-fever has probably been ill for months. The moral is, attend
-to the first symptoms of illness.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>The United States recently transferred a prisoner from the
-north to the south <i>for the benefit of his health</i>. He was a
-“moonshiner,” and had killed several men who had attempted
-to arrest him. The solicitude for his health shows that we are
-not wanting in philanthropy toward prisoners.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>The native Christians of India are taking the intellectual lead
-in that country. At the University examinations in Madras
-there were 2,702 Brahmans, 1,303 non-Brahman-Hindoos, 107
-Mohammedans, and 332 Christians. Forty-five per cent. of the
-Christians passed, and only thirty-five per cent. of the Brahmans,
-while the other classes were still lower. In India there
-are seventeen million Brahmans and two million Christians.
-The former increase at the rate of six per cent. in ten years,
-and the latter at the rate of eighty-five per cent. These facts
-furnish a very striking proof of Christian progress in India.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>Reminiscences of Anthony Trollope continue to appear in
-English periodicals. Two manly traits of his character are
-dwelt upon. He was punctual in keeping his literary engagements,
-and he never pretended to be indifferent about his pay
-for work. He made a bargain and kept his promise—and did
-both like a man. The traditional literary man did neither; he
-was always behind with his copy, and always pretended that he
-did not care for remuneration. Trollope’s example deserves
-all the good things that are said of it.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>The <i>Edinburgh Review</i> expresses the opinion that the novels
-written by girls must be unreal and insubstantial. The
-girls <i>ought</i> not, it thinks, to know anything about life, and
-probably do not know anything about it. The girl knows less
-of the world than the boy of her own age, and nobody expects
-the boy to write a novel. Yes, but then the girl often does
-produce a good story and the boy never does.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>Art is <i>still</i> long. Steam has not yet been successfully applied
-to it. A parent said to a teacher of music: “How long
-will it require to fit my daughter to appear in public? Will
-nine months do?” The teacher replied: “Nine years,
-madam. Even a boot-maker takes seven.” Hurrying to the
-front inflicts upon society a great deal of very poor art.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>The vexed question has set in with great vigor in the coal
-country. Some very “heathenish and filthy” people, called
-Hungarians, have come in and are competing with low wages.
-They use no soap, and save all the cost of cleanliness. The
-question we refer to is whether American labor is to keep its
-high level of decency, comfort and education. It is noticeable
-that the Chinese are rapidly climbing to that level. Perhaps
-these Hungarians will.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>Russia finds it increasingly difficult to live in the same house
-with modern civilization. Count Ignatief killed five newspapers
-during a year when he was Minister of the Interior.
-Count Tolstoi has killed nine in two years. Nihilist plots have
-made some sympathy for Russia; but the fatal disease of that
-country is despotism.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>Our medical colleges, in some sections if not everywhere,
-need an improvement in the standard of requirements. A
-story is told of a western one at whose examinations a student
-answered correctly only three out of twenty-five questions, and
-was affably informed that his examination was “entirely satisfactory.”
-It is intimated, too, that the questions were very
-easy.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>Dr. James A. H. Murray, the editor of the new English Dictionary,
-is a hard worked teacher in a non-conformist school
-in the suburbs of London. His good work on the first part of
-the dictionary, recently published, has attracted attention, and
-it is said that Oxford will give him a good place, and that Mr.
-Gladstone will add a government pension. The British eye is
-very quick to detect rare merit.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>The British press is dealing severely with this country for
-tolerating dynamite conspirators. But up to this date no proof
-is furnished that there is any dynamite conspiracy here. Some
-indolent gentlemen in New York raise money for use against
-England and profess to be at the bottom of the dynamite business.
-But it is plain enough that they would not boast of it if
-they were really guilty, and that they collect the money for
-their own use. “Liberating Ireland” by taking up collections
-is an easy mode of gaining a livelihood.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>The French have won another victory over the Black Flags
-in Tonquin. A very gratifying fact is that thus far the Chinese
-have not turned upon and maltreated the foreigners within
-their gates. A general massacre of traders, travelers and missionaries
-was feared when this trouble began; but it would
-seem that contact with Europeans has modified the Chinese
-feeling toward foreigners. It is reported that high officials
-have lost their offices, perhaps also their heads, but the foreign
-population has not been disturbed.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>The political cauldrons are boiling. But an acute observer
-still sees that the general public is less partisan than it was ten
-years ago, or even four years ago. It is a wholesome state of
-things. Good men will stand the best chance of election, provided
-that they have some capacity to win popular affection.
-In politics, at least, there are no good icebergs.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>A city marshal was shot dead in Dakota last month by a
-liquor dealer resisting an attempt to close his place at midnight.
-Lawlessness and recklessness are becoming more and
-more prominent characteristics of the liquor traffic; and this is
-a good sign in a bad situation. The decent men got out of the
-traffic some time ago; the semi-decent men followed them.
-The class remaining in the business can not have many friends,
-and will be disposed of by and by as nuisances.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>It is said that the educated Chinese are rapidly becoming
-materialists. They have lost their old religion and are taking
-refuge in European scientific materialism. The meaning of
-this fact is that in Japan, as in America, the fight is between
-Christianity and materialistic dogmas. It is the same the world
-over, where enlightenment exists. These two struggle for the
-dominion of the world.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>Actors and actresses have made a scandalous record on the
-question of marriage during the last four years. Any newspaper
-reader can make his own catalogue. That theater life is a
-terrible one for a virtuous woman. The horrible surroundings
-of an actress—the trial by fire which she undergoes, and so
-rarely survives, is a crushing argument against the stage.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_550" id="Page_550">[550]</a></span></p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>One of the striking things to an American traveling in Europe
-is the cheap cab. After many trials and failures that
-great convenience has been introduced into New York under
-very promising conditions. A new company has organized
-the system and seems to be on a solid foundation. The cheap
-cab is a sign of civilization which has hitherto been wanting in
-our large cities. The world moves.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>A relic of the battle of the Boyne appeared in Newfoundland
-last month. Orangemen were fired upon by Catholics. It is
-a pity that the battle of the Boyne can not be confined to Ireland.
-There seems to be no propriety in transporting it to this
-continent every year.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>New York and Brooklyn are to be the Chinese center in this
-country. The yellow men are not persecuted there. The
-number of them now in those cities is estimated at from 3,500
-to 5,000. Christian schools among them are growing rapidly.
-There are now twenty-two schools, with 910 scholars. Most of
-these schools were organized last year; only three of them are
-more than four years old.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>Prince Bismarck recently said: “The telegraph fearfully
-multiplies my work.” Does it not multiply the work of all men
-in public positions? The telegraph travels fast and helps to
-make us work fast.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>A correspondent asks us to make an itinerary for six months’
-travel in Europe. Such a plan of travel would require too
-much space. Write to a New York publisher for a small book
-on the subject. There are many such books. To “read up”
-for the journey, procure two or three of the best books on the
-subject of European travel. Harper &amp; Brothers publish a good
-one; there are several others. If you are about to invest from
-$600 to $1,000 in such a journey, you will do well to begin with
-an outlay of from ten to twenty dollars for special books.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>The French have spent four years and $20,000,000 on the
-Panama Canal, and have not made great progress. An American
-who worked for a year on the canal, and got off with his
-life, reports that fever is the great enemy of the undertaking.
-He says that five thousand deaths of workmen occurred in
-three months. The company kept fifteen thousand men at
-work by bringing in shiploads of new men as fast as death
-destroyed its workmen. If the canal is ever finished it will have
-cost a hundred and fifty millions of dollars, and as many
-thousand lives.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>General Gordon is at this writing still shut up in Khartoum,
-and England seems to be doing nothing to save him. Egypt
-is politically and financially bankrupt, and Mr. Gladstone’s
-ministry is threatened with overthrow because it has not managed
-the unmanageable Nile question. There is only one
-easy settlement of Egyptian affairs, and that is an English
-government of Egypt.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>The drunken man is an increasing nuisance. Recently, in
-a Brooklyn, N. Y. theater, he cried “fire,” and caused a frightful
-panic. In a New York City theater he was an alderman,
-and interrupted the performance long enough to get arrested
-and marched off to the lock-up. He is always engaged in
-quarrels in which blood is drawn. In a western city, last
-month, he killed his best friend. We all have other business,
-but we ought not to neglect this drunken man, or the places
-where he is manufactured.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>Something new in the matter of mixed metaphor appears in
-the New York <i>Times</i>. A correspondent, writing of a political
-organization, described some elements of it as “cancerous barnacles.”
-We notice, too, a new verb in politics. A dreary
-and egoistic speaker at a convention is said to have “pepper-sauced
-himself over an impatient audience.”</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>A wealthy New Yorker, recently deceased, disposed by will
-of some two millions of property which he had gained chiefly
-through the rewards and opportunities of public position. He
-bequeathed only $15,000 to benevolent causes. A man has
-the right to dispose of his estate as he will; but then the public
-has a judgment as to whether he disposes of it in the right
-way. And less than one per cent. to benevolence is not the
-right proportion.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>There is a bad type of independence in politics. It is that
-whose shape is made by personal malignity, and whose method
-is slander and vituperation. Just at this season this sort of independence
-is noisy. It is a kind of politics which should have
-little influence.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>A recent writing criticises the wealthy men of the country
-for negligence in the matter of making their wealth minister to
-philanthropy. Probably most of our millionaires are too busy
-to see the point, but the point is sharp and will stick in the
-world’s remembrance of many of them. The only moral justification
-for holding a large property is philanthropic use of it.
-Neglect of the kind mentioned breeds socialists and weakens
-the moral safeguards of all private property.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>For two years, Mrs. Carrie B. Kilgore, a lady holding a diploma
-as bachelor of laws, granted her by the University of Pennsylvania,
-has been endeavoring to gain admittance to the bar, but has
-been refused, on the ground that the law was out of woman’s
-sphere, that it had been put there by custom, and that the
-aforesaid “sphere” could only be enlarged by action of the
-legislature. A Pennsylvania judge with a different idea has,
-however, been found. He declares, and very correctly:
-“If there is any longer any such thing as what old-fashioned
-philosophers and essayists used to call the sphere of
-woman, it must now be admitted to be a sphere with an infinite
-and indeterminable radius.” Mrs. Kilgore can, at last, use her
-hard-earned right to practice.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>The late A. F. Bellows excelled in landscape, and the value
-of his productions has doubled since his lamented death last
-year. Four charming landscapes from his brush are among
-Prang’s forthcoming publications. They are in his happiest
-manner, with the tender poetic treatment that especially distinguished
-his work. Essentially American in feeling, his
-choice of subjects was always of quiet home scenes, and he is
-without a rival in the delineation of landscape, seeking his
-theme among quiet meadows and in pastoral districts, in preference
-to the wilder mountain views which tempt so many of
-our American artists. The house which is sending out this
-artist’s work has given us this year a large amount of very
-valuable productions. Their Easter cards, we remember,
-were unusually fine; among them the mediæval cards printed
-in red and black, and the prints and cards on old hand-made
-paper, encased in parchment paper, were the most attractive
-novelties.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>Mr. Matthew Arnold had some unpleasant journalistic experiences
-in his late American trip. Flippant newspaper men
-punned and joked and told malicious stories about this dignified
-and scholarly gentleman until he has been driven to the opinion—and
-perhaps it is a correct one—that “mendacious personal
-gossip is the bane of American journalism.”</p>
-
-<hr class="tb" />
-
-<p>An unavoidable delay prevented our getting the following
-names into the list of graduates of the class of ’83. We are
-glad to be able to insert them now: Mrs. Sarah McElwain,
-Martin, Kansas; John R. Bowman, Iowa; Mrs. Matilda J.
-Hay, Pennsylvania; Mary S. Fish, California; Lucyannah
-Morrill Clark, Wisconsin; Annie M. Botsford, New York;
-Frances W. Judd, New York.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_551" id="Page_551">[551]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2 id="C_L_S_C_NOTES_ON_REQUIRED_READINGS_FOR_JUNE">C. L. S. C. NOTES ON REQUIRED READINGS FOR JUNE.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3>PICTURES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY.</h3>
-
-<p>P. 141.—“Erpingham.” An English general, distinguished for personal
-courage, a chief excellence in feudal times.</p>
-
-<p>“Truncheon,” trŭnˈshun. A baton or military staff, employed in
-directing the movements of troops.</p>
-
-<p>P. 143.—“Three French Dukes.” Since the fourteenth century the
-eldest son of the king of France, and heir apparent to the crown, is surnamed
-Dauphin. “Count” (from which comes companion) is one of
-the imperial court, a nobleman in rank, about equal to an English earl.
-Dukes (from <i>dux</i>, leader, or <i>duco</i> to lead) were princes in peace, and
-leaders of clans in war.</p>
-
-<p>P. 145.—“Jack Cade.” A man of low condition; Irish by birth;
-once an exile because of his crimes, but having returned to England he
-became the successful leader in riotous demonstrations of most disastrous
-consequences. He had great power of control over a turbulent
-crowd, but the rioters became insubordinate, and the injuries were such
-that a price was offered for the leader’s head, and Jack was assassinated.</p>
-
-<p>“Cheapside.” Part of a principal thoroughfare in London,
-north of the Thames, and nearly parallel with it. If the name, as is
-supposed, at first marked the locality where shop-keepers, content with
-small profits, sold their goods cheap, it is less appropriate now. As the
-city extended new names were given to the same street passing through
-the successive additions to the city. Going west on Cheapside the
-avenue widens, and is in succession called New Gate, Holborn Viaduct,
-New Oxford, Uxbridge and High Street.</p>
-
-<p>P. 146.—“Duke of Somerset,” sŭmˈūr-sĕt. Edward Seymour, Lord
-Protector of England, was uncle to Edward VI, during whose minority
-he acted as regent of the realm—a most powerful nobleman. His brilliant
-victory over the Scots at Pinkey greatly strengthened his influence.
-There was much in his administration to be commended, but the
-execution of his own brother, and that of the accomplished Earl of Surrey,
-left a stain on his otherwise fair record. Through the machinations
-of his rival, he was deprived of his high office, and perished,
-on Tower Hill in 1552.</p>
-
-<p>“Earl of Warwick,” wŏrˈick. Richard Neville, a powerful chief
-at that time, and a cousin of King Edward IV. He was a most
-remarkable man, and his character and methods are a study. A
-powerful antagonist, and brave in battle, he was also a shrewd politician,
-and was much concerned with the affairs of the government. He
-does not seem to have coveted civic honors for himself, or to have had
-any aspirations for regal authority. His ambition was rather to make
-kings, and to unmake them when their character or policy did not suit.
-By marriage he succeeded to the earldom, and the vast estates of Warwick.
-He fell at the battle of Barnet.</p>
-
-<p>P. 149.—“Margaret of Anjou,” ănˈjoo. Daughter of a French
-count, and Queen of England—a woman of fine talents, well educated,
-and full of energy. She became unpopular with the English and was
-forced to flee from the country. She may have lacked womanly delicacy,
-but did not deserve the adverse criticism received. Her circumstances
-justified many of her seeming improprieties.</p>
-
-<p>P. 150.—“Towton,” often written Touton. The scene of the bloodiest
-battle of English history. A hundred thousand were engaged, and the
-carnage was terrible.</p>
-
-<p>“Vimeira,” ve-miˈrä. A town in Portugal where, during the same
-campaign, the French were again repulsed with great loss.</p>
-
-<p>“Talavera,” tä-läˈva-rä. In the province of Toledo, Spain. The
-battle referred to took place in 1809, when Sir Arthur Wellesley defeated
-the French.</p>
-
-<p>“Albuera,” ăl-boo-āˈrä. A small town in the province of Estremadura,
-Spain, where the English were victorious in 1811. This victory
-cost them nearly four fifths of the men engaged.</p>
-
-<p>“Salamanca,” sal-â-mancˈâ. The capital of a province of the same
-name in Spain, on the river Tormes, 120 miles northwest from Madrid.
-Wellington defeated the French here in 1812—a victory which put
-southern Spain into England’s power.</p>
-
-<p>“Vittorea,” ve-toˈre-ä. On the road from Bayonne to Madrid, where
-Wellesley defeated Joseph Bonaparte, in 1813, capturing 150 guns and
-$5,000,000 of military and other stores, the accumulations of five years’
-occupation of the place.</p>
-
-<p>P. 152.—“Montagu,” mŏnˌta-gūˈ. The orthography is not uniform.
-He was of the powerful family of Nevilles, and brother of the Earl of
-Warwick. They fell together on the bloody field at Barnet.</p>
-
-<p>“Gloucester,” glŏsˈter. This was Richard, brother of the king.</p>
-
-<p>“Coniers,” konˈi-ers.</p>
-
-<p>P. 153.—“Cognizance,” kŏgˈnĭ-zans. A badge to indicate a person
-of distinction, or the party to which he belongs. Flags are used for the
-same purpose on modern battlefields.</p>
-
-<p>P. 154.—“D’Eyncourt,” dāˌin-courˈ.</p>
-
-<p>“Cromwell.” Not Oliver, of course, but one of his ancestors,
-probably Thomas, who afterward became widely known as a
-statesman and politician in the service of Henry VIII.</p>
-
-<p>P. 155.—“Redoubted.” Regarded with fear, dreaded.</p>
-
-<p>P. 156.—“Exeter,” Earl of. The Earl was brother-in-law to Edward,
-and fought with the Lancastrians in the civil war.</p>
-
-<p>P. 157.—“The Destrier’s Breast,” dāsˌtre-āˈ. A French word meaning
-charger or war horse.</p>
-
-<p>P. 158.—“Victorious Touton.” On the bloody field of Towton, or
-Touton, at a crisis in the battle, Warwick had killed his favorite steed
-in the sight of his soldiers, kissing and swearing by the cross on the
-hilt of his sword to share with them a common fate, whether of life or
-death. He was victorious then.</p>
-
-<p>P. 160.—“Casque,” cäsk. A piece of defensive armor to protect the
-head and neck in battle.</p>
-
-<p>P. 162.—“Tewksbury,” tukesˈbĕr-e. A town in Gloucestershire, on
-the Avon and Severn. Edward there defeated the Lancastrians.</p>
-
-<p>“Mirwall Abbey.” A quiet retreat not far from Leicester, north-northwest
-from London.</p>
-
-<p>P. 163.—“Fleshed,” flesht. Used murderously on human flesh, especially
-for the first time.</p>
-
-<p>“Harquebuse,” härˈkwe-bŭse. An old-fashioned gun resembling a
-musket, and supported, when in use, upon a forked stick.</p>
-
-<p>“Morris pike.” An obsolete expression for a Moorish pike.</p>
-
-<p>P. 164.—“Frushed,” frusht. Trimmed, adjusted.</p>
-
-<p>P. 166.—“Tournay,” toorˌnāˈ. A city of some historic importance in
-Belgium, on the river Scheldt, near the French border. It was the
-birthplace of Perkin Warbeck.</p>
-
-<p>P. 169.—“Beaulieu,” bū-lĭ. A secluded place, sought for refuge.</p>
-
-<p>P. 171.—“Ardres,” ārdr; “Francois,” frŏnˈswäˌ.</p>
-
-<p>“St. Michael,” mīˈkāl. Jews, Mahomedans, and Romanists reverence
-St. Michael as their guardian angel. A favorite symbol of protection
-was an image of the saint, with drawn sword in hand, conquering
-the dragon.</p>
-
-<p>P. 172.—“Duprat,” du-präˈ. A French minister of state, and a
-diplomat of ability.</p>
-
-<p>“Louise of Savoy,” savˈoy or sa-voiˈ. Once a sovereign duchy, since
-a department of France, south of Switzerland, and west of Italy.</p>
-
-<p>P. 173.—“Sieur de Fleuranges,” sēˈurˌ deh fluhˈrŏngˌ.</p>
-
-<p>P. 174.—“Guisnes,” gheen. In France, not far from Ardres.</p>
-
-<p>P. 175.—“Almoner.” An officer connected with religious houses,
-intrusted principally with the distribution of alms, and also serving
-as chaplain to the sick, or those condemned to die.</p>
-
-<p>P. 181.—“Prebendary,” prebˈend-a-ry. A clergyman attached to
-a collegiate or cathedral church, who has his prebend or maintenance
-in consideration of his officiating at stated times in the church services.</p>
-
-<p>“Caermarthen,” kar-marˈthen. The chief town in Caermarthenshire,
-South Wales, a beautifully situated parliamentary borough, on the river
-Towy, a few miles from the bay. Caermarthen was the scene of the final
-struggle for Welsh independence under Llewellyn, the last of the princes.</p>
-
-<p>P. 187. “Babington conspiracy.” Anthony Babington, a gentleman
-of ancient and opulent family, when young became a leader of a band of
-zealous Catholics who were smarting under the persecutions to which the
-members of that communion were exposed in the days of Elizabeth.
-Their primary object was to promote the Catholic cause. When Mary,
-Queen of Scots, was forced to flee to England as a suppliant, Babington<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_552" id="Page_552">[552]</a></span>
-and his associates became interested in her. They conspired to rescue
-Mary and assassinate Elizabeth. The conspirators, when arrested,
-rather gloried in the undertaking; as to the fate intended for Elizabeth,
-Babington declared it no crime, in his estimation, to take the life of a sovereign
-“who had stript him and his brethren of all their political rights
-and reduced them to the condition of helots in the land of their fathers.”
-They were sentenced and executed.</p>
-
-<p>P. 192.—“In manus, Domine tuas, commendo animam meam,” Into
-thy hands, O Lord, I commit my spirit.</p>
-
-<p>P. 193.—“Fotheringay.” A town in Northamptonshire. Its famous
-castle was the birthplace of Richard III. Here Mary, Queen of Scots,
-was imprisoned and executed. The Dukes of York, Richard and Edward,
-are buried at Fotheringay.</p>
-
-<p>P. 194.—“The Lizard.” The extreme southern point of land in
-England, on the British Channel.</p>
-
-<p>“Looe.” A town of the Cornish mining region in the southern part
-of Cornwall.</p>
-
-<p>P. 195.—“Drake,” Sir Francis. A most daring and efficient naval
-officer, and one of the founders of the naval greatness of England. In
-1587 he was sent in command of a fleet to Cadiz, where, by a bold dash,
-he destroyed one hundred ships destined for the invasion of England,
-and the next year he commanded as vice-admiral in the victory obtained
-over the Spanish Armada.</p>
-
-<p>“Frobisher,” frŏbˈish-er, Sir Martin. An English navigator of the
-fifteenth century, who made many discoveries in the arctic regions, and
-was the first explorer for a northwest passage. He had a command in
-the great sea fight against the Spaniards in 1588.</p>
-
-<p>“Hawkins,” Sir John. He was previously associated with Drake
-in several important expeditions, and served as rear-admiral in the fight
-that, together with the elements, destroyed the Armada.</p>
-
-<p>“Weathergage.” The position of a ship to the windward of another.
-Hence a favorable position for making an attack with sailing vessels.</p>
-
-<p>“Medina Sidonia,” ma-deˈnä se-doˈne-ä. Shortly before the time fixed
-for the sailing of the fleet and army for the invasion of England, owing to
-the death of the admiral Santa Cruz, and also his rear-admiral, the Duke
-of Medina Sidonia, the extreme southern province of Spain, a man unacquainted
-with naval matters, was made captain-general of the fleet. He
-had, however, for his rear-admiral, Martinez Recalde, an expert seaman.</p>
-
-<p>“Recalde,” rā-kälˈdä.</p>
-
-<p>P. 196.—“Oquendo,” o-kānˈdo; “Pedro de Valdez,” peˈdro da väldĕthˈ.</p>
-
-<p>“Andalusian,” anˌda-luˈshi-an. The southern part of Spain. It
-was formerly called Vandalusia, because of the Vandals who settled
-there. It is a delightful country, having a mild climate, and generally a
-fertile soil. Cadiz is the principal seaport and commercial city.</p>
-
-<p>P. 197.—“Guipuzcoan,” ge poosˈko-an. The smallest but most
-densely populated of what are known as the Basque provinces; three
-Spanish provinces distinguished from all other divisions, in the character,
-language, and manners of the people. They have few of the characteristics
-of Spaniards, and acquired political privileges not enjoyed by
-others, and a form of government nearly republican.</p>
-
-<p>P. 198.—“Gravelines,” grävˈlēnˌ. A small fortified and seaport town
-of France, in a marshy region at the mouth of the river Aa.</p>
-
-<p>“Galleons.” Ships of three or four decks, used by the Spaniards
-both for war and commerce.</p>
-
-<p>“Galleasses.” A kind of combination of the galleon and the galley;
-propelled both by sails and oars.</p>
-
-<p>“Sir Henry Palmer;” “Sir William Winter.” English officers who
-were active in the attack on the Spanish fleet.</p>
-
-<p>P. 199.—“Alonzo de Leyra,” a-lonˈzo dā leiˈrä; “Diego Flores de
-Valdez,” de-āˈgo floˈreth dā välˈdeth; “Bertendona,” bĕrˈtān-doˌnä;
-“Don Francisco de Toledo,” don fran-chesˈko dā to-lāˈdo; “Pimental,”
-pe-manˈtäl; “Telles Enriquez,” telˈleth än-reˈketh.</p>
-
-<p>“Luzon,” loo-thonˈ; “Garibay,” gä-re-biˈ.</p>
-
-<p>P. 200.—“Borlase,” bor-lazˈ. A captain in the fleet of Van der Does.</p>
-
-<p>“Admiral Van der Does,” doos. A Hollander.</p>
-
-<p>P. 201.—“Ribadavia,” re-bä-däˈve-ä. A kind of Spanish wine.</p>
-
-<p>“Lepanto.” A seaport town of Greece, on the Gulf of Lepanto.
-In 1571 it was the scene of one of the greatest and most important
-naval battles ever fought. The Turkish sultan, Selim, with two hundred
-and fifty royal galleys and many smaller vessels, engaged the allied forces
-of Spain, Italy and the Venetian Republic, and was defeated with loss
-in killed and prisoners of thirty thousand men. The decline of the
-Turkish empire dates from the battle of Lepanto.</p>
-
-<p>P. 203.—“Essex.” (1567-1601.) Essex’s career had been a romantic
-one. From his first appearance at court at 17, he captivated Elizabeth.
-He was present at the battle of Zutphen, and joined an expedition
-against Portugal in 1596. His position as court favorite caused many
-intrigues to be formed against him, but he kept the queen’s favor, although
-often offending her. Elizabeth had ordered him imprisoned after
-the Ireland expedition, more to correct than to destroy him, but upon
-being dismissed he attempted to compel the queen to dismiss his enemies
-by raising a force against her. This led to his execution.</p>
-
-<p>P. 207.—“Walter Raleigh.” (1552-1618.) Navigator, author, courtier
-and commander. His first public services were his explorations in
-North America, during which he occupied the region named Virginia.
-Having given up his patent for exploration in the New World, he became
-interested in a project for the conquest of El Dorado. In pursuit
-of this he sailed in 1595 to South America, but soon returned. He assisted
-at the capture of Cadiz in 1596. After the death of Elizabeth he
-lost favor with the throne and was accused of treason and convicted. For
-thirteen years he was confined in the Tower, where he wrote his “History
-of the World.” In 1615 he obtained his release to open a gold mine in
-Guinea. The search was unsuccessful. Having encountered in battle
-at St. Thomas a party of Spaniards, on his return the Spanish court demanded
-that he be punished, and the king, James I., resolved to execute
-the sentence passed on him fifteen years before.</p>
-
-<p>“Coke,” kŏōk. (1549-1634.) An eminent English judge and jurist.
-At the trial of Raleigh in 1603 his position was that of attorney-general.
-During the trial he showed the greatest insolence to Raleigh.</p>
-
-<p>“Yelverton,” yĕlˈver-ton. (1566-1630.) An English statesman and
-jurist.</p>
-
-<p>P. 208.—“Distich,” dĭsˈtik. A couple of verses or poetic lines
-making complete sense.</p>
-
-<p>P. 209.—“St. Giles.” A favorite saint in France, England and
-Scotland. Many localities and public places were named from the
-saints. The reference here is to a drinking place named in honor of St.
-Giles. It was situated near Tyburn, which, until 1783, was the chief
-place of execution in London. Since that date Old Bailey, or Newgate,
-has been the place of execution.</p>
-
-<p>“Oldys,” ōlˈdis. (1687-1761.) An English biographer and bibliographer.
-He wrote a life of Sir Walter Raleigh, prefixed to Raleigh’s
-“History of the World.”</p>
-
-<p>P. 210.—“Arundel,” arˈun-del. (1540?-1639.) The first Lord Arundel.
-He had served in the war against the Turks under the German emperor,
-and from him had received the title of Count of the Roman Empire.</p>
-
-<p>P. 211.—“Naunton,” naunˈton. An English statesman, who died
-in 1635. He was secretary of state under James I., and the author of
-an account of the court of Queen Elizabeth.</p>
-
-<p>“Paul’s Walk,” Bond Street, London, was known as St. Paul’s,
-before the commonwealth. Here crowds of loungers used to collect to
-gossip. They soon became known as <i>Paul’s Walkers</i>; now they are
-called <i>Bond Street Loungers</i>.</p>
-
-<p>“Mantle.” According to this old story, as the queen was going from
-the royal barge to the palace she came to a spot where the ground was
-so wet that she stopped. Raleigh immediately covered the spot with his
-rich cloak, on which she stepped. For his gallantry he is said to have
-received his knighthood and a grant of 12,000 acres of forfeited land in
-Ireland.</p>
-
-<p>P. 212.—“Spanish Main.” The circular bank of islands forming
-the northern and eastern boundaries of the Caribbean Sea. It is not the
-sea that is meant, but the bank of islands.</p>
-
-<p>P. 213.—“Roundheads.” The Puritans, so called because they wore
-their hair short, while the Royalists wore long hair covering their
-shoulders.</p>
-
-<p>“Cavaliers.” The adherents of Charles I. were members of the
-royal party, knights or gentlemen, to whom the name cavaliers was ordinarily
-applied.</p>
-
-<p>P. 214.—“Janizaries,” jănˈi-za-ries. A Turkish word. “A soldier<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_553" id="Page_553">[553]</a></span>
-of a privileged military class which formed the nucleus of the Turkish
-infantry, but was suppressed in 1826.”</p>
-
-<p>P. 215.—“Turenne,” tū-rĕnˈ. (1611-1675.) A famous general
-and marshal of France, who during his whole life was actively engaged
-in the French wars.</p>
-
-<p>“Counterscarp,” counˈter-scärp. The exterior slope of a ditch, made
-for preventing an approach to a town or fortress.</p>
-
-<p>P. 216.—“Pelagian.” Holding the doctrines of Pelagius, who denied
-the received tenets in regard to free will, original sin, grace, and
-the merit of good works.</p>
-
-<p>“Bulstrode,” bulˈstrode. (1588-1659.) An English jurist.</p>
-
-<p>P. 217.—“Sidney.” (1622-1683.) An eminent English patriot. He
-belonged to the army of parliament, but held no office under Cromwell.
-When Charles II. was restored he was on the continent, where he remained.
-In 1666 he solicited Louis XIV. to aid him in establishing a
-republic in England, and having returned to England he joined the
-leaders of the popular party. In 1683 he was tried as an accomplice in
-the Rye House plot, and executed.</p>
-
-<p>“Ludlow.” (1620-1693.) A republican general who assisted in
-founding the English republic, but was opposed to Cromwell’s ambition.
-He had been commander of the army, but his opposition to
-Cromwell lost him the position. On Oliver’s death he was replaced, but
-at the Restoration escaped to France, where he spent the remainder of
-his life.</p>
-
-<p>P. 227.—“O. S.” Dates reckoned according to the calendar of Julius
-Cæsar, who first attempted to make the calendar year coincide with
-the motions of the sun, are said to be <i>Old Style</i> as contrasted with the
-dates of the Gregorian calendar. This latter corrected the mistake of
-the former, and was adopted by Catholic countries about 1582, but Protestant
-England did not accept it until 1752.</p>
-
-<p>P. 228.—“Shomberg,” shomˈberg. (1616-1690.)</p>
-
-<p>P. 233.—“Jeffreys.” (1648-1689.) A lawyer of great ferocity. In
-1685 he caused 320 of Monmouth’s adherents to be hung, and 841 to be
-sold as slaves.</p>
-
-<p>P. 234.—“South Sea Bubble.” This scheme was proposed in 1711,
-by the Earl of Oxford, in order to provide for the national debt. The
-debt was taken by prominent merchants, to whom the government agreed
-to pay for a certain time six per cent. interest, and to whom they gave a
-monopoly of the trade of the South Seas. From 1711 to 1718 the
-scheme was honestly carried out, but after that time all scruples were
-thrown aside, and the rage of speculation here described followed.</p>
-
-<p>P. 235.—“The Rue Quincampoix.” A street of Paris where John Law
-developed his South Sea Bubble. He was a Scottish financier (1671-1729),
-who had won a place in London society, and supported himself
-by gaming. In 1715 he persuaded the Regent of France to favor his
-schemes, obtained a charter for a bank, and in connection with it
-formed this company, which had the exclusive right of trade between
-France and Louisiana, China, India, etc. The stock rose to twenty
-times its original value. He was appointed minister of finance in 1720,
-but confidence was soon lost in his plan, and notes on his bank rapidly
-fell. Law was obliged to leave France, and finally died poor.</p>
-
-<p>P. 236.—“Scire Facias.” Cause it to be known.</p>
-
-<p>P. 237.—“Walpole.” (1676-1745.) Walpole had been prominent in
-politics since the accession of George I., and in 1715 was made first lord
-of the treasury.</p>
-
-<p>P. 241.—“Lord Mahon.” The fifth Earl of Stanhope. He was
-prominent in public affairs during his life, but his fame rests upon his
-historical works, of which he published several. “A History of England,
-from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles,” is the best known.</p>
-
-<p>“Maxima rerum Roma.” Rome greatest of all things.</p>
-
-<p>P. 242.—“Newcastle.” (1693-1768.) An English Whig.</p>
-
-<p>P. 243.—“Pelham.” (1694-1754.) A brother of the above, who in
-1742 succeeded Walpole as chancellor of the exchequer. He was one
-of the chief ministers of state 1743-1744.</p>
-
-<p>“Godolphin,” go-dolˈphin. An eminent English statesman, in the
-service of Charles II., afterward retained in office under James II., and
-made first lord of the treasury under William and Mary. Under Queen
-Anne he was again put in this position, from which he had been removed
-in 1697, and retained it until 1710. He died in 1712.</p>
-
-<p>P. 244.—“Aix,” āks; “Rochefort,” rotchˈfort, or roshˈfor; “St.
-Malos,” or St. Malo, mäˈloˌ; “Cherbourg,” sherˈburg, or sherˈboorˌ.
-See map of France in <span class="smcap">The Chautauquan</span> for March.</p>
-
-<p>“Kensington.” A palace at Kensington, a western suburb of London,
-the birthplace of Queen Victoria.</p>
-
-<p>“Grand Alliance.” An alliance formed in 1689 by England, Germany,
-the States-General, and afterward by Spain and Savoy, to prevent
-the union of Spain and France.</p>
-
-<p>“Goree,” goˈrāˌ. An island on the west coast of Africa belonging to
-France.</p>
-
-<p>“Guadaloupe,” gwăd-loop. The most important island of the French
-West Indies.</p>
-
-<p>“Toulon,” tooˈlōnˌ. A seaport of southern France, at the head of a
-bay of the Mediterranean. It is the largest fort on the Sea, covering
-240 acres.</p>
-
-<p>“Boscawen,” bosˈca-wen. (1711-1761.) An English admiral.</p>
-
-<p>“Lagos,” lâˈgoce. On the coast of Portugal.</p>
-
-<p>P. 245.—“Conflans,” kon-flon. (1690-1777.) At this time marshal
-of France.</p>
-
-<p>“Hawke,” hawk. (1715-1781.) An English admiral. In 1765 he
-became first lord of the admiralty, and in 1776 was raised to the peerage.</p>
-
-<p>“Chandernagore,” chanˌder-na-gōreˈ; “Pondicherry,” ponˈde-shĕrˌree.</p>
-
-<p>“Clive.” The founder of the British empire in India.</p>
-
-<p>“Coote.” A British general who distinguished himself in wars of India.</p>
-
-<p>“Bengal,” ben-galˈ; “Bahar,” ba-harˈ; “Orissa,” o-risˈsa; “Carnatic,”
-car-natˈic. Divisions of India at the time of the struggle of the
-English for possession.</p>
-
-<p>“Acbar,” ac-barˈ; “Aurungzebe,” ōˈrŭng-zābˌ. Emperors of Hindoostan.</p>
-
-<p>P. 247.—“Guildhall,” guildˈhall. A public building of London
-which serves as a town hall. All important public meetings, elections
-and city feasts are held here. Monuments of several statesmen adorn
-the hall.</p>
-
-<p>P. 248.—“Sackville.” The offense referred to was this: At the battle
-of Minden, in 1759, Lord Sackville commanded the British troops
-under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, but refused to obey orders. On
-return to England he was tried for this and dismissed from service.</p>
-
-<p>P. 251.—“Mecklenburg Strelitz,” meckˈlen-burg strelˈitz. The eastern
-division of the two parts into which the territory of Mecklenburg is
-divided.</p>
-
-<p>P. 254.—“Landgravine,” lăndˈgra-vïne. The wife of a landgrave, a
-German nobleman holding about the rank of an English earl or French
-count.</p>
-
-<p>“Hesse Homburg,” hess homˈburg. A former German landgraviate
-now belonging to Prussia.</p>
-
-<p>P. 255.—“Les Miserables,” the poor. A popular novel by Victor
-Hugo.</p>
-
-<p>“Austerlitz,” ausˈter-lits. A town of Moravia, where in 1805 Napoleon
-had gained a brilliant victory over the Prussian and Russian
-forces.</p>
-
-<p>“Waterloo.” A village of Belgium, about eight miles southeast of
-Brussels.</p>
-
-<p>“Blucher,” blooˈker. (1742-1819.) A Prussian field-marshal, sent to
-the aid of Wellington.</p>
-
-<p>P. 256.—“Nivelles,” neˈvĕlˌ. A road running to Nivelles, a town
-about seventeen miles south of Brussels.</p>
-
-<p>“Genappe,” jāˈnäpˌ; “Ohaine,” ōˌhānˈ; “Braine l’Alleud,” brān
-läl-leuˈ.</p>
-
-<p>“Mont St. Jean.” A village near Waterloo.</p>
-
-<p>“Hougomont,” ooˌgō-mŏnˈ. A château and wood.</p>
-
-<p>“Reille,” räl. (1775-1860.) A French general, who was at this time
-an aid-de-camp of Napoleon. In 1847 he was made marshal of France.</p>
-
-<p>“La Belle Alliance,” lä bĕl älˈleˌŏnsˌ. A farm near Waterloo.</p>
-
-<p>“La Haye Sainte,” lä ai sānt. A farm house.</p>
-
-<p>P. 258.—“Milhaud,” milˌhōˈ.</p>
-
-<p>“Lefebvre Desnouettes,” lĕhˈfāvrˌ dāˌnoo-ĕtˈ. (1773-1822.) A
-French general.</p>
-
-<p>“Gendarme,” zhŏng-därmˈ. An obsolete name for heavy cavalry.</p>
-
-<p>“Chasseurs,” shăsˈsûr. Light cavalry.</p>
-
-<p>“Veillons au Sainte,” etc. Guard the welfare of the empire.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_554" id="Page_554">[554]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>“Ney,” nā. (1769-1815.) One of the most prominent of Napoleon’s
-generals. After Napoleon’s abdication Ney joined Louis XVIII., but
-on the return of Napoleon, rejoined him. After the battle of Waterloo
-he was arrested, condemned, and shot.</p>
-
-<p>P. 259.—“Moskova,” mos-koˈva. A river of Russia, on which the
-French defeated the Russians.</p>
-
-<p>“Hippanthropist,” hip-panˈthro-pist. A fabulous animal whose
-body was partly like a man and partly like a horse.</p>
-
-<p>P. 262.—“Pibrock,” pīˈbrock. Bagpipe.</p>
-
-<p>P. 263.—“Chevau-legers.” The French for light cavalry.</p>
-
-<p>“Badajoz,” bad-a-hōsˈ. A fortified town, capital of a province of the
-same name in Spain. Wellington carried it by assault in 1812, and
-sacked the city.</p>
-
-<p>P. 264.—“Alava,” äˈlä-vä, (1771-1843.) A Spanish general and
-statesman.</p>
-
-<p>“Frischemont,” freshˈā-mŏnˌ.</p>
-
-<p>“Grouchy,” grooˌsheˈ. (1766-1847.) A French general and marshal.</p>
-
-<p>P. 265.—“Denouement,” de-nōōˈmong. The discovery of the end
-of a story, the catastrophe of a drama or romance.</p>
-
-<p>“Friant,” freˈōngˌ; “Michel,” meˈshĕlˌ; “Roguet,” rōˌguāˈ;
-“Mallet,” mäˌlaˈ; “Pont de Morvan,” pon deh morˈvonˌ.</p>
-
-<p>P. 266.—“Sauve qui peut.” Let each save himself.</p>
-
-<p>“Vive l’Empereur.” Long live the emperor.</p>
-
-<p>“Drouet d’Erlon,” droˌāˈ dĕrˈlōnˈ. (1765-1844.) Marshal of France
-and governor-general of Algeria.</p>
-
-<p>P. 267.—“Guyot,” gēˌoˈ; “Ziethen,” tseeˈten. A Prussian general.</p>
-
-<p>P. 268.—“Menschikoff,” menˈshiˌkoff. (1789-1869.)</p>
-
-<p>“Raglan,” (1788-1855.) Served in the Peninsula War under Wellington,
-and lost his arm at Waterloo; was afterward Wellington’s
-military secretary. He commanded the British army in the Crimean
-War, and died in camp in 1855.</p>
-
-<p>P. 271.—“Tumbril,” tŭmˈbril. A two-wheeled cart which accompanies
-artillery, for carrying tools, etc.</p>
-
-<p>P. 272.—“Punctilio,” punc-tĭlˈyo. Exactness in forms or ceremony.</p>
-
-<p>“Ouglitz,” ougˈlitz; “Kourgané,” kour-gä-nāˈ.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<h2 id="NOTES_ON_REQUIRED_READINGS_IN_THE_CHAUTAUQUAN">NOTES ON REQUIRED READINGS IN “THE CHAUTAUQUAN.”</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3>READINGS FROM ROMAN HISTORY.</h3>
-
-<p>P. 497, c. 1.—“Cisalpine.” On the hither side of the Alps, with
-reference to Rome, that is, on the south side of the Alps, opposed to
-<i>transalpine</i>.</p>
-
-<p>“Doria Baltea,” doˈri-a bal-teˈa. Formerly called the <i>Duria</i>. It is
-a river which rises in the south of the Alps, and flows through the
-country to the Salassi, into the Po. It is said to bring gold dust with it.</p>
-
-<p>“Salassians,” sa-lasˈsi-ans. A brave, fierce people, formerly living at
-the foot of the Pennine Alps.</p>
-
-<p>P. 497, c. 2.—“Insubrians,” in-suˈbri-ans. A Gallic people who had
-crossed the Alps and settled in the north of Italy. They had become
-one of the most powerful and warlike of the Gallic tribes in Cisalpine
-Gaul.</p>
-
-<p>“Leptis,” lepˈtis. An important place on the coast of northern Africa,
-now in ruins.</p>
-
-<p>“Adrumetum,” or Hadrumetum, adˈri-mēˌtum. A large city founded
-by the Phœnicians in northern Africa. It is now called <i>Hammeim</i>.</p>
-
-<p>“Polybius,” po-lybˈi-us. A Greek historian, born about 206 B. C.</p>
-
-<p>P. 498, c. 1.—“Masinissa,” mas-i-nisˈsa. The Numidians were divided
-into two tribes, of the easternmost of which the father of Masinissa
-was king. He was an ally of the Carthagenians, and for many years
-warred with them against Syphax, the king of the other Numidian tribe.
-Masinissa remained friendly to the Carthagenians until Hasdrubal, who
-had betrothed his daughter to him, broke his promise, marrying her to
-Syphax. Masinissa then joined the Romans, to whom he rendered valuable
-service both before and at this battle. He was rewarded with
-much territory, which he ruled in peace until the breaking out of war
-between him and Carthage in 150. This outbreak led to the Third Punic
-War. Masinissa died, however, soon after the beginning of the
-trouble.</p>
-
-<p>“Lælius,” læˈlĭ-us. Sometimes called <i>Sapiens</i> (the wise). Was an
-intimate friend of Scipio Africanus, the younger, while his father had
-been the companion of the elder Scipio. Polybius was his friend, and
-probably gained much help from him in writing his history. Lælius
-had a fine reputation as a philosopher and statesman, and it was Seneca’s
-advice to a friend “to live like Lælius.”</p>
-
-<p>“Maniples,” manˈi-ples. Literally a handful, from the Latin words
-for hand and full. A name given to a small company of Roman soldiers.</p>
-
-<p>“Ligurians,” li-guˈri-ans. Inhabitants of Liguria. A name given to
-a district of Italy which at that time lay south of the river Po.</p>
-
-<p>P. 498, c. 2.—“Metaurus,” me-tauˈrus. A small river of northern Italy
-flowing into the Adriatic Sea, made memorable by the defeat and death
-of Hannibal on its banks in 207 B. C.</p>
-
-<p>“Euboic.” Pertaining to Eubœa. An island east of Greece, the
-largest of the archipelago, lying in the Ægean Sea.</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3>SUNDAY READINGS.</h3>
-
-<p>P. 500, c. 1.—“Savonarola,” sä-vo-nä-roˈlä. (1452-1468.) A celebrated
-Italian reformer. In his early ministry he effected important reforms
-and gained great political influence. Being sent to Florence he became
-the leader of the liberal party which succeeded the expulsion of the
-Medici. Having refused to submit to papal authority he was excommunicated,
-and popular favor leaving him he was executed. Savonarola
-published several works in Latin and Italian, among which was the
-one here quoted from, <i>De Simplicitate Christianæ Vitæ</i>, “On the Simplicity
-of the Christian Life.”</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3>READINGS IN ART.</h3>
-
-<p>P. 500, c. 2.—“St. Bees.” A college in the village of Cumberland.
-St. Bees was so called from a nunnery founded here in 650, and dedicated
-to the Irish saint, Bega.</p>
-
-<p>“Ship Court.” A part of the district known as Old Bailey, near
-Ludgate Hill, in London. The house in which Hogarth was born was
-torn down in 1862.</p>
-
-<p>P. 501, c. 1.—“Hudibras.” See page 306 of <span class="smcap">The Chautauquan</span>,
-note on Samuel Butler.</p>
-
-<p>“Thornhill.” (1676-1734.) He was a historical painter of some
-celebrity. His chief productions are the cupola of St. Paul’s cathedral,
-which Queen Anne commissioned him to paint, and the decoration of
-several palaces. He was the first English artist to be knighted, and he
-sat in Parliament several years. No doubt his greatest honor was to be
-Hogarth’s father-in-law.</p>
-
-<p>“Watteau,” vätˌtōˈ. (1684-1721.) A French painter of much original
-power, who holds about the same place in the French schools as Hogarth
-in the English. His subjects were usually landscapes, with gay
-court scenes, balls, masquerades, and the like, in the foreground. The
-brilliancy of his coloring and the grace of his figures are particularly
-fine.</p>
-
-<p>“Chardin,” sharˈdănˌ. (1701-1779.) An eminent French painter.
-His pictures were mainly domestic scenes, executed with beauty and
-truth.</p>
-
-<p>“Walpole,” Horace. (1717-1797.) A famous literary gossip and
-wit of Hogarth’s time. Although highly educated and given an opportunity
-for a political career, he preferred his pictures, books, and curiosities.
-Among his many works were “A Catalogue of Royal and Noble
-Authors,” and “Anecdotes of Painting in England.” Walpole was no
-admirer of Hogarth, for he says of him: “As a painter he has slender
-merit.”</p>
-
-<p>“Churchill.” Called “The Great Churchill.” (1731-1764.) A popular
-English poet and satirist. In youth he was fitted for a curate’s
-place, but after ordination and two years of the profession he abandoned
-his position and began his career as a writer, producing several popular<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_555" id="Page_555">[555]</a></span>
-poems and satires. He was accused of profligacy, but Macaulay says:
-“His vices were not so great as his virtues.”</p>
-
-<p>“Wilkes,” John. (1727-1797) A friend of the former, and a celebrated
-English politician. Well educated, clever, bold and unscrupulous.
-In his second term in Parliament he was obliged to resign from
-his indiscreet attack on Lord Bute, in a journal which he had founded.
-The next year he accused the king of an “infamous fallacy,” which so enraged
-the administration that Wilkes was finally outlawed. Returning
-to England he was elected to Parliament, but arrested. He was repeatedly
-expelled from the House, a persecution which secured the favor
-of the people. In 1774 he was made lord mayor of London, and was
-afterward a member of Parliament for many years.</p>
-
-<p>“Sigismunda.” Daughter of Tancred, prince of Salerno. She fell
-in love with a page, to whom she was secretly married. Tancred discovering
-this put Guiscardo, the husband, to death, and sent his heart in
-a golden cup to his daughter.</p>
-
-<p>“Pinegas,” pinˈe-gas.</p>
-
-<p>“Zuccarelli,” dzook-ä-rĕlˈee. (1702-1788.) An eminent landscape
-painter of Tuscany. His scenery is pleasing and pictures well finished.
-He visited England in 1752, where he was very popular, being one of
-the original members of the Royal Academy. It is said that all his
-pictures are marked with a pumpkin growing on a vine or stuck with a
-stick on a rustic’s shoulder as the rebus of his name, which means in
-Italian <i>little pumpkin</i>.</p>
-
-<p>P. 501, c. 2.—“Royal Academy.” The most influential and oldest
-institution in London connected with painting and sculpture. It was
-founded in 1768. It consists of 40 academicians, 18 associates, 6 associate
-engravers, and 3 or 4 honorary members. It holds annual exhibitions
-of modern and ancient art, and has organized classes for art
-instruction.</p>
-
-<p>“Llanberis,” llanˈbe-ris.</p>
-
-<p>“Carnarvon.” A northwest county of Wales, bordering on Menai
-Straits, famous for its slate.</p>
-
-<p>“Avernus.” A lake of Italy, near Naples, which fills the crater of
-an extinct volcano. Near its banks was the cave of the Cumæan Sybil,
-through which Æneas descended to the lower world.</p>
-
-<p>“Barry.” (1741-1806.) A British historical painter. He was a
-pupil of West. His best pictures are a series in the Adelphi theater,
-London.</p>
-
-<p>“Richardson.” (1665?-1745.) An English portrait painter and
-writer on art. His reputation is founded on his “Essay on the whole Art
-of Criticism as it relates to Painting.”</p>
-
-<p>P. 502, c. 1.—“Ramsay.” (1713-1784.) Son of the poet, Allan
-Ramsay. He was one of the best portrait painters of his time. Walpole
-praises highly some of his portraits. He was also a man of literary
-tastes and of great accomplishments.</p>
-
-<p>“Giorgione,” jor-joˈnā. (1477-1511.) The founder of the Venetian
-school of painting. A pupil of Bellini, and a rival of Titian. Before
-him, it is said that no one possessed so rich a coloring and so free a
-touch. His pictures are rare.</p>
-
-<p>“Correggio,” kor-ĕdˈjo. (1494-1534.) An illustrious Italian painter.
-His real name was Antoine Allegri, his popular name being taken from
-his birthplace—Correggio. The chief charms of his pictures were their
-exquisite harmony and grace. His principal work is the great fresco
-painting in the cupola of the Cathedral at Parma.</p>
-
-<p>“Tintoretto,” Il, ēl tin-to-rĕtˈo. (1512-1594.) His real name was
-Giacomo Robusti. The name of Tintoretto, by which he is generally
-known, was derived from the fact that he was the son of a dyer. A
-pupil of Titian, who was said to have been so jealous of him that he
-turned him from his studio. He conceived the idea of forming a new
-school of art, which should unite the beauties of Titian’s style with the
-dignity of Michael Angelo’s. His plan was never carried out fully because
-of his lack of patience. The “Martyrdom” at Venice is one of
-his best known paintings.</p>
-
-<p>“Gainsborough,” gānzˈb’ro.</p>
-
-<p>“Gravelot,” grävˈloˌ. (1699-1773.)</p>
-
-<p>“Hayman.” (1708-1776.) An English artist who acquired considerable
-reputation as a landscape painter. He was one of the first members
-of the Royal Academy.</p>
-
-<p>“Kew.” A pleasant village of Surrey, about 7 miles from London,
-distinguished for its botanical gardens, said to be the richest in the
-world. They extend over 75 acres, are beautifully laid out, and contain
-many rare and exotic plants and trees.</p>
-
-<p>P. 502, c. 2.—“Girtin.” (1773-1802.) He had found a friend in
-Dr. Monro, who helped him in many ways. Girtin is said to have
-revolutionized the technical practice of his forerunners. Most of his
-pictures were landscapes. A panorama of London was one of his most
-admired works.</p>
-
-<p>“Somerset House.” Now occupied as public offices. The present
-building was erected in 1786, on the site of the palace of the protector
-Somerset. Nine hundred officials are employed in the various public
-offices in the building.</p>
-
-<p>“Lambeth.” Lambeth palace, the London residence of the archbishops
-of Canterbury, is on the Surrey bank of the Thames. It has
-been in the possession of the archbishops since 1197. Several portions
-of the palace are of historical interest.</p>
-
-<p>“Ramsgate,” ramsˈgate; “Margate,” marˈgate. Seaports of Kent,
-England, on the island of Thanet. Both are fashionable watering
-places.</p>
-
-<p>“A. R. A.” Associate of the Royal Academy.</p>
-
-<p>“Liber Studiorum.” Book of studies. A series of prints or drawings
-issued by Turner, and which became very popular.</p>
-
-<p>“School of Water-color Painting.” That school of painting in which
-thin and delicate colors are applied to paper, on which a drawing of
-the picture has been made. It is a style carried to a greater perfection
-in England than any other country.</p>
-
-<p>“Charterhouse.” Formerly a Carthusian monastery. In 1611 it
-was turned into a school for forty boys, and an “asylum for eighty
-indigent and deserving gentlemen.” In 1872 this school was removed
-into the country.</p>
-
-<p>P. 503, c. 1.—“Dentatus.” A favorite hero of the Roman republic,
-living in the third century, and celebrated for his valor and virtue.</p>
-
-<p>“Anno Santo.” In the sacred year.</p>
-
-<p>“New Palace of Westminster.” Was finished in 1867 for the Houses
-of Parliament. It cost £3,000,000, and was built on the site of the old
-palace burned in 1835. The palace covers about eight acres.</p>
-
-<p>“Shee.” (1769-1850.) An eminent British portrait painter, a pupil
-of West. It was customary for the honor of knighthood to be conferred
-on the party elected to the presidency of the Academy.</p>
-
-<p>“Kugler,” kōogˈler. (1808-1858.) An eminent German critic and
-writer on art.</p>
-
-<p>“St. Gothard,” gotˈhard. The central group of all the Alpine chains.</p>
-
-<p>“Haydon.” (1786-1846.) An English historical painter who painted
-without success in his lifetime, and died broken-hearted. He is now
-considered to have been an artist of ability.</p>
-
-<p>“Chevy Chase.” The hunting of Chevy Chase is the account of a
-raid which Percy of Northumberland made on the territory of his rival
-Douglas, vowing to hunt there three days without asking leave. Chevy
-Chase means the hunt or chase among the Cheviot Hills.</p>
-
-<p>P. 503, c. 2.—“Sheepshanks Collection.” A large collection of the
-pictures of British artists made by John Sheepshanks, a collector of
-books and pictures, and presented by him to the English nation in 1857.</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3>CRITICISMS ON AMERICAN LITERATURE.</h3>
-
-<p>P. 504.—“Shakerism.” The principles of the Shakers, a sect taking
-their name from the peculiar motions which characterize their worship.
-They call themselves “United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second
-Appearing,” and believe in an eternal Father and Mother in the Deity,
-in a dual Christ, a community of property, and celibacy. Sometimes
-called <i>Shaking Quakers</i>.</p>
-
-<p>“Pantagamy.” Plural marriage.</p>
-
-<p>P. 505, c. 1.—“Malebranche,” mälˌbrŏnshˈ. (1638-1715.) A French
-philosopher.</p>
-
-<p>P. 505, c. 2.—“Peter Plymley.” The <i>nom de plume</i> under which
-Sidney Smith published a pamphlet entitled “Letters on the Subject of
-the Catholics, to my Brother Abraham who lives in the Country.”</p>
-
-<p>“Anti-Jacobin,” anˈte jacˈo-bin. Opposed to the Jacobins, a society
-of French revolutionists who in 1789 held secret meetings to direct the
-National Assembly.</p>
-
-<p>“Canning,” kănˈing. (1770-1827.) An English statesman.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_556" id="Page_556">[556]</a></span></p>
-
-<h2 id="TALK_ABOUT_BOOKS">TALK ABOUT BOOKS.</h2>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<p>The new “Epitome of Universal History,”<a name="FNanchor_1" id="FNanchor_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> by Dr. Carl Ploetz, the
-veteran German scholar and teacher, is just what it proposes to be—an
-“epitome,” giving no descriptions or detailed accounts, but a summary
-of the more important facts of ancient, mediæval and modern history.
-The facts are grouped in a comprehensive manner, yet so skilfully as to
-indicate their relationship. For the teacher it will be a valuable help;
-and students will find it a hand-book very serviceable in their reviews.
-The compressed statements are as clear and intelligible as can be desired,
-and may serve as models for notes to be taken in the lecture room;
-such facts as an attentive listener can jot down without loss of interest
-in the animated discourse. The attempt to report a lecture in full may
-so engross the attention that the impressions naturally received from the
-voice and manner of an earnest instructor are nearly lost. The learned
-author, as class lecturer, deprecates a too free use of the pencils in his
-lecture room, and when as epitomist he conducts us over fields once
-familiar he does not multiply landmarks beyond what are needed, or
-burden us with details when a word is sufficient.</p>
-
-<p>The translator’s work is valuable not only for his faithful rendering
-of the original, but for the additions made; none the less valuable because,
-as he modestly tells us, “they are only compilations from reliable
-sources.” A very full index gives the book somewhat the character of
-a historical dictionary, and increases its value.</p>
-
-<p>We commend this “epitome” to those pursuing, or having occasion
-to review historical studies, as a vade mecum that they will not likely
-part with, if it is once possessed.</p>
-
-<p>A most interesting series of “Health Primers”<a name="FNanchor_2" id="FNanchor_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> has just come to our
-notice. There are twelve manuals in the series, each of about 150
-pages. They have been written by as many different authors, all well
-qualified to discuss the subjects treated by them severally. Some of
-them, as specialists, have attained much celebrity in their profession,
-and in these admirable monograms show familiarity both with the elementary
-principles of their science, and with the results of the latest researches
-having a bearing on the topics discussed. Here is certainly
-much knowledge, important for the masses, and the writers, avoiding
-technical terms, have presented it in a manner intelligible to all classes.
-The twelve volumes, carefully edited, are now published in four. The
-first contains “Winter and Its Dangers,” by Hamilton Osgood, M.D.;
-“Summer and Its Diseases,” by Jas. C. Wilson, M.D.; and “Sea Air
-and Sea Bathing,” by J. H. Packard, M.D.</p>
-
-<p>Many publishers are wisely putting some of their best books, as well
-as reprints of standard works, into cheap editions. To be sure they are
-paper bound, the covers will tear, will come off, will grow limp, if wet,
-but still they are almost without exception well printed. They contain
-the much desired <i>book</i> in a shape that suits even the shallowest purses.
-Among the most valuable which have reached us is “The Intellectual
-Life.”<a name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a> It is a genuine public benefaction for a publisher to put such
-a book at twenty-five cents. Mr. Hamerton has so many true and strong
-thoughts on the training and habits of the intellect expressed plainly and
-pleasantly in it, that it is a matter for congratulation that anybody may
-own a copy of “The Intellectual Life.”</p>
-
-<p>Two cheap editions of Edward Everett Hale’s “In His Name,”<a name="FNanchor_4" id="FNanchor_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a>
-have recently appeared. The story gives a chapter of the fascinating
-history of the Waldenses<a name="FNanchor_5" id="FNanchor_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[E]</a> seven hundred years ago.</p>
-
-<p>In an unpretentious but well written and neatly published little volume,
-W. C. Wilkinson, already known to Chautauquans, discusses with
-becoming earnestness one of the living questions of the day, “The
-Dance.”<a name="FNanchor_6" id="FNanchor_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[F]</a> The dance confessedly has many apologists among reputable
-people, who think it a harmless amusement, but it is here arraigned
-and held to answer sundry charges of most damaging character. The
-author writes with the vigor of his convictions, but is calm—does not
-dogmatise or indulge in ranting invectives. The arguments, in themselves
-strong and convincing, gain in force because free from violent or
-indiscriminate abuse of those who see neither danger nor impropriety in
-the amusement condemned. The book will do good. Most persons
-who read it with candor, and dispassionately examine the case as presented,
-will feel that the several counts in the indictment are sustained,
-and unite in the verdict, “The dance of modern society should be dropped
-from our list of innocent or harmless amusements.”</p>
-
-<hr class="shorter" />
-
-<h3>BOOKS RECEIVED.</h3>
-
-<p>“Tip Lewis and His Lamp.” By Pansy. Boston: D. Lothrop and
-Company.</p>
-
-<p>“An Hour with Miss Streator.” By Pansy. Boston: D. Lothrop
-and Company.</p>
-
-<p>“The Riverside Literature Series,” “Studies in Longfellow,” “Outlines
-for Schools, Conversation Classes, and Home Study.” By W. C.
-Gannett. Houghton, Mifflin and Company. 1884.</p>
-
-<p>“Methods of Teaching Geography,” “Notes of Lessons.” By Lucretia
-Crocker, member of the Board of Supervisors of Boston Public
-Schools. Boston, Mass.: Boston School Supply Company. 1884.</p>
-
-<p>“Intellectual Arithmetic upon the Inductive Method of Instruction.”
-By Warren Colburn, A.M. Revised and enlarged edition with an appendix.
-Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company.</p>
-
-<p>“Light Ahead.” By Cecelia A. Gardiner. New York: Phillips &amp;
-Hunt. 1884.</p>
-
-<p>A series of excellent low priced books comes from Funk &amp; Wagnalls,
-New York:</p>
-
-<p>“Christianity Triumphant; Its Defensive and Aggressive Victories.”
-By John P. Newman, D.D., LL.D. Price, 15 cents.</p>
-
-<p>“The Clew of the Maze and The Spare Half-Hour.” By Rev. Chas.
-H. Spurgeon. Price, 15 cents.</p>
-
-<p>“My Musical Memories.” By H. R. Haweis. Price, 25 cents.</p>
-
-<p>“Story of the Merv.” By Edmond O’Donovan. Price, 25 cents.</p>
-
-<p>“Mumu and The Diary of a Superfluous Man.” By Ivan Turgenieff.
-Price, 15 cents.</p>
-
-<p>“Archibald Malmaison.” By Julian Hawthorne. Price, 15 cents.</p>
-
-<p>“In the Heart of Africa.” Condensed from the works of Sir Samuel
-W. Baker, M.A., F.R.G.S. Price, 25 cents.</p>
-
-<p>“Memorie and Rime.” By Joaquin Miller. Price, 25 cents.</p>
-
-<div class="footnotes">
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_1" id="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> Epitome of Ancient, Mediæval and Modern History. By Carl Ploetz. Translated
-with extensive additions by William H. Tillinghast. Boston: Houghton,
-Mifflin and Co. 1884.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_2" id="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> The American Health Primers. Health Manuals. Edited by W. W. Keen, D.D.,
-Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston,
-Son &amp; Co.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> The Intellectual Life. By Philip Gilbert Hamerton. Author’s edition. Boston:
-Roberts Brothers. 1884.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4"><span class="label">[D]</span></a> In His Name. By E. E. Hale. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1884. Price, 30c.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5"><span class="label">[E]</span></a> A Story of the Waldenses, seven hundred years ago. In His Name. By Edward
-E. Hale. Boston: J. Stilman Smith &amp; Co. 1884. Price, 25c.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6"><span class="label">[F]</span></a> The Dance of Modern Society. By William Cleaver Wilkinson. New York:
-Funk &amp; Wagnalls. 1884.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquote">
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 187px;">
-<img src="images/royalpowder.jpg" width="187" height="333" alt="Royal Baking Powder. Absolutely Pure" />
-</div>
-
-<p>This powder never varies. A marvel of purity, strength and wholesomeness.
-More economical than the ordinary kinds, and can not be
-sold in competition with the multitude of low test, short weight, alum or
-phosphate powders. <i>Sold only in cans.</i> <span class="smcap">Royal Baking Powder Co.</span>,
-106 Wall Street, New York.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter" style="width: 252px;">
-<img src="images/decoline1_arrowsbox.jpg" width="252" height="14" alt="decorative line" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="tnote">
-
-<p class="center"><b>Transcriber’s Notes:</b></p>
-
-<p>Obvious punctuation errors repaired.</p>
-
-<p>Page 502, “1879” changed to “1789” (In 1789 the failure of his sight)</p>
-
-<p>Page 502, “St.” changed to “Sir” (Sir Christopher Wren)</p>
-
-<p>Page 506, “effect” changed to “affect” (had, meanwhile, begun to affect)</p>
-
-<p>Page 508, “coersive” changed to “coercive” (more violent coercive measures)</p>
-
-<p>Page 528, “furnishedthe” changed to “furnished the” (the amount of light furnished the earth)</p>
-
-<p>Page 532, “Perphaps” changed to “Perhaps” (Perhaps the one word which will)</p>
-
-<p>Page 533, “Dephic” changed to “Delphic” (from Hebraic and Delphic times)</p>
-
-<p>Page 542, “the yshould” changed to “they should” (one that they should try to repeat)</p>
-
-<p>Page 548, illegible (possibly “sut”) changed to “but” (but now and then an intestine broil)</p>
-
-<p>Page 554, “Dorea” changed to “Doria” (Doria Baltea)</p>
-
-<p>Page 554, “Masinisssa” changed to “Masinissa” (Masinissa died, however)</p>
-
-<p>Page 554, “cathredral” changed to “cathedral” (St. Paul’s cathedral)</p>
-
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Chautauquan, Vol. IV, June 1884,
-No. 9, by The Chautauquan Literary and Scientific Circle
-
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